Iran has sleeper cells throughout the United States and the West that will unleash suicide bombings should Iranian nuclear facilities be attacked.

The leaders of the Islamic regime have long prepared for a confrontation with the United States. Now, with tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. Navy assets taking position in the Persian Gulf, Israel threatening strikes against Iranian nuclear sites and the decision by the regime in Tehran to pursue its goal of obtaining nuclear weapons, the Iranians are making it clear to America that U.S. military bases around the world and sites inside the U.S. will be attacked if Iranian nuclear facilities are attacked.

In a recent Friday prayers sermon in Tehran, the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, promised that if America attacked Iran, Iran would respond by causing 10 times as much destruction to America as it had caused to Iran. Others in the regime have been more specific.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper recently told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about his concerns of Iran’s willingness to attack the United States in response to any confrontation.

As I reported last June, Brig. Gen. Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, during a gathering of high-ranking members of the Revolutionary Guards command and the Basij militia, announced that Iranian assets have successfully infiltrated deep within the West, from Europe to New York.

Another commander of the Guards, Hussein Babai, revealed that Hezbollah terrorist cells, under the direction of Iran, began forming after the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah. With the current Arab Spring, they have expanded their operations. Their mission, Babai said, is to help create an Islam-dominated world.

With my background as a CIA spy in the Revolutionary Guards, I can attest to how the Guards successfully use mosques, Islamic cultural centers, Islamic student associations, alliances with other Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and Muslims from Afghani and Pakistani groups to infiltrate the West and infect its society.

The Iranian Quds Forces along with Hezbollah cells have a large presence in Latin America, especially in Venezuela, and through collaboration with drug cartels, they get into Mexico and from there into the United States.

In order to understand their motives, one must understand their ideology, which is best described in articles by Alireza Forghani, the former governor of Kish Province and an analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei’s camp. I recently exposed one piece, carried on every major Iranian media outlet and within the Revolutionary Guards, that detailed Iran’s religious duty to destroy Israel and kill all Jews. Forghani now promises an Iranian response to any attack by America on the world stage.

His latest piece, entitled “We Welcome War,” warns America that within 48 hours of any attack on Iran, all U.S. military installations around the world will be attacked by martyrdom-seeking Muslims.

He then quotes the Quran (Al-Anfal 60): “Prepare with all your armaments and force in your possession to confront the enemy so that your enemies and enemies of Allah will become fearful.”

In Islam, he says, war is a duty and Allah will resent any Muslim who backs down from it.

“America should know that while they have been preparing for war, we  have been ready for the re-appearance of the Imam Mahdi, Shiites’ 12th Imam, and ready for war and jihad,” he says. “America should know that while it pays its soldiers to fight, the Islamic fighters wage jihad in war with pride, as dying otherwise is too shameful for them.”

Then Forghani makes the clearest threat by stating that America should know there are many young people of Hezbollah who are placed outside Iran and that they will carry out attacks and martyrdom operations on every American military base in 112 countries around the world in less than 48 hours after any aggression by America.

He concludes that “America needs to know that while the American youth shout the slogan ‘Stop the war,’ for fear of dying, the children of Ruhollah [Khomeini], founder of the Islamic regime, never flee from war and always pray to Allah for the chance of martyrdom.”

Renowned Iranian ideologue Hassan Rahim Poor Azgadi, in a speech titled “A Model for Tomorrow,” which recently aired on Iran’s state-owned TV, called for jihad in Europe and America. He said that Iran’s forces must get ready for a global operation.

He says that the Islamic revolution in Iran, as promised, has now been exported and warned that “our fellow fighters” are present in all five continents of the world in the fight against imperialism and in preparation for the coming of Mahdi. Shiites believe the 13th-century imam demands world chaos and destruction — Armageddon — before he will return.

An international jihad must be provoked, Azgadi said, and there must be no fear of anyone. Citing Khomeini’s dictate that “We must destroy Israel and free Jerusalem,” Azgadi concludes that “We will do this.”

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award-winning book, “A Time to Betray.” He is a senior fellow with EMPact America and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).