Trump's Choice for National Security Adviser Lived in Iran, Speaks Persian (video)
Independent Aggregator of Iran-related News/Events, Kodoom.com: While Trump's now-disgraced former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, put Iran "on notice," Flynn's potential replacement has a more personal experience with Iran. The retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Robert S. Harward, President Trump's choice to succeed Flynn as head of U.S. national security adviser, spent his teenage years in Iran, where his father, a Navy captain, advised the Iranian military before the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the pro-American Shah.
According to a report by Reuters, during his teenage years, Harward lived in an Iranian neighborhood, attended Tehran American School with other Iranian-American students and played sports against Iranian teams. Those experiences gave him an unusual familiarity with Iran's culture and people. Rather than being isolated on a military base, Harward and other Americans at that time lived among Iranians, rode local buses, and were exposed to Iran's attractions through field trips, his classmates said.
"It was not a completely isolated culture for us," said John Martin, 61, of Reston, Virginia, who was in Harward's high school class and attended the U.S. Naval Academy with him. Harward even picked up fluent Persian while he was in Iran, Martin said.
Video shows Vice Admiral Robert Harward, former deputy commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) visiting Persian language graduates of The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC), at the Presidio of Monterey, California.
It is not clear, however, how Harward's memories might influence U.S. policy, because the national security adviser's job is to coordinate, not make, policy. In addition, administration officials said, Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller have closer ties to the president than Harward would have and would present a rival power center.
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