Iran Lobby

Exposing the Activities of the lobbies and appeasers of the Mullah's Dictatorship ruling Iran

Confrontations with Iran Escalate Throughout Middle East

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Confrontations with Iran Escalate Throughout Middle East

Confrontations with Iran Escalate Throughout Middle East

Incidents involving confrontations with the Iranian regime and its proxies are beginning to sharply escalate around the Middle East as tensions are ratcheted up by the mullahs in Tehran. It is almost like a high stakes poker game with Iran upping its bets because it’s too far in with a weak hand to fold.

Most worrisome has been the rise in direct incidents with Iran and its chief rival, Saudi Arabia, as illustrated in the latest incident.

Saudi Arabia says that it captured three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps aboard a boat approaching the kingdom’s offshore Marjan oil field.

The three “are now being questioned by Saudi authorities,” the Information and Culture Ministry said in a statement.

The vessel, seized by the Saudi Navy on June 16, was carrying explosives and intended to conduct a “terrorist act” in Saudi territorial waters, the statement said.

Saudi media earlier said that the navy had fired warning shots when three small boats entered Saudi territorial waters and headed at high speed toward the platforms.

Relations between the two countries are at their worst in years, as they support opposite sides in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and each accuses the other of destabilizing regional security.

The incident comes on the heels of the Iranian regime launching missiles purportedly at ISIS positions in Syria in retaliation for terror attacks in Tehran. Iran blamed Saudi Arabia for those attacks which makes this incident in Saudi waters suspicious as to whether or not Iran’s Quds Forces might have been mounting an attack against Saudi installations in response to the ISIS attack.

Meanwhile in Syria itself, open warfare seems to be breaking out as a U.S. fighter jet shot down a Syrian air force jet after it had bombed positions occupied by U.S.-backed rebel groups. This was followed by a declaration from Russian forces that U.S. warplanes would be potential targets if they attacked Russian elements.

It’s worth noting that Iran brought Russia into the Syrian conflict on behalf of the Assad regime when it was facing imminent defeat on the battlefield. That escalation has now proven to be potentially disastrous as Russian and U.S. units increasingly come close to shooting at each other.

All of this was preceded when U.S. forces opened fire on Syrian militias backed by Tehran three times in the past month. All of the incidents took place at al-Tanf, a remote desert outpost near the border with Iraq and Jordan, where U.S. and British special operations forces have been training Syrian rebel fighters.

Earlier in May, U.S. warplanes attacked a Syrian Army motorcade moving to al-Tanf. As a result of the strike, two servicemen were killed and 15 were injured. A similar incident also took place on May 18, killing six.

The series of clashes has demonstrated how the eastern Syrian desert is becoming an arena for confrontation between the U.S. and Iran, a potential flashpoint alongside Yemen. Following the attacks on Damascus positions, an operational headquarters of the allied forces of the Syrian government army threatened the U.S.-led coalition with a retaliatory strike.

The fight in Syria is becoming even more high stakes as it becomes clear that the Iranian regime has shown no intention of giving up any territory it wins from ISIS; intending to become a permanent presence there in a similar manner to how it exercises control in Iraq through Shiite militias it backs.

Fox analyst and author Charles Krauthammer called the Iranian land grab a mirror image of the fight for territory following the collapse of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II.

“This is like the last year of World War II. We’re all fighting the Nazis but we know they’re finished,” he said.

Krauthammer said that like the 1940s, the Americans and the Soviets know the Germans will soon be defeated, but are battling for who takes what when the war ends.

While Iran maneuvers to preserve its gains, the Iran lobby has also stepped up its rhetoric in shifting from defending the Iran nuclear deal to now defending Iran’s ballistic missile program as outlined in an editorial by Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council in HuffingtonPost.

“Much to the chagrin of leaders in Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh, Iran launched ballistic missiles into Syria on Sunday, targeting ISIS in retaliation for its terror attacks in Tehran two weeks ago. These strikes are the first time that Iran has launched missiles since its 1980-1988 war with Iraq, which begs the question: Why has Tehran shifted its three decades-long policy of testing, but not using missiles? The answer should now be clear: It’s a reaction to Trump’s escalation in the Middle East,” Marashi said.

Marashi claims that Trump’s stepped-up military activity in Syria while simultaneously criticizing Iran has only created a “recipe for war.” A silly assertion since it was Iran’s intervention in Syria in the first place that started the entire Syrian conflagration.

Marashi is correct in his assertion that Iran’s missile strike was intended to communication a wider message that the mullahs are willing to fight to preserve their gains in Syria and not allow it to slip away from them. They understand that a defeat in Syria will likely lead to regime change at home.

Understandably Marashi tries to also tie Saudi Arabia to the ISIS attacks in Tehran and by extension tries to lay blame on regional instability on U.S. allies and deflect any responsibility away from Tehran.

Shockingly Marashi even mentions the direct possibility of Iran attacking “exposed American troops operating in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen” directly in response to American attacks on Iranian interests.

Marashi delivers the final justification for Iranian bloodletting when he says the U.S. support for regime change in Iran eliminates the possibility of any further U.S.-Iran cooperation in the future.

Only the Iran lobby would make the argument that seeking democratic change in Iran is a pathway that inevitably leads to war.

This certainly demonstrates how much the NIAC values freedom for the Iranian people.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Takes Fake Action Against ISIS

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Iran Takes Fake Action Against ISIS

Iran Takes Fake Action Against ISIS

The Iranian regime publicized a missile strike against purported ISIS targets in eastern Syria over the weekend. It proclaimed the attack was in response to the terror attacks in Tehran at the mullah’s regime’s Parliament building and the shrine of the founder of the mullah’s regime in Iran, which left 18 dead.

Reuters reported that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps units launched mid-range ground-to-ground missiles from western Iran into the Deir al Zour region of eastern Syria, killing a “large number” of terrorists and destroying their equipment and weapons, it said.

The missiles targeted the “headquarters and gathering centers of Takfiri terrorists supporting and building car bombs”, it said.

Reuters could not independently verify the report.

The attack, if true, would be one of the few times the Iranian regime has publicized a direct action against ISIS military units in the Syrian conflict. In past military actions, Iran had deliberately targeted non-ISIS targets such as Syrian rebel units backed by the U.S. or civilian targets in rebel-controlled areas.

Many analysts and news organizations have noted how Iranian regime forces and Shiite militias backed by mullahs in Iran have often fought rebel forces trying to overthrow the Assad regime and not specifically gone after ISIS groups.

A recent National Geographic documentary examined how ISIS rose to power and it noted Iranian regime’s deliberate efforts to avoid fighting ISIS early on in favor of preserving Assad’s grip on power.

Only after ISIS served its larger purpose in diverting the attention of the rest of the world from the bloody Syrian conflict was Iran prepared to engage ISIS on a broader scale; namely to gain territory to secure its foothold in Syria and Iraq.

As Shiite militias, working in concert with Iranian troops, begin to take over key border crossings between Iraq, Syria and Iran, the Iranian regime’s long-range plans of building a Shiite-controlled sphere of influence around it are beginning to take shape.

The growing influence of these Shiite militias aiming to stay permanently in Syria are increasingly being scrutinized by news media and what their impact may mean for future instability in the region.

The Guardian’s Martin Chulov looked at the Syrian town of Ba’aj which was formerly held by ISIS, but was recently liberated by Iranian-backed Shiite militias that now appear to be bunkering down for good.

Ba’aj is now a foundation point of an Iranian plan to secure ground routes across Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon, cementing its influence over lands its proxies have conquered, Chulov wrote.

“From Mosul to Ba’aj, thank you Suleimani,” read one message painted on the town roundabout in tribute to the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, who helped lead units of the Popular Mobilization Front (PMF) as they swept through Ba’aj toward the Syrian border. Flags of various Shia units were planted like poppies.

“We are not leaving Ba’aj,” said one senior PMF member. “This will be our main base in the area.”

That afternoon, semi-trailers carrying blast walls trundled through the town toward a government building in the center.

The transformation of Ba’aj, from an out-of-bounds haven for Isis leaders to a focal point for Iranian regime’s efforts to change the regional dynamic, is taking place rapidly, even before hundreds of booby-trapped homes have been cleared.

Since then, Iranian backed forces, led by Suleimani, have massed on both sides of the border near the Damascus-Baghdad highway, leading to at least three clashes with US forces and their Syrian opposition proxies near the town of Tanf.

The overarching plans of the mullahs remains consolidating its hold throughout the Middle East and that means keeping crucial allies such as Assad in place and maintaining control over friendly governments such as Iraq and Lebanon.

It also means continuing to deflect attention away from its regional ambitions by pointing the finger at the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and even ISIS to blame them for regional instability instead of focusing on the Iranian regime.

Top mullah Ali Khamenei in an act to try to cover up its regime’s fear of recent economic sanctions, kept up the verbal barrage aiming his ire at the Trump administration as the U.S. Senate passed legislation implementing new economic sanctions on the Iranian regime for its support of terrorism and its ballistic missile program.

Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials have ramped up their criticism of the United States in recent weeks after Trump went on an official visit last month to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s main regional rival, according to Reuters.

During that visit, Trump singled out Iran as a key source of funding and support for militant groups. He has also criticized the nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers, including the United States, that led to the lifting of most sanctions against Iran, in return for curbs on its nuclear program. Trump has said Washington would review the deal but stopped short of pledging to scrap it.

Khamenei in an attempt to give morals to its forces, said in his speech on Sunday that any efforts to destabilize the Islamic Republic would not succeed.

“In the past 38 years, when has there been a time when you haven’t wanted to change the Islamic system?” Khamenei said, according to Fars News. “Your head has hit the rock each time and always will.”

Khamenei’s attacks also hint at renewed efforts by the mullahs regime to target and go after Iranian dissidents using the excuse of the ISIS attacks as cover; claiming that suspected militants being arrested or killed as being part of ISIS may in fact just be part of long-standing Iranian opposition groups the regime has tried to diminish.

The largest gathering of Iranian dissident groups is scheduled to hold its annual meeting in Paris later this month and should prove to be a powerful show of support for the ongoing dissident movement.

Laura Carnahan

Iran Lobby Attacks Trump Administration for Favoring Regime Change

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Iran Lobby Attacks Trump Administration for Favoring Regime Change

Iran Lobby Attacks Trump Administration for Favoring Regime Change

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave testimony to the House and Senate Foreign Affairs Committees this week in detailing the State Department budget priorities for the upcoming year. While the bulk of his testimony concerned the issues such as North Korea and Russian relations, Tillerson made a few comments on Iran that engendered a full-fledged response from the Iran lobby.

While the majority of news media gave ample coverage to Tillerson’s testimony concerning Russia, he was asked a question regarding Iran by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), a noted critic of the Iranian regime and the mullahs who control it, that drew scant attention, but clearly worried the Iran lobby.

Tillerson was asked about future plans to enter into negotiations with the Iranian regime and he replied the administration had no immediate plans to do so and expressed support for elements within Iran working towards regime change and a transition to democracy in Iran.

Predictably, the National Iranian American Council, staunch supporters of the Iranian regime, led the charge against Tillerson’s comments; literally breathing fire.

It appears that the concept of promoting democracy in Iran strikes mortal terror in the hearts of Trita Parsi and his fellow travelers at the NIAC.

Darius Namazi at NIAC whipped out a statement condemning Tillerson’s remarks and taking a swipe at Iranian dissident movements, namely the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which had supporters in attendance at the hearings to express support for democratic change in Iran.

Poe asked Tillerson whether the U.S. supports “a peaceful regime change” and whether it is U.S. policy “to lead things as they are or set up a peaceful long-term regime change.”

Namazi claimed that Tillerson implied that it was U.S. policy to move toward supporting regime change, stating the U.S. would “work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of those governments.”

Only the NIAC would have a problem with the concept of a “peaceful regime change,” but that is par for the course for the Iran lobby.

The NIAC contends that any effort to force regime change would naturally be tantamount to an open declaration of war on the mullahs in Tehran, which is understandable considering the last time there was a mass effort for regime change following the disputed 2009 presidential elections, protests were brutally put down and innocent Iranians killed in the streets.

Of course, Namazi accuses the MEK of seeking to “violently overthrow the Iranian government,” as part of the Iran lobby’s continuing efforts to denigrate any organized opposition movement to the mullahs’ rule.

Namazi goes on to criticize Tillerson’s statements that the administration had no plans to negotiate with Iran on a range of issues such as the situations in Syria and Yemen, but Tillerson only correctly pointed out that granting Iran a seat at the bargaining table when it is the key agent causing the chaos in the first place was a pointless exercise.

According to Tillerson, “The Iranians are part of the problem…They are not directly at the table because we do not believe they have earned a seat at that table. We would like for the Iranians to end their flow of weapons to the Houthis, in particular their flow of sophisticated missiles to the Houthis. We need for them to stop supplying that, and we are working with others as to how to get their agreement to do that.”

These are not unreasonable sentiments, but apparently for the NIAC they are totally unreasonable.

Not that their efforts mattered since the Senate passed new sanctions on the Iranian regime by near unanimous margins in a further sign that the U.S. is moving past the failed policies of appeasing the Iranian regime under the Obama administration.

The Senate passed the sanctions bill by a 98-2 margin. The bill places new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program and other activities not related to the international nuclear agreement reached with the United States and other world powers.

To become law, the legislation must pass the House of Representatives and be signed by Trump. House aides said they expected the chamber would begin to debate the measure in coming weeks, according to Reuters.

The Iranian regime itself didn’t waste time in attacking Tillerson’s assertions that Iran has “aspirations of hegemony in the region.”

The top U.S. diplomat’s remarks are “interventionist, in gross violation of the compelling rules of international law, unacceptable and strongly condemned,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said in Tehran Thursday.

Qassemi went on to blame a history of U.S. “meddling in Iran in different forms” since the 1950s, saying the policy has only brought about “defeat and global shame” for Washington.

For all the bombastic the Iranian regime and its allies are hurling, the plain truth is that the U.S. is moving quickly and broadly on a number of fronts to rein in Iranian expansionism and militancy.

Congress is seeking new authorities that would enable it to expose and crack down on an Iranian state-controlled commercial airline known for transporting weapons and terrorist fighters to hotspots such as Syria, where Iranian-backed forces have begun launching direct attacks on U.S. forces in the country, according to new legislation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Congressional efforts to expose Iran’s illicit terror networks more forcefully come as U.S. and European air carriers such as Boeing and Airbus move forward with multi-billion dollar deals to provide the Islamic Republic with a fleet of new airplanes, which lawmakers suspect Iran will use to amplify its terror operations.

The new sanction legislation targets Iran’s Mahan Airlines, which operates commercial flights across the globe while transporting militants and weapons to fighters in Syria, Yemen, and other regional hotspots.

A crackdown on Mahan could indicate that Congress is more seriously eyeing ways to thwart Iran’s mainly unchecked terror pipeline in the region.

We breathlessly await the NIAC’s next bout of hyperbole.

 

As Iran Warns Against US Aggression Its Navy Targets US Vessels

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As Iran Warns Against US Aggression Its Navy Targets US Vessels

As Iran Warns Against US Aggression Its Navy Targets US Vessels

The Iranian regime’s leadership kept up its steady drumbeat of issuing warnings against any U.S. military action against the mullah’s regime. Those warnings have come to encompass not only direct U.S. action, but also any potential for action through American allies such as Saudi Arabia.

Iran’s mullahs regard President Donald Trump’s recent sale of $110 billion in new arms to the kingdom as an existential threat no different than if the U.S. decided to launch airstrikes at Tehran.

Describing the U.S. arms agreement with Saudi Arabia as “unprecedented,” Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior adviser to top mullah Ali Khamenei, warned the Arab states not to forget the fate of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and former Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was toppled in 1979, in a not-too-subtle jab at its neighbors.

“The volume of weapons purchased by the Arab countries — and especially Saudi Arabia — is unusual, and the signing of a $110 billion arms package between the US and Saudi Arabia and the arms sale will not contribute to the security of southwest Asia, and it will also be used to make the region unsafe and create tension in an area that is the heart of the world’s [source of] energy,” Safavi said.

The irony in the Iranian regime warning of causing regional instability is laughable if it wasn’t so tragically true. Iran’s use of its own military in Syria and Iraq, along with proxies in both countries as well as Yemen has turned the Middle East into an abattoir.

“I hope that the weapons that were sold to these Arab countries will fall into the hands of the Arab nations of the region, like the weapons that were sold to Iran under the shah, and will be used against the Americans..” Safavi warned. “If America wants to start a war against Iran, all of its military bases in the region will be put in [danger of] insecurity.”

His remarks underscored a steady ramp up in potentially dangerous encounters between Iranian and U.S. military forces in the Syrian conflict, in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf.

Another such incident took place in the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz, a common hot spot for Iranian aggressiveness.

An Iranian Navy vessel has prompted ire from the U.S. military after an “unsafe and unprofessional” test of its capabilities on a U.S. helicopter.

According to a U.S. military statement, the vessel used an on-board laser against a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53E helicopter, moving above a trio of U.S. naval ships, transiting the strait.

The group was crossing the strait when an Iranian military vessel approached one of the three—the amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Bataan. The two came within 800 yards of each other, with the guided-missile destroyer U.S.S. Cole and dry cargo ship U.S.N.S. Washington Chambers not far away, Bill Urban, a spokesman for the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet said.

“The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5), guided-missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67) and dry cargo ship USNS Washington Chambers (T-AKE-11) were transiting the strait when the Iranian vessel paralleled the U.S. formation, shining a spotlight on Cole. Shortly thereafter, the Iranian vessel trained a laser on a CH-53E helicopter that accompanied the formation. The Iranian vessel then proceeded to turn its spotlight on Bataan, scanning the ship from bow to stern and stern to bow before heading outbound from the formation,” Urban said in a statement.

The aircraft’s presence prompted the Iranian boat—a missile boat according to one defense official speaking to CNN on the condition of anonymity—to point its targeting laser toward it. The same official said that not only does this fly in the face of safety protocols, but it also set off the CH-53E’s automatic defense system, firing flare signals.

“Illuminating helicopters with lasers at night is dangerous as it creates a navigational hazard that can impair vision and can be disorienting to pilots using night vision goggles,” Urban said.

According to U.S. Navy records, 2016 yielded 35 incidents of unsafe or unprofessional behavior by Iran’s navy alone—although the “vast majority” took place in the first half of the year.

There have been incidents this year too, including in January when the guided-missile destroyer USS Mahan fired three warning shots at four Iranian fast attack boats in the Strait of Hormuz. Another “unprofessional but also provocative” maneuver by the Iranians happened in April, the U.S. said according to CNN.

Incidents on the high seas were not limited to U.S. warships as Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed to have attacked a Saudi-led coalition warship near a strategic Red Sea waterway, China’s state-owned Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

The reported attack took place off the coast of the Yemeni city of Mocha, about 60 miles north of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. An estimated 4.7 million barrels of oil pass daily through the strait, which links the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea.

“The navy of the army and popular forces on Wednesday targeted a warship belonging to a Saudi-led coalition while it was carrying out hostile acts off Mokha coast of Taiz province,” a Houthi military official was quoted as saying by the Houthi-affiliated Saba news agency.

Al Massira TV, which is also linked to the Houthis, reported that “the navy forces of the national army fired a missile targeting the enemy coalition warship at the Red Sea early morning of Wednesday.”

Iranian shipments of weapons to the Houthis have been repeatedly intercepted by U.S. naval forces. The shipments included thousands of rifles, RPGs, anti-tank missiles, and other light and medium arms. Iran has openly acknowledged its support for the Houthis, and in early March 2015, Lebanon’s NOW Media reported that Houthi fighters were receiving training in Syria on behalf of Iran.

The increasing tempo of Iranian aggression prompted the U.S. military to deploy a truck-mounted missile system into Syria, an official said Wednesday, to a forward operating group of rebels and US military advisers that have repeatedly clashed with government forces.

The deployment raises the stakes in eastern Syria, where Iranian-sponsored pro-government forces have outflanked US advisers and rebels holding the Tanf border crossing to establish their own link to Iraq for the first time in years.

Shifting the HIMARS missile system into eastern Syria from Jordan will give the US a precise, long-range weapon to protect its advisers and allies in Tanf, and to attack ISIS militants further downfield. It has a range of 186 miles.

With the recent provocative activities in the region, it is now clearer that there will not be any change in the behavior of the Iranian regime’s aggression in the region, after Rouhani has been “elected” for the second term.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Desperation Shows as It Blames US for ISIS

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Iran Regime Desperation Shows as It Blames US for ISIS

Members of Iranian forces take cover during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017. Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS

The Iranian regime pushed out an absurd theory over the weekend blaming the U.S. for the birth and growth of ISIS and continues to push the inane message even though virtually every intelligence and news report refutes the notion.

Of course, the reason the mullahs are pursuing this silly argument is simple: They must blame the recent ISIS attacks in Tehran on someone else otherwise they will face the uncomfortable truth that the terror they have wrought on the rest of the world is finally coming home.

Armstrong Williams, an advisor and spokesman for the presidential campaign of Dr. Ben Carson and a radio host, took that notion to task in a piece in the Hill.

While he correctly sympathizes with the victims killed and wounded in the ISIS attacks, Williams points out that the attacks were less about raining death and destruction on the Iranian regime, as much as making a propaganda point against the mullahs.

“It is also important to recognize the significant role that symbolism plays in both Iranian and Middle Eastern cultures. Which is why the second terrorist attack targeting Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s tomb complex, the leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution, was a veritable attack at Iran’s core,” he writes.

“These twin terror attacks, striking the mullahs’ parliament and shrine to the Khomeini, represent a very painful bitter pill for the Iranian regime to swallow.”

It’s a harsh wake-up call to the mullahs who have consistently used terror and proxies such as Hezbollah and Shiite militias to wage war on their enemies to see the same thing happen right in their backyard.

“ISIS, the Taliban and al Qaeda have also received support from the extremist Iranian mullahs, which is ironic since each of these terrorist groups’ ideologies are determined to eradicate Shi’ism, which just happens to be the religious backbone of the Iranian regime,” Williams said.

“And the reason for this twisted terrorist support is sickening: Tehran sees benefit in forming tactical alliances with these terrorist entities because they too loath America, and are motivated by a virulent anti-West agenda.”

Many news media and even the Iran lobby often try to portray the combatants in Syria as split on sectarian lines; Sunni vs. Shia with Iran firmly and bravely fighting ISIS, but in truth, Iran sees and has used ISIS as an effective foil for the West, diverting attention from its own actions in Yemen, Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

In fact, the Iranian regime could not have it both ways anymore. It could not—on the one hand—sponsor and export terror and not expect to that to rebound on them down the road. It’s the ultimate act of hubris on the scale of a Greek tragedy.

Amir Basiri, a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway column, explained how the Iranian regime and ISIS both benefitted from each other.

“The Islamic State clearly owes its rise to Tehran. The violence caused by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its affiliates in Iraq and Syria created the perfect breeding ground for the emergence of the Islamic State and allowed it to occupy large swathes of land in both countries,” he writes.

“Reciprocally, the Islamic State returned the favor, causing rampage that provided Iran with the perfect excuse to increase its meddling in neighboring countries. Under the pretext of fighting the Islamic State, Tehran founded and legalized the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella for extremist Shiite groups backed by Iran. The Islamic State also became Iran’s excuse to openly intervene in the Syrian conflict and shore up the Assad regime against opposition forces,” he added.

That recognition by both sides is what has allowed both to flourish as Iran expanded its control over Syria, Iraq and Yemen, while ISIS grew from a small collection of jihadi fighters to a vast terror-nation state with access to cash reserves, oil exports and a tax system.

Only when ISIS began to suffer losses on the battlefield and engaged in inspiring terror attacks worldwide over the past two years have nations finally coalesced in trying to exterminate the group.

The problem for the mullahs in Tehran is what happens if ISIS is eventually eradicated? The excuse they have used for so long in justifying their presence in Syria and Iraq will evaporate, which is why they are now trying to tie ISIS to the U.S. and long-time foe Saudi Arabia.

Only by framing the two as ISIS god parents can Iran hope to legitimize its continued occupation of its holdings.

“This is a reminder that Iran is not part of the solution in fighting the Islamic State or other extremist groups. Islamic fundamentalism can only be eradicated if it is fought in its entirety. This will require the eviction of the Iranian regime and the Revolutionary Guards from the region and the total dismantling of its terrorist proxies,” Basiri adds.

The Iranian regime is already working hard to beat the clock and solidify its foothold with the announcement of the appointment of a new Iranian ambassador to Iraq, not from the diplomatic corps, but from its Quds Forces.

Iran’s most prominent economic daily describes the arrival of Iraj Masjedi in Baghdad to take over Iran’s embassy there. Masjedi is a brigadier-general in the Quds Force who served in several leadership roles in forward operating bases during the Iran-Iraq War.

In recent years, the Iranian press has described him as a senior advisor to Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani. His promotion to be Iranian ambassador to Iraq suggests that Tehran’s focus in Iraq in the coming years will be military.

That suspicion was amplified with news reports that a blast that killed three people and injured 15 others on Friday in the Iraqi city of Karbala had an Iranian link.

“After the explosion and during the investigation and inspection on Friday night, the Iraqi intelligence forces arrested five Iranians who had explosives and remote control devices at the area near the blast site, in the eastern Abbasid,” an official said on condition of anonymity.

“The security forces transferred the Iranian detainees to the Karbala intelligence headquarters for interrogation,” the source said. “But minutes later dozens of Brigade Ali Akbar and Badr Organization militias supported by Iran surrounded the headquarters of the intelligence of Karbala.”

The source said the militias demanded the release of the five Iranian detainees but their request was rejected by the head of intelligence, who emphasized that he will hand them back only to authorities in Baghdad.

The refusal led the armed militias to break into the intelligence headquarters, where they took the five detainees and the head of the intelligence department.

The strong-arm tactics are nothing new to Iranian-backed militias and heralds a disturbing new chapter in Iran’s involvement in Iraq.

We can only hope that the Quds Forces do not turn Iraq into another Syria in order to find a new distraction for the world.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Moving Quickly to Exploit Multiple Crises

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Iran Regime Moving Quickly to Exploit Multiple Crises

Iran Regime Moving Quickly to Exploit Multiple Crises

The ancient Chinese saying that there is “opportunity in crisis” seems to be have no bigger believer than the mullahs in Tehran lately as the Middle East continues to sink deeper into turmoil and the Iranian regime seeks to exploit the chaos and suffering for its own benefit.

In Syria, there is no argument that Iranian intervention in support of the Assad regime has turned that country into a slaughterhouse and now the mullahs are pushing their advantage through their Shiite militia proxies who now appear to have secured a road link from the Iranian border all the way to Syria’s Mediterranean coastline according to the New Yorker.

The new land route will allow the Iranian regime to resupply its allies in Syria by land instead of air, which is both easier and cheaper.

“The road network, which starts on Iran’s border with Iraq and runs across that country and Syria, was secured last week, when pro-Iranian Shiite militias captured a final string of Iraqi villages near the border with Syria. The road link zigs and zags across the two countries, but it appears to give Iran direct, uninhibited access to Damascus and the government of Bashar al-Assad, which the Iranians have been supporting since the uprising there began, in 2011. Since then, the Iranians have been Assad’s primary backer, sending men, guns, and other material by air and sea,” the New Yorker reported.

The development is potentially momentous, because, for the first time, it would bind together, by a single land route, a string of Iranian allies, including Hezbollah, in Lebanon; the Assad regime, in Syria; and the Iranian-dominated government in Iraq. Those allies form what is often referred to as the Shiite Crescent, an Iranian sphere of influence in an area otherwise dominated by Sunni Muslims.

The Iranian regime has sought to create such a sphere since the end of the Iran-Iraq War, in 1988, which it saw as a Western-backed effort to destroy the regime. That’s why Iran helped create Hezbollah, the Shiite militia that dominates Lebanon, and trained and directed Shiite militias that attacked American soldiers during their occupation of Iraq.

The one significant obstacle standing in the way of this Iranian arms superhighway are the Kurds in the semiautonomous area of Iraq which has plainly stated they don’t want Shiite militias or Iranians transiting their territory.

This may explain why the Iranian regime’s foreign ministry has vehemently opposed a plan by the Kurds to hold an independence referendum.

“The principal and clear position of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to support Iraq’s territorial integrity and solidarity,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Saturday in state media.

The Kurdish move was spurred in part by growing Iranian influence within the Iraqi government, culminating the split with Sunni partners by the government of Nouri al-Maliki at the reported behest of Tehran. That split drive Iraqi Sunnis into the arms of a fledging ISIS that secured its first major victory with the fall of Mosul.

Meanwhile the growing standoff between Qatar and fellow Gulf states and Saudi Arabia escalated as the Iranian regime made a show of flying several planeloads of food into the embattled Gulf nation.

Iran sent four cargo planes of food to Qatar and plans to provide 100 tons of fruits and vegetables every day, according to Iranian officials, amid concerns of shortages after Qatar’s biggest suppliers severed ties with the import-dependent country. This is in addition to reports Iran was shipping meat and other less perishable items by small boats.

Qatar has been in talks with Iran and Turkey to secure food and water supplies after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain cut links, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism.

The split could present a rare opportunity for Iran to drive a wedge between its usually tightly allied Sunni adversaries on the other side of the Persian Gulf, analysts said. Iran and the Gulf states are on opposing sides in a number of regional battlefields, including in Yemen and Syria.

Qatar is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, along with Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. Most of the GCC countries oppose Iran’s regional aims, including its support for Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon and its backing of the Assad regime against a long-running challenge by Sunni rebels.

The Associated Press examined Qatar’s alleged ties to extremist groups including Al-Qaeda and ISIS finding that Qatari finances have indirectly propped up both terrorist groups. Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas have also been problematic as both groups have been destabilizing forces in many Arab countries.

Most worrisome for Arab nations was Qatar’s payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom to Iranian-backed Shiite militias that kidnapped 26 hostages, including members of the Qatar ruling family.

Egypt has asked the U.N. Security Council to investigate reports that Qatar “paid up to $1 billion to a terrorist group active in Iraq” to free the hostages, which would violate U.N. sanctions.

The ransom payments continue a trend that began with President Barack Obama’s payments to Iran for the release of several American hostages as part of the nuclear deal in 2015.

To top things off, Iran sent two warships to Oman before heading to the coast of Yemen in a not-too subtle warning to the Gulf states boycotting Qatar.

The Tasnim news agency reported that the two ships, an Alborz destroyer and a Bushehr logistics warship, will depart from the port city of Bandar Abbas on Sunday for an overseas mission to Oman and then on to international waters.

“An Iranian naval flotilla will depart to Oman on Sunday and then will go to the north of the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden,” the agency quoted the navy as saying.

 

The Gulf of Aden, which lies between the Horn of Africa and the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is a strategic shipping lane which connects the Indian ocean with the Red Sea and Suez Canal.

Meanwhile on the hone front, the Iranian regime took steps to repair the public relations damage caused by the ISIS attacks in Tehran by announcing it has arrested almost 50 people in connection with twin attacks as security forces stepped up efforts to crack down on suspected militants.

Iran’s intelligence minister, Mahmoud Alavi, also declared on state television late Saturday night that Iranian intelligence operatives killed the “commander of the team” that carried out the strikes, the Washington Post reported. Alavi though refused to release the name of the so-called mastermind.

It would not be surprising to find that the Iranian regime used the pretext of the ISIS attacks to arrest and imprison bothersome Iranian dissidents, also the lack of identification of the attack’s planner left many believing there was no successful targeting of those responsible.

But none of this stopped the regime from again trying to point the finger at Saudi Arabia and the U.S. for the ISIS attacks and for the growth of the terrorist group itself.

Iranian armed forces deputy chief of staff Mostafa Izadi claimed that Tehran allegedly has evidence proving that the U.S. provided “direct support to Daesh,” Fars news agency reported.

This followed a similar statement from Russian media that accused the U.S. of aiding ISIS fighters in escaping capture in Syria.

Neither Iran nor Russia offered any proof to back those claims.

Laura Carnahan

Iran Lobby Tries to Take Advantage of ISIS Attack to Reset Debate

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Iran Lobby Tries to Take Advantage of ISIS Attack to Reset Debate

Iran Lobby Tries to Take Advantage of ISIS Attack to Reset Debate

The attack claimed by ISIS on Iranian targets the other day, including the Parliament building that killed 17 people, would normally be cause for universal condemnation and sympathy for the dead and wounded, but only the Iran lobby can find a way to use tragedy for its own purposes as various groups stepped up the rhetorical assaults against Saudi Arabia and the U.S.

Most notable was the National Iranian American Council which issued a full broadside of press statements, tweets, editorials and media interviews all focused on blaming Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Iranian dissident groups for the attack.

“ISIS has had very little success striking inside Iran. Main reason is they can’t recruit Iranians easily, so no local knowledge,” said Trita Parsi, president of the NIAC. “Only group with local knowledge that can slip into Iran easily is the Iranian terror group the MEK.”

It is interesting Parsi uses the same language as the Iranian regime in depicting Iranian dissident groups as “terror groups” knowing full well these groups are largely engaged in humanitarian efforts, information and news gathering and exposing the corrupt practices the regime government.

But more interesting is how attempting to reset the debate away from the recent history of Iran’s involvement in the bloody civil war that helped spawn ISIS in the first place, but instead pivot to accusations against Saudi Arabia and foreshadowing military action against the kingdom from Iran.

“Iranians believe there has been a lot of provocation, but they’ve been very restrained so far vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia,” Parsi said to the Washington Times. “Now the nation’s leaders are going to be under a lot of pressure from the Iranian public to respond in some way.”

Parsi said aggressive statements by Saudi leaders have “created a context in which the IRGC can convince the Iranian public not only that the Saudis were connected to Wednesday’s attack, but that the U.S. is also connected,” even if there may not be any evidence for such.

According to Vice News, hours before Wednesday’s attacks, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir characterized Iran as the leading sponsor of terrorism and called for action to be taken against it over its destabilizing actions in the region, where it is involved in Lebanon and Yemen, as well as Syria and Iraq. In turn, Iran blamed Saudi Arabia for supporting the rise of Sunni extremist groups in the region.

Parsi has laid out the argument justifying military action against Saudi Arabia now that the mullahs in Tehran feel they have justification now to engage in even more provocative action. Whereas supplying the Houthis in Yemen to threaten Saudi Arabia’s border was seen as the extent of Iranian actions, Parsi is now laying the intellectual foundation for an ever-widening war.

A curious position for the NIAC to take since its stated purpose is to help resolve differences among Iranian-Americans.

But there is a broader agenda at play here since legislation is moving through the U.S. Senate now to impose new sanctions on Iran for violations of ballistic missile testing. Parsi and his cohorts in the Iran lobby see new sanctions as an existential threat to the Iranian regime and doing all they can to reset the debate away from Iran and even cull some sympathy from the attacks.

The NIAC is now vigorously attacking the sanctions bill and attempting to leverage the ISIS attack into an argument that passing the legislation would even hamper the fight against ISIS.

A corollary to that argument is the opposition by the NIAC to the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the Trump administration.

The NIAC’s Adam Weinstein authored an opinion piece in Defense One arguing that the IRGC was a key element in the fight to oust ISIS from Mosul, Iraq.

“The success of this offensive is in large part due to the ability of the Iraqi army to act as an intermediary between Iran-backed militias and U.S. troops. However, a Senate bill, the Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017, will likely lead the Trump administration to label the IRGC as a terrorist group. Combined with the administration’s increased alignment with Saudi Arabia against Iran, this step threatens to fracture this de facto coalition in Mosul, detract from the fight against ISIS, and recklessly endanger the lives of U.S. forces,” he writes.

It’s a stretch of an argument since IRGC troops are now in the forefront in Syria engaging with U.S.-led forces, even to the point where the U.S. warplanes attacked an Iranian-backed convoy of Shiite militias as it approached U.S. bases.

That hardly sounds like the actions of a U.S. ally determined to fight ISIS.

In fact, the truth is Iran’s play in Syria has always been to target anti-Syrian regime forces and largely leave ISIS forces unscathed. Even after persuading Russia to enter the fray, Iranian officers providing targeting data to Russian warplanes not of ISIS positions, but often anti-regime forces and civilian targets in areas controlled by rebels.

What Weinstein, Parsi and their colleagues fail to recognize is that Iran’s own actions are the determining factor in how the U.S. is going to shape its foreign policy. So long as Iran continues the slaughter in Syria, pushes Saudi Arabia with the Houthi rebellion in Yemen, and broadens tensions with its support for Qatar, as well as increasing turmoil in Bahrain, then the regime is going to reap what it has sown.

Michael Tomlinson

 

Iran Regime Tries to Blame ISIS Attacks on Opposition

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Iran Regime Tries to Blame ISIS Attacks on Opposition

The body of a terrorist, at background left, lies on the ground while police control the scene at the shine of late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, June 7, 2017. Several attackers stormed into Iran’s parliament and a suicide bomber targeted the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on Wednesday, killing a security guard and wounding 12 other people in rare twin attacks, with the shooting at the legislature still underway. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

An attack by six assailants armed with rifles and explosives took Iranian regime security forces by surprise the other day in a series of attacks aimed at the heart of the government, including a takeover of the Parliament building and the tomb of the regime’s founder, leaving a dozen dead and 46 wounded that shook the religious theocracy ruling Iran.

The attacks lasted for hours and was claimed by ISIS, which if true, would represent the first successful attack by the terror group on Iranian soil and a significant and somewhat ironic turn of events in the growing sectarian conflict between and extremist Sunni and extremist Shiite ideologies.

Predictably, the default response from Iranian officials was to point the finger of blame at regional rival Saudi Arabia and even Iranian dissident groups such as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq. As Iranian officials struggled in the wake of the attack, one could sense confusion and even a slight note of panic setting in as the prospect of Tehran joining the ranks of cities such as London, Paris and Berlin as prime terror targets began to seep.

For the Iranian regime, much of the blame for the notable rise in Islamic extremist groups lies squarely on its doorstep. The mullahs constant vitriol aimed at Israel, the U.S. and the its Sunni Arab neighbors has only made routine the kind of hate that groups like Hezbollah have acted on for decades.

The use of proxies and terrorist groups has always been a part of the statecraft toolbox for Iran as it has used Hezbollah and the Houthis to conduct open warfare in Syria and Yemen, meanwhile bolstering Shiite militias in Iraq to push Sunnis out of the coalition government there and into the waiting arms of ISIS recruiters.

According to the New York Times, tensions in the Middle East were already high following a visit by President Trump last month, in which he exalted and emboldened Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival. Saudi Arabia and several Sunni allies led a regional effort on Monday to isolate Qatar, the tiny Persian Gulf country that maintains good relations with Iran

In a statement, the Revolutionary Guards Corps said, “The public opinion of the world, especially Iran, recognizes this terrorist attack — which took place a week after a joint meeting of the U.S. president and the head of one of the region’s backward governments, which constantly supports fundamentalist terrorists — as very meaningful,” a reference to Saudi Arabia’s ruling monarchy.

Saudi Arabia swiftly rejected the claim and the Trump White House, while expressing sympathy for the victims, was quick to note that “states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote” in a statement.

The MEK also denied any involvement and accused regime officials of a smear attack saying “their intention is to either use this event” against the group or justify their own previous crimes” in a statement.

But that didn’t stop members of the Iran lobby from stepping up to also blame Iranian dissident groups for the attack either directly or indirectly.

Paul R. Pillar, a stalwart for the Iran lobby, wrote in Consortium News blaming the MEK for alleged terrorist attacks in Iran and claiming that prior attacks had left the regime much better prepared to counter terrorism.

We hate to tell Pillar that his measure of “preparedness” by Iranian security forces leaves much to be desired judging by the daylong standoff at the Parliament building.

Pillar even begins laying the ground work for the Iranian regime to step up its terrorist activities in the wake of the attacks saying “in the months ahead, Iran may take actions outside its borders in response to the attacks.”

“Iran may see a need to be more aggressive in places such as Iraq or Syria in the interest of fighting back against ISIS,” Pillar said.

His comments are instructive since the mullahs are likely to use the attacks as an excuse to step up their fights in Syria in to preserve the Assad regime and in Yemen to continue destabilizing the border to Saudi Arabia.

It is not inconceivable that the Iranian regime will use the attacks as a pretext to launch fresh initiatives in places such as Bahrain and Qatar to further split apart the Gulf states and weaken opposition to its regional ambitions to build a Shiite sphere of influence.

Pillar wasn’t alone in trying to drag the MEK into the mud, as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, gleefully attacked the resistance group in interviews claiming that the MEK was equipped to carry out these attacks because of its channels into the regime and its ties to Saudi Arabia.

“If the goal was to penetrate and destabilize Iran, the MEK clearly was Saudi Arabia’s best bet,” Parsi said. “Still unclear who’s behind the current attack in Iran, but the MEK (and their Saudi backers) are a main suspect. Timing is of course curious. Just last month, A Saudi Crown Prince said Riyadh is working hard to take battle to inside of Iran.”

Parsi and Pillar offered no proof, only suspicions that read like they came from a talking points memo from Ali Khamenei’s office as Iran struggles with the aftermath of the attacks and desperately seeks any scapegoat other than its own support for terrorism.

The roots for these attacks lie squarely in the Iranian regime’s long history of exporting terror as a tool and it has finally come home to bite them.

Michael Tomlinson

Qatar Crisis Has Roots in Iranian Regime

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Qatar Crisis Has Roots in Iranian Regime

Qatar’s Foreign Minister Khalid al-Attiyah (L) holds a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif on February 26, 2014 in Tehran. AFP PHOTO/ATTA KENARE

President Barack Obama had long viewed the conflicts raging in the Middle East as having their roots in the classical expansionism of Western powers exerting control over their former colonies and territorial holdings. He also viewed American military use in the region problematic and an incentive for countries such as Iran to oppose U.S. ambitions any way possible, including terrorism.

President Obama understood the rationale for terror and adjusted his foreign policy accordingly in the mistaken belief that openness would be rewarded with cooperation and civility.

This was a driving belief in his quest to negotiate a nuclear agreement with the Iranian regime and caused him to grant concession after concession to secure a deal. His willingness to disconnect issues such as Iran’s support for terror or its abysmal human rights record to the deal cleared a runway for Iranian extremism to become an export product as legitimate as its oil.

While you can’t fault his motives, his judgment was clouded by the allure of a landmark deal that could cement his status in history books as a peacemaker. It’s also why he steered away from every seriously wading into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; seeing no end game resolution for that problem. This also carried the price of sending the U.S.-Saudi relationship to a historic low point.

The problem is that his basic assumptions about the nature of the Middle East was wrong and the new calculus of a new order in the region is quickly taking shape.

For many decades, the Arab world was uniformly united in using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary talking point in diplomatic circles, but with the ascendance of the Iranian regime over the last few years, the Arab world and Iran’s neighbors have quickly re-calculated the risks of allowing Iran unfettered freedom.

For the Syrian people, that price has been exorbitant as Iran has used its own Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force troops, alongside Hezbollah fighters, Iraqi Shiite militias and recruited Afghan mercenaries to fight on behalf of the Assad regime.

In Yemen, Iran has armed Houthi rebels to open another front against Saudi Arabia and pose a very real and significant threat to the Kingdom. Add to that efforts to control Iraq as a Shiite proxy and you get the birth of ISIS and other extremist groups.

The Middle East has quickly devolved into a free-fire zone of wars breaking out everywhere.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the mullahs in Tehran behind much of the machinations taking place aimed at their Sunni rivals, which explains why the latest flare up involving the tiny Gulf state of Qatar exploded this week.

The Atlantic spelled out the problems Qatar’s neighbors have had with the oil-rich nation over the past decade.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, last cut ties with Qatar in 2014, withdrawing their ambassadors from the country for nine months. But this latest standoff has gone markedly further. For one thing, it includes economic sanctions—and given that Qatar’s only land border is with Saudi Arabia, any disruption to the flow of goods and people by air, land, or sea, could cause rapid economic dislocation and lead to social or political unrest, the Atlantic reported.

While it remains unclear what the Saudi and Emirati endgame is, the roots of the tensions between Qatar and its neighbors go deep, predating the Arab Spring in 2011 and Qatar’s subsequent high-profile support for Islamist transitions in North Africa and Syria. In fact, nearly every “crisis” in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) over the past quarter-century has, in some way, involved Qatar. The other Gulf leaders’ patience with Doha’s sometimes-maverick regional policies may have finally snapped.

A key preoccupation of Qatar’s post-1995 leadership has been the pursuit of autonomous regional policies designed to bring the country out of the Saudi shadow. Qatar’s support for regional Islamists, notably but not only the Muslim Brotherhood, and provision of Doha-based Al Jazeera as a platform for groups criticizing regional states, incited periods of intense friction.

The history of tension between Qatar and the rest of its neighbors has been fraught which explains why the Iranian regime sees an opportunity to extend its influence to Qatar.

Iran immediately blamed President Donald Trump for setting the stage during his recent trip to Riyadh.

“What is happening is the preliminary result of the sword dance,” Hamid Aboutalebi, deputy chief of staff of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, tweeted in a reference to Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia.

Trump and other U.S. officials participated in a traditional sword dance during the trip in which he called on Muslim countries to stand united against Islamist extremists and singled out Iranian regime as a key source of funding and support for militant groups.

The prospect of a U.S. president forging a new Arab coalition against Iran must be freaking out the mullahs in Tehran which may explain their near hysterical response to Trump in blaming him for everything.

The fact that Iran and Qatar share a massive gas field in the Persian Gulf provides a strong economic incentive tying them together which may help explain why Qatar has embraced radical Islamist groups.

For Iran’s part, the mullahs are hoping to gain an opportunity to strengthen its relationship with Qatar and drive a deeper wedge into the Gulf states by offering to move food and supplies by convoy into Qatar; a move that Saudi Arabia is blocking.

While the public spat with Qatar may be about regional issues, the underlying central issue has always been about the Iranian regime.

Michael Tomlinson

London Bridge Attacks Puts Spotlight on Iran Extremism

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London Bridge Attacks Puts Spotlight on Iran Extremism

London Bridge Attacks Puts Spotlight on Iran Extremism

The terrorist attacks that have struck London and Manchester have reinforced the essential problem facing nations confronted with homegrown radicalization: How to stem the tide of extremism flowing from a few select terrorist actors in the world.

The core truism about extremism is that it is not something that magically springs into a young man’s mind. It is something created by example and revealed as a pathway of redemption for the disenfranchised, the unhappy, the mentally unstable.

While ISIS and before it, Al-Qaeda, spewed out hate-filled propaganda designed to energize and slightly dement these men and women around the world, the pathfinder for this process has always been the Iranian regime.

Radicalization begins with an idea. From such innocuous beginnings can spring forth great horrors. Nazism in Germany plunged the world into a cataclysmic war. The Iranian regime’s twisted perversion of Islam has created a similar tidal wave of misery around the world.

From its earliest days when the religious clerics took over the leadership of a revolution that meant to topple the Shah’s dictatorship and turned it into a referendum on dictatorial religious power, Iran has been at the epicenter of conflicts not only with the West, but its neighboring Muslim neighbors.

The ruling mullahs have always operated with a fervent belief in the expansion of their control and theocracy; partly to gain material control of funds and assets, but also to build buffer between Iran and the rest of the world.

The mullahs sought to build alliances or simply overthrow governments to create a Shiite sphere of influence in Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen; stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

It has used proxies and terrorist organizations to help fights battles, assassination political rivals, destabilize governments and provide a safe landing zone for Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force troops to jump in and consolidate its gains.

But for all its successes, Iran now faces a very basic problem: the rest of world now knows the true colors of the Iranian regime.

With each terrorist attack, the world asks a simple question: Why?

The answer is increasingly: Islamic extremism.

The equation is simple to understand; expose potential subjects to an ideology of hate and intolerance and you can turn anyone into a guided weapon.

Iran mullahs have excelled at the practice for decades through their own terrorist proxies and espousing the language of hate. It didn’t matter who the mullahs directed their vitriol at since everyone was fair game.

Death to the Great Satan.

Death to Sunni apostates.

Destroy Israel.

Overthrow the Kingdom.

The targets changed, but the message never did.

Now the mullahs are sensing the tide is changing on them around the world and they are trying to do a backstroke upstream.

That was evident when top mullah Ali Khamenei declared that the London terror attacks were a “wake-up call” for Western nations to go after the sources of terrorism.

Rarely has anyone said something so completely correct and so wildly wrong.

“Repeated blind terror attacks around the world are a wake-up call for the world community,” the official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying.

“To uproot terror, it is necessary that they (Western states) address the root causes as well as the main financial and ideological sources of extremism and violence, which are clear to everyone,” Qasemi was quoted as saying by Press TV.

Iran denies Western charges of sponsoring terrorism, and it is no coincidence that Khamenei tried to hoist blame on Saudi Arabia since the U.S. under the Trump administration has set its sights squarely on containing Iran and forming a new international coalition.

That opposition began with a renewed military commitment in Syria where U.S. forces actively targeted and engaged Iranian-backed forces for the first time.

U.S. military said on Thursday it had bolstered its “combat power” in southern Syria, warning that it viewed Iran-backed fighters in the area as a threat to nearby coalition troops fighting Islamic State.

The remarks by a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State was the latest sign of tension in the region, where the United States has forces at the base around the Syrian town of Al Tanf supporting local fighters.

“We have increased our presence and our footprint and prepared for any threat that is presented by the pro-regime forces,” said the spokesman, U.S. Army Colonel Ryan Dillon, referring to Iran-backed forces supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Trump has begun the laborious process of building a new coalition in halting Iranian expansion.

Most recently, during his trip to Saudi Arabia, Trump called for unity against Tehran and told assembled Arab leaders that, “For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror.”

Under its new director, former Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo, who was a ardent foe of the Iran deal, the intelligence agency has made moves toward more aggressive spying and covert operations.

And, according to The New York Times, Pompeo has found a skilled leader for his Iran operations: Michael D’Andrea, an experienced intelligence officer known as the “Dark Prince” or “Ayatollah Mike.”

D’Andrea, a Muslim convert, has gotten much of the credit for US efforts to weaken Al Qaeda.

Robert Eatinger, a former CIA lawyer who was involved in the agency’s drone program, told The Times it would not be “the wrong read” to see D’Andrea’s appointment as step toward a more hardline policy on Iran.

The attacks in London are only a symptom of the much larger disease of Islamic extremism fueled by Tehran and it’s time to rein it in.

Michael Tomlinson