Iran Lobby

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

Iran Lobby Left Sputtering as US Sanctions Take Effect

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Iran Lobby Left Sputtering as US Sanctions Take Effect

The U.S. re-imposed economic sanctions on the Iranian regime on Monday targeting the money machine that fuels the mullahs’ religious dictatorship, including petroleum sales, shipping, banking, and insurance. The sanctions were carefully crafted to go at the heavy industries and financial pipelines funneling cash to the regime and funding its proxy wars and terrorist activities.

President Donald Trump trolled supporters of the Iranian regime with a tweet riffing on HBO’s show “Game of Thrones” with a movie-like poster featuring the iconic font reading “Sanctions Are Coming.”

The near-hysterical response from the Iran lobby over the weekend was predictable, but also revealing in that the regime supporters such as the National Iranian American Council were left with little to talk about except blasting the president’s tweet.

“Trump, his war cabinet and regional cheerleaders in Benjamin Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman do not have the Iranian or American people’s best interests at heart,” said Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council. “Instead, they are blowing up an agreement that supports U.S. interests and the aspirations of the Iranian people while planting the seeds for a disastrous war.”

The NIAC added its own tweet trolling attempt by labeling the president a “White Walker,” but while it tried to score points on cheekiness the Iran lobby cheerleader was essentially powerless to stop the imposition of sanctions and the economic hammer blow it will rain down on the mullahs.

Not even the Iranian regime’s leader of its infamous Quds Forces, General Qasem Soleimani, could resist sending his own “Game of Thrones”-inspired post saying he would “Stand Against You” in referring to the president’s tweet.

“Things are escalating and the fact that it’s Soleimani tweeting is a sign that this is moving towards a military confrontation,” NIAC founder Trita Parsi said in response. “This was not a crisis. The only reason this is a crisis is because Trump pulled out of a fully functioning deal.”

Parsi trying to claim Soleimani is gearing up for war with the U.S. through a trolling tweet renders any intelligent reader as sophomoric sophistry at best and idiot banality at worse.

The sanctions are aimed at more than 700 Iranian individuals and entities and are hoped to put a stranglehold on the regime’s economy and force the regime into a new round of negotiations.

“Our ultimate aim is to compel Iran to permanently abandon its well-documented outlaw activities and behave as a normal country,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters Friday in a conference call previewing the sanctions. The U.S. penalties will hit foreign countries and companies that do business with the targeted Iranian entities, including its national oil company, its banks, and its shipping industry.

Abdi claimed though the sanctions would hurt the Iranian people, a silly argument since it virtually ignores how the mullahs have destroyed not only Iran’s economy, but sacrificed its environment and plunged large portions of the Iranian population into near poverty status all on its own.

“Impoverishing ordinary Iranians will not hurt the regime or achieve any of America’s security interests, but it will set back the Iranian people’s aspirations for years to come,” Abdi said.

The messaging by the Iran lobby that the Iranian people are helpless in the face of the powerful regime also ignores an essential truth that has steadily build since last year which is the Iranian people are finally becoming emboldened and taking to the streets, bazaars and markets to voice their collective frustration, fury and displeasure at their religious overlords.

Abdi also ignores how the U.S. is also granted waivers exempting certain countries from select sanctions in order not to overtly harm the Iranian people, including lobbying more than a dozen countries doing trade with Iran – India, Japan, Greece and Turkey – to wean themselves off from Iranian oil in exchange for waivers.

Pompeo said eight jurisdictions, which he declined to name, were cooperating with the administration on its push to move to “zero” oil imports from Iran. Those entities will earn temporary exemptions when the sanctions go into effect on Sunday night, Pompeo said.

There will also be some exemptions for food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods, Pompeo said, further diminishing the Iran lobby’s feeble arguments.

But these are essentially the only talking points left to the Iran lobby. It tries to claim the U.S. is only interested in war and sanctions will hurt the Iranian people.

Absent from any of these points is any blame directed at the regime and the mullahs in Tehran for fueling the crisis in the first place by pushing forward with a massive military build-up including the launching of advanced ballistic missiles, coupled with devastating wars in Syria and Yemen.

Supporters such as the NIAC have also been silent on more recent attempts by the Iranian regime to carry out terrorist attacks and assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe as seen in a foiled bombing attempt outside of Paris over the summer and murder plan disrupted by Denmark.

Both incidents led France and Denmark to demand a harsh response to the Iranian regime; neither of which was answered by the Iran lobby.

The facts are activists such as Abdi and Parsi are left with little to say, except sputtering the same inane banalities as before and their collective effectiveness in stopping the sanctions train has been virtually non-existent.

With few options left, we might advise the NIAC to stop clogging up the airwaves and discussion boards and confine their tweets to speculation on who will come out on top at the end of the “Game of Thrones.”

Our money is on the Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons.

Michael Tomlinson

Will Oil Sanctions Crumble the Iranian Regime?

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Will Oil Sanctions Crumble the Iranian Regime?

There is no doubt petroleum is the lifeblood of the Iranian regime’s economy. It’s one of the few natural resources the mullahs have left that has not been over-exploited or driven to ruin. During the time economic sanctions were lifted because of the Iran nuclear deal, the windfall of selling its oil on the open market once again pumped badly needed hard currency into the floundering Iranian economy and fueled its wars in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

But even during the decade in which sanctions were in place, the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard Corps personally profited from the illicit sale of oil on the black market and pocketed hefty commissions for family members through a shadowy network of middlemen.

Now the re-imposition of economic sanctions by the U.S. after pulling out from the nuclear deal is looming with the ban on sales of Iranian oil to commence next week. The sanctions beginning November 4th are geared to specifically hit the regime where it hurts, including:

  • Sanctions on Iran’s port operators and shipping and shipbuilding sectors, including on the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), South Shipping Line Iran, or their affiliates;
  • Sanctions on petroleum-related transactions with, among others, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO), and National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), including the purchase of petroleum, petroleum products, or petrochemical products from Iran;
  • Sanctions on transactions by foreign financial institutions with the Central Bank of Iran and designated Iranian financial institutions;
  • Sanctions on the provision of underwriting services, insurance, or reinsurance; and
  • Sanctions on Iran’s energy sector.

The sanctions on shipping, petroleum, banking and insurance are aimed squarely at the financial engine that powers the Iranian regime’s corrupt empire. Since virtually all of the major industries in Iran are controlled directly by the government or the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the direct financial impacts of these sanctions hit the theocratic regime and are not aimed at the Iranian people.

It’s an important distinction since the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council, has long pounded on the messaging that the Iranian people are the ones being hurt the most by these sanctions.

Using today’s favorite hashtag, that’s just #fakenews.

The truth is that the regime’s own gross mismanagement, incompetence and deep corruption has been more than sufficient to run the Iranian economy into the ground. The fact that the country’s currency has steadily declined in value under the mullahs’ control is just one of many indicators of how they have managed to muck everything up.

The reason the U.S. sanctions are aimed at these particulars sectors is to deny the regime’s ability to finance terrorism and support the proxy wars it has waged on its neighbors. The sanctions are not aimed at stopping the flow of food, medicine or consumer products to the Iranian people.

The regime for example has been the one to block communications to the outside world, ban access to social media, artificially regulate the consumer market with heavy-handed regulations designed to keep the pipeline of luxury goods flowing to the entitled and privileged, but provide none of the support for the staples the Iranian people need to survive.

In a desperate effort to keep the flow of cash coming in, the regime offered up one million barrels of oil through the regime’s domestic bourse so its private sector could buy oil to resell to the international market.

The response from the global marketplace was tepid at best with only 280,000 barrels of crude oil being sold according to oil ministry news service Shana.

Saeed Khoshroo, NIOC’s director for international affairs, had said Sunday that the eased restrictions would cause the crude offered on the bourse to get snapped up immediately.

The fact that so little crude was bought highlights the growing impotence of the regime in trying to navigate a path out of the economic fallout coming next week.

Of special concern to the regime was the price paid on the bourse which was only $74.85/b in 35,000-barrel consignments. The steady decline in price demonstrates the belief in the global marketplace that shortfalls from Iranian supplies cut off by sanctions can be made up from other sources, as well as a projected global drop in demand, which has increased U.S. crude inventories and further drove the price down.

Iran’s last use of the bourse was in early April 2014, when US and EU sanctions on Iran were in force. Just 2,920 barrels were sold on the first day that the crude was offered, and a second offer a day later failed to find any buyers.

Hopes by the regime that things would be different this time around were dashed and raise an ugly prospect for the mullahs: “What happens when the cash stops flowing?”

For the regime, the cut-off of money raises the specter that the Iranian people may now have the best opportunity ever to force regime change in demanding concessions from the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard Corps to loosen their iron-grip on the country and clear a pathway for greater democracy; especially the introduction of legitimate opposition parties.

The loss of oil revenue is likely to keep driving the value of the rial down and fuel more inflation – both have been drivers of popular uprisings and protests throughout Iran – thereby adding to the volatile and combustible mix of anger aimed at the ruling mullahs.

On Saturday, Iran’s parliament approved a government economic reshuffle, according to a Reuters report in an effort to try and convince the population the regime was trying to address its concerns, but will reshuffling of regime leaders be enough to stave off regime change this time?

We don’t think so.

Michael Tomlinson

Attacks on Iran Military Parade Show Fractures in Regime Rule

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Attacks on Iran Military Parade Show Fractures in Regime Rule

Attackers dressed in military fatigues and allegedly supporters of an Arab separatist group waded into a military parade by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps in the Iranian city of Ahvaz spraying bullets in a brazen public attack killing dozens captured on live television and social media.

The images from the attack on the regime’s vaunted IRGC elite sprawled helplessly on the ground and in some cases even running away or hiding in a drainage ditch contributed to an image contrary to what the mullahs have carefully sought to cultivate of military might.

It was the deadliest terrorist attack within Iran since an assault on Iran’s parliament in 2017 that ISIS claimed credit for. While this attack was claimed by ISIS and little-known group calling itself the Ahvaz National Resistance, the Iranian regime instead sought to blame the U.S., Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.

Top mullah Ali Khamenei himself blamed the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf and the U.S., while other Iranian officials also claimed Israel was behind the attack.

Iranian officials provided no evidence that the countries they blamed were behind the attack. The U.S. and the Emirates issued statements dismissing the accusation.

Predictably the accusations came with promises of a heavy response from the IRGC, but it’s is doubtful it could do much since direct military action against the U.S. or Saudi Arabia would undoubtedly only provide them with the provocation necessary to go after Iranian military assets in Syria and Iraq.

Unlike last year’s attack on parliament, Iranian officials sought to downplay the terrorism angle with this attack and instead focused on its regional enemies. The difference in accusations was important since it reflected the changing political realities inside Iran.

Domestic protests and widespread civil unrest have plagued the mullahs since late last year and have only continued through 2018 as Iranians rebel at the poor economy, dimmed employment, death spiral in currency valuations and rampant corruption and incompetence within the government.

That domestic unrest has forced the mullahs to look for scapegoats which is why it has increasingly focused on perceived enemies abroad including Iranian dissident groups around the world; most notably its longtime nemesis the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

In keeping with the central messaging from Tehran, the Iran lobby weighed in by raising the specter of war between the U.S. and Iran with this incident a potential catalyst.

“It is impossible to discount the possibility that this attack was deliberately timed and targeted to prompt an escalatory response from Iran that triggers a broader war with the United States. American officials spent this week issuing veiled threats against Iran. American ally Saudi Arabia has also, dangerously, warned that it would take the fight inside Iran. Moreover, National Security Advisor John Bolton last year called for assistance to Iranian separatist groups, including Khuzestan Arabs who claimed credit for today’s attack,” read a statement by the National Iranian American Council, a leading cheerleader for the Iranian regime.

Trita Parsi, the NIAC’s founder, also chimed in with an editorial in Middle East Eye in which he claimed this attack could similarly trigger a war with the U.S.

“Unlike previous terror attacks, this one may spark a much larger regional conflagration – involving not just regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, but also the United States. In fact, it may have been designed to trigger just that,” Parsi writes.

Parsi goes on to echo, almost verbatim, the charges made by Iranian officials in claiming how Saudi and American belligerence was fueling the violence against Iran.

The effort by the Iran lobby to deflect any potential homegrown terrorism reflects the need by the regime to shift any attention from the internal problems confronting it and instead attempt to turn Iranian ire outwards lest it focus on the clerics rule and call for regime change.

The shift also explains Tehran’s stepped-up efforts to mount military strikes against its enemies abroad such as Iranian Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Iranian dissident groups meeting in Paris in an attempted bombing.

All this stepped-up aggression by Tehran demonstrates the regime’s increasingly desperate efforts to distract an unhappy population over its own growing domestic troubles.

Krishnadev Calamur, a staff writer at The Atlantic, pointed out the irony of Iran blaming the U.S. for the attacks.

“The problem with Iran accusing the U.S. of orchestrating the latest attack is that it distracts from Iran’s own difficulties protecting itself from such incidents one year after a similar attack. What’s even more striking is that this is the second attack on a well-protected area. This says as much about Iran’s ability to put in place security measures that prevent high-profile attacks as it does ISIS’s ability to carry them out,” he writes.

“The U.S. response, both then and now, appears to suggest that Iran’s problematic domestic and foreign policies are to blame for terrorist attacks—ironically, a rationale lifted straight from the playbook of those who blame American foreign policy for the various attacks that have been carried out on U.S. soil since 2001, including the most recent ones claimed by ISIS,” he adds.

The senior commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brig. Gen. Esmayeel Kossari, said the reactions in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – along with “documents” that he said had been found in Iraq and Syria — were proof that “the Americans gave orders to Riyadh and supported this attack.” He was quoted by Iran’s FARS news agency.

The high-level military officers also warned that Iran will seek revenge, according to National Public Radio.

“We promise to show an annihilating and destructive response which makes them (the culprits) regret their deeds and no one will be able to kill our children in this territory, and this will not be the end of the story and we warn everyone that we will take revenge,” said Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, the Revolutionary Guard’s lieutenant commander, according to FARS.

It seems the only party talking about raining death and destruction on people is the Iranian regime.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Cannot Catch a Break as Stress Increases

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Rouhani answering questions at regime's parliament
Rouhani, Iranian regime’s President, called to answer questions in the parliament, as a result of the increasing rift among regime rivals.

Their timing is everything and for the Iranian regime, the mullahs’ timing is becoming appallingly bad.

It seems that the halcyon days of 2015 when the Iran lobby was operating smoothly, and the Obama administration was busy giving away the store to appease Tehran and agree to a deeply flawed nuclear deal was the high-water mark for the Iranian regime.

After a bloody war in Syria that drained its treasury of all of the cold hard cash it got from the U.S. following the nuclear deal, the mullahs funded an overthrow of the government in Yemen and poured billions more into buying new arms and supplying terrorist groups and Shiite militias in Iraq fighting a bloody sectarian conflict.

Unfortunately for them, those decisions coincided with a dramatic global drop in oil prices as demand fell and U.S. oil production skyrocketed. The Iranian economy ground to a near halt as the value of its currency plummeted.

Inflation spread and dissatisfaction amongst the Iranian people rose steadily. Coupled with massive government fraud and corruption, things started to get worse for the mullahs.

Add a lingering drought turning once beautiful lakes into parched deserts due to environmental mismanagement and you begin to see the pattern of regime incompetence that has pushed the mullahs to the brink of forcing the very regime change they have fought so hard to oppose.

In true reactionary form, the mullahs have responded with near savage fury in cracking down on all forms of dissent no matter how seemingly innocuous. Regime security forces have arrested almost anyone engaged in any hint of protest, be it a woman waving a hijab, a businessman marching in the Grand Bazaar or a famer in a dusty village square.

Then the real hammer fell when Donald Trump was elected president and proceeded to focus intently on the Iranian regime and promptly fulfilled his campaign promise to pull out of the nuclear deal unless the regime changed its ways.

Now the beleaguered Iranian economy – controlled chiefly by the regime through the Revolutionary Guard Corps – is being hammered as waves of foreign companies pull out and Iranian oil exports grind to a near halt.

The effectiveness of the renewed economic sanctions has stunned the Iran lobby and surprised the mullahs as their hope in the European Union to defy the U.S. sanctions and keep an economic lifeline open to the regime ruling in Iran seems to be evaporating as quickly as water in the hot desert.

The political turmoil engulfing the regime’s leadership has produced some eye-opening moments unthinkable only a few years ago.

Hassan Rouhani, the hand-picked puppet of top mullah Ali Khamenei, was summoned before parliament for the first time as he bore the brunt of anger directed at a crisis spiraling out of control.

Among his most startling statement was “the economic problems are critical, but more important than that is that many people have lost their faith in the future of the Islamic Republic and are in doubt about its power.”

The admission was a stunning reflection on the power the mullahs have exerted over the last three decades and how it is loosening like it has never been loosened before.

The predicament facing the mullahs has even made Khamenei realize their initial hopes of rescue by Europe were seemingly dashed.

In his comments published on his official website Khamenei told Rouhani and his cabinet on Wednesday: “There is no problem with negotiations and keeping contact with the Europeans, but you should give up hope on them over economic issues or the nuclear deal.”

Khamenei told Rouhani and his cabinet to work “day and night” to solve the mounting economic problems which include the collapse of the rial currency and surging unemployment.

But at the same time, he appeared to call on parliament not to press too much on Rouhani who has been severely grilled over economic performance. Officials should unite against U.S. pressure, he said, since publicizing differences would only make the nation more unhappy according to Reuters.

In another sign of the desperate search for scapegoats, the parliament started impeachment proceedings against the education minister and moved to impeach the minister of industry, mines and business. This comes on the heels of sacking the finance and labor ministers.

At the rate the parliament is going, they might impeach Rouhani’s barber and driver next.

The worst may yet lie ahead as senior U.S. officials have said they aim to reduce Iranian regime’s oil exports to zero after the new round of sanctions in November.

Analysts with Oxford Economics issued a new report this week saying they expect U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil industry will “cripple” the Middle Eastern country’s economy after they take effect.

They expect the sanctions to send Iran’s economy into recession, predicting it will contract by 3.7 percent next year, “the worst performance in six years.”

Authors of the Oxford Economics report said it’s unlikely any efforts by other world powers can help Iran find a way to export oil.

“It now looks like the impact will be worse than we initially thought as the other signatories to the original deal have yet to spell out a clear strategy that would allow them to circumvent U.S. sanctions and continue importing Iranian oil,” wrote the report’s co-authors Mohamed Bardastani and Maya Senussi, who are senior economists with Oxford Economics.

Worse for the regime, any hope of a lifeline coming from Russia and China dimmed as both countries are faced with slowing economies and in the case of China, embroiled in its own trade and tariff war with the Trump administration.

Russia is already facing potential sanctions for its purported assassination attempt on a former spy and his daughter in Great Britain.

The final blows coming in November are aimed straight at the regime’s petrodollars.

“In June, Saudi Arabia, pledged to increase oil production by as much as two million barrels a day to replace Iranian crude. Recent reporting shows Saudi Arabia and Iraq attempting to make up Iran’s market share. Last week the Trump administration announced a release of 11 million barrels from America’s strategic petroleum reserve,” wrote Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in a Wall Street Journal editorial.

The stage is being set for the worst crisis ever to confront the mullahs and it may be their last.

Iran Lobby Struggles with Chaos Engulfing Iranian Regime

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The mullahs in Tehran continued to struggle with the fallout from re-imposed economic sanctions by the Trump administration with its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, as well as mounting pressure from demonstrations and protests enveloping the country as Iranians demand relief from a death spiral of an economy and national currency.

Internal dissent has festered into open chaos as the Iranian parliament acted to remove Hassan Rouhani’s beleaguered finance minister from office in a largely symbolic act to show frustrated Iranians the regime was doing something to fix their problems, although it’s doubtful any Iranian honestly believed that fiction.

The parliament backed the removal from office of Masoud Karbasian, minister of finance and economic affairs, by 137 votes to 121 against, state media said.

The sacking was the latest in a continuing shakeup of top economic personnel. In early August Iranian lawmakers voted out the minister of labor and last month Rouhani replaced the head of the central bank.

“(America’s) focus is on a psychological war against Iran and its business partners,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday, according to the Tasnim news agency.

Zarif’s statement smacks of the desperation the regime is feeling as it tries for any rhetorical volley in an effort to find anything that might stick on the Trump administration in terms of effective messaging.

The fact there has been a wholesale pullout of foreign firms from contracts in Iran such as Total, Peugeot and other leading names demonstrates just how ineffective the regime has been in the face of potential secondary economic sanctions from the U.S. that could punish anyone doing business with Iran.

One of the key requirements by the Trump administration was for the Iranian regime to rein in its support of the Assad regime and stop involving itself militarily in Syria, but the Iranian regime’s top defense official was in Damascus this weekend meeting with Bashar al-Assad and pledged to continue supporting the regime.

Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami said that Iran would help expand Syria’s military arsenal.

“The Islamic Republic has high capabilities in the area of defense and can help Syria in expanding their military equipment,” he said, according to ISNA.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said last week that Iran should remove its forces from Syria.

Senior Iranian officials have said their military presence in Syria is at the invitation of the Assad government and they have no immediate plans to withdraw.

More than 1,000 Iranians, including senior members of the Revolutionary Guards, have been killed in Syria since 2012.

The Guards initially kept quiet about their role in the Syria conflict. But in recent years, as casualties have mounted, they have been more outspoken about their engagement, framing it as an existential struggle against the Sunni Muslim fighters of Islamic State.

In reality, Iranian intervention in Syria was vital in order to preserve one of the very few allies the Iranian regime has from being deposed as part of the democracy movement protests sweeping across the Middle East in 2010.

The end result of that military intervention was over half a million men, women and children killed and nearly five million refugees flooding into Europe as well as the rise of ISIS and years of terrorist attacks on Europe, Asia, the U.S. and Canada.

While there is much speculation about Rouhani’s future, the truth is that he is largely irrelevant since top mullah Ali Khamenei remains the firm head of the regime both spiritually and practically. Rouhani’s ultimate utility will be as a scapegoat to protect Khamenei and the other mullahs from the wrath of the Iranian people.

Parliament members have also called for the impeachment of the education and interior ministers, and others have said the industry and housing ministers should be impeached if Rouhani doesn’t shake up his economic team himself, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Iran’s economic outlook has darkened in recent months. Analysts at BMI Research in London project economic growth to slow to 1.8% this year, followed by a contraction of more than 4% next year.

Of course, the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council, are trying to make the argument that Rouhani’s downfall would only leave the regime in the hands of hardliners, but that message misses the entire fact that since Rouhani’s election which was manipulated by Khamenei, the hardliners have never loosened their grip on power.

The Iran nuclear deal was solely designed to get Iran desperately needed cash to save its military intervention in Syria and allow it to rearm and rebuild its depleted military. The fact that Iran’s economy has tanked is a result of that diversion of much-needed capital from the Iranian people to the military.

It’s no wonder why protesting Iranians have chanted since last December to get out of Syria and stop supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The NIAC posted a roundup of news items in an effort to try and portray how Iran is slipping into the grip of hardliners because of the new economic sanctions, but the past three years prove how silly that idea is since the regime has flexed its military muscle throughout the Middle East while cracking down harshly on dissenters at home.

These are not the actions of a “moderate” government as the NIAC would have you believe. What we may be seeing those are the desperate thrashings of a regime being crushed from all sides.

Shutdown of Fake Facebook Accounts Reveal Depths of Regime Deception

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In an era of fake news and the aftermath of claims that Russia tried mightily to interfere and influence the U.S. elections in 2016, news that Facebook shut down 652 fake accounts and pages – many linked to the Iranian regime – reveals the art of deception is alive and well in Tehran.

The social network said it removed 652 pages, groups and accounts for “inauthentic behavior” that originated in Iran and targeted people with news and information including political content in the U.S., U.K., Middle East and Latin America, according to Bloomberg.

The effort to manipulate social-media users also occurred on Twitter, which followed Facebook’s announcement by saying it had removed 284 accounts, including many that originated from Iran.

“Security is not something that you ever fully solve,” Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday on a call with reporters. “The shift we made from reactive to proactive detection is a big change, and it’s going to make Facebook safer for everyone over time.”

In order to find and remove the campaigns, Facebook said it acted on tips from the U.S. government and the security firm FireEye. The narratives pitched by the manipulation efforts included anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes, as well as support for specific U.S. policies favorable to Iran, such as the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, FireEye said in a blog post.

According to FireEye’s report, the misinformation campaign involved a network of news sites and accounts on Instagram, Twitter, Google+, and YouTube.

Example publications were “US Journal” and “Critics Chronicle,” which purported to be independent news sites based in California and Birmingham, England, respectively.

Anti-Trump material was also prevalent among the fake accounts which isn’t surprising given the Trump administration’s efforts to re-impose economic sanctions on the Iranian regime.

“It’s a similar order of magnitude to what we saw from the Russian troll farm, so that is a substantial operation,” Ben Nimmo, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told VICE News. “They were running websites in at least English, Spanish and Arabic, which again suggests a fairly substantial effort. Pushing out a lot of memes and a lot of content.”

The network of accounts and pages had hundreds of thousands of followers on Facebook and Instagram. The Iranian-linked network also organized at least 28 events on Facebook, although company officials declined to provide any information about the events, saying they were still under investigation. Some of the accounts also engaged in more traditional cyberattacks, such as attempting to hack into users’ accounts or spread malware, according to the Globe and Mail.

Last year, FireEye analysts uncovered a campaign dubbed APT 35, or Newscaster, by Iranian hackers who created fake journalist accounts on social media.

The cyberwarfare efforts by the Iranian regime underscore how completely ridiculous the claims of the Iran lobby were about Iranian moderation in the wake of the nuclear deal with the Obama administration.

The revelations and actions taken by Facebook and Twitter are also inconvenient for the Iran lobby, especially for the National Iranian American Council as it struggles to find an audience for its pro-Iran regime messages amongst an increasingly skeptical audience in news organizations and American voters.

Faced with terrible news about brutal suppression of dissent in Iran by the mullahs and crushing economic news fueling those protests because of rampant corruption and gross mismanagement by the mullahs, the NIAC is left to try and make the silly argument that the Trump administration is gearing up for war with Iran.

Given the state of the Iranian economy and the frustration level of the Iranian people, the Trump administration doesn’t need to do much except cheerlead as it is becoming more likely that the Iranian people themselves are going to force the kinds of democratic changes that have been long overdue.

An example of the bipolar nature of the NIAC’s messaging is in two pieces by Trita Parsi, NIAC founder, in Axios and Lobelog.

In Axios, he tries to make the argument that the U.S. is seeking regime collapse in Iran, thereby making Europe nervous.

“European analysts and diplomats alike are increasingly concerned that the Trump administration might be pursuing a policy of destabilizing Iran. The administration’s abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal, new economic sanctions and explicit encouragement of continued protests in Iran have contributed to the ongoing unrest there, which has begun to seem a goal in itself,” he writes.

Then in his Lobelog piece, Parsi claims that President Trump may be a lone wolf in his administration’s foreign policy team by advocating for meeting with Iran’s Hassan Rouhani.

“Trump, who mindful of his fondness for summits and his desire to be seen as a deal maker probably does want to meet with the Iranians, appears rather alone in favoring a pivot to diplomacy,” Parsi writes.

It’s amazing verbal and mental flexibility for Parsi to make opposite claims in two separate editorials within the same 24-hour period, but it gives everyone an idea of how Parsi and the rest of the Iran lobby is literally throwing any kind of fecal matter at the journalistic wall to see what might stick.

It’s no different than the Iranian regime’s social media disinformation campaign which slung just about any silly idea, meme or retweet in an effort to convince Americans that Iran deserves to sell its oil and use the profits to continue funding terrorism.

It’s unfortunate Twitter and Facebook didn’t shut down the NIAC’s accounts for fake news.

Suspected Iran Regime Agents Arrested Prove Claims of Iran Lobby Are False

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One of the more memorable claims made constantly by the Iran lobby during negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal two years ago was that its passage would embolden moderate forces within the regime government and nudge it to a more stabilizing influence in the region and world.

We now know how utterly wrong that promise was since the deal was approved, but more importantly, the agreement emboldened – not moderate influences within the regime – but the hardcore sentiments of the mullahs controlling the regime to crack down even harder on dissent at home and abroad.

Chief among those dissenters were those amongst the Iranian diaspora around the world actively working to promote democracy and freedom within Iran, especially anyone associated with the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), the oldest and largest of the Iranian dissident groups abroad.

The MEK has been a particularly annoying thorn in the side of the mullahs since it has helped break closely-held secrets of the regime such as the existence of its then-clandestine nuclear program.

The MEK has also been a conduit for videos, photos and news from within Iran smuggled out to give the world a glimpse of the atrocities committed by the regime such as gruesome public hangings, as well as protests and demonstrations by Iranians against the government both large and small, including the most recent waves of protests stemming from deep dissatisfaction over the faltering economy.

For the mullahs, the mere existence of an organized and global resistance movement comprised of Iranians is galling and worrisome since it shows how the regime’s rule is neither benevolent, nor popular.

The threat posed by groups such as the MEK is such that the regime has waged a secret war against its members including launching attacks on refugee camps in Iraq housing MEK members resulting in the massacres of MEK members in an effort to eradicate the resistance movement.

As pressure has mounted on the Iran regime because of its floundering economy and death spiral in the value of its currency, the mullahs have grown increasingly desperate to strike at its perceived mortal enemies; their fellow Iranians.

Last July, Belgium authorities arrested an Iranian couple and charged them with an “attempt at terrorist murder and preparing a terrorist crime” in a planned bombing attack on an Iranian freedom gathering in Paris with the MEK as one of its chief participants.

Additionally, German authorities arrested an Iranian diplomat from Vienna who was implicated in providing support and assistance to the couple in planning the attack.

Now we have news that U.S. prosecutors announced charges Monday against two men arrested Aug. 9 and accused of acting as agents of the government of Iran, covertly monitoring a Jewish center in Chicago and American members of the MEK on behalf of the Iranian regime government.

Criminal complaints against Ahmadreza Mohammadi Doostdar, 38, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, and Majid Ghorbani, 59, an Iranian citizen and resident of California, were unsealed after an indictment was returned Monday in the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. attorney’s office of the District.

“Doostdar and Ghorbani are alleged to have acted on behalf of Iran, including by conducting surveillance of political opponents and engaging in other activities that could put Americans at risk,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in a statement.

“This alleged activity demonstrates a continued interest in targeting the United States, as well as potential opposition groups located in the United States,” namely the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) or People’s Mujahedin of Iran, said Michael McGarrity, acting executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch.

Doostdar and Ghorbani were charged with acting as agents of Iran, violating U.S. sanctions and conspiracy. The charges carry maximum statutory penalties of 10 years, 20 years and five years in prison, respectively, according to the Washington Post.

The Justice Department alleged that Ghorbani took pictures of participants at a MEK rally in New York last September and that Doostdar paid him $2,000 in cash for the photos during a meeting in Los Angeles later.

He later attended another MEK rally in Washington, DC in which he “appeared to photograph certain speakers and attendees, which included delegations from across the United States.”

The photographing of MEK participants is disturbing since the Iranian regime has already acted in the past to try and assassinate and kill its members. It also raises the specter that the regime is attempting to identify MEK members who may have relatives living in Iran who could be arrested and imprisoned in order to put pressure on the MEK.

The hardball tactics are nothing new to the regime and its intelligence services, especially its Ministry of Intelligence which has led the charge against the MEK for decades.

It also was not surprising to find the Iran lobby completely silent on the matter with no mention from the National Iranian American Council or any other Iran supporters about the purported surveillance operation being conducted by the Iranian government on U.S. soil.

The regime has also stepped up its practice of arresting dual-national citizens, especially from the U.S., Canada and Europe to use as political pawns, as well as arrest scores of Iranian citizens caught protesting the regime or simply acting contrary to its medieval sensibilities.

These actions though once again are proof that the MEK is a singular threat to the regime’s continued existence and one that is gaining strength with the protest movement within Iran.

US Iran Action Group Puts Regime Front and Center of Foreign Policy

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Brian Hook, the newly appointed head of the Iran Action Group, speaks about the “Iran Action Group” during a press briefing at the State Department in Washington, DC, August 16, 2018. 

A hallmark of the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts with Iran was to try and figure out how much it could giveaway before it could entice the mullahs into doing a nuclear deal. The laundry list was an impressive one:

  • Ignore Iran’s development and test of the ballistic missiles. Check.
  • Allow Iran to continue funding terrorist groups such as Hezbollah. Check.
  • Deliver planes loaded with cash to Iran in a swap for American hostages. Check.
  • Allow Iran to funnel that cash to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. Check.
  • Allow Iran to crack down on dissidents, oppress women and execute a record number of Iranians. Check.

It’s an impressive accomplishment with the benefit of hindsight to see how little the U.S. and the rest of the world got for a flawed nuclear deal. The butcher’s bill was heavy with victims that included nearly half a million men, women and children killed in Syria and flooding Europe and the U.S. with over four million refugees.

The response to this unprecedented escalation in violence and regional instability was deafening in its silence as the U.S. led by example and did nothing to counter the rise of Islamic extremism and terrorism unleashed by Iran’s proxy wars, including the creation of ISIS.

Fortunately, President Donald Trump has re-oriented U.S. foreign policy and placed the Iranian regime front and center in terms of trying to find innovative ways to corral Iran’s extremist tendencies and chart a pathway towards democratic reforms for the long-suffering Iranian people.

His first step was to fulfill a campaign promise and withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. Then he moved swiftly to reimpose economic sanctions aimed at hurting industries controlled by and profiting the regime’s military and ruling elites.

The Trump administration also announced the formation of an Iran working group within the State Department to help coordinate the government’s response to Iran and search for ways to help foster democratic reforms in the Islamic state.

Brian Hook, the department’s current director of policy planning, will lead the team as the administration’s “special representative for Iran,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Thursday.

“Our goal is to reduce every country’s import of Iranian oil to zero by Nov. 4,” Hook said in remarks to reporters. “The United States certainly hopes for full compliance by all nations . . . in terms of not risking the threat of U.S. secondary sanctions if they continue with those transactions.”

“That is our strategy,” Hook said. “We have launched a campaign of maximum diplomatic pressure and diplomatic isolation” against Iran. Trump, he noted, “has also said he is prepared to talk” to Iranian leaders without preconditions, an initiative he said was on a “parallel track” to sanctions pressure, according to the Washington Post.

Predictably the Iran lobby attacked the idea, but its effectiveness seems akin to the Little Dutch Boy with his finger in a dike being swamped with storm waters as the Trump administration moves aggressively on several fronts to pressure the mullahs in Tehran.

“Not only is the Trump administration content to sabotage a successful nonproliferation agreement with Iran and collectively punish 80 million Iranians with harsh sanctions, the State Department’s new ‘Iran Action Group’ is nothing more than an attempt to bypass the State Department’s civil servant experts to implement Pompeo’s dangerous vision to destabilize Iran and close diplomatic off-ramps,” said Jamal Abdi, President of the National Iranian American Council.

Abdi recites the same “boy who cried wolf” refrain claiming this is a lead up to war with Iran, but there is no evidence as President Trump has long been a critic of previous U.S. armed intervention, including criticizing the Iraq invasion while on the campaign trail; a fact Abdi neglects to mention.

But while Abdi focuses on the falsehood that the U.S. is supposedly arming for war, the real issue which Abdi and the rest of the Iran lobby is terrified of is that the working group is really focused on finding ways to empower and support the Iranian people who are leading the push for democracy with massive waves of protests that have rattled the mullahs badly.

The internal pressure mounting on the regime has led to in-fighting previously unheard of in the notoriously closed-knit ruling elites, including calls by Iranian lawmakers to launch impeachment proceedings against President Hassan Rouhani’s finance minister on Sunday in a move designed to provide a scapegoat as U.S. economic sanctions hammer the regime.

A group of 33 MPs signed a motion accusing the minister, Masoud Karbasian, of being unable to manage the economy or form and implement policies, according to Reuters.

That was enough votes to force Karbasian to come to parliament to answer questions on his record in the next 10 days.

But that move may only be a band-aid as the real hammer – oil sanctions – loom in November forcing the Iranian regime to take the unusual step of publicly calling on OPEC to ensure that no other member state be allowed to take over its share of exports once sanctions are implemented.

The move was in response to reports that Iran’s chief regional rival in Saudi Arabia was prepared to take over Iran’s share of oil exports once sanctions are implemented, but even that move may be unnecessary since the European Union is still struggling to figure out ways to guarantee Iranian oil exports and sidestep U.S. sanctions in transferring payments to Iran for its oil.

The prospects look bleak as European companies fell like dominos in pulling out of deals with Iran in fear of U.S. sanctions that could cripple their operations elsewhere.

The new U.S. action group has finally placed the Iranian regime in its cross hairs and the Iranian people finally have the powerful ally they have long needed and desired.

Finger Pointing Mounts Inside Chaotic Iran Regime

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One of the key signs of a government in distress is when the backstabbing, finger-pointing and accusations become public even as leaders struggle to maintain a façade of normalcy.

For the Iranian regime, things are not looking so hot.

The regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, is the latest to weigh in against the decision to negotiate the nuclear agreement with the U.S. and other world countries. An odd position to take since he gave his own blessing to the effort at the start of Hassan Rouhani’s new administration on the carefully honed public image that he would usher in a new era of moderation from Iran.

But the regime’s leader, who rarely admits any mistakes from his divine perch, made comments this week that were posted on the Twitter account of Khat-e Hezbollah newspaper, a publication affiliated with his official website, Reuters reported.

With the issue of the nuclear negotiations, I made a mistake in permitting our foreign minister to speak with them. It was a loss for us,” Khamenei said referring to the U.S.

Khamenei confirmed this week that he has banned any future discussions with the U.S.

“I ban holding any talks with America,” Khamenei said. “America never remains loyal to its promises in talks…just gives empty words.”

The tacit criticism of negotiating the deal, which President Donald Trump pulled out of and levied new economic sanctions that potentially will cripple the Iranian economy, drives a stake into the idea that Rouhani’s administration has been a success for the regime.

Instead of the promised moderate era the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council touted, Rouhani has overseen Iran’s involvement in wars in Syria and Yemen, a major crackdown on political dissenters, a massive escalation in the use of the death penalty and a slumping economy due to rampant corruption and graft within his government.

The new sanctions targeted Iranian purchases of U.S. dollars, metals trading, coal, industrial software and its auto sector, though the toughest measures targeting oil exports do not take effect for four more months; all areas more focused on the industrial sectors controlled by the regime through shell companies and state ownership of heavy industries.

Rouhani himself was doing the best he could to backpedal from what is now becoming his greatest foreign policy failure in the nuclear deal.

“America itself took actions which destroyed the conditions for negotiation,” Rouhani also said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). “There were conditions for negotiation and we were negotiating. They destroyed the bridge themselves,” he said. “If you’re telling the truth then come now and build the bridge again.”

Khamenei’s criticism of the nuclear deal essentially throws Rouhani under the bus in an effort to distance himself from the crippled economy and the massive protests sweeping the country giving rise to ironic chants of “Death to Khamenei.”

But the finger pointing is not likely to save Khamenei and the mullahs as the economy continues on a steep death spiral as evidenced by shocking economic news as Iran’s Minister of Industry, Mines and Business says, fluctuations in the local forex market in the past four months have tripled the number of applications for import licenses worth $250 billion dollar.

Describing the figure as “unbelievable”, Mohammad Shariatmadari has insisted that a “number of” profiteering individuals are trying to “fish in troubled waters”, referring to the current currency and economic crisis.

The figure of $250 billion is almost triple of Iran’s annual oil income according to Radio Farda.

Import applications mean requests by importers to receive cheaper, subsidized dollars or other hard currencies from the government.

Rouhani’s new forex policy, fixing the dollar’s official rate at 42,000 rials, encouraged scores of individuals and companies to apply for import licenses, receiving millions of subsidized dollars, bringing in goods into the country and sell them on the basis of dollar’s value in the non-governmental forex market, i.e. one dollar against more than 100,000 rials, thereby reaping a tidy profit.

An example of this profiteering comes in the telecommunications market, an industry controlled by the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, in which certain companies received foreign currency at the official subsidized rate of 42,000 rials to a single U.S. dollar to import cellphones and then turn around and sold them at the black-market rate of 100,000 rials to the dollar.

It’s another example of the rampant corruption fostered by the mullahs and is enraging ordinary Iranians.

Khamenei recognizes that anger among the Iranian people is reaching a critical point and poses one of the most significant threats to the mullahs’ rule in the history of the Islamic state, which is why he is casting about for scapegoats to divert attention from himself, be it blaming President Trump or Rouhani, the end game is to keep himself alive and in power.

“More than the sanctions, economic mismanagement (by the government) is putting pressure on ordinary Iranians… I do not call it betrayal but a huge mistake in management,” state TV quoted Khamenei as saying as he tacitly accused Rouhani of doing little to curb mismanagement of the economy.

The corruption and mismanagement by the ruling mullahs is so pervasive and unavoidable that even reliable Iran lobby cheerleaders such as Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a Princeton University “researcher” and former Iranian regime official even jumped on the bandwagon of criticisms.

In an interview in Tehran Times, Mousavian took aim at the regime’s dysfunctional management of the economy:

“The Iranian economy is under many, many difficulties like corruption, like dysfunctionality, like smuggling, like inflation and they have a lot of problems. This has been problem since 1979 when Saddam invaded Iran, Iran had eight years of war, and after war, the U.S. pushed for many, many sanctions against Iran. However, I believe at least 50 percent of the Iranian domestic economic problem is not because of the sanctions. They are because of the domestic dysfunctionality of different system, but this is the government or other system,” he said.

“Therefore, if Iran is going to resist the sanctions, they would need to address the dysfunctionalities of their own system. Therefore, this is one reality about dysfunctionality of Iranian domestic economic system,” he added.

With friends like these, it’s no wonder the mullahs are in full blame game mode.

Iran Lobby Misinforms on Who is Hurt Most by Iran Sanctions

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A student raises her arm in protest to the Iranian regime's repressive measures against peaceful protesters in Tehran-January 2018

The Iran lobby has scrambled to find the right kind of response to the re-imposition of economic sanctions by the Trump administration. It has tried to shield the mullahs from any culpability for leading Iran down this path with their support for terrorism and proxy wars that have devastated the region.

It has even tried to argue that sanctions will only spur a new regional arms race as the regime is sure to race towards developing a nuclear weapon now that it is freed from the nuclear agreement’s restrictions by the U.S. withdrawal.

In each case the response from news organizations and international governments has been muted because there is no argument with the facts that the regime is brutal and at fault for virtually all of the sins President Donald Trump cited in his decision to pull out of the nuclear deal.

The only feeble response from supporters of the regime has been the whining wail that the regime was in compliance with the agreement and all of the other despicable acts the regime commits, especially against its own people, are outside of the agreement’s scope.

That technicality is at the heart of what made the nuclear so problematic in the first place and why the Iran lobby is yet again shifting its message to a new tack.

Jamal Abdi, the new president of the National Iranian American Council and chief Iran lobby cheerleader, offered in an editorial in the progressive blog Lobelog.com, that the real victims of economic sanctions were the Iranian people.

“The reality is that Trump’s pressure campaign weakens those within Iran who seek more conciliatory foreign relations and a more open political and social domestic landscape. It also empowers Tehran’s most reactionary forces,” Abdi writes.

If it is impolite to call someone an outright liar, then we would have to watch our language and simply say Abdi is being disingenuous with his comments.

The stark reality is that there was never any hope of moderation within the Iranian regime with the Obama-negotiated nuclear deal since the ruling mullahs never had any intention of loosening their grip on power.

The elimination of any potential rival candidates from presidential and parliamentary election slates following the deal ensured that, as well as historically massive crackdowns on the Iranian people, including a round up and imprisonment of any dissenting viewpoint – real or imaginary – as thousands of women, students, journalists, activists, bloggers, artists and even YouTubers ended up in Iranian prisons.

“The repressive powers in the Islamic Republic are far more threatened by Iran’s integration into the global economy than by a tit-for-tat dispute with the United States. They worry that the lifting of sanctions will undermine the monopolies established by the well connected few who are aligned with the Revolutionary Guards and other government entities. Indeed, after the nuclear deal, the Supreme Leader issued edicts against a broader opening to the United States and hardliners repeatedly warned of ‘foreign infiltration’ in order to obstruct President Hassan Rouhani’s outreach to the West,” Abdi added.

Another fabrication from him as the reality is that virtually all of the Iranian economy is controlled by the state through the family dynasties of ruling mullahs or the Revolutionary Guard Corps which controls the largest companies in the petroleum, telecommunications, banking, manufacturing, transportation and energy industries.

Integration back into the global economy was a boon for the Iranian military, allowing it to refill its coffers, depleted by the wars in Syria and Yemen, and mobilize proxy militias in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When foreign companies such as Peugeot, Total and Airbus quickly moved in to sign deals with the regime, who was getting the benefits? Certainly not the Iranian people who’s standard of living has plummeted under the mullahs’ rule.

The much-promised economic windfall promised to the Iranian people after the nuclear deal was signed never came and in response the Iranian people have chosen to risk their lives in ongoing, massive demonstrations sweeping throughout the country since last December and into a sweltering summer of discontent.

“The real threats to repressive rule in Iran are a growing middle class, an organized civil society movement, and leaders who have the political capital to push for change against entrenched elements in the system. These trends make a democratic Iran inevitable. But outsiders, often led by the United States, have taken actions to arrest these developments. They have propped up Iran’s repressive rulers with threats of war and invasion, and bailed them out by slapping sanctions and travel bans to isolate Iranians and keep them weak,” Abdi said.

This last point is the most damning by the Iran lobby since the regime has done its level best to eradicate the Iranian middle class with manipulation of its currency and restrictions that have skyrocketed inflation and pushed the rial down to near Weimar Republic levels.

The defiance of Abdi’s claims comes in the form of the protests taking place throughout Iran by the Iranian people, including his much-vaunted middle class who have been hit hard by the regime’s deep corruption in the economy.

Couple that with the oppressive human rights situation in which women have been tossed in jail for protesting hijab requirements and the feisty mood of the Iranian people can be seen almost every day on Iranian streets and in town squares and marketplaces.

What many in the Iran lobby are terrified of is that the Iranian people will indeed be able to exert enough pressure internally to force the kinds of liberalization and democratization it promised with the nuclear deal but failed to deliver.

The Financial Times editorialized the same sentiment in but only gets it half-right:

“It would, however, be far preferable if Iran moved towards a more liberal and open regime through a process of domestic reform, rather than as a result of crushing external pressure. The history of Iran and the wider Middle East gives ample warning that sudden violent changes in government have rarely led to happy outcomes — particularly when they have had external sponsors,” the FT’s editorial board said.

Iran’s mullahs are never going to give up power as a result of gentle persuasion. Only a massive build up of outrage by the Iranian people coupled by economic sanctions aimed directly at gutting the financial pipeline to the military is the only pathway to gain the internal regime change the FT describes.

The history of the Middle East tells us that change does not come easily, nor politely. It comes only through the convergence of external pressure coupled with internal reforms.

We believe that opportunity is finally coming to Iran.