The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (127 page)

P
resident George W. Bush meets with his foreign policy team in the secretary of defense’s office during the invasion of Iraq, March 25, 2003. Their war plans failed to take into account the impact Saddam Hussein’s removal would have on the larger Persian neighbor.
(Getty Images)

I
ranian Revolutionary Guard boats interdict U.S. boats trying to move up the Shatt al-Arab, April 3, 2003. The Iranians were supporting a massive influx of Iranian and surrogate forces moving into Iraq during the American-led invasion of Iraq.
(Author’s collection)

U
.S. troops raid a compound used by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, 2007.
(Department of Defense)

S
oldiers uncover a cache of explosive formed projectiles (EFPs) in Iraq. Iran’s Quds Force provided these deadly devices, which killed and wounded several thousand American troops, to their Iraqi allies.
(Department of Defense)

C
hairman of the Joint Chiefs Richard Meyers (
left
) and Central Command commander John Abizaid (
right
) testify before Congress. Both men grappled with growing Iranian influence in Iraq and increased covert military activities across the Middle East.
(Department of Defense)

U
.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker (
left
), Iranian ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi (
right
), and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki (
top center
) meet in the Iraqi prime minister’s office in Baghdad on May 28, 2007. It was one of the few face-to-face meetings between Iran and the United States in thirty years but failed to resolve the two nations’ differences.
(Associated Press)

I
ranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri with his son after his arrival at Tehran airport, July 15, 2010. He defected to the United States, where he provided valuable information about Iran’s nuclear program, only to return to Iran claiming he had been kidnapped.
(Associated Press)

I
ranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (
center
) tours the uranium-enriching centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility, April 8, 2008.
(Associated Press)

J
anuary 13, 2012: Iranians carry the flag-draped coffin of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, the director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, who was killed when two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car in Tehran. He was the victim of an assassination campaign against Iran’s nuclear program that Iran blamed on Israel and the United States.
(Associated Press)

G
eneral James Mattis (
left
) confers with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Amman, Jordan, March 25, 2011. A thoughtful tactician and warrior, Mattis is the latest American military commander to confront Iran in an increasingly tense situation in the Persian Gulf.
(Department of Defense)