Iran Lobby

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

The Tragedy at Charlie Hebdo and the Silence That Followed

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paris-attack-charlie-hebdo (1)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

Iran Cannot Have it Both Ways in Nuclear Talks in 2015

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Empty-Meeting-RoomOn January 15th, Iran will once again take a seat at the negotiating table with the P5+1 nations and begin a third round of talks over its nuclear weapons program and just as it has done twice before, it will refuse to make any substantial concessions and after another seven tedious months, Iran will undergo its third strike.

Far from crystal-ball gazing, this scenario is more than likely given past history and a newly resurgent Republican majority in both houses of Congress who promise to flex its collective muscle in case President Obama makes any precipitous concessions as he did in normalizing relations with Cuba on his own.

And just as before, Iran’s lobbying and PR machinery has ramped up into overdrive before these talks start to help lay the ground work for another Cuba-like executive action by President Obama for Iran. The initial seeds have been laid by Iran cheerleaders such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council who have saluted the trial balloons for normalizing relations with Iran with the opening of an American embassy in Tehran again.

Ironically, Parsi has sought to frame this latest round of talks around whether or not the U.S. is willing to offer more concessions and can be trusted by Iran in recent comments, saying:

“There are question marks in the minds of the Iranians as to whether the American promises about sanctions relief actually can be trusted – not to say that they don’t have enough confidence in the president, but they may not have enough confidence in the U.S. Congress,” Parsi said.

One can see how he and other Iran allies are seeking to separate any possible normalization action by the President from a Congress that may object to it.

This, more than anything else, represents the “have their cake and eat it too” approach of Iran to nuclear talks. On the one hand Iran, through its perceived moderate President Hassan Rouhani, holds out an olive branch of concessions and flowery speeches, while on the other is the stern and recalcitrant voice of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who’s earlier pronouncements sank the other negotiating sessions.

Now Parsi and his cohorts are once again attempting to provide political cover for progressive liberals in Congress who basically want to give Iran whatever it wants in the misguided belief that everything will turn out alright.

But former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton recently wrote in an editorial in The Los Angeles Times that “Amnesty International has pointed to the presence of Iran’s proxy militias in Iraq as a key source of instability and sectarian conflict there.”

He goes on to point out that Iran is at the heart of most of the region’s conflicts and instability. All of which has been going on during the time of nuclear talks. One cannot claim to aim for peaceful uses for nuclear power while at the same time sponsor most of the wars and conflicts going on at the same time.

This contradiction lies at the heart of these talks and is the unspoken elephant in the room. Iran cannot claim the mantle of peace while it clutches the proverbial sword of war, no matter what Parsi and others claim.

We can only hope round three ends the same way as rounds one and two.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

Trita Parsi, Westboro Baptist Church, NYPD Police Funerals and Iran

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Iranian Lobby

Iranian Lobby

If anyone wanted to start off 2015 with a bang, it would seem Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council and one of the Iranian regime’s chief cheerleaders, decided to throw all caution to the wind when he tweeted out:

Only other group, besides #NYPD, that protest at funerals is Westboro Baptist church. Think about it… #ICantBreathe

Parsi sought to link New York police officers who gave silent protest to New York Mayor Richard de Blasio at recent funerals for two NYPD officers to the highly objectionable protests by members of the Westboro Baptist Church who protested at funerals of U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It is a twisted sort of pretzel logic, even for Parsi, but worthy of his past statements on behalf of Iran during the past two years of fruitless negotiations overs nuclear weapons. His statements that Iran was only desirous of peaceful nuclear development flew in the face of near continuous acts of military intervention and terrorist group support and brutal human rights crackdowns during the same period.

For a man who has been almost single-handedly carrying the political and PR water for Iran’s mullahs, it’s an odd tweet to make since it has little to do with Iran and nothing to do with nuclear arms it seems on the surface, but it does fall in line with similar criticisms echoed by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who delighted in criticizing the US over recent racial protests in Ferguson, Missouri.

But when we consider the incredible shrinking island of support for Parsi’s positions, it’s more easily understood why he chose to make such an odd and discordant tweet. After two years of failed negotiations, largely due to Khamenei’s obstinate loyalty to his own hardline positions, bipartisan support in Congress for an Iranian nuclear deal negotiated by President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry has largely evaporated, especially in the wake of the midterm elections.

If anything has become abundantly clear in the new incoming Congress, about the only vocal and public support for Parsi’s positions lie within a small and highly liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Hence, Parsi’s hard shift to the left in the hope of currying more favor with the few American politicians willing to support a deal with Iran.

Supporting increased economic sanctions against Iran and holding Iran regime’s religious and political leadership for its dismal human rights record and sponsorship of terrorism abroad has gained even more bipartisan support as Democrats such as Sen. Bob Menendez and Republicans such as Rep. Ed Royce have consistently and loudly decried any potential deal that leaves Iran with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons.

It’s against this backdrop that any casual perusal of Parsi’s Twitter feed will show this evolution of politics in to increased attacks on the U.S. military and its allies and criticism of police departments.

If the stakes for a nuclear weren’t so high, it would be easy to dismiss Parsi’s tweets as the increasingly desperate rants of paid-for PR flaks which are losing their audience and impact. We can only hope his influence will be just as effective in securing a nuclear deal as it’s been the past two years…zero.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

 

Using Old Tricks to Lay New Lumps of Coal

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FruitcakeDuring the holidays, most of dread that one gift that is destined for quick re-gifting. You know what I’m talking about. It might be the sad, lump of fruitcake or a Christmas sweater that might even make the world’s worst fashion designer cringe. In the world of politics, it is no different. The same old tired tropes are trotted out periodically to make an appearance on blogs before they are once again consigned to the junk bins of history.

In this category falls a recent blog entry by Holly Dagres in The World Post. In it, Ms. Dagres dusts off the same old invective against the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and other groups engaged in a long struggle to free the Iranian people from the tyranny of religious mullahs that subverted the Iranian Revolution and turned it into a private fiefdom for their own brand of radicalized Islam.

She goes on to trot out old charges about designations as a terrorist organization that have long since been disproved and dispelled and attacks these pro-democracy organizations for exercising their growing influence and clout among elected officials in the U.S. and abroad as if it was some evil conspiracy. What she fails to talk about is the one elephant in the room which is Iran, as a nation-state controlled by a religious theocracy is at the center of virtually all of the current crises throughout the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Attacking NCRI without discussing Iran’s ruling mullahs is like discussing an antibiotic, but never mentioning the disease it is designed to combat.

That kind of intellectual hypocrisy comes into focus when Ms. Dagres attempts to describe the Iranian resistance groups as being anti-women. On the surface it’s a ridiculous claim to make since the United Nations and Amnesty International have extensively documented the long and agonizing price being paid by women in Iran over the decades, including being unable to pursue careers, unable to travel alone or wear clothing of their choice.

Most significant of all is the fact that NCRI is led by a woman, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, a position of leadership and responsibility that so far has eluded the mullahs that control Iran and who have refused to grant women similar leadership roles with real power instead of token positions.

Ms. Dagres even has to go back to the 1980 s to dredge up more spurious claims in an attempt to discredit the Iranian resistance; a futile gesture when compared to the extensive work and sacrifices made to work in close cooperation with U.S. and European partners to expose the activities of the Iranian regime as it exports terror, evades economic sanctions, manipulates its neighbors, engages in clandestine warfare and continues to build a nuclear capability and advanced missile technology.

At no point does she reference the biggest obstacle to regional peace and security and that is Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has consistently sunk nuclear negotiations with his aggressive public speeches denouncing the West and adamantly sticking to the need for Iran to develop its nuclear capability. Ms. Dagres needs to look no further than Khamenei to find the greatest obstacle to peace and democracy in Iran.

But like a good little foot soldier for Iran’s massive global lobbying network such as the National Iranian American Council, she spews out old and tired rhetoric that shrinks in the harsh light of examination.

By: Hadi Ahmadi

Equating Cuba to Iran is More Smoke and Mirrors

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Cuba FlagPresident Obama laid out a move to normalize relations with Cuba after over half a century of unrest in relations. North Korea comes to mind too, but that involves another discussion on another day.

Sympathizers and supporters of Iran’s ruling regime have seized on the proposal to try and draw parallels to the U.S. approach to Iran. Most notably Trita Parsi and Ryan Costello of the regime’s foremost lobbyists at the National Iranian American Council, write in The HuffingtonPost that America’s perceived failed Cuba policy is akin to its similar flawed policy as it relates to Iran.

They attempt to draw parallels to economic sanctions placed on Cuba and Iran as both being failures in policy and deserving of retraction. They go to heap praise on President Obama’s recent efforts to advance a nuclear arms deal with Iran as evidence of this new pivot that can usher in an era of normalized relations between the two adversaries.

Unfortunately their obtuse logic is about as straightforward as a pretzel. Cuba and Iran are vastly different countries with vastly different economic, political and military histories.

Anyone over the age of 60 clearly remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis and the razor sharp edge the U.S. and old Soviet Union navigated as the world was pushed to the brink of global war. In a sharp twist of irony, Cuba’s placement of nuclear missiles aimed at the U.S. 90 miles away proved to be intolerable and were eventually removed through some last minute diplomacy and a heavy dose of military hardware in the Caribbean. Similarly, Iran faces the same choice in whether or not to pursue a nuclear arms program that could place Iran in the same position Cuba found itself in.

But the differences between Cuba and Iran are largely glossed over by Parsi and Costello. Whereas Cuba was a virtual vassal state to the Soviets and heavily dependent on imports of oil, food and other goods to keep the island nation going, Iran sits on one of the world’s largest reserves of oil and uses illicit petro dollars to fund a myriad of military activities as well as fund several of the world’s most notorious terror organizations.

It would be a remarkable display of honesty if Parsi and Costello were to actually use the terms “Hezbollah, ISIS and Iran” in the same sentence.

Iran has been governed by an unrelenting, unforgiving and uncaring religious cadre of mullahs who through advocacy of a particularly harsh and radicalized brand of Islam have managed to oppress the Iranian people for decades.

But par for the course for Parsi and Costello, they conveniently ignore the human rights abuses, depredations and decades-long effort by Iran to develop a nuclear capability in defiance of worldwide condemnations.

Iran remains deeply involved in the Syrian conflict, now manipulates Iraq in its fight against ISIS and continues to fund and support Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as shield its nuclear activities from international inspectors and continue to squeeze its own people with a stepped up campaign of arrests, imprisonments and executions that would make North Korea pale by comparison.

But none of that seems to make the proverbial exhortations of Parsi and Costello who remain slavishly obedient to Iran’s beck and call and are using the Cuba situation in another desperate attempt to push through a nuclear deal that would set Iran on a path not too dissimilar to the near global catastrophe of 1962.

By Michael Tomlinson

Whitewashing Iran’s human right’s records to lobby softer position on nuclear talks

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Photo credit: The gulf and Middle East Association for civil society-August 2014

Photo credit: The gulf and Middle East Association for civil society-August 2014

The Ministry of Intelligence and Security of Iran had instructed its agents to try to advocate themselves as opposition by writing 80% against the regime and the violation of human rights in Iran, but they have to dedicate 20% to denying the opposition, namely the MEK (Mujahedin-e-Khalq), by spreading rumors discredit them. This seems to be the copy framework agreement with the Iranian regime’s lobby and appeasers with respect to the failed Iran talks in Vienna.

Recently, some advocates of Iranian origin who claim to be human rights activists are expressing concerns over the recent resolution of the House of Representatives against the human rights violation in Iran.

One of these “human rights activists” has written an article in The Hill today, expressing concerns that “seeking ways to achieve tangible human rights improvements inside Iran is also closely related to the outcome of the nuclear negotiations” and that including “separate issues – such as Iran’s rights record, or its support for terrorism – will make it more difficult to reach a nuclear deal”.

The author who by the way is a well-known advocate and affiliate of “NIAC” claims that “the Iranian human rights community strongly supports a successful diplomatic resolution of the nuclear crisis, particularly because many believe that without a deal, the human rights crisis in Iran will worsen”. He goes further in whitewashing the regime’s president Rouhani who is just another mullah within the hierarchy of the theocracy ruling Iran, saying: “the perpetuation of tensions over the nuclear file is likely to result in continued and even increased gross human rights violations. For example, throughout the past decade, Iranian hardliners, opposed to a deal, have thrived by capitalizing on the nuclear confrontation and using it to justify their repressive measures. Failure of the negotiations would embolden them. They would seek to weaken the government of relative moderate President Hassan Rouhani.”

This is while in Iran under the so called “moderate” Rouhani, over 1,100 people have been executed and thousands are on death row. Based on the number of executions that mainly appear on state newspapers in Iran, on average every 8 hours one person is being executed. Women are disgracefully attacked by regime-related thugs, either by acid or being stabbed under the pretext of disobeying the dress code. There is no free access to information, Iran is the biggest prison for journalists and the situation of religious minorities is outrageous, to name a few.

Last November, the United Nations General Assembly’s third committee adopted the UN’s 61st resolution condemning human rights abuses in Iran and urged the regime to stop the executions, in such conditions, overlooking the human rights in Iran and ignoring the fact that people and particularly women in Iran are living under despicable conditions is nothing but cruel, shameful and immoral. Asking the US politicians to be softer on the regime with such inhumane records of human rights, is even worse.

The author is also quoting some activists to strengthen his proposition and represent it as a request by the Iranian human rights community. He writes: “As Nasrin Sotoudeh , the prominent human rights lawyer and former political prisoner put it: ‘It is obvious that we welcome peaceful relations with all countries and as such support the negotiations’.”  This is while reading Nasrin Sotoudeh’s entire quote, you can see that she is actually demanding the human rights issues to be discussed during negotiations and not to be ignored, exactly the opposite of what the Iranian lobby is criticizing the congress for in the Hill article. Here is her quote from the same source:

“if the Iranian state wants to rehabilitate its relations with the international community, it must certainly address fundamental human rights concerns on issues such as juvenile executions and freedom of expression. The Iranian government should clearly state its position on these issues during the nuclear negotiations. In my opinion, keeping silent on such issues until the end of negotiations will make it more difficult. My understanding is the European countries say we cannot easily bring up human rights issues because it will potentially threaten the negotiations. We say at a minimum ask the Iranian negotiators to express their position on fundamental human rights concerns such as juvenile executions which are banned by all international conventions.”

The truth of the matter is that the Iranian regime has strategically invested in its nuclear program. It is doing everything to get more time to complete the program and will not shift from this unless faced with more pressure and more sanctions. After all it was the sanctions that finally forced the mullahs to go to the negotiation table and accept the Geneva accord, not the appeasement policy that has unfortunately been the dominant policy of the West towards Iran in the past two decades.

The Pretzel Logic of the Iranian Lobby on the Nuclear Deal

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"Dedicated to Improving the Relationship Between the U.S. and Iranian Governments"

“The Pretzel Logic of the Iranian Lobby on the Nuclear Deal”

With the deadline of November 24th fast approaching for the P5+1 negotiators to reach a deal with Iran over its nuclear weapons program, the chorus of the PR machine working on behalf of the regime is reaching a crescendo.

The opening shot came from disclosures in the Washington Free Beacon that the Truman National Security Project issued a call to arms for writers and bloggers to join in the effort to comment, post and tweet U.S. media in favor of a nuclear deal.

This was followed by a virtual avalanche of editorials and commentary that sometimes borders on the ludicrous such Gary Sick’s piece in Politico where he argued that giving Iran a deal that preserves its ability to enrich uranium was preferable to letting Iran walk away. Sick’s piece attempts to make the leap of logic that failure to reach a deal would potentially place Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani at some crucial disadvantage with perceived hardliners in Iran and lead to his ouster.

It’s an argument that reminds me of MIT professor and Obamacare advisor Jonathan Gruber’s recently unearthed comments about the lack of intelligence amongst American voters. Sick must carry a similar opinion of Western negotiators.

This theme that letting Iran walk away from the negotiating table would be disastrous is being echoed on pro-Iranian blogs such as LobeLog.com and lobbyists such as the National Iranian-American Council. All have let loose shrill cries that almost any deal is preferable than letting Iran walk…even if the deal is viewed as an awful one by the West.

What all of these sympathizers ignore though is the biggest obstacle to closing a deal and it is not the West, it is Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei who previously sank negotiations with public comments against reaching a deal that would impede Iran’s ability to develop a weapon. His most recent comments reinforced that view. In fact, the mullah-in-chief  has doubled down with another series of speeches denouncing efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear capacity.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other negotiators were also stunned to hear even more denunciations by Iran’s religious leaders who decried any efforts to cave in to what they considered were excessive demands by the West. Iran has also raised the specter that any deal must first be predicated on the unconditional lifting of economic sanctions without a reciprocal rapid deconstruction of Iran’s nuclear program; a non-starter for almost every nation at the bargaining table.

The pathway now shaping up is a potential for yet another deadline extension without any agreement being reached. The impact of the Iranian lobby and PR machine is being severely undercut by Iran’s own leaders out of their own mouths and it seems the best they can hope for now is not a complete meltdown in talks.

There almost seems a calculation by Iran’s mullahs that President Obama needs a foreign policy triumph more than Iran’s economy needs help. It is a calculation seemingly destined to failure with the midterm election results and American voters expressing great alarm over the disintegrating nature of affairs in the Middle East with ISIS, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Gaza and Afghanistan.

This is one of those times where pretzel logic doesn’t trump the common sense of American voters.

By Michael Tomlinson

“The Iran Project”-Enemies of Democracy

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"Dedicated to Improving the Relationship Between the U.S. and Iranian Governments"

“Dedicated to Improving the Relationship Between the U.S. and Iranian Governments”

The Iran Project, a pro-Iranian regime organization in the US comprised mainly of former government officials and academics, released a report in August 2014 that offers potential foreign policy consequences if the US concludes a nuclear agreement with Iran.

That a viable agreement can be reached is far from certain and releasing the report beforehand would appear to be propaganda ploy to promote an agreement rather than a serious examination of foreign policy issues.

The original deadline to conclude a comprehensive nuclear agreement was July 20, 2014.  It was extended four months due to “substantial differences” and there is already discussion to further stretch out the timetable.

Other than a small spattering of negative comments, the report presents a benign view of the Iran regime.  The authors acknowledge Iran is an “international pariah” and has “ties with at least seven terrorist groups.”  They raise the issue of Iran’s miserable human rights record but then decline to address these issues in the report.

Over 1000 people executed During Rouhani's first year in office.

Over 1000 people executed During Rouhani’s first year in office.

The authors fail to mention anything about the regime’s repressive government, public hangings, crackdown on free speech, and political persecutions.

The report falsely asserts that Iran has “largely abandoned attempts in the 1990s to export its revolution to the Gulf.”  This is surely seen different by the international community, among which the Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, who recently demanded Iran’s mullahs withdraw their “occupying forces” from Syria, Iraq and Yemen.   He said Iran was not part of a solution in these areas, but the problem.

The report calls attention to “Afghanistan’s “nascent democracy” and claims Iran “was helpful to the United states in inserting provisions for democracy, elections, and anti-terrorism into the Afghan Constitution.”  Not discussed is the regime’s assistance to al Qaeda, helping them escape from Afghanistan and letting them set up a “management council” on their territory.

The report is also silent when it comes to the Iranian public’s yearning for democracy and the regime’s brutal attacks on political dissidents.  The mullahs view democracy as an “usurpation of God’s authority to rule” and refuse to allow the open selection of candidates in elections.  They also manipulate voting tallies and then claim to be legitimate rulers.

The authors of the report declare they oppose Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, but then shut their eyes to overwhelming evidence the regime is doing just this.  The authors believe the mullahs have not made a decision to build a nuclear weapon.  They cite one reference to a US intelligence assessment and reiterate Ayatollah Khamenei’s public declaration in a fatwa that the development and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden. While an article in Townhall, by a high rank Ayatollah who lives in exile describes Khamenei’s Nuclear Fatwa, an Irrefutable Lie, absent in the report is the fact that Khamenei has never written any document against nuclear weapons that carries his stamp, a standard practice for all fatwas.  Also, the fact that fatwas aren’t necessarily binding for the government and officials, and there is no punishment for failing to abide by a fatwa.

The authors conveniently neglect to quote from the same intelligence assessment that Iran has “pursued the capabilities … to give it the ability to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons.”  In other words, the regime is developing the wherewithal to build a nuclear bomb, but hasn’t completed the process.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believes the regime recently tested nuclear detonators at the Prachin military site in Iran.  But the mullahs refuse to give inspectors access to the facility.

This isn’t the first time the regime has tried to hide its nuclear weapon development program.  In March 2003, IAEA inspectors were initially denied access to Kalaye Electric, which Iranian officials falsely described as a watch manufacturing company.   After months of delay, the inspectors were finally allowed to examine the site.  They discovered walls had recently been removed, floors were covered with new concrete, and a significant part of the plant was repainted.  Despite these efforts, the inspectors found trace amounts of uranium that had been enriched to a level needed to build a nuclear weapon.  Given the evidence, the regime confessed it had secretly conducted enrichment tests at the Kalaye Electric site.

This is just one of many instances of deception and subterfuge by the mullahs.  Economic sanctions were imposed on Iranian regime by the UN Security Council because of the regime’s ongoing failure to provide transparency in its nuclear program and repeated violations of the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The Iran Project authors sweep all of these inconvenient issues under the rug and suggest the US should become a partner with the mullahs to deal with various problems in the Middle East.  This includes joining forces to combat the Islamic State or ISIS in Iraq and working with the regime “as a full partner” to assist Afghanistan after US troops are withdrawn.

The report correctly blames former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for many of the problems today in Iraq.  He refused to share power with the Sunni Arabs and other rivals, corrupted the election process, and sought to monopolize power.  Not surprisingly, the authors of the report make no reference to Iran’s behind-the-scenes influence over al-Maliki, who was their puppet, implementing their policies.  The mullahs tried desperately to keep al-Maliki in power, using their considerable political influence in Iraq, without success.

At the heart of the Iran Project report is an effort by the authors to persuade readers to accept the Iranian regime as a legitimate authority.  Providing readers an accurate description of the regime would have undermined their political objective, hence their whitewash of the regime.

The authors portray a positive future if a nuclear agreement is reached with Iran.  The United States, they posit, “stands to reap more benefit than any other outside power from new patterns of cooperation [with Iran].”   Concluding a nuclear agreement, they claim, “will unlock the door to new options.”  It might integrate Iran into the world community and would encourage the regime “to pursue its interests through legitimate means rather than covert or illegal means.”

If the US fails to reach a nuclear accord with Iran, the authors predict dire consequences.   If there is no agreement, the US should be prepared for a “sustained confrontation with Iran.”   It would trigger a loss of support for economic sanctions and the mullahs would most likely refuse to collaborate with the US on other issues.

Furthermore, if the Rouhani government failed to reach a nuclear agreement and relieve the sanctions, “then the conservatives in Tehran would return to dominate the thinking and actions of the Supreme Leader.”

The mullahs would “build its nuclear program with renewed conviction…and might make a decision to build a nuclear weapon.”  And America would renew its interest in regime change, creating an environment that “could lead the United States and Israel to threaten military strikes, with the probability of war, either deliberate or inadvertent.”

The authors offer only two roads ahead.  One is based on negotiating a nuclear agreement that, in turn, might defang the Iranian pariah and open the door to partnering with the US to resolve foreign policy difficulties.  The other road leads to Iran’s development of a nuclear bomb and the probability of war. The very familiar tactic repeatedly used over the years to justify the failed policy of appeasement towards the mullahs in Iran, which has not only been unable to contain their progress on the nuclear front but has actually embolden the mullahs to meddle in the region and to create more crisis everywhere including Syria, Iraq and lately in Yemen.

The report, which claims to be a “tough-minded assessment” and “balanced,” is, in fact, fear-mongering propaganda.

Iranian regime is now the biggest sponsor of estate terrorism and is therefore the largest threat to the global peace. It is absurd to think America would collaborate with them to solve regional conflicts.  And only the most gullible and naive would have suggested diplomacy could tame the mullahs.

Yet now the authors of the Iran Project report recommend this same pathway in the hope the Iranian regime may become more peaceful and shed its extremist Islamic zeal.

The Iranian mullahs view the West’s appeasement as weakness.  They are hoping to buy enough time to complete work on a missile-deliverable nuclear weapon. 

Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s smiling president, is no moderate.  Rouhani has held many of the top national defense positions and was appointed in 1991 by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the country’s highest national security organization, comprised by the head of the Armed Forces, Chief of the Army, Minister of Intelligence and Security, Chief of the IRGC, and others.

The SNSC has a parallel organization (Omure Vijeh Committee) that oversees extralegal actions.  Rouhani was a member of the panel when it approved the bombing of the Israel Embassy in 1992 in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 people and wounded 242 others.  He also was a member when it authorized the 1994 suicide bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires and the 1996 Khobar Towers truck bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen and wounded more than 500 other people.

Rouhani is no moderate as the authors of the report claim.  They falsely predict the conservatives in Tehran will return to dominate the “thinking and actions of the Supreme Leader” if a nuclear agreement is not reached.   Rouhani is a protégé of Khamenei and they both share responsibility for many terrorist attacks and assassinations of pro-democracy patriots seeking to overthrow the despotic regime.  Rouhani is a conservative, just as every other president of Iran has been a conservative in the past 35 years. 

Victim of acid attacks on girls and women in Iran for disobeying regime's dress code.

Victim of acid attacks on girls and women in Iran for disobeying regime’s dress code.

The recent Acid attacks on women and girls in Iran, and the unprecedented repression of religious minorities in Iran under Rouhani’s watch, only have one message, the Rouhani’s regime is no different than its predecessors and certainly not a moderate. In fact there is no evidence to suggest the Iranian regime can be rehabilitated.  The mullahs are driven by an extremist Islamic ideology. Even without nuclear weapon, they have been supporting the use of terror and have dispatched armed forces to disrupt neighboring governments with the goal of installing Islamic Republics. 

The authors of the report offer only two options for dealing with the Iranian regime.  But there is a third option – regime change.  The West should announce its support for regime change in Iran.  It should not align with its tyrannical rulers, but with pro-democracy organizations that  seek to restore freedom in Iran.

The authors of the Iran Project refuse to adopt any measures that might undermine the mullahs’ authority, including regime change.  Instead, they seek policies that will enhance their legitimacy and appease their hegemonic ambitions.  As such they are enemies of democracy and their report should be discarded as a propaganda ploy designed to legitimatize the despotic Iranian regime.

All Hands on Deck for Iran Nuclear Deal

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Regime Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during an earlier session in ongoing nuclear talks. Photo Credit: Christian Science Monitor

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Regime Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during an earlier session in ongoing nuclear talks.
Photo Credit: Christian Science Monitor

Adam Kredo reports in a story in the Washington Free Beacon that the Truman National Security Project, a leading think tank aligned with liberal causes, has begun an effort to enlist supporters in what it characterized as a “all hands on deck” campaign to help secure passage of an Iranian nuclear arms agreement by the Obama administration.

One of the more revealing comments in the article was made by a senior foreign policy official at another DC-based organization who called Truman “reckless.”

“The Truman Institute long ago stopped being a real policy shop and instead became a PR machine for the Obama administration’s foreign policy. The White House will take a deal no matter what, so the Truman Institute is pushing a deal no matter what,” said this official.

This goes to the heart of what is the most troubling aspect of the ongoing negotiations; the perception that the Obama administration is so starved for any kind of foreign policy movement it can call a win that it is willing to take a terrible deal in order to trumpet a victory.

The fact that the administration last month signaled a trial balloon to circumvent Congress in agreeing to a de facto deal with Iran is only more proof of what could soon turn into a disastrous decision.

In granting Iran a deal allowing it to keep thousands of centrifuges, its core missile technology and infuse it with billions in new cash as sanctions ease, the Obama administration could very well seal the deal for a nuclear-armed Iran within this decade. But the administration is not comprised of political idiots. They are shrewd, smart and experienced and realize with the midterm election sea change in Congress, they need to act quickly to make such a deal a fait accompli.

Which is why the administration is ginning up Truman and the Iranian regime’s PR machine, including outfits such as the National Iranian American Council are very much using the opportunity in a full court press to build grassroots support and provide political cover for supporting the President in making this deal.

A key facet is to enlist writers to pen editorials and letters to the editor to key newspapers in selected states where it believes they need to shore up support among Congressmen. Among the states listed as targets by Truman are Illinois, New Hampshire, Georgia, Arizona and New York. It’s worth noting that Republicans won key Senate and gubernatorial races in Illinois and Georgia and pushed New Hampshire to the limit.

While President Obama closing his Asia tour, it is becoming increasingly clear that the leverage in current talks lies almost exclusively with the Iranian mullahs. The President’s missive to Supreme Leader Khamenei (his sixth so far) had a plaintive quality as he almost begged for Iranian help in stopping ISIS.

Based on these services, the mullahs have calculated, that they can live with no deal and continue on their clandestine weapons development program and still maintain the momentum in Iraq and Syria. They also reason that the U.S. is willing to come way over to their side in order to secure a deal. The only question for Khamenei and his lobbies and advocates is how much can they wring out of Obama. If Truman’s proposed PR push is successful, the answer is “a lot.”

By: Michael Tomlinson

What the Change in the Senate Means for Iran

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ElectionWith last night’s historic changes in the U.S. midterm elections, control of the Senate has shifted to Republicans and their control over the House has strengthened in what is being called a tsunami election that washed away incumbent Democrats across the country. While Republican control of the Senate will not be filibuster or veto proof, this new majority puts further obstacles to President Obama’s earlier hinted at plan to reach a compromise agreement with Iran on nuclear weapons and skirt Congressional approval in implementing it.

Supporters of Iran such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council have already begun laying the groundwork for framing the chances of a nuclear agreement with the new Congress by reiterating the canard that so-called “neo-cons” would seize the opportunity to sink a deal in order to keep alive the possibility of a return to war in the Middle East by the U.S.

The reality is starkly different than what Mr. Parsi and his cohorts would have Americans believe.

First of all, opposition to a nuclear deal that grants Iran the ability to maintain its nuclear enrichment infrastructure is bipartisan with both Democrats and Republicans having signed on to consecutive bills toughening economic sanctions on Iranian regime. In a bitterly divided government that could not agree on budgets, healthcare, the economy or even food stamps, could quickly and almost eagerly come to agreement on pressuring Iran into not keeping nuclear weapons.

In fact, in 2013, over 400 members of Congress from both parties signed on to HR 850 to toughen sanctions on Iran. It is a convenient fiction to portray Republican control as an impediment to negotiations when in fact prominent Democrats such as former vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman have staunchly warned against a nuclear-capable Iran.

Secondly, Mr. Parsi et al have sounded shrill warnings on Twitter that President Obama’s hand has been weakened by last night’s results. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, the President’s hand has been strengthened by conveying to the ruling mullahs in Iran that the U.S. will harden its position in terms of verification, inspections and open access; offering no loopholes for them to slip a deal through. More incredibly, in an editorial in Foreign Affairs, Mr. Parsi attempts to lay blame on the Senate defeat for Democrats and the change in political winds for a deal on Israel; an absurd notion, even for him.

Supreme Leader Khamenei may have already had an inkling of this sea change in the American political landscape when he opted to deliver several lengthy and highly technical speeches over the summer denouncing the talks and the West and openly reaffirming Iran’s need for a massive expansion in centrifuges used for enriching nuclear fuel. These statements effectively sank the first round of talks and he and Iran’s ruling clerical councils have taken no actions to convince us otherwise.

The situation with Iran has become so adversarial that the International Atomic Energy Agency, the watchdog group tasked to inspect and monitor Iran’s nuclear program, issued last week a scathing update on Iran detailing how it continues to be stonewalled and how it has been denied even initial inspections of disputed sites.

Coupled with this has been the unusual absence of any mention by Mr. Parsi and Iran’s lobbying and PR machine of Iran’s horrific human rights record. The UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, Mr. Ahmed Shaheed, just released his annual update on Iran’s dismal human rights record, taking special notice of the deteriorating plight of women, religious minorities and political dissidents.

 

One would think if you are attempting to negotiate an agreement with a state, it would make sense to test that government’s ability to live up to a deal by gauging the treatment of its own people and the opening up of the nation to foreign media and international inspection; all things that Iran’s mullahs have so far refused to do.

What the change in the Senate does promise however is a reset for the President of sorts. By closing the door firmly on any idea to circumvent Congress and seek out an inferior deal, President Obama should take the opportunity to hold Iran truly accountable and test how serious the mullahs really are about reaching an accord.

The suspicion among many international observers is that Khamenei and others in the decision making level in Iran actually have very little desire to reach an accord with the West and prefer the constant state of enmity and a so-called “war economy” focusing limited resources on its nuclear program and its broad slate of foreign adventures in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Afghanistan and Yemen.

Pressing Iran to commit to a lower threshold on centrifuges and slowdowns in missile development by the November 24th deadline, tied alongside improvements in its human rights record would be the magic elixir necessary for a deal palatable to this new Congress.

 

While Iranian regime’s supporters will attempt to portray the new Senate as a haven of “neo-cons” the truth is far different. This is merely an effort to lay the groundwork for a failed deal in favor of the mullahs, since it is becoming clearer that Khamenei and his handpicked president, Hassan Rouhani, are only stalling in order to keep their enrichment program untouched. Some suggest that the most likely scenario would be a quick agreement by November 24th and an effort to get something through the lame duck session of Congress before the new members are sworn in January 2015, however given the internal crisis the mullahs are facing and particularly their recent loss of their puppet Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq, they seem more flimsy than ever to be able to accept any deal that would contain their nuclear ambitions.

 

Thus the Iranian lobby’s maneuver would be ill-advised and unlikely to prevail after last night.