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Iran Sanctions Are Sanctions Are Sanctions

January 27, 2015 by admin

There is an interesting effort being mounted by the Iranian lobby in the wake of a growing strong consensus within Congress to support stiffer sanctions on the regime in Iran should nuclear talks fail for a third time.

But Iran boosters such as the National Iranian American Council have lately preached a line of reasoning pointing towards the potential of various pieces of legislation being proposed in Congress as evidence of a splintering of support for harsher sanctions. They point to proposals by Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL), as well as ideas being floated by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) and even stream of thought comments made by Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Bob Corker (R-TN) as proof of disagreement on the question of sanctions.

What NIAC and other Iran sympathizers fail to mention is the one constant amongst all these proposals; the support for some sort of enhanced sanctions should talks fail. The only disagreement is one of timing and severity.

Virtually no Senator in Congress has taken an anti-sanctions stand, nor has there been any vocal support for granting mullahs in Iran a blank check in nuclear talks. At a time when Democrats and Republican can’t seem to agree on what’s on the menu in the Senate cafeteria, there is broad, deep and universal agreement that Iran should not get a nuclear weapon and that Iran is a central character in the global rise in Islamic extremism.

Various analysis of the joint proposal from Senators Menendez and Kirk, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2015, clearly shows this trend. It reinstates sanctions that were suspended as part of the interim agreement if a new and comprehensive agreement is not reached. It also specifically targets Iranian senior officials who are part of the religious leadership and its judicial and military systems which have been responsible for the unprecedented crackdown on human rights the past year and the expansion of militant extremism taking place around the world.

It also explicitly grants the President the ability to waive the application of sanctions should he certify to Congress it is necessary for national security, completion of a nuclear deal or Iran is making no further progress on nuclear development and is in compliance with all interim agreements.

One would have to wonder where the idea is coming from that there is large disagreement within Congress over Iranian regime’s sanctions giving the fact the basic outline of these terms were originally supported by an overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans two years ago when sanctions were originally imposed.

What Iran’s mullahs see is a small window of opportunity coming on President Obama’s unilateral decision to normalize relations with Cuba to gain the same benefit in the lame duck years of the presidency. Consequently, the NIAC and other Iranian lobbyists are pushing hard the concept that sanctions are not universally supported.

It is a line of reasoning doomed to failure given the massive support the idea of sanctions has right now in light of growing public unease and concern over gains being made by ISIS and Boko Haram, the collapse of Yemen and Iraq and the ongoing social media efforts by terror groups to frighten and bully the West for more beheadings.

Iran mullahs and their brand of Islamic extremism is at the heart of these groups flourishing since the regime in Iran essentially wrote the manual with its own broad range of torture and public punishments such as hangings and amputations on its own people that these extremist groups have since adopted.

But you will not find NIAC others denounce these growing atrocities, nor even condemn the most heinous ones. In fact, if one were to peruse the social media feeds for NIAC and its officers such as Trita Parsi, you would find virtually no condemnations. This only reveals their true nature and cheerleaders for mullahs in Iran and nothing more.

By Michael Tomlinson

Stopping the Welcome Wagon for Iran

January 27, 2015 by admin

In the wake of another round of talks underway between Iran and the P5+1 negotiating team of countries, there is emerging a pattern of perceived public support being built by those who support Iran and seek to see its quick re-admission to the international community without making any substantial concessions as part of any agreement.

Many of these Iran apologists are seeking to build what can only be called a “wave of inevitability” towards a normalization of relations between Iran and the West.

There has been a push by Iran’s global network of supporters to create a situation by ginning up a parade of officials, corporate representatives and news media who are speaking and acting on the impending possibility of the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran; even without a nuclear agreement in place.

One glaring example of that effort was the recent delegation of German lawmakers who journeyed to Iran and decided to inappropriately meet with a Holocaust denier and another official implicated in the kidnapping of American diplomatic personnel back in 1979.

A European-wide public interest known as Stop the Bomb, which is dedicated to halting Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, raised the alarm in Berlin over the German delegation’s meeting with Ali Larijani, the president of the Majlis parliament and a notorious Holocaust denier who defended then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his own incomprehensible positions on the Holocaust.

This comes on the heels of other recent overtures extended by Russian and European companies looking to cash in on the possibility of economic sanctions being lifted, as well as the infusion of upwards of $11.9 billion in frozen Iranian assets now being made available and transferred to Tehran’s accounts by the U.S. as part of the interim nuclear agreement struck by negotiators last year.

The Iranian lobby hopes to build momentum on these various trends and create a perception that a deal is all but inevitable, thereby building more pressure on the West in the face of growing violent Islamic extremism which is ironically being spread by Iranian regime itself as part of its religious campaign to remake the Middle East in its own twisted image. Tried and true Iran apologists such as the National Iranian American Council have led the charge.

The leader of the German delegation, Bundestag Vice President Claudia Roth, has already been widely criticized in Germany and internationally for her all too cozy relationship with Iran’s mullahs, culminating in an infamous high-five greeting of Iran’s then-ambassador to Germany Reza Sheikh Attar, whom Iranian Kurdish dissidents accuse of massacring Kurds during his tenure as governor of the Kurdistan and western Azerbaijan provinces in the 1980s.

But what all of these disparate efforts on behalf of the mullahs in Iran fail to realize is the growing anxiety the rest of the world is feeling towards violent extremism and the negotiation fatigue setting in amongst international capitals and news media as yet another round of talks take place with no hope of agreement coming into focus as long as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his handpicked puppet, President Hassan Rouhani, publicly denounce making any concessions to the West, which sank the two previous sessions.

The regime in Iran has never expressed any desire whatsoever to not only meet the International terms on nuclear reduction, but has never even uttered any inkling of improvements to its dismal human rights record at home and its sponsorship of terror abroad.

Iranian regime’s coercive tactics to normalize economic relations even before any kind of agreement is reached in talks that have only begun last week, explains its over eager lobbying

By Michael Tomlinson.

Iran Cashes U.S. Checks Without Penalty

January 23, 2015 by admin

Earlier this week, the Obama administration paid out $490 million in cash to mullahs in Iran and will have given the Iranian regime a whopping $11.9 billion in cash by June 2015 when this third and latest round of nuclear talks are scheduled to end according to figures released by the U.S. State Department.

The $490 million transfer to Iran was the third payment sent to Iran as part of the interim agreement between Iran and the Obama administration during an extension agreed to last November. Under the agreement, Iranian regime will receive a total of $4.9 billion in unfrozen cash in 10 separate payments through June of this year in the hopes a final nuclear agreement can be reached.

This comes on top of $4.2 billion Iranian regime received as part of the 2013 interim agreement, which the Obama administration followed with another $2.8 billion last year in a last ditch attempt by the Obama administration to entice mullahs in Iran to stay at the bargaining table.

Iran loyalists and supporters have touted the payments as the down payment on building trust between Iranian regime and the rest of the West. The more rational view is that the U.S. has been suckered by mullahs in Iran into handing over billions in cash which mullahs have put to good use funding their various foreign adventures. Namely to fund Hezbollah militias in Syria and their likes in Iraq to kill innocent people.

The payments have come at an especially good time for Iran as plunging oil prices worldwide coupled with massive outflows of cash to support terror groups such as Hezbollah and prop up the Assad regime in Syria and fund a growing war in Iraq have drained Iran’s foreign currency reserves and placed it on shaky financial footing.

The almost $12 billion injection of U.S. cash will be equal to nearly 18 percent of Iran’s total foreign currency reserves as of 2014; a massive payment that comes at the most critical time for Iran. The U.S. is essentially bailing Iran out right now as it engages in some of the most extreme fighting and terror activities around the world:

• Iranian regime’s funding of Hezbollah has provided Syria’s Bashar al-Assad with the manpower to turn the tide of civil war after being isolated internationally for using chemical weapons. The shift in power directly led to the growth of ISIS as the opposition faltered and splintered into extremist factions that Assad’s forces pushed into Iraq;
• Iranian regime’s control of the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki led to the sectarian war against Sunni tribes and weakened its military to the extent ISIS was able to swiftly move across Iraq and enabled mullahs the excuse to move large numbers of troops and arms into Iraq in a de facto takeover of the country.

In each case, the flow of cash from the U.S. softened the financial blows of these adventures and enabled Iran’s mullahs to keep an iron grip on its domestic politics with continued oppression of its people.

While Iran’s lobbying groups such as the National Iranian American Council would have Americans believe the release of these funds was an act of good faith that will be rewarded with a more peaceful future, the truth has been the opposite. Iran has made no significant concessions except a promise to reduce the rate of enrichment of nuclear fuel. Iran has increased its crackdown domestically and significantly stepped up its role in extremists and military activities worldwide in the two years since the payments began.

A new Congress should be asking the tough questions of what exactly $11.9 billion has bought from Iran. The only is unfortunately nothing.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran – New Attempts To Become Iraq’s Puppetmaster?

January 22, 2015 by admin

Amid the marches and events in Paris and throughout the world in response to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and its aftermath, the world’s news media paid scant attention to new developments in Iraq as Iran has dramatically scaled up not only its military presence but also its involvement in the internal affairs of Iraq.

Writing for the Associated Press, Hamza Hendawi Qassim Abdul-zahra reported the growing perception of Iraqis that Iran was their nation’s best ally against the growing influence of ISIS rather than the air campaign being waged by the United States and its allies.

He writes: “Shiite, non-Arab Iran has effectively taken charge of Iraq’s defense against the Sunni radical group, meeting the Iraqi government’s need for immediate help on the ground.

“Two to three Iranian military aircraft a day land at Baghdad airport, bringing in weapons and ammunition. Iran’s most potent military force and best known general — the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force and its commander Gen. Ghasem Soleimani — are organizing Iraqi forces and have become the de facto leaders of Iraqi Shiite militias that are the backbone of the fight.”

These fast moving developments have largely gone unnoticed, but may end up proving to be the most consequential changes happening in the Middle East because Iran’s control over Iraq would give it unprecedented reach and influence over the two large petroleum economies with two of the largest military powers.

The fact that Iran’s earlier puppeteering of Nouri al-Maliki’s government and its intervening in Syria’s civil war on behalf of Bashar Assad’s government directly led to the birth and explosive growth of ISIS in the first place is fast receding from everyone’s memory.

Iran’s lobbying machine and PR allies such as the National Iranian American Council have been quick to point out the potential value of a U.S.-Iran partnership against ISIS; conveniently ignoring the irony in such a marriage.

In fact, in a piece in Iran Media Focus, NIAC’s head and chief Iran apologist, Trita Parsi, was busy lambasting Congressional Republicans over the possibility of new Iran sanctions while defending a U.S.-Iran alliance.

But what is the end game for Iran’s ruling mullahs with this stepped up influence over Iraq? One possible scenario was detailed in a piece in Commentary Magazine where Michael Rubin noted a report in the Fars News Agency that “Iraqi Oil Minister Adil Abd al-Mahdi will visit Tehran to ‘discuss joint Iran-Iraq oil fields, export of Iran’s gas to Iraq and trade of oil products.’ The article continues to say that Iran and Iraq have “agreed to develop their joint oilfields through setting up joint companies under a single management.”

It is also clear that Iran’s leadership has also harbored a deep-seated animosity towards members of the Iranian resistance who reside in camps located in Iraq and have persuaded Iraqi security forces to attack and harass them in the past. Firm control of Iraq by Iran could mean a massacre of these brave resistance members on par with the slaughter of civilians by extremists groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria or ISIS of Yazidis in Iraq.

These developments are disturbing and warrant response from the West. At the very least as a new round of nuclear talks begin, it is incumbent on the P5+1 negotiators to press Iran for a complete withdrawal from Iraq and a cessation from meddling in its internal affairs, let alone a blatant takeover of the country.

It is the height of hypocrisy to allow Iran a free hand in Iraq and simply replace the domination of ISIS with the domination of Iran. It is especially noteworthy given the evidence beginning to pile up of Iranian regime’s complicity in the birth and expansion of ISIS and other affiliated extremist groups. If anything, Iranian mullahs have positioned themselves as the mother ship for Islamic extremism and its reach can be seen in Paris, Ottawa, Sydney, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere.

The U.S. and the West should not allow Iran’s theocracy a free hand in Iraq, nor should it be given a window of opportunity to increase its strength there and cement a foothold that it is hurriedly nurturing every day.

By Michael Tomlinson

The State of the Union and Iran

January 21, 2015 by admin

President Barack Obama delivered his sixth State of the Union address and like the previous five other speeches, he largely dealt with domestic issues as the nation continues to struggle with a lingering recession, stagnant wage growth and deadlocked politics in Washington.

And like his other speeches, this one ran slightly under 7,000 words in length and in it, President Obama mentioned Iran a grand total of four times, which is comparable to how many times he spoke about Iran in 2014, 2013, and 2012. The only difference in this speech was a slightly longer emphasis on the need to avoid the additional levying of economic sanctions on Iran during the third and latest round of nuclear negotiations.

Similarly, Iran’s coterie of apologists and cheerleaders went on the offensive in advance of the speech as early copies were circulated amongst administration supporters. The National Iranian American Council notably and predictably lauded the President’s statement with a statement warning of the possibility of war breaking out with Iran should sanctions be levied.

Of course what NIAC fails to address is that this so-called last best hope for peace for Iran is actually the third go-around for this administration and doesn’t include efforts by every previous Presidential administration who had attempted to rein in Iran’s ruling mullahs.

While Iran has played revolving chairs with presidents in order to first get tough with the West with Ahmadinejad, it then tried a different tack with a so-called moderate face now under Hassan Rouhani. In both cases, the heavy hand of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continues to sabotage any nuclear deal with his insistence that Iran retain not only its refining and enrichment capacity, but also its missile technology to potentially deliver a nuclear warhead.

NIAC’s hyperbole is indicative of the simple truth surrounding the issue of Iran; the American people simply do not trust the mullahs running Iran, least of all with nuclear weapons.

The fact that previous sanctions bills and the most recent one being proposed in Congress have been highly bipartisan with large numbers of Democrats joining with Republicans in an overwhelming show of solidarity on the issue demonstrates more powerfully than any speech that the President and NIAC are very much alone on this issue.

The funny thing is that the only people who are mentioning a possibility of war are only the NIAC and Iranian regime’s supporters, that have engaged in hyperventilating over the inevitable onset of war should sanctions come.

They neglect to mention that the same claims were made when previous sanctions were levied and in each case, war did not come. In fact the opposite occurred as Iran was forced to the bargaining table as its ability to export its brand of radicalized Islam became more difficult with fewer resources available. Couple that with crushing oil prices, and the timing is near perfect to forge a historic agreement with Iran to not only halt nuclear weapons development, but also seek improvements in Iran’s horrific human rights record, worsened under the “moderate” president Hassan Rouhani.

The U.S. and the West are being provided with an opportunity to use its significant leverage to move Iran forward back into the community of nations as a more democratic, pluralistic and free society than at any other time in recent memory. While the President focuses on nuclear talks, the window that has opened here is much more significant and should be taken advantage of immediately.

In short, the President needs to aim higher on behalf of the Iranian people, as well as the American people; a notion that the NIAC would be well served to adopt as well.

By Michael Tomlinson

What Does the NIAC Stand For?

January 20, 2015 by admin

As the third and latest round of nuclear talks between the P5+1 negotiating team and Iran get underway, an important sideline cheerleader for a successful conclusion to talks giving Iran its cake and eating it too will be the National Iranian American Council.

On this blog, the NIAC has been discussed extensively for its myriad efforts on behalf of the religious regime in Tehran and its comprehensive public relations, social media and news outreach efforts. Its members, including most notably its leader Trita Parsi, actively chronicle all of the potential pitfalls to the supposed moderate efforts by Iran and its President Hassan Rouhani to achieve a peaceful solution for all parties concerned.

What strikes most observers as peculiar about NIAC is exactly what its stated mission is and how it goes about achieving its goals.

You see, to a casual observer, if you read the NIAC’s very own mission statement and self-description, you find a fairly generic and simple explanation of what it seeks to accomplish:

“The National Iranian American Council is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the interests of the Iranian-American community. We accomplish our mission by supplying the resources, knowledge and tools to enable greater civic participation by Iranian Americans and informed decision making by lawmakers.

Since its inception in 2002, NIAC has effectively represented Iranian Americans on Capitol Hill, giving the Iranian-American community a powerful voice. NIAC has a presence on both coasts and in the American heartland. Members of Congress are now counting on hearing from NIAC and benefiting from the perspective of Iranian Americans.”

On the surface a fairly innocuous and some might say even worthy goal, but what is interesting is the complete lack of effort by the NIAC to live up to its very own words.

Let’s take up two specific examples.

If you take a look at NIAC’s listing of key issues it advocates on, you will notice of course U.S.-Iran relations and also “Discrimination & Immigration” as well as “Community & Heritage.”

Without a doubt the state of U.S.-Iran relations is paramount to NIAC as anyone can see from perusing its blog and archives. It is extremely active on all fronts especially as it relates to nuclear negotiations and economic sanctions. You would think it would also demonstrate the same kind of concern and activism on the other two key issues areas it lists as working on behalf of Iranian-Americans.

But click through the Discrimination & Immigration link and you find a little commented on section with no entries more current than a piece done last September 2014 about a jurist and before that issues related to economic sanctions.

In the Community & Heritage link, it’s even more dismal with virtually no action or activity that is not tied to nuclear talks or economic sanctions. It seems NIAC’s greatest achievements in 2014 in this area were to hold two fundraisers in California and another one in New York.

What is even more notable is the complete lack of participation and commentary from ordinary Iranian-Americans. NIAC’s website is hard pressed to deliver anything from Iranian-Americans not associated with NIAC through employment or sponsorship. This lack of representation is the by far the most telling and damning secret about it; NIAC represents no Iranian-Americans and instead simply is a front for the Iranian regime.

This fact is mirrored in the NIAC’s constant boosterish support for Iran, yet virtually no condemnation for the scores of human rights abuses and foreign military adventures or support for terrorist groups. You would think if a group claimed to represent the interests of Iranian-Americans it might, even once, offer up an opinion poll of what Iranian-Americans think. It might help work with concerned Iranian-Americans who have relatives in Iran under arrest or imprisoned. It might call for the open access of news media, social media and the internet in Iran so relatives in the U.S. could stay in touch.

One might think the NIAC might actually do what it claimed to be doing.

Sadly, the NIAC lives only for the purpose of supporting the mullahs which is why its influence has been greatly diminished and it now lives solely within a narrow strip of political support almost exclusively within the purview of progressives and liberals; thus explaining Trita Parsi’s ardent tweets lately about Ferguson and race relations which seem to have little bearing on issues at the top of the list for most Iranian-Americans.

It is clear that as NIAC wanes in influence and more reputable and knowledgeable groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran

begin to enjoy a resurgence within Congress and among global leaders, the truth about Iran’s regime and its true intentions about nuclear weapons and expansion of its radicalized Islamist agenda will finally be revealed for the world to see.

By Michael Tomlinson

Selma Could Never Happen in Iran

January 19, 2015 by admin

It is fitting as we observe the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the movie “Selma” has been nominated for a Best Picture award for its recounting of the pivotal series of peaceful marches led by Dr. King and thousands of civil rights supporters in Alabama in 1965 which led to the granting of voting rights to blacks.

A key element of those marches was the national and global outrage at news footage and media stories depicting the brutal beatings by state authorities of men and women offering no resistance. The public condemnation helped pressure the federal government to intervene to protect marchers and speed passage of this important legislation.

Nearly 50 years later that same call for equality and democracy rings out in Iran where peaceful marches over twice disputed elections were met with shocking violence, arrests and death. Nascent efforts to spread information and horrifying photos and videos via social media were shut down by the ruling regime of mullahs led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

To this day mass demonstrations are outlawed, any media viewed as subversive in the slightest way brings quick arrests while technology such as satellite dishes and internet access are routinely blocked in order to lay a blanket of secrecy over the human rights abuses going on in Iran.

The fact that 50 years ago men and women could peacefully stand up to their nation and change the course of history and their lives should provide a resonating example for what needs to happen in Iran. While the third and latest round of nuclear talks have begun with Iran and the P5+1 group of nations, the lessons of what happened in Selma, Alabama and what has been happening in Iran should give negotiators additional impetus to hold Iran accountable for improvements in its dismal human rights record.

The fact that Secretary of State John Kerry has raised the plight of Mr. Rezaian with Iranian negotiators shows that linking human rights to progress in talks has already happened. The West would be remiss to miss the opportunity to press the regime harder for basic reforms such as allowing for the right to free assembly, the right to access the internet and news media and the right to be free of torture, abuse and false imprisonment.

Nothing would be a greater tribute to the legacy of Dr. King than the emptying out of Iran’s notorious Evin Prison even while he himself sat in an Alabama jail cell half a century ago and wrote a series of letters that set the tone and stage for the argument for civil rights.

It is incumbent on the supporters and apologists of Iran in the U.S. such as the National Iranian American Council to stop paying lip service to the cause of civil rights with their tweets about supporting the Ferguson, Missouri protests and look closer to the injustices happening in their home country.

By Laura Carnahan

Iran Sanctions: Stop the Stalling

January 17, 2015 by admin

With the new Congressional session starting up under Republican control, it has been clearly evident that Iran’s lobbying and PR machines are going into hyperdrive at the prospect of new economic sanctions being proposed by the incoming Congress as a result of twice-failed nuclear negotiations and Iran’s newly aggressive military intrusions into Iraq and Syria.

Iran’s chief apologist in the National Iranian American Council has flooded news media with editorials and opinion pieces warning of disastrous consequences should a new sanctions bill be introduced. A press release issued by NIAC quotes Jamal Abdi, NIAC Policy Director, as saying “If Congress forces through new Iran sanctions legislation over the warnings of the President, our negotiators and the wishes of the American people, they will own the consequences.”

What he neglects to mention is the growing belief among the American people that President Obama’s current course of negotiating session after failed negotiating session is proving fruitless in the wake of the sharply increased about of violence occurring worldwide due to religious extremist terrorists abusing the name of Islam. This sense of unease has been borne out by recent opinion polling and the dramatic midterm elections.

The NIAC and its cohorts are terrified at the prospect of new sanctions since it would finally rip the façade covering Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani’s attempts to portray a moderate face to the world, while buying time for Iranian regime to expand its military and political influence to its neighbor in Iraq, as well as heavily increase its influence in the growing Islamic extremism sweeping across the world.

With plunging oil prices, the pressure on Iran’s ruling mullahs have never been greater and the opportunity to finally leverage real concessions on not only its nuclear program, but its overall dismal human rights record is finally at hand.

The incoming Congress recognizes the opportunity at hand and wants to seize it by moving forward with sanctions. More importantly, a new sanctions authorization would not only be aimed at placing new sanctions on Iranian government as much as ensuring that current sanctions already in place are not evaded or circumvented. President Obama’s recent executive action to normalize relations with Cuba provided the new Congress with the impetus it needed to ensure that West doesn’t give away the proverbial farm without getting anything back for it.

Similarly other Iran apologists such as Jim Lobe at LobeLog.com have also attempted to sound dire warnings of what would happen should a new sanctions bill be passed.

The irony in all this hysteria is that the prospect of failed nuclear talks have already come and gone. If NIAC hasn’t told the world yet, talks have already failed twice before because of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his public pronouncements committing Iran to its nuclear capability. Since the last failed talks nothing has changed except Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is spreading in Iraq and extremists have killed innocent people in Ottawa, Sydney and Paris now.

The American people have seen through all of the spin control, manipulations, false warnings and outright fabrications of NIAC and others and voted in a newly confident Congress intent on fulfilling the basic promise of keeping Americans safe. Iranian regime’s supporters realize just how small their island of support has become and have pushed all their chips into the pot in the hopes of putting one final scare into the American people so Iran might wrest from the P5+1 negotiating team more concessions without giving anything up.

Fortunately for the West, Ottawa, Sydney, Paris, Belgium, Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and other places around the world have offered ample proof that the best course of action for peace and nuclear free Middle East does not lie in appeasing mullahs in Iran, but instead, getting tougher with its government.

Iran Nuclear Talk ABCs

January 9, 2015 by admin

With the eve of the third round of talks with Iran on its nuclear weapons program about to begin, some of the most loyal supporters of the Iranian regime have sounded a clarion call to arms in order to frame what they believe are the salient facts prior to the start of these talks. Chief amongst them is the National Iranian American Council and in an editorial written by Ryan Costello, the NIAC has sought to inoculate the newly sworn in 114^th Congress against any negative perceptions of Iran.

Costello regurgitates the typical spin NIAC and other Iranian regime lobbyists and flaks have uttered since the first round of nuclear talks collapsed in failure two years ago. Costello emphasizes that the interim deal agreed upon by Iran and the P5+1 negotiating team are working. He is correct, but not in the way he would have Congress think.

The interim nuclear deal is indeed working…for Iran only.

In the interim deal, which Iran readily agreed to while opposing more substantial and difficult concessions, essentially awarded Iran billions of dollars in frozen currency in exchange for a minor reduction in the stockpiles of enriched uranium fuel. The agreement did not reduce or eliminate Iran’s centrifuge capacity to make more fuel. It did not make Iran’s military research and testing facilities available for nuclear inspection. And it made no efforts to tie improvements in Iran’s dismal human rights record or support for terror groups in Iraq and Syria.

Costello also makes mention of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s efforts to verify Iran’s compliance of the interim deal, but neglects to mention a forceful condemnation from the IAEA of Iran’s unwillingness to make available restricted nuclear sites that have been prior points of contention.

Costello then raises specter of how any new sanctions from Congress would jeopardize the “hard won” gains in the interim deal. He neglects to mention that after two failed rounds of talks and no movement from Iran on the key issues of refining capacity and weapons payload delivery systems, Iranian regime remains as obstinate as the day talks started.

Congress has given President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry ample and abundant opportunity to close a credible, verifiable and strong deal and so far has received nothing for its patience.

With the recent rise of growing violence from radicalized Islamists who adhere to the teachings and principles espoused by Iran’s ruling mullahs in places such as Sydney, Ottawa and now Paris, the new incoming Congress is filled with members who were elected overwhelmingly by constituents rightly concerned about this growth in terror and violence striking far outside of the Middle East region.

While Iranian regime stands at the center of most of the strife and conflict throughout the region, Costello continues to take the position that Iran is simply some innocent bystander pushing for peace and is simply misunderstood.

Costello is correct when he writes that inspections and verifications are key components to any final deal. He unfortunately neglects to mention that Iranian regime has steadfastly refused to agree to comprehensive inspection and verification regimens that pass muster with the P5+1 nations. In fact, it’s never been properly explained by Costello or Iran why simply purchasing fuel rods from Russia, China, France or Japan is an unacceptable compromise. The insistence on creating and maintaining an extensive refining capacity that has the dual-use purpose of creating weapons-grade fuel is a non-starter and is the key stumbling block to any successful deal.

The last point Costello raises is the idea that Iran is battling ISIS. On the surface it seems like a positive development, but it again obscures the deeper truth of Iran’s relationship with the rise of extremist violence and ideology as embodied by ISIS.

While Costello writes about Iran’s support of Iraq’s former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, he neglects to mention that Iran’s manipulation of Maliki in forging a Shiite-only government sympathetic and responsive to Iran without any participation from Sunni tribes and leaders was the key element in igniting the sectarian bloodbath that has engulfed Iraq. He also neglects to mention that Iran’s all-in approach to support embattled Syrian President Basher Assad directly lead to the civil war that spawned ISIS in the first place.

The travesty of Costello’s position is that the perceived threats he illustrates such as Iran’s creation of an atomic bomb and work on its Arak heavy water reactor would only continue if a deal is not reached is simply false since Iran is already actively pursuing those goals even while talks continue.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his handpicked puppet in President Hassan Rouhani are simply content to allow talks to stagger on as a delaying tactic while Iran continues to aggressively pursue its agenda of regional domination and the continued suppression of its own people.

Far from simply sitting back, the 114^th Congress should reject Costello’s assertions for the spin doctoring they really are and prepare to hold Iran accountable for additional sanctions and take advantage of the pressure being afforded by the global petroleum glut which is putting the only meaningful pressure on Iran’s leadership.

To do otherwise would be to waste a golden opportunity to change Iran and steer it back towards a civil society founded on multiculturalism, plurality and democracy.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Tragedy at Charlie Hebdo and the Silence That Followed

January 8, 2015 by admin

The vicious and meticulously executed attack by Islamic extremists on the French news weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris resulted in the mass killings of journalists, cartoonists and police officers. It has been widely condemned by the international community as a blatant effort to muzzle a free press and punish any of those seeking to shine a spotlight on the radical thugs now perverting Islam and sowing death and destruction around the world.

Social media has been filled with sympathetic tweets and hashtags of #jesuischarlie as the world expresses its revulsion at this act and begins to grapple with the larger and ever growing problem of radicalization of people drawn to the preaching and messages of violence from groups such as ISIS and state-sponsors of terror such as Iranian mullahs.

Curiously there has been one quiet corner of the Internet and that is the domain occupied by the supporters and advocates of the Iranian regime. A casual perusal of the social media feeds of people such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council showed a lack of commentary or condemnation of the attack. In Parsi’s case he did not even post any comment on the attack until hours later and even then provided a link to an editorial by Juan Cole that attempted to rationalize the murders in the context that it did not represent a broader indictment of Muslims.

Why this is curious is when compared to other acts such as the rioting in Ferguson, Missouri or even the recent protests by New York Police Department officers against New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Parsi has been vocal and quick to cite these incidents and condemn them. Yet in a case where he could have made a clear demarcation between the violent and extremist acts of Muslims intent on perverting a religion for their own gains, he remained largely silent.

This deafening lack of protest from supporters of Iran illustrates the tightrope they attempt to navigate by avoiding any potential linkages back to Iran from acts of terror and violence occurring around the world. It is well established that Iranian regime’s militant brand of sectarian violence and policy has been at the heart of conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Yemen just to name a few places. Yet, none of these actions such as the supply of weapons and cash to terror groups such as Hezbollah nary once engender a word of protest or tweet of outrage from Parsi and company.

It points to the rank hypocrisy of the Iranian lobby in condemning acts in the West that help Iran point an accusing finger yet never question the almost daily barbarous acts of violence committed by the Iranian regime and its agents around the world and against its own people.

Members of the U.S. Congress, recently sworn in, should take the opportunity to not only note what Iranian regime supporters such as Parsi tweet and post, but more importantly, what they don’t post or protest.

Sometimes the silence is just as damning as the words.

By Laura Carnahan