My column which appeared in today's paper, a day late due to not feeling well Tuesday.
KERRY'S FAMILY TREE
When Secretary of State John Kerry was photographed in November 2013 in Geneva shaking hands with his Iranian counterpart Mohammed Javed Zarif at the beginning of the Iranian nuclear negotiations only a handful of people in the entire world knew that this was not the first time these two men had met.
They were introduced in 2004 by George Soros, a billionaire and political king-maker who has bankrolled many liberal politicians and causes over the years. Soros had invested thousands of dollars in Kerry’s failed presidential bid in 2004, and was looking for a way to recoup at least some of that money by using Kerry to work with Zarif to resolve outstanding issues between the U.S. and Iran in the making since 2003 under the name “Grand Bargain”.
At the time he introduced the two men, Zarif was the Ambassador to the United Nations from the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Senator John Kerry was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
There was no doubt Soros had hoped that Kerry would have a larger national and political platform from which to work by being elected President, but as it turned out, the two men had to wait another eight years until Hillary Clinton resigned as Secretary of State from the Obama adminisration in 2012 and Kerry could step into that role.
Kerry and Zarif remained good friends throughout that time and undoubtedly discussed the “Grand Bargain” quite often as they waited for just the right time to come.
So when the two men came together in Geneva it was a meeting between friends of long standing for at least a decade.
Zarif was born in Tehran in 1960. He left Iran at age 17 for the U.S. and attended Drew College Preparatory School in San Francisco. He continued his education at various institutions in the U.S. including San Francisco State University and the University of Denver.
He held various significant diplomatic and cabinet posts in the 1990’s and served as Iran's representative at the United Nations from 2002 to 2007.
On August 4, 2013 Zarif was nominated by President Rouhani for the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Parliament, and was immediately confirmed.
Zarif was married in Iran but he and his wife moved to New York within several weeks in the midst of the Iranian revolution. They have a daughter and a son who were born in the U.S.
Here’s where it gets interesting. In 2009, Kerry’s younger daughter, Dr. Vanessa Bradford Kerry, married an Iranian-American physician named Dr. Brian (Behrooz) Vala Nahed who has close family members still living in Iran.
Kerry did not reveal that he had a son-in-law with extensive family ties in Iran until after his confirmation as Secretary of State. In an Iranian New Year’s greeting to the Iranian people, Kerry said, “I am proud of the Iranian-Americans in my own family and grateful for how they have enriched my life.”
He went on to say that he was “strongly committed to resolving” the differences between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, “to the mutual benefit of both of our people.”
Politicians like to keep their families off-limits to the press, but in Kerry’s case, there could be larger ramifications.
Since its inception, the FBI has vetted U.S. Government officials involved in national security issues, and it generally won’t grant clearances to individuals who are married to nationals of an enemy nation or have family members living in that country, for fear of divided loyalties or, more simply, blackmail.
And here’s another strange twist. The Nahed wedding photos widely distributed in the media, reveal that the Best Man at the Kerry-Nahed wedding was Mohammed Zarif’s son.
Sources for this column: Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where he was a Military Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Israel
:
Lieutenant Colonel Allen West (Retired) and former U.S. Congressman from Florida;
The Front Page by David Horowitz; the Weekly Standard,
and Mohammed Zarif’s official Facebook page, as well as numerous other websites.
KERRY'S FAMILY TREE
When Secretary of State John Kerry was photographed in November 2013 in Geneva shaking hands with his Iranian counterpart Mohammed Javed Zarif at the beginning of the Iranian nuclear negotiations only a handful of people in the entire world knew that this was not the first time these two men had met.
They were introduced in 2004 by George Soros, a billionaire and political king-maker who has bankrolled many liberal politicians and causes over the years. Soros had invested thousands of dollars in Kerry’s failed presidential bid in 2004, and was looking for a way to recoup at least some of that money by using Kerry to work with Zarif to resolve outstanding issues between the U.S. and Iran in the making since 2003 under the name “Grand Bargain”.
At the time he introduced the two men, Zarif was the Ambassador to the United Nations from the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Senator John Kerry was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
There was no doubt Soros had hoped that Kerry would have a larger national and political platform from which to work by being elected President, but as it turned out, the two men had to wait another eight years until Hillary Clinton resigned as Secretary of State from the Obama adminisration in 2012 and Kerry could step into that role.
Kerry and Zarif remained good friends throughout that time and undoubtedly discussed the “Grand Bargain” quite often as they waited for just the right time to come.
So when the two men came together in Geneva it was a meeting between friends of long standing for at least a decade.
Zarif was born in Tehran in 1960. He left Iran at age 17 for the U.S. and attended Drew College Preparatory School in San Francisco. He continued his education at various institutions in the U.S. including San Francisco State University and the University of Denver.
He held various significant diplomatic and cabinet posts in the 1990’s and served as Iran's representative at the United Nations from 2002 to 2007.
On August 4, 2013 Zarif was nominated by President Rouhani for the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Parliament, and was immediately confirmed.
Zarif was married in Iran but he and his wife moved to New York within several weeks in the midst of the Iranian revolution. They have a daughter and a son who were born in the U.S.
Here’s where it gets interesting. In 2009, Kerry’s younger daughter, Dr. Vanessa Bradford Kerry, married an Iranian-American physician named Dr. Brian (Behrooz) Vala Nahed who has close family members still living in Iran.
Kerry did not reveal that he had a son-in-law with extensive family ties in Iran until after his confirmation as Secretary of State. In an Iranian New Year’s greeting to the Iranian people, Kerry said, “I am proud of the Iranian-Americans in my own family and grateful for how they have enriched my life.”
He went on to say that he was “strongly committed to resolving” the differences between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, “to the mutual benefit of both of our people.”
Politicians like to keep their families off-limits to the press, but in Kerry’s case, there could be larger ramifications.
Since its inception, the FBI has vetted U.S. Government officials involved in national security issues, and it generally won’t grant clearances to individuals who are married to nationals of an enemy nation or have family members living in that country, for fear of divided loyalties or, more simply, blackmail.
And here’s another strange twist. The Nahed wedding photos widely distributed in the media, reveal that the Best Man at the Kerry-Nahed wedding was Mohammed Zarif’s son.
Sources for this column: Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where he was a Military Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Israel
:
Lieutenant Colonel Allen West (Retired) and former U.S. Congressman from Florida;
The Front Page by David Horowitz; the Weekly Standard,
and Mohammed Zarif’s official Facebook page, as well as numerous other websites.
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