Over the last day, secret recordings of Iran’s Javad Zarif were leaked. What was revealed were a variety of interesting nuggets. One of those was the extent to which Iran was reliant on Qasem Soleimani before Donald Trump sent him to the next life. Notably, Joe Biden opposed that attack because he needed to keep his streak of being wrong about every major foreign policy decision of the last 40 years going.
But there was another thing mentioned on the tapes that was deeply disturbing. As RedState reported, Zarif made the claim that John Kerry had leaked classified intelligence to him, letting Iran know about Israeli attacks in Syria. After the report, the Biden administration claimed the attacks were public knowledge and that’s what Kerry shared.
But now, Kerry is denying that the entire discussion ever happened in the first place.
I can tell you that this story and these allegations are unequivocally false. This never happened – either when I was Secretary of State or since. https://t.co/BTOdFE1khW
— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) April 26, 2021
There are two possible explanations here. Either John Kerry is lying or Zarif is lying because the tapes say what they say. This isn’t some anonymous claim made up by a political enemy and because of that, Kerry doesn’t get to play both sides of the fence on this. Given that, let’s assume Zarif is lying and that Kerry never actually shared intelligence with him.
If that’s true, then Kerry has just backed himself into a corner. He can’t simultaneously say not to believe Zarif, the supposed “moderate” in Iran, while at the same time stumping for a return of the Iran deal and lauding his previous work on that front. That extends to the Biden administration, as well, because they have chosen to employ Kerry as some kind of climate czar. If they are going to not fire Kerry and instead buy his denials here, then they are now in the position of enforcing the assertion that Iran is led by liars who can’t be trusted.
Do you know what you don’t do with liars who can’t be trusted? You don’t sign nuclear agreements with them.
Here’s David Harsanyi levying some very good questions about all this. He also notes that John Hudson, the reporter running cover for Kerry, is the same hack who “confirmed” the Russian bounty story that turned out to be fake news.
2. Why would Zarif be astonished to hear about it? Why would he make it up off the record? When did the conversation happen? What else does he say about the Kerry interaction on the Iran International leaked tape? Seems like something a reporter might want to find out.
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) April 27, 2021
I see no reason to believe John Kerry on this front. In my view, Zarif had no incentive to lie in the leaked tapes as he was talking to someone he trusts. Further, we already know that Kerry was colluding with the Iranians during the Trump years, advising them on how to get around U.S. policy. It should surprise no one that he would share intelligence with Zarif.
For whatever reason, John Kerry has, time and again, chosen to basically operate as a foreign agent at the behest of the Iranians. Someone should probably figure out why sooner rather than later before something really dangerous happens.
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