Are We About to Replay the Alger Hiss Affair?

Alger Hiss was a prominent New Dealer who accompanied Franklin Roosevelt to Yalta and was later revealed to be a Soviet agent. He advised FDR to trust Stalin’s assurances that he would be a trustworthy partner for peace following World War II; the Soviet plan was to lull the U.S. and proceed with conquest in Asia (as we soon saw in Korea) and subversion in Europe (revolution led by Soviet-backed communist movements).

The subversion of U.S. security under diplomatic cover, combined with the theft via other agents of nuclear secrets, rendered the post-war years anything but peaceful. They were perilous and costly in lives and treasure. Now the question is whether a comparable diplomatic failure in the Middle East imperils the U.S. and the Free World.

It Would Be a Mistake to Trust Iran

It would be a diplomatic failure to trust Iran’s Islamic Republic the way we once tried to trust the Soviet Union. The key error would be to go along with the idea that a “grand compromise” with Iran will bring about a peace in the Middle East in which Israel is secure and U.S. interests are respected. Under President Jimmy Carter and then again under President Obama, U.S. policy bought into this idea. The Trump administration, taking a realistic view of the Tehran regime, slammed on the brakes, but since January 2021 the policy priority again has been to appease and even assist our enemies. (READ MORE: Kamala Harris’ Bait and Switch on Positions and Values)

The result of this wistful thinking can be seen in daily dispatches from the region: Israel is defending itself against terror organizations paid for and supplied by Iran that have proclaimed the extermination of the Jewish state as their goal. Another Iranian proxy force, the Yemeni Houthi militia, is waging a war against the U.S. Navy for control of the Red Sea, an essential waterway for global commerce.

Conditions and contexts vary over time, of course, but comparisons of the geo-political situation today with Cold War era subversion in Western Europe and military aggression on the developing continents are valid, and indeed urgent. Like the Soviet Union, the Iranian regime threatens our security and that of others, and yet we are urged by some within our own camp to show them sympathy — even to help them get what they want.

A Modern Alger Hiss?

Robert Malley is not Alger Hiss, but his role (until recently) in the Biden-Harris administration may be compared to the one Hiss played in FDR’s. A Middle East adviser in the Clinton and Obama years, he was given the Iran brief early in the Biden administration by his friend Anthony Blinken. Malley’s assignment was to renegotiate the overall framework for peace achieved under Obama and rescinded under Trump. (READ MORE: Rediscovering Madam Secretary)

In the course of doing his job, Malley, according to reports that remain to be clarified and substantiated, pretty much gave away the store.

He jettisoned the sanctions the Trump administration placed on Iran (to blunt its mischief) and reached tentative agreements with them to let their nuclear program advance. When Malley came under suspicion of being under Iranian influence, and despite the removal of his security clearances, he took part in top policy councils. Forced to take a “leave” from his post, the details of his promotion of Iranian interests remain, a year and a half later, unexplained by the administration. (READ MORE: Is This the ‘History’ They’re Teaching at Yale?)

Frankly, I am not much of a political type, and, indeed, foreign policy is rarely voters’ top concern during presidential campaigns. But it strikes me that a simple question — “Who hired Malley?” — ought to be raised.

When a real and present danger is clearly and honestly explained, the American people have no trouble seeing who takes seriously the defense of the Republic, the first duty of the executive branch, and who does not.

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