Iran Lobby

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

Bad News for Iran Swamps Iran Lobby

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Bad News for Iran Swamps Iran Lobby
The Dutch Foreign Minister, Stef Blok, reveals for the first time that the Iranian regime was behind two assassinations in the Netherlands in 2015 and 2017

While 2019 may be a fresh start for most people, the new year brings more of the same from the Iranian regime as the European Union announced it was imposing new sanctions on Iran’s intelligence ministry and two Iranian nationals for their likely involvement in two assassination plots in the Netherlands.

The charges were laid out in a letter from the Dutch government to parliament indicating the regime was suspected in at least four assassination and bomb lots throughout Europe over the past three years.

The Dutch indicated that investigations of two murders led to the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats from the Netherlands last June as disclosed in the letter signed by Foreign Minister Stef Blok and Interior Minister Kajsa Ollongren.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry cited “strong indications that Iran was involved in the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin,” one in 2015 in the city of Almere and another in 2017 in The Hague.

European intelligence officials have also linked the Iranian government to unsuccessful plots in Denmark and France.

“In the Dutch government’s opinion, hostile acts of this kind flagrantly violate the sovereignty of the Netherlands and are unacceptable,” the letter said.

The sanctions involve freezing assets connected to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and two Iranian officials: Saeid Hashemi Moghadam, a senior Iranian intelligence official, and Assadollah Asadi, an Iranian diplomat arrested in connection with a plot to bomb a rally of an Iranian opposition group in Paris last year, according to the New York Times.

The unified front by the 28-member European Union was surprising given the vocal cheerleading the Iran lobby, particularly the National Iranian American Council, had been giving to the idea of an alternative payment system being set up by the EU to sidestep U.S. sanctions.

On Tuesday, ambassadors from Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands visited the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran “to convey their serious concerns” about Iran’s behavior, according to the Dutch letter.

In response, the regime’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, did not deny the allegations, but accused European countries in a Twitter post of harboring dissidents from the Mujahedeen Khalq, (MEK), the group targeted in the Paris bomb plot and a long-time thorn in the side of the regime.

The growing gap between the publicly advocated idea of adhering to the Iran nuclear deal and the growing terrorist actions under direct control of the Iranian government may prove to be too large for the Iran lobby to overcome as even the staunchest advocates for staying in the nuclear deal such as Germany are pushing hard against the regime over these latest incidents.

Security analysts have said that Iran, under domestic and international pressure, appears to be stepping up its intelligence operations around the world and perhaps even making contingency plans in case of open conflict.

The actions by the regime fly in the face of the messaging the NIAC and other Iran lobby supporters have long advocated of an Iranian government seeking new, more moderate relationships with the West.

These latest incidents and the resulting EU actions undercut virtually all of the past arguments made by NIAC officials such as Trita Parsi and Jamal Abdi, which may explain why the NIAC has gone virtually dark about the new EU sanctions and the revelations of Iranian machinations to carry out terrorist actions on European soil.

While the NIAC has been quick to leap to the defense of the Iranian regime in the past over other transgressions such as test firing of ballistic missiles or bombastic threats by regime leaders, it has become increasingly harder for the long-time regime support group to remain a vocal advocate for Iran as the regime’s actions grow more desperate under the internal pressures of domestic protests and external pressure from renewed sanctions.

What is probably most troubling for the Iran lobby is the direct sanction of an arm of the Iranian government in the form of the MOIS. In the past, the regime has resorted to more clandestine terrorist acts through proxies such as Hezbollah, the Houthi and even Shiite militias to take action against its enemies; often through its special Quds Forces arm of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

But this sanctioning of the MOIS hits directly at an official Iranian government agency and in a regime tightly controlled from top mullah Ali Khamenei on down through his puppet president Hassan Rouhani, there can be little doubt the bomb plots and assassinations were carried out either under the direct orders of Iranian leadership or with its tacit approval.

That places the Iran lobby in a difficult spot. Does it continue to defend the regime in the wake of such overwhelming evidence and risk losing what little credibility it has left or does it try to change channels and messages?

As evidenced by the NIAC website, it’s clear the latter was a more prudent choice as it sought to tackle earth-shattering issues such as the cancellation of user accounts on Slack.com of Iranian users.

What is even more problematic for the Iran lobby is that with the new incoming Congress, the appearance of an Iranian government running assassination plots of foreign soil is likely to counter any hope of persuading the new Democratic majority in the House to fight for lifting sanctions on Iran.

While the EU gives lip service to the idea that the nuclear deal and the bomb plots are separate issues, the incontrovertible truth is that they are not and that fact, more than anything else, is likely to sink any hopes by the NIAC of having any leverage on Capitol Hill.

Michael Tomlinson

NIAC Letter on Iran Nuclear Deal Just More of the Same

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NIAC Letter on Iran Nuclear Deal Just More of the Same

NIAC Letter on Iran Nuclear Deal Just More of the Same

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

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

In short, the letter urged Congress to continue:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laura Carnahan

Trita Parsi Still Pushing Same Old Falsehoods

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Trita Parsi Still Pushing Same Old Falsehoods

Trita Parsi, that undeniable cheerleader for the Iranian regime, may have traded in his president’s title for the National Iranian American Council, but he is still a busy beaver in peddling the same, tired old tropes in defending the regime, while ignoring the worst offenses and actions by the mullahs.

It’s a neat trick worthy of a Las Vegas magic act if the cost to ordinary Iranians and their neighbors wasn’t so grievously high.

His latest missive in defense of the regime is a doozy where he tries to make the case that the coalition assembled by the Trump administration to re-impose economic sanctions is somehow falling apart.

How does Parsi come to this conclusion? He simply makes the assumption that the “anti-Iran” coalition is simply comprised of a triumvirate of the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel. He then goes on to dutifully explain the various internal political pressures each are facing and how that will magically let Iran off the hook.

First, Parsi points to the controversy over the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and how it will undermine the Saudi monarchy and weaken it’s resolve in opposing Iran because of political pressure that will surely be brought to bear by an outraged Congress that will cut off arms sales to the Saudi kingdom.

“Even if the Republicans end up siding with Trump on continuing relations with Saudi Arabia on the current terms, the Democrats are unlikely to simply allow the relationship to return to business-as-usual,” Parsi writes.

“This is partly because the Saudi-U.S. relationship embodies everything progressives oppose: A cozy relationship with a brutal authoritarian ruler driven by the greed of arms manufacturers, all while the U.S. is complicit in a Saudi-engineered famine in Yemen and the House of Saud’s human rights and women’s rights abuses,” he adds.

Of course, Parsi conveniently leaves out a few important details, such as the Iranian regime was responsible for instigating the conflict in Yemen by inciting Houthi rebels and supplying them with arms and then escalating the conflict by shipping missiles there used to directly attack Saudi Arabia.

It’s also laughable for Parsi to attack “human rights and women’s rights abuses” in Saudi Arabia while ignoring the horrific acts committed to this day by the Iranian regime, including the taking of foreign citizens as hostages, including British and American subjects.

Let’s also not mention the ongoing domestic protests roiling Iran ranging from Iranian women rejecting medieval morals codes and proscriptions that limit their job prospects and stifle daily freedoms like riding a bicycle.

It’s noteworthy that throughout the perceived turmoil in Saudi-U.S. relations, there has never been any mention or serious policy discussion by anyone in Congress altering the kingdom’s role in countering Iranian aggression.

But let’s not let facts stand in the way of hyperbole from Parsi. The most dubious of Parsi’s claims is that the U.S. sanctions effort is failing and he bases that silly notion on the flimsy proof of a “stabilized” rial and ongoing sales of Iranian oil.

If Parsi considers a plunge in the value of the rial to an all-time low in the history of the Iranian regime “stabilized” then he may consider another stint in college to study economics a worthwhile investment for his career.

The Iranian rial has lost a whopping 70 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar since the current Iranian fiscal year began in March.

The use of artificial price freezes by the mullahs to prevent runaway inflation has failed as the costs of consumer goods has skyrocketed and the purchasing power of Iranian savings is beginning to approach beggar status.

The ballyhooed sales of oil Parsi touts are a drop in the bucket of Iran’s exports and more worrisome for the mullahs is the plunge in the price of oil hovering barely above $50 per barrel of benchmark crude. Iran pegs its budget forecasts on anticipating oil prices at nearly $70 per barrel; the difference is crushing the regime’s ability to invest in new capital expenses.

“Today, if you’re sitting in Tehran, you’re probably more confident in the future than if you’re in Riyadh or Washington. Trump has thrown everything he has at Iran, and it hasn’t worked. And once the European “Special Purpose Vehicle” — an alternative payment system that will enable companies to defy Trump’s sanctions — is up and running next year, the Trump’s Iran strategy may face yet another crippling blow,” Parsi said.

Unfortunately for Parsi, that special purpose vehicle is sputtering on life support after France, Germany and Denmark have all denounced Iran for staging attempted bombings and assassinations on their soil against Iranian dissidents and are now calling on stiff action against Tehran.

It may be hard for Parsi to understand, but you’re not likely to get help from someone when you use their house to plan a murder.

But then again, facts were never a strong suit for Trita Parsi.

Laura Carnahan

President Trump Warns Rouhani as Pompeo Assails Mullahs

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President Trump Warns Rouhani as Pompeo Assails Mullahs

President Trump Warns Rouhani as Pompeo Assails Mullahs

This weekend President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the U.S. bluntly warned the Iranian regime against any further transgressions against the U.S.

It started with Pompeo addressing a gathering of Iranian-American leaders at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in which he launched a blistering attack aimed at Iran’s religious and military leaders; likening them to the Mafia.

“The level of corruption and wealth among regime leaders shows that Iran is run by something that resembles the Mafia more than a government,” Pompeo said.

Pompeo’s hardline speech comes just three weeks before the first round of banking sanctions suspended under the Iran nuclear deal is re-imposed after President Trump withdrew from the landmark agreement in May. Bigger sanctions coming in November are aimed at cutting off virtually all Iran’s oil market, according to the Washington Post.

Pompeo’s speech delved deeper into U.S. demands that the Iranian regime stop repressing dissidents and religious minorities, as well as halt its support of militant and terrorist groups throughout the Middle East.

He also said the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors was going to attempt and circumvent Internet censorship in Iran by creating a 24-hour Farsi channel for television, radio, digital and social media formats, “so that ordinary Iranians inside Iran and around the globe will know that America stands with them.”

Pompeo’s speech fully realizes the administration’s growing strategy for Iran in which it will make its appeals directly to the Iranian people to propel peaceful, democratic regime change; a policy long advocated by Iranian dissidents, including the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Pompeo’s speech focused on the rampant corruption within the regime’s leadership which has been the target of mass protests by Iranians across the country since last December. He attacked what he called Iranian regime’s “hypocritical holy men,” saying the ruling elites have enriched themselves through corruption and called out officials by name who he said had plundered government coffers through embezzlement or by winning lucrative contracts.

He singled out “the billionaire general,” Interior Minister Sadegh Mahsouli; Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, the “Sultan of Sugar”; and Sadeq Ardeshir Larijani, the head of Iran’s judiciary, whom he said had embezzled $300 million in public money.

“Call me crazy,” Pompeo said, “but I’m a little skeptical that a thieving thug under international sanctions is the right man to be Iran’s highest-ranking judicial official.”

He also attacked Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for presiding over a $95 billion “sludge fund” for the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

In delivering this speech Pompeo finally closed the loopholes created by the Obama administration during negotiations on a nuclear deal which let the Iranian regime off the hook for human rights abuses, development of ballistic missiles and sponsorship of militias and terrorist groups in waging proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Following on Pompeo’s speech, the president himself took to Twitter in response to a speech by Iranian president Hassan Rouhani who warned that the U.S. risked the “mother of all wars” in a conflict with Iran. Rouhani warned against threatening the nation’s oil exports and called for improved relations with its neighbors, including arch-rival Saudi Arabia in what can only be considered a sign of the weakness of the regime in offering an opening to its rival.

In a Twitter post late Sunday, the president said, “To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

The president left little doubt of his intentions in the face of Rouhani’s threat and reminded the Iranian regime that even a blustering speech for domestic political consumption was going to have potentially disastrous consequences for the regime.

Long gone are the days of kowtowing to the regime under the Obama administration where every aggressive act against the U.S. from launching ballistic missiles that could strikes U.S. bases to the funneling to explosives and arms to terrorist groups that killed U.S. service personnel to even taking U.S. sailors hostage was going to be tolerated anymore.

Rouhani and his overlord, Ali Khamenei, find themselves in a pickle as President Trump prepares to re-impose sanctions on Iran’s oil industry as its economy already is reeling from gross mismanagement. A key point for halting Iranian oil exports is through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Mr Trump! We are the honest men who have throughout history guaranteed the safety of this region’s waterways,” Rouhani said in his speech. “Do not play with the lion’s tail, it will bring regret.”

Rouhani’s claims were undercut by threats by regime officials to cut off commerce through Hormuz.

Iran would halt oil shipments through the strait if the U.S. stopped it from exporting, Esmail Kowsari, deputy commander of the Sarollah Revolutionary Guards base in Tehran, said earlier this month, according to the Young Journalists Club, which is affiliated with Iran’s national broadcaster.

But then again lying seems to be a perquisite for being part of the Iranian regime.

 

Why Does the Iran Lobby Fear the Iran Resistance Movement?

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

Why Does the Iran Lobby Fear the Iran Resistance Movement?

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

Why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael Tomlinson

Jamal Abdi Responds to Mike Pompeo with Absurdities

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Jamal Abdi Responds to Mike Pompeo with Absurdities

Jamal Abdi Responds to Mike Pompeo with Absurdities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laura Carnahan

Trump Pull Out from Iran Nuke Deal is End of Line for Iran Lobby

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Trump signs the Presidential Order to pull out of JCPOA

Trump Pull Out from Iran Nuke Deal is End of Line for Iran Lobby

With a quick flourish of his pen, President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and signaled the end of the waning influence of the Iran lobby on U.S. foreign policy.

Administration officials said the Iran sanctions suspended under the agreement snapped immediately back into effect, meaning any new contracts and financial deals are banned. They said businesses and banks have either 90 or 180 days to wind down existing ties, depending on the particular type of transaction, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Because of the dominance of the U.S. economy on the global stage and the reach of its financial markets, as well as the status of the U.S. dollar as the world’s currency standard, the effect on the Iranian regime will be devastating no matter what European leaders attempt to keep Iran afloat.

Already the Iran lobby has howled like a pack of mad dogs at the president’s move.

Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council sounded the familiar war refrain as he claimed the move sets the U.S. on a path to war.

“Donald Trump has committed what will go down as one of the greatest acts of self-sabotage in America’s modern history. He has put the United States on a path towards war with Iran and may trigger a wider regional war and nuclear arms race,” Parsi said.

It’s a moronic statement since the U.S. is obviously not gearing up for war. There is no military build-up. No aircraft carrier battle groups are steaming for the Persian Gulf. The lack of any U.S. military activity is conspicuous.

The president has been forceful in speaking out against the Iraq invasion and against long-term U.S. foreign commitments, preferring to focus on domestic matters. In his mind, after granting several extensions to the deal giving European allies several months to work on a compromise addressing his concerns, he finally concluded that the only party not interested in changing anything were the mullahs in Tehran.

But that hasn’t stopped the Iran lobby from spreading its falsehoods like fertilizer in the hopes of resurrecting its fortunes, but not even recruiting for Obama officials in a last-ditch effort to save the nuclear deal made a difference because the Iran lobby could never address the real concerns the president had about Iranian regime’s support for terrorism, development of ballistic missiles and crushing human rights abuses.

It didn’t help that the mullahs cracked down by banning the instant messaging app Telegram and snatching yet another British-Iranian dual national citizen with no reason given adding to the large number of hostages the regime seems intent on stockpiling.

In his remarks in the Diplomatic Room of the White House, President Trump spoke directly to the Iranian people, recognizing their oppression and the lack of a government responsive to their needs. His words made plain that his actions were aimed at the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard Corps that backs them rather than the Iranian people who have been engaged in massive protests to this day against their government; most recently taking to the streets to protest the Telegram ban.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of Iranian dissident and human rights groups, addressed a rally in Washington this past weekend opposing the regime in which she correctly pointed out that since the Iran nuclear deal never addressed core issues making the regime dangerous to the stability of the Middle East, the action taken by the president was inevitable.

“Regarding the billions provided to the regime in the framework of this deal, I said that the money poured into the regime’s coffers must be placed under strict United Nations monitoring to ensure that it addresses the Iranian people’s urgent needs, especially the unpaid, meager salaries of workers, teachers, and nurses, and is used to provide food and medicine to citizens. Otherwise, Khamenei will use these funds to further the regime’s policy of export of terrorism and fundamentalism in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon,” she said.

The fact that the Iran nuclear was never submitted to the U.S. Senate for a vote as a treaty, but instead as an executive order and one of dubious legality, its erasure by President Trump was swift and simple.

The Iran lobby argued for this course because it knew it would never survive a Senate confirmation.

Bret Stephens, opinion columnist for the New York Times, argued this same point in an editorial and pointed out how supporters of the deal continued to get everything wrong about it.

“Apologists for the deal answer that the price is worth paying because Iran has put on hold much of its production of nuclear fuel for the next several years. Yet even now Iran is under looser nuclear strictures than South Korea, and would have been allowed to enrich as much material as it liked once the deal expired. That’s nuts,” he writes.

Stephens adds that “even with the sanctions relief, the Iranian economy hangs by a thread: The Wall Street Journal on Sunday reported ‘hundreds of recent outbreaks of labor unrest in Iran, an indication of deepening discord over the nation’s economic troubles.’ This week, the rial hit a record low of 67,800 to the dollar; one member of the Iranian Parliament estimated $30 billion of capital outflows in recent months. That’s real money for a country whose gross domestic product barely matches that of Boston.”

All of which adds up to a simple truth: the Iran lobby has reached the end of its effectiveness in influencing American public opinion and that President Trump has recognized that the Iranian regime can’t be trusted and must be dealt with forcefully and with open eyes.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Attacks on John Bolton Hide Fear of Regime Change

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Iran Lobby Attacks on John Bolton Hide Fear of Regime Change

Iran Lobby Attacks on John Bolton Hide Fear of Regime Change

The Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council, have been busy hurling attacks and invectives at John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the new national security advisor, calling him everything from being crazy to a war monger to an extremist or child of Satan.

The accusations have seemed to take on a life of their own as Iranian regime loyalists such as NIAC’s Trita Parsi empty out the thesaurus in an effort to try and find something that will stick and either derail his nomination or throw cold water on the administration’s plans to revisit the Iran nuclear deal.

In either case, it seems apparent the trains have already left the stations and on Capitol Hill, it appears Democrats are only pondering going after President Trump’s CIA director nominee, Gina Haspel, for past involvement in the interrogation of terror suspects, with Bolton and secretary of state nominee, Mike Pompeo, looking like solid confirmations.

This new troika of national security, intelligence and diplomatic heads represents a significant shift in the president’s thinking as it relates to the challenges of Iran, North Korea and Islamic extremist terrorism.

Far from trying to swat individual terror suspects like so many mosquitos, it appears the administration maybe looking for a more strategic approach in draining the swamp so-to-speak by dealing directly with the sources of terrorism; more specifically nation states.

The terror attacks of 9/11 served as a reminder that safe harbors such as a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, provide training, security, funding and logistical support for terrorists to plan and execute their attacks.

The rise of ISIS out of the wreckage of a Syrian civil war and Iraqi sectarian conflict borne out of Iranian regime’s meddling carved out a caliphate which provided ISIS with everything from oil to sell and ready recruits to satellite broadcasts and a news magazine.

The Iranian regime set the template when it built Hezbollah to a formidable terrorist operation and shock troops for proxy wars. Iran mullahs utilized Hezbollah and a safe harbor in Lebanon.

But now the mullahs in Tehran are confronted with a rapid flurry of problems that have escalated nearly out of their normally iron-fisted control.

  • The explosion of U.S. fracking for oil turned it into the top oil producer in the world and forced prices to plummet on the open market, crushing revenues the mullahs were expecting from the lifting economic sanctions following the Iran nuclear deal. Coupled with the drain on cash reserves for propping up the Assad regime in Syria and spending heavily on military equipment, including building a ballistic missile program, Iran soon became a pauper nation;
  • A free-falling economy gave ordinary Iranians a gut-punch with stagnant wages, limited job opportunities and a deeply corrupt government that controlled almost all facets of the economy. Couple that with deep dissatisfaction over the increasing divide of haves vs. have-nots as those with ties to the Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force or the ruling mullahs profited handsomely; and
  • Massive protests swept the nation as the combination of punishing economic conditions and dissatisfaction with oppressive rule, including morality laws specifically targeting Iranian women, drove ordinary Iranians to extraordinary acts of defiance unheard of in Iran. This included women launch the hijab movement with the mullahs responding by passing laws criminalizing it on the basis it promoted “prostitution” and calling for 10 years imprisonment.

These trends are unmistakable and more importantly, unassailable by the Iran lobby, which for the most part has stayed silent on these domestic protests; choosing only to blame the economic conditions on the U.S. not fully complying with the terms of the nuclear deal.

Apparently Parsi and his friends think we should empty out Ft. Knox on behalf of the mullahs.

What is apparent though is that the accusations being flung by the Iran lobby at Bolton’s nomination miss an inescapable truth which is Bolton is not setting the stage for war when Tehran has already been at war with the West ever since it supplied explosives to kill Marines in Beirut or U.S. troops in Iraq.

Ivan Sascha Sheehan, incoming executive director of the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore, makes that point in a strongly worded editorial in The Hill.

“Those who are concerned about the potential for war with Iran should embrace Bolton’s appointment and support the administration’s efforts to confront Tehran’s destabilizing regional influence by taking its theocratic regime to task. The regime’s misbehavior only worsened in the run-up to Trump’s ascension to the Oval Office, and particularly under the prior administration’s cooperative policies that engendered an even greater sense of impunity than the Islamic Republic was used to,” Sheehan writes.

“Trump’s assertiveness during his first year in office is paying small dividends. U.S. Navy officials recently reported that close encounters between their vessels and those of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which were commonplace over the previous two years, halted abruptly in August,” he added.

But what the Iran lobby is most fearful of is not a simple knee-jerk tearing up of the nuclear deal by President Trump, but rather a consensus among U.S. allies to rework the deal, toughening provisions on terror support, ballistic missile development and human rights improvement, in an effort to save it.

Using the deal as a leverage against the Iranian regime is fair turnabout since the regime and Iran lobby have used its continued existence as a blunt instrument against any calls to rein in the regime’s excesses.

The Economist outlined some of the intense deal-making going on now from Great Britain, France and Germany to compel the Iranians to accept new restrictions; restrictions that should have been included in the original deal in the first place.

“Sir Simon Gass, a former British ambassador to Tehran who led the British team negotiating the deal, says that it might be possible to get an agreement from Iran not to develop an intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting America. An ICBM, he points out, only makes sense if it carries a nuclear warhead, so testing one should prompt broad economic sanctions. Patricia Lewis of Chatham House, another London think-tank, believes that the Europeans may already be talking to the Iranians about a future regional missile-deal that would ban long- and intermediate-range nuclear missiles,” the Economist editorial said.

Ultimately the real rub for Parsi and his fellow travelers is that new restrictions, coupled with worsening economic conditions will once again rollback Tehran back to 2009 when massive street protests nearly toppled the regime.

As the president’s new team take their place, it’s clear the era of appeasing the mullahs is dead.

Michael Tomlinson

NIAC Tries to Defend Former Associate in State Department

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NIAC Tries to Defend Former Associate in State Department

NIAC Tries to Defend Former Associate in State Department

Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, a State Department official who was instrumental in directing policy for completing the much-criticized Iran nuclear deal under the Obama administration, has been reassigned to other duties in the State Department by the Trump administration which has generated a flurry of lobbying activity by the Iran lobby.

The National Iranian American Council organized an effort to denounce the move in a letter sent to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and acting Secretary of State John Sullivan even though the reassignment was made last April 2017.

The genesis for this new round of false outrage though was a Politico story that discussed email conversations between administration officials calling into question her political loyalty. In essence, the NIAC and its brethren were objecting to that age-old political practice of “cleaning house” when a new party and administration comes to power.

Where was the NIAC’s outrage when the Obama administration led its own purge of Bush-era appointees and installed its own loyalists in key civil service positions at the end of its own term to ensure policies were continued in spite of the new Trump administration’s move in?

To say the NIAC’s outrage is silly is an understatement. Every president reserves the right to pick and choose whomever he likes to serve and carry out his policies. Every president is also entitled to move or reassign any federal employee that does not wish to carry out that administration’s policies.

It is no different for someone like President John F. Kennedy taking over for Dwight D. Eisenhower or Bill Clinton taking over for George H.W. Bush.

But in the twisted logic of the NIAC, it seems even that most basic of presidential prerogatives is off-limits when it comes to keeping a trusted ally in the heart of policy-making when it concerns the Iranian regime.

In the case of Nowrouzzadeh, her involvement in policy towards Iran under the Obama administration has been well-documented.

Born in the U.S. to Iranian parents, Nowrouzzadeh has worked in various government capacities including the Defense Department in 2005 as a foreign affairs analyst and later the State Department in a similar capacity. She later joined the Obama White House in the National Security Council as a director for Iran and part of the team responsible for the Iran nuclear deal.

What raises the suspicions of many though was her prior stint working for NIAC which seems to have been purged from her bios and NIAC’s public records. Why? Obviously, association with the Iran lobby group can be fatal to a career civil servant’s future job prospects and it has been in Nowrouzzadeh’s case.

Also, her key involvement in crafting an agreement that President Trump has openly derided also has proven disadvantageous.

While the reassignment is common in new administrations, the furor is not as the NIAC has chosen to use her as a stalking horse for attacking the Trump administration yet again as ardent Iran-haters and racists.

It is sad to see the NIAC elevate her case and drag her through the public mud in order to score political points over an action that every incoming president undertakes throughout history.

What this does reveal though is NIAC’s willingness to cast any stone in wild attempts to attack the Trump administration in some blind hope of slowing down the freight train of change barreling towards the Iranian regime.

The setbacks for NIAC are numerous and significant:

  • Its attacks on the Saudi government have failed to prevent a historic realignment in the Middle East of nations united against Iran’s regime and containing its expansion;
  • Its efforts to keep alive the Iran nuclear deal are on life support as President Trump has decided to install Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State and former UN ambassador John Bolton as the new National Security Advisor. Both are ardent opponents of the nuclear deal;
  • Its struggle to deny democratic protests sweeping through Iran and bolster the fraudulent regime of Hassan Rouhani have only proven to news media how out of touch NIAC is with current events.

Oddly enough, Nowrouzzadeh could have settled this entire unhappy episode herself by simply advising President Trump’s incoming foreign policy team on the best methods for improving the nuclear agreement she had just worked to implement.

If you want to show your non-partisan, unbiased credentials, then all one has to do is provide the other point of view.

In her case, and because of the effort by NIAC to leverage her reassignment, the sad truth is that policy making in the State Department became highly politicized under the Obama administration, especially towards Iran.

Her reassignment is only the tip of the iceberg since if President Trump is going to finally hold the Iranian regime accountable for its support of terrorism and unbridled human rights failures, he will most likely need to reassign many more Nowrouzzadehs and that is the future that NIAC is terrified of.

 

US Pressure on Iran Missile Program Pushing Europe to Act

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US Pressure on Iran Missile Program Pushing Europe to Act

US Pressure on Iran Missile Program Pushing Europe to Act

The Trump administration has been applying diplomatic pressure on the Iranian regime over its ballistic missile program and support for terrorism and has consistently raised the specter of invalidating the Iran nuclear deal by certifying the regime as being out of compliance with its provisions.

For those efforts, the administration has been roundly and harshly criticized by the Iranian regime’s allies, especially within the Iran lobby by groups such as the National Iranian American Council and individuals such as Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former regime nuclear official who now masquerade’s as an academic at Princeton University.

The vitriol being thrown at the administration over this new pressure on Iran has only been matched by the depth and breadth of misinformation and fake news being pumped out by the Iran lobby.

What is becoming clear though is that the central issue at the heart of the Trump administration’s complaints—that Iran’s ballistic missile program posed a serious international threat and its support of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah was destabilizing the Middle East—have finally gotten the attention of European leaders and serious traction throughout European capitals.

During the Obama administration’s negotiation of the nuclear deal, little emphasis was placed on Iran’s missile program, nor its abysmal human rights record or support for terrorism. That lack of negotiating prowess essentially left the Iranian regime off the hook and gave it carte blanche to rapidly build its missile program and gain strongholds in Syria, Iraq and Yemen through proxy wars.

Many EU leaders that had lauded the nuclear deal as paving the war towards Iranian moderation have been left in more precarious political situations as nearly four million Syrian refugees flooded into Europe in the greatest refugee crisis since World War II and cities such as Paris, Berlin and Brussels were rocked by terrorist acts inspired by the Islamic extremism espoused by the mullahs in Tehran.

That has forced many of them to make a decision to head off a potential move by the Trump administration to kill the nuclear deal and that is to apply more pressure on the Iranian regime on these issues they once considered unimportant.

One example has been French president Emmanuel Macron, who has taken a more public and aggressive stance towards Iranian military actions and human rights.

Macron told the Iranian regime’s Hassan Rouhani in a telephone call this weekend of his support for the nuclear accord and his concerns over Iran’s other activities according to the Financial Times.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, French foreign minister, is due to hold further talks in Tehran on Monday as the clock ticks towards a May deadline set by the US president for European countries to “fix” the nuclear agreement.

The EU and the bloc’s three signatories to the deal — France, Germany and Britain — are urgently trying to craft a solution that will placate the Trump administration’s without destroying an accord they argue is working.

Macron also asked for “clear responses” from Iran over “problems” outside the deal relating to its ballistic missile program and its destabilizing role in the region, particularly in Lebanon.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, will visit Tehran this week and call upon the regime to address the West’s misgivings about its ballistic missile program and Middle East military activities, according to Reuters.

The growing threats posed by the Iranian regime are now being scrutinized more openly as evidenced by an editorial in the Wall Street Journal authored by Jose Maria Aznar, former prime minister of Spain, and Stephen Harper, former prime minister of Canada, in which they both urged Europe to act more decisively in containing Iranian expansionism.

“Despite Tehran’s quest for regional control, popular protests in December and January showed that most of the nation’s citizens don’t share their leaders’ designs. The regime’s destabilizing actions have also triggered resistance from Saudi Arabia and other regional powers. Iran’s own citizens and neighbors are convinced of Tehran’s malice, and all concerned nations should heed their warning,” Aznar and Harper wrote.

“Thankfully, the U.S. has demonstrated its ability to rally its Middle Eastern partners in stabilizing the region. Iranian theocracy appeals mainly to a few neighboring Shiite Islamic factions, and Iran’s long-term conflicts with other sects have made many states eager to cooperate in restraining its influence. Numerous allies can be mobilized in the struggle against Iran, from the Kurds and tribal elements to many Sunni Arabs and Shiite forces not co-opted by Tehran. These factions must collaborate to contain Iran’s hegemonic ambitions,” they added.

They go on to warn that “if left unchecked, Iran’s aggression will ultimately threaten Europe and North America as well. All should urgently work together to counter this threat to global security.”

Their warnings should be heeded by the EU since the evidence has been so overwhelmingly against the claims of the Iran lobby and the Iranian regime.

The most serious threat facing the U.S. and in its allies is the high probability that Iran is quickly building permanent military bases in Syria and planning to move ballistic missiles there; placing most of Europe within range and providing almost no warning time for regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel any advance warning to detect, let alone shoot down, any Iranian missiles.

President Trump understood the geopolitical ramifications of the Iran nuclear deal better than anyone and now sees its potential certification as battering ram he can use to drive home the point of the threat Iranian regime missiles and its military poses to Europe.

It remains to be seen how many other European nations heed the wake up that French president Macron seems to be trumpeting more urgently now, but we hope they all take action soon.

Michael Tomlinson