Cipher Brief Expert View: Iran Sends a Message with Missiles in Syria

Posted: June 18th, 2017

By Emile Nakhleh

Dr. Emile Nakhleh is a retired Senior Intelligence Service Officer, a founding director of the CIA's Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program and the Global and the National Security Policy Institute at the University of New Mexico. Since retiring from the government, Nakhleh has consulted on national security issues, particularly Islamic radicalization, terrorism, and the Arab states of the Middle East. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The conflict in Syria saw a series of firsts today, as the Pentagon confirmed that a U.S. fighter jet shot down a Syrian warplane near the city of Raqqa and the Iranian military stated that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched missile strikes at ISIS targets in Syria, in retaliation for the ISIS-claimed terrorist attack in Teheran on 7 June. These are the first reported ground-to-ground strikes in Syria by Iran since the beginning of the civil war in 2011. To understand the broader context in which these Iranian missile strikes occurred, The Cipher Brief spoke with with Emile Nakhleh, a former member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service, to discuss Iran’s goals – and its intended audience.

The Cipher Brief: The strikes are supposedly in retaliation for the terrorist attack in Teheran on 7 June. Do you think there will be more strikes or will Iran draw the line with this action?

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