Trump's new national security advisor is vice admiral and former SEAL who grew up in pre-revolutionary Iran where Navy captain dad advised America-fri

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The Trump administration has offered the job of White House national security adviser, vacated by former U.S. intelligence official Michael Flynn, to Vice Admiral Robert Harward, said two U.S. officials familiar with the matter on Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear if Harward, a former deputy commander of U.S. Central Command who has Navy SEAL combat experience, had accepted the offer, according to sources.
A White House spokesperson had no immediate comment.
Flynn resigned on Monday after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the United States before President Donald Trump took office.
Losing his national security adviser so soon after taking office is an embarrassment for the new Republican president, who has made national security a top priority.
Harward, a Rhode Island native who went to school in Tehran before the Shah was toppled in 1979, did a tour on the National Security Council under former Republican President George W. Bush, working on counterterrorism.
He also has combat experience on SEAL teams and served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Harward now works as an executive for defense contractor Lockheed Martin, with responsibility for its business in the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East.
He spent his teenage years not in his native Rhode Island, but in pre-revolutionary Iran – where his father, a Navy captain, advised the Iranian military.

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Retired Gen. Michael Flynn resigned the national security advisor post on Monday night following accusations that he had lied about pre-inauguration contacts with Russia's ambassador

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Harward was deputy commander of US Central Command in 2012 when Jordan's Prince Faisal (left) participated in a 19-nation joint military exercise at the King Abdullah Special Operations Training Centre in Amman

Harward lived in an Iranian neighborhood, attended school with Iranian-American students and played sports against Iranian teams. Those experiences gave him an unusual familiarity with Iran's culture and people in the years before the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the pro-American Shah.

 

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U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Robert Harward will be President Donald Trump's new national security advisor, following the resignation of Gen. Michael Flynn on Monday night

 

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Harward, shown in a 1973 high school yearbook photo at the Tehran American School, spent his teen years in Iran where his father was stationed as a military adviser to the then-America-friendly government

 

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'During very formative years of his life, he was exposed to everything that was Iran,' said Joseph Condrill, who knew Harward, known by his classmates as Bobby, when they were students at the Tehran American School. 'Iran was one of our homes, and we got to know the Iranian people very well, in a very intimate way.'
The Trump administration has offered Harward the job of national security adviser, two U.S. officials familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear if Harward had accepted, the sources said. A White House spokesperson had no immediate comment.
Harward would carry his experience into the Trump White House, charged with coordinating national security policy and responding to threats including Iran's ballistic missile program and support for militant groups in the Middle East.
While Flynn put Iran 'on notice,' and Trump has tweeted that Iran is 'playing with fire,' Harward's experience with Iran is more personal.

 

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The revolution that brought Iran's theocratic government to power forced the closure of the Tehran American School and cut short the tours of American families living in Iran.
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.
'For those of us that had once lived in Iran, there's an after-effect, the effect of the Islamic Revolution,' Condrill said. 'There is definitely a sense of suspicion, if you will ... based upon that experience of the Iran that we once knew.'
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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Harward is shown (center) in Paktika Province, Afghanistan during a meeting with provincial government officials at Forward Operating Base Rushmore

 

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In 2012, as deputy head of the U.S. Central Command, he told a conference that 'Iran's well-established past pattern of deceit and reckless behavior have progressively increased the potential for miscalculation that could spark a regional, if not a global conflict.'
At the same event, he recalled with some wistfulness his own experience living in the region.
'I think back to the days when I graduated from the Tehran American School in 1974, where as a Westerner I could freely travel through Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and other countries in the region and be greeted, and welcomed, because of the policies and strategy the West employed in the region,' he said. 'Yet I look today, we are in a much different world.'