Iran Lobby

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

Iran Lobby Criticisms of Iran Economic Sanctions Misses the Point

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President Trump signs the Presidential order to snap back first series of sanctions - August 6, 2018

For all of the verbose and critical language the Iran lobby has aimed at the Trump administration for de-certifying the Iran nuclear agreement and re-imposing economic sanctions this week, they miss the one essential truth they cannot defend which is this whole mess is the fault of the mullahs in Tehran, not the U.S.

The Iran lobby, most notably the National Iranian American Council, have long argued the nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration was “working.” It was a misleading label from the start because the administration, under the influence of the “echo chamber” created by the Iran lobby to bolster American public opinion, literally gave away the proverbial store.

Among the most notable omissions in the agreement:

  • No restrictions on Iranian regime’s ability to develop nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to deliver payloads around the world;
  • No restrictions on Iran’s ability to funnel cash delivered as part of a payoff to free American hostages held by Iran to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah or to buy weapons from Russia and China later used by terrorists in Yemen, Iraq and Syria; and
  • No requirements for Iran to improve its human rights situation, including releasing political prisoners, halting crackdowns on journalists, students, bloggers, artists, ethnic and religious minorities, and repealing laws that oppress women such as banned jobs, morals codes and misogynistic behavior.

But what the NIAC and others in the Iran lobby fail to ever mention is Iran’s role in the Syrian civil war and the carnage it unleashed resulting in the slaughter of almost half a million men, women and children and creating over four million refugees.

It also spawned the rise of ISIS and a series of terrorist attacks that struck at almost every part of the world including London, Birmingham, Orlando, Brussels, Nice, Ottawa, Sydney, San Bernardino and the list goes on and on.

For these reasons and more, President Trump followed through on a central campaign promise in pulling out the nuclear deal. His decision wasn’t a surprise to anyone, including the Iran lobby, but that hasn’t stopped the NIAC and others from doing their best to stab at the president’s actions.

Among the sanctions being imposed include several that the Obama administration declined to enforce in the first place.

Iran will no longer be able to engage in trade using US dollars, a cornerstone of international business for the country. The country will also, according to Trump administration officials, be blocked from trade in gold and other precious metals, the import of graphite, aluminum, steel, coal, and software used for industrial purposes, and participation in the automobile market, according to BuzzFeed.

The NIAC has called for European countries to bail out Iran and commit to their business deals with the Islamic state, but already a mass exodus of companies including Peugeot and Total has streamed away from Iran.

While the sanctions are sure to be troubling to Iran, even harsher sanctions are on deck to come into effect in November. Those will target Iran’s oil exports as well as transactions between foreign banks and the Central Bank of Iran.

A senior administrative official reiterated that the US goal is to get imports of Iranian crude to zero and that the US is not looking to give exemptions or waivers when those sanctions hit.

The NIAC, in a briefing memo posted on its website, consistently characterizes the nuclear agreement as “successful” but in reality the agreement ended up being the tool by which Iranian regime replenished its cash reserves, went on a massive arms buying spree and proceeded to aid in the gassing and killing of hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East.

If the mullahs were hoping to save themselves and the Assad regime, then the nuclear deal was indeed a stunning success from that standpoint.

The harsh reality though for the mullahs and the Iran lobby is that conditions have changed significantly over the past three years, not only in Washington, DC, but also on the streets of hundreds of villages, cities and towns throughout Iran as waves of protests push the regime into a decision whether or not to crackdown on its own people again or finally entertain the notion that democracy, a real genuine democracy, needs to take root in Iran.

Thomas Erdbrink in the New York Times was one of only several journalists chronicling the protests erupting in Iran, the likes of which are rarely seen as these protests are being fueled by the poor and middle classes and focused on the poor economy, death spiral in the currency values, gross mismanagement, incompetence in the government and rampant corruption by the ruling elites.

“Some demonstrations — about the weak economy, strict Islamic rules, water shortages, religious disputes, local grievances — have turned deadly. The protesters have shouted harsh slogans against clerical leaders and their policies. The events are broadly shared on social media and on the dozens of Persian language satellite channels beaming into the Islamic republic,” he writes.

“Videos show that some protesters have gone well beyond strictly economic grievances to challenge Iran’s foreign policy and religious rules. Secular protest slogans aimed at Iran’s leadership also criticize its support for Syria and groups in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon,” he added.

Erdbrink who usually writes in a favorable manner, appeasing the mullahs in Iran, writes that predictably in-fighting among the ruling elites as to who is to blame is rising as the mullahs struggle to offer solutions to the Iranian people that don’t involve slogans or a policeman wielding a baton.

While the Iran lobby struggles to get its message out, the truth is that Americans, are less likely to hear that same echo chamber this time around.

Trump Invite for Meeting is Trap for Mullahs They Might Not Escape

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Trump Offer to Meet Rouhani has Iran Lobby Boxed In

Trump Offer to Meet Rouhani has Iran Lobby Boxed In

President Donald Trump’s nearly off-hand comment about being open to a meeting with Iranian regime leader Hassan Rouhani “anytime” puts the Iranian regime and their Iran lobby supporters between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, if they simply denounce the invitation, they reaffirm the belief that the regime was never really interested in meaningful dialogue on topics not to their liking such as improving human rights, support for terrorism or interfering in neighboring countries.

It also calls out the Iran lobby’s persistent braying for diplomatic openings between the U.S. and Iran and once the president presents such an opportunity, critics such as the National Iranian American Council are quick to denounce it.

It seems the Iran lobby can’t have their cake and eat it too under this president.

If on the other hand, the mullahs accept the president’s offer, they might very run into a Trump version of what they have consistently done to others for decades which makes a show of diplomacy but grant nothing of substance and continue to apply pressure.

The prospect of the mullahs getting a dose of their own medicine is ironic and somewhat refreshing.

The varied responses from the regime are proof the mullahs in Tehran seem pretty confused as to what to do since it’s clear that President Trump’s offer is not really without preconditions. Rather, looming over Tehran is the precarious state of the economy, looming economic sanctions due to fall next week and mounting pressure internally from the Iranian people to change how the usual corrupt government operates.

“Unfortunately, right now there is no low-hanging fruit in U.S.-Iran relations or potential negotiations. And the primary reason is that Trump, by violating the Iran nuclear deal and withdrawing from it, he really eviscerated the Iranian trust in the United States,” said Sina Toossi, a research associate at the National Iranian American Council.

“He could potentially give that confidence to international banks and businesses, remove U.S. sanctions and allow Iran to get the benefits from the deal, and that could be used as a stepping stone for broader negotiations,” he added.

Therein lies the crux of the Iran lobby’s problem. It has in Trump a U.S. president who doesn’t care about appearances or how critics view him and is just as intent on forcing regime change as any president in the last 30 years. While the Iran lobby is pushing to recover the gains lost from the failed nuclear deal, it recognizes the awful truth of their position which is that there are no meaningful gambits left it can use on this president.

The Iran lobby and the regime have sought a bailout from Europe by trying to persuade the European Union to stay in the nuclear agreement.

Rouhani met with the new British Ambassador to Tehran Tuesday where he announced, not for the first time, the US withdrawal from the multilateral nuclear deal in May was “illegal,” adding that “the ball is in Europe’s court,” according to CNN.

But that prospect seems as likely as snow falling right now on a California beach as the president is already pressing the EU over the issue of bilateral trade tariffs that has Europe busy focusing on its own trade deals.

The poor mullahs are not at the top of the to-do list for Europe anymore and the trade they represent is a pittance compared to the whopping $690 billion in trade between the EU and U.S.

Nic Robertson at CNN offered his own analysis that the Iran regime may take a long view in responding to President Trump. He posits that Iran is willing to use a subtle approach in trying to divide the U.S. from its allies and by not ramping up extremist acts with its terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah is a sign of this approach.

He also offers that summits with Russian president Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un are different since Iran’s leaders are not in as precarious a position.

With apologies to Robertson, that is a bad misread of the regime.

The mullahs are under intense pressure not only from a rial about to be less valuable than the paper its printed on to massive protests rocking the country since last year that have not abated and have taken on a dire tone with protests aimed directly at the regime’s top leaders.

The basket case economy is so bad, that Iranian parliament members have demanded Rouhani appear before them in one month to answer questions about the economy.

It is the first time parliament has summoned Rouhani, who is under pressure from rivals to change his cabinet following a deterioration in relations with the United States and Iran’s growing economic difficulties.

Lawmakers want to question Rouhani on topics including the rial’s decline, which has lost more than half its value since April, weak economic growth and rising unemployment, according to semi-official ISNA news agency.

Rouhani’s summon coincides with further shows of public discontent. A number of protests have broken out in Iran since the beginning of the year over high prices, water shortage, power cuts, and alleged corruption in the Islamic Republic.

On Tuesday, hundreds of people rallied in cities across the country, including Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz and Ahvaz, in protest against high inflation caused in part by the weak rial, according to Reuters.

The mullahs are now faced with change or doubling down on crazy and potentially pushing the Iranian people too far or accept the truth that the regime’s days are numbered.

Laura Carnahan

Iran Lobby Approaches Near Hysteria in Statements

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Iran Lobby Approaches Near Hysteria in Statements

Iran Lobby Approaches Near Hysteria in Statements

Last weekend, Hassan Rouhani after delivering a speech warning the U.S. of starting the “mother of all wars” President Trump locked his ALL CAPS key and threatened the Iranian regime with destruction if it ever attacked the U.S. And as some put it the world’s blowhards and fanatics have finally met their verbal match.

But even though the president was responding to a provocation by Rouhani, the Iran lobby predictably went hysterical claiming the president was readying for war against Iran.

Lobby members such as the National Iranian American Council were especially vocal in trying to flood news outlets with statements all blasting the Trump administration for the tough stand against the mullahs.

Jamal Abdi, the incoming head of the NIAC, issued a statement that was hard pressed to find new harsh adjectives to use against President Trump.

“The Iranian-American community was deeply disturbed by Trump’s warmongering last night. When Donald Trump threatens that Iran will suffer the consequences that few in history have ever suffered before, Iranian Americans fear that this unhinged President will follow through on his threats to bomb our friends and family,” Abdi said.

“It is past time for our elected officials to step up and ensure that Trump cannot launch a disastrous war of choice based on his deranged tweets and foolish advice of officials who have been pushing to bomb Iran for decades. The Iranian-American community will not sign up for Trump’s war push, and will push back more than ever to restrain this President,” he added.

Abdi neglected to differentiate that the president’s tweets were in response to Rouhani making threats in the first place. He also neglected to mention the wave of protests spreading across Iran since last December aimed at the mullahs and their corrupt rule.

The same Iranian-Americans Abdi claims who are fearful of the president’s policies are in fact the ones who are nervously talking to relatives in Iran who are subject to mass arrests and imprisonment for committing “crimes” such as taking part in a peaceful demonstration for not receiving their paychecks for months, for not having drinking water, and for the nationwide poverty as a result of the government’s corruption and wasting all resources to prop up Assad’s dictatorship in Syria and to support other terrorist groups such as the Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

But the NIAC’s fusillade didn’t stop with Abdi, as Trita Parsi weighed in with his own diatribe on CNN in which he outlined why he believed any pivot to diplomacy similar to what President Trump did in North Korea was likely to fail with Iran.

Parsi’s arguments ring hollow as he skips over inconvenient truths and glosses over the hard reality of dealing with a religious theocracy hellbent on maintaining its grip on power no matter the cost in lives.

For example, Parsi claims that North Korea and Iran are entirely different situations because of the geopolitics of their neighbors. In this Parsi is correct to a point. While North Korea is surrounded by countries eager to use diplomacy as a tool such as China, Japan, and South Korea, Iran is surrounded by countries it has actively tried to destabilize with military action and proxies such as Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the Gulf States.

By comparison, if North Korea sent special forces into Japan or built explosives to be used by terrorists in China, the “diplomacy” Parsi so craves would never take place.

Parsi goes to explain that economic sanctions didn’t force Iran to the negotiating table, it was only after the Obama administration caved and granted the concession for Iran to continue enriching nuclear materials. Again, Parsi mistakes the concession of proof that diplomacy works, when in fact the lesson is that the Iranian regime is only interested in getting its own way and will not bend.

It is precisely why President Trump’s hardline approach to Iran is the cold, shock of reality the mullahs are afraid of because they know they will not be able to bully him as they did with Obama.

Parsi’s claim also that North Korea is a one-man show and Iran has a complicated political situation is laughable. Iran is a one-man country, ruled by Ali Khamenei. The only complicated factor is the web of financial ties, payoffs, and graft that ties the clerics, army, and bureaucracy to Khamenei.

Iranian regime’s solution to in-fighting is as simple as North Korea’s: arrest any dissidents and hang them.

Lastly, Parsi claims that all the Trump administration wants is a war – all evidence to the contrary – and its cabinet members are working towards that goal. The narrative that the Iranian lobby keeps pressing for in order to divert the attention from the fact that it’s the malign activities of the Iranian regime that is being reciprocated with a firm response.

Parsi forgets to mention how President Trump flogged his Republican opponents in the election over the ill-fated decision to invade Iraq and how he has openly opposed U.S. military commitments abroad; even questioning the role of NATO much to the consternation of European allies.

Far from a war hawk, President Trump has openly called on the Iranian people to lead a push for democratic change.

 

President Trump Warns Rouhani as Pompeo Assails Mullahs

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President Trump Warns Rouhani as Pompeo Assails Mullahs

President Trump Warns Rouhani as Pompeo Assails Mullahs

This weekend President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the U.S. bluntly warned the Iranian regime against any further transgressions against the U.S.

It started with Pompeo addressing a gathering of Iranian-American leaders at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in which he launched a blistering attack aimed at Iran’s religious and military leaders; likening them to the Mafia.

“The level of corruption and wealth among regime leaders shows that Iran is run by something that resembles the Mafia more than a government,” Pompeo said.

Pompeo’s hardline speech comes just three weeks before the first round of banking sanctions suspended under the Iran nuclear deal is re-imposed after President Trump withdrew from the landmark agreement in May. Bigger sanctions coming in November are aimed at cutting off virtually all Iran’s oil market, according to the Washington Post.

Pompeo’s speech delved deeper into U.S. demands that the Iranian regime stop repressing dissidents and religious minorities, as well as halt its support of militant and terrorist groups throughout the Middle East.

He also said the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors was going to attempt and circumvent Internet censorship in Iran by creating a 24-hour Farsi channel for television, radio, digital and social media formats, “so that ordinary Iranians inside Iran and around the globe will know that America stands with them.”

Pompeo’s speech fully realizes the administration’s growing strategy for Iran in which it will make its appeals directly to the Iranian people to propel peaceful, democratic regime change; a policy long advocated by Iranian dissidents, including the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Pompeo’s speech focused on the rampant corruption within the regime’s leadership which has been the target of mass protests by Iranians across the country since last December. He attacked what he called Iranian regime’s “hypocritical holy men,” saying the ruling elites have enriched themselves through corruption and called out officials by name who he said had plundered government coffers through embezzlement or by winning lucrative contracts.

He singled out “the billionaire general,” Interior Minister Sadegh Mahsouli; Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, the “Sultan of Sugar”; and Sadeq Ardeshir Larijani, the head of Iran’s judiciary, whom he said had embezzled $300 million in public money.

“Call me crazy,” Pompeo said, “but I’m a little skeptical that a thieving thug under international sanctions is the right man to be Iran’s highest-ranking judicial official.”

He also attacked Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for presiding over a $95 billion “sludge fund” for the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

In delivering this speech Pompeo finally closed the loopholes created by the Obama administration during negotiations on a nuclear deal which let the Iranian regime off the hook for human rights abuses, development of ballistic missiles and sponsorship of militias and terrorist groups in waging proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Following on Pompeo’s speech, the president himself took to Twitter in response to a speech by Iranian president Hassan Rouhani who warned that the U.S. risked the “mother of all wars” in a conflict with Iran. Rouhani warned against threatening the nation’s oil exports and called for improved relations with its neighbors, including arch-rival Saudi Arabia in what can only be considered a sign of the weakness of the regime in offering an opening to its rival.

In a Twitter post late Sunday, the president said, “To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

The president left little doubt of his intentions in the face of Rouhani’s threat and reminded the Iranian regime that even a blustering speech for domestic political consumption was going to have potentially disastrous consequences for the regime.

Long gone are the days of kowtowing to the regime under the Obama administration where every aggressive act against the U.S. from launching ballistic missiles that could strikes U.S. bases to the funneling to explosives and arms to terrorist groups that killed U.S. service personnel to even taking U.S. sailors hostage was going to be tolerated anymore.

Rouhani and his overlord, Ali Khamenei, find themselves in a pickle as President Trump prepares to re-impose sanctions on Iran’s oil industry as its economy already is reeling from gross mismanagement. A key point for halting Iranian oil exports is through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Mr Trump! We are the honest men who have throughout history guaranteed the safety of this region’s waterways,” Rouhani said in his speech. “Do not play with the lion’s tail, it will bring regret.”

Rouhani’s claims were undercut by threats by regime officials to cut off commerce through Hormuz.

Iran would halt oil shipments through the strait if the U.S. stopped it from exporting, Esmail Kowsari, deputy commander of the Sarollah Revolutionary Guards base in Tehran, said earlier this month, according to the Young Journalists Club, which is affiliated with Iran’s national broadcaster.

But then again lying seems to be a perquisite for being part of the Iranian regime.

 

How Much Suffering Will the Iranian People Endure?

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How Much Suffering Will the Iranian People Endure?

Maedeh Hojabri, the 19-year-old girl arrested for posting her dancing videos on Instagram 

News agencies around the world profiled the plight of Maedeh Hojabri, a 19-year-old girl who does what comes naturally for most teenagers around the world.

She likes to dance and often posts clips of her moves to Instagram, drawing a following of 600,000 followers. In the U.S., she would probably be hit up by companies wanting her to endorse her products online and maybe even start up a YouTube channel.

Unfortunately for Maedeh, she lives in Iran where the mullahs seem to be obsessed with tossing anyone in prison who exhibits any form of creative or artistic freedom, especially if they are female.

She had been quietly arrested by regime officials last May, but her whereabouts only recently became known to her followers when fans recognized a blurry image of her on a regime-supported television show that showed her crying and admitting that dancing was a crime.

We’re sure the mullahs thought public shaming of a teenager was a recipe for success in their small, twisted, warped minds, but instead the incident had the opposite effect as it galvanized the Iranian people into more of a frenzy of protest over the regime’s ongoing corruption, unemployment, and faltering economy.

Predictably, none of that seems to make a difference to the mullahs who seem to be hellbent on alienating almost the entire population of Iran with even more strong-arm, militant tactics, including the announcement that Shaparak Shajarizadeh, the woman who removed her headscarf in protest last February was sentenced to two-years in prison and 18 years of probation.

With all of the new inflamed reaction being spread across Instagram, the regime now is contemplating banning Instagram the same as it banned Telegram, the instant-messaging app that the overwhelming majority of Iranians use to communicate.

The mullahs blamed Telegram for being used as a tool of dissidents to organize protests, as well as the launch of its own cyber currency which threatened to derail an already floundering rial.

The reaction from Iranians to Maedeh’s forced confession on Twitter ranged from indignant to outraged as reported by the New York Times.

“Really what is the result of broadcasting such confessions?” one Twitter a user, using special software to gain access to Twitter, which is also banned in Iran. “What kind of audience would be satisfied? For whom would it serve as a lesson, seriously?”

The criticism was sharp and bold. “In this land corruption, rape or being a big thief, animal or child abuser, not having any dignity, is not a crime,” Roya Mirelmi, an actress, wrote under a picture she posted of Maedeh that got 14,133 likes. “But in my motherland, having a beautiful smile, being happy and feeling good is not only a crime but a cardinal sin.”

All of which raises the question of just how much suffering is the Iranian people to take before they force regime change on their own?

The question is not so far-fetched now in the wake of widespread, deep-rooted and pervasive dissent that has manifested itself in protests all over Iran, including the virtual shutdown of the famed Grand Bazaar marketplace in Tehran. Those series of protests were so concerning that the Iran lobby pitched in to discount the symbolic importance of the bazaar with an editorial by Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, a University of London professor, in the Conversation and later in The Independent.

“Once again, Iranians are articulating very specific demands related to the economy. But this is a part of the reform process in the country and not a revolutionary movement. The strike of the bazaari is the latest manifestation of the political prowess of an immensely potent civil society in Iran. And it is exactly because of this ability to organize and articulate their specific demands that Iranians have repeatedly managed to garner concessions from successive governments in their country – in many ways against all odds,” he writes in one of the more idiotic statements we’ve seen.

To claim that the Iranian people are able to wring concessions from successive regime governments is ludicrous in light of the crackdown on civil liberties such as the arrest of dancing teenagers and banning of social media. If anything, the opposite is happening in Iran as the mullahs seem to grow more and more desperate to stamp out any sign of dissent, even possibly sanctioning a terrorist plot to bomb a gathering of Iranian dissidents in Paris that was foiled by authorities.

The scope of the regime’s punishment of its own people reached new heights when Amnesty International revealed in a report that said: “more than half (51%) of all recorded executions in 2017 were carried out in Iran.”

According to Amnesty International, “Iran executed at least 507 people, accounting for 60% of all confirmed executions in the region.”

Out of the 507 individuals executed in Iran last year, “501 were men and six were women. At least five juvenile offenders were executed and 31 executions were carried out publicly.

It’s stunning to think the Iranian regime is literally a world leader in executing its own citizens and yet those same citizens are taking to the streets, sharing on banned social media and voicing their dissent in a myriad of ways knowing that such expressions of discontent could punch their ticket to Evin prison and the gallows.

It is against all of this that the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council, remains stonily silent even though it purportedly speaks on behalf of civil liberties.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Plot to Attack Resistance Gathering Foiled

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Iran Regime Plot to Attack Resistance Gathering Foiled

Iran Regime Plot to Attack Resistance Gathering Foiled

Outside of Paris, France, tens of thousands of Iranians gathered to protest the Iranian regime and demonstrate for the peaceful transition to a free and democratic Iran unshackled from the control of the ruling mullahs.

Amid the sea of flags and enthusiastic supporters was the optimistic feeling that the moment was fast approaching where that transition could finally happen as Iran is rocked with mass protests that have so far spread to over 140 cities, towns and villages and represent the most serious threat to theocratic rule in the Islamic state’s history.

Those protests have been fueled by a faltering economy including a near-death spiral in the value of the rial which ballooned to over 90,000 rial to a single U.S. dollar; doubling in only a few months.

While the regime has tried to blame President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal for the economic implosion, the truth on the streets of Iran is that Iranians are pointing the finger at rampant corruption in the government and the decision to spend billions on wars in Syria and Yemen that have only succeeded in ostracizing Iran further from the international community.

The conclusion being reached in Iran is not that the U.S. is killing the nuclear deal as much as Iranian regime’s involvement in the Syrian war and support for global terrorism is what is driving the isolation.

It is against this backdrop that the annual gathering in Paris of the Iranian opposition movement represents an almost intolerable image for Tehran; thousands of Iranians all united in supporting democratic change and being addressed by speaker after speaker including prominent members of the Trump administration, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani who is now the president’s personal attorney.

Giuliani made a strong call to ramp up sanctions as the protests in recent months have continued spread.

“When they do that, and when these protests continue to grow and grow, this threatens to topple the regime, which means freedom is right around the corner,” he said. “This is the time to put on the real pressure. The sanctions will become greater and greater.”

Amidst that image of united opposition came the news that an Iranian diplomat was among four people arrested in connection with what Belgian authorities said was a foiled bombing attack targeting the rally.

Belgian authorities said an unnamed Iranian diplomat, who works for Tehran’s mission to Austria, was arrested in Germany, while a married couple – Belgian citizens of Iranian heritage – were detained with “attempt at terrorist murder and preparing a terrorist crime” against the MEK. A fourth suspect was arrested in France.

The arrests come ahead of a rare visit to Europe by the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, who is scrambling to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal after Trump said the US would not honor it.

A statement by the secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella group of the MEK, said: “The conspiracy of the terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran to attack the grand gathering of the Iranian resistance in Villepinte, Paris, was foiled.

“The mullahs’ regime’s terrorists in Belgium, helped by the regime’s diplomat terrorists, had designed for the attack.”

According to the press, the Iranian couple were in a Mercedes car when they were stopped by special forces and arrested on Saturday in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, which is close to EU institutions in Brussels. According to Belgian media, police found 500 grams of TATP explosive and a detonator hidden in a toiletries bag.

German police arrested a 46-year-old diplomat at the Iranian embassy in Austria, whom police described as a “contact person” for the couple. And French police arrested a 54-year-old described as an accomplice. Authorities said they had monitored communications among the individuals.

A Belgian law enforcement official said investigators suspect the couple took orders from the Iranian diplomat.

Security analysts and Western officials say Iranian intelligence agencies maintain extensive networks in Europe to carry out covert operations.

The Iranian regime has a long history of mounting attacks on the various Iranian dissident groups opposing it including a publicized series of attacks on refugee camps in Iraq housing thousands of MEK members before they were finally resettled in Europe.

The bombing plot is further proof of the Iranian regime’s lack of regard for peaceful relations with the rest of the world. The fact that the plot involved agents and operatives in Germany, France and Belgian pointed out the rank hypocrisy in the supposed moderation in Rouhani’s administration and why EU policy in trying to keep the nuclear deal alive is terribly flawed.

The efforts by the regime to blunt the effectiveness of the resistance movement have included making membership by any Iranian or support for the group in any manner punishable by death. The regime has also vigorously invested time and money to fund the Iran lobby in an active effort to mount PR campaigns aimed at discrediting these groups; most notably the National Iranian American Council which has made it its mission to discredit the MEK.

This includes the creation of fake websites operated by the regime’s intelligence services and using comment boards for news organizations to disparage any positive news stories of the resistance movement.

The arrests in Belgium are noteworthy because of the rise in Islamic extremist terrorist attacks there which have been supported and encouraged by the Iranian regime.

This escalation to directly attack a peaceful rally attended by men, women and children with speakers such as Giuliani should convince any doubters of the blood thirsty intent of the mullahs in Tehran.

Michael Tomlinson

Arrest of Nasrin Sotoudeh Shows Falsehoods of Iran Lobby

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Arrest of Nasrin Sotoudeh Shows Falsehoods of Iran Lobby

Arrest of Nasrin Sotoudeh Shows Falsehoods of Iran Lobby

Nasrin Sotoudeh is one of Iran’s most prominent human rights attorneys and has been a thorn in the side of the Iranian regime’s controlling mullahs by objecting to some of their most extreme laws and representing some high-profile protestors.

In a blatant act that can only be seen as a complete disregard for international opinion, the regime went ahead and arrested her at her home in Tehran where she was transferred to the notorious Evin prison according to her husband, Reza Khandan.

In an interview earlier today with Manoto News, a Persian language news channel broadcast from outside Iran, Reza Khandan also revealed that Nasrin Sotoudeh was told she was being arrested to serve a five-year prison sentence. However, neither he nor Nasrin Sotoudeh knew anything about this sentence.

“Nasrin Sotoudeh has dedicated her life to fighting for human rights in Iran. She has won international awards but has also paid a high price for her courage, spending three years in jail. Her arrest today is the latest example of the Iranian authorities’ vindictive attempts to stop her from carrying out her important work as a lawyer,” said Philip Luther, research and advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa at ‎Amnesty International in a statement.

Amnesty International went on to note her groundbreaking work in challenging the regime’s recent change to the criminal code which denied the right of the accused to access to an independent lawyer of their own choice during the investigation of any charges the regime claimed were related to “national security.”

The net effect of which is to allow the regime to round up anyone and toss them in prison without representation in what amounts to arrest, sentencing and imprisonment all at once.

Sotoudeh is no stranger to the regime’s cruelty, having represented Narges Hosseini, who was prosecuted for peacefully protesting against compulsory veiling in Iran earlier this year. Since December 2017, dozens of women have been violently attacked and arrested for peacefully protesting against compulsory veiling according to Amnesty International.

In September 2010, Nasrin Sotoudeh was sentenced to six years in prison on charges of “spreading propaganda against the system” and “gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security” for her work as a lawyer, including defending countless cases of prisoners of conscience and juvenile offenders sentenced to death.

In 2012, she received the European Union’s highest human rights award, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and continued to work as a human rights lawyer even as the regime denied her repeated requests to represent political prisoners.

Predictably, the Iran lobby sought to frame her arrest as an outgrowth of President Trump’s decision to back out of the Iran nuclear deal which helped empower “hardliners” according to Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council.

“Lost in much of the discourse over the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from the JCPOA and announcement of new sanctions and escalatory measures has been the impact these external actions may have on the political dynamics inside of Iran,” Parsi said.

But even Parsi couldn’t find much wiggle room in such a blatant attack by the regime on a prominent human rights activist, grudgingly admitting that “the blame, of course, lies with those actors inside Iran who are seizing on this opportunity to advance an agenda that is anathema to Iran’s human rights obligations and to the wishes of the Iranian people.”

That still hasn’t stopped others from essentially excusing the regime’s act by attempting to blame President Trump as Simon Tisdall did in the Guardian:

“Trump argued his action would force Iran to change its behavior for the better. Instead, conservative hardliners appear to be extending their grip on Iranian society as part of a renewed bid to undermine the moderate forces around Rouhani. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian citizen held since 2016, is another innocent victim of this struggle,” Tisdall writes.

It’s an absurd assertion since the practice of arresting, imprisoning and even hanging political prisoners and human rights activists have been going on long before President Trump even thought about running for the White House.

Tisdall and Parsi omit how after Hassan Rouhani was elected president in Iran and was lauded as a new “moderate,” the regime went on a binge of historic proportions in rounding up and arresting everyone from journalists and bloggers to ethnic and religious minorities to Youtubers and social media users in an effort to quell internal dissent during the negotiations with the Obama administration on a nuclear idea.

How ironic there was barely a whisper about Iran’s brutal human rights suppression then, but now Iran lobby supporters blast President Trump’s recent summit with North Korea in which human rights were also not brought up.

In February, Tehran police said that 29 women had been detained for posing in public without their headscarves in the previous weeks.

In a statement sent following the arrest, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Sotoudeh “is a human rights champion who should be applauded, not jailed”.

“Iran’s judiciary again has revealed to its citizens and the international community its disdain for and fear of people who seek to protect human rights,” Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW Middle East director said.

Indeed the move to arrest Sotoudeh is recognition by the mullahs in Tehran that the jig is up and trying to pretend to be a moderate Iran was not going to work anymore. If anything, Trump’s actions have finally ripped away the lie the Iran lobby has worked hard to maintain and revealed the awful truth about the Iranian regime.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Reduced to Begging for Shoes

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Iran Lobby Reduced to Begging for Shoes

Iran’s team poses for a team photo prior the international friendly soccer match between Iran and Uzbekistan at the Azadi Stadium in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, May 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

The World Cup is about to begin in Russia with the world’s sports stage about to be taken up by soccer teams from around the world. All of them will be clad in gear provided by leading sports manufacturers, but one of the world’s biggest, Nike, will not be providing cleats for the Iranian regime’s soccer team.

On the eve of facing its first opponent in Morocco, Iranian players won’t be wearing Nike footwear after the U.S.-based sporting giant announced it would no longer supply the Iranian team because of new economic sanctions put in place by the Trump administration.

“The sanctions mean that, as a U.S. company, we cannot provide shoes to players in the Iran national team at this time,” Nike said in a statement.

The decision was accompanied by new economic sanctions. The U.S. Treasury can impose a penalty of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison against any company or person who violates the sanctions.

Predictably the Iran lobby spewed with rage at the perceived injustice with the National Iranian American Council leading the charge.

“I haven’t gotten clarity on what legal basis [Nike] is using to say this. They should reference what part of the sanctions they are talking about since technically they’re not selling anything,” said Trita Parsi, head of the NIAC.

The next incoming head of the NIAC, Jamal Abdi, chimed in as well in a press release issued by the NIAC.

“This flies in the face of any claims by the Trump Administration that it is targeting the Iranian government and not the Iranian people. We are well aware that the President’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, has openly called for the U.S. to take steps to target even sports exchanges with Iran and may relish this shameful situation. Nothing symbolizes the wishes and hopes of the Iranian people more than their national soccer team. And nothing unifies them more than when that team is unjustly targeted and insulted,” Abdi said.

It shows just how far the influence of the Iran lobby has fallen now that President Trump has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal and has placed North Korea negotiations front and center of the global debate when the NIAC is reduced to begging for shoes for the regime’s soccer team.

It’s worthwhile recalling some of the lowlights for the Iran lobby and regime when it comes to sporting events which the Parsi and Abdi have conveniently forgotten about; namely, that regime has historically banned women from even attending and watching sporting events such as soccer, swimming, and wrestling.

Many Iranian women who are fans often resort to wearing beards and disguises to gain entry and cheer on their team. If they are discovered, it often leads to jail time.

Since 1979, women athletes have been subject to strict requirements when competing in Iran or abroad, with the Iranian Olympic Committee stating that “severe punishment will be meted out to those who do not follow Islamic rules during sporting competitions”. The committee banned women athletes from competing in Olympic events where a male referee could come into physical contact with them. At 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics combined, a total of six women represented Iran.

Dorsa Derakhshani, 19, an Iranian chess grandmaster champion who grew up in Tehran, was forced out for choosing not to wear a hijab and now plays for the U.S. Chess Federation.

In many cases, especially women, the Iranian regime has often chased away its best and brightest in favor of maintaining the archaic nature of the theocracy’s laws.

These issues are never mentioned by the Iran lobby nor do they earn condemnation by the NIAC, which instead chooses to attack the issue of sanctions, by using the plight of the men’s soccer team as a PR tool.

The underlying concern for the Iran lobby is what the refusal by Nike represents, which is worry that the new sanctions imposed by the Trump administration will be deeper, harder and more effective than those that originally drove the Iranian regime to the nuclear bargaining table in the first place.

If sporting manufacturers are opting to stay from potential sanctions for participating with Iran, what does that say about heavy industries the regime’s economy and military depend on such as electronics, steel, petroleum, chemicals, and manufacturing?

The worry for Parsi and Abdi is that if other companies, including those in Asia and Europe, take these sanctions by the Trump administration more seriously, the Iranian regime could soon find its faltering economy knocked flat on its back which would pose significant threats to the rule of the mullahs in light of widening protests by ordinary working-class Iranians over the terrible economic conditions they are now facing.

While Abdi tries to frame the debate around noted hawk John Bolton, the reality is that he worries that the tough stance President Trump is taking, especially in recent trade talks, demonstrates his willingness to go after any company that engages in trade with Iran.

This is why regime leaders such as Hassan Rouhani have worked hard in an effort to preserve economic ties with the European Union following the U.S. pullout from the nuclear deal, but that effort looks increasingly like a failure as more and more private companies reassess their potential risk and weigh the disadvantage of doing business with the Iranian regime against the potential for crippling sanctions.

One example of the impact of U.S. sanctions was in the case of Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE Corp which was on the verge of extinction because of sanctions stemming from its illegal trading with Iran and North Korea.

Only after President Trump ordered a review and ZTE paid a whopping $1.4 billion fine and turned over its management and board did it manage to cling to life.

The example was unmistakable for any company deciding to do business with the Iranian regime, even more, a shoe manufacturer.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Myth of War Finds Little Traction

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Iran Lobby Myth of War Finds Little Traction

Iran Lobby Myth of War Finds Little Traction

“Iran was not about to capitulate,” said Trita Parsi, the now former head of the National Iranian American Council, in an editorial in The Nation blasting the Trump administration’s efforts to rein in Iranian expansionism.

It is a simple statement by Parsi, but one that reflects years of deep connection between the key Iran lobbyist and his masters in Tehran. Parsi knows the minds of the mullahs better than most and is also the one providing the narrative they wish propagated in the wake of President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement by not re-certifying Iranian compliance with its terms.

His editorial lays out the new terms of the debate the Iran lobby wants to have with the Trump administration and the American media landscape moving forward.

In essence, Parsi argues that:

  • The idea that President Obama had Iran on its heels due to strangling economic sanctions and had the opportunity for a more comprehensive deal was a fiction;
  • Iran was already well on its way to becoming a nuclear power in response to those increased sanctions;
  • The breakthrough in negotiations was due to President Obama’s willingness to concede Iran had a right to enrich uranium; and
  • The idea that Iran was brought to the table by economic sanctions was a fabrication by the Obama team to blunt criticism at home.

Unfortunately for Parsi every single one of his arguments have been proven wrong with the passage of time and no thanks to his masters in Tehran who have striven to disprove everything through their own actions.

First and foremost, the impact of economic sanctions was deep and far-reaching and pushed the Iranian regime’s leadership to look for a pathway out. Parsi highlights how the mullahs stepped up their nuclear activities in response to sanctions and credits that as proof that sanctions had no impact, but he misses the point—or more accurately covers the truth—that the mullahs crashed dived their nuclear program to force the issue of negotiations over a nuclear deal in order to gain relief from those sanctions as quickly as possible.

This explains the regime’s adamant demands that the deal be front-loaded with economic relief, such as the immediate release of frozen Iranian assets without oversight or pre-conditions, as well as the immediate sale of Iranian oil back on the open market.

For Iran, its economy was stagnating and its military resembled a shell of itself. And for the regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, the pathway forward was simple: get a deal done as quickly as possible so the regime could begin rebuilding its military.

After the deal was signed, that was exactly what the regime did, going on an epic spending spree with over $100 billion in new orders for everything from new advanced anti-aircraft missile batteries to new jet fighters and main battle tanks.

A little side note that Parsi neglected to mention, prior to the nuclear deal, Iran was prohibited from buying offensive weapons systems, but under the agreement, the regime was free to acquire those weapons which it has put to use in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime.

The most disturbing item never discussed by Parsi and the rest of the Iran lobby is a simple one, which is the mental state of the Iranian leadership.

Any international agreement is predicated on an assumption that both parties are rational, truthful and obligated to the deal, but in the case of the Iranian regime, a religious theocracy is in charge that has little regard for human life and values survival above all else.

Parsi’s argument all fail when you start from the premise that the Iranian leadership has an agenda very different from what he claims. Case in point:

  • If Iran was committed to improving the state of the economy and the lives of its citizens, why did it divert virtually all of the financial windfall it received towards supporting terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, financing the Assad regime in Syria and upgrading its military with offensive weapons?
  • If Iran was hoping to broaden its government to open the door to political moderates and opponents, why did it virtually eliminate all potential candidates from presidential and parliamentary elections following the nuclear deal?

The Iran lobby is left only with two lies in its verbal arsenal. It can only argue that the Trump administration’s true aim with Iran is to seek war but offers no proof.

All of the evidence points to a very different pathway President Trump has chosen. As with the current push for a diplomatic solution to a nuclear North Korea, the strategy towards Iran is to pursue diplomacy and work within the framework of America’s allies; a far cry from the drum beating Parsi is engaged in portraying.

Secondly, Parsi and the rest of Iran lobby is trying to portray U.S. efforts at regime change to topple Iran and install dissident groups he terms as “terrorists.”

It’s another fanciful claim to make since the groups he has singled out such as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) has publicly staked their future on the idea of a secular, free and democratic Iran in which the people are allowed to make their own choices in free elections.

That hardly sounds like a sinister conspiracy, but then again Parsi is left with little else than making Deep State conspiracy claims.

Laura Carnahan

Jamal Abdi Responds to Mike Pompeo with Absurdities

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Jamal Abdi Responds to Mike Pompeo with Absurdities

Jamal Abdi Responds to Mike Pompeo with Absurdities

In a landmark speech to the Heritage Foundation, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out the Trump administration’s new policy towards the Iranian regime including a list of a dozen conditions the mullahs would need to address to move forward with the U.S. in a new relationship.

Chief among those conditions was a new requirement that the Iranian regime would have to stop enriching all uranium and supporting militant groups such as Hezbollah and the Houthi; conditions that the Obama administration had tossed aside in its haste to nail down a nuclear deal with almost no pre-conditions.

In exchange for accepting these new conditions, Pompeo laid out the U.S. would lift punishing economic sanctions, restore diplomatic relations, open up commercial activity and give Iran access to advanced technology it badly needs to revitalize its economy and infrastructure.

The policy as laid out by Pompeo essentially resets the clock to the period before the Iran nuclear negotiations ran off the rails when crushing and comprehensive economic sanctions from countries around the world had dragged the Iranian regime kicking and screaming to the bargaining table where the Obama administration promptly gave away the proverbial house.

If this was a game of high stakes poker, the Obama team folded even before the flop, paying the price of the ante, but never seeing the hole cards.

Of course, the idea of a new, revised agreement that finally corralled the regime’s worst instincts was greeted with skepticism by European leaders.

Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, said the U.S. decision to fold all of its disputes with Tehran into a “jumbo Iran treaty” would be very difficult to achieve “in anything like a reasonable timetable,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, insisted the Iran agreement President Trump had abandoned remained the best way to contain Tehran’s nuclear efforts and said the EU would support it as long as Iran did. “The deal belongs to the international community,” she said.

But the new policy articulated by Pompeo is a clear demonstration of what should have been on the table in the original negotiations back in 2015. If the U.S. had exercised its leverage at that crucial moment, the devastating wars in Syria and Yemen may have never taken place.

Predictably the National Iranian American Council led the braying chorus of naysayers attacking Pompeo’s speech and leading the charge was Jamal Abdi, recently anointed as the new president for NIAC.

“The Trump Administration is setting the stage for a war of choice with Iran, with Mike Pompeo offering a smokescreen of diplomacy to distract from the administration’s pursuit of Iraq-style regime change,” Abdi said in a statement released by NIAC.

“Trump is renting out U.S. Middle East policy to the highest bidder – in this case Saudi Arabia, the GCC states, and Israel – and expecting ordinary Americans and U.S. service members to shoulder the burden of a regional escalation, a potential trade war with our allies, and a new Iraq-style regime change war in the Middle East.”

Abdi may be replacing Trita Parsi, but the rhetoric and misstatements are still the same. NIAC once again trots out the war fears in a false flag effort to convince Americans that the president wants to wage war against Iran; forgetting that then-candidate Trump was the one of the first on the campaign trail to criticize the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq and has been reluctant to commit U.S. combat troops to any new escalation, especially during the bloody Syria civil war.

Abdi of course neglects to mention that Iranian regime was responsible for the escalation that killed over 400,000 people in Syria, when it shipped Hezbollah fighters, then its own Revolutionary Guards to fight there.

Abdi doles out the same tropes the Iran lobby has used before, but now they ring hollow with the benefit of hindsight. The three years since the deal have shown how an unrestrained Iran has radically reshaped the Middle East and resulted in deaths from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and the essential failure of the promises made by NIAC and the Iran lobby: the nuclear deal did not moderate the Iranian regime but unleashed it.

Now that Iran’s economy is reeling from corruption, mismanagement and diversion of billions of dollars to its military and terrorism, the mullahs in Tehran are under enormous pressure from mass protests across the country since last December, which is why the Trump administration views this as an opportunity to reset the situation and bring about a more comprehensive deal.

In his own unconventional style, President Trump sees an opportunity here to correct what the previous administration fumbled and the Iran lobby has been rendered largely impotent in trying to stop him.

Laura Carnahan