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The Price of Failure in Syria for Iran Regime

October 20, 2015 by admin

The Price of Failure in Syria for Iran Regime

With the Iran regime’s all-in move in Syria through the commitment of thousands of additional troops, the loss of top commanders killed in fighting by Syrian rebels and the new alliance with Russia, the mullahs in Tehran have painted themselves into something of a corner.

The most obvious price to be paid by the regime will be whether or not a military campaign against the broad coalition of rebels, Islamic groups and secular opponents actually succeeds or fails. If it fails, the price will be extraordinarily high for Tehran. It will deal a crushing blow to the carefully crafted image of military supremacy the regime cultivates and it will send its leadership into an inevitable round of finger pointing and blame.

Failure in Syria will also carry a financial price tag since the regime’s previous support in propping up the Assad regime has tallied over $15 billion so far and with the stepped up reinforcements and new offensive, the costs are likely to spiral into the upper atmosphere. Depending on how long the fight takes, that $150 billion the mullahs are eager to get their hands on as the result of the nuclear deal could shrink very quickly.

The stakes for the regime are unquestionably high as it has put Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the leader of its Quds Forces, at the frontlines to direct Shiite forces from three countries including Iraq, Lebanon and Afghan proxies in what is shaping up as a major assault on the rebel stronghold of Aleppo.

The fact that Russia has been bombing rebel forces and not areas controlled by ISIS, and that Iran is targeting Aleppo, a strategic economic hub controlled by rebel forces early in the civil war, tells us all we need to know about the priorities of the regime.

The fact that Soleimani, who only recently was a frequent visitor to the battlefields in Iraq where victories for the regime grew scarce as the war stagnated, was shifted over to Syria shows the changing priorities of the Iran regime as it struggles to find a military victory anywhere in the conflicts it has started.

Just as its fight in Iraq and ground to a halt, the Houthi rebels Iran supports in Yemen have been thrown back under the combined assault of an air and ground campaign backed by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

As the fighting in Syria went badly for Iranian-backed forces, the mullahs sent Soleimani to Moscow to beg for Russian intervention and have set up this new offensive as a last-ditch effort to salvage any kind of good military news.

Kitaeb Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia designated a terrorist organization by the United States, sent 1,000 troops to Aleppo last weekend, said a senior official with the militia. He spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing orders that the deployment not be made public yet according to the Washington Post.

He said the men were part of the group’s elite forces, which have experience from fighting the United States in Iraq. They have done previous rotations in Syria, he said.

“They were sent based on a demand from Soleimani,” he said. “He specifically requested them for the launch of the operation of Aleppo, which is going to be led by Kitaeb directly under the supervision of Soleimani.”

The militia official said the Syrian army would have a “minor role.”

The rapid ramp up in Iranian aggressiveness with the offensive in Syria, launching of new ballistic missiles and conviction of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian have all taken on a certain manic quality as the regime attempts to literally spit out as much vitriol as it can in the shortest amount of time.

It’s a stunning period of chest beating at a time when the regime would be normally seen celebrating what it touts as a victory in its recently completed nuclear negotiations, but this almost bipolar behavior demonstrates the deep schism in regime politics as the religious forces headed by Ali Khamenei exert their control over the political puppets of leaders such as Hassan Rouhani. In many ways, the militant nature of the regime’s recent actions is a reaffirmation that there are no such a thing as moderates within the Iranian regime.

This idea was reinforced when an influential Iranian lawmaker delivered inflammatory new accusations on Monday against Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post’s Tehran reporter convicted of espionage this month, asserting that he had plotted with seditionists.

The New York Times reported that in an interview with Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency, the lawmaker, Javad Karimi-Qoddusi, also sought to depict Rezaian as a nefarious spy who had used his credentials as a journalist as a ruse to gain insights that would be valuable to the Iranian government’s enemies.”

It’s indicative of the deep-seated paranoia that runs throughout the regime’s government and why any agreement negotiated with Iran is doomed to failure as there is very little rational thought within the top ranks of the regime’s leadership.

By Michael Tomlinson

Adoption Day for Nuclear Deal Brings Uncertainty

October 19, 2015 by admin

Adoption Day for Nuclear Deal Brings Uncertainty

Sunday marked what has been dubbed “Adoption Day” and we’re not talking about lost puppies. This weekend marked the start of the of what the Obama administration and other members of the P5+1 called the start of showing readiness to the Iran regime in lifting economic sanctions that have held the mullahs in Tehran in check for the past decade.

In a memo, President Obama directed the secretaries of state, treasury, commerce and energy “to take all necessary steps to give effect to the U.S. commitments with respect to sanctions described in (the Iran deal).”

This will be followed by “Implementation Day” on December 15 in which the U.S. and its partners will begin the actual process of lifting sanctions against the regime after certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency that the regime has lived up to its commitments to curb its nuclear program.

For the Iran regime, Sunday also marks the “put up or shut up” moment for the mullahs in which the regime will have to begin the process of dismantling parts of its nuclear program, including decommissioning nearly 15,000 centrifuges, converting its Arak heavy-water reactor so that it will produce less plutonium and reducing its stockpile of enriched uranium 98%. U.S. officials expect it will take about six months.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, told Iranian state television Sunday that the country would begin taking its next steps under the deal—including reducing the number of uranium centrifuges in operation, and removing the reactor core at the Arak facility—in short order, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But the real question is will the regime move aggressively forward in order to recoup frozen assets and foreign investments needed to stave off economic disaster from corrupt mismanagement at the hands of the mullahs, or will the regime simply slow walk changes while providing its usual propaganda lip-service, supported by loyal Iran lobbyists such as the National Iranian American Council, and stonewall any real changes?

Already we’ve seen efforts by the Obama administration and United Nations to provide some cover for the regime even as the mullahs have undertaken provocative steps in the wake of adopting the nuclear deal.

The most notable action has been the military buildup in Syria, including the mobilization and commitment of Iranian troops directly into the fight and coordination in drawing in Russia to fight the fights the Iran regime has been unable to win so far in support of the Assad regime.

This has been followed by the reported conviction of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian for espionage (ironically announced on the exact same number of days Iran held the 52 American embassy hostages), and the launching of a new ballistic missile design that has been denounced as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions banning the Iran regime from pursuing ballistic missile designs that could be used to deliver nuclear payloads.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power stopped short of any confrontational rhetoric, affirming Wednesday that the test violated a U.N. Security Council resolution “if the facts are as we believe them to be.” Iran has always considered such resolutions to be invalid and has violated their provisions numerous times since they were adopted in 2010. The Iranian government also denies the ballistic activity violates the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal name for the nuclear agreement.

The fact that the U.S. recognizes that the regime has already violated the UN agreement, yet opts not to confront the regime is indicative of what lies in store for us as the regime continues to make its aggressive and increasingly desperate moves throughout the Middle East.

The regime’s actions are remarkably similar to moves made by North Korea as it first agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program, only to continue advancing it in secret until it tested fully functional nuclear weapons in spite of successive efforts to sanction North Korea after the fact with no effect.

The mullahs in Tehran have watched and learned what Pyongyang did in steering tis nuclear program past international sanctions, which may be why Iran unveiled to the world video of once-secret underground missile bunkers where it stored its arsenal of mobile missile launchers.

The most significant aspects of the revelation by the regime are that: a) no one knew about these secret bunkers; and b) that the bunkers hint at the size and scale of secret military facilities that have hardened against attack by being buried as much as 500 meters under a mountain range.

Why this is important is that it basically invalidates significant sections of the nuclear agreement dealing with limited inspections only of “known” facilities and not allowing inspections of military sites. It also puts into proper perspective the nefarious nature of the regime as it hides most aspects of its military capabilities.

According to the Daily Beast, “while details about the alleged 500-meters-down subterranean base are few and difficult to confirm, the bunker and others like it could upset the delicate military balance between the United States and Iran as the two countries move forward on an agreement to limit Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for a gradual easing of economic and military sanctions targeting the Islamic regime.

“That’s because any facility a quarter mile below ground is way too deep for America’s existing bunker-busting bombs to directly destroy in the event Iran reneges on the nuke deal and tries to put atomic warheads on its long-range rockets,” the Daily Beast reported.

Then again, given the regime’s penchant for hyperbole, bluster and outright fabrication in order to make itself seem more militarily formidable than it really is, all of this could simply be fakery.

That begs the question of whether or not the U.S. and its allies should be making the $150 billion bet that the regime is a sheep in wolves’ clothing.

The people that know the regime best, the dissidents and members of the resistance movement worldwide, should be the ones we should be taking our cues from and in their view, the nuclear deal has only emboldened the Iran regime in its march towards oppression.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Unveils Missile Base to Cover Weakness

October 16, 2015 by admin

Iran Regime Unveils Missile Base to Cover Weakness

Mother Nature provides us excellent examples of weaker insects or animals using the art of disguise to shield themselves from predators. The katydid tries to look like a leaf, while the elephant hawkmoth caterpillar looks like a snake head. Both use deception to keep from becoming someone else’s lunch.

In a case of man imitating nature, the Iran regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps released video footage of secret missile base in an underground tunnel deep in a mountain side.

“The video, aired on semi-official Fars TV and set to rousing music, shows an extensive tunnel packed with medium- and long-range missiles and launcher units. The Guard said the missiles were on their launch pads, ready to be fired in the event of an attack on the country,” according to Fox News.

The video of the missile base, so far unconfirmed by independent sources, follows the recent test firing of a new ballistic missile that the U.S. claims violates terms of a United Nations Security Council sanction prohibiting the regime from developing new missiles. The video’s airing raises some basic questions such as: Why?

Dominic Waghorn, reporting for Sky News, said the video’s release was designed for domestic consumption as leaders within the Revolutionary Guards Corps worry about appearing weak to the rivals such as Saudi Arabia, especially at a time when its Syria campaign all but collapsed until the last-minute intervention by the Russians.

“But an attempt to project strength is in itself a sign of weakness. Neither Russia nor Iran would be in Syria were their ally Bashar al Assad not in trouble,” Waghorn said. “Their forces are there because his have been crumbling and that has threatened their interests there. Their presence invites a response from his enemies and their backers, and is not therefore without considerable peril.”

But the Iran regime’s effort to project a more assertive posture as it has seen a rolling series of setbacks didn’t stop with the missile video and test launch. It included grainy video released through Twitter showing the regime’s Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, purportedly addressing Iranian and Syrian troops in Syria on the eve of launching a new offensive to attack rebel militias.

Showing Soleimani taking direct command of ground forces following the deaths of two other senior IRGC commanders strongly shows the mullahs near-desperation to pull out a victory in Syria after so much blood and treasure has been spent with little to show for it as Assad’s forces have been pushed nearly all the way back to the sea.

But with the looming deadline for certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency to complete its investigation of Iran’s past nuclear activities, the regime – which had been slow in responding to the inquiry – stepped up at the last minute to be responsive to the UN probe.

In the past two weeks, after Iran had largely brushed off serious questions about its past nuclear activities, the IAEA and some Western governments directly warned Tehran that it must increase cooperation if it wanted IAEA board members to conclude it had sufficiently addressed their concerns, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The board must decide in mid-December, based on a report by Director General Yukiya Amano, whether Tehran has done enough for the nuclear agreement it signed in July with six world powers to proceed.

As the regime is confronted with the costs of a massive new offensive in Syria, it may very well have concluded that it needs the scheduled $150 billion in frozen assets as quickly as possible to replenish its coffers as part of the nuclear deal, as well as keep its economy afloat.

That became painfully apparent as the engine from an Iranian Mahan Air 747 fell off shortly after takeoff from Tehran. The regime badly needs new aircraft to replace a fleet hampered by economic sanctions.

Ultimately, many of the regime’s most recent moves can be seen as desperate acts by a leadership of mullahs being pressed in on all sides.

By Michael Tomlinson

What the Conviction of Jason Rezaian Tells Us About Iran Regime

October 13, 2015 by admin

What the Conviction of Jason Rezaian Tells Us About Iran Regime

News media and journalists around the world have reacted strongly to the announcement that Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian had been convicted in an espionage trial after 14 months of imprisonment. The verdict from the Revolutionary Court was reported through regime state television, but not the specific decision even though the trial ended in August.

According to the Washington Post, “Rezaian faced four charges — the most serious of which was espionage — and it was not immediately clear whether he was convicted of all charges. Rezaian and The Post have strongly denied the accusations, and his case has drawn wide-ranging denunciations including statements from the White House and media freedom groups.”

Depending on which charges he was convicted on, Rezaian could face upwards of 20 more years in prison.

“Iran has behaved unconscionably throughout this case, but never more so than with this indefensible decision by a Revolutionary Court to convict an innocent journalist of serious crimes after a proceeding that unfolded in secret, with no evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing,” said Martin Baron, executive editor of the Post, in a statement.

“The contemptible end to this ‘judicial process’ leaves Iran’s senior leaders with an obligation to right this grievous wrong,” Baron said. “Jason is a victim — arrested without cause, held for months in isolation, without access to a lawyer, subjected to physical mistreatment and psychological abuse, and now convicted without basis. He has spent nearly 15 months locked up in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, more than three times as long than any other Western journalists.”

Ironically, on October 10, Rezaian passed the dubious milestone of having been locked up in Iran longer than the original 52 American embassy hostages three decades ago.

Rezaian’s case, as well as the plight of other Americans being held in Iranian regime’s prisons; including Amir Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine, and Saeed Abedini, a Christian pastor, are defining signposts of how the Iran regime’s leadership acts, plans, thinks and executes its national policy. They have become unfortunate pawns in a much larger game the mullahs have been playing at for the past three decades.

Abedini of Boise, Idaho, was imprisoned for organizing home churches. Hekmati of Flint, Mich., has spent four years in prison since his arrest during a visit to see his grandmother. Rezaian was accused by the regime of providing information on Iranian companies and individuals violating economic sanctions and thereby providing intelligence to regime foes.

These higher profile victims share a similar fate as countless thousands of other Iranians who have been arrested, tortured, falsely imprisoned and often publicly executed as the regime seeks to stamp out dissent, curb free speech and hang onto people to be used as bargaining chips should it need them.

In the case of the Americans, Hassan Rouhani, the regime’s handpicked leader, openly floated the idea of prisoner swaps with the Americans exchanged for up to 19 Iranian agents convicted of trafficking in arms and smuggling nuclear components for the regime’s nuclear program.

In many ways though, approval the nuclear agreement may have inadvertently sunk hopes of getting these Americans released since the mullahs perceive they got what they originally wanted in the potential lifting of economic sanctions, which raises the question of why would the regime double down and sentence Rezaian when there would be no clear political reason to?

The conviction certainly disproves the idea – long floated by Iran lobbyists such as the National Iranian American Council – that supporting the nuclear deal would empower so-called “moderates” within the Iranian government. If anything, this conviction demonstrates that Ali Khamenei, to whom the courts answer to, is still firmly in charge of the regime’s policies.

What all of this tells us is that the Iran regime leadership does not value human life, other than to use it as a commodity. It tells us the judicial system is controlled and used for political and religious purposes. It tells us there is always linkage in the mullahs’ mindset and willingness to traffic in human life.

The regime shows us every day examples that it views international law and norms with contempt, be it the brutal treatment of its people or the almost daily threats its generals and leaders make against the U.S. and other nations and neighbors.

Alireza Tangsiri, a Revolutionary Guard Corps lieutenant commander, said that suicide bombers are on stand by and ready to “blow up themselves” to “destroy the U.S. warships,” according to remarks made Monday in Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.

“They [the U.S.] have tested us once and if necessary, there are people who will blow up themselves with ammunitions to destroy the U.S. warships,” Tangsiri was quoted as saying.

He added that if the United States takes any hostile action against Iran, the country’s military forces would pursue the Americans into the Gulf of Mexico.

“I declare now that if the enemy wants to spark a war against Iran, we will chase them even to the Gulf of Mexico and we will (certainly) do it,” he said.

The threats come a day after Iran test fired ballistic missiles in the region, in a potential violation of international agreements barring such activity.

That missile, the Emad or “Pillar,” is designed to evade missile defenses and is supposedly much more accurate than previous missile designs, putting neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and even Southern Europe within range.

While execution of Iranians under Rouhani’s watch is surging, it is more obvious now that despite the Iran Lobby’s pitch, mullahs ruling Iran, emboldened by the concessions received as a result of the flawed Iran deal, are now more of a threat to the international community than ever before.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Culture of Terror and Violence Unchanging

October 12, 2015 by admin

Iran Regime Culture of Terror and Violence Unchanging

There are several constants in the universe: the theory of relativity, the speed of light and the single-minded commitment of the Iran regime to its path towards expansion of its vision of extremist Islam using all of the tools at its disposal.

Much has been made about the new nuclear deal with the regime as being a harbinger of improved relations; most of those arguments being exclusively made by the loyal Iran lobby led by the National Iranian American Council, but all of those arguments ignore one essential proof which is the regime has shown through its actions just how committed it is towards its revolutionary vision.

At the heart of the regime’s hold over Iran is its willingness to use brutal force and violence to reign in its opponents and liberal use of its prison system and death penalty to remove the most vocal and troublesome resistance elements. While the modern world is moving towards annihilation of the death penalty, in most nations, that still use death penalty, imposition of the ultimate punishment by the state comes as a last resort and is reserved for the most heinous of crimes; usually those involving mass murder, treason or the cruel torture and murder of a child.

But within the Iran regime, the death penalty and the entire judicial system is under political control and often used to silence dissidents, stifle free speech and oppress the dissatisfied. Within the regime judicial system, its various courts, police and paramilitaries fall under the authority of the top mullah, Ali Khamenei, and its religious courts hold sway over virtually every facet of Iranian life.

All of which came into stark relief this weekend as the United Nations designated World Day Against the Death Penalty and a large gathering was held in Paris of anti-death penalty activists from around the world.

The conference sponsored by the Committee Defending Human Rights in Iran, was entitled, “Iran, Human Rights, Stop Executions” and included notable participants such as Gilbert Mitterrand, former member of the French National Assembly and President of France Libertés (Danielle Mitterrand) Foundation, Phumla Makaziwe Mandela, women’s rights advocate and daughter of Nelson Mandela, the late leader of South Africa, David Jones and Mark Williams, members of the British House of Commons, Hanan Al-Balkhi, representative of the Syrian Coalition in Oslo, and Taher Boumedra, former human rights chief of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq – UNAMI.

According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of leading Iranian resistance groups, there have been over 120,000 executions carried out by the regime, often performed as public hangings from construction cranes. Any casual Google image search of “Iran” and “hangings” produces the grisly bounty of the mullahs.

While the world has been concerned over the plight of notable prisoners such as Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who has been convicted and sentenced by a regime court in a sham trial, they are but just a tip of what qualifies as one of the largest state-operated political prison systems since the Soviet-era gulags or Khmer Rouge killing fields.

One of those prisoners, Farzad Madadzadeh, told his story in an interview with The Daily Mail where he detailed routine torture including beatings, electrocution, forced drug use and solitary confinement. His only crime: speaking out against the regime.

Last year, the country had the second highest number of executions in the world after China and also killed the most juvenile offenders, according to Human Rights Watch.

And it remains one of the biggest jailers of bloggers, journalists and social media activists, all part of the strategy by the regime to suppress open political dissent and maintain its control over what is increasingly becoming a fractured society chafing underneath three decades of brutal Islamic rule.

But the regime’s reach is not just confined within the borders of Iran. Regime security agents and their proxy allies have launched attacks in places such as Lebanon, Syria and Iraq to get at its political opponents, such as the large number of dissidents from the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran relocated to Camps Ashraf and Liberty and subject to frequent attacks.

The very nature of the regime has given many in Congress pause after approving the nuclear deal, forcing Democrats and Republicans to join and reassess the most pressing question facing them with the 2016 elections looming: What do we do about Iran now?

While the NIAC and other regime allies would have us believe next year will bring economic opportunities and a revival for Iran’s people, the regime’s doubling down in Syria, willingness to call in Russian military aid to save the Assad regime and growing discontent at home points to a year of potentially extreme volatility.

The fact that news came out of a new ballistic missile test by the regime potentially violating the terms of the nuclear agreement tells the world all it needs to know about the Iran regime’s true intentions.

The missile — named Emad, or pillar — is a step up from Iran’s Shahab-3 missiles because it can be guided toward its target, the Iranian defense minister, Hossein Dehghan, told the semiofficial Fars news agency. In recent decades, with Iran’s air force plagued by economic sanctions and other restrictions, the country has invested heavily in its nuclear program and has produced missiles that can reach as far as Europe.

At a time when the world needs to recognize the essential nature of the Iran regime, it is vital that the regime’s most ardent opponents are giving more consideration in developing a strategy to confront the regime.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Tries Clearing Economic Pathway for Regime

October 10, 2015 by admin

Iran Lobby Tries Clearing Economic Pathway for Regime

The Iran lobby, led by the National Iranian American Council, has been busy working to clear the economic runway for the Iran regime now that it has its nuclear deal because now that it has the opportunity to operate more freely in the world, the mullahs have opted to significantly increase the regime’s military operations in Syria, Yemen and Iraq; all of which requires cash and mountains of it.

As part of that NIAC propaganda push, Tyler Cullis and Amir Handjani, posted an editorial in The Hill arguing that the U.S. should open greater economic ties with the Islamic regime; the reason being that European and Asian nations are already quickly seeking to exploit these new markets.

Cullis and Handjani are correct that there are some companies and nations seeking to rush into this economic void. We know that China has a deep interest in securing contracts for cheap Iranian oil, while Russia has already begun selling weapons to the regime despite the fact that embargos on advanced ballistic missiles and weapons remains in effect.

They note however that the Obama administration has put the brakes on the rush to re-open economic ties with the regime. Part of delay comes from the huge groundswell of negative reaction from American voters to the nuclear deal which has forced many representatives who supported the deal to backtracked and offer up new pieces of legislation to address the perception that the Iran regime received a sweetheart deal and the U.S. got nothing in return; most notably Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-MD) move to introduce to track compliance by the regime.

Most anti-regime critics called the effort too little, too late and still does not address the central and most critical issue surrounding the Iran regime: the delinking of human rights and sponsorship of terror from the deal and thus making no effort to reform or modify the regime’s bloodthirsty policies.

There has also been discussions and disagreements over the conflict between the nuclear deal and the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (ITRA) which was signed into law in August 2012 by President Obama which closes the foreign subsidiary loophole that the an annex in the nuclear deal makes open.

According to Fox News, “ITRA contains language, in Section 605, requiring that the terms spelled out in Section 218 shall remain in effect until the president of the United States certifies two things to Congress: first, that Iran has been removed from the State Department’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism, and second, that Iran has ceased the pursuit, acquisition, and development of weapons of mass destruction.

“Additional executive orders and statutes signed by President Obama, such as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, have reaffirmed that all prior federal statutes relating to sanctions on Iran shall remain in full effect.”

All of which drives a stake through the arguments made by Cullis and Handjani who by using the flawed tactic of supporting “moderates” against “hardliner” mullahs, argue that continued economic isolation of Iran only strengthens the “hardliners” and leaves American companies out in the cold versus their European and Asian competitors.

First of all, it is refreshing Cullis and Handjani are so interested in the economic well-being of American firms, but the reality is they recognize failure to fully open Iran to international trade and commerce will not bring in the cash and investment necessary for the regime to generate the revenue necessary to fund its expansionist policies.

The regime has spent upwards of $15 billion in direct financial aid and military support just to prop up the Assad regime in Syria alone. This doesn’t include the billions being spent to arm Houthis in Yemen and outfit Shiite militias in Iraq, not to mention the regime’s old terrorist partners in Hezbollah. With slumping oil prices, the mullahs desperately need that foreign investment to help keep them in power as ordinary Iranians have staged protests against the “war economy” top mullah Ali Khamenei has mandated for the past decade.

Oddly, Cullis and Handjani use the analogy of President Nixon opening up relations with China in the early ‘70s as an example of opening up to a closed society the U.S. was in conflict with, but what they don’t mention is the fact that coming out of the Vietnam War, China recognized the need to end its sponsorship of armed conflict and instead turn to embracing capitalism.

The fact that a deeply Communist nation that inflicted the Cultural Revolution on its people in brutal repression, recognized it needed to do a complete policy turnaround and embrace the very thing it denounced as part of its founding represents why the Nixon overtures were even possible in the first place; China’s leaders made that opening available by being receptive to change.

Iran’s mullahs have exhibited no such inclination. In fact since the nuclear deal was agreed to, Iran has partnered with Russia to step up an air and ground campaign in Syria, was caught smuggling weapons into Yemen and has turned Iraq into a virtual client state.

So while the Iran lobby may be hard at work trying to rewrite history, the Iran regime is busy trying to shape the future to its own perverted vision.

By Laura Carnahan

As Russian Missiles Land in Iran, Dissidents Plan Action

October 9, 2015 by admin

As Russian Missiles Land in Iran, Dissidents Plan Action

Things got a little weirder and much worse in Syria as Russia launched a barrage of cruise missiles at targets in Syria, only to have them land in presumptive ally Iran’s territory as reported by CNN. U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter sharply criticized the Russian move which came without advance notice or warning.

Significantly the official Iranian regime state media did not issue any statements acknowledging the gaffe except for a short statement criticizing the CNN report and calling it “psychological warfare.” An interesting choice of phrase since the mullahs would be hard pressed to explain to the Iranian people why the ally Qassem Soleimani, the head of the regime’s Quds Forces, recruited ended up dropping bombs on Iran.

The Iranian role points to the influence of the country, which is the strongest backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad and is close to the Shiite-led leadership in Iraq’s U.S.-backed government.

Meanwhile, key lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle began pressing the Obama administration to do more to help relocate and protect members of the Iranian resistance who are confined to a camp in Iraq and subjected to periodic attack and assault by Iranian agents and Iraqi forces operating under Iran regime control.

The assertions came at a hearing Wednesday, during which President Obama’s former national security adviser warned that Iranian leaders have turned Iraq into a “client state” and are bent on exploiting the war against the extremist group Islamic State in the nation to promote their own brand of Shiite extremism.

Iran’s expanding influence in Baghdad, the general added, does not bode well for the members of the Iranian dissident Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) group — some 2,500 members of which have been kept in a state of semi-captivity by the Iraqi government since U.S. forces pulled out of the nation in 2011. The MEK and other Iranian dissident groups have proven invaluable in getting information out from within Iran on the regime’s secret nuclear program, including disclosures about the Natanz enrichment facility and Arak heavy water nuclear reactor.

Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said that the “deteriorating security situation in Iraq only highlights the need to find safe refuge for these individuals outside that country.”

The resurgence of the Iranian resistance has been met head on by almost rabid-like hatred by the Iran lobby which has used every dirty trick in an attempt to discredit anything from the resistance. This has been especially true in using the tactic of calling any criticism of the Iran regime being sourced by the massive “Israel” lobby. In many ways, efforts by the National Iranian American Council(NIAC) and others in the Iran lobby to tie actions by the resistance movement to the traditional Israeli lobby is some kind of “guilt by association” move in order to try to make whatever the resistance has to say less worthy.

This has certainly been pushed by members of the Obama administration who have close ties to the NIAC and other Iran lobbyists such as Alan Eyre, the State Department’s Persian-language spokesman, who was taken to task by the Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo for his efforts to downplay Iran regime terror acts and promote the ideas of such noted anti-Israel advocates such as Stephen Walt and Paul Pillar; both are staunch supporters of the NIAC and Iran regime.

Kredo notes that Eyre even appeared as the keynote speaker at the NIAC conference in Washington, DC.

The effort to continually denounce the Iranian resistance and somehow link it to Israeli politics is a ham-handed effort to cover up for the fact that large portions of the Iranian people actively and secretly oppose the mullahs and are living proof that their regime hangs precariously.

By Michael Tomlinson

Syria is Just Tip of Iran Regime Iceberg

October 7, 2015 by admin

The Restocking of Iran Regime Bank Accounts and Weapons

In what has to be regarded as one of the strangest lobbying efforts being mounted, Iran regime foreign minister Javad Zarif is being put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize Award for his work in actually duping the West, during the P5+1 talks that resulted in crafting a deeply flawed nuclear deal. Putting him forward as Nobel recipient would be akin to giving the peace prize to António Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz in 1949 for inventing the prefrontal lobotomy, and almost as appropriate.

If the idea wasn’t so serious, it would be laughable given what has happened since the agreement was reached.

Zarif himself has echoed public statements by Hassan Rouhani and Ali Khamenei in drawing a firm red line in the sand that Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, has to be part of any Syria plan and that Russia is on board with efforts to keep him in power.

Ironically, Zarif put forward the idea that any decision on Assad has to be made by the Syrian people. He neglected to mention that Assad and Iran’s Quds Forces and Hezbollah allies have driven four million Syrians out of the country and gassed and barrel bombed the remaining 600,000 who oppose Assad in a virtual siege aided by Russian air strikes.

But the coordination between the Tehran and Moscow goes much deeper than the regime has let on. In a compelling Reuters story, Iran’s Qassem Soleimani, the head of the regime’s Quds Forces, went secretly to Moscow last July and laid out the strategy for Russian intervention to save Assad in Syria.

“Soleimani put the map of Syria on the table. The Russians were very alarmed, and felt matters were in steep decline and that there were real dangers to the regime. The Iranians assured them there is still the possibility to reclaim the initiative,” a senior regional official said. “At that time, Soleimani played a role in assuring them that we haven’t lost all the cards.”

The decision for a joint Iranian-Russian military effort in Syria was taken at a meeting between Russia’s foreign minister and Khamenei a few months ago, said a senior official of a country in the region, involved in security matters according to Reuters.

“Soleimani, assigned by Khamenei to run the Iranian side of the operation, traveled to Moscow to discuss details. And he also traveled to Syria several times since then,” the official said.

In the biggest deployment of Iranian forces yet, sources told Reuters last week that hundreds of troops have arrived since late September to take part in a major ground offensive planned in the west and northwest.

Around 3,000 fighters from the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah have also mobilized for the battle, along with Syrian army troops, said one of the senior regional sources.

The military intervention in Syria is set out in an agreement between Moscow and Tehran that says Russian air strikes will support ground operations by Iranian, Syrian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces, said one of the senior regional sources.

The agreement also included the provision of more sophisticated Russian weapons to the Syrian army, and the establishment of joint operations rooms that would bring those allies together, along with the government of Iraq, which is allied both to Iran and the United States.

All of this flies in the face of claims made by the Iran lobby that the nuclear deal would bring forth a more moderate Iran intent on bringing stability to region and fighting ISIS. Nothing could be further from the truth as the mullahs have boldly flexed their military muscle openly now.

The regime isn’t even hiding its military intentions now that it’s been given tacit approval by the rest of the world with the nuclear deal.

Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, said that “all U.S. military bases in the Middle East are within the range of” Iran’s missiles and emphasized that the Islamic Republic will continue to break international bans on the construction of ballistic missiles, in a statement to the regime’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.

“We do not see any restriction for our missiles and the IRGC’s preparedness and missile drills are conducted without a halt and according to our annual time-table, but only some of them are publicized through the media,” Hajizadeh said.

The comments echo similar rhetoric of IRGC Navy Commander Ali Fadavi, who warned last month that “the U.S. knows the damages of any war and firing bullets in the Persian Gulf.”

“The U.S. is obedient and passive in the Persian Gulf and we impose our sovereignty right in the Persian Gulf very powerfully,” Fadavi said.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the Iran regime has been planning this coordinated military mission to save Assad long before the nuclear deal was finalized and with full knowledge and consent of Iran’s top mullahs. It is also clear that the messages delivered by the regime’s lobbyist allies such as the National Iranian American Council, Ploughshares Fund and J-Street were fundamentally wrong.

The mullahs have now gained a valuable military partner in Russia and are intent on pushing their gains across the rest of the Middle East.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Struggles with Tide of Bad Regime News

October 6, 2015 by admin

Passage of the nuclear agreement between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations was aided by a coalition of liberal Zionist groups, progressive organizations and the regime lobbying network, but in the aftermath the fault lines have cracked that coalition and broken it apart as the world struggles with the still unanswered fundamental problem with the Iran regime: How do you restrain its support for terror, proxy wars and sectarian conflict?

Philip Weiss, writing in Mondoweiss, takes note of efforts by Senate Democrats, most of whom supported the nuclear deal, to offer up legislation that the regime lobby has said contains potential “poison pills” liable to derail the agreement.

It’s understandable as many voters are appalled at the downward spiral of events in the Middle East, especially Iran’s newly formed alliance with Syria, Iraq and Russia.

Republicans have pounced on recently announced deals by the Iran regime to acquire $20 billion in new jet aircraft and satellite technology from the Russians as evidence the mullahs are more interested in upgrading their aerospace and defense capabilities than in jump starting a moribund economy driven to near bankruptcy by a corrupt government and siphoning of billions to fund three proxy wars.

This new “Axis of Terror” has greatly unsettled a world that naïvely thought the nuclear deal would usher in a period of greater stability and moderation. Instead, the world has seen Russia – almost overnight – launch an air campaign in Syria, coupled with a large build-up of Iranian and Hezbollah forces along the Syrian border, bolstered by a fresh influx of Afghan mercenaries paid for by the Iran regime’s Quds Force.

The list of acts by the Iran regime according to the Wall Street Journal since the nuclear deal was approved has forced the Iran lobby to work overtime to cover for it:

Despite a string of high-level talks with Western leaders, including two bilaterals between Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Iran has displayed little interest in cooperation with the West;

Iranian officials publicly backed a Russian military campaign in Syria that is aimed at propping up President Bashar al-Assad, a leader Washington wants out;

Saudi Arabia said it seized a large shipment of Iranian arms headed toward Houthi rebels in Yemen who overthrew an allied government this year. Yemen President Abed Rabbo Mansour used his speech to the U.N.’s General Assembly last Tuesday to accuse Iran of seeking his country’s destruction;

Meanwhile, Iranian officials publicly demanded that the White House release Iranian prisoners held in U.S. jails in exchange for Americans detained by Tehran—a considerable hardening of the Iranian position; and

Western diplomats said regime officials consistently claim Tehran is open to ideas and discussion on Syria. But they add that Iran’s bottom line, like Russia’s, is that Assad is a guarantor of stability in Syria and they will accept no threats to his rule.

In a sign of how bad things have gotten for the region, “dozens of conservative Saudi Arabian clerics have called for Arab and Muslim countries to ‘give all moral, material, political and military’ support to what they term a jihad, or holy war, against Syria’s government and its Iranian and Russian backers,” according to Vice.com

But in spite of the sharp escalation in tensions with the Iran regime, the mullahs still seem intent on keeping their economy on a war footing. Agence France-Press disclosed warnings from Iran regime ministers overseeing the economy, industry, labor and defense who warned of an economic collapse.

Mohammad Gholi Yousefi, an economics professor at Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, said the letter had exposed tensions over the allocation of cash from Iran’s own banks.

“Almost half the banks’ resources is practically blocked by the government, special customers and banks themselves,” he told AFP, meaning it is not reaching businesses crucial to the economy and that much of the regime’s anticipated cash hoard is not accessible by middle class and poor Iranians who have seen their purchasing power plummet since 2012 and the local rial currency losing two-thirds of its value.

The recent aggressive moves by the Iran regime to acquire new military hardware and boost military forces involved in Syria has been fueled in part by the softening of sanctions even during nuclear talks as claimed by many critics of the nuclear deal.

According to Reuters, “the U.S. government has pursued far fewer violations of a long-standing arms embargo against Iran in the past year compared to recent years, according to a review of court records and interviews with two senior officials involved in sanctions enforcement.”

“The sharp fall in new prosecutions did not reflect fewer attempts by Iran to break the embargo, the officials said. Rather, uncertainty among prosecutors and agents on how the terms of the deal would affect cases made them reluctant to commit already scarce resources with the same vigor as in previous years, the officials said.”

All of these accommodations and acts of appeasing the mullahs in Tehran in the hopes of creating a more moderate Iran regime have come home to roost and borne no fruit other than more war and chaos.

Iran Regime Actions Bolster Efforts to Halt Extremism

October 2, 2015 by admin

Iran Regime Actions Bolster Efforts to Halt Extremism

Reuters reported that hundreds of fresh Iran regime troops have flooded back into Syria over the past 10 days and will soon join their Hezbollah allies in a major ground offensive backed by Russian air strikes aimed at retaking territory lost by the Assad regime to rebels; contrary to Iranian and Russian claims they would be focusing their attacks against ISIS.

It seems clear the mullahs in Tehran are focused on securing the Assad regime by eliminating Western-backed moderate rebel units, rather than tackling their Islamic State rivals. The new offensive clearly points out the false propaganda the regime has been pumping out through its lobbyist allies such as the National Iranian American Council.

Peace is certainly the end goal for the Iran regime, but a peace that eradicates any opposition to Assad and leaves Iranian mullahs in control of a swath of territory stretching from the Mediterranean through Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen and the Indian Ocean. Their territorial ambitions have come fully to light and the bill for accommodating the regime with the nuclear deal is finally coming due.

“The vanguard of Iranian ground forces began arriving in Syria: soldiers and officers specifically to participate in this battle. They are not advisors … we mean hundreds with equipment and weapons. They will be followed by more,” said a Lebanese military source, adding that Iraqis would also take part in the operation.

Interestingly, Hassan Rouhani, the handpicked puppet leader of the Iran regime, tipped the regime’s hand in his speech before the United Nations last week in which he firmly insisted that U.S. policy should be focused on common actions to defeat ISIS before any discussion takes place on the future of Assad. Rouhani laid out the narrative in which the regime justifies the placement of boots on the ground in Syria openly and blatantly instead of relying on proxies such as Hezbollah in what is sure to be a virtual takeover of Syria by the Iranian military.

As Gareth Porter, an appeaser of the mullahs points out in Middle East Eye, “Iran’s national security strategy has had two primary objectives ever since Khamenei became Iran’s leader: to integrate the Iranian economy into the global system of finance and technology and to deter the threats from the United States and Israel. And Rouhani had primary responsibility for achieving both tasks.”

We are now witnessing what the Iran regime’s future plans are now that they have secured these twin goals and it is causing renewed efforts in Congress to stymie the regime in spite of the nuclear deal.

The House voted Thursday by the hefty margin of 251 to 173 to stop the Obama administration from lifting sanctions against the Iran regime “until Tehran pays the $43.5 billion it still owes in damages to the families of terror victims in cases where responsibility can be linked back to Iran — such as the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut and Hezbollah’s 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847,” said the Washington Post.

“Should Iran receive United States sanctions relief before it pays the victims of its terrorism all of what U.S. courts say those victims are owed?” said Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.), who introduced the measure. “I say no. Not one cent.”

If the survivors or victims’ relatives are not paid now, “it definitely won’t happen later,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.) said. He argued that Iran would spend the money freed up from sanctions relief on building up its military force and other nefarious activities, rather than paying the balance of restitution payments ordered by U.S. courts.

Those same voters may also be alarmed at news coming out of Tehran in which Saeed Abedini, the Iranian-American pastor serving an eight-year prison sentence on charges of undermining national security may face more trumped up charges by the regime, including links to antigovernment groups, said Naghbeh Abedini, his wife. Abedini is one of four Americans being held hostage in Iranian prisons including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and former Marine Amir Hekmati.

The move by the regime to place new charges on Abedini flies in the face of the PR move made by Rouhani at the UN in which he floated the idea of a prisoner swap for 19 Iranian agents convicted on arms trading and smuggling of nuclear components.

All of which leads us full circle back to the question of how to check the ambitions of the mullahs in Iran and in what form? One answer was provided by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of Iranian opposition groups, who wrote an editorial in the New York Daily News.

“My message to the United States and the West is that the long-term solution to the Iranian threat lies neither in foreign military intervention nor in collaboration with a regime that is so oppressive at home and so destabilizing abroad,” she said.

“With the nuclear deal, however misguided it may be, in place, the right policy going forward is to encourage and support the Iranian people’s desire for democratic change and to speak out for human rights,” she added.

Sound advice the West would be wise to follow.

By Michael Tomlinson