Spycraft will decide Iran’s fate

After four months of war, Israel still has targets to hit. The latest IDF raids, in this increasingly fictional ceasefire, smashed Iranian missile-defence systems and a petrochemical plant in the south of the country. Yet looming behind these physical symbols of the Islamic Republic are human targets too. Israeli officials give the impression that they could still kill senior IRGC leaders and even Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader. If true, it’s an unrivalled ongoing intelligence operation.

Demands on American and Israeli intelligence will increase regardless of whether the war stays cold or heats up once more. Donald Trump obviously doesn’t want to fight the battle to open the Strait of Hormuz. This means that Tehran, sensing victory, will probably be emboldened elsewhere, perhaps even trying to reactivate terrorist operations against American and Israeli targets. Iranian terrorist operations, which have ebbed and flowed through the years, haven’t been well run for some time. Some recent assassination attempts against Iranian expatriates have been awkwardly if not incompetently planned and executed. But when there is a will, ways improve.

Beyond protecting against this possible resurgence, US and Israeli satellite surveillance of the bombed sites with buried enriched uranium will obviously continue. Ditto the bombed underground military facilities and factories involved in missile and drone production. According to Israeli intelligence officials, the Iranian regime is using the current ceasefire to clear access to crucial conventional weaponry. After the 12-Day War, and up to the start of the current conflict, Israel didn’t seem particularly worried by the state of Iran’s bombed nuclear plants. That may be because their long-distance assessment of the damage done was severe, or because they had reliable intelligence assets providing them with reassuring information.

In either case, it’s doubtful that Tehran can now sprint to the bomb: the damage is far too great, both to personnel and the country’s uranium-enrichment facilities. The same may also be true of the stockpiles of centrifuge parts unaccounted for by Barack Obama’s nuclear deal. Counterintelligence concerns alone may well paralyse Iran’s ambitions for some time, as the intelligence ministry and IRGC try to figure out if Israel penetrated their nuclear inner sanctum. The conspiracy-addled nature of Iranian officials will incline them towards taking a counterespionage buzzsaw to a lot of innocent people, further convulsing what’s left of the country’s nuclear establishment.

The Iranian regime, if it lasts, will eventually get around to testing Israeli and American intelligence. It wouldn’t be surprising to see it do this slowly through a small reconstituted nuclear programme, perhaps by building another facility for turning uranium hexafluoride into metal, or by building new, advanced centrifuge cascades: then see whether anyone notices. If the regime managed to actually detonate a crude nuclear device inside Iran, the blast would likely guarantee the Islamic Republic’s immunity from further attacks. For Mossad and Aman, Israel’s military intelligence wing, the need to penetrate and report on what’s left of Iran’s nuclear programme remains paramount.

There are other focuses too. Assessing how many and what kind of missiles and drones the Islamic Republic will be able to build — and how quickly, given the damage to factories and supply lines — will surely consume a lot of Israeli attention. Another question will be whether the Russians and Chinese are meaningfully supporting these efforts. An Iranian victory at Hormuz might well have a decisive impact on Beijing, which could become far less circumspect in how it supports Tehran. If, months from now, the United States is still duelling with Iran over the Strait, then the CIA and other initialisms of US intelligence certainly won’t redirect resources to other foreign challenges. Surging intelligence capabilities on a target rarely produce a bonanza — unless information can be gleaned through technical means.

Fortunately for the US, satellites and intercept are two strong suits, while the Islamic Republic’s chatty ruling elites often have a hard time being disciplined about secure communications. Before the current war, Israel obviously had a network of local agents, all of whom aided military operations. Maintaining secure communication with these agents after all hell has broken loose and the internet has gone down could be hard, especially if timely communications are still needed for active operations. Another challenge is that information in wartime can degrade quickly, not least if it’s needed for assassinations. On this, Iranian counterintelligence outfits are undoubtingly working overtime, trying to figure out what Israel did and block its future actions. For the moment, it’s a good bet Israel is using some form of encrypted satellite-based system to reach its spies — an…