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Between Intent and Capability: Assessing the Lack of Iranian Attacks on the U.S. Homeland
(War on the Rocks) Dr. Matthew Levitt - Three days into the Iran war, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force warned on Iranian television that the U.S. "will no longer be safe" as the Qods Force targets Americans within the U.S. homeland and abroad. "The enemy should know that their happy days are over and they will no longer be safe anywhere in the world, not even in their own homes." Yet two months after the Revolutionary Guards' threat, authorities have yet to report a single homeland plot specifically tied to Iranian intelligence or security agencies, their terrorist proxies, or criminals hired to carry out attacks. This is surprising because Iran has a track record of plotting attacks in the U.S. Indeed, Iran and its proxies have spent years investing in what U.S. counterterrorism officials describe as a "homeland option" in the U.S. If ever there was a time when Iran would seek to target the U.S. homeland, it would be now. In 2011, the Revolutionary Guard hatched a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. at a Washington, D.C., restaurant. Since then, Iranian agents or their proxies have been tied to 29 plots in the U.S. Over the past five years, there have been 174 cases of Iranian foreign operations, including 81 involving Iranian agents, 24 involving criminal proxies, and 55 terrorist proxies. "U.S. law enforcement has disrupted multiple potentially lethal Iranian-backed plots in the United States since 2020," the Department of Homeland Security reported in June 2025. The Iranian security and intelligence elements responsible for plots abroad may not have been able to follow through on their intended plans as a result of Israel's targeted disruption campaign directed against the Revolutionary Guard units directing sabotage and assassination plots overseas. Early in the war, Israeli air force strikes targeted Rahman Moqadam, the head of Unit 4000, the special operations division of the Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Organization, as well as his boss, Majid Khademi, the head of Revolutionary Guard Intelligence, whose predecessor was killed in June 2025. Also killed was Mohsen Suri, a primary operator and leader in the secret attacks network, who held a senior position within Unit 4000. The writer directs the program on counterterrorism and intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.