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[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
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.
Almost as good as her former role representing the United States in the Iran negotiations.
In 2021, when the State Department had brought in Tabatabai as a senior adviser to the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, a congressional letter urged that her security clearance be pulled. The letter stated that Tabatabai “has echoed Iranian regime talking points and has made excuses for Iran’s oppressive government.
“Why would we hire someone… who has access and security clearance to some of the most sensitive and important issues there [and] who obviously has had a relationship with the administration in Iran?” Rep. Van Drew asked.
Biden’s State Department Spokesman Ned Price claimed that she “was thoroughly vetted and investigated before being granted the position. Any suggestion of security-related concerns about Dr. Tabatabai are baseless and illegitimate.” He fumed that, “we will not sit idly by as our employees—dedicated public servants—face personal smears and slander.”
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.
Before Tabatabai testified about the Iran Deal in Congress, she allegedly checked in with the head of an Iranian Foreign Ministry think tank. “I am scheduled to go to the Congress to give a talk about the nuclear program. I will bother you in the coming days,” she wrote.
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.
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.
When Saudi Prince Turki al Faisal proposed having her visit Saudi Arabia, Tabatabai emailed her handler asking, “I would like to know your opinion; would you be interested in this?”
This is the language of an agent acting on behalf of an enemy nation and raises legal questions.
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.
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.
The speed with which Tabatabai, who had been living in Iran during the Ahmadinejad 2009 election, has been able to fully penetrate the highest echelons of our national defense in a little over a decade is a testament to the national security collapse within a disloyal bureaucracy.
Under the Obama administration allegiance to the Iran Deal came to matter more than allegiance to the United States. Anyone willing to argue, as Tabatabai was, that Iran was eager to make a deal and could be trusted to keep to its terms had a smooth glide path into the liberal defense establishment that was busy sidelining the ‘hawks’ skeptical of Iran’s intentions.
Churning out articles like “Why Regime Change in Iran Wouldn’t Work” and “Don’t Fear the Hard-Liners” didn’t make Ariane Tabatabai look like an Iranian government propagandist, but like an Obama administration propagandist. Even while the Obama administration was covertly investigating its political opponents for ties to Israel and Russia, it had so thoroughly blurred the lines that Iranian propagandists couldn’t be told apart from administration figures.
Under Biden, who was backed by Iran lobby figures and benefited from an Iranian hacking campaign, the two groups have blended together so much that they are indistinguishable.
Robert Malley was the prototype of figures like Ariane Tabatabai and others who are not merely anti-American in the traditional leftist fashion, but appear to have outright foreign allegiances. The Left, like most extremist movements, is no longer capable of making such distinctions. And neither is a government whose foreign policy ranks are being populated by Iran Deal advocates.
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.
Their motto is “Why not the Worst?”
All of these Iranian double agents should be shown the door
NO!!! They should be shown the electric chair, or hangman”s noose, or firing squad, or gas chamber, or however we are KILLING PEOPLE these days. Along with whoever HIRED them! In fact, I propose the ENTIRE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION BE RIGHT BEHIND THEM IN LINE. STARTING WITH JOE!!!!!
I agree 100%. When others come into our country they need to assimilate . We should have no one in our government or education system who not only speaks of hatred to others but those in our universities are pushing their beliefs onto our children. They are there to teach the truth not their warped ideas .
The Biden administration has destroyed our country. Biden himself is a narcissist, liar and plagiarist. Many of those he has placed in high positions are inept to say the least.
It amazes me that when asked who our citizens would vote for, Biden or Trump they state they would vote for Biden because they can’t stand Trump. The position of POTUS is not a popularity contest but who would dedicate him or herself to the protection of our citizens and our country. Someone told me they would vote for Biden because he has been in government for 50 years and he is pro union. Do they not understand that union affiliated workers are importent but so are the lives of us citizens. I never thought I would see our once wonderful country in this condition.
Shown the door to prison, or worse.
Here’s a simple and very effective advice for all US national security agencies.
Any Iranian who is not against the Iranian islamic regime is an enemy of the United states and should be treated as such.
Not just in words, but in actions. What have these Iranians done to fight the mullahs?
She looks like a butch lesbo, the kind that would be hung in iran.
“The Left, like most extremist movements, is no longer capable of making such distinctions.” But what if it can make such distinctions and simply is not merely anti-American in the traditional leftist fashion, but has outright foreign allegiances as a result of its antipathy to America? I’m sure John Anthony Walker Jr. and Robert Philip Hanssen were also “thoroughly vetted and investigated before being granted the position.” How did they work out?
The left is loyal to its own cause and quite hostile to us. It assumes that it can indoctrinate any of its fellow travelers into its worldview and fails to understand the worldview of those such as Islam or when its own people are being suborned
Caroline Glick has a column today on JNS’s website today, “What Iran’s penetration of Washington means” that pretty comprehensively details the penetration of both the Obama and Biden administrations by Iran with both of the knowledge and permission. Guess the Dems must agree with Iran that we’re “The Great Satan.” Who knew?
Overthrow our constitutional republic into a totalitarian ,new world order first . Ask questions later .
That sounds like the MAGA playbook to me.
If it was, you’d be MAGA, Dio, you treasonous POS.
The left is proving your point every day and is getting stronger and stronger with the help of the news media- actually, all forms of media; even sports, and social media, entertainment media, and advertising media. Their voters are gullible and misinformed, but damnably certain that their cause is righteous and that they have the permission of their elected leaders (the laws and the Constitution) to counter opposition in any way they choose.
moslems have no place in positions of power in any free and civilized country
Example
bHo
Khan
Omar
etc
etc
Mr. Greenfield you deleted my very apropos comment here about Diana West’s books and Mr. Horowitz. Why?
Yesterday you edited a comment I posted on your blog article “Where’s the Education Money Going? $20B of it’s Going To DEI”.
It’s one thing to reject a comment altogether because you don’t want to upset your boss, Mr. Horowitz.
But it’s thoroughly unethical to edit someone’s comment.
THX1138,
Mr. Greenfield does not moderate comments on FPM; I do.
We’ve never once “edited” one of your comments, and as we’ve previously explained, any comments that ended up in the “moderation queue” were ultimately approved once we had an opportunity to get to them.
We gladly invite you to stop commenting here if you continue to mistakenly believe you are being targeted or censored.
Best,
Site Administrator
If I go away this place will become a boring echo chamber but the most important thing is Objectivism is the answer if anyone of any religion or ideology wants to defend the American way of life which is the pursuit of happiness which is Laissez-Faire Capitalism.
So I’ll stay as long as you’ll allow me.
Raised my eyebrows. Though i do not know why i should be surprised
I’m perpetually cynical and surprised
“DEATH TO AMERICA” from within! silence, i keel you, allah akbar!
Now at the highest levels of our government
Sorry to be stupid, someone please explain the last sentence of your reply.
Achmed the dead terrorist, one of comedian/ventriloquist jeff dunham’s dummies. He’s always saying, “I keel you!” He also has an old man dummy that’s a lot like joe biden, though it wasn’t actually modeled on him.
We are so F’ed.
She/he writes for the suicidal organ, Haaretz, I bet they couldn’t wait to employ her… 🤮
Haaretz might as well move its HQ to Tehran
Daniel,
Thank you for this expose; mega-kudos. Watch your back, young man. In my book, this is treason! Will the spineless GOPe have the cajones to kick her & others to the curb. Not holding my breath.
However, nothing new. Even Hitler (a radical socialist) was in cahoots w/ the islamists – see the Mufti of Jerusalem, al-Husseini & a SS officer.
This case reminds me of the lardy drunk Ted Kennedy who wrote to the KGB in the ’80s to help him prevent Prez Ronald W. Reagan win the 2nd term. That was treason, too – aiding & abetting a mortal enemy.
And with the totally blank expression on their face like all liberals look when the surprise party is over and no one came
America is an occupied country. The government is controlled by a party that is ideologically Gramscian Marxist and internationalist with no loyalty to the United States, and that is legally illegitimate due achieving power through rigging and/or stealing the 2020 presidential election. They are waging war on the People of the United States of America by sabotaging them economically, waging cultural revolution on their traditions, practicing forms of genocide through medical tyranny (poison mRNA injections), sexual mutilation of children, sexual indoctrination of children, fostering climates of racial animosity against the White majority, releasing criminals, running sham court proceedings, Soviet-style show trials, releasing criminals, actively promoting lawlessness while criminalizing dissent and self-defense, and ethnic dilution by bringing 7 to 10 million third world illegal aliens into America since the theft of the 2020.
Is it any wonder that they would collaborate with foreign enemies, such as Iran in arena’s as national security? If your willing to provide sex reassignment surgery to minors, kill babies in the womb at 9 months, and facilitate en masse the importation of child rapists and fentanyl traffickers, that’s about as shocking a revelation as Larry Sinclair divulging that Barack Obama liked to smoke crack and have sex with men.
I believe that this comes courtesy of Obama, and his side-kick Valarie Jarrett. There are 3 of them actually. Three senior members of The Biden/Obama cabinet are simultaneously working for the Iranian mullahs. Since Obama served as president he has been working on a plan to make Iran supreme in the Middle East. That’s what his so-called “Muslim Spring” was all about. Biden is just Obama’s tired old puppet. The thing too old and crazy to throw darts at.
One an idiot and a fool or a treacherous treasonous villain would ,as explained by the old saying, “Appointing a fox to guard the hen house.”