Iran Lobby

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

Khamenei Reassures World Iran Regime Committed to Terror

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Khamenei Reassures World Iran Regime Committed to TerrorThere is something uncanny in the ability of Iran’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, to speak his mind clearly and openly without hesitation or evasion. It’s a quality that his top U.S. lobbyist, Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, would be well-served in adopting, but unfortunately that would defeat the cause of giving the mullahs in Tehran a $160 billion payday and a new supply of weapons to go along with two million barrels of oil sold every day on the open market.

All of these things are part of the agreement reached between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations last week. While the deal was being hailed by supporters as a significant advancement for peace and regional stability, Khamenei, the sole leader of Iran’s foreign and military policies, once again vented his vitriolic hatred of the U.S. and his stubborn support for spreading religious terror and extremism.

“Our policy regarding the arrogant U.S. government will not change,” Khamenei said in a televised address to mark Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim feast day at the end of the holy month of Ramadan. “We don’t have any negotiations or deal with the U.S. on different issues in the world or the region.”

“Whether [the deal is] ratified or not, we will not give up on our friends in the region,” Khamenei added.

Iran provides vital support for the Syrian regime, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq, among other groups engaged in proxy wars such as the Houthi rebels who overthrew the Yemen government earlier this year.

He went on to hail the deal as a win for Iran in its decade-long struggle to preserve its nuclear achievements, including thousands of centrifuges that enrich uranium and the preservation of hardened sites protected against the possibility of air strikes.

But Khamenei’s comments, coming on the heels of fervent comments by Parsi and other regime supporters that Iran had indeed changed its tune, provide ample proof from the regime’s top leader that Iran has absolutely no intention of changing any of its policies, which frankly should not come as a surprise to anyone since Khamenei has been nothing if not consistent in his attitudes towards the West.

It should also give Democrats in Congress pause when they consider the only supporters and endorsers of this deal are Syrian regime head Bashar al-Assad, Russia which stands to become Iran’s biggest military hardware supplier and China which wants to lock up long-term sales of Iranian oil.

Virtually all of other Arab nations including Saudi Arabia and Egypt opposing this deal.

If undecided Congressmen really want to understand what is motivating the Iran regime and how this proposed agreement only emboldens and re-energizes a beleaguered regime, it’s worth reading Wall Street Journal’s deep dive into Khamenei’s speech and the deep-rooted hatred of the U.S. the regime’s leaders have and will always embrace.

Supporters of the deal such as Parsi who claim normalized relations would bring about an attitude change in the mullahs’ worldview are just blowing smoke. Such predictions are premature at best and dead wrong at worst.

“They overlook how central the hatred of the U.S. has been” to the mullah’s regime’s identity and ideology. WSJ article concludes that anti-Americanism allows mullahs to claim leadership among all extremists, even Sunnis, and it is the core of their policies in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

And that is the crux of the argument that Parsi and his colleagues are afraid of ever getting a public airing. The ruling elite in Iran, led by Khamenei and his fellow mullahs, are deeply committed to a shared religious worldview that places any nation, people or religion not in their specific extremist Shiite camp as being an apostate and suitable for elimination.

It is the same religious dogma and approach that ISIS practices with great brutality and regularity and it shouldn’t come as any surprise since Iran under the mullahs, is truly the role model for ISIS.

All of which means this deal in Congress will probably be a very hard sell.

By Michael Tomlinson

Khamenei Reassures World Iran Regime Committed to Terror

Iran Lobbies Falsififying of Choices on Iran Deal as War or Peace

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Containment Is the Third Choice In Dealing With Iran Regime

Containment Is the Third Choice In Dealing With Iran Regime

Yesterday we examined the histrionics of Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council and lobbyist-in-chief for the Iran regime’s policies, including his principle argument that the only two choices facing us when it comes to Iran is peace through a nuclear deal or war through attacking Iran.

While Parsi harps on semantics of discussions being the basis of a change in Iran’s approach to the world, the track record of the mullahs hardly merits that. In fact, it’s worthwhile remembering why sanctions were imposed in the first place:

  • In 1995, President Clinton imposes an executive order banning all trade with Iran in response to the conduct of regime leader Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the bloody Iran-Iraq war. Congress soon follows with the Iran=Libya Sanctions Act denying Iran access to loans and financial assistance for its oil industry;
  • In 2005, Iran begins enriching uranium in violation of international agreements with the UN Security Council. This starts a string of sanctions from the UN and U.S. under President George W. Bush freezing assets of those regime individuals connected to the nuclear program;
  • In 2010, Congress passes and President Obama signs into law the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act which greatly enhanced sanctions on the regime in response to brutal crackdowns of protests over fixed elections;
  • In 2012, the European Union imposes a ban on sales of Iranian oil and blocks to financial markets and transactions in response to the growth of the regime’s nuclear program.

These sanctions did not come out of the blue or on a whim. They came as a direct response to provocative regime behavior and actions. Iran’s mullahs were the ones that brought these responses onto themselves and contrary to what Parsi would have people believe those sanctions were self-inflicted by Iran.

Nowhere is that more evident than in how Iran sought to keep its nuclear program secret and only with Iranian dissident and resistance groups and the work of International Agencies were many of Iran’s secret nuclear sites revealed, including:

  • Arak: Site of a heavy water production plant, nuclear reactor and high-explosive test chamber uncovered by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran resistance group;
  • Ardakan: First reported in 2003 by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, this site was an acknowledged uranium mill capable of producing 50 metric tons of uranium annually;
  • Fordow: Secret facility uncovered by intelligence agencies in 2009 containing 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium;
  • Natanz: Hardened fuel enrichment plant built deep underground and reinforced with barriers to withstand direct bombing and home to 7,000 centrifuges enriching uranium, revealed in 2002 by Alireza Jafarzadeh, noted author and dissident figure now working with the National Council of Resistance of Iran;
  • Parchin: Revealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency as having been used for implosion testing necessary for modeling nuclear warhead detonation.

Again, Parsi never explains why Iran has maintained secret nuclear facilities. He has never explained why Iran needs to test implosion devices and highly enriched processing facilities for medical isotopes. Parsi has never explained why each U.S., UN and EU sanction was placed in direct response to a regime action.

The facts are that containment of the Iran regime had been working. The regime was cut off from financing and was bleeding mountains of cash because of its expenditure of arms and men in supporting religious wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

Discontentment ran deep within the Iranian people who rose up in protests over presidential elections in 2009 and most recently in mass demonstrations by teachers, ethnic minorities and young people over a plummeting economy and harsh human rights repression.

The time was ripe for regime change and under the pressure an effective containment strategy brought to bear on the mullahs, real change was within the grasp of the P5+1 group of nations and they let it slip away.

As Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said in response to the lost opportunity:

“Had the P5+1 been more decisive, the Iranian regime would have had no choice but to fully retreat from and permanently abandon its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Specifically, it would have been compelled to halt all uranium enrichment and completely shut down its bomb-making projects,” Mrs. Rajavi said.

But nothing better illustrates Parsi’s snarky view of the concerns over Iran’s brutal suppression of women, young people, Christians, Kurds and many others than this tweet he sent out:

“1/2 If America ends up getting delicious Iranian pistachios, and Iran ends up getting shitty McDonalds, then yes, US won #NoWinWin #IranDeal”

While Iranians languish in prison, Americans are held without trial, Iranian militia fight in three wars and millions of refugees are displaced by them, Parsi tweets about pistachios. It is ample proof of the fool he has become and the lackey he is.

By Michael Tomlinson

Trita Parsi Stays the Course of Covering for Iran Regime

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Trita Parsi Stays the Course of Covering for Iran Regime

Trita Parsi Stays the Course of Covering for Iran Regime

Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council, has been taking a victory lap of sorts with the announcement of an agreement between the P5+1 group of nations and the Iranian regime on nuclear weapons development.

His comments in news articles reminds us of the infamous “Mission Accomplished” moment of former President George W. Bush when he dramatically landed on a U.S. aircraft carrier to proclaim the war in Iraq was over and the U.S. had won; only to have the nation plunged into another decade of war against insurgents and local militias backed by Iran’s military.

The irony is too good to resist when we consider the clock is running now over the next two months for Congress to review an agreement and muster the votes necessary to override a certain veto by President Obama.

Plenty of time for Parsi to fall flat on his face.

But in reality, the only true validation of Parsi’s points will come simply by the Iranian regime’s actions. The choices the mullahs make will decide how much of a liar Parsi has become. Past history would seem to make the odds stacked heavily against Parsi.

The Iran regime lobby understands this and is pulling out all the stops to lobby Congress with the first step from the NIAC’s new formal lobbying arm (as opposed to the years-long informal lobbying it’s been doing) was to run a full page ad in the New York Times heralding the deal.

In an interview, Parsi warned that “make no mistake, if Congress rejects this good deal with Iran, there will be no better deal forthcoming and Congress will be left owning an unnecessary war.”

It’s an old argument and a silly one because the choices are not peace and war, but rather peace and war later since the restrictions on the regime’s weapons program and nuclear research end in five and 10 years respectively. Consequently – assuming Iranian regime doesn’t cheat – the next president will be faced with the exact same choices President Obama is faced with, except Iran will have nuclear weapons at that point and missile delivery systems.

All of which means, all we have done is postpone fighting with the Iran regime for a few years and allowed them to do what the North Koreans did with their agreement; cheat and build nuclear weapons in secret.

“We now know that the U.S. and Iran need not remain hostile enemies, but can interact with each other to achieve shared interests,” said Parsi in an interview with Glenn Greenwald in The Intercept.

Another Parsi talking point that alludes to the shared goals of fighting ISIS for example, but ignores the fact that Iran – as the world’s leading sponsor of global terror – does not share the same interests as the U.S. The evidence is abundant from providing IEDs to Shiite militias to kill American troops in Iraq to arresting and holding American citizens without trial in Iran; the mullahs do not share any common interests with the U.S. To expect a sudden change in the actions of a regime controlled by a small cadre of fanatically motivated mullahs is fanciful.

But that’s not all Parsi shills out.

“Saudi Arabia spends 13 times more money on its defense than Iran does. But somehow Iran, and not Saudi Arabia, is seen by the US as the potential aggressor,” Parsi said in Counterpunch.

Parsi has been using this erroneous stat since the mullahs demanded a lifting of the United Nations arms embargo. The fact that Parsi argued that the U.S. had to accommodate Iran by arming it unless it wanted to see talks end demonstrates his priorities, which is not pursuing peace, but buying arms for the mullahs.

What Parsi hopes no one discusses is the third path, the one the mullahs are terrified over because the choices are not really between peace and war. They are between war now or war later under this deal, but the third option is the one practiced by U.S. presidents since the end of World War II and that is the option of “containment.”

It is a policy that led to the dramatic reduction in nuclear arms resulting from the original SALT and later START treaties; examples that the P5+1 unfortunately choose not to follow.

It is a policy that we will examine more fully next time.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Restocking of Iran Regime Bank Accounts and Weapons

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The Restocking of Iran Regime Bank Accounts and WeaponsThe announcement of an agreement between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations sets the stage for a protracted fight over the next 60 days in Congress where the deal must be approved and failing that, an override of a certain veto from President Obama has to occur in order to prevent the mullahs from cashing in on what looks to be one of the most generous paydays since Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in the year 410.

There will be an intensive amount of examination and dissection of the agreement’s provisions, but for today it’s worth looking at what some of the reaction has been and what it tells us about the real ambitions and aims of the Iranian regime.

“All Democrats, all Republicans should be looking at this deal very skeptically,” said Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz in an interview on Newsmax TV. “This should not break down into liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat. It should be all Americans concerned about the possibility that Iran will develop a nuclear weapon in 10 years.”

“We have given Iran the path it has been seeking for almost 35 years. The other states in the region are not going to sit idly by, which is why in effect the nuclear arms race is already underway,” former U.N. Ambassador and Fox News contributor John Bolton said, adding that Iran and other nations have used civilian nuclear energy programs as cover for covert enrichment programs.

And from critics who know the intentions of the Iranian regime best came a strong statement from the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s leader, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi.

“There needs to be strict United Nations monitoring of the ‘cash poured into the regime’s pockets so that they would be spent on the Iranian people’s urgent needs,” said Iranian opposition leader Mrs. Rajavi. “Otherwise, Khamenei would continue to fund the IRGC (the Iranian regime’s Guards Corps) to export terrorism and fundamentalism to Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.”

Ironically enough, Trita Parsi and Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council, chief cheerleaders and lobbyists for Iran’s mullahs, offered an absurd argument in Foreign Policy describing a scenario where a lifting of the arms embargo against the regime would not alter the military balance in the region.

They cite the size of the military budget for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states versus what the Islamic republic spends, but their arguments are not only incorrect, but deliberately false since Iran has not publicly reported its military spending since 2012 and does not include the vast expenditures it makes in military exports for proxies such as Hezbollah, Houthis and Shiite militias fighting in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

They also ignore the centerpiece of Iranian military policy for the past five years which has been to rely heavily on paid mercenaries such as Afghan fighters, Shiite terror groups and paramilitaries to fight on behalf of the regime. In Syria’s case, Iran’s military dispatched 15,000 new fighters primarily made up of paid mercs alone.

When all of these other secret expenditures are taken into consideration, along with the size of the Iranian regime’s army, the mullahs’ firepower ranks 23rd in the world, exceeding the military capabilities of Saudi Arabia (ranked 28th), Mexico (31st), North Korea (36th), United Arab Emirates (50th) and Yemen (79th).

Which is why the arguments Parsi and Cullis posed strike at the heart of the needs of the Iranian regime; namely to get their hands on the $160 billion in frozen assets and foreign investment available to them, as well as the ability to sell two million barrels of oil on the open market each day again. The fact the Iran lobby has argued so passionately for lifting of the arms embargo shows the desperate need for the mullahs to restock their military hardware.

Over the next two months we will hear much debate over the specifics of the agreement, but what cannot be overlooked are the motivations of the mullahs in Tehran and the central flaw with this deal; which is it rests solely on the premise that the mullahs can be trusted.

It’s a deeply flawed premise given their actions over the past decade leading up to today which has never changed or deviated from the path of regional hegemony.

Congress would be well served to reject this deal because the choice is indeed between peace and war, unfortunately approving this deal will start a nuclear arms race, allow billions in new arms to flow to battlegrounds and spark a spiral into more wars.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

 

Why Congress Will Not Listen to the NIAC

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The end of talks in Vienna

The end of talks in Vienna

The National Iranian American Council lobbies on behalf of the Iranian regime. That much has been well documented through financial records, emails, court judgements, interviews, public statements and investigative stories by journalists.  The NIAC has even formalized that lobbying in launching an official lobbying arm in the form of NIAC Action.

The question remains though, will anyone on Capitol Hill listen to them?

There are a plethora of reasons why very few Senators or Representatives and their staffers will listen to them, especially in the wake of the current agreement between the regime and the P5+1 group of nations that the Congress will begin a 60 day review period.

First and foremost, any lobby’s power on Capitol Hill is derived from a few simple levers of influence such as: financial muscle to make campaign contributions, grassroots muscle to deliver workers in the field to walk precincts or man phone banks or direct influence through relationships and knowledge.

There are abundant examples of this every day. The National Rifle Association has been effective in holding off gun control legislation because it has over four million members shelling out over $200 million to support largely conservative candidates in favor of its position, while the AFL-CIO labor unions boast over 11 million members and spent over $46 million in direct lobbying alone to influence largely liberal candidates.

Every industry and cause in America has a powerful lobby, as well as foreign governments, including ones like the Iranian regime, but federal law prohibits Iran from directly contributing to candidates or even speaking to them directly on legislation; hence the need to create the NIAC to carry the mullahs’ water.

NIAC has an annual budget of less than $2 million with expenses around $1 million, which puts its financial clout somewhere around spotted owl society. The NIAC has recently posted a job for a development director since its leader, Trita Parsi, has quickly deduced he needs more cash quickly in order to get on the radar screen of Congress.

Consequently, if its political action committee were to even make a donation to a candidate, it is reasonable to assume that candidate might decline such as gift since it would be inviting intense scrutiny and attack from anti-regime opponents who would be more than happy to point out the error of a candidate’s ways in taking money from a group directly associated with Tehran.

It would be akin to taking money from BP right after the Gulf oil spill or donations from Monsanto while you’re reviewing regulations on GMOs.

Then there is the question of NIAC’s grassroots muscle, which has proven to be spotty at best and non-existent otherwise. Several “Days of Action” legislative outreach days have yielded pitiful results with small numbers of petitions being delivered primarily to already supportive members’ offices. NIAC is staffed with only a small number of people who attempt to demonstrate their outsized significance largely through social media that speaks to their own sphere of supporters.

Even media coverage of NIAC has seen a steep decline where their comments have moved lower and lower in news stories and been largely relegated to cheerleading quotes for the Iranian regime, much like a parrot would copy a master’s remarks. Absent articles about ongoing nuclear talks and their media presence shrinks to the size of a thimble.

As for their influence with their expertise, even that has come under harsh criticism as news media disclosures about former staffers and interns for NIAC moving into critical policy making roles within the Obama administration while reviewing policy on current nuclear talks have forced legislative staff to keep them at arm’s length lest their bosses be tagged with the same accusations.

In fact, Tyler Cullis of NIAC recently sent an email blast to congressional offices arguing for the lifting of the United Nations embargo on conventional weapons trade with Iran in order to facilitate the agreement; particularly since this has become one of the loopholes of the agreement. Since everyone knows that if the world gives them unrestricted access to arms they can buy and export to their proxies waging war in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

The fact that Cullis is not even a staffer for the new lobbying arm, but engaging in direct lobbying of congressional staffers, caused many eyebrows to be raised, but the desperate gambit by NIAC was necessary because Iran was demanding the action at the 11th hour.

To give you an idea of how desperate NIAC staffers are to help the mullahs, Reza Marashi claimed on CBS This Morning that the deal was “too big to fail” and thus had to be approved.

The last time we had something given to the American people as too big to fail, it was our nation’s banks as they gorged on bad debt and collapsed sending the nation spiraling into recession.

This Iranian “too big to fail moment” might end up sending the rest of the world into a new nuclear arms race and prolonged sectarian wars for years to come at the hands of the mullahs.

All of which is why at the end of the day, it would be wise for Democrats and Republicans to just ignore the NIAC.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Playing Blame Game

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Iran Lobby Playing Blame GameJuly 9 has come and gone and yet another deadline has blown by in excruciating nuclear talks between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations; totaling now six missed deadlines in the past two years.

But with talks collapsing again, a fresh round of finger pointing continues to break out as U.S. and Iranian negotiating teams took to competing news leaks to start the blame game as to which side was at fault for the impasse.

Regime foreign minister Javad Zarif took to Twitter to float the accusation that it was the other side that had changed demands in the middle of negotiations. It is an absurd claim since it has been the mullahs in Tehran who have dropped several verbal bombs that have blown up talks including an extraordinary demand to lift United Nations embargoes on the arms trade.

Given the fact that the regime is hip deep in supplying three major wars now in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, the prospect of the regime being flooded with new arms it could redirect to its forces in these conflicts has effectively killed talks.  With this last minute demand, Iran’s mullahs may have overreached as evidenced by the sudden stiffening in the U.S. position and the threat by Secretary of State John Kerry to walk away from talks.

Both Russia and China have supported a lifting of the embargo since they stand to be the biggest sellers of weapons to the regime. The behind the scenes rift amongst the P5+1 members may very well have been a calculated move by the mullahs in order to sow discord right at the deadline and apply maximum leverage in order to extract the best deal possible.

Some news media and analysts have speculated that significant concessions granted to the regime over the past two years may have emboldened the regime into thinking it was winning and encouraged the mullahs to overreach with their latest demands, only to see the golden opportunity to gain sanctions relief be dealt a setback with the missing of this week’s deadlines.

More broadly though, these sudden demands by Iran and finger pointing have laid bare the absurdity of the regime lobbying forces that have been deployed to help manage the media during talks. Chief among them have been the National Iranian American Council which has sent two of its staffers, Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi, to camp out in Vienna and offer soundbites to any journalist willing to listen.

Parsi especially has been active on his Twitter trying to shore up the regime position and jumped into the blame game as well once word came down from the Iranian delegation that the Americans had finally seemed to wise up to the regime’s games.

“Iranian view is that US withdrew today a proposal it had put forward yesterday, WANTING to pass the Corker deadline #IranTalksVienna,” Parsi said in a tweet.

Parsi has tried to put lipstick on a pig in tweeting out pithy little attacks on the U.S. as talks broke down, as well as supporting Russian foreign minister Lavrov’s tweets as he took exception to the stiffening in U.S. resolve.

All of which amounted to squat for Parsi and his lobbying partners as world financial markets took notice of the regime blunder and global oil prices stabilized as belief spread that the window for a nuclear had closed.

At the end of this week, the mullahs seriously miscalculated about demanding immediate sanctions relief so they could gain access to the estimated $140 billion in frozen assets as well as resume trade in arms and missiles to restock inventories drained dry through its proxy wars.

The demands came at such bad times so close to deadlines as to raise the specter of desperation on the part of Iran’s leadership. The past several months have seen mass protests and disruptions throughout Iran as ordinary citizens, teachers and young people have demanded improved economic conditions and relief from oppressing human rights restrictions.

The mullahs may have been feeling the pinch and made these demands not out of some strategic negotiating position, but simply out of desperation to save themselves, in which case the West would be well-served to walk away from these talks and call the regime’s bluff and find out just how bad off the mullahs really are.

At the end of the day, do we really need a nuclear deal if the only option is a bad one?

By Laura Carnahan

Iran Lobby Playing Blame Game

“Deadline Schmedline” Trita Parsi Not Worried for Regime

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“Deadline Schmedline” Trita Parsi Not Worried for Regime

Trita Parsi has had close working relationship with Javad Zarif, when he was Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations. In a deposition, Parsi stated he only communicated in 2006 with Zarif in order to “interview him.” But this is not true.
Emails made public demonstrate that Parsi and Zarif collaborated on numerous political issues. Parsi publicly distributed an Iranian regime document to influence US policy. He made arrangements for the ambassador to participate in a conference on Capitol Hill and to meet members of Congress, and sought the ambassador’s council regarding the feasibility of a new Persian Gulf security arrangement.
About the collusion between Parsi and Zarif, a former Associate Deputy Director of the FBI said Parsi should have been registered as a foreign agent of Iran. Arizona Senator Jon Kyl contacted the US Justice Department, urging an investigation of Parsi.

Noun: dead·line

 

  • a date or time when something must be finished : the last day, hour, or minute that something will be accepted

“Deadline schmedline, I’m still not worried.”

Apparently Parsi, chief cheerleader and lobbyist for the Iran regime, has a slightly different view of deadlines than the foreign ministers of six countries negotiating with regime, but not so different from his mullah masters in Tehran since Iran has now blown past five self-imposed deadlines to reach a nuclear deal over the past two years.

The new, new deadline is today to meet a deadline set in legislation granting Congress 30 days to review any deal instead of a 60 day period; the logic being having a longer review period would allow opposition to a Iranian nuclear more time to lobby Congress.

In fact, Iran’s mullahs care little about deadlines since what they seem most interested in is taking verbal potshots at their opposite numbers, especially the U.S. as evidenced by heated exchanges from regime foreign minister Javad Zarif who chastised P5+1 negotiators for taking exception to regime’s latest demand to lift embargoes against the conventional arms trade.

Parsi was almost crowing about Zarif’s verbal explosion by tweeting out how well received it would be back in Iran by the mullahs.  All of which makes it plain Parsi could really care less about a deal as long as the regime gets to play the rest of the world as fools.

In each case as a new deadline approached, the regime has sabotaged the hope of any agreement by issuing new, aggressive demands; typically through a public rant by top mullah Ali Khamenei or more recently by issuing his very own infographic of “red lines” the regime would not cross in concessions.

And Parsi has faithfully sought to provide cover for the mullahs in his media interviews and social media tweets even though he probably knows what he is saying is either false or contradicted by the very mullahs he’s trying to make excuses for.

Take for example his tweet the other day chastising the amount of money spent by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states as part of their overall military budgets. He lists Iran’s military spending at only $10.6 billion which is patently false since the regime halted public reporting of its military expenditures since 2009 when the mullahs stole the presidential election and spurred massive protests by the Iranian people which were brutally put down.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute tracks global military spending but has no data for Iran past 2009 and the data it did have before then did not include regime spending for paramilitary forces such as the Revolutionary Guards Corps and Quds Force, nor did it take into account aid given to terror groups such as Hezbollah or proxies such as Shiite militias in Iraq or Houthi rebels in Yemen.

But Parsi is by no means the only apologist for the regime. His colleague Reza Marashi has been just as busy in trying to explain why the mullahs keep heaping on demand after demand even after a so-called interim agreement was reached and only “technical” details had to be worked out.

His contention in the Los Angeles Times was that the mullahs worry the “White House will use administrative authority to temporarily lift U.S. sanctions on Iran but that Congress won’t follow through to permanently remove sanctions that were enacted into law.”

It is an odd position to take since the lifting of sanctions was agreed upon in the interim agreement only after verifying the regime had lived up to the conditions of a deal, including verification and reductions in enriched uranium stockpiles; both conditions repudiated by the regime since last April’s agreement.

But the truth doesn’t seem to faze Parsi and his cohorts and neither it seem do deadlines.

By Michael Tomlinson

As Nuke Talks Fail, Trita Parsi Contributes to Global Warming With Hot Air

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As Nuke Talks Fail, Trita Parsi Contributes to Global Warming With Hot Air

As Nuke Talks Fail, Trita Parsi Contributes to Global Warming With Hot Air

As yet another deadline slipped away in nuclear talks between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations, the new trial balloon being floated was the idea of open-ended negotiations and keeping alive the November 2013 interim agreement which has already paid out to the Tehran’s mullahs a whopping $17 billion in cash.

But why did negotiators let a June 30 self-imposed deadline slip away, only to see another July 7 deadline fall by the wayside? It is because the Iran regime really has no interest in a deal that continues to deprive the mullahs of the $140 billion in frozen assets they need and restricts how they might spend all that cash.

Indeed, while regime supporters such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, Jim Lobe of Lobelog and Atieh Khajehpour of Atieh International have all proclaimed loudly the mullahs commitment to a deal, Iran’s leaders have consistently sabotaged any progress in talks.

The latest example was that as Tuesday’s deadline came and went, Western news sources cited statements from a senior member of the Iranian negotiating team who disclosed the regime fully expects any agreement to also include a lifting of United Nation sanctions imposed on the sale of conventional weapons and ballistic missiles.

“This is one of the important issues we are discussing,” said the official, a negotiator who spoke to Western reporters on the condition of anonymity.

The demand was significant because the P5+1 had already conceded to the regime the idea of removing ballistic missile technology from discussions, but the regime’s insistence on lifting sanctions on all conventional weapons is telling because of the regime’s enormous level of support of three proxy wars with Hezbollah in Syria, Shiite militias in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The drain on Iranian regime’s military is significant as the mullahs ship guns, rockets, anti-tank weapons, missiles, ammunition and other equipment to their proxies in each of these wars. The fact the mullahs are demanding a lifting to sanctions to allow for the flow of cash and arms back into Iran is ample proof to anyone with a brain what Iranian regime’s future foreign policy direction is once a deal is completed; which makes what regime supporters such as Parsi say look foolish and ridiculous.

Parsi has repeatedly contended that a nuclear deal with Iran would aid moderates within the regime, boost America’s role in the region, improve security for American interests and help destroy ISIS.

But the evidence to the contrary has been as clear as crystal. Any political moderates remaining in Iran have been thrown in the regime’s notorious Evin prison or executed amongst the 1,800 sent to the gallows by Hassan Rouhani’s administration.

Americans have been taken hostage and remain as bargaining chips by the mullahs, while America’s traditional allies in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been faced with terror strikes in their borders, open warfare with Iranian proxies and have acted unilaterally to defend themselves.

The fact that the regime itself built the template by which ISIS has modeled itself is another rebuttal to what Parsi contends. Ironically while Parsi has been huffing and puffing claiming “moderate” aims of the mullahs, Jordanian security forces revealed the arrest of an Iranian agent working for the regime’s Quds Force who was caught with a sizable amount of explosives to be used in a strike against the U.S. ally.

But Parsi’s attempt at fooling the world is proving inept as the actions of the regime – almost all of which have contradicted everything Parsi has claimed – are finally being denounced on editorial pages everywhere.

“Now Iran’s negotiators are piling on more last-minute demands. They want the United Nations to lift restrictions on Iranian regime’s trade in missiles and other conventional arms. They act, at least publicly, as though they have all the leverage, that they know their adversary craves a deal more than they do,” said the Chicago Tribune in an editorial.

“Where would they get that idea? Probably from the U.S. and its allies, who reportedly have been backpedaling on key points to eke out a deal,” The Tribune added.

While Parsi and his colleague Reza Marashi enjoy the weather in Vienna and hob nob with journalists and fellow regime sympathizers who have gathered there like rock band groupies following the Iranian delegation, the world outside that bubble have already come to the conclusion that Iran’s mullahs have no interest in a deal, only in re-opening their bank accounts and restocking their military hardware for waging even more war.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Pulling Out All the Stops

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Iran Lobby Pulling Out All the Stops

Iran Lobby Pulling Out All the Stops

The 4th of July weekend was filled with more than fireworks and celebration. It had more than BBQs and hot dog eating contests or mesmerizing Women’s World Cup finale. The holiday weekend also a blizzard of last minute lobbying by supporters of the Iran regime in a desperate attempt to push for a final key concessions including some new disturbing demands by the mullahs in Tehran.

In the vanguard were staffers from the regime’s chief lobbying group, the National Iranian American Council, which sent its representatives anywhere they could find a microphone, camera, notebook or warm body willing to listen to them.

There was no limit to what they were willing to comment about, even if it had no real tie in with ongoing nuclear negotiations or for that matter, anything of relevance to Iranian-Americans, the purported audience they were founded to help.

Reza Marashi of the NIAC spent his weekend being quoted in Voice of America about an online campaign to foster love for the Iran regime. I’m still trying to figure out just how that movement halts Iran’s funding of three proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

He also attempted to persuade the BBC in the Viennese hotel lobby where negotiations were taking place that talks had moved from the “expert” level and now was in the hands of “ministers.” An interesting observation since he said the exact same thing last year and in April when the interim framework agreement was announced with much fanfare and 24 hours later each side disputed what was agreed to.

But give Marashi credit for attempting wild spin control such as when he told Bloomberg News that “both sides have more maneuvering ability in their negotiating position than they are willing to let on.”

An interesting contention when regime leader Ali Khamenei laid down several red lines in the sand in the form of a detailed infographic repudiating almost everything regime negotiators had hinted at in terms of compromises.

Public lobbying for the regime’s positions wasn’t limited to the NIAC though. Long-time regime business associate Bijan Khajehpour of Atieh International has made the argument that the immediate lifting of sanctions would benefit the Iranian people with the injection of fresh capital into the economy. While everyone knows that the estimated $140 billion in frozen assets and nearly $100 billion in direct foreign investment was being eagerly awaited by the regime’s ruling mullahs who desperately need the cash to replenish coffers drained dry by three proxy wars, plunging oil prices and deep-seated corruption resulted from regime elites and their families skimming off the economy.

The most impressive linguistic gymnastics have come from Trita Parsi, the leader-for-life of the NIAC, who has given full-throated support for all of the demands laid out by Khamenei. Ironically, Parsi’s own book has been used to explain how during the Bush administration, the opportunity arose for a deal with Iran to be struck only to fail because of the “unreasonable” demands by the U.S. for regime change.

History has demonstrated though that Iran’s mullahs have never been serious about delivering a deal that undercuts their power, ability to control their neighbors, nor reduce their ongoing sectarian warfare against other religions. While Parsi contends the mullahs were perfectly willing to give up supporting terror groups like Hezbollah and cooperate with nuclear inspectors, the opposite has been the truth.

Parsi has never explained why a regime he himself has portrayed as being committed to a path of peace has instead turned into the single source of bloodshed, war, sectarian violence, terrorism and practitioner of unrivaled human rights abuses on the planet right now.

Indeed, Iran is appropriately enough the “godfather” of much of what troubles the world now. About the only thing Iran’s mullahs are not responsible for are the Greek Eurozone vote and the collapse of the Japanese women’s soccer team in the Women’s World Cup championship game.

But Parsi deserves our final attention since it has been his championing of the mullahs that has turned the once promising idea of a voice for Iranian-Americans into a propaganda megaphone for the mullahs.

In a question and answer session with Deutsche Welle, Parsi was asked if “a deal only helps Iran’s elite, the hardliners, or do you think a deal could actually help to unleash Iran’s moderate society?”

“It is the moderates in Iran who are pushing for this deal. It is the pro-democracy movement that is overwhelmingly in favor of this deal,” Parsi said.

That statement, more than any other he has made over the past few weeks, sheds the brightest light on the rank hypocrisy Parsi spouts. He attempts to convince us moderate forces are in control in Iran; the same moderate forces that:

  • Instituting brutal put downs of any street demonstration or protests over the past four years;
  • Proclaiming a “moderate” president in Hassan Rouhani who has overseen 1,800 executions in the past 2 years at a clip almost double that of his deranged predecessor, Ahmadinejad;
  • Plunged the Middle East into three massive wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen with the full military, economic and political backing of the regime, including committing thousands of Iranian soldiers and paramilitary militias;
  • Oversaw the most massive crackdown on communications in Iran, essentially blacking out the entire country through installation of a cyberwall, confiscation of satellite dishes and banning of access to social media.

These things and more are the proof that puts to lies what Parsi, Marashi and all other regime supporters’ contend are the true nature of the mullahs’ intentions.

By Michael Tomlinson

Trita Parsi Tries to Dignify Terror

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Trita Parsi- Iran Lobby

Trita Parsi- Iran Lobby

With the 4th of July upon us, it’s appropriate for us to reflect back on some words from one of the Founding Fathers; in this case Thomas Jefferson who wrote in 1774:

“A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”

It’s an appropriate thought as we look at negotiations between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations wrestling with how to keep Iran from possessing nuclear weapons, but if that issue is really just a tangent of an ever greater problem facing the world today which is the recalcitrant and predatory nature of the regime’s mullah leadership.

Jefferson was right thought in 1774 and his words apply today because the claim of authority assumed by Iran’s mullahs was forcibly wrested away from the Iranian people in the 1979 revolution and subverted into the perverse extremist theocracy it has become now.

All of which makes what Trita Parsi, leader of the regime’s chief lobbying group, the National Iranian American Council, wrote in National Interest patently absurd and indicative of how craven Parsi has become in shilling for the mullahs.

“But the necessity to uphold dignity is at the very center of both the problems and the solutions in the ongoing nuclear negotiations,” Parsi said.

Parsi’s contention that affording Iran’s mullahs “dignity” is the clear path an agreement. He equates this by using the example of the demands by the P5+1 to allow inspections of regime military sites in order to ascertain if Iran has militarized its nuclear development and whether or not the U.S. would allow similar inspections of its military bases under similar circumstances.

It’s an absurd proposition on Parsi’s part for two significant reasons: 1) Mullahs in Iran and not the U.S. was violating international agreements it had signed to not develop nuclear weapons; and 2) Under nuclear treaties with the Soviet Union and later Russia, the U.S. allowed access to its nuclear bases and facilities for international monitors and Soviet and Russian personnel to witness the dismantling of warheads and missiles.

Parsi also takes exception to the idea of “anytime, anywhere” inspections, blaming that condition for offending Iranian dignity and precipitating a crisis in talks. He further suggests that Iran has always given inspectors access and has no problem with it if it was delivered in a manner preserving of Iranian dignity.

I give Parsi credit for his imagination. He might make a good fantasy writer some day with these fairy tales he concocts, but the truth of the situation is that the regime has repeatedly halted inspections, cutting locks off of monitoring lockers and removing inspection cameras. In fact, the regime still to this day has refused answering questions in a dozen areas raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency over the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program.

Far from preserving Iranian dignity, Ali Khamenei and his fellow mullahs have refused these questions and concessions not out some sense of national pride, but rather from the very real fear their military secrets would be discovered and the entire false façade they had constructed of a peaceful nuclear program would come crashing down.

Remember, the regime had hidden even the existence of secret nuclear facilities at Parchin, Natanz and Arak.

The fact that Khamenei himself has posted his own definitive red lines where he will brook no compromise renders Parsi’s arguments moot since the regime’s top mullah has taken upon himself to repudiate Parsi’s claims over and over again.

Why does Parsi discuss Iranian dignity when he never deals with the primary factor which is the regime is the violator of international law and agreements in the first place? Does the dignity of a murderer become important as part of his trial? Do a war criminal’s actions deserve dignity when being examined by prosecutors?

The fact that Iran has been caught in criminal activities effectively negates its right to be treated as an equal amongst nations who abide by international law. China does not fund Hezbollah. France does not supply Houthi rebels with arms. The United Kingdom does not recruit Afghan mercenaries and send 15,000 of them to support the Assad regime in Syria, but the Iran regime does all these things and more.

Instead of writing about the dignity of the regime’s mullahs, Parsi would do better about writing of the indignities being suffered by American hostages such as Jason Rezaian of the Washington Post, or the Iranian families whose loved ones have been hanged by the thousands by the mullahs. Parsi might consider the plight of the millions of Syrians, Iraqis, Yemens and Lebanonese who have been displaced as refugees fleeing the proxy wars Iran has started.

By Laura Carnahan