The Iran conflict is shaping a new geopolitical dynamic even beyond the Middle East. Iran isn’t just a direct threat to its neighbors and western interests, but for decades it’s also paid for and coordinated an alarming number of attacks launched by terrorist groups throughout the region, including against Americans. Few know more about the carnage Iran is responsible for and how it’s become the powder keg we know today than former U.S. Ambassador David Hale, he is with the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Sharyl: A lot of Americans seem to be thinking, “What do we have to do with them and what do they have to do with us? Why don’t we just leave them alone?”

Former U.S. Ambassador David Hale: Since 1979, I think it’s eight different presidents have confronted a tremendous threat by Iran against American interests. They’ve had sleeper cells in our country. We know that President Trump is also in their crosshairs. Secretary Pompeo, John Bolton. The list is just endless. And not only that, and perhaps even more significant because we can handle these kinds of threats, is that they have been allying with our enemies and adversaries throughout the Middle East from day one as a revolutionary regime. Whether it’s Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Israel, they have done things not to bring justice and peace to the Arab world, but in order to defend their own power and project it across the Arab world. And that has been thwarted American interests for stability, peace, and prosperity amongst our friends and allies in the Middle East for many, many decades. And it’s time to put a stop to it.

Sharyl: Is Iran responsible for much of what we think is the powder keg that we’ve known the Middle East to be for so many decades?

Hale: Right. There are other problems in the Arab world, but Iran has been adept at exploiting them for its own purposes— not to solve conflicts, but to inflame them, to make sure that anytime American diplomats or others came closer and closer to an agreement, and I, myself, worked on peace process for several years in the Obama administration, every time we got closer, we’d face terrorism. And the terrorism was always traceable, financially and otherwise, to Iran. That was their strategy. Keep the region in flames, therefore they have the upper hand and they can unite their own people against an imaginary threat from outside.

Sharyl: Around 1979 under Jimmy Carter, there was the Iran hostage crisis.

Hale: Certainly, I think for my generation, President Trump’s generation, we don’t forget. And that was the beginning of our very troubled relationship with this Islamic regime. We didn’t want difficulties with them. The Carter administration actually tried at the beginning to establish good relations, at least a workable relationship with the new leaders in Iran. Instead, we had our embassy seized and hostages taken and the collapse of a presidency, frankly, as a result of that. The problem, in my view, as a looking back on this period, and I was involved in Middle East for 40 years, Iran is at the center of almost all of our problems, and yet we never really addressed the center of that problem.

Sharyl: April 1983, the U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut. An Iran backed group, Islamic Shihad, a precursor to Hezbollah, carried out a suicide car bombing at the U.S. embassy, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans. Diplomats and CIA folks were among those.

Hale: Well, I know a lot of the people who were in that bombing and happily survived. I worked for Ryan Crocker was one of them and he later became ambassador to Lebanon during my first tour there. It’s a searing moment. And again, we didn’t retaliate. We just sucked it up because we didn’t want to expand the conflict that was already bad enough going on between Lebanon and Israel at that time and Syria, but that was a mistake. We lost deterrence and we’ve lost deterrence over the years.

Sharyl: October 1983, the Beirut Marine barracks bombing. Iran backed Hezbollah operatives detonated a massive truck bomb at the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. service personnel. I never hear people really talk about that today, but that was massive. 220 Marines, Navy and Army members wounding a hundred. I think it was one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. interests before the 9/11 attacks.

Hale: That’s right. Well, the Marines do remember. They were not there in the spirit of war. They were there in the spirit of peace. And this is what happened. Ronald Reagan actually ordered a retaliatory attack against an Iranian target in the Beqaa Valley, the Eastern part of Lebanon. It never happened. The bureaucracy seemed to just shut it down. Well, what lesson did the Iranians draw from that? You know, we’ve had eight presidents, they’ve had two leaders during this period, so they think they can wait us out.

Sharyl: And didn’t we withdraw our troops from Lebanon after that?

Hale: And not long after they were pulled out because American, because the popular will, political support in our country for maintaining the Marines evaporated. There was confusion about what their mission was. ‘Why were we taking these risks?’ But the lesson I draw from that period is that we have to understand the source of the problem. It’s not in Lebanon, it’s in Tehran. And fortunately, Donald Trump does seem to understand that.

Sharyl: June 1996, the Kobar Towers bombing. That killed 19 American service members and injured hundreds. It was directly linked to Iranian support and direction.

Hale: My first assignment in the Foreign Service, I lived just a mile or two from that compound. And again, our soldiers were there at the invitation of the Saudi government. We were not there in a war spirit. We were there to help defend and support the Saudis and help build their army and their capabilities. And this kind of thing, the Iranians, whatever the names of these groups are, the Iranians ultimately are behind these masks. And so yes, this is an important reminder to people that if you want more of this: Do nothing.

Sharyl: In all the years you were working in government, do you remember being part of conversations or hearing what people were thinking and thinking to yourself, as you’ve expressed here, ‘We need to do something more’?

Hale: It always puzzled me even as a junior officer: Why we weren’t addressing the root causes? And later as I became more senior and would be able to actually interact with leaders in these countries that were being targeted as well, because often the Americans may be dying, but the target is often the countries that are hosting them, is that they also were puzzled that we weren’t going after the actual root of the problem. And so it’s going to be tough. This isn’t going to be easy. We’ve waited too long to do it. But as Americans debate ‘Why now?’ I think one of the answers to that is because Iran is more vulnerable now. Why would you wait and allow them to regain their strength? Unfortunately, because of their war of choice, their war of choice, by the way, in entering and supporting these attacks on Israel, they have suffered a reversal of fortunes that was unimaginary. And surely it’s time to bring that home.

Editor’s Note: In the original report, Ambassador Hale refers to an attempt against President Bush. The attempt was actually made by the Iraqis, not the Iranians.

Watch the video here.