Iran: a Threat?

In a previous post, I favorably quoted international relations scholar John Mearsheimer.  A longtime critic of Israel, Mearsheimer justifiably is opposed to President Trump's attack on Iran. However, it appears his opposition may be rooted in hostility to the one democracy or republic in the Middle East.

Piers Morgan: "Iran is no threat to the United States?"

John Mearsheimer: "No, it's not."

Piers Morgan: "They fund terrorist organizations dedicated to the obliteration of Israel."

John Mearsheimer: "You're making the argument that because we're joined at the hip with Israel,… pic.twitter.com/LlpYaxmZ0g

— Red Pill Dispenser (@redpilldispensr) April 14, 2026

The assertion that "Iran is no threat to the United States" is hogwash, obviously flapdoodle (vying to be the one American to invoke "flapdoodle" anytime this calendar year). In early March, CBS News reported

Iran has been designated by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984. It has launched more than 1,600 drone attacks on U.S. allies in the Middle East since the war began last week, according to the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel.

On "CBS Mornings," two former counterterrorism officials and CBS News national security contributors, Sam Vinograd and Joe Zacks, discussed the potential threats to the U.S. and what Americans should know to help protect themselves.

Vinograd said Iran represents a "multi-dimensional threat to the homeland."

"They seek to inflict damage in our physical spaces, in cyberspace and in terms of the actual information that we're ingesting and digesting and circulating right now," said Vinograd, a  former DHS assistant secretary for counterterrorism and threat protection.

She said Iran has a "deep bench of players they tap into to inflict damage," including proxies — regional, like-minded terrorist organizations — along with state agents.

Iran has also developed what she calls "surrogate networks here in the United States — regular criminals that they actually hire and pay money to do things like murders and assassinations."

Then there was a report issued on March 20, in which

the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies cautioned that Iranian government "poses a persistent threat" to U.S. military and government personnel and buildings, Jewish and Israeli institutions, and Iranian dissidents in the U.S. Despite those warnings, the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center had not identified broad threats to the American public, the report said….

The March 20 report - titled "Public Safety Awareness Report" - was issued weeks after Reuters and other news outlets reported that the White House blocked the release of a similarly described intelligence product. At the time, the White House said it was ensuring any information was properly vetted before release.

Iran does pose a threat to the USA. It posed significantly less of a threat to the USA before the Trump Administration launched its attack on Iran on March 1, 2026. And it posed even less of a threat to the USA before the Administration last autumn reassigned individuals from cybersecurity to deportation of immigrants. 

John Mearsheimer believes we're "joined at the hip with Israel." Corrction, sir: the Trump Administration is joined at the hip with Benjamin Netanyahu, a small but critical distinction. Iran is a threat to the USA, even though he prefers to believe that any enemy of Israel is no enemy of ours.

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