Iran, the Axis of Evil's role in campus protests and their support of genocide

A call to action

TAT readers… it’s almost Friday!

There are so many threats to address and so little time available. For this reason, today I focus on Iran, as a significant “hitman” for the Axis of Evil.

From campus protests to CYBER attacks and personal attacks against US and Western entities, nation-state down through individuals, Iran is backing genocide and especially for the two higher ups, in the Axis of Evil, Putin and Xi. Beneath them, they push Hamas and Hezbollah to pursue their genocidal aggression against Israel. Here at home and in the West generally, they have long played the disrupter role both actively and often tangentially, with the rest of the Axis, Russia, China and N. Korea.

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Iran as a premier threat and as the “action arm” of the modern version of the Axis of Evil.

First and foremost, Iran has been designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism since January of 1984. That they play a role as a “hitman” for Putin and Xi, while playing prominent disruptive roles on the stage of legitimate nations, is a testament to insanity. Like the pipsqueak in N. Korea, there is a mountain of formal and informal cooperation between China, Russia, Iran and N. Korea in pursuit of global authoritarianism and the aggression required to achieve it. In the case of Iran in Gaza and their prominent support of Putin’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine, their aggressiveness, makes them a primary threat. But then there is something nefarious here in the US and West that matters currently… campus protests and related mis/ disinformation and false narratives.

Recommended reading:

• China, Russia and Iran are exploiting the Israel-Hamas conflict for their benefit - ISD (isdglobal.org)

• Treasury Designates Iranian Cyber Actors Targeting U.S. Companies and Government Agencies | U.S. Department of the Treasury

• State sponsor of terror: The global threat of Iran | Brookings

• A Russian Influence Campaign Is Exploiting College Campus Protests | WIRED

• Chinese State Media Backs US College Campus Protesters: 'Justified' (newsweek.com)

It’s not just campus protests though. Iran has been complicit in global terror for decades. I guess that when her military has been so demonstrably inept, terror via QUDs Forces and other secretive operational units, is all that you’ve got. They cannot use their dysfunctional military and for decades, Iranian covert units have committed terror operations of consequence, around the globe. Of course there was the Marine barracks in Beirut, Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, multiple bombings in Buenas Aires and far more. There is no limit to the immorality of the Theocratic, terrorist regime in Tehran. For the rest of the article, I will simply refer to Iran as T3 (Theocratic, terrorist regime in Tehran) or simply Iran.

Putin is attempting an actual and cultural genocide in Ukraine. Xi, the same against the Uyghur population of China and is also, a supporter of the genocidal Junta in Myanmar. T3, backs Hamas and Hezbollah who are officially committed to the genocide of Israel. Even during the horrific genocide against Jews and other European minorities leading up to and throughout WW II, we did not face an axis, so fully committed to genocide. At least then, we acted to stop fascism underpinned by genocide. Now, we hold polite meetings and firmly but ineffectually denounce the same. The UN is useless, and governments rarely act. Real human beings die on a daily basis and in the thousands, by allowing this genocidal, authoritarian, oligarchical and immoral governments to go unaddressed in any significant manner.

A while back, I wrote a TAT essay called, Never Again, Never Was. It is available, via the embedded link and describes how genocide continues while the world mostly watches. The United Nations is broken on the topic due to Russia and China primarily pushing their immoral agendas from the Security Council and influencing internal UN organizations as well.

Here on college campuses, the threat imposed by false narratives, mis and disinformation, stirs emotions of those who have succumbed to the false narratives about Gaza and the Palestinian people, left unchallenged for decades. Last week I challenged the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s report that Iran had no role in campus activities. Her office is not only wrong, but wrong in the same manner of the rest of the US national security community.

The entire community refuses to understand what influence is, how it operates and its role in the perpetually decreasing, global posture of democracy. The entire community responsible for influence, has been an abject failure for decades and is pursuing more of the same, instead of listening to operators who know better. I am one of those and there are damn few of us to go around. They especially are ignorant of the role of narrative in such operations. Since they fail to understand narrative, of course they don’t understand that the decades of false narratives about Gaza, Israel and the Palestinian people are what were “triggered” by the false narratives about casualties imposed on westerners by the likes of Reuters and the BBC. Of course, countless media outlets shared the same and they are all complicit in the disruptive campus protests.

For deeper reading on our national security failures:

• Combat ineffective, the rusted, broken hulk of US Influence Operations (truthaboutthreats.com)

  The US National Security Community has left us a critical vulnerability in US national security. (truthaboutthreats.com)

• The US always fights the "last war," instead of the one we're in. (truthaboutthreats.com)

• The US National Security community is incapable of managing mis/ disinformation threats (truthaboutthreats.com)

• A Five Point Strategy to Oppose Russian Narrative Warfare (truthaboutthreats.com)

• We can't protect ourselves from mis/ disinformation, until we understand influence (truthaboutthreats.com)

Iran, China and of course, Russia are cooperating in disillusioning our citizens. Russia in particular and the Soviets before them, employed a system called Active Measures as influence operations. The intent, still to this day is to divide the west over social, economic and identity issues. Once their narratives were established, all that they must do now, is trigger them. Our gross incompetence in offensive, defensive or sustaining, ethical influence operations allow them to operate at will, while our community still is mired in a process called, paralysis by analysis. The triggering is merely what Russia and their Soviet forefathers called, “reflexive control.” This is little different from what Pavlov famously established as “conditioning,” with his dog experiment.

The US and allied national security communities are now faced with contesting an Axis of Evil on the cognitive battlefield, and they don’t even know how to manage one of them. This is willful ignorance that deserves to be investigated by Federal authorities as waste, fraud and abuse. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have primary roles in protecting citizens from all threats but neither have a clue about how to handle mis and disinformation.

To wrap up this shorter than usual TAT, I will return to the issue of Iran’s boldness of aggression both at home and in global affairs. T3 operates as much for Xi and Putin, as they do themselves. Iran is a primary technology producer for Putin’s war in Ukraine. They have provided troops for Syrian President Assad’s genocidal war against his own people. Their Quds operatives are fully embedded in pursuing T3’s immoral agendas against us, and our allies. While that sanctions have hurt her, Putin and Xi both have given her relief in a wide variety of ways. The Ayatollahs, simply do the bidding of both in a barter type exchange. Don’t forget, T3 also is regularly and brutally oppressive of her own people, especially her women and minorities.

Although we can do very little for the brutally oppressed Iranian citizens, we can all contribute to them be less effective abroad, as in here in the US. Campus protesters are often reciting decades old false narratives, like “occupation” or genocide by Israeli troops. Their claims of blaming solely Israel for the alleged, “Nakba” is preposterous, just as their claim that Israel does not want peace. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although Israel is currently under the administration of indicted felon, Netanyahu and who leads an extremist, racist right-wing government, until his administration, it has long been that it was Hamas and Hezbollah who have walked away from peace talks.

T3, is at the heart of the suffering imposed on innocent Gazan residents. The viciously oppressed Gazan Palestinian people, deserve support and opportunity to rid themselves of Hamas and T3. Campus protesters loudly proclaiming falsities, only perpetuates Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian oppression and terrorism. As I have written deeply on in the past, it’s not just Iran but their Putin and Xi taskmasters. Supporting Hamas messaging, simply supports the Axis of Evil.

The only answer to addressing the perpetual cognitive assault on us and our allies, is collectively and intelligently. There is little to no hope coming from the national security community so again… we must do it ourselves. Some simple keys to managing mis and disinformation:

• Avoid all hyper-partisan media

• fact check with credible fact-checkers like Politifact.com or FactCheck.org

• If something triggers you emotionally, take a deep-breath and ask yourself why, then do your due diligence

• Use media evaluators like Media Bias Fact Check to determine the degree of partisanship

• Always consider who benefits from what you are reading or listening to

• Never share information until you’ve done your due diligence

• On the other hand, if there is a hot button topic and you have taken every reasonable precaution to establish truthfulness. by all means, do share.

• There cannot be too many people telling the truth. Numbers matter, especially to influencers. If you are influencing for truth, your advocacy becomes a number for those on the truthful side.

These are only the basics but in the absence of professional assistance, they are a very good start.

It’s not just the war in Gaza either. Iran has brutally attacked the US and our allies in multiple forms and formats. I too have been victimized by Iranian influence operators both online and via CYBER attacks. We need more than occasional news articles about such attacks by all of the Axis of Evil. Sadly, today’s MAGA controlled Republican party will not support this due to their conditioning to disbelieve any story that goes against Putin’s interests. The refusal to support funding for Ukraine, is one such, high-profile example.

Russia is well-entrenched in influence operations against the West. China, though still relatively unsophisticated in understanding Western audiences, contributes mass dissemination of anti-Western messaging. Iran does a lion’s share of the dirty work, plus adding CYBER and dissemination to the mix.

The last thing I will add to this advisory on Iran, the Axis of Evil etc., is to call your senators and representatives and demand that they put pressure on the national security community, to do their jobs on Narrative Warfare or influence operations. They have no business funding much of the nonsense that we waste hundreds of millions of our taxpayer dollars on, every single year. Demand also, that they address the entire Axis of Evil, collectively as well as unilaterally. Don’t let them get away with demanding more conferences and studies which has been how the community has long avoided actually producing results. Demand action now and that they stop going down useless, outrageously expensive rabbit-holes. The threat is in our face and must be dealt with now, not tomorrow.

As I have written endlessly, the war on what happens between our ears, is the most acute threat to our nation and to global democracy. We can achieve anything, together. We cannot be together if we don’t shut down or neutralize the adversarial influence operations that saturate our daily lives. Much of this drives our hyper partisanship. If we don’t, those genocidal aggressors that make up the Axis of Evil, will prevail and nearly almost did in 2016 and 2020 again. There is no reason to be optimistic about November’s elections because the community responsible, is still willfully impotent. They will not change until congressional oversight demands to see what progress they’ve made. I know first-hand, that there has been precious little in the past 40 years. We don’t have another forty years to wait because our republic won’t survive this level of uncontested adversarial influence for that long. It is just that simple.

Have an amazing weekend,

Paul