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Tuesday, October 03, 2023

Ghost-Writing Armageddon

In a Persian version of the Cyrano de Bergerac ploy, Iran's mullah nutballs basically wrote the Democrats' love letters to Iran, defining their Iran policy for the last decade. 

I've often mentioned the Democrats' bizarre unrequited love for mullah-run Iran:

Biden is determined to "balance" America's Middle East policy:

Balancing relations between Israel and the Gulf Arab states will be key challenge for Biden, along with collective pressure from EU partners get Tehran back to the table in constructive ways. For now, however, there is smoke on the horizon, and Iran is behind it.

He will balance between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. That is, he will treat two allies worse in order to treat an enemy that wants nuclear weapons better. The enemy we have seen spreading fires in the region and which has no reason to stop burning down the region.

Once more, as Obama did, America will come to a deal based on a very simple formula: Iran's mullahs will pretend they don't want nuclear weapons. And America will pretend to believe them. Everything else will be Biden administration lying spin.

But now we know a little more about how the Smart Diplomacy® sausage was made. Apparently, the Iranians themselves have been writing the love letters from Biden (and before him, Obama) to the mullahs. Iran infiltrated the Biden administration's Iran policy-making apparatus using the  Iranian "Iran Experts Initiative" (IEI) first outlined with a list of possible candidates that advocated a pro-mullah line:

At least three of the people on the Foreign Ministry’s list were, or became, top aides to Robert Malley, the Biden administration’s special envoy on Iran, who was placed on leave this June following the suspension of his security clearance. ...

The Iranian officials behind the IEI — Zahrani and Khatibzadeh — boasted to their superiors in internal emails about the initiative’s successes. They tracked how often the academics in the IEI wrote or were cited in the media during the week after a preliminary nuclear agreement was reached between Tehran and world powers on April 2, 2015 in Lausanne, Switzerland. The media data was shared with others in the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran. ...

The Iranian officials behind the IEI — Zahrani and Khatibzadeh — boasted to their superiors in internal emails about the initiative’s successes. They tracked how often the academics in the IEI wrote or were cited in the media during the week after a preliminary nuclear agreement was reached between Tehran and world powers on April 2, 2015 in Lausanne, Switzerland. The media data was shared with others in the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran.

Iran convinced Democrats that it was both futile to oppose Iran and that letting Iran get stronger--including with nukes--would be a good thing to stabilize the Middle East. So we know that Iran used Smart Diplomacy®. Obama and Biden had Sucker Diplomacy®:

The [Iranian] government had reason to gloat. It picked excellent prospects, some of whom sucked up to Tehran over email and echoed its negotiating positions publicly. A few of them ended up in and near positions of prominence in the U.S. government through connections to Robert Malley, a veteran Middle East hand in Democratic administrations. Malley, who led Obama teams focusing on the Islamic State, Syria, and Iraq, is known to favor negotiation with unfriendly governments in the region and to scorn the “maximum pressure” approach that replaced nuclear negotiation when Donald Trump entered office. 

Hats off to the mullahs. You have to salute genius when you see it. Bravo. Even if gullible Democrats and their ignorant media allies were willing accomplices, this misinformation operation and infiltration was brilliant. 

And now Iran stands on the cusp of nuclear weapons

Sigh. Face it, the administration and its media accomplices will still drive forward to a new nuclear deal, portraying this revelation as somehow a sign that the Biden administration is compelling Iran to sign a deal.

Say, does this count as Biden-Iran collusion or simply incompetence in blocking enemy infiltration?

UPDATE: Nothing to see. move along (tip to Instapundit):

An alleged member of a secret Iranian government influence network visited the Biden White House at least five times for high-level meetings with senior U.S. officials, according to visitor logs. 

UPDATE: Related thoughts.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.