Iran Lobby

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

Iran Regime Steps Up Global Spy and Lobbying Efforts

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Iran Regime Steps Up Global Spy and Lobbying Efforts

Iran Regime Steps Up Global Spy and Lobbying Efforts

The Iranian regime is sensing an opportunity to expand its influence through its use of its operatives and proxies in the Ministry of Intelligence and its lobbying and public relations efforts that were used during the run up to the nuclear agreement reached with the U.S. and five other nations.

The regime’s own intelligence minister has been busy boasting about the regime’s ability to run a lobbying group in the very heart of the “Great Satan” in Washington, DC.

Amir Basiri, a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and an Iranian human rights activist, detailed these claims in an editorial.

“Mahmoud Alavi, Iran’s spy chief, bragged about the regime’s capability to run a lobby group in Washington with the aim of promoting Tehran’s hardline agenda,” Basiri wrote.

According to Alavi, Iranian dual citizens in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have maintained their loyalty to the “Islamic revolution,” the mullahs’ hallmark motto ever since 1979, through which they have wreaked havoc across the region and beyond, he said.

A “lobby group for the Islamic Republic of Iran” is actively bolstering Tehran’s status in the international stage and helping to sell and legitimize its nuclear ambitions as just causes to the globe, Alavi claimed.

“The head of Iran’s intelligence apparatus did not bother to name the specific lobby entity. One certain group, however, the National Iranian American Council, has been the target of major criticism in the past several months, with accusations of the group lobbying on Tehran’s behalf. Various dissident organizations are demanding the Trump administration to launch an official probe digging into NIAC’s history and nature of its current events,” Basiri added.

What was interesting was that the NIAC, did not deny Alavi’s claims.

Basiri pointed out that Congress has also been petitioned to investigate ties between Iran and the NIAC, and the latter’s active drive to promote a pro-Tehran agenda in Washington. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., who chair the foreign affairs committees in each chamber of Congress, have received specific letters signaling the importance of urgent action in this regard.

NIAC was once again under the spotlight this January for its actions of presenting a positive image of the Iran nuclear deal and advocating a pro-diplomatic approach with Tehran. The media reported extensively on how two senior Iranian regime supporters, former Iranian nuclear diplomat Hossein Mousavian and NIAC founder and president Trita Parsi, enjoyed access to the Obama White House on more than 30 occasions, conducting meetings with senior administration officials, while a former NIAC staffer now directs Iran policy at the State Department.

Alavi’s recent remarks are source for serious concern as entities advocating Iran’s agenda in the American capital are obliged by the Foreign Agents Registration Act to disclose the nature of their work. This even includes conditions where the relationship does not involve money exchanges, at least not through legal and opaque channels.

For years Iran has been known to forward an official plot of boosting relations with groups promoting anti-war and pro-regime policies in the West. Improving contacts with Iranian dual nationals living in the West has been high on Tehran’s agenda on this matter.

One major task of this network has been discrediting those opposing the regime in Tehran and taking measures against any efforts voicing support for Iran regime change. The main Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and its most important member, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), have been the constant target of smear campaigns launched and orchestrated by the Iranian regime and NIAC, according to Basiri.

Not only has the Iranian regime worked hard to develop its lobbying resources, but it has continued to expand on its efforts to spy and conduct terror operations on its neighbors as the government of Bahrain announced Sunday that it had arrested over a dozen individuals believed to have planted a bomb on a police bus and received training from Hezbollah and the government of Iran.

Bahrain’s interior ministry issued a statement Sunday confirming the arrests of 14 individuals who “are suspected of receiving overseas military training under the supervision of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah in Iraq,” according to the Associated Press. The men were arrested as part of a larger raid on a property that authorities claimed was stocked with weapons; police say the terror cell was planning assassinations, though they did not specify if they believed the men were targeting any officials in particular.

Al-Arabiya adds that authorities believe the alleged terrorists arrested were working under the supervision of Mortadha Majeed al-Sindi and Qassim Abdullah Ali, the latter of which has received a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” label from the U.S. State Department. Reuters identifies both men as “exiled Bahrainis living in Iran.” In addition to being led by individuals living in Iran, the terror cell boasted a number of individuals with ties to Iranian terror groups. Voice of America cites local outlets who reported that official identified five alleged terrorists as having received training from Hezbollah, and another six who had been trained by IRGC leaders.

In another case, a Pakistani man was convicted in Germany on Monday of spying for Iran to search out potential attack targets for the Revolutionary Guards.

The defendant, 31-year-old Mustufa Haidar Syed-Naqfi, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison “for working for a foreign intelligence service”, a spokeswoman for Berlin’s superior court said.

The court found he spied “against Germany and another NATO member”, France, for the Quds Force, the foreign operations wing of the elite Revolutionary Guards.

Syed-Naqfi compiled dossiers on possible attack targets – a German lawmaker who is the former head of a German-Israeli organisation, and a French-Israeli economics professor.

Investigators found detailed dossiers on the men and their daily routines, with hundreds of photos and video clips.

A representative of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, which handles counterespionage, said it was alerted to the defendant by a “reliable” source.

The service suspected the Quds Force was preparing for a possible future conflict with the United States and Israel, when it could hit targets in Europe in a form of “asymmetrical warfare”.

Laura Caranahan

Khamenei Promises More Crackdowns on Election Protests

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Khamenei Promises More Crackdowns on Election Protests

Khamenei Promises More Crackdowns on Election Protests

Back in 2009, the Middle East was being rocked by the Arab Spring, a pro-democracy movement that toppled governments throughout the region and put despotic regimes on the defensive.

At the time, the Iranian regime’s much despised president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was running for “re-election” in a contest widely viewed as unlikely for him given the historic disapproval of the Iranian people and their deep desire for democratic change.

But as with all things under the careful watch of the mullahs, his election was essentially guaranteed in what the international community dubbed a rigged election.

In response, Iran was rocked with mass protests and demonstrations the likes of which the Iranian regime had not seen before in the most serious threat to the iron rule of the religious establishment. Alarmed and in response to keep their hold on power, the top mullah Ali Khamenei ordered a widespread crackdown that set human rights back in Iran decades in resulted in scores killed and thousands beaten, arrested and imprisoned.

The mass protests were aided in large part by the emergence of social media which helped rally young and old Iranians alike to dispute the election and served as a splash of cold water in the regime’s face that it would have to change as well, but not in terms of granting more freedoms.

By the time 2013 rolled around, the mullahs had gotten wise to international opinion and instead staged an election by removing anyone from the ballot that could even be considered a dissident and instead offered up an old loyalist in Hassan Rouhani repackaged as a smiling, tweeting, kindly “moderate.”

The end result was another sham election and in comparison to 2009 with favorable media attention abroad. It was also aided by the creation of an Iran lobby apparatus designed to push forward more positive narratives about the regime in news media and among elected officials, especially the National Iranian American Council.

Since then, while Rouhani has paraded himself as ca champion of the oppressed, Iran has plunged even further into disrepair.

It is involved now in two full-blown wars in Syria and Yemen, while spending billions of dollars in cash to support the Assad regime, Shiite militias in Iraq, its long-time Hezbollah proxy, and a rebuilding of its vast military.

It has also cracked down viciously at home, oppressing women, religious and ethnic minorities and even going on a binge of hostage taking amongst dual-national citizens including Americans, Canadians and Brits.

Now the stage is set for another election this May and once Khamenei has set the table by declaring that the regime would not tolerate any interference; meaning only the regime’s candidate will be elected and everyone should stay off the streets.

“I will confront anyone who wants to tamper with the results of the people’s vote. In previous years and previous elections …, it was the same. Some of it was in front of people’s eyes and they became aware of it. And some of it they were not aware of but I was informed about it,” he said in Iranian New Year remarks carried live on state television, according to Reuters.

“It was revealed in 2009 – they came out and drew battle lines. And in other years in other ways, but in all these years I stood against them and said whatever the results of the election are, they must be carried out.”

Two of the candidates from the 2009 presidential election, which put hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into office for a second term despite large protests over alleged vote fraud that shook the Islamic Republic, have been under house arrest since 2011. Although part of the regime apparatus, they were detained for calling for street protests at the same time that pro-democracy uprisings were convulsing Tunisia and Egypt.

This year’s election will never be in doubt. Whoever Khamenei wants is going to win, this is a matter of course since he controls the policy making body that will have final say on whoever gets on the ballot in the first place.

Imagine if the Democratic or Republican parties had final say on who got on a presidential ballot without having to suffer through the rigors of a primary contest? In essence, that is what the Iranian regime does on a regular basis; it’s a rigged game.

But the Iranian regime is becoming more sophisticated in the ways of politics. Just as it adjusted to the brutal crackdowns following the 2009 elections, it is following up on the initial creation of the Iran lobby with a broader call for more Iranians in the West to become active lobbyists for the regime’s causes as outlined in an editorial by Michael Rubin in Commentary.

“An Iran watcher and Iranian citizen recently alerted me to this clip showing Mahmoud Alavi, Iran’s intelligence minister, on Iranian national television suggesting there are Iranians in the West who have a lobby for the regime,” Rubin said.

“Alavi does not mention NIAC, but the number of politically active groups that focus on issues of sanctions, defending Iran’s ballistic missile program, and Iran’s nuclear program can like be counted not only on one hand but rather on one finger. If Iran’s intelligence minister believes that Tehran can leverage a specific lobby in the West on behalf not of Iranians but rather of the Islamic Republic, perhaps it is time for American counterintelligence authorities to take a far harder look at whatever lobby to which Alavi might be referring,” he added.

Rouhani’s election will be critical as the regime enters a new phase of expansion and aggression as it puts its newfound billions in cash it received as part of the nuclear deal to good use in furthering the war in Yemen and securing Syria as part of its Shiite sphere of influence.

According to Reuters, Iran is sending advanced weapons and military advisers to Yemen’s rebel Houthi movement, stepping up support for its Shiite ally in a civil war whose outcome could sway the balance of power in the Middle East, regional and Western sources say.

Sources with knowledge of the military movements, who declined to be identified, say that in recent months Iran has taken a greater role in the two-year-old conflict by stepping up arms supplies and other support. This mirrors the strategy it has used to support its Lebanese ally Hezbollah in Syria.

A senior Iranian official said Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Qods Force – the external arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – met top IRGC officials in Tehran last month to look at ways to “empower” the Houthis.

We may very soon see the Arabian Peninsula erupt in a war not unlike what has convulsed Syria if the mullahs have their way.

Michael Tomlinson

Former Iran Lobby Staffer Burrowing Deeper into State Department

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Former Iran Lobby Staffer Burrowing Deeper into State Department

Former Iran Lobby Staffer Burrowing Deeper into State Department

Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, the Iran director for former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), has burrowed into the government under President Trump. She’s now in charge of Iran and the Persian Gulf region on the policy planning staff at the State Department, according to Conservative Review.

The reason why this is of concern is because of her previous employment at the National Iranian American Council, an organization with well-documented ties to the Iranian regime and a long-time supporter and advocate as part of the larger Iran lobby apparatus created to help support the loosening of sanctions on the regime.

In February, a group of over 100 prominent Iranian dissidents called for Congress to investigate NIAC’s ties to the Iranian regime.

“One of Nowrouzzadeh’s primary duties under President Obama was to promote initiatives that pushed the Iran deal. As President Obama’s NSC director for Iran, Nowrouzzadeh sat in on high-level briefings along with President Obama, former VP Joe Biden, and former Secretary of State John Kerry, as top White House staff crafted false narratives on the Iran deal to sell to the American public,” reported Jordan Schachtel.

According to the head of a state-run Iranian newspaper, Nowrouzzadeh was an essential element to pushing through the Iran deal. Editor-in-Chief Emad Abshenass said that she opened up a direct line of communication with the Iranian president’s brother. “She helped clear a number of contradictions and allowed the entire endeavor to succeed,” Abshenass said of her efforts.

Towards the end of President Obama’s tenure, Nowrouzzadeh was embedded into the State Department and for a brief time served as its Persian language spokesperson.

Breitbart News had earlier investigated Nowrouzzadeh’s prior employment with NIAC, finding that a person with the same name has previously written several publications on behalf of NIAC. According to what appears to be her LinkedIn account, Nowrouzzadeh became an analyst for the Department of Defense in 2005 before moving her way up to the National Security Council in 2014.

A NIAC profile from 2007 reveals that Sahar Nowrouzzadeh appears to be the same person as the one who is currently the NSC Director for Iran. The profiles indicate that she had the same double major and attended the same university (George Washington).

Critics have alleged that NIAC is a lobby for the current Iranian dictatorship under Ayatollah Khamenei. A dissident journalist revealed recently that NIAC’s president and founder, Trita Parsi, has maintained a years-long relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif.

The rise of this NIAC mole within the State Department is troubling since it allows a member of the Iran lobby to still maintain a position of significant influence in developing U.S. policy towards Iran.

The timing of her continued work within the State Department coincides with the upcoming Iranian election for president which is already shaping up to be another rigged cakewalk for Hassan Rouhani to continue as parliament speaker Ali Larijani publicly threw his support behind Rouhani.

Of further note, Rouhani has been selected as the only candidate of the so-called “Reformists” for the election by the Electoral Supreme Council of Reformists for Policymaking, headed by Mohammad-Reza Aref, who was the sole candidate of the Reformists in the 2013 presidential elections but in the final days ahead of that vote withdrew in favor of Rouhani.

The coronation of Rouhani comes as estimates of the Iranian regime’s military expenditures in Syria have risen a whopping $6 billion a year to $20 billion a year, including $4 billion in direct costs as well as subsidies for Hezbollah and other Iranian-controlled irregulars, according to an editorial by David P. Goldman in Asia Times.

“The Iranian regime is ready to sacrifice the most urgent needs of its internal economy in favor of its ambitions in Syria. Iran cut development spending to just one-third of the intended level as state income lagged forecasts during the three quarters ending last December, according to the country’s central bank. Iran sold $29 billion of crude during the period, up from $25 billion the comparable period last year,” Goldman added.

Goldman went on to describe Iran’s financial system as a “black hole,” and how the regime cannot refinance its arrears, recapitalize its bankrupt banks, and finance a substantial budget deficit at the same time. Its infrastructure requirements are not only urgent, but existential.  The country’s much-discussed water crisis threatens to empty whole cities and displace millions of Iranians, particularly the farmers who consume more than nine-tenths of its disappearing water supply. Despite what the Tehran Times called “a desperate call for action” by Iranian environmental scientists, the government slashed infrastructure spending by two-thirds during the last fiscal year.

This leaves American policy in a quandary. The Obama administration— as Lieutenant General Michael Flynn warned in this and numerous other statements — inadvertently stood godfather to the birth of ISIS by blundering into the milieu of Syrian Sunni rebels.

All of which places a greater emphasis on just who is developing U.S. policy moving forward and why a housecleaning of former Iran lobby associates is necessary.

Michael Tomlinson

Campaign of Disinformation by Iran Regime Revealed

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Campaign of Disinformation by Iran Regime Revealed

Campaign of Disinformation by Iran Regime Revealed

Besides the much-discussed “echo chamber” that arose out of the negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal utilizing a network of so-called experts in academia and organizations such as the National Iranian American Council to push false narratives about the benefits of the deal, the Iranian regime itself has undertaken several initiatives to push other false and misleading narratives to defame the Iranian dissident movement.

At the center of that disinformation campaign lays the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence Services. If Hitler relied on Joseph Goebbels to help spread Nazi propaganda, the mullahs in Tehran rely on the MOIS to do the same job.

To say the MOIS is a shadowy organization is like saying grease is slippery. The MOIS was created out of the former Shah of Iran’s infamous SAVAK intelligence service which had been notorious for its brutal methods.

The mullahs opted to keep much of the former intelligence services more ruthless elements in support of the founding of their religious theocracy. As part of its first missions, it sought to infiltrate many of the democracy and opposition groups in those early years and insidiously target and even assassinate many of its leaders to help secure the mullahs’ rule.

Since then the MOIS has blazed a trail that included an infamous series of assassinations of dissident writers and intellectuals and Iranian political dissidents both inside and outside Iran. Of special importance were members of resistance groups such as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran otherwise known as the Mojahedin-e Khalq.

For the MOIS and the mullahs it serves, nothing is more galling than to have fellow Iranians actively and aggressively resist their rule because as long as Iranians oppose their rule, the pathway exists for regime change and a transition to freedom and democracy.

One of the more aggressive tactics the MOIS has employed to distort the discussion about the Iranian regime’s policies has been the use of former dissident members who were either recruited or coerced into denouncing opposition movements.

Col. Wes Martin (US), former Anti-terrorism/Force Protection Officer of all Coalition forces in Iraq and a frequent news contributor, wrote about the MOIS use of disinformation in the U.S. in a piece in The Hill.

A report commissioned by the Pentagon and released by the Library of Congress provides an alarming look into the operations of Iran’s MOIS right here in the United States, he writes.

“MOIS recruited former members of the (People’s Mujahedin of Iran-PMOI, also known as MEK) in Europe and used them to launch a disinformation campaign against (PMOI),” the report reads.

Among those named in the Pentagon report are Massoud Khodabandeh and his British wife, Anne. They were recruited by the MOIS in the mid-1990s and used as assets against the opposition before launching the ‘Iran-Interlink’ website explicitly under Tehran’s orders, Martin adds.

“The MOIS resorts to character assassination against lawmakers and reporters who hold positive views of the Iranian opposition, aiming to silence their voices,” he said.

Martin cited a 2014 report by iSight Partners which uncovered a three-year espionage campaign, originating in Iran, that used an elaborate scheme involving a fabricated news agency, fake social media accounts and bogus journalist identities to deceive victims in the United States and elsewhere.

Martin went on to cite other fake news sites operated by Khodabandeh such as mesconult.com are hosted by Ravand Cybertech, an entity run by the Iranian regime directly. It is not a coincidence that postings from these sites are often cited in Iranian state-controlled media as “news sources.”

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American scholar, author and U.S. foreign policy specialist and president of the International American Council, also wrote about the more direct introduction of Iranian regime lobbyists and operatives into the U.S. and Europe on the ground to push the regime’s agenda.

“Many argue that some of Iran’s lobbyists work in plain sight and had access to top officials at the White House and State Department; they lobbied for the lifting of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, top state sponsor of terrorism, and subsequently lifting of sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), while demonizing Iranian-Americans who called for firmness against Iran’s ruling clerics and ayatollahs,” he writes.

“Cutting to the chase, it seems that the lobbyists and advocates for the Islamic Republic, next dismiss anyone suggesting the US should respond to this appalling conduct with firmness as a warmonger. But nobody appears to want, or ask for, armed conflict with Iran, so that is not an option,” he adds.

The disconnect between the claims of the Iranian regime’s lobbyists and supporters and the reality of the day grows larger every day. Unfortunately, those who are capable of setting a new standard for disagreeing with the regime even on a subtle level seem to cave to the Iran lobby’s arguments.

One example was a visit by a delegation from Sweden’s self-declared “first feminist government” which folded and enshrouded themselves in head coverings as they met with Hassan Rouhani in a blatant blow to Iran’s feminist movement, which has been under severe attacks by the mullahs.

UN Watch declared in a press release its concern over Sweden’s failure to promote a “gender equality perspective.”

In doing so, the Swedish female politicians ignored the recent appeal by Iranian women’s right activists who urged Europeans female politicians “to stand for [their] own dignity” and refuse to wear the hijab when visiting Iran.

“European female politicians are hypocrites,” says one activist. “Because they stand up with French Muslim women and condemn the burkini ban—because they think compulsion is bad—but when it happens to Iran, they just care about money.”

The scene in Tehran on Saturday was also a sharp contrast to Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lövin’s feminist stance against Trump, in a viral tweet and then in a Guardian op-ed last week, in which she wrote that “the world need strong leadership for women’s rights.”

Linde “sees no conflict” between her government’s human rights policy and signing trade deals with an oppressive dictatorship that tortures prisoners, persecutes gays, and is a leading executioner of minors, UN Watch declared.

We can only hope that world media attention is more tightly focused on the real machinations going on with the Iran lobby and its MOIS taskmasters.

Michael Tomlinson

The News Keeps Getting Worse for Iran Regime and Lobby

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The News Keeps Getting Worse for Iran Regime and Lobby

The News Keeps Getting Worse for Iran Regime and Lobby

To say things aren’t looking so great for the Iranian regime would be stating the obvious at the moment. Even before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, the regime suffered setbacks in Syria requiring the intervention of Russia and at home where gross mismanagement of the economy and rampant corruption coupled with plunging prices for oil sank the Iranian economy further in the red.

Protests mounted at home requiring even more brutal crackdowns, sending another spiral of discontent against the mullahs spreading out like ripples in a pond with a stone tossed in it, but now the mullahs are facing the full brunt of the end of Obama’s appeasement era.

The discussion of designating the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization can be the most effective act if undertaken by the new administration so far and if true, would be a welcome boon to the Iranian dissident movement that have been fighting the IRGC for decades.

According to Reuters officials said several U.S. government agencies have been consulted about such a proposal, which if implemented would add to measures the United States has already imposed on individuals and entities linked to the IRGC.

The IRGC is by far Iran’s most powerful security entity, which also has control over large stakes in Iran’s economy and huge influence in its political system.

Reuters has not seen a copy of the proposal, which could come in the form of an executive order directing the State Department to consider designating the IRGC as a terrorist group. It is unclear whether Trump would sign such an order.

Some of Trump’s more hawkish advisors in the White House have been urging him to increase sanctions on Iran since his administration began to take shape. After tightening sanctions against Iran last week in response to a ballistic missile test, White House officials said the measures were an “initial” step.

The United States has already blacklisted dozens of entities and people for affiliations with the IRGC. In 2007, the U.S. Treasury designated the IRGC’s Quds Force, its elite unit in charge of its operations abroad, “for its support of terrorism,” and has said it is Iranian regime’s “primary arm for executing its policy of supporting terrorist and insurgent groups.”

A designation of the entire IRGC as a terrorist group would potentially have much broader implications, including for the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated between Iran and the United States and other major world powers.

Because the IRGC controls huge swathes of the Iranian economy through a complex web of shell companies, the designation as a terrorist organization could expose almost all of the Iranian economy to potential sanctions, separate and apart from the nuclear deal. This includes industries such as petroleum, telecommunications, healthcare, aviation and agriculture.

Officials said that rather than tearing up the nuclear agreement, the White House might turn instead toward punishing Iranian regime for its support for Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and some Shiite forces in Iraq, as well as covert support for Shiites who oppose the Sunni regime in Bahrain, and cyberattacks on Saudi and other Gulf Arab targets.

Top mullahs Ali Khamenei took his turn to try and blast President Trump in remarks on Tuesday saying the U.S. leader had exposed his country’s “political, economic, ethical and social corruption.”

“We are grateful to this gentleman who has come, grateful because he made it easy for us and showed the U.S.’s real face,” Khamenei said referring to Trump.

On Tuesday White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Mr. Trump would take action “as he sees fit” and “will not take anything off the table.”

“Iran is kidding itself if they don’t realize that there’s a new president in town,” Spicer said.

Middle East security analyst Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council told VOA Persian’s NewsHour program on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s approach toward Iran was very different from that of its predecessor.

“Under the Obama administration, Iran had enormous latitude politically and economically in terms of reaping benefits from the nuclear deal,” said Berman, who serves as senior vice president of the Washington-based conservative research institute.”Under the Trump White House, it is not known whether the nuclear deal is off the table completely, but it is very clear that the new administration is going to pursue a more confrontational approach [toward implementing it].”

Berman based his assessment of the new U.S. policy on what he called the Trump national security team’s “remarkable … commonality of views” about Iran.

“From Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to national security adviser Michael Flynn, there is very deep skepticism about Iranian intentions and whether or not it’s a good idea to continue the nuclear deal, and there’s very deep apprehension about the destabilizing role that Iran can play in the Persian Gulf region,” Berman said. “So I think you see a much more realistic view of Iran beginning to take shape.”

The unpredictability of the new U.S. administration’s future plans may be the motivating factor in the decision by the Iranian regime to hastily scrap a planned missile launch of a longer-range ballistic missile.

The New York Post editorial board attributed the last-minute change to the regime blinking in the face of the tough talk coming from the White House.

“Fox News reports that new satellite imagery, verified by US officials, shows Iran has abruptly removed a new missile that was being prepared for launch as recently as Friday.

“It was a long-range Safir missile — a class that Tehran last launched into space two years ago, and that uses the same components as those needed for an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“The images showed a flurry of activity, including a host of visitors, on the launchpad Feb. 3, the day the missile was first spotted.

“Then, on Tuesday, the missile was gone,” the Post said.

The tough response from Trump was “unlike anything Tehran saw in eight years under President Barack Obama — whose State Department routinely issued reports critical of Iran, but turned a blind eye to the Islamic Republic’s nefarious behavior, not to mention its repeated violations of the sweetheart nuclear deal.”

“It’s a sign that for Iran, the days of wine and roses — and blind-eye treatment — are over. And perhaps an even more welcome sign that tough talk, combined with tough action, really does work,” the Post added.

We couldn’t agree more.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Tries to Deflect from More Sanctions With Smear Campaign

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Iran Lobby Tries to Deflect from More Sanctions With Smear Campaign

Iran Lobby Tries to Deflect from More Sanctions With Smear Campaign

The mullahs in Tehran are probably wondering how things went so bad, so fast for them as the Trump administration followed up it’s tough talk of putting the Iranian regime “on notice” with new sanctions aimed at its ballistic missile program.

The difference from the accommodating Obama administration to the Trump approach to Iran has been night and day and one that must be causing consternation in Tehran. It has also spurred the Iran lobby into action to try and defuse the rising tide of momentum against the Iranian regime.

For the Iran lobby, it is taking a page out of their old playbook to attack and smear anyone even remotely associated with the Iranian resistance movement. The latest example has been the effort to try and smear one of President Trump’s cabinet secretaries and his circle of advisories. In this case, Elaine Chao, confirmed last week as transportation secretary, and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The Associated Press’ Jon Gambrell ran a story saying that Chao, while as a private citizen, was paid a speaking fee from a human rights group associated with an Iranian dissident group that had at one time been placed on the U.S. State Department’s terrorism watch list only to be removed after the facts in question were proven untrue.

Chao herself confirmed she received $50,000 in 2015 for delivering a speech to a rally held in support of human rights in Iran sponsored by a coalition of human rights and dissident groups under the umbrella of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

One of the groups belonging to the coalition is the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), otherwise known as the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran. Giuliani was also a featured speaker and paid an honorarium.

The list of supporters of the Iranian dissident movement though is much broader and bipartisan than the AP intimates, including prominent Republicans such as former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Democrats such as former Sen. Robert Torricelli.

From these loose “facts” the Iran lobby has consistently attempted to peddle a “guilt-by-association” theory, which might work if there was anything to be guilty about. The true facts are that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s own State Department made the decision to remove these Iranian dissident groups from any watch or terror lists and since then, these groups have worked tirelessly on behalf of the Iranian people.

Moreover, these Iranian dissident groups have proven instrumental in revelations about the Iranian regime’s secret practices, including the first leaks made to the public about Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program and its horrific human rights abuses.

All of which makes Gambrell’s story even more ludicrous since he writes himself that the “nothing was prohibited” about the paid speeches both Chao and Giuliani made. He also neglects to make any comparisons on the other side.

For example, even though the Iranian regime and its functionaries such as the Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force remain on the U.S. list of designated sponsors of terrorism and that these groups supplied the IEDs to Shiite militias in Iraq that killed and wounded thousands of U.S. men and women service personnel, the Obama administration felt it okay to engage in active diplomacy and agree to a nuclear deal.

The difference is appalling.

What is even more curious about Gambrell’s article is how he takes the Iranian dissident groups to task for cheerleading against the Iranian regime and recruiting American political leaders to the cause.

Last time we checked, we didn’t see any problems in opposing the public execution of women and children in Iran or the arrest and imprisonment of dual national citizens, including Americans or the use of terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah to eradicate entire Syrian villages of men, women and children.

Gambrell even goes to the deepest, darkest well of lies promoted by the Iran lobby in trying to link these dissident groups to attacks on Americans in 1975 (which he admits, has been rejected by the organization, as all its leaders were in Shah’s SAVAK prisons), but fails to mention the Americans killed by Iranian agents in Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq. At some point, any reasonable journalist would ask the question why is it okay to excuse Iranian regime-sponsored killing of Americans, yet try to appease and accommodate that same regime.

Gambrell’s biggest complaint about the Iranian dissident movement seems to be its effectiveness in fundraising and communicating its message to global media. In that regard, these groups are no different than environmental activists or free trade protestors.

To say these claims have been discredited over and over again would be redundant and eventually pointless since Chao, as transportation secretary, has no influence over foreign policy, unless the U.S. plans on building a new subway in Tehran, but it seems this is the best the Iran lobby can come up with these days as it sees the Trump administration take its first firm steps in finally holding Iran accountable once again.

While the initial sanctions announced by the Trump administration seem relatively minor in scope and effect by targeting Iranian officers and executives tied to the IRGC, it also included related Chinese, Emirati and Iranian business executives for their role as well.

The expansion is important since it broadens the scope of what the U.S. is looking for in terms of suppliers to the regime, but it also signals that the administration is open to widening the net in the future.

U.S. lawmakers are drafting legislation that would require the White House to designate Iran’s elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, as a terrorist organization. Companies owned by the IRGC control large sectors of the Iranian economy, according to the Wall Street Journal.

This is a significant step since a broad terror designation for the IRGC, linked to its web of companies in support of an illicit ballistic missile program could make wide sectors of the Iranian regime’s economy open to new sanctions separate and apart from the nuclear deal.

Hence it would be able to sanction Iran’s most corrupt organizations without having to scrap the nuclear deal as the Iran lobby has warned the new U.S. administration would.

All of which is sure to worry the Iran lobby even more and spur even more scandalous lies and falsehoods.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Put on Notice by Trump Administration

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Iran Regime Put on Notice by Trump Administration

Iran Regime Put on Notice by Trump Administration

At long last we have finally crossed the Rubicon after over two decades of continually trying to appease the Iranian regime, as the Trump administration turned its attention to the militant acts of the Iranian regime with a stern warning that Iran was put “on notice” that the U.S. would no longer tolerate acts such as the test launching of a ballistic missile.

A statement from Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, indicating that Obama’s less confrontational approach toward Iran was now over.

“As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice,” he told reporters in his first appearance in the White House press briefing room.`

Three senior U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a range of options, including economic sanctions, was being considered and that a broad review was being conducted of the U.S. posture toward Iran, according to Reuters.

One official said the intent of Flynn’s message was to make clear the administration would not be “shy or reticent” toward Tehran.

“We are in the process of evaluating the strategic options and the framework for how we want to approach these issues,” the official said. “We do not want to be premature or rash or take any action that would foreclose options or unnecessarily contribute to a negative response.”

The stern warning came after reports surfaced that the intended target of attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea was not Saudi coalition ships, but rather U.S. Navy warships.

The Saudi government confirmed on Monday that Houthis had attacked one of its frigates patrolling the Red Sea near Yemen, killing two crew members and wounding three others.

Ynet News notes the Houthis posted a video of the attack, which appears to show an anti-ship missile hitting a ship, while rebels shout, “Death to America! Death to Israel!” in the background.

On Tuesday afternoon, Fox News reported that the Pentagon believes the attack was indeed carried out by suicide boat, and the intended target was actually an American warship. The Houthis launched missiles at U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea in October, in the same general area as this new attack.

“U.S. defense analysts believe those behind the attack either thought the bomber was striking an American warship or that this was a ‘dress rehearsal’ similar to the attack on the USS Cole,” said one Pentagon official, per Fox News.

Trump and Saudi Arabia’s ruler, King Salman, spoke by phone on Sunday and were described by the White House as agreeing on the importance of enforcing the deal and “addressing Iran’s destabilizing regional activities.”

Trump has frequently criticized the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, calling the agreement weak and ineffective.

While campaigning in September, then-candidate Trump also vowed that any Iranian vessels that harass the U.S. Navy would be “shot out of the water” if he is elected.

The fact that the warning came—not from the State Department—but directly from the White House briefing room with a senior cabinet official is seen as a show of how serious Trump’s position is now on the issue of Iran.

For critics of the Iran deal, the declaration is a sign of Trump’s distancing it’s administration from the past years of appeasement and marks a return to normalcy in the diplomatic approach to the Iranian regime that the previous three presidential administrations pursued.

Flynn’s comments came on the same day that Republicans in the House announced plans for legislation targeting Iran’s support for “terrorism, human rights abuses and ballistic missile program.” Among other steps, the measure would impose new sanctions on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and against people who “knowingly aid” its missile program. Similar legislation was previously introduced in the Senate.

The legislative action has been called for repeatedly by Iranian dissident groups who have urged measures to restrain the IRGC which carries out much of the regime’s most militant and violent actions.

Flynn said the launch was a violation of a United Nations resolution passed shortly after the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers was reached.

“The Obama administration failed to respond adequately to Tehran’s malign actions — including weapons transfers, support for terrorism, and other violations of international norms,” Flynn said.

Resolution 2231 calls on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

Michael Tomlinson

Obama White House Logs Disclose Access to Iran Lobbyists

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Obama White House Logs Disclose Access to Iran Lobbyists

President Barack Obama makes Thanksgiving Day phone calls from the Oval Office to U.S. troops stationed around the world, Nov. 24, 2016. The President’s Coast Guard military aide, LCDR Ginny Nadolny is at right.
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The Washington Free Beacon disclosed that a former Iranian regime official and a leader in the Iran lobby enjoyed unprecedented access to the White House under the Obama administration.

The two were hosted at the White House for more than 30 meetings with top officials at key junctures in the former administration’s contested diplomacy with Iran, according to White House visitor logs that provide a window into the former administration’s outreach to leading pro-Iran advocates, according to the Free Beacon.

Seyed Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and head of the regime’s national security council, was hosted at the White House at least three times, while Trita Parsi, a pro-Iran advocate long accused of hiding his ties to the Iranian government, met with Obama administration officials a stunning 33 times, according to recently updated visitor logs.

Sources familiar with the nature of the meetings told the Washington Free Beacon that both Parsi and Mousavian helped the White House craft its pro-Iran messaging and talking points that helped lead to the nuclear agreement with Iran. These efforts were part of a larger pro-Iran deal “echo chamber” led by senior Obama administration officials who were tasked with misleading Congress about the nature of the deal.

Mousavian, who also served as Iran’s spokesperson during negotiations with the international community on the Iran deal, visited with White House National Security Council official Robert Malley, who advised the former president about the Middle East and the Islamic State terror group.

“Mousavian was Iran’s ambassador to Germany back in the 1990s, when that embassy was the central node of Iran’s European terror network and those in Germany were murdering dissidents in Berlin,” one veteran Iran analyst who frequently works with Congress on the issue told the Free Beacon. “Later he came to the U.S., where he’s being paid for with tens of thousands of dollars from the Ploughshares Fund, which funded the Ben Rhodes echo chamber.”

Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, a group tied to the broader Iran lobbying movement and tied to the Obama White House that helped spearhead a pro-Iran narrative, met with several senior Obama administration officials during dozens of visits to the White House, the logs show.

This included private, one-on-one meetings with Obama adviser Ben Rhodes, who helmed what he described as the White House’s pro-Iran deal “echo chamber,” as well as meetings with Malley and Colin Kahl, national security adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden. Parsi also met with the White House NSC’s director for Iran, its senior director, legislative liaisons, and public engagement officials, according to sources familiar with the nature of these meetings.

In one instance, Parsi was signed into the White House by Solomon Tarlin, a West Wing intern and supporter of the Middle East advocacy group J Street.

Free Beacon quoting an expert on Pentagon writes: “Talk about letting the fox into the hen house. Letting the head of an organization whose foreign policy positions are indistinguishable from the Islamic Republic more than 30 times would be analogous to letting the Soviet Union’s chief lobbyist help guide policy during the Cold War.”

“During the Bush administration, Parsi thought nothing of dining with [Former Iranian President] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his private emails, released as part of a court-ordered discovery process, show that he lied to the U.S. press and coached Iranian officials in order to weaken sanctions and promote the Islamic Republic,” The expert said.

The visitor’s logs reveal the depth of Parsi’s involvement in building the false narrative of the Iran nuclear deal and also may explain why the Obama administration was quick to appease the mullahs in Tehran, by forgoing linking such important issues as ballistic missiles, human rights and terrorism.

With the incoming Trump administration, it is almost assured that Parsi’s access to the White House and key advisors has been reduced to zero, which explains why Parsi now has taken to authoring editorials in a tedious effort to influence a monumental shift in American foreign policy.

In many ways Parsi efforts are more akin to the Little Dutch Boy sticking his finger in dike than his previous august position as White House visitor.

In a piece for Foreign Policy, Parsi trotted out the same, tired talking points: Iran is good. Saudi Arabia is bad. Hard liners will be empowered in Iran. Trump’s cabinet picks are war mongers. Iran does not support proxies.

Parsi’s efforts to try and convince everyone that Iran does not fund and control Hezbollah or Shiite militias in Iraqi or Houthi rebels in Yemen is pathetic and patently false. All anyone has to do is follow the trail of cash and arms from Tehran to all parts of the Middle East and you can see how the Iranian regime sits at the center of the proxy wars in the region.

But Parsi’s efforts may be waning as he and his Iran lobby colleagues shift chaotically from issue to issue in an effort to keep up with the wide ranging agenda of the Trump administration which called for a moratorium on Syrian refugees pending verification of their backgrounds in a nod to the Islamic extremist terror attacks taking place across Europe in Paris, Nice, Brussels and Berlin.

A new poll revealed in the Wall Street Journal that support for Hassan Rouhani among the Iranian people has plummeted as years of war and economic stagnation coupled with unrelenting human rights abuses had sapped his favorability.

The survey results paint a picture of an Iranian public wary and skeptical about the economic benefits they thought it would bring as a result of the Iran Deal.

Conducted in December for the University of Maryland, the survey is based on telephone interviews with 1,000 Iranians and provides a gauge of public opinion in a country where independent polling is rare.

“Rouhani’s popularity is taking a hit primarily because he is perceived to have failed to deliver on his campaign promises,” said the president and chief executive of Toronto-based company which conducted the survey on the school’s behalf.

About 51% said the country’s economic conditions were worsening, up from 43% in June. Almost three-quarters of the Iranians surveyed said the deal hadn’t improved people’s living conditions.

With the presidential election looming in May, it is almost assured that the regime will once again rig the election to deliver a candidate in lock-step with the mullahs’ policies and those of top mullah Ali Khmenei.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Suffering Setbacks on Multiple Fronts

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Iran Regime Suffering Setbacks on Multiple Fronts

Iran Regime Suffering Setbacks on Multiple Fronts

The start of the Trump administration is coinciding with a tougher time for the Iranian regime as it begins to suffer setbacks large and small, causing anxiety amongst the mullahs in Tehran as they try to figure out how to deal with President Trump.

Their initial comments to the new president were cautious and low key as Iranian regime Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told reporters on Monday that the Islamic state had no immediate pronouncement on Trump.

Ghasemi says that it’s “too soon to assess him and analyze his remarks, stance and the framework of his viewpoints.”

Ghasemi’s remarks mark the first official comment from Iran on Trump since his inauguration as the 45th American president.

That lack of response may be calculated to minimize the risk of antagonizing Trump or be placed in the infamous target of his tweeting habits which have laid low his political opponents, but for Iran the news to start the week only looked worse.

In the Syrian peace talks that began in Astana, Kazakhstan, Syrian rebel groups have rejected a plan that allows the Iranian regime to play a role in monitoring the ceasefire.

The proposal for a trilateral ceasefire commission, overseen jointly by the talks’ sponsors, is the most specific new measure set out in a draft communique the Russians hope to release on Tuesday, the second and closing day of the talks.

The Syrian fighting groups believe militia linked to Iran, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, are – along with Bashar al-Assad’s government – systematically breaching the ceasefire agreed on 29 December. The Syrian fighters believe Iranian regime, as perpetrators of innumerable ceasefire breaches, cannot credibly monitor or enforce a ceasefire, according to the Guardian.

As well as the ceasefire commission proposal, the leaked draft communique also broadly supports the existing UN talks process and calls for joint action to defeat Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Syria.

The fact that Syrian rebel groups actively engaged in fighting Syrian and Iranian regime military units have a seat at the table at last marks a significant step forward in diminishing Iranian influence in the long conflict.

The Syrian civil war erupted over opposition to harsh crackdowns by the Assad regime on the Syrian people and gaining momentum when Iranian regime opted to back Assad with Hezbollah fighters and cash to prop up the regime. The conflict escalated when the Iranian regime recruited Afghan mercenaries, Iraqi Shiite militias and eventually brought Russia into the civil war.

The prospect of peace talks moving forward that pushes the Iranian regime out of the way must be causing severe handwringing in Tehran, but more bad news came for Iran as Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that they seized a shipment of missile system components bound for Iran, according to official statements that could put the Islamic state in violation of international bans on such behavior.

The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, or DPSU, announced late last week that it had seized at least 17 boxes filled with missile components bound for Iran, according to IHS Jane’s.

“The DPSU said that, during an inspection of the aircraft on 19 January, its personnel had found 17 boxes with no accompanying documents, which the aircraft’s crew said contained an aircraft repair kit,” according to the report. “Three boxes contained components that were believed to be for a Fagot anti-tank guided missile system, the rest contained aircraft parts.”

Days after this finding, the DPSU said that it had confirmed the missile components were destined for Iran’s Fagot system.

Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser and expert on rogue regimes, said that Iran has been illicitly moving such weapons for quite some time.

“This isn’t the first time Iran has gotten caught red handed smuggling weapons with false manifests, for example, in 2010 in Nigeria,” Rubin said. “The question is how often does Iran get away with such smuggling and for what purpose? After all, if the weaponry is legal, there’s no reason for lying. If it’s not, Iran is violating international agreements. Either way, only fools and secretaries of state would trust Iran to uphold its agreements.”

While many countries around the world listened with concern to Trump’s protectionist inaugural address, Gulf Arab officials appear optimistic. In Gulf Arab eyes, that involves above all checking what they see as a surge of Iranian support for paramilitary allies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon and for fellow Shi’ite Muslims in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s oil-producing Eastern Province.

There have been tensions over Syria, where Obama dismissed Gulf Arab urgings to give more aid to rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, who has survived thanks to Iranian backing.

“Perception is important: Trump does not look like the kind of guy who will bend towards Iran or anyone else,” said Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a veteran Saudi commentator.

“If he behaves as he says, then we will see another Ronald Reagan, someone all the forces in the region will take seriously. That’s what we have missed in the past eight years, unfortunately.”

We can only hope that the Gulf States are right about the new president.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Reduced to Picking at Crumbs with Trump Inauguration

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Iran Lobby Reduced to Picking at Crumbs with Trump Inauguration

Iran Lobby Reduced to Picking at Crumbs with Trump Inauguration

Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Physics is that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” For the Iran lobby, after enjoying rare support for a policy of appeasing the Iranian regime under the Obama administration culminating in the nuclear deal reached last year, the pendulum has swung full circle with the swearing in of Donald Trump as the president of the United States.

Just as the Iran lobby worked to support the “echo chamber” of fabrications, fake news and misleading analysis used to help push the nuclear agreement, it now is left picking up the few crumbs thrown about in the hopes of salvaging anything it had gained.

A perusal of the website for the National Iranian American Council, one of the mainstays of the Iran lobby, revealed just how feeble life has become in the wake of Trump’s ascension with the posting of news articles designed to give to the impression that the Trump administration was backing away from tearing up the nuclear deal or confronting the Iranian regime:

The headlines are a far cry from last year in which the NIAC was busy trumpeting the good news of the mullahs set to receive billions of dollars as economic sanctions were being lifted.

Now Trita Parsi and his colleagues are left hoping for the best and trying to read the tea leaves of confirmation hearings knowing that Trump and his cabinet have already established the biggest single departure from the Obama administration which is Iran must be held accountable for its behavior and no longer given a free hall pass for its many abuses.

This is the essential difference between Trump and Obama in that Trump sees everything through the lens of a business deal and negotiation, whereas Obama saw it through the political lens of historical achievement and publicity.

For Trump, the Iran nuclear deal is not really a question of tearing it up or not, but rather asking the most basic question that Obama did not ask which is “what do we want Iran to do or not do in exchange for this agreement?”

Obama too easily caved in to Iranian demands to separate key issues such as human rights and support for terrorism and the mullahs knew the pressure of time and politics were pushing Obama. Trump does not seem to have any of those concerns as he starts his presidency. Therefore one possible scenario is that if Trump and Putin can agree on settling Syria by pushing Iran out of the equation, overnight the prospects for the mullahs’ political future becomes as dim as a burned out light bulb.

This realignment in the Middle East would eliminate the Iranian regime’s leverage of playing one superpower off against the other and leave it increasingly isolated.

Sir David Amess, a member of the British House of Commons, wrote in Forbes that to resolve the situation in Syria, Iranian influence has to be removed.

“The siege of Aleppo should prove to the international community how destructive the role of Assad’s Tehran backers are. For all the crimes of the Syrian army, it seemed poised to let rebels and civilians evacuate the city in the immediate aftermath of the conquest. The Russian defense ministry offered guarantees that a humanitarian pathway would remain open, and hundreds of evacuees went on to pass through a Russian checkpoint on their way out,” Amess said.

“However on a Wednesday in mid-December, at least 1,000 of those same people were stopped along the evacuation route, at a checkpoint controlled by Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and their militant proxies. This move came after the Iranians single-handedly altered the ceasefire that had been agreed upon the day before. Within a day of that move, the ceasefire appeared to have been violated, with ambulance drivers and rescue workers coming under sniper fire. The Iranian opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) even identified the command base of the IRGC for Aleppo operations,” he added.

Amess is correct when he says the international community must compel Iran through political and financial pressure to step away from the conflict in order to negotiate a lasting ceasefire agreement. If Trump and Putin can achieve common group, a clear pathway would then exist to structure a lasting solution in Syria that does not involve Iran.

That scenario terrifies the mullahs in Tehran and rightly so.

Michael Tomlinson