Iran Lobby

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

Iran Elections Results Are In a Day Early: The Mullahs Won

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Iran Elections Results Are In a Day Early: The Mullahs Won

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati (R), a candidate for the upcoming vote on the Assembly of Experts, and Iran’s former chief negotiator Saeed Jalili attend a conservatives election campaign gathering in Tehran February 24, 2016. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi/TIMA

The headlines screamed out from various news publications around the world on the day before parliamentary elections were to be held in Iran:

“Moderates Test Hardliners’ Grip on Power in Iran Vote” – Reuters

“Iran’s Moderates Face a Major Challenge in First Elections Since the Nuclear Deal” – TIME

“Iran Reformists Hoping for Boost in Parliament Election” – New York Times

“Why Iran’s Parliamentary Elections This Friday Are So Crucial” – The Nation

Most of the international media seem to be suffering from the same form of mass amnesia in that they have conveniently forgotten the fact that the elections were rigged months ago when the Guardian Council, whose members are handpicked by top mullah Ali Khamenei, kicked off virtually all candidates from ballots with even a hint of moderation or lack of ideological purity.

Just as it has done in every election since the mullahs seized the revolution in 1979 and turned Iran into an theocratic dictatorship, there is no doubt to the outcome. There was no doubt when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in a blatant steal of the ballot box and there was no doubt when Hassan Rouhani was elected after virtually all potential challengers were rejected by the same Guardian Council that mowed down this election.

So as Iranians go to the polls, they are going to find themselves confronted with few choices and fewer options if they truly want regime change. Not only have any potential “moderates” been knocked off the ballot, but true opposition parties and dissident groups are outlawed and membership in any is grounds for arrest and even execution.

While the U.S. is engaged in a presidential race marked by hyperbole, multiple debates, flooding of social media and a months-long process of examination, questioning and arguing with candidates, the mullahs in Iran spent months dumping candidates and allowing only one week of actual campaigning.

But some media have tried prying the lid the mullahs have placed on these elections and are running stories that look more critically at how these elections are a sham and already decided.

David Blair, writing for the Telegraph, visited Qom, one of Iran’s holiest cities, and found residents there with little to no choices available to them.

“If any of the inhabitants of Iran’s second-holiest city wish to vote for reformists in Friday’s election, they will be disappointed,” he writes. “Every moderate candidate who tried to stand in Qom has already been disqualified, leaving the 1.1 million people of this desert city – known as the Shia Vatican – to choose between different brands of hardliners.”

“The voting that will take place in Qom sums up everything important about Iran’s election. On the face of it, people will have the freedom to choose both a new Majles, or parliament, and a new Assembly of Experts, the body which appoints and supervises the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” Blair correctly points out. “In reality, another committee in Iran’s labyrinthine power structure, the Guardian Council, has already vetted every candidate for both elections, banning almost half of the 12,000 hopefuls from standing and weeding out most of the reformers.”

Outside of Tehran, Blair and other journalists have cities and communities in more rural areas with virtually no moderates on any ballot and limited campaigning with most Iranians resigned to picking from lists of hardliners vs. more hardliners.

A senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writing in the Wall Street Journal, acknowledged the same situation playing out.

“The upcoming vote will largely mirror past elections in Iran, being neither free nor fair. The candidates have been closely screened and the outcome is expected to uphold the largely conservative makeup in parliament and the Assembly of Experts. In addition, the victors will remain largely dependent on military institutions, namely the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Moderates will stay marginalized in this arrangement and face intensified pressure from hard-line colleagues,” Khalaji said.

He goes on to point out that Rouhani’s election was devoted to getting a nuclear deal done to relieve the regime of crippling economic sanctions.

“Mr. Rouhani has focused most of his energy on the nuclear deal. He has not improved the dismal human rights situation in Iran”… During his tenure, military and intelligence suppression of political activists has remained robust and effective,” he writes.

“Presidential candidates in 2017 will need to establish strong relations with the supreme leader and his apparatus, especially the Revolutionary Guards, and are likely to succeed by reassuring these entities that their political and economic interests will not be undermined,” he added.

The fact of the matter elections in Iran are already pre-determined. The Revolutionary Guards and religious clergy exert overwhelming control of the country’s economy and industries and quickly stifle any dissent by tossing dissidents in prison and hanging them publicly to deter any future opponents.

That control will almost certainly continue to flow through regime leaders such as Ahmad Jannati who will be a shoo-in for re-election to the 88-member Assembly of Experts and will also shepherd the process to ensure the replacement for Khamenei is just as ideologically pure and committed to the Velayat-e-Faqih and more important keep the mullahs hold on power intact.

In remarks echoed by Khamenei, Jannati this week accused the United States and Britain of trying to influence Friday’s votes.

“The United States and the United Kingdom were trying to take advantage of the Iranian elections and send their agents and infiltrators into the Assembly of Experts, but God helped us and we managed to identify and block them all,” he was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency on Wednesday.

Jannati is a clear example of the type of extremist Iran will be electing and it was already decided long ago. Today’s vote is just a formality.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iranian Regime Use Boogeyman of Great Satan to Control Elections

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Iranian Regime Use Boogeyman of Great Satan to Control Elections

Iranian Regime Use Boogeyman of Great Satan to Control Elections

As parliamentary elections for the Iranian regime approaches, the regime continue their verbal drumbeat blaming the U.S., Great Britain and anyone else not named “Iran” for meddling in the elections. The latest verbal volley came from Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of the regime’s armed forces, who accused the U.S. and Great Britain of meddling by campaign for and against certain candidates.

“Such interference is [part of] aggressive strategies adopted by the US and Britain toward the Iranian nation, and the country’s officials should not underestimate it,” Firouzabadi said on Saturday.

He added that the “impudent” move by arrogant powers, including the U.S. and Britain, would provoke the wrath of the “revolutionary” Iranian nation.

Of course the good general neglected to mention any specific examples of meddling in his diatribe, but that is par for the course for the regime to hurl invective without any evidence, proof or backing. The truth is that there is no meddling going on or intrusive acts, especially from an Obama administration which seems intent on appeasing the mullahs in any way imaginable.

A compliant and friendly U.S. government though doesn’t fit the Islamic revolutionary beliefs held near and dear to the mullahs as their means of oppressing the Iranian people in what top mullah Ali Khamenei affectionately calls the “resistance economy;” an economy designed to keep Iranians struggling, impoverished and dependent on the regime for subsidized fuel, food and medicine.

It serves the regime’s purposes to keep blaming the U.S. and rest of the West for all the ills that have befallen Iran, especially during the time of economic sanctions, but since those have been lifted as part of the nuclear deal negotiated last summer, the mullahs are caught in the bind of having to explain to the Iranian people why things – like the economy – remain so bad under their stewardship.

For the mullahs, continued scapegoating of the U.S. is about the only excuse they have left to divert blame away from their own corruption, incompetence and mismanagement. It is also the strategy the Iran lobby follows in turning every issue into a blame game against the poor mullahs of Tehran.

All of which is a behavior that is only reinforced when the Obama administration fails to stand up aggressively to the regime’s misbehavior, thereby engendering even more egregious acts by the Iranian regime.

Case in point is the letter sent from Iranian general Mohsen Rezaei to Hassan Rouhani in which he detailed how to force even more concessions from the U.S. by aggressively building longer-range ballistic missiles.

The letter follows the capturing of U.S. sailors, the firing rockets near a U.S. carrier, and the flying of drones over U.S. and French carriers and it claims the U.S. only was willing to make a nuclear deal because Tehran aggressively pursued a renegade nuclear bomb program that violated UN sanctions.

“Just as Iran’s success in developing 20,000 centrifuges was a slap in the face of the United States and forced the Americans to come to the negotiating table and recognize our right to enrich uranium, I am hoping that with your support, the range of Iran’s missiles will exceed 5,000 kilometers [3,106 miles],” Rezaei wrote Rouhani.

The expanded reach of the missiles would threaten the U.S. and its allies by putting American military installations and Europe within range of an Iranian missile, which currently can only travel 2,000 kilometers.

If the regime were to develop a longer-range missile, no doubt using technology already developed and tested by North Korea, it would pose a significant threat to most of Europe and Asia. Not surprisingly, the Obama administration has been largely silent and the Iran lobby has been deaf and mute on these latest provocations.

North Korea is an interesting case study, since the efforts to rein in that rogue nation’s nuclear program through international monitoring – similar to the deal reached with the Iranian regime – has been an utter failure and has only allowed the North Koreans to assemble a small arsenal of nuclear warheads, but also develop intercontinental ballistic missile capability which it has been eager to sell to Iran for hard currency; of which the mullahs are swimming in $100 billion of it courtesy of the nuclear deal.

All of which is fueling a wild new arms race throughout the Middle East as the Iranian regime’s neighbors worry – and rightly so – about the mullahs intentions. Support of proxy wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq has not bred much confidence in Iran’s neighbors, nor has an $8 billion shopping spree in Moscow for advanced weapons.

Escalating conflicts driving Middle Eastern nations to buy more weapons include conflicts in Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, along with violence in Egypt and Turkey, says Ken Pollack, a senior fellow researching the Middle East at the Brookings Institution.

“We are seeing a region on fire,” Pollack says. “A lot of countries feel the need to increase their military capabilities to intervene in those conflicts or to fend off rivals.”

Pollack says the top rivalry in the region “consuming ammunition” is between Iran and Saudi Arabia and their allies, especially in Yemen where Tehran is backing the Houthi opposition to the Saudi-supported government. Iran is also supporting embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad while Saudi Arabia is sending weapons to groups opposing his government, but Pollack says the two nations appear to be vying for influence through other proxy wars in the region.

As long as the Iranian regime is allowed to continue the fantasy of blaming its ills on others such as the U.S., the longer the mullahs will feel safe in continuing on their path of destruction and oppression.

By Michael Tomlinson

Human Rights Remain Under Assault by Iranian Regime

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Human Rights Remain Under Assault by Iranian Regime

Human Rights Remain Under Assault by Iranian Regime

Next week the Iranian regime will conduct parliamentary elections that most news media and analysts have already called rigged because of the customary elimination of over two-thirds of the candidates seeking seats in the lower parliament and the more powerful Assembly of Experts.

The regime’s Guardian Council, with its handpicked members by top mullah Ali Khamenei, exercised their usual due diligence in removing any candidate that even had a hint of moderation or deviation from the Islamic revolutionary principles that guide the regime.

What is left are only those candidates that pledge religious, ideological and political fealty to the mullahs that run the regime and hold sway over virtually all facets of life in Iran.

This winnowing process empowers the mullahs and allows them the freedom and discretion to continue the unabated crackdown on human rights in advance of the elections with no cause for worry or recrimination from the international community, but there are news accounts that leak out depicting the brutality being visited on ordinary Iranians – often smuggled out by members of the dissident community at great personal risk.

One of those moving accounts was published in Quartz online in a photo essay by a photographer who spent four years researching women and girls being held in Iranian prisons, many awaiting death sentences.

“My main goal in this project was to understand how young girls could end up in jail in the first place,” the prizewinning photographer tells Quartz. “I spent time talking to them, they were nice and kind.”

In Iran, the death penalty can be applied to minors, and in 2014, a United Nations report estimated that at least 160 juvenile offenders were on death row in the country.

While according to a Jan. 25 report by Amnesty International, 73 juvenile offenders were executed in Iran between 2005 and 2015.

The compelling photos paint a grim portrait of a regime willing to kill young girls, often for crimes committed by male acquaintances who escape punishment, leaving it to the girls to pay the ultimate price in their stead.

It’s a situation that the Iran lobby has been virtually silent on. A careful perusal of the websites, blogs and social media feeds for regime supporters such as Trita Parsi, Reza Marashi and Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council or Ali Gharib or Lobelog.com reveal hardly a word of criticism or protest over the heinous violations. What they have protested though has been the incarceration of Siamak Namazi, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen who was detained by regime authorities and not part of the prisoner swap that occurred as part of the nuclear agreement.

It is ironic that Namazi’s case is the one that earns the attention of the Iran lobby because of the close relationship he has with Parsi and his role in helping launch the NIAC and as an outspoken advocate of the nuclear deal with the regime.

Now Namazi is experiencing the same denial of legal representation that was forced on other American hostages such as Christian pastor Saeed Abedini and Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. We can only hope now that the shoe is on the other foot, these supporters of the regime would be more vocal in their criticisms, but we doubt it.

These elections though will provide a glimpse though of the lie that is Iranian regime democracy, which was discussed in an editorial in the New York Post who took to task the policy of appeasement exercised by the Obama administration:

“When it runs out of plausible excuses for its appeasement-plus policy on Iran, the Obama administration advances one argument as final line of defense: showing goodwill toward the Islamic Republic would help ‘moderates’ secure a greater share of power in Tehran with the hope of an eventual change of behavior by the ruling mullahs.”

“But who are the ‘moderates’ that Obama hopes to promote Tehran? A trio of mullahs consisting of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, former Security Minister Dorri Najafabadi and current President Hassan Rouhani forms the core of the faction that Obama hopes would sail to victory next week,” the article writes. “The triumvirate has a history of masquerading as moderates.”

He recounts how these supposed moderates have often espoused political reforms, but never offered or implemented any political reforms while holding office.

“Rafsanjani and his hand-picked successor Khatami governed for 16 years, but never offered a single political reform let alone implementing any. Their successor Rouhani has had more than two years to show that he follows the same path. During his presidency Iran has become world leader in the number of executions and political prisoners,” he adds.

Rouhani is exercising the playbook that Rafsanjani and Khatami exercised in portraying himself as a moderate when he has no intention of supporting reforms and has openly talked about his admiration for the so-called “Chinese Model” which emphasizes economic development with control of the government firmly in the Communist Party’s hands. Rouhani envisions a similar situation with the lifting of economic sanctions bolstering the flow of money to regime coffers, but no loosening of political restrictions.

The Financial Times took note of the Iranian public’s distinct lack of enthusiasm for upcoming elections against the backdrop of a sputtering economy still stifled by mass corruption and a focus on diverting funds to supporting the proxy wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

“The subdued seasonal shopping just one month before Norouz, the Iranian new year holiday, is adding to widespread gloom about a prolonged economic stagnation that has also dimmed public enthusiasm for the crucial upcoming elections,” the Financial Times writes. “Hassan Rouhani, the country’s centrist president, is now blamed by many for failing to deliver on his election campaign promises to help improve the economy with the nuclear agreement. Although inflation has shrunk — from a peak of about 40 per cent in 2013, when Mr. Rouhani took the reins, to about 13 per cent today, according to central bank figures — economic growth is next to zero and people are unwilling to purchase goods.”

While the election results may be a forgone conclusion, the hope remains that an oppressed Iranian people will someday soon see true regime change.

By Michael Tomlinson

Kickoff of Campaigning in Iran Hides Suppression of Human Rights

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Kickoff of Campaigning in Iran Hides Suppression of Human Rights

Kickoff of Campaigning in Iran Hides Suppression of Human Rights

The campaign season has kicked off and we’re not talking about the U.S. presidential campaign. In Iran the official campaign period for parliamentary elections for slates of candidates that passed ideological muster.

For most people living in democracies, the Iranian regime’s election system can be nothing short of baffling. It’s a system that begins and ends with a focus on ideological and religious purity and adherence to the Islamic revolutionary ideals it was founded on.

It is also a peculiar system in which the process of reviewing, vetting and examining candidates takes seven weeks to process, but the actual campaign season lasts just seven days.

Of the 12,000 candidates who were submitted for consideration to run for parliamentary seats and positions on the Assembly of Experts, nearly half of them were eliminated from the ballot by the Guardian Council, which is comprised of six mullahs and six law experts all appointed directly and indirectly by top mullah Ali Khamenei. The mere fact that the regime is empowered to eliminate any candidate it deems unfit to run virtually pre-ordains any election outcome in the regime’s favor.

In the case of the Assembly of Experts, of the 800 that applied, only 161 – all men – were approved by the Guardian Council; a miniscule 20 percent.

It’s also noteworthy that in Iran, there are over 250 registered political parties, but virtually none of them represent any true opposition groups such as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), a long-time resistance group which is outlawed and the regime vigorously pursues any of its members. The last two main reform-minded political parties were officially banned after the election fiasco of 2009 which resulted in massive protests that were violently put down.

Because of the complete control the regime has over political parties and the ballot, one would think that would be enough to guarantee any election, but in Iran, all ballots are also counted manually and subject to all kinds of shenanigans just in case any candidate who won a seat had a sudden change of heart and wished to oppose the mullahs.

The parliament often serves simply as a rubber stamp for Khamenei’s policies since it lacks the constitutional power to oppose foreign policy, military or other matters of state security. The approval of the nuclear deal is an example of that kind of blank check for Khamenei and his puppet, Hassan Rouhani.

According to Agence France-Presse, “the nuclear deal has partly ended Iran’s isolation but it has been followed by warnings from Khamenei that the military must guard against economic and cultural ‘infiltration’ by foreign actors who aim to damage the Islamic republic’s revolutionary principles.”

“Although parliamentarians backed Rouhani on the nuclear deal they did so less out of a sense of support for the president than because Khamenei made it clear he wanted sanctions lifted,” said AFP.

The closed nature of the regime electoral process allows the Iran lobby a certain flexibility to portray it in a more flattering light; not in the sense that’s at all fair, but rather in portraying certain candidates as “moderates” when in fact very few who pass vetting would be considered a true moderate, let alone a dissident reformist.

An example of that kind of PR spin control comes from the Iran lobby supporters such as the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) which has consistently pushed the idea that the elections would shine a light on growing moderate forces as a result of the nuclear deal.

But the crackdown on dissidents in advance of the elections, wiping off the ballot any conceivable opposition candidates, including the elimination of virtually all women candidates have forced even reliably supportive blogs such as Lobelog.com to print some guest columns describing the elections as “fixed.”

“In order to pass through the punishing vetting process and stand for election, Iranian citizens must comply with a huge set of restrictive criteria, including holding a masters’ degree, adhering to Islam, showing loyalty to the Constitution and the Supreme Leader, and having a spotless political (and mostly spotless criminal) record,” wrote Small Media, a London-based digital advocacy group, in a guest column.

“As evidenced by all the available data, these upcoming elections have been very tightly managed by Iran’s conservative establishment, with the Guardian Council weeding out more than half of the country’s hopeful parliamentary candidates during the vetting process,” Small Media added in what was the closest thing to a criticism of the Iranian regime Lobelog.com has published in a long time.

The fact that there is no real opposition to the mullahs allowed and the discussion of moderate elements within regime politics is mainly for international media consumption, it’s pretty obvious why there is so much concern in various capitals over what the mullahs plan on doing after elections when they will wave a so-called “election mandate” to continue their extremist policies.

This is why the results of the upcoming U.S. elections will likely have far more impact on what happens to the regime since the Obama administration has made clear its desire to appease the mullahs at every turn.

The latest example was the recent announcement of an $8 billion agreement by the Iranian regime to buy advanced military hardware from Russia, including the co-production of Su-30 fighter jets which now appear to be in violation of United Nations sanctions imposed as part of the nuclear deal banning the developing of nuclear-capable delivery systems such as bombers and missiles.

“The U.N. resolution to endorse the flawed Iran nuclear deal actually gives the United States and other members of the Security Council the power to review and legally block arms sales by Russia or other actors to Iran,” Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), a critic of the nuclear accord, told the Washington Free Beacon. “But as Russia and Iran further escalate their use of indiscriminate military force in the Middle East, the administration appears wholly unwilling to use this power.”

According to the terms of the U.N. resolution governing the nuclear agreement, the U.S. and other Security Council members are provided with the power to approve “in advance on a case-by-case basis” most conventional arms sales to Iran.

The statute specifically applies to the “supply, sale, or transfer” to Iran of many conventional arms, including “battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles, or missile systems,” according to the resolution.

It seems that not only are regime elections fixed, but it seems UN sanctions are rigged as well.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Ignores Money Trail from Iranian Regime

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Iran Lobby Ignores Money Trail from Iranian Regime

In this Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015 photo Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, second left, and Iran’s Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, second right, sign an agreement to expand military ties in Tehran Iran. Sergei Shoigu, in remarks carried by Russian news agencies, said Moscow wants to develop a “long-term and multifaceted” military relationship with Iran. He said that the new agreement includes expanded counter-terrorism cooperation, exchanges of military personnel for training purposes and an understanding for each country’s navy to more frequently use the other’s ports. (AP Photo/ Vadim Savitsky, Russian Defense Ministry Press Service)

While the Iran lobby argued strenuously that a nuclear deal with the Iranian regime would facilitate a moderation in its outlook, it also suggested that the financial windfall coming from the release of sanctions would help bolster the Iranian economy, benefitting the Iranian people and helping turn the Islamic state into an economic engine in the region.

Regime advocates such as the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and The Ploughshares Fund were outspoken in their conviction that ultimately the Iranian people – hurt after years of international sanctions – would be the ones lifted up by the rising tide of new capital flooding into the country.

Predictably those claims have turned out to be just another in the truckloads of false promises made by the Iran lobby. The reality has been harsh and unforgiving.

In the months following completion of the deal, the regime has turned all of its attention to just two issues: the crackdown on dissidents at home in advance of parliamentary elections and upgrading as quickly as possible its military forces.

This was evidenced on Hassan Rouhani’s recent European tour in which he signed a flurry of business deals with foreign companies aimed at rebuilding the country’s infrastructure and funnel billions of dollars toward companies controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

It is no surprise that the IRGC is the first institution in Iran to benefit from the largess. Rouhani’s government made the decision to keep the bulk of the $100 billion in their overseas accounts in order to pay for foreign military purchases in euros or dollars and they have wasted no time buying.

The first deal to be completed was the sale of S-300 anti-aircraft missile batteries that are a significant upgrade to the regime’s defenses and could be used to protect any nuclear facilities the regime chose to restart.

In addition, the regime announced another round of purchases of Russian arms totaling $8 billion. According to news reports, Iran wants to purchase more sophisticated anti-aircraft missile systems and also a new cadre of warplanes. The new deals will be in addition to several outstanding arms and military contracts that have already been signed between Iran and Russia.

Iran will “seriously focus on its air force and fighter jets,” according to comments by regime defense minister Hossein Dehghan while in Moscow to sign the defense agreements. “We are moving toward a contract. We told them that we need to be involved in the production [of the fighter planes] as well.”

A Russian source who spoke to the media said Iran is also interested in the latest anti-aircraft technology.

“Iran would like to buy Russia’s latest S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft missile system, developed by Almaz-Antey. And they make no secret of it,” the source was quoted as telling the Russian press. “On the eve of his visit to Moscow, Dehghan openly said to Iranian media they want to purchase the S-400s.”

Iran also is seeking to buy and possibly license for domestic production Russia’s new Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter jet, which is used for air-to-air and air-to-surface combat.

“Iran is also interested in Russia’s Bastion mobile coastal defense missile system, equipped with supersonic Yakhont anti-ship missiles, along with Mi-8/17 helicopters and other arms,” according to the regime-controlled media.

The military purchases represent one of the largest investments in state-of-the-art military hardware anywhere in the Middle East. The addition of supersonic fighter jets, anti-ship missiles and even more sophisticated anti-aircraft systems poses a grave threat to international shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz.

News reports also indicated the regime would seek to diversify its military suppliers by seeking arms purchases from China as it dips heavily into its newfound wealth. The rapid buying binge indicates the mullahs’ strong desire to rearm Iran into the region’s most powerful military.

To give the expenditures perspective, the entire publicly reported budget for the Iranian regime’s military was $10.2 billion, supporting over half a million active duty regime personnel. The Russian agreement nearly equaled the entire budget last year and more buying is on the way.

The inevitable question that needs to be asked of the Iran lobby is where is the money to help the Iranian people? Little of the money has been brought back to Iran and even less has been disbursed to help ordinary Iranians with healthcare, education, or even food. Why does the Iran lobby ignore all these actions? Probably the same reason it is ignoring the carnage in Syria being wrought by the Iranian regime as well.

In fact, the civil war in Syria is at the heart of the Iranian regime military buildup and an example of why the regime cannot be trusted.

As the Independent newspaper detailed the obvious contradiction in supporting a nuclear deal that only served to supply the regime with fresh resources to wage an even bloodier war in support of keeping Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in power.

Kyle Orton cites the brutal battle over the Syrian city of Aleppo as the case in point, writing:

“The Geneva III peace process is the most immediate cause for this latest offensive against Aleppo, led on the ground by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies, as well as Russian airstrikes. The regime and Russia have used it as a cover to gain ground. The US took the process seriously so sought to de-escalate, taking steps to weaken its own side. This included restricting the rebels’ access to anti-tank missiles”.

“Russia, on the other hand, enabled the IRGC-run forces that control the Bashar al-Assad regime’s security sector to cut the rebels’ final Aleppo supply line into Turkey and move to impose a starvation-siege on the city like the ones they have imposed on forty-nine other areas in Syria. The regime coalition can then either bring the city to its knees and complete the reconquest, or quarantine the rebels in the city, freeing up resources to deploy against rebels on other fronts,” he added.

The Iranian regime’s intentions in Syria are simple: 1) Keep Assad in power; and 2) Do it anyway it can.

“Assad, Iran, and Russia have worked tirelessly to eliminate the moderate opposition so that there will be nobody for the international community to interface with, and Assad’s reign will have to be accepted—and perhaps even supported to reconquer the Isis-held areas in the east,” Orton said.

The brutal evidence of that ruthless strategy can be seen in the deliberate targeting of civilians and the use of barrel bombs and now starvation as a tactic to weaken the opposition.

The mullahs are well acquainted with using death, destruction and executions as a tactic for winning its conflicts. The diplomacy the Iran lobby publicizes with great fanfare cannot be found on the battlefields of Syria, Yemen or Iraq where the Iranian regime’s policies are killing tens of thousands.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Ignores Upcoming Iran Election Shenanigans

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Iran Lobby Ignores Upcoming Iran Election Shenanigans

Iran Lobby Ignores Upcoming Iran Election Shenanigans

On February 26, Iran will hold its parliamentary elections and similar to almost every election held since the Islamic revolution in 1979, the results will be largely a forgone conclusion since the mullahs control who goes on the ballot in the first place and in the case of the top spot – currently occupied by Ali Khamenei – that is a position that doesn’t even get voted on by the public in a process that old-line Soviets would find reminiscent of the Politburo.

Michael J. Totten, writing in World Affairs, took to task some idiotic observations made by Max Fisher in Vox magazine in which Fisher waxes rapturously about how the Iranian election could be historic. It the same kind of nonsense first advocated by the Iran lobby, most notably bloggers Jim Lobe and Ali Gharib, the National Iranian American Council and other regime advocates such as Paul Pillar.

The notion that the nuclear deal has set the stage for a historic election in which moderates and dissidents will finally get a fair shake and opportunity to put their stamp on the Islamic state moving into the 21st century is about as realistic as Boko Haram suddenly deciding to endorse women’s rights.

The truth of the matter, as Totten rightly points out, “let’s leave aside the blatant vote-stealing in Iran’s 2009 presidential election, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner in districts that opposed him as overwhelmingly as San Francisco opposes Dick Cheney. Nevermind that disgraceful episode.”

“Elections in Iran are rigged even when they aren’t rigged,” Totten said. “Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei hand-picks everybody who runs for president. Moderates are rejected routinely. Only the less-moderate of the moderates—the ones who won’t give Khamenei excessive heartburn if they win—are allowed to run at all. Liberal and leftist candidates are rejected categorically.”

In the case of the position of president of the regime, a position held by Hassan Rouhani, Totten points out that “he’s not quite a figurehead. He can tinker with a few things around the edges. But the country is run by the unelected Supreme Leader, the Guardian Council, and the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is officially designated as a terrorist organization.”

NIAC hacks such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi have argued that “moderates” will be empowered in a resurgent Iran and that will be reflected in more moderates being elected to the upper legislative body, the Assembly of Experts which nominally selects the new Supreme Leader when Khamenei dies.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Guardian Council dumped thousands of potential candidates, the overwhelming majority of them more moderate than the ruling mullahs in a similar political exorcism it conducted during Rouhani’s election when it cleared the field for him to run virtually unopposed.

Let’s also consider that a “moderate” in regime politics is like calling someone a moderate who opposes hanging a political dissident, but doesn’t mind locking up a political dissident; in much the same way as Rouhani was hailed as a moderate, but since his ascension he has presided over more executions in his first term than even Ahmadinejad carried out.

In another sign that the elections are going turn out in favor of Khamenei and his cronies no matter what the actual vote is, Khamenei’s office issued a press release through regime-controlled media warning of “enemy” efforts to undermine the elections.

The statement read in part: “Their plot for the February 26 elections is to undermine the Guardian Council and question its decisions,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, “describing the Council as one of the fundamental institutions of the Islamic Establishment, which the US has been strongly opposed to since the victory of the Islamic Revolution.”

“When the Guardian Council’s decisions are called into question, the elections would be perceived to be illegal, and, consequently, the elected parliament as well as the laws it ratifies would be deemed illegal, the Leader explained.”

The regime learned its lessons from the 2009 election debacles that resulted in violent street demonstrations that had to be put down with bloody consequences and is doing all it can to pre-ordain the results and impose order such that there would be no repeat of civil disobedience.

All of which has not gone unnoticed by an American public who’s opinion of the regime’s leadership has astonishingly remained virtually unchanged since the 1980s according to a new Gallup Poll released this week.

A stunningly low 14 percent of Americans have a favorable viewpoint of the regime in a benchmark for futility that has not budged in spite of all the public relations and social media posturing conducted by the Iran lobby. It’s nice to see that no matter how many tweets Trita Parsi puts out, Americans remain skeptical and wary of a regime that has put to the hangman’s noose over 2,300 people under Rouhani.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

 

 

Iran Lobby Attacks Saudi Arabia to Distract from Worsening Syrian Situation

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Iran Lobby Attacks Saudi Arabia to Distract from Worsening Syrian Situation

Iran Lobby Attacks Saudi Arabia to Distract from Worsening Syrian Situation

There is a certain reliable predictability in what the Iran lobby will write about and advocate. It will always defend the Iranian regime from any potential sanctions no matter how egregious its acts. It will always stay mute on horrific human rights violations or terrorist acts springing from Tehran. It will always find someone else to blame for the region’s troubles that come directly from Iranian actions.

Reza Marashi, the research director for the National Iranian American Council and one of the staunchest defenders of the regime, penned an editorial in The Cairo Review which essentially places blame on Saudi Arabia for the all the ills befalling the Middle East. It is an all-too predictable attempt at shifting blame away from Tehran and dumping it on Riyadh.

Among the literary ruins of his diatribe lie a few choice nuggets of deception such as:

“The Obama administration rightly recognizes the aggressive regional policies of both Iran and Saudi Arabia. But here’s the catch: Tehran has been willing to negotiate de-escalation for nearly three years. Washington has encouraged it. To date, Riyadh has refused,” Marashi writes.

The remarkable thing about Marashi’s editorial is that you could trade places between Saudi Arabia and Iran and his editorial would make perfect sense. For example, the previous piece would read now as:

“The Obama administration rightly recognizes the aggressive regional policies of both Iran and Saudi Arabia. But here’s the catch: Riyadh has been willing to negotiate de-escalation for nearly three years. Washington has encouraged it. To date, Tehran has refused.”

In this reality, the truth actually comes out correctly! Tehran has been the sole reason why the Syrian civil war escalated into the conflagration it has become. Top mullah Ali Khamenei and his handpicked puppet Hassan Rouhani made the calculation that keeping Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in power was their only hope of maintaining a Shia arc of influence stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean through Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

If Iran’s chief regional ally was allowed to fall, the Iranian regime’s position would become precarious and the very real possibility of regime change would finally be available to the overwhelming numbers of ordinary oppressed Iranians who yearn for freedom from the yoke of theocratic control.

Instead, the mullahs went all in by first pouring billions of dollars into the Assad regime to keep it afloat after most of the world imposed harsh sanctions for the use of barrel bombs and chemical weapons on Syrian and opposition civilians.

Then Tehran directed its terrorist proxy Hezbollah to pour fighters into Syria while at the same time it recruited and coerced Afghan refugees in Iran to enlist and shipped them off to fight. Even with all this support, Assad’s regime was on the verge of crumbling from opposition fighters, forcing Rouhani to beg Russia’s Vladimir Putin to intervene and throw Moscow’s weight into the fray to save the Iranian regime’s proverbial bacon.

Even as Syrian peace talks have taken place in Geneva, Marashi contends that Saudi Arabia has no place at the table which is ironic since Marashi conveniently ignores the fact that all lines of conflict flow back to Tehran and Saudi Arabia is intricately caught up in this web with the Iranian regime’s sponsorship and support of Houthi rebels in Yemen who have brought another war to the Saudi Arabian border; a fact Marashi neglects to mention.

Marashi further contends that the nuclear deal with Iran did not pre-ordain regional conflicts as a result. In fact, that is exactly what it has done. The lifting of economic sanctions and the awarding of over $100 billion in cash to Iran has caused ripples far and wide as Tehran embarked on a mass shopping spree including sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft missiles and now an agreement to buy advanced Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker fighters.

The rapid re-armament of Iran has justifiably spooked its neighbors who plainly see the results of regime aggression and adventurism. Their concerns have sparked talked of a nuclear arms race as Iran’s neighbors seriously weigh their options in pursuing comparable weapons to the Iranian regime, even raising the specter of a new nuclear arms race – a glaring point that Marashi neglects to remark on.

The total commitment of the Iranian regime to support Assad manifested itself with a demand from regime foreign minister Javad Zarif that Iran and its allies in Syria won’t allow a cessation of hostilities in Syria to enable opponents of the Assad regime to “regroup.”

The demand to press the fight against Assad’s opponents by the Iranian regime recognizes that Iran cannot sustain an indefinite war, especially as it drains that $100 billion credit line quickly and global petroleum prices continue to sink, denying the regime the opportunity to cash in immediately on the lifting of embargoes on oil sales.

The clock is definitely running on the mullahs, and they and their allies such as the NIAC know it. This was shown in comments made by the Iranian regime’s air defense chief who vowed that Iran would help Syria further by beefing up its air defense capabilities as the possibility of the establishment of no-fly zones was being raised at the Geneva talks.

One only wonders if that includes transferring some of the new S-300 advanced missile batteries the Iranian regime has just purchased from Russia over to Syria, in what would amount to a dramatic escalation in military support for the Assad regime by Iran.

The reality is that Marashi’s editorial is an indicator of the growing level of concern the mullahs have over the successes Saudi Arabia and neighboring Gulf states have had in stemming Iranian regime advances, especially in intercepting arms being smuggled by Iran into Yemen for Houthi rebels.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

Iran Lobby Cannot Defend Growing Human Rights Violations

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Iran Lobby Cannot Defend Growing Human Rights Violations

Iran Lobby Cannot Defend Growing Human Rights Violations

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” – Abraham Lincoln

On this President’s Day, it is fitting we look back on past presidents for lessons and observations that hold true in today’s chaotic world and Lincoln’s quote is as powerful and meaningful today as it was in his day, especially as we look at the downward spiral that is the Middle East in general and the Iranian regime specifically.

Lincoln, faced with a great split down the middle of his country, believed deeply in uniting a nation under the principles of freedom and equality for all. He saw slavery as a morally corrupt practice that – if allowed to continue – would darken and sicken the heart of his nation to its core. His quote hearkens to the need to stand firm in the face of great adversity and make the hard decisions today because any delay would force ever harder decisions tomorrow.

The same sentiment applies to the world’s approach to the mullahs in Tehran. The rush to appease the Iranian regime with a dubious nuclear agreement and the move to delink from it a wide range of regime abuses such as support for terror, development of ballistic missiles, holding of hostages and crackdowns on human rights, have proven to be problematic in its aftermath.

Lincoln’s words are also a necessary reminder that we cannot bargain away important moral points today in the hopes for political expediency and we certainly cannot be lured by the siren song of false promises that emanate from the Iran lobby which fought hard to position the regime as a moderate-seeking group of bureaucrats and not a bunch of thuggish theocrats which they really are.

When regime advocates such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council argue for an almost obsequious approach to dealing with the mullahs in the hopes of gaining favor, they in fact are arguing the world give away all of its leverage in the hope of gaining some whiff of cooperation when none will be forthcoming.

Even now, Parsi and Marashi and others in the Iran lobby have consistently ignored the broader implications of aggressive regime behavior since the nuclear deal and instead focused on non-issues such as visa waivers and holding the line against any possible future sanctions.

They have ignored the widespread imprisonment of journalists, Iranian dissidents, artists, students and bloggers throughout Iran.

They have ignored the dramatic escalation in the Syrian war as the mullahs begged Russia to enter on behalf of saving the Assad regime.

They have ignored the blatant acts of aggression committed by the regime in detaining ten U.S. sailors and then using them in a constant stream of propaganda exercises; releasing video of them kneeling underneath guns, even one sailor crying and now revelations they were subjected to constant and intense questioning by regime officials.

The Iran lobby has consistently ignored the repeated reports and demands of international human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights in Iran, all of whom have revealed evidence of mounting regime abuses of increasing size and barbarity.

An Iranian who fled the bloodshed of the regime wrote in the American Thinker his own story of the atrocities committed by the regime and sad state of affairs for ordinary Iranians.

“In the last 37 years, the Iranian nation has lived under the reign of the most backward regime.  The truth is that the clergymen who rule Iran do not belong in this age and cannot deal with the realities of the modern world.  At best, the Islamic revolution of 1979 was the revolution of century against century.  They believe that after 37 years of mismanagement and brutality, the only way they can extend their rule is by increasingly terrorizing their critics.  The Islamic regime has taken this noble Iranian nation into the Middle Ages, creating some of the most medieval laws and implementing them against its citizens in the most vicious manner,” he writes.

“The regime’s atrocities include stoning men and women, cutting off their fingers, torturing innocent people for their opinion, incarcerating religious minorities on fabricated charges, imprisoning Iranian youths for upholding their very basic human rights, and organizing vigilantes to murder political opponents.  They have created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, where Iranians cannot trust one another.  In brief, in the name of religion, the clergymen have created a society where sadness and despair have replaced hope and optimism,” he added.

This testimony is only one of many that pour out of Iran demanding to be addressed by the world’s governments and news media. Iranian dissident groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran have provided much of the proof of the atrocities being committed through smuggled video of public executions, sworn testimony from victims of the regime and tracking of prisoners who all too often disappear in the labyrinth of infamous black holes such as Evin Prison.

Ultimately, Lincoln’s message may prove prophetic as the price to be paid in confronting Iranian regime aggression will only rise in the next president’s term. We can only hope that price will not be too high to pay in light of recent appeasement of the mullahs.

By Laura Carnahan

Iranian Regime Antagonizes as Iran Lobby Ignores It All

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Iranian Regime Antagonizes as Iran Lobby Ignores It All

New App to get around the oppressive “Ershad” security units.

 

W

hile the Iran lobby is trying to push for the idea, of moderate forces existing inside the Iranian regime, the violation of human rights in Iran is on the rise. Things have gotten so bad, that some smart Iranian app developers have created a remarkable mobile phone app to help young fashion conscious Iranians avoid the regime’s notorious morality police known as “Ershad.”

According to the BBC, Ershad’s mobile checkpoints which usually consist of a van, a few bearded men and one or two women in black chadors, are deployed in towns across Iran and appear with no notice.

Ershad personnel have a very extensive list of powers ranging from issuing warnings and forcing those they accuse of violating the regime’s strict Islamic code of conduct, to make a written statement pledging to never do so again, to fines or even prosecuting offenders.

The new phone app which is called “Gershad” (probably meaning get around Ershad instead of facing them) however, will alert users to checkpoints and help them to avoid them by choosing a different route.

The data for the app is crowdsourced. It relies on users to point out the location of the Ershad vans on maps and when a sufficient number of users point out the same point, an alert will show up on the map for other users. When the number decreases, the alert will fade gradually from the map.

In a statement on their web page the app’s developers explain their motives in this way: “Why do we have to be humiliated for our most obvious right which is the right to wear what we want? Social media networks and websites are full of footage and photos of innocent women who have been beaten up and dragged on the ground by the Ershad patrol agents.”

“Police need to provide security for the citizens not to turn into a factor for fear. A while ago, angry with such unreasonable oppressions, we looked for a solution to find a practical way to resist the volume of injustices peacefully with low risk level, to restore part of our freedom.”

According to the designers of Gershad, in 2014 alone, around three million people were issued with official warnings, 18,000 were prosecuted and more than 200,000 were made to write formal pledges of repentance.

While it is laudable that Iranians are developing new and innovative ways to get around the strict control imposed by the mullahs, the price of that covert activity can be high in a regime where over 2,200 executions have already occurred under the tenure of Hassan Rouhani.

That point was emphasized by Mohammad Rez Naqdi, commander of the regime’s infamous Basij paramilitary force, who claimed that the U.S. could no longer act in the Middle East without the consent of top mullah Ali Khamenei.

Those kinds of boasts have caused an ever-increasing number of news outlets and political leaders from both sides of the aisle to demand more accountability from the regime.

According to the Washington Post, this week alone, U.S. lawmakers will gather for at least five separate committee meetings specifically dedicated to reviewing Iran’s actions ranging from its compliance with the nuclear pact to its dedication to locating and freeing still-missing former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007. Top U.S. intelligence officials were grilled Tuesday in two additional hearings for their take on the threat posed by Iran.

And later this month, senators are expected to roll out a series of bills to bring the greater weight of more non-nuclear sanctions down on Tehran, seeking to punish Iran for everything from recent ballistic missile tests to pervasive human rights abuses.

Among the proposals was one offered by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) who pledged to get more funding for the group responsible for making sure Iran doesn’t cheat on the nuclear deal, suggesting President Obama’s budget request doesn’t go far enough.

“As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I am committed to doing everything I can to increase funding for the [International Atomic Energy Agency] during the Appropriations process,” he said in a statement. “However, this goal is made considerably more difficult by the administration’s low baseline request.”

It is almost a given that Iran’s upcoming parliamentary elections are being engineered by the mullahs to deliver an overwhelming slate of winners favorable to Khamenei and his cadre of mullahs. It remains to be seen what the rest of the world will do in response to another stolen election in Iran.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Promises of More Moderate Iran Rebutted

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Iran Lobby Promises of More Moderate Iran Rebutted

Iran Lobby Promises of More Moderate Iran Rebutted

In an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, gave a very somber description of what he sees as the Iranian regime’s intentions toward the U.S. now that last summer’s nuclear deal has commenced.

In particular, his statements offered little assurance the regime is acting as an honest actor with the U.S. and the other states involved in last year’s negotiations, or that the nuclear deal will stop Iran regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“Iran probably views JCPOA [Iran deal] as a means to remove sanctions while preserving nuclear capabilities, as well as the option to eventually expand its nuclear infrastructure,” said Clapper.

The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that “Iran does not face any insurmountable technical barriers to producing a nuclear weapon, making Iran’s political will the central issue,” according to Clapper.

Clapper’s statements stand in stark contrast with those made by the Iran lobby led by the National Iranian American Council, which lauded the nuclear accord last summer, claiming it would not only stop all of Iran’s possible pathways to a nuclear weapon, but that “under its terms, Iran is never allowed to build a nuclear weapon.”When queried on Iran’s missile tests conducted in October and December of 2015 just months after the signing of the Iran deal, Clapper had no doubts the regime was trying to send a message.

“I think this was a deliberate message of defiance and that the Iranians are going to continue with an aggressive program to develop their missile force,” said Clapper.

The U.S. intelligence community predicts the Iranian regime “would choose ballistic missiles as its preferred method of delivering nuclear weapons, if it builds them,” according to Clapper. “Iran’s ballistic missiles are inherently capable of delivering [weapons of mass destruction], and Tehran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East.”

The regime also continues research on its space program, which is largely considered a front for the construction of advanced ballistic missile technology.

“Iran’s progress on space launch vehicles—along with its desire to deter the United States and its allies—provides Tehran with the means and motivation to develop longer-range missiles, including ICBMs,” Clapper said.

At the same time, Iran continues to be the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism.

“Iran—the foremost state sponsor of terrorism—continues to exert its influence in regional crises in the Middle East through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—Quds Force (IRGC-QF), its terrorist partner Lebanese Hezbollah, and proxy groups,” Clapper said.

The Obama administration responded to the tests with a new round of sanctions on Iran’s missile program. Regime officials said the new sanctions would not deter its ambitious missile program, and that it will instead go on the “offensive” in response.

It is in this context that the recent ramp up in testing and deployment of new ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads by North Korea is the most troubling since it has been North Korea that has provided the initial designs and materials to the Iranian regime for its nuclear and missile programs as Clapper indicated in his testimony.

He testified that North Korea has expanded its Yongbyon plant for uranium enrichment and has restarted a plutonium reactor shut down in 2007 that could produce nuclear weapons fuel “within a matter of weeks to months.” North Korea could have as many as 100 nuclear bombs less than five years from now, plus, as Clapper warned, it’s developing an ICBM missile to carry them to the U.S. homeland.

North Korea in many ways is the preview of what the Iranian regime is on track to similarly do as it has broken all of the agreements it has made, developed its weapons program under the unsuspecting eyes of international inspections and freely traded in its technology to other radical nations.

North Korea is also a reminder that hollow diplomatic promises not backed up by severe consequences leads to only more appeasement in a desperate bid to regain perceived momentum with each new violation and militant act. It’s a pattern that is already being repeated with the Iranian regime which has launched new missiles, stepped up its wars in Syria and Yemen and instituted a large-scale crackdown on human rights and political dissidents at home in advance of upcoming elections.

And even with the Iran lobby’s own, most vocal supporters being similarly tossed into Iranian prisons, the Iran lobby cannot face the awful consequences of its actions and still expresses support for the totalitarian regime in Tehran.

That link between North Korea and the Iranian regime is under scrutiny by members of Congress who have called for an investigation of the cooperation between the two regimes.

Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) late Monday filed an amendment to a North Korea sanctions bill that would require the administration to disclose to Congress any cooperation between the rogue Asian nation and Iran on nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development.

Congress took up the issue after North Korea said it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb last month. On Saturday, the country conducted a missile launch that it claimed was to put a satellite into space for peaceful purposes, but the U.S. and allies suspect was a long-range missile test in violation of international law.

Perdue and other members of Congress suspect that North Korea and Iran are cooperating and that the administration has been reluctant to disclose to Congress what it knows.

“It’s undeniable that Iran and North Korea have been cooperating on nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development for years now,” said Perdue, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a statement.

“Iranians have reportedly been present for at least three of North Korea’s nuclear tests,” he said.

Perdue’s amendment would require the administration to submit a semiannual report to Congress on North Korea’s cooperation with Iran on nuclear weapon and ballistic missile testing, development and research.

It would also require the administration to disclose to Congress the identity of individuals who have knowingly engaged in or directed material support or exchanged information between governments of Iran and North Korea for their nuclear programs.

“This amendment forces the Obama administration to disclose to Congress what it knows about this cooperation between rogue nations, instead of denying the linkages. The sooner we acknowledge this illicit cooperation, the sooner we can work to put it to a halt,” Perdue said.

The failure to rein in North Korea and the appeasement of the mullahs in Iran with a deeply flawed nuclear deal has only emboldened these regimes to aggressively move forward with their plans. We can only hope that the world will respond soon enough to halt these threats before it’s too late.

By Michael Tomlinson