An updated advisory from federal agencies provides information on the techniques used to hack programmable logic controllers.
The post US Warns of Iranian Hackers Targeting Siemens, Schneider, and Rockwell ICS Devices appeared first on SecurityWeek.
© AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Bitcoin Magazine
U.S. Treasury Freezes $130 Million Iran-Linked IRGC Crypto Wallet, Tracks Ayatollah’s Assets
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Fox News on Tuesday that the United States froze a crypto wallet linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps worth $130 million, part of a campaign to track the assets of Iran’s supreme leader around the world.
“We are tracking these accounts all over the world,” Bessent said, in remarks that framed the Treasury work as one prong of an “economic fury” push against Tehran alongside a blockade. “We froze a crypto wallet linked to the IRGC the other day.”
He said investigators had “found the money man for the Ayatollah” and were tracing the holdings of Ali Khamenei, including properties he valued at more than $100 million. Bessent said the Treasury hopes to publish the addresses of those properties. He cast the seizures as a transfer of value to the American people and a squeeze on the regime.
Bessent also described a collapse in Iran’s economy. He said the rial sits at an all-time low against the dollar and called it in “freefall,” with an inflation rate he put “upwards of 180%.” His account tracks the rial slide that has pushed some Iranians toward bitcoin.
The comments extend a Treasury campaign that has run through the war between Iran, Israel, and the United States. The department has sanctioned Iran’s largest crypto exchange and said the U.S. has seized $1 billion of Iran’s crypto. Blockchain analysts have tied billions in on-chain flows to IRGC-linked wallets, with such wallets receiving more than $3 billion in 2025, a rise from over $2 billion the year before.
In a separate move, the stablecoin issuer Tether froze $344 million in USDT across two blockchain addresses tied to the IRGC, one of the largest single actions in the sequence.
Bitcoin’s design draws both sides of the fight. It settles without a correspondent bank or a reserve-currency issuer, a trait that lets Iran monetize oil access outside the dollar system and lets Treasury trace and freeze value on a public ledger.
The conflict has reshaped how crypto figures into the region. Since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began, bitcoin use inside the country has surged as residents moved value out of the banking system.
Tehran, for its part, reportedly moved to accept bitcoin from tankers seeking passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a $1-per-barrel toll that turns its grip on the chokepoint into settlement revenue. The strait carries a fifth of the world’s oil.
The war has repriced bitcoin as well.
Treasury has not published documentation of the $130 million wallet freeze or the property addresses Bessent referenced. The inflation and currency figures came from his remarks rather than from Iranian data.
This post U.S. Treasury Freezes $130 Million Iran-Linked IRGC Crypto Wallet, Tracks Ayatollah’s Assets first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps released photographs Sunday of a downed drone its Ground Forces say they shot out of the sky over southern Iran, and the aircraft in the photos traces back to a U.S. Army Special Forces exercise conducted thousands of miles away in the Philippines just three months earlier. Babak Taghvaee, an […]US sanctions have again put stablecoins at the centre of the enforcement debate after addresses linked to Iran were added to the Treasury Department’s sanctions list and $131 million in USDT was reportedly frozen on TRON.
The case is important because it cuts straight through one of crypto’s most uncomfortable tensions. Public blockchains are open and permissionless, but major dollar-backed stablecoins are issued by companies that can freeze tokens when required by law enforcement or sanctions authorities.
That means stablecoins can behave like crypto in one sense and regulated financial instruments in another.
For TRON, the story is especially relevant because the network has become one of the largest venues for USDT transfers globally. Low fees and wide exchange support have made it a major stablecoin rail. But that same usage also means enforcement actions on TRON addresses attract attention quickly.
Reference: US Treasury
Stablecoins are often used like crypto cash, but they are not the same as Bitcoin.
A token such as USDT may move on public blockchains, but it is still issued by a centralized company. That issuer manages reserves, redemption, compliance, and in many cases the ability to freeze or blacklist addresses.
That freeze function is controversial, but it is also one reason stablecoins have survived inside the regulated financial system.
Governments expect issuers to respond to sanctions, terrorism-financing concerns, stolen funds, and law-enforcement requests. Stablecoin companies that ignore those expectations risk losing banking relationships, licenses, and access to the broader financial system.
This creates a trade-off.
Users get dollar liquidity that moves quickly across blockchains. They also accept that the token is not fully censorship-resistant. If an issuer freezes an address, the blockchain may keep running, but the frozen tokens cannot move.
The Iranian wallet case makes that trade-off visible.
TRON has become a major stablecoin network because it is cheap, fast, and widely supported by exchanges.
For many users, especially outside the US, TRON-based USDT is a practical payment and transfer tool. It is often used for exchange deposits, peer-to-peer transfers, remittances, and dollar access in regions where banking rails are limited or expensive.
That utility is real.
But the same features that make TRON useful also make it a major surface area for compliance scrutiny. If large amounts of sanctioned funds, exchange flows, or high-risk wallets move through TRON, regulators will pay attention.
The Treasury action shows that public-chain activity can still become part of sanctions enforcement. Wallet addresses are visible, funds can be traced, and issuers can be pressured or required to act.
That does not make TRON unique. Similar issues exist across Ethereum, BNB Chain, Solana, and other networks. But TRON’s dominance in USDT transfers makes it one of the most important networks in this particular debate.
The key message from sanctions actions is that stablecoin rails are not outside government reach.
Even when funds sit on decentralized ledgers, the issuer layer can still become an enforcement chokepoint. That is especially true for dollar-backed stablecoins because issuers need banking access and regulatory credibility.
This is why stablecoins sit in a strange middle ground.
They are one of crypto’s most useful products, but they also bring crypto closer to traditional financial controls. They can make payments faster and more global, but they can also carry blacklist and freeze capabilities that are closer to bank compliance than Bitcoin-style neutrality.
For regulators, that is a feature. For some crypto users, it is a flaw.
The bigger question is whether this balance becomes more accepted as stablecoins grow. If stablecoins are to become mainstream payment and settlement tools, governments will expect compliance. If users want uncensorable assets, centralized stablecoins may not be the right instrument.
That distinction matters.
The TRON freeze is not just a story about one sanctions action. It is a reminder of how dollar-backed stablecoins actually work. They can move on-chain, but they remain tied to off-chain issuers and legal obligations.
As stablecoin adoption grows, that enforcement layer will become even more important.
This article is based on the US Treasury Department’s OFAC action and Tether transparency materials.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
This report is based on information released by US Treasury. at US Treasury
Bitcoin Magazine
Bitcoin Sentiment Is Turning Bullish — But It’s Too Early to Celebrate: Report
The Bitcoin bottom may be in — but don’t get your hopes up: It might struggle to go up anytime soon, according to one investment firm.
A Friday report from European asset management firm CoinShares said that investors last week threw fresh cash at Bitcoin — and other crypto — exchange-traded products, indicating a change in sentiment.
But other factors may hold digital asset markets from going higher, James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, wrote.
“We have said for some time that Bitcoin has probably reached, or is close to, its floor,” the report read. “But we see no significant upside potential from here.”
The report added that current macroeconomic headwinds, such as the US bombing Iran and rising oil prices, could see inflation go up again.
Bitcoin’s price was up earlier this week, hitting a seven-day high of $65,501 on news that inflation in the US was softer than expected. It has since erased those gains and was recently trading for $64,010.
The price of Bitcoin has typically done well on news that inflation is coming down because investors expect interest rates to come down. But Butterfill said that “a rate cut does not look probable at this stage.”
CoinShares’ data showed that investors pulled a total of $8 billion out of funds giving crypto exposure — “the worst run on record.”
Last week, though, things reversed when $287 million hit crypto funds, CoinShares said, with the data so far showing that this week looks likely to be another positive streak.
The price of Bitcoin has typically done well when US investors — previously excluded from crypto investing — have bought shares in exchange-traded funds approved in 2024.
The products — handled by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale — allow more traditional investors or Wall Street institutions to buy positions in Bitcoin via shares that trade on stock exchanges.
Since BTC’s October all-time high of $126,080, crypto markets have faced a battering as those investors have fast cashed out of the funds. Bitcoin has struggled to make gains, especially after the US and Israel started bombing Iran, leading to a surge in the price of oil.
The leading cryptocurrency is now nearly 50% below its record.
“The dominant picture is that the current setup is prompting interest in adding positions, but caution prevails while sentiment remains broadly negative,” CoinShares added.
This post Bitcoin Sentiment Is Turning Bullish — But It’s Too Early to Celebrate: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.
Bitcoin Magazine
Bitcoin Price Falls Under $63,000 on U.S.-Iran Strikes and Trump’s China Charge, but Onchain Data Points to Buyers
Bitcoin price fell below $63,000 on Friday, as a fresh wave of U.S. airstrikes on Iran and a new political dispute between Washington and Beijing pushed investors out of risk assets.
Bitcoin price traded near $62,800, an extension of Thursday’s 1.4% slide from $65,000, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data. The token slipped under its 50-day simple moving average, a gauge of near-term momentum that many traders watch.
The bitcoin price retreat tracked a broad decline across global markets. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 4% and entered a correction, a fall of more than 10% from its June 25 peak, as memory-chip maker Kioxia lost 16.1%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 2%, while the Shanghai Composite fell 3.1% to an 11-month low.
Futures tied to the Nasdaq pointed to a decline of 1.6%, an echo of Thursday’s drop on Wall Street, where chip shares from Nvidia, Micron, Broadcom and Qualcomm came under pressure on fears that the AI rally has run past its earnings.
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, citing the Hormozgan province governorate, said U.S. airstrikes hit five bridges in the southern province.
A separate missile strike damaged the maritime control tower at Iran’s Chabahar port. WTI crude climbed near $79 a barrel, a rise close to 15% across five sessions, a move that revived concern about inflation and the path of interest rates.
A second front of uncertainty opened in Washington. President Donald Trump declassified intelligence reports that allege Chinese interference in U.S. elections and claimed Beijing obtained 220 million voter records, a threat he cast as a danger to democracy. China’s embassy denied the allegations.
The dispute itself carries little market weight, though traders fear it could strain ties before Trump’s September meeting with Xi Jinping. The Australian dollar, a proxy for China-linked trade, weakened against the greenback.
Against that backdrop, some analysts argue the sell-off masks a market whose core drivers have changed little. Nicolai Sondergaard, a research analyst at Nansen, said the bitcoin price tape reflects macro data more than a geopolitical hedge.
“The inflation and liquidity channel is doing more work here than the geopolitical hedge narrative,” Sondergaard said. He pointed to the June CPI report released July 14, which showed headline inflation of 3.5% against a 3.8% forecast and a core reading of 2.6% against 2.9%. The dollar index sank to near 100.77, a multi-month low, and the 10-year Treasury yield eased to 4.57%.
The softer print reset Fed expectations. Odds of a rate hike at the July 28-29 meeting fell from above 40% to the low teens, according to CME FedWatch data.
“The FOMC meeting on July 28 to 29 is the actual binary,” Sondergaard said. “If the CPI data holds and the Fed signals a credible pivot path, the conditions for sustained ETF inflows are back in place.”
Onchain flows support his read. Spot bitcoin ETFs drew $510 million across three sessions this month, an end to a $2.73 billion outflow streak, with BlackRock’s IBIT in the lead. Nansen’s data shows large wallets held their ground through the strike.
“Net outflows hit -18.3 BTC in the strike hour, then reverted to a post-shock average of +0.67 BTC per hour, meaning buyers returned within the same session,” Sondergaard said.
Sondergaard framed positioning as constructive rather than fragile. Funding rates sat near zero, a sign that leveraged longs are not crowded, and smart-money long/short ratios ran at 1.58 with no rotation into stablecoins. Retail traders held a ratio of 1.79, a step ahead of the pros but in the same direction. Seven-day inflows concentrated in liquid staking, DeFi lending and decentralized exchanges, a risk-on allocation.
Sondergaard said the sequence rhymes with past shocks. “Prior Middle East escalations produced the same pattern: short-duration flush, accumulation resumes,” he said.
“MVRV sits at 1.205 with realized price at roughly $53,000 and the long-term holder cost basis around $49,900, which defines the structural floor,” Sondergaard said. “That is not the profile of a market running on geopolitical sentiment.”
At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is $62, 836.
This post Bitcoin Price Falls Under $63,000 on U.S.-Iran Strikes and Trump’s China Charge, but Onchain Data Points to Buyers first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
Twenty-five U.S. senators want to know why the Pentagon is still sitting on an investigation into one of the deadliest strikes involving American forces in more than three decades, and they’re giving the Department of War exactly one week to start answering. Senators Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, joined by […]For the first time in its history, the US military sent explosive-laden drone boats into combat by attacking an Iranian midget submarine and naval port. The unprecedented use of such kamikaze sea drones by the United States comes nearly a decade after Iranian and Houthi forces first demonstrated such weapons.
The US military shared a video showing three “one-way attack surface drones” exploding after approaching an Iranian midget submarine and ship maintenance facility at Iran’s Bandar Abbas Naval Base on the night of July 12. US Central Command, the US military combat command responsible for Middle East operations, described the strikes in a social media post as the “first time American forces have employed sea drones in combat operations.”
The US drone boats were able to “make a low-speed, uncontested approach” to their targets before exploding, according to USNI News, a news service from the nonprofit US Naval Institute. USNI News also identified one of the targets as an Iranian Ghadir-class midget submarine that was out of the water while being suspended from a gantry.
© US Central Command
“In addition to supporting OEF (Operation Epic Fury, the Iran War) costs incurred by DOW (Department of War), the [$87.6 billion Fiscal Year FY 2026 Supplemental Trump administration] request provides $768 million to the Department of Energy to support nuclear and other energy security requirements, primarily for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for OEF-related activities.”
I was intrigued by that segment, from a June 24 letter to House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) from Trump’s Office of Management and Budget Director Russell T. Vought, because I could not imagine what costly “nuclear and other energy security requirements” NNSA – the U.S. nuclear weapons complex – could be playing in the Iran War.
However, a chart attached to Vought’s letter said that $672 million was for NNSA to fund “activities for complete and verifiable termination of Iran’s ability to develop or acquire a nuclear weapon, including the disposition of proliferation sensitive material, technology, equipment, and infrastructure.”
Another $95.5 million, destined for the Department of Energy’s Environmental and Other Defense Activities elements, was listed for “support of Operation Epic Fury and other classified purposes.”
Perhaps members of the Senate Armed Services Committee can find out about the plans behind this $782 million package for NNSA and Energy this morning [July 14], when they question Jules W. Hurst III, who is up for confirmation as Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller).
By the way, when was the last time a U.S. President went to war and added a tax to help pay for it? As an old-timer I remember – it was 1968, when then-President Lyndon Johnson got Congress to pass a nine-month, 10 percent surcharge on individual and corporate taxpayers to help pay for the Vietnam War. Low-income individual taxpayers were entirely exempt from the surcharge.
Since then, both Republican and Democratic Presidents used deficit spending and borrowing to pay for military conflicts. So far this year, the nation’s total deficit has increased through May 2026 by $1.25 trillion, according to the Treasury Department, with Defense Department spending running $20 billion more through May 2026, than it was last year.
But I remind you, Congress now has three defense funding requests before it: a $1.1 trillion FY 2027 base budget request; an additional $350 billion request to be placed in a 2026 reconciliation package; and now the new FY 2026 supplemental request, which has $67 billion for the Defense Department.
No one can say for sure how Congress will deal with these requests that total over $1.5 trillion.
For comparison, I point out that according to a December 8, 2014, Congressional Research Service study, Congress, over the prior 13 years, approved total appropriations of $1.6 trillion for Afghan and Iraq “military operations, base support, weapons maintenance, training of Afghan and Iraq security forces, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the war operations initiated since the 9/11[2001] attacks.”
What the Vought chart also shows is that almost 23 percent of the funds in what has been described as the Iran War supplemental, went for different and, in some cases, totally unrelated purposes that I will describe below.
As for the NNSA money, a FoxNews story June 24, said, “The funding would support the removal and elimination of Iranian nuclear materials, including uranium hexafluoride (UF6), uranium in various forms and research reactor fuel, including highly-enriched uranium, according to details shared by a White House official.”
FoxNews also said, “The request also would fund U.S. verification activities inside Iran, support inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, strengthen nuclear-smuggling detection efforts and expand Nuclear Emergency Support Team operations across the Middle East.”
In short, Trump is asking for funds to deal with Iran’s enriched uranium before he has any agreement with Tehran that gives the U.S. access to that material.
Perhaps Trump thinks in the end he will have immediate success with Tehran as in he did in Venezuela. There, after the U.S. seized President Nicolas Maduro in January 2026, and four months later, in May, NNSA removed from Venezuela 13.54 kilograms – approximately 30 pounds – of highly-enriched uranium from a legacy research reactor in that country which had been shut down since the early 1990s.
The supplemental request also contains $1.5 billion for the State Department’s of which $850 million is for the Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems program at high-risk diplomatic posts overseas along with security upgrades and equipment replacement. Another $300 million for Embassy construction and maintenance would be used to address needs following the start of the Iran war in Bahrain, Dubai, Karachi, Lahore and Riyadh, according to the Vought chart.
The State request also includes $100 million for the Diplomatic and Consular Service account to meet unanticipated needs related to the Middle East situation including departure assistance to U.S. citizens seeking to leave the region with their families. Transfer authority and an increase in repatriation loan level is also being requested to meet the needs of destitute U.S. citizens.
Another $1.35 billion for the State Department is sought to deal with the Ebola Virus, or as Vought put it in his letter to Speaker Johnson, “These funds would be used to limit the spread of Ebola beyond the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda to other vulnerable nations and ensure the virus does not reach U.S. shores.”
Some $800 million for State is proposed for the International Humanitarian Assistance account, formerly managed by USAID, and another $550 million for Global Health Security, which funds “would support contact tracing, personal protective equipment and commodity procurement, disease surveillance, laboratory capacity, and cross-border coordination,” according to the Vought chart.
There is another $2 billion for the U.S. Coast Guard to support OEF where Pentagon “assets are not available to support Western Hemisphere operations. This includes funding for operations at the Southern Border, ” according to the Vought chart.
Meanwhile, the largest amount, other than for OEF in the supplemental, is $11.1 billion for the Agriculture Department, the bulk of which, $10 billion, would be for American farmers as “temporary economic assistance for row and specialty crops planted in crop year 2026,” according to the Vought chart. An additional $1.1 billion is being requested specifically for farmers in Florida “to rebound from devastating losses that were the result of crippling storms this past winter.”
I believe that money has political implications because rural Americans are pulling away from the President. As Brookings Institution polling recently showed, “Only 24% of white rural voters think that the condition of the economy is excellent or good, while 77% rate it as fair or poor. Just 16% say their family’s financial situation is better than it was two years ago (near the end of the Biden administration), compared to 49% who say they are worse off.”
Then there is $1 billion in the war supplemental to assist in the final design and construction for renovation of New York City’s Penn Station. In a New York Times op-ed last Friday, Rep. Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said that the White House last year took control of the $8 billion Penn Station project from the [New York] Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Rep. Nadler wrote, “Behind closed doors, Mr. Trump has already attempted a quid-pro-quo, offering federal funding for New York’s transit needs only if Penn Station and [Virginia’s] Dulles Airport are renamed for him.”
However, Nadler also noted, “It’s still $7 billion short, and with top appropriators already opposing the supplemental funding request, it’s unlikely to be approved anyway.”
Another $1 billion in the war supplemental, according to the Vought chart, is for the Labor Department’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation “to increase the benefit levels for participants of certain pension plans that were sponsored by Delphi Corporation and terminated as a result of General Motors ' bankruptcy in 2009.”
The money would reverse pension reductions for some 20,000 retirees that have spent years arguing their pensions were unfairly reduced after the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation assumed responsibility for the company’s pension plans during GM’s 2009 financial crisis.
According to the Detroit Free Press, “Various legislative efforts to restore the benefits have failed or stalled, despite bipartisan support. Perhaps knowing it's a potentially powerful issue in the Midwest, Trump (and President Joe Biden before him) has signaled his support of the workers in politically sensitive moments such as just before the 2020 election.”
Then there is $500 million for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. for, as the Vought chart explains, improvements to the World War II Memorial on the Mall and restoration and construction for the Tidal Basin Seawall along West Potomac Park to include the planting of hundreds of new cherry trees and stabilizing the surrounding grounds.
Last Friday, the conservative group Americans for Prosperity pointed out that even the supplemental’s defense and Iran-related spending “deserve further scrutiny,” noting that $15.6 billion for the Pentagon are justified by Vought simply as “Administration priorities,” “Readiness,” and “Classified Programs.”
In fact, I think the whole package needs congressional oversight, and from the reactions of some key Senate and House leaders, that’s what it’s going to get.
The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.
Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.
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The U.S. military has now named the exact weapon it used to make history over the weekend, confirming that three Saronic-built Corsair unmanned boats carried out the first combat strike ever conducted by American sea drones, slamming into a submarine and ship maintenance facility at Iran’s Bandar Abbas Naval Base. U.S. Central Command detailed the […]U.S. Central Command struck dozens of targets across Iran on Sunday using one-way attack sea drones for the first time in the conflict, a new addition to a strike package that already included fighter aircraft, naval vessels, and one-way attack aerial drones, marking the fourth round of American strikes against Iran since Tehran resumed attacks […]U.S. Central Command finished its third round of airstrikes against Iran in a single week on July 11, hitting roughly 140 military targets after Iranian forces attacked another commercial vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries a fifth of the world’s oil out of the Persian Gulf every day. The strikes, […]Pending the failed cease-fire and Memorandum of Understanding [MOU] between Iran and America, all eyes have focused on the ongoing, difficult negotiations – mediated by Pakistan, Oman, Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt – between America and Iran. The late Uri Lubrani, Israel’s last Ambassador to Iran in 1978, always warned about the perils of negotiating with the Iranians (“a nation of carpet weavers and of chess players”), whom he respected for their negotiating prowess, calling their manipulation of negotiations “a masterpiece of hoodwinking the world.” Other contemporary experts (former American intelligence officers) such as Mark Fowler, Norm Roule, and Hamlet Yousef have made similar observations. Their collective wisdom is worth noting as the United States continues its diplomatic negotiations with Iran in today’s modern version of ‘The Great Game.’ What is increasingly pertinent in such negotiations pertains to the role of third-party nations such as Oman, Turkey, Qatar, and Pakistan, not as mere mediators, but rather, especially in the case of Pakistan and Turkey, as modern purveyors of ‘intelligence diplomacy.’
Turkey’s road to intelligence diplomacy occurred strategically, rather than organically, as its Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan (previously Director of its intelligence agency MIT, for over a decade) and current MIT Director Ibrahim Kalin purposefully and intentionally positioned Turkey to play an increasingly important role in regional conflicts, covert diplomacy, and intelligence – as in Kalin’s words in a recent speech - “drawing important lessons for our country’s security, strategic positioning, and regional perspective.” This doctrine had previously involved backchannel negotiations in Gaza, Ukraine, Europe, the Balkans, Russia, (cf. the 2024 spy swap), and now, Iran. Other examples include the appointment of former senior MIT officer Gürsel Donmez as Turkey’s Ambassador to Austria, a key worldwide intelligence and diplomacy hub, and Turkey’s successful hosting of the NATO summit last week.
Pakistan is, like Turkey, hardly new to the Great Game. Readers will recall its role in facilitating – during 1971-1972 – the historic Kissinger-Nixon opening to China. But this year’s MOU between Iran and America has thrust Pakistan (and its leaders Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and military chief General Asim Munir) into the limelight. Pakistan has handled sensitive backchannel negotiations, hosted talks in Islamabad, and worked closely with its Saudi and GCC partners as the recent MOU came into play. But in its world of zero-sum diplomacy, Pakistan’s strategic successes in intelligence diplomacy heighten its regional and broader posture – especially vis-à-vis America and serves to weaken India’s strategic position and diplomatic influence. In today’s world, as always, Pakistan’s gain is India’s loss and China’s gain (in my opinion, China is the REAL winner of the US-Iran war).
How does one negotiate, or facilitate negotiations with a country which is a combination of a civilization (Persia), theocracy, nation state (Iran), terrorist organization, and criminal entity (IRGC)? Iran has revealed itself to be a formidable negotiating partner, more akin to a sophisticated hostage taker, in which traditional western, Harvard metrics of ‘Getting to Yes,’ or “Getting Past No’ hardly apply. And yet, like hostage takers in [law enforcement] hostage scenarios, Iran must be appreciated as a ‘rational’ actor. The Iranians have brilliantly used ambiguity and opacity as negotiating strategies, and they have adeptly utilized social media to carve out confusing, ambiguous negotiating positions, in addition to asymmetric warfare, closure of the Straits of Hormuz, disinformation, propaganda, cognitive warfare, and traditional diplomatic efforts. One could surmise that the Iranians are truly gifted students, who have read - and survived! - President Trump’s The Art of the Deal. And for President Trump and his national security team, negotiating with a dead, or severely injured, possibly brain-damaged Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei may be the most complex task of all. Such scenarios aren’t taught in diplomatic faculties, business schools, or at the FBI Academy.
Negotiations involving criminal terror groups such as the IRGC (now led by General Ahmad Vahidi) - who have committed numerous worldwide acts of violence and terror over decades - often require third party emissaries (as legitimate governments cannot be seen as a main negotiating partner) and high-level intermediaries in ‘track 3’ diplomacy. Over the past two decades, examples include the former German intelligence officer Dr. Gerhard Conrad’s hostage negotiations involving Hamas and Hezbollah, Swiss American attorney Daniel Levin’s work in the Middle East with The Liechtenstein Foundation for State Governance, and Swiss diplomat Pascal Holiger’s negotiations involving the victims of Boko Haram in Nigeria. The role of empathy, culture, trust, language, and nuance remains critically valuable in such delicate endeavors. And today, trust remains the coin of the realm as 3rd-party nations such as Pakistan and Turkey, as well as others, facilitate ongoing diplomatic negotiations with Iran’s IRGC leadership.
The Iran negotiations will involve more time, which remains Iran’s best weapon, as it can continue to cause economic pain for the West, especially America, as it approaches the November 2026 midterm elections. During its devastating war with Iraq during the 1980s – with over 1 million Iranian casualties – Iran fought for 8 years before the late Ayatollah Khomeini made a peace deal, “drinking from the poisoned chalice.” And a battered, weakened Iran continues to be patient and resolved. And so, a key question now involves President Trump, and what actions – diplomatic or military – he might take next, and whether he too, will be forced to “drink from the poisoned chalice.” The stakes could not be higher. And practitioners of intelligence diplomacy, such as Pakistan, Turkey, and other actors, will continue to be linchpins of any diplomatic successes. But unlike past similar negotiations, which involved discretion and secrecy, today’s intelligence diplomacy takes place in the glare of the media and its heir apparent, social media --- a curse and a blessing for its practitioners. What hasn’t changed is that words and actions – especially those of President Trump and the Iranian leadership - still matter, more than ever.
Dr. Kenneth Dekleva served as a Regional Medical Officer/Psychiatrist with the U.S. Dept. of State from 2002-2016 and is currently CEO of Blackwood Advisory Solutions LLC, and Professor of Psychiatry, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX. The views expressed by Dr. Dekleva are entirely his own and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government, the U.S. Dept. of State, or UT Southwestern Medical Center.
The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.
Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief
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