Iran Lobby

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

Iranian Regime Dictionary is not Webster’s

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Iranian Regime Dictionary is not Webster’s

Iranian Regime Dictionary is not Webster’s

Noah Webster has been called the father of American English dictionaries, publishing the first edition of his dictionaries in 1828. Since then, his name has become synonymous for dictionaries and has become the bedrock for understanding and correcting the English language.

Language and its precise use have determined everything from lawsuits to love poems and most recently language has been at the heart of much of the disputes going on with the Iranian regime. For the mullahs in Tehran, language and the semantic differences it brings has been their lifeline in a sense because it allows them to argue one thing, while agreeing to something totally different.

Take for example the Iranian position in the Syrian conflict. Hassan Rouhani’s government has always maintained that no peaceful solution could happen without guarantees that Syrian leader Assad was still in power. To that end, Iran has targeted the rebel opposition and identified them as “terrorists” and tied them to ISIS and Al-Qaeda, even those moderate elements backed by the U.S. and its allies.

The mullahs have even used deceptive language in describing Iranian military units fighting in Syria, calling them “volunteers” when in fact the regime is now shipping regular army units for the first time. The regime has even recruited tens of thousands of paid mercenaries from the ranks of Afghan refugees seeking shelter in Iran from the war that rages in their country; sometimes signing up only under threat of expulsion of their families.

Iran’s army chief said on Wednesday the forces it had deployed in Syria in the first such operation abroad since the 1979 revolution were volunteers working under Revolutionary Guards supervision, and the regular army was not directly involved.

It announced this month that it had sent commandos from the army’s Brigade 65 to Syria as advisers, suggesting it was using its regular army as well as forces from the Revolutionary Guards to help Assad’s forces in the country’s civil war.

“Some volunteers have been sent to Syria, under the supervision of the related organization, and among them there might be some of the Brigade 65 forces,” armed forces chief Ataollah Salehi was quoted by the Tasnim news agency as saying.

“The army has no responsibility in the military advice given to Syria,” Salehi added.

The talking points are a clear example of how the Iranian regime obscures its real intentions with nuanced language. It’s a tactic adopted by the Iran lobby and its supporters as well in trying to divert attention through misnomers such as the use of the term “moderate” in describing certain elements within the Iranian government.

Moderation does not exist within the Iranian government. It is like making a distinction between the SS and Brown shirts of Hitler’s Nazi Germany and calling one more moderate than the other.

Nowhere is that tactic more apparent than during the recent parliamentary elections in which thousands of “moderates” were kicked off ballots and in their place, candidates loyal to the regime’s leadership were left to run virtually unchallenged, yet they were hailed as “moderates.”

The Iran lobby uses those distinctions in its efforts to distort the truth in Iran. Groups such as the National Iranian American Council have long sought to portray a clear distinction within Iran of an active moderate faction seeking change, but it has gone out of its way to attack all dissident groups not aligned with the regime in some manner.

Entities such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran which is one of the largest Iranian dissident groups in the world has long been vilified by the Iran lobby and portrayed in various nefarious ways in order to denigrate their claims and protests.

The Iranian regime continues this practice in how it makes threats all the time, including warnings by Rouhani of a “serious reaction” should the U.S. not make good on what it perceives as promises to grant Iran expanded sanctions relief under the nuclear agreement such as access to U.S. currency exchanges, while the U.S. steadfastly maintains that no such conditions existed.

Should the rest of the world be worried about these linguistic differences? Yes, to the extent they provide the Iranian regime the excuses necessary to engage in its aggressive behavior.

Iran, much like regimes such as North Korea, use language as a first-line of excuses in justifying any sort of bad behavior.

Test fire ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads in violation of international sanctions?

Call it “defensive testing.”

Round up journalists, ethnic and religious minorities and toss them in prison?

Call it “protecting the faith.”

Hang a 13-year-old girl?

Call it “protecting virtue and purity.”

The absurdity of it all makes a mockery of language. We can only assume that Noah Webster is turning in his grave.

By Michael Tomlinson

Mullahs in Tehran Only Have Themselves to Blame

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Mullahs in Tehran Only Have Themselves to Blame

Mullahs in Tehran Only Have Themselves to Blame

Iran’s economy still struggles along anemically. The Iranian people find commodities in short supply with high prices and poor job prospects. Thousands of young Iranian men are being shipped off to fight in the deepening Syrian war, while at home Iranian women continue to be oppressed and denied job opportunities and any freedom to decide their own lives.

The mullahs in Tehran and the regime leaders such as Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani have sought to blame at various times: the U.S., the U.S. Congress, Hollywood movies, decadent American culture, Starbucks, American consumerism, Christians, Jews, Sunnis, Donald Trump and even each other for the ills that plague Iran.

What they have failed to do is look themselves in the mirror and focus blame squarely where it belongs: themselves.

The New York Times editorial board published a piece that questions the deep level of corruption that still pervades the regime government and economy, as well as the regime’s commitment to support terrorism and human rights abuses that remain rampant.

“One impediment is that most American sanctions remain in place because of Iran’s involvement in terrorism and human rights abuses and its testing of ballistic missiles. Iran knew that lifting all American sanctions was never part of the nuclear deal,” the Times wrote.

“Experts say Iranian banks are badly run, politicized and lack transparency — warning signs for risk-averse foreign banks. Iran’s warlike behavior in the region — supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, arming Hezbollah and testing missiles — further discourages investment.”

As President Obama said recently, “Businesses want to go where they feel safe, where they don’t see massive controversy, where they can be confident that transactions are going to operate normally.”

The Times is correct in that Iran’s behavior is the source of most of the problems it encounters, but it only scratches the surface of the true problems plaguing Iran since the Times diagnoses the symptom, but not the cause.

That cause lies in the foundation of the velayat-e-Faqih system in the first place as a religious theocracy dominated by a strict interpretation of Islam that allows no compromise or quarter. It regards even other Muslim faiths as blasphemous and generally seeks to solve its problems through the use of terror, war and violence.

The collision of religious rule and commerce do not produce good results on the whole and while the Times correctly points the obstacles to foreign companies and banks face in trying to restart business in Iran, it misses the correct prescription to fix it, which is regime change and the implementation of a true, non-secular democratic government in which religion plays no part in its governance.

As many Iranian dissident groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran have long pointed out, the transition of Iran from a theocracy to a true democracy is the only viable pathway for regional stability and peace.

The fact that Iran’s extremist rulers have sought to shift blame for the nation’s woes onto anyone they can blame hides the fact that corruption and violence have become so ingrained within the policies and practices of the Iranian regime, the rest of world has come to accept it as a status quo; much in the same way we’ve become accustomed to the paranoid vitriol that often flows from North Korea.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and the United Nations human rights monitors have long documented the cruelty and barbarism that occurs within Iran, but over time even the most despicable acts such as the execution of juveniles have become commonplace and no longer merit worldwide media scrutiny.

Maybe that is the regime’s game plan, to play the long game and bore the rest of the world with endless streams of violence and inhumanity we take it as common practice and no longer react with revulsion?

Recently, some news media reported on an Iranian teenager who was told to “retain her chastity,” but instead bravely shared her account of being stopped by morality police for having the wrong hairstyle, amid a crackdown on women veiling incorrectly.

The 15-year-old and her 12-year-old friend from school reported seeing the morality police and hiding while they attempted to tuck their hair under their veils, but were stopped for having hair too close to their faces and wearing make-up.

After the ordeal, described by the 15-year-old as “humiliating and harrowing,” she decided to share a video account of what happened on social media.

Anywhere else in the world, viral social media such as this would generate firestorms of attention, but in Iran where a great cyber wall keeps social media in check, incidents large and small like this are only intermittingly revealed.

It is also through the diligent work of the Iran lobby network of columnists, bloggers, lobbyists and PR spinners that continually fight to keep a lid on such incidents and discount them as isolated ones and not representative of the regime as a whole.

But such actions are par for the course with the Iranian regime, which uses threats to try and force agreements.

The governor of Iran’s central bank, Valiollah Seif, threatened to walk away from the nuclear deal if the United States did not give Iran access to the American financial system during a 90-minute speech in Washington last week.

In response, Matthew Levitt, a former Treasury Department official and who now works at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Monday that “Iran seems to expect the Obama administration to provide benefits beyond those in the nuclear deal.” Levitt noted that Seif admitted that Iran has not changed how it does business, and added “that Iran has not changed is at the core of its problem.”

As the New York Times notes, the problem is not with the rest of the world, but with the mullahs themselves.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iranian Regime Begging for US Dollars

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army-day-paradeThe famous physicist Albert Einstein once said “Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.”

The sentiment still applies today to the extent that many people around the world assume Americans are infatuated with money and its pursuit and have built into a kind of urban legend and mythology that has come to dominate the perceptions of Americans around the world.

The mullahs in Tehran have used the same verbiage to draw a portrait of America as a nation bereft of morality, filled with infidels more intent on opening McDonalds and Starbucks locations than pursuing a “moral” life.

It is an image the mullahs wish to grow since it allows them to convey a perception of moral and ethical superiority and re-invests the Iranian people in the mythology of the religious theocracy; one founded on a single vision and interpretation of Islam.

It also happens to be a hypocritical view since the mullahs are just as obsessed about the almighty dollar as hedge fund managers and bond traders on Wall Street. That obsessing drives the mullahs as they use all of their PR and lobbying tools to press the Obama administration to lift sanctions restricting Iran’s access to U.S. currency exchanges as part of the nuclear agreement reached last year.

According to news reports, “Iranian and European officials say they are pushing the United States to grant the Islamic Republic unprecedented access to American financial markets and the U.S. dollar, working against promises by top Obama administration officials who had claimed Iran would never be granted such access, according to recent remarks.”

Regime foreign minister Javad Zarif, speaking at a joint press conference this weekend with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, said that officials are pressuring the U.S. to grant Iran access to American markets.

“Iran and the EU will put pressure on the United States to facilitate the cooperation of non-American banks with Iran,” Zarif was quoted as saying at a briefing with reporters and Mogherini.

Both Iran and the EU said in a joint statement later in the day that the United States must work hard to uphold its obligations under the recent nuclear deal. The White House has argued that it is not mandated to provide dollar access under the agreement.
It is one of the rare occasions where the vagaries of the nuclear agreement, which the Iranian regime fought so hard to secure is now working against it.

In Foreign Policy, Eric Lorber and Peter Feaver pointed out the problems with the imprecise language in the nuclear agreement.

“In order to get a deal that had a chance of constraining Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the United States had to make significant concessions on nuclear-related sanctions. At the time, the Obama administration sold the deal with the assurance that the United States would retain enough coercive leverage on Iran to keep the regime in check on these other issues, including the Islamic Republic’s support for international terrorism, human rights abuses, and the development of its ballistic missile programs. And administration spokespeople emphasized again and again that they would be vigilant and vigorous in wielding this coercive leverage,” they write.

“In the past few weeks, however, the administration has signaled that it is on the cusp of making an additional and unexpected concession to Iran that significantly weakens remaining U.S. leverage: giving Iran backdoor access to financial transactions in dollars. The administration reportedly believes it needs to make this additional concession to honor the spirit of the agreement. Congress is crying foul, asserting that such dollar access was not included in the letter of the original deal and constitutes a gift to Iran that should not be given without additional Iranian concessions. As President Obama himself asked recently: Why should the United States offer additional concessions to honor the spirit of the deal if Iran is not also making additional concessions?” they added.

The inability of the Iranian regime to lift the restrictions on accessing U.S. currency has put a halt to their flood of deal making with European and Asian banks and companies leery of running afoul of U.S. regulators, especially with a pending election that could bring a new administration less favorable of the deal.

Members of Congress have been outraged. Many members on both sides of the aisle felt they had been misled by the administration, and that if the administration had been considering granting Iran access to U.S. dollars, it should been more forthcoming with this plan in the summer of 2015 and afterwards, rather than making statements that indicated that Iran would not have access to the benefits of the U.S. financial system.

All of which points towards the mullahs obsession about money: It is the grease that fuels its proxy wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. It arms terrorist groups like Hezbollah. It buys weapons that kill civilians and it helps oppress the Iranian people and lines the pockets of family members of the mullahs and other regime elites.

As the U.S. considers continuing the currency ban, it should remember what the regime will use those dollars for and it is not for buying every Iranian an air conditioner or Playstation.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iranian Regime No Longer Hiding Its Military Intentions

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Iranian Regime No Longer Hiding Its Military Intentions

Iranian Regime No Longer Hiding Its Military Intentions

The Iranian regime held its annual Army Day parade as a showcase to pose itself as a mighty power in the region, but more importantly for the mullahs it provided an opportunity to show off parts of the long-awaited new S-300 air defense system from Russia.

While the advanced anti-aircraft missiles were originally ordered by Iran in 2007, their delivery was held up due to the imposition of sanctions related to Iranian regime’s violations concerning the development of nuclear weapons. Only after the nuclear agreement was reached last year was the delivery allowed to go through.

The delivery of the missile system is significant since it instantly brings the regime’s air defense to a much more modern and sophisticated level; a major issue for the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard since without it, any effort to restart its nuclear program would be subject to air attack by the U.S. and its allies.

The fact that the mullahs pushed hard to remove weapon systems such as this and the development of new ballistic missiles from the nuclear negotiations spoke volumes of their determination to upgrade their military capabilities far beyond where they stand today, particularly since they see this the only path to survival of the vast internal discontent.

According to pictures published by the semi-official ISNA news agency, S-300 missile tubes and the radar equipment were shown during the military parade held in southern Tehran.

Iran and Russia are also in talks on a sale of the advanced Sukhoi SU-30 fighter, another proposal criticized by the U.S. The regime’s current air force fleet dates from the pre-revolutionary era of the former Shah.

Speaking at Sunday’s parade, Hassan Rouhani insisted Iran’s plans to upgrade its military capabilities were defensive in nature, referring to the worst conflicts in the Middle East.

“Our military, political and economic power is not directed against neighboring countries and the countries of the Islamic world.

“When Baghdad was threatened by terrorists, the Islamic Republic of Iran responded to the call of the people, the army and the Iraqi government to defend Baghdad and the holy places,” he said, referring to the surge of the ISIL group in June 2014.

The argument he makes is similar to those consistently made by the Iran lobby from groups such as the National Iranian American Council which has sought to portray the Iranian regime as some sort of dedicated freedom fighter against Islamic extremism. The only difficulty with that portrayal is that Iran’s mullahs are the ones spreading it, not the other way around.

The beefing up of its military capability, including the multiple test launches of new ballistic missiles, comes at a time when the Iranian regime is also ramping up its military presence in Syria in support of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, except now the Iranians are not even trying to hide their deepening presence even as they pretend to advocate for peace talks.

Fearing that Russia may side with the U.S. and approve the removal of Assad from power, the Iranian government is now, more than ever, investing in propping up the regime’s dwindling army and air force.

“They [the Iranians] saw it as an opportunity to move closer to the regime,” one U.S. official told the Financial Times.

The Russian military pullback announced last month threatens Tehran’s position not only in Syria, but in the region. If Assad is ousted, Iranian military presence in the country will be diminished and Iran will no longer be able to present itself as a player in the region.

Iranian regime officials have in number of times reiterated that Syria is their front line and if they don’t fight the enemy in Syria, soon they have to do it in Tehran, referring to the strategic importance of Syrian dictatorship for the Ayatollahs in Iran. That’s why Iran is deploying more troops to Damascus. Those deployments, though, come at a cost. At least four Iranian soldiers have been killed in one week. Iranian media have reported that more than 150 Guards died in more than a year of fighting in Syria.

Tehran has kept its army at home for decades and tried to keep conflict at bay through a strategy — manned and managed by the Guards — of fighting its regional rivals through proxies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Syria is crucial to its success. It is on the ‘frontline’ with Israel and is an important bridge to Hezbollah, Iran’s Shia proxy force in Lebanon.

Iran has vowed that it will not compromise on the fate of Assad, and backs his offer to include opposition figures in a national unity government while ruling out a “transitional governing body with full executive powers” — the formula agreed at talks in Geneva in 2012.

In the meantime, the high casualty rate among Revolutionary Guards — whose “military advisers” are reckoned by a western diplomat in Tehran to number fewer than 10,000 — has prompted Tehran to deploy its regular army to bolster Assad’s forces in Syria.

The stakes are high for the Iranian regime as it again sent Qassem Soleimani, the notorious leader of its Quds Force, to Moscow again in violation of international travel bans restricting his movements to discuss with Russian military officials on the deteriorating situation in Syria and the delivery of nearly $8 billion of new weapons just purchased by Iran.

The delivery of new military hardware is viewed by Tehran as an important adjunct to the use of Hezbollah proxies, Quds Force fighters, Basiji paramilitaries and thousands of paid mercenary Afghans that the Iranian regime has been sending to Syria in a desperate bid to keep Assad in power.

According to the BBC, the first Afghan militias began to arrive in 2012 in Syria.

“The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps decided that the Syrian military could not succeed on their own,” one former Afghan fighter told the BBC. “The frontlines were too depleted and men were trying to avoid conscription.”

The Iranians decided to set up a 50,000-strong National Defense Force to fight alongside the Syrian army.

With a shortage of willing fighters inside Syria, they began looking elsewhere – signing up Iranian Afghans, Lebanese, Iraqi and Pakistani Shia recruits. The fact that the mullahs are now committing Iranian regular army units to the Syrian fight shows a significant leap in their desperation over the situation there.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, one of the leading Iranian dissident groups in the world, took note of these changes in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat on Sunday in which she pointed out that the Iranian regime would collapse consequentially should Assad be toppled in Syria, which is why Iran’s regime has been trying to keep Assad in power at any cost.

“If Assad falls out of power in Damascus, then the Iranian regime will evidently follow and collapse in Tehran,” Mrs. Rajavi said.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iranian Regime Executions of Juveniles Does Not Stop

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There is no surer sign of a government’s barbarity than the execution of people who should not be executed. There is no surer sign of a government’s lack of trustworthiness than in its inability to change or improve how it treats its own citizens.

In the case of the Iranian regime, repeated reports, investigations and reviews have documented and chronicled the catalog of abuses and horrors the mullahs visit on ordinary Iranian citizens every day.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Iranian dissident groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran have long reported of arrests, imprisonment, torture and executions of many people whose only crimes have been to defend themselves against an abusive spouse, criticize the government or attempt to improve their economic condition.

Like so many other despotic governments such as North Korea, the Iranian regime has blithely ignored such criticism and continued on its barbaric ways. The litany of woe has almost become problematic to the extent the rest of the world has become numb to it; much as American news media have become numb to urban crime reporting.

Human rights and dissident groups have sought to shock the social consciousness of the world about Iran at times through the personal stories of those being tortured or executed – often at great personal risk to tell these stories – but even the most horrific tales are now consigned to obscure blogs or the back pages of newspapers.

Even when high profile prisoners such as the Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian or Christian pastor Saeed Abedini have been released and tell their stories or mistreatment and abuse, it often doesn’t go anywhere beyond the obligatory debriefing interview upon their release.

It does not result in governments changing their policies towards the regime and it does not advance efforts to improve the human rights situation in Iran. In fact, the example of the nuclear agreement reached last year is a glaring example of how low priority human rights seem to have become in that the Iranian regime specifically demanded and received a provision not to link human rights with the agreement.

Now the U.S. State Department has released its annual country survey of human rights practices for 2015 and Iran continues to be perpetrator of severe abuses. The listing of abuses is too numerous to recount here, but it is all too familiar. It reads in part:

“The most significant human rights problems were severe restrictions on civil liberties, including the freedoms of assembly, association, speech (including via the internet), religion, and press; limitations on citizens’ ability to choose the government peacefully through free and fair elections; and abuse of due process combined with escalating use of capital punishment for crimes that do not meet the threshold of most serious crime or are committed by juvenile offenders.”

“Other reported human rights problems included disregard for the physical integrity of persons, whom authorities arbitrarily and unlawfully detained, tortured, or killed; disappearances; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including judicially sanctioned amputation and flogging; politically motivated violence and repression; harsh and life-threatening conditions in detention and prison facilities, with instances of deaths in custody; arbitrary arrest and lengthy pretrial detention, sometimes incommunicado; continued impunity of the security forces; denial of fair public trial, sometimes resulting in executions without due process; the lack of an independent judiciary; political prisoners and detainees; ineffective implementation of civil judicial procedures and remedies; arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, and correspondence; harassment and arrest of journalists; censorship and media content restrictions; severe restrictions on academic freedom; restrictions on freedom of movement; official corruption and lack of government transparency; constraints on investigations by international and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) into alleged violations of human rights; legal and societal discrimination and violence against women, ethnic and religious minorities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons based on perceived sexual orientation and gender identity; incitement to anti-Semitism; trafficking in persons; and severe restrictions on the exercise of labor rights.”

And all that is just in the summary page with much more detailed in the report. Yet even with the acknowledgement of all of Iran’s violations, there is not enough movement to rectify these terrible problems, nor hold the regime accountable for them.

A Reuters story highlighted one case to illustrate the appalling act of executing juveniles. In the southern province of Fars, Fatemeh Salbehi suffocated her husband after drugging him, a capital crime in the Islamic Republic.

What made the case controversial is that Salbehi was only 17, a minor by international legal standards, when she allegedly committed the crime. Her alleged confession also came during a series of interrogations where there was no lawyer present.

The case was retried but Salbehi was hanged in the Adel Abad prison in Shiraz last October.

The issue has come under scrutiny because of a scathing U.N. report on human rights in Iran last month which highlighted what it called the “alarmingly high” rate of executions in the country, including juveniles.

That report, along with an Amnesty International report in January, spurred commentary from ordinary Iranians on social media at least some of which criticized the administration of Hassan Rouhani for not doing more to stop the juvenile executions.

Iran has the highest rate of juvenile executions in the world, despite being a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international human rights treaty that forbids capital punishment for anyone under 18.

“The fact that there were two executions in less than two weeks just shows how indifferent and contemptuous the Iranian authorities are of their obligations,” said Raha Bahreini, the Iran researcher for Amnesty International.

In the past decade, Iran has executed at least 73 juvenile offenders, according to the January Amnesty report.

Clearly the regime has little regard for international agreements when it does not suit its needs and until the world unites in holding Iran accountable, human rights abuses or development of new ballistic missiles or

Iranian Regime Executions of Juveniles Does Not Stop

Iranian Regime Executions of Juveniles Does Not Stop

deepening of the Syrian war will only continue unabated.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Gets New Missiles and Acts More Deadly

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Iran Regime Gets New Missiles and Acts More Deadly

Iran Regime Gets New Missiles and Acts More Deadly

Russia has reportedly begun delivery of the first components in the new S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries to the Iranian regime as part of a larger military build-up utilizing a portion of the financial windfall the mullahs received from the nuclear deal reached last July allowing previously frozen deals to now go through.

The $800 million contract originally signed in 2007 was frozen due to international sanctions in 2010, but was unfrozen last year in the wake of the nuclear agreement.

The S-300, made by Rostec, can be used against multiple targets including jets, or to shoot down other missiles. It is one of the most advanced medium-range defensive weapons in the world. It can engage multiple aircraft at low to high altitude, up to 90 miles away. It is battle tested and in high demand from militaries around the world.

The S-300V4 variant, delivered to the Russian armed forces in 2014, can shoot down any medium-range missile in the world today, flies at five times the speed of sound and has a range of 400km (249 miles), Russia’s Tass news agency reports.

In addition to the S-300, Iran plans to license production of the Russian T-90 tank and has expressed interest in front-line Russian fighters like the SU-34. Russia is also assisting Iranian regime in rebuilding its nuclear energy capability.

The significant rebuilding and upgrading of Iran’s military capability in both offensive and defensive categories comes at the same time the regime has test fired new ballistic missile designs capable of carrying nuclear, chemical or biological payloads reaching deep into Europe, Africa and Asia.

The introduction of advanced missiles, anti-aircraft batteries, fighter jets and battle tanks clearly indicate the Iranian regime’s desire to significantly improve its combat capabilities as well as its military reach far beyond its own borders.

The delivery of S-300 systems is problematic for the U.S. and other nations concerned over Iran’s nuclear program since one of the promises made by the Iran lobby during nuclear talks was that the West would still retain the ability to bomb out of existence any illegal nuclear program. The introduction of the new missile systems makes such a response that much more difficult and protects the regime from military response should it cheat.

This points out the serious flaw in the arguments posed by Iran lobby supporters such as the National Iranian American Council and the Ploughshares Fund; by separating other corresponding acts by the regime – such as support of terrorism or proxy wars from the nuclear talks – the mullahs were empowered to engage in other provocative acts with impunity.

The next link in the chain of restrictions the mullahs are trying to break now involves accessing the international financial system, specifically trading and exchanging in and out of U.S. currency markets which would allow the mullahs to engage in commerce worldwide.

But many foreign banks remain uncertain about allowing the regime into their systems since the U.S. government still has sanctions in place related to Iran’s support of terrorism. This has proven to be a sore spot for the mullahs to such an extent that leaders such as Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani have made the issue of access to U.S. dollars almost a “red line” in the sand and have threatened to walk away from the nuclear deal and restart its nuclear program.

It is clear however from the regime’s actions since the deal, that the mullahs have every intention of breaking the deal anyway after they get everything they want from West.

That possibility was only reinforced by repeated statements by senior regime leaders about its ballistic missile program, the most recent coming from regime foreign minister Javad Zarif who rejected making any concessions to the international community on the missile topic according to the Guardian newspaper.

“Secretary Kerry and the U.S. State Department know well that Iran’s missile and defense capabilities are not open to negotiation,” state media quoted Zarif as saying during a joint press conference with his visiting Estonian counterpart.

Meanwhile the regime continues a broad human rights crackdown at home and has now reached out beyond its borders to focus on its oldest enemies; Iranian dissident groups that have long worked to oppose the regime and bring democratic reforms to Iran.

German prosecutors on Friday accused two Iranian men, 31-year-old Maysam P. and 33-year-old Saied R., of spying on the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on behalf of Iranian intelligence.

Prosecutors said both men infiltrated MEK with Maysam P. starting in January 2013 and Saied R. in August 2014 to gather information for Iranian intelligence on opposition members in Germany and other EU countries.

The NCRI welcomed “the fact that German prosecutor has brought the case of espionage targeting PMOI and NCRI to justice and calls on the German government and relevant officials to disclose and make public the details of the case of espionage and illegal activities of the Iranian regime and its agents in Germany. This is an imperative step to prevent these criminal activities.”

The crazy nature of the see-saw back and forth between lifting sanctions and imposing sanctions was highlighted as the European Union announced the extension of sanctions against 82 Iranian regime officials until 2017 because of deteriorating human rights in Iran.

The 28-nation bloc has had asset freezes and travel bans in place against Iranians since 2011 because of perceived violations of human rights.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

Iran Lobby Pressing for More Appeasement

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Iran Lobby Pressing for More Appeasement

Iran Lobby Pressing for More Appeasement

A year after completion of the nuclear deal with the Iranian regime, the U.S. and its allies are confronted increasingly with acts by the regime demonstrating the mullahs complete lack of interest in engaging in peaceful and moderate ways.

The fact that the nuclear deal was not tied to corresponding improvements in Iran’s human rights record, support for terrorism and involvement in proxy wars made the situation even more muddled for the rest of the world. Even as the U.S. and European Union sought to lift sanctions against the regime as part of the deal, they were forced to deliberate imposing new ones to address growing problems such as the launch of illegal ballistic missiles.

As a result, the full impact of loosened economic sanctions has been lessened by the uncertainty being created by the regime’s actions and has prompted the Iran lobby to rally to the defense of the Iranian regime and push harder for full implementation of the nuclear deal irrespective of the militant acts being undertaken.

A key objective of the Iran lobby is to lift the last of the financial restrictions remaining on the regime, specifically the prohibitions in place preventing Iran to access U.S. currency markets and conduct business in U.S. dollars.

A lifting of those prohibitions would effectively lift the last dam holding back the floodwaters of Islamic extremism streaming out of Iran. It would also clear a pathway for the regime to jump feet first back into the waters of high finance where it could launder black market dollars, shift funds to supply and back terrorism groups and utilize foreign banks to make payments with almost complete anonymity.

Iranian regime’s past history of engaging in illegal financial transactions, most of it not related to nuclear weapons development, has persistently ranked it as a “high-risk, non-cooperative” jurisdiction by the Financial Action Task Force, an inter-governmental body that sets and promotes standards aimed at curbing money laundering and terrorist financing.

The FATF statement read in part:

“The FATF remains particularly and exceptionally concerned about Iran’s failure to address the risk of terrorist financing and the serious threat this poses to the integrity of the international financial system.

“The FATF reaffirms its call on members and urges all jurisdictions to advise their financial institutions to give special attention to business relationships and transactions with Iran, including Iranian companies and financial institutions.”

In this way, the Iran lobby’s insistence that the nuclear deal not be linked to issues not related to nuclear weapons has left it open to the problem of having certain sanctions kept in place that were not affected by the agreement.

Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council took to the Atlantic Council to publish an editorial that reads as a press release for the regime’s finance ministry.

“Currently, Iran is taking unilateral steps to beef up its AML/CFT laws.  Last month, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht Ravanchi noted that legislation aimed at addressing Iran’s AML/CFT deficiencies was awaiting approval before the Guardian Council and would soon take effect.  Moreover, Ravanchi pointed to recent amendments made to Iran’s current laws to resolve issues with existing legislation,” Cullis writes.

Cullis recognizes the irony of attempting to provide Iran greater access to financial systems while still designated a state sponsor of terrorism and supporter of terrorism financing, but he does not acknowledge that Iran’s mullahs must first change those policies before being allowed to have these restrictions lifted.

He only argues that the regime’s “good intentions” are sufficient for the lifting of these sanctions without any movement by Iran to withdraw support for Hezbollah, without any effort to cut off the black market dealings of the regime’s elites and Revolutionary Guard or to halt the corruption that runs rampant through the government of Hassan Rouhani.

“It is time to take advantage of new channels opened by the nuclear agreement and move towards a more constructive US relationship with Iran,” Cullis adds.

The fact that Cullis is still pushing the line that the relationship between Iran and the U.S. has to improve even after the significant efforts of the Obama administration to appease the regime in order to gain a foreign policy “win” demonstrates how the mullahs are committed to getting everything for nothing.

The Iranian regime’s efforts to regain its old market share in global oil markets with the lifting of sanctions on its petroleum industry illustrate that take no-prisoners approach by the mullahs. Iran is driving down prices in order to secure long-term supply contracts and bring badly needed cash reserves into the country because even though it got as $100 billion windfall as a result of the nuclear deal, Iran is quickly burning through that cash to buy new weapon systems and deepen its support of Hezbollah in Syria and Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Thus despite the terms to which U.S.-led global negotiators and Iran supposedly agreed in July, the deal is less a firm agreement than a continuing drama with one storyline: Tehran demands a concession, the administration proposes a response, Iran-watchers in Congress and elsewhere voice concerns and U.S. officials offer a middle ground to satisfy Tehran without igniting a revolt in Washington.

As Lawrence Haas, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, writes in U.S. News and World Report “the concessions – the most recent of which involve Iran’s ballistic missiles program and its access to the U.S. financial system – are not just rewriting the previous consensus among government officials, diplomats, nuclear experts and Iran-watchers in the United States, Europe and the Middle East over how the deal would work. They’re also serving to expand Iran’s military capability, strengthen its economy and leave U.S. allies in the region feeling more abandoned.”

By Michael Tomlinson

 

The Lie That Is Iranian Moderation

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The Lie That Is Iranian Moderation

EDITORS’ NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.
Members of Iran’s Basij militia march during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), in Tehran September 22, 2010. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl (IRAN – Tags: ANNIVERSARY MILITARY POLITICS)

Nothing illustrates the confusion over the nuclear deal with the Iranian regime than one simple fact: Even as the Obama administration is encouraging new trade and investment opportunities with the regime as a reward for the deal, it is also at the same time seeking to impose new economic sanctions for violating prohibitions against developing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

The flip-flopping is emblematic of what makes diplomacy towards the mullahs in Tehran an exercise in frustration and futility because the truth of the matter is that they are not committed to a path towards true peace and civility. Rather Iranian leaders such as Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani are playing the long game of chess moves designed to break down barriers; allowing the regime to access resources while playing off the desires of the West for peace vs. pushing the envelope of newly aggressive acts.

The mullahs and their allies in the Iran lobby recognize that time is running out to play this game since virtually all of the leading contenders to replace President Obama this fall have denounced the regime and have publicly staked out territory to hold the mullahs accountable.

Consequently, regime allies such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council have been usually quiet in their public statements and social media posts about what is happening with Iran such as the missile launchings, the smuggling of weapons to Yemen, the escalation in sending fighters to Syria and the continued incarceration of dissidents and journalists in Iran.

The strategy for them is to be as deaf and dumb as a lamp post and not provide fodder for the foes of Iran to tee off against them and expose the hypocrisy of their support for a regime which has ably shown itself to have intentions or desires for moderation.

Matthew Lee, the Associated Press’ diplomatic writer, examined this conundrum for the Obama administration over the weekend.

“Eager that a successful deal and a new era in the U.S.-Iran relationship be part of President Barack Obama’s legacy, his administration finds itself encouraging foreign trade with Iran even as it forbids most American commerce with the Islamic Republic. Those efforts are complicated by the fact that the United States continues to condemn and try to punish Iranian actions in non-nuclear arenas such as Tehran’s support of terrorist groups and belligerence toward Israel,” Lee writes.

“Asian and European government and companies, primarily banks, are balking at doing now-legal business with Iran, because of uncertainty over those remaining sanctions. They want written clarification about what current U.S. laws and financial regulations allow them to do. Essentially, they want a promise that the U.S. will not prosecute or punish them for transactions that involve Iran,” he added.

The fact that the Obama administration is trying to navigate a path for the Iranian regime to receive benefits from the nuclear deal even as it violates other international agreements demonstrates how ineffective U.S. policy has become in reigning in the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

What has not been focused on by most Western media is the intricate network of Iranian companies owned and operated by the Revolutionary Guard Corps and regime leaders and their families such as Khamenei.

In 2013, Reuters published a three-part investigation into what it called Ayatollah Assets. Now, Khamenei wants certain companies to be the main beneficiaries from lifting the sanctions, mainly the economic arm of the Revolutionary Guard — stamped by many around the globe as a terrorist organization.

The fact that Khamenei has been on a verbal rampage over the slow drip of funds into companies he controls is not so much a desire to help ordinary Iranians as much as it represents his frustration over not getting his payday and like a petulant child, Khamenei has ordered a paramilitary force comprised of zealot students loyal to him to fight in Syria.

A media group close to the Iranian government, Mehr News Agency, reported Tuesday at least 30 members of the regime’s Basij Resistance Force have been killed fighting in Syria and Iraq. Iran’s military influence in both countries is significant, with around 212 killed in both countries, according to a report by Al-Jazeera. Analysts conservatively estimate there are around 7,000 Iranian forces operating in Iraq and Syria.

While the Iranian regime escalates its military involvement in Syria, the Obama administration held its second Nowruz celebration observing the Persian New Year with First Lady Michelle Obama. It is worth noting the flood of social media messages coming in from activists and Iranian dissidents urging the First Lady not to forget about the terrible human rights abuses going on in Iran.

Protests over the regime’s policies though come in all sizes and shapes and its latest request comes in response to the plight of a group of female crew members at a French airline.

When it was announced that Air France would begin flying into Tehran after an eight year hiatus, a number of the female crew demanded the right to opt-out of working on the new route. Many objected to an internal memo asking them to wear a hijab when disembarking the plane in the Iranian capital.

The crew members have now won the battle. On Monday Air France announced it would allow its female staff to be reassigned to other flights, should they not wish to fly to Iran.

We can only hope that more acts of “soft power” defiance take place in support of those shackled by the regime.

By Michael Tomlinson

Meeting of Arab States Shows Challenge of Confronting Iran

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Meeting of Arab States Shows Challenge of Confronting Iran

Secretary of State John Kerry talks with Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, right, after they and Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, left, gathered for a family photo at the start of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Ministerial meetings in Manama, Bahrain, Thursday, April 7, 2016. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP)

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a regional political and economic union of Arab States within the Persian Gulf and includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Since 1981 when it was founded, it has come to form a cohesive union of Arab states that share in the massive oil wealth of the Persian Gulf and within the last few years has created military alliances to combat the rise of ISIS and the increased militant forays of the Iranian regime.

These states have found themselves at the forefront of various Iranian provocations ranging from Bahrain battling insurgents armed by Iranian agents to Saudi Arabia which is trying to stem a full-scale insurrection on its border with neighboring Yemen fueled by Houthi rebels armed, trained and advised by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

These Arab states have also intercepted considerable amounts of arms being smuggled by Iran to various proxies and terrorists to fuel insurrection and strikes at the various states in a stark reminder of how committed the mullahs in Tehran are in destabilizing their Arab neighbors.

All of this highlights one of the untruths uttered by the Iran lobby during the run up to the nuclear deal last year which was securing a deal would empower moderate forces within Iran to take greater control over Iran’s government and temper its more extreme elements.

We now know since the deal was agreed to last July, the Iranian regime has taken every opportunity to step up its military activities throughout the region; from Syria on the Mediterranean to Yemen on the Indian Ocean.

It is against this backdrop that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Bahrain for a meeting of the GCC whose members are intent on reading Kerry the riot act about the rise of Iranian extremism.

Part of that process included statements from Kerry and Bahrain’s foreign minister on Thursday urging Iran to stop escalating its provocative behavior and pursue a more constructive foreign policy.

Kerry is in Bahrain to consult with officials from Bahrain and other Gulf Arab countries frustrated by Tehran’s policies and lay the groundwork for meetings between President Barack Obama and Gulf Arab leaders in Riyadh later this month. The president held a meeting in Washington last year with Gulf Arab leaders and senior officials to pledge military aid and calm allies’ nerves about Tehran as the nuclear deal neared completion.

“Today we are noticing two things that we kind have expected,” Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s foreign minister, said, outlining the views of Bahrain and the GCC. “The missile program is moving forward with full support of the leadership of the Islamic Republic and we are seeing the hegemonic interventions through proxies in several parts of our region continuing unabated.”

While Kerry once again stressed the positive virtues of the nuclear agreement, the reality is that the almost slavish dedication to keeping afloat a nuclear deal that is already – for all intents and purposes – dead from the Iranian point of view has allowed the Iranian regime to move forward aggressively on several other fronts now that sanctions have been lifted and it can access a new credit line of $100 billion to replenish its military losses at a critical time for the mullahs.

That reality has forced Kerry to make a complex argument here to the ministers of the GCC, where he repeated that the U.S. would continue to lift the economic sanctions against Iran that it agreed to as part of the nuclear accord, even while imposing new ones to counter Tehran’s missile launches, an effort now underway in the United Nations Security Council.

The bipolar nature of American diplomacy has caused consternation and confusion among America’s allies such as the Gulf states and what can only be construed as unbridled joy amongst the mullahs who are taking advantage of the mixed messages.

But sentiment was hardening against Iran and the weak administration position as the editorial board for the Washington Post decried the ramp up in missile testing by Iran and the need to sanction the regime.

“Tehran’s behavior comes as no surprise to the many observers who predicted the deal would not alter its hostility to the West or its defiance of international norms. Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s response has also been much as critics predicted: It has done its best to play down Iran’s violations and avoid any conflict out of fear that the regime might walk away from a centerpiece of President Obama’s legacy,” the Post wrote.

In reference to a push by Iran to lift restrictions on accessing U.S. currency markets, the Post said “Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the accord’s architect, said Tuesday that the regime ‘deserves the benefits of the deal they struck.’ There’s logic to that. But there’s also a problem of reciprocity: Should the United States take steps not strictly mandated by the text of the nuclear accord at a time when Iran is testing nuclear-capable missiles?”

What has all this wrought? Not the peace and moderation promised by Iran lobby supporters such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, but instead the world has witnessed a global military spending boost of nearly $1.7 trillion in 2015, the first increase in several years as a result of Iranian regime’s rise and increase in global terrorism and proxy wars fueled by Iran according to a new report.

Tiny Qatar has signed a deal for $7.6 billion to buy 24 Dassault Rafal fighter jets from France. Kuwait on Tuesday finalized a deal to purchase 28 Eurofighter Typhoons, a deal estimated to be worth around $8 billion; all in response to the uncertainty the Iranian regime is sowing.

By Laura Carnahan

 

Iranian Regime Steps Up Provocative Actions

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Iranian Regime Steps Up Provocative Actions

Iranian Regime Steps Up Provocative Actions

The Iran nuclear deal is pretty much dead…at least according to the Iranian regime as regime officials on Monday accused the U.S. of violating the agreement by working behind the scenes to stop American companies from conducting business with Iran, according to regional media reports.

The regime has been complaining for months that it is not being granted enough sanctions relief under the agreement in a bizarre example of bipolar thinking. On the one hand Iran complains about sanctions relief and on the other it boasts of the billions in new business deals it has signed with foreign companies.

These complaints have reportedly pushed the Obama administration to consider offering Iran greater concessions, including access to the U.S. dollar and American financial markets in an even more desperate bid to appease the mullah’s regime.

Sadeq Amoli Larijani, Iran’s judiciary chief, “warned” the United States in remarks on Monday, claiming that the administration’s current actions violate the agreement.

“The Americans are now acting in violation of the nuclear agreement,” Larijani was quoted as saying on Monday before high-ranking Iranian officials.

Larijani accused the Obama administration of “pressuring companies which are interested in investment in Iran to withdraw from their decision,” according to reports carried in Iran’s state-controlled media.

“The Americans should know that the Islamic Republic of Iran would never compromise its interests and would never agree with investment of foreign firms in the country at any price, while it enjoys rich resources and abundant talents,” Larijani was quoted as saying, obviously bluffing about regime’s bankrupt economy.

At the same time, ironically the regime leaders borrowed from President Obama’s own rhetoric in warning the U.S. not to cross a “red line” when it came to sanctioning the regime’s ballistic missile program.

Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazzayeri, deputy chief of staff of the Iranian military, claimed the Obama administration has been intentionally prolonging the removal of sanctions as outlined by the nuclear deal. He believes the U.S. is trying to connect the terms of agreement with the regime’s ballistic missile program, which it explicitly sought to delink during talks last year.

“The White House should know that defense capacities and missile power, specially at the present juncture where plots and threats are galore, is among the Iranian nation’s red lines and a backup for the country’s national security and we don’t allow anyone to violate it,” said Jazzayeri, as reported by Iranian media outlet and government mouthpiece Fars news.

The general’s reference appears to mirror language used by President Obama who claimed on September 4, 2013, that any use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against the Syrian opposition would cross a “red line.”

The regime’s full-court assault on the Obama administration over the nuclear deal is part of an overall effort to set up the potential for walking away from the deal and blame its failure on the U.S. Such a move would allow Iran to restart its nuclear program with speed after it has received over $100 billion in fresh cash to stuff its coffers and complete a series of military deals with Russia to replenish and upgrade its forces.

Part of strategy can be seen in a series of moves to expand and reinforce its proxy forces currently fighting in Syria and Yemen, including deploying a top army unit to Syria in what commanders call an advisory mission, according to state-run media.

Regime general Ali Arasteh, deputy chief liaison of the army’s ground force, said the unit comprises “commandos” in a force from the 65th NOHAD — a Persian abbreviation for Airborne Special Forces Brigade.

“We are sending commandos from army’s Brigade 65 and other units to Syria as advisers,” Arasteh told the Tasnim news agency.

The move bolsters an already robust Iranian military presence in Syria, analysts say.

In the last two years, Iran has sent thousands of its Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to fight ground battles for the Syrian regime, joining with Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon. Tehran reportedly increased the number of IRGC personnel in Syria in the final months of 2015, sending as many as 3,500 militia fighters to the frontlines, as well as recruit paid Afghan mercenaries to supplement its forces.

Additionally, the U.S. Navy intercepted and seized an arms shipment from Iran likely bound for Houthi fighters in Yemen in the Arabian Sea in a statement on Monday.

The weapons seized last week by the U.S. warships Sirocco and Gravely were hidden on a small dhow and included 1,500 AK-47 rifles, 200 rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers, and 21 .50-caliber machine guns, according to the Navy statement.

“This seizure is the latest in a string of illicit weapons shipments assessed by the U.S. to have originated in Iran that were seized in the region by naval forces,” the statement said.

It cited a Feb. 27 incident in which the Australian Navy intercepted a dhow in late February and confiscated nearly 2,000 AK-47s, 100 RPG launchers, and other weapons. On March 20, a French destroyer seized almost 2,000 AK-47s, dozens of Dragunov sniper rifles, nine antitank missiles, and other equipment bound from Iran to the Houthis.

The evidence is abundant and widespread of the regime’s aggressive posturing and direct involvement in causing the wars now ranging in three different countries. The mullahs the last few months before the presidential election as a fire sale to grab everything they can before the appeasement potentially ends since virtually all of the leading candidates – both Democrat and Republican – have vigorously denounced Iran’s actions.

Ironically the Iran lobby has pushed the same party line as the mullahs in accusing the U.S. of not following through on the nuclear deal.

We can only hope the region doesn’t fall so far into a bottomless black pit of Islamic extremism and war that the world can’t dig the cancer of the Iranian regime out in 2017.

By Michael Tomlinson