News – Iran Lobby

While Iran Lobby Plays Blame Game Iran Goes Nuclear

January 25, 2019 by admin

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to students at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, January 10, 2019. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS – RC15D1E44B00

The National Iranian American Council stepped up in defense of the Iranian regime by attacking U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent speech in Cairo but failed to recognize the decision by the Iranian regime to launch “preliminary activities for designing” uranium fuel with a purity of 20 percent in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal the Iran lobby group championed.

The juxtaposition between the NIAC’s criticisms of Pompeo, but failure to chastise the Iranian regime demonstrates the rank hypocrisy the NIAC operates under when it comes to picking and choosing what to criticize.

In Pompeo’s speech and in follow up visits to regional allies, Pompeo hammered hard on the point that Iranian extremism and expansionism needed to be restrained by the U.S. and its allies and required a more global approach to stifle the mullahs’ ambitions.

In a stop at Doha in Qatar as part of his nine-country Middle East tour, Pompeo signed a memorandum of understanding expanding the U.S. military base there and renewed efforts to form a tighter coalition with eight Arab states to generate greater pressure on Iran.

Pompeo, who held strategic talks with Qatari leaders, also said reunifying the Gulf states was essential to the success of the new regional body the U.S. hopes to create called the Middle East Strategic Alliance, which would include all six GCC nations in addition to Jordan and Egypt. The Trump administration hopes the new organization will become a bulwark against The Iranian regime.

Earlier, Pompeo had given a speech at American University in Cairo – the same site as President Obama’s speech launching a new relationship with the Muslim world – where he cast the Iranian regime as the top U.S. concern in the region.

“The nations of the Middle East will never enjoy security, achieve economic stability, or advance the dreams of their people if Iran’s revolutionary regime persists on its current course,” he said.

The location was meant to recognize the failure of the previous administration of trying to achieve peace by coddling the mullahs in Tehran only emboldening them to plunge Syria and Yemen into bloody civil wars and launch a crash ballistic missile program.

The laundry list of failures since that ill-fated speech in Cairo by President Obama serves as a reminder once again throughout history that policies of appeasement aimed at totalitarian regimes yields no moderation and little peace.

Typically, the NIAC responded to Pompeo’s speech with its usual bluster but did little to recognize why its previous calls to accommodate the Iranian regime only yielded failure.

“Secretary Pompeo’s speech failed to outline a coherent strategic logic for the Trump administration’s Middle East policy. If Secretary Pompeo wants regional stability, human rights, and an end to U.S. military adventures and endless wars, he would press his boss to return to the Iran deal, pursue and facilitate good-faith diplomacy among all stakeholders, and honor our international agreements,” said Jamal Abdi, NIAC president.

Abdi went on to press his call for saving the nuclear deal, but even the Iranian regime seems to recognize that idea is dead as Iran’s nuclear chief announced the regime would start work on designing nuclear reactor fuel delivering 20 percent purity according to Reuters.

The 2015 nuclear accord capped the level to which Iran is able to enrich uranium to 3.67 percent purity, well below the 20 percent it was reaching before the deal, and the roughly 90 percent that is weapons-grade.

Iran is, however, allowed to produce nuclear fuel under strict conditions that need to be approved by a working group set up by the signatories to the deal. Those conditions include ensuring that the fuel cannot be converted to uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for centrifuges that enrich uranium.

“We have made such progress in nuclear science and industry that, instead of reverse-engineering and the use of designs by others, we can design new fuel ourselves,” state broadcaster IRIB quoted Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, as saying.

The move to design an indigenous nuclear reactor underscores the regime’s long-term goals to develop its own nuclear capability rather than be dependent on foreign suppliers; similar to its push into ballistic missiles by first licensing designs from North Korea and then advancing designs to carry larger warheads over intercontinental distances.

The fact the NIAC made no statement about this latest move by Iran underscores its reluctance to deal with the harsh realities of Iranian intransigence as the mullahs continue their nuclear program and military efforts; now in the open and without pretense.

Even as Iran steps up its nuclear ambitions and threatens to renew a regional arms race for nuclear weapons, the NIAC blasted John Bolton, U.S. National Security Advisor, for requesting contingency plans for taking military action against the Iranian regime should the pressure of renewed economic sanctions fail to change the regime’s behaviour.

The planning is prudent considering the Iranian regime has already thrown Syria, Iraq and Yemen into turmoil and has sent its own Revolutionary Guard Corps to fight in Syria’s bloody civil war and Iraq sectarian conflict.

But Abdi wasted no time in trying to redirect and blame Bolton for war mongering.

“John Bolton and fellow Iran hawks believe they have two years left to collapse the Iran nuclear deal and trigger a disastrous war that the American people want no part of. We know that Bolton and other administration officials preferred an Iran war to negotiations prior to serving Trump. Now there is confirmation that they are still seeking out opportunities to fulfill their war agenda,” Abdi said.

Of course, Abdi neglected to mention that the only nation waging war against a neighboring nation was Iran under the mullahs as its used proxies to destabilize Yemen and launched attacks on Saudi Arabia with Iranian-supplied weapons, but that is something the NIAC doesn’t want to talk about.

Michael Tomlinson

Evidence Mounts of Iranian Transgressions Making Action Necessary

December 2, 2018 by admin

The reason why the U.S. pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal two years after its passage was because the track record of compliance by the Iranian regime was littered with failure and the inherent flaw in the agreement of not restraining Iranian regime’s aggression in other areas such as terrorism became problematic.

The inherent flaws in the regime lie at the heart of its style of government: a religious theocracy.

There is no checks or balance system in Iran. The ultimate authority is vested in the supreme religious leader who rules with the near-autonomy of monarchs of old. An interesting irony considering the Islamic revolution in the first place deposed the Shah.

But because of the lack of accountability within the regime to only a select elite few, the future of successful implementation of the nuclear deal was dead on signing.

When the Obama administration and rest of the European Union withdraw demands that Iran comply in areas such as sponsorship of terrorism, destabilization of its neighbors and improvements in human rights at home, all the leverage the world had on Iran evaporated.

The Iran lobby, specifically the National Iranian American Council, have contended that to include such restrictions would have doomed the deal to failure. The reverse has prophetically come true: by not including those provisions, the deal was indeed doomed to fail, and it has.

The bloody trail of Iranian extremism has been well documented, and the Iran lobby has never spoken harshly against that record, only excusing the regime with faint calls for reform and blaming every misstep by the mullahs as being provoked by the U.S. from withdrawing from the nuclear deal.

The harsh truth the Iran lobby has vigorously sought to cover up is the strategic plan the mullahs have to build its own Islamic version of the Warsaw Pact by converting or controlling its neighbors to its brand of extremism and using proxies to institute insurrections and wars.

That plan was worked to some degree with the Iranian regime using Hezbollah and Afghan mercenaries to stem the civil war in Syria, Shiite militias in Iraq to control that government and Houthi rebels to overthrow Yemen and threaten regional adversary Saudi Arabia.

But those conflicts haven’t been enough for Iran, even as the mullahs direct the Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force to supply more arms, weapons and cash to other militants further afield.

Evidence for these efforts was put on display when Brian Hook, special representative for Iran and senior policy advisor to the U.S. secretary of state, released information that the Iranian regime was violating the United Nations arms export ban by supplying militants across the Middle East and continuing to build out its ballistic missile program unabated.

At a military hangar in Washington, Hook showed reporters a display of seized Iranian weapons that he said is much larger than it was a year ago. He then elaborated on each weapon on display and where it was found, including a collection of guns, rockets, drones and other gear.

“We need to get serious about going after this stuff,” Hook told reporters.

Some of the weapons had been intercepted in the Strait of Hormuz en route to Shia fighters in the region while others had been seized by the Saudis in Yemen, the Pentagon said.

The centerpiece of the display was what Hook said is a Sayyad-2 surface-to-air missile system that the Saudis had intercepted in Yemen this year.

Farsi writing along the white rocket’s side helped prove it was Iranian made, Hook added.

“The conspicuous Farsi markings is Iran’s way of saying they don’t mind being caught violating UN resolutions,” Hook told reporters, adding the missile was destined to Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Hook said the seized weapons are “clear and tangible evidence” that Iran is fueling instability in the Middle East.

Iran has the largest ballistic force in the region, Hook said, with 10 ballistic missile systems in its inventory or under development. Missile development and testing has increased in recent years, he added.

Last year, Iran launched a medium-range missile believed to be the Khorramshahr, he said. It can carry a payload of more than a half ton and could be used to carry nuclear warheads. Its suspected range is 1,200 miles, which puts Europe in range.

Fajr rockets intended for the Taliban were recovered by the Afghan National Army in Afghanistan’s Helmand province near Kandahar Airfield, Hook said.

Bahrain provided captured Iranian small-arms weaponry found on their territory, which were given to Shiite militant groups to carry out attacks against the government. They include sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47 assault rifle variants and hand grenades, Hook said.

Since 2006, the Iranian regime has supplied Hezbollah in Lebanon with thousands of precision rockets, missiles and small arms, Hook said. It now has more than 100,000 rockets or missiles in its stockpile.

The scope and size of the munitions being produced by the Iranian regime and smuggled throughout the Middle East puts to rest any concept floated by the Iran lobby of Iranian “moderation” following the nuclear deal.

In fact, it has been a year since U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley was at a similar event to highlight the dangers posed by Iran’s proliferation of missiles and other weapons across the Middle East, only to see this year’s display of captured Iranian weaponry dwarf last year’s display.

Laura Carnahan

Midterm Elections Results Do Not Help Iran Lobby

November 11, 2018 by admin

The U.S. midterm elections saw a divided America as Republicans deepened their hold on the Senate while Democrats took over the House as many pundits predicted. Voter interest and participation were high but exit polling of top concerns amongst voters bears little fruit for the Iran lobby or the mullahs in Tehran who were hoping for signs that a blue wave might help bring down new economic sanctions.

According to most exit polls by news organizations, Americans cited healthcare and immigration as their two biggest concerns with the economy following up in third place. The plight of the mullahs was not high on anyone’s list of concerns.

The political environment is dramatically different than it was in 2014-15 when the Obama administration committed itself fully to pushing through a nuclear deal with Iran no matter the cost and that cost was high coming in the form of billions of dollars in cash, sanctions relief and removal of conditions that allowed Iran to develop long-range ballistic missiles, sponsor terrorism across Europe and start two wars in Syria and Yemen.

That deal was sold by the Obama administration and supported by the Iran lobby’s “echo chamber” on the idea that Iran was headed towards a more moderate course and was receptive to diplomacy and wanted to rejoin the community of nations.

Unfortunately for the Iran lobby, the Iranian regime’s actions since then has blown those ideas out of water. It also didn’t help advocates such as the National Iranian American Council that as recently as this summer and last month, Iranian intelligence services were foiled in attempts to bomb a gathering of Iranian dissidents outside of Paris and assassinate another in Denmark.

Any hope Iran could be perceived as a moderating force was literally blown out of the water leaving the Iran lobby to scramble for any rhetorical foothold with the U.S. media.

Since the knee-capping the Trump administration has given to the Iranian regime through the withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the re-imposition of economic sanctions and efforts to build a consensus among key allies to no longer import Iranian oil, the Iran lobby has cast about wildly to find any topic that might stick and help Tehran.

The NIAC has sought to attack the Trump administration on its immigration policies. That went nowhere and in retrospect did not earn the Iran lobby any favors amongst Americans concerned about the issue.

The NIAC sought to float the idea that the Iranian people would be hurt and not the government. That idea also didn’t fly since the suffering of the Iranian people at the hands of their own government has been well-documented over the past year with violent and widespread demonstrations by Iranians.

The NIAC then tried to mock the president for his recent “Game of Thrones” meme and outside of social media didn’t move the needle in the midst of the midterm elections.

In short, few Americans give a hoot about anything the NIAC has to say. It’s a mighty fall from the heady days of unobstructed access to the White House and State Department previously enjoyed by NIAC officials during the Obama years.

The NIAC is now finding itself playing a game of political “Survivor” as it stands outside the flow of American politics on a lonely island waving its arms and calling desperately for any journalist to pay attention to itself.

All of which raises an interesting question: Is the Iran lobby even worth keeping around anymore by the mullahs?

If the NIAC has outlived its usefulness to Tehran and has never been fully engaged on issues of real concern to the Iranian-American community then where does it go from here?

This may explain why its founder, Trita Parsi, got out of Dodge and quit the NIAC to pursue a more independent path and Jamal Abdi has been left to try and figure out how to keep the increasingly irrelevant movement afloat.

Abdi has tried to take credit for the midterm election results by issuing a statement denouncing Republicans who lost their seats and trumpet it as a movement back towards Iranian engagement.

“Across the country, candidates dedicated to overturning Trump’s outrageous and discriminatory Muslim ban and stopping war with Iran won big. To have a check on Trump is a huge victory for the Iranian-American community, our country and the global community,” Abdi said.

It’s worth noting that Abdi focused on opposition to the administration’s immigration policies and opposing war with Iran, but made no mention of Iran’s horrific human rights record, its abuse of Iranian women or the sponsorship of terrorism in France and Denmark.

He goes on to mention the backing of several candidates, but it remains to be seen if any of them are going to heed the NIAC’s call to place Iran back at the top of the foreign policy agenda in terms of moving diplomacy forward when the mullahs seem only intent on killing as many Iranian dissidents as possible both inside and outside of Iran.

There may come a time in 2020 when endorsement by the NIAC will become as desirable as an endorsement by the KKK.

Iran Lobby Left Sputtering as US Sanctions Take Effect

November 6, 2018 by admin

The U.S. re-imposed economic sanctions on the Iranian regime on Monday targeting the money machine that fuels the mullahs’ religious dictatorship, including petroleum sales, shipping, banking, and insurance. The sanctions were carefully crafted to go at the heavy industries and financial pipelines funneling cash to the regime and funding its proxy wars and terrorist activities.

President Donald Trump trolled supporters of the Iranian regime with a tweet riffing on HBO’s show “Game of Thrones” with a movie-like poster featuring the iconic font reading “Sanctions Are Coming.”

The near-hysterical response from the Iran lobby over the weekend was predictable, but also revealing in that the regime supporters such as the National Iranian American Council were left with little to talk about except blasting the president’s tweet.

“Trump, his war cabinet and regional cheerleaders in Benjamin Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman do not have the Iranian or American people’s best interests at heart,” said Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council. “Instead, they are blowing up an agreement that supports U.S. interests and the aspirations of the Iranian people while planting the seeds for a disastrous war.”

The NIAC added its own tweet trolling attempt by labeling the president a “White Walker,” but while it tried to score points on cheekiness the Iran lobby cheerleader was essentially powerless to stop the imposition of sanctions and the economic hammer blow it will rain down on the mullahs.

Not even the Iranian regime’s leader of its infamous Quds Forces, General Qasem Soleimani, could resist sending his own “Game of Thrones”-inspired post saying he would “Stand Against You” in referring to the president’s tweet.

“Things are escalating and the fact that it’s Soleimani tweeting is a sign that this is moving towards a military confrontation,” NIAC founder Trita Parsi said in response. “This was not a crisis. The only reason this is a crisis is because Trump pulled out of a fully functioning deal.”

Parsi trying to claim Soleimani is gearing up for war with the U.S. through a trolling tweet renders any intelligent reader as sophomoric sophistry at best and idiot banality at worse.

The sanctions are aimed at more than 700 Iranian individuals and entities and are hoped to put a stranglehold on the regime’s economy and force the regime into a new round of negotiations.

“Our ultimate aim is to compel Iran to permanently abandon its well-documented outlaw activities and behave as a normal country,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters Friday in a conference call previewing the sanctions. The U.S. penalties will hit foreign countries and companies that do business with the targeted Iranian entities, including its national oil company, its banks, and its shipping industry.

Abdi claimed though the sanctions would hurt the Iranian people, a silly argument since it virtually ignores how the mullahs have destroyed not only Iran’s economy, but sacrificed its environment and plunged large portions of the Iranian population into near poverty status all on its own.

“Impoverishing ordinary Iranians will not hurt the regime or achieve any of America’s security interests, but it will set back the Iranian people’s aspirations for years to come,” Abdi said.

The messaging by the Iran lobby that the Iranian people are helpless in the face of the powerful regime also ignores an essential truth that has steadily build since last year which is the Iranian people are finally becoming emboldened and taking to the streets, bazaars and markets to voice their collective frustration, fury and displeasure at their religious overlords.

Abdi also ignores how the U.S. is also granted waivers exempting certain countries from select sanctions in order not to overtly harm the Iranian people, including lobbying more than a dozen countries doing trade with Iran – India, Japan, Greece and Turkey – to wean themselves off from Iranian oil in exchange for waivers.

Pompeo said eight jurisdictions, which he declined to name, were cooperating with the administration on its push to move to “zero” oil imports from Iran. Those entities will earn temporary exemptions when the sanctions go into effect on Sunday night, Pompeo said.

There will also be some exemptions for food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods, Pompeo said, further diminishing the Iran lobby’s feeble arguments.

But these are essentially the only talking points left to the Iran lobby. It tries to claim the U.S. is only interested in war and sanctions will hurt the Iranian people.

Absent from any of these points is any blame directed at the regime and the mullahs in Tehran for fueling the crisis in the first place by pushing forward with a massive military build-up including the launching of advanced ballistic missiles, coupled with devastating wars in Syria and Yemen.

Supporters such as the NIAC have also been silent on more recent attempts by the Iranian regime to carry out terrorist attacks and assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe as seen in a foiled bombing attempt outside of Paris over the summer and murder plan disrupted by Denmark.

Both incidents led France and Denmark to demand a harsh response to the Iranian regime; neither of which was answered by the Iran lobby.

The facts are activists such as Abdi and Parsi are left with little to say, except sputtering the same inane banalities as before and their collective effectiveness in stopping the sanctions train has been virtually non-existent.

With few options left, we might advise the NIAC to stop clogging up the airwaves and discussion boards and confine their tweets to speculation on who will come out on top at the end of the “Game of Thrones.”

Our money is on the Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons.

Michael Tomlinson

Denmark Latest to Accuse Iran Regime of Assassination Plot

October 31, 2018 by admin

Denmark joined a growing list of countries to accuse the Iranian regime of attempting to mount assassinations of dissidents on its soil when it announced on Tuesday it suspected an Iranian government intelligence service of trying to kill an Iranian Arab opposition figure,

The alleged plot, which Denmark’s foreign minister said he believed the Iranian government was behind, prompted the Nordic country to call for fresh European Union-wide sanctions against the Islamic Republic, according to Reuters.

A Norwegian citizen of Iranian background was arrested in Sweden on Oct. 21 in connection with the plot and extradited to neighboring Denmark, Swedish security police said.

The attack was meant to target an Iranian dissident, intelligence chief Finn Borch Andersen said.

Predictably the Iranian regime was quick to deny the charges and tried to place the blame on its various enemies. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said that the publication of such “spiteful” media reports and its attribution to Iran is a plot by enemies to affect Tehran’s growing relations with European countries.

He emphasized that these claims are the continuation of plots and conspiracies hatched by known enemies who are against good and expanding Iran-Europe relations at the current sensitive conditions.

The Norwegian suspect had been observed photographing the residence of the Iranian dissident, Danish security services said in a statement.

The plot follows a similar one over the summer in which Iranian intelligence services were implicated in attempting to smuggle a bomb into a gathering of Iranian dissident groups outside of Paris at which a number of American dignitaries were attending, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Last Friday, France expelled an Iranian diplomat over the bomb plot in retaliation.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen described the alleged planned assassination by Iran in Denmark as “totally unacceptable”

Rasmussen said, after a meeting with his British counterpart Theresa May in Oslo, that he appreciated her support.

“In close collaboration with UK and other countries we will stand up to Iran,” he tweeted.

Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said Denmark would discuss further actions with European partners in the coming days.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulated Denmark on arresting “an Iranian regime assassin.”

In May, Pompeo claimed that Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guard was carrying out “assassination operations in the heart of Europe”, an allegation that at the time bewildered security experts, given that there had been no recent killings in Europe officially attributed to the Iranian state. Since then, France and now Denmark have directly blamed Tehran.

The most recent killing of an Iranian dissident took place in The Hague in November last year, when a gunman shot Ahmad Mola Nissi, another Iranian dissident, which had claimed responsibility for several attacks in Iran.

In further action, Denmark recalled its ambassador from Tehran and called for fresh European Union sanctions in retaliation. The announcement came as Tehran scrambled to muster European support before the US re-imposes stringent sanctions on the country early next month.

The Wall Street Journal editorialized about the seriousness in the increasing number of assassination efforts by the Iranian regime and the bewildering lack of response by EU officials who have been busy trying to concoct ways to throw an economic lifeline to Iran in the wake of U.S. sanctions.

“Denmark wants the EU to impose new sanctions on Iran. Federica Mogherini, the EU’s pro-Iran foreign-policy chief, replied blandly that “we are following events.”

“Even as Iranian hit squads are setting up shop across the Continent, the European Union is displaying a fundamental lack of seriousness about a country uninterested in distinctions between bombs, missiles and assassinations,” the Journal’s editorial board opined.

It is a remarkable turn of events to see the Iranian regime resort to these brazen attacks being carried out under the direct supervision of Iranian intelligence and diplomatic personnel without any effort to hide or disguise the plots.

It can be seen as an indicator of how desperate the mullahs must be in Tehran as they see their grip on power eroding steadily under the drumbeat of persistent protests throughout Iran and the threat of new economic sanctions that will cut off the supply of hard currency to fund the regime’s operations.

That desperation is another sign that the Iranian regime’s days may be numbered.

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

Finger Pointing Mounts Inside Chaotic Iran Regime

August 17, 2018 by admin

One of the key signs of a government in distress is when the backstabbing, finger-pointing and accusations become public even as leaders struggle to maintain a façade of normalcy.

For the Iranian regime, things are not looking so hot.

The regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, is the latest to weigh in against the decision to negotiate the nuclear agreement with the U.S. and other world countries. An odd position to take since he gave his own blessing to the effort at the start of Hassan Rouhani’s new administration on the carefully honed public image that he would usher in a new era of moderation from Iran.

But the regime’s leader, who rarely admits any mistakes from his divine perch, made comments this week that were posted on the Twitter account of Khat-e Hezbollah newspaper, a publication affiliated with his official website, Reuters reported.

With the issue of the nuclear negotiations, I made a mistake in permitting our foreign minister to speak with them. It was a loss for us,” Khamenei said referring to the U.S.

Khamenei confirmed this week that he has banned any future discussions with the U.S.

“I ban holding any talks with America,” Khamenei said. “America never remains loyal to its promises in talks…just gives empty words.”

The tacit criticism of negotiating the deal, which President Donald Trump pulled out of and levied new economic sanctions that potentially will cripple the Iranian economy, drives a stake into the idea that Rouhani’s administration has been a success for the regime.

Instead of the promised moderate era the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council touted, Rouhani has overseen Iran’s involvement in wars in Syria and Yemen, a major crackdown on political dissenters, a massive escalation in the use of the death penalty and a slumping economy due to rampant corruption and graft within his government.

The new sanctions targeted Iranian purchases of U.S. dollars, metals trading, coal, industrial software and its auto sector, though the toughest measures targeting oil exports do not take effect for four more months; all areas more focused on the industrial sectors controlled by the regime through shell companies and state ownership of heavy industries.

Rouhani himself was doing the best he could to backpedal from what is now becoming his greatest foreign policy failure in the nuclear deal.

“America itself took actions which destroyed the conditions for negotiation,” Rouhani also said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). “There were conditions for negotiation and we were negotiating. They destroyed the bridge themselves,” he said. “If you’re telling the truth then come now and build the bridge again.”

Khamenei’s criticism of the nuclear deal essentially throws Rouhani under the bus in an effort to distance himself from the crippled economy and the massive protests sweeping the country giving rise to ironic chants of “Death to Khamenei.”

But the finger pointing is not likely to save Khamenei and the mullahs as the economy continues on a steep death spiral as evidenced by shocking economic news as Iran’s Minister of Industry, Mines and Business says, fluctuations in the local forex market in the past four months have tripled the number of applications for import licenses worth $250 billion dollar.

Describing the figure as “unbelievable”, Mohammad Shariatmadari has insisted that a “number of” profiteering individuals are trying to “fish in troubled waters”, referring to the current currency and economic crisis.

The figure of $250 billion is almost triple of Iran’s annual oil income according to Radio Farda.

Import applications mean requests by importers to receive cheaper, subsidized dollars or other hard currencies from the government.

Rouhani’s new forex policy, fixing the dollar’s official rate at 42,000 rials, encouraged scores of individuals and companies to apply for import licenses, receiving millions of subsidized dollars, bringing in goods into the country and sell them on the basis of dollar’s value in the non-governmental forex market, i.e. one dollar against more than 100,000 rials, thereby reaping a tidy profit.

An example of this profiteering comes in the telecommunications market, an industry controlled by the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, in which certain companies received foreign currency at the official subsidized rate of 42,000 rials to a single U.S. dollar to import cellphones and then turn around and sold them at the black-market rate of 100,000 rials to the dollar.

It’s another example of the rampant corruption fostered by the mullahs and is enraging ordinary Iranians.

Khamenei recognizes that anger among the Iranian people is reaching a critical point and poses one of the most significant threats to the mullahs’ rule in the history of the Islamic state, which is why he is casting about for scapegoats to divert attention from himself, be it blaming President Trump or Rouhani, the end game is to keep himself alive and in power.

“More than the sanctions, economic mismanagement (by the government) is putting pressure on ordinary Iranians… I do not call it betrayal but a huge mistake in management,” state TV quoted Khamenei as saying as he tacitly accused Rouhani of doing little to curb mismanagement of the economy.

The corruption and mismanagement by the ruling mullahs is so pervasive and unavoidable that even reliable Iran lobby cheerleaders such as Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a Princeton University “researcher” and former Iranian regime official even jumped on the bandwagon of criticisms.

In an interview in Tehran Times, Mousavian took aim at the regime’s dysfunctional management of the economy:

“The Iranian economy is under many, many difficulties like corruption, like dysfunctionality, like smuggling, like inflation and they have a lot of problems. This has been problem since 1979 when Saddam invaded Iran, Iran had eight years of war, and after war, the U.S. pushed for many, many sanctions against Iran. However, I believe at least 50 percent of the Iranian domestic economic problem is not because of the sanctions. They are because of the domestic dysfunctionality of different system, but this is the government or other system,” he said.

“Therefore, if Iran is going to resist the sanctions, they would need to address the dysfunctionalities of their own system. Therefore, this is one reality about dysfunctionality of Iranian domestic economic system,” he added.

With friends like these, it’s no wonder the mullahs are in full blame game mode.

Iran Regime Does Not Know How to Respond to US Sanctions

August 8, 2018 by admin

Rouhani's speech that was broadcast live by Iran's state media on August 6, 2018

At the height of negotiations between the Iranian regime and the group of nations collectively known as the P5+1, the mullahs exercised a certain sure footedness in terms of their messaging and using the echo chamber of the Iran lobby working in concert with the Obama administration to cultivate the popular myths that the best hope for moderation in Iran was to approve the deal with major concessions for the regime.

The regime was united in its public statements with Hassan Rouhani playing the useful role of moderate leader struggling against the forces of hardliners and zealots. Even the Revolutionary Guard Corps played along by putting its terrorist operations on hold around the world lest countries got jittery.

In the aftermath of that badly flawed deal the Iranian regime reaped its benefits; namely billions in hard cash it quickly funneled to keep the Assad regime afloat in Syria, as well as rebuild and rearm its military and mobilize terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militias to fight rebels there.

The mullahs also had a free hand to crack down on dissent at home with an almost ruthless glee as Rouhani oversaw a historic increase in the number of public hangings taking place in town squares and village marketplaces all over Iran. Add to that the spectacle of parliamentary and presidential elections held without any competing candidates allowed on the ballot and you have a cozy vision of what life was like post-nuclear deal.

Unfortunately for the mullahs, Donald Trump was elected president and with him came his promise to undo the nuclear deal which he fulfilled starting this week accompanied by his usual string of tweets in a blistering barrage castigating the regime and its blatant disregard for international and regional peace and stability over the last three years.

It is one of those rare times in history when a country run by a bunch of theocratic, demagogues is flummoxed.

No longer could the mullahs rely on their well-oiled Iran lobby PR machine to put its muscle into shaping U.S. policy. No longer did they enjoy easy and open access to the White House and State Department. No longer could they predict muted U.S. responses to any transgression such as taking more dual-national U.S. hostages or even seizing some U.S. Navy patrol boats.

Instead the mullahs are faced with two very inconvenient truths: This U.S. president doesn’t trust them and is perfectly happy to put the screws to them; and the U.S. economy is leading the world economy now in growth which places its economic muscle front and center in warning off European and Asian companies to rescue the moribund Iranian economy.

Even the president’s offer to meet with Rouhani “anytime, anywhere” has baffled the Iranian regime since for them, it’s a no-win situation.

But if Rouhani chooses not to meet with Trump, he’ll be blamed for not engaging in diplomacy and puts to a lie the Iran lobby’s first commandment of “engagement leads to moderation.”

This conundrum is so profound that Rouhani himself has given contradictory answers in the span of the same speech.

On Monday, Rouhani made remarks in a televised address in which he declared Iran could not enter talks with President Trump because he was “untrustworthy.”

“You cannot expect to talk to a person after you stab him and leave the knife in his body,” Rouhani, speaking in Persian, told IRIB state television.

Rouhani goes on to characterize the president’s meeting offer as a form of “psychological warfare aimed at his regime.

Then in the same speech, Rouhani goes on to say he welcomed talks with the U.S. “right now.”

“I don’t have preconditions. If the US government is willing, let’s start right now,” Rouhani said.

Under normal circumstances one could write off Rouhani’s remarks as simple hyperbole, but the truth is that his bipolar remarks highlight the squeeze he and the rest of the theocracy are in as a wearying population is enraged by government corruption, endless wars and deep distrust of its leadership.

President Trump made the sanctions more impactful by warning that any companies doing business in Iran would be barred from doing business with the U.S.

And it seems to be working as German carmaker Daimler AG froze a plan to make Mercedes Benz trucks in Iran. That’s even after the European Union tried to salvage the Iran nuclear deal by pledging to protect firms from Trump’s assault.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if more companies were to follow Daimler out of Iran,” said Frank Biller, an automobile analyst based in Stuttgart, Germany for Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg. “With the political situation right now, I’m sure a lot of companies are at least thinking about suspending their activities.”

All of which makes Rouhani’s efforts to praise European nations in resisting the U.S. sanctions ring all the more hollow and desperate sounding.

The Iranian regime, and more importantly the ruling mullahs, are finding themselves quickly being isolated not only from global commerce but even their own people, setting the stage for what has been a longed—for goal among Iranian dissidents and opposition groups: the opportunity for real democratic reform and regime change.

Iran Lobby Criticisms of Iran Economic Sanctions Misses the Point

August 7, 2018 by admin

President Trump signs the Presidential order to snap back first series of sanctions - August 6, 2018

For all of the verbose and critical language the Iran lobby has aimed at the Trump administration for de-certifying the Iran nuclear agreement and re-imposing economic sanctions this week, they miss the one essential truth they cannot defend which is this whole mess is the fault of the mullahs in Tehran, not the U.S.

The Iran lobby, most notably the National Iranian American Council, have long argued the nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration was “working.” It was a misleading label from the start because the administration, under the influence of the “echo chamber” created by the Iran lobby to bolster American public opinion, literally gave away the proverbial store.

Among the most notable omissions in the agreement:

No restrictions on Iranian regime’s ability to develop nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to deliver payloads around the world;
No restrictions on Iran’s ability to funnel cash delivered as part of a payoff to free American hostages held by Iran to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah or to buy weapons from Russia and China later used by terrorists in Yemen, Iraq and Syria; and
No requirements for Iran to improve its human rights situation, including releasing political prisoners, halting crackdowns on journalists, students, bloggers, artists, ethnic and religious minorities, and repealing laws that oppress women such as banned jobs, morals codes and misogynistic behavior.

But what the NIAC and others in the Iran lobby fail to ever mention is Iran’s role in the Syrian civil war and the carnage it unleashed resulting in the slaughter of almost half a million men, women and children and creating over four million refugees.

It also spawned the rise of ISIS and a series of terrorist attacks that struck at almost every part of the world including London, Birmingham, Orlando, Brussels, Nice, Ottawa, Sydney, San Bernardino and the list goes on and on.

For these reasons and more, President Trump followed through on a central campaign promise in pulling out the nuclear deal. His decision wasn’t a surprise to anyone, including the Iran lobby, but that hasn’t stopped the NIAC and others from doing their best to stab at the president’s actions.

Among the sanctions being imposed include several that the Obama administration declined to enforce in the first place.

Iran will no longer be able to engage in trade using US dollars, a cornerstone of international business for the country. The country will also, according to Trump administration officials, be blocked from trade in gold and other precious metals, the import of graphite, aluminum, steel, coal, and software used for industrial purposes, and participation in the automobile market, according to BuzzFeed.

The NIAC has called for European countries to bail out Iran and commit to their business deals with the Islamic state, but already a mass exodus of companies including Peugeot and Total has streamed away from Iran.

While the sanctions are sure to be troubling to Iran, even harsher sanctions are on deck to come into effect in November. Those will target Iran’s oil exports as well as transactions between foreign banks and the Central Bank of Iran.

A senior administrative official reiterated that the US goal is to get imports of Iranian crude to zero and that the US is not looking to give exemptions or waivers when those sanctions hit.

The NIAC, in a briefing memo posted on its website, consistently characterizes the nuclear agreement as “successful” but in reality the agreement ended up being the tool by which Iranian regime replenished its cash reserves, went on a massive arms buying spree and proceeded to aid in the gassing and killing of hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East.

If the mullahs were hoping to save themselves and the Assad regime, then the nuclear deal was indeed a stunning success from that standpoint.

The harsh reality though for the mullahs and the Iran lobby is that conditions have changed significantly over the past three years, not only in Washington, DC, but also on the streets of hundreds of villages, cities and towns throughout Iran as waves of protests push the regime into a decision whether or not to crackdown on its own people again or finally entertain the notion that democracy, a real genuine democracy, needs to take root in Iran.

Thomas Erdbrink in the New York Times was one of only several journalists chronicling the protests erupting in Iran, the likes of which are rarely seen as these protests are being fueled by the poor and middle classes and focused on the poor economy, death spiral in the currency values, gross mismanagement, incompetence in the government and rampant corruption by the ruling elites.

“Some demonstrations — about the weak economy, strict Islamic rules, water shortages, religious disputes, local grievances — have turned deadly. The protesters have shouted harsh slogans against clerical leaders and their policies. The events are broadly shared on social media and on the dozens of Persian language satellite channels beaming into the Islamic republic,” he writes.

“Videos show that some protesters have gone well beyond strictly economic grievances to challenge Iran’s foreign policy and religious rules. Secular protest slogans aimed at Iran’s leadership also criticize its support for Syria and groups in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon,” he added.

Erdbrink who usually writes in a favorable manner, appeasing the mullahs in Iran, writes that predictably in-fighting among the ruling elites as to who is to blame is rising as the mullahs struggle to offer solutions to the Iranian people that don’t involve slogans or a policeman wielding a baton.

While the Iran lobby struggles to get its message out, the truth is that Americans, are less likely to hear that same echo chamber this time around.

Trump Invite for Meeting is Trap for Mullahs They Might Not Escape

August 2, 2018 by admin

Trump Offer to Meet Rouhani has Iran Lobby Boxed In

President Donald Trump’s nearly off-hand comment about being open to a meeting with Iranian regime leader Hassan Rouhani “anytime” puts the Iranian regime and their Iran lobby supporters between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, if they simply denounce the invitation, they reaffirm the belief that the regime was never really interested in meaningful dialogue on topics not to their liking such as improving human rights, support for terrorism or interfering in neighboring countries.

It also calls out the Iran lobby’s persistent braying for diplomatic openings between the U.S. and Iran and once the president presents such an opportunity, critics such as the National Iranian American Council are quick to denounce it.

It seems the Iran lobby can’t have their cake and eat it too under this president.

If on the other hand, the mullahs accept the president’s offer, they might very run into a Trump version of what they have consistently done to others for decades which makes a show of diplomacy but grant nothing of substance and continue to apply pressure.

The prospect of the mullahs getting a dose of their own medicine is ironic and somewhat refreshing.

The varied responses from the regime are proof the mullahs in Tehran seem pretty confused as to what to do since it’s clear that President Trump’s offer is not really without preconditions. Rather, looming over Tehran is the precarious state of the economy, looming economic sanctions due to fall next week and mounting pressure internally from the Iranian people to change how the usual corrupt government operates.

“Unfortunately, right now there is no low-hanging fruit in U.S.-Iran relations or potential negotiations. And the primary reason is that Trump, by violating the Iran nuclear deal and withdrawing from it, he really eviscerated the Iranian trust in the United States,” said Sina Toossi, a research associate at the National Iranian American Council.

“He could potentially give that confidence to international banks and businesses, remove U.S. sanctions and allow Iran to get the benefits from the deal, and that could be used as a stepping stone for broader negotiations,” he added.

Therein lies the crux of the Iran lobby’s problem. It has in Trump a U.S. president who doesn’t care about appearances or how critics view him and is just as intent on forcing regime change as any president in the last 30 years. While the Iran lobby is pushing to recover the gains lost from the failed nuclear deal, it recognizes the awful truth of their position which is that there are no meaningful gambits left it can use on this president.

The Iran lobby and the regime have sought a bailout from Europe by trying to persuade the European Union to stay in the nuclear agreement.

Rouhani met with the new British Ambassador to Tehran Tuesday where he announced, not for the first time, the US withdrawal from the multilateral nuclear deal in May was “illegal,” adding that “the ball is in Europe’s court,” according to CNN.

But that prospect seems as likely as snow falling right now on a California beach as the president is already pressing the EU over the issue of bilateral trade tariffs that has Europe busy focusing on its own trade deals.

The poor mullahs are not at the top of the to-do list for Europe anymore and the trade they represent is a pittance compared to the whopping $690 billion in trade between the EU and U.S.

Nic Robertson at CNN offered his own analysis that the Iran regime may take a long view in responding to President Trump. He posits that Iran is willing to use a subtle approach in trying to divide the U.S. from its allies and by not ramping up extremist acts with its terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah is a sign of this approach.

He also offers that summits with Russian president Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un are different since Iran’s leaders are not in as precarious a position.

With apologies to Robertson, that is a bad misread of the regime.

The mullahs are under intense pressure not only from a rial about to be less valuable than the paper its printed on to massive protests rocking the country since last year that have not abated and have taken on a dire tone with protests aimed directly at the regime’s top leaders.

The basket case economy is so bad, that Iranian parliament members have demanded Rouhani appear before them in one month to answer questions about the economy.

It is the first time parliament has summoned Rouhani, who is under pressure from rivals to change his cabinet following a deterioration in relations with the United States and Iran’s growing economic difficulties.

Lawmakers want to question Rouhani on topics including the rial’s decline, which has lost more than half its value since April, weak economic growth and rising unemployment, according to semi-official ISNA news agency.

Rouhani’s summon coincides with further shows of public discontent. A number of protests have broken out in Iran since the beginning of the year over high prices, water shortage, power cuts, and alleged corruption in the Islamic Republic.

On Tuesday, hundreds of people rallied in cities across the country, including Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz and Ahvaz, in protest against high inflation caused in part by the weak rial, according to Reuters.

The mullahs are now faced with change or doubling down on crazy and potentially pushing the Iranian people too far or accept the truth that the regime’s days are numbered.

Laura Carnahan