Before I begin my post, I want to say that I stand unequivocally with Israel, the state, and its people, the Israelis. I am not Jewish and do not speak Hebrew, but I know liberty and brilliance when I see it. Israel has both.
I am quite upset about the moral equivalence I see on social media. I won’t link to any of it because it is so vile, but not standing with Israel right now is, in some ways, even worse than openly supporting Hamas. Just this morning someone criticized me on X for supporting Israel. They are blocked.
For Americans, besides openly supporting Israel, I highly suggest the following:
Someone commenting on another post of mine called another reader’s suggestion to defend yourself through the use of arms “seriously incautious.” I disagree. To each his own, I suppose, but I personally will not be defenseless.
Now, you probably heard that prior to Hamas’ attack on Israel, the Biden Administration transferred $6 billion to Iran, which obviously facilitated Iran’s support to Hamas and which led to Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Now we find out that the Biden Administration apparently frozen the $6 billion: Report: U.S., Qatar Agreed to Freeze Iran From Accessing $6 Billion.
Good for them.
But, even though the Biden Administration is freezing the $6 billion they were planning to give to Iran, a new report indicates that a senior Biden Administration Department of Defense official, with responsibility for U.S. military anti-terrorist actions, has disturbingly strong ties to Iran.
From Front Page Mag: Chief of Staff of Pentagon Counterterrorism Office Served Iranian Gov.
In 2016, Ariane Tabatabai co-wrote an article arguing that the United States should ally with Iran against ISIS. The Iranian immigrant suggested the United States Air Force could “provide air cover for Iranian-backed militia” and “the US and Iran can share intelligence on targets”. Finally she warned that “excluding Iran, the region’s major Shia state, from the international coalition built to fight ISIS worsens the regional sectarian conflict, ultimately playing into ISIS’ hands.”Tabatabai’s bio now describes her as the Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. Up from a Senior Advisor last year. The ASD(SO/LIC) office advises the Secretary of Defense on counterterrorism and it’s hard to think of a better place for a woman accused of being an Iran regime apologist to find herself in.
So, how is she an Iran regime apologist? What is the problem?
Front Page Mag explains:
Now a Semafor article by former Wall Street Journal chief correspondent Jay Solomon based on materials gathered by Iran International’s dissident media channel has revealed emails showing Tabatabai’s participation in a secret Iranian government to influence the United States.In 2014, a year before Tabatabai began working as a NATO consultant, she joined an initiative by the Iranian Foreign Ministry to mobilize “Iranians who have established affiliations with the leading international think-tanks and academic institutions, mainly in Europe and the US.”Tabatabai, along with Dina Esfandiary, her co-author on the proposal to have the United States ally with Iran, who is currently a senior Middle East advisor to George Soros’ Crisis Group, allegedly became members of the “core group” of Iran’s influence operation.
These influence operations allegedly included spreading pro-Iranian propaganda, which Iran was apparently thrilled about:
In 2015, while Tabatabai was consulting for NATO, serving as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Kennedy’s Atom/International Security Program and teaching at Georgetown University, the Iranian government was bragging about her propaganda. Emails containing her articles were circulated from the Iranian Foreign Ministry operation all the way to Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.Ariane Tabatabai personally forwarded her propaganda articles, including one claiming that Iran really needs nuclear energy and doesn’t intend to use it as a weapon.In one leaked message, Tabatabai emailed her handler her article, co-written again with Esfandiary, titled, “Meeting Iran’s nuclear fuel supply needs”. “Our goal was to show what is said in the West – that Iran does not need more than 1500 centrifuges – is wrong, and that Iran should not be expected to reduce the number of its centrifuges,” she allegedly told her handler.Her handler then forwarded the email to Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif.
Apparently, Tabatabai also represented the United States in negotiations with Iran, after spreading the pro-Iranian position on the exact same issue.
Before the Biden administration brought Tabatabai on board to negotiate with the Iranians, she was actually providing propaganda to bolster the nuclear arguments of Iran’s negotiators.It’s unknown when Ariane Tabatabai stopped working with Iran’s government. Or if she ever did. The exact degree of entanglement is unclear, but Tabatabai asked for permission from her handlers before visiting or meeting foreigners which implies that she was working for Iran.
So how did she become a member of the Biden administration?
In 2018, she became a senior fellow at the liberal Center for a New American Security whose members typically staff incoming Democrat administrations. That same year she also joined RAND which acts as the think tank for the military. At that point it was virtually certain that the next Democrat administration would bring her into the State Department and on defense issues.In 2021, Robert Malley, Biden’s Iran special envoy, currently under investigation for mishandling classified documents, who had turned over the negotiations to Iran lobbyists, brought Tabatabai into the negotiating team where she spent over a year before leaving over an undisclosed issue.
And despite multiple “red flags” about her ties to Iran, the Biden Administration continues to employ her in an extremely sensitive position made even more sensitive given Hamas’ Israeli bloodbath.
There were multiple red flags about her even before the release of the emails.Iranian dissidents had repeatedly warned about her ties to the regime. And even her own article on Iran’s “counterterrorism” in which she claims that Iran is actually fighting against terrorists, draws on “several years of fieldwork in Iran, interviews with current and former officials”.But the Biden administration chose to ignore those warnings and it has refused to address the emails, replying that it won’t comment on “purported leaked Iranian government documents.”Even in the face of serious evidence that the State Department and the Department of Defense are employing an enemy government agent, the Biden administration is not backing down.
Front Page Mag sums up:
Tabatabai’s elevation to Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict show how deep the rot is in the Department of Defense. The DOD, entrusted with defending the nation, has allowed itself to be suborned into ignoring national security and its allegiances in order to do the bidding of the Biden administration.Not just politics, but the most fundamental kind of national security, requires urgently cleaning house in the Pentagon. It’s either that or hand over control over our government to our enemies.
This is especially disheartening for me because, as a former career military officer, I had numerous dealings with high-ranking DOD civilian officials, and while we sometimes disagreed on technical issues and the proper way forward on certain issues, there was never any suggestion at all that any of us harbored any ill-will against the very people we were serving.
And, of course, not only is the administration tainted, but so is our very society:
Others make direct threats:
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