Iran Lobby

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

Iran Regime Lobby Losing Grip on Congress

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Trita parsi, greeting the mullah's delegation in Geneva during the nuclear negotiations -March 2015

Trita parsi, greeting the mullah’s delegation in Geneva during the nuclear negotiations -March 2015

The Iran regime’s lobbying and PR machine, notably led by the National Iranian American Council, invested significant resources in a blatant effort to lobby and influence members of Congress over the recent negotiations on the regime’s nuclear infrastructure.

The NIAC attempted to portray the negotiations as the only clear path towards peace and any member of Congress denigrating it was no better than a war monger. In response, Congress offered up the Corker-Menendez bill which gives Congress the power to keep economic sanctions in place while it reviewed any deal. Despite NIAC’s objections, it passed out of committee on a bipartisan vote.

Then NIAC was part of the “National Day of Action” involving delivering petitions to local Congressional offices. The effort produced sporadic selfies in scattered offices of volunteers, mostly Democrats already pledging to support the regime. In response, 47 Senate Republicans sent an open letter to the Iran regime promising to overturn any bad deal.

Itching for more failure, the NIAC marshalled its forces again for the stretch drive of talks and went on a media blitz and sent Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi to troll lobby bars in Lausanne, Switzerland. Instead, the House this time sent out a letter signed by 367 Democrats and Republicans, representing a veto-proof majority, calling for review and approval of any deal.

Even after talks concluded with a “framework” agreement that appears to be different in its terms if you read Iranian, American or French versions, NIAC continued to call it an historic agreement. On Monday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is on track to be the new Democratic Leader succeeding retiring Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), announced his support for the Corker-Menendez bill and called on Congress to review and halt any deal it deems bad.

His support is crucial and now probably gives Republicans the 60 votes necessary to override any veto from President Obama. Both houses of Congress now stand united in the need to review, debate, verify and approval or disapprove any final agreement coming out of P5+1 talks with the Iran regime.

Why did NIAC fail? Quite simply, it overpromised and underdelivered.

NIAC members, especially Trita Parsi, regularly mistakenly took positions throughout talks over the past three years that ended up having to be retracted or were proved wrong. Most notably were its claims about the Iran regime’s desire for peace, only to be routinely undercut by top mullah Ali Khamenei who gave his annual “Death to America” speech alongside demands that Iran retain all its nuclear infrastructure, immediate lifting of all economic sanctions and promise to keep developing ballistic missile technology.

In a way, you have to pity Trita Parsi and NIAC for having to work for verbal loose cannons like Khamenei who have all the subtlety of a freight train, but then again, Parsi and NIAC enjoy the perks of being mouthpieces for the biggest state sponsor of terrorism. i.e. Iran’s mullahs which explains how they can manage trips to Switzerland and an unlimited bar tab waiting for journalists to ask their opinions.

But has Iran’s mullahs really gotten the results expected from NIAC? If you judge success based on legislative wins in Congress, the answer has to be a resounding “NO!” The NIAC’s grip on Beltway reality grows looser, especially with new revelations from Breitbart News and others about the deep connections now being uncovered between NIAC and national security and foreign policy teams in the Obama administration.

The lack of disclosure by the administration has further tainted arguments made by NIAC for the deal as it becomes increasingly clear the organizations does not stand for the interests of Iranian Americans – four of whom remain in regime prisons without trial or charge – and instead is simply a cheap lobby for the mullahs.

We would urge Khamenei to get a refund from Parsi and cut his expense account for lack of results.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby – The Sales Job of NIAC

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Trita Parsi on NIAC accompanying the Iranian delegation in Geneva - Iran talks March 2015

Trita Parsi on NIAC accompanying the Iranian delegation in Geneva – Iran talks March 2015

With a vague “framework” of a nuclear agreement with the Iran regime and the West now floating around, Iran’s mullahs are cracking the whip on their lobbyists and PR flaks to get the job done and sell what is arguably the smelliest deal since Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from the Lenape tribe for 60 guilders.

 

Chief amongst the regime’s trusted mouthpieces is Trita Parsi and the National Iranian American Council, who was omnipresent at talks over the last two years and enjoyed close access to Iran regime team members, often being privy to details that virtually all Western journalists didn’t know about.

 

The close nature of the working relationship between NIAC and Iran’s mullahs has come under intense scrutiny, especially from several articles on Breitbart.com pointing to the cozy working relationship NIAC had with regime officials and most disturbing the recent revelation of a key member of the U.S. National Security Council having previously been a staff member at NIAC.

 

There has been no denial of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh’s prior work at NIAC from the Obama administration, although an effort has been made to downplay her involvement in nuclear negotiations, but the connections to NIAC are troubling when one examines the scope of NIAC’s sales effort aimed at heading off intervention by Congress in sinking the proposal and hiding its true nature.

 

Parsi and NIAC have attempted to show Iranians celebrating in the streets of Tehran in support of the deal, in a nation where protests are banned and public celebrations are orchestrated with the care of a Super Bowl halftime show.

 

Parsi and NIAC have attempted to show the framework embodies all of the safeguards the West and Congress have been asking for, but an examination by The New York Times Michael Gordon revealed vast differences between what the U.S. and Iranian delegations believe the agreement contains.

 

Parsi and NIAC have attempted to show there was support in Congress for the framework announcement by pointing to favorable statements from 19 Democratic Representatives, none of whom were part of the 367 bipartisan members objecting to agreement of any deal without Congressional review and approval. The 367 members represent a veto-proof majority in the House.

 

The NIAC has attempted to launch a grassroots effort by urging supporters to contact Senators since it already knows it has lost any chance in the House to sway a vote. Its only hope is to persuade the five or six Democratic Senators still undecided to fall in line with the mullahs and not vote for a sanctions review bill being offered by Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN).

 

Oddly, while both House and Senate proposes give Congress the chance to review any deal, and hence allow the American people a voice in what is arguably one of the most important foreign policy issues facing global security and peace, NIAC argue strenuously against any input from the American public.

 

Why? What is NIAC so afraid of?

 

Like a used car salesman trying to move a clunker off the lot, NIAC is deathly afraid the American public might actually want to look under the hood of this framework and ask some basic questions such as “Can we really trust mullahs who have already violated three prior international agreements allowing inspections of secret nuclear facilities?”

 

The truth hurts the NIAC and its bosses in Tehran and it is doing everything it can to hide the truth and trust in simple slogans and fear mongering, warning that turning down this deal is tantamount to war with Iran; forgetting that a nuclear-armed extremist Islamic regime is the surest and shortest path to war.

 

Iran-When Is a Deal Not a Deal?

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No Big DealThe Sunday opinion pages were filled with widely divergent views on the proposed “framework” agreement announced between the P5+1 group of nations and the Iran regime; ranging from cautious optimism to vehement denunciation. Oddly, the range of opinions detailed specific points allegedly within the announced framework, but were wildly different and contrasting.

It almost appeared that two agreements came out of Lausanne, Switzerland and in fact two agreements did emerge which is why members of Congress are condemning it on one hand and the regime is busy organizing street rallies for the cameras to make it look like celebrations in the streets of Tehran.

The New York Times’ Michael Gordon writes over the weekend that negotiators emerged with a surprisingly detailed outline of the agreement, “but one problem is that there are two versions.”

The only joint document issued publicly was a statement from the regime’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and Federica Mogherini, the European Union foreign policy chief, which was an underwhelming seven paragraphs long. It contained a dozen so-called “parameters” meant to guide the next three months of talks.

Both the U.S. and Iran regime delegations released more detailed statements on the agreement which showed striking differences from both sides, betraying the lack of uniform consensus negotiators and the regime sought to portray publicly.

Of special note where differences in the expectations of how quickly economic sanctions would be lifted, as well as no descriptions on the type of research the regime will be allowed to undertake on centrifuges during the next 10 years of the proposed agreement; a pretty significant omission which has already killed three prior rounds of talks.

Other differences between the American and Iranian versions include an American contention that Iran had agreed to shrink its stockpile of uranium to 300 kilograms, but does not appear in the Iranian regime version.

The regime version includes a claim of nuclear cooperation between the regime and the six world powers to build nuclear power plants, research reactors and medical isotopes, a claim not even mentioned in the American statement. The American version says the regime would be able to conduct “limited” centrifuge research over the next 10 years, but the regime version removes the word “limited.”

The biggest difference is the speed at which economic sanctions will be lifted. The regime text calls for “immediately” lifting sanctions when the agreement is implemented while the American version describes a step-by-step process.

The fact that Zarif took to Twitter after both sides statements were issued and he dismissed the American framing of the outstanding issues as mere “spin” accurately portray the unspoken truth about this agreement, which is there is in fact no agreement at all. Zarif pounded that fact further when appeared on Iranian state television complaining to Secretary of State John Kerry that the American statement contradicted what was agreed to both sides.

With agreements like this, you’d hate to see what would happen if they actually disagreed with each other publicly.

There has been much speculation that these regime denunciations are designed to provide political cover for mullah’s President Hassan Rouhani as a hedge against so-called “hardliners” in the government, which is another fabrication since all power and authority over foreign policy agreements and treaties vests wholly and solely in the regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei.

Thereby rests the truth of what came out of Lausanne. While the regime and its lobbyists, such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, have been busy attempting to portray this as a historic milestone, they remain deathly agreed of more analysis by news media such as the one done by Gordon. If he can pierce the charade of these talks so quickly, what does that portend for the future of this “framework?”

It will likely end up on the trash heap of history as the three previous joint statements issued promising agreement on the broad outlines with only “technical” details to be worked out. In each case, a final agreement failed because the regime does not want anything detailed or specific put on paper.

The mullahs also want to retain all its’ nuclear infrastructure, but most importantly, they want economic sanctions lifted because the hammer blows on the economy caused by falling oil prices and heavy costs related to their funding of four separate proxy wars now in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen are pushing the regime to the brink of collapse.

Unless the regime can pull the wool over the world’s eyes and convince everyone this is indeed a deal, then it risks failing again and for the mullahs, the stakes might mean their survival.

By Laura Carnahan

 

Iran – Same Story, Different Year for Regime Talks

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Deal Sort of !

Deal Sort of !

There was much fanfare and speech making in Switzerland as negotiators proclaimed a framework deal had been reached with the Iranian regime. All that remained were the “technical details.” On closer examination, a more appropriate paraphrase might be “same stuff, different day.”

As predicted here, this framework deal is nothing more than a stalling tactic to allow all parties to claim a victory without really putting anything on the line and buy time to go back to the bargaining table again until the June 2015 deadline.

The key world that President Obama and regime officials such as mullah’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and even regime apologist-in-chief Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council all agree on and used in their respective statements was “If.”

If the details can be worked out. If the Iranian regime can be trusted to implement it. If inspectors are allowed unfettered access. If Iran doesn’t cheat. Never in the annals of diplomacy has the word “If” been used so often by so many people to describe such dramatically different viewpoints.

But critics of the so-called agreement, including Iranian dissidents closest to the reality on the ground, all chimed in and for them, no one was using the word “If.” For them, the reality of the Iran regime’s past history and track record led most of them to abandon any doubts and solidly believe the regime has no intention of honoring this agreement.

In the following weeks there will be plenty of commentary, detailed analysis and criticism of this proposal and the vague loopholes in it large enough to drive a battleship through, but what is worth reflection now is how we got here.

The one essential truth is that punishing economic sanctions, coupled with a revolution in oil production driving down global oil prices brought the Iranian regime to its knees and put its ruling mullahs right in the cross hairs of the same kind of discontent among Iran’s people that drove the last revolution.

The fragile hold the mullahs have was shown to be tenuous even as they ratcheted up the crackdowns at home and proxy wars abroad in an effort to suppress dissent and provide distractions for the world to take attention away from how precarious their hold on power can be.

Since 2002, sanctions and their effectiveness at bringing the regime back to the bargaining table again and again are undisputed. The regime has worked long and hard to create perceptions of Iran’s rise as a regional power a force to be reckoned with. It is a charade and illusion that has helped its cause at the bargaining table by forcing some nervous Western diplomats to capitulate to Iranian demands in a blatant effort of appeasement all too reminiscent of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s notorious “Peace in our time” boast.

As Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and the leading opposition group to the Iranian regime, said: “Nevertheless, a statement of generalities, lacking Khamenei’s signature and official approval, will never block the path to the regime obtaining nuclear weapons nor prevent its intrinsic deception.”

Which brings us to the last and most crucial point about this agreement, which is it is not an agreement unless Iran’s top cleric says so and given his most recent statements he might be smelling blood in the water to the extent the West has caved on many regime demands. Would Khamenei tank this framework in order to make another stab at getting everything he wants which is namely an immediate and complete lifting of all economic sanctions against Iran?

Khamenei knows that the secret to preserving the mullahs’ power is to lift the sanctions to demonstrate that the mullahs can do more than arrest, beat, torture and hang people.

It stands to reason though that with all of the “ifs” involved in this framework, we’re likely to be hashing out the same issues again in just a few more months.

By Michael Tomlinson

Regime Lobbyist NIAC Deep in U.S. Govt.

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Sahar NowrouzzadehmThe news coming out of Switzerland reads exactly the same as it did last year and the year before that, with negotiators saying there has been progress and agreement reached on the pathway to move forward to finalize a deal. It’s Groundhog Day every day when it comes to the Iranian regime as it patiently waits for external pressures to keep building on the West to give in on its demands without giving anything up of substance.

 

Ironically the Iranian regime is desperate to ensure no details are leaked since it knows there would be global condemnation if everything was ever put on paper and put online. But through leaks and news stories we know the regime is on the verge of retaining its enrichment capacity through its centrifuges, they will be protected in a deep military bunker in Fordow, they get to keep their reactors, ballistic missile technology and a lifting of economic sanctions, as well as some ramp up in their activities near the end of the deal.

 

Providing the political cover and PR spin for this process over the past several years has been the loyal work of the National Iranian American Council, whose front-lobbyer is Trita Parsi and other staffers have been near constant fixtures in Lausanne hotel lobby bars, lounges and hallways plying their wares akin to the world’s oldest profession.

 

The ties between NIAC and the Iranian regime has been long established, including through a recent defamation lawsuit Parsi filed against a journalist, lost and in the process was forced to reveal sensitive emails and documents showing a much closer relationship between NIAC and high-ranking regime officials, including regime Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

 

As Eli Lake writes in a Bloomberg article: “In 2006, Zarif and Parsi tried to persuade journalists to write about a peace offer Iran had supposedly offered the George W. Bush administration after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Yet according to senior Bush administration officials, that 2003 offer was not a serious piece of diplomacy, and was not made through the channels by which the Bush administration communicated with Iran. Nonetheless, the narrative stuck that the Bush team blew a chance at a breakthrough in 2003.”

 

Secretary of State John Kerry repeated the Zarif line in an interview with ABC’s “This Week” earning three Pinocchios from The Washington Post which judged the claim dubious, but it was another indication of the efforts the regime was going to ensure it controlled the media narrative even while the American public and Congress grew more skeptical as sectarian violence throughout the region boiled over under Iran’s aggressive manipulation.

 

But the depth of NIAC’s efforts to manipulate the U.S. negotiating approach was revealed in a piece on Breitbart.com which revealed Sahar Nowrouzzadehm the National Security Council Director for Iran was a former staffer for NIAC as late as 2007 before joining the NSC in 2014.

 

The most galling revelation was her appearance on secure conference calls with President Obama and other top policy advisers including Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary Kerry, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz and National Security Adviser Susan Rice discussing negotiations with the Iranian regime.

 

The fact that a former staffer of a lobbying group for the Iranian regime is allowed to serve in a sensitive policy position as the U.S. strikes a nuclear deal raises some skepticism to why the U.S. has been so willing to accommodate Iranian regime’s demands.

 

It is in a way like allowing industry lobbyists to serve in the regulatory agencies overseeing them.

 

All of which raises an even larger issue. Has Nowrouzzadeh maintained contacts with Parsi and her former colleagues at NIAC? Has there been any insight or understanding to any journalists supportive of the regime, as a result? Any classified information discussed?

 

The furry of questions arising from this revelation is likely to raise concern for the Congressional investigators busy as they examine whatever deal eventually gets publicly released out of Switzerland, but what is worrying is that NIAC has been allowed to work tirelessly to cover for the regime and spread its influence deep into the heart of the U.S. government.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Essential Failure of the Iran Regime Lobby

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The Essential Failure of the Iran Regime Lobby

The Essential Failure of the Iran Regime Lobby

In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” We might add meeting a deadline for any negotiation with the Iranian regime to that list as the P5+1 talks in Switzerland ended without a framework agreement by a March 31st deadline; a deadline created when the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action was extended itself to November of 2014.

A more cynical person might conclude Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wanted to extend talks to April Fools’ Day just so he could dash world hopes for a nuclear agreement on a more auspicious date.

What is clear about these talks is they follow the exact same pattern as the three previous rounds of talks that have taken place. Between October of 2013 and today, the P5+1 have held three rounds of talks and at each point, agreements were announced to extend talks, claiming common ground and a pathway to agreement, but each subsequent session ended in failure.

But remember, this pattern of deception has been going on with the Iranian regime dating back to 2002 when the National Council of Resistance of Iran, one of the leading dissident groups against Iran’s mullahs, revealed the existence of secret nuclear facilities built at Natanz and Arak that had escaped notice by intelligence agencies and international inspectors.

Since that revelation, the Iranian regime had signed separate agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency to restrict its activities and submit to inspection and in every case, broke those agreements shortly thereafter.

It is clear though that the success or failure of these talks rests on two very basic facts: 1) All Iranian decisions are ultimately up to the regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei; and 2) How desperate is the West to close a deal, even a horrific one?

That is the equation at play here and the one that Khamenei has been carefully measuring for the past decade. He has nudged along hopes of a deal, while at the same time giving up practically nothing, but gaining more advantage as time went by.

Iran achieved significant advancements on warhead design and triggering explosives at its Parchin military facility. It built and operated continuously thousands of centrifuges during talks, even adding newer and more advanced ones. It has developed and improved on ballistic missile technology bought from North Korea to deliver a nuclear warhead. Incredibly, all of this occurred while it discussed nuclear peace.

At the same time Khamenei has maneuvered proxies to make gains in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen and play the U.S. against itself throughout the region and building on the false perception that Iran was a force to be reckoned with. The whole house of cards almost collapsed last year with the plummeting price of crude oil, draining regime coffers while it was shoveling money out the door to support Hezbollah, Houthi rebels and Shiite militia. Unfortunately the JPOA agreement saved the mullahs’ bacon by releasing billions in frozen funds.

Now Khamenei sees a final opportunity to snooker the world again and take advantage of a perceived desperation by the White House to close a foreign policy win as a legacy achievement; which is why he is insisting on an immediate and full suspension of all U.N. sanctions against Iran once an agreement is signed and an allowance for Iran to ramp up its nuclear activities near the end of the monitoring period.

If we can also believe news reports from the Associated Press and others, the P5+1 has already agreed to allow the regime to continue to operate thousands of centrifuges in its Fordo nuclear reactor buried deep in a secure bunker. Why a civilian nuclear program needs to operate in a military bunker is obviously not a point of concern it seems.

But what this ultimately does show is that even as the regime and its allies such as the National Iranian American Council spin mightily away, the one thing they cannot overcome is the abstinence of Khamenei and his determination that the regime gets everything it wants.

Khamenei’s arroghbance is likely to prove the regime’s downfall as the belief has grown in Congress and among the American people that the Iranian regime cannot be trusted and anything put down on paper is worthless given the regime’s past track record; which is why even though a joint communique is likely to be issued today detailing how both sides have found much common ground and will work towards the June 30 deadline, that too will prove to be a failure like so many others and we’ll be right back here saying the same thing on July 1st.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby – Last Ditch Lobbying By NIAC

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Swiss HotelWill March 31st bring about a capitulation to Iran’s mullahs or will common sense and courage prevail in the face of naked aggression and terror? We will soon find out, but what is clear is that the Iran regime’s lobbying and PR allies are working overtime in a last ditch attempt to save the mullahs from what could be another defeat at the bargaining table after three fruitless years of talks.

 

Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed filed an interesting and illuminating story on the lobbying and spinning efforts being put on by operatives of the National Iranian American Council. Well-known regime apologists Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi have been near constant figures in the hallways, bars, lounges and lobbies of the hotels where talks have been taking place in Switzerland.

 

With all the time they’ve been spending there, you might think they’re just trying to garner more frequent flyer miles, but their ambitions are deadly serious; trying to hoodwink the international media into believing Iran’s mullahs are a lovable bunch and to gloss over the rapid conquest of four of Iran’s neighbors by Iranian proxies and terror groups.

 

As Gray puts it “Marashi and Parsi are often well-informed on the details from the negotiations and seen as close to the Iranian negotiating team as well as to the American side.”

 

All of which strikes many as more evidence of the close coordination between the NIAC and its masters from Tehran who are obviously supplying them with talking points, key details about the negotiations and key messages to deliver to the media. It’s an ironic situation since the Obama administration has worked hard to keep details from leaking and providing any specific information to Congress or the American people.

 

But the façade of the regime’s public face took another hit when Amir Hossein Motaghi, a close media aide to Hassan Rouhani, mullah’s president, sought political asylum in Switzerland after traveling there for the talks.

 

Motaghi took the opportunity to go on an opposition channel, to explain his decision as well as shine a light on the techniques the regime uses in its PR campaign, including sending accredited Iranian journalists who are in fact agents of the regime ensuring only approved news is sent back home for domestic consumption.

 

So while Parsi and Marashi continue to prowl the hotel bars to ply their wares on journalists, it is worth noting that their efforts in the U.S. have largely fallen on deaf ears as Congress prepares to engage the White House if a framework comes out these talks. A veto-proof, bipartisan majority in the House has already signaled its intent to scrutinize any deal and withhold lifting any economic sanctions until it reviews every last detail.

 

Iran’s mullahs know this might be their final last gasp for relief from economic sanctions which is why they are keeping Parsi and Marashi strolling the bars and hallways like a pair of cads looking to pick up coeds after closing hours.

 

The Proxy War of the Regime in Iran

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Houthi RebelsEvents in the Mideast are moving fast as Yemen is toppled by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, inviting a response by Saudi Arabia which launched air strikes in Yemen alongside Gulf State allies in an effort to check the progress being made by another Iranian regime proxy.

The stunning advances made by the Houthis shined a spotlight on a favorite tactic of Iran’s mullahs which is the use of proxies to fight their wars. It’s a tactic that harkens back to the Cold War-era fights in Southeast Asia and Africa between the West and old Soviet empire as Third World countries supplied the cannon fodder for countless wars, large and small.

The Iranian regime took a page out of the history books in funding, arming, training and then directing terror networks over the past three decades, most notably Hezbollah which has chalked up several ignominious victories, 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.

Iran’s mullahs have used Hezbollah fighters to prevent the fall of Syria’s President Assad and target moderate rebels which has resulted in ISIS to rise up and form.

The Iranian regime has also used its virtual puppeteering of Shiite militias in Iraq in fighting ISIS that gave it the excuse necessary to move its military wholesale into Iraq and take over vast parts of that country’s military and political arms.

Though the recent Yemen attack by the gulf countries shows that the mullahs will pay a price for overreaching themselves, yet the regime in Iran, desperate to create crisis outside (to cover up the already exploding discontent of the Iranians against mullah’s dictatorship), has moved its proxies on the chessboard and enabled it to now interfere in a swath of territory stretching from the Mediterranean with Lebanon, through Syria and Iraq and now down through Yemen.

Yet, given the long and bloody history of the Iranian regime’s use of proxies to wage war, terror and murder, the regime’s lobbying and PR machine continually seeks to gloss over that record and instead attempt to rehabilitate its leaders. It’s akin to hiring a PR firm to try and redo the brand image of the Nazis.

The most recent example is an editorial from the National Iranian American Council’s Trita Parsi who wrote in The Atlantic that the regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei was a misunderstood softie who really wanted peace with the West. Parsi offers as logic, Iran’s historical interactions with the world going back to 1813 as reason for the regime’s natural suspicions of the rest of the world’s motives

Now, I am willing to concede that Khamenei is an old man, but I doubt he was around to be personally offended by anything that happened in the early 19th century. Parsi also never mentions Khamenei’s direction of Iran’s proxies, or his oversight of one of the most brutal human rights periods in Iranian history

Parsi also skips over Khamenei’s annual verbal calisthenics of leading chants of “Death to America” or his angry pronouncements that Iran will give no quarter in its efforts to preserve its multi-billion nuclear development program that was conceived in secret, violating international agreements and to this day, still largely uninspected by international agencies.

One would love to ask Parsi why, if Iran’s history is so important to understanding the motivations of the regime’s leadership, can’t the West use the Iranian regime’s bloody history of using proxies in its wars as evidence of the regime’s desire to wage war until it achieves its goals of establishing an Islamic extremist empire for itself?

Of course, he would probably tell us Iran doesn’t have any proxies.

By Laura Carnahan

Yemen as Warning for Iran Regime Nuclear Deal

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WarningAs the old saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” But what do you say when you’ve been fooled over and over again? “I’m an idiot?” Maybe and in this case, it almost certainly applies to anyone thinking they can trust the Iranian regime.

News came out of Yemen that Iranian-backed Houthi rebels had taken over the capital Sana and also moved south forcing the popularly-elected President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi to reportedly flee by boat from the port city of Aden.

Yemeni intelligence officers still loyal to Hadi’s failing government attempted to burn secret files in a scene reminiscent of the effort to destroy files in the American embassy in Tehran in 1979 as militants stormed the building before the Iranian revolution was hijacked by radical extremist mullahs.

The fact that the Iranian regime has been deeply involved in the financing, training, equipping and leadership of Hezbollah fighters in Syria, Shiite militias in Iraq and now Houthi rebels in Yemen, all the while pushing for a rapid lifting of economic sanctions as part of ongoing nuclear weapons talks with the P5+1 group of nations, leads any rational person to deeply suspect the West is being played for fools by Iran’s mullahs.

It is hard to imagine anyone at the negotiating table in Switzerland being blind and oblivious to what is happening in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, and yet we know little, if anything, about the substance of these talks or if Iran’s conduct around the world has even been mentioned in a cursory way.

What we do know is that the track record of Iran’s mullahs is soaked in blood and is unquestionably focused on fomenting more of the sectarian violence rippling across the Mideast as Iran pushes its extremist ideology everywhere. No doubt the colossal expenditure of money necessary to fund all of these wars is draining Iranian coffers, which is one reason why Iran’s mullahs are almost frantic in their demands for an immediate lifting of all sanctions immediately.

News agencies report upwards of 18 Iranian oil tankers sitting off the coast filled to the brim with 30 million barrels of Iranian oil waiting to depart for market deliveries the minute sanctions are lifted with an agreement; bringing in billions of dollars to fund its war efforts.

The presence of Iranian military and intelligence officers on the ground in Yemen to take possession of classified files related to intelligence activities against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, widely regarded as the terrorist network’s most dangerous branch, can only lead to a single conclusion: Iran’s leadership remains committed to its long-term plan of preserving and even growing terror networks around the world endangering the global peace.

While the White House can easily dismiss Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s recent “Death to America” chants and tweets as something for “domestic political consumption,” it is impossible to ignore the active security threats the Iranian regime presents in nations where the U.S. is literally running out the door such as Syria and Yemen.

Trust. It’s a simple word, but one filled with powerful meaning. It is earned and often only after demonstrations to earn trust over a long period of time. We know how trust works in our work lives, families, personal relationships, even in our choices of which brands to buy. Trust is a singularly important human emotion.

If the U.S. closes a deal with the Iranian regime without any pre-conditions on Iranian terror activities, let along relief for its gross human rights abuses at home, then the real fools will be those who support such an agreement and place their trust in Iran’s mullahs to keep their word when their past betrays them.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

Iran Regime Not Complying with Watchdog

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IAEAIn an interview with the Washington Post, Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, detailed the Iranian regime’s continued failure to provide answers to international inspectors or allow access to suspected nuclear facilities as previously agreed to in prior agreements.

On the eve of the end of March deadline for a technical framework for an agreement between the P5+1 negotiation nations and Iran, the regime has consistently failed to live up to its agreements to allow access to facilities suspected of housing nuclear component research. The extensive effort by the regime to deny inspectors access is nothing new, but casts a dark shadow over the ability of any agreement to be fully implemented.

Amano said the regime had only provided “very limited” information about two issues out of a dozen that were submitted by his agency dealing with “possible military dimensions” of past Iranian nuclear activities, while the other queries had not been addressed at all.

Amano’s concern is vital for any nuclear agreement, since the IAEA is the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog and its inspections are considered the key safeguard against future nuclear development. He insisted that the P5+1 group ensure that any agreement carry a provision allowing IAEA inspectors to go anywhere in Iran at any time to examine sites suspected of hiding secret nuclear weapons work.

What makes critics of an agreement with the Iranian regime suspicious, including a large bipartisan majority in Congress, is that Iran had signed a protocol in December of 2003 and initially complied with inspections, but then abruptly ended its compliance in 2006 as it ramped up additional research work at facilities such as the Parchin military complex.

Amano cited Parchin at the top of the IAEA’s wishlist of facilities to inspect. The massive complex has long been thought to harbor the regime’s key work with high explosives necessary to trigger a nuclear warhead. The IAEA sought entrance to Parchin as late as 2011 because of extensive satellite reconnaissance revealing large-scale landscaping, demolition and new construction throughout the site.

He described Parchin as “a jigsaw puzzle,” pointing to the IAEA’s failure to detect Iran’s original nuclear work in the 1980s which led to the agency’s continued requests for unfettered access in order to avoid a repeat of missing key elements again.

The IAEA also recently released a report February 19 complaining of the Iranian regime’s continued stonewalling of inspections, saying:

“The Agency remains concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

The Post article concluded that “although Iran has declared to the IAEA 18 nuclear facilities and nine other locations where nuclear material is used, the agency said in its report that it ‘is not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.’”

In light of all these failures at complying, is it any wonder fewer and fewer journalists, diplomats and politicians are heeding the screeching coming from the Iranian regime’s lobbying groups such as the National Iranian American Council?

If the aim of the NIAC was to advocate for regional peace and accommodating, one would think its leader, Trita Parsi, might take the opportunity to tweet a note of concern to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and urge access for international inspectors.

But such a tweet might be ignored since Khamenei has been busy tweeting “Death to America.”

By Michael Tomlinson