‘Hot War’ Erupting With Iran, Top Terror-Watchers Warn

ASPEN, Colorado — There have been acts of sabotage, assassinations, explosions, and cyberattack. But the increasingly violent shadow war between the U.S., Israel, Iran, and its allies haven’t hit targets on American soil — yet. That could change before too long, the administration’s current and former top analysts of terror threats warned.

“There are times when we are briefing the White House [on terror threats that] at the top of the list are Hezbollah or Iran,” Olsen added. In other words, for the first time in more than a decade, the al-Qaeda network of Sunni extremists is no longer America’s undisputed Public Enemy #1.

The signs of escalating tension with Iran are everywhere: the sizable American armada building off of Iran’s shores; the American accusation that Iran tried to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.; the deaths of Iranian nuclear scientists, widely blamed on the Israelis; and, of course, last week’s bombing in Bulgaria, which U.S. and Israeli officials have pinned on Hezbollah, the Shi’ite militant group backed by Iran.

“This is a hot war that has gotten hotter,” Michael Leiter, Olsen’s predecessor at the NCTC, told the Aspen Security Forum. “The Iranians have considered this a shooting war for some time.”

And with no agreement is sight over Iran’s nuclear program, those skirmishes will undoubtedly continue. For now, though, America is safe from any direct attack from Tehran or its allies. Even the expected blowback from the U.S.-Israeli campaign of online sabotage against Iran hasn’t arrived. More