Iran Lobby

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

Iran Regime Threatens to Shoot Down American Planes as Tensions RiseIran Regime Threatens to Shoot Down American Planes as Tensions Rise

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Iran Regime Threatens to Shoot Down American Planes as Tensions Rise

US Claims Iran Threatened to Shoot down US Military Planes near Iranian Airspace

In a sign of the growing escalation in confrontations being manufactured by the Iranian regime, two U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft flying in international airspace near Iran were challenged and threatened by regime air defense stations over the weekend and told to change course or be shot down.

U.S. officials disclosed the aircraft were flying over the Strait of Hormuz on routine patrols, which the Iranian regime has used as a platform to intimidate commercial and naval ships with frequent run-ins with regime patrol and attack boats, often running courses directly at ships, ignoring warnings as severe as gunfire across their bows.

Using ground-to-air communications, officials at the Iranian air defense station told the crews they were flying near Iranian airspace and that if they didn’t change their course quickly they risked being fired upon, according to a spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain, Cmdr. Bill Urban.

“We will fire Iranian missile,” was one of the transmissions from the ground, he said. Both the American planes were threatened in three separate radio calls, Cmdr. Urban said in a statement.

U.S. State Department officials decried the incident, saying it showed Iran had yet to show signs of shifting from its aggressive stance in the region even after the international nuclear agreement reached last year.

“Frankly, there’ve been previous incidents much like this, and they’re concerning, obviously. They escalate tensions,” said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman. ”We have conveyed our concerns to Iran.”

The Navy P-8 Poseidon with a crew of nine and an EP-3 Eries with a crew of roughly 24, were flying a reconnaissance mission 13 miles off the coast of Iran, through the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman, according to officials who call the boundary Iran’s “black line.”

Iran’s territorial waters—like all nations–extend 12 miles into the sea, according to international maritime law, neither aircraft breached the boundary line.

The US military planes ignored the warning and continued flying in international airspace, although close to Iranian territory, the officials told Fox News.

“We wanted to test the Iranian reaction,” one US official told Fox News when asked why the US jets were flying close to Iran.

“It’s one thing to tell someone to get off your lawn, but we weren’t on their lawn,” the official continued.  “Anytime you threaten to shoot someone down, it’s not considered professional.”

“This been a continuing issue with respect to Iranian intercepts,” said Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, who is the top U.S. commander of the coalition air war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

The increasing frequency of incidents raises the question of why the regime is acting in such a provocative manner. Many within the Iran lobby have argued these acts are being committed by a small segment of hardliners within the Revolutionary Guard Corps who object to the opening up of Iran to the West as signaled by the nuclear agreement reached 14 months ago.

The line of reasoning attempts to mask the growing militant nature of the regime and the almost earnest efforts by regime officials to spark a conflict. One could almost surmise the mullahs actually are trying to provoke a response from the U.S. military in order to claim the moral high ground against the Great Satan, but why? For what purpose?

Most analysts agree that the supposed benefits of the nuclear agreement with the lifting of economic sanctions have not benefitted ordinary Iranians at all. Their economic condition remains bleak and as a result, there has been significant restlessness amongst the population, with large demonstrations over stagnant wages and rampant corruption taking place.

The regime, especially top mullah Ali Khamenei, have been vocal and outspoken in blaming the U.S. for the struggling economy and the perceived lack of benefits flowing from the nuclear deal, but what the mullahs don’t want to talk about is how they have decided to use most of the financial windfall the regime received, including the “ransom” payments of $1.7 billion for American hostages, to continue funding proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and not spend it to improve the lives of Iranians.

Also, while the U.S. did lift its nuclear related sanctions last January, other sanctions, including financial ones, related to Iran’s ballistic missile program, allegations of state sponsoring of terror groups and human rights abuse claims remain.

Major international banks are unwilling to risk losing access to the dollar market or huge fines out of fear of inadvertently falling afoul of what they say are ambiguous U.S. regulations.

It is an ironic turn of events since the regime was adamant during negotiations that issues not related to nuclear programs be de-linked. Now the mullahs are paying the price for that decision.

This may explain why the regime is acting so aggressively in order to divert attention from the economic turmoil and political unrest and create a false crisis internationally. It is an old tactic and one the mullahs are dusting off in the hopes of overcoming the domestic discontent they are facing in spite of a massive crackdown at home on journalists, students and dissidents.

Ultimately it should not come as any surprise to see the regime increase these confrontations and try to provoke a response. Otherwise, their own necks might be on the line.

By Michael Tomlinson

Study Points to Iran Regime Funding of Terror from US Payment

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Study Points to Iran Regime Funding of Terror from US Payment

Study Points to Iran Regime Funding of Terror from US Payment

Last year the US stacked bundles of euros and Swiss francs on pallets and loaded them onto a transport aircraft bound for Tehran. The $400 million was destined to be used as leverage in securing the release of American hostages being held illegally by the Iranian regime as part of the nuclear deal.

That $400 million would later swell to a total of $1.7 billion in cash paid out to the mullahs as part of a settlement agreement over a longstanding dispute regarding payment made by the deposed Shah of Iran’s government for US military hardware prior to the Islamic revolution.

What has caused concern among elected officials and policymakers is the doubt surrounding what the regime would do with the cash windfall. A recent study by the American Action Forum, a non-profit research organization, estimated that as much as $37.4 million of this $1.7 billion were funneled directly to fund operations of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

These operations have stretched from supporting the Assad regime in Syria to Shiite militias and death squads in Iraq to Houthi rebel forces in Yemen, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Leading US lawmakers now suspect that the IRGC played a key role in assuming control of this cash, which the White House has admitted to putting directly in Iranian hands, the Free Beacon disclosed Monday evening.

“Applying the official spending levels to the U.S. payment to Iran, the $1.7 billion would mean $37.4 million for the IRGC,” according to research published by Rachel Hoff, AAF’s director of defense analysis. “Paying ransoms in exchange for Americans held abroad is one bad policy—indirectly funding terrorism is another.”

AAF has determined based on public reports by Iran that the country spends 3.4 percent of its total budget on defense needs, though some experts, including Iranian dissident groups, estimate the number is much higher.

At least “65 percent of that funding [goes] to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Iranian elite paramilitary force,” according to AAF. “That works out to 2.2 percent of Iran’s total budget for the IRGC, which actively supports terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East. It is unlikely that Iran accurately reports its military or paramilitary spending, but the reported budget figures are useful as a baseline.”

Most disturbing is the very real possibility that the US exchanged the cash payments directly to IRGC agents and members of its military intelligence units which have been at the forefront attacks against US personnel in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq over the past three decades.

The Iranian regime’s long support for terrorism has included more recent revelations about the mullahs links to Al-Qaeda; a fact that regime and Iran lobby have worked frantically to cover up by trying point blame on Saudi Arabia instead.

Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Dmeocracies, recently took regime foreign minister Javad Zarif to task in a series of tweets lambasting an editorial Zarif penned in the New York Times.

“Where is Abu Hamzah al Khalidi, the head of al Qaeda’s military commission, currently? He’s in #Iran:http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2016/07/treasury-designates-three-senior-al-qaeda-members-in-iran.php …” read one of his tweets, correctly pointing out how the Iran regime provides safe havens for Al-Qaeda leaders.

Joscelyn reminds us that the State Department’s original sanction against Iran in 2011 was because of the revelations of a “secret deal” between Iran and Al-Qaeda to provide the terror group behind the 9/11 attacks support.

That burgeoning conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Iranian regime drew a strong rebuke a warning from Mecca province governor Prince Khaled al-Faisal who urged Iran to end what he called wrong attitudes toward Arabs and warned it against any use of force in its rivalry with the kingdom.

The Saudi Press Agency quoted Prince Khaled as telling journalists his message to the Iranian leadership was “I pray to God Almighty to guide them and to deter them from their transgression and their wrong attitudes toward their fellow Muslim among the Arabs in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and around the world”.

“But if they are preparing an army to invade us, we are not easily taken by someone who would make war on us.”

Alarmingly, it now seems in addition to the $1.7 billion in cash the regime received from the US, the total amount of cash released back to Iran as part of the nuclear deal could have reached as high as $34 billion, with no tracking of how that money is being used by the mullahs.

The Associated Press reports Iran brought home roughly $20 billion dollars from this deal. But nearly $12 billion dollars in previously frozen U.S. sanctions were given to Tehran as nuclear talks progressed. Add to that the $1.7-billion-dollar cash payout the White House gave Tehran before the release of several U.S. hostages this year and the sum total soars to nearly $34 billion dollars.

“So every dollar that goes to Iran you have to assume is going to go to Hezbollah,” said Senator Marco Rubio (R) FL. “Or it’s going to go to their missile program, or their nuclear ambition or their military.”

Unlike digital transfers of money, cash is untraceable. Some experts say we likely will never know how Iran will take advantage of this windfall.

By Laura Carnahan

State Dept. Concedes Nuclear Deal May Have Fed Iran Regime Aggression

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State Dept. Concedes Nuclear Deal May Have Fed Iran Regime Aggression

State Dept. Concedes Nuclear Deal May Have Fed Iran Regime Aggression

Ever since the U.S. and other nations entered into negotiations with the Iranian regime over a nuclear deal and completed it more than a year ago, critics including the Iranian resistance movement have been warning that a deal that did not also address the regime’s poor human rights record, oppressive government and support of terrorism would inevitably prove fruitless and only empower and embolden the mullahs in Tehran.

The Iran lobby also argued strongly that the nuclear deal would help “moderate” the regime and open the door for more liberal elements of the government to make gains. Notable regime supporters such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council and Ali Gharib pushed the idea that Iran could help stabilize the volatile Middle East once a deal had been passed.

Even sympathetic editorial pages and commentators were actively encouraged by the administration to support the deal on the basis that it would bring economic benefits to the Iranian people long beleaguered by crippling sanctions and gross corruption and mismanagement by regime officials.

Over the past year, reality has set in and the world has discovered that virtually none of those promises and assurances ever came true and in fact the litany of woe heaped on the world by the rising tide of radicalized extremism flowing from Iran since the nuclear deal has all but reshaped the landscape of the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Africa and even touched Latin America.

The luxury of 20/20 hindsight has allowed the world to see the results of the nuclear deal and it is hard for even the most ardent member of the Iran lobby to put a positive spin that is remotely believable.

Things are so blatantly obvious that even the State Department has finally conceded that the nuclear deal may have in fact emboldened the Iranian regime to commit even more aggressive and militant acts; not diminish it.

Under questioning from Fox News reporter James Rosen, State Department spokesman Mark Toner could not rule out that the deal “has served as a cause for this more aggressive posture” by the regime.

Rosen noted, Iran had recently threatened to shoot down two US Navy surveillance planes in international airspace. This was just the latest in a growing list of provocations, including taking 10 US sailors hostage and abusing them in violation of international law.

The New York Post editorial board was flabbergasted by the admission since if the Obama administration had even an inkling of this aberrant behavior on the part of the mullahs, it made no sense to continue a policy of appeasing them, including bending over backwards to ship the regime $1.7 billion in hard cash in exchange for American hostages.

The Post said that of course, after citing incidents that “needlessly escalate tensions” Toner then said it all makes the deal even “more important, because the last thing anyone would want to see in the region is a nuclear-armed Iran.”

“Especially, we’d add, an Iran grown even more aggressive and hostile precisely because of that very deal.

“The logic here is just mind-boggling.

“Yes, Iran has been emboldened by a deal that gives it billions in cash now and an easy road to going nuclear in a few years — thanks to a president who won’t dare challenge Tehran’s behavior and risk undoing his dubious diplomatic legacy.

“Nice to see someone finally admitting as much,” the Post added.

The Iranian regime isn’t taking the potential for blowback lightly. Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reports that the country’s foreign minister and his international counterparts will meet this month to discuss “some differences” over the implementation of the landmark nuclear deal.

The Wednesday report says they will focus on banking sanctions, which Iran complains have not been fully lifted. The meeting will take place Sep. 22, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, where the regime’s Hassan Rouhani is scheduled to speak in what we can only assume will be a verbal tongue lashing blaming the U.S. for a wide range of problems resulting from a now failed nuclear deal.

It has been clear from statements made by regime officials such as Ali Khamenei and members of the Iran lobby that the regime has shifted focus now to condemning the U.S. for the inability of the regime to participate in U.S. currency exchanges because of sanctions put in place for its support of terrorism and not related to the original nuclear deal.

The Iranian regime also recognizes that since the deal was passed, its conflict with Saudi Arabia, especially in Syria and Yemen, is stalling its plans for regional hegemony under a radicalized Shiite banner. The influence of Saudi Arabia in standing up to Iran including its active fighting in Yemen and interception of Iranian boast trying to smuggle illicit weapons through the Persian Gulf to Houthi rebels in Yemen has been effective and annoying to the mullahs in Tehran.

This helps explain why the Iranian regime has turned its attention and that of the Iran lobby into a full-blown smear campaign aimed at Saudi Arabia, and by association the U.S.

This can be seen in an editorial appearing in the New York Times penned by Mohammad Javad Zarif, the regime’s foreign minister, blaming Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia in particular for literally every terrorist act being committed around the world and chastised the Kingdom’s large lobbying efforts.

It is a preposterous piece since it blames Saudi Arabia for exactly what the Iranian regime is doing itself with its own substantial investment in PR firms, lobbyists, paid analysts, bloggers and commentators, as well as spreading cash to a large number of so-called grassroots organizations such as the Ploughshares Fund which strongly advocated for the nuclear deal.

Danielle Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, took Zarif to task and ticked off the Iranian regime’s own bloody history of support for terrorism around the world in a piece appearing on AEI’s site.

“It was the Islamic Republic that created Hezbollah and sponsored the groups that kidnapped and murdered Americans through Lebanon’s long civil war,” Pletka writes. “It is Iran that props up the murderous Assad regime — you know, the guys that have repeatedly gassed their own people. It is Iran that has assassinated its enemies the world over, and it is Iran’s own Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (and its expeditionary Quds Force) that was responsible, during the Iraq war, for hundreds of US servicemen dying.”

The first step in recovery for any addict is to admit they have a problem. We can only hope this admission by the State Department will be the first step in confronting the Iranian regime forcefully, honestly and openly again.

By Michael Tomlinson

Relocation of Iranian Dissidents a Triumph Against Regime Efforts

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Relocation of Iranian Dissidents a Triumph Against Regime Efforts

Relocation of Iranian Dissidents a Triumph Against Regime Efforts

A camp in Iraq has been home to a large group of Iranian dissidents and a constant thorn in the side of the mullahs in Tehran. Since 1986, the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), one of the largest and oldest Iranian resistance groups opposed to religious rule of the Iranian regime, has resided in Iraq, its numbers swelled by Iranians fleeing the mullahs’ rule over the years.

Camp Ashraf was a monument to the tenacity and endurance of the Iranian resistance movement which took over a barren piece of land without facilities, infrastructure or even a source of water and turned it into a modern city complete with schools, medical and manufacturing facilities and even sports fields.

It was partly used as a U.S. military base during the Iraq invasion and eventually turned over to the Iraqi government in 2009 with the PMOI population rising to as much as 3,400 residents by 2012.

In the aftermath of the U.S. drawdown of forces in Iraq, the Iranian regime increased its influence within the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki, eventually forcing the expulsion of Sunnis from the coalition government and rearming the Shiite militias, part of the terrorist Quds force a branch of IRGC.

The Iranian regime influence manifested itself with an increasing number of deadly attacks on the residents of Camp Ashraf by Iraqi security forces at the behest of Iranian officials. Over the past 10 years, Camp Ashraf has been attacked several times, the worst being on April 8, 2011 when Iraqi security forces stormed the camp and killed as many as 36 and wounding 320 residents, and on September 1, 2013, leaving a death toll of 52 victims.

The attacks had been widely condemned by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and the United Nations.

For the PMOI members living there, surviving against this constant harassment was a symbol of the resistance to the mullahs’ efforts and a constant reminder to Tehran that Iranians stood against their tyrannical rule.

As part of a U.S.-brokered agreement, relocation of the PMOI members to safe third-countries willing to take them became the compromise that ultimately helped save these lives and place them out of the reach of the Iranian regime.

For the Iranian regime, the continued existence of PMOI/MEK was anathema to it because it represented a viable alternative to the rule of the mullahs and offered a narrative of a free, open, democratic and pluralistic government alternative to what the Iranian people experienced, which is why the regime placed such an emphasis on attacking Camp Ashraf, as well as banning membership in the group in Iran; making it punishable by imprisonment or death.

Almost 2,000 dissident Iranians resettled in nearly a dozen European countries, including the UK, since the start of 2016.

Shahin Gobadi, spokesperson for PMOI/MEK, said the successful relocation of the group represented a “major blow to the clerical regime and a major victory for the Iranian Resistance”.

He added: “One has to keep in mind that this happened despite all the conniving and conspiracy and obstructions by the clerical regime which sought to force the residents to either give up resistance and succumb or to be massacred.”

A milestone was reached when the last PMOI/MEK members were safely relocated out of Camp Ashraf to Albania this week. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the Iranian Resistance, heralded this as a major setback for the totalitarian regime.

“In these 14 years, thanks to the endurance of the PMOI and its members in Ashraf and Camp Liberty, and relentless political and international campaigns, the clerical regime’s schemes to destroy and annihilate the Iranian Resistance were thwarted. The Iranian people’s movement for freedom thus took a substantial step forward against the clerical regime. The regime’s plan to guarantee its own survival with the physical elimination of the PMOI/MEK was foiled,” she said.

The significance of the move should not be lost as the regime and its allies in the Iran lobby have tried over the past decade to demonize and denigrate the Iranian resistance movement, but failed in their efforts.

The resistance movement embodied in PMOI/MEK and the umbrella National Council of Resistance of Iran, has been responsible for many of the most devastating disclosures about the illicit activities of the mullahs in Tehran, including the first revelations of Iran’s secret nuclear program, as well as the ongoing deterioration of human rights in Iran.

It is for those reasons and more that the Iranian regime has tried hard to eradicate the movement and its members, but after nearly five years, the last members of the Iranian resistance are finally in safety and security.

By Michael Tomlinson

Hassan Rouhani Begins Charm Tour Leading to UN Speech

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Hassan Rouhani Begins Charm Tour Leading to UN Speech

Hassan Rouhani Begins Charm Tour Leading to UN Speech

The United Nations General Assembly Session over the years has been the scene of many speeches both famous and infamous. Some of the more memorable addresses by some infamous people include Venezuelan strong man Hugo Chavez in 2006, Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2009 and Iranian regime leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2010.

It has been used as a platform to bully the world. It has been used to make extravagant accusations. It has been used to charm and lull the world into believing false narratives.

It has also been used to raise human rights issues. It has been used to advocate for peace, democracy and tolerance. It has been used to raise the hope for a world seeking to make a better place for the future.

The General Assembly exists to serve the aims of whoever chooses to speak and the annual general session is a free for all so world leaders can make their rhetorical claims on whatever topic they choose.

Into this platform has stepped Hassan Rouhani, the handpicked president of the Iranian regime who has used previous sessions to make lofty promises of openness, moderation and dedication to finding diplomatic solutions to intractable problems.

Unfortunately, the reality of the Iranian regime’s actions has never lived up to his rhetoric.

As recently as Rouhani’s address to the UN last year, he suggested that the nuclear agreement reached with Iran and world powers would help create the basis for broader engagement, in a speech that was noted for its departure from the strident tone of his boss, top mullah Ali Khamenei.

Last year Rouhani spent considerable time extolling the diplomatic success of the agreement, claiming it would lift years of painful economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for verifiable guarantees that its nuclear activities remain peaceful.

In the year since he gave that optimistic speech, relations between the Iranian regime and the rest of the world has plummeted to new lows. Among the regime low-lights since he gave his speech:

  • Iranian regime has stepped up arrests of dual-national citizens following the linking of releasing American hostages in exchange for $1.7 billion from the U.S.;
  • Iranian regime has expanded proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen through its continued support of terror groups such as Hezbollah and its recruitment of Afghan mercenaries and arming of Shiite militias and Houthi rebels;
  • The regime has continued development and test firing of ballistic missiles in defiance of UN restrictions, alongside being granted exemptions from the nuclear deal allowing it to maintain large stockpiles of heavy water and operating “hot cells” for the handling of nuclear materials;
  • Iranian regime has instituted large crackdowns against dissidents, students, journalists, ethnic and religious minorities, including knocking off the majority dissident and moderate candidates from parliamentary election ballots; and
  • Iranian regime stepped up open confrontations in the Persian Gulf with U.S. Navy warships, necessitating evasive maneuvers and even warning shots to be fired, even as the regime engages in a massive military build-up with purchases from Russia.

It has hardly been a year of peace and moderation as Rouhani claimed and the Iran lobby has argued for since the nuclear deal was reached.

A closer look at Rouhani’s travel itinerary shows his focus on a tour of designed to expand the regime’s sphere of influence into Latin America as he visits Venezuela this week.

At the UN General Assembly though, Rouhani’s task will be more difficult—not only because more people are likely disbelieve his assertions given the regime’s track record—but also that Khamenei may be finding Rouhani’s utility waning and the need for this particular puppet lessening.

Many analysts and Iranian dissidents have predicted that Rouhani’s selection in a purportedly rigged presidential election was designed to allow the regime to present a more genial and media-savvy face to open a rapprochement with the U.S. in order to secure a favorable deal alleviating the regime of crippling economic sanctions.

Now that the regime has been appeased through the nuclear agreement, the need for friendly regime face may be fading as Khamenei has indulged his desire for more aggressive confrontations with the U.S. and its allies.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, president of the International American Council, says a sign of that shift may come if Rouhani’s speech criticizes the U.S., highlighting Washington’s failure to let Tehran rejoin the financial global system.

Iran’s UN speech will most likely repeat Khamenei’s message, in a more diplomatic way, that the US has been “breaking oaths, not acting on their commitments and creating obstacles,” he said.

Rouhani’s speech is also unlikely to make any mention of the current hostages being held by the regime, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual citizen, who was detained in April at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport.

An Iranian court just handed down a harsh five year prison sentence on her, even though the exact charges have not been disclosed by the regime. Zaghari-Ratcliffe works at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the company that owns the Reuters news agency and her plight, along with other hostages such as Canadian professor Homa Hoodfar, have revived concern about the regime’s plans for more cash for hostage swaps.

As the Wall Street Journal editorialized in an opinion piece:

“One purpose of the harsh sentence is to remind Iranians in the diaspora tempted to return home in the wake of the nuclear deal that the regime sees them as traitors. It’s also no accident that the sentence came shortly after the U.K. upgraded its diplomatic relations back to ambassador level.

“Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson cheered the new opening to Tehran last Monday, only to receive a rude awakening days later. Now the regime has a new political and financial bargaining chip, and Mr. Obama has created a cash-for-hostages incentive system with his earlier ransom. Let’s hope the British government is wiser than to stuff briefcases with unmarked bills.”

The UN should plan on asking Rouhani the tough questions it didn’t ask him the last three times he spoke at the General Assembly.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Oddity of Excusing the Iranian Regime All the Time

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The Oddity of Excusing the Iranian Regime All the Time

Vector illustration of stop excuses concept background

Over the past few years, there has been a concerted effort by many to open up a dialogue to the Iranian regime. The most noteworthy of these efforts has been the nuclear deal struck last year and the creation of the Iran lobby and “echo chamber” of sympathetic journalists, bloggers, think tanks and lobbyists working to change perceptions about the mullahs in Tehran.

These efforts have included blasting out press releases, running letter writing campaigns, pushing messages on social media and even cornering Congressmen in hallways to press them on supporting this outreach.

Media such as the New York Times have even gone so far as to offer package deals for tourists to visit Iran in an effort to spur the idea of cultural and tourism exchanges in the hopes of portraying Iran as a friendly destination like Disney World in Orlando.

Unfortunately, that offer should probably come with the proviso that if you are a dual citizen Iranian-American, you might get arrested and tossed in prison for no reason and exchanged eventually for a few million dollars.

A curious side effect of these efforts has been the global effort to overlook and even make excuses for almost any egregious act committed by the regime by these sympathizers and apologists.

That apology train rolled out throughout the nuclear negotiations and in the year since.

  • The launching of illegal ballistic missiles? Technically not covered by the nuclear agreement and the UN sanctions were THAT explicit in banning them;
  • The escalation of the conflict in Syria that has led to 600,000 Syrian deaths at the hands of Hezbollah, Quds Force and Revolutionary Guard fighters? Peace in Syria was not part of the nuclear agreement;
  • The payment of $400 million in cash directly linked to the release of American hostages? We owed the mullahs the money anyway;
  • The executions of almost 3,000 Iranians under the administration of “moderate” Hassan Rouhani? Regrettable, but not part of the nuclear deal;
  • The start of the civil war in Yemen and Sunni/Shiite conflict in Iraq through IRGC units and backing? The Iranian regime is not explicitly in control of those wars; and
  • The snatching of even more foreign hostages including Americans, Canadians and British citizens? Hardliners are just trying to embarrass moderates in the regime.

At a certain point you just have to ask yourself when does the charade end and reality start to settle in people’s heads? Are we going to continue to ignore the transgressions of the Iranian regime simply because we are living on the “hope” they will eventually somehow magically change and become avid fans of Apple iPhones, McDonald’s burgers and the NFL?

Even the actual implementation of the nuclear agreement itself has been fraught with transgressions, exemptions and excuse-making.

Take for instance the release of an update from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency which assured the world that Iran was not violating the agreement, but buried within it was a disturbing notation that the regime had begun manufacturing new rotor tubes for centrifuges, allowing them to produce enriched uranium fuel that could be turned into nuclear warheads.

Iran is allowed to make the parts, but only under certain conditions.

For the 5,060 low-tech centrifuges now producing limited amounts of fuel-grade enriched uranium in Iran, Tehran must use spare parts stripped from old or idle machines. Parts for more advanced centrifuges would fall under even tighter regulations.

In its confidential report obtained by The Associated Press, the atomic energy agency said “related technical discussions” with Iran on rotor tube manufacturing are ongoing.

The agency needs to keep a close eye on how many rotor tubes are being made and for what models of centrifuges to make sure they are being produced only in quantities and for machines allowed under the 2015 nuclear agreement that sets a schedule for when and how many advanced centrifuges can be tested.

Any overproduction could hint at possible plans by Iran to expand advanced centrifuge testing beyond pact limits. That could be a significant issue, considering enriched uranium is a potential pathway to nuclear arms because more technically sophisticated models can enrich the uranium much more quickly than Iran’s present mainstay centrifuges, according to US News and World Report.

This was the same IAEA that was prohibited by Iran from having inspectors on the ground to collect soil samples from a nuclear site that was reportedly scrubbed clean by the regime, only to have radioactive particles show up in subsequent testing.

Earlier this month, a U.S. think-tank said Iran had been secretly allowed to overstep certain thresholds in order to get the deal through on time, but a diplomat said no limits had been exceeded apart from one incident which the agency reported in February.

The Institute for Science and International Security think-tank, headed by a former IAEA inspector, said one of the secret concessions exempted unknown quantities of low-enriched uranium contained in liquid, solid and sludge wastes.

It also said Iran had been allowed to keep operating 19 radiation containment chambers more than set out in the deal. These so-called “hot cells” are used for handling radioactive material but can be “misused for secret, mostly small-scale plutonium separation efforts,” it said.

All of these actions demonstrate that as long as the world seems willing to continue looking the other way, the Iranian regime is certainly willing to continue engaging in unlawful behavior. This presents the central problem with the West’s approach to the Iranian regime.

Unless and until you hold the mullahs accountable and stop giving them a blank check or get out of jail card, you are never going to get them to change their behavior or change their leadership.

The great lesson of the tough sanctions imposed earlier that actually brought Iran to the bargaining table in the first place has been lost on world leaders: When they had the opportunity to change Iranian behavior and hold it accountable for terrorism and human rights violations, the world blinked and let the mullahs slide based on the false hope that change was possible without leverage or consequences.

By Michael Tomlinson

Important to Remember Iran Role in 9/11 Attacks

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Important to Remember Iran Role in 9/11 AttacksImportant to Remember Iran Role in 9/11 Attacks

Important to Remember Iran Role in 9/11 Attacks

This Sunday marks the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks which killed 3,000 people and changed the course of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. After a decade and half, much has changed in the world in regards to the global fight against terrorism and much of it not in a good way.

At the center of the shifting sands of terrorism lies the Iranian regime. Its enabling role in much of the terror, death and destruction that has raged across the region over the last 15 years has been documented, but not fully appreciated by the world until lately.

One of those shedding a light on the regime’s role in terror, especially in the 9/11 attacks, is former Sen. Joseph Lieberman, chair of United Against Nuclear Iran, who wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal examining Iran’s role.

“A key al Qaeda partner, Iran, has never been held responsible for its enabling role—even though the 9/11 Commission found that ‘there is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers,’” Lieberman writes.

Lieberman notes correctly that although the U.S. State Department says Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, the regime is willing to work with extremists of the Sunni sect in the Arab world and elsewhere—even though it views itself as the vanguard of the world’s Shiite community. Iran is aiding both Sunni and Shiite terror organizations—including Sunni Hamas and Sunni Islamic Jihad, and Shiite Hezbollah and Shiite Iraqi militias.

For the mullahs in Tehran, terrorism is an equal opportunity vocation that knows no religious boundaries.

He details the long road Osama bin Laden took in developing a relationship with Iran that started Sudan in the 1990s with a meeting with Sheikh Nomani, an emissary of Iran who “had access to the highest echelons of power in Tehran.”

The Washington Institute’s Matthew Levitt and Michael Jacobson concluded, “Iran and al-Qaeda reached an informal agreement to cooperate, with Iran providing critical explosives, intelligence, and security training to bin Laden’s organization.” Because Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) already supported Hezbollah operationally and financially, a vehicle was in place through which they could support and influence al Qaeda.

“After 9/11, Iran became a more important haven for al Qaeda fighters who fled from Afghanistan as the Taliban collapsed,” Lieberman said. “Iran regularly granted the terrorists freedom to move within Iran and to cross into Iraq and Afghanistan to carry out attacks. From their safe base in Iran, al Qaeda members planned terrorist operations, including the 2003 attack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that killed 26 people, including eight Americans, and the 2008 attack on the American Embassy in Yemen that claimed 16 lives, including six terrorists.”

Newly declassified letters captured in the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden reveal how crucial Iran has been to al Qaeda. In a 2007 letter, bin Laden directed al Qaeda not to target Iran because “Iran is our main artery for funds, personnel, and communication,” Lieberman added.

The fact that the Iranian regime has waged a destabilizing war against its neighbors and the U.S. for decades has somehow been glossed over and ignored by the Iran lobby which pushes the idiotic theory that the mullahs are somehow going to change their ways and embrace pluralistic democracy, joining hands and singing songs.

Nothing illustrates the mullahs desire to confront the U.S. in every way as yet another incident occurred in the Persian Gulf as another IRGC fast-attack craft came within 100 yards of a U.S. Navy coastal patrol ship, forcing it to change course this week.

It was at least the fourth such incident in less than a month and demonstrates an escalation in the confrontations ordered by the mullahs in what is becoming an increasingly dangerous game of high seas saber rattling.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the Iranian vessel sailed directly in front of the USS Firebolt, forcing the 174-foot (53-metre) U.S. ship to change course.

The incident began when seven Iranian ships “harassed” the Firebolt, Davis said.

A U.S. Defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the interaction was “unsafe and unprofessional due to lack of communications and the close-range harassing maneuvering,” adding that uncovered and manned weapons were seen on the Iranian vessel.

The U.S. official said there have been 31 similar interactions with Iranian ships this year, almost double the amount from the same period last year.

The sharp increase in incidents shows how feeble the arguments made by the Iran lobby were in promising a more moderate Iran put forth by regime supporters such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council.

All of which makes news of the Obama administration completing its $1.7 billion cash payment to the Iranian regime all the more dubious considering the regime is more than likely using the funds to replenish the coffers of its terrorist clients such as Hezbollah in Syria and the Houthis in Yemen.

Ultimately, given the Iranian regime’s deep and long history of terrorist support, including its relationship with Al-Qaeda, this 9/11 anniversary deserves recognition of the mullahs’ role in supporting terrorism.

By Laura Carnahan

Holding Mullahs Accountable Should be Human Rights Priority

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Holding Mullahs Accountable Should be Human Rights Priority

Holding Mullahs Accountable Should be Human Rights Priority

Whistleblowing is—by its very nature—a risky and sometimes hazardous activity to engage in, but it also is vital if any society is to be expected to be free and democratic. The U.S. has struggled with whistleblowers going back to the Pentagon Papers case with Daniel Ellsberg exposing the Vietnam War to the modern era with Edward Snowden and Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.

On the one hand we applaud people like them for exposing corruption or threats to democracy, but on the other hand we worry about national security or exposure of agents who might be caught and killed.

The strength of any free and open society though has been that exposing wrong doing, even if done for a worthy cause, eventually makes that society stronger. An informed public can hold its leaders accountable and for better or worse, the decisions they make are ones the public is responsible for eventually.

In dictatorial regimes though, whistleblowing is regarded with anathema, akin to treason and often prosecuted with the vigor of hunting down spies and traitors. In the case of the Iranian regime speaking out about any transgressions by the regime often gets you killed.

One case of Iranian whistleblowing involved Dr. Ramin Pourandarjani, who was an Iranian physician that examined prisoners who had been wounded or killed during the mass demonstrations against the stolen 2009 election.

He had worked at the Kahrizak detention center and was responsible for the medical care of several prisoners believed to have been tortured by regime officials. One of his patients was Mohsen Ruholamini, a government scientist’s son, arrested following his participation in the post-election protests.

Ruholamini, who was 25 years old, died in prison in July 2009. The death certificate originally identified Ruholamini’s cause of death as multiple blows to the head. A report given to judicial authorities stated that Ruholamini had died of “physical stress, the effects of being held in bad conditions, multiple blows and severe injuries to the body.”

Pourandarjani publicly testified about conditions at the center and following his testimony he was arrested by regime police. During his own imprisonment, Pourandarjani was repeatedly interrogated by an escalating range of regime agencies, after which he was released on bail, but was told to remain silent and received a stream of death threats.

He died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 26. Tehran’s public prosecutor’s office said he died of poisoning from a delivery salad laced with an overdose of blood pressure medication, but regime officials claimed at various points that Pourandarjani had been injured in a car accident, committed suicide, or died of a heart attack in his sleep at the health center at the police headquarters in Tehran where he worked.

That tradition of abusing whistleblowers was giving new life when the son of an Iranian cleric once in line to be supreme leader has reportedly been charged with acting against national security interests by releasing material from his late father that denounces senior Iranian figures for the mass killings of 30,000 dissidents almost 30 years ago.

After interrogation at a religious court in Qom, Ahmad Montazeri was released on bail of almost $23,000, and told to reappear on Wednesday, according to a report by the Iranian opposition group, National Council of Resistance of Iran/People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which claimed the vast majority of those massacred were affiliated with their groups.

Last month, Montazeri released an audio recording of a 1988 meeting between his father, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, and members of a so-called “death panel” charged with carrying out supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mass execution decree.

One of those on the “death panel” – and at the meeting featured on the audio file – was Mostafa Pourmohammadi, an official who has served in several cabinet positions over the years and was controversially appointed Minister of Justice by “moderate” Hassan Rouhani in 2013. In 1988 he was the intelligence and security ministry’s representative at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.

“Standing up to the violations of human rights in Iran is also the responsibility of Western governments, because its consequences do not remain within Iran. The terrorism and fundamentalism emanating from it, have been hurting defenseless people in Nice, Paris, and Brussels,” said Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the NCRI at an event in Paris which included friends and relatives of those slain.

Bernard Kouchner, former French Foreign Minister and co-founder of Doctors without Borders (MSF) said: “I ask myself what were the human rights defenders doing at that time?” He called for a “special tribunal to prosecute the mullahs for their crimes.”

“The massacres did not take place only in 1988. Iran continues to have the highest execution rate per capita. The executions have even increased after the nuclear deal,” Kouchner added.

According to Mrs. Rajavi, since Rouhani took office over 2,700 executions have taken place Iran, including the latest, a mass execution of 25 Sunnis prisoners from Iranian Kurdistan.

The fact that the Iranian regime has willfully sought to suppress any dissent and execute those who publicly denounce its actions, means the regime acts with the impunity of a serial murderer that isn’t being hunted by law enforcement. The mullahs feel they can get away with the violence they dole out because the West has failed to hold them accountable.

The revelations by the NCRI of the composition of the infamous death panel in 1988 and how many of those same members have risen to hold important positions within the current regime shows how the promises of the Iran lobby of a new “moderate” regime in the wake of the nuclear agreement were all false.

Ultimately, the U.S. and its allies must no longer ignore the truth of these massacres, nor the willing participation of the mullahs now in power in Tehran to hide the truth from the world.

By Michael Tomlinson

Shocking Report Reveals Secret Side Deals to Iran Nuke Agreement

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Shocking Report Reveals Secret Side Deals to Iran Nuke Agreement

Shocking Report Reveals Secret Side Deals to Iran Nuke Agreement

In what is bound to be one of the most startling revelations made about the Iran nuclear agreement, the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based non-profit, non-partisan institution dedicated to informing the public about science and policy issues affecting international security, issued a damning report outlining “secret” concessions granted to the Iranian regime.

In the report, the United States and its negotiating partners agreed “in secret” to allow the Iranian regime to evade some restrictions in last year’s landmark nuclear agreement in order to meet the deadline for it to start getting relief from economic sanctions, according to the think tank’s report published on Thursday.

“The exemptions or loopholes are happening in secret, and it appears that they favor Iran,” said David Albright, the group’s president, in an interview with Reuters.

Among the exemptions outlined in the think tank’s report were two that allowed Iran to exceed the deal’s limits on how much low-enriched uranium (LEU) it can keep in its nuclear facilities, the report said. LEU can be purified into highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium.

Other provisions would allow Iran to continue operating 19 “hot cell” radiation containment chambers; and permission for Iran to store 50 tons of heavy water in Oman under its control, instead of selling it, as required by the nuclear deal.

The exemptions, the report said, were approved by the joint commission the deal created to oversee implementation of the accord. The commission is comprised of the United States and its negotiating partners — called the P5+1 — and Iran.

The Institute noted that the low-enriched uranium could be processed into weapons-grade material, so the secret side deal makes it effectively impossible to know how much bomb material Iran could produce, on fairly short notice. The hot cells can also be “misused for secret, mostly small-scale plutonium separation efforts,” according to the report.

The White House claims these changes to the JCPOA were not kept secret from Congress, but at least one prominent critic of the nuclear deal, Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who is a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told Reuters he was “not aware” of the exemptions, and was never briefed on them.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, (R-N.H.), who sits on the Armed Services Committee, also issued a statement. Ayotte argued that the new evidence of “secret exemptions” underscores “the willingness of the Obama administration to bend over backwards to accommodate Tehran, conceal information from the American people, and protect a fundamentally flawed and deeply dangerous agreement that is only getting worse.”

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who formerly chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was far harsher: “Secret exemptions, ballistic missile tests, ransom payments, heavy water purchases but no sanctions. #Iran’s bent + broken horrid nuke deal,” she tweeted.

“Since the JCPOA is public, any rationale for keeping these exemptions secret appears unjustified. Moreover, the Joint Commission’s secretive decision making process risks advantaging Iran by allowing it to try to systematically weaken the JCPOA. It appears to be succeeding in several key areas,” wrote Albright and his co-author, Andrea Stricker, who has written extensively on the illegal nuclear trade and Iran’s nuclear program.

State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on the work of the joint commission, saying it was confidential, but the lack of transparency flies in the face of the original promises made by the Iran lobby, such as the Ploughshares Fund and National Iranian American Council, which reassured skeptical members of Congress that there were no other provisions in the deal other than what was presented to Congress for review.

That assertion was proven false within days when secret appendices were revealed by the media to exist and now follow up decisions by the join commission can now carve out wide exemptions for the mullahs in Tehran without public review or knowledge.

“The current arrangement has been overly secret and amounts to the generation of additional secret or confidential arrangements directly linked to the JCPOA that do not have adequate oversight and scrutiny,” the report states. “Moreover, the process in general raises the question of whether Iran is exploiting the exemption mechanism, outside of any public oversight, to systematically weaken as many JCPOA limitations as possible.”

A “senior knowledgeable official” quoted by the report said that without the secret exemptions, Iran’s nuclear facilities would not have been in compliance with the nuclear deal by Jan. 16, which was set as the implementation day.

That statement alone should give people pause since it clearly indicates that the Iranian regime was not prepared to abide by the agreement from Day One and since then it has used the commission to receive more and more exemptions allowing it to violate the agreement without penalty.

At every step of the negotiations and through the implementation of the Iranian nuclear agreement, both U.S. and European officials have been consistently misled by the regime and yet bizarrely accommodating of the mullahs, granting exemptions, leading trade delegations to Tehran even while political prisoners are being executed, keeping mum about a rash of hostage-takings of dual-national citizens and refusing to demand the halt of Iran’s participation in proxy wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

The world has given the Iranian regime so many second-chances, the mullahs must be wondering how they can keep this gravy train of appeasement going into 2017.

By Michael Tomlinson

British Official in Hot Water Over $26,000 Payment from Iran

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British Official in Hot Water Over $26,000 Payment from Iran

British Official in Hot Water Over $26,000 Payment from Iran

British Labor Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn found himself in some hot water when he admitted in a televised interview on Pink News that he took a $26,000 payment to appear on the Iranian regime’s state broadcaster as a pundit in which he criticized other countries human rights record.

He accepted these payments after hosting five shows on Press TV between 2009 and 2012. The irony of his admission on Pink News, a news outlet focusing on LGBT community issues, wasn’t lost on one viewer who called into the show calling him a “hypocrite” for appearing on a channel that was banned from the UK for its role in filming the torture of an Iranian journalist according to the Daily Mail.

What was even more incredible was Corbyn’s attempt to defend the payment, insisting it “wasn’t an enormous amount” of money.

Corbyn was rightly challenged by viewers considering the regime’s dismal human rights record.

It was during one of his appearances on Press TV when he made his much-criticized comments saying it was a “tragedy” that Osama bin Laden had been killed and not put on trial.

Famed Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, who has long been an opponent of Corbyn, commented when a fan tried to compare him to the Hogwarts headmaster of her books, that “Corbyn. Is. Not. Dumbledore.”

Corbyn’s appearances and the timing of his appearances reinforces what has recently been revealed about then depth and scope of efforts by the Iranian regime to influence Western countries during the run-up to the negotiations for the nuclear agreement last year.

Corbyn’s recruitment and payment is especially troubling since he is a sitting member of government and his appearances came shortly after the brutal crackdown over the disputed elections of 2009 in Iran and the crushing of democracy demonstrations as part of the so-called Arab Spring movement.

The fact that the regime was paying Corbyn, coincides with its support of the broader Iran lobby including support for institutions such as the National Iranian American Council and Ploughshares Fund that were part of the Obama administration’s “echo chamber” of support for the nuclear deal.

The Iran lobby’s shadowy connections to various bloggers and journalists such as Jim Lobe and Ali Gharib, as well as academics and members of so-called think tanks have been examined by many news organizations that have worked to uncover the tentacles of the regime’s effort to influence government policies in the West.

Now the NIAC’s official lobbying arm, NIAC Action, is actively trying to influence various U.S. Senate races this fall in an effort to unseat opponents of the Iran nuclear deal and replace them with other candidates more publicly sympathetic and supportive of the regime.

The Iran lobby has also sought to provide more political cover for those supporters and elected officials who are feeling the heat of critics of the regime, especially in light of the past year since the deal, which has seen the situation in the Middle East deteriorate badly and the Iranian regime at the center of three proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

One supporter of the Iran agreement is Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) who was on the receiving end of blistering editorial by Shmuley Boteach, executive director of The World Values Network in The Hill.

“Would Cory condone the Obama Administration sending Iran $400 million in cash in January, which experts say is utterly unprecedented, and which will undoubtedly be funneled to terror groups like Hezbollah”? Boteach writes.

“And speaking of Hezbollah, how could Cory, on the one hand, tell us that on his trip he saw firsthand the terrible humanitarian disaster of Syrian refugees, yet on the other defend giving $150 billion to Iran which is being used to prop up the genocidal government of Bashar Assad? Assad’s government, and its wholesale slaughter of the Syrian people, is what created this humanitarian disaster in the first place, along with nearly half a million Arab dead and millions of refugees. And Iran is a key ally keeping Assad in power. Cory could easily have condemned Iran’s support of Assad’s Arab genocide. Instead, he chose to remain silent,” he added.

The ability of regime supporters and the Iran lobby to cover for the regime’s bad actions is proving more difficult as the regime obliges by engaging in more provocative behavior, such as the recent deployment of Russian S-300 missile batteries at its Fordow nuclear facilities; an action the Wall Street Journal said was clear sign of the failure of the nuclear agreement in an editorial.

“Iran seems bent on exposing the nuclear-deal illusions of President Obama even before he leaves office. The latest sign came Sunday, when Iran’s state-run media aired footage of the S-300 air-defense system maneuvering around Fordow,” the Journal said.

“Meanwhile, the Obama Administration refuses to sanction Moscow for the transfer. Congress has enacted at least three bills either requiring or authorizing the President to sanction actors that help Iran acquire or develop advanced, destabilizing weapons like the S-300. Yet so far Washington has done little more than grumble and vow to ‘monitor’ Iran’s S-300 capability. President Obama made nonproliferation one of his priorities, but he will leave office amid a spreading nuclear threat thanks in part to his infinite patience with global rogues,” the paper added.

There is going to be a price to be paid for supporting the Iranian regime. We only hope officials such as Corbyn and Booker figure out they should stop being beholden to the mullahs in Tehran.

By Michael Tomlinson