News – Page 48 – Iran Lobby

As Syria Chaos Spreads, Iran Lobby Works Overtime

October 1, 2015 by admin

As Syria Chaos Spreads, Iran Lobby Works Overtime

Events moved fast in Syria as Russian warplanes mounted air strikes at what they claimed were ISIS strongholds, but U.S. defense officials countered were instead Western-backed rebels opposed to the Assad regime. Coming on announcements by Russian officials of the creation of an intelligence-sharing unit with Iran regime and Iraq officials, the Russian action does not bode well for hopes to topple Assad.

The political calculation made by the Iran regime and its new Russian friends is that the U.S. lacks the political willpower and means to move forward on efforts to dislodge Assad, who has proven to be the mullahs in Tehran’s most stalwart ally and proxy.

Mohammed Alaa Ghanem of the Syrian American Council made the same analysis in Huffington Post as he looked at an editorial by Philip Gordon, the former Middle East chief in the Obama administration, in Politico.

Gordon argues that the goal of “displacing the Assad regime has proven unachievable,” and argues for a new U.S.-led contact group, different from the original one created in 2012, and instead include Russia and Iran in a new one.

Ghanem recites the failures in stemming Iranian backing of Assad at key points such as “when over 3,000 Iranian proxies first flooded into Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry provided no support to stop the assault and even strong-armed the Syrian rebels into attending peace talks. When Assad regime barrel bombs began raining down on Syrian cities, The U.S. again dragged the rebels into talks while blocking weapons transfers to stop the onslaught. U.N. Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who convened those later talks, has since blamed the regime for their failure.”

The Iran regime’s support of Assad and the unwillingness of the U.S. to halt that support – instead prioritizing approval of a nuclear agreement with Tehran – has led to an unimaginable refugees crisis of four million Syrians and civilian deaths numbering in the hundreds of thousands with another 600,000 Syrians opposed to Assad under virtual siege by Syria’s military and Iran regime mercenaries and Quds Forces.

But even with the rollout of the nuclear deal, there remain defiant voices in Congress still working to place restrictions on the Iran regime and connect the dots to the mullahs’ reign of human rights abuses. The fact that incidents of atrocities are sharply on the rise with increased news coverage, which has forced the Iran lobby to step up efforts to portray the regime as being a force for change.

Trita Parsi and Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council, a leading Iran regime lobbying group, have been busy trying to convince news media that the rapid escalation in Syria is not the result of a new Russia-Iran-Iraq axis of terror, but rather the work of neocons bent on sending U.S. troops in.

Putting aside the fact that the only boots on the ground are now Russian and Iranian, the solution to Syria has always been centered in Tehran, not Washington. This point was driven home by protestors outside of the UN during Rouhani’s visit who represented a broad cross section of Iranian dissidents, Iranian-American community groups and Syrian activists opposed to the Assad regime.

Another advocate against the Iran regime is renowned author and Harvard Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz who published a new book, “The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Stop Iran from Getting Nukes?.”

Dershowitz argues that policy makers have bit into a “bill of goods” which states that “any deal is better than no deal.” Historically, the objective of Iran to eliminate the barriers between it and a nuclear arsenal, and simple common sense proves that this deal makes the US and the rest of the world decidedly less safe.

The nuclear deal promises to release the Iran regime from the sanctions that have effectively isolated it for much of the past decade and held back the tidal wave of Islamic extremism that we are now seeing being unleashed.

More evidence of the spread of the Iran regime’s destabilizing influence came when Saudi-led coalition forces seized an Iranian fishing boat loaded with weapons on its way to deliver them to Iran regime-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen according to Reuters.

The announcement came a day after tribal fighters backed by the coalition won control of a strategic dam in central Yemen from Houthi forces following weeks of fighting east of the capital Sanaa.

The coalition, which also includes Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, has been battling the Iranian-backed Houthis for more than six months.

A coalition statement said 14 Iranian sailors were detained on the boat, which was carrying 18 anti-armored Concourse shells, 54 anti-tank shells, shell-battery kits, firing guidance systems, launchers and batteries for binoculars.

I’m sure Parsi and Cullis would argue that the anti-tank shells and guidance systems were actually meant for an Iranian-sponsored fireworks display for children in Yemen.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Struggles Against Youth Seeking Better Life

September 26, 2015 by admin

Iran Regime Struggles Against Youth Seeking Better Life

In a story in TIME magazine, the Iran regime ruled with an iron fist by the orthodox and radicalized mullahs since the Islamic revolution in 1979 is running head-on into the most stubborn of obstacles to their rule: the young people of Iran.

Just as the passing of the Baby Boom generation into senior citizen status in the U.S. has wrought significant and deep policy debates and demographic changes affecting the economy, culture and even technology, the Iran regime is now struggling with a population in which a whopping 60 percent of Iranians are under the age of 35 with no real tangible connection to the religious revolution that took over the country.

For this new generation of Iranians, their interests lie not in rigid religious ideology or foreign intervention in proxy wars, but rather in the more mundane goals of finding a meaningful career, saving up for a car or new washer and dryer made by Samsung or buying a iPhone 6 from Apple.

For Iran’s young people, the pathway to a better life is increasingly not going through the hands of their mullah masters, but rather through their own desires, hopes, dreams and aspirations.

It is a remarkable time for the Islamic state as it gains newfound economic windfalls resulting from the recently completed nuclear deal and these same, restless young Iranians eagerly look forward to the distribution of this new wealth to improve their lot in life which has grown stunted, moribund and depressing under the harsh rule of the mullahs.

Even though Iran’s population, high degree of education among its people and skilled labor force makes it an ideal economic engine for growth, the mullahs have wasted this prize in favor of cronyism, corruption and gross nepotism that has cut a deep schism through Iranian society between haves and have-nots with families and relatives of the mullahs and their Revolutionary Guards being the recipients of the nation’s wealth.

Iranian dissident groups and leaders such as Mrs. Maryam Rajavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran have long pointed out that the economic and social disparities fostered by the mullahs are laying the seeds for their eventual ouster since Iran’s own history shows that the start of the 1979 revolution came not from religious fervor, but deep-seated resentment over the state of the economy under the Shah.

The corruption of the current regime runs deep within Iranian society and has caused significant unrest in the form of demonstrations and protests from young people, teachers and small business owners, which are often brutally put down by the regime’s paramilitary Basij militias who often inflict beatings on the street.

In another sign of the oppression from the mullahs, Al-Monitor reported on a move by the regime’s Ministry of Education to set a strict quota in the number of new jobs made available to Iranian women.

“The Ministry of Education held its nationwide exam for new job applicants on Sept. 18, with 178,000 people participating. The exact date for the announcement of the results is unclear. But what is clear is that no matter what score female applicants may obtain, they will make up only 10% of those who will be employed,” Al-Monitor reported.

“This disappointing development came to light in the registration guidelines for this year’s exam. Of the 3,703 educational posts up for grabs, it is stated that only 630 will go to women while the other 3,073 posts will go to men. Female applicants in the Iranian capital are perhaps the most exposed to this policy; of the 190 new employees that are to join the Ministry of Education in Tehran, only six are set to be women,” the story added.

The elevation of Hassan Rouhani as the handpicked president for the regime came with much fanfare over new regime policies towards gender equality and the vast gulf in educational and professional opportunities for Iran’s women. The evidence over the past two years that while Rouhani tries to project a more friendly and moderate image to the rest of the world, at home, the plight of Iran’s women has only gotten worse.

Against this backdrop, Rouhani prepares to come to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly as part of his annual PR push and with it comes a rising chorus of protest over the policies he and his master, Ali Khamenei, have pushed over the past two years.

Ken Blackwell, a contributing editor to Townhall.com and a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and the American Civil Rights Union and a board member of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, wrote an editorial urging that the UN welcome mat be pulled out from under Rouhani because of the regime’s horrendous human rights record.

“According to Amnesty International and other respected human rights organizations, the human rights situation in Iran is fast deteriorating under Rouhani. There have been some 2,000 executions in Iran in the two years that Rouhani has been in office, more than in any similar period in the past 25 years. Iran holds the record of having the most executions per capita in the world, and is the biggest executioner of juvenile offenders,” Blackwell said.

“So do not throw down the welcome mat for Hassan Rouhani in New York when he still represents a regime that sponsors terrorism and ruthlessly suppresses its population. Ignoring ongoing human rights violations in Iran as well as the growth of terrorism and meddling in the region will only embolden the regime and allow it to continue brutal crackdowns and escalating violence,” Blackwell added.

To that end, a broad coalition of Iranian-American groups will hold a “Voices of Iran” rally in front of the UN on September 28^th to protest Rouhani’s appearance and denounce the deteriorating state of human rights in Iran.

Speakers at the rally are to include Bill Richardson, former U.S. ambassador to the UN and U.S. Energy Secretary; Tom Ridge, former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary and Governor of Pennsylvania; and Alan Dershowitz, former Harvard Law School professor.

We can only hope that the world will give these Iranian-Americans the benefit of the coverage they deserve.

BY Laura Carnahan

Iran Regime Engages in More Extremists Actions

September 3, 2015 by admin

Iran Regime Engages in More Extremists Actions

Who knew the American flag could be a “Satanic symbol” but in Tehran under the mullahs, it not only is, but along with the Union Jack, is a forbidden item for sale on T-shirts in the Islamic state as the religious theocracy cracks down on merchants looking to cash in on the perceived thawing in relations with the West.

“This morning we took these clothes off leading distributors,” said city police chief General Hossein Sajedinia as quoted by the ISNA news agency.

Sajedinia said reports about the activity had been received in the past two weeks, leading to surveillance and detentions and the closing of any stores selling such items.

So much for the “moderate” Iran government.

The disconnect between the perception being pushed by regime advocates such as the National Iranian American Council and apologists such as Ali Gharib and Paul Pillar of a cuddly and soft new Iranian government and the real on-the-ground truth of a brutal, harsh and unrelenting regime is stark and incontestable.

Since the July 14 agreement between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations, the regime has done little to reassure the rest of the world that it has indeed changed. In fact, its actions since then have only reinforced critics of the regime who have long maintained that Iran’s mullahs have absolutely no intention of changing course.

The biggest concession the regime won from the rest of the world was not allowing it to keep the bulk of its nuclear infrastructure intact, nor was it the lifting of trade and financial embargoes allowing it to access $150 billion in frozen assets or sell four million barrels of oil on the open market or buy advanced military weapons systems again.

No, the biggest concession was uncoupling the actions of the regime from any future repercussions. In effect, the cutting of Iran’s conduct from any measurable yardstick of internationally accepted normative behavior from any consequences from future sanction or action has emboldened Iran’s mullahs to feel invigorated with their new-found freedom and they have left the starting gate running harder and faster than Triple Crown winner American Pharoah.

NPR correspondent Michele Kelemen focused on this disconnect in examining the Iran regime’s steadfast refusal to answer questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency over the past decade over the military dimensions of its nuclear program.

Harvard University’s Olli Heinonin, a former top official at the International Atomic Energy Agency, says having full knowledge about the past will be crucial in the future — when Iran gets out from under the current limits on its nuclear program,” Kelemen said.

“You want to understand how far did they get,” said Heinonin. “Then you know what else they need to do to manufacture a nuclear weapon.”

Heinonin, speaking at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which has been critical of the Iran deal, said knowing about the past will also help inspectors know where they should concentrate their efforts now, according to Kelemen.

That defiance of in adhering to the proposed agreement was again reinforced by Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan who recently reaffirmed Iran’s position that issues involving Iran’s missile program are not matters for discussion. Presumably, Iran is determined to keep developing its missile force.

As for attempts to clarify Iran’s past activity regarding the “military dimensions” of its nuclear program, Dehghan noted that Iran will definitely not grant anyone access to its security and military “secrets.”

He was echoed by the head of the regime’s Revolutionary Guard who said the U.S. is still the “Great Satan,” regardless of the nuclear deal struck with the Americans and other world powers over the Islamic state’s contested nuclear program.

The comments by Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, reported by the official Guard website, said enmity against Iran by the U.S. hasn’t lessened.

“We should not be deceived by the U.S.,” Mr. Jafari reportedly said. “It wants to infiltrate into Iran, resorting to new instruments and method.”

But rhetoric alone is not the only tool the Iran regime is using as Kuwait yesterday charged 24 people suspected of links to Iran and the Hezbollah terror group with plotting attacks against the Gulf state according to a public prosecutor.

The men were charged with “spying for the Islamic republic of Iran and Hezbollah to carry out aggressive acts against the State of Kuwait” by smuggling in and assembling explosives, as well as possessing firearms and ammunition, the statement said.

They were also charged with “carrying out acts that would undermine the unity and territorial integrity” of Kuwait, and of possessing eavesdropping devices, it said.

The actions in Kuwait only serve to underscore the mistake by the P5+1 in giving Iran this major act of appeasement in the hopes of buying some short term security by forgoing any hope of containing the Iran regime in the future. It’s a Faustian bargain that Stephen Rademaker explained on PBS this weekend:

“Faust was this mythological figure who sold his soul for the — to the devil in exchange for magical powers for — I think it was 26 years,” he said.

“For 26 years, he had magical powers. At the end of 26 years, the devil came to claim his soul. And I think that is a pretty good analogy to what this deal provides. For 10 years, it’s not a bad deal. After 10 years, it becomes a horrible deal and it gives Iran regime everything they have always wanted. After — President Obama concedes, after 13 years, the breakout time is almost zero,” he added.

Rademaker was an assistant secretary of state for the Bureaus of Arms Control and International Security and Nonproliferation under President George W. Bush. He’s now a principal at the Podesta Group in Washington and an adviser to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

All of which demonstrates as clear as daylight that the Iran regime is fully committed to its extremist course of action and the proposed deal, far from hindering it, actually enables it.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Big Lie About Human Rights and the Iran Nuclear Deal

August 7, 2015 by admin

The Big Lie About Human Rights and the Iran Nuclear Deal

One of the more incredible stretches of imagination surrounding the proposed nuclear deal between the Iran regime and the rest of the world is the notion that the agreement with Tehran’s mullahs might somehow spur improvements in the regime’s bleak human rights record.

One of the strongest proponents of that lie has been the regime’s paid lobbyists, the National Iranian American Council, which put out a policy memo on its website attempting to reinforce the misconception.

The memo essentially consists of quotes taken from various people and groups identified with human rights issues in Iran, but notably does not include any quotes or comments from groups who have traditionally monitored regime human rights abuses, such as Amnesty International, nor does it include any comments from relatives or families of loved ones who languish in regime prisons or been subject to torture and executions.

It is also notable how many of the quotes are taken from purported human rights activists who in reality serve the regime such as Akbar Ganji, a self-described Iranian journalist who was previously a commander in the regime’s Revolutionary Guard and still has deep ties to the regime’s leadership.

The fact that NIAC also used a quote from Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights in Iran is laughable considering revelations that the Iran regime launched a sophisticated smear campaign against him through the use of a fabricated WikiLeaks cable purporting to show bribes from Saudi Arabia that never existed.

“The apparently orchestrated campaign against Shaheed seems to fit into a familiar pattern of Iran smearing activists, dissidents, or even journalists by propagating misinformation about them.

Iran has repeatedly condemned Shaheed’s reports as unsubstantiated, biased and collated from anti-Iranian outlets. Shaheed has never been allowed to travel to Iran since his initial mandate was approved by the UN in 2011.

One could go through practically the entire list of quotes provided by the NIAC and simply use Google searches to reveal how factually incorrect and in error they are. It is an admirable show of deception on the NIAC’s part that rivals many of their past efforts to distort the regime’s true record.

The real record on the regime’s abysmal human rights record has been well documented not only by Shaheed and Amnesty International, but also by opposition groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, news media and through the statements and actions made by ordinary Iranians demonstrating and protesting against the regime and those imprisoned such as Americans Jason Rezaian, Saeed Abedini and Amir Hekmati who still languish despite the nuclear agreement.

But everything the NIAC says seems to be constantly undercut by their masters in Tehran. Another glaring example was the complaint filed by the regime against White House press secretary Josh Earnest who has taken to insisting the U.S. retained the right to “use military force in the long run and the use of nuclear inspections to gain intelligence about Iran’s nuclear facilities”; calling Earnest’s statements a “material breach” of the nuclear deal itself.

The outlandish complaint was lodged with the International Atomic Energy Agency which has come under heavy criticism for negotiating two secret side deals with the regime and not making either available to the public or members of Congress currently reviewing the agreement.

The irony of the Iran regime’s complaint is that it exposes both provisions as being completely false and unenforceable since the regime has already clearly considered both to be invalid, even though deal supporters such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of the NIAC have gone to great lengths to champion those same provisions of key examples of why the deal works.

One has to wonder who the American public should believe on this issue: the Iranian government or those lobbyists being paid by that same government and its allies?

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran’s Mullahs Get Ready for a Spending Spree

July 2, 2015 by admin

Iran’s Mullahs Get Ready for a Spending Spree

Who doesn’t like shopping; especially when you’re about to get a $140 billion credit line? The Iran regime’s mullahs are eagerly anticipating the windfall due to them with a completed nuclear agreement. The cornerstone of nuclear talks for the regime has been the condition for the immediate and total lifting of all economic sanctions from the UN Security Council, European Union and U.S.

In fact, there has been no ambiguity about what Iran’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei is seeking in a nuclear deal having posted his very own infographic listing his specific “red lines” where he would not allow regime negotiators to cross in order to gain a deal with the P5+1 group of nations.

The value of those frozen assets has already been demonstrated when the U.S. released over $17 billion in cash to the regime since the interim framework agreement was announced in April of 2015 and follows a prior interim agreement reached in 2013. In fact the regime just received over 13 tons of gold released by South Africa at the direction of the U.S. as part of those agreements. The massive influx of cash came at an opportune time for the regime.

The benchmark price of crude oil had plummeted from a high of $107.89 per barrel in June of 2014 to only $57.30 per barrel in April of 2015, crushing the Iranian economy and its black market sales of illegal crude.

The 47 percent drop in oil came at the same time that the Iran regime had significantly stepped up its support for Houthi rebels as they overthrew the government in Yemen, spent over $6 billion annually to prop up the Assad regime in Syria, and billions more to fund Shiite militias throughout Iraq.

The cash delivered by the U.S. was a godsend for the mullahs and kept their precarious hold over an increasingly embittered Iranian population firm. The mullahs recognize that replenishing their coffers remains the most vital aspect of these negotiations and would normally provide enormous leverage for the P5+1 – particularly the U.S. – but the Obama administration seems to be intent on securing a deal, any deal, without using this economic leverage to gain substantial changes in Iran’s foreign policy direction or abysmal human rights record.

This hasn’t been lost on the mullahs or their circle of supporters who have sought to push forward foreign investment in order to create the feeling of inevitability of a lifting of sanctions. Economists have estimated the regime could receive an additional windfall of over $100 billion in direct foreign investment with the lifting of sanctions in addition to the $140 billion it would get from unfrozen assets.

Already regime supporters such as Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council and Bijan Khajehpour of Atieh International are already posturing and trying to facilitate this influx of foreign investment. In Khajehpour’s case, he would personally gain by helping direct investors to regime industries through his consulting firm.

But any thought of this enormous windfall benefitting the Iranian people is foolish and misplaced given past history. Khamenei himself delivered a speech February of 2014 in which he called for an “economy of resistance” and set the stage for preparing the Iranian people for continued hardships. Those hardships have resulted in widespread, but lightly reported, mass protests and demonstrations throughout Iran from everyone ranging from school teachers to factory workers to ethnic minorities.

The fact that regime mullahs directed the massive shifting of funds to fund proxy wars, terror groups and its nuclear program at the expense of its own citizens clearly demonstrates what will happen with this $140 billion payday and is bearing more intense media scrutiny as journalists and columnists delve deeper into where all those billions will most likely go.

As Michael Singh, managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes in the Wall Street Journal: “The agreement terms reportedly under discussion provide Iran with substantial economic relief while demanding precisely nothing from it regarding its sponsorship of terrorism and destabilizing regional behavior.”

Sounding a similar warning is Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who wrote in the Washington Post: “The massive financial gains from the deal would enable the Islamic Republic’s imperial surge while allowing a repressive regime that was on the brink of collapse in 2009 to consolidate power. This would be no small achievement for Iran’s emboldened rulers.”

As the regime continues to manipulate the U.S. with false promises, the mullahs are busy getting their shopping list ready for the day their bank accounts are flush with cash again.

By Laura Carnahan

Iran Lobby Admits Skirting Lobbying Laws

July 1, 2015 by admin

Iran Lobby Admits Skirting Lobbying Laws

There was an admission made yesterday during ongoing nuclear talks between the Iran regime and the P5+1 and it wasn’t that the negotiators were going to miss yet another deadline. No, the real news that leaked out and escaped the notice of most news organizations came from the National Iranian American Council, the regime’s longtime loyal lobbying group.

The NIAC announced the formation of a 501(c)4 lobbying arm dubbed “NIAC Action” dedicated to openly carrying the mullahs water through the halls of Congress and collect funds on behalf of the mullahs to advance a nuclear agreement giving Tehran’s cash-starved mullahs access to $140 billion in frozen funds and allow it to retain its nuclear infrastructure without intrusive international scrutiny or inspection.

While the NIAC claims it launched its lobbying group to counter what it feels is the strong anti-regime lobby already operating in the U.S., the more practical reality is that the NIAC had been skirting federal lobbying laws and had to make this move in order to avoid further investigation and possible charges for violating federal laws.

News media have previously chronicled the suspicious and often blatant lobbying efforts by members of the NIAC, especially its founder Trita Parsi who recently lost a defamation suit aimed at a journalist who reported on Parsi and the NIAC’s lobbying actions on behalf of the regime.

An appeal by Parsi resulted not only in another loss but also resulted in NIAC being forced to pay $184,000 and condemnation for blatant and systematic abuse of the discovery process and repeated false and misleading declarations to the court.

NIAC’s Jamal Abdi attempted to spin the lack of coordination between the NIAC and Iran regime officials by saying “We are not lobbying on behalf of the Iranian government. We don’t coordinate. We don’t take money from the Iranian government or the U.S. government.”

But Abdi neglected to mention any prohibition on accepting funding from individuals who receive funding directly or indirectly from the Iranian regime or its vast network of shell companies and false fronts built over the past decade to evade economic sanctions and fund worldwide terror groups such as Hezbollah.

The NIAC has been a constant fixture at the sites of nuclear talks, in news media and online through its aggressive social media efforts. It skirted the letter of federal law by claiming status as a 501(c)3 “social welfare” group even though it organized “legislative action days” where it sent teams to Congressional offices and “lobbied” key representatives and Senators on important Iran-related legislation.

Unsurprisingly, key NIAC staff who have long sought to pressure and influence members of Congress have moved over to key slots at the lobbying arm, including Abdi who is now the executive director, Ryan Costello and Tyler Cullis who move over as policy and legal fellows respectively. It will bear watching to see the amount of cross-over and coordination that occurs between these two groups and whether or not federal lobbying laws will be violated.

It is unsurprising that this new lobbying arm for the NIAC is not devoted the stated mission of the NIAC which is to promote “greater understanding between the American and Iranian people,” but instead was specifically created “to protecting a nuclear deal.”

This will also allow the NIAC to even endorse U.S. political candidates, although an endorsement by a group so closely identified as a mouthpiece for a state sponsor of terrorism, currently holding American hostages and engaging in three proxy wars responsible for the murder and displacement of millions of people would hardly be a welcome endorsement by any Republican or Democratic candidate.

At least the truth is unveiled and we now know the full extent of what the Iran lobby is willing to do to secure a deal for the mullahs.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Iran Regime’s Red Lines in Nuclear Talks

June 30, 2015 by admin

Khamenei’s Redliens on Nuclear Talks-New deception tecnics

With June 30 having arrived and no nuclear agreement being reached between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations, one could call everything “business as usual” with yet another deadline preceded by frantic talks and then slipping away without a ripple of consequence.

Of course the “new” immediate deadline will be July 9, in which the Obama administration needs to deliver an agreement to Congress to trigger a 30 day review period, otherwise if they miss it, Congress will have 60 days to review as part of a compromise deal struck between the administration and Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

But this new deadline is just as likely to slide by as the one today and the reason for it was put on display today in bright, bold red lines by the regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, who wasted no time taking to Twitter and his official website to post his own version of “Major Red Lines in Nuclear Negotiations” for the regime.

Khamenei’s red lines, unlike those laid down by President Obama after Assad in Syria gassed his own people, are firmly set and unlikely to change since Khamenei is empowered by the mullahs’ constitution to hold the final approval of any foreign agreements, which makes his red lines worth examining.

Khamenei’s red lines essentially repudiates every pointed allegedly agreed upon condition in earlier interim, framework agreements and reasserts the regime’s opposition to virtually all the conditions the P5+1 have sought over the past three years; even after making significant and grave concessions to the regime.

They include:

No long-term restrictions on the regime’s nuclear program as opposed to the decade-long restriction sought by negotiators;
Continuation of the regime’s nuclear research and development program during the restriction period in spite of prior agreements to halt such research;
Immediate lifting of all economic, financial and banking sanctions with signing of an agreement, including all sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, European Union and U.S. Congress and administration without requirements the regime was in compliance;
Lifting of sanctions must be conditioned on the start of the regime’s implementation of the agreement, not after international inspections have verified its compliance;
Verification by the UN’s inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency will not be accepted by the regime, nor will inspectors be granted unconditional access to any regime facility;
No inspection of military facilities will be allowed, nor will interviews of any regime scientist or technical personnel; and
The regime opposes any longer term period of review, inspection or compliance beyond the fixed term, which means no 15 or 25 year window to maintain compliance.

The fact that Khamenei repudiated almost every condition regime foreign minister Javad Zarif and its president, Hassan Rouhani touted as landmark agreements should come as no surprise really. Khamenei’s public tweets and statements following the interim agreement announced jointly by the regime and the P5+1 to much fanfare on April, 2015 clearly showed his displeasure and contention that the regime had not submitted to any of these conditions.

Not even regime cheerleader Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council could alter the inevitable outcome with his unsurprising appearance in Vienna, Austria, the site of these talks where he attempted to convince any reporter with a notebook, camera or microphone that the regime was indeed serious about these talks and on the verge of closing a deal.

But given the clear and unmistakable conditions laid out by Khamenei, the only real question is how willing is the Obama administration to concede even more and essentially give the regime a blank check or at least a $140 billion check, the amount in frozen assets the regime’s mullahs are lusting after to replenish their coffers drained by three proxy years in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

William Kristol writing in The Weekly Standard warns the administration may have very well caved in on the all-important issue of inspection access by conceding that since the U.S. would not allow universal access to its own military sites, it could afford Iran the same consideration.

All of which sets the stage for the final act before July 9 of whether or not the P5+1 completely cave and adhere to all of Khamenei’s conditions or recognize in the final act that Iran’s mullahs really have no desire for an agreement and instead have been fooling the world for the past three years.

By Michael Tomlinson

What You Need to Know About the Iran Nuclear Talks

June 29, 2015 by admin

With only a day left before the self-imposed deadline of June 30 for this third and latest round of talks between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations over Iran’s nuclear development program, it is becoming increasingly clear with leaked news reports that the deadline will be missed as regime foreign minister Javad Zarif heads back to consult with his mullah masters in Tehran.

It really is not surprising this deadline will be missed as well. Remember, this session was allegedly set to work out the “details” of the so-called “framework agreement” from last April in which both sides had supposedly agreed on the broad outlines, but within 24 hours conflicting documents were produced on what the framework agreement actually contained.

That “agreement” followed a similar missed deadline the year before and yet another agreement in November of 2013. Remember the 2013 deal? It released $17 billion in cash and assets to the regime for its alleged compliance with reduction in the stockpiles of enriched uranium, but instead, during the past two years under that interim agreement, those stockpiles actually increased by a whopping 20 percent.

It’s worth mentioning that the Iran regime got those billions just as global oil prices slumped and it was shelling out $6 billion to support Assad in Syria with Hezbollah fighters, not to mention the additional billions it spent to support the Houthi revolt in Yemen and Shiite militias in Iraq.

In essence, we have been paying for Iran’s proxy wars for the last two years.

But given the past three years of negotiating, what has been the common thread of failure in each of the previous sessions? Two words: Ali Khamenei.

The regime’s top mullah is empowered by mullah’s constitution with dictatorial powers over virtually all aspects of Iranian life including the judiciary, culture, foreign policy, economy and military matters. Jay Solomon reports in the Wall Street Journal how Khamenei’s constantly shifting demands, almost schizophrenic public rants and hardline stances have doomed every prior negotiating session and has potentially derailed this one as well.

“Mr. Khamenei’s hardline positions, announced in a nationally televised speech, appeared to back away from commitments his negotiators made in April to restrain parts of Iran’s nuclear program and to allow international inspections of the country’s military sites,” Solomon writes. “

“But there is concern in Washington and Europe that Iran’s paramount political leader may be boxing in his own diplomats by establishing terms they can’t deliver on. The 75-year-old cleric is viewed by the White House as the final decision maker on all issues concerning Iran’s nuclear program and foreign policy,” he added.

Solomon also disclosed the existence of secret messages passed between the regime and President Obama in which the mullahs in Tehran demanded as a sign of U.S. good faith the release of certain prisoners in 2009. The regime also demanded the blacklisting of certain Iranian opposition resistance groups and an increase in U.S. visas for regime students to study at U.S. universities.

It is noteworthy that the regime specifically called for actions against Iranian resistance groups, which have helped marshal global opinion against the regime over the years – and in the case of the National Council of Resistance of Iran – have helped disclose once-secret Iranian nuclear facilities angering the mullahs.

But in a startling concession, the U.S. arranged for the release of four Iranians including two convicted arms smugglers and a prominent scientist convicted of illegal exports to Iran. That early example of American concessions set the stage for the regime and Khamenei to believe they could get whatever they wanted from the U.S. and led to two years of mind-numbing talks in which the P5+1 caved on a whole series of concessions designed to appease Khamenei and hardline mullahs.

Now with admission that the June 30 deadline is moot, Western diplomats are breaking their silence and raising the scenario that the Iran regime is now backing out of its earlier commitments.

“There are a number of different areas where we still have major differences of interpretation in detailing what was agreed in Lausanne,” said British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond in a Reuters report.

“There is going to have to be some give or take if we are to get this done in the next few days,” he added. “No deal is better than a bad deal.”

Other Western officials echoed Hammond’s remarks, saying some of the backtracking involved the mechanics of monitoring Iranian compliance with proposed limits on nuclear activities according to Reuters.

The final clues of how far away the regime is removed from reality came in a posting by Reza Marashi from the National Iranian American Council and a lead supporter of the mullahs who is in Geneva along with his colleague Trita Parsi hobnobbing with the Iranian delegation in hotel hallways and lobbies.

Since Marashi and Parsi enjoy such close access to the confidential nature of these talks through the Iranian delegation, it’s worth noting the issue areas they call “myths” as clues to what frightens the mullahs the most.

The appearance that the regime will receive a windfall from immediate lifting of all sanctions;
The lack of verified inspection measures to prevent Iranian regime from cheating;
The emboldening of Iran’s mullahs to act freely in the region now that a deal is in place;
The worsening of human rights in Iran now that there is no leverage to improve the situation;
The ability to secure a better deal with mounting pressure on the regime from wider protest within Iran and abroad.

Ironically, Marashi has laid out the case precisely posed by opponents of a bad nuclear deal in which Khamenei’s mouth has uttered all of these points in direct contradiction to Marashi over the past two years.

The kicker is the trial balloon floated by Parsi in which he basically delivers the regime’s position on Huffington Post of a three phase approval deal which includes the U.S. Congress approving the lifting of sanctions and the terms of a deal without it even being signed by the Iranians. He must have gotten the idea from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during the healthcare debate when she argued Congress had to pass the law to find out what was in it.

Parsi and Marashi seem to believe Congress and the American people will fall for the same trick twice.

By Michael Tomlinson

Stopping Concessions to Iran Regime Key to Regional Peace

June 26, 2015 by admin

Stopping Concessions to Iran Regime Key to Regional Peace

With only a week left before the June 30 deadline for an agreement between the P5+1 group of nations and the Iran regime, the Iran lobby is working overtime spitting out editorials, policy papers and other propaganda stressing the same messages it has been hammering on for three years.

This was no more evident than in a piece published in Foreign Policy by Trita Parsi, head of the regime’s chief cheerleader the National Iranian American Council, who trotted out the old standard that the only choices at the bargaining table was between war and peace; claiming that this dispute was “rarely resolved through diplomacy without the various sides going to war first.”

Of course that is a false choice and a weak scare tactic because the choices are much more varied and numerous than Parsi would have us believe. In fact, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the largest Iranian dissident groups in the world, held a press conference today where they released a report outlining the laundry list of same deceptions and falsehoods Parsi has been flogging.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, the NCRI-US deputy director, outlined some of these other choices for negotiators and chief among them was the potential for regime change itself within the Iran regime which has been wracked by large scale demonstrations across the country by disgruntled teachers and workers who are fed up with large-scale corruption and the diversion of the nation’s wealth away from the economy and to fund terror groups and proxy wars in places such as Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

It certainly did not help that the mullahs decided to fortify a faltering Assad government in Syria with an additional 15,000 troops, comprised heavily of paid mercenaries from Iraq and Afghanistan.

And this is what Parsi attempts to misled with his editorial. While he claims the choices are stark between war and peace, he neglects to mention that Iran mullahs are already at war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Sunnis tribes in Iraq and the Syrian people who are standing up against he dictatorship ruling the country. The regime’s Revolutionary Guards and Quds Force are already fighting on battlefields throughout the Middle East.

And this even isn’t a recent development. Iranian regime’s military has long supplied local militias in Iraq in their fight against U.S. and coalition forces, including training in constructing improvised explosive devices, LEDs, which have claimed thousands of American lives.

“What does this mean? It means that Iran doesn’t seem particularly interested in entering into a dialogue with the Obama Administration at the moment,” wrote Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic in 2011.

All of which puts the lie to Parsi’s chief argument since Iran’s mullahs have already been waging war against U.S. interests and personnel for the past five years. This brings us to another of Parsi’s ham-handed arguments, namely that a deal represents a watershed moment in the relationship between Iran and the U.S. and would make Iran more amenable to working with the U.S.

Another silly proposition since Iran’s mullahs have shown a shocking willingness to turn American hostages into bargaining pawns and demanded – and received – the exclusion of human rights and ballistic missile technology from any part of the negotiations.

The NCRI report clearly showed this by delving deeply into how Tehran has approached nuclear talks by consistently keeping military sites out of inspections, foot dragging requests for disclosure by the International Atomic Energy Agency, retaining its nuclear infrastructure in its entirety including its centrifuges, uranium stockpiles and heavy water reactors, and keeping talks alive after three years with false promises and interim agreements, leaving it free to pursue its military actions abroad.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Has No Intention of Changing

June 22, 2015 by admin

epa03823138 A general view of the parliament during the parliament session on 13 August 2013 in Tehran, Iran. Iranian president Hassan Rowhani proposed his cabinet to the parliament on 12 August 2013. All designated ministers need the majority votes of the 290 deputies before taking office. Rowhani said that his government will take distance from any form of extremism and rather adopt a moderate approach for ending the country?s international isolation. EPA/ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH

A general view of the parliament during the parliament session on 13 August 2013 in Tehran, Iran. Iranian president Hassan Rowhani proposed his cabinet to the parliament on 12 August 2013. All designated ministers need the majority votes of the 290 deputies before taking office. Rowhani said that his government will take distance from any form of extremism and rather adopt a moderate approach for ending the country?s international isolation. EPA

Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council and chief apologist for the Iran regime, has long maintained that the bluster of Iranian lawmakers and other officials in denouncing a proposed nuclear deal was evidence of a schism within Iran between moderates and hardliners and that only agreement on a deal could empower moderate elements to win out.

The NIAC has even gone so far as to claim that heinous and brutal human rights violations are the product of these ideological struggle amongst Iran’s ruling mullahs.

It has been a straw man for the Iran lobby and an effort to divert attention from the truth which is in fact while there are divisions within Iran’s ruling class on how to share power, but both divisions stands firmly united behind a single goal; the preservation and expansion of their power and corrupted extremist Islamic ideology.

With little more than a week remaining before a self-imposed June 30 deadline for a nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of nations, Iran’s mullahs have expressed little to no interest in completing a deal.

This Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to oppose inspections of government military sites as part of any agreement, in direct opposition to what negotiators from the U.S. and France have called a “must-have” condition for any agreement. The legislative move follows similar statements made by the regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, who also declared Iranian regime’s military sites off-limits to inspectors.

The mullah’s legislation states in part: “The International Atomic Energy Agency, within the framework of the safeguard agreement, is allowed to carry out conventional inspections of nuclear sites.”

However, it concludes that “access to military, security and sensitive non-nuclear sites, as well as documents and scientists, is forbidden.”

All of this follows a series of concessions already granted by the P5+1 including the exclusion of ballistic missile technology, the retaining of thousands of enriching centrifuges and moves to accommodate Hezbollah and Pakistani nuclear component exporters. Not to mention the failure of the Iran regime to curb its support for three proxy wars, the release of four American hostages and any loosening of brutal human rights repression. This is while over 1800 people have been executed in Iran during Rouhani’s tenure.

As the Washington Examiner pointed out this weekend, even though the Obama administration is intently focused on securing a nuclear deal with the Iran regime, it has all but ignored the terrorism that Iran sponsors and facilitates throughout the region as outlined in the State Department’s annual report on terrorism released on Friday.

As Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) aptly pointed out: “Now that the administration admits nuclear talks haven’t diminished Iran’s support for terrorism, to what extent has Iran used the interim nuclear deal’s $12 billion in sanctions relief payments to fund terrorists or other terror-supporting regimes?”

“As we move closer to the June 30th deadline for a final nuclear deal that could return as much as $140 billion in frozen funds to Iran, the White House remains silent on this critical question.”

And this strikes to the heart of the argument made by Parsi and other regime allies. If there is a battle of moderate and hardline influences within Iran, where is the proof of moderation on the battlefield so to speak? Nowhere has the regime exercised any restraint or moderation as it pursues its extremist policies.

Has Iran regime cut off aid to Hezbollah and Assad in Syria? No, it’s committed another 15,000 troops, this time, including drawing mercenary recruits from Afghanistan. Have mullahs released American prisoners as a show of good faith? No, it is moving ahead with a closed trial of Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter on espionage charges for reporting. Has Iranian regime sought to reassure the world it will comply with nuclear inspection? No, it still refuses to answer questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency in 12 areas of concern over the military dimensions of its nuclear program.

It does not take a leap of logic to see that the Iran regime is firmly committed to its course of nuclear weapons development and is merely taking the world along for a joy ride as its seeks its real prize; the release of $140 billion in frozen cash and opening the floodgates of billions more in foreign investment.

Parsi and his cohorts can’t even hide this truth with their obfuscations.

By Michael Tomlinson