It’s not a war of aggression in the Middle East without the American media pushing out nonstop “sleeper cell” stories built on vague paranoia, supposed “chatter,” deliberate conflation of Sunni with Shia “terrorism,” and an even more deliberate conflation of mentally unwell “lone wolves” with state agents of Iran, sourced entirely from ex-spooks, zionist advocacy groups, and/or anonymous leaks from the US government. A trope as old as the War on Terror, “sleeper cell” stories are a media favorite because they require no actual reporting beyond copy-and-pasting anonymous government officials and quoting conflicted pro-war lobbyists, while providing an urgent sense of stakes to an increasingly cynical and war-weary public. Whenever polls show increased skepticism or opposition to bombing people 6,500 miles away, the U.S. security state and its media conduits can build support for these far-off wars by insisting that “sleeper agents” from the populations being bombed are hiding among you at your local PTA meeting or grocery store or strip mall and are ready to kill you and your loved ones at any time. This brings the war home without the messy burden of “evidence,” “proof,” or Things That Have Actually Happened. 

Since the US launched its unprovoked war on Iran on Feb. 28, and in the weeks leading up to the attack, US media has uncritically promoted the broad narrative that Iranian sleeper agents are living among Westerners waiting on word to strike at any moment:

In addition to national media, there’s been a torrent of similar reports in local news. For one typical example, see this unhinged segment from West Palm Beach ABC affiliate WPBF: 

These reports rely almost entirely on anonymous current government officials or past FBI “sources” with clear financial and/or ideological biases. The claims are vague, hyperbolic, and impossible to independently verify. The only actual evidence any of these reports can provide of Iranian “sleeper cells” are supposed DOJ indictments of Iranian and non-Iranian nationals who get caught up in elaborate FBI sting operations for, allegedly attempting to hire undercover agents to kill US. officials. These “plots,” as I’ve detailed elsewhere, are often manufactured and pushed along by the FBI and have little relation to actual plots planned by the actually existing Iranian government—or ISIS or al Qaeda. One 2014 report by Trevor Aaronson and Margot Williams found that the majority of terror convictions involved no actual designated terrorist organization and were simply someone “providing material support” to undercover FBI agents or informants posing as “terrorists.” Human Rights Watch found a similar pattern in its 214 page 2014 study, writing that “…nearly 50 percent of the more than 500 federal counterterrorism convictions resulted from informant-based cases; almost 30 percent of those cases were sting operations in which the informant played an active role in the underlying plot.”

This underlying Potemkin reality is what credible journalists draw from to provide any shred of factual basis for the sleeper cell fiction, despite the fact that it doesn’t even fit the profile of the alleged sleeper cells in question. The narrative being advanced is that these are undercover Iranian agents “living amongst us” for “years,” while “blending in” to our communities. Those convicted by the FBI, to the extent we accept the US government’s narrative, had visited the US for the express purposes of harming US officials in retaliation for killing Iranian officials, namely their military chief Gen. Qassim Suleiman in 2020. There was no “terror plot” targeting innocent civilians and no wholesome family of six living next door for years waiting to be activated like in an episode of 24. This narrative, designed to sow fear and promote racial profiling, is a Hollywood fiction for which we have zero evidence. It exists largely in the minds of security state lobbyists and racist Israeli propagandists who feed a willing media a steady stream of paranoia, which they dutifully publish without an ounce of skepticism. 

Every one of the above reports from the past few days cites the March 2 mass shooting in Austin that left two dead and over a dozen injured as evidence the threat is real. The shooter was reportedly wearing an undershirt with an Iranian flag underneath his hoodie, but he was not—and no one in the government is even claiming he was––an Iranian “sleeper agent.” He was, instead, as even the right-wing New York Post noted, a local, “known emotionally disturbed person.” There will always be emotionally disturbed “lone wolves” that have nothing to do with Iran, or any “sleeper agents,” and the FBI’s track record in foiling these actual plots is basically non-existent. So why are they being used as evidence of “sleeper cells”? The Iranian government is as connected to the Austin shooter as the US government is, but these reports, sparse on actual evidence, need to build a connection in the viewer or reader’s mind to support the thin premise that there’s an actual “sleeper cell” threat. 

This brings us to another bizarre part of “sleeper cell” reporting. What is the actual news value of it? Even if one accepts the dubious premise, what is the call to action, exactly? It’s unclear what use this information has to media consumers beyond vaguely frightening us and insisting we racially profile. ABC affiliate WPBF tells viewers to “trust their gut and be aware of their surroundings,” before finishing off with the Orwellian adage that “if we see something, say something.” Are we supposed to dig through our Arab neighbors’ trash? Interrogate our Iranian ophthalmologist? It’s unclear what the news utility of the mindless fearmongering is beyond mindless fearmongering.   

The New York Times, consistent with its pre-Iraq War coverage, promoted a softer, more liberal version of this narrative in the buildup to Trump’s Iran attack, relying entirely on supposed “chatter,” Trump administration officials, and allied war-promoting “analysts.” They even took the narrative a step further, making the extraordinary claim that Iran was working with al-Qaeda and could activate al-Qaeda “sleeper cells” inside Europe:

There is also concern in Europe that Hezbollah sleeper cells or even Al Qaeda or its affiliates could be ordered to attack American bases or embassies. One senior U.S. official said that government analysts were tracking “a lot” of activity and planning but that it was unclear what could trigger an attack.

Setting aside the fact that Iran is a Shia-run government and al-Qaeda is a sectarian Sunni wahhabism organization that axiomatically hates Shia Muslims, it’s Iran’s geopolitical enemies—namely the Sunni-run governments in Saudi Arabia and Qatar—that have a history of funding and backing al-Qaeda. What is the New York Times’ evidence supporting this potentially explosive claim? “A photograph of Saif al-Adel, the de facto head of Al Qaeda, in Iran” is all that’s provided. How do we know this New Bad Guy is in Iran? Or what does a photo of him in Iran mean? Or why is it evidence al-Qaeda is now an appandage of the Iranian government? It’s never explained. The FBI’s New York branch is simply taken as, per se, a credible source on such matters, as are unnamed “some analysts.” Decades of sectarian differences are magically papered over as the supply for inflated threats meets the rapidly growing market demand from a security establishment in urgent need of excuses to justify its unprovoked war on Iran. 

The “sleeper cell” trope is, of course, as old as the so-called war on terror. Despite there not being a single instance of a civilian-targeted killing event from a “sleeper cell” since the narrative took hold after 9/11, we’ve seen some version of these “warnings” nonstop for 25 years, all propped up by a steady stream of manufactured FBI “plots” that give the illusion our security services are constantly disarming bombs with two seconds remaining—while our media routinely glosses over the fact that the bombs were inert and, as is most often the case, provided by the FBI itself.   

The Trump administration has an obvious incentive to push out this hand-picked “intelligence.” In addition to promoting their deeply unpopular war on Iran, they are also explicitly using it as a wedge to pressure Democrats into abandoning ICE and DHS reforms, with Trump officials making the media rounds today pushing just this talking point. “Concerns about potential Iran-linked sleeper cells are rising as the Department of Homeland Security remains unfunded and Tehran and its proxies threaten retaliation,” reads a typical Fox News report. With this obvious dual conflict of interests in mind, one would think supposedly reputable outlets like ABC News, the New York Times, and the LA Times would take these “warnings” with a grain of salt, perhaps seek a skeptical source to provide some type of balance. But alas, the country is once again gripped in war fervor, and vague claims that terrorists could be “living amongst us” remain an essential element in selling these forever wars—the substance, details and point of which remain elusive to the average American living thousands of miles of away, who are only allowed to make the largely abstract killing of children in Iran intelligible via racist caricature and “war on terror” fearmongering. 

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Adam Johnson hosts the Citations Needed podcast and writes at The Column on Substack. Follow him @adamjohnsonCHI.