Washington Free Beacon senior writer Adam Kredo said Friday that two Iranian spies recently arrested in the U.S. were part of a much larger intelligence effort by the Islamic Republic.
"This is a story long-ignored," Kredo said.
Kredo, speaking on on One America News Network's "Tipping Point," described how Iran’s intelligence activity reaches far around the world. Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.) described the arrested Iranians as just the "tip of the iceberg," and Kredo warned of mounting evidence that Iran is actively engaged in the U.S. and the western hemisphere.
"All we have to do is look at Latin America and the sophisticated operation that Hezbollah runs to just operating with impunity in terms of drug trade and arms trafficking, but very much embedding themselves in the government of certain left-leaning South American nations," he said.
He described how the agents arrested were focused on Jewish and Israeli facilities for a possible attack.
"They were canvassing, essentially spying on Jewish and Israeli facilities around town with what they expected was the intent of planning some sort of terror attack," he said.
"The Iranians have a very sophisticated espionage operation," he said, noting it is bolstered by terrorist organizations like Hezbollah.
He said it’s important to "take the Iranians at face value" when they show their intentions.
Roskam told the Free Beacon that more is yet to be learned about Iran’s activities:
While the arrest of the two Iranians was met with shock in the press, Roskam said he was not surprised by the arrests, which have unearthed concrete evidence of the Islamic Republic's efforts to foment discord across the globe, including on American soil.
"This is the tip of the iceberg," Roskam said in an interview. "This is not a surprise and this is a result of the Iran regime getting financial support from the Obama administration in the Iran deal."
Iran has been emboldened by the lack of international repercussions on its malevolent behavior and may have increased its intelligence operations in America in the years since the landmark nuclear deal, he said.
Iran is "acting with impunity, that deal emboldened them," Roskam said. "This is an unmasking of that. Unfortunately it's all too predictable. Give a malevolent regime huge amounts of cash with no restraining influence and this is what happens."
The Trump Justice Department announced last week it had arrested two Iranians and charged them with spying on behalf of the hardline regime, a discovery that has refocused attention on the Islamic Republic's global spy operations.