Iran Lobby

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

NIAC Trying to Gain Influence On U.S. Congress

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NIAC affiliates working as staffers to some of the U.S. Congress representatives.

Recently an Anglo-Iranian activist and news editor, Mr. Hanif Jazayeri, through lights on the activities of the Iranian regime’s main lobby, NIAC’s activities in the U.S. Congress attempting to influence the US policy towards Iran, in favor of the Iranian regime.

Lately, a group of representatives sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, calling for sanction’s relief for Iran. They also questioned the designation of the Iranian regime’s Central Bank, which is the main source of financing the IRGC, which is behind the Iranian regime’s terrorist activities and regional aggressions. The move did not seem a usual one, particularly at a time that a recent report by Reuters speaks of a massacre of at least 1,500 protesters during the November nationwide unrest in Iran.

“About 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of unrest that started on Nov. 15. The toll, provided to Reuters by three Iranian interior ministry officials, included at least 17 teenagers and about 400 women as well as some members of the security forces and police.” Reuters reported.

“The toll of 1,500 is significantly higher than figures from international human rights groups and the United States,” Reuters added.

Apparently the letter by a small group of representatives did not sound right to Hanif Jazayeri, and after digging into the issue, he expressed his concerns in a thread on his Twitter account. Jazayeri proposed that “the letter was probably drafted by Iran’s mullahs”. The proposition was due to his finding that several of the NIAC affiliates are now working at the offices of various U.S. representatives.

Tyler O’Neil, a senior Editor on PJ Media, expressing concern over the role of the Iranian lobby on the letter writes:

“An organization long described as a front group for the Iran regime sponsored the letter and has embedded staffers with many of the letter’s supporters in Congress, including Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).”

Referring to Mr. Jazayeri’s thread on Twitter who had originally exposed the case, O’Neil asks:

“Is Iran’s regime quietly infiltrating Congress?” M. Hanif Jazayeri, news editor at Free Iran, asked on Twitter. He pointed out that many of these congresswomen hired current or former staffers with the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), an organization with many links to Iran’s regime and which Iran state-media has described as “Iran’s lobby” in the U.S.

Jazayeri added that NIAC “has a mole in Congress. [Samira Damavandi] is now a permanent Legislative Assistant in the Office of [Barbara Lee]. That could potentially give her (& the regime) access to US citizens’ data.”

The Gateway Pundit, also wrote a piece that was widely shared on the social media, reminding how  the Iranian lobbies, work to lift the sanctions, while “At the Same Time Mullahs In Iran Are Killing Democracy Protesters in the Streets”.

In return NIAC, reacted furiously and started a series of attacks on the activist (Hanif Jazayeri) who had exposed their plot, and were frustrated about the revelation.

In the meantime, another activist on social media, Heshmat Alavi a writer and human rights activist, wrote a thread, in which he exposed what NIAC and its affiliates have been doing to infiltrate the U.S. Congress and impact the U.S. policy towards Iran.

The discussions on the issue continues on social media. Adjunct professor at Notre Dame University and Lawyer, Professor Margot Cleveland, calls for a journalist with an international outlet to do a report on the concerning news:

Staff writer

While Iran Lobby Plays Blame Game Iran Goes Nuclear

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to students at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, January 10, 2019. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS – RC15D1E44B00

The National Iranian American Council stepped up in defense of the Iranian regime by attacking U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent speech in Cairo but failed to recognize the decision by the Iranian regime to launch “preliminary activities for designing” uranium fuel with a purity of 20 percent in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal the Iran lobby group championed.

The juxtaposition between the NIAC’s criticisms of Pompeo, but failure to chastise the Iranian regime demonstrates the rank hypocrisy the NIAC operates under when it comes to picking and choosing what to criticize.

In Pompeo’s speech and in follow up visits to regional allies, Pompeo hammered hard on the point that Iranian extremism and expansionism needed to be restrained by the U.S. and its allies and required a more global approach to stifle the mullahs’ ambitions.

In a stop at Doha in Qatar as part of his nine-country Middle East tour, Pompeo signed a memorandum of understanding expanding the U.S. military base there and renewed efforts to form a tighter coalition with eight Arab states to generate greater pressure on Iran.

Pompeo, who held strategic talks with Qatari leaders, also said reunifying the Gulf states was essential to the success of the new regional body the U.S. hopes to create called the Middle East Strategic Alliance, which would include all six GCC nations in addition to Jordan and Egypt. The Trump administration hopes the new organization will become a bulwark against The Iranian regime.

Earlier, Pompeo had given a speech at American University in Cairo – the same site as President Obama’s speech launching a new relationship with the Muslim world – where he cast the Iranian regime as the top U.S. concern in the region.

“The nations of the Middle East will never enjoy security, achieve economic stability, or advance the dreams of their people if Iran’s revolutionary regime persists on its current course,” he said.

The location was meant to recognize the failure of the previous administration of trying to achieve peace by coddling the mullahs in Tehran only emboldening them to plunge Syria and Yemen into bloody civil wars and launch a crash ballistic missile program.

The laundry list of failures since that ill-fated speech in Cairo by President Obama serves as a reminder once again throughout history that policies of appeasement aimed at totalitarian regimes yields no moderation and little peace.

Typically, the NIAC responded to Pompeo’s speech with its usual bluster but did little to recognize why its previous calls to accommodate the Iranian regime only yielded failure.

“Secretary Pompeo’s speech failed to outline a coherent strategic logic for the Trump administration’s Middle East policy. If Secretary Pompeo wants regional stability, human rights, and an end to U.S. military adventures and endless wars, he would press his boss to return to the Iran deal, pursue and facilitate good-faith diplomacy among all stakeholders, and honor our international agreements,” said Jamal Abdi, NIAC president.

Abdi went on to press his call for saving the nuclear deal, but even the Iranian regime seems to recognize that idea is dead as Iran’s nuclear chief announced the regime would start work on designing nuclear reactor fuel delivering 20 percent purity according to Reuters.

The 2015 nuclear accord capped the level to which Iran is able to enrich uranium to 3.67 percent purity, well below the 20 percent it was reaching before the deal, and the roughly 90 percent that is weapons-grade.

Iran is, however, allowed to produce nuclear fuel under strict conditions that need to be approved by a working group set up by the signatories to the deal. Those conditions include ensuring that the fuel cannot be converted to uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for centrifuges that enrich uranium.

“We have made such progress in nuclear science and industry that, instead of reverse-engineering and the use of designs by others, we can design new fuel ourselves,” state broadcaster IRIB quoted Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, as saying.

The move to design an indigenous nuclear reactor underscores the regime’s long-term goals to develop its own nuclear capability rather than be dependent on foreign suppliers; similar to its push into ballistic missiles by first licensing designs from North Korea and then advancing designs to carry larger warheads over intercontinental distances.

The fact the NIAC made no statement about this latest move by Iran underscores its reluctance to deal with the harsh realities of Iranian intransigence as the mullahs continue their nuclear program and military efforts; now in the open and without pretense.

Even as Iran steps up its nuclear ambitions and threatens to renew a regional arms race for nuclear weapons, the NIAC blasted John Bolton, U.S. National Security Advisor, for requesting contingency plans for taking military action against the Iranian regime should the pressure of renewed economic sanctions fail to change the regime’s behaviour.

The planning is prudent considering the Iranian regime has already thrown Syria, Iraq and Yemen into turmoil and has sent its own Revolutionary Guard Corps to fight in Syria’s bloody civil war and Iraq sectarian conflict.

But Abdi wasted no time in trying to redirect and blame Bolton for war mongering.

“John Bolton and fellow Iran hawks believe they have two years left to collapse the Iran nuclear deal and trigger a disastrous war that the American people want no part of. We know that Bolton and other administration officials preferred an Iran war to negotiations prior to serving Trump. Now there is confirmation that they are still seeking out opportunities to fulfill their war agenda,” Abdi said.

Of course, Abdi neglected to mention that the only nation waging war against a neighboring nation was Iran under the mullahs as its used proxies to destabilize Yemen and launched attacks on Saudi Arabia with Iranian-supplied weapons, but that is something the NIAC doesn’t want to talk about.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Jumps on Detention of Iranian Newscaster

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Iran Lobby Jumps on Detention of Iranian Newscaster
Press TV anchor arrested in the U.S.

There are several truths about the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council: 1) It will never overtly criticize the Iranian regime unless it has no choice; and 2) It will never miss an opportunity to criticize U.S. actions towards Iran, even if the regime has committed far worse.

The most recent example was the detention of Marzieh Hashemi, an anchorwoman for the regime’s state-run English-language Press TV, in St. Louis and then taken to Washington, DC by the FBI as a material witness in a case.

Hashemi was born in New Orleans under the name of Melanie Franklin and eventually found her way to Iran reading new copy written by the regime.

Predictably the regime blasted her detention and tried to compare her case to the death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Regime Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called for her immediate release, telling Press TV that “we have a right to continue to look after her interests.”

“She is a famous journalist, she’s done nothing but journalism,” Zarif said. “The arrest of Ms. Hashemi is a very clear affront to freedom of expression, a political abuse of an innocent individual and I believe the United States should release her immediately without further delay.”

What is hugely ironic about his comments and feigned indignation is the fact Iran continues to hold American hostages itself.

In fact, the nuclear deal negotiated back in 2015 included provisions for a hostage swap of four Americans being held illegally in exchange for billions of dollars in cash; a fact often omitted whenever the Iran lobby chastises U.S. policy.

Now the Iranian regime continues to hold several Americans, a fact that makes Zarif’s call for Hashemi’s release laughable.

The most recent disclosure of an American citizen being held by Iran was Michael White, a 46-year-old former Navy cook. White’s family says he was taken into custody in July last year when he traveled to Iran to visit his girlfriend, whom he had met online. In a statement released for a family spokesperson, Joanne White, his mother, said she is “very worried that’s he’s not going to make it.”

White had been undergoing cancer treatment and his mother is urging the Iranian government to release him so he can get the “specialized medical care he needs.” Why White was even detained by Iran in the first place, as of Thursday, remains a mystery, according to Fox News.

Iran also continues to hold Chinese-American Princeton graduate student Xiyue Wang who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly “infiltrating” the country while doing doctoral research on Iran’s Qajar dynasty. The university says he was taken into custody a year earlier, but “was not involved in any political activities or social activism; he was simply a scholar trying to gain access to materials he needed for his dissertation.”

Also, being held is Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese-born Internet freedom activist who is a permanent resident of the U.S., who was detained in 2015 while attending a woman’ empowerment conference he was invited to and has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on spying charges.

In addition to these Americans, Iran continues to hold others from countries such as Great Britain such as human rights worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who began a hunger strike over her false imprisonment.

NIAC is kind enough to provide some lip service to the plight of these hostages but has never thrown its political and PR machinery behind a full-court press to get the mullahs in Tehran to release them.

The statement issued by Jamal Abdi, NIAC’s president, is typically mild about the plight of these innocents.

“NIAC is concerned by reports of mistreatment and reiterates that all nations must observe international law with regard to such detentions. Ms. Hashemi’s status as a journalist for an Iranian outlet cannot prevent her from access to the same legal rights afforded to every U.S. person,” Abdi said.

Under U.S. federal law, judges are allowed to order witnesses to be arrested and detained if the government can prove their testimony has extraordinary value for a criminal case. They must also prove the witness would be a flight risk and unlikely to respond to a subpoena.

The statute generally requires those witnesses to be promptly released once they are deposed.

It’s a process largely transparent compared to the Iranian regime’s refusal to even specify the charges against many of the hostages it holds; let alone the convictions handed down by religious courts without proper legal representation or other due process.

Press TV focuses predominantly on international affairs through the lens of how leaders in the Islamic state see the world, often generating fierce criticism of British and American foreign policy.

Its broadcasts have also drawn Western criticism.

In 2012, the Anti-Defamation League described the channel as “one of the world’s leading dispensers of conspiratorial anti-Semitism in English.”

The channel was pulled from the air in Britain in 2011 after a complaint by a Canadian-Iranian journalist for Newsweek who was imprisoned by Iran after the 2009 disputed re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the Green Movement protests. Bahari said the channel aired an interview that had been scripted by his captors, who threatened to execute him unless he cooperated.

While we can hope Hashemi’s case is quickly resolved, the same hope for Americans being held in Iranian jails falls on deaf ears at NIAC.

Michael Tomlinson

Bad News for Iran Swamps Iran Lobby

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael Tomlinson

NIAC Letter on Iran Nuclear Deal Just More of the Same

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NIAC Letter on Iran Nuclear Deal Just More of the Same

NIAC Letter on Iran Nuclear Deal Just More of the Same

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

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

In short, the letter urged Congress to continue:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laura Carnahan

Iranian Hackers Targeting American Officials and Dissidents

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Iranian Hackers Targeting American Officials and Dissidents

Iranian Hackers Targeting American Officials and Dissidents

In another sign of the growing extremism and aggressiveness of the Iranian regime, the Associated Press revealed an unprecedented effort by Iranian regime hackers to break into the personal emails of American officials responsible for enforcing new economic sanctions imposed on Iran.

In addition to the cyber attacks on U.S. officials, the Iranian regime hackers also targeted high profile dissidents and detractors of the Iran nuclear deal, as well as a hodgepodge of D.C., think tank employees, Iranian civil society figures and atomic scientists.

The AP drew on data gathered by the London-based cybersecurity group Certfa to track how a hacking group often nicknamed Charming Kitten spent the past month trying to break into the private emails of more than a dozen U.S. Treasury officials.

The reported campaign underscores the degree to which government-sponsored hackers still rely on tricking email users into handing over their email usernames and passwords. The alleged phishing campaign aimed to bait targets into handing over their credentials and then went further, asking victims to provide one-time codes, such as texted and app-generated codes, used as a second form of authentication.

The hit list surfaced after Charming Kitten mistakenly left one of its servers open to the internet last month. Researchers at Certfa found the server and extracted a list of 77 Gmail and Yahoo addresses targeted by the hackers that they handed to the AP for further analysis.

It’s hard to know how many of the accounts were successfully compromised or how exactly they were targeted in each case. But even though the addresses likely represent only a fraction of the hackers’ overall efforts, they still provide considerable insight into Tehran’s espionage priorities.

“Presumably, some of this is about figuring out what is going on with sanctions,” said Frederick Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has written about Iranian cyberespionage and was among those targeted.

Kagan said he was alarmed by the targeting of foreign nuclear experts. “This is a little more worrisome than I would have expected,” he said.

The targeting of the email accounts of nuclear scientists raises the dark specter that the regime is going after data and critical research information that could prove useful in its ongoing nuclear weapons development.

The actions also fly in the face of one of the key arguments made by the Iran lobby during the run-up of the nuclear deal which was that the Iranian regime was only interested in civilian and peaceful nuclear development and had no interest in developing weapons of mass destruction.

In a report published Thursday, Certfa tied the hackers to the Iranian government, a judgment drawn in part on operational blunders, including a couple of cases where the hackers appeared to have accidentally revealed that they were operating from computers inside Iran.

Certfa said its investigation found the hackers used Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, to make it look like they were operating from France and the Netherlands. But the group said it uncovered strong evidence to prove that the hackers were operating from inside Iran.

The assessment was backed by others who have tracked Charming Kitten. Allison Wikoff, a researcher with Atlanta-based SecureWorks, recognized some of the digital infrastructures in Certfa’s report and said the hackers’ past operations left little doubt they were government-backed.

“It’s fairly clear-cut,” she said.

One target was Frederick Kagan, who works for the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank based in Washington. Kagan has repeatedly written about Iranian cyberespionage efforts.

“Presumably, some of this is about figuring out what is going on with sanctions,” Kagan told the AP. He was speaking about economic sanctions the U.S. has placed on Iran. The latest sanctions, on Iran’s oil and financial industry, were announced last month.

Iranian regime cyber attacks are nothing new and have become relentless and a fact of life among white hat programmers tasked with defending government and corporate networks against intrusion, but this latest effort to gain access to personal email accounts with much lower levels of security presents a different tack in the regime’s cyber tactics.

To add a look of legitimacy to their campaign, the hackers in some cases directed victims to open websites hosted on Google Sites pages before entering their usernames and passwords, Certfa said. The researchers said they notified Google of the pattern, and Google deactivated the hackers’ pages hosted on the company’s service. Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The effort to target avowed dissidents and naysayers of the Iran nuclear deal indicates another disturbing trend by the mullahs in Tehran which is to go after those who dare denounce or criticize them.

This past year, Iranian intelligence agents have been identified in attempts to smuggle a bomb into an annual gathering of Iranian dissidents outside of Paris and plot an assassination attempt in Denmark against noted critics of the regime.

What is also noteworthy is the virtual silence emanating from the Iran lobby and its chief members, including the National Iranian American Council who have never voiced a criticism of the Iranian regime’s cyber terror activities, nor ever called upon the regime to lift the virtual blockade it has imposed on outside social media services within Iran.

The tight-fisted ban on transmitting information reveals the key weakness of the mullahs’ rule which is it cannot stand up to the scrutiny of daylight and transparency.

This is why the regime relies so heavily on cyber attacks to stifle dissent, gain intelligence and secrets and wage an online war against its harshest critics, such as the efforts by the regime to manipulate fake social media accounts to attack dissident groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Ultimately the regime’s efforts are likely to prove ineffective as its stealth efforts are uncovered and revealed to the world; reinforcing the growing perception that Tehran was never really serious about pursuing a new moderation with the rest of the world.

Michael Tomlinson

Trita Parsi Still Pushing Same Old Falsehoods

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Trita Parsi Still Pushing Same Old Falsehoods

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laura Carnahan

Iran Resorts to More Hangings in Effort to Preserve Mullahs Rule

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Iran Resorts to More Hangings in Effort to Preserve Mullahs Rule

There are iconic images that grace many national flags. The maple leaf for Canada. The Union Jack. The Stars and Stripes are just some of the few. Every national flag bear icons telling a story about the country, its history and its people.

In the case of the Iranian regime, it may be time for it to redefine its national flag with a new symbol; one that has come to symbolize one of the most prolific acts committed by its government.

A hangman’s noose.

Iran ranks among world leaders in state-sponsored executions, especially of political, ethnic and religious prisoners. It’s preferred method of execution is hanging, often in public and often using the ubiquitous construction crane.

But as the mullahs in Tehran have experiencing an unprecedented level of domestic protest and international pressure as a result of renewed U.S. sanctions, as well as gross mismanagement of the economy and the redirection of billions in hard currency to fund several wars and insurrections, they have turned to using executions as a means of harsh crowd control.

The latest example came in the execution of a gold dealer known as the “Sultan of Coins” in a blatant warning to Iranian merchants and businesses not to do anything to undermine the regime’s policies in the face of growing economic distress.

Vahid Mazloumin was sentenced to death in October after being accused by Iranian authorities of contributing to price hikes by hoarding gold. His assistant, Mohammad Esmail Qassemi, was also hanged last week, state-run Iranian Students News Agency said.

The killings came in the wake of a national currency which has fallen into a steady death spiral of devaluation; dropping a stunning 70 percent against the dollar, fueling massive surges in prices for good and leading to a widespread underground and illegal market in trading.

Mazloumin didn’t hold a permit to trade gold and foreign currency, yet had formed the largest illegal network in that area, according to state-run Fars news agency. He instructed his team to corner the gold coin market to resell at higher prices, amassing about 2 tons of them, local media said.

Whether or not it’s true or was simply something manufactured by the regime in order to set a stiff example, the truth at the core of the hangings is the mullahs’ desperate efforts to hang onto control of a deteriorating economic situation and widespread public unrest.

In an effort to restore calm and project a sense of order, the mullahs have repeatedly threatened to take harsh measures against anyone “disrupting the economy” while promising to provide assistance to the poor, according to Bloomberg.

Last week, Tehran police instituted large scale raids in which security forces arrested about 130 illegal currency traders in recent days.

In further measures to placate the deeply distressed Iranian people and lessen the pain of rising prices, president Hassan Rouhani’s government started providing benefits for the neediest to help pay for food packages that include meat, cooking oil and dairy. Parviz Fatah, who heads the state-controlled Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation, said the program will initially reach 2.7 million Iranians after its launch last Tuesday.

Top mullah Ali Khamenei said in a speech that Iran “can solve its economic problems by correctly using its domestic resources”; a not too subtle threat to any Iranian that circumvents policies to keep the regime afloat.

The executions drew harsh criticism from human rights groups that have long decried the use of “kangaroo trials” used by the regime to summarily sentence and imprison large numbers of Iranians and dual-nationals, notably British, Canadian and American citizens.

“Iran’s hanging of people who have been convicted in courts without a fair trial is a blatant violation of law,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, describing the trial venues as “kangaroo courts”.

Amnesty International called the trial “grossly unfair”.

“In Iran, unfortunately, instead of punishing the main elements of systematic corruption, they punish and execute persons who are not important,” said Mahdi Khalili, a “reformist politician” and political scientist in Tehran. “The main ones are free from any problems or punishment.”

Iran ranked 130 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2017 corruption index, demonstrating that the regime’s judicial system is anything but just.

Human rights specialists and jurists, including Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, have said the suspects were condemned to death in quick trials that were unfair and failed to measure up to Iranian law much less international standards, which include a thorough appellate review process for death sentences. 

Among other irregularities, the courts apply secretive national security rules to cases of white-collar crime, restricting the ability of defendants to get a lawyer, according to the Independent.

“The prosecutions suggest Tehran is attempting to shift blame for the collapse of the country’s currency to low-level traders and grey market businessmen in an effort to deflect from the Iranian system’s own incompetence and corruption, rooted in the economic power of religious charities and ideologically fervent security branches, especially the Revolutionary Guard,” wrote the Independent.

“It also shows what many critics have described over the years as the arbitrary nature of justice under the Islamic republic, where prominent members of ethnic and religious minorities as well as the Shia Muslim majority, and dissidents as well as businessmen, can become entangled in an obscure, Kafkaesque legal system overseen by Islamic jurists under the sway of shadowy security enforcers,” he added.

What is notable with these new executions was the silence coming from the Iran lobby, especially groups such as the National Iranian American Council which ostensibly is supposed to advocate for the better treatment of Iranians.

It’s too bad that doesn’t seem to apply to those who actions undermine the regime’s efforts to stay in power.

Laura Carnahan

Iranian Regime Cut Off from SWIFT Banking Network

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Iranian Regime Cut Off from SWIFT Banking Network

The global financial messaging service that moves money around the world’s banking system, known as SWIFT, acted to cut off Iran’s Central Bank and other designated Iranian financial institutions from using its system.

The action by SWIFT is the latest economic blow to hit the mullahs in Tehran and is widely considered to be one of the most severe sanctions in the U.S. arsenal, next to secondary sanctions on any country or company attempting to buy Iranian oil.

It also continues the onslaught of sanctions resulting from the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal despite the best efforts by the Iran lobby to cry foul and warn this is a prelude to war between the U.S. and Iran.

Last Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told BBC Persian that Iran’s “leadership has to make a decision that they want their people to eat. They have to make a decision that they want to use their wealth to import medicine, and not use their wealth to fund” destabilizing activities in the region.”

His statement neatly encapsulates the main point of the Trump administration’s decision to re-impose economic sanctions. The choices the mullahs have made for Iran since doing the deal with the Obama administration have dictated this course of action.

Contrary to what Iran supporters such as the National Iranian American Council have continually maintained, the Iranian regime has consistently chosen to follow a path of sponsoring terrorism and initiating conflicts with its neighbors while diverting billions from its economy to bolstering its military; literally starving the Iranian people.

The mullahs’ actions – and no one else’s – have determined why sanctions were re-imposed. The Iran lobby has tried to always frame the decision as unilateral on the part of the Trump administration, but it has been Iran that has consistently been the provocateur and instigator of the worst episodes in the Middle East such as Syria’s civil war, Yemen’s insurgency and Iraq’s sectarian conflict.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) provides a network that enables financial institutions worldwide to send and receive information about financial transactions in a secure, standardized and reliable environment.

SWIFT links more than 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories and without access to the system, the Iranian regime’s ability to move and transmit foreign currency is severely curtailed.

It was the cut off from SWIFT during earlier economic sanctions that were widely credited for helping bring Iran to the bargaining table in the first place.

Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the decision by SWIFT would reduce Iran’s room to maneuver around sanctions, but that it wasn’t meant to hurt the country’s people.

“The removal of Iran’s central bank from SWIFT along with other Iranian banks implicated in terrorism, nuclear and missile proliferation, as well human rights abuses will cut the regime’s access to the global financial system,” said Dubowitz. “This will reduce their options to barter trade or sanctions busting. Treasury however has left open humanitarian channels that the regime should use to deliver food, medicine and other goods to the Iranian people.”

The Iran lobby predictably discounted the effect of SWIFT removal in the past and its impact in the future.

“This will create massive problems for Iran, but I don’t think it will paralyze them,” said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council. “I don’t think the end effect will be anywhere near the pressure Trump is talking about.”

What Parsi fails to mention is the unprecedented level of domestic discontent at home where the mullahs have been battling almost constant demonstrations, protests, strikes and other signs of disobedience from all sectors of Iranian society.

The range of protests include Iranian women objecting to moral codes that govern their dress, public conduct and access to jobs and education to truck drivers, small business owners, farmers and government workers who have decried widespread government corruption and an economy in a death spiral.

Supporters of the regime have tried to come up with all sorts of excuses and oddball theories as to why U.S. sanctions will not work.

Max Keiser, a stockbroker-turned-TV personality, told Russia Today that the move will help lessen global dependence on the U.S. dollar in favor of stockpiling gold.

“Iran needs to get smart and start hoarding Gold and Bitcoin if it wants to avoid the worst of the fallout,” Keiser told RT. “It is already, smartly, pursuing bilateral energy deals outside of the $USD, but it needs to add value to its currency with reserves of Gold and Bitcoin.”

Keiser should stick to broadcasting since his monetary theories are more appropriate for late night comedy shows.

Even as European leaders supportive of the Iranian regime have tried to cobble together an ad-hoc system of alternative payments for Iran-related business transactions, U.S. Treasury officials expressed little concern.

The U.S. expects to find other “mechanisms” with which it will work together with European countries to address Iran’s destabilizing activities, said Sigal Mandelker, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official.

When asked about the special purpose vehicle, Mandelker said that, “the bigger news in Europe is that companies are withdrawing from Iran in droves, we know that there’s been discussions about an SPV or other mechanisms to try to continue to invest in Iran, but companies themselves are getting out.”

While the Iran lobby may point to these token efforts as signs of a resistance to U.S. sanctions, the truth is that Asian and European companies are voting with their money as they pull out of Iran.

Midterm Elections Results Do Not Help Iran Lobby

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Midterm Elections Results Do Not Help Iran Lobby

The U.S. midterm elections saw a divided America as Republicans deepened their hold on the Senate while Democrats took over the House as many pundits predicted. Voter interest and participation were high but exit polling of top concerns amongst voters bears little fruit for the Iran lobby or the mullahs in Tehran who were hoping for signs that a blue wave might help bring down new economic sanctions.

According to most exit polls by news organizations, Americans cited healthcare and immigration as their two biggest concerns with the economy following up in third place. The plight of the mullahs was not high on anyone’s list of concerns.

The political environment is dramatically different than it was in 2014-15 when the Obama administration committed itself fully to pushing through a nuclear deal with Iran no matter the cost and that cost was high coming in the form of billions of dollars in cash, sanctions relief and removal of conditions that allowed Iran to develop long-range ballistic missiles, sponsor terrorism across Europe and start two wars in Syria and Yemen.

That deal was sold by the Obama administration and supported by the Iran lobby’s “echo chamber” on the idea that Iran was headed towards a more moderate course and was receptive to diplomacy and wanted to rejoin the community of nations.

Unfortunately for the Iran lobby, the Iranian regime’s actions since then has blown those ideas out of water. It also didn’t help advocates such as the National Iranian American Council that as recently as this summer and last month, Iranian intelligence services were foiled in attempts to bomb a gathering of Iranian dissidents outside of Paris and assassinate another in Denmark.

Any hope Iran could be perceived as a moderating force was literally blown out of the water leaving the Iran lobby to scramble for any rhetorical foothold with the U.S. media.

Since the knee-capping the Trump administration has given to the Iranian regime through the withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the re-imposition of economic sanctions and efforts to build a consensus among key allies to no longer import Iranian oil, the Iran lobby has cast about wildly to find any topic that might stick and help Tehran.

The NIAC has sought to attack the Trump administration on its immigration policies. That went nowhere and in retrospect did not earn the Iran lobby any favors amongst Americans concerned about the issue.

The NIAC sought to float the idea that the Iranian people would be hurt and not the government. That idea also didn’t fly since the suffering of the Iranian people at the hands of their own government has been well-documented over the past year with violent and widespread demonstrations by Iranians.

The NIAC then tried to mock the president for his recent “Game of Thrones” meme and outside of social media didn’t move the needle in the midst of the midterm elections.

In short, few Americans give a hoot about anything the NIAC has to say. It’s a mighty fall from the heady days of unobstructed access to the White House and State Department previously enjoyed by NIAC officials during the Obama years.

The NIAC is now finding itself playing a game of political “Survivor” as it stands outside the flow of American politics on a lonely island waving its arms and calling desperately for any journalist to pay attention to itself.

All of which raises an interesting question: Is the Iran lobby even worth keeping around anymore by the mullahs?

If the NIAC has outlived its usefulness to Tehran and has never been fully engaged on issues of real concern to the Iranian-American community then where does it go from here?

This may explain why its founder, Trita Parsi, got out of Dodge and quit the NIAC to pursue a more independent path and Jamal Abdi has been left to try and figure out how to keep the increasingly irrelevant movement afloat.

Abdi has tried to take credit for the midterm election results by issuing a statement denouncing Republicans who lost their seats and trumpet it as a movement back towards Iranian engagement.

“Across the country, candidates dedicated to overturning Trump’s outrageous and discriminatory Muslim ban and stopping war with Iran won big. To have a check on Trump is a huge victory for the Iranian-American community, our country and the global community,” Abdi said.

It’s worth noting that Abdi focused on opposition to the administration’s immigration policies and opposing war with Iran, but made no mention of Iran’s horrific human rights record, its abuse of Iranian women or the sponsorship of terrorism in France and Denmark.

He goes on to mention the backing of several candidates, but it remains to be seen if any of them are going to heed the NIAC’s call to place Iran back at the top of the foreign policy agenda in terms of moving diplomacy forward when the mullahs seem only intent on killing as many Iranian dissidents as possible both inside and outside of Iran.

There may come a time in 2020 when endorsement by the NIAC will become as desirable as an endorsement by the KKK.