Iran could activate dormant terrorist networks within the United States in retaliation for the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, according to a senior Senate Democrat.
“Iran has a series of proxy networks that are violent,” New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on MSNBC. “They can have sleeper cells inside the United States. It is possible for sympathizers and supporters of the Quds Force in Iran to attack here.”
That warning underscores how a historic strike against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader could mark just one major development in a violent sequence that has escalated in recent months. Menendez stands out among Democratic lawmakers for advocating a hard-line policy toward Iran but worries about Tehran’s ability to counterattack.
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“There are endless possibilities,” he said. “Iran does not need to challenge us militarily because we have superior military forces, but, asymmetrically, it can destabilize the region.”
President Trump’s team has justified the strike as a necessary defensive measure, citing intelligence reports that Suleimani was in Iraq to plot an attack on Americans, just days after an Iranian-controlled militia stormed the Green Zone compound outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
“It was time to take action so that we can disrupt this plot, to deter further aggression from Qassem Soleimani and the Iranian regime,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday. “As well as to attempt to deescalate the situation. The risk of doing nothing was enormous.”
Congressional Democrats are frustrated that Trump did not give advance notice about the strike against such a major figure as Soleimani. “The question that has to be answered by the administration when Congress comes back into session is: What brought us to this moment?” Menendez said. “I have been arguing for some time that the Trump administration needs to devise a strategy as it relates to Iran and what’s our pathway forward. I fear that this administration used tactics but [still] has no strategy in the long term.”
