Iran Regime Already Acting As If Sanctions Are Over

The unavoidable and unmistakable consequence of the proposed agreement with the Iran regime over its nuclear weapons program is that various national and business interests view it as a green light to begin acting as if all sanctions levied against the Iranian regime were being lifted right away.

For its part, the mullahs in Tehran have warmly and gladly embraced that concept and are moving quickly to deepen the economic relationships Iran has with the outside world in order to create sizable economic returns regardless of what Congress does in approving or disapproving the deal.

This has been seen in the veritable parade of business middlemen, potential investors, corporate representatives and government officials that have flooded into Tehran like a sudden rainstorm, including trips by high ranking officials such as European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini even though during all trips, the Iran regime acted as business as usual in publicly hanging several political prisoners and dissidents.

None of the ministers visiting Iran uttered any public protest in a sign that only bolsters and appeases the mullahs.

Even though the 159-page agreement allegedly maintains sanctions until the regime demonstrates its commitment to reducing its nuclear infrastructure, it has already moved aggressively to reap the benefits in terms of its conventional military power.

Qassem Soleilmani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force recently flew to Moscow to discuss arms purchases even though he still remains under a United Nations travel ban for his role in helping launch Iran’s nuclear program as well as directing and supplying the bulk of terror operations allied with the regime such as Hezbollah.

“I can’t confirm these specific reports but it is an indication of our ongoing concerns with Iran and their behavior,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Friday at the daily press briefing in what may be one of the greatest understatements of the year.

Soleimani has been blamed in the deaths of some 500 Americans in Iraq through militias trained and armed by his forces in the use of dreaded improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Soleimani was also seen on the front lines in Iraq helping coordinate the growth of Shiite militias battling ISIS in defiance of the travel ban.

But the Quds Force is only the tip of the iceberg for the regime since the Revolutionary Guards Corps is set to reap the biggest economic windfalls since much of the Iranian economy and its largest companies and industries are under the direct control or ownership of the IRGC and its leaders.

In all, about 90 current and former IRGC officials, entities such as the IRGC itself, and firms that conducted transactions for the Guards will be taken off nuclear sanctions lists by either the United States, EU or United Nations, according to a Reuters tally based on annexes to the text of the nuclear deal.

A handful will see EU sanctions removed once the nuclear deal is enacted on “Implementation Day” expected within the next year. Others such as Bank Saderat Iran (BSI), accused by Washington of transferring money to groups it deems “terrorist,” such as Hezbollah, will have EU sanctions lifted in eight years; and that’s being hopeful.

Now, the Guards will be able to lever their dominance in Iran’s economy to serve as a conduit for the new business flowing into Iran, and will likely demand joint ventures, shared profits, and other benefits from ompanies seeking to access Iran’s lucrative markets,  said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“Any company that wants to do business in a key strategic sector of Iran’s economy will have to do business with the Revolutionary Guards,” he said.

On top of which reports are now coming out that Iran is busy sanitizing suspected nuclear sites such as Parchin in anticipation of being inspected and given a clean bill of health.

None of which should reassure anyone about the nuclear agreement’s ability to stop anything the mullahs wanted to do anyway. It does raise the most obvious question of why supporters of the deal continue to support it light of the regime’s clear and unambiguous intentions to continue pursuing policies fomenting sectarian violence, terror and civil war throughout the Middle East?

The regime’s motives and actions are on display for everyone to see and they tell an unmistakable and terrifying story.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Nuclear Deal Struggles Against Rising Criticism

A new Quinnipiac University poll published yesterday was a brutal refutation of the arguments being made by supporters of the Iran regime and its proposed nuclear weapons deal. In it, only a meager 28 percent of Americans said they approved of the deal with the mullahs in Tehran, compared to 57 percent who said they disapproved of the deal, with the vast majority of respondents saying the deal would make America less safe.

Even more unnerving for supporters of the regime, President Obama’s approval rating in handling the situation in Iran plummeted from a high of 48 percent in 2013 to an anemic 35 percent in this latest poll; reinforcing the perception amongst voters that the deal is not only a bad one, but a stinker.

The Quinnipiac poll mirrors the dissatisfaction measured in a Pew Research Center poll released earlier and reinforces the downward trend line in public opinion, despite the protestations by regime lobbyists such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council who have shouted to the rooftops that the choices before Americans is between war and peace. In fact, Americans are coming to the realization the choices are really between a struggling, anemic Iran and a robust, flush with cash Iran.

The decline in public support by American voters has undoubtedly been influenced by a steady stream of revelations about the deal, including the existence of secret side agreements reached between the Iran regime and the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency.

Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador and permanent envoy to the IAEA, stated over the weekend that no country is permitted to know the details of future inspections conducted by the IAEA. In addition, no U.S. inspectors will be permitted to enter Iran’s nuclear sites.

“The provisions of a deal to which the IAEA and a second country are parties are confidential and should not be divulged to any third country, and as Mr. Kerry discussed it in the Congress, even the U.S. government had not been informed about the deal between IAEA and Iran,” Najafi was quoted as saying by Iran’s Mehr News Agency.

Due to the secretive nature of these agreements, IAEA officials vising with lawmakers are barred from revealing to them the details of future inspections.

The revelation has rattled lawmakers on Capitol Hill, several of whom are now rallying colleagues to sign a letter to President Barack Obama protesting these so-called side deals, but more importantly the existence of the secret deals and the statements by regime officials tells us exactly how the regime operates. It professes support for cooperation while secretly planning to take advantage of that appeasement.

In another sign the Obama administration was struggling with its messaging with regime supporters, Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Doha to meet with Arab states in the Persian Gulf in an attempt to reassure them about the deal, but in a clear sign that even the U.S. doesn’t believe the Iran regime’s intentions are peaceful, Kerry reassured Gulf states the U.S. would speed up arms sales to them included ballistic missile defense systems to counter the expected development of Iranian missile technology that was left out of the nuclear deal by the U.S. in the first place.

The irony would comical if it wasn’t so serious.

“The agreement legitimizes Iran’s nuclear program, pretty much guarantees its ability to produce nuclear weapons in 15 years, and will make it a far wealthier country than it has been in three decades. The regime will have more money to demonstrate immediate economic gains, and access to international markets to make those gains permanent. It will have more money — coupled with the lifting of the arms embargo — to purchase weapons from Russia to challenge U.S. military access to the Persian Gulf. And it will have a lot more money to augment its asymmetrical capabilities,” said Michael Gerson in the Washington Post, adding to the building arguments against the deal.

“Thus the inexorable pattern will not be: Iran violates the deal; sanctions snap back; Iran resumes compliance. Quite the reverse. The far more likely future is: Iran violates the deal; sanctions snap back; Iran tells us, using a diplomatic term of art, to take our deal and stuff it,” said former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton in an editorial in the New York Times. “Unfortunately, snapback sanctions are just as likely to be empty political rhetoric”…”The list of reasons to oppose the Vienna deal is already long, but the pitfalls of snapback sanctions surely rank near the top.”

It goes without saying that the deal empowers the Iran regime and provides very little ability to halt the expansion of Iran’s particular form of virulent Islamic extremism, which remains the mullahs’ highest priority as they expand their dominion over Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen and now threaten Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

The regime recognizes the stakes and is working aggressively to curb any dissent domestically and ensure one a convincing message of moderation is presented for consumption in the West.

By Laura Carnahan

Iran Regime’s Brutal Track Record Hurts Nuclear Deal Chances

The summer congressional recess is upon us and with it the official start of the lobbying season will commence with both sides throwing everything they have in the debate over approval of the proposed nuclear deal with the Iran regime.

As part of that debate, supporters of the mullahs in Tehran are attempting to portray this debate in false terms. One example is the regime’s most loyal ally, the National Iranian American Council, whose leader, Trita Parsi has taken to using the metaphor that the debate rests solely on two choices – war and peace – even though there remains a considerable range of options available, but untried by the administration.

Parsi has also taken to characterize the forces arrayed against the deal as being a David vs. Goliath match up of moneyed interests against the little guy. He is referring to the much-publicized multi-million dollar ad blitz being unleashed by opponents of the deal, but he neglects to place that into context.

No one would ever accuse the Iran regime as being the “little guy.” Through its network of appeasers pours substantial resources into a broad lobbying and public relations network to push its agenda, most notably the NIAC and sympathetic bloggers and journalists such as Jim Lobe and Ali Gharib. But Parsi and other regime supporters are not taking this debate lightly.

Parsi related a conference call held with supporters of the deal and President Obama in which the president said to supporters: “You guys have to be more active, loud and involved and start making your voices heard with Congress.”

The regime also stands as the biggest state sponsor of terrorism and continues to supply arms, fighters and funding to terror groups such as Hezbollah, brutal regimes such as Assad in Syria and extremist groups such as Shiite militias in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Sitting on the wealth of an oil reach country, mullahs in Iran are far from being a weakling in this debate even though Parsi works hard to portray his mullah masters as poor, misunderstood and put-upon moderates.

One increasingly serious problem for proponents of the deal has been the disclosure of secret side deals between the regime and the International Atomic Energy Agency which have not been made public as part of the debate over the agreement, even though the bipartisan measure passed by Congress and signed by the president allowing review of the agreement stipulated that all annexes, addendums and supporting materials had to be presented as part of the review.

Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AK) and Mike Pompeo (R-KS) wrote in the Wall Street Journal this weekend that the regime was allowed to draw up two side deals with the IAEA that could make the overall deal problematic.

“The first governs the IAEA’s inspection of the Parchin military complex, the facility long suspected as the site of Iran’s long-range ballistic-missile and nuclear-weapons development. The second addresses what—if anything—Iran will be required to disclose about the past military dimensions of its nuclear program,” they said.

“Weaponization lies at the heart of our dispute with Iran and is central to determining whether this deal is acceptable. Inspections of Parchin are necessary to ensure that Iran is adhering to its end of the agreement. Without knowing this baseline, inspectors cannot properly evaluate Iran’s compliance. It’s like beginning a diet without knowing your starting weight. That the administration would accept side agreements on these critical issues—and ask the U.S. Congress to do the same—is irresponsible,” Sens. Cotton and Pompeo added.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) remarked on how phone calls against the deal in his state have turned into 10-1, an avalanche of opposition he has to listen to.

Much of the anxiety over the deal comes from a relatively simple problem: No one really trusts the mullahs to abide by the deal even if the U.S. approves it. The regime’s track record, even during the negotiations, proved time and time again that Iran’s mullahs were single-mindedly intent on pursuing their own agenda irrespective of what was happening at the bargaining table.

Nowhere was that more evident than in the Obama administration’s quick concessions to take human rights abuses and the support of terrorism off the table early in negotiations. The willful ignorance of Iran’s abysmal track record in these areas is what is at the heart of the angst now being felt by Americans who are being asked to essentially trust the mullahs.

David Hearst, editor of the Middle East Eye for the Huffington Post, dived deep into the origins of the unrest rippling across the Middle East with the rise of ISIS and placed responsibility on Iran’s manipulation of Iraqi politics and former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to dump his Sunni partners once the U.S. pulled out and virtually guarantee ISIS new recruits from disenfranchised Sunnis.

“Of course there was another winner in Maliki’s soft coup — Iran. Khedery called General Qassim Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most powerful man in Iraq and the Middle East. He could have added Syria,” Hearst said.

All of which contributes to the uncertainty brewing with the American voter over whether or not to trust Iran’s mullahs.

By Michael Tomlinson

New Polling Shows Bi-Partisan Opposition to Iran Deal

A pair of new polls came out this week not only showing a growing majority of Americans opposed to the proposed nuclear agreement with the Iran regime, but a more bi-partisan consensus forming that large portions of the deal should be rejected outright by Congress.

The more revealing poll came from Democratic pollster Pat Caddell, working with the Republican firm McLaughlin & Associates in a bi-partisan manner on behalf of Secure America Now, a non-partisan group, in which a whopping 80 percent of Americans opposed giving the Iran regime an estimated $150 billion in early sanctions relief absent congressional approval.

In addition, 72 percent of Americans said that Congress should not approve a deal that does not allow independent U.S. inspections of Iran’s military facilities, while another 68 percent do not believe that inspections by the United Nations allowing a 24-day notification period would prevent Iran from cheating.

The poll also found 65 percent of Americans think the deal will result in other nations seeking their own nuclear weapons, setting off a regional arms race, and 63 percent disagree with the Obama administration’s contention the deal stops Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

“It’s abundantly clear that the more Americans learn about key details within the Iran agreement, the less they like it,” Caddell said. “Opposition to the deal is growing as the facts work their way into kitchen table conversations across the country.”

The other poll from CNN/ORC found 52 percent of Americans saying Congress should reject the deal with only 44 percent supporting it. Some opposition to the deal may be fueled by skepticism. A CNN/ORC poll in late June, conducted as the deal was being worked out, found that nearly two-thirds of adults thought it was unlikely the negotiations would result in an agreement that would prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Both polls point to a basic skepticism about the ability to trust the mullahs in Tehran to follow through on any agreement, let alone promise not to build nuclear weapons after the ten-year term of the agreement. Americans of all political stripes have come to the conclusion while it is desirable to make sure Iran does not develop nuclear weapons, few actually believe this deal would prevent the mullahs from doing so either in the short or long term.

Both polls mirror findings in a nationwide Pew Research Center poll which showed a majority of Americans disapproving the deal and a significant majority not trusting the mullahs to follow through on any agreement.

Scott Clement in the Washington Post looked at the trend line in polling from earlier this year to after the agreement was announced and provides some reasons why support for the deal has plummeted in the latest polls, including:

• Support for the deal has declined across the political spectrum making the arguments from Iran lobby supporters such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council that opponents were merely conservative neocons ring hollow now that growing numbers of Democrats and independent voters are now opposed to the deal;
• Now that the entire 159-page agreement is available online, voters are actually reading the document and not liking what they see. While the devil may be in the details, the details seem to be hurting the president’s cause as Americans find areas such as inspections and verification to be troubling; and
• The significant realization that there is actually a deal on the table and that it is no longer an exercise in intellectual abstraction, but rather there is now a very real possibility the mullahs in Tehran are going to be a financial and military windfall, which suddenly makes Americans nervous.

The Secure America Now poll offers the most troubling results for the Iran lobby. That poll took the time to explain the components of the deal and its implications to respondents, which yielded the massively large results against the deal, such as the potential of giving the mullahs in Tehran billions of dollars in sanctions relief.

Also noteworthy was the testimony given by Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a Senate hearing the other day in which he denied ever presenting the options regarding approving the nuclear deal as stark choices between war and peace.

“At no time did that come up in our conversation nor did I make that comment,” Dempsey told Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) during a Senate hearing on the Iran deal. “I can tell you that we have a range of options and I always present them.”

Dempsey also acknowledged that he advised the president not to agree to the lifting of sanctions pertaining to Iran’s ballistic missile program and other arms. “Yes, and I used the phrase ‘as long as possible’ and then that was the point at which the negotiation continued — but yes, that was my military advice,” he told Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH). In the event the new deal goes into effect, the arms embargoes will expire over the next several years.

His testimony undercuts the central message point being made by Parsi and other regime supporters, that the only alternative to the deal is military conflict with the regime. It’s disingenuous and a strawman that does not exist.

As the polling shows, more Americans of every political stripe are beginning to see how false that argument is becoming.

By Michael Tomlinson

The fight against the proposed nuclear deal with the Iran regime took on a decidedly edgier and more local flavor as citizen journalists, local news media and grassroots opponents began to make their voices heard as more people begin to focus on the contents of the 159-page document.

While the national media spotlight has been dominated by presidential candidates from both parties weighing in the deal and Senators and Representatives giving their opinions for and against the deal, the proverbial little guys was starting to make their voices heard across America.

In the Albany Herald, a community newspaper in Georgia, Eric Hogan, wrote a guest column that captured the growing consensus amongst ordinary Americans.

“The practical effect of this incredibly bad nuclear deal that has been negotiated with Iran is that President Obama will be financing the Iranian nuclear program with the $100 billion plus cash injection the Iranians receive for approving the deal. Any leftover funds will be available to increase their position as already the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world. Iran is assured it can become a nuclear power — legally in 10 years or sooner if they decide to cheat,” Hogan said.

“The world had no need to rush and could have patiently waited for Iran’s collapsing economy to force them to give up on the bomb. There were many alternatives other than war available for dealing with Hitler from 1936 to 1939. But, after 1939, it was either war or surrender,” he added.

That kind of sentiment will almost surely go on display next month during the summer recess for Congress as members go back to their home districts and hear from constituents at local town halls. As both sides of the deal gear up to launch massive lobbying and public relations campaigns, the setting is eerily reminiscent of the battle over Obamacare in 2009 with similar contentious town hall settings being played out before the media.

As Martin Matishak writes in the Fiscal Times “if the Republican-controlled Congress votes to disapprove the deal, Obama can veto the legislation. In that case, the president needs 145 of the 188 Democrats in the House to back the agreement, and he can’t afford to lose more than 13 backers in the Senate to sustain his veto.”

Last May, a letter was signed by 145 Democratic House members expressing their support for the deal, which indicates how incredibly close and razor thin the margin is for the president and the mullahs in Tehran.

But Iran lobby forces are not taking the effort for passage lightly; launching their own grassroots effort in coordination with the administration in an effort to try and persuade undecided House members to make their votes known now rather than wait for the summer onslaught of lobbying from deal opponents.

Part of the argument during this debate will assuredly focus on the administration’s contention that the only choices available to Congress are war and peace depending on how one votes for the deal, but there are other choices as articulated by notables such as Mrs. Maryam Rajavi who leads the largest Iranian dissident group in the National Council of Resistance of Iran and David Adesnik who writes of the alternatives to the Iran deal in The Weekly Standard.

“War is not imminent because the structure of the deal now on the table gives Iran very strong incentives to remain cooperative at least until the next American president takes office and Tehran finishes negotiating long-term contracts with the multinational energy firms that are so eager to claim a share of the Iranian market,” Adesnik said.

“Therefore, if a two-thirds majority in Congress prevents President Obama from waiving sanctions, the result will not be an Iranian sprint toward the bomb, but rather the first step toward restoring America’s diplomatic leverage. In addition, if Congress says no, Iran may find it very difficult to access the $100-150 billion of escrow funds and frozen assets it hoped to collect as the result of deal,” he said.

“Finally, given what strong incentives the Iranians have to remain in compliance, the next president and the next Congress will almost certainly have the same opportunity as today to accept the terms negotiated in Vienna. Thus there is nothing to lose by waiting and much to be gained,” Adesnik added.

Already protests and demonstrations against the deal have begun to spring up across America in New York’s Times Square where 10,000 people gathered, to San Diego’s Balboa Park on the other side of the country.

And even as the regime’s foreign minister Javad Zarif embarked on a handshake-and-smile tour of Gulf states, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Abdel al-Jubeir accused Iran of making threats against Bahrain, demonstrating the regime’s hostile designs against its neighbors.

His comments came after Bahrain this weekend announced it had foiled a plot to smuggle arms by two Bahrainis with ties to Iran and recalled its ambassador to Tehran after what it characterized as repeated hostile Iranian statements. Jubeir made his comments at a press conference held with visiting European Union foreign policy chief Federica Moghrini, in which he said he raised the issue of Iran’s aggressiveness.

By Laura Carnahan

Iran Nuclear Deal Coming Under More Scrutiny

One of the more interesting results from the proposed nuclear deal between the P5+1 group of nations and the Iran regime has been the almost frantic efforts of the supporters of the deal to reassure Iran’s frightened neighbors. That effort, highlighted in a Wall Street Journal story by Carol Lee and Gordon Lubold includes efforts to arm Arab states.

“The U.S. is specifically looking at ways to expedite arms transfers to Arab states in the Persian Gulf and is accelerating plans for them to develop an integrated regional ballistic missile defense capability, a senior administration official said.”

“One of the administration’s top challenges is to counter backlash over a provision in the nuclear pact that would lift United Nations embargoes on arms and ballistic missile technologies to Iran, in five and eight years,” Lee and Lubold said.

It is an absurd turn of events whereby we are now proposing to beef up the defenses of Iran’s neighbors in response to the very real and legitimate fear they have over the mullahs empowerment through the lifting of sanctions granting Tehran access to billions of dollars and new weapons, including ballistic missiles placing all of their countries within striking distance.

As Brett Stephens writes in his column in the Wall Street Journal:

“Let’s follow this logic. If the Iran deal is as fail-safe as President Obama claims, why not prove it by giving the Saudis exactly the same nuclear rights that Iran is now to enjoy? Why race to prevent an ally from developing a capability we have just ceded to an enemy? What’s the point of providing the Saudis with defense capabilities they presumably don’t need?”

Stephens also pointed out that “on Thursday, Moscow confirmed that it will proceed with the sale to Iran of its state-of-the-art S-300 surface-to-air missile system, notwithstanding the deal’s supposed five-year arms embargo on Iran and over no objections from the White House. The sale means that a future president ordering airstrikes against Iran would do so against an adversary that can shoot American planes out of the skies. That’s also not true today.”

So even though the concept of this nuclear deal is to make the region a safer place, in reality it has sparked a new arms race and threatens to engulf the Middle East into another spiral of violence, but with upgraded weapons this time.

“Let it be entered into the record that the United States government has agreed to release monies that it believes will be used to fund Iran’s terrorist proxies. It has done so on the intriguing rationale that, in order to prevent the Middle East from becoming a very dangerous place in the future, it is necessary to allow it to become a very dangerous place now. To adapt a phrase, the administration believes that it has to destroy a region in order to save it,” Stephens adds.

This arms race scenario was recognized in a Chicago Tribune editorial which said on Monday:

“The most troubling weaknesses are outside the realm of the nuclear program. A 2010 U.N. Security Council arms embargo on Iran will eventually be lifted. That embargo covers a vast range of military equipment, from tanks and artillery to ballistic missiles. Under the new deal, the conventional arms embargo lifts in five years, the ballistic missile ban in eight years. Russia and China — major arms exporters that want to do business with Iran — pushed for this provision.”

Adding that “Tehran will eventually have freedom to traffic in arms as it stands to reap more than $100 billion once sanctions ease. Iran’s enemies in the region have reason to worry. Mullahs in Iran support terror groups across the Middle East. Tehran will again be part of the international banking system and able to sell its oil on the open market.”

Those sentiments were expanded on in an editorial by Eric Terzuolo, a former U.S. Foreign Service Officer, who wrote in the Washington Post warning not to trust the regime:

“We should not delude ourselves into thinking that Iran’s efforts to counter the Islamic State reflect anything except distinctly Iranian geopolitical interests. Iran’s proxy Hezbollah is thriving as the arbiter of Lebanese politics, and Iran and Hezbollah have collaborated in supporting the residues of the heinous Assad regime in Syria…Post reporter Jason Rezaian is only the latest in a series of U.S. citizens to suffer arbitrary treatment at the hands of Iranian authorities.”

Taking it one step further, Bloomberg View columnist Stephen L. Carter examined all 159 pages of the agreement and found it builds in simple mechanisms for the Iran regime to cheat without any consequences.

“The trouble is that the West, in its focus on creating a mechanism for the snap-back of sanctions, has left itself without any other, lesser weapons. As several analysts have pointed out, there is the option to re-impose full UN sanctions … and nothing else. Remember that the parties, including the U.S., have undertaken not to enact any additional nuclear sanctions except through the process set forth in the agreement — that is, going through the Joint Commission and the Security Council,” Carter writes. “There is no way to impose small, measured sanctions for small, measured violations. This is what I mean when I say that room for cheating is built into the structure of the agreement.”

Clearly the consequences of such a deal are now quickly rippling out across the Middle East and spawning potentially devastating repercussions for everyone involved.

By Laura Carnahan