Iranian sleeper cells are a threat John Kiriakou treats as real but widely misplaced. He confirms the basic fact — the IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security “have sleeper cells all over the world” — and then narrows the map considerably.[1]
Where they are
His doubt about the domestic threat is explicit: “I doubt that they have any in the United States, or Canada, or the UK.”[1][2]
Where he does place them: “They absolutely have them in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Argentina even.”[2]
The lone wolf
The category he considers “just as dangerous” is the attacker with no organisation behind him. His example is a man who, waving an Iranian flag, opened fire on bar patrons in Austin, Texas, killing four people and wounding seven before being shot and killed.[2][3]
Consistently poor operatives
On the quality of Iranian clandestine work, Kiriakou is dismissive and consistent with his assessment elsewhere of Iranian intelligence: “It’s all good. It’s never been good. And it’s because they don’t get good training.” Russia and China help “a little bit,” but not enough to change the picture.[4]
The target that would actually matter
The vulnerability he identifies in the Gulf is not military. If Iran were to attack an American military installation in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, “nobody’s going to really care.”[5]
What would register is a landmark — he names the Burj Al Arab, the sail-shaped hotel, as the kind of target whose destruction would carry a wholly different weight.[5]
The 2026 claim of cells inside the United States
Asked in June 2026 whether he feared Iranian retaliation on the American homeland, Kiriakou said he did not, and identified the fear itself as manufactured: “That was another lie perpetuated by Benjamin Netanyahu.”[6]
The claim he is answering is specific and dated — that in the days around the attack on Iran, Netanyahu alleged there were Iranian terrorist cells in cities all across the United States. Kiriakou’s rejection is categorical in both tenses: “that was made up out of whole cloth. It was a bald-faced lie. No such cells existed. No such cells ever existed.” The purpose he assigns it is domestic American opinion — “just to try to propagandize the American people and to sway them into supporting this illegal attack on Iran.”[7]
This sits alongside, rather than against, his assessment elsewhere that the IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security do maintain clandestine networks abroad. The distinction he draws here is not about Iranian capability in general but about a particular allegation of cells inside American cities, which he says was invented.
Asked again, in March 2026
Put to him a second time within a week, alongside a suggestion that the reports pointed to a false-flag operation, Kiriakou rejected both. On the false flag: “No, I don’t think so.” On the cells, he noted the repetition and declined to move: “somebody asked me just a week ago if there were Iranian sleeper cells in the United States and I said no. I still believe the answer is no.”[8]
His account of why the claim circulates is about purpose rather than error: “I think that the administration’s lying to us. It’s trying to scare us and it’s trying to bring people into line to support this war. There’s never been any evidence that there were Iranian sleeper cells.”[8]
What he allows is narrower, and he corrects himself downward mid-sentence — Iranian intelligence officers are “often times”, then “sometimes”, able to enter the country, and twice he adds “usually not”. They find it easier to reach Canada. When they do arrive, the ending is the same: “they invariably get caught before they’re even able to do their operation. So, I’m not worried about the Iranians.”[9]
The timing that Western audiences get wrong
Asked by a viewer whether a family friend should travel to Europe the following week, Kiriakou separated the existence of the threat from its schedule.
On existence he was affirmative on both counts: “There There will always be a threat from lone wolves,” and “it it’s true that the Iranians have cells here and there around the world.”[10]
On the specific trip he was not worried: “if you’re talking about traveling in Europe, no, I don’t think there’s any problem.”[11]
The reconciliation is a claim about tempo, and about a mistake he attributes to Western audiences generally: “I think Western audiences always kind of think that, you know, there’s going to be a a quick reaction to this sort of thing. That’s not That’s just not how it is. But there will be a reaction.”[11]
The warning is therefore not that the danger is imagined but that it is misdated — nearer in a year, he suggested, than in the week after the strikes.
”They’re just not here”
On the first day of the 2026 war, a viewer asked whether terrorist sleeper cells would be activated inside the United States. Rall handed it over as Kiriakou’s specialism, and the answer was a denial hedged only on currency.
“When I was when I was still inside, and granted my information’s old, there there were no sleeper cells in the US.”[12]
The denial is geographic rather than general: “There are most definitely sleeper cells in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia. They’re out there. They’re just not here.”[12]
It is the position on which he differs most publicly from Sarah Adams, whose commentary he characterises as a business built on the opposite claim.
When the reaction comes
Asked separately what the chances were that Iran would begin attacks in Israel and the West, Kiriakou put them high — “I think quite good. The chances are high enough that we should expect that to be the case” — and then moved the whole question onto a different timescale.[13]
“No, no, no, no, this is a long-term thing. It could be 5 years from now.”[13]
He also loosened the assumption of central direction: “It’s not necessarily directly ordered from Tehran. It’s like this could just be self-inspired people who are ideologically pissed off at what we’re doing and decide that, you know, we need to be punched in the nose.”[14]
The two answers are consistent — a real threat, misdated by Western audiences who expect it within the week.