Current Trend – Iran Lobby

NIAC Letter on Iran Nuclear Deal Just More of the Same

December 19, 2018 by admin

NIAC Letter on Iran Nuclear Deal Just More of the Same

The National Iranian American Council, that reliable cheerleader for the mullahs in Tehran, cobbled together yet another letter signed by the usual cadre of pro-regime supporters, urging Congress to once again bail out the faltering Iranian regime.

Fortunately, this letter was vastly shorter than previous tomes but still espoused the same essential principles the Iran lobby has been harping on since then-presidential candidate Donald Trump blasted the Iran nuclear deal on the campaign trail in 2015.

In short, the letter urged Congress to continue:

Supporting the nuclear agreement and return the U.S. to comply with it;
Opposing sanctions that:
- Disrupt any other country’s efforts to stick with the nuclear deal;
- Prevent the U.S. from coming back into compliance with the deal in the future;
- Disproportionately impact Iranian civilians rather than regime officials engaged in illicit or destabilizing activities;
- Block necessary humanitarian and medical supplies from reaching the country;
Support more diplomacy toward additional agreements as the preferred basis for addressing further concerns about Iranian activity; and
Oppose starting a war of choice with Iran.

The conditions are typical for what the Iran lobby has pushed for since the Obama administration first opened talks with the mullahs and largely ignores the realities on the ground as the Iranian regime has become the most destabilizing force in the Middle East since the nuclear deal’s passage.

The Trump administration has stated from the very beginning it welcomed renewed diplomatic efforts with Tehran in an effort to achieve a more comprehensive solution to the region’s problems, including curtailing the spread of terrorism, improving human rights conditions and eliminating the delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction in the form o intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The fact Tehran has no desire to take up any of these other, but no less vital issues demonstrates the mullahs complete lack of transparency or willingness to engage in diplomacy to solve these problems.

Also, while Iranian regime leaders such as Hassan Rouhani, have made a public show of discounting the impact of U.S. economic sanctions, the reality is that they have hurt the regime in places where it is most vulnerable: financial services, oil and gas exports, and currency exchanges.

The choices made in the NIAC letter are noteworthy since they are aimed at the most effective portions of the U.S. sanctions program. The letter tries to portray the sanctions as having an impact only on ordinary Iranians and not regime officials, but the opposite is true since the regime, through its Revolutionary Guard Corps, controls much of the economy, especially its heavy industries and continually diverts badly needed capital from growing the economy and instead uses it to finance its military adventures in Syria and Yemen, while also funneling money to support terror groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq and Afghan mercenaries in an effort to extend its sphere of influence.

The proof of the debilitating impact the regime’s decisions has had on ordinary Iranians can be seen in the yearlong series of very public protests staged throughout Iran by these same ordinary Iranians the NIAC describes as being “disproportionately impacted” by the sanctions.

Starting last December and continuing through 2018, the near-daily images of women protesting hijabs and moral codes that restrict education, jobs and even the ability to ride a bicycle, are mingled with those of merchants storming through Tehran’s Grand Bazaar or truckers blocking roads and highways or farmers demanding more water for parched lands to local towns and villages decimated by poverty and a wrecked environment.

All the results of the mullahs’ decisions and nothing having to do with Washington.

The dichotomy between the claims of the NIAC’s letter and the reality in Iran is as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.

Lastly, the NIAC’s false flag of warning of a war with Iran is just another red herring designed to elicit fear and send false worries into members of Congress. It’s interesting to note the only people ever mentioning the words “war” and “Iran” together are the NIAC and its fellow Iran lobby members; the same ones that comprised the infamous “echo chamber” used to bully and persuade reluctant members of Congress to support the nuclear deal in the first place.

It has always been the Iranian regime that has undertaken the provocative military action first in the region and not the U.S. or its allies.

The U.S. did not plot to assassinate Iranian leaders in a foreign country, but the Iranian regime did in Denmark, France, and Germany in efforts to kills dissidents.

The U.S. did not threaten to sink commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and halt oil shipments, but the Iranian regime did.

The U.S. did not take the U.S. and other dual-national citizens hostage on trumped-up charges and throw them in prison without trial and access to legal representation, but the regime did.

All these actions and more have been undertaken by the same regime the NIAC and the rest of the co-signers of the letter are trying hard now to get off the hook.

There is little appetite in Congress, either during this lame duck session, or when the new Congress is sworn in January to reward the mullahs for their abhorrent behavior. Even the harshest critics of the U.S. move to withdraw from the nuclear deal, such as France and Germany, had a change of heart when Iranian agents were caught trying to smuggle a bomb for the purpose of killing a few thousand Iranian dissidents meeting outside of Paris last June.

Unfortunately for the NIAC, they can’t control the mullahs, it’s the other way around.

Laura Carnahan

Iran Missile Program is Heart of Sanctions Issue

December 3, 2018 by admin

A core reason for the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal was the rapid and alarming growth and development of the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile program, which got a significant bump from the massive infusion of cash received as a result of the deal.

The origins of the Iranian missile program are well documented with missile design supplied by North Korea and then aggressively expanded through a test launch program that became almost a nightly feature on state-controlled media outlets.

That missile program escalated from testing missiles limited in range to essentially being theater weapons, to growing until they achieved intercontinental ranges capable of striking Europe and Asia.

While the Iran lobby and the regime have vigorously contested the inclusion of ballistic missiles in any existing United Nations restrictions, the plain truth from the U.S. perspective is that Iran has moved far beyond “defensive” missiles and instead sought to create “offensive” weapons with the payload capacity to lift nuclear warheads and multiple payloads.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo emphasized this point in a tweet Saturday claiming Iran had test-fired a medium-range ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear weapons. In condemning the act, Pompeo called on Iran to cease its missile testing and proliferation activities that threaten to destabilize an already unstable region.

The regime’s Foreign Ministry countered the tweet, describing the program as solely defensive, according to a statement carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. The statement didn’t confirm or deny whether a test-fire had taken place.

“Iran’s missile program is defensive in nature and is designed based on the country’s needs,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi was quoted as saying.

But the regime’s continued development of longer-range missiles with heavier payload capacity can only be seen as offensive in nature and an effort to deploy its coercive influence far from its own borders.

In the history of arms control, no one would ever believe claims by the American or Russian governments that its own ballistic missiles were solely for “defensive” purposes, but the regime and Iran lobby seem intent on trying to make that silly notion fly.

Even after giving away the proverbial farm in approving a flawed nuclear deal in 2015, the Obama administration still imposed economic sanctions for Iran’s continued missile program development in a quixotic case of trying to have its cake and eat it too.

It is a reminder that the core issues with the nuclear deal went far beyond nuclear weapons and instead should have focused intensely on the regime’s actions including human rights violations and sponsorship of terrorism.

The nuclear deal’s fatal flaw was to try and rein in a specific weapon while leaving along a host of other weapons at the disposal of madmen in the mullahs.

The fact that the regime defiantly stated it would continue in its missile development, demonstrates why imposing stiff sanctions is ever more important. To relent and allow Iran unfettered freedom to develop its missile program would be place Europe under a nuclear sword of Damocles since the nuclear deal admittedly was never designed to stop Iran’s nuclear program, only slow it down.

Since the mullahs’ openly professed desire to become an Islamic nuclear power is almost inevitable, the key is to neuter their ability to drop a nuke on Paris, London or Berlin; all noteworthy since Islamic-inspired terrorism has already been visited on each of those cities since the nuclear deal was signed.

U.N. Security Council resolution 2231 enshrined Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States in which Tehran curbed its disputed uranium enrichment program in exchange for an end to international sanctions.

The resolution says Iran is “called upon” to refrain for up to eight years from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt tweeted that he was deeply concerned by “Iran’s test-firing of a medium range ballistic missile. Provocative, threatening and inconsistent with UNSCR 2231”.

“Our support for (the Iran nuclear accord) in no way lessens our concern at Iran’s destabilizing missile program and determination that it should cease,” Hunt added.

The language of the U.N. Security Council Resolution “calls on” rather than “forbids” Iran from testing its missiles, according to Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council.

It is this inconsistently that the Iran lobby and regime have sought to exploit in aggressively pushing for a missile program free from threat of sanctions. It’s interesting that Parsi resorts to verbal semantics when he should be calling on the Iranian regime from refraining from developing these potential weapons of mass destruction in the first place!

But then again, Parsi is less concerned about stopping the proliferation of weapons than he is in protecting his mullah patrons in Tehran from any further sanctions.

Will Oil Sanctions Crumble the Iranian Regime?

October 31, 2018 by admin

There is no doubt petroleum is the lifeblood of the Iranian regime’s economy. It’s one of the few natural resources the mullahs have left that has not been over-exploited or driven to ruin. During the time economic sanctions were lifted because of the Iran nuclear deal, the windfall of selling its oil on the open market once again pumped badly needed hard currency into the floundering Iranian economy and fueled its wars in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

But even during the decade in which sanctions were in place, the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard Corps personally profited from the illicit sale of oil on the black market and pocketed hefty commissions for family members through a shadowy network of middlemen.

Now the re-imposition of economic sanctions by the U.S. after pulling out from the nuclear deal is looming with the ban on sales of Iranian oil to commence next week. The sanctions beginning November 4^th are geared to specifically hit the regime where it hurts, including:

Sanctions on Iran’s port operators and shipping and shipbuilding sectors, including on the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), South Shipping Line Iran, or their affiliates;
Sanctions on petroleum-related transactions with, among others, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO), and National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), including the purchase of petroleum, petroleum products, or petrochemical products from Iran;
Sanctions on transactions by foreign financial institutions with the Central Bank of Iran and designated Iranian financial institutions;
Sanctions on the provision of underwriting services, insurance, or reinsurance; and
Sanctions on Iran’s energy sector.

The sanctions on shipping, petroleum, banking and insurance are aimed squarely at the financial engine that powers the Iranian regime’s corrupt empire. Since virtually all of the major industries in Iran are controlled directly by the government or the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the direct financial impacts of these sanctions hit the theocratic regime and are not aimed at the Iranian people.

It’s an important distinction since the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council, has long pounded on the messaging that the Iranian people are the ones being hurt the most by these sanctions.

Using today’s favorite hashtag, that’s just #fakenews.

The truth is that the regime’s own gross mismanagement, incompetence and deep corruption has been more than sufficient to run the Iranian economy into the ground. The fact that the country’s currency has steadily declined in value under the mullahs’ control is just one of many indicators of how they have managed to muck everything up.

The reason the U.S. sanctions are aimed at these particulars sectors is to deny the regime’s ability to finance terrorism and support the proxy wars it has waged on its neighbors. The sanctions are not aimed at stopping the flow of food, medicine or consumer products to the Iranian people.

The regime for example has been the one to block communications to the outside world, ban access to social media, artificially regulate the consumer market with heavy-handed regulations designed to keep the pipeline of luxury goods flowing to the entitled and privileged, but provide none of the support for the staples the Iranian people need to survive.

In a desperate effort to keep the flow of cash coming in, the regime offered up one million barrels of oil through the regime’s domestic bourse so its private sector could buy oil to resell to the international market.

The response from the global marketplace was tepid at best with only 280,000 barrels of crude oil being sold according to oil ministry news service Shana.

Saeed Khoshroo, NIOC’s director for international affairs, had said Sunday that the eased restrictions would cause the crude offered on the bourse to get snapped up immediately.

The fact that so little crude was bought highlights the growing impotence of the regime in trying to navigate a path out of the economic fallout coming next week.

Of special concern to the regime was the price paid on the bourse which was only $74.85/b in 35,000-barrel consignments. The steady decline in price demonstrates the belief in the global marketplace that shortfalls from Iranian supplies cut off by sanctions can be made up from other sources, as well as a projected global drop in demand, which has increased U.S. crude inventories and further drove the price down.

Iran’s last use of the bourse was in early April 2014, when US and EU sanctions on Iran were in force. Just 2,920 barrels were sold on the first day that the crude was offered, and a second offer a day later failed to find any buyers.

Hopes by the regime that things would be different this time around were dashed and raise an ugly prospect for the mullahs: “What happens when the cash stops flowing?”

For the regime, the cut-off of money raises the specter that the Iranian people may now have the best opportunity ever to force regime change in demanding concessions from the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard Corps to loosen their iron-grip on the country and clear a pathway for greater democracy; especially the introduction of legitimate opposition parties.

The loss of oil revenue is likely to keep driving the value of the rial down and fuel more inflation – both have been drivers of popular uprisings and protests throughout Iran – thereby adding to the volatile and combustible mix of anger aimed at the ruling mullahs.

On Saturday, Iran’s parliament approved a government economic reshuffle, according to a Reuters report in an effort to try and convince the population the regime was trying to address its concerns, but will reshuffling of regime leaders be enough to stave off regime change this time?

We don’t think so.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Battles Losses on Several Fronts

September 18, 2018 by admin

The Iranian regime is struggling almost daily to fight against losses happening on multiple fronts impacting its grip on power and ability to continue controlling its own people. The reeling economy has been fodder for opposition demonstrations that have steadily spread across the country and fueled a broad range of Iranian society to openly criticize even the regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, in acts of brazen defiance unthinkable just a few years ago. The re-imposition of crippling economic sanctions by the U.S. with another wave of sanctions aimed directly at the regime’s oil industry due to begin in a few months have stripped away the veneer of invincibility the mullahs in Tehran have sought to carefully craft over the years. But besides the kinds of headline-grabbing actions and repercussions affecting the regime, smaller and less noticeable events are having just as deep an effect on the long-term plans of the mullahs. One of those smaller, but significant acts was the decision by social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook to eliminate false front profiles being used in support of Iranian regime messaging. Much of the heavy lifting and research on the regime’s cyber activities came from the U.S.-based cybersecurity firm FireEye, which identified a network of social media accounts being fed postings and key messages from Iranian-controlled accounts that in turn spread them through fake accounts and profiles. Much of the recent activity was intended to take on the patina of liberal and progressive users railing at the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and re-impose economic sanctions. Twitter, Facebook and other tech companies promptly erased the fake Iranian accounts which earned a predictable rebuke from Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who made the claim that “real” Iranians were being censored by the actions. “Hello @Jack. Twitter has shuttered accounts of real Iranians, (including) TV presenters & students, for supposedly being part of an ‘influence op’,” Zarif said in a tweet, addressing Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, according to Reuters. “How about looking at actual bots in (the Albanian capital of) Tirana used to prop up ‘regime change’ propaganda spewed out of (Washington) DC? #YouAreBots,” Zarif said. Iranian controlled media accused Israel, Saudi Arabia, and exiled opposition groups, including the Mujahideen el-Khalq (MEK) which has refugees relocated to Albania from Iraq after being attacked by Iranian agents, of being behind social media campaigns calling for the overthrow of the theocratic regime. The claim that the MEK operates troll farms in a similar manner to the Iranian cyber operations is laughable considering how the Iranian regime operates its own version of China’s Great Cyber Wall blocking almost all access by Iranians to social media and the outside world. Iranian citizens looking to circumvent the regime’s censorship have gotten creative in using VPNs, misdirected IP addresses and other techniques to access the outside world. The regime put on a full-court press in the media in trying to discredit the efforts by Iranian opposition groups to spread news about what’s happening inside Iran to the rest of the world, including smuggled video and pictures of protests inside the secretive country. It’s no wonder Zarif and other regime officials are scrambling to try and shut down opposition news efforts since it breaks the veil of silence and censorship the mullahs have worked so hard to maintain in Iran. But fighting a losing battle in social media is not the only censorship activity the regime engages in. Iran’s top prosecutor also ordered the closure of a newspaper that has been critical of the regime of late on charges it was “insulting” Shia Islam. Mohammad Jafar Montazeri ordered the shutting down of Sedayeh Eslahat for “desecrating” the family of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein, the Fars news agency reported on Friday.

https://twitter.com/HanifJazayeri/status/1041691132680388609 The article that caused offence was about a female-to-male gender reassignment surgery, according to The Associated Press, which cited Iranian media reports. Iran is ranked 164th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) press freedom index. In August, Iranian courts jailed seven journalists and ordered them to be flogged publicly over their coverage of protests by the Dervish minority. The Committee to Protect Journalists said the “horrifying sentences laid bare Iranian authorities’ depraved attitude toward journalists”. But these efforts to muzzle social media and news media are only reinforcing the belief within Iran that the days of unbridled control of the country by the mullahs may finally be coming to a critical juncture. Mohammad Hanif Jazayeri, editor of Free Iran – an anti-government organization, said current protests within Iran are now directly challenging authority in the country. He added: “While the protests began initially over the dire economic situation and mismanagement, the chants quickly turned political. Slogans such as ‘leave Syria alone, think of us instead’ undermine the regime’s national strategy, while chants of ‘death to the dictator’ directly challenge the Supreme Leader’s authority.” “Once an unimaginable sight, today chants of ‘death to Khamenei’, the leader and ‘death to Rouhani’ the President, are now the norm in protests of all sizes,” he said according to the Daily Star. Predictably the Iran lobby dutifully carried Zarif’s messaging about the MEK and opposition social media accounts by posting an editorial in Al- Jazeera making the same charge almost word-for-word. Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, Azadeh Moaveni, a fellow at progressive group New America, and Marc Owen Jones from Exeter University, contributed to the piece in a sign the regime was mobilizing all hands-on deck to combat the growing effectiveness of the Iranian opposition efforts to keep the world informed about regime activities.

Iran Lobby Misinforms on Who is Hurt Most by Iran Sanctions

August 13, 2018 by admin

A student raises her arm in protest to the Iranian regime's repressive measures against peaceful protesters in Tehran-January 2018

The Iran lobby has scrambled to find the right kind of response to the re-imposition of economic sanctions by the Trump administration. It has tried to shield the mullahs from any culpability for leading Iran down this path with their support for terrorism and proxy wars that have devastated the region.

It has even tried to argue that sanctions will only spur a new regional arms race as the regime is sure to race towards developing a nuclear weapon now that it is freed from the nuclear agreement’s restrictions by the U.S. withdrawal.

In each case the response from news organizations and international governments has been muted because there is no argument with the facts that the regime is brutal and at fault for virtually all of the sins President Donald Trump cited in his decision to pull out of the nuclear deal.

The only feeble response from supporters of the regime has been the whining wail that the regime was in compliance with the agreement and all of the other despicable acts the regime commits, especially against its own people, are outside of the agreement’s scope.

That technicality is at the heart of what made the nuclear so problematic in the first place and why the Iran lobby is yet again shifting its message to a new tack.

Jamal Abdi, the new president of the National Iranian American Council and chief Iran lobby cheerleader, offered in an editorial in the progressive blog Lobelog.com, that the real victims of economic sanctions were the Iranian people.

“The reality is that Trump’s pressure campaign weakens those within Iran who seek more conciliatory foreign relations and a more open political and social domestic landscape. It also empowers Tehran’s most reactionary forces,” Abdi writes.

If it is impolite to call someone an outright liar, then we would have to watch our language and simply say Abdi is being disingenuous with his comments.

The stark reality is that there was never any hope of moderation within the Iranian regime with the Obama-negotiated nuclear deal since the ruling mullahs never had any intention of loosening their grip on power.

The elimination of any potential rival candidates from presidential and parliamentary election slates following the deal ensured that, as well as historically massive crackdowns on the Iranian people, including a round up and imprisonment of any dissenting viewpoint – real or imaginary – as thousands of women, students, journalists, activists, bloggers, artists and even YouTubers ended up in Iranian prisons.

“The repressive powers in the Islamic Republic are far more threatened by Iran’s integration into the global economy than by a tit-for-tat dispute with the United States. They worry that the lifting of sanctions will undermine the monopolies established by the well connected few who are aligned with the Revolutionary Guards and other government entities. Indeed, after the nuclear deal, the Supreme Leader issued edicts against a broader opening to the United States and hardliners repeatedly warned of ‘foreign infiltration’ in order to obstruct President Hassan Rouhani’s outreach to the West,” Abdi added.

Another fabrication from him as the reality is that virtually all of the Iranian economy is controlled by the state through the family dynasties of ruling mullahs or the Revolutionary Guard Corps which controls the largest companies in the petroleum, telecommunications, banking, manufacturing, transportation and energy industries.

Integration back into the global economy was a boon for the Iranian military, allowing it to refill its coffers, depleted by the wars in Syria and Yemen, and mobilize proxy militias in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When foreign companies such as Peugeot, Total and Airbus quickly moved in to sign deals with the regime, who was getting the benefits? Certainly not the Iranian people who’s standard of living has plummeted under the mullahs’ rule.

The much-promised economic windfall promised to the Iranian people after the nuclear deal was signed never came and in response the Iranian people have chosen to risk their lives in ongoing, massive demonstrations sweeping throughout the country since last December and into a sweltering summer of discontent.

“The real threats to repressive rule in Iran are a growing middle class, an organized civil society movement, and leaders who have the political capital to push for change against entrenched elements in the system. These trends make a democratic Iran inevitable. But outsiders, often led by the United States, have taken actions to arrest these developments. They have propped up Iran’s repressive rulers with threats of war and invasion, and bailed them out by slapping sanctions and travel bans to isolate Iranians and keep them weak,” Abdi said.

This last point is the most damning by the Iran lobby since the regime has done its level best to eradicate the Iranian middle class with manipulation of its currency and restrictions that have skyrocketed inflation and pushed the rial down to near Weimar Republic levels.

The defiance of Abdi’s claims comes in the form of the protests taking place throughout Iran by the Iranian people, including his much-vaunted middle class who have been hit hard by the regime’s deep corruption in the economy.

Couple that with the oppressive human rights situation in which women have been tossed in jail for protesting hijab requirements and the feisty mood of the Iranian people can be seen almost every day on Iranian streets and in town squares and marketplaces.

What many in the Iran lobby are terrified of is that the Iranian people will indeed be able to exert enough pressure internally to force the kinds of liberalization and democratization it promised with the nuclear deal but failed to deliver.

The Financial Times editorialized the same sentiment in but only gets it half-right:

“It would, however, be far preferable if Iran moved towards a more liberal and open regime through a process of domestic reform, rather than as a result of crushing external pressure. The history of Iran and the wider Middle East gives ample warning that sudden violent changes in government have rarely led to happy outcomes — particularly when they have had external sponsors,” the FT’s editorial board said.

Iran’s mullahs are never going to give up power as a result of gentle persuasion. Only a massive build up of outrage by the Iranian people coupled by economic sanctions aimed directly at gutting the financial pipeline to the military is the only pathway to gain the internal regime change the FT describes.

The history of the Middle East tells us that change does not come easily, nor politely. It comes only through the convergence of external pressure coupled with internal reforms.

We believe that opportunity is finally coming to Iran.

Anti-Regime Protests Increase as Iran Lobby Struggles to Defend Mullahs

August 7, 2018 by admin

Over the past week there has been a sharp increase in the number and ferocity of protests spreading across Iran as the Iranian people have decided to voice their deep displeasure over the worsening economy and plunging value in their currency.

Videos posted on social media purported to show rallies in the capital, Tehran, and in the cities of Karaj, Shiraz, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Qom, as Iranians brace for the return of U.S. sanctions following President Donald Trump’s decision in May to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, according to Radio Free Europe.

Those protests also were marked by the first reported fatality of a protestor. On August 4, Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency reported that a man had been killed the night before during a protest in Karaj, about 50 kilometers west of Tehran, when someone fired a gun from a passing car.

The agency also reported that about 20 protesters in Karaj were detained by security forces.

Amateur videos sent to RFE/RL appeared to show dozens of protesters in the capital, Tehran, with some chanting “Death to Khamenei,” in a reference to top mullah Ali Khamenei.

Other demonstrators could be heard chanting, “Iranians, shout your demands.”

There were reports of a heavy police presence in the center of Tehran and in its northern neighborhoods. Another amateur video sent to RFE/RL appeared to show police confronting demonstrators in the city of Karaj.

The stepped-up brazenness of protestors included an attack on a Shiite seminary by protestors who threw rocks and bricks. Coupled with the chants directed at top regime leaders, these protests represent one of the most serious threats to the regime’s control in the Islamic state’s history.

In another sign these protests are atypical, eyewitnesses disclosed that the protests taking place in the city of Shahin Shahr, north of Isfaham, the provincial capital, were being initiated and led by women.

In an exclusive interview with Radio Farda, the witness, introduced briefly as Amin for security reasons, said, “Unrest in Shahin Shahr began on Thursday morning (August 2) when a limited crowd of people, composed mainly of women, nearly fifty ladies, started chanting completely peaceful slogans protesting economic hardship.”

The protests, according to Amin lasted for only 10-15 minutes and the crowd dispersed; but the members of basiji militia forces gradually appeared throughout the city.

“People were coming and going peacefully, as usual, when they saw themselves surrounded by the Special Unit forces who were riding motorbikes, carrying guns,” Amin noted, adding, “Soon, a heavy security atmosphere shrouded the city and made people restless.”

These regime militia forces drove their trademark motorcycles in an effort to disrupt the protests by shooting paintballs and beating protestors regardless of age or sex.

Predictably, members of the Iran lobby provided lip service for the protestors as exemplified by a statement by Jamal Abdi, the newly installed president of the National Iranian American Council, who could not resist a dig at the Trump administration for backing the Iranian people’s protests.

“Ultimately, like any other country, it is up to Iranians living in Iran to decide their country’s destiny. Outside countries or interests who seek to exploit the legitimate grievances of Iranians in order advance their own ulterior agendas only undermine the will of the Iranian people. As outside observers, we will continue our efforts to defend universal human rights and hold the Iranian government accountable to its international human rights obligations,” Abdi said.

It seems virtually impossible to Abdi and the rest of the Iran lobby that the Iranian people can genuinely be enraged by their own government and rather it must be the malign influence of some outside entity disturbing the tranquility of the Iranian regime. This is exactly the same narrative the regime officials are using in various speeches that have been publicized in the state media in Iran.

Only the NIAC seems to think protesting against the mullahs is undeserving of U.S. support.

The lack of effectiveness by the NIAC in supporting the mullahs can be linked not only to the change in presidential administrations, but also in the lack of enthusiasm amongst the Iranian diaspora in supporting initiatives that now only seem to benefit the mullahs and not the Iranian people.

Abdi seems to acknowledge this lack of political firepower in his inaugural message to supporters posted on the NIAC website:

“NIAC’s strength and influence comes from the community we serve. My top priority is to build our organization through our members. Over the weeks and months ahead, we will be rolling out new initiatives to deepen our connections with our members – and the level of input you have in shaping our organization – and to expand our membership and build our community.”

Abdi’s installation may change the messenger, but the tune is the same; attack any U.S. policy that threatens the hold of the mullahs.

Outgoing NIAC boss Trita Parsi kept up his end with an editorial in Middle East Eye attacking President Trump’s offer to meet with Hassan Rouhani without preconditions, anywhere, anytime.

He makes the absurdist claim that Iran could meet with the president in order to give him a PR victory and then leverage it to gain valuable concessions later, but the mullahs would not want to do that.

“To Tehran, concessions that would make America – and Trump – look good and give the impression of Iran submitting itself to America, even if only symbolically, are the costliest,” Parsi said. “Iran has long insisted that it would only negotiate with the US as an equal and with ‘mutual respect’.”

So, in Parsi’s mind, the mullahs, given the opportunity to get slam dunk concessions from the U.S. would instead say no in a fit of pique of perception.

Parsi should argue that the mullahs are also oppressing the Iranian people as part of a long-term mental health improvement program.

Michael Tomlinson

Why Does the Iran Lobby Obsess About the MEK?

July 21, 2018 by admin

Maryam Rajavi speaks at Free Iran Rally in Paris- july 2018

Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of Iran’s main opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran(NCRI), speaks during the Free Iran 2018 gathering in Paris-july 2018

In the scope of issues facing Iranian-Americans today related to their homeland, you would think the Iran lobby would have better things to do than publicly trash Iranian dissident and opposition groups on a near-daily basis.

The Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council and a variety of bloggers sympathetic to the Iranian regime, have recently stepped up the vitriol considering widening and near constant protests and demonstrations that have rocked the regime’s grip on power.

What is interesting is that almost all the groups making up the Iran lobby are using nearly identical language focused on trying to disprove the idea that the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq(MEK), one of the largest and oldest Iranian dissident groups, has any support within Iran.

For example, Nahal Toosi, a foreign affairs correspondent at POLITICO, writes in a piece about the Trump administration’s efforts to support regime change in Iran, that:

“One Iranian diaspora faction that has supported many Trump policies is the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, a group with leftist roots that the U.S. previously listed as a terrorist outfit. But the MEK has few backers in Iran, even though it has major defenders among Trump’s aides and confidants. Among those who’ve spoken at MEK, events are Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton.”

Notably, she mentions that the NIAC is being excluded from a meeting between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and members of the Iranian-American community at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California this weekend, but neglects to mention the NIAC’s deep ties to Iranian regime leaders.

Against the backdrop of hot national debate over the Russian government’s use of third-parties to infiltrate American organizations such as the National Rifle Association to affect U.S. policy, the lack of any investigation or focus on the NIAC’s efforts to do the same thing with the backing of the Iranian government is hypocritical to say the least.

Mahsa Rouhi, a research fellow with the nonproliferation and nuclear policy program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, similarly tries to belittle the MEK in a piece for Foreign Policy, writing “the MEK has no support base inside Iran; in fact, etc.”

But what both Toosi and Rouhi fail to mention are the significant contributions the MEK has made over the years in revealing the regime’s human rights abuses and uncovering its secret nuclear program; none of which could be accomplished without the support and help of Iranians living within Iran who smuggled out clandestine photos and video.

These are not the acts of a few lone dissenters, but rather a strong, clear and forceful expression of the willingness of Iranians to cooperate and help the MEK over the years even though the regime has worked obsessively hard at criminalizing any cooperation with the MEK punishable by imprisonment or even death.

It is hard to credit the Iran lobby with any factual data pointing to zero support within Iran for the MEK given its long history of organizing protests from large-scale mass demonstrations to small, individual acts of defiance such as hanging a banner praising dissident leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the acting president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, over a Tehran overpass to standing atop a box waving a hijab in defiance of morality codes.

Even top mullah Ali Khamenei has been forced to give several speeches recently to denounce the MEK as he recognizes the group’s growing influence on the protests rocking the country; at last count over 142 cities has experienced protests despite massive security crackdowns by the regime.

It’s noteworthy that the Iran lobby discounts the similarities between Iran and other despotic regimes such as North Korea, Cuba and even the old Soviet Union, in which compulsory voting often delivered election “mandates” for the government, but never reflected the true feelings of the population.

Similarly, Iran discounts any support for the MEK when it actively bans its participation in any elections and refuses to allow any of its members to run for elected office. It is doubtful that Toosi or Rouhi can even justify denying a group such as the MEK a chance at the polls to settle the question once and for all about who the Iranian people back to lead them into democracy and freedom.

Most disturbing and yet telling has been the recent arrests of an Iranian diplomat and other agents accused to attempting to plant a 500-gram bomb at an annual gathering of the MEK and other resistance groups outside of Paris last month.

The captured explosive was comprised of TATP, a favorite explosive for terrorists because it is easily prepared from readily available retail ingredients, such as hair bleach and nail polish remover. It is also able to evade detection because it is one of the few high explosives that do not contain nitrogen and can, therefore, pass undetected through traditional explosive detection scanners designed to detect nitrogenous explosives.

TATP has been used in bomb and suicide attacks and in improvised explosive devices, including the London bombings on 7 July 2005, where four suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured more than 700. It was one of the explosives used by the “shoe bomber” Richard Reid in his 2001 failed shoe bomb attempt and was used by the suicide bombers in the November 2015 Paris attacks, 2016 Brussels bombings, Manchester Arena bombing and June 2017 Brussels attack.

The arrest in Germany of Asadollah Assadi, a diplomat at the Iranian embassy in Vienna who – in his capacity as an operative for the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) – provided the explosives, draws a clear line from the Iranian regime to efforts to destroy the MEK.

Had the terror plot been successful there is no telling what toll it would have taken on the gathering of roughly 100,000 supporters of the NCRI. In addition to Iranian expatriates and NCRI officials, the event included participation and speeches by hundreds of political dignitaries from throughout the world – including prominent American and European politicians representing multiple political parties.

It’s unfortunate the Iran lobby doesn’t talk about those potential lives lost.

Why Does the Iran Lobby Fear the Iran Resistance Movement?

June 9, 2018 by admin

Supporters of MEK protest against Rouhani's visit to the United Nations.

Why Does the Iran Lobby Fear the Iran Resistance Movement?

Why is the Iran lobby terrified of the Iranian resistance movement around the world? Almost every spokesperson, lobbyist and PR flak with a vested stake in the Iranian regime’s continued well-being has been intent on discrediting any Iranian dissident to diminish the messenger.

Why?

The answer is simple: The existence of a viable, vocal and demonstrative dissident movement comprised of Iranians offers an alternative narrative to the Iran lobby and mullahs in Tehran that directly contradicts virtually every key message they articulate.

Key advocates for the regime such as the National Iranian American Council have made it a career to find new and inventive ways to discredit, discount and disregard even the idea of an Iranian dissident movement.

The existence of any dissident movement threatens everything the Iran lobby has sought to achieve. During the run-up to the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, the NIAC’s Trita Parsi was a constant fixture on news programs and shuttling in and out of the White House and Switzerland to plant the seeds of ideas such as that the nuclear deal would empower “moderate” Iranian political forces and help stabilize the government and build trust with the U.S.

Unfortunately for Parsi, the opposite has happened with several presidential and parliamentary elections have come and gone with no viable moderates or true political opposition even allowed onto the ballot.

The reason for this is simple since the mullahs have never harbored any thoughts of actual political liberalization. Top mullah Ali Khamenei has ruled Iran in the same manner as his predecessors ever since the Islamic revolution was hijacked by the religious theocracy and turned into a virtual dictatorship.

In the intervening decades, the mullahs have grown fat and comfortable skimming off the Iranian people and economy and funneling billions to themselves, their families and the military that backs them.

The NIAC and other Iran lobby advocates, therefore, have worked to avoid the question of the dismal human rights condition within Iran and instead focused on tarring anyone who dares raise a voice of dissent against the ruling mullahs.

It’s a paradoxically insane position since it relies on the suspension of disbelief; namely that you have to ignore all of the terrible things being done internally to any political opposition in Iran and because of the lack of internal dissent, everything must be blissfully cooperative and collegial according to the Iran lobby.

This also explains why the Iran lobby spends almost no editorial time ever criticizing the Iranian regime over the treatment of its people as evidenced by the lack of commentary over the massive protests that have swept throughout Iran since last December.

Unlike the political protests that followed the disputed election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which was centered on major urban areas and supported largely by educated, more well-off protestors, these protests have been supported by the Iranian poor and working classes and been centered in the more remote provinces and cities indicating how widespread discontent is with the ruling classes.

All of which has led the NIAC and the rest of the Iran lobby to focus its current anti-dissident barrage squarely at the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), one of the oldest Iranian dissident groups, in an effort to discredit the U.S. administration’s aggressive policies against the regime, including the decision to pull out of the nuclear deal.

That PR offensive has focused on the fact that official such as former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and current National Security Advisor John Bolton have addressed meetings of Iranian dissidents before. Interestingly, the NIAC and other Iran lobbyists have neglected that notable Democratic officials have also addressed these same groups but have not drawn similar rhetorical fire.

All of which lends more credence to the idea that these attacks are less about fending off Iranian dissidents as much as it’s about partisan politics.

But several academics, columnists, bloggers and journalists who were part of the so-called “echo chamber” created by the Iran lobby to support the nuclear deal, are now attacking the MEK as a stalking horse by calling it a “cult” and depicting it as a terrorist group for its past efforts to fight the Iranian regime early in Islamic revolution’s birth.

Some of those hit pieces have come from William Hartung in the Philadelphia Tribune, Bernd Debusmann in the Arab Weekly, Philip M. Giraldi in Mintpress News and Hamid Dabashi in Aljazeera.

They all use nearly identical language in an effort to single out and attack the MEK, such as Hartung’s editorial which says:

“Next-level steps could include supporting anti-regime groups like the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which was for many years on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. But its ability to win over influential supporters like John Bolton does not mean that the MEK has either the capacity or the support to overthrow the Iranian government. To think that an organization that the New York Times has rightly described as a ‘fringe dissident group’ could overthrow the government of Iran is a fantasy,” he writes.

It’s not surprising he quotes the New York Times since virtually all of the opposition to the Trump administration’s Iran policy seems to be more motivated by partisan political bickering and less about what is best for the Iranian people.

One of the central tenets of the Iranian resistance movement as articulated by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran which is the major umbrella group of Iranian dissident organizations, is that any movement towards regime change and democratization in Iran must begin and be grounded in the Iranian people. Any outside influence would only play into the hands of the mullahs, which is precisely why the NIAC and rest of the Iran lobby have sought to portray all this as a manipulation by the Bolton and his cronies.

The reality is that the protests flaring all across Iran is genuine, organic and rooted deeply in the dissatisfaction Iranians have over the corruption of their government and that’s a topic the Iran lobby doesn’t want to talk about.

Michael Tomlinson

Jamal Abdi Responds to Mike Pompeo with Absurdities

May 23, 2018 by admin

Jamal Abdi Responds to Mike Pompeo with Absurdities

In a landmark speech to the Heritage Foundation, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out the Trump administration’s new policy towards the Iranian regime including a list of a dozen conditions the mullahs would need to address to move forward with the U.S. in a new relationship.

Chief among those conditions was a new requirement that the Iranian regime would have to stop enriching all uranium and supporting militant groups such as Hezbollah and the Houthi; conditions that the Obama administration had tossed aside in its haste to nail down a nuclear deal with almost no pre-conditions.

In exchange for accepting these new conditions, Pompeo laid out the U.S. would lift punishing economic sanctions, restore diplomatic relations, open up commercial activity and give Iran access to advanced technology it badly needs to revitalize its economy and infrastructure.

The policy as laid out by Pompeo essentially resets the clock to the period before the Iran nuclear negotiations ran off the rails when crushing and comprehensive economic sanctions from countries around the world had dragged the Iranian regime kicking and screaming to the bargaining table where the Obama administration promptly gave away the proverbial house.

If this was a game of high stakes poker, the Obama team folded even before the flop, paying the price of the ante, but never seeing the hole cards.

Of course, the idea of a new, revised agreement that finally corralled the regime’s worst instincts was greeted with skepticism by European leaders.

Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, said the U.S. decision to fold all of its disputes with Tehran into a “jumbo Iran treaty” would be very difficult to achieve “in anything like a reasonable timetable,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, insisted the Iran agreement President Trump had abandoned remained the best way to contain Tehran’s nuclear efforts and said the EU would support it as long as Iran did. “The deal belongs to the international community,” she said.

But the new policy articulated by Pompeo is a clear demonstration of what should have been on the table in the original negotiations back in 2015. If the U.S. had exercised its leverage at that crucial moment, the devastating wars in Syria and Yemen may have never taken place.

Predictably the National Iranian American Council led the braying chorus of naysayers attacking Pompeo’s speech and leading the charge was Jamal Abdi, recently anointed as the new president for NIAC.

“The Trump Administration is setting the stage for a war of choice with Iran, with Mike Pompeo offering a smokescreen of diplomacy to distract from the administration’s pursuit of Iraq-style regime change,” Abdi said in a statement released by NIAC.

“Trump is renting out U.S. Middle East policy to the highest bidder – in this case Saudi Arabia, the GCC states, and Israel – and expecting ordinary Americans and U.S. service members to shoulder the burden of a regional escalation, a potential trade war with our allies, and a new Iraq-style regime change war in the Middle East.”

Abdi may be replacing Trita Parsi, but the rhetoric and misstatements are still the same. NIAC once again trots out the war fears in a false flag effort to convince Americans that the president wants to wage war against Iran; forgetting that then-candidate Trump was the one of the first on the campaign trail to criticize the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq and has been reluctant to commit U.S. combat troops to any new escalation, especially during the bloody Syria civil war.

Abdi of course neglects to mention that Iranian regime was responsible for the escalation that killed over 400,000 people in Syria, when it shipped Hezbollah fighters, then its own Revolutionary Guards to fight there.

Abdi doles out the same tropes the Iran lobby has used before, but now they ring hollow with the benefit of hindsight. The three years since the deal have shown how an unrestrained Iran has radically reshaped the Middle East and resulted in deaths from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and the essential failure of the promises made by NIAC and the Iran lobby: the nuclear deal did not moderate the Iranian regime but unleashed it.

Now that Iran’s economy is reeling from corruption, mismanagement and diversion of billions of dollars to its military and terrorism, the mullahs in Tehran are under enormous pressure from mass protests across the country since last December, which is why the Trump administration views this as an opportunity to reset the situation and bring about a more comprehensive deal.

In his own unconventional style, President Trump sees an opportunity here to correct what the previous administration fumbled and the Iran lobby has been rendered largely impotent in trying to stop him.

Laura Carnahan

Trita Parsi Stepping Down But Is He Going Away?

May 21, 2018 by admin

Trita Parsi Stepping Down But Is He Going Away?

Our old friend, Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council and chief cheerleader for the Iranian regime, announced he was leaving the post of president and turning the reins over to Jamal Abdi, NIAC’s current vice president for policy and head of its NIAC Action lobbying front.

Should we shed a tear or let out a cheer that the nemesis of Mideast peace is transitioning out?

Probably neither since his departure from NIAC is probably less about stepping away from publicly lobbying for the Iranian regime and more about removing the bulls-eye target that has been affixed to him for the past decade.

Parsi personifies the strengths and weaknesses of the Iran lobby in the U.S. He is educated and has the ability to speak in academic circles by convoluting historical events with twisted assumptions about what they mean.

He understands the soft spots of American democracy and the rise of political correctness and progressivism and parlays them to his advantage by catering to populist messages that support Iran without asking any tough questions.

In the Obama administration, he found kindred spirits and was able to translate that into unprecedented access to the White House—with visitor logs showing a stupefying nearly three dozen visits leading to the run-up of the Iran nuclear deal, which amounted to the high-water mark of his tenure.

But like his would-be masters in Tehran, Parsi was trapped by his own dogged refusal to ever find fault with the regime’s actions never let even the most horrific atrocities committed by Iran or its proxies divert him from his cause of supporting Tehran.

The use of chemical weapons to gas scores of Syrian men, women and children—twice—failed to move him to condemn the Iranian regime.

The snatching of dual citizens from the U.S., Great Britain, Canada and other countries wasn’t enough to get Parsi off his regime wagon train; even when one of them was a putative friend of his.

Over 17 years, Parsi has worked hard off a blueprint he envisioned of creating a strong PR machine designed to give the Iranian regime a moderate face and lobby U.S. decision makers on giving the mullahs in Tehran a break.

“Give peace a chance” became more than a slogan for Parsi and the NIAC, it became a mantra to steer U.S. foreign policy into one of the most disastrous decisions ever: a nuclear deal that came with no strings attached for human rights violations, sponsorship of terrorism, funding of proxy wars in neighboring countries and development of a crash ballistic missile program that would make North Korea look like an Erector-Set toy.

What was Parsi able to gain in return for his partners in Tehran? A cash windfall of billions of dollars in repatriated money, opening the global market for Iranian oil and invite scores of European and Asian companies to lock up investment deals.

What did the world get in return? A postponement, but not an eradication of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. A full-blown civil war in Syria creating four million refugees and killing over 400,000 men, women, and children. Destabilization in Yemen and Iraq and the threat of a full-blown war between Israel and Saudi Arabia with Iran.

That’s quite a butcher’s bill for Parsi and his promise of moderation.

Now Parsi is handing off the NIAC to Jamal Abdi, a man who has spent years working his way into the political warrens of Capitol Hill and influencing policy towards moderating views about Tehran. Alongside his fellow cohorts including Reza Marashi, Tyler Cullis, and Ryan Costello, Abdi helped Parsi flog his untruths and even spearheaded the creation of NIAC Action, the formal lobbying arm of the NIAC.

The creation of NIAC Action and the installation of Abdi as its first leader is no accident. The open secret that NIAC was lobbying on behalf of Iranian interests finally became too hard to sweep under a carpet and the NIAC had to come out into the sunlight as an official lobbying force (paradoxically neither NIAC Action or Abdi are registered with the House of Senate lobbying disclosure databases).

Of course, Parsi is not leaving the baby he gave birth to. His announcement on the NIAC website states he will turn over power on August 1, 2018, but he intends to “continue to be involved and fully committed to the organization but through a different role.”

And what role would that be? It’s too much to hope for that Parsi would simply exit the stage he left in tatters as the Trump administration has killed the Iran nuclear deal he worked so hard to secure and a deluge of global companies have announced decisions to back out of contracts with the Iranian regime as renewed U.S. economic sanctions loom large.

Not even the wailing of European interests about trying to salvage the deal through a European Union-only coalition will be enough to safeguard the Iranian regime.

Even the Iran Parsi promised is just a mirage. The mullahs are under tremendous pressure back home from unrelenting and broad protests that they have met with brutal suppression and efforts to ban messaging apps such as the popular Telegram.

Iran’s economy is reeling, its currency sinking to an all-time low and a united front is now on the horizon in forming policies to block Iranian expansionism.

About the only thing left Parsi has to show for all of his efforts now is a photo of him shaking hands with a smiling Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, in the wake of the nuclear deal.

How fast things have changed for the Iran lobby in just a year.

Michael Tomlinson