Pentagon Avoids Addressing Concerns Over Official With Iran Ties
The Pentagon has failed to respond in time to a congressional request for clarification on the hiring of a senior official with close ties to the regime in Iran.
The Pentagon has failed to respond in time to a congressional request for clarification on the hiring of a senior official with close ties to the regime in Iran.
Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee had required the Secretary of Defense to explain by October 3rd the decision to hire Arian Tabatabai, an Iranian American former analyst for a position with top level security clearance.
Neither the Defense Department nor any Biden administration official has offered an explanation about her status.
“The Department of Defense just blew past the October 3rd deadline,” read a post on the Armed Services GOP account on X (formerly Twitter). “We need answers on Ariane Tabatabai’s employment, her security clearance, and her relationship with the Iranian regime.”
Ariane Tabatabai serves as the Chief of Staff for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC). She drew much attention from lawmakers and activists after it was revealed in an investigative report by Iran International and Semafor that she had been a prominent member of an Iran-backed influence network –called the Iran Expert Initiative.
The revelation, based on a huge cache of leaked emails to and from the regime’s top diplomats was met with anger and disbelief at the Capitol.
The House Committee on Armed Services, which maintains oversight jurisdiction over the Department of Defense, wrote a letter to Secretary Lloyd Austin, expressing ‘deep concern’ with the hiring of Ariane Tabatabaei.
“No person…who acts as a foreign agent of influence, wittingly or unwittingly, should wield any synch influence over United States policy, or have access to such sensitive information,” the letter read.
The signatories, Mike Rogers and Jack Bergman (Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operation, respectively) asked Secretary Austin seven questions about Tabatabai, her employment and her clearance.
“Was Ms Tabatabai hired as a political appointee, a highly qualified expert, or a GS employee?” one question to Austin read. Another was, “what were her unique qualifications with respect to ASD/SOLIC that led to her hiring?”
But the Pentagon has so far refused to address the issue, despite numerous and persistent calls by lawmakers. The administration has also refused to take any visible action, such as suspending her security clearance or announcing an official investigation.
Senator Bill Hagerty has been one of the more vocal on this subject–and is still waiting for detailed info from the Pentagon. He’s one of around 30 Senators who demanded suspension of Tabatabai’s security clearance.
On Wednesday, he told Iran International he was "deeply concerned about the influence that the Iranian regime has been able to place on the Biden administration."
"It starts with Rob Malley,” Hagerty emphasized, “there's deep concern there about why his security clearance has been taken away.”
Robert Malley was Biden’s special envoy on Iran until late April, when his security clearance was suspended. He was then placed on unpaid leave in June. It’s not clear if the Iranian influence operation had anything to do with his suspension.
Malley is currently under FBI investigation for mishandling of classified material. Republicans in both the House and the Senate have been trying in vain to obtain information from the State Department.
Senator Hagerty told Iran International that he was “unsatisfied” with lack of response from the Biden administration, but that he will continue to press the State Department for answers.
Ariane Tabatabai worked for the State Department before joining the Pentagon. She was a close associate of Malley, serving on his team during the nuclear negotiations with Iran in 2021.
The international financial institution collected data from over 30 think tanks, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and private firms worldwide to encompass a wide range of perspectives on governance. However, in Iran's secretive regime, even its latest ranking, though low, begs questions as to the accuracy of the data provided, scoring suspiciously in areas such as rule of law.
Governance, defined as the traditions and institutions through which authority in a country is exercised, encompasses aspects such as the process of government selection, monitoring, and replacement, the government's ability to formulate and implement effective policies and the level of respect shown by citizens and the state towards the institutions that oversee economic and social interactions among them.
The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) feature six aggregate governance indicators for over 200 countries and territories from 1996 to 2022: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. The composite measures of governance are on a standard normal distribution scale, ranging from approximately -2.5 to 2.5, with higher values corresponding to better governance.
In none of the categories did the Islamic Republic regime even come close to zero, which represents the mean or average of the dataset.
The Voice and Accountability index measures the extent to which a country's citizens can participate in selecting their government, as well as the freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media. In 2022, Iran scored -1.45, placing the Islamic Republic among the lowest on the list. Since last year's uprising alone, hundreds of journalists have been imprisoned, and Iranian journalists abroad harassed and threatened, including Iran International journalists in London, who were temporarily forced to relocate to Washington.
The Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism index assesses the likelihood of political instability and/or politically motivated violence, including terrorism. In this category, Iran scored -1.59 in 2022. In addition to its being home to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp, Iran has militia proxies across the region from Syria and Lebanon to Yemen and Iraq.
Having extremely limited freedom of expression and the media, Iran holds one of the world's worst track records for human rights violations, with numerous international bodies and activists calling for the regime's accountability. Tehran does not allow UN rapporteurs to enter and dismisses reports by the United Nations or any other organization seeking to hold it responsible for its heavy-handed crackdown on dissent. Since last year's uprising, thousands of dissidents including stars of sport and entertainment, have been subject to brutal punishments ranging from imprisonment to travel bans and bank account freezes.
The country witnessed its biggest uprising against the ruling power in 2022 when protests erupted nationwide following the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody last September. The Iranian government temporarily relaxed its strict enforcement of hijab rules, with more women appearing in public wearing ordinary attire. However, since March, hardliners have intensified their rhetoric and actions to suppress women's defiance of hijab and regain lost ground. According to UN experts, the new measures amount to “gender apartheid.”
Iran scored -0.88 in government effectiveness, which reflects perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the government's commitment to such policies.
Regulatory quality concerns the government's ability to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that facilitate and promote private sector development. The Islamic Republic received a score of -1.59 in this category as well, placing it among the bottom 10 countries.
Ironically, in the Rule of Law index, Iran received a score of -1.02, which measures the extent of confidence in societal rules, including contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence. Surprisingly high, this is in spite of brutal crackdowns including mass arrests of journalists and academics, state-sanctioned violence against protesters, and widespread sexual abuse of women in the hands of security forces.
The Control of Corruption index evaluates the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, and Iran received a score of -1.13. According to Transparency International, which measures Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Iran ranked 150 out of 180 countries in 2021, one stop lower than a year earlier.
Critics of President Ebrahim Raisi's administration point to his poor and nepotistic appointments as contributing factors to an ineffective and inefficient government, as well as systemic corruption.
Good governance is not limited to affluent nations. In fact, more than a dozen developing and emerging countries, including Slovenia, Chile, Botswana, Estonia, Uruguay, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Mauritius, and Costa Rica, achieve governance scores that surpass those of industrialized countries like Italy or Greece.
Iran International’s exposé, Inside Tehran’s Soft War: How Iran Gained Influence in US Policy Centers, by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, and its twin report by Semafor’s Jay Salomon, Inside Iran’s Influence Operation, take the bull by its horns with its digital evidence of the existence of the “Iran Experts Network”, whereby members acted as agent provocateurs of the regime.
These reports stand out for their presentation of actual emails exchanged between US-Iranian experts and Iranian top diplomats. The topic? “Iran Nuclear negotiations”. After reading these reports, I realized how similar the Iranian foreign ministry’s and intelligence establishment’s efforts to successfully build an “Iran Experts Network” were to the account provided by Thomas Rid’s Active Measures: the Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare, a seminal work on political warfare and disinformation during the Cold War.
The sense of deja vu I felt reading Sharefedin’s and Salomon’s twin reports was unnerving. I remembered Parsi v Daioleslam (2012), where Trita Parsi, the plaintiff (President of National American Iranian Council (NIAC)) sued the defendant, Hassan Daioleslam, for defamation damages. Daioleslam was a dissident with alleged connections to the Iranian opposition Mojahedin Khalq Organization (aka MEK or MKO). In April 2008, Parsi and NIAC filed a complaint “alleging Daioleslam defamed them in a series of articles and blog posts claiming that they had secretly lobbied on behalf of the Iranian regime in the United States.” Like many cases of its kind it got bogged down in discovery motions and the court eventually found that NIAC had skirted the lobby rules.”
Rid’s Active Measures once again came to mind as an interesting historical template in 2021, when the news broke of United States v. Afrasiabi (1:21-cr-00046), District Court, E.D. New York. Federal prosecutors accused Kaveh Afrasiabi, an Iran analyst, of not being a registered foreign agent per Foreign Agents Registration Act while lobbying for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Circumstantially, I saw the connection between the pro-Iran Expert lobbyists of Parsi v. Daioleslam and United States v. Afrasiabi.
Iran International-Semafor’s joint investigation goes beyond court squabbles and discovery motion wars. The “digital” hard proof, with its thousands of emails is difficult to ignore. Yet, many Iran experts dismissed the report with little reaction or surprise. In fact, some veteran diplomatic enablers of “the Iran Expert Network” have so far described the investigation as “old news.” A notable exception is David Albright, President and Founder of the Institute for Science and International Security. A veteran researcher and expert on unconventional warfare and weapons, Albright is prolific in his publications on the Iran Nuclear program and enjoys a well-deserved reputation for integrity and objectivity. In a post on the social media platform X (the former Twitter), Albright calls out such dismissive and superficial reactions:
Other than attacking people and projecting motives in an almost paranoid way, Joe Cirincione in his Substack post Anatomy of A Smearing Campaign does not even address the subject of the emails published by Iran International and Semafor. And Ali Vaez’s long twitter defense, which Joe relies on, is an incoherent mishmash, devoid of any rebuttal. Please: Quote the emails and explain them.
Albright emphasizes the compelling email evidence provided by International-Semafor's reporting. While the reports confirm suspicions of an Iran-manufactured "lobby," questions arise about the identity of the lobby members and their specific roles and functions. In short, the primary members of this “lobby” were analysts that staffed prominent Washington DC based think tanks as well as one senior policy advisor at the US Department of Defense.
The evidence presented by the report establishes that “the Iran Experts Network” became fully immersed in the roles assigned to them by Iranian officials. “The Iran Experts” became co-opted as agent provocateurs of the regime, acting as the regime’s intellectual, diplomatic, and media coup de force, doing the regime’s bidding to advance its diplomatic goals. Importantly, they aided American and European counterparts to internalize the Iranian regime’s template for “compromise.”
I first became suspicious of the existence of an unofficial “Islamic Republic of Iran Lobby” in the West in 2006 when I attended conferences in Washington DC and London. Many of my expert colleagues argued for dialogue with the Islamic Republic of Iran and its head of government, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, dismissing most objections as “hawkish” and “warmongering”. When Ahmadinejad said, “Israel must be wiped off the map,” many countered that he had spoken figuratively and not literally. Those of us who were referred to as “Iran skeptics” found our “pro-peace” colleagues’ call for compromise and dialogue in the Ahmadinejad era as a cartoonish reincarnation of Nevil Chamberlin’s appeasement doctrine.
The administrations changed in both the US (Obama’s election in 2008) and Iran (Rohani’s election in 2013), ushering in a new era of “dialogue”. In 2014-2015, Obama’s administration led the EU, China, and Russia in their collective nuclear negotiations with Iran. At that time, I stumbled across a photograph of two Iranian American ‘analysts’ rushing after Iran’s diplomats at the hotel in Vienna where the nuclear negotiations took place. Seeing them in the retinue of top Iranian diplomats gave me pause as it appeared to be a deliberate statement. I wondered, ‘After Parsi v. Daioleslam, is the Islamic Republic publicly recruiting Iranian American scholars as the Iranian government’s American whisperers?’ It was a picturesque affirmation of longstanding suspicions about their pro-Iran lobbying.
Still, there was no “hard” proof of a quid pro quo collaboration between the experts and the Iranian regime. Iran International and Semafor’s report establishes definitive proof that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s chief foreign policy mandarins, then foreign minister Zarif and Islamic Revolutionary Guards cum diplomat Zahrani, worked in tandem with a handful of other top diplomats to bring about “the Iran Experts network.”
The reports recount how, Saeed Khatibzadeh, the head of Iran’s foreign ministry’s inhouse thinktank, detailed the initiative in a March 2014 email: “This initiative which we call ‘Iran Experts Initiative (IEI)’ consists of a core group of 6-10 distinguished second-generation Iranians who have established affiliation with the leading international think-tanks and academic institutions, mainly in Europe and the US.”
The emails’ evidentiary corroboration of the complicity of the Iran Experts cannot be more damning. In one email, Ali Vaez of international Crisis Group expresses his unrequited loyalty to the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic without reservation. In another email, he requested the Iranian diplomatic chiefs to “pre-review” an article that he was to publish in a major Western media outlet.
The parallel with Rid’s Active Measures are uncanny. Rid recounts how a US based Soviet diplomat “introduced” Alan Wolfe, one of the primary leaders of the American Peace Movement and an editor of the left leaning Nation magazine, to Soviet “academics”. The Soviet intelligence thenceforth robustly reinforced its infiltration of the American Peace Movement and turned it into an arm of its influence network in the United States. Like their contemporary Iranian American “Iran Experts Network” counterparts, certainly no peace movement activist at the time believed that they were “active measures agents” of the Soviet Union “influence work” in the US. Yet, “the Iran Experts” constantly crisscrossed and blurred the lines between “professional analyst”, “public relations advisor”, “lobbyists”, and “active measures operatives”. There is little difference between them and the US “peace activists” of the 1970s and 1980s.
Of the three US-Iranian experts discussed in Iran International-Semafor reports (Dina Esfandiyari, Ariane Tabatabai, and Ali Vaez), Ariane Tabatabai stands out for her position in the current Biden administration. As senior policy advisor at the US Department of Defense, Ariane Tabatabai is privileged with one of the highest levels of security clearance. Her email correspondence with Zahrani, the Revolutionary Guard Commander cum diplomat, reflects a similar level of loyalty, reverence, and deference as that seen in Ali Vaez's communications.
In her email of June 27, 2014, to Zahrani, she seeks his approval to attend a conference in Israel and Saudi Arabia, and further reports to him about her conversation with Prince Turki Al-Feisal of Saudi Arabia. In the said email to Zahrani, she clearly takes the role of an Iranian regime intermediary by suggesting to Prince Turki Al-Feisal that “I thought putting a workshop together with you (Iranians) and them (the Saudis) would be of interest. I did point out to him that despite the different strategic interests of Iran and Saudi Arabia, I believe there exists some room for some cooperation.” Then, she asks Zahrani: “I would like to know your opinion about this and whether this would be of interest to you?” In the last paragraph she states that “obviously” her inquiring as to whether she should go to Israel for a conference or not is “naturally a personal [decision].”
The entirety of this “personal nature” caveat strikes a Persian reader as out of place. It begs the question as to why she was asking for the opinion of these officials about something that is personally and professionally hers. The contradictory nature of “the personal query” caveat is problematic particularly as she used her work email at Harvard when asking for her patron’s approval. The syntax of the email in Persian clearly seeks permission and approval from Zahrani, not as a colleague and a co-equal, but as that of a client. Furthermore, she asks Zahrani to inquire about the opinion of the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, regarding whether she should travel to Israel or Saudi Arabia. Tabatabai appears to have acted as a fully co-opted member of "the Iran Expert Network."
Whether “the Network” still exists in some fashion or not, the pro-Iran experts continue with their pro-Islamic Republic stance. After the brutal regime crackdown of the 2019 uprisings and last year’s “Women, Life, Freedom” movement, the so-called pro-dialogue, pro-compromise Iran experts have continued their campaign to promote Tehran’s standpoint. They reiterate the Iranian regime’s line in different intellectual colors, seeking to avoid “war” and promote “peace” between Iran and the US.
Previously, any privately or publicly expressed speculations about the Iran influence network were based on circumstantial evidence. The thousands of emails that we now have raise worrying questions and present puzzles. At what point did the network, its individual members or experts, become lobbyists, active measures agents, or double agents? How professional is it for any scholar to get permission or approval from foreign government officials before publishing their analyses?
Does the ‘Iran Expert Network’ still exist, albeit in a different shape or form? Did the Iranian regime create other specialized “influence networks” in the West, recruiting journalists, university student activists, or expat associations? Should Western democratic foreign policy decision making circles continue to listen to their “expert advice on Iran” as objective and impartial? Was Ariane Tabatabai brought in-house by the democratic administration as a reward for her 2014-2015 missions? What are the exact criteria for vetting the security clearance of someone who was deeply involved in a murky network for such a sensitive and highly coveted position as senior policy advisor to the US Department of Defense? And one last burning question: Is there a connection between the June 2023 official removal of Robert Mally as Iran envoy and the uncovering of the ‘Iran Experts Network’?
If the US had not left the Iran Nuclear Deal in the spring of 2018, history may not have availed us with the trove of thousands of emails revealing the existence of Iran’s influence network. With Trump’s departure, the JCPOA nuclear deal effectively ended and the Biden administration’s efforts to resurrect it “informally” have yet to bear fruit. Those Iran experts who now claim to have been the unwitting agents of the network must plead ignorance or incompetence.
In 1946, Winston Churchill wrote the following about the French top diplomat, Pierre Etienne Flandin (1889-1958), and his role in France’s downfall as an appeaser: “Weakness is not treason, though it may be equally disastrous.” We can only hope that “the Iran Experts’” efforts have only been out of weakness. In the meantime, we shall consign to history how “disastrous” their role might have been in the final “analysis” for the West, United States, Iran, and the world.
The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily the views of Iran International
Representatives Joe Wilson and Jared Moskowitz, members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sponsored the bill. If enacted into law, it would prevent Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi from attending the next UN General Assembly in New York.
Announcing the bill, Rep. Wilson stated, "Mass murderer and terrorist Ebrahim Raisi hates the United States, pledges death to America, yet applies for and is granted permission to travel to New York annually for the United Nations. This hypocrisy is unacceptable."
Iranian activists have long called for such measures, particularly opposing Raisi's presence in New York due to his involvement in the infamous 'Death Committee' responsible for the summary execution of up to five thousand Iranian political prisoners in 1988.
"[This bill] ensures that the oppressors of freedom in Iran do not get to visit the United States to enjoy the liberties here that they deprive their citizens of at home in Iran," Rep. Wilson added in a statement introducing the bill.
Rep. Moskowitz, cosponsoring the bill, questioned on X (formerly Twitter): "The United Nations is meant to be a forum for peace & stability. Why would we give the Iranian regime and other malign actors a platform, given their kidnapping of Americans and support for global terrorism?"
This year's UN General Assembly coincided with a deal to release US hostages in Iran between the United States and the Islamic Republic. Five Iranian-American prisoners were allowed to leave Iran in exchange for the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenues from South Korea. The Biden administration faced criticism for this deal, with concerns that it might embolden the Islamic Republic to take more hostages. Additionally, the Biden administration agreed to the release of $2.7 billion from Iraq.
The new bill, named the 'No Paydays for Hostage-Takers Act,' includes extensive sections on Iran's frozen assets and the $6 billion release. It requires the US President to submit an itemized list of all transactions involving the use of these funds, including details of parties involved, financial institutions, goods purchased, destinations, end users, notification dates, and transaction dates.
The bill also mandates the US President to review all cases of hostage-taking by the Iranian regime every six months, determining whether those responsible meet the criteria for sanctions under the Levinson Act.
The bill's namesake, Robert Levinson, was a former DEA and FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007. He was declared dead in custody in 2020 despite efforts by his family to secure his release.
Rep. Moskowitz expressed his commitment to the bill, emphasizing Levinson's case as a constituent matter: "When Iran wrongfully detains one of our own, they must know that the U.S. will not sit back; we will take action and respond."
Additionally, the bill requires the Secretary of State to assess whether US travel to Iran poses "an imminent danger to the public health or physical safety of US travelers" and whether to invalidate US passports for travel to Iran. The US Secretary of State has the authority to restrict American travel to foreign countries, as demonstrated in the case of North Korea in 2017 following the torture and death of Otto Warmbier.