WEBVTT
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Operation Rising Lion is a fictional series based on real
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world events. Any similarities between persons living or dead is
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purely coincidental. Calaruga Shark Media.
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My name is Marcus Cole, and I need to tell
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you about the man who made everything possible. Three months
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after we stole Iran's nuclear secrets from that warehouse in Shaabad,
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I received an encrypted message that changed the course of
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the Shadow War. It came through channels so secure I
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didn't even know they existed a single line of texts
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that appeared on my screen at three seventeen am Tehran
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time Archive Control. The Wolf sends his regards. We need
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to talk. This is episode two. The double Agent, The Wolf.
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Colonel Darius Karimi, head of Iran's Counterintelligence division, the man
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tasked with finding the operatives who had robbed that warehouse,
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The man who had been hunting us for months with
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methodical precision that impressed even our analysts. What we didn't know,
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what I couldn't have calculated in any equation, was that
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Colonel Kareimi had been working for us all along. But
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I'm getting ahead of myself to understand how a senior
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Iranian intelligence officer became our most valuable asset. You need
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to understand what the archive heights set in motion, and
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you need to meet doctor Ahmad Tarani, the brilliant physicist
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whose life we were about to destroy. Doctor TEHRANI worked
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at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, housed in a
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gleaming complex in northern Tehran for fifteen years. He dedicated
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his life to what he believed was peaceful nuclear research,
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uranium enrichment for power generation, isotope production for medical applications.
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His daughter, Mariam was studying medicine in London, planning to
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return to Iran to build hospitals in rural provinces. Ahmad
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was proud of his work, proud of serving his country,
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proud of the future he was helping build. But as
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I sat in my Tel Aviv control center reviewing the
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documents we'd stolen, I knew Ahmad's world was about to collapse.
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His meticulous calculations, his careful research notes, his detailed technical drawings,
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they weren't feeding Iran's civilian nuclear program. They were providing
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the foundation for fifteen nuclear weapons. The stolen archive contained
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videos of meetings where senior officials discussed Project one ten,
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code for nuclear warhead production. Ahmad's uranium enrichment research was
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being used to produce weapons grade material. His centrifuge designs
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were being modified for military applications. His dreams of peaceful
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atomic energy were feeding a program designed to incinerate cities.
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We had to tell him more accurately. I had to
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calculate whether telling him would serve our operational needs. The
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mathematics were brutal but clear. Doctor Ahmad Tehrani represented a
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potential intelligence asset worth more than his weight in enriched uranium.
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But first we had to survive Colonel Karemi's investigation. Karemi
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was everything Iranian intelligence should have been. Methodical, brilliant, utterly
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dedicated to protecting his homeland. In the weeks following the
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warehouse heist, he'd coordinated a man hunt involving tens of
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thousands of personnel. He'd identified three of our extraction routes.
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He'd arrested a tea house owner who'd provided cover for
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our operatives. He was closing in on the network that
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had made the heist possible. What he wasn't doing was
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sharing everything with his superiors. The first clue came in
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April twenty nineteen, two months After that midnight message, one
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of our deep cover assets in Tehran reported unusual activity
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in Karremi's investigation. Files were being moved, witnesses were being
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questioned privately. Evidence was disappearing from official reports archive control.
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The asset reported, something's wrong with the wolf's hunt. He's
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tracking prey, but not the prey they think. I spent
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weeks trying to understand the pattern. Kremi was conducting two
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parallel investigations, one visible to Iranian leadership, another hidden in
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classified channels they couldn't access. The visible investigation was making
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steady progress toward dead ends. The hidden investigation was making
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disturbing discoveries about the scope of our penetration. The breakthrough
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came when Karemi himself requested a meeting. The encrypted message
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appeared on my screen on a Tuesday morning in May.
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The wolf knows his pack has been compromised. Time to
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choose sides. Director Cohen authorized the contact. If this is
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a trap, he warned, we lose more than an operation,
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We lose you. Marcus. I understood the calculation. If Karemi
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was legitimate, he represented unprecedented access to Iranian intelligence. If
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he was running a counter operation, my capture would give
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Ron everything they needed to roll up our networks, but
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the mathematics were compelling. The intelligence Kareemi could provide was
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worth the risk, and frankly, after twenty years of calculating
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human lives like variables and equations, I was curious to
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meet the man who'd been hunting us with such impressive precision.
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The meeting took place in Istanbul, in the basement of
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a carpet shop owned by one of our Turkish assets.
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I arrived first, carrying a briefcase containing documents that would
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prove our sincerity or get me killed if this was
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a trap. Koremi entered alone, precisely on time. Tall, gray haired,
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with the measured movements of someone accustomed to command. He
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looked exactly like what he was, a career intelligence officer
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who'd spent decades serving his country with distinction. Mister Cole,
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he said, in accent to English, settling into the chair
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across from me, we need to discuss the future of
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the Middle East. For the next three hours, Colonel Darius
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Kreimi told me a story that redefined everything we thought
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we knew about Iranian intelligence. Kareimi had joined Iran's intelligence
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service in nineteen ninety five, motivated by genuine patriotism and
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a desire to protect his homeland from foreign interference. He'd
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risen through the ranks during years when Iran faced real
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threats American invasion plans, Israeli assassination campaigns, terrorist attacks by
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opposition groups. But somewhere in the darkness of intelligence work,
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Kareimi had begun to question whether protecting Iran meant protecting
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its government. I've watched my country's leadership march toward nuclear war,
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he said, his voice carrying the weight of impossible decisions.
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They speak of weapons as if they were firecrackers. They
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calculate acceptable casualties in the millions. They've convinced themselves that
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nuclear deterrence requires nuclear weapons, not nuclear restraint. The turning
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point came in twenty eighteen, when Karemi was tasked with
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investigating our warehouse heist. As he reviewed the stolen documents,
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the ones we'd left behind to obscure the scope of
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our operation, he realized he was looking at evidence of
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a nuclear weapons program far more advanced than Iranian leadership
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had admitted. I spent my career protecting Iran from foreign threats.
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He continued, but the greatest threat to my country isn't
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Israeli bombs or American sanctions. It's Iranian leadership that believes
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nuclear weapons will make us safer instead of making us targets.
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Karemi had made his choice months before our meeting. He
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would help Israel prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, not
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because he supported Israeli policy, but because he understood the
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mathematics of nuclear war better than his own government. How
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many others, I asked, twenty three in my division alone,
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he replied, Analysts, technicians, operatives who joined to serve Iran
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and discovered they were serving a regime that will destroy
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Iran to maintain power. Twenty three Iranian intelligence officers working
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secretly for Israel. The scope of the penetration was staggering
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and terrifying. If Iranian leadership discovered the network, the executions
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would make headlines for weeks. But Karremi wasn't finished. There's
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something else you need to know. Doctor Ahmad Tehrani has
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been asking questions about his research applications. He's starting to
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understand what Project one ten really involves. This was the
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moment I'd been calculating for months. Irani represented both an
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opportunity and a risk. If we could recruit him, he'd
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provide unprecedented access to Iran's nuclear program. If he discovered
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the truth and reported it, he'd trigger security reviews that
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could expose Karemi's network. What do you recommend, I asked,
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Tell him the truth, Karimi said, show him what his
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research is feeding. Give him the choice his government has
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taken away. Three weeks later, I authorized an operation that
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still haunts my private file of names and faces. Doctor
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Ahmad Trani received an unmarked envelope at his Tehran apartment,
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inside photographs from the stolen archive showing his research being
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used for weapons development, technical specifications for nuclear warheads incorporating
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his uranium enrichment calculations, video footage of military officials discussing
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delivery systems for atomic weapon and a handwritten note, if
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you want to save your country from nuclear war, someone
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needs to know you're asking questions. The response came faster
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than we'd calculated. TEHRANI requested a meeting through channels that
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proved he understood operational security better than most trained intelligence officers.
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The meeting location a medical conference in Vienna, where his
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attendance would seem routine. I didn't go myself. The operational
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risk was too high, and I had twenty three Iranian
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double agents to coordinate from Tel Aviv. Instead, we sent
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doctor Sarah Rosen, the linguistics professor who'd spent months in
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Tehran preparing for the warehouse heist. Sarah had volunteered for
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the assignment despite the psychological cost. She had already betrayed
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Iranian hospitality once by conducting reconnaissance under academic cover. Now
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she would recruit an Iranian scientist by destroying his faith
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in everything he'd work to build. He looked like my grandfather,
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she reported after the Vienna meeting, intelligent dedicated, completely convinced
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he was serving the greater good. When I showed him
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the evidence of what his research really fed he aged
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ten years and ten minutes. Doctor Alma Tarani made his
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choice that night in Vienna. He would provide Israel with
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intelligence about Iran's nuclear program. Not because he supported Israeli policy,
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but because he understood that preventing nuclear wars sometimes requires
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betraying your government to save your country. The network grew
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through twenty nineteen. In twenty twenty, Karemi's initial twenty three
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operatives became fifty seven. Tarani recruited colleagues who shared his
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concerns about weapons development. We established communication channels that could
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survive Iranian counterintelligence investigations, but networks built on moral complexity
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are inherently unstable. Every operative carried the weight of betraying
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their homeland to serve their principles. Every meeting risked exposure
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that would result in execution. Every intelligence report brought us
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closer to preventing nuclear war and closer to triggering conventional war.
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The first casualty came in November twenty twenty. Doctor Mosen Rahimi,
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Iran's chief nuclear scientist, was assassinated while traveling with his
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wife near Tehran. The operation used a remote controlled machine
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gun mounted in a truck, precision that was only possible
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with intelligence provided by our network. I coordinated that assassination
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from my Tel Aviv control center, calculating angles and timing
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while watching satellite feeds of Iranian security forces discovering Rahimi's
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body another name for my private file. Another human cost
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in the equation of preventing nuclear war. Doctor Tehrani attended
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Rahimi's funeral. He watched colleagues grieve for a man who'd
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been developing weapons capable of destroying cities. He calculated the
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moral mathematics of assassination one scientist's death to prevent millions
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of civilian cares casualties. But attending that funeral cost Tehrani
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something irreplaceable. He began drinking, He stopped calling his daughter
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in London. He started questioning whether any of US Iranian,
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Israeli American deserved to survive the wars we were fighting
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in the shadows. I'm not sleeping, he reported in a
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message transmitted through Koremi's network. I see Rahimi's face. I
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know his research was feeding weapons development, but he had grandchildren,
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He coached youth soccer, He donated blood to disaster victims.
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We killed a human being, not just a nuclear scientist.
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That message reached my desk on a December morning, when
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Tehran was covered in snow. I read it three times.
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Calculating the psychological breakdown of an asset worth more than
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most military divisions, Doctor Ahmad Trani was questioning the moral
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foundation of everything we'd built. The mathematical solution was clear,
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replace a compromised asset with fresh recruitment. The human cost
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was equally clear. Ahmad Tehrani would likely be executed if
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Iranian counterintelligence discovered his communications with Israel. But sometimes the
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calculations make themselves. We needed Tehrani's intelligence to prevent nuclear war.
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His psychological state was a variable we had to manage,
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not a reason to abandon the operation. Three months later,
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Karimi reported disturbing news. Iranian leadership had discovered inconsistencies in
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nuclear program security. They suspected foreign intelligence penetration. They were
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conducting interviews with personnel who had access to sensitive research.
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The wolf says, the hunt is turning inward. Came the
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encrypted message. Time to be very careful. Iranian paranoia was intensifying.
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Security reviews were expanded. Personnel with foreign contacts were being questioned.
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Network that had taken three years to build was under
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pressure that could collapse it in weeks. But the greater
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pressure was coming from Iranian nuclear development itself. Intelligence provided
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by our network indicated that Iran was accelerating weapons research.
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They were months away from producing weapons grade uranium and
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quantity sufficient for multiple nuclear devices. Time was running out
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for preventing nuclear war through intelligence operations. Military action was
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becoming inevitable. The final message from Colonel Koremi came in
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May twenty twenty five. Archive Control the Wolf reports that
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Tehran has decided to complete the weapons program regardless of
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international pressure. They believe nuclear deterrence requires nuclear weapons, not
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nuclear negotiations. Recommend immediate action to prevent irreversible escalation. I
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forwarded that message to Director Cohen, who forwarded it to
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Prime Minister Weiss, who authorized the operation the world would
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know as Rising Line. But as I write this now,
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seven years after that warehouse heist in Shabad, I have
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to reckon with the human cost of the network we built.
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Colonel Karimi was executed by hanging in Tehran last week
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after being convicted of treason. Doctor Ahmad Tehrani died in
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Israeli air strikes during the opening hours of Rising Lion,
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killed by the very military action his intelligence had helped
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make possible. Twenty three Iranian intelligence officers who chose conscience
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over country, fifty seven nuclear scientists and technicians who risked
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everything to prevent nuclear war, dozens of support personnel who
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believed they were serving the greater good. All of them
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are gone now, some executed by Iranian authorities who discovered
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their betrayal. Others killed in military strikes they helped plan.
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The network that prevented nuclear war was consumed by the
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very conflict that tried to prevent, But their sacrifice accomplished
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something unprecedented in the mathematic of modern warfare. The intelligence
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they provided enabled precision strikes that destroyed Iran's nuclear weapons
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program while minimizing civilian casualties. The war they helped trigger