Iran Lobby

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

Resistance to the Iran Regime is Not Futile

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Resistance to the Iran Regime is Not Futile

Resistance to the Iran Regime is Not Futile

For any Star Trek fan, one of the more infamous villains on the Next Generation series was the Borg; collective evil that utters the hostile demand “Resistance is futile.”

Of course the courageous crew of the starship Enterprise successfully resists the Borg and keeps humanity face from a perilous future of being absorbed by the Borg and losing all free will.

In the real world of today, the Iranian regime is strangely like the Borg. The mullahs in Tehran act as a collective mind, all lockstep in sync with their vision of creating a Shia sphere of influence and bringing all of their neighbors under the sway of their particular ideology.

And like the Borg, the Iranian regime has no humanity, is only concerned with achieving its objectives and sees the use of others—such as Afghan refugees enlisted to serve as cannon fodder in the Syrian civil war—as simply a means to an end; mere tools of statecraft.

The Guardian took a closer look at how Iran recruits these Afghans, often taking advantage of them as they face poverty or the threat of being denied entry into Iran from war-torn Afghanistan.

The newspaper found Iran is covertly recruiting hundreds of Afghan Shias in Afghanistan to fight for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, drawing them out of their own conflict-ridden country and into another war in which Afghanistan plays no official part.

The Afghan fighters are often impoverished, religiously devout or ostracized from society, looking for money, social acceptance and a sense of purpose that they are unable to find at home, the newspaper said.

In return for fighting, Afghans are offered a residence permit in Iran and about $500 monthly salary. With no available official figures, estimates of how many Afghans are fighting in Syria vary wildly. Iranian state media, while not acknowledging direct Iranian involvement, say 20,000 Afghans are fighting in Syria.

For the Iranian regime, having a loyal Afghan militia may serve a longer-term purpose beyond Syria. “It clearly serves the interests of the IRGC to train Shia Afghans who later can fight the Taliban or other Sunni groups on Afghan soil after United States military withdrawal from that country,” said Ali Alfoneh, an independent Iran analyst based in Washington, DC.

This is part of the mullahs’ long-term plan; to develop assets that can be used to deepen and strengthen its power outside its borders.

Protecting the regime’s plans is the Iran lobby which serves as dutiful drones spouting the same messages over and over again and nauseum portraying the regime as a bunch of moderates struggling against the anti-Muslim rhetoric coming from regime opponents.

The Iran lobby, such as the National Iranian American Council, labels opponents as racists, war mongers, neocons, rebels and just about any other term you can come up with; all designed to cast doubts and aspersions on anyone daring to oppose the regime.

But the remarkable truth is the opposition to the Iranian regime is wider, more diverse, more inclusive and stronger than it has ever been since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

The broad coalition opposing the Iranian regime ranges from Iranian dissident groups such as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) and the umbrella National Council of Resistance of Iran, to human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to government agencies and organizations such as the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran for the United Nations and members of the European Parliament, U.S. Congress and other elected officials.

The opposition is also made up of ordinary Iranian citizens who protest and demonstrate in their own ways and pay a high price for those acts, including the imprisonment, torture and the ultimate sacrifice of martyrdom.

These include Iranian students, teachers, artists, journalists, musicians, bloggers, businessmen, women, writers and filmmakers. They represent the entire width and breadth of Iran and while their actions are often covered up and obscured by a regime intent on not letting the outside world know of their discontent, social media channels have helped get the word out on their suffering and defiance.

The symbol of that resistance projected itself on July 9th just outside of Paris in a cavernous convention hall filled with tens of thousands of people from around the world who convened as part of the annual gathering of resistance groups to the Iranian regime.

While this annual event has faithfully documented the injustices and abuses meted out by the regime during the year, this year’s event was significant and special because of the sharp and dramatic rise in terrorist acts committed by Islamic extremists around the world including most notably Paris, Brussels and Istanbul.

Coupled with a pivotal American presidential election and the recent Brexit vote, the political landscape will change dramatically over the next year, which is why the Iranian regime and its lobby allies have sought to influence the politics of these elections to safeguard a badly flawed nuclear deal that is delivering vast sums of cash to the mullahs.

The regime’s top mullah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly stated that the policies of Democrats and Republicans regarding Iran are not different, because the United States is opposed to the very existence of the Islamic Republic, which will not change through diplomatic negotiations.

Hence, in Khamenei’s view, the United States is pursuing no goal other than regime change in Iran and in this respect he is not incorrect because regime change is truly the only legitimate pathway to restoring democracy and freedom to the Iranian people.

This is why these opposition groups pledged for “Regime Change” when they convened on July 9th in La Bourget- Paris.

By Laura Carnahan

 

#FreeIran Gathering is Biggest Human Rights Event of 2016

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#FreeIran Gathering is Biggest Human Rights Event of 2016

#FreeIran Gathering is Biggest Human Rights Event of 2016

Near the airfield where 90 years ago Charles Lindbergh ended his historic solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, gathering took place at the cavernous convention halls near Le Bourget Airfield on a similar historic occasion last Saturday.

It is here an estimated 100,000 friends and supporters of over 300 human rights and Iranian dissident groups joined dignitaries and elected officials from around the world in what has become the largest annual gathering opposed to the rule of the mullahs in Tehran.

This gathering has deep roots in the struggle for freedom and democracy in Iran and represents the largest thorn in the side of the ruling religious leaders of the Iranian regime. These groups included the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) for which mere association constitutes treason as far as the mullahs are concerned and punishable by death.

While the polarization in American politics as personified by the supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are often contentious and biting, it’s hardly conceivable that being a registered Democrat or Republican would warrant a death sentence, yet in Iran, membership in an outlawed political movement is, which makes this event more admirable for the determination of the participants to literally put themselves and their families at risk by merely attending an event that is viewed with such intense hatred by the leaders of the Iranian regime.

Why then did they come?

The overwhelming majority are ex-pats caught outside of Iran during the Islamic revolution in 1979 which saw the promise of a democratic overthrow of the Shah’s reign instead saw it usurped by the fanatical followers of the religious clerics that essentially stole the revolution and installed an Islamic state that far preceded the ISIS the world is grappling with today.

What was most impressive though to those unfamiliar with the Iranian resistance movement was the generational shift occurring with the large participation of young people; the children and grandchildren of the Iranian diaspora.

This Snapchatting, Instagramming, Reddit-loving generation energized a movement that was centered on the long struggle through the ‘80s and ‘90s and has given way to the connections being made on social media within and outside of Iran. Connections and sharing that has earned the wrath of the mullahs who have sought to crack down on these social channels by building their own version of the Great Cyber Wall of Iran to track and block the use of social media platforms.

Since the original Arab Spring protests were violently put down after being shared socially for the first time through mobile phones and apps, the regime’s intelligence services have relentlessly gone after bloggers and high profile social media stars in Iran; tossing many into prison and threatening them with even worse unless they became willing advocates for the regime.

This certainly hasn’t stopped many ordinary Iranians from creating their own forms of private protest; be it posting selfies of women without wearing mandatory hijabs on Instagram or spreading copies of bloated and inflated paycheck stubs of Iranian officials caught in the center of corruption scandals.

Most importantly of all, last week’s gathering provided an opportunity for the governments of the world to unite in supporting the opposition movement with representatives that read like a roll call at the United Nations General Assembly. It was an inspiring scene repeated each year to see a cavalcade of members of parliaments, Congressmen, military officers and even a former U.S. presidential candidate of two lead a packed convention hall in advocating for a free and democratic Iran.

The names of the speakers are well known to those who follow current events, including former Democratic presidential candidate Gov. Howard Dean, former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former UN ambassador John Bolton, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and inaugural Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge.

Most notably, for the first time a high-ranking member of the Saudi royal family came to endorse the movement’s efforts in Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud.

All of which points out a significant issue for the rest of the world. The resistance movement’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, is one of the most unique and influential political leaders today.

She is a moderate Muslim woman, leading one of the largest moderate Muslim movements in the world, who warned almost 20 years ago of the dangers posed by the rise of radicalized Islam, only to see her warnings come true during 9/11 and now with the chaotic civil war in Syria and the spread of ISIS and Iranian regime influence around the world.

To say the world is a more dangerous place now would be an understatement as we have seen with brutal and eye-opening terrorist attacks in Sydney, Boston, Ottawa, Paris, Brussels, Orlando, San Bernardino, Istanbul, Baghdad and Bangladesh. The litany of places struck could fill a Fodor’s travel guide around the world.

Yet the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which Rajavi leads, has been at the forefront in laying out a plan to combat this rise in radicalization and offering a roadmap for regime change in Iran that leads back to a democratic, non-nuclear, multicultural and pluralistic society.

One that does not hang political opponents. One that does not condone eye gouging, acid attacks, amputation and other medieval punishments as law enforcement. One that recognizes the value and rights of women, gays and the young people.

What last week’s landmark events also accomplished was refute the endless stream of false accusations and straw men perpetuated by the Iran lobby, which is supported by the Iranian regime. This collection of bloggers, journalists, lobbyists and false front organizations such as the National Iranian American Council, act in concert with agents of regime intelligence services to push out a false narrative that seeks to discredit the resistance movement.

More importantly, the Iran lobby seeks to preserve the few gains it has made in securing a fatally flawed nuclear deal and now pushes to open the lines of commerce to fund the regime’s badly depleted bank accounts, drained after years or proxy wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

Ultimately, the success of this gathering will not be in the headcount of attendees, glowing press reports or posted selfies of attendees, but rather in the stark reminder to the mullahs that an energized, optimistic alternative to their nihilistic rule exists and it’s made up of Iranians.

Michael Tomlinson

Why the Boeing Sale Matters to Iran Regime

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Why the Boeing Sale Matters to Iran Regime

Why the Boeing Sale Matters to Iran Regime

The Iranian regime trumpeted with much fanfare an agreement to buy 80 commercial airliners from Boeing, as well as lease another 29 airliners for a total value estimated upwards of a whopping $25 billion for Iran Air. Far from being a simple transaction for new aircraft any national airline might make, this deal represents far more for both the Iranian regime and the hopes of the mullahs in Tehran to gaining unrestricted access to currency exchanges.

The deal is the linchpin to a larger effort by the regime to lift restrictions put in place limiting the regime’s access to U.S. currency exchanges, as well as access to sensitive technology that could be used by Iran for illegal or military purposes.

While the nuclear deal reached with Iran last year lifted a number of economic sanctions, it did not lift sanctions still in place related to Iran’s abysmal human rights record, support of terrorism and the illegal test launches of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, but that has not stopped some in the U.S. administration from trying an end-run in supporting the Boeing deal and using loopholes such as the creation of a new Iranian bank located literally offshore its coast on an island to get around currency restrictions.

An effort was mounted in Congress to block the sale with the House approving two amendments by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) to block sales by Boeing and Airbus aircraft to Iran to the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act 239-185.

The amendments both passed by voice vote, which a statement from Roskam’s office said indicates “overwhelming, bipartisan support.”

One amendment prohibits the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) from using funds to authorize a license necessary to allow aircraft to be sold to Iran.

The other amendment ensures Iran will not receive loans from U.S. financial institutions to purchase militarily-fungible aircraft, by prohibiting OFAC from using funds to authorize the financing of such transactions.

Democratic Representative Denny Heck of Washington state, where Boeing has major operations, said that if proposed bills to restrict the deal became law they would also affect other companies’ sales to Iran. Because virtually all modern jets have more than 10 percent U.S. content, including those Airbus plans to sell, they already require export licenses from the U.S.

This is precisely the reason why the Boeing deal needs to be blocked because its passage would open the proverbial floodgates for the Iranian regime to pursue unrestricted deals with virtually any business without fear of sanctions or consequences. The deal would also essentially make null and void all sanctions in place for human rights and terrorism violations.

It would be hard to contemplate a more universal dismissal of the importance of human rights than the explicit approval to resume business with the regime and ignore all of the vile acts it commits against its own people and the rest of Middle East.

Can we imagine past “business as usual” deals with the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia during the killing fields or with Serbia or Rwanda as genocides were being committed? When does conscience give way to financial gain?

Republican and Democratic critics of the deal expressed concern that the aircraft would be used by Iran for illicit activities, such as ferrying weapons to Syria in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) wrote a letter to the Obama administration in June saying it is “virtually certain” the aircraft would be used for nefarious purposes, since Iran Air is aligned with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which remains under sanction.

Iran Air was removed from a sanctions list as part of the nuclear deal with Iran, which rolled back sanctions in exchange for limits to Iran’s nuclear program.

“Iran Air’s aircraft will undoubtedly be used in the future to continue to funnel lethal assistance to Assad, to Hezbollah, and to other terrorist entities,” Sherman wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker on June 30.

Opponents of the Boeing deal pointed out that the Treasury imposed sanctions on Iran Air in 2011 for using passenger and cargo planes to transport rockets and missiles to places such as Syria, sometimes disguised as medicine or spare parts. At other times, members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards took control of flights carrying sensitive cargo. Those sanctions were lifted in July 2015 after the nuclear deal was signed.

“Boeing is signing a deal with an Iranian aviation company and an industry complicit in the regime’s weapons proliferation and destabilizing adventurism,” Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based public policy group, testified at the hearing.

Dubowitz said that Iran Air made three trips to Syria just last month carrying weapons and supplies for Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria that’s opposed by the U.S.

“The deal between Boeing and Iran risks implicating major U.S. companies in the Islamic Republic’s support for terrorism and regional adventurism,” said Dubowitz, who has advocated tough sanctions against Iran and helped lawmakers craft them.

Predictably, the Iran lobby voiced its displeasure over the efforts to kill the deal.

“By attempting to block Boeing’s pending sale of commercial passenger aircraft to Iran, opponents of the Iran nuclear accord are also seeking to undermine significant U.S. commercial interests and to impose humanitarian suffering on the Iranian people by denying them access to safe air travel,” said Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council in a press release.

It’s a noteworthy sentiment since not many ordinary Iranians are likely to be flying Iran Air flights loaded with military hardware and ammunition bound for Syria, Iraq or Yemen, but naturally Cullis and the rest of the Iran lobby ignore the illicit uses the Iranian regime has used commercial aircraft for previously.

It’s also important to remember that Cullis and the NIAC make no promises or guarantees that the aircraft would not be used for military purposes, which lies at the heart of why this deal frankly stinks. Without any reasonable guarantees or enforcement or monitoring mechanism, the U.S. and Europe through Boeing and Airbus would essentially be providing the Iranian government and military with a massive upgrade in its airlift and cargo capabilities at a time when its’ military is deeply involved in three proxy wars straining the regime’s ability to move supplies, hardware and troops.

While the first step was taken by the House to stop this bad deal, the Senate needs to take the matter up quickly and pass similar legislation.

By Michael Tomlinson

Behind the Deals and Photos Lies a Troubled Iranian Economy

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Behind the Deals and Photos Lies a Troubled Iranian Economy

Behind the Deals and Photos Lies a Troubled Iranian Economy

Ever since the Iranian nuclear deal was agreed to last year, the Iranian regime has been busy staging elaborate photo opportunities announcing business deals and hosting trade delegations from a wide range of European, Asian and African nations looking to re-enter the Iranian marketplace.

For the regime, it has been a vital source of propaganda to show the world that Iran was indeed flourishing under the nuclear deal, which helped to reinforce the false messages and perception that the deal was helping to bring economic benefits to the Iranian people.

Of course, many trade delegations were faced with the inconvenient truth of the regime continuing its bloody policies of executing large numbers of Iranians during these visits, including juveniles that were publicly hanged during visits by European Union officials.

The reality though is much more dismal than the mullahs would like the world to know, although news media reports have begun to focus more closely and with greater scrutiny on the economic woes and mismanagement besetting Iran.

Chief among the many benefits the Iran lobby crowed about was the ability for Iranian oil to enter the open market with the lifting of economic sanctions. Regime advocates such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council contended that lifting these sanctions would bring Iran into the global marketplace, thereby moderating its behavior and bringing economic relief to hard-pressed Iranians.

The opposite has happened instead.

Bloomberg’s Julian Lee discussed the slide in Iran’s oil fortunes, noting that five months after sanctions on Iran were eased, the rapid rise in the country’s oil production and exports appears to be ending as quickly as it began.

Iran’s observed crude oil exports, which exceeded 2 million barrels a day in both April and May, slipped by almost 20 percent in the first three weeks of June, said Lee.

One of the country’s primary aims after restrictions on oil sales were eased was to regain its markets in Europe. Before the latest sanctions were imposed in 2012, Iran was exporting about 600,000 barrels a day of crude to countries in the European Union, with Italy, Spain and Greece its biggest buyers.

But more worrying for Iran is the difficulty that it seems to have had in persuading its biggest pre-sanctions buyers to resume purchases. Italy, previously Iran’s best customer in Europe, loaded its first cargo in mid-June, five months after the restrictions were lifted. Purchases by Spain and Greece are also well below pre-sanctions levels.

Outside Europe, Iran has also struggled to regain customers it lost to sanctions. A delivery to the Tanzanian port of Dar Es Salaam in March remains its only post-sanctions sale to Africa, while purchases by U.S. companies are still banned.

The steep decline in oil sales spells trouble for the regime, which counted on the influx of cash to help bolster a treasury wrung dry from the financing of three separate proxy wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

Adding to the bad financial news for Hassan Rouhani and the mullahs in Tehran is word that the ballyhooed announcement of sales of Airbus commercial airliners to Iran was also in trouble with Iran thinking of cancelling some of the planes in the order, including the flagship mammoth A380 super jumbo jets.

Part of the difficulty, which the recently announced Boeing deal is facing, is the restrictions in place keeping most banks from financing the deals because of sanctions still in place against Iran for human rights violations and sponsorship of terrorism.

It certainly did not help the regime to have an international watchdog agency vote to keep Iran on its blacklist of nations still supporting money laundering and terrorism.

The economic difficulties Iran is experiencing underscore the inherent weakness of the religious leadership of the regime, especially in running an efficient economy. Virtually all of Iran’s major industries are run by or controlled by shell companies under the thumb of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the various power factions of mullahs all enriching themselves at the expense of the Iranian people.

The level of corruption has erupted into protests and demonstrations that have rocked the regime for the better part of three years and have ranged from schoolteachers protesting low wages to small business owners demanding reforms to halt graft to mass demonstrations over sky high salaries paid to regime executives and state-controlled businesses.

In a sign of the growing desperation being felt by the regime, deputy chief of staff of the armed forces Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri was the first Iranian official to offer a comment on the Brexit results in trying to tie the “Leave” to a rejection of American policies.

“The desire by the people of England to leave the EU is in reality a ‘No’ by the majority of the people for the continuation of the compliance of the British government with respect the imposition of America’s will on this country,” Jazayeri said.

It’s a ridiculous comment since virtually every exit poll showed Britons were alarmed at the sharp rise in Islamic extremist attacks and the mass influx of refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict aggravated by Iran’s support of the Assad regime there.

More importantly Brexit poses a significant threat to the mullahs since the United Kingdom is now free to pursue a foreign policy independent of the European Union which has sought to normalize relations with Iran since the nuclear deal.

What doesn’t help improve British perceptions of the Iranian regime is the recent illegal arrest of a British woman on charges she fomented insurrection by helping design a charity website years ago.

The reality is that the chaos created by Iranian regime in Syria is now coming back to haunt the mullahs and underscore how incompetent they are not only in managing the economy, but in foreign affairs.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Tries to Spin Continued Blacklisting of Iran Regime

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Iran Lobby Tries to Spin Continued Blacklisting of Iran Regime

Iran Lobby Tries to Spin Continued Blacklisting of Iran Regime

An international group that monitors and combats money laundering worldwide decided this weekend to keep the Iranian regime on its blacklist of high-risk countries, which included notably Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan; all countries the regime is currently engaged in proxy wars.

At a meeting of its 37 members in South Korea, the Financial Action Task Force also moved to keep North Korea on its blacklist and urged countries to be on guard against Pyongyang’s attempts to bypass sanctions to finance illicit weapons programs.

“The FATF, therefore, calls on its members and urges all jurisdictions to continue to advise their financial institutions to apply enhanced due diligence to business relationships and transactions with natural and legal persons from Iran,” read the statement FATF issued.

The FATF deferred to the potential for the Iran nuclear deal to help motivate Iran’s support of terrorism, and opted to defer further sanctions for another 12 months to see if the Iranian regime follows through on its promises.

But it is interesting to note the FATF only list 11 nations as being high-risk or non-cooperative in the areas of money laundering and support for terrorism and the Iranian regime is affiliated in its support with five of them. Almost half of the nations on the planet engaged in these activities are tied to the mullahs in Tehran.

That is a remarkable achievement for any regime to take, especially one that is constantly defended by the Iran lobby as a peaceful and moderate nation.

The absurdity of that defense reached new levels with a statement issued by the National Iranian American Council’s Tyler Cullis, which welcomed the deferred action by the FATF, but ignored the continued presence of the regime on the blacklist; choosing instead to look at the glass half-full scenario.

“FATF has suspended its call for Member-States and other jurisdictions to impose counter-measures against Iran and its financial institutions, which should send a clear signal to international banks and businesses that economic opportunities with Iran can move forward,” Cullis said.

It’s a rather willfully ignorant statement since the FATF clearly warned member countries to exercise due diligence when dealing with anyone connected to Iran. When applied to financial institutions such as commercial banks, that is a clear warning to stay away from Iranian regime, which virtually all major banks have opted to do given the uncertainty raised by the FATF.

Cullis claims that the regime has made meaningful steps to counter the financing of terrorism in what has to be the biggest obfuscation since Adolf Hitler said Czechoslovakia invited the Nazis in.

Cullis ignores the interception of several Iranian boats attempting to smuggle guns, rockets and ammunition to Houthi rebels in Yemen. Cullis ignores the arming and support Shiite militias in Iraq which are now meting out retribution against Sunni tribes in furthering sectarian bloodshed. Cullis ignores the long-term funding of Hezbollah and the use of terror in the Syrian conflict in targeting civilians and Doctors Without Borders hospitals.

There is good reason why Transparency International ranks the Iranian regime 130th out of 168 countries in the world for corruption with a score of 27 out of 100. Cullis claiming there are meaningful reforms coming from the mullahs in Tehran to combat terrorism is like claiming a butcher shop is trying to go vegan.

Sanctions experts, banking sources and Western officials say little will change regarding financial institutions’ “hands off” approach to Iran, above all due to concerns about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) omnipresence in the Iranian economy. The IRGC is still under international sanctions, according to Reuters.

“Practically speaking the FATF decision changes little since global financial institutions will continue to voluntarily implement strict counter-measures given their serious concerns over Iran’s illicit financial conduct,” said sanctions expert Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

To further illustrate how Cullis and the rest of the Iran lobby is wrong, the regime’s top mullah Ali Khamenei obliged with yet another warning of violence to a neighbor, in this case Bahrain.

He blasted as “foolishness” a decision by Bahrain’s leaders to strip a top Shi’ite Muslim cleric of his citizenship, and said it could provoke violence from Shi’ites, who make up the majority in the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom.

The speech by Khamenei, carried by state media, came after Bahrain’s Sunni authorities stepped up measures against the island’s Shi’ites and stripped their spiritual leader, Ayatollah Isa Qassim, of his citizenship.

“This is blatant foolishness and insanity. When he still could address the Bahraini people, Sheikh Isa Qassim… would advise against radical and armed actions,” Khamenei said in remarks carried by state television on Sunday.

“Attacking Sheikh Isa Qassim means removing all obstacles blocking heroic Bahraini youths from attacking the regime,” he said.

Of course he neglected to mention that Bahrain has long maintained that Iran funnels financial material support to would-be insurgents.

Again, that pesky “funding terrorism” problem.

Aside from funding terrorism, the Iranian regime still remains a black hole for human rights and its continued arrests of foreign nationals alone should keep it in the sanctions pokey.

In the case of Montreal-based university professor, Homa Hoodfar is being held in an Iranian jail and being investigated for “dabbling in feminism and security matters,” according to her family, while in the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British woman arrested by regime authorities, who claimed she was being held in solitary confinement for three months because she helped to “design a website.”

If the Iranian regime is afraid of women like these, its days in power are surely numbered.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Tries to Pivot to Immigration to Hide Abuses

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Iran Lobby Tries to Pivot to Immigration to Hide Abuses

A Syrian migrant family enters Hungary at the border with Serbia near Roszke, Hungary August 28, 2015. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

Political events in Europe and the U.S. have pushed immigration issues to the forefront of talk shows and government agendas, but many of the most pressing immigration have their roots not in an escape from economic poverty, but rather the specter of terrorism and war, especially as a result of the Iranian regime’s involvement in the three largest wars going on right now in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

It was not an accident that in the wake of World Refugee Day, there was broad acknowledgement that the source of most of the world’s refugee problem comes from the instability sweeping across the Middle East.

While the political discussion of immigration in the U.S. presidential election and the controversial Brexit vote has revolved around the impact mass immigration is posing to countries, the real underlying discussion is only now starting to focus on the roots causes of these mass movements of people fleeing violence in their own lands.

Also, in the wake of numerous terrorist attacks ranging from San Bernardino, California to Sydney, Australia and Paris, France to Ottawa, Canada, the infectious and noxious influence of spreading Islamic extremism is being felt; much of it flowing from the mullahs in Tehran and through their agents in the Revolutionary Guards and Quds Forces who organize, recruit, train, arm and fund extremists.

Predictably though, the Iran lobby has sought to capitalize on the immigration debate by focusing the discussion not on the root causes of these mass displacements. It’s a necessary gambit and typical of the Iran lobby to deflect attention from the real core issue of bloody sectarian conflict fueled by the mullahs.

The National Iranian American Council took the lead with several editorials and statements it has issued attempting to blame everyone else but the Iranian regime for the misery being inflicted on the millions of refugees fleeing these conflict zones.

Sarah Sakha offered up the idea on NIAC’s website that Americans opposed any bans on Muslims and refugees based on a Brookings Institute poll, but failed to address the core concern these same Americans have which is how to stop the spread of Islamic-inspired terrorism washing across the U.S. through Boston, Fort Hood, Chattanooga, San Bernardino and now Orlando.

She also fails to discuss the increase in terrorism and the harshness of the treatment of men, women and children in Iran by the regime is disingenuous and ignores the root causes of these problems. Likewise it lays bare how transparent the Iran lobby is in defending the regime from any criticism of its policies.

Similarly, the NIAC gave space to cover a recent meeting by the Atlantic Council and Iran Project with national security staffer Ben Rhodes who was famously revealed to have crafted the “echo chamber” supporting the Iran nuclear deal on a foundation of lies. The symposium was designed to defend the faltering nuclear deal from blistering criticism that it has failed to moderate Iran and instead has led to the great instability and bloodshed we see now.

Rhodes even used the examples of the openings made to Cuba and Burma as templates for why Iran should be treated in of those countries agreed to renounce terrorism h of those countries agreed to renounce terrorism and in Burma’s case actually held free elections that installed long-time dissidents in control of the government for the first time.

The Iran regime has done none of those things.

The NIAC even took on the recently unveiled the House Republican’s policy paper listing its priorities in the upcoming election including the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran for continued violations of human rights and sponsorship of terrorism, as well as its deliberate efforts to violate the nuclear agreement with ballistic missile tests and the clandestine sanitizing of sites of any evidence of prior testing of nuclear materials.

Ironically, while the NIAC attacks the idea that imposing new sanctions for continued human rights violations, it never denies that severe human rights violations are taking place in Iran. Instead, it attributes the suffering and misery being inflicted on the Iranian people with mass arrests and executions not to the actions of the mullahs, but rather the lack of U.S. currency flowing to the regime as a result of the nuclear deal.

It is the height of stupidity to equate torture in Iran to a lack of cash.

That seems to be the mantra being repeated most often by the Iran lobby these days as it pushes to get cash into the hands of the regime as quickly as possible, but not for the benefit of ordinary Iranians it seems as the regime is being rocked by protests over disclosures that high-ranking executives at state-owned businesses are being paid obscene salaries while Iranians are being exhorted by the mullahs to continue a “resistance economy” of deprivation.

The Daily Beast also disclosed that a former Clinton administration official has been on the payroll of Boeing as it strived to close a deal with Iran to sell $25 billion worth of commercial airliners.

Thomas Pickering, one of the country’s most famous diplomats and a former ambassador to Israel and the United Nations, has been quietly taking money from Boeing while vocally supporting the Iran nuclear deal—testifying before Congress, writing letters to high-level officials, and penning op-eds for outlets like The Washington Post.

Pickering confirmed via email—from his Boeing corporate email address—that he was on staff at the company from 2001 to 2006 and has been a paid consultant for them ever since.

Neil Gordon—an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog organization—said Pickering should have been upfront about his work for Boeing when testifying before Congress on the Iran nuclear deal and making the case for it in op-eds for major publications.

“In Pickering’s case, he has a direct connection to Boeing, which I think should be disclosed,” he said.

Over the past few years, Pickering has been one of the most vocal and visible advocates for the nuclear agreement with Iran. On June 19, 2014, he testified before the House Armed Services Committee about his views on the need for a comprehensive agreement with Iran. He did not mention Boeing in the disclosure form he provided to the committee prior to his testimony. Boeing also isn’t mentioned in his bio that the House kept on file.

The lack of disclosure of his work in support of the nuclear deal and his participation in Rhodes’ “echo chamber” is disturbing and shows the complicated and extraordinary efforts made by the Iran lobby to secure the nuclear deal for Iran.

Most disturbing, his bio on the NIAC website where he serves as an advisory board member, notes that he worked at Boeing until 2006 but does not note that he still consults for the company. Same for his bio at the anti-nuclear weapon group Global Zero. His bio at The Iran Project doesn’t mention Boeing at all.

The lack of disclosure and his active work with leading members of the Iran lobby while also collecting fees from Boeing which the Obama administration is doing all it can to facilitate business with the regime raises alarm bells everywhere of conflicts of interest and outright deception.

Trita Parsi of the NIAC also using the same scape goat, blamed the suffering of Iranians on the lack of business deals with Iran following the nuclear deal.

“If the Iranians end up de facto not getting sanctions relief, the deal will collapse,” he said. “That’s right now the biggest threat to the sustainability of the deal.”

He is right, but the threat isn’t coming from foreign companies, but rather the mullahs themselves as they pursue policies turning most of Europe into a massive refugee center.

By Michael Tomblinson

Uranium Discovery at Iran Facility Shows Depth of Regime Deception

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Uranium Discovery at Iran Facility Shows Depth of Regime Deception

Uranium Discovery at Iran Facility Shows Depth of Regime Deception

The Wall Street Journal reported the discovery of uranium particles at the Iranian regime’s secretive Parchin military facility during inspections last year which tied the regime to its past, covert nuclear weapons program contradicting the arguments made by the mullahs in Tehran and the Iran lobby that it was not developing nuclear weapons.

Traces of man-made uranium were found at the Parchin facility, southeast of Tehran, by investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, as part of an investigation tied to the landmark nuclear deal reached last year.

The regime long claimed the site was only used for developing and testing conventional weapons; not nuclear ones, but the particles are the first physical evidence—on top of satellite imagery and documents from defectors and dissident groups—to support the charge that Iran had been pursuing a bomb there in the past.

Unsurprisingly, the U.S. administration didn’t comment about the uranium in December when the IAEA released its report; the finding got only one brief mention in the 16 pages. The lack of attention could be attributed to the administration’s recent efforts to appease the regime and not rock the boat with any embarrassing disclosures giving ammunition to critics of the nuclear deal.

But in recent interviews, current and former U.S. officials asked about the uranium finding said the working assumption now is that it is tied to nuclear weapons development that Iran is believed to have pursued more than a decade ago.

The fact that the IAEA discovered the particles even after the regime had engaged in a massive clean and sanitizing effort at the Parchin site, which included the removal of tons of topsoil and dismantling of all infrastructure that may have been exposed to radiation, leaves the impression that the size and scope of Iranian nuclear activities there were extensive. Much of that clean-up effort was documented on satellite imagery.

According to the Journal, the man-made uranium found at Parchin, which has only low-levels of fissionable isotopes, can be used as a substitute for weapons-grade materials in developing atomic bombs, according to nuclear experts. It can also be used as component in a neutron initiator, a triggering device for a nuclear weapon.

While the Obama administration has refrained from making an issue of the uranium discovery, the fact of its existence buries a key argument made by the Iran lobby groups such as the Ploughshares Fund and National Iranian American Council that the Iranian regime was not engaged in any nuclear weapons development.

The significance of exposing that lie by the lobby, coupled with recent admissions from national security staffer Ben Rhodes of the creation of an “echo chamber” built on falsehoods to support the nuclear deal, shows that the basis for the nuclear deal was clearly false.

It also means that at a fundamental level, the Iranian regime cannot be trusted.

Jennifer Rubin, writing in the Washington Post’s Right Turn column, put in correctly when she called the willful ignorance of the evidence of uranium a “bait and switch” approach to negotiations.

“After the administration repeatedly promised Congress and the American people that Iran would need to reveal possible military dimensions (PMDs) of its nuclear program, the final deal did not do so. The administration claimed it was unrealistic to expect Iran to come clean, and besides, we would know everything about Iran’s program. Now we know at least at Parchin there is evidence of precisely what we suspected all along. What we do not know — because the administration let Iran off the hook — is the extent of that program, other sites that might have been used and any information that would have come had the IAEA been allowed to interview scientists,” she writes.

“It should be clear to both Democrats and Republicans that the Iran deal allowed Iran to escape scrutiny of past violations and left plenty of room to maneuver and evade future inspections. It should likewise be clear that fear of losing the deal has led the administration to countenance Iran’s non-nuclear misbehavior. With a new president should come a new Iran policy, one that halts new concessions (e.g. dollar transactions), applies new economic pressure and, where possible, claws back concessions the prior administration made. If nothing else, a tougher stance against Iran will persuade our Sunni allies that we have stopped deluding ourselves about the nature of the Iranian regime,” she adds.

It is clear that if there is to be any meaningful accountability of the Iranian regime, it will have to come from a new incoming administration which has been freed from any preconceived notions of believing in the fairy tale of a moderate Iran and benevolence within the mullahs in Tehran.

Next month, Iranian dissident groups will gather in Paris to hold a gathering aimed at demonstrating the vast opposition to the Iranian regime and give voice to all those who have suffered, been tortured and died at the hands of the mullahs. Many of these groups have helped supply international authorities with the evidence implicating the regime in nuclear weapons development.

It is only right the world give them the same attention it gave the Iran lobby during negotiations last year now that we know the real truth about Iran and nuclear weapons development.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Finding Itself Alone on an Island

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Iran Regime Finding Itself Alone on an Island

Iran Regime Finding Itself Alone on an Island

For the past 16 years, the American-version of the hit reality television series “Survivor” has enthralled audiences with its competitions pitting contestants against each other in a remote location where food is scarce, alliances are formed and broken instantly, no one trusts anyone else, everyone fights for immunity and the goal is winning bundles of cash.

Sound familiar? It should to anyone who has watched the leadership of the Iranian regime over the same decade and a half period because it pretty much describes what is happening to the ruling mullahs in Tehran.

Like the contestants on Survivor, the aim and goal for the mullahs is a simple one: protect your own skin, backstab anyone and everyone and go home with the loot at the end of the game.

In Iran’s case, that has meant expunging all opponents – either by kicking them off election ballots or tossing them in jail or even hanging them – making overtures for peace to its neighbors and enemies and bringing in as many business deals as possible to fatten their bank accounts.

For the Iranian regime, the doctrine of “survival of the fittest” might be slightly altered to say “survival of the craftiest” since the mullahs have built their careers since the 1979 revolution in deception, misdirection and outright lying to the rest of the world and their own people.

Take for example the recent revelations from Iran that senior executives at top state-owned companies have been collecting lavish paychecks and perks at a time when ordinary Iranians are reaching levels of desperation for food, medicine and other goods almost on par with the chaos erupting in Venezuela.

The general director of state-run Bank Tejarat took home approximately $270,000 last year, according to one newspaper report this week. Another paper obtained a pay stub showing that an executive at the government-owned Iran Central Insurance Company pocketed $25,000 in one month – nearly 100 times the wage of the lowest-paid government employees.

Working stiffs everywhere believe their bosses are overpaid. But the disclosures carry particular significance in Iran, where egalitarianism was a mantra of the 1979 revolution, and where perceived moderate President Hassan Rouhani has staked his administration on promises to improve ordinary citizens’ lives, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Under Iranian law, no government employee can be paid more than seven times what the lowest paid worker earns. Apparently the law doesn’t seem to apply to the leadership of the regime, nor to the companies and industries controlled by it and the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

While laborers in some state-run factories go months without receiving paychecks and stage regular protests in front of parliament in Tehran, a small elite continues to live large off of chronic mismanagement and cronyism in the bloated public sector.

Last year there was a public outcry when several social media profiles showed photos and videos of young Iranians flaunting the affluence of their families with exotic cars, foreign trips, designer clothes and extravagant parties, with many of them tied to well-connected regime officials.

Media reports said three managers at the state insurance company together earned nearly $60,000 in a month earlier this year, while the average salary of a high school graduate is about $300 a month. The insurance company said the amounts included bonuses, family allowances and other perks in addition to salary – an explanation that did not diminish public anger.

Mohammad Reza Zabalipour, a businessman and head of Tehran’s World Trade Center, said the leaks exposed the lack of meritocracy in Iran’s public sector.

“Many managers are enjoying vast salaries not because of their merits and qualifications but because of their connections to this or that politician or political party,” Zabalipour said. “And because they anticipate dismissal anytime, once they are at the helm of a state-run enterprise they do their best to fill their pockets as much and as soon as possible.”

The growing isolation of the regime’s leadership from the people of Iran resembles the shrinking tribes on Survivor as contestants are voted off the island each week until only there are only a few left standing to fight for the prize. You get the feeling that Rouhani might become the odd man out as his usefulness to top mullah Ali Khamenei as a moderate puppet is exhausted amidst growing domestic unrest.

Much of these signs have come in the form of harsher, broader and deadlier crackdowns in Iran against dissenters; although perceived dissent now comes in all forms, not just political.

The news that an international group that monitors money laundering worldwide is expected to decide this week to keep Iran on its blacklist of high-risk countries despite aggressive lobbying by Tehran to come off the list to help it access the global financial system portends even more trouble for the regime, Western officials said.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), established in 1989 to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, compiles the list, which it regularly updates. Its 37 member states are meeting in South Korea.

“No changes to Iran’s status on the blacklist are imminent, though I think perhaps we can expect some words of encouragement and recognition of Iran’s attempts to make progress,” said one Western official familiar with FATF discussions, who asked not to be named. Two other Western officials concurred this week with the opinion that Iran would not be taken off the blacklist at this time.

Soon that Survivor island in Tehran may just include Khamenei and a few bodyguards with no one else left to imprison or torture.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Looks to Expand Into Latin America

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Iran Regime Looks to Expand Into Latin America

Iran Regime Looks to Expand Into Latin America

In 1994, a Buenos Aires Jewish community center was bombed by terrorists. Speculation focused on the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxy Hezbollah, as well as the long reach of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and its specialized Quds Forces.

Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman had doggedly pursued the investigation into the bombing, leading up to his indicting eight former Iranian regime officials and one Lebanese national in 2006. The following year, at Nisman’s behest, Interpol issued “red notices” for the arrest of six of the accused. But the Iranian regime predictably took no action.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Nisman’s efforts this week culminating to his death under suspicious circumstances when he died from a single gunshot to the head in January 2015, a day before he was scheduled to testify to Argentina’s Congress about an alleged government cover-up of the bombing.

Using legal wiretaps, Nisman later built a case that then-President Cristina Kirchner’s government had a covert agreement with Iran to wipe Tehran’s fingerprints off the AMIA attack, as the center was known, in exchange for Iranian oil and reopening Iran’s market to Argentine grain and beef.

Nisman had filed a criminal complaint against members of the Kirchner government the week before he died. Killing him did nothing to stop the public from learning of the contents of his report. Yet his death did put the brakes on his plan to bring the Iranian regime’s crime into the international arena. It had the potential to undermine the key foreign-policy objectives of Tehran, especially plans by the mullahs to engage the West in a nuclear agreement to lift economic sanctions.

The lifting of sanctions and the re-engagement of commercial activity is a crucial element to Tehran’s long-term plans since it allows the regime to deploy political and military operatives specializing in propaganda, intelligence, terrorism and insurgency to finance their illicit activities under the guise of normal everyday business.

Months after Nisman’s death, a safe-deposit box was discovered with a signed document by him formally requesting the United Nations to intervene in the investigation.

Joseph Humire, the executive director of the Washington, D.C., based Center for a Secure Free Society, uses thousands of documents and legal wiretaps released to the public to show how the prosecutor’s death eliminated a key stumbling block for Iran and “paved the way for [it] to move into a new phase of its information and intelligence operations in Latin America.” If the theocracy, which is the No. 1 state-sponsor of terrorism in the world, did not murder Nisman, it was the biggest beneficiary of his death.

The timing of Nisman’s death was thus critical as the Iranian regime entered intense negotiations by 2015 for a nuclear deal. An investigation in Argentina showing the regime’s culpability in terrorist acts abroad would severely damage the arguments being made by the regime and the Iran lobby that the incoming administration of Hassan Rouhani was only focused on peaceful and moderate accommodation with the rest of the world.

Authoritarian governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have welcomed the presence and influence of Iran, but Latin American countries have been surreptitiously invaded, beginning with embassies, cultural centers and mosques. Peru’s southern rural communities are typical targets for launching networks. Front companies in the beef and oil industries in Brazil and Uruguay are used to provide cover for Iranian regime’s operatives, according to Humire, who also cited the rise of Iranian mullahs’ infiltration of universities.

Surely the mullahs in Tehran see the opportunity and have aggressively moved to expand their influence in a region with a U.S. administration pursuing a policy of appeasing the regime.

The linchpin of  those efforts remain the nuclear deal reached last year which is giving the Iranian regime the legal fig leaf to seek out commercial agreements providing it the opportunity to expand its influence throughout the world.

The situation in Argentina of suppressing a terrorist attack in exchange for business deals was a dark foreshadowing of what is happening today with recent announcements by companies such as Boeing in new agreements with the regime.

The nuclear agreement has been under severe criticism though with revelations and disclosures coming almost daily undercutting the arguments made by the Iran lobby and other regime supporters in favor of it. These include:

  • The promise of empowering Iranian “moderates” in upcoming elections, only to see the overwhelming majority of perceived moderates knocked off the ballot and hardliners in firm control of all leadership positions;
  • The promise that Iran would be an influence for peace in the region, but instead has widened the war in Syria, brought Russia into the fighting and started the civil war in Yemen, while boosting sectarian conflict in Iraq between Sunni tribes and Shiite militias; and
  • The promise of improving the plight of the Iranian people economically and in human rights, have been dashed as mass arrests and executions have reached an all-time high while the economy and standard of living in Iran have reached an all-time low.

But the Iran lobby continues to fight for the survival of the nuclear deal and by extension the survival of the regime’s leadership as evidenced by an editorial penned by Seyed Hossein Mousavian, former head of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iran’s National Security Council, and Reza Nasri, a scholar at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva in the New York Times.

They predictably blamed the U.S. for not living up to its end of the nuclear agreement bargain by keeping in place sanctions not related to the nuclear program, but instead human rights violations and sponsorship of terrorism, thereby threatening to undermine Iranian confidence in the deal.

In essence, they are saying the U.S. should be at fault if the mullahs walk away from the deal because it restricts their ability to fund terror.

It is an inane argument and one quickly losing its appeal as the spread of Islamic extremism from Iran now reaches into the Americas.

By Michael Tomlinson

Why New Business Deals with Iran Should Be Tied to Human Rights

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Why New Business Deals with Iran Should Be Tied to Human Rights

Why New Business Deals with Iran Should Be Tied to Human Rights

Although the nuclear deal with the Iranian regime reached last April lifted economic sanctions related to trade and released $100 billion in frozen assets back to the control of the mullahs in Tehran, it did not lift sanctions put in place for Iran’s abysmal human rights record and sponsorship of terrorism.

These sanctions largely affect U.S. currency exchanges and the ability to transact business through financial institutions connected to U.S. exchanges where currency would need to be converted, transmitted or deposited.

The sanctions lifted as part of the nuclear accord permits Iran to sell its oil back on the open market (even though it had already been doing so illicitly for some time), allow foreign firms to invest in Iran’s oil and gas industry and other industrial sectors such as automobiles and hotels, as well as allow Iran access to the global banking system known as SWIFT.

Predictably there has been a rush of foreign companies looking to get back into the Iranian marketplace; primarily firms that had pre-existing relationships within Iran prior to the imposition of most sanctions.

These largely comprised European, Chinese and Russian firms looking to announce deals, but most financial institutions in those same countries have been reluctant to jump in and engage in business with the regime; largely because of the regime’s unstable record on worsening human rights and the turbulence created by its involvement in proxy wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

Now comes word – premature it seems – that U.S.-based Boeing was negotiating to sell 100 commercial aircraft to the regime in one of the largest re-entries into the Iranian market by a U.S. company.

There is already significant opposition building in Congress on both sides of the aisle to the deal since Iran’s previous use of commercial airlines such as Mahan Air to ferry troops and supplies to Hezbollah in Syria makes the potential high that American-made aircraft could be used in a similar military capacity, not to mention the technology transfer involved in advanced navigation, communications and avionics systems that the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps could take and adapt to their own purposes.

All of which raises a simple question: Should any business deal with the Iranian regime be predicated on improvements in human rights or the halt of sponsoring terror?

Two former U.S. Treasury officials cast doubt Wednesday on the prospects of the deal between Iran and Boeing, claiming concerns about Iranian money laundering and terrorism financing activities are likely to scuttle the agreement.

“The risks associated with doing business with Iran haven’t changed,” said Chip Poncy, who headed Treasury’s office of strategic policy for terrorist financing and financial crimes through 2013.

Eric Lorber, a former attorney in Treasury’s office of foreign assets control, said the Boeing deal will likely face the same problem that has kept a similar deal between Tehran and Airbus, Boeing’s European rival, from getting off the ground for the past seven months.

The mullahs have complained vigorously that the nuclear deal implementation applied to the lifting of all sanctions and that any sanctions still in place or the threatened imposition of new sanctions such as those proposed for its violation of ballistic missile testing would jeopardize the nuclear agreement.

The regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, regularly threatens to tear up the nuclear deal each week for one reason or another. This past weekend it was because he didn’t like presidential candidate Donald Trump. The week before that it was because he thought Iran was being shortchanged by the U.S. on cash. Next week it will probably be about his inability to comprehend Snapchat.

The fact that the Obama administration inserted language in the nuclear deal specific to allowing investments in aircraft is seen as an effort to boost Boeing’s chances of doing the deal, but in the year since that deal was reached, the Iranian regime has been anything but compliant with efforts to moderate itself.

The litany of aggressive and illegal actions it has taken range from detaining American sailors on the high seas to widening the war in Syria to arresting just about any dual citizen it feels like including mothers, aid workers, journalists and businessmen without trial or charge.

The difficulty in many of these deals lies in the fact that the Revolutionary Guard Corps owns most of the economic and industrial capacity within Iran through a myriad of shell companies. In telecommunications for example, the IRGC owns the state phone company and controls virtually all internet access in Iran. The same goes for the oil and gas industry and airlines, which makes the Boeing deal problematic in many ways.

If we know the IRGC is engaged in supporting terrorism aggressively around the world and if we know its intelligence units and court system regularly sentences dissidents to death and uses torture on a mass scale on the Iranian people, then how can any U.S. entity conduct business in Iran without stepping on existing sanctions?

Jonathan S. Tobin writes in Commentary Magazine that Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies told the New York Times, despite the exception for aircraft sales in the text of the nuclear deal, much of Iran’s civilian aviation industry is run by companies linked to or run by the IRGC, which also operates the regime’s terror network.

Business with the IRGC and everything related to it is still very much against U.S. law and nothing in the Iran deal supersedes that fact. As Dubowitz notes, that makes any Boeing-Iran transaction a “due-diligence nightmare” for any U.S. companies as well as the banks that will also be involved, he added.

The conundrum is one that the Iran lobby is attempting to tackle head on with its typical subterfuge as evidenced by a piece written by Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council in Foreign Policy, in which he makes the inane argument that since the nuclear deal is in danger of collapse, the U.S. should double down on it and go even further in accommodating the regime.

Cullis makes the argument that the Obama administration must provide foreign companies essentially a “get out of jail card” in terms of setting out guidelines essentially setting a legal standard for compliance with sanctions in order to engage in activities expressly forbidden by those same sanctions!

As Cullis is loath to mention, sanctions still in place are not related to the nuclear deal! In order for those sanctions to be lifted, the mullahs need to stop butchering their own people, stop arresting American businessmen, British mothers and Canadian professors and they need to stop sending guns, rockets and ammunition to terrorists around the world.

Is that too hard? For Cullis and the rest of the Iran lobby, it apparently is.

By Michael Tomlinson