Haggai Harmon - The Chameleon Conspiracy

“If you want to defeat terrorism, we’ve a unique joinder of interests here,” Benny said.

Benny sipped from his goblet and continued. “The Mossad has recently learned of a link between Iran and financial institutions in the United States and Europe. That unholy alliance is one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Iranians. As you well know, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has had a policy of exporting the revolution, first to Islamic countries that don’t follow Iran’s extreme interpretation of Islam, and then to other parts of the world. In their dictionary, ‘exporting the revolution’ means a reign of terror to undermine legitimate governments of other countries by wreaking havoc, fear, and uncertainty.

“The manner in which they export their doctrine is always through third parties, never directly. Look at the Hezbollah in Lebanon, or Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. These organizations take money, weapons, and instructions from Iran. Of course, they all deny any such relationship, but nobody takes these denials seriously. We certainly don’t. The facts are strong and clear. There are also indirect links that tie Iran with Al-Qaeda, the Gamaa Islamiya in Egypt, and Al Taqwa in Europe.

“I won’t go into too many details here; you know the facts. There are also ties between the various organizations, not necessarily through Iran, but certainly with its blessing. Many foreign intelligence agencies, including your agencies, have evidence that after the nine eleven attacks, Al-Qaeda received financial assistance from Nada, which is Al Taqwa’s new name. The terror they’re financing has no borders, no territory, and no government. Therefore we must abandon conservative thinking, which has always been simplistic. If your enemy attacks you, you retaliate or conquer. But now? Your enemies could be in a bordering country, but they could also be five thousand miles away, planning how to send their tentacles to hurt you. They have no tanks and planes that you can match against yours to create a balance. All they need are explosives and good Organization. They don’t want to conquer your country. They want to wreak havoc so that your government will implode.”

Benny continued with his presentation for another hour, overwhelming his listeners with the amount of information the Mossad had gathered on Iran’s major role in terror financing. Benny paused dramatically to see how deeply his audience was concentrating. I looked around; it couldn’t have been deeper. Benny had their complete attention.

“Any questions so far?”

None were asked.

“OK,” said Benny. “Let’s move to more current events. At the end of my presentation you will see how all the pieces fall into place in a current event.”

Benny continued.

“I’ve my government’s consent to cooperate with you in combating terror financing. Needless to say, the consent is general in nature. Before we take joint action Mossad must be convinced that any suggested plan is reasonably possible.”

“Why do you need our cooperation? You’ve done fine so far. And more importantly, why does the U.S. need you in this matter?” asked Kyle.

“It’s a valid question, and I’m happy it has been asked,” said Benny. “The terror-fighting arena has become crowded. There were quite a few cases where we ran into American and other Western intelligence services. That has caused several problems. First, it took us-and probably you, also-time to realize that the other guy working on the same matter was a friend, not a foe. Obviously agents don’t wear uniforms or carry other identifying credentials such as name tags with the name of their organization. The hairy guy with a week-old beard who reeks of tobacco may be one of us, rather than a conniving terrorist.

“Second, the law of supply and demand works here as well. If we compete with others on sources, the price goes up, and most likely the quality goes down, because the suppliers don’t particularly care about after-sale service or warranty. These things create friction we want to avoid. We know that in the battle against terrorism, if you claim exclusivity and superiority, all other players are in your way and must leave the stage to you. But, as a sovereign nation with life-and-death interests in fighting terrorists, we can’t outsource our national security. Therefore we aren’t going anywhere. The conclusion is, let’s work together.”

“I see your point,” said Kyle. “Thus far our achievements in the battle against global Islamic terrorism have been mainly through SIGINT, interception of radio and other electronic signals.”

That was an understatement. No other nation in the world has capabilities in that area of electronic intelligence that come even close to those of the United States. In this field, size does matter. But America is sorely lacking in HUMINT, human intelligence, and inside Iran there are no longer any viable human assets. Therefore, cooperating with the Mossad made perfect sense.

Kyle turned to Benny. “You have made some notable achievements in gathering intelligence by recruiting sources.”

Benny nodded in accord. “As I said, we don’t outsource our defense,” he proudly pointed out. “We continue to be active not only in drying up terrorist financing, but we vigorously toil to limit the number of terrorists to ease the burden on their financiers,” he said with a chuckle. “Accidents happen-for example in Lebanon, which has always been a hub of terror.”

I could understand why he chuckled. Although there were several such “events” each year, I thought of two that had attracted my attention. In 2002, two “accidents” happened in Lebanon: one to a drug dealer who provided intelligence to Hezbollah, and one several months later to an Al-Qaeda operative. The Lebanese media attributed these misfortunes to the Mossad.

“But who knows who is really responsible for these accidents? I hear that two Hezbollah operatives were sent to rest with their ancestors. In other news I heard that two Hamas men in Damascus, Syria, were killed. They should have been more careful,” concluded Benny, and all smiled. What Benny did was a smart job of insinuation. It is quite possible the Mossad was behind those killings, but maybe some or all of the other eliminations had been a result of internal rifts and local rivalries. Benny left this open. It was nice to know he wasn’t cryptic only with me.

Benny’s tone of voice became serious. “The Iranians believe in tit for tat- Aemaeli ya: t e taela: fi ju: ya: neh. After the capture of the U.S. Embassy and the taking hostage of sixty-six U.S. diplomats and embassy staff, President Carter froze all Iranian assets in the U.S., approximately $8 billion. The asset freeze and the other economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. had a devastating effect on Iran’s economy. Most of Iran’s foreign-currency reserves became unreachable, and that compounded the difficulties that the Iranian economy suffered as a result of the other sanctions imposed by the U.S. Therefore, getting back at the Americans by looting their economy seemed to be a legitimate and natural response to the Iranians, who believed that ‘an eye for an eye’ could also be interpreted in economic terms as ‘a dollar for a dollar,’ and whenever possible, even a better revenge-exchange rate.

“We discovered that the new Iranian government made a strategic decision soon after the seizure of its funds by the U.S.: recoup through unconventional means the money that the U.S. had frozen, plus interest and penalty,” he added, smirking. “If additional goals could be achieved along the way, such as undermining the U.S. economy, then tefadlu, as they say in the Middle East-welcome!

“We don’t know if the decision of the Iranian government was fully implemented. But we do know that as part of that decision, they earmarked money to be stolen from the U.S. to finance terror and clandestine activities. The slush fund created for that purpose was very beneficial, because terror funding didn’t go through the regular Iranian government bud get, which many eyes see.