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Holding Iran Accountable Starts by Not Believing Iran Lobby

March 11, 2016 by admin

Holding Iran Accountable Starts by Not Believing Iran Lobby

The Iran lobby, consisting of lobbying groups such as the National Iranian American Council and media platforms like Lobelog.com, has long argued that agreement on a nuclear deal would bring about a new period of moderation within Iran and smooth the way for normalized relations.

Since the agreement was completed last summer, the Iranian regime has acted nothing like a moderate government engaging in a wide variety of foreign policy excesses such as going all-in on the Syrian civil war and stepping up support for Houthi rebels in Yemen, to instituting a harsh crackdown at home imprisoning dissidents and journalists and keeping the gallows busy by marching over 2,200 people to their deaths over the past two years.

Throughout it all, the Iran lobby has worked hard to maintain its charade and keep journalists believing in this false narrative no matter how incredible the proof has been otherwise. One example of this is a Q&A in the New York Times by Rick Gladstone in which he regurgitates many of the Iran lobby’s myths. For example, Gladstone asks:

Is Iran honoring the nuclear agreement? He writes it is according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, but neglects to mention admissions by the head of that agency that inspection protocols had been comprised at various points and full reporting may never be achievable;
Are recent missile tests prohibited under the nuclear agreement? He says no, such launchings are considered a separate issue, but neglects to mention that the regime pushed hard to unlink a host of issues such as ballistic missiles, human rights and support for terrorism from the deal, thereby allowing the regime a free hand to continue its illegal activities;
Iran’s parliamentary elections last month were supposed to have strengthened moderate supporters of Hassan Rouhani. So why is Iran provoking its critics by testing missiles? Gladstone explains that the launches are conducted by the Revolutionary Guard Corps which is outside of Rouhani’s control, but neglects to point out that Rouhani has been a willing supporter of these hardline tactics since his government has overseen one of the harshest crackdowns in 20 years against public dissent.

This militancy on the part of the Iranian regime was reinforced by boasts by senior military commanders that the tests would continue even though they are in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, which are being proven impotent by the lack of any consequences for these violations.

Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a senior commander for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps that runs the regime’s missile program, told state television that it has more missiles ready to launch, and they are for defensive purposes.

“Iran’s missile program will not stop under any circumstances,” Hajizadeh said. “We are always ready to defend the country against any aggressor.”

The fact that the argument over the regime’s violations have shifted from calling for swift action to debates over whether or not imposition of sanctions might jeopardize a nuclear agreement that has already proven ineffectual in curbing the regime demonstrates how weak the international response has become.

This broad policy of appeasing the mullahs has already generated severe negative consequences as Iran seeks to aggressive upgrade its military and rearm in the wake of its deep involvement in three ongoing proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen as well as a potential new arms race with its chief regional rival, Saudi Arabia.

Hajizadeh also announced that Iran is calling its own version of a spy drone, “Simorgh,” which is Iranian for “Phoenix,” according to the country’s state controlled media.

Iran’s version of the drone “was manufactured through reverse engineering of the U.S. drone, which was tracked and hunted down in Iran late in 2011, and has been equipped by the IRGC with bombing capability,” according to Fars News Agency.

This comes on the heels of an $8 billion shopping spree in Moscow by the Iranian regime and the imminent delivery of an advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missile system.

Most disturbing of all was the announcement by Ahmed Shaheed, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, that there had been a “staggering surge in the execution of at least 966 prisoners last year – the highest rate in over two decades,” Shaheed told a news briefing.

The number of executions are roughly double the number executed in 2010 and 10 times as many as were executed in 2005 and demonstrate how Rouhani’s promises of a more moderate government when he was elected were merely political window dressing.

“A large percentage of those executions are for drug offences and under Iran’s current drug laws, possession of 30 grams of heroin or cocaine would qualify for the death penalty. So there’s a number of draconian laws,” he said.

“Fundamental problems also exist with regard to the due process and fair trial rights of the accused,” Shaheed said.

“I continue to receive frequent and alarming reports about the use of prolonged solitary and incommunicado confinement, torture and ill-treatment, lack of access to lawyers and the use of confessions solicited under torture as evidence in trials – practices that clearly violate Iran’s own laws,” he said.

Hundreds of journalists, bloggers, activists and opposition figures “currently languish in Iran’s prisons and detention facilities,” he said.

None of which has stopped the Iran lobby from trying to divert attention to anything else as evidenced by an appearance by Jamal Abdi, of the NIAC, at a summit in Washington, DC aimed at criticizing the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia.

He spoke of how the Saudi regime tried to jeopardize the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran and criticized the visa restrictions the U.S. imposed on Iranians and Iranian dual nationals. He also spoke of how the U.S. is essentially “renting” the Saudi army to carry out the war in Yemen, and potentially even Syria, which is ironic considering that it was the Iranian regime’s support of the Assad regime in Syria and Houthi rebels in Yemen that started both conflicts in the first place.

All of which demonstrates how the Iran lobby will address any issue other than the current activities of the regime.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iranian Regime Launches More Missiles; Clinton Pushes for Sanctions

March 10, 2016 by admin

A ballistic missile is launched and tested in an undisclosed location, Iran, in this handout photo released by Farsnews on March 9, 2016. REUTERS/farsnews.com/Handout via Reuters

You have to wonder just how much of North Korea is rubbing off on the mullahs in Tehran as the Iranian regime launched ballistic missiles for the second straight day in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and boldly thumbed their collective noses at the U.S. as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was touring Israel.

The Revolutionary Guards Corps, which oversees the Islamic state’s missile program, fired two missiles that it said hit targets over 850 miles away and pointedly declared that Israel was now within striking distance.

If they didn’t get their point across, the IRGC said the missiles bore inscriptions written in Hebrew on the side saying “Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth,” as reported by Fars, a regime news agency which also released video of the launches.

The head of the Revolutionary Guards’ missile program, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said the rockets had a range of about 1,200 miles and were capable of hitting the “Zionist regime,” Iran’s name for its archenemy Israel, the semiofficial news agency Mehr reported.

As expected, the Iran lobby did not utter one tweet, statement or editorial condemning the provocative launches, nor the timing which seemed designed to send a pointed message to the U.S. The repeated launches does bring to mind the tactics used by North Korea in also aggressively firing missiles and rockets regardless of any international sanctions that exist. The fact that the two radical nations – which already share missile and nuclear technology – are now sharing the same political playbook should come as no surprise.

The lack of inclusion of the regime’s missile program in the nuclear agreement reached last year shows the glaring loopholes that exist for Iran to continue the development of destabilizing weapons systems that can deliver chemical, biological or conventional warheads – let alone nuclear ones developed in secret – anywhere in the Middle East and most of Europe, Asia and Africa.

The lack of response from the Obama administration was predictable and disheartening for those who have consistently warned of the threat the regime poses; even after a rigged parliamentary election was touted as producing a “moderate” shift in Iran’s domestic politics.

Laudably, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton entered the fray by calling for more sanctions against the Iranian regime in light of this most recent violation.

Clinton said on Wednesday she was “deeply concerned” by reports that Iran had tested multiple ballistic missiles and said the country should face sanctions for its actions.

“This demonstrates once again why we need to address Iran’s destabilizing activities across the region, while vigorously enforcing the nuclear deal,” Clinton said in a statement.

“Iran should face sanctions for these activities and the international community must demonstrate that Iran’s threats toward Israel will not be tolerated,” she said.

Her backing of sanctions comes as Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill joined together in a push to develop new sanctions against Iran in light of these new and repeated transgressions.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and ranking member Ben Cardin (D-Md.) are preparing legislation to slap additional sanctions on Iran in response to a recent spate of ballistic missile launches. While the tests do not themselves violate the Iranian nuclear deal that took effect in January, officials believe they fly in the face of other international prohibitions and weaken the spirit of compliance needed to sustain the nuclear pact.

The senators are also negotiating a way to extend the current regime of sanctions under the Iran Sanctions Act past the end of the year, and possibly increase sanctions against Tehran for other conventional weapons and terrorist activities as well.

If the Senate can produce a package of sanctions, it stands a good chance of getting an audience in the House, where Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said Tuesday that Congress would “continue to press for new sanctions against Tehran” in light of the most recent ballistic missile tests.

Thus far, the Obama administration has only issued sanctions against 11 individuals involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) today said those sanctions are “proving to be anemic, given [Iran’s] continuing testing of ballistic missiles.”

The realization that the Iranian regime remains committed to a militarized pathway in the wake of the nuclear deal and recent elections was not lost on U.S. military commanders, as the top U.S. military commander overseeing the Middle East said Tuesday that despite the nuclear deal, Iran shows no signs of altering its destabilizing behavior.

“There are a number of things that lead me to personally believe that, you know, their behavior is not — they haven’t changed any course yet,” said Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. Central Command, at a Senate hearing.

Austin said he was concerned about Iran’s continued testing of ballistic missiles, which the U.S. intelligence community believes is Iran’s preferred method for delivering a nuclear weapon.

“What I would say is that what we and the people in the region are concerned about is that they already have overmatch with the numbers of ballistic missiles,” Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“The people in the region, they remained concerned about [Iran’s] cyber capabilities, their ability to mine the straits,” he added. “And certainly the activity of their Quds forces … we see malign activity, not only throughout the region, but around the globe as well.”

Austin also expressed concern about an “emerging strategic partnership” between another U.S. adversary, Russia. The two nations are working together to bolster Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.

“What I worry about is [if] that relationship between Syria, Russia and Iran develops further, that it will present a problem for the region,” he said.

That cooperation is expanding to include the sale of high-end weapons, Austin said.

“We’ve seen recently [the sale of] high-end air defense capability from Russia to Iran and that’s a problem for everyone in the region,” Austin said.

“And also coastal defense cruise missiles. As that type of technology is — migrates from Russia to Iran, it’ll eventually wind up in the hands of Lebanese Hezbollah.”

All in all, it hasn’t been a very good weak for the Iran lobby proponents of a new moderate Iran and puts to a lie what they have been advocating for so long.

By Laura Carnahan

Iranian Regime “Moderates” Get More Ballistic Missile Launches

March 9, 2016 by admin

Iranian Regime “Moderates” Get More Ballistic Missile Launches

Fulfilling vows the mullahs made to continue developing its ballistic missile program despite threats of new sanctions, the Iranian regime test-fired several ballistic missiles on Tuesday aimed at showing the regime’s “deterrent power” and “all-out readiness to counter any threat,” according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

The launches were carried out by the Revolutionary Guard Corps with surface-to-surface missiles fired from silos in central Iran and hit targets 435 miles away, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.

These were the first tests since the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions in January on 11 Iranian entities with alleged links to Tehran’s ballistic missile program, citing the “significant threat” the weapons posed to regional and global security. Iran last tested its missiles in October and November, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Obama administration was understandably low-key in its response, taking pains to reiterate how it did not see that the test launches violated the recently approved nuclear agreement, but might be in violation of existing United Nations Security Council resolutions banning the development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

“To be very clear, such tests are not a violation of the JCPOA,” a senior Obama administration official said. “That said, there are strong indications that the test is inconsistent with U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231. If confirmed, we intend to raise the matter in the U.N. Security Council. We will also encourage a serious review of the incident and press for an appropriate response.”

Iranian regime officials have said its recent tests don’t violate international accords, and that the weapons are merely for defense. Hassan Rouhani ordered the missiles’ development to be expedited in December, amid the prospect of new U.S. sanctions and in clear defiance of existing prohibitions.

The absurdity of the nuclear deal into stark relief when we now see the folly of unlinking various issues such as ballistic missile development, proxy wars and human rights violations from the principle agreement, in which the regime is now freed of any potential leverage that could be used against it.

In a move that eerily imitates how North Korea ignored international agreements and sanctions, the Iranian regime threatened its willingness to walk away from the nuclear deal it so desperately sought now that is has secured a lifting of economic and gained access to $150 billion in frozen assets around the world.

“If our interests are not met under the nuclear deal, there will be no reason for us to continue,” Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, warned during remarks delivered to a group of Iranian officials in Tehran.

“If other parties decide, they could easily violate the deal,” Araqchi was quoted as saying by Iran’s state-controlled media. “However, they know this will come with costs.”

Araqchi appeared to allude to the United States possibly leveling new economic sanctions as a result of the missile test, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

The reaction from Capitol Hill was swift and urgent.

“The administration’s response to Iran’s new salvo of threatening missile tests in violation of international law cannot once again be, it’s ‘not supposed to be doing that,’” Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) said in a statement. “Now is the time for new crippling sanctions against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Ministry of Defense, Aerospace Industries Organization, and other related entities driving the Iranian ballistic missile program.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) warned that the nuclear agreement has done little to moderate the regime’s rogue behavior.

“Far from pushing Iran to a more moderate engagement with its neighbors, this nuclear deal is enabling Iran’s aggression and terrorist activities,” McCarthy said in a statement. “Sanctions relief is fueling Iran’s proxies from Yemen to Iraq to Syria to Lebanon. Meanwhile, Khamenei and the Iranian regime are acting with impunity because they know President Obama will not hold them accountable and risk the public destruction of his nuclear deal, the cornerstone of the president’s foreign policy legacy.”

McCarthy went on to demand that the Obama administration step forward with new sanctions as punishment for the missile test.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Tuesday that lawmakers would continue to press for new sanctions against Tehran “until the regime ends its violent, provocative behavior against the U.S. and our allies.”

In another sign that the regime has no interest in real moderation in the government, in spite of how the Iran lobby characterized the election results, top mullah Ali Khamenei appointed close ally Ebrahim Raeisi, the 55-year-old national prosecutor-general, as the new chairman of Astan Quds Razavi, the foundation that manages the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad.

Raeisi is a close ally of Khamenei, and his appointment will strengthen links between the leader’s office and the shrine, whose annual turnover – based on endowments, property and companies – is many billions of dollars slated for Khamenei’s private coffers.

Raeisi, who holds the clerical rank of hojjatoleslam, is a different character, according to a story by The Guardian. At last year’s 36th anniversary of the taking of the embassy hostages, which featured criticism of the Rouhani administration as well as denunciations of the United States as the “Great Satan”, Raeisi announced that the intelligence and security forces had “identified and cracked down on a network of penetration in media and cyberspace, and detained spies and writers hired by Americans.”

Raeisi, reportedly defended the amputation of the hands of thieves, also at the time of the 1988 executions of 3,000-5,000 political prisoners and dissidents ordered by then leader Khomenei, Raeisi was deputy prosecutor in Tehran, a role he had held since 1984-5 where he played a key role in the massacre.

These are the faces controlling Iran and it does not bode well for future prospects for peace.

By Michael Tomlinson

Being an Iranian Regime Friend Still Gets You Executed

March 9, 2016 by admin

Being an Iranian Regime Friend Still Gets You Executed

You have to say this about the mullahs’ justice system in Iran; it sure hands out the death penalty swiftly.

An Iranian court has sentenced a well-known tycoon to death for corruption linked to oil sales during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a judiciary spokesman said Sunday.

Babak Zanjani and two of his associates were sentenced to death for “money laundering,” among other charges, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi said in brief remarks broadcast on regime TV. He did not identify the two associates. Previous state media reports have said the three were charged with forgery and fraud.

“The court has recognized the three defendants as ‘corruptors on earth’ and sentenced them to death,” said Ejehi. “Corruptors on earth” is an Islamic term referring to crimes that are punishable by death because they have a major impact on society. The verdict, which came after a nearly five-month trial, can be appealed.

Zanjani is one of Iran’s wealthiest businessmen, with a fortune worth an estimated $14 billion, much of made from the illicit sale of petroleum in violation of economic sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear program, which ironically has been lifted because of the agreement reached last year.

Zanjani’s plight mirrors one of the peculiar aspects of the Iranian regime which is you are kept alive as long as you are useful to the regime and when your utility ceases, you often meet an ignominious end.

In Zanjani’s case, it was useful to the mullahs to have middlemen who could evade and skirt international sanctions to sell black market oil and steer the profits back into the regime’s coffers and the bank accounts of regime families and members of the Revolutionary Guard, but Zanjani also built a vast personal fortune from these acts and with the lifting of the economic sanctions and the opening of relations with the rest of the world, he ceased to be useful as a smuggler.

Now Zanjani and his associates can serve a more useful purpose by being examples of regime justice in combatting corruption that has been allowed to run rampant throughout all sectors of Iran’s economy and government. His sentencing permits Hassan Rouhani to project an image of justice and provides a convenient scapegoat as ordinary Iranians have chafed under severe economic hardship under mullahs.

Authorities said the death sentence could be reversed if Zanjani repays the pilfered proceeds. Zanjani’s lawyer has protested that a bank has refused to accept Zanjani’s offer of payments, according to reports from Tehran.

Zanjani has 20 days to appeal the sentence, authorities said.

Authorities here have prosecuted other instances of corruption, but death sentences in such cases are relatively rare.

The severity of the punishment suggests that the case is viewed in part as a warning to other entrepreneurs as Iran’s economy opens up in the post-sanctions era. Many investors here are anticipating a bonanza as international funds pour into the country.

Zanjani’s death sentence is stern reminder to eager entrepreneurs not to get out in front of the regime’s interests and remember the mullahs are very much still in charge.

It is also a harsh reminder that even though Western media lauded the “moderate” wins in Iran’s parliamentary elections, the apparatus of government, including the judiciary, is still firmly in control of the mullahs in dispensing medieval punishment.

“The political system in Iran’s a joke,” said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), adding that the significance of the moderates’ sweep in Tehran and other apparent wins across the country counts for “zero, zip.”

“There are no moderates in Iran,” Graham added. “That’s a fiction I don’t buy.”

“As long as the Ayatollah Khamenei is in charge, it doesn’t matter, the elections,” said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), another vocal opponent of the nuclear deal.

“I wouldn’t call the people who swept ‘moderates,’” added Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho). “The election shows no change.”

Iran has hardly acted like a saint since the deal was signed last July. The pact’s opponents are quick to point to recent ballistic missile tests and the detention of U.S. soldiers as part of the deal’s legacy.

“In many ways, the list of regime-approved candidates told us more about Iran’s intentions than the election results,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who called himself “deeply skeptical” that the moderates’ wins would bring about any progress.

Those views were shared in a scathing editorial by the Boston Herald, which said:

“This is a mistake. There is nothing moderate or reforming about Rouhani — or his new troops.

“These terms do not apply to a man who vigorously backs the Islamic Republic created in the 1979 revolution. He does not oppose his country’s support for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, both with Iranian troops and those of its client the Hezbollah terrorist group.

“Rouhani has done nothing to reform a regime that holds hundreds of political — and religious — prisoners. The death penalty can still be given to homosexuals and adulterers. Amnesty International said last year Iran executed 694 prisoners in the six months ending last August, a startling bloodthirstiness that makes the rate of executions, in proportion to population, about 200 times what it is in the United States (where executions have been generally declining for 16 years).

“The candidates Rouhani endorsed included two former intelligence officials who murdered dissidents and another who called for the execution of leaders of the 2009 protests against a rigged election, said Jonathan Tobin of Commentary magazine.”

The Herald has joined the growing chorus of news media growing skeptical of any real reform coming out of Iran’s elections and has grown wary of the false promises offered up by Iran lobby supporters such as the National Iranian American Council in defense of election results.

We can only hope that skepticism spreads to the remaining presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Priorities Do Not Include Human Rights Reforms

March 9, 2016 by admin

Iran Lobby Priorities Do Not Include Human Rights Reforms

If there has been one consistent aspect to the Iran lobby’s efforts to humanize and moderate the perception of the mullahs in Tehran, it has been the complete lack of criticism over the perennially awful human rights violations committed by the Iranian regime, especially under the first term of Hassan Rouhani’s “moderate” government.

The Iran lobby’s marching orders since the creation of advocacy groups such as the National Iranian American Council, has been to blunt the forceful voices of long-time critics of the Iranian regime such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and key members of Congress and the media and spin a counter-narrative of an Iran yearning to be moderate if only given the chance with a nuclear deal that freed it from crippling sanctions.

It’s a playbook that borrows heavily from how North Korea was able to develop nuclear weapons and advanced missile systems even after agreeing to restrict both under international agreements that it consistently violated. The mullahs calculated that the rest of the world, especially an incoming President Barack Obama, had little stomach for direct confrontation with the regime and took a gamble that it could muzzle dissent enough to reshape its image.

The NIAC, led by Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi, took on the challenge of spinning this new vision after the “election” of Hassan Rouhani and new warm and fuzzy kind of mullah who tweets and posts Instagram shots of him watching the World Cup sans clerical robes and turban.

While the Iranian regime was able to secure a nuclear deal and a lifting of sanctions, the “win” may prove illusory as the situation in the Middle East continues to deteriorate with a worsening situation in Syria, a full-blown proxy war is building with Saudi Arabia and an American presidential election that offers the remaining candidates with public policy positions that take a much harder line against Iran than the Obama administration.

To that end, the Iran lobby has begun to focus on two central goals in its PR push of late. One is to attack vocal opponents of the regime among the presidential candidates, especially candidates such as Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, as well as take jabs at Hillary Clinton’s recent statements warning Iran to refrain from continued aggression against its neighbors.

Long-time regime supporter, Ali Gharib, has been especially prolific in hurling invective against the Trump campaign, his latest salvos coming on noted Iran lobby blog, Lobelog.com, as well as a sarcastic diatribe against Carson in The Guardian.

In both cases, Gharib does what he does best, use snark and sarcasm to deflect from any serious discussion of the shortcomings of the Iranian regime, specifically the horrific abuses meted out against journalists, women, ethnic minorities, dissidents and Christians. Gharib cannot be bothered with these facts since he’s having too much fun mocking candidates.

But his attacks and those of Parsi and Marashi hide the genuine concern and fear Iran lobby supporters have which is a new incoming president would not be beholden to the agreements made by the Obama administration and would be have a free hand to chart their own foreign policy which addresses the key problem in the Middle East today, which is that Iran is at the heart of three proxy wars and supporter of three terrorist organizations and a dictatorial regime that has caused the largest refugee crisis since World War II.

Parsi, Gharib and other Iran lobbyists refuse to discuss the impending mass execution of 100 prisoners, nor the inexcusable mass killings of every adult male from a village in southern Iran.

The Norway-based Iran Human Rights group revealed on Friday that sources inside and outside Ghezel Hessar prison, including a prosecutor attached to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court, confirmed that the inmates were told that the country’s Supreme Court had upheld their sentences, and that they should prepare to be put to death.

The prospect of this mass execution for drug crimes comes just months after the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) inked a new $20 million deal with Iran to assist in its counter-narcotic efforts. Advocates against the excesses of the drug war have pilloried the UN for its dealings with Iran, which kills hundreds of people every year, including foreign nationals, over drug-related charges. Iran Human Rights estimates that more than 1,800 people were executed for drug crimes in Iran between 2010 and 2014, most without due process or access to proper legal representation.

The sheer barbarism of the Iranian regime is appalling and yet, the Iran lobby never speaks of these issues. Its silence is damning.

The lobby also never mentions alarming new incidents of militant acts by the Iranian regime every day. Just this weekend, they included:

An Australian naval ship seized a large arms cache that may have come from Iran and headed to Yemen by way of Somalia for Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. On board was more than 2,000 pieces of weaponry — including 1,989 AK-47 assault rifles and 100 rocket-propelled grenades;
The U.S. Commerce Department announced export restrictions on Chinese telecoms equipment maker ZTE Corp for alleged violations of U.S. export controls on Iranian which the Chinese company sold U.S. made telecommunications products to Iran, which is banned;
Yukiya Amano, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the international community’s nuclear watchdog organization, disclosed that certain agreements reached under the Iran nuclear deal limit inspectors from publicly reporting on potential violations by the regime. Amano’s remarks come on the heels of a February IAEA oversight report that omitted many details and figures related to Iran’s nuclear program. The report sparked questions from outside nuclear experts and accusations from critics that the IAEA was not being transparent with its findings; and
The FBI arrested the American head of a metallurgy company on charges of illegally exporting to Iran a half-ton of special powder that could, in theory, be used in the production of nuclear-tipped rockets. Agents nabbed 44-year-old Erdal Kuyumcu of Woodside, New York—the CEO of Global Metallurgy, a self-described “provider of specialty metal products, services and supply chain solutions” that lists phone numbers in New York City and Turkey. That Iranian government agencies or companies were allegedly trying to get their hands on cobalt-nickel powder might seem to indicate that Tehran, despite having agreed to suspend its nuclear program, is still trying to develop ballistic missiles optimized for carrying an atomic warhead.

Of course, the Iran lobby has chosen not to defend any of these actions, nor make mention of the continued aggressive moves by the regime, which makes it all too clear what their real motives are: protecting the new “moderate” image of the mullahs.

By Michael Tomlinson

Pushback Grows Against Iran Lobby Claims of Moderate Win

March 4, 2016 by admin

Pushback Grows Against Iran Lobby Claims of Moderate Win

Basking in the afterglow of the Iranian regime’s parliamentary election results, the Iran lobby predictably boasted of the massive wins by moderate and reformist forces within Iran, but now the pushback is coming from a wide variety of the political spectrum as the results and actual winning candidates are absorbed and evaluated.

The realization is settling in that far from the moderate tsunami described by regime supporters such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council, the truth is that very little has changed within the regime leadership and the Iranian people still remain firmly in the grip and thrall of the mullahs.

The parade of cold water on the moderate landslide theory was led by the editorial board of the Washington Post, which has intimate first-hand knowledge of the extremist nature of the regime through the hostage taking and eventual prisoner swap of its reporter, Jason Rezaian. It editorialized:

“Claims of a reformist triumph, however, are overblown. Before the elections, an Iranian liberal coalition said that 99 percent of 3,000 pro-reform candidates had been disqualified by a hard-line clerical council. Most of those in Mr. Rouhani’s coalition are, like him, moderate conservatives, meaning they favor economic reforms and greater Western investment, but not liberalization of the political system or a moderation of Iran’s aspiration to become the hegemon of the Middle East. True Iranian religious and political reformers, like those who joined the 2009 Green Movement, are in jail or exile, or were banned from the ballot.

“For now, Iran can be expected to continue the course it has been pursuing in the months since the nuclear deal was struck: waging proxy wars against the United States and its allies around the Middle East, using its unfrozen reserves to buy weapons, and defying non-nuclear limits — such as by testing long-range missiles. The elections won’t make the regime more pliable, and they won’t change the need for a U.S. counter to its aggressions. They shouldn’t provide an excuse for the Obama administration to tolerate Tehran’s provocations,” the Post said.

The Post is correct in its assertions and admits to the basic problem facing those nervously praising the “moderate” wins: they are left with hoping for the best outcome even though it will most likely come to pass since the alternative is to face the difficult choices of pushing for regime change against a regime firmly entrenched.

The Atlantic’s Kathy Gilsinan noted some of the difficulties in the tea leaf reading going on post-election in discerning who actually won.

“Institutions whose members aren’t popularly elected, including the office of the supreme leader, the Guardian Council, the judiciary, and the security services, are the most powerful in Iran’s government. And they remain in the hands of hardliners,” she writes.

“Another reason it’s difficult to know the significance of these elections—aside from the dueling claims of victory from each camp, and the fact that, as Thomas Erdbink of The New York Times reported Wednesday, ‘there has been no official comment on the affiliation of the winning candidates’—is that Iran does not have strong political parties. Knowing that Republicans have a majority in the U.S. Congress, for example, gives you a rough sense of that body’s legislative priorities and how they would differ from those of a Democratic Congress. As Majlis Monitor, a website devoted to Iranian politics, notes, ‘While political parties help us see a country’s political fault-lines, their absence in Iran makes it difficult to understand how politics are actually [organized] and work there.’”

This points out the fundamental problem with the claims being made by Parsi or Jim Lobe over at Lobelog that moderates won the election: the absence of political parties stems from the mullahs aim to eliminate all dissent and organize the government around homogenous support for the Islamic revolution. True dissident parties such as the Mojahedin Khalgh (MEK or PMOI) were outlawed and membership was classified as punishable by death.

There is no doubt that the Iranian people want real reform and a true turn towards democracy. They are tired of living in an oppressive regime where their every online move is monitored and their every economic move is stymied by widespread official corruption.

The New York Times’ Erdbink also explained how results of the election may never be publicly revealed.

“The Interior Ministry, which is overseeing the voting for the 290-seat Parliament and the clerical Assembly of Experts, announced on Tuesday the names of 222 parliamentary candidates who won nationwide. It also announced that there would be a second round of voting for 68 seats in several constituencies in April,” he said. “But there has been no official comment on the affiliation of the winning candidates, and there may never be, making it difficult to determine how many seats the various factions have won.”

The Interior Ministry also oversees the internal security for the regime and already has a checkered history with the hijacking of the 2009 elections. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to see some similar shenanigans with these results to ensure the right kinds of “moderates” eventually won seats.

Former UN ambassador John R. Bolton took a similar viewpoint in writing for the American Enterprise Institute:

“Efforts to distinguish Tehran’s moderates from hard-liners have a long historical record of failure, as have similar precedents in analyzing Moscow and Beijing. Today in Iran, while there are disagreements over economic, social and religious policies among the elite, there is no disagreement over the objective of mastering the difficult science and technology required to achieve nuclear weapons deliverable on ballistic missiles. There is simply no credible evidence that the ayatollahs and other key Iranian leaders have ever diverged on that goal. Moreover, the nuclear and ballistic missile programs are firmly controlled by the Revolutionary Guards, which is about as likely to cede responsibility to the elected Majlis as to America’s Congress,” he writes.

Ultimately the real test of real reform will come if Evin Prison is emptied, ballistic missiles are shelved and support is withdrawn from Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

I wouldn’t hold your breath for that.

By Michael Tomlinson

March to Iran Moderation Paved with Human Rights Cruelty

March 4, 2016 by admin

March to Iran Moderation Paved with Human Rights Cruelty

In a short period of time, the Obama administration has boasted of diplomatic rapprochements with Russia, Cuba and now the Iranian regime in a dizzying display of gymnastic statecraft worthy of Olympic gold. In each case, totalitarian regimes that have historically been in the diplomatic doghouse as sponsors of terrorism and human rights violators are now on the receiving end of financial largess and formalized diplomatic relations.

It is an odd reversal that has been made all-the stranger with the rapturous media coverage of the just completed parliamentary elections in Iran in which the assertion has been repeatedly made that “moderates” and “reformists” marched to victory and have set the stage for a dramatic turnaround in the regime’s future.

That is about as likely as Donald Trump mellowing out on the presidential campaign trail.

Many are starting to puncture the balloon of moderation hopes flowing from these elections, such as Victoria Coates, author of “David’s Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art” and the senior advisor for foreign policy to Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz. Writing in the Washington Times, she said:

“As much as I hate to be a skunk at the garden party, this election was no cause for celebration. The Council of Experts purged any real reformists from the rolls of candidates in January. About half the candidates for parliament were dropped, along with three-quarters for the Council, including all women. What remained were the candidates who are, each and every one of them, acceptable to the Ayatollah Khamenei. It is barely short of delusional, for example, to suggest that the election to the Council of former President Akbar Rafsanjani, who insisted just last July that Israel should be wiped off the map, or current President Hasan Rouhani, who has presided over the most brutal spike in executions in the world during his administration, will result in any sort of meaningful reform to Iran’s foreign or domestic policy.”

“We must not let our natural—and laudable—hopes for liberalization in Iran blind us to what is really happening. Have we already forgotten that just six weeks ago ten American sailors were on their knees with Iranian guns pointed at their heads? This election was nothing more or less than another carefully choreographed and controlled exercise in perpetuating the status quo in Iran, made all the more necessary by the prospect of a high-level transition of power,” Coates adds. “History teaches us the hard lesson that political freedom neither inevitable nor imperishable. But just because democracy isn’t really springing up in Tehran doesn’t mean there is no hope for it.”

Another voice of criticism comes from Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who fled Iran and now lives in exile in London, who spoke to Mother Jones magazine on the situation within the regime, especially the vetting process for candidates:

“The people are fed up with corruption and embezzlement. They object to censorship. The first thing that the people of Iran want is free elections. The government of Iran claims that every two years there are elections. But none of them are free. The competence of the people who have been nominated first has to be approved by the Guardian Council. It is a vetting process, and only then can Iranians elect these people. Yet the members of the Guardian Council are not elected by the people. They have been appointed by the leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei]. Any person who has the slightest criticism will not be approved. Over 40 percent of the people who have been nominated have not been approved,” she said.

Ebadi also took to task the regime’s policies in Syria and Yemen which have yielded two large proxy wars that have killed thousands and displaced millions of refugees.

“The role of Iran has been very destructive. As an Iranian, I apologize to the civilian people of Syria who have been killed as a result of the useless intervention of Iran in Syria. It was with the aid of government Iran that the Houthis in Yemen were able to capture Sana’a. It is totally unacceptable for a government to interfere in the internal affairs of another government and send aid, money, and weapons, to the people who are against a certain regime in another country,” she said.

Her and Coates’s words were echoed by Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, writing in a column for USA Today.

“The ranks of those ultimately selected to populate the 290 seats of the majles and the 88 seats of the Assembly of Experts are filled with more than a few radicals. They include former Intelligence Ministers Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi and Mohammad Reyshahri, both of whom are widely suspected of perpetrating murders and disappearances during their times in office, and Ali Razini, the chief prosecutor of Iran’s Revolutionary Court, which supervises all political executions in the Islamic Republic. A string of other, lesser known candidates nonetheless have similarly hardline pedigrees,” Berman writes.

“Their inclusion isn’t an accident. It is, rather, an inevitable function of the political horse-trading that took place ahead of the polls, as the various “lists” of candidates scrambled to put together a winning ticket after the mass exclusion of real progressives. As a result, many of Iran’s hardliners have just been given a new lease on political life, albeit under a different ideological moniker,” he adds.

Adam Kredo, writing in the Free Beacon, noted more of the so-called “moderates” elected who are in fact some of the worst violators of human rights in Iran, including:

Ali Movahedi-Kermani, a radical Iranian cleric, also received support from Iran’s moderate factions. He has threatened to “trample upon America,” as well as bombS. and Israeli interests;
Mohammed Emami-Kashani, another radical cleric who won a seat on the assembly with the backing of moderates, has blamed the U.S. and Israel for creating al Qaeda;
Other election winners backed by reformists include Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabaeenejad, a religious radical who has called on civilians to use violence in order to enforce strict dress codes for women.

Kredo noted that other so-called reformist winners also have a history of calling for the destruction of Israel and America and reportedly sponsored attacks on political dissidents; one of whom Kredo quoted from.

Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran, whose main group is the MEK (PMOI), said that candidates were carefully screened to ensure their allegiance to Khamenei’s hardline camp.

“A glance at the list of candidates presented by the regime’s various factions leaves no doubt that the choice was merely between different factions responsible for suppression, execution, exporting terrorism, warmongering, and plundering the Iranian people’s wealth,” Rajavi said in a statement following the election.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Working Hard to Spin Iran Elections

March 3, 2016 by admin

Iran Lobby Working Hard to Spin Iran Elections

With the recent parliamentary elections in Iran, the regime and its allies are working hard to project the image of a moderate landslide setting the stage for a new era of peace, prosperity and happiness. Somewhere in there are probably also promises that eating ice cream doesn’t make you fat and pots of gold lie at the end of rainbows.

At the center of that spin control exercise stands the National Iranian American Council, the chief lobbyist and public advocate for the mullahs in Tehran, which sent its leaders out to talk to virtually any journalist that would listen to them about how great things turned out in Iran.

“The stunning setback of the hardliners in the elections is precisely why they opposed the Iran nuclear deal,” said Trita Parsi, president of the NIAC. “They knew that if successful, the Rouhani faction would benefit electorally from the significant achievement of resolving the nuclear issue and reducing tensions with United States.”

Parsi’s comments are the key message for regime supporters: that approval of the nuclear deal was the key for the moderate wins. It makes for a nice fiction, but it is also as blatantly wrong.

First, Parsi’s contention of a moderate win is beguilingly false since he ignores the months-long vetting process in which the handpicked members of the Guardian Council bounced over half of the 12,000 candidates that submitted for approval to appear on the ballot. Those that survived were largely approved based on their allegiance to the Supreme leader of the mullahs and adherence to the supporting the policies of the ruling mullahs, backed by the Revolutionary Guard.

Anyone who deviated from those goals was arrested and thrown in jail during a massive crackdown across Iran that saw journalists, dissidents and potential opposition politicians rounded up. Of course, Parsi and his colleagues did not utter a word of protest during these arrests.

In another quote given in an editorial in the Washington Post, Parsi added that hardliners “knew that if successful, the Rouhani faction would benefit electorally from the significant achievement of resolving the nuclear issue and reducing tensions with United States. These benefits would not just be limited to the parliamentary elections, but could establish a new balance of power in Iran’s internal politics with significant long-term repercussions.”

It’s the second falsehood Parsi preaches in claiming there are indeed factions splitting the Iranian regime, including a bloc of moderates aligned with Hassan Rouhani.

Where Parsi is wrong is his claim that the differences separating these so-called “faction” are political, when they are in fact more about power and greed.

The Iranian regime ranks as one of the most corrupt economies in the world with the Revolutionary Guard and the families of the mullahs running the regime deeply involved and controlling of virtually all the major industries in Iran, including petroleum, aviation, telecommunications, mining, shipping and manufacturing.

With the cash infusion of $100 billion in hard currency being made available, the mullahs and military are loathe to give up control of those assets, or the billions in foreign investment that will flow as a result of the nuclear deal. The fight over parliamentary seats is less about opening up Iranian society and broadening human rights and more about securing enough seats to control how that spoils of the nuclear deal get divided up.

The mullahs have long made clear their political strategy in crafting a regime modeled after China in which the economy is liberalized while maintaining tight political control over the people. In that manner, the parliamentary elections and claims of moderation by the Iran lobby make perfect sense. As Parsi and others proclaim moderation, the government is still left firmly in the hands of those intent on enriching themselves and not improving the lot of the Iranian people.

The deception by Parsi does go to some absurd lengths as he claims in an interview on The Real News that Ali Larijani, the current head of the parliament and overseer of the judiciary, is actually in favor of moderate policies.

“Ali Larijani, who is the current head of the parliament, is a conservative. And he’s been a conservative for a very long time, belongs to a very conservative and well-established family. But he has aligned himself with Rouhani most of the time on most issues. And he’s not considered right now to be in the anti-Rouhani camp,” Parsi claims.

It’s a silly claim when you consider that the regime’s judicial and police functions are firmly in control of hardliners that enforced the vetting process in the first place and removed all the opponents to Rouhani’s slate of “moderate” allies. This is also the same judiciary that has consistently imprisoned Americans, Christians and sentences children to death, and most recently snatched up Parsi’s friend and ally, Siamak Namazi, and threw him in prison without legal representation or charge.

The fact that Parsi called these “the most consequential non-presidential elections in Iran at least for the last two decades” in an interview with the Cato Institute, is even more absurd given that many would claim that the disputed 2009 presidential elections that were stolen and protested with mass demonstrations that were brutally put down violently by the mullahs were the most consequential elections in Iran since that was the last time the Iranian people actually took a stab at real regime change.

The last false argument being put forth by the Iran lobby is the contention that real change is possible down the road with the possibility of a new supreme leader being elected following the inevitable death of the 76-year old Ali Khamenei.

“In the short term the parliamentary elections will impact Iran’s economic policies. But for the long term, this assembly could elect the next supreme leader, which has greater long-term implications for Iran and its people,” said Reza Marashi, also of the NIAC.

It is laughable to think there will be any real possibility of installing a new top mullah that would deviate from the path the Islamic revolution has taken, or loosen the control the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard have over the country. For Marashi to think there would be any change over a long, incremental pathway ignores the abject suffering and brutality being meted out against the Iranian people every day.

When the Rouhani regime has overseen a record number of executions, far exceeding the high water mark set by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the idea of a loosening of the regime is merely a smokescreen.

Already Rouhani has seen fit to keep the vast majority of the billions in released funds in overseas accounts to help pay for the new military hardware Iran is busy buying from Russia and soon China. The Iranian people are unlikely to see any of it and ultimately their hopes for an improving economy will remain only an unfilled dream so long as the mullahs are in Power.

By Michael Tomlinson

Who Are These So-Called “Moderates” in Iran Elections?

March 1, 2016 by admin

Who Are These So-Called “Moderates” in Iran Elections?

The New York Times, among other news outlets, trumpeted the election results from Iran with great fanfare announcing “strong” gains by moderates and reformists in this weekend’s parliamentary elections. Predictably, the spin revolved around the notion that this was a step in the right direction towards a more moderate future in Iran.

“Though hard-liners still control the most powerful positions and institutions of the state, two national elections last week appeared to build on the slow but unmistakable evolution toward a more moderate political landscape — now and into the future,” wrote Thomas Erdbrink in the Times. “While the hard-liners still remain firmly in control of the judiciary, the security forces and much of the economy, the success of the moderate, pragmatic and pro-government forces seemed to give Mr. Rouhani political currency to push a course of greater liberalization of the economy at home and accommodation abroad.”

What Erdbrink and most other Western journalists miss is the simple fact that the mullahs in control of the regime – virtually all of the important sectors of power as Erdbrink notes – have allowed a smattering of candidates to run that can appear “moderate” when compared to the more vocal conservatives in power, but in fact all share the same loyalty to the aims of the Islamic state.

Revolution and regime change are not coming anytime soon to Iran under these mullahs no matter what rosy picture some media wish to paint.

What is even more amusing is that all the celebration is focused on the election of a small minority dubbed “moderates” in the lower house parliament, but in the 88-member Assembly of Experts, over three-quarters of the original candidates seeking to run were swept off the ballot before voting even began, leaving only hardcore supporters of top mullah Ali Khamenei to win seats.

As to whom actually won, the Wall Street Journal editorial board took a closer look at the winners and found them less than “moderate” and downright unsavory.

Mostafa Kavakebian. The General Secretary of Iran’s Democratic Party, Mr. Kavakebian is projected to enter the Majlis as a member for Tehran. In a 2008 speech he said: “The people who currently reside in Israel aren’t humans, and this region is comprised of a group of soldiers and occupiers who openly wage war on the people.”

Another moderate is Kazem Jalali, who previously served as the spokesman for the National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee of the Majlis and is projected to have won a seat. In 2011 Mr. Jalali said his committee “demands the harshest punishment”—meaning the death penalty—for Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the two leaders of the Green Movement that was bloodily suppressed after stolen elections in 2009. Those two leaders are still under house arrest.

According to the Journal, as for new Assembly of Experts, many of the “moderates” projected to have won seats were also listed on the hard-liners’ lists, since the ratio of candidates to seats was well below two, including:

Mohammad Reyshahry, a former Intelligence Minister believed to have helped spearhead the 1988 summary execution of thousands of leftists;
Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi, another former Intelligence Minister believed to have directed the “chain murders” of the late 1990s; and
Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabainejad, a fierce opponent of women’s rights who has called Israel “a cancerous tumor.”

That seems like quite a slate of “moderate” new faces that got elected. Maybe Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi from the National Iranian American Council, can fly over and have lunch with these moderates, unless they are worried they might be arrested like their fellow Iran lobby supporter Siamak Namazi who now languishes in an regime prison.

“The political reality in Iran is that the Ayatollahs, backed by the Revolutionary Guards, remain firmly in control,” the Journal correctly points out.

The funny thing about the parade of optimistic and sunny news headlines is how they eerily echo the same notes of hope that came in the wake of the nuclear agreement only to be followed by grimmer headlines of illegal ballistic missile tests, detaining of American sailors, rocket launches at U.S. and French navy warships, recruiting Russia to fight in Syria and the largest refugee crisis since World War II.

Even as regime supporters laud these “moderate” wins, shocking news came of a village in southern Iran of a heinous incident announced by Shahindokht Molaverdi, the ironically named vice president for women and family affairs.

“We have a village in Sistan and Baluchestan province where every single man has been executed,” she said, without naming the place or clarifying whether the executions took place at the same time or over a longer period. “Their children are potential drug traffickers as they would want to seek revenge and provide money for their families. There is no support for these people.”

Maya Foa, from the anti-death penalty campaigning group Reprieve, said: “The apparent hanging of every man in one Iranian village demonstrates the astonishing scale of Iran’s execution spree. These executions — often based on juvenile arrests, torture, and unfair or nonexistent trials — show total contempt for the rule of law, and it is shameful that the UN and its funders are supporting the police forces responsible.”

Amnesty is particularly concerned about Iran’s execution of juveniles. In a report published in January, the group said Iran had carried out 73 executions of juvenile offenders between 2005 and 2015.

Sistan and Baluchestan, where the unnamed village is situated, “is arguably the most underdeveloped region in Iran, with the highest poverty, infant and child mortality rates, and lowest life expectancy and literacy rates in the country,” according to Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran. “The province … experiences a high rate of executions for drug-related offences or crimes deemed to constitute ‘enmity against God’ in the absence of fair trials.”

Even as the Iran lobby celebrates these wins, an Iranian village has seen all the men in it killed indiscriminately by these same “moderates.”

By Laura Carnahan

Iran Election Results Predictably Praised by Iran Lobby

February 29, 2016 by admin

http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2016/feb/28/five-lessons-from-irans-2016-elections-tehranbureau

As the Iranian regime counts the ballots from this weekend’s parliamentary elections, the Iran lobby is already hailing it as a momentous victory for “moderate” forces in Iran in what may be one of the most blatant obfuscations since Adolf Hitler’s Anschluss of Austria based on the pretext of being invited in to restore order.

“The stunning setback of the hardliners in the elections is precisely why they opposed the Iran nuclear deal. They knew that if successful, the Rouhani faction would benefit electorally from the significant achievement of resolving the nuclear issue and reducing tensions with United States. These benefits would not just be limited to the parliamentary elections, but could establish a new balance of power in Iran’s internal politics with significant long-term repercussions,” said Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council and lead cheerleader for the Iranian regime.

His absurd comment came in a piece in Huffington Post in which he failed to acknowledge the most glaring problem with his effusive praise: the handpicked Guardian Council of Ali Khamenei removed almost 90 percent of the “moderates” from the ballot during the months-long vetting process.

The only candidates left on the ballot, especially outside of Tehran, were devoted and dedicated candidates solidly aligned with Khamenei, the ruling mullahs and Revolutionary Guards’ leadership.

Taking a few scattered wins in and around Tehran and calling it a “moderate” win is akin to Parsi’s previous arguments about the nuclear deal being a moderating force for Iran and the West, but in its aftermath the regime has conducted illegal missile tests, arrested scores of dissidents and journalists and stepped up its war in Syria.

The money line from Parsi is when he says “In order to avoid a hardline backlash, the moderation of Iranian policies need to happen at a moderate pace.” We can only assume Parsi thinks reform in Iran happens at a snail’s pace. For him and the rest of the Iran lobby, electing one moderate out of 12,000 thrown off the ballot would be considered “progress,” which is why his proclamation of moderates is so silly, especially when we consider that candidates backing Hassan Rouhani are dubbed “reformists” in a stretch of logic that hurts the brain when thinking about it.

Rouhani has turned into anything but a moderate. Rouhani’s sole purpose in being hand selected by Khamenei and all other candidates cleared from the field beforehand was to convince the West of a moderate image and secure a deal lifting crippling sanctions. In his tenure, he has instead presided over the highest increase in executions ever in Iran, cracked down hard on journalists and presided over three proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen in a show of extremist Islamic expansion that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his much-reviled predecessor, could only dream about.

The fact that Rouhani supporters could only win 30 seats in heavily populated Tehran and lose across the rest of the country indicates the usual pattern of deceit coming from the mullahs: Let the “moderates” claim a victory for global media consumption in Tehran, but dominate and assure control everywhere else in Iran.

The recipe for electoral success has worked since decades ago and has allowed the mullahs to play with the world, around their internal fighting. While the infighting is only about their share of power and both “moderates” and “Hardliners” are the same when it comes to executions, domestic repression, and their support for terrorism abroad. Take for instance the so called moderate Rouhani, the reign of executions under his watch has been much larger than his “hardliner” Ahmadinejad, and he and his Foreign Minister Zarif (Another person that is referred to as “moderate” within the mullah’s regime) have continuously expressed their support for the Syrian dictatorship, the Hezbollah and most extremist movements in Iraq and Yemen. Under Rouhani and his predecessors, virtually all legitimate dissident groups and political parties have long been outlawed and even the nascent Green Movement which was crushed in 2009 and was led by leaders arguably still cozy with the regime leadership has no recognition or legitimacy within Iran.

Add to that the contention by the Iranian regime that democracy was served by the participation of an estimated 33 million of Iran’s 55 million eligible voters and you find remarkable similarities with claims by other totalitarian regimes such as the old Soviet Union, North Korea and Nazi Germany in which near universal participation by the electorate was often forced and compulsory as was who to vote for. The Iranian regime is no different.

“Iranian voters delivered a strong message to the elite that political and social aspirations that have long been unmet need to be addressed more robustly,” said Reza Marashi, also of NIAC who claimed voters wanted change, even if it was exchanging one regime diehard for another.

Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, noted in an editorial in the Los Angeles Times that “none of this favors Iran’s pragmatists and centrists, let alone its reformers. In fact, as the International Crisis Group notes, in Iran historically ‘external loosening’ is balanced with ‘internal stiffening.’

“That is what happened after the 1988 cease-fire in the war with Iraq, and after the 2003 nuclear agreement with Britain, France and Germany, when the powerful Guardian Council disqualified reformist candidates in the next elections and conservatives regained their parliamentary majority. A step forward in a highly authoritarian and ideological system can easily produce a few steps back, or at least to the side,” Miller notes.

The Guardian, had similar takeaways in looking at the elections, including that there are no simple divisions of “moderates” and “reformists” since candidates were disqualified less on political views and more on devotion to the ruling mullahs.

In describing Rouhani, Gareth said “Iran’s president has proved himself an astute, hard-headed operator,” adding that “politically, Rouhani will need to maintain public support with an eye to being re-elected as president next year. Anecdotal reports of a lower turn-out in poorer parts of Tehran may reflect most strongly a wider sense among Iranians they are not benefiting from the easing of sanctions.”

While the Iran lobby may be praising this weekend’s election results, the reality of a rigged election means nothing really changed as most Americans tuned into the Oscars instead.

By Michael Tomlinson