In 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

One of the most reliably consistent events in all the world is the annual Nowruz New Year message from the Iranian regime’s mullah-in-chief, Ali Khamenei, in which he serves as mullah’s national cheerleader for the annual “Death to America” chants that is usually part of regime’s weekly ceremony in mullah’s Friday prayers.

This weekend was no different in which Khamenei made his remarks in the northern city of Mashhad where he demanded that any nuclear deal end all economic sanctions against Iran at its outset, rather than gradually as the P5+1 working group of nations have long supported.

“Sanctions must be lifted immediately,” Khamenei is quoted as saying in a Los Angeles Times article. A sentiment shared I’m sure by his fellow ruling mullahs and also a key issue at the heart of these negotiations. It is also worth noting Khamenei attacked President Obama’s Nowruz message as well.

The Americans “want to turn the people against the government,” Khamenei said, calling Obama’s message “dishonest.”

It is an ironclad fact that stiff, relentless economic sanctions have crippled the Iranian regime’s economy, even more so with the massive expenditures it is making to support military operations and terrorist groups in Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Nigeria. The costs have been massive and the mullahs’ decision to siphon capital from the consumer economy and force the Iranian people to bear the burden has sparked mass discontent throughout the nation.

This discontent boiled up in fraudulent elections and mass demonstrations harshly put down by the regime in 2009 and 2013 and serve as a warning to the regime since it was a similar economic freefall that helped spark the street protests of the original Iranian revolution in 1979 which was quickly subverted by extremist Islamists.

All of which leads to an interesting juxtaposition. As Iran’s top leader leads annual chants of “Death to America” and demands an all-or-nothing approach to any nuclear deal, the regime’s lobby in the U.S. led by groups such as the National Iranian American Council, are strangely and universally silent. It’s almost like these groups believe Khamenei to be some crazy uncle you ignore at family gatherings, rather than the supreme leader of mullahs in thrall to religious lunatics.

But the lack of criticism or event acknowledgement of these tirades and demands yields more evidence that the NIAC’s goals are not aligned with finding peace in the world, but more in tune with supporting a corrupted regime intent on spreading its gospel of Islamic extremists across the region and imposing it on its neighbors, including its medieval views on women, misogyny, a free press and the use of terror to achieve political goals.

No matter how “moderate” and nice President Hassan Rouhani tries to portray the Iranian regime, the simple truth is that his boss, Khamenei, is still in fine form urging death to America and demanding a complete lifting of sanctions and for what? Allowing his regime to keep 6,000 centrifuges, the ability to conduct R&D on newer ones? Not even putting ballistic missile technology on the table and no changes to its support of Hezbollah, Shiite militia terror groups in Iraq and the Houthis that are now making Yemen into another Libya? And Iranian government is still holding Americans in prison without trial or charge. On what planet do we think we can trust mullahs in Iran? Sanctions were working; they brought Iran’s mullahs to the table and instead of using that leverage to force real democratic change, are we simply going to take their word for it?

If groups like the NIAC cannot pen an open letter to the regime and ask Khamenei, politely of course, to lay off calling for the destruction of America, then what can we really believe from the NIAC in the first place?

Is the NIAC so enslaved to Tehran that it cannot simply send a tweet saying “For the love of God, stop demanding Death to America! #peaceloving?”

No, it seems even such a small act would be too rebellious for NIAC and its religious masters.

By Michael Tomlinson

The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, issued a new report last week documenting the worsening human rights situation in Iran. In it, he detailed the sharp increase in the numbers of executions, mass arrests of political dissidents and religious minorities.

He puts plainly the lie that was the promise of moderation with the start of Hassan Rouhani’s presidency, but now we know the truth which is the Iranian regime remains as hardline, unyielding and cruel as before. On that score, nothing has really changed.

All of which poses a problem for the Iranian lobby, which has continually attempted to sell the same fabrication to the world that Iran’s mullahs were indeed a changed lot and willing to be moderate and peace loving. What were they to do with this stinker of a report for their taskmasters in Tehran?

After a week of saying nothing, which for the National Iranian American Council is unusual on any other topic relating to Iran, the NIAC finally published an item on its website discussing Dr. Shaheed’s critical report. The article, authored by Michael Kameras, is unusual in a few regards.

First of all is the author. According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Kameras is a foreign policy and outreach intern at the NIAC and studying at the University of Pittsburgh. While I’m sure he is an accomplished intern, his authoring of this particular item critical of the regime’s human rights record speaks volumes about NIAC’s view of the importance of such an issue.

Normally, issues of grave import to NIAC are penned under Trita Parsi, Tyler Cullis, Jamal Abdi or Reza Marashi’s authorship. A review of NIAC’s previous blog entries reveal that the items at the top of the regime’s wish list, i.e. pending nuclear negotiations, get the full treatment from NIAC’s senior leadership.

Also of note is the effort to skirt the broader issue of the regime’s abysmal human rights violations and instead focus on the concept that a nuclear deal would help foster change in Iran by opening a diplomatic dialogue.

A noble idea, but one that again falls flat on its face when confronted by the simple facts of the Iranian regime’s past and current actions, which demonstrate if it really did care about international opinion, it would not be doing what it is doing.

Clearly a regime concerned about international opinion would not rush to send troops, arms and cash to prop up a genocidal regime in Syria widely condemned for its use of chemical weapons. A concerned regime would also not increase the pace and rate of grisly public executions for political dissidents, women, gays and religious minorities.

It also wouldn’t arrest journalists, bloggers, foreign tourists or American missionaries and throw in prison without charge, trial or hearings. And it certainly would not be the chief patron and sponsor of terrorist groups throughout the region.

But the Iranian regime is indeed doing all those things and hence Dr. Shaheed’s report is an indictment and confirmation of the not-so subtle truth about Iran’s mullahs, which also probably explains the delay of the week for a response from NIAC on its issuance.

If the NIAC were a true human rights organization such as Amnesty International, it would have joined the call on Tehran to change its ways and demand the international community safeguard the men, women and children living in such abhorrent conditions. It would have sought to use the leverage of nuclear talks to demand improvements in human rights.

Curiously, when confronted by the report, the Iranian regime communicated back to Dr. Shaheed that it supported 65 percent of the recommendations in the United Nations human rights review. It leaves one wondering just what 65 percent of human rights the regime is comfortable with giving.

It reminds one of the infamous Three-Fifths Compromise during the 1787 U.S. Constitutional Convention which apportioned slaves in southern states as three-fifths of the actual population when determining representation.

By Laura Carnahan

The Iranian regime lobby, led by the National Iranian American Council, has long pushed the idea that Iran’s religious leaders are battling a split within Iran’s government between moderate forces of reform and hardline reactionary conservatives.

It has been a convenient and important fiction for regime proponents since it provides the moral flexibility they need to at once ignore the regime’s most heinous human rights abuses and military adventures, while at the same time professing support for a government intent on changing itself.

This effort was again on display by NIAC with an editorial authored by TritaParsi and Reza Marashi in HuffintonPost with the odd title of “Why Iran Won’t Capitulate.”

The use of the term “capitulate” is an interesting one by Parsi and Marashi since the definition of the word is “to stop fighting an enemy or opponent” and both have held that the U.S. and the Iranian regime are not at war, but striving for peace. Consequently, the effort to ramp up pressure on the regime will yield no results since Iran’s mullahs are steadfast in showing that they are not bowing to Western demands as the authors insist.

They point to Iran’s moves to build its nuclear infrastructure during a period of increasing sanctions and with each escalation cycle, Iran double downed and increased its nefarious activities.

And then miraculously, they argue the turning point came when President Obama in 2013 suddenly woke up in bed and saw the world through Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s eyes and realized “Gee, we should be nicer to them.”

An interesting thought considering that in 2013, Iran stepped up its rate of public executions of political dissidents, it went all in with military support for Assad in Syria right after the international community condemned it for using chemical weapons, and it continued refusing access of its military nuclear research facilities to international inspectors.

The core piece of logic for this sudden reversal offered by Parsi and Marashi is the infamous 2009 fraudulent election as an explanation for a regime suddenly faced with diminished support. It is a silly argument for two basic reasons:

• All elections under the regime are inherently fraudulent since Iran’s mullahs maintain the power to decide who actually can go on the ballot. This was apparent just with Hassan Rouhani’s election when scores of other candidates were ditched in favor of regime supporters; and
• Despite the rifts within the regime that is due to their infighting over more share of power, since the Velayat-e-Faqih is the dominant rule the major policies of the regime are decided by the mullah’s supreme leader and the religious authorities maintains all power in the economy, military, judiciary, news media, internet access, law enforcement and all aspects of civil and cultural life.

Given that Iran’s governmental structure is as inflexible, rigid, unyielding and unbending as Mssrs. Parsi and Marashi portray it as being, it begs the next logical question “Why are we even bothering to talk to them?”

The authors seem to think the West will be the ones to capitulate and give the Iranian regime all it wants:

• Allow it to keep the massive nuclear infrastructure it has spent billions building;
• Allow it to maintain political control at home without changing its human rights abuses;
• Allow it to continue to funding terrorist groups;
• Allow it to continue controlling Iraq through its Shiite militias now empowered in their fight with ISIS;
• Allow it to manipulate events in Syria and Yemen as it builds a sphere of “Islamic” states loyal to Tehran; and
• Most importantly, maintain the capability to enrich fuel to build a nuclear warhead in as little as one year and as long as ten years.

What does the U.S. get out of capitulating? They get Mssrs. Parsi and Marashi’s undying gratitude for earning their pay from the mullahs.

By Michael Tomlinson

There are certain things people have come to believe are truisms in life such as if you eat too much sugar you will get cavities or that unicorns don’t really exist. There are also many urban legends we know are not true, but sometimes allow our imaginations to roam free a bit such as Area 51 and UFOs or the existence of Bigfoot.

Well, now we can add a doozy of a fairy tale to the list: the Obama administration – in its latest Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Communities – left the Iranian regime and its terrorist group proxy Hezbollah off the terror threat watch list. Incredibly, the assessment only cites Hezbollah in regards to the threats it faces from radical Sunni groups such as ISIS and al-Nusra Front and only mentions Iran in the context of cyberthreats.

It does however mention Iran favorably in its efforts to fight ISIS from gaining large swathes of territory in Iraq. The report adds that the Islamic state has “intentions to dampen sectarianism, build responsive partners, and deescalate tensions with Saudi Arabia.”

That is a claim the Saudis might find fault with as they recently entered into a pact with South Korea to develop nuclear technology as an offset to the Iranian regime’s imminent acquisition of nuclear weapons and its newly aggressive military operations in neighboring Iraq, Yemen and Syria.

Stunningly, the report fails to mention Hezbollah is labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union and receives virtually all of its money, arms and training from the Iranian regime. The omissions have raised red flags both in the U.S. and abroad as the Obama administration works feverishly to close a deal with the Iranian regime over its nuclear weapons program.

Critics have called the report a whitewash in order to bolster Iranian support in the fight against ISIS, even though it was the Iranian regime’s initial intervention and support of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria that eventually spawned ISIS and broadened the war from Syria and into Iraq.

The removal of the terror designation is even more appalling when you consider the Iranian regime’s arming and funding of Houthi rebels who overthrew the elected government in Yemen, only recently held up by the Obama administration as a shining example of successful counter-terror operations.

As Katie Pavlich writes in Townhall.com:

“So what’s going on here? Why strip Hezbollah and its funding parent Iran, from their terrorism label? Especially now? It all points back to getting President Obama his deal with Iran at all costs. This reclassification of Iran and Hezbollah without the terrorism label is a certain warning sign the deal the White House is working on to appease the rogue regime doesn’t have the best interests of the United States as a top priority.”

The fact that the 2014 national intelligence report was harsh in its assessment of the Iranian regime and its Hezbollah proxies makes this year’s report even more puzzling:

For example, last year’s report contained a section on Iran and Hezbollah that stated “[o]utside the Syrian theater, Iran and Lebanese Hizballah (sic) continue to directly threaten the interests of US allies. Hizballah (sic) has increased its global terrorist activity in recent years to level we have not seen since the 1990s.”

All of this continues to be part of the massive lobbying and PR campaign being orchestrated by Iranian regime allies in an effort to sugarcoat the appallingly bad record Iran has in an effort to win public support for a bad nuclear deal and jump through a hoop of executive action without Congressional review, let alone approval.

It also is part of the effort to cover up the Iranian regime’s dismal human rights record and instead paint it as a staunch ally in the war against ISIS. How could the world be turned upside down so fast and so completely?

It can only mean one thing: Unicorns are indeed real.

By Laura Carnahan

Tyler Cullis, a policy associate for the National Iranian American Council and frequent Iranian regime apologist, penned a memo on his views on the choices before Congress in regards to a potential agreement between the regime and the P5+1 working group of nations attempting to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Right off the bat he launches into his missive with some distortions of fact the Iranian lobbying network has worked hard to perpetuate; namely that there is growing confidence a framework of a deal will be reached by a March 31 deadline.

The fact that Cullis uses March 31st as a deadline is misleading since it was NIAC and other lobbies who praised one another for efforts before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last January in cobbling together a loose coalition of Senate Democrats that created a new deadline of March 24th from the original June 30th deadline in the interim agreement now in place.

NIAC’s own statement at the time said:

“Today, the chief Democratic sponsor of new Iran sanctions legislation, Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), relented in his effort to pass new sanctions. He announced that he and a group of his Democratic colleagues sent a letter to the President in which they pledged to vote against new sanctions prior to March 24, the target date for a political agreement with Iran.”

But then again, the truth hasn’t seemed to stop NIAC in its relentless efforts on behalf of – not Iranian Americans – but Iranian regime mullahs.

Another misleading point from Cullis was the idea there is growing agreement on a framework. In fact, as late as today, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reuters and Huffington Post, amongst other media reported sharp differences still remaining that threaten these talks.

In fact, Politico ran a story over the weekend in which more than a dozen Senate Democrats such as Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) remain at odds with President Obama on the issue of shifting approval from a deal away from Congress and leave it solely in the hands of the administration.

Cullis attempts to navigate this nuance by making a distinction between a bipartisan bill, The Corker-Menendez Bill (S. 615 the “Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act’) and one authored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) (S. 669, the “Iran Congressional Oversight Act’). The Corker-Menendez vests Congress with the authority to vote up or down on any proposed deal, while the Boxer bill simply requires the President to report to Congress on progress and leaves Congress with no other authority should it disagree with the President’s findings.

Cullis hopes, as the Iranian regime does too, that the American people will turn a blind eye to this distinction and instead grasp onto the simple concept of “Trust in Obama” as the only mantra necessary. The unfortunate result of this positioning is to turn what had been a bipartisan issue – preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon – into a highly partisan squabble that threatens to detract from the key issue at hand, which is can the American people afford to trust the President when the Iranian regime has never demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in the first place.

Which leads us back to Cullis’ last point; his regurgitation of the Helsinki Accords example which was fashioned by President Ford and the old Soviet Union without Congressional approval as being a template for this Iranian deal. As we previously explained in a prior column, Cullis’ use of the Helsinki example is a gravely flawed one because while he focuses on the “mechanism” of approval, he ignores the “effect” of the agreement which was its focus on human rights and its use by liberal dissident elements both within and without the Soviet Union to demand regime change.

Similarly, the mechanism of Congressional approval or executive order would be largely irrelevant if any proposed agreement contained the essential elements for a successful agreement, such as: dismantling of the regime’s nuclear infrastructure, call for a cessation of support of terror groups, halt to public executions and human rights abuses, open international inspections of all Iranian facilities and withdrawal of Iranian forces from all neighboring countries.

If an agreement contained these elements, it would be a shoo-in for the White House to pass without ever needing a Senate vote, but unfortunately the proposed agreement does not which is why a Senate vote has now become mandatory.
By Michael Tomlinson

In the Hollywood blockbuster “A Few Good Men,” there is a pivotal courtroom scene in which Tom Cruise’s character, Navy Lt. Daniel Kaffee, presses Jack Nicholson’s hard bitten Marine Col. Nathan R. Jessup on the witness stand of a court martial as to whether or not he violated regulations and ordered a “code red” resulting in the death of a young Marine.

Col. Jessup asks Lt. Kaffee, “You want answers?” to which he replies “I want the truth!” and then Jessup’s explodes “You can’t handle the truth!”

It’s a turning point in the movie since it precedes Jessup’s admission that he indeed ordered the code red and broke the law, but his argument was that it was for the greater good of his command and the security of the nation.

The scene is a microcosm of the conundrum faced by the supporters of the Iranian regime as they enter the final two weeks before a self-imposed deadline to deliver a framework of an agreement for halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program. While regime loyalists such as the National Iranian American Council and its leaders, including Trita Parsi, Tyler Cullis and others have taken to the blogs and editorial pages of progressive media sympathetic to their cause, to push hard for an agreement granting the regime everything it wants and exempting it from Congressional review and approval.

In response, there has been a substantial backlash from both sides of the political aisle in the Senate and an unmistakable warning from Senate Republicans not to disregard the need for public comment, review and approval of any agreement. Arab nations with primarily Sunni populations such as Saudi Arabia have also publicly voiced growing concern about the impending deal to the extent that even after a hand-holding mission by Secretary of State John Kerry, the kingdom moved ahead with an agreement with South Korea to explore nuclear reactor development of its own.

On top of which Aviation Week reported over the weekend that the Iranian regime had produced its first-ever long-range cruise missile with a range of 1,300 miles. As the regime advances its missile technology, it is notable that its ballistic missile program which can deliver nuclear payloads has never been a part of ongoing nuclear talks.

Which leads us back to the central issue at hand which is the Iranian lobbying effort is built entirely of falsehoods because it cannot defend itself against the truth and it uses the veil of “peace” and “moderation” in a false attempt to justify the onward and steady march to nuclear capability the regional supremacy.

The truth has been that Iran’s mullahs have engaged in a decades-long effort to hide the truth of their nuclear weapons program. Even after having it revealed by intelligence agencies and resistance groups, it continued to stonewall inspections by international agencies even after pretending to cave in conceding to negotiations.

During that time, its lobbyists have sought to portray a changed Iran committed to peace, all the while it engaged a harsh and brutal stepped up crackdown at home on human rights, especially targeting political dissent, women and religious minorities. It has also been the cornerstone of expanded terror activities throughout the region.

All of which has been building to a classic confrontation to see if the regime’s lies can hold up against the mounting truth being told around the world; a truth expressed now in open calls by regime opponents to hold the mullahs publicly accountable and not give in to a “bad deal.”

The final truth people like Mssrs. Parsi and Cullis cannot handle is that if a proposed deal ever saw the light of public debate and scrutiny by the American people, it would die faster than a box office flop.

By Laura Carnahan