Since its inception, the Iranian government has been devoted to undermining the West, including attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets, plots against Iranian dissidents, and influence operations aimed at neutralizing select U.S. and Western policies and personnel. The regime employs a mix of agents, terrorist proxies, and criminal networks to carry out its agenda. Past tactics include the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Center in Buenos Aires and the assassination of Iran’s pre-revolutionary Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar in Paris. Today, Tehran is still conducting such actions across Europe, including a plot by its secret service to kill European Jews.
As Freedom House reports, “Iranian leaders frequently portray its attacks on exiles as part of the same struggle against the United States and Israel, which they accuse of supporting terrorists.” Recent Israeli and American military actions have thwarted Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, rebuffed two direct Iranian missile attacks on Israel, destroyed Iran’s air defenses, and are targeting the Houthis in Yemen. With Tehran’s strategy in limbo, the criminal, informational, and influence-seeking instruments that hitherto played a subordinate role are coming to the fore. Western security services better beware.
Sweden has emerged as an epicenter of activity, with the Foxtrot gang often employing children to target Sweden’s Jewish community and attack Israelis, including the Israeli embassy. Foxtrot’s leader, born in Iran, was found to have directly coordinated with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Only in 2024 did the Swedish government finally bestir itself to act, calling upon the EU to classify Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) a terrorist organization.
Rouzbeh Parsi, Iranian-born Director of Middle Eastern Studies at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, is suspected of directing Iranian influence activities, and is reportedly under investigation for ties to Iran’s policy influence network. Parsi has met with former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and worked alongside senior figures closely affiliated with the IRGC.
In France, Tehran’s activities have mushroomed, utilizing drug trafficking rings. Attacks by these groups, such as the aforementioned plot to kill or take European Jews hostage, long predated the war triggered by Hamas in 2023.According to France's General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), "Since 2015, the Iranian (secret) services have resumed a targeted killing policy—the threat has worsened again in the context of the Israel-Hamas war."
Iran also conducts disinformation campaigns in France to undermine the government’s legitimacy. Meanwhile, Rouzbeh Parsi’s appearances before the European parliament as part of the Iranian Experts Initiative (IEI) were cited by the French Defense Ministry Strategy Study Group in multiple studies. It turns out that the Iranian Foreign Ministry has directed the IEI since its inception in 2024. Iran’s recent diplomatic efforts have focused on France, likely to open other doors in Europe. The French response so far was flaccid.
Similar phenomena occur in the U.S. Federal officials revealed an Iranian plot to recruit Eastern European thugs to murder an Iranian dissident in New York City. In 2024,federal officials revealed a plot to assassinate candidate Donald Trump before the presidential election. In another incident, Naji Sharifi Zindashti, an Iranian drug trafficker with ties to the Iranian intelligence service, planned to assassinate a dissident in Maryland, enlisting two Canadian members of the Hell’s Angels gang to do so.
Iranian influence activities in the U.S. are likely to include the work of Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) and the Quincy Institute, which is pushing narratives accusing Europe and the U.S. against “excessive hawkishness” on Iran. Leading figures in Quincy Institute have been reported to be directly liaising with Tehran. Parsi has advocated for Tehran for the entirety of his long career, with emails showing him being instructed by the co-director of Hamyaran, a semi-governmental organization known as the “Iran NGO initiative.” Parsi most recently dismissed talks of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program as infeasible in Quincy’s ‘Responsible Statecraft’ publication.
Several people tied to IEI and Iranian influence activities either received or were designated for high policymaking positions in the U.S. until their linkages to IEI were exposed. Robert Malley, former head of the International Crisis Group, and the State Department’s special envoy to Iran under Obama and Biden, was put on leave in April of 2023 with his security clearance suspended shortly before emails proving his involvement with IEI were released. While still in office, Malley hired fellow IEI expert Ariane Tabatabai at the State Department and facilitated her advancement into the Department of Defense, where in 2024, she was suspected of leaking Israeli plans to conduct a retaliatory strike on Iran and was nevertheless later promoted. Malley also intended to promote Ali Vaez, Director of the Iran Project and Senior Advisor to International Crisis Group, through the State Department, but Vaez failed to obtain a security clearance due to compromising emails about his efforts to write favorable coverage for Tehran.
These examples do not cover the full extent of Iran’s criminal and influence activities abroad, but they do illustrate their scope and reach. Both American and European counterintelligence need to act against them effectively. As long as Iran persists in undermining the U.S. and Europe, any diplomatic activity or negotiations involving Tehran involve tolerating subterfuge and deceit and are doomed to fail.