Iran Lobby

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

Iran Regime Hack on U.S. Power Grid Underscores Cyberwar

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Iran Regime Hack on U.S. Power Grid Underscores Cyberwar

Iran Regime Hack on U.S. Power Grid Underscores Cyberwar

One of the most consistent points offered by the Iran lobby in support of the nuclear agreement with the Iranian regime and the rest of the world was that it would usher in a new era of moderation and stability and open the pathway to a rapprochement. Regime supporters such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council contended that if the U.S. would see fit to delink noxious and troublesome issues such as human rights abuses, support for terrorism and cyberwarfare that things would improve and everyone would join hands in singing a chorus of “We Are the World.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, new disclosures from former and current U.S. officials clearly show the Iranian regime has been behind some of the most disturbing and threatening cyberattacks against the U.S. in recent memory.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Iranian hackers infiltrated the control system of a small dam less than 20 miles from New York City two years ago. The breach came amid attacks by hackers linked to Iran’s government against the websites of U.S. banks.

“These systems control the flow in pipelines, the movements of drawbridges and water releases from dams. A hacker could theoretically cause an explosion, a flood or a traffic jam,” said the Wall Street Journal. “The incident at the New York dam was a wake-up call for U.S. officials, demonstrating that Iran had greater digital-warfare capability than believed and could inflict real-world damage, according to people familiar with the matter.”

U.S. intelligence agencies noticed the intrusion as they monitored computers they believed were linked to Iranian hackers targeting American firms, according to people familiar with the matter. U.S. officials had linked these hackers to repeated disruptions at consumer-banking websites, including those of Capital One Financial Corp., PNC Financial Services Group and SunTrust Banks Inc., the Journal reported at the time.

The escalation in cyberattacks by Iranian-based hackers represents a new phase in aggressive hostilities punctuated by increases in actual armed conflict with the launching of a new offensive in Syria in support of the Assad regime by the mullahs in Tehran.

While the Obama administration has long held to the idea that Assad needed to go in order to bring about an eventual political solution in Syria, the military support coming from Russia has potentially altered the political calculus of the administration to finding a way to keep Assad in power as a bulwark against the perceived greater threat of ISIS.

“The calculation that the White House has made is that working with Assad is less bad than the alternative of going to war with Russia over Assad, or of sending in a large number of American troops to fight the Islamic State on the ground,” says Joshua Landis, who heads the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, to the Washington Times.

The administration’s approach is facing biting criticism from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, several of whom argue that the White House has no clear strategy for defeating the terrorist group also known as ISIS and ISIL and is badly following Russia’s lead on Syria as a whole.

The issue also has become a divisive one on the presidential campaign trail. President Obama’s former top diplomat, Hillary Clinton, is aligned with Republican contenders Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie in asserting that Assad’s ouster should be a top U.S. priority in any serious strategy to defeat the Islamic State.

Tied to that is the prickly question of what to do about the Iranian regime’s total support of Assad in terms of foreign fighters, cash and weapons. It is a question that is increasingly being answered by critics as requiring a strong response from the U.S. and allied countries to back Iran off from supporting Assad and allowing a reduction in fighting for a political solution to take shape.

According to the Michael Singh writing in then Wall Street Journal, Sen. Bob Corker has noted, since the agreement was signed in July, the regime has sentenced Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian–who has been in jail for more than a year–and imprisoned another Iranian-American. It has defied United Nations sanctions by exporting arms to Yemen and Syria; by dispatching Qasem Soleimani, chief of the regime’s Quds Force, and other sanctioned officials to Russia, Iraq, and elsewhere; and by conducting two ballistic missile launches. Iranian hackers have reportedly engaged in cyberattacks on the State Department. Tehran also refused to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency investigation into its nuclear weapons research.

The Washington Post editorial board took an even tougher stance, writing in Sunday’s edition:

“Iran is following through on the nuclear deal it struck with a U.S.-led coalition in an utterly predictable way: It is racing to fulfill those parts of the accord that will allow it to collect $100 billion in frozen funds and end sanctions on its oil exports and banking system, while expanding its belligerent and illegal activities in other areas — and daring the West to respond.

“Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s response to these provocations has also been familiar. It is doing its best to downplay them — and thereby encouraging Tehran to press for still-greater advantage.”

“By flouting the U.N. resolutions, Iran is clearly testing the will of the United States and its allies to enforce the overall regime limiting its nuclear ambitions. If there is no serious response, it will press the boundaries in other areas — such as the inspection regime. It will take maximum advantage of Mr. Obama’s fear of undoing a legacy achievement, unless and until its bluff is called. That’s why the administration would be wise to take firm action now in response to the missile tests rather than trying to sweep them under the carpet,” warned the Washington Post.

That effort to appease the mullahs at all costs has manifested itself in the manner the Obama administration is literally prostrating itself before the mullahs over the issue of the visa waiver program changes contained in the recently passed omnibus funding bill.

As Eli Lake and Josh Rogin point out in Bloomberg View:

“In the latest example of the U.S. effort to reassure Iran, the State Department is scrambling to confirm to Iran that it won’t enforce new rules that would increase screening of Europeans who have visited Iran and plan to come to America,” they write.

“House staffers who spoke with us say Iran was included for good reason, because it remains on the U.S. list of state of sponsors of terrorism for its open support for Hezbollah and Hamas. The White House did not object until the Iranian government told the administration last week that the bill would violate the nuclear agreement, according to correspondence on these negotiations shared with us,” Lake and Rogin added.

The willingness for the U.S. to not press the Iran regime on these and a wide range of issues, including the most recent cyberattacks, only reinforces the same bad behavior by the mullahs.

But on a more personal level, the plight of individual families was highlighted by an editorial written by Daniel Levinson, son of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007 and has not been produced by regime despite repeated demands.

“Any foreign national considering a trip to Iranian-controlled territory risks arbitrary detention, potentially without access to any basic human rights or their loved ones for years to come. This is what happened to my father,” Levinson writes in the Washington Post. “We were devastated that he was not released in the aftermath of the accord. Now we fear that the United States has squandered its best opportunity for leverage in ensuring my father’s safe return home.”

For the Levinsons and countless other families impacted by the barbaric cruelty of the Iranian regime, the price of not standing up to the mullahs only goes up with each new act of appeasement.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Threats about Visa Waiver Program Hide a Dirty Secret

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Iran Regime Threats about Visa Waiver Program Hide a Dirty Secret

Iran Regime Threats about Visa Waiver Program Hide a Dirty Secret

Within the omnibus $1.1 trillion spending bill is a provision being hotly debated concerning modifications to the Visa Waiver Program which allows citizens from 38 designated countries the ability to travel freely to the U.S. without a visa and vice versa for Americans traveling to those countries. The provision requires citizens from Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Syria to obtain a visa before being able to visit the U.S.

The change has brought substantial and intense political debate and its eventual outcome will no doubt be determined by diplomacy and even legal action, but what cannot be denied is how the Iranian regime is using the opportunity to leverage itself into another threatening posture over the nuclear deal it agreed to earlier this year.

The mullahs see an opportunity to maximize the controversy in two ways. First, they have proclaimed that the changes to the waiver program might amount to the levying of a new sanction on the regime and thus void the nuclear agreement; freeing the regime to resume its nuclear program.

This position was articulated by regime foreign minister Javad Zarif who claimed in an interview in New York that the change amounted to a new sanction; a position echoed by deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.

Reneging on the nuclear agreement at this point would allow the regime to reap all of the benefits it has received since July when the agreement was reached and move forward with a restarted nuclear program without much fear of a new round of sanctions being imposed by a United Nations Security Council clearly reluctant to revisit the issue after burying the most recent incomplete assessment of the regime’s past nuclear program by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The regime is clearly eager to cash in their rewards including an estimated $150 billion in frozen assets, a return to the international financial system, access to global oil markets and freedom to go on a buying binge of new military hardware from Russia.

But the second and more interesting position taken by the regime is the long-held contention by the regime that anyone born in Iran can never shed their citizenship, even if they moved to another country as a child and became a citizen in their new homeland.

It is this twisted logic the mullahs have followed in being able to snatch up Iranian-Americans and hold them and sentence them in sham trials such as in the case of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian.

By contending that Iranians are never allowed to leave their citizenship, the regime retains the ability to inflict its form of brutal justice on anyone it deems fit for any inconsequential act. In Rezaian’s case, the mere act of reporting on Iranian news events qualified him as being a spy. It is the same perverse logic applied to fellow American hostages, Amir Hekmati and Saeed Abedini.

The fact that the regime is using the controversy over the visa waiver program to advance its political goals is telling, just as the Iran lobby ramps up the decibel level in denouncing the program changes as a means of shifting global attention away from the reverses it is suffering in Syria and in its other provocative actions.

Article in the New York Post, refers to the regime practice of “khalibandi” in using charade as a means of statecraft and deception. It applies the term in looking at the nuclear deal and the regime’s decision to test fire new ballistic missiles violating UN sanctions.

“These tests make sense only if Tehran continues to contemplate a military nuclear dimension to its program. The two new missiles are designed to carry warheads of between 75 to 100 kilograms. It makes no sense to deploy a ballistic missile over a distance of 1,800 to 2,000 kilometers — that is to say, capable of reaching all capitals in the Middle East and parts of Europe — simply to carry a payload of TNT,” the article writes.

All of which is being made possible under the false impressions the Iranian regime and its lobby have worked diligently to project while being duplicitous behind the scenes.

While we won’t debate the merits and shortfalls of the visa waiver program, we cannot argue with the impact it is having in giving the regime a pathway out of having to explain some of the more nefarious aspects of its policies, especially as it relates to its pitiful human rights record.

For example, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a leading dissident group, announced details of the execution of three political prisoners by the regime by hanging. The news garnered almost no notice from global news organizations and marks another entry in the bloody ledger of the regime which has already claimed over 1,100 victims – most being political prisoners.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

Iran Regime Promises More Missiles in Spite of UN Ban

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Iran Regime Promises More Missiles in Spite of UN Ban

Iran Regime Promises More Missiles in Spite of UN Ban

Sounding as defiant as ever, the Iranian regime announced it would not accept any restrictions over its ballistic missile program after the United Nations Security Council’s Panel of Experts concluded in a confidential report that last October’s test firings of a new ballistic missile violated UN restrictions banning development of nuclear-capable missiles by the Islamic state.

“We tested Emad to show the world that the Islamic Republic will only act based on its national interests and no country or power can impose its will on us,” Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan was quoted as saying by the state news agency, IRNA.

Ballistic missile tests by Iran are banned under Security Council resolution 1929, which dates from 2010 and remains valid until the July nuclear deal between Iran and world powers goes into effect, according to Reuters which first broke the news about the confidential UN report.

Once the deal takes effect, Iran will still be “called upon” according to Reuters not to undertake any ballistic missile work designed to deliver nuclear weapons for a period of up to eight years, according to a Security Council resolution adopted in July right after the nuclear deal.

The regime contends that the resolution would only ban missiles “designed” to carry a nuclear warhead, not “capable of”, so it would not affect its military program as Tehran does not pursues nuclear weapons. The distinction is akin to saying a gun that is not designed to kill humans expressly, but is capable of killing humans is somehow different.

It is that kind of linguistic gymnastics which has characterized the regime’s approach to nuclear negotiations and its support of terror groups and the Assad regime in Syria. Regime leaders such as top mullah Ali Khamenei have consistently issued statements inconsistent with public statements made by other regime officials such as Hassan Rouhani and foreign minister Javad Zarif. The contradictions coming out from the regime could give anyone fits trying to detangle the mess.

Therein lay the strategy of the mullahs in that they seek to create this confusion in order to provide the wiggle room necessary to justify any action they see fit. By declaring its missiles not expressly designed for nuclear weapons, they can ignore international bans. By declaring the lifting of any sanction under the nuclear deal tardy or slow, the regime could declare the agreement null and void at any time and build a nuclear weapon at will.

It is the false promises made during the nuclear talks that are now coming to haunt the rest of the world as they see the Iranian regime do whatever it pleases to fit the narrative it chooses to articulate.

Rouhani himself couldn’t stop from making a verbal slam dunk when he went on state television calling the vote by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors to close out its inquiry into the regime’s past military practices in its nuclear program in spite of highly critical findings by inspectors that the regime continued to develop nuclear weapons well into 2009 and still had not fully answered outstanding questions.

The Tehran regime has announced its intentions to bulk up on Russian military hardware in a buying binge that started with completion of the sale of S-300 advanced anti-aircraft missile batteries.

On the shopping list by the regime’s military are advanced, fifth-generation Russian T-90 battle tank, along with a range of other major defense items, according to Brig. Gen. Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, the regime’s top ground commander, during a defense conference in the Khorasan region of northern Iran.

With the regime due to receive an estimated $150 billion in frozen assets from the lifting of economic sanctions from the nuclear deal, it is clear now the intention of the regime is to spend heavily on military hardware, not in jumpstarting a moribund economy that is punishing Iran’s citizens contrary to the claims made by Iran lobby members such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council.

Pourdastan also said during the conference that the military needs helicopters, heavy weaponry and advanced combat equipment. While the new requests undermine Iran’s own defense industry, the ground forces commander said that the country’s military industrial complex will continue to develop, according to the International Business Times.

“The Iranian defense industry has strong potential. Nevertheless, we will constantly take care of modernizing it,” he said.

The new moves on the military front have many in Washington calling for new and increased sanctions on the Iranian regime to address all of the issues not addressed by the original nuclear agreement.

Jennifer Rubin writes in the Washington Post suggesting that “new pressure needs to be applied to Iran.”

She also quotes from Eliot A. Cohen, Ray Takeyh and Eric Edelman in a piece in Foreign Policy, suggesting:

“In addition to revising the nuclear agreement, the United States should punish Iran for its regional aggression, sponsorship of terrorism, or human rights abuses. To do so, it should segregate Iran from the global economy by restoring as much of the sanctions architecture as possible. . . . And it should launch a campaign of political warfare to intensify the Iranian public’s disenchantment with the regime and deepen dissension within the ruling circle.”

It would be wise for the world to recognize another race has begun on trying to restrain a newly militant Iranian regime.

By Michael Tomlinson

As IAEA Closes Nuclear Probe UN Finds Iran Regime Cheated

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As IAEA Closes Nuclear Probe UN Finds Iran Regime Cheated

As IAEA Closes Nuclear Probe UN Finds Iran Regime Cheated

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, met and voted to close out its investigation in the past military dimensions of the Iranian regime’s nuclear program even though the IAEA’s own report faulted the regime for secretly hiding the existence of its program until 2009 and still refused to come clean on a wide range of outstanding issues.

The irony of giving the regime essentially a get out of jail free card was compounded when it was revealed that a UN panel of experts issued a confidential report stating that the Iranian regime violated a Security Council resolution on October 10 when it test fired a new medium-range ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

That is what is called a gigantic irony.

The fact that the regime launched a second missile on November 21 only reinforced the mullahs blatant disregard for the UN sanction and demonstrated the contempt they hold for obeying international laws.

Although the U.S. requested the UN Security Council to take action in the wake of the violations (which in of itself is bitterly ironic considering the U.S. has been hell-bent on lifting all sanctions against the regime), the Security Council took no action with most diplomats saying privately punitive measures were unlikely to be taken since Russia and China are now engaged in deep military and trade talks with the regime.

The report on the missile launch, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, said the ballistic missile, dubbed Emad, was an improved version of Iran’s previous missiles, with a range of up to 1,300 kilometers (800 miles), a payload of up to 1,400 kilograms (1.5 tons), and better maneuvering capability when descending on a target.

“Iran is continuing to focus on further improvement of the performance of its existing ballistic missile system with a particular focus on accuracy,” said the report.

All of which begs the question, if the regime has foresworn nuclear weapons, why does it need to develop nuclear-capable missiles?

The reaction from members of Congress was swift and bipartisan as Sen. Chris Coons pushed the Obama administration to hold the regime accountable for violating UN sanctions.

“While these ballistic missile tests are outside of the parameters of the [joint comprehensive plan of action], our response has to be strategic and we have to make sure Iran knows that it can’t continue to simply blatantly disregard the international community and the U.N. Security Council,” the Democratic senator said.

Coons, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, added that if the United Nations Security Council doesn’t taken action against Iran over the tests, which he said violated U.N. resolutions, that the administration should be ready to take a “series of unilateral American actions including direct sanctions.”

The fact that a new Gallup poll released Monday showed that terrorism and national security fears has risen to become the number one concern of Americans in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino attacks and the shutdown of public schools in Los Angeles have sent lawmakers a crystal clear message about new priorities.

This follows polls by Pew Research Center and the Wall Street Journal/NBC News all of which show Americans citing security and terrorism as their top concerns and even persuaded the White House to say if additional sanctions needed to be levied on the Iranian regime, President Obama would not stand in the way.

The Iranian regime remains a concern because it continues to act in provocative ways that do little to diminish Americans’ concerns about the harsh nature of the mullahs’ rule as evidenced by reports that the regime has impounded more than tens of thousands of cars from women who were cited for violating dress codes requiring women to wear hijabs.

Police patrols have kept up campaigns to enforce the law and authorities also use a network of “trustees” who inform on violations according to The National.

In addition, over the past eight months, 609 men and 114 women have been arrested for cybercrimes because of alleged “economic, moral and social” transgressions, official figures show as the regime steps up enforcement of vague morality codes covering use of the internet and banning social media for most Iranians.

All of these actions have gone unmentioned by the Iran lobby even as global media have focused more closely on the recent actions of the regime. Faithful regime supporters such as the National Iranian American Council have been mute in the media and on social media in discussing any of these crackdowns on Iranians.

We can only hope the world’s media continue to hold the regime accountable as we move into the new year.

By Michael Tomlinson

When Past Conduct Means Nothing for Future Actions

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When Past Conduct Means Nothing for Future Actions

When Past Conduct Means Nothing for Future Actions

In all facets of our daily lives, we always take into consideration past conduct. If the plumber you hired did a lousy job fixing a leak, you aren’t going to hire them again. If the chef at a restaurant leaves a fly in your soup, you’re liable to walk out without paying and post a nasty review on Yelp.

 

But only in the case of the Iranian regime does this rule somehow not apply as evidenced by the turmoil over the recently completed nuclear agreement.

 

As Judith Miller and Charles Duelfer point out in an editorial for Fox News, “is Iran’s past – its habit of cheating on its international nuclear agreements — prologue? Should the Obama Administration accept Iran’s lies about its earlier efforts to design and develop a bomb in exchange for insisting on its strict compliance with the new deal it has made limiting the size, scale and nature of its nuclear program?”

 

The question is an important one as the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors meets today to vote on a final report that largely overlooks the Iranian regime’s past history of lying and deceit over its nuclear program and instead rubber stamp approval of closing the file on the regime’s case even though the mullahs have not complied with the original scope of questions the IAEA had about its program.

 

As Miller and Duelfer explain, the IAEA’s own report damns the mullahs with faint praise:

 

The IAEA report states that Iran provided only partial or incorrect answers to some questions about efforts to design and test components of a nuclear weapon design (as distinct from the process of enriching the component nuclear material). Specifically, it concludes, Iran’s cover up has “seriously undermined the agency’s ability to conduct effective verification” at Parchin, a military site where Iran is thought to have tested implosion devices in a now-missing chamber. Based partly on a visit there which did not conform to usual Agency inspection procedures, satellite imagery and sampling at the site conducted by Iran but supervised remotely by the IAEA, inspectors dispute Iran’s assertions that only chemical weapons were stored there. The evidence to date, the report declares, “does not support Iran’s statements.”

 

“Overlooking Iranian stonewalling about aspects of its earlier work,” Miller and Duelfergo on to write. “Only makes it harder to devise an effective monitoring scheme for Iran’s current nuclear program, but also establishes a terrible precedent for arms control accords with other states. Because Washington and its allies are permitting Iran to begin implementing the new deal and get sanctions lifted with a lie, Iran’s past cheating is destined to be prologue.”

 

The fact that – moving forward – the agreement with the regime is built on a lie only means the mullahs have been given the green light to continue the same behavior in the future. It is a fact already made apparent with Tehran’s recent test firings of two ballistic missiles that violated United Nations sanctions prohibiting the development of nuclear-capable missiles.

 

Add to that the rest of the world basically did nothing about it except use harsh language.

It is a crucial point that Michael Singh, managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Simond de Galbert, a French diplomat and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, elaborate on in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

 

“Continuing to insist on a complete investigation into Iran’s nuclear weapons activities is the first test of international determination to strictly implement the nuclear deal. Failing this test would signal to Tehran that the West will allow it to dictate the terms under which the agreement is implemented in the coming years. It would also undermine the credibility of international non-proliferation mechanisms, encouraging other would-be nuclear powers that they can escape scrutiny. If these mechanisms are to succeed in deterring Iran and others in the future, their integrity must be zealously guarded,” they write.

 

James Phillips, senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, was even more blunt in a piece in the Daily Signal.

 

“In short, Tehran is actively undermining longstanding U.S. nonproliferation goals on two fronts. Yet the Obama administration has done little to push back for fear of jeopardizing its risky nuclear agreement, which it believes will enhance its foreign policy legacy,” Phillips writes. “But the administration’s complacent acquiescence to Tehran’s disturbing actions is likely to result in a dangerous and unwanted legacy: an arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles in the hands of the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.”

 

Even members of President Obama’s own party are expressing alarm at the free pass being given the Iranian regime.

 

“I understand that most of Congress and the administration are very distracted by the global refugee crisis, by the terrorist attacks in Paris, by our conflicts with ISIS,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) “The reality is with this deal, I’m on the administration’s side, but they need to be doing more…. We have to have a menu of responses that we and our allies have agreed on and that we will take. Or the Iranians will pocket it and keep moving.”

 

“We know even from the IAEA reports that they were engaged in a program — they weren’t truthful about that,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky adding that “we need to be on top of what Iran is doing and do everything we can to have full compliance”

 

It is against this potential future where the Iranian regime is not held accountable that holds the greatest threat to global security and peace. It is a future that is zealously protected by the Iran lobby which has ignored the Paris attacks, the San Bernardino murders and the rise of extremist Islam fueled by the mullahs in Tehran who preach far and wide their radical beliefs.

 

It is also why even as San Bernardino attack victim Bennetta Bet-Badal, an Iranian who fled at age 18 during the Islamic revolution, was laid to rest at her funeral in California, the Iran lobby such as the National Iranian American Council could not even issue a simple tweet commemorating her death or the acknowledge the suffering of her family.

 

So while TritaParsi or Reza Marashi cannot send their condolences, we do on behalf of everyone around the world who yearns for peace and stands up to the threat of Islamic extremism.

 

To the family of Bet-Badal, we send our sincerest condolences and hope you will see a day when the world is free of mullahs issuing fatwas and dispensing brutality in the name of a faith of peace and love.

By Michael Tomlinson

Elections in U.S. and Iran Pose Question of What Next?

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Elections in U.S. and Iran Pose Question of What Next?

Elections in U.S. and Iran Pose Question of What Next?

With the upcoming presidential elections in the U.S. and regional “elections” in Iran, the question of who will lead both countries remains a hot topic of discussion. From the perspective of looking at the actions of the Iranian regime since a nuclear deal was concluded by the Obama administration last July, it seems readily apparent that the mullahs in Tehran are eager to get on with the busy of antagonizing the U.S. and spreading their form of extremist Islamic beliefs around the world as quickly as possible.

 

The mullahs wasted little time in taking provocative acts that the Iran lobby has been hard pressed to explain or cover for. This includes the secret trial and sentencing of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and continued holding of several Iranian-American hostages, as well as the recent arrest of another who had previously been linked to creating Iran lobby group, the National Iranian American Council.

 

The mullahs also went all in with a new offensive in Syria and buying spree with the Russians for military hardware to replenish badly outdated stocks and the marshalling of new fighters, Afghan mercenaries and Hezbollah proxies into that war zone.

 

The mullahs even launched not one, but two banned ballistic missiles in defiance of United Nations Security Council restrictions preventing the development of missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

 

Besides the direct actions the regime has taken, social media has been flooded by messages from various regime officials, most notably top mullah Ali Khamenei’s social feeds, denouncing the U.S. and accusing the Western nations of sedition, using “sexual attractions” to distract the regime and even creating ISIS. If it wasn’t for the fact Khamenei is the commander-in-chief of one of the largest militaries in the Middle East, we might be tempted to chalk his rants off to the ravings of a senile old man battling dementia.

 

Unfortunately, we’re stuck with Khamenei for a little while longer, but his recent prostate cancer surgery and upcoming elections in the Assembly of Experts has led to more open speculation of who will succeed the aging tyrant.

 

The assembly of 82 elected clerics is charged with electing, supervising and even disqualifying the religious leader for the regime and represents a high stakes game of poker amongst the mullahs as they jockey for power.

 

Reuters pointed out that over past decade, conservatives have gained more seats both in the assembly and parliament, because all candidates are vetted by the Guardian Council, who’s most influential members are chosen directly and indirectly by the Khamenei to interpret the constitution.

 

Khamenei is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and appoints the heads of the judiciary. Key ministers are selected with his agreement and he has the ultimate say on Iran’s foreign policy and nuclear program. By comparison, the president has little power, which largely explains why Hassan Rouhani is generally regarded as a figurehead puppet for Khamenei.

 

All of which raises the question of whether or not real regime change is possible within Iran. Long-time Iranian dissident leaders such as Mrs. Maryam Rajavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran have maintained that global support of dissidents within Iran was a pathway to creating a new, more moderate, secular Iran, but if the rest of the world falls into the trap of trying to discern “moderate” versus “hardline” elements within the Iranian regime, real change will not be possible since the mullahs have worked hard to create the fiction that there are clear divisions within the government.

 

The fact of the matter is that as long as Iran’s foundation for government rests on a religious mandate granting mullahs absolute power over civil, political, economic, judicial and military matters, real change and reform is not possible.

 

You can already see this fictionalized treatment of Iran’s politics already at play with Gareth Smyth’s piece in the Guardian in which he depicts “broad support for President Hassan Rouhani’s government is not just over its foreign policy but also its desire to revive the economy and private sector. From this follows all the speculation in Tehran that principle-ists like Ali Larijani, the parliamentary speaker, and Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, a seasoned strategist, will help organise an electoral list for parliament broadly backing the president.”

 

Smyth’s observations which are the stereotype justifications for the appeasers of the mullah’s regime are understandable since he focuses only on those regime elements available to his eyes which are not so much factions within the regime government as much as muted shades of the same color. A policy that is actually very much favored by the Iranian regime, as it promotes more collaboration with the mullahs and prolongs its rule. Trying to persuade the concept that any slate of candidates would be allowed on the ballot without the express approval of Khamenei himself is slightly silly since Khamenei is as intent on preserving the extremist rule as his predecessor Ruhollah Khomeini was.

 

The tea-leaf reading of potential regime candidates such as Mohammad TaqiMesbah-Yazdi and Hassan Khomeini is fairly useless given the central control the mullahs will still exert through the selection process of placing names on the ballot.

 

What is not in dispute is that regime has taken a newly aggressive posture that the incoming U.S. president, whoever that may be, will have to deal with. It will be an Iran ruled by another mullah and enriched by billions in fresh cash, open trade pouring investment dollars in and a military upgraded with sophisticated new hardware.

 

He or she will also be faced with an Iranian regime that may very well be cheating on the nuclear deal it agreed to in July, which raises the next logical question: What will the new president do in the face of Iranian regime’s aggression?

By Michael Tomlinson

International Human Rights Day Everywhere Except Iran

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International Human Rights Day Everywhere Except Iran

International Human Rights Day Everywhere Except Iran

December 10th marks International Human Rights Day which will be celebrated by the United Nations and nations around the world as recognition of fundamental importance of human rights in free and open societies. The day will be observed with speeches, conferences, panel discussions, protests and solemn observances.

This year’s Human Rights Day will be devoted to a year-long campaign for the 50th anniversary of the two landmark International Covenants on Human Rights: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16 December 1966.

According to the UN Human Rights Office, the year-long campaign revolves around the theme of rights and freedoms — freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear — which underpin the International Bill of Human Rights are as relevant today as they were when the Covenants were adopted 50 years ago.

But respect for human rights have been found conspicuously lacking in certain parts of the world; most notably within the Iranian regime where things have gotten so grim the UN High Commissioner appointed Ahmed Shaheed as the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran to monitor the dismal state of affairs in the Islamic state.

Over the past year, 2015 has been a dark stain on human rights progress in Iran as chronicled in the steady stream of press releases put out by the UN about abuses there:

  • January 2015: UN child rights body to investigate 12 countries including Iran for violations involving children;
  • February 2015: UN experts urge Iran regime to halt immediately the execution of a juvenile sentenced by regime courts;
  • March 2015: Human Rights Council adopts the Universal Periodic Review of Iran chronicling the litany of human rights lapses in the regime. The Council also discusses the annual report on human rights in Iran and extends mandates for further review of Iran;
  • May 2015: UN rights experts condemn recent upsurge in executions by the Iran regime, many of them unreported;
  • June 2015: UN experts warn that silencing journalists and activists weakens protections for human rights in Iran;
  • August 2015: UN experts call for an immediate moratorium on applying the death penalty after regime hands downs death sentences to a prisoner of conscience and alternative health practitioner;
  • October 2015: UN rights experts express outrage at the execution of two juvenile offenders; and
  • November 2015: UN experts call on Iran regime to stop intimidating journalists ahead of parliamentary elections.

The UN announcements only cover a tip of the proverbial iceberg as Iranian dissident groups and international human rights groups such as Amnesty International have chronicled an ever growing list of human rights abuses by the Iran regime.

One observance was held in Paris by the Union of Iranian Associations in Europe and included former U.S. Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran who said at the gathering:

“We honor the International Human Rights Day by paying respect to all brave men and courageous women in Iran and around the world who sacrificed their lives or have risen up to bring human rights and democratic freedoms to oppressed nations,” she said.

“Iran’s clerical regime has been condemned 62 times so far by various United Nations agencies for its gross violation of human rights in Iran. In addition, the regime and Khamenei himself, are directly responsible for the massacre of 300,000 Syrians in the past four years and displacement of more than half of the population; they are also directly responsible for the genocide of Sunnis in Iraq by the Quds Force militias,” she added.

The most recent UN condemnation came after 36 human rights organizations, led by Human Rights Watch, called on the regime to improve its human rights situation and for the international community to work together to promote human rights within Iran.

To say the situation is grim in Iran is an understatement since the regime’s revolutionary courts mete out punishment often in closed, secret sessions and impose often medieval punishments proscribed by religious doctrine which include public hangings and amputations of limbs, while also handing out no punishment to those that engage in acid attacks on women or abuse of children.

In 2014 alone, Shaheed noted a reported 753 executions, the highest rate in over a decade. This year rights groups have tallied over 1,000 executions in a staggering display of merciless regime justice.

The butcher’s bill doesn’t even include the bloodshed caused by the regime’s intervention and support of proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen that have caused the largest refugee crisis since World War II and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives of men, women and children.

But it is in the private agony suffered by individual prisoners in Iran’s notorious prisons where the true evil of the mullahs is laid bare to world scrutiny. One such story comes from Rahim Hamid who as a then 22-year old student in 2008 was taken by regime police and endured torture and abuse as he detailed in an interview with the Telegraph newspaper.

“Day and night I could hear the screaming and weeping of fellow prisoners – men, women and children – who were incarcerated and tortured there. It was the norm for guards to inflict casual cruelty, such as forbidding prisoners access to a toilet so that they were forced to urinate in the cell, which stank to a nausea-inducing extent in the heat,” Hamid said.

“Among other forms of physical torture, I was tied to a metal bed frame by the wrists and ankles and savagely whipped. If I resisted or cursed the guards, they would prolong and intensify the torture. They raped me violently and repeatedly with the large whip handle; so brutally that the rape did permanent injury to my rectum, for which I still need medical treatment,” he added.

Hamid’s tale is only one of many that are repeated every day within Iran, immune to the entreaties and condemnations of the international community by mullahs who care nothing except the maintaining of their absolute status as masters over the Iranian people.

And where does the Iran lobby stand on all this? Does it issue condemnations? Does it commemorate the suffering of Iranians? Does it demand the release of American hostages such as Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini or former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati?

No. The Iran lobby’s silence is deafening.

As the world observes Human Rights Day, Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, the leading Iran lobby organization, published and editorial in Huffington Post condemning presidential candidate Donald Trump.

That is the Iran lobby’s contribution to observing human rights.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

Human Rights in Iran Matter to the World

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Human Rights in Iran Matter to the World

Human Rights in Iran Matter to the World

This Thursday marks International Human Rights Day, which marks the day in 1948 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which lays out a broad range of political, civil, social, cultural and economic rights that eventually formed the foundation of human rights principles binding the UN in its work and through the work of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In 1948, the world was still picking up the pieces from World War II and the early battle lines of the Cold War were being drawn in a world largely divided between old Soviet-era Warsaw Pact and U.S.-led NATO alliance.

That world is gone and today we are increasingly finding a world divided along secular and sectarian lines as terror has become a tool of statecraft for nations such as Iran and Syria, while other nations such as Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq are being fought over in what they pretend to be a religious and ideological battle.

In this new world of global terror, human rights have all but vanished in these disputed regions, but whereas the fall of the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall came after an arms race the Soviet Union could not win and the seeds of democracy flourished in places like Gdansk in Poland, the hegemony of Islamic extremists is growing and sinking deeper roots as the West struggles to formulate a coherent strategy to stem the growth of groups such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram.

Central to that any successful strategy though will be how to address the crushing suppression of human rights by the Iran regime against its own people. As one of only three state sponsors of terror left on the U.S. State Department terrorism list, the Iran regime sits in the middle of most – if not all – of the crises occurring throughout the Middle East.

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) pointed out during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been fueling turmoil throughout the Middle East even with strict economic sanctions in place.

“Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism, and in the past several years when Iran had no money, it still found money to be the leading state sponsor of terrorism,” Engel said.

“Under the [nuclear] deal negotiated with Iran, they will be awash in cash, they will have lots of money, and imagine how much destruction they can do in support of terrorist activities and terrorism. That is very deeply troubling for me.”

The mullahs support of Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria has fostered the birth of ISIS and other splintered Al-Qaeda groups, while its mishandling of Iraq’s government collapsed a coalition government driving Sunni tribes out and into the arms of ISIS which soon become a nation-state in its own right with the takeover of Mosul of most of northern Iraq.

Their support of Houthi rebels in Yemen, toppled the government and drove Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States into a shooting war that threatens the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf.

Beyond the foreign policy conundrums the mullahs in Tehran have fomented, it is their treatment of the Iranian people that has caused the most problems because the complete suppression of dissent has enabled the mullahs to keep their hands on power and accomplish their goals of exporting their extremist philosophy around the world.

Without dissent, without a free press and without due process and fair trials, the Iran regime has managed to turn Iran into a virtual police state that would give a Stalinist-era Soviet Union a run for its money in cruelty. That cruelty is not necessarily confined to just political dissent as the Iran regime seeks to impose its punishments on all facets of Iranian life.

Amnesty International noted this in a blistering statement condemning death sentences placed on two Iranian children.

“This ruling lays bare the Iranian authorities’ contempt for the human rights of children, coupled with their appetite for the death penalty – a toxic combination that leaves numerous juvenile offenders facing execution,” said Said Boumedouha, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program.

“Iran’s continued use of the death penalty against persons convicted of crimes committed while they were under 18 years of age is cruel, inhumane and blatantly unlawful. The death sentences of both these men, and all other juvenile offenders on death row in Iran, must be commuted immediately.”

As noted by Amnesty International, Iran is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which prohibit the imposition of the death penalty against persons who were below 18 years of age at the time of the crime, without exceptions. However, Iran continues to impose the death penalty against juvenile offenders and frequently defer the execution until after they pass the age of 18, which illustrates the regime’s approach to most international treaties and agreements it signs.

That same contempt has been applied to nuclear agreements the regime has signed, including the most recent one negotiated last July, which it violated through the test firing of new ballistic missiles.

But the regime is facing consequences of its crackdowns as evidenced by the rising tide of protests and demonstrations being mounted within Iran – often at personal risk to the protestors – such as a protest of students expressing frustration over the continuing repression in Iran and demanding for the release of political prisoners, at a ceremony marking Students Day (December 7) in Iran.

But criticism of government officials, and especially of the regime’s top mullah Ali Khomeini, comes at a high cost. Indeed the angry speeches and slogans at the Students Day event were partly sparked by the recent wave of arrests carried out by the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization against journalists, reformists, poets, and artists. Last month four journalists, were among the latest detainees, while many other peaceful activists, such as Bahareh Hedayat, Narges Mohammadi, Atena Faraghdani, and Atena Daemi are still behind bars in Iran.

The protests come on the heels of an announcement that the regime’s revolutionary courts sentenced the managing editor of a state daily newspaper claiming he violated prohibitions on coverage of Mohammad Khatami, a former regime president now described as a seditionist.

The indictment was also notable because the editor, Mahmoud Doaei, of the Ettelaat, one of Iran’s oldest newspapers, was an early figure in the 1979 Revolution. He was a member of the inner circle around Ruhollah Khomeini, the regime’s previous supreme leader who gave birth to the deadly ideology of Islamic extremism, and was considered somewhat protected in the factional feuding that has increasingly marked Iran’s opaque political hierarchy.

All of which points to an almost bipolar exhibition of policy decisions by the regime that have left many Western observers baffled, but to experienced Iranian dissidents, the actions of the regime have been all too typical of past history.

At a meeting sponsored by the Union of Iranian Associations in Europe in Paris the other day, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, drew attention to the efforts of the Iran regime to save the Assad regime in Syria.

She called on Western governments to revise their policy which has so far reinforced the Iranian regime that causes instability in the region and is the main threat to global peace and security, and to make their relations with the Iranian regime contingent on end to executions and torture, and freedom of political prisoners.

“This calls for Western governments to adopt a policy that supports the desires of the innocent people of Syria for a speedy overthrow of Bashar Assad, gives substantial backing to the Free Army of Syria in its struggle against the regime, and insists on the eviction of foreign troops, specifically the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps from Syria and Iraq,” Mrs. Rajavi said.

Only by reforming Iran and bringing about a sectarian, democratic government can the Middle East ever hope to find peace and stability and the first step towards that goal is making human rights a top priority again in Iran.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Thumbs Nose at World with New Missile Launch

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Iran Regime Thumbs Nose at World with New Missile Launch

Iran Regime Thumbs Nose at World with New Missile Launch

The old saying goes “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.”

If the world expects the Iranian regime to change its ways in the wake of a completed nuclear deal last July, the answer it is getting from the mullahs in Tehran is depressingly the same as evidenced by yet another test launch of a new ballistic missile design in violation of United Nations sanctions against the testing of ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

According to Fox News, western intelligence sources say the test was held Nov. 21 near Chabahar, a port city in southeast Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province near the border with Pakistan. The launch took place from a known missile test site along the Gulf of Oman.

The missile, known as a Ghadr-110, has a range of 1,800 – 2000 km, or 1200 miles, and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The missile fired in November is an improved version of the Shahab 3, and is similar to the precision guided missile tested by the regime on Oct. 10, which elicited strong condemnation from members of the U.N. Security Council.

“The United States is deeply concerned about Iran’s recent ballistic missile launch,” Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., said in a statement after the last Iranian ballistic missile test in October.

The regime appears to be in a race against the clock to improve the accuracy of its ballistic missile arsenal in the wake of the nuclear agreement signed in July.

The Security Council is still debating how to respond to the regime’s last test in October and therein lays the problem. While the world debates what to do in responding to the regime’s provocations, the regime continues on blissfully uninterrupted in its preparations.

The same scenario plays out in regards to the regime’s new offensive in Syria and its crackdown at home in an alarming rise in human rights abuses; all of which has been met by mostly silence and hand wringing in the rest of the world.

The regime’s new-found militancy has included a buying binge with Russia for new arms as a top aide to Russian president Vladimir Putin confirmed.

“When all the restrictions are removed and all the sanctions are lifted we will have quite a serious development in the field of military-industrial cooperation. It is already taking place in fields that are not covered by sanctions, and in future we are expecting to enter very large projects,” Vladimir Kozhin, a top military-industrial cooperation aide said in an interview with Izvestia daily.

The official added that Iran has shown great interest in cooperation with Russian weapons companies because practically all of its military forces require a major overhaul.

“Considering the fact that this is a large country with large military forces, we are talking very big contracts, worth billions,” Kozhin noted.

And now that the regime is due to receive a $100 billion payout as early as January because of the nuclear deal and a rushed incomplete investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency that rubberstamped the regime’s compliance, the mullahs are due to get a huge payday.

The continued lack of action in the face of regime’s actions covers the large-scale such as military weapons to the small issues affecting individuals and their families as Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian continues to languish in a regime prison on trumped up espionage charges; his incarceration now passing 500 days in captivity.

Even more disturbing is a report from cybersecurity firm Symantec which claims that regime hackers are using malware to spy on individuals including Iranian dissidents and activists.

The attacks aren’t particularly sophisticated, but the hackers have had access to their targets’ computers for more than a year, Symantec said, which means they may have gained access to “an enormous amount of sensitive information.”

Two groups of hackers, named Cadelle and Chafer, distributed malware that steals information from PCs and servers, including from airlines and telcos in the region, Symantec said.

“Reports have shown that many Iranians avail of these services to access sites that are blocked by the government’s Internet censorship,” Symantec wrote. “Dissidents, activists, and researchers in the region may use these proxies in an attempt to keep their online activities private.”

All of which means the regime is stepping up its efforts to identify specific and individual activists and dissidents, especially those living within Iran who may be communicating with outside dissident groups, as a means of tracking them down and arresting them.

It is a bitter irony that International Human Rights Day is approaching this week in light of this increased activity by the Iranian regime and highlights that no matter how the international community might buy the propaganda being spewed by regime lobbyists such as the National Iranian American Council; the reality has been much different.

If the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino do not wake up those who still refuse to believe that the rising tide of Islamic extremism is flowing from radical safe havens such as Syria and Iran is an imminent threat, then the Iranian regime’s actions in firing another missile in direct violation of sanctions should be an urgent alarm bell

By Michael Tomlinson

With Rising Extremism Hillary Clinton Hardens Iran Regime Stand

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With Rising Extremism Hillary Clinton Hardens Iran Regime Stand

With Rising Extremism Hillary Clinton Hardens Iran Regime Stand

In the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, the world is coming to grips with the new face of terror on so-called “soft” targets of opportunity by native-born residents who become radicalized under the siren call of extremists emanating from terror groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda and sponsors of terror such Syria and the Iranian regime.

As the federal investigation uncovers more about the history and background of the husband and wife terrorist team in San Bernardino, facts about how they were radicalized and where they learned their deadly skills in bomb making and planning will undoubtedly emerge.

But what these attacks do point to is an unmistakable strain of extremist belief snaking its way around the world through social media, blogs and videos perpetuating a mythology that has its roots in the apocalyptic beliefs formed out of the Iranian revolution taken over by extremist mullahs who have since controlled Iran and turned it into an perpetual terror factory.

The fact that since the negotiations that yield a nuclear agreement last July purportedly helping support “moderate” elements in the regime’s government, the evidence to the contrary has flooded out of Iran as the mullahs in Tehran launched a massive offensive in Syria, cracked down with broad arrests of journalists and dissidents, went on a military hardware buying binge and doubled down on incendiary and extremist messages broadcast through a sophisticated online and PR effort.

The reaction of the regime since the nuclear deal was completed has alarmed virtually everyone in the U.S. and Europe and led to a broad hardening of stump speeches and policy positions from virtually all the main contenders in the U.S. presidential campaign.

Most notable has been the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who promised the U.S. would “act decisively” if the regime sought to violate the nuclear agreement in a speech at the Saban Forum, a conference on Middle East policy at the Brookings Institute think tank.

“Iran will test our resolve. They have already started to do so with a ballistic missile test and other provocative behavior. We have to respond to these provocations including with further sanction designations as necessary,” Clinton said.

She threatened to use military force for incursions on the deal. “Our approach must be distrust and verify. There can be no doubt in Tehran that if we see any indication that Iran’s leaders are violating their commitments in the deal not to seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons, we will stop them. And we will make sure the Iranians and the world understand that the United States will act decisively if necessary, including taking military action,” Clinton said.

The tougher stance was reflective of the national mood in the U.S. turned fearful by the San Bernardino attacks, but also the seeming spread of extremism by the simple preaching of it from strongholds and bully pulpits such as Syria and Iran.

Just as Al-Qaeda was able to plan and mount the 9/11 attacks from the relative safety and comfort of a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, there is a growing sense that the security of Syria and Iran offer extremists a safe haven to recruit and cultivate potential jihadists around the world.

As FBI Director James Comey has warned, the “outsourcing” of terrorism represents an alarming and hard to control new threat the world has not seen before.

It is also a logical explanation as to why the Iran lobby has not voiced any criticism not only of the Iranian regime, but the rise in terror attacks themselves, which is frankly inexplicable given the chorus of voices coming out of the American-Muslim community calling on a new frank and open dialogue about combatting the rise of extremism.

One such forum was sponsored by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC where a collection of Muslim groups denounced extremism and called for an unfiltered national discussion to combat the propaganda being offered by terror groups and nations such as the Iranian regime.

The leaders announced the formation of a new initiative called the Muslim Reform Movement, focusing on confronting extremist segments of the religion. According to the Washington Examiner, the group quickly released:

“…a declaration of principles calling on Muslims to reject violent jihad and endorse religious freedom for all and secular government, and saying they will call out those who reject it.”

It’s a similar call previously made by leading Iranian dissident leaders such as Mrs. Maryam Rajavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran who has long advocated for a return to secular, democratic government in Iran.

Notably, Iran lobby group, the National Iranian American Council, was absent and silent on the topic.

While the PC crowd may dither with the terminology of calling these extremists plain old “terrorists” or “Islamic extremists,” what is not in dispute is the threat they pose and the encouragement and support they receive from places like Tehran where mullahs lay out a theological justification for violence and murder. What they actually practice unabated on their own Muslim population.

The world will soon have to make the hard, but necessary choice of whether or not to put a finger in the dike of the rising tide of extremism, or address the source of it in places like Syria and Iran.

By Michael Tomlinson