Removed From The Terrorist Threat List

I am not sure how a group goes about getting removed from the Terrorist Threat List put out by the National Intelligence Agency, but Iran and Hezbollah have done it.

The Times of Israel reported yesterday:

An annual report delivered recently to the US Senate by James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, removed Iran and Hezbollah from its list of terrorism threats, after years in which they featured in similar reports.

The unclassified version of the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Communities, dated February 26, 2015 (PDF), noted Iran’s efforts to combat Sunni extremists, including those of the ultra-radical Islamic State group, who were perceived to constitute the preeminent terrorist threat to American interests worldwide.

Iran has been funding terrorism in the Middle East since the 1978 revolution. They have provided IED’s to Iraq and Afghanistan, killing and maiming American troops. Hezbollah has never made any secret of the fact that they are terrorists.

The National Intelligence report states:

We believe that this results from a combination of diplomatic interests (the United States’ talks with Iran about a nuclear deal) with the idea that Iran could assist in the battle against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and maybe even in the battle against jihadist terrorism in other countries,” the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said in an analysis of the report (Hebrew PDF). It also noted the Iran and Hezbollah were both listed as terrorism threats in the assessment of another American body, the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and Lebanese Hezbollah are instruments of Iran’s foreign policy and its ability to project power in Iraq, Syria, and beyond,” that assessment, also submitted to the Senate of February 26, said in its section on terrorism. “Hezbollah continues to support the Syrian regime, pro-regime militants and Iraqi Shia militants in Syria. Hezbollah trainers and advisors in Iraq assist Iranian and Iraqi Shia militias fighting Sunni extremists there. Select Iraqi Shia militant groups also warned of their willingness to fight US forces returning to Iraq.”

Israel, as well as Sunni allies of the US, has often warned that Iran, through Hezbollah and other proxies, has been sowing instability in the region. An escalating dispute between Jerusalem and Washington over the terms of an eventual agreement on Iran’s nuclear program has seen Israeli official rail against the relatively conciliatory tone adopted by US officials toward Iran, in light of the shared interest in combating the Islamic State.

When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.