Iran continues to boost the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria and act as the leading state sponsor of terrorism even as the nuclear deal temporarily limits the country’s ability to build a nuclear weapon, according to a top intelligence chief.
The remarks from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats come as the Trump administration conducts a comprehensive review of its Iran policy.
Coats stressed that Iran’s suggested desire to preserve the deal has not stopped the country from engaging in malign activities, such as its support for the Assad regime. He detailed that support to lawmakers during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats.
“Iran provides arms, financing, and training, and manages as many as 10,000 Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani Shia fighters in Syria to support the Assad regime,” Coats said. “Iran has sent hundreds of its own forces, to include members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the IRGC Quds force to Syria as advisors.”
Assad will maintain military strength as long as Iran and Russia, two of his key allies, keep backing him, Coats said.
“We assess that the regime will maintain its momentum on the battlefield provided, as it’s likely, that it maintains support from Iran and Russia,” he said.
The Trump administration has been considering expanding sanctions on IRGC-affiliated individuals and organizations, which number in the hundreds. After Iran conducted another ballistic missile test in February, the administration sanctioned 25 entities, some with links to the IRGC’s overseas arm, the Quds Force.
Coats’s testimony paired with a Worldwide Threat Assessment report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Thursday. The report said that Iran is continuing to develop ballistic missiles, which are “inherently capable of delivering [weapons of mass destruction].”
“Iran has the largest ballistic missile force in the Middle East and can strike targets up to 2,000 kilometers from Iran’s borders,” the report reads.
The assessment also concludes that Iran remains the “foremost state sponsor of terrorism.”
Coats’s account of Iranian attitudes toward the nuclear deal closely mirrored that of DNI James Clapper in 2016.
“Tehran’s public statements suggest that it wants to preserve the [nuclear deal] because it views the deal as a means to remove sanctions while preserving some nuclear capabilities,” Coats told lawmakers.
The deal lengthens the time it would take Iran to develop enough material for a nuclear weapon “from a few months to about a year,” he said.