Clarke, who served three presidents as counterterrorism czar, believes that the United States was probably behind the cyberattack on Iran—and the U.S. is now vulnerable to having it turned back against it:
‘I think it’s pretty clear that the United States government did the Stuxnet attack,’ he said calmly.
This is a fairly astonishing statement from someone in his position.
‘Alone or with Israel?’ I asked.
‘I think there was some minor Israeli role in it. Israel might have provided a test bed, for example. But I think that the U.S. government did the attack and I think that the attack proved what I was saying in the book [which came out before the attack was known], which is that you can cause real devices—real hardware in the world, in real space, not cyberspace—to blow up.’
“Richard Clarke on Who Was Behind the Stuxnet Attack.” — Ron Ronsenbaum, Smithsonian
Get the Longreads Weekly Email