Iran Lobby

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

Iran Regime Desperate for Foreign Policy Wins

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Iran Regime Desperate for Foreign Policy Wins

Soldiers loyal to Yemen’s government stand next to mines planted by the al-Houthi group in locations where they controlled in frontline in the province of Marib, October 4, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Next May Iran will hold a presidential “election” that will lack for one thing: suspense. In the Iranian regime, uncertainty is anathema to the mullahs, especially Ali Khamenei and his handpicked minions on the various parliamentary councils that review and decide which candidates will appear on the ballot.

For all the handwringing and angst being generated by the Iran lobby over the perceived vulnerability of current president Hassan Rouhani, there is no doubt that if Khamenei wants Rouhani back to carry out his policies, he’s going to be the next president.

Given that certainty, the domestic situation for the ruling mullahs is anything but favorable to them. The Iranian economy remains stuck in reverse. Any hopes for it to be jumpstarted by the billions of dollars released as part of the nuclear agreement evaporated as the mullahs chose to redirect those funds to support the teetering Assad regime in Syria and the war in Yemen, as well as go on a multi-billion dollar buying binge of Russia weapons.

Unemployment remains high, especially among Iranian youth, coupled with rising prices for everything from fuel to consumer goods. Add that to miserable environmental conditions that have resulted in long droughts that have devastated farming and turned vast stretches of Iran into desert, and you get massive street protests—not about politics, but about economic conditions.

The mullahs are not fools, they are crafty political hands, adept at deception and misdirection, and they have dredged up another diversion in constantly pitting Iran in perpetual cycles of war and foreign policy crisis.

If it wasn’t the Syrian civil war, it was the rebellion in Yemen. If it wasn’t the sectarian conflict in Iraq, it was the decades-long civil war in Lebanon. Throughout all of it, the mullahs have used foreign policy to divert attention from the misery at home and gin up a jingoistic fervor.

Now as Iran stares at another presidential election, the mullahs don’t want a repeat of 2009 where massive street protests were violently put down in response to cries of a rigged election.

This explains why Rouhani has made a trek to Moscow to call upon Russia to serve as a guarantor of sorts for Iranian regime’s interests in Syria. Rouhani is dangling the prospect of forming a mutual barrier to U.S. policy interests in the Middle East, as well as the tempting offer of access to Iranian bases for Russian military forces.

Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif reopened the door to Russian use of Iranian airbases to carry out strikes in Syria, in another sign of increasing cooperation between the two countries, according to the Daily Caller.

Russia carried out some airstrikes on Syria from an Iranian airbase in August, but was later rebuked by Iranian authorities for bragging about it. After Russian state media trumpeted the strike as a major strategic coup, Iran’s minister of defense accused them of a “betrayal of trust” publicly. He declared at the time, “it is finished, for now.”

Zarif signaled that this time-out may be over saying “Russia doesn’t have a military base (in Iran), we have good cooperation, and on a case by case basis, when it is necessary for Russians fighting terrorism to use Iranian facilities, we will make a decision.”

In Moscow, Rouhani and Putin signed several bilateral agreements that served as window dressing for these kinds of state visits. The two leaders affirmed their commitment to peace in Syria, where they have both backed the Assad regime, as well as introducing new economic cooperation mostly in energy and industry, especially calls for reduction in oil production as a means of boosting global oil prices.

 

Both nations’ economies have been severely impacted by the steep decline in petroleum as a result of stepped up production from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

 

Though Moscow and Tehran both support Assad, their views on Turkey and its involvement in the conflict have differed. Though Moscow envisions Ankara as a part of the solution to the Syrian conflict, Tehran has been more wary – particularly after Moscow and Ankara left Tehran out of a truce they brokered in December, according to Voice of America News.

 

Aside from the photo opportunities for Rouhani, the Iranian regime stayed the course in maintaining its ever-increasing variety of militant and extremes actions, including reports of a renewed military commitment to Houthi rebels in Yemen in an increasingly volatile war that threatens to drag Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States into direct conflict with Iran.

A group of analysts known for research in global security threats said in a new report that the increase in Iranian involvement is to offset the gains made by Yemeni government troops supported by the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces.

An increased Iranian role will prolong Yemen’s civil war and make the conflict more sectarian, worsening Yemen’s humanitarian crisis and allowing Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to expand its support base within Yemen, according to Gulf News.

“The deployment of inter-operable proxy forces is part of Iran’s evolution of a form of hybrid warfare that will allow it to project significant force far from its borders and fundamentally alter the balance of power in the region. Iran may increase its engagement in Yemen if US support for the Saudi-led coalition threatens the Al Houthi-Saleh faction’s survival,” they said.

The Critical Threats Project run by the public policy think tank the American Enterprise Institute has published the analysis on their website, providing information on Iranian military assistance to Yemeni rebels.

“Iran may attempt to incorporate the Al Houthis into its Axis of Resistance coalition, which Iran uses to contain the US and its regional allies,” the report stresses, warning that further escalation in the Yemeni civil war will threaten freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, risking both global commercial markets and the US Navy’s freedom of movement in the region.”

The analysis claimed that Iran had attempted to smuggle over 2,000 small arms into Yemen in 2015 and 2016, in addition to a large stockpile of other weapons.

“Iran likely facilitated the development of an Al Houthi-Saleh naval mining program. Mines struck a government coast guard ship near Mokha port, Taiz governorate on March 11 and a fishing vessel near Midi district, northwestern Hajjah governorate on March 8. Iran provides sophisticated weaponry that allows the Al Houthi-Saleh faction to hold terrain, counter Saudi-led coalition capabilities, and threaten US freedom of movement in the Red Sea,” the report warned.

As the flashes go off in Moscow, the rest of the Middle East is dreading what next chapter of hell the Iranian regime is set to unleash.

Michael Tomlinson

There is No Battle Between Moderates and Hardliners in Iran

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There is No Battle Between Moderates and Hardliners in Iran

There is No Battle Between Moderates and Hardliners in Iran

One of the cornerstones of the Iran lobby’s messaging has been the contention that a monumental battle is being waged in Iran between moderate elements in the Iranian regime and hardline conservatives intent on winning at all costs.

To the extent hardliners want to hang onto their power that part of the story is correct, but the image of moderates existing and having a meaningful role within the regime government is as illusory as a mirage of a desert oasis to a thirsty wanderer.

The regime’s leadership, under the hard rule of Ali Khamenei, has done a methodical job of eliminating any shred of moderate opposition. Ever since the original Islamic revolution was taken over by the religious clerics that now run Tehran, the regime has systematically arrested, imprisoned, tortured and executed anyone publicly voicing a dissenting point of view.

This has even extended to targeting and attack Iranian dissidents outside of Iran; the most notably example are members of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, one of the largest and oldest resistance groups to the mullahs. Many of these PMOI members had resided in refugee camps in Iraq that were constantly under attack by Iranian operatives, as well as local Shiite militias acting on Iranian control.

The most egregious example of Iran’s crushing of dissent was on display in the wake of the 2009 presidential elections in which mass demonstrations by ordinary Iranians was met with bullets and mass arrests that led to a near daily parade to the gallows.

Before each election cycle since, the regime has instituted broad crackdowns to remove any dissenting views. This has included mass arrests of journalists, bloggers, politicians, activists and even students and artists.

The regime’s highest policy making bodies have also ensured that only carefully vetted and approved candidates were on the ballot for presidential and parliamentary elections which is why Hassan Rouhani was elected before and may be re-elected this May and Iran’s parliament remains firmly in the control of the ruling mullahs.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, president of the International American Council and a leading expert on Iran and U.S. foreign policy, wrote about this Iran lobby myth in Arab News.

The truth is that Iran’s moderates are a critical part of the political establishment. Many of them, including the current President Hassan Rouhani, were robust supporters or founding fathers of the Islamic Republic’s Shiite theocracy. These “moderates,” such as the late former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, were once called “hard-liners,” Rafizadeh writes.

“In addition, it is crucial to point out that to be a politician in Iran, your loyalty to the core pillars of the political establishment should be firmly proven. Vilayat-e Faqih is the core pillar of Shiite political thought expounded by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and forces a guardianship-based political system on the people, and requires that a Shiite religious figure be the leader of the nation,” he adds.

The terms “moderates” and “hardliners” are also a Western invention and not used in Iranian politics according to Rafizadeh. Consequently, the Iranian regime makes no distinction in political allegiances. You are either a loyal member of the regime or you are not. If you are not, your ticket is punched for a trip to Evin Prison.

The Iran lobby uses these terms with Western media in order to create the appearance of fissures in Iran’s political system where there is none.

“Iran’s supreme leader and the senior cadre of IRGC hold the final say when it comes to Iran’s foreign policy. They also have significant control over Iran’s economic, financial, and political sectors. For example, at the end of the presidential term of the so-called ‘moderate’ Hassan Rouhani, Iran has not altered its policies toward Syria, in supporting President Bashar Assad, along with Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and other nations’ domestic affairs. In fact, it has intensified its expansionist policies through its military and additional revenues,” Rafizadeh said.

Since 1979 Iran has not altered the cornerstone of its foreign policy and revolutionary principles regardless of who was president and therein lays the harshest rebuttal to the Iran lobby. If Iran was indeed going to moderate its behavior as a result of the nuclear deal as the National Iranian American Council insisted on, then where has the emptying of Iran’s prisons begun of political prisoners?

Ultimately the price being paid by Iran’s religious and ethnic minorities such as Kurds, Christians, Sunni, Arabs and others demonstrate exactly how little has changed in Iran since 1979.

Not surprisingly, there has been a marked increase in human rights abuses including the ghastly use of acid in attacks against women.

After almost a year of calm, spraying people with burning acid has returned in Iran where a family of four has been attacked on Saturday in Sharada, within Isfahan province, Iran’s top tourist destination, according to Al-Arabiya.

Last month, unidentified people also attacked two women in Maashour, within the Ahwaz province, according to Iranian news agencies.

Isfahan’s Investigative Police Chief Sitar Khasraoui said in press statement that the families were taken to the hospital to treat the burns. The family consists of the father, 53, the mother, 48, the son, 23, and the daughter, 20. Both parents are said to be in critical condition.

In 2014, attacks in Isfahan shocked the public and provoked a major protest there from citizens who demanded better security and action over such violent crimes.

Reports on social networks have claimed that the victims were doused on the face and body because they were not properly veiled. They were targeted by assailants on motorcycles.

The next time the Iran lobby professes that moderates are battling for control in Iran, one might ask if that battle is being done from the back of a motorcycle.

Laura Carnahan

 

 

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

In Iran the Plight of Women Contradicts International Women’s Day

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In Iran the Plight of Women Contradicts International Women’s Day

Iranian demonstrators march after weekly Friday prayers in Tehran on July 8, 2011 during a protest asking the government to intensify its crackdown on women and men to enforce the Islamic dress code. AFP PHOTO/ATTA KENARE (Photo credit should read ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)

The world is taking part in International Women’s Day in a myriad of ways; some of it commercial offering to donate $100 to the cause of your choice, and other’s political with marches planned in the U.S. protesting a wide range of issues from reproductive rights to opposition to administration’s policies.

Women the world over are gathering to reinforce their solidarity with their gender and to support issues of concern to them. It’s an annual spectacle that for many celebrates the freedom and opportunities women are now enjoying everywhere…except in the Iranian regime.

Although International Women’s Day has been around since 1908, its origins as a fight for equal pay and voting rights has morphed into the hashtag #IWD and lost some of its fervor. It’s also at times celebrated not as a call to political arms, but now used to tout corporate branding campaigns emphasizing a product or company’s openness to women.

Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that in many places in the world, women continue to be treated as second-class citizens or even property of their husbands and fathers. Nowhere is that more brutally explicit than in Iran where the ruling mullahs have consistently passed laws that would make any Western feminist breath fire in reaction.

The Iran lobby has tried to cover up this fact by praising window-dressing efforts to empower women in Iran, but those efforts have rung hollow in the face of escalating brutality aimed specifically at women.

Shahriar Kia, a political analyst and member of the Iranian opposition, the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, outlined some of these practices in a piece for American Thinker.

“Iranian regime President Hassan Rouhani has recently been making remarks about women’s rights (!) in an attempt to cloak his portion of the Iranian regime’s misogynist report card,” Kia writes. “In his own memoirs, from page 571 to 573, Rouhani explains in detail how in 1980 he began enforcing mandatory hijab regulations as the mullahs began their historical campaign against Iranian women.”

Rouhani’s tenure has also been the hallmark home of systematic oppression against women, workers, college students, writers, journalists, dissident bloggers; imposing poverty and unemployment on a majority of Iranians; continuous threats made against the media; punishment of political prisoners have increased significantly even in comparison to the years of Iran’s firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. During Rouhani’s human rights violations-stained tenure, an average of two to three people have been executed on a daily basis, Kia adds.

The mistreatment of women in Iran extends also to non-Iranian women citizens as in the appalling treatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British charity worker who was sentenced to prison for five years by a secret Iranian regime court and has been abused and denied much-needed medical care and given the option of only be able to see her child in prison.

Last year a UN body of human rights experts described her detention as “arbitrary” and said she had been denied a fair trial, according to the Telegraph.

This week, the UN released a new report on human rights in Iran, written by Asma Jahangir, the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran.

From the outset, it is clear that there has been no marked improvement in human rights in the Gulf nation, despite President Hassan Rouhani signing a Citizens’ Rights Charter in December 2016.

The 14,000-word report discusses both ongoing cases of abuse (like the execution of juveniles) and urgent situations (like the fate of political prisoners denied medical care).

Jahangir, who spoke to non-governmental organizations, intellectuals, lawyers and victims to ensure the accuracy of this report, also covers torture, the bias judicial system, free speech and women’s rights and clearly details just how far human rights, especially for women, have sunk in Iran.

For its part, the Iranian regime as usual blasted the UN report and defended the indefensible in its human rights situation.

In an address to a high-level meeting of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi denounced a recent resolution raised in the council as “totally baseless and unacceptable,” claiming that political use of human rights by certain countries would pose a real challenge to the council’s goals and undermine and discredit the UN body, according to regime-controlled Tasnim News.

The UN report stated that “the Islamic Republic of Iran has reportedly executed the highest number of juvenile offenders in the world during the past decade. Despite an absolute ban on the practice under international law, the penal code continues to explicitly retain the death penalty for boys of at least fifteen lunar years of age and girls of at least 9 lunar years for qisas (retribution in kind) or hudud crimes, like homicide, adultery or sodomy.”

“The Special Rapporteur urges the Islamic Republic of Iran to take proactive steps to promote the full realization of the rights of human rights defenders and to refrain from any acts that violate the rights of human rights defenders because of their human rights work. The government should take strict measures to ensure that the security and intelligence apparatus does not use reprisals against families of those who monitor or campaign against human rights violations or express views that are contrary to government policies,” the report added.

Aside from the cruelty of human rights in Iran, which includes severe punishments for even minor infractions such as not wearing traditional hijab head coverings, Iranian women are denied economic growth and access to good paying jobs.

According to a Pew Research Center analysis of labor force statistics from 114 nations from 2010 to 2016, the median female share of a nation’s workforce was 45.4%, but in the case of Iran, women made up only a paltry 17.4% of the workforce, ranking near the bottom among all countries.

For all of the talk of empowerment and moderation in Iran by the regime and its Iran lobby supporters, the truth is dismal and the outlook for women even bleaker.

The next time women march for Women’s Day, it might be worth remembering the millions of Iranian women who are denied their futures and can’t even march in protest for fear of arrest and imprisonment.

 

Iranian Regime Keeps Pushing Extremism In Spite of Controversy

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Iranian Regime Keeps Pushing Extremism In Spite of Controversy

Iranian Regime Keeps Pushing Extremism In Spite of Controversy

While fierce debate rages over President Trump’s executive orders on immigration from seven nations with ties to terrorism, including Iran and Syria, the Iranian regime is using this as a distraction while it continues its efforts to keep pushing its extremist actions across the region.

Chief among them was a resumption of ballistic missile test launches in violation of existing restrictions by the U.S. and United Nations. The launch, which took place at a site more than 130 miles east of Tehran, is Iran’s first real test of the Trump administration.

The missile was tracked flying southward 650 miles before exploding when its reentry vehicle failed, according to officials who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on intelligence.

The missile has been tested before, officials said, most recently in July 2016, according to the Los Angeles Times.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Monday that the administration was aware the test took place, but wouldn’t provide additional information.

“We’re looking into that,” he said. “We’re aware that Iran fired that missile. We’re looking into the exact nature of it, and I’ll try to have more for you later.”

Christopher Harmer, a military analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a nonpartisan public policy group in Washington, said that it’s impossible to know if Tehran conducted the test as a response to the president’s action, but that the test also serves as propaganda.

“Iran is always working on every aspect of its missile program: better guidance, more payload capacity, and better reliability,” he said. “They test often so it’s difficult to say for sure whether this is a response to the travel ban, but the timing is suspect.”

Trump, as a presidential candidate, was deeply critical of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, calling it “the worst deal ever negotiated.”

U.N. Resolution 2231, passed shortly after the nuclear deal was signed, 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.”

The U.N. will now determine whether the launch was a violation at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to be held Tuesday.

Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condemned Iran for the missile test.

“No longer will Iran be given a pass for its repeated ballistic missile violations, continued support of terrorism, human rights abuses and other hostile activities that threaten international peace and security,” Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, said in a written statement.

President Trump on Sunday spoke with King Salman of Saudi Arabia, a conversation in which the two “agreed on the importance of rigorously enforcing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran and of addressing Iran’s destabilizing regional activities,” the White House said in a statement.

A ballistic missile launch could potentially fall under “destabilizing regional activities.”

The launch also came a day before Jordan’s King Abdullah arrived in Washington for meetings with Vice President Pence and Defense Secretary Mattis as the administration ramped up meetings with Iran’s neighbors to forge a consensus on dealing with the Iranian regime.

The ballistic missile launch wasn’t the end of Iran’s aggressions as Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked a Saudi warship in the Red Sea Monday killing two sailors and wounding two others according to Fox News.

The Saudi frigate, Al Madinah, was conducting routine operations in the southern Red Sea when the attack occurred.

In October, U.S. Navy warships came under missile attack by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the same area of the southern Red Sea just north of the Bab al Mandab Strait.

For the first time in history, a U.S. destroyer successfully shot down incoming enemy missiles using SM-2 missiles in the October attack.

Days later Tomahawk cruise missile launched from the USS Nitze destroyed the Houthi radar installations responsible for firing on the U.S. warships.

The Iranian kept up its loud propaganda efforts by issuing official statements saying it would stop using the U.S. dollar in its official statements; an and ultimately futile gesture.

The decision was announced by Central Bank of Iran governor Valiollah Seif during a television interview on the evening of January 29 and, according to the paper, is due to take effect from the start of the new fiscal year on 21 March. It will affect all official financial and foreign exchange reports.

No doubt the move was aimed at making a response to the visa controversy, but if this was the extent of the Iranian regime’s response, it clearly demonstrates how feeble and weak it is in protesting the decision.

It also underscores the fact that the Iranian regime is already excluded from accessing U.S. currency exchanges as part of existing sanctions placed for the regime’s role in supporting terrorism.

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

Iranian Regime Under Pressure Everywhere

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Iranian Regime Under Pressure Everywhere

Iranian Regime Under Pressure Everywhere

Like some rodent prey being squeezed by a python, the Iranian regime’s mullahs are finding themselves under pressure from all quarters as they find themselves under scrutiny for human rights violations, its militant actions and the deeply flawed nuclear agreement.

The central and most consistent issue confronting the Iranian regime has been its abysmal human rights record which continually has drawn international condemnation for the oppression of dissidents, abuse of women and children, heinous public execution of prisoners and widespread use of torture on political prisoners.

Groups such as Amnesty International have consistently documented these abuses and tried to draw international attention to the suffering at the hands of the mullahs. In its most recent report, Amnesty International described the widespread of medieval punishments including some of the most barbaric practices.

Iran’s persistent use of cruel and inhuman punishments, including floggings, amputations and forced blinding over the past year, exposes the authorities’ utterly brutal sense of justice, said Amnesty International.

Hundreds are routinely flogged in Iran each year, sometimes in public. In the most recent flogging case recorded by Amnesty International, a journalist was lashed 40 times in Najaf Abad, Esfahan Province, on 5 January after a court found him guilty of inaccurately reporting the number of motorcycles confiscated by police in the city.

“The authorities’ prolific use of corporal punishment, including flogging, amputation and blinding, throughout 2016 highlights the inhumanity of a justice system that legalizes brutality. These cruel and inhuman punishments are a shocking assault on human dignity and violate the absolute international prohibition on torture and other ill-treatment,” said Randa Habib, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“The latest flogging of a journalist raises alarms that the authorities intend to continue the spree of cruel punishments we have witnessed over the past year into 2017.”

According to Amnesty International, under Iranian regime law, more than 100 “offenses” are punishable by flogging. These cover a wide array of acts, ranging from theft, assault, vandalism, defamation and fraud to acts that should not be criminalized at all such as adultery, intimate relationships between unmarried men and women, “breach of public morals” and consensual same-sex sexual relations.

Many of those flogged in Iran are young people under the age of 35 who have been arrested for peaceful activities such as publicly eating during Ramadan, having relationships outside of marriage and attending mixed-gender parties.

The Amnesty International report goes on to document a long list of heinous punishments inflicted by the regime on its own people.

Besides pressure being brought Amnesty International, potential avenues of dialogue may finally be opening between an incoming U.S. administration and Iranian resistance groups that have helped shine a bright light on transgressions by the Iranian regime, not only human rights abuses, but also its then-secret nuclear weapons program.

With the Trump administration taking office, a ripple effect has been moving out affecting the Iranian regime in all sorts of ways, including concern coming from commercial aircraft leasing companies that may be having second thoughts about doing business with the Iranian regime in these uncertain times.

Even though Iran’s flag carrier, Iran Air, last week received the first new jetliner from Airbus, and last year finalized deals to buy 100 planes from the European plane maker and another 80 from Boeing, big aircraft lessors still are reluctant to do business in Iran. “We will remain cautious,” said John Plueger, chief executive of Air Lease Corp.

Trump has voiced skepticism about the Iran accord and “we have to be mindful of that,” Air Lease Corp.’s Plueger said Tuesday at an Airline Economics forum.

U.S. critics of the Iran deal have tried to block financing of the planes. Members of the House of Representatives this week introduced a bill to force the Trump administration’s director of national intelligence to investigate whether planes operated by Iran Air or other carriers are being used to support terrorism.

“We’re asking the intelligence community to provide a full accounting of Iran’s use of commercial airlines to support its global network of terror proxies” including in Syria, Rep. Peter J. Roskam (R-IL) said in a statement Tuesday.

Businesses are worried the U.S. may reimpose sanctions. “There is a substantial snap-back risk,” said Olaf Sachau, chief executive of Intrepid Aviation. Although he sees Iran as an attractive market for plane-leasing companies to do businesses, the U.S. election outcome means tapping the market isn’t on the agenda for now.

These uncertainties have taken the shine off of the anniversary of the nuclear agreement as Hassan Rouhani has tried to celebrate it. Rohani has been saddled by the high expectations he set, as Iran’s economy continues to struggle and the great boost in foreign investment and other benefits he envisioned has so far failed to materialize mostly as a result of the lack of capabilities within the ruling elite and for spending much of the cash in promoting the war in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc and on empowering the IRGC at home for domestic repression.

The Iranian currency, the rial, hit a record low against the dollar in recent weeks, prompting fears that efforts to boost the exports of industrial goods will suffer and anticipated foreign goods will be prohibitively costly. The unemployment rate is on the rise, reaching 11.3 percent in 2016 compared to 10.8 in 2015.

In a nutshell, the limited economic progress Rohani’s government has made has yet to trickle down to the average Iranian household in terms of jobs, salaries, and the prices of basic goods. This is something that none other than top mullah Ali Khamenei had to admit, saying in August that Iranians had yet to see a “tangible effect” in their daily lives.

Khamenei has sharpened his criticism. He has continued to emphasize a “resistance economy” aimed at boosting domestic production for export and warned against Western “infiltration” by way of the agreement, highlighting the fact that the mullah’s regime is incapable of making any radical change in country’s economy.

He may be recognizing that as the Iranian regime is getting squeezed again, he and his fellow mullahs will need to crack down harder to keep their tenuous hold on the Iranian people.

Laura Carnahan

Trump Effect on Iran Already Seen in Syrian Talks

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Trump Effect on Iran Already Seen in Syrian Talks

Trump Effect on Iran Already Seen in Syrian Talks

Donald Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet and his effect on U.S. foreign policy is already being felt throughout the Middle East:

  • Saudi Arabia is cautiously optimistic that the policy of trying to appease the Iranian regime under the Obama administration is at an end and that U.S. policy will once again shift back to traditional alliances in the regime that provided security for U.S. allies for the past 50 years;
  • After inserting itself into the Syrian civil war at the behest of the Iranian regime, Russia is now preparing to open new avenues of cooperation with the Trump administration even if Iran is vehemently opposed to them; and
  • The Iranian regime has reaped quick benefits from the Obama administration and the nuclear deal it negotiated including receiving $10 billion in cash and gold, but now is desperate to rake in as much cash as possible with the looming potential of the spigot being shut off by Trump.

A much ballyhooed summit is planned in the Kazakhstan capital of Astana this weekend to discuss a pathway for peaceful resolution of the Syrian conflict, involving Russia, Iran and Turkey, but now Iran is protesting Russia’s proposal to include the U.S. in these talks once Trump assumes office.

Iranian regime foreign minister Javad Zarif stated the regime’s opposition to the U.S. participating in what the regime hoped would be a photo opp moment in the diplomatic limelight for the mullahs in Tehran with these talks.

“We have not invited the U.S. and oppose their presence” at the talks, Zarif said, according to Iran’s Press TV.

Whether Iran would refuse to attend if the United States were invited was not immediately clear. The talks are part of a three-way process led by Russia and including Turkey and Iran — now the three most powerful international players on the ground in Syria. The process is aimed at forging a settlement in Syria after the failure of the Obama administration’s diplomacy, according to the Washington Post.

The opening round is expected to be a modest affair, with representatives of Syrian rebels meeting with members of the Syrian government to discuss the modalities of a shaky cease-fire that went into effect on Dec. 29, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow. Representatives of the invited countries will attend in the role of observers, rather than participants.

Although Iran is one of the three sponsors of the peace talks, it has not signed the agreement reached between Russia and Turkey that launched the cease-fire, suggesting that Tehran has reservations about an effort that could potentially erode its extensive influence in Syria.

Both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have said they regard Syria as one of the areas in which the United States and Russia could cooperate more closely. Trump has said on a number of occasions that he hopes better relations with Moscow will help counterbalance Iran’s expanding regional role.

That expansion and deepening relationship between Russia and the U.S. could very well leave the Iranian regime out in the cold and without the ability to leverage the two superpowers against each other for its own gain.

Iran has been instrumental in providing the manpower and resources that have helped Assad’s government hold the rebellion at bay. Thousands of Iranian-trained Shiite militia fighters from Iraq and Afghanistan are on the front lines, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah is at the forefront of most of the major battles, and Iranian military advisers and commanders are embedded with them in many locations around the country.

All of those gains could be erased should Trump and Putin see eye-to-eye on the necessity to rein in Islamic extremism and view Iran as the regional godfather of radicalized Islamic terror.

That prospect is frankly freaking out the Iranian regime and Hassan Rouhani took to state-owned airwaves to try and keep its attachment to Russia as close as Siamese twins.

“Iran, Russia and Turkey managed to bring a ceasefire to Syria … It shows these three powers have influence,” Rouhani said. “The (Syrian) armed groups have accepted the invitation of these three countries and are going to Astana.”

Asked why the United States and Saudi Arabia had no direct role in the talks, Rouhani said: “Some countries are not attending the talks, and their role was destructive. They were helping the terrorists.”

The prospect of a Trump presidency and realignment with Russia has caused the mullahs to issue pronouncements on a daily basis to try and spin the potential outcomes for the regime after January 20th; most of them bad for the mullahs.

Rouhani went on television to insist that any effort to “renegotiate” the nuclear agreement by Trump is “meaningless” and attributed it simply to Trump making campaign slogans, while his boss, Ali Khamenei, insisted that if the U.S. were to alter the agreement “we will light it on fire.”

Even European Union leaders are coming to the realization that the outcomes over the nuclear deal no longer rely on them, but rather now rest firmly on Trump’s decisions.

Federica Mogherini, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, who received withering criticism for trips to Iran while political prisoners were being executed, penned an editorial in the Guardian praising the nuclear deal in the hope of staving off its elimination.

It is worthy to note that Mogherini places her support squarely on the economic benefits towards European firms, but makes no mention of the year of terrorism and human rights abuses perpetrated by the Iranian regime and is silent on Syria and the absolute disaster for Europe from millions of refugees that has flooded in.

That kind of silence on important issues of terrorism and war are precisely why Europe has been blistered with multiple attacks in Brussels, Paris, Nice and Berlin and why solving the problem of Iran’s Islamic extremism is the surest path to peace.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Voice Becoming Lonelier With New Congress

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Iran Lobby Voice Becoming Lonelier With New Congress

Iran Lobby Voice Becoming Lonelier With New Congress

A new Republican-controlled Congress took office on Tuesday and with it comes the promise of sweeping changes in American foreign policy versus the last eight years. Most notable will be an almost certain end to the policy of appeasing the Iranian regime followed by the Obama administration in the hopes of moderating Iran’s behavior.

What is also sure to happen as well is a greatly diminished role for the Iran lobby in this new administration, especially for supporters such as the National Iranian American Council. Evidence of that reduced stature and influence has come in the downward spiral in media opportunities members of the NIAC are receiving.

Trita Parsi for example has been relegated to providing analysis on Russia Today segments and the self-blogging forum TopTopic has become the go-to publisher of NIAC commentary. Gone are the heady days of placements in the New York Times and CBS News and now they face the uncomfortable truth that they are in danger of becoming irrelevant.

One of those TopTopic pieces was written by Ryan Costello from NIAC in which he lamented the tidal wave of bills being introduced aimed at punishing various aspects of the Iranian regime such as a bill by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) authorizing the Trump administration to use military force against Iran should it be necessary.

Costello characterizes Hasting’s move as representative of a “small minority” of Democrats opposed to the nuclear deal with Iran, but what he fails to acknowledge is the fact that there is actually a growing nucleus of Democrats that the American people want to stop giving Iran endless concessions.

Costello goes on to mention additional bills being offered up including one proposal by Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) that would impose sanctions on Iran for its ballistic missile program. While Costello laments the flood of bills coming to the fore with the change in Congress, he—and the rest of the Iran lobby—ignore the reasons why these bills are being offered up now.

The mood in America and frankly through most of Europe has swung dramatically since the nuclear agreement was reached with Iran from one of hopeful optimism to uncertainty and fear. The rise of Islamic extremism rippling across the globe, striking in cities such as Boston, San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris, Brussels, Nice and Berlin, have all been harsh reminders to elected officials that wishing for moderation does not yield moderation from extremist groups and hostile nations such as Iran.

The question of how to confront Iranian extremism has never been answered by the Iran lobby other than to repeatedly call for more accommodation and more restraint. That position has now lost its status and consigned to the political junk heap of obscure blogs and media controlled by Iran and its few allies.

Now the major media have turned their attention to the specific pathways open to Trump to restrain the Iranian regime and that is a fundamentally different approach from what the Iran lobby has tried to champion over the past five years.

The Wall Street Journal looked at the possibility of re-imposing economic sanctions, which may be opposed by European allies, is certainly available to Trump as a leverage tool at the very least.

President Trump could, among other things, re-impose the “secondary” sanctions that bar foreign companies from doing business with those individuals or entities on sanctions lists, the Journal said.

“The Iran sanctions program will be the one with the quickest attempt by the administration to put their mark on,” said Adam Smith, an attorney at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP who previously served as a senior adviser at the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the main enforcement body for sanctions.

Heshmat Alavi, a political and rights activist, authored a piece in The Hill tackling this notion of Iranian “moderation” and declaring it a myth solely designed to gain Western support for a deal that would allow the mullahs access to billions of dollars in desperately needed cash.

“If Tehran truly bore the intent to not only embrace the nuclear agreement but the spirit of the accord with the West, they would not have test-fired missiles in March or October of this year,” he said.

“If the mullahs are actually sensitive about the human rights of ordinary Iranian citizens, then this regime would not have executed over 3,000 people in the past four years alone and nearly 1,000 in 2015.

“This regime, if actually sensitive about its ‘moderate’ image, would not be executing women and minors, and would not be sending opposition supporters to the gallows. This certainly doesn’t sound anything similar to ‘moderate’ behavior, at least not in the democratic world,” Alavi added.

Alavi calls for greater outreach by the Trump administration to avowed opposition and dissident groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a broad coalition of Iranian dissident and human rights groups opposed to the mullahs rule.

By switching from listening to the propaganda of the Iran lobby to the sound policy recommendations of the Iranian opposition, Trump can advance the cause of peace and democracy in the Middle East faster than anyone could imagine.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Operates Through Fear and Intimidation to Work

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Iran Regime Operates Through Fear and Intimidation to Work

Iran Regime Operates Through Fear and Intimidation to Work

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear,” said Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa and prisoner of conscience who led his nation out of apartheid rule.

He recognized during his long imprisonment for his political beliefs that to conquer a regime and policy of institutionalized oppression, one had to first conquer the fear that institution uses to control its people. It is through the tools of violence, fear and intimidation that a people can remain oppressed for generations.

For the Iranian regime, the mullahs learned early on the lessons of similar oppressive regimes throughout history. Whether you were a Roman tribune enslaving barbarians or a Nazi Stormtrooper kicking down doors in the Warsaw ghetto or a Boko Haram fighter kidnapping scores of girls to auction them as sex slaves, the tools of intimidation and fear were universal in your efforts to maintain control.

Throughout Iran, the mullahs impose the same practices through the use of religious courts that hand down brutal sentences almost on a whim with no accountability, to roving bands of Basji paramilitaries who are free to accost and beat women on the street for violating dress codes.

The mullahs use the same principles in exporting their extremist brand of Islam by supporting terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah or growing their own Shiite militia in Iraq which can be used to subjugate Sunni villages or be shipped off to fight in Syria.

The use of military power and violence is a tried and tested prescription for the Iranian regime to impose its will.

Unfortunately for the mullahs, history has proven those policies eventually fail. Although Rome stood for thousands of years, it eventually collapsed under its own corruption and inability to assimilate the regions it conquered into peaceful co-existence. Eventually all totalitarian regimes have fallen throughout human history; the only question has been how long has it taken?

For the Iranian regime, the clock is running and the mullahs recognize their time may very well run out on them as their economy remains stagnant, unemployment especially among young people remains sky-high and technology improvements in social media and mobility have made it almost impossible to keep a lid on dissenting voices.

Even a string of hunger strikes by political prisoners has resonance as their plight is carried throughout the world on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Snapchat and has led to noted people such as Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi to openly call for the head of Iran’s judiciary to quit.

Sadeq Larijani was appointed by Ali Khamenei and cannot be summoned by MPs for questioning and is not directly accountable to the public. Under his watch the judiciary has made a number of high-profile arrests of dual nationals, according to the Guardian.

Ebadi, a human rights lawyer and women’s rights activist living in exile in the UK, said she considered Larijani to be “directly responsible for the injustices and corruption” in the system.

She said that “in the name of religion and with the excuse of national security”, the judiciary was “overseeing a miscarriage of justice”.

“Civil and social activists and thinkers who voice criticism or protest are put in jail and condemned to lengthy prison sentences and torture and persecution, while criminals, serial killers and those involved in embezzlement continue to abuse people under the shadows of a corrupted judicial system,” she said in a statement posted on the website of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, of which she is president.

“A considerable number of prisoners are those held on political or religious grounds. In what part of the world and according to what history, you would call this judicial system fair?” she added.

An example of the harsh treatment by Iranian courts was put on display when a British-Iranian woman being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison has appeared in an appeals court, using the last legal opportunity to challenge her five-year jail sentence.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the news agency’s charitable arm, was found guilty in September on unspecific charges relating to national security.

On Wednesday, she attended a court session in the Iranian capital that lasted up to three hours, her husband told the Guardian. Few details have emerged about the hearing but a verdict is expected to be announced next week.

The exact reason why the 38-year-old has been convicted in Iran is still unclear, but the Revolutionary Guards, which arrested her at the airport in April while she was about to return to the UK after a family visit, have accused her of fomenting a “soft overthrow” of the Islamic republic.

“What I know is that the appeals happened and went on for three hours, the family weren’t able to go but Nazanin was there and her lawyer was there,” said Richard Ratcliffe. “There were lots of revolutionary guards there from both Kerman’s branch and the Tehran branch.”

According to Amnesty International, Iranian authorities have hinted that Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s arrest is connected to the 2014 imprisonment of several employees of an Iranian technology news website. They were given lengthy prison terms for participating in a BBC journalism training course. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was a project assistant at the BBC’s Media Action, the broadcaster’s international development charity, in 2008-09.

Ratcliffe said he last spoke to his wife on Christmas Day. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was previously described as being at breaking point, has recently been removed from solitary confinement and taken to Evin’s women’s wards alongside other political prisoners including journalist Reyhaneh Tabatabaei and leading activist Narges Mohammadi, and a number of Baha’i women held because of their faith.

Ultimately, the full force and weight of the Iranian judicial system is being used to focus on a British mother and charity worker and is emblematic of how fragile the mullahs control is if they are forced to have to imprison someone like her.

Michael Tomlinson