[amir]

I stopped reading after

> To show his sincerity and goodwill, the agent put his hand over his heart. “Salam habibi,” he said.

Either the reporter, or the CIA hasn't done their research. Habibi is Arabic, and that's not how Iranian greet each other, especially if they want to show sincerity and goodwill.

[Cacti]

Perhaps the agent was acting as an Arab while at the conference, and was obviously not Persian? Perhaps the Iranian had relatives who were Arab? Maybe the agent acted like the guy was Arab when they first bumped into each-other, to throw off the idea he was looking for Iranians, and this is like an inside joke to be friendly?

I mean, there are plenty of possibilities here, including that the person describing the event is describing it second hand well after a decade has passed.

Don't be in such a rush to judgement; you might learn something.

[totalZero]

Agreed. It'd be akin to saying "hola amigo" to an American scientist.

[wyldfire]

Are you agreeing with Amir or Cacti? "Hola amigo" is an expression that many US Americans understand and do occasionally use to greet one another.

[totalZero]

With Amir.

Given the context of an intelligence officer knocking on an unfamiliar person's hotel room door unexpected and asking them to defect, I think "salaam habibi" would strike most Farsi speakers as a bizarre and malapropos greeting.

"Hola amigo. I’m from the CIA, and I want you to board a plane with me to the United States."

I see it as an indicator of careless journalism that the author is citing an unnamed source "familiar on the matter" about a 10-year-old conversation that he seems not to have transcribed into the right language. I put it into the same category of people who ask what part of Mexico the Puerto Ricans are from.

[mikeash]

I get what you're saying, but "hola amigo" is a really bad example of it. There are 40 million Spanish speakers in the US and tens of millions more use Spanish phrases routinely as a personality quirk. "Hola" and "amigo" are both words that I'd expect most Americans to understand, and I wouldn't bat an eye if a CIA agent greeted my in that way, assuming the context wasn't too formal.

Maybe a better example would be... well, if they put their hand over their heart and said "salaam habibi" to an American scientist.

[mason55]

Yeah, maybe I watch too many movies, but "hola amigo" feels like a totally appropriate greeting before you're about to do some shady spy shit. I think that it's actually a good greeting because it indicates to the other person that this interaction is about to be a bit informal.

[mfoy_]

I think that answers your question. He's just drawing a more familiar parallel.

[mitochondrion]

>"Hola amigo" is an expression that many US Americans understand and do occasionally use to greet one another

I suppose that depends on your definition of "US Americans".

[CoryG89]

Americans that live in the US? How many valid definitions are there?

[askdufuga]

Actually my fellow comrade, people say that kind of stuff fairly often.

[jgalt212]

this is a great thread for ngate. HN debating whether or not the CIA's tradecraft was up to snuff.

[tryingagainbro]

“I’m from the CIA, and I want you to board a plane with me to the United States.”

I'm sure his salutation was forgiven...the offer is what makes him think a trillion things a second.

[josefresco]

"According to a person familiar with this encounter, which took place about a decade ago"

Although I doubt the "mistake" was unintentional.

[shell_scripter]

Are you kidding? CIA never makes mistakes! They're the greatest, flawless intelligence agency in the world!

https://www.rt.com/news/fsb-detain-cia-agent-253/

[strictnein]

You're sharing a Russia Today article?

[yodon]

It's a brand new account with negative karma and two comments, both pro-Russian in context.

Either it's somebody's sock puppet account or someone new who doesn't understand that HN really is different from Reddit and a higher level of intellectual discourse works much better here.

[1001101]

RT used to be half-way decent. Some might argue that they've turned up the agitprop dial a bit recently.

[partiallypro]

RT has always been a Russia propaganda arm. They were never decent. It's interesting to read every once in a while, but only to see Kremlin talking points.

[totalZero]

RT was specifically created by the Russian government to influence foreigners.