DHS Started Preparing Against Iran Threats Months Ago, Acting Secretary Says; The New Iranian General to Watch
By Daily Caller. Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said the U.S. government was well prepared for any threats from Iran because it had prepared months in advance.
Wolf visited Yuma, Arizona, earlier in January to commemorate 100 miles of border wall built since the beginning of the Trump administration. The acting DHS chief spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation about construction progress, the roadblocks to securing the border, and about the recent security threats from Iran — which is largely under the purview of DHS.
While the events earlier in January between the U.S. military and Iran appeared to catch the public by surprise, Wolf revealed that his government was able to hit the ground running to ensure the public was safe because it had been preparing since the summer.
“The nation-state of Iran and the threats that surround that are nothing new to the department, nothing new to the U.S. government generally,” Wolf told the DCNF. “We started working collaboratively within our department to come up with contingency plans for the variety of different threats. We had that on the shelf this summer, so when the events on the second took place, we took that off and started implementing those right away.” (Read more from “DHS Started Preparing Against Iran Threats Months Ago, Acting Secretary Says” HERE)
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The New Iranian General to Watch
By Politico. The U.S. killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani earlier this month deprived Iran of one of its most singular leaders, and created new questions about Iran’s strategy of building and maintaining its power in the region. Without its charismatic and high-profile commander, would Iran be forced to retrench and pause? Or would it find new ways to lash out? . . .
This week, Iran announced a new and potentially more telling promotion: The new Quds Force deputy commander will be Gen. Muhammad Hussein-Zada Hejazi, who most recently commanded the Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps, overseeing Iran’s ties to Hezbollah and the Quds Force activities throughout the Levant more broadly.
The message behind Hejazi’s promotion is clear: Soleimani may be dead, but the Quds Force he led lives on, and is taking active measures to ensure it is able to continue pursuing the regional strategy he championed.
Forced to rebuild the proxy management and command and control mechanisms that Soleimani once ran himself by force of personality and longtime connections, Iran is developing a new strategy to oversee what Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei described as “fighters without borders.” And the strategy comes down to this: Since no one commander can replace Soleimani, Iran’s proxy network will now be run by committee, with the Quds Force cobbling together a crew of its more senior and experienced managers to collectively fill the roles Soleimani had taken on himself. Key leaders of Iranian proxy groups, especially Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, are sure to play major roles. But policymakers should pay especially close attention to personnel shifts and promotions within the Quds Force itself. (Read more from “The New Iranian General to Watch” HERE)
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