Iran Lobby

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

Iran Regime Reveals True Intentions

by

 

Iran Regime Reveals True Intentions

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gestures as he delivers a speech during a gathering by Iranian forces, in Tehran October 7, 2015. REUTERS/leader.ir/Handout via Reuters

Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in the Iran regime, banned any further negotiations between the regime and the U.S. according to a statement released on his website, firmly putting the brakes to any idea of accommodation or moderation following the approval of a nuclear deal.

“Negotiations with the United States open gates to their economic, cultural, political and security influence. Even during the nuclear negotiations they tried to harm our national interests,” Khamenei was quoted as saying on his website.

Khamenei had previously said there would be no more talks with the U.S. last month, but this move was a step further in declaring an outright ban on any further discussions on any other topics.

The Obama administration, fed a steady stream of misrepresentations and false promises by the Iran lobby – led by the National Iranian American Council – expected a new phase of relaxed, open negotiations with the regime on a variety of issues including the ISIS, the Syrian conflict and sponsorship of terror.

Instead, now that the regime has achieved its goals in the nuclear deal – a lifting of economic and military sanctions, preservation of its nuclear infrastructure, delinking of human rights issues and release of billions in frozen cash – the regime sees no other reason to carry on the façade of moderation it has so assiduously pushed since the handpicked elevation of Hassan Rouhani as regime president.

In his address to Revolutionary Guards Navy commanders, Khamenei said talks with the U.S. brought only disadvantages to Iran.

“Through negotiations Americans seek to influence Iran”, Khamenei was quoted as saying to the IRGC commanders, who are also running much of Iran’s military involvement in Syria.

The bill of goods sold by the Iran lobby for hopes of a release of American hostages, removal of Assad and a reigning in of sectarian violence has now come due as Iranian regime’s leadership seeks to make all those promises false.

Michael Goodwin, a New York Post columnist wrote in Fox News:

“The White House deliberately downplayed the Russian buildup because it undercut central promises Obama made to Congress about the Iran nuke deal, which was then being debated.

“One of those promises was that Russia would help enforce the terms. Instead, Putin actually was making common cause with Iran, and both are now killing the Syrian rebels we supported.

“Here’s the scorecard: Obama got his Iran deal, and the world got a more aggressive Iran, an expanded Syrian war and wider Russian influence. With each passing day, the cost of stopping Putin grows more expensive.”

The yawning chasm between the promises made by the Iran lobby and the reality of what is taking place was discussed in another piece in Foreign Policy by Aaron David Miller and Jason Brodsky in which they write:

“One thing seems pretty clear: Somewhere in a parallel universe far, far away, the logic of a linear path to Iran’s moderation may be alive and well. But back here on planet earth, the odds on the health and prosperity of reform and the reformers, too, are still very long ones indeed.”

But supporters of the regime are still fighting back in trying to hold the line that a force for moderation exists in Iran and is fueled by post-nuclear deal euphoria, rather than the hangover the world is witnessing today.

One of those peddling this snake oil is Kourosh Ziabari who writes in Huffington Post:

“To the detriment of hardliners, Iran is reemerging as a regional power, and it’s easily predictable that with another four years in office plus the two intact years he has in hand – unless Ahmadinejad comes up with a new wizardry and wins the 2017 elections, President Rouhani will be able to build a strong and peace-making Iran which nobody will be able to demonize or depict as a threat to world peace and security.”

Ziabari pushes the Iran lobby message that there exists within Iran “moderate” and hard line” forces when in fact Khamenei has indelibly proven there exists only one voice on all policy matters and it is firmly his.

Even as Iran and Russia join with Hezbollah in launching a new phase in Syria, Iran’s mullahs are busy in other parts of the Middle East, including Yemen, where the Houthi rebels they support have been spotted in Iran getting support and new arms according to Al Arabiya.

The Houthi delegation “will convey to Iranian officials an urgent request by Houthi leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi to attain additional shipments of weapons after the Saudi-led coalition forces made several gains against the militia,” according to the report.

“Before visiting Tehran, the delegation had allegedly visited Beirut where it met with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah,” according to al Arabiya. “During the visit, the delegation allegedly voiced Abdulmalik’s al-Houthi’s gratitude for Hezbollah’s support in sending military experts to Yemen.”

President Obama’s former national security adviser also warned that Iranian regime leaders have effectively turned Iraq into a “client state” and are bent on exploiting the regional war against ISIS to promote their own brand of Shiite extremism throughout the Middle East.

“Iran’s grand strategy entails consolidating the hold it has gained in Iraq — a grip it seeks to tighten, directly and through proxies — and by stoking the sectarian fires,” said retired Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones.

Gen. Jones testified alongside former Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent, and both men lamented the administration’s failure to provide more assistance and refuge to members of the Iranian dissident group — commonly known in Washington as the “MEK” or “PMOI” — who have been left in the lurch in Iraq since the departure of U.S. forces in 2011.

On top of all this, word comes out that cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a network of fake LinkedIn profiles, which they suspect were being used by hackers in Iran to build relationships with potential victims around the world, according to a new report to be published by security firm Dell SecureWorks Inc.

This tactic, known as “social engineering,” is one where hackers trick people to get them to cough up personal or sensitive information. “Having those trust relationships gives [hackers] a platform to do a bunch of different things,” said Tom Finney, a security researcher at Dell Secureworks.

The 25 fake profiles described in the report were connected to more than 200 legitimate LinkedIn profiles — mostly individuals based in the Middle East who worked in sectors like telecom and defense. Those individuals and their companies likely have information that would be of interest to an Iranian cyber group, Dell Secureworks said.

Yes, the post nuclear deal world has indeed brought much change, just not the kind the Iran lobby promised.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Struggles with Tide of Bad Regime News

by

Sen Ben Cardin

Passage of the nuclear agreement between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations was aided by a coalition of liberal Zionist groups, progressive organizations and the regime lobbying network, but in the aftermath the fault lines have cracked that coalition and broken it apart as the world struggles with the still unanswered fundamental problem with the Iran regime: How do you restrain its support for terror, proxy wars and sectarian conflict?

Philip Weiss, writing in Mondoweiss, takes note of efforts by Senate Democrats, most of whom supported the nuclear deal, to offer up legislation that the regime lobby has said contains potential “poison pills” liable to derail the agreement.

It’s understandable as many voters are appalled at the downward spiral of events in the Middle East, especially Iran’s newly formed alliance with Syria, Iraq and Russia.

Republicans have pounced on recently announced deals by the Iran regime to acquire $20 billion in new jet aircraft and satellite technology from the Russians as evidence the mullahs are more interested in upgrading their aerospace and defense capabilities than in jump starting a moribund economy driven to near bankruptcy by a corrupt government and siphoning of billions to fund three proxy wars.

This new “Axis of Terror” has greatly unsettled a world that naïvely thought the nuclear deal would usher in a period of greater stability and moderation. Instead, the world has seen Russia – almost overnight – launch an air campaign in Syria, coupled with a large build-up of Iranian and Hezbollah forces along the Syrian border, bolstered by a fresh influx of Afghan mercenaries paid for by the Iran regime’s Quds Force.

The list of acts by the Iran regime according to the Wall Street Journal since the nuclear deal was approved has forced the Iran lobby to work overtime to cover for it:

  • Despite a string of high-level talks with Western leaders, including two bilaterals between Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Iran has displayed little interest in cooperation with the West;
  • Iranian officials publicly backed a Russian military campaign in Syria that is aimed at propping up President Bashar al-Assad, a leader Washington wants out;
  • Saudi Arabia said it seized a large shipment of Iranian arms headed toward Houthi rebels in Yemen who overthrew an allied government this year. Yemen President Abed Rabbo Mansour used his speech to the U.N.’s General Assembly last Tuesday to accuse Iran of seeking his country’s destruction;
  • Meanwhile, Iranian officials publicly demanded that the White House release Iranian prisoners held in U.S. jails in exchange for Americans detained by Tehran—a considerable hardening of the Iranian position; and
  • Western diplomats said regime officials consistently claim Tehran is open to ideas and discussion on Syria. But they add that Iran’s bottom line, like Russia’s, is that Assad is a guarantor of stability in Syria and they will accept no threats to his rule.

In a sign of how bad things have gotten for the region, “dozens of conservative Saudi Arabian clerics have called for Arab and Muslim countries to ‘give all moral, material, political and military’ support to what they term a jihad, or holy war, against Syria’s government and its Iranian and Russian backers,” according to Vice.com

But in spite of the sharp escalation in tensions with the Iran regime, the mullahs still seem intent on keeping their economy on a war footing. Agence France-Press disclosed warnings from Iran regime ministers overseeing the economy, industry, labor and defense who warned of an economic collapse.

Mohammad Gholi Yousefi, an economics professor at Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, said the letter had exposed tensions over the allocation of cash from Iran’s own banks.

“Almost half the banks’ resources is practically blocked by the government, special customers and banks themselves,” he told AFP, meaning it is not reaching businesses crucial to the economy and that much of the regime’s anticipated cash hoard is not accessible by middle class and poor Iranians who have seen their purchasing power plummet since 2012 and the local rial currency losing two-thirds of its value.

The recent aggressive moves by the Iran regime to acquire new military hardware and boost military forces involved in Syria has been fueled in part by the softening of sanctions even during nuclear talks as claimed by many critics of the nuclear deal.

According to  Reuters, “the U.S. government has pursued far fewer violations of a long-standing arms embargo against Iran in the past year compared to recent years, according to a review of court records and interviews with two senior officials involved in sanctions enforcement.”

“The sharp fall in new prosecutions did not reflect fewer attempts by Iran to break the embargo, the officials said. Rather, uncertainty among prosecutors and agents on how the terms of the deal would affect cases made them reluctant to commit already scarce resources with the same vigor as in previous years, the officials said.”

All of these accommodations and acts of appeasing the mullahs in Tehran in the hopes of creating a more moderate Iran regime have come home to roost and borne no fruit other than more war and chaos.

Iran Lobby Fends Off More Attacks on Regime

by

Iranian RocketsAs Congress moves ahead with a flurry of new bills to stymie the Iran regime and hold the conduct of the mullahs in Tehran to some level of accountability, the Iran lobby, most notably the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), went into overdrive spitting out policy positions against any encroachment on Iran’s advances.

Specifically, the NIAC and its lobbying arm, NIAC Action, issued nearly identical denunciations of two pieces of legislation introduced last week. In the House, a Republican proposal entitled the “Justice for Victims of Iranian Terrorism Act” was passed out on a floor vote by a bipartisan majority of 251-173 and seeks to block sanctions relief granted under the nuclear deal until the Iran regime pays all legal judgements and fines levied against it by U.S. courts which found the regime liable for acts of terror totaling $43.5 billion.

This move follows a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to agree on hearing an appeal of a lower court decision awarding $1.7 billion in damages from Iran’s central state bank in a similar case involving reparation payments to the victims and families of Iranian regime terror incidents.

“The consideration of the bill undermines U.S. national security interests and the perception that the U.S. can abide by its international commitments. It also risks opening the door to reciprocal action in Iran, which could threaten to link its concessions to the U.S. to outstanding claims in Iranian courts,” said Jamal Abdi, executive director of NIAC Action in response.

But Abdi misses the essential point of the move and subsequent decision by the Supreme Court which is the nuclear deal never addressed the most pressing issues, which is the conduct of the regime, specifically its long history of support for acts of terror aimed directly at Americans.

The fact that the regime still holds U.S. citizens in its prisons despite a negotiation that yielded billions of dollars for the mullahs and not one U.S. hostage returned in exchange is more telling about the inadequacy of the nuclear deal and subsequent drive by Congress to act more forcefully than the Obama administration in addressing the rising dissatisfaction of American voters over the deal and perception the mullahs pulled a fast one on the U.S.; which is why the NIAC and other Iran lobbyist allies are left to sputtering short statements which condemn the bills, but spoke nary a word about the ongoing harm Iranian regime is visiting on Syria, Iraq, Yemen and by holding American citizens.

Nowhere was that misleading of the American public on better display than in an editorial by Bardia Rahmani in The Georgetown Voice, a student-run magazine, which makes the argument that the $100 billion in frozen assets to be released back to the regime under the nuclear deal is erroneous and that most of the funds would not be used in supporting terror groups or in proxy wars.

It is a remarkably naïve opinion if genuine and a blatant obfuscation if deliberate. First of all, the estimate of frozen assets to be released is closer to $150 billion if you count assets held by central banks around the world as part of sanctions levied under the United Nations and European Union and include assets held not only by the Iranian government, but private Iranian entities.

The mistake the editorial makes is drawing a distinction between private and public ownership of assets and industries in Iran. Virtually all the national economic infrastructure is owned in part or in whole by institutions controlled by Iran religious government. For example, its telecommunications industry is owned through holding companies controlled by the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The same goes for construction, banking, petroleum, agriculture, trade and even entertainment and media.

Returning these assets to these “private” entities is the same as returning them to the checking account for Ali Khamenei.

The editorial also makes no mention of the significant cash drain the regime has experienced in funding Hezbollah, the Syrian civil war to keep Assad afloat (that alone comes to the tune of $4 billion annually), Shiite militias in Iraq and Houthi rebel forces in Yemen as a shooting war with Saudi Arabia erupts. The threat of a wider conflict with Saudi Arabia was reinforced by remarks made by Iran regime brigadier general Morteza Qurbani who claimed over 2,000 rockets were awaiting orders from Khamenei to be fired at Saudi Arabia.

He explained that the lines of defense for the Iranian revolution are today in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. “We are ready to carry out the orders of Khamenei and move anywhere he wants,” Qurbani added.

The regime has diverted significant funds from its economy to fund these wars – an act Khamenei praises as a “war time economy” – and the regime shows no signs of slackening any of its funding priorities. This was evident in Hassan Rouhani’s decision to suspend social welfare payments to Iranian citizens, sparking large civil unrest as fiscal belt tightening took place throughout the regime.

All of which was supported by multiple news accounts of Iranian military forces being moved en masse to the Syrian border in preparation for large-scale direct military involvement coming on the heels of Russian air strikes against foes of the Assad regime.

Assad himself gave an interview to the regime’s Iran News Network in which he described a coalition between Syria, Russia, Iraq and Iran was the best hope for regional peace, which was an odd statement considering Assad’s brutal crackdown on democracy protestors originally started the civil war which led to his use of chemical weapons against his own people and caused a refugee crisis of four million Syrians fleeing the war zone and flooding into Europe.

All of this spin control was not just confined to Syria and Iran lobbyists, but reached all the way to Tehran as the regime’s parliament took up the issue of swift passage of the nuclear agreement, but the debate and parliamentary moves were revealing since the regime was already gaming the deal by making a distinction that the regime was only “suspending” its nuclear activities and not removing them, thereby allowing for the future swift restart of the program.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

Iran Regime Actions Bolster Efforts to Halt Extremism

by

Iran Regime Actions Bolster Efforts to Halt Extremism

Iran Regime Actions Bolster Efforts to Halt Extremism

Reuters reported that hundreds of fresh Iran regime troops have flooded back into Syria over the past 10 days and will soon join their Hezbollah allies in a major ground offensive backed by Russian air strikes aimed at retaking territory lost by the Assad regime to rebels; contrary to Iranian and Russian claims they would be focusing their attacks against ISIS.

It seems clear the mullahs in Tehran are focused on securing the Assad regime by eliminating Western-backed moderate rebel units, rather than tackling their Islamic State rivals. The new offensive clearly points out the false propaganda the regime has been pumping out through its lobbyist allies such as the National Iranian American Council.

Peace is certainly the end goal for the Iran regime, but a peace that eradicates any opposition to Assad and leaves Iranian mullahs in control of a swath of territory stretching from the Mediterranean through Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen and the Indian Ocean. Their territorial ambitions have come fully to light and the bill for accommodating the regime with the nuclear deal is finally coming due.

“The vanguard of Iranian ground forces began arriving in Syria: soldiers and officers specifically to participate in this battle. They are not advisors … we mean hundreds with equipment and weapons. They will be followed by more,” said a Lebanese military source, adding that Iraqis would also take part in the operation.

Interestingly, Hassan Rouhani, the handpicked puppet leader of the Iran regime, tipped the regime’s hand in his speech before the United Nations last week in which he firmly insisted that U.S. policy should be focused on common actions to defeat ISIS before any discussion takes place on the future of Assad. Rouhani laid out the narrative in which the regime justifies the placement of boots on the ground in Syria openly and blatantly instead of relying on proxies such as Hezbollah in what is sure to be a virtual takeover of Syria by the Iranian military.

As Gareth Porter, an appeaser of the mullahs points out in Middle East Eye, “Iran’s national security strategy has had two primary objectives ever since Khamenei became Iran’s leader: to integrate the Iranian economy into the global system of finance and technology and to deter the threats from the United States and Israel. And Rouhani had primary responsibility for achieving both tasks.”

We are now witnessing what the Iran regime’s future plans are now that they have secured these twin goals and it is causing renewed efforts in Congress to stymie the regime in spite of the nuclear deal.

The House voted Thursday by the hefty margin of 251 to 173 to stop the Obama administration from lifting sanctions against the Iran regime “until Tehran pays the $43.5 billion it still owes in damages to the families of terror victims in cases where responsibility can be linked back to Iran — such as the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut and Hezbollah’s 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847,” said the Washington Post.

“Should Iran receive United States sanctions relief before it pays the victims of its terrorism all of what U.S. courts say those victims are owed?” said Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.), who introduced the measure. “I say no. Not one cent.”

If the survivors or victims’ relatives are not paid now, “it definitely won’t happen later,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.) said. He argued that Iran would spend the money freed up from sanctions relief on building up its military force and other nefarious activities, rather than paying the balance of restitution payments ordered by U.S. courts.

Those same voters may also be alarmed at news coming out of Tehran in which Saeed Abedini, the Iranian-American pastor serving an eight-year prison sentence on charges of undermining national security may face more trumped up charges by the regime, including links to antigovernment groups, said Naghbeh Abedini, his wife. Abedini is one of four Americans being held hostage in Iranian prisons including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and former Marine Amir Hekmati.

The move by the regime to place new charges on Abedini flies in the face of the PR move made by Rouhani at the UN in which he floated the idea of a prisoner swap for 19 Iranian agents convicted on arms trading and smuggling of nuclear components.

All of which leads us full circle back to the question of how to check the ambitions of the mullahs in Iran and in what form? One answer was provided by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of Iranian opposition groups, who wrote an editorial in the New York Daily News.

“My message to the United States and the West is that the long-term solution to the Iranian threat lies neither in foreign military intervention nor in collaboration with a regime that is so oppressive at home and so destabilizing abroad,” she said.

“With the nuclear deal, however misguided it may be, in place, the right policy going forward is to encourage and support the Iranian people’s desire for democratic change and to speak out for human rights,” she added.

Sound advice the West would be wise to follow.

By Michael Tomlinson

As Syria Chaos Spreads, Iran Lobby Works Overtime

by

As Syria Chaos Spreads, Iran Lobby Works Overtime

As Syria Chaos Spreads, Iran Lobby Works Overtime

Events moved fast in Syria as Russian warplanes mounted air strikes at what they claimed were ISIS strongholds, but U.S. defense officials countered were instead Western-backed rebels opposed to the Assad regime. Coming on announcements by Russian officials of the creation of an intelligence-sharing unit with Iran regime and Iraq officials, the Russian action does not bode well for hopes to topple Assad.

The political calculation made by the Iran regime and its new Russian friends is that the U.S. lacks the political willpower and means to move forward on efforts to dislodge Assad, who has proven to be the mullahs in Tehran’s most stalwart ally and proxy.

Mohammed Alaa Ghanem of the Syrian American Council made the same analysis in Huffington Post as he looked at an editorial by Philip Gordon, the former Middle East chief in the Obama administration, in Politico.

Gordon argues that the goal of “displacing the Assad regime has proven unachievable,” and argues for a new U.S.-led contact group, different from the original one created in 2012, and instead include Russia and Iran in a new one.

Ghanem recites the failures in stemming Iranian backing of Assad at key points such as “when over 3,000 Iranian proxies first flooded into Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry provided no support to stop the assault and even strong-armed the Syrian rebels into attending peace talks. When Assad regime barrel bombs began raining down on Syrian cities, The U.S. again dragged the rebels into talks while blocking weapons transfers to stop the onslaught. U.N. Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who convened those later talks, has since blamed the regime for their failure.”

The Iran regime’s support of Assad and the unwillingness of the U.S. to halt that support – instead prioritizing approval of a nuclear agreement with Tehran – has led to an unimaginable refugees crisis of four million Syrians and civilian deaths numbering in the hundreds of thousands with another 600,000 Syrians opposed to Assad under virtual siege by Syria’s military and Iran regime mercenaries and Quds Forces.

But even with the rollout of the nuclear deal, there remain defiant voices in Congress still working to place restrictions on the Iran regime and connect the dots to the mullahs’ reign of human rights abuses. The fact that incidents of atrocities are sharply on the rise with increased news coverage, which has forced the Iran lobby to step up efforts to portray the regime as being a force for change.

Trita Parsi and Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council, a leading Iran regime lobbying group, have been busy trying to convince news media that the rapid escalation in Syria is not the result of a new Russia-Iran-Iraq axis of terror, but rather the work of neocons bent on sending U.S. troops in.

Putting aside the fact that the only boots on the ground are now Russian and Iranian, the solution to Syria has always been centered in Tehran, not Washington. This point was driven home by protestors outside of the UN during Rouhani’s visit who represented a broad cross section of Iranian dissidents, Iranian-American community groups and Syrian activists opposed to the Assad regime.

Another advocate against the Iran regime is renowned author and Harvard Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz who published a new book, “The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Stop Iran from Getting Nukes?.”

Dershowitz argues that policy makers have bit into a “bill of goods” which states that “any deal is better than no deal.” Historically, the objective of Iran to eliminate the barriers between it and a nuclear arsenal, and simple common sense proves that this deal makes the US and the rest of the world decidedly less safe.

The nuclear deal promises to release the Iran regime from the sanctions that have effectively isolated it for much of the past decade and held back the tidal wave of Islamic extremism that we are now seeing being unleashed.

More evidence of the spread of the Iran regime’s destabilizing influence came when Saudi-led coalition forces seized an Iranian fishing boat loaded with weapons on its way to deliver them to Iran regime-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen according to Reuters.

The announcement came a day after tribal fighters backed by the coalition won control of a strategic dam in central Yemen from Houthi forces following weeks of fighting east of the capital Sanaa.

The coalition, which also includes Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, has been battling the Iranian-backed Houthis for more than six months.

A coalition statement said 14 Iranian sailors were detained on the boat, which was carrying 18 anti-armored Concourse shells, 54 anti-tank shells, shell-battery kits, firing guidance systems, launchers and batteries for binoculars.

I’m sure Parsi and Cullis would argue that the anti-tank shells and guidance systems were actually meant for an Iranian-sponsored fireworks display for children in Yemen.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Continues “Moderate” Push

by

Iran Regime Continues “Moderate” Push

Iran Regime Continues “Moderate” Push

The Iran regime continues its campaign to push a moderate face for itself to news media and government officials through its lobbyists such as the National Iranian American Council and through its own media PR push as evidenced by Hassan Rouhani’s appearance on the venerable news show “60 Minutes;” his first interview with a Western news organization in over a year.

The interview of the regime’s handpicked “face of the regime” took place in Tehran and comes shortly before Rouhani’s scheduled appearance before the annual general assembly session of the United Nations in New York.

The interview was revealing because Rouhani continues to foist the misconception that there are factions within Iran between “moderate” and “hardline” groups and that the nuclear deal will empower these more “moderate” elements leading the heroic fight for Iran’s future. The fact that “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft falls for this deception is not entirely surprising given the ferocity of the Iran lobby’s efforts to push this fairy tale.

The reality is that within the Mullah’s regime, all power vests entirely within the ruling mullahs and their top leader Ali Khamenei who is empowered by the constitution with sole authority over the judiciary, foreign policy, religion and most military and economic decision making.

Kroft exposes his lack of understanding of how the regime operates when he asks Rouhani: “Some of the opponents are very powerful. The commander of the Revolutionary Guards, for example, has condemned the deal. How do you deal with that? That’s an important political force in this country.”

He assumes the Revolutionary Guard is similar to some U.S. federal agency that acts independently with its own politics when in fact the Guard serves solely to safeguard the mullah’s rule and does so not only through military muscle, but also through ownership of vast swatches of the Iranian economy, including the telecommunications industry and most heavy manufacturing.

But Rohani reveals the true nature of the regime when Kroft questions him about the use of “Death to America” chants and the labeling of the U.S. as the “Great Satan” in virtually every speech made by his boss Khamenei.

Rouhani claims the chant is not against the American people, but rather against the policies of the government; a subtlety that glosses over the fact that even after securing the nuclear deal, the regime still continues its traditions of death chants.

Most notably when the questioning turns to human rights abuses and Kroft raises the possibility of a prisoner exchange for the Iranian-Americans being held hostage, Rouhani is quick to point out the need for the U.S. to make the first move in a reference to Iranians being held for violations of economic sanctions in supplying nuclear components to the regime. The fact that Rouhani is suggesting a swap of nuclear arms merchants for a journalist, pastor and former Marine tells us much about the priorities of the regime.

Inside of the almost fawning “60 Minutes” interview, the Washington Beacon took note of a hilarious parody ad created by director David Zucker, the man behind the films Airplane! and the Naked Gun series, in which he characterized as efforts to sell the nuclear deal as an advertisement for an erectile dysfunction medication.

Zucker came up with the idea after watching the PR effort being waged by the Iran lobby’s presentation of the deal.

“Every prescription drug ad follows the same basic pattern—5 seconds of how amazing and wonderful the drug would be, and then 25 seconds of all the miserable side effects,” Zucker said.

But the Iran lobby continues its marketing efforts to rebrand the Iran regime as cute and cuddly with the disclosure coming out that The New York Times has opted to cohost an October 6-7 “Oil and Money” conference in London where attendees can have the opportunity to engage with “H.E. Seyed Mehdi Hosseini, chairman of the Oil Contract Restructuring Committee at the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum.”

The fact that the Times is offering up access to regime officials after championing passage of the nuclear agreement seems at best unsightly and at worst filled with appalling bad judgement.  This comes after an incident last year in which the Times offered 13-day tours of Iran guided by Times journalist Elaine Sciolino” at the bargain rate of $6,995 per person.

Among other things, it promised “excellent insights into … (the) life and accomplishments” of Ayatollah Khomeini, the ruthless extremist leader who posed as a liberator, but then imposed a fundamentalist Islamic state after taking control of that country in the late 1970s. Those tours are still active, and popular, according to Newsbusters.org.

All of which demonstrates the effort to cash in on the windfall associated with passage of the nuclear deal and the enormous profits many are anticipating in doing business with the regime regardless of the consequences in supporting a blood thirsty regime fueling virtually all of the turmoil in the Middle East right now.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Iran Lobby’s Plan B

by

The Iran Lobby’s Plan B

The Iran Lobby’s Plan B

With the recent failure of the Senate to mount an override of a Democratic filibuster, and the implementation of the proposed nuclear agreement with the Iran regime on the way, it is ironic though that such significant foreign policy issue will be implemented without any bipartisan support and no majority support from the American people.

But regardless of the votes last week, it has become clear that the Iran lobby is gearing up to combat a plethora of “Plan B” options being formulated by opponents of the regime since the decision to submit the agreement not as a formal treaty, but rather an executive action leaves the agreement subject to revision or even reversal when a new president is elected in 2016.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), the ranking Democratic member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who helped craft the bipartisan compromise legislation requiring the congressional vote on the deal, announced his intention to submit new legislation addressing many of the loopholes in the proposed nuclear agreement to which he has publicly announced his opposition.

Jim Lobe of Lobelog.com and Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council both offered up their critiques in an attempt by regime supporters to fend off any new legislation threatening to derail their efforts.

What Lobe and Cullis describe as “poison pills” are actually the kinds of common-sense provisions that should have been included in the nuclear deal in the first place such as requirements that the president cannot lift certain sanctions imposed on regime banks for terrorism-related or ballistic-missile related reasons until the president certifies those banks have ended their facilitation of transactions aiding Iran’s support for terrorism and ballistic-missile development.

Ironically, these conditions were part of the original set of “red lines” drawn by U.S. negotiators at the outset of talks, including requirements for “anytime, anywhere” inspections, all of which were pulled off the table in the final agreement.

The fact that Cullis and Lobe argue so strenuously against these inclusion of these types of restrictions on the regime’s conduct speaks volumes about their commitment not to ensuring peace and stability in the Middle East, but allowing the Iran regime a free hand to conduct its terror operations and development of missile systems that can deliver nuclear warheads over vast distances.

As syndicated columnist Cal Thomas has correctly pointed out in an editorial published on FoxNews.com:

“Promises of stringent inspections are meaningless, especially when Iran has already said it will never allow outside access to its military sites. Ali Akbar Velayati, the Iranian security adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has stated firmly that, ‘Regardless of how the P5+1 countries interpret the nuclear agreement, their entry into our military sites is absolutely forbidden. The entry of any foreigner, including IAEA inspectors or any other inspector, to the sensitive military sites of the Islamic Republic is forbidden, no matter what.’”

But aside from Cardin’s proposal, the Defund Iran coalition also announced an effort to ask voters in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri and Ohio to change their state constitutions to bar any state dollars from being invested in ways that might help the Iran regime, with plans to expand the effort to an additional 25 other states in the coming weeks.

“Every dollar we stop makes a difference to the solider who gets blown up by an IED financed by Iran,” said Sarah Steelman, a former Missouri state treasurer and current chairwoman of Defund Iran. “Not one penny of the people’s money should go to any company that does business that goes to Iran—or any other sponsor of terror.”

According to Philip Elliot writing for Time magazine, banning investments in funds or companies some find objectionable is hardly a new tactic as shown by the pressure built over two decades for Americans to withhold investments with ties to South Africa in order to protest that nation’s apartheid systemic discrimination. More recently, some groups have pressured Americans to do the same toward Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.

Thirty states already have some form of law or regulation that bans state dollars to go to Iran. The new moves would codify existing bans, but perhaps complicate some of them. States will have to decide how aggressively to write the constitutional language. Would they simply ban pensions from investing in energy companies that buy oil from Iran, or would they also ban economic development dollars from going to retailers who open outposts in Tehran? A defense contractor, for instance, could see its tax deals with a state threatened if it also sells parts to a company that does business with Iran, Elliott said.

That groundswell of popular support at the grassroots and state level is in no doubt motivated by the continuing worrisome stream of revelations and news coming out of the regime such as the release of a new book authored by Saeid Golker that took a scholarly look at the regime’s dreaded state-financed Basij militia.

Gareth Smyth of the Guardian’s Tehran bureau examined Golker’s work, writing that “Golkar’s central argument – reflected in the book’s title, Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Iran – is that the Basij is more widespread and effective than generally realized.”

“There are 12,000 Starbucks in the US and 22,000 around the world,” Golker says, “but in Iran we have more than 50,000 Basij bases and offices.”

He estimates one in three students is a member, as are 65 percent of state employees, which clearly shows the expansive and pervasive presence of the militia throughout all levels of Iranian society in a model reminiscent of the much-feared East German Stasi intelligence service that turned family members into informers for the state against other family members.

And in another demonstration of the regime’s flouting of human rights, Amnesty International called on the regime to halt the impending “execution of Mahmoud Barati, a teacher who was convicted of drug-related offences following an unfair trial that is believed to have included a confession obtained through torture and other ill-treatment.”

“The Iranian authorities must end their unprecedented killing spree – more than 700 people have been executed so far this year, most of them convicted on drug-related charges,” said Amnesty International in a statement.

It is doubtful the regime will halt its executions, nor does it seem possible it plans to release any of the Iranian-Americans it is currently holding hostage.

By Michael Tomlinson

Dealing With the Iran Deal Hangover

by

 

Dealing With the Iran Deal Hangover

Dealing With the Iran Deal Hangover

Depending on who is keeping count, the Obama administration has either gotten the necessary number of commitments from Democratic Senators to overcome efforts to derail the proposed nuclear arms agreement with the Iran regime, or is on the verge of securing it, which raises the next inevitable question facing supporters of the deal: What’s next?

The regime’s expansive lobby and collection of supporters and apologists have shouted to the rooftops that this deal will auger in a new era of cooperation and moderation from the regime throughout the Middle East. It has been well-documented here already just how silly those statements have been, but the important issue for those politicians supporting the deal is the potential embarrassment they will pay should the mullahs end up not being moderate.

Stephen A. Seche, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen and executive vice president of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, D.C., writing in the Boston Globe examined the ramifications post-deal approval.

“The irony is that while Administration officials trumpet the nuclear deal as a triumph of soft power (diplomacy and reasoned negotiation) over hard power (military attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities), Washington’s efforts to assure anxious Arab allies in the wake of the deal seem remarkably focused on reinforcing their capacity to engage Iran militarily,” he said.

“Listen to Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks following his Aug. 3 meetings with Gulf foreign ministers in Qatar. He sounded more like a senior Pentagon official than America’s chief diplomat: ‘We agreed to expedite certain arms sales . . . to engage in very specific training to upgrade military capacity in the region . . . to talk about how to integrate the region’s ballistic missile defense,’” Seche added.

The fact that the first thing the Obama administration did was go to Sunni Arab Gulf states and Saudi Arabia and promise extensive new shipments of weapons to offset the anticipated expansion of Iran’s military says much for what the future will hold.

Most interestingly, moments after the administration secured enough votes to approve the deal, a letter from Secretary of State John Kerry popped into congressional inboxes where he admitted “that, despite the deal, Iran will continue to back terrorist groups across the globe” and promises to boost military support and funding to Israel and Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

“Important questions have been raised concerning the need to increase security assistance to our allies and partners in the region and to enhance our efforts to counter Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region,” Kerry writes. “We share the concern expressed by many in Congress regarding Iran’s continued support for terrorist and proxy groups throughout the region, its propping up of the Assad regime in Syria, its efforts to undermine the stability of its regional neighbors, and the threat it poses to Israel.”

One might think the administration is being magnanimous in victory, but in fact it now has to deal with the consequences of its action, namely prepare for the Iran regime to exert its perceived new freedoms to act aggressively against its neighbors without consequences. Since the agreement was narrowly defined to deal only with the nuclear issue with no linkages to reforms or changes in Iran’s policies or practices, the Obama administration has virtually no leverage left to deal with the extremist mullahs.

The Iran regime really has no intention of altering its behavior in light of the agreement as verified yet again by another violent display in Tehran, this time by members of the regime’s Bassij militia who burned American, British and Israeli flags outside of the former U.S. embassy.

According to Agence France-Presse accounts “some 30 people took part in trampling and burning the flags at a ceremony to unveil a plaque on the embassy’s fence of 100 derogative expressions to describe the United States. The phrases, all used by the Islamic republic’s late founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, included: ‘Great Satan’, ‘criminals’, ‘corrupt’, ‘arrogant’ and ‘anti-Koran’.”

It’s good to know the regime is bulking up on derogatory phrases for the U.S., but we should not expect anything less from a regime which has made it abundantly clear its distaste of the U.S. and contempt for any moderation or accommodation with its traditional enemy. In the mullahs eyes, the deal is not so much a new measure of cooperation, as much a fleecing of a stupid America.

As regime lobbyists such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council take a victory lap, it’s worth remembering how the burden now moves squarely onto the shoulders of representatives to the extent that every violent act, horrific violation of human rights or act of terror will be connected directly to their vote.

That is a particular long time to have a hangover.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Stuck in Absurd Parchin “Truther” Role

by

Iran Lobby Stuck in Absurd Parchin “Truther” Role

Iran Lobby Stuck in Absurd Parchin “Truther” Role

A funny thing happened this weekend. The Associated Press reported last week the contents of a secret side deal between the Iran regime and the International Atomic Energy Agency over the issue of Iran finally allowing inspection of its Parchin military facility, long suspected of being used in research in its nuclear weapons program.

That story and side agreement set off a social media firestorm as regime supporters such as the National Iranian American Council, Ploughshares Fund and J-Street went all-in denouncing not only the story, but the very existence of the purported side deal agreement.

Tom Nichols wrote in the Daily Beast a compelling blow-by-blow review of what the mudslinging that went on as supporters of the mullahs in Tehran pulled out every tactic they could think of to contain the damage wrought by the AP story in which Iran was seemingly granted significant concessions in self-inspecting and reporting soil samples from the Parchin site without international oversight.

Nichols compared the attacks and arguments of the Parchin truthers to the much-mocked 9-11 truthers who spun up elaborate fantasy theories about the 9-11 attacks being organized by the U.S. government and Israel. Nichols wrote:

The Huffington Post made the strongest play by noting that former IAEA official Tariq Rauf said that in his view it was “not an authentic document” and represented an attempt to “hinder” the Iran Deal. Because the AP’s draft referred to Iran as the “Islamic State of Iran” – its official name is the Islamic Republic of Iran, which also appears in the draft – some seized on this as evidence of involvement of…well, You Know Who: “The only one who refers to Iran,” Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council tweeted, “as ‘Islamic State of Iran’ is [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu. And strangely, AP’s dubious ‘draft’ of the IAEA-Iran agreement…”

AP writer Matt Lee upbraided Parsi, saying: “You know better than this.” Parsi, in classic truther fashion, replied: “I am pointing out the language similarity and calling it strange. That’s it.” Max Fisher of Vox, for his part, called the AP story “troubling” and backed off when Lee also directly challenged him to take a position on the forgery charge. Lewis eventually said he thought “Islamic State” was transcription error, but he spent the rest of the day in a snarky pissing match with Lee and the AP on Twitter.

Nichols also noted how all of the charges about the forged IAEA side agreement hit Internet and social media all at the same time on Friday morning, calling the timing more than coincidental. Most interestingly though was the fact Nichols noted the new tactical change in the Iran lobby’s attacks, especially on journalists who published an unfavorable piece on the Iran regime or deal.

“The Iran Deal supporters knew there was no point in trying to rebut the substance of the claim: the story was out, people had already read it, and politicians had already reacted. A careful analysis of whether the document said what the AP headline said it did would take too long, and most people wouldn’t bother with it,” Nichols said. “Instead, the story had to be discredited and flushed, as soon as possible. There wasn’t time to explain that ‘monitor’ might mean different things to a lay reader and to an expert. Better simply to throw an array of charges at the Associated Press and its reporters and see what sticks.”

“The warning shot to other journalists is clear, however. Reporters with one of the most reputable news organizations in the world had to fight off odious charges for doing their job. This is apparently the price to be paid for reporting anything that challenges support for a deal that has reached, among its adherents, the status of a dogma that tolerates no heresy,” he added.

But these attacks by the Iran lobby point out the most significant issue surrounding these secret side deals; the fact that they are still secret.

William Tobey and Judith Miller writing in Real Clear Politics took the Obama administration to task in keeping these deals secret and outlined three compelling reasons why they should be made public:

“First, Iran’s commercial and industrial secrets—or even military secrets—are unlikely to be revealed by publishing the IAEA’s side agreements. Confidentiality regarding safeguards mainly covers proprietary and economic information, not approaches, said Olli Heinonen, the IAEA’s former chief inspector.

“Second, while such side deals are normally secret, the Iran agreement is far from a normal case. Both the IAEA Board of Governors and the United Nations Security Council concluded that Tehran violated its earlier Safeguards obligations on numerous occasions over an extended period of time. Moreover, Iran, under its earlier commitments, was supposed to let the IAEA visit Parchin with 24 hours’ notice. Yet the agency has been waiting years for access, while Iran has conducted a massive cleanup at the location.

“Third, the overarching deal removing sanctions on Iran was struck by seven nations and the European Union—not just by Iran and the IAEA.”

State Department spokesman John Kirby, in his regular press briefing on Monday, did not build confidence either when he said the government believes the IAEA will give it all the “access and information” it needs in regards to inspections at Parchin.

Pete Kasperowicz of the Washington Examiner explained how Kirby’s subtle addition of the phrase “access and information” reinforced the perception that the IAEA side deals surrendered control of the testing and inspection process to the Iran regime.

New York Times correspondents David R. Sanger and Michael R. Gordon took a deeper dive in the future risks posed by the Iran deal and concluded “that after 15 years, Iran would be allowed to produce reactor-grade fuel on an industrial scale using far more advanced centrifuges. That may mean that the warning time if Iran decided to race for a bomb would shrink to weeks, according to a recent Brookings Institution analysis by Robert J. Einhorn, a former member of the American negotiating team.”

“Critics say that by that time, Iran’s economy would be stronger, as would its ability to withstand economic sanctions, and its nuclear installations probably would be better protected by air defense systems, which Iran is expected to buy from Russia,” they added.

All of which points out that the real truth behind the Iran lobby’s arguments is that the mullahs in Tehran cannot be trusted.

By Laura Carnahan

Iran Regime Unveils New Missile; Iran Lobby Goes Nuts over Parchin

by

Iran Regime Unveils New Missile; Iran Lobby Goes Nuts over Parchin

In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, left, listens to Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan after unveiling the surface-to-surface Fateh-313, or Conqueror, missile in a ceremony marking Defense Industry Day, Iran. Iran unveiled a short-range solid fuel ballistic missile Saturday, an upgraded version that the government says can more accurately pinpoint targets. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

The Iran regime unveiled a new short-range, solid fuel ballistic missile over the weekend that promises quicker launch capability, longer lifespan and accurate striking capability within its 310 mile range.

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the proposed agreement with the regime on its nuclear weapons program, called on the regime not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

It also contained an arms embargo against Iran for the next eight years, but since it is not part of the deal, the regime has said it won’t abide by with it.

“We will buy weapons from anywhere we deem necessary. We won’t wait for anybody’s permission or approval and won’t look at any resolution. And we will sell weapons to anywhere we deem necessary,” Hassan Rouhani, regime president, said in comments broadcast live on state television Saturday.

“Can we be indifferent…when there are special circumstances on our eastern, western, northern and southern borders,” Rouhani said, apparently referring to fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the region. “How can a weak country unable to stand up to the military power of neighbors, rivals and enemies achieve peace?”

Of course Rouhani neglects to mention that Iran itself is responsible for the fighting going on around it with its support of the Syrian regime, Shiite militias in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen, all of which have drawn in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Gulf states, Jordan and Egypt into a much broader series of wars all started by Iran.

But the fact that Iran unveiled this new ballistic missile and ignored the UN resolution and recently completed the sale of S-300 advance anti-aircraft missile systems from the Russians, as well as violated travel sanctions in sending Quds Force commander Ghasem Soleimani on a secret mission to Moscow to shop for more arms, gives the world a rock-solid view of what the regime’s true intentions are; which is to rearm, reload and stock up on weapons as quickly as possible.

These actions, although deeply disturbing, are not what has the Iran lobby up in arms, which is the disclosure by the Associated Press and verified by Fox News of the contents of a secret side deal between the Iran regime and the International Atomic Energy Agency which purports to allow Iran to use its own inspectors at the contested Parchin military site to collect soil samples for testing without international monitors on site.

The agreement is startling and contemptuous of all of the previous “red lines” proposed by the P5+1 group of nations that negotiated with Iran and an example of the dramatic concessions granted to the regime in an attempt to appease the mullahs. The fact that the mullahs aren’t content with these windfalls and chose to unveil a new missile during the contentious debate over the deal in Congress gives us a strong idea of just what they think of the deal.

Which is why the Iran lobby is almost apoplectic about the disclosures since it represents a damning confirmation of how bad the deal is and how the mullahs have duped the Obama administration.

Joel B. Pollak writing in Breitbart discusses how these “Parchin truthers” have concocted some pretty ridiculous claims to try and hide the obvious in these Parchin disclosures.

The “Parchin truthers” include Trita Parsi, who heads the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), a group often described as a pro-regime lobby. Parsi retweeted an accusation that the AP text may have been “personally forged by Benjamin Netanyahu,” and added his own comment,” Pollak said.

Tyler Cullis, also of the NIAC, went so far as to tweet that use of the phrase “Islamic State of Iran” had to be evidence of Netanyahu forging the statement since he’s the only one what uses that phrase. With all due respect to Cullis’ ham-handed efforts, there are plenty of us who refer to Iran as the “Islamic state”though they are really not Islamic and

The exposure of the Parchin lies of the Iran lobby have pushed the NIAC, Ploughshares Fund, J-Street and other regime supporters to attack not only the article itself, written by AP Vienna bureau chief George Jahn, but the global news organization itself in a desperate bid to deflect attention from the crippling revelations.

Joseph Cirincione, head of Ploughshares Fund which provides substantial funding for the NIAC and other Iran lobbying groups, took to the Los Angeles Times to trot out the well-worn and discredited idea that rejecting the proposed deal would inevitably lead to war.

He argues that U.S. partners would abandon the U.S. should the deal be rejected and the sanctions in place would fall apart as well. It is clear that what Cirincione is warning about has already happened because of the deal, not because of its defeat.

The mullahs are ignoring the arms embargo, acquiring weapons. They are hosting trade delegations from European nations and buying arms from the Russians, while lining up deals to sell oil to the Chinese in spite of the promise to keep sanctions in place unless and until Iranian regime demonstrates it has abided by the terms of the agreement to dismantle its nuclear program.

All of which proves how feckless the claims being made by Parsi, Cirincione and other regime sympathizers are and why the ballistic missiles Iran unveiled are only the start of a much more dangerous period in the Middle East and the world.

By Michael Tomlinson