On February 11, AFPC Vice President Ilan Berman was one of four experts called to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade regarding the global threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. In his testimony, Ilan focused on Iran’s growing global activism - and the corrosive ideology that continues to underpin it.
“Since November 2013, we have focused on the Iranian regime’s nuclear program, and the prospects of some sort of negotiated solution over it,” Ilan told lawmakers. “And we have done so to the exclusion of serious discussions about what the Iranian regime says, what it does, and what it believes.” This represents a serious error, he warned, because “even as it engages in nuclear talks with the West, the Iranian regime is ramping up its rogue behavior abroad.”
In his oral remarks, Ilan concentrated on Iran’s growing activities in two distinct theaters. The first is Latin America; over the past thirty years, he told lawmakers, Iran has “succeeded in establishing a terrorist network encompassing no fewer than eight countries in the region.” This network, he noted, is both active and dangerous. Through it, Iran has attempted to carry out terrorist attacks against the United States from Latin America at least three times over the past decade. The second notable area of Iranian activity, according to Berman, is cyberspace.
