admin – Page 60 – Iran Lobby

Iran Lobby Fails Imprisoned Iranian Americans

May 28, 2015 by admin

The National Iranian American Council touts itself as a champion for Iranian Americans. Its own mission statement trumpets the organization as “a non-profit educational organization dedicated to promoting Iranian-American participation in American civic life.”

One can only assume that its daily verbal assaults against anyone opposing a nuclear deal with the Iran regime is part of that educational process for promoting civic life in America. A casual tallying of public statements, press releases, news quotes and surveys released by NIAC would leave most observers wondering why American civic life happens to be tied so intimately to the foreign policy of the Islamic state.

But the NIAC claims an extended mission to help promote universal human rights in Iran saying on its website:

“NIAC works to ensure that human rights are upheld in Iran and that civil rights are protected in the US. NIAC believes that the principles of universal rights – dignity, due process and freedom from violence – are the cornerstones of a civil society.”

A rational person could then deduce that NIAC would be a vocal and outspoken proponent for the human rights of Iranian Americans who are being abused or mistreated in some fashion. In fact, if you scroll through NIAC’s Issues blog, you cannot find any denunciations, condemnations or calls for better treatment of people within Iran.

Indeed, if NIAC’s mission is to advocate on behalf of Iranian Americans, I can easily come up with three who desperately need its help. Languishing in Iranian prisons are:

Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter and Iranian American born in California, who has been held by Iran and only this week has been charged with espionage for reporting Iran news and is not facing trial in the Revolutionary Court in a closed session without even his family allowed in attendance;
Amir Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine and the longest-held American prisoner in Iran, who has been sentenced in another sham trial and whose appellate hearing was denied yet again; and
Saeed Abedini, a Christian pastor from Idaho, who was convicted for holding religious services in private homes.

In response to the Rezaian closed session trial moving forward, NIAC’s president, Trita Parsi, was quoted in the New York Times saying “If there is a conviction in the Rezaian case and no leniency, it can create a crisis in the nuclear talks, yet another complication.”

It’s a wonder Parsi always seems to find a way to tie everything back to nuclear talks. You think he has a genetic sequence which compels him to burp the word “nuclear” whenever he is asked a question about Iran.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if Parsi actually lived up to his own organization’s mission statement and said something like: “We think it is horrible that Iranian regime is holding these Iranian Americans in prison without proper due process or transparency. We urge Iran’s authorities to respect international law and all these Americans to come home to their families without any further delay.”

Now was that so hard?

But then again, the Iran regime does seems to share a playbook with other dictatorial regimes which use hostages as political bargaining chips. We can only assume Iran’s mullahs have seen the prisoner swaps and are holding on to these American hostages hoping to leverage them as part of the nuclear talks; talks that Parsi and NIAC seem pathologically tied to as well.

But the plight of these Iranian Americans should be blatant evidence of the true nature of the mission of the NIAC, which is not to help them, but help Iran gain a nuclear deal with the immediate lifting of all economic sanctions as a reward.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Can’t Keep Facts Strai

May 27, 2015 by admin

The National Iranian American Council has been unleashing verbal broadsides at Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) alleging he had called all Iranians “liars” and demanded apologies for what it alleges as racist comments.

NIAC’s head, Trita Parsi, issued a statement condemning Sen. Graham, saying “Senator Graham owes the Iranian-American community – one of the most successful communities in the United States – an apology.”

Sen. Graham might very well owe Iranian-Americans an apology – if he was talking about Iranian Americans, but he wasn’t speaking of them, he instead was focusing his ire at the mullahs leading Iran today, especially as it related to ongoing nuclear talks.

You see, the NIAC again missed the mark in its eagerness to defend the mullahs that it got Sen. Graham’s quotes wrong.

Writing in the Slatest for Slate.com, Ben Mathis-Lilley clarified the error after reviewing the video of Sen. Graham’s remarks to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Oklahoma City:

“I met a lot of liars, and I know the Iranians are lying.” The last word is definitely not liars — you can tell by comparing it with when he actually does say liars earlier in the sentence. Moreover, “Iranians” is actually preceded by “the” both times he says the word, which makes a big difference given that referring to “the [name of national population]” is typical diplomatic shorthand for a particular country’s government. See President Obama referring to “the Iranians” here, for example.

Graham’s statement may or may not be correct. But in the context of current events, and with a more accurate transcription, it doesn’t seem to be the attack on an entire nationality that it’s being made out as, Mathis-Lilley wrote.

So if we take Parsi at his word and were feeling generous, we might assume he made an oversight in not checking the video of Sen. Graham’s words and simply relied on the number of liberal-leaning news outlets that mischaracterized the comments. Parsi might be guilty of nothing more than shoddy fact checking.

Considering Parsi’s past track record in losing a libel lawsuit largely on the grounds of shoddy record-keeping, making false statements and discovery abuses, it seems to be par for the course of how Parsi conducts his public business. It is worth noting that Parsi was ordered to pay the journalist he accused of libel for $184,000 to pay for the defendant’s legal expenses.

It does make you wonder how much Sen. Graham might collect from Parsi for making a similar false accusation of racial comments, when the video clearly shows otherwise.

By Michael Tomlinson

Tensions Mount and Iran Lobby Stays Deaf and Mute

May 26, 2015 by admin

To say relations between the U.S. and the Iran regime are growing testier by the day would be an understatement of classic proportions.

In swift moving developments, an Iranian judge overseeing the espionage trial of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian has barred everyone except the defendant and his lawyer from being present. Even Rezaian’s mother and wife would not be permitted to be in the courtroom in a glaring example of the opaque nature of the regime’s justice system.

The fact that mullah’s regime in Iran would move swiftly towards what appears to be a sham trial while at the same time negotiating with the P5+1 nations on a nuclear deal has led to rampant speculation about the regime’s endgame.

According to the New York Times: “Political analysts have said they believe that the outcome of the Rezaian case, as well as those of two other Americans imprisoned in Iran, are in some way dependent on the success or failure of the nuclear negotiations.”

In which case, the regime has opted to make Rezaian and other Americans held in Iranian prisons nothing more than bargaining chips.

In another verbal jab shot by Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iran regime’s Revolutionary Guard’s Quds force, denounced U.S. efforts against ISIS in what appeared to be a sharp rebuke of comments made by U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s comments that Iraqi forces supported by Iranian-backed Shiite militia “showed no will to fight” as ISIS overran the Iraqi city of Ramadi.

It is ironic that Soleimani would be denouncing the U.S. for what he called a lax effort against ISIS when it was his Quds force units that provided instruction and training to Iraqi insurgents using improvised explosive devices against U.S. and coalition forces during the Iraq war.

Both of these incidents come on the heels of an ongoing dispute with Iran at the nuclear bargaining table in which the regime’s top mullah Ali Khamenei publicly denounced any access to military facilities.

This was followed by a statement from France’s foreign minister who reported a demand from the regime to not allow access to any military sites by international inspectors unless 24 days’ worth of advanced notice was given.

Iran reportedly altered that red line in the sand by calling for “managed access” of sites, whatever that means. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s televised comments appeared to contradict comments by the Khamenei. Since Khamenei is indeed the regime’s supreme leader, we’re willing to believe his version of policy rather than the deputy foreign minister.

Meanwhile, as things continue to go badly between the U.S. and Iran regime, the regime’s biggest cheerleader in chief, the National Iranian American Council, has been strangely silent on all of these developments.

It has not issued a denunciation of Rezaiain’s closed trial. It has not tweeted anything about the apparent contradictions in Iranian statements on international inspection access. NIAC and its leadership have not even raised a single word of encouragement for the U.S. not to overreact to what Khamenei has been ranting about lately.

Oddly, its only official statement the last week came as an attack against Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in which it demanded an apology from him for what it called a “racist” attack in calling Iranians “liars” in regards to the regime’s ability to be trusted on any nuclear agreement.

So while Sen. Graham’s analogy involved an unfortunate choice of imagery, it certainly was accurate in regards to the regime’s lack of abiding to previous international agreements, including breaking promises on allowing inspections of nuclear facilities and still stonewalling questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Of course, the NIAC would never stoop to biting the hands of their masters from Tehran so we are left with the international news media to scrutinize and criticize Iran’s increasingly bizarre behavior.

By Michael Tomlinson

The False Choices of the Iran Lobby

May 22, 2015 by admin

As we enter the Memorial Day holiday weekend, families will gather for barbecues and picnics and others will gather to remember those who have fallen in past conflicts and made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation. But Memorial Day should also be a day to commemorate those who didn’t put on a uniform, but still had to make the same sacrifices and their families had to pay that ultimate price.

It is an unfortunate legacy of the world we live in today that innocent men, women and children often have to bear the same price as those who are trained and volunteer to fight. Throughout the Middle East, that scenario is being played out on countless battlefields, in numerous villages, towns and cities in places such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria and Afghanistan.

But even cities and nations unaccustomed to fighting have been places of terror and carnage such as an office in Paris, a store in Sydney or a government building in Canada. All at the hands of extremist Islamists who have copied their playbook of terror from the Iran regime which has had a 30 year head start on terror spectacles and continues to this day with almost daily public hangings in most city squares.

So this Memorial Day ought to serve as a sobering reminder not just of the sacrifices service personnel make, but for those innocents who have been caught in the escalating violence around the world.

All of which makes the choices offered by the Iran lobby in regards to ongoing nuclear talks with the Iran regime all the more odd since supporters such as the National Iranian American Council have consistently framed the choices in a nuclear agreement as stark ones between war and peace. Their hyperbole clouds the real issue driving the mullahs in Iran and for them the choices are not about war and peace.

It’s really about cash and lots of it. Iran’s economy is reeling under the triple blows of corrupt mismanagement by the ruling elites, spiraling oil prices and the heavy costs associated with funding proxy wars and terror groups in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. Not to mention the billions of dollars being spent by the regime in building and maintaining a far flung network of installations and research facilities dedicated to developing nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles necessary to carry them.

That need for billions of dollars in unfrozen assets, proceeds from oil sales and renewed capital investment is what drives the mullahs. They hunger for cash in the same way an addict craves his next drug fix. It is also why Iran’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, has consistently demanded a complete lifting of all economic sanctions at once, including those levied by the UN Security Council, European Union and the U.S. Congress and president.

And that is the quandary facing the NIAC and other regime lobbyists; how do we sell a nuclear deal driving by a need for a financial bailout of Tehran? In classic spin control, they opt to frame the debate as a choice between war and peace.

They recognize that America is war weary and that voters have little appetite for more American blood to be shed, but the choice for Americans and by extension for Congress and the Obama administration is that the choice really is not between war and peace. It’s about whether or not to let mullahs in Iran get the cash they want and so desperately need.

Economic sanctions work. They brought the mullahs to the negotiating table and they are still the most compelling non-violent tool available to the International community. To abandon them without a solid deal that not only cuts Iranian regime’s nuclear program off at the knees, but also modifies its behavior towards proxy wars, terror groups and human rights is dumb and a mistake of historic proportions.

For when we gather to commemorate and celebrate Memorial Day weekend, we should remember that the surest path to peace is not through appeasement, but through strength; strength of conviction, strength of commitment and strength of will.

I hope your Memorial Day is a peaceful one.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran-Nuclear Talks Going Nowhere Fast

May 21, 2015 by admin

Pity the supporters and cheerleaders of the Iran regime such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council. They have all but shouted themselves blue to the highest mountains that Iran’s mullahs were indeed ready for a sea change in their relationship with the world. They argued that Hassan Rouhani was a new kind of moderate Iranian politician. They urged President Obama to embrace dialogue as the surest path to peace.

Those claims have been undone in large part through Iran’s own actions including the overthrow of the Yemen government, provocative acts in international waters, the decision to move forward with spy trials of American journalists and the continued crackdown at home including stepped up public executions and packing its prisons like sardine cans.

But out of the mouth of the regime’s top leader, Ali Khamenei, comes the most damaging statements to the credibility of the Iran lobbying allies.

In a speech at the Imam Hussein Military University in Tehran yesterday, Khamenei again denounced what he said were escalating demands by the P5+1 negotiating group and flatly declared any interviews of Iranian nuclear scientists by international inspectors to be completely off the table, as well as not allowing inspections of any of Iran’s military sites.

This follows similar statements he made last summer when Khamenei vowed to greatly expand Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity, scaling up to industrial size with 190,000 centrifuges, 10 times the number currently installed.

Not surprisingly, the regime still has not responded to a dozen questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency on the scope and scale of the possible military dimensions of its current nuclear program, leading to the agency’s head declaring serious doubt about Iran’s ability to live up to any agreement.

As the New York Times described, the inability to interview Iranian nuclear scientists makes compliance a moot point.

“Central to that is the ability to interview nuclear scientists, starting with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the man considered by Western intelligence officials to be the closest thing Iran has to J. Robert Oppenheimer, who guided the Manhattan Project to develop the world’s first nuclear weapon,” the Times said.

“The scientists and engineers Fakhrizadeh has assembled over the past 15 years are best suited to explain, or rebut, documents suggesting that Iran has extensively researched warheads, nuclear ignition systems and related technologies. Fakhrizadeh has never been made available to inspectors for interviews, and his network of laboratories, some on university campuses, have not been part of inspections,” added the Times.

Even more surprising were statements made by France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, who unveiled details about the current state of nuclear talks in advance of the June 30 deadline currently taking place in Switzerland, where the Iran regime demanded a 24-day period before international inspectors could visit any of its nuclear sites in the event of a suspected violation.

It is absurd that Iran regime could get over three weeks to cover up or clean out any suspected violation before allowing any inspectors in. It makes a mockery of the P5+1 promise of “anytime, anywhere” inspections as part of the framework agreement previously announced.

Unsurprisingly, Trita Parsi and the rest of the Iran lobby have been as silent as fence posts during all this, probably realizing any comments they make in the face of such explicit statements from the one man in the regime in Iran who has the final say over an agreement would be worthless.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime’s Role as Provocateur

May 20, 2015 by admin

If there is one thing you can always bank on, it is the desire by Iran’s mullahs to always figure out a way to antagonize and terrify the rest of the world even as it says it only wants a nuclear and conflict-free relationship with the rest of the world.

It is an amazing stretch of creativity by Tehran that would rival anything Don Draper could come up with on “Mad Men,” but unlike that seminal cable show which ended its run this weekend with Draper dreaming up the “I Want to Teach the World to Sing” commercial for Coca-Cola, Iran’s mullahs have opted for a repertoire of brutality and provocation.

For example, the regime announced its intention to put Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, imprisoned for the past 10 months, on trial on May 26 alongside his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, who is also a journalist, on charges of spying for the U.S.

What is unusual is Iran’s decision to try the case in the Revolutionary Court which typically handles cases of national security, drug smuggling and espionage. The Court was notorious for holding a series of show trials of more than 250 journalists, human rights advocates, dissidents and protestors after the disputed 2009 presidential election that involved forced confessions, stiff prison time and publicized executions.

To say the move by the regime is worrisome is an understatement. It is also even more mindboggling that while social media such as Twitter was flooded by statements of outrage from news organizations and human rights groups, Iran’s lobbying cohorts in the U.S. such as the National Iranian American Council was conspicuously silent. In fact, a casual perusal of Trita Parsi’s Twitter feed showed no condemnation or mention of Rezaian’s plight.

The regime certainly kept busy sending out aggressive messages including one by top mullah Ali Khamenei who in a speech in which he promised the regime’s support for the “oppressed” peoples of the Persian Gulf region, including Yemen and Bahrain. His comments were aimed squarely at Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States who are currently engaged in an air campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebel forces in Yemen.

Those tensions were exacerbated when an Iranian ship headed to Yemen in violation of a coalition naval blockade was joined by Iranian warships as it headed into the Gulf of Aden.

This comes on top of Iran welcoming a delegation from the Taliban from Afghanistan, while Ramadi in Iraq fell to ISIS and Iranian-controlled Shiite militias prepared to move in what could be a sectarian bloodbath with 25,000 refugees caught in the middle.

But the discontent Iran that is brewing isn’t just abroad. In a move to bolster an economy bled dry from corruption, mismanagement and the diversion of billions of dollars into funding proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, Hassan Rouhani announced the suspension of a program that provided financial handouts to Iranians which was itself a replacement for another broken promise for subsidized electricity, gas, water and bread.

Suspension of the payments is likely to fuel even greater discontent among ordinary Iranians whose economic situation worsens while the elites and families of the politically connected enjoy a luxurious lifestyle.

All of which adds up to what promises to be the beginning of a hot summer for Iran filled with domestic discontent.

By Laura Carnahan

Things To Know About the Iran Regime This Week

May 18, 2015 by admin

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) questions Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, President Obama’s pick to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, during the second day of her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 29, 2010. UPI/Kevin Dietsch

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wrote in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal an editorial outlining eight conditions the Iran regime must meet before any nuclear agreement is reached. The points included common sense ideas such as closure of all hardened or formerly secret nuclear sites and allowing anytime, anywhere inspections of all Iranian military and nonmilitary facilities.

His points are valid and important in order to ensure any deal removes the threat of nuclear weapons from coming into the possession of the Islamic state., but the most important point he outlined as the conditioning of relief from economic sanctions on certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran was in full compliance and demonstrate that compliance over a sustained period of time.

The reason why this condition stands out above all others lies in the most pressing need Iran has right now which is cash. Iran’s mullahs have followed a policy of destabilizing the Middle East over the last three years including the funding of Shiite militias in Iraq and virtually taking over its government, supplying arms and support to the Syrian regime in its bloody civil war, and supporting a Houthi rebel army that has overthrown the government of Yemen and plunged the Arabian peninsula into a dangerous proxy war with Saudi Arabia and Sunni gulf states.

Iran’s mullahs have pressed hard for the lifting of all economic sanctions at once should a deal be completed because it needs the estimated $100 billion in frozen assets to help resupply its coffers depleted by proxy wars and plunging oil prices.

But even with this thirst for cash, Iran remains obstinate on even the most basic parts of an agreement. The regime’s top negotiator and Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi opened talks with the IAEA recently which has been demanding access to Iranian military sites such as Parchin. “Iran, which is extremely reluctant to allow atomic inspectors access to military sites, has been stalling the investigation since last August,” reported Reuters.

This shows that mullahs’ desire for cash does have limits, namely they do not want to limit their ability to produce nuclear weapons. Iran’s mullahs believe that possession of nukes places Iran in a prime position to be the power in the region and weapons of mass destruction allow it to offset a nuclear-capable Israel, while also holding a hammer over the heads of Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia.

But this pursuit of weapons and funding of proxy wars have come at a steep price for ordinary Iranians. As Al Arabiya News Channel recently reported in a new series of stories focused on poverty in Iran:

“In 1979, shortly after the shah had been toppled, the new theocratic ruler Ruhollah Khomeini promised free electricity, water supplies and transportation services to all Iranians, to be paid for by oil revenues under a ‘just’ Islamic economic system. Yet this promise – repeated by several regime presidents after him to make the poor feel the benefits of Iran’s oil wealth – was never delivered.”

Oddly enough though, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry seems to think North Korea can somehow learn a positive lesson from any completed deal with Iran, which leaves objective observers dumbstruck since it was North Korea that provided the mullahs with the template for achieving nuclear capability by negotiating an agreement and then violating every aspect of it. In fact, North Korea has supplied Iran with much of its nuclear research and virtually all of its ballistic missile capability under manufacturing license.

Unfortunately while the rhetoric is starting to heat up on the near presidential campaign trail, the news media have all but ignored violent protests that have broken out in Iranian cities. The recent protests against the regime’s oppression began after a May 4 incident in which 27-year-old Farinaz Khosravani jumped to her death from a window when an Iranian intelligence officer allegedly tried to rape her at the hotel where she worked in the city of Mahabad according to the International Business Times.

The mass protests have been met harshly by Iranian regime’s security forces with the potential for even more deaths as a result.

All of which leads us to the most combustible issue coming to a head this week as an Iranian ship heads towards Yemen with what the regime calls a cargo of “humanitarian supplies,” but with no ability to independently verify it.

Iranian Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the deputy chief of staff, warned that any attempt to interfere with the vessel would “spark a fire” in a clear warning to the U.S. Navy. The stakes rise higher as the Iran regime starts the weekend talking about a nuclear peace and ends it with warnings of war.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Trying to Make Lemonade From Lemons

May 15, 2015 by admin

The House of Representatives voted yesterday overwhelmingly passed by a whopping 400-25 margin legislation giving Congress the power to review and potentially reject a nuclear agreement with the Iran regime. The large margins in the Senate and House votes represent an undeniable proof of the Iran lobby’s failure at halting the drive for Congressional review.

When the Corker-Menendez legislation was first proposed, regime supporters such as the National Iranian American Council went apoplectic claiming the passage of the bill was tantamount to starting a war with Iran. They and other supporters of the Iran regime including bloggers such as Lobelog and columnists such as Eli Clifton went all in with the effort to kill the bill, ultimately failing to convince Democrats to support the Iranian mullahs in the face of dismal poll results showing Americans overwhelmingly believed mullahs could not be trusted to abide by any agreement.

Faced with their impotence to halt the legislation, the NIAC and its cohorts executed a pretty pirouette and now sounded the warning that “with the final passage of this bill, the onus is now on every member of Congress to evaluate a final nuclear deal its merits, compare it against the alternatives, and decide between war and peace with Iran.”

The statement, made by NIAC policy director Jamal Abdi, is an absurd position to take since the choices for Congress have never been between war and peace with Iran, but rather whether or not Iran’s mullahs could be trusted to abide by an agreement. That is the crucial keystone underpinning the calculations being made by Democrats and Republicans in both houses.

What NIAC and other regime supporters have failed to realize is that Congress is increasingly becoming disenfranchised with what is fast-becoming a lame duck Obama administration and are turning their collective gaze to the presidential campaign next year.

With Iran doing its part by continually acting irrationally when supporting conflicts in Syria, where more evidence of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime have come to light again, and Yemen, where Iran is engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken with the U.S. Navy in the Gulf of Aden, the regime is not reassuring American voters or their representatives with this conduct.

It has left the Iran lobby desperately trying to turn lemons into the proverbial lemonade. The hints of their desperation can be seen in the NIAC’s odd insistence of 151 House Democrats signing a letter of support for a deal when the actual number of voting Representatives in the letter is only 145 since members from U.S. territories cannot vote.

Most political analysts have already done the headcounts and the margins needed to override a presidential veto of a thumbs down vote by Congress appears to be in the bag, but it is doubtful any deal will ever come to a vote since Iran’s mullahs appear intent on doing everything they can to kill a deal anyway.

The mullahs continue to use several American hostages as political pawns in Iranian prisons, refusing to discuss their release or even charging them or placing them on trial.

They ignore continued warnings by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran still has been non-responsive to repeated demands for access to nuclear facilities at military bases.

They continue to harass commercial shipping in the Straits of Hormuz with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps patrol boats firing shots at or aggressively tailing commercial vessels for the third time in as many weeks. In the latest incident, Iran on Thursday fired warning shots across the bow of a Singapore-flagged ship, the Alpine Eternity, after it refused to heed demands to move into Iranian waters, according to Bloomberg News.

All of these actions give Americans a strong impression of a growing irrationality emanating from Tehran which is paradoxical given the start of another round of nuclear talks ostensibly to finalize a deal. All of which makes the task of grinding out lemonade by the Iran lobby out of this mess all the more daunting.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Still Can’t Do Basic Math

May 14, 2015 by admin

A funny thing happened to a letter by Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and (David Price (D-NC) sent to President Obama expressing support for the conclusion of a nuclear agreement with the Iran regime. It was released with much fanfare by the Iran lobby on May 7^th and signed by 150 members of the House.

Jamal Abdi, the policy director for the National Iranian American Council, a chief lobbyist for the Iran regime, said “if the President is forced to use his veto to protect an agreement this summer, there are now sufficient lawmakers on the record in support of the envisioned deal to potentially uphold that veto.”

The only problem with that statement was that it was wrong. To override a veto, a supermajority is required in the House or 290 members. The NIAC and Rep. Schakowsky announced a letter signed by only 150 members, but it included members from U.S. territories who are not allowed to vote on matters before the House. This meant the actual voting total was only 144 members, one shy of the number needed to sustain a veto.

But then something happened. The number was updated yesterday to reflect 151 House members had signed. Never the less, the Iran lobby is still counting the six non-voting members as part of the signers even though their participation in a veto override is not in the equation.

Could it be the Iran lobby is worried about the tenuous and nebulous nature of its support? Could it be the Trita Parsi from the National Iranian American Council believes he needs to bolster the support he claims? Could it be they simply can’t do basic math?

Even though we might feel compelled to refer Parsi and his colleagues for some Common Core math lessons, what is clear is that NIAC and other regime supporters such as Lobelog.com are mustering all hands on deck to try and keep House members in line against growing uncertainty building from the increasingly irrational acts by Iran’s mullahs in places such as Yemen, Syria and the Gulf of Aden.

In an editorial in the Huffington Post, Parsi and Abdi write that “this summer, the U.S. Senate will choose between war and peace with Iran.” It is a false choice they present, no more than a straw man, to present choices as war or peace. The actual choices are much more complicated.

Parsi and Abdi maintain that a “good” deal for the West will be too offensive to Iran and be summarily dismissed by the mullahs, plunging the world into a war, but a “bad” deal that rewards Iran with no sanctions and allows them to build nuclear weapons will do the same thing.

But the best course is to hold Iran accountable for its actions, not just in the nuclear arena, but in all its conduct, including pits participation in proxy wars, mistreatment of its citizens and support for terrorism. Iranian regime’s actions within the past three years of talks have clearly shown that its actions at home and abroad are actually getting worse.

News media are beginning to pay more attention and bring these stories to light. The Iranian resistance movement has gained increased stature as its members tell these stories of horror and members of Congress have heard from voters who simply do not trust Iran’s mullahs. That has been reflected in near unanimous votes in Congress to retain the ability to review and approve or disapprove any agreement with Iran.

But for opponents of a bad nuclear deal, Iran mullahs themselves have provided enough reasons for their cause with their provocative actions the past few weeks including the illegal seizure of a commercial cargo vessel on the high seas and their continued meddling in Syria and Iraq, including recent massacre of a Sunnis family in Diyala Iraq.

With friends like these, Parsi and Abdi might be better off representing ISIS from now on.

The Countdown to a Gathering of Resistance

May 13, 2015 by admin

In exactly one month from today, there will be one of the largest gatherings of people dedicated to changing Iran from a religious, despotic regime to a multicultural, democratic, secular nation.

The annual meeting, sponsored by the organizations supporting the National Council of Resistance of Iran, one of the largest resistance groups worldwide to the Iran regime, is held outside of Paris, France and offers a platform for elected leaders, women’s activists, religious leaders, death penalty opponents, anti-nuclear groups and Iranian dissidents to join in an united voice against the mullahs in Tehran and their brutality.

Led by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, a moderate woman leader of a global Muslim group, the NCRI offers a compelling and unmistakable contrast to what Iran and its lobbying supporters attempt to portray the resistance as a group of out-of-touch Iranian exiles who do not represent the true hopes of the Iranian people.

The Iran lobby has worked relentlessly to attack any appearance of an organized resistance to the regime. Groups such as the National Iranian American Council, blogs such as Lobelog and columnists such as Eli Clifton have sought to misinform and distort the truth in the hopes of throwing enough mud at a wall so that something, anything will stick. The same goes for the distortions being played out over social media.

Why does the Iran lobby seem so offended by any dissent? Largely because its truth is as fragile as a house of cards, ready to be blown over with the slightest breeze. The daily conduct and revelations about the Iran regime undercuts anything the lobby does.

As it tries to portray Hassan Rouhani as a moderate interested in a nuclear compromise, his master, top mullah Ali Khamenei, denounces any nuclear deal that does not reward the regime with an unconditional lifting of economic sanctions.

As foreign minister Javad Zarif smiles for the cameras with Western leaders, Iran is busy leading proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. And many are being executed at home for various excuses, in order to raise fear amongst people and particularly the women and the youth.

As a sympathetic news media try to portray a nuclear compromise as advantageous for regional security and stability, Iran’s neighbors such as Saudi Arabia openly question the possibility of jumping into a nuclear program of their own to match Iran.

Most galling of all is the central truth facing the Iran lobby; the Iranian resistance is not just a collection of academics or elites living in exile. It is comprised of millions of people of all religions, ethnicities and nationalities, all working towards a common dream of freedom.

It has deep connections to millions of Iranians living within the regime who provide information on human rights abuses, demonstrations, police and paramilitary activities and economic performance; all of which puts to a lie the claims made by Iran’s leaders.

The resistance movement has helped uncover secret Iranian nuclear facilities. It has helped bring to light the arrest, imprisonment and abuse of countless thousands of prisoners of conscience. It has shifted the perception of global leaders who no longer believe the flowery speeches and moderate claims made by the mullahs.

Most of all, the resistance movement is a living, breathing embodiment of the hope for real change in Iran. It cannot be explained away by the Iran lobby and is a constant thorn in their side.

Over the next month, as we build up towards the gathering on June 13th in Paris, we will also be on a parallel track with new nuclear talks aimed at delivering a final agreement by the June 30^th deadline. You can bet the lobby will ramp up the rhetoric and vitriol in order to try and salvage an agreement in the wake of near unanimous action by the U.S. Senate to review and decide on any deal.

If there is one thing we know, the pressure of a countdown to June 30^th will place the Iran regime and its lobby under ever-increasing scrutiny.

By Laura Carnahan