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The Mullahs’ Chief Liar, and Their Most Effective Weapon via @freebeacon freebeacon.com/blog/mullahs-c…
Zarif is not only Iran's chief diplomat, but also its chief liar. He charms overly comfortable, idealistic Americans into believing that he wants the same as them, and that the regime in Tehran is a benign, responsible actor.
Of course, much of Washington's elite buys the shiny car that the greasy diplomat is selling them, and therefore will not challenge him, even if, under the thin layer of paint, there is a broken down, used vehicle.
If only the United States stopped its own belligerence, Zarif tells his Western fans, Iran could flourish and the bilateral relationship would be peaceful. The reality is quite different, however. Take Zarif's tweet this week on the Iranian nuclear program.
"Ayatollah @khamenei_ir long ago said we're not seeking nuclear weapons—by issuing a fatwa (edict) banning them," Zarif wrote, referring to Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. "#B_Team's #EconomicTerrorism is hurting the Iranian people & causing tension in the region
The so-called "B-Team," a term that Zarif began using earlier this month, consists of National Security Adviser John Bolton, United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Curiously, former top officials in the Obama administration began using the term after Zarif introduced it, amplifying the Iranian diplomat's talking points against President Trump.
For years, Zarif has said that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, using Khamenei's fatwa, or Islamic legal edict, against the development of the bomb as a primary piece of evidence. The problem is that literally every part of Zarif's claim is false
The world now has evidence showing, while Zarif was declaring Iran's nuclear innocence, the regime was planning to build weapons. A massive cache of secret Iranian files that Israel seized last year revealed Iran had concrete plans to build at least five nuclear weapons
Furthermore, the fact that the regime kept and concealed mountains of such detailed plans suggests, at the very least, that, even today, Tehran wants to obtain nuclear weapons.
Zarif also lied by touting the mysterious fatwa, which no one, including experts who spent extensive time looking for it, has been able to find. Nor has the regime been able to produce it.
But regardless, fatwas can be revised under new circumstances and, as Mehdi Khalaji and Michael Eisenstadt noted in a report on the alleged edict, "nothing would prevent Khamenei from modifying or supplanting his nuclear fatwa should circumstances dictate a change in policy."
And yet, too many powerful Americans have fallen for Zarif's nonsense. On several occasions, Barack Obama used the fatwa to "prove" that Iran did not want nuclear weapons, as did several of his top officials—most notably John Kerry, Ben Rhodes, and Hillary Clinton.
Pundits and policymakers, especially on the political left, have repeated his talking points to benefit their political agendas. First they wanted to strike a nuclear deal with Iran on the road to rapprochement; now they want to save that road after Trump crushed it into bits.
Why would Feinstein, a former chair and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dine with and possibly text or call the foreign minister of an adversary that has been at war with the United States for 40 years?
The answer is actually quite clear. Khamenei and his allies in Iran know how to place Zarif the charmer and like-minded technocratic elites, the so-called "moderates" within the regime, in positions of power when the Iranian government is facing a serious internal crisis.
"From a theoretical point of view, I believe utopian interests can be aligned with national interests," Zarif adds. "Interests, which others considered utopian, allowed us to become an influential state in Iraq and Lebanon."
That sounds more like a revolutionary soldier than a sophisticated diplomat. But as long as Zarif charms and speaks flawless English, much of Washington's elite will ignore what they do not want to see.
