For former US national security adviser John Bolton, my guest on the podcast this week, any allegations of Iranian state-sponsored terrorism are to be taken extremely seriously.
In August 2022, the US justice department issued an arrest warrant for Iranian national Shahram Poursafi for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mr Bolton.
Fortunately for him, the person Poursafi allegedly tried to recruit for the murder plot was a “confidential human source” working on behalf of the FBI.
Mr Bolton told me the Iranians have several former and serving US officials on their assassination list, but their most valued target continues to be Donald Trump.
He also revealed that “Iran‘s terror network is really quite extensive in Europe and the United States”.
It is this story – along with the revelation to me a few days ago by the Pakistani defence minister that his country has done the CIA’s dirty work for decades – that reminded me there is a shadowy world of spies, terrorists and undercover operations engaged in a never-ending dirty war across the globe.
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It’s a world that we only manage to glimpse when the details emerge of a successful operation that thwarts the plotters.
Or when, tragically, it is they who are successful.
