
The devil out of the car: how Palantir becomes a source of conflict escalation

On June 13, Israel began a military conflict with Iran, during which the state's nuclear facilities were attacked. A day earlier, Tehran released secret documents according to which the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, transferred the results of the work of the American company Palantir Technologies and the Mosaic platform to Israel. How the data leak affected the Middle East conflict, where else the company is "involved" and where it came from in the first place — in the Izvestia article.
Palantir Technologies in Iran: what is known
The other day, the DD Geopolitics Internet portal published an investigation, according to which one of the reasons for the armed conflict between West Jerusalem and Tehran was a data leak. The situation directly concerns the American company Palantir Technologies. It is believed that no modern international conflict can do without it. The software was developed with money from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's de facto venture fund created to fight criminal groups and terrorists in the United States. The stumbling block was the Mosaic utility, created to monitor Iran's nuclear power industry.
Earlier, Tehran submitted documents confirming the transfer of the data received by Palantir to Israel by the head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi. According to the agency's report dated May 31, Iran currently has about 409 kg of 60% enriched uranium. This amount should be enough for "nine bombs," although the development of nuclear weapons in the country has never been publicly reported.
According to media reports, since 2015, the IAEA has been informally cooperating with Palantir Technologies. In three years, the Mosaic artificial intelligence (AI) system has processed over 400 million data, from work logs to staff social networks, and facilitated more than 60 unscheduled inspections of Iranian facilities. This happened within the framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), concluded ten years ago between Tehran and the 5+1 group, which included France, Germany, the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom. The agreement became a guarantee of security in the Middle East, as it limited Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.
The results of Palantir's research have been included in official IAEA reports and have been recognized among UN member states as "reliable evidence—based assessments." It is not known what specific information the company provided to international independent organizations.
Seven years ago, the agency secretly extended the contract with the Mosaic platform for $50 million, which strengthened the company's position as the main controller of "nuclear hotbeds." However, unlike traditional monitoring methods, the Palantir platform is not a passive system. It is an aggregator capable of calculating the steps of the state based on its behavioral model.
It is important to understand that Mosaic is an artificial intelligence and it can be wrong. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said that the IAEA resolution based on false data was the reason for the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. Tehran also accused the international organization of using the Palantir black box, which does not allow verifying the conclusions of AI, turning Mosaic forecasts into "real" reasons for war.
On June 23, the Iranian parliament suspended cooperation with the IAEA. Agency representatives are not allowed to enter the country for inspections until there are guarantees of the safety of nuclear facilities and peaceful developments. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed yesterday that the head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, used "the most ambiguously negative language" in the report.
"The Europeans have taken a purely imperial neocolonial position — don't follow the example of the United States — they can, but you can't, you have to do everything. At the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, before a recent meeting to which Director General Rafael Grossi's report was submitted, they actively "processed" it so that he would include the most ambiguous, negative wording in his paper. Which he did. Picking up on these formulations, these "three" (plus the Americans were also invited) submitted a resolution to the board of governors condemning the fact that Iran was not fully fulfilling what Washington had destroyed. A few days later, Israel launched its strikes. A logical chain is being built here. The Europeans are partly to blame for the fact that these attacks were carried out," the Russian Foreign Minister said.
Dmitry Brije, a specialist in the Middle East, told Izvestia that the transfer of IAEA data is not just a leak of information, but a "systemic crisis of trust in the architecture of global nuclear security," which excludes the very principle of the international agency's independence.
— The interference of Palantir, an American private company with deep ties to US intelligence, in the nuclear energy sector of a state under international sanctions and suspicion, actually negates the very principle of independent monitoring by the IAEA. If surveillance is no longer based on inspections, protocols, and technical agreements, but on aggregated data from obscure algorithms, then verification itself can be considered politically biased," the expert states.
Palantir Technologies, founded by Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel, also provides information for the IDF in Gaza and supports the work of field AI in Ukraine. Its participation in the IAEA, initially aimed at monitoring compliance with the agreements, is now on the verge of full-fledged involvement in military conflicts. Dmitry Brije also notes that the transfer of data to Israel, a country that is not officially a party to the Treaty on the Non—Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and is actively leading a campaign to undermine Iran's potential, is a direct violation of the principle of neutrality, which underlies the work of the IAEA.
— This destroys the remnants of trust between Tehran and world institutions and thus pushes Iran to refuse to cooperate with organizations. In fact, we are talking about a hybrid operation in which data collected by a private corporation becomes an instrument of political pressure on Iran, and the IAEA becomes part of a geopolitical game. This is not a coincidence," the expert is sure.
The expert believes that in the short term, this situation strengthens Tehran's arguments in favor of withdrawing from all verification agreements, and further it may completely destroy the very idea of global nuclear monitoring. This is possible if the surveillance is perceived as a cover for Western intelligence operations and a violation of the sovereignty of other countries.
Palantir in Ukraine and Gaza
At the end of May 2023, Palantir Technologies and the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine announced the beginning of cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence. This is the first time an American company's software has been used directly on the front line. Ukrainian politician Mikhail Fedorov noted that the country uses the Gotham AI platform for certain military tasks. In particular, such technologies help in decoding data received from satellites and drones.
The official statement of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine emphasizes that cooperation with Palantir includes the use of technology to restore facilities damaged as a result of the "current geopolitical situation." In particular, AI solutions will be used to assess the condition of buildings and infrastructure.
Ukraine is the first country where Palantir has taken a central place not only on the battlefield, but also in the information space. The Gotham platform is now considered one of the main "tools" of Western structures representing the country's leadership, NATO and American services. The software not only analyzes and predicts the actions of Russian troops, but also actively shapes public opinion, monitors the media, and manages propaganda in real time. For reliable operation, Elon Musk's American company Starlink provides constant access to data, even when the rest of the infrastructure is destroyed.
After the Ukrainian experience, Palantir's developments became interested in Israel. There, the technologies of the artificial intelligence platform (AIP) are used by the IDF to eliminate Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Israel has acknowledged that it uses AI-based systems to help drone operators identify targets and plan airstrikes against equipment and manpower.
The head of the company, Alex Karp, openly supported Israel in the war against the Palestinians. "We are not a monoculture. There are people everywhere who disagree <...> with our decision to support Israel," he said at a meeting in Tel Aviv. Karp is confident that the West and the Jewish state have enemies that need to be contained. If the situation had been different, the head of the firm would not have allowed AI to be used for military purposes.
Dmitry Brije notes that Palantir Technologies is not just a company, but a technological wing of American intelligence. Now its cooperation with the IAEA is a signal to all countries that monitoring is no longer neutral, but fully subordinated to the policy of the United States and its allies. This should be alarming for Russia and the countries of the Middle East.
"If it is possible to upload data to Iran, bypassing inspections, then a similar model can be adopted for other states, be it Russia, China, India or even Saudi Arabia in the case of rapprochement with BRICS," the expert says.
How Palantir Technologies "took over the world"
Palantir Technologies was founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, co—founder of PayPal and a trusted friend of Donald Trump, as well as his former colleagues Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen, Nathan Gettings and Joe Lonsdale, who are called the "PayPal mafia."
The company develops software for data analysis and protection. At first, Palantir provided information to U.S. intelligence agencies to support investigations and counterterrorism, analyzing the movements of criminals and helping identify the time and location of potential offenses. The Wall Street Journal reports that the firm's analysts played an important role in the capture of Osama bin Laden. Later, the company began cooperation with commercial structures.
The company has several software products that are currently at the center of international scandals. The company's first platform, Palantir Gotham, is designed for defense and intelligence analysts. It helps to identify hidden patterns in large amounts of data, including signals from intelligence agencies and messages from confidential informants. This technology is currently being used by Ukraine in the conflict against Russia. The second is Palantir Foundry, a platform for commercial organizations that simplifies working with, managing, and protecting data. The product is changing the way organizations interact with information by creating a single operating system. The platform is also used by some government customers.
Working with personal data has been criticized by Palantir Technologies. In 2009, JP Morgan engaged the company's analysts to monitor the bank's employees in order to "protect against unscrupulous traders and other violators." The software collected and analyzed emails, browser history, printer activity, and phone conversation transcripts. People were shocked by the lack of restrictions from both Palantir and the bank. It all ended when JP Morgan's management found out that they were also being monitored.
Thus, the company, which was developed from the very beginning with the money of the CIA in order to spy on criminals and terrorists in the United States, became one of the main catalysts of the Middle East conflict. Palantir Technologies supplies states that benefit the current government of the United States with various secret information that is inaccessible to ordinary civilian structures.
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