Iran intelligence operation prevails on Australian soil: whole world watching as refugee tricked
News reports have appeared about one of the seven refugees from Iran's women's football team deciding to change her mind about staying in Australia.
The government has tried to downplay the seriousness of the situation by telling us that refugees are free to change their mind. The news media has digested this garbage and produced endless stories about a refugee changing their mind. None of them tell the story for what it is: Iran conducted an operation to locate the refugees on Australian soil and Iran executed that mission successfully. When the Iranian embassy sent a diplomatic vehicle to collect the errant refugee from their safe house, Iran discovered the location of all other refugees in the same hotel.
This is such an incredible security failure that we should be talking about the resignation of somebody very senior, perhaps the minister himself or the head of the agency responsible for asylum.
When Donald Trump announced major combat operations against Iran (it is not a war), the news media were quick to compliment the Americans and Israel for the brilliant intelligence operation that allowed them to locate all the senior Iranian leaders at exactly the same time. Iran's success in locating the full group of refugees on Australian soil is equally brilliant from the Iranian perspective.
The story the Government of Australia is telling us about this operation is total nonsense. The government has fobbed it off by telling us the refugees were free to change their minds at any time. It is very much the nature of these regimes to brainwash their own civilians. Australia's experts on defence and asylum programs know only too well the extent to which people from these countries have been brainwashed and manipulated. When their request for protection is granted, it is often because the Australian intelligence agenices know the risk to these refugees even better than the refugees know themselves. Given the level of knowledge Australia has about that risk, it becomes the responsibility of Australia to protect them from any further abuse, whether it is outright kidnapping, the use of blackmail or the use of more subtle psychological techniques.
By coincidence, one family member is married to a high-profile defector from the Soviet Union and the son of another high-profile Soviet defector was in our university. During the Cold War, western countries became experts on the process of helping these people and their families. The risks of people becoming homesick, changing their minds or being manipulated for intelligence purposes were all well understood. Maybe it is time for the whole Border Force to set up a reading group for John le Carré spy novels.
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