On July 9, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines released a statement assessing that the Iranian regime is “providing financial support to [American] protesters” against the war in Gaza. The extensive network organizing the eruption of antisemitic and anti-American encampments across U.S. campuses is well documented. Haines’s statement is a bleak warning about Iran’s ability to manipulate American civil society and underscores the imperative to declassify intelligence about Iran’s influence operations in the United States. But will the Biden administration do it?
Before the fall semester begins, DNI Haines must be more specific about the extent of Iran’s covert operations. CIA director William Burns has drawn the roadmap, writing that “strategic declassification” of intelligence can “undercut rivals and rally allies.” Such declassification successfully derailed Russian president Vladimir Putin’s false-flag operations against Ukraine in 2022. And it’s high time that the Biden administration use just this strategy to ensure that American students understand they have become tools in the hands of one of the world’s most malign regimes.
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