Iran Lobby

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

Looking Back at 2015: Iran Regime at Center of Terror

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Looking Back at 2015: Iran Regime at Center of Terror

Looking Back at 2015: Iran Regime at Center of Terror

In many ways, 2015 could be labeled the “Year of the Terrorist” because terrorism was the dominant driving news story throughout the world. It began on January 7 in Paris with the Charlie Hebdo attacks and it ended in November with multiple attacks in Paris again.

In between were attacks around the world ranging from the bloody conflict in Syria to seemingly random shootings inspired by Islamic extremism in places such as Chattanooga, Tennessee and San Bernardino, California. Attacks included almost endless assaults in Nigeria with Boko Haram, Yemen with Houthis, and Iraq with ISIS and Shiite militias.

The rise in terrorism and level of brutal violence was punctuated by mass kidnappings, the sexual enslavement of countless women and girls and videotaped executions reflecting the desire of these terrorist groups to maximize the fear and anguish of the civilized world.

If the world thought 2014 was a year of terror with attacks in Sydney, Ottawa and Belgium, 2015 found terrorists willing to push the proverbial envelope in creating hysteria and shedding blood. ISIS reached new heights in barbarism shared with the world with a video showing the burning to death of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeth, who was also a Muslim, in a cage and became enemy number one in the minds of a majority of people around the world.

But February of 2015, a whopping 68 percent of Americans cited ISIS as the number one security threat to America. That number would only grow throughout the year as ISIS executed 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians on the shores of Libya and extremist violence struck in Copenhagen.

But the blueprint for these grotesque public executions did not begin with ISIS, but rather has been a hallmark of the Iranian regime, which relies on public hangings – often with construction cranes substituting for gallows in town squares – and public amputations with power saws to enforce its medieval brand of justice.

Its religiously controlled courts dispense justice at the whims of the mullahs in Tehran and often with no witnesses, no open trials and no evidence. Tens of thousands ordinary Iranians have been sentenced in this manner and over 1,100 have been executed as catalogued by humanitarian and dissident groups such as Amnesty International.

Being a symbol and mass media template for ISIS and other terror groups is not the only contribution of the Iranian regime in 2015. It also provided ample funding of various terrorist and extremist groups including its long-time proxy in Hezbollah and its recent funding of Houthis rebels in Yemen and the virtual takeover of Iraq’s military and the organization of Shiite militias to fight there and in Syria.

It is not an understatement when various analysts, commentators and journalists have all noted how the Iranian regime has become terror central in 2015.

That became more evident in news media investigations in March of a shadowy unit in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces known as Unit 190 which has fueled many of the conflicts and civil wars raging across the Middle East and North Africa.

After a lengthy and in-depth investigation, Fox News traced the complex land, sea and air routes used by the Quds Force to move weapons to terror groups like Hezbollah, as well as the Houthis who have recently toppled the government in Yemen which only last year was being held up as an example by the Obama administration in the effective fight against terror.

At the heart of Unit 190 is Behnam Shahriyari, born in northwest Iran, who according to western intelligence sources runs a network of straw companies which skirt sanctions by packing rockets, night-vision equipment and grenades in powdered milk, cement and spare kits.

Fox News went on to show photos revealing a hanger at Tehran’s international airport which serves as warehouse and logistics center for the unit’s shipments of illegal weapons fueling conflicts that have killed thousands of innocent civilians globally.

That commitment to terrorism should be recognized by the world as not an ideological battle between Sunni and Shia as the Iranian regime would have us believe, but rather a straight battle for political power, land and military force between the Iranian regime and the rest of the Islamic world and on a much larger political stage, between what the mullahs in Tehran hope will be a new Shia sphere of influence versus the rest of the world.

Their reliance on proxy terror groups is a well-proven method of exerting influence around the world and not just this past year. One only has to look back at the use of Hezbollah to do the mullahs bidding including:

  • Bombings of the U.S. Embassy and barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983 killing 241 Americans and another bombing of the embassy annex in 1984;
  • Hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985;
  • Systematic kidnapping and hostage taking of Americans and Europeans from 1982 to 1992 in Lebanon;
  • Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 killing 19 American servicemen; and
  • Training and arming of insurgents during the Iraq War targeting thousands of innocent Iraqis and also American service personnel.

Now that Hezbollah has provided the bulk of fighters in Syria over the past two years, now aided by mercenary Afghans recruited by the Iranian regime and joined by Quds Force fighters, the regime has made saving Assad in Syria its number one foreign policy initiative next to securing a nuclear deal with the West.

But unlike most other nation states, Iran is not a cult of personality or even a political system. It is a religious theocracy dominated by a select few elite mullahs who work tirelessly to preserve their power and enrich themselves and their families through the skimming off the economy through black market sales of oil otherwise embargoed by international economic sanctions.

It is a regime terrified of the one thing that could bring down its carefully constructed house of cards: ordinary Iranians who have turned their backs on the Islamic state and work towards a democratic, multicultural and pluralistic society.

It is because of the potential for real change in Iran coming from ordinary Iranians that we can only hope 2016 will be much different than 2015.

By Michael Tomlinson

Christmas Hope for a World at Peace

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Christmas Hope for a World at Peace

Christmas Hope for a World at Peace

With the world celebrating Christmas and all other assorted holidays this week, it’s worth stepping aside from our normal hustle and bustle and recognize how for one very brief moment, a significant portion of humanity can be joined in peace and harmony.

Even in the worst and darkest times, there can be a glimmer of hope as there was in Christmas of 1914 during World War I when the so-called “Christmas Truce” took place in the trenches of the Western Front.

Even though trench warfare and modern weapons had rendered warfare more akin to industrial slaughter, that particular Christmas found British and German soldiers climbing out of their trenches to exchange seasonal greetings, souvenirs and food and even join in carol-singing. While that truce did not last, throughout history combatants have found small moments to remember the meaning of the holidays.

In today’s world though, we find ourselves living in a time where holiday shoppers have to be on the lookout for unattended bags, passengers on airlines endure enhanced screenings and parents dropping off their children at movie theaters to see the new “Star Wars” movie fret over mass shootings.

The recent terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino have set Americans on edge to the point that handguns have moved to the top of several wishlists for people wanting to protect themselves, while local law enforcement look for any signs of extremist behavior in social media and in their communities.

The fact that this heightened sense of security is quickly becoming the “new normal” is saddening and a reflection of what our lives may have to be like for the foreseeable future as bad actors around the world continue to focus their terrorist attacks and extremist ideologies at precisely what the holidays have come to represent: peace, joy, love, harmony, tolerance and community.

Nowhere has that been more emblematic than in the wholesale slaughter and expulsion of Christians throughout the Middle East, which reached a crescendo with the plight of the Yazidi sect in Syria and Iraq where 5,000 of them were massacred in 2014 and the sexual enslavement of thousands of women and girls by ISIS.

This was followed by the now infamous videos aired by ISIS killing Egyptian and Ethiopian Christians in mass beheadings and the near eradication of Christian towns, villages and communities in the wake of Islamic extremism’s rapid march.

According to the New York Times, the percentage of the Middle Eastern population that was Christian from 1910 to 2010 was once as high as 14 percent, but has now declined to roughly 4 percent, and all but gone in Iran. Even in Lebanon, once a Christian-dominated country with 78 percent of the population, Christians now account for only 34 percent as Hezbollah and other Islamic extremists groups have taken control over large portions of the country.

The future of Christianity in the region of its birth is now uncertain. ‘‘How much longer can we flee before we and other minorities become a story in a history book?’’ says Nuri Kino, a journalist and founder of the advocacy group Demand for Action.

According to a Pew study, Christians face religious persecution in more countries than any other religious group. ‘‘ISIL has put a spotlight on the issue,’’ says Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, whose parents are from the region and who advocates on behalf of Eastern Christians. ‘‘Christianity is under an existential threat.’’

But the plight of Christians is only one part of a much larger puzzle where Islamic extremists and religious theocracies such as the Iranian regime systematically drive out any other religion not theirs in order to create a religiously pure society.

Of the 3.1 million displaced Iraqis, 85 percent are Sunnis. No one has suffered more at the hands of ISIS than fellow Muslims. Other religious minorities have been affected as well and in large numbers: Shia Turkmen; Shabak; Kaka’i; and the Mandeans, who follow John the Baptist.

‘‘Everyone has seen the forced conversions, crucifixions and beheadings,’’ David Saperstein, the United States ambassador at large for religious freedom, said. ‘‘To see these communities, primarily Christians, but also the Yazidis and others, persecuted in such large numbers is deeply alarming.’’

The fact that there are almost no Christians left in Iran speaks volumes to the hospitality they enjoy under the yoke of the mullahs in Tehran. There are currently 91 Christians in Iranian regime prisons, including American pastor Saeed Abedini who will not be celebrating Christmas with their families and loved ones.

Most are imprisoned under the false charges of threatening national security through their ministry of Christianity.

We can only hope that by next Christmas, these families experience the greatest present of them all, the return of their loved ones and the halt of persecuting Christians in Iran and elsewhere.

By Laura Carnahan

Looking Back at 2015: Iran Regime Chaos in Syria

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Looking Back at 2015: Iran Regime Chaos in Syria

Looking Back at 2015: Iran Regime Chaos in Syria

In December of 2010, the “Arab Spring” revolt swept across North Africa and toppled governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, while major protests broke out in various countries such as Iraq and Sudan. The wave of civil discontent took on a much different shape as it developed into what we now know as the Syrian Civil War.

The conflict in Syria started innocuously enough with an assault by a police officer on a man which quickly led to a flurry of street demonstrations in February of 2011, which would have withered away if not for the arrest of 15 children in Daraa in southern Syria who were painting anti-government graffiti on walls.

The children were abused while in the custody of security forces of the Assad regime which led to the first full-scale protests against the regime. This escalated rapidly into mass demonstrations in Damascus, Aleppo and other cities that today we know as battlefields and no-man’s lands.

Protests culminated into a mass demonstration of over 100,000 people in the central Square of Homs calling for Assad’s resignation and then things got ugly as Assad used the military crackdown, killing at least 136 people. The severity of reprisals grew as Assad security forces continued shooting protestors, some while in ambulances.

By the fall of 2011, the Syrian opposition organizes and begins to gather arms and fight back as a full-scale civil war erupts. In the spring of 2012, international pressure grows on the Assad regime. It is at this time things go from bad to worse in Syria as extremist Islamist groups filter out of Iraq and Iran and into Syria to join the fighting including fighters from Al-Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nusra.

As arms begin to flow from Europe and other Arab states opposed to Assad to rebel forces and the Syrian military suffers a series of setbacks, the Iranian regime makes the decision to commit itself fully to keeping Assad in power since both regimes share the same Shiite ties.

The mullahs in Tehran begin to direct the flow of cash and weapons to their long-time terrorist ally Hezbollah and funnel fighters into Syria from Lebanon in support of Assad.

By August of 2012, President Obama proclaims his now infamous “red line” in the sand position in regards to chemical weapons, which Assad crosses when he uses chemical weapons in September of 2013, killing 300 people outside of Damascus.

In an ironic twist of fate, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s offers a rationale for avoiding direct U.S. military intervention in the wake of the chemical attack when he offers the idea that elimination of all chemical stocks would be a condition to avoid going to war. Russia’s Vladimir Putin seizes on the idea and quickly brokers an agreement to take possession of Syria’s chemical weapons by June of 2014.

All of which takes place while the Iran regime deepens its involvement by scaling up and recruiting Afghan mercenaries living in Iran and mobilizing Shiite militias in Iraq to fight in Syria in an effort to stem a rapidly growing number of military defeats by Assad.

In the meantime, the largest displacement of refugees since World War II takes place as half of Syria’s population is dead or leaves with nearly four million of them trying to get into Europe through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans.

At the same time, ISIS takes control of several key cities in Syria and Iraq and takes advantage of the power vacuum created in Iraq’s government when the Iran regime pushes then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government to expel Sunni coalition partners who then flee directly into the arms of ISIS in Iraq.

Within two years, Iran’s meddling has prolonged the carnage in Syria, allowed ISIS to double in size almost overnight and reduced Iraq into little more than a fiefdom for ISIS in the north and Iran in the south.

Even as the Iranian regime’s forces suffered setbacks, including the deaths of several top military commanders, it worked hard at the negotiating table to secure a nuclear agreement allowing it to tap into $150 billion in cash and new supply lines in military hardware from Russia to replace its losses.

More importantly, the deal allowed top mullah Ali Khamenei to make a direct appeal to Russia to intervene on Iran’s behalf and save Assad from doom. Iran used the argument that saving Assad would save Russia’s only naval base in the Mediterranean, stationed in Syria.

By the time Russia begins bombing in Syria last September, ISIS-led attacks in Paris and the ISIS-inspired attack in San Bernardino, push the U.S. to focus exclusively on attacking ISIS and raise the very real possibility of keeping Assad in power in order to defeat ISIS.

The past five years have cost the world four million refugees and 150,000 killed and put the Iranian regime back in a position to claim a win after being so close to defeat in Syria so many times.

One only has to ask questions such as “What if Obama acted on his red line?” or “What if the U.S. held tougher in nuclear talks in Iran?” could the world be seeing a much different situation today?

There is no doubt however that the Iranian regime’s intervention in Syria and its mobilization of forces in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan to fight there was the single biggest reason why this civil war did not end in 2011 the war similar governments toppled in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia.

If any entity deserves the blood on their hands for the carnage, bloodshed and suffering in Syria besides Assad, it is certainly the mullahs in Tehran.

By Michael Tomlinson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Michael Tomlinson

As IAEA Closes Nuclear Probe UN Finds Iran Regime Cheated

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As IAEA Closes Nuclear Probe UN Finds Iran Regime Cheated

As IAEA Closes Nuclear Probe UN Finds Iran Regime Cheated

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

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

That is what is called a gigantic irony.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Michael Tomlinson

When Past Conduct Means Nothing for Future Actions

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When Past Conduct Means Nothing for Future Actions

When Past Conduct Means Nothing for Future Actions

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

By Michael Tomlinson

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

By Michael Tomlinson

Human Rights in Iran Matter to the World

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Human Rights in Iran Matter to the World

Human Rights in Iran Matter to the World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Thumbs Nose at World with New Missile Launch

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Iran Regime Thumbs Nose at World with New Missile Launch

Iran Regime Thumbs Nose at World with New Missile Launch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Michael Tomlinson

With Rising Extremism Hillary Clinton Hardens Iran Regime Stand

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With Rising Extremism Hillary Clinton Hardens Iran Regime Stand

With Rising Extremism Hillary Clinton Hardens Iran Regime Stand

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Michael Tomlinson