“It is no longer clear that Iran sees carrying out an attack in the United States as crossing some sort of red line,” according to Matthew Levitt, director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He testified before the committee Wednesday at a hearing on the threat that Iran and Hezbollah pose to America.

“Hezbollah has long had a substantial base of supporters in North America,” he noted in his prepared testimony. “This includes some operatives with military and operational training and a much larger pool of sympathizers and supporters who provide funding and some logistical support to the group but could be called upon to support operational activity should the group decide to carry out an attack here.”

Levitt calculated that such a decision became more likely if the organization perceived that the US was directly targeting or seeking to undermine the group.