By Walid Shoebat and Ben Barrack
**SHOEBAT EXCLUSIVE**

Nearly three decades after an unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide, an attempt he blamed on a sense that he “failed the country”, former National Security Advisor under Ronald Reagan – Robert “Bud” McFarlane – is today consorting with stealth enemies of the United States. He has also come precariously close – if not doing so outright – to helping remove Sudan from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.

Robert “Bud” McFarlane: Failing his country.

In early 1987, McFarlane overdosed on Valium. Barely four months earlier, the Reagan administration was shoved into damage control mode over the Iran-Contra scandal when a cargo transport plane carrying weapons was shot down over Nicaragua.

In an interview with the New York Times three weeks after McFarlane nearly took his own life, he expressed regret over resigning in 1985 and suggested that things could have turned out differently had he not done so. When talking about what motivated him to end his life, McFarlane said:

“What really drove me to despair was a sense of having failed the country… If I had stayed in the White House, I’m sure I could have stopped things from getting worse.”

Killed in the crash that served as the catalyst for the lid being blown off Iran-Contra were pilot William Cooper and two others. Survivor Eugene Hasenfus was captured alive and spilled all the beans he had; the scandal was off and running.

Failing the Country Again
As Shoebat.com has reported, McFarlane recently attended an event to honor stealth jihadist and Ground Zero mosque imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the event was hosted by an organization whose Vice President – Abubaker Y. Al Shingieti – was a top-ranking official for Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir from 1990-1998.

Shingieti (L) with Feisal Abdul Rauf (R) at CFR event in 2013.

According to the New York Times, McFarlane asked Government agencies to “reassess policy toward Iran” in August of 1984. It’s not known precisely what this meant but six months earlier, Iran was placed on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. In 1993, Sudan would be added to that list, joining Cuba and Syria along with Iran. According to the Washington Post, McFarlane began dealings with Sudan in 2009, under the Obama administration’s first year in office.

Screenshot of U.S. State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.

With the gift of hindsight, we now know that Barack Obama has at least one significant motive when it comes to getting Sudan off the list – his brother Malik Obama works for al-Bashir. According to the Washington Post, McFarlane met with two top Obama administration officials about Sudan at around the same time he landed a rather sweetheart contract:

The approach by Sudanese officials led to a $1.3 million contract for former national security adviser Robert “Bud” McFarlane, who went on to meet with two of the Obama administration’s top policymakers on Sudan and its strife-torn Darfur region, according to documents and interviews.

The unusual talks between Sudan and McFarlane featured meetings in Middle Eastern capitals, clandestine communications with Sudan’s intelligence service and a final agreement with the government of Qatar, which is employing McFarlane as part of its peacemaking role in the eastern African region.

The episode puts an old Cold War hand in the middle of the volatile 21st-century conflict in Sudan, whose president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, faces international war crimes charges for allegedly orchestrating a campaign of murder, torture and forced expulsions in Darfur. The arrangement also places McFarlane, 72, close to the edge of U.S. legal requirements, which mandate disclosure of work for foreign governments and which prohibit doing business with Sudan under sanctions first imposed in the 1990s.

In 2013, CNN reported that McFarlane’s Watergate apartment (insert irony here) was raided by FBI officials and evidence was seized:

The FBI said they had found a series of e-mails to McFarlane which agents believed to be from someone in the Sudanese intelligence service. After reviewing 2009 e-mails FBI agent Grayden Ridd said in his court document, “I believe these e-mails are evidence that McFarlane was entering into an agreement with the Government of Sudan to lobby the U.S. government officials on behalf of Sudan and to provide it with advice during negotiations with the United States.”

The agent further said it appeared McFarlane and his Sudanese contact intended to structure the deal so it would appear McFarlane was representing Qatar, a U.S. ally.

McFarlane’s Sudanese contact, according to the FBI, was a diplomat named Mohammed Hassen Babiker, whom the FBI said it learned was an intelligence operative for Sudan.

Babiker, the FBI says, told McFarlane the three things he was interested in discussing with the U.S. government were peace in the war-torn Darfur region of western Sudan, existing U.S. sanctions against Sudan and its inclusion on the terror list, and the role of the United States in fostering peace and unity in Sudan.

These claims certainly comport with the Washington Post article from four years earlier. It is not known if the investigation was halted by Eric Holder’s Justice Department.

Malik Obama and Omar al-Bashir: at same 2010 Islamic Da’wa Organization Conference in Khartoum, Sudan.

Findings which would include a $1.3 Million deal with Qatar that allows McFarlane to covertly deal with the government of Sudan to – among other things – get it removed from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism would indeed constitute failing the country.

Perhaps Mr. McFarlane should be put on a suicide watch.