Are There Iranian Spies in the Biden Administration and Think Tanks?
Why did Ariane Tabatabai receive security clearance?
By Chuck Warren
A recent report by Semafor and Iran International, a media company run by the pro-democracy Iranian diaspora, proves that there has been an ongoing, decade-long, effort by the Islamic Republic of Iran to recruit first- and second-generation immigrants from Iran who work in foreign policy and recruit them to influence U.S. policy in the Islamic Republic’s favor from inside and outside of the government. As evidence, the report publishes the private email correspondence of these people with officials at the Islamic Republic’s ministry of foreign affairs and they are a sight to see.
The report names six people, two Iranian–Americans, and one senior official at the Department of Defense. Ariane Tabatabai, the chief of staff to the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, initially joined the Joe Biden administration as a senior adviser at the Department of State where she advised on, what else, Iran policy. Later, she moved to the Pentagon. The most important part of her current portfolio is Iran, given that “low-intensity conflict,” meaning military engagements that are too small to be an actual war, is the only ongoing form of fighting that the U.S. military currently does, Iran is the most potent adversary in this kind of conflict.
Tabatabai receiving security clearance should itself be a scandal. Iranian–Americans constantly accused her of being a spy for the Islamic Republic regime. They distributed pictures of her father receiving an award from Hassan Rouhani, then president of Iran and shaking the hands of the grandson of Ruhollah Khomeini, the America-hating leader of the 1979 revolution who ordered his goons to take American diplomats hostage for 444 days.
Those warnings fell on deaf ears, and many of her defenders and friends on the left responded that these attacks were due to xenophobia and bigotry—even though they were mostly coming from fellow Iranian–Americans. Now, we have evidence that they were right.
The emails show that, before joining the administration, Tabatabai would clear her trips with the Islamic Republic and asked for permission to travel to Saudi Arabia and Israel—permission for the latter was denied, and she didn’t take the trip despite an invitation from Ben Gurion University. Another time, she asked the regime for talking points as the U.S. Senate had asked her to brief them on Iran’s nuclear program. On a third occasion, she sent her article for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to the ministry of foreign affairs, boasting that she had advocated for Iran’s position that the regime needed more than 1,500 centrifuges for civil purposes, and the U.S. diplomats should accept Iran’s demands.
Another key figure is Ali Vaez. He used to work for Rob Malley before Malley became the special representative for Iran at the State Department, and the two remain close. (Malley is on a forced leave from the department being under FBI investigation for mishandling classified documents. Despite Congressional inquiries, the administration has refused to disclose the case with the legislative branch, but Tehran Times somehow got its hands on some documents regarding the case. Connect the dots!) During the Barack Obama administration, when Malley also was working on Iran negotiations, he deputized Vaez to meet with the Islamic Republic’s diplomats and discuss nuclear issues on his behalf, even though Vaez was neither a government employee nor had security clearance. After Biden hired Malley, Malley tried to hire Vaez at his office, but according to the report, Vaez’s request for security clearance was denied, and he never joined Malley’s team.
At least not officially. Despite the concerns that denied Vaez clearance, Malley nonetheless relied on Vaez’s advice. He sought Vaez’s counsel on policy recommendations, and Vaez even drafted tweets for Malley. It is unclear whether Malley still asked his friend to meet with the other side for negotiations like during the Obama administration.
Vaez, it turns out, doesn’t have the U.S. interest at heart. According to one email he sent to Javad Zarif, then the Islamic Republic’s minister of foreign affairs, Vaez saw his “national and patriotic duty as an Iranian to help you (Zarif) and your team.”
Even though the report names six people, it mentions that there is nearly a dozen of them. The other four mentioned are not of our immediate interest since they are not Americans; they are European citizens. It raises the question: Are there any more in the United States, possibly inside the government?
One would assume that a scandal of this magnitude has the focus of all journalists and media, and the administration is on top of this security breach. But as my grandfather taught, “assumption is the mother of all screw ups.”
After being asked about Tabatabai, the State Department spokesperson said that they are “proud of her service.” The scandal has not received a single mention in the mainstream media 48 hours later. Not even the New York Times with the slogan “All the News Fit to Print,” has not found time to put someone on this issue. Why bother with that when we now have judges who are real estate appraisers?
Unless you are a consumer of conservative news media, you wouldn’t know that anything has happened, meanwhile we might have an enemy spy overseeing American troops who are targeted by Iran’s proxies on a regular basis.
In normal times, people would have resigned already, with others arrested. We wouldn’t be hearing about anything else in the news. Sadly, our once esteemed mainstream news sources are more in the “Protect Biden” racket then investigate anything that would put a negative spotlight on the Biden Administration. As a result, the 4th Estate is endangering out national security.