The former Biden administration’s special envoy to Iran, who was put on leave earlier this year for allegedly mishandling classified material, should face “extensive scrutiny” over his “permissive” attitude toward the Tehran regime after it helped Hamas and Hezbollah carry out terrorist attacks against Israel, said critics Monday.
“Rob Malley deserves thorough scrutiny — yesterday, today and tomorrow,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told The Post after the Wall Street Journal reported Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers planned and signed off on this weekend’s atrocities that killed at least 900.
“These reports could not be more troubling, and they foreshadow what could be the worst State Department scandal since Alger Hiss,” Issa added.
“Malley and others created a very permissive environment for Hamas, for Iran, to do all these things,” added Gabriel Noronha, a former special adviser on Iran at the State Department.
Suspended Iran special envoy Rob Malley, who was put on leave earlier this year for alleged mishandling of classified material, is under renewed scrutiny from defense hawkers.AFP via Getty Images
Noronha, who served under former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said Malley and his negotiating team “deliberately funneled billions of dollars to [Iran] through the lack of sanctions enforcement and sanctions relief provisions that have given them between $50 and $80 billion over the past two and a half years.”
A senior House Republican aide told The Post that the cash infusion followed a larger $1.7 billion payment the Obama administration made to Iran in 2016, ultimately contributing to Saturday’s attack that triggered the Jewish state’s first declaration of war in 50 years.
“There’s a straight line from Obama giving to Iran, to Biden enriching Iran — to Iran’s war on Israel,” the aide said.
“Malley and others created a very permissive environment for Hamas, for Iran to do all these things,” Gabriel Noronha, a former special adviser on Iran at the State Department, told The Post.REUTERS
Noronha also said the Biden administration had allowed a “colossal failure of deterrence” by conducting only four operations against Iran-backed terrorist groups after allowing the regime and its proxies to carry out 83 attacks of their own against US forces.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has revealed the muted US response to Iran-backed attacks in Senate testimony earlier this year.
On Saturday, Hamas terrorists launched the largest-scale attack on Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, firing thousands of rockets into the Jewish state and engaging in a multi-pronged armed incursion to kill and arrest civilians.
Noronha said Malley and his team “deliberately funneled billions of dollars to [Iran] through the lack of sanctions enforcement and sanctions relief provisions that have given them between $50 and $80 billion over the past two and a half years.” Reuters
At least 900 Israelis have been killed, thousands injured and about 150 taken hostage.
The death toll includes 11 Americans, with President Biden admitting Monday evening that US citizens were “likely” among those kidnapped and held in Gaza.
Noronha pointed out that under the Trump administration, the US does not distinguish “between the Iranian regime that kills Americans and the regime’s proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah, that kill Americans.”
Malley was quietly placed on unpaid leave in June for handling “protected material,” but the State Department has declined to share the nature of the allegations with Congress.AFP via Getty Images
“However, we will consider it an attack by the Iranian government itself – and respond accordingly,” he said. “So now, [11] Americans, at least, are dead. Perhaps more than a dozen have been taken hostage.
“There is a temptation by this administration – and they are very clear – they are trying to pretend this is not their problem,” Noronha said. “And the reason they do that is because they don’t want their Iran policy messed up.”
Malley was quietly placed on unpaid leave in June for handling “protected material,” but the State Department has declined to share the nature of the allegations with Congress.
A man stands on a street as flames spread after a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, Israel October 7, 2023. REUTERS
In August, Iranian media outlets leaked a memo from Erin Smart, director of the Office of Personnel Security and Compliance in the Department’s Diplomatic Security Bureau, outlining “serious security concerns” with his actions.
The FBI has an “ongoing” investigation into the matter, according to the State Department.
Last month, another leaked file revealed that three of Malley’s top aides were tied to a covert influence operation by Tehran’s Foreign Ministry, according to internal Iranian government correspondence and emails reviewed by Semafor.
Noronha described the allegations against Malley as “very concerning” but said details were lacking on the alleged breach of US security protocols.
Defense peddlers have also criticized Malley, who served as an Iran policy adviser under former President Barack Obama, for recently appearing to support Hamas and Hezbollah.REUTERS
Defense peddlers have also criticized Malley, who served as an Iran policy adviser under former President Barack Obama, for recently appearing to support Hamas and Hezbollah.
“It’s a mistake to think of them only in terms of their terror dimension,” Malley said in a 2008 interview. “It has charitable organizations, social branches; it’s not something you can defeat militarily either and people need to understand that.”
“There’s a lot of misinformation about them,” Malley continued. “None of them are crazy. They may do things that we consider to belong to a different realm of rationality, but in their own system it is often very logical.”
Noronha described the allegations against Malley as “deeply troubling” but said details were limited about the alleged breach of US security protocols. AFP via Getty Images
“If Hamas is not allowed to govern, if we put pressure on them, and you know you may have good reason to do that, but if you do that, we will tell you what the reaction is — rockets. No doubt,” he added. “And the unification of Hamas power in Gaza. Both things have happened.”
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed Malley for the statement, which reappears in May 2021 on Xformerly Twitter.
“Iran, a supporter of Hamas, says it ‘stands behind the Palestinian cause,'” Pompeo aired at the time. “Hamas is a terrorist organization, not a ‘charity.’ American negotiators must see both of them as enemies — not socialites.”
Omri Ceren, national security advisor to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), also posted Sunday that “Malley was so entangled with Hamas that Obama had to drop him as an adviser [sic] during the 2008 campaign — before then bringing him back to do Middle East policy.”
“Under Biden, he oversaw a policy that allowed Iran to reach nuclear weapons range and earn $100 billion,” Ceren said, citing a Times of Israel article about Malley that was cut from Obama’s first presidential campaign.
On Monday, after the White House insisted it had seen no evidence that Iran was behind the weekend massacre in Israel, Ceren tweeted: “Biden’s team is once again behaving like Iran’s lawyers.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
