The confirmation of Kash Patel as FBI director signals a new, more vigorous approach to confronting Iran and its many proxies and agents. Patel, an outspoken Iran hawk, was targeted for state-sponsored hacking by Tehran’s theocratic dictatorship. A former prosecutor and senior intelligence official during the first Trump administration, Patel was an ardent critic of the Biden administration’s policy towards Tehran and accused it of empowering the Islamic Republic through financial and strategic concessions and wholesale appeasement.
Hamas’ October 7th terrorist attacks, missile strikes by Iran and Hezbollah against Israel, and the Houthis’ aggression in the Red Sea validate Patel’s assessment. This latest round of warfare ended with a military setback for Iran. Militant Sunni Islamist forces overthrew the pro-Iranian Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis have been under pressure, and now the Abraham Accords may expand to Iran’s northern neighbors like Azerbaijan and Central Asian states.
While Iran’s big-ticket proxies are in ruins, rather than being finished the mullah regime is adapting and evolving. As the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center of Israel points out, Iran has no intention of backing down from its determination to gain regional predominance.
Last month, Saeed Khatibzadeh, a senior Iranian diplomat who helped design Tehran's influence operations in the West, was appointed the head of the foreign ministry's think tank, the Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS). Khatibzadeh was the mastermind behind the construction of a network of Iranian analysts in American and European think tanks, which offered them various kinds of “support” so the Islamic Republic could promote its influence around the world. The so-called “Iran Experts Initiative” (IEI) worked with several high-level US officials—for example, Ariane Tabatabai, a former key aide to former US Special Envoy for Iran, Robert Malley.
Tabatabai later became Pentagon Chief of Staff for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict but left the office shortly after Trump’s victory. Some say that the IEI was nothing less than a full-blown agent of influence ring in the highest levels of American policymakers. This situation’s depth and impact are still being analyzed.
America isn’t the only one with an Iranian influence problem. In late January, Sweden’s TV4 revealed that Roozbeh Parsi, director of the Swedish Institute for International Affairs’ Middle East program, was also involved in the IEI’s work to expand Tehran’s influence in the West. Parsi denied cooperating with the Iranian government, saying the British Foreign Office backed his participation in the Iran-led initiative. However, the UK government denied these allegations. Further investigation in Sweden is underway.
It's not just think tanks that Iran utilizes to push its agenda. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has many vectors to project power. Iran’s bilateral cooperation with Russia has allowed it for years to undermine Azerbaijan. Although both countries are majority Shi’a Muslim, the fundamentalists controlling Iran fear and detest Azerbaijan for three reasons. Opposing religious extremism, Azerbaijan is one of the world’s few genuinely secular Islamic states. It has a good relationship with Israel. The majority of citizens of Iran’s north-western borderlands are ethnic Azeris upon whom Tehran continually commits human rights violations.
To directly undermine Azerbaijan, Iran cynically used the Russian-Armenian oligarch Ruben Vardanyan, nicknamed “Putin’s Wallet,” to attack Azerbaijan. Vardanyan served as “state minister” of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which was carved from Azerbaijani territory to serve as a springboard for Russian activities in the Caucasus and which Iran supported to pressure Azerbaijan.
According to an Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project’s (OCCRP) investigation, Vardanyan had a history of laundering billions of dollars for the Kremlin. He was also wanted by the Ukrainian Secret Service for being an accomplice to the Russian invasion. In 2022, 46 members of the U.S. Congress called for personal sanctions to be imposed against him.
In 2023, Vardanyan was arrested by the Azerbaijani security services. As his trial progressed, evidence emerged that he was serving two masters. It became clear that Tehran viewed the unrecognized Karabakh Republic as an asset against both Israel and Azerbaijan. The Washington Times traced his connection to Iran through the Gorchakov Foundation, a sanctioned Moscow-based entity supported by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Vardanyan strongly urged Tehran to adopt a “more active policy in the region” as Karabakh plays an important role in Iran’s security concerns. In a 2023 interview with the “Shargh” newspaper, Vardanyan explained that by regaining its territory in 2020, Azerbaijan “gave Israel access to the Iranian border.” Vardanyan has repeatedly worked to strengthen Armenian-Iranian cooperation.
As Kash Patel’s FBI prepares to confront Tehran’s operatives and influencers, Iran’s tentacles extend into the halls of power and media worldwide. They must be cut down with diligence and determination. Policymakers also need to acknowledge the Obama-era fallacy of expecting Iran to play a responsible role in the Middle East. Iranian operations wouldn’t have occurred if politicians hadn’t listened to Iranian agents of influence in the West. Most importantly, researchers examining adversaries such as Iran, China, and Russia must be held to higher standards of transparency to prevent this type of influence operation.
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