Iran Lobby – Page 37

ISIS New Low and the Change It Brings

February 4, 2015 by admin

The world watched in horror yesterday as the terror group ISIS broadcast video of its execution of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeth by burning him alive in a cage and then burying him with a bulldozer. The imagery was graphic, searing into the international consciousness a new level of revulsion that even surpassed the beheadings ISIS had delivered earlier with regularity.

But what happened in the 24 hours following al-Kassabeth’s death was more revealing of where exactly the world stands in the face of such unremitting brutality. Jordan acted swiftly, executing two prisoners it had in its custody with a promise from official sources of swift and harsh response and retribution.

Japan and Great Britain joined in solidarity as did many other nations who have had nationals at risk or killed by ISIS during its rampage across Iraq and Syria. The death was so shocking and in contradiction to Islamic practices which forbid cremation that other moderate Muslim nations quickly expressed their own revulsion at this act.

Predictably, Iranian regime was not one of those nations and gave a formal condemnation with notable delay almost a day after the international outrage about the crime. Its supporters in the U.S. were even more quiescent; not even offering a simple tweet of revulsion at the act. In fact, in the case of Iran’s chief lobbying ally, the National Iranian American Council, there were no public statements. Its leading official, Trita Parsi made only one mention of the incident before launching into tweets criticizing Jordan’s King Hussein.

The rest of Iran’s supporters and sympathizers ranging from Ali Gharib to others were similarly silent on any condemnation of the brutal act. It does foster the question of why?

One could assume that it does not serve Iran’s interest to condemn ISIS since its intervention in Syria’s civil war on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad is in large part responsible for the growth of ISIS in the first place. But why would U.S.-based groups, sympathetic to Iran, such as NIAC simply not join the vocal outrage over this death? What would it cost them to send out a single tweet saying this was “gross” or “horrible” or even “tragic”?

But none of those things occurred and we are left with a better understanding of the true nature of Iran’s support network. Its sole aim and mission is to represent the interests of Iran here and most importantly to lobby hard against any re-imposition of economic sanctions during the ongoing third round of negotiations with the P5+1.

In contrast though to the NIAC has been the vocal condemnation sent out by Iranian resistance groups, most notably the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Its denouncement by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, a woman at the head of a leading Muslim organization, is noteworthy because it forcefully takes a stand other Muslim groups do not and joins with the broader global outrage over the event.

Therein lays another odd quirk of the Iranian regime’s obsessive interest in fabricating regular attacks on the NCRI. Even with the world debating this violent act, the Iranian lobby spends considerable energy posting editorials attacking NCRI.

Why?

Because the mere existence of a group of Iranians dedicated to opposing the mullahs regime is anathema to them and puts a spotlight on the lie they perpetuate that all of Iran is united behind their rule. It is the most glaring blind spot mullahs ruling Iran have and a constant reminder to them of the essential weakness of their position in nuclear talks.

At the end of the day, Iran’s mullahs cannot be trusted and that is at the heart of why both Senate Democrats and Republicans are more than willing to toe the line and impose sanctions on March 24th should Iran not deliver a substantial and meaningful agreement to their liking.

The intelligence uncovered by the NCRI on human rights abuses and covert nuclear research sites has been instrumental in revealing the deceit of the regime and the mere fact they cannot recognize the barbarity of the death of al-Kassasbeth adds to the damning truth that Iran tacitly approves of what happened.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Irony that is Iran

February 3, 2015 by admin

That ever loyal servant of the Iranian regime, Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, penned an editorial appearing in Reuters where he used a curious turn of phrase saying there were schools of “doubt” in Iran as to who was calling the policy shots in the U.S. He was pointing out a view that held Iran’s mullahs either believed President Obama was genuinely interested in a new rapprochement or was simply being captive to the politics of Congress.

Parsi attempts to lay out the idea that Iran is stuck between a rock and a hard place because it wants to do the best deal it can, but has to contend with confusing American politics.

For Parsi’s benefit, we should point out it is because this is a democracy. Get it?

Democracies are messy affairs. They involve open and sometimes hostile public debate. They require free and fair elections. They generate substantial discussion on news media and social media. They need checks and balances to ensure the rights of minorities are respected. In short, they do all the things Iran’s mullahs are terrified of in their own country.

Parsi also attempts to posit the idea that sanctions against Iran are fast coming undone because of a recent delay proposed by Senate Democrats to give President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry an additional two months to nudge Iran forward. Considering Iran has already had two years to stall, demand and berate negotiators, two months doesn’t seem like much.

Democrats, led by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) were also clear in demanding any deal be reviewed by Congress and that they would hold any proposal under close scrutiny in meeting their approval. Not exactly a Rose Garden walk-through for Iran, but then again Parsi will take anything. So desperate is Iran to gain any advantage, it would take even this twig and portray it as an olive tree.

Parsi goes on to portray the complete erosion of Democratic support for new sanctions, but the irony is that the Democratic and Republican proposal is not for the imposition of new sanctions, but simply the re-imposition of existing sanctions that were temporarily suspended after the interim agreement was reached and contingent on Iranian regime making substantial progress forward.

Since then, however Iran’s progress has been as quick as a snail and as noticeable as glaciers growing larger. The regime in Iran has consistently refused access to additional nuclear research sites to the International Atomic Energy Agency. It has stepped up a brutal crackdown on human rights against its own citizens. It has engaged in four separate wars in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan now, while still supporting terror groups such as Hezbollah.

At no point has the regime in Iran made any substantial concessions on the core issues of reduction in centrifuge capacity and elimination of missile delivery technology obtained from North Korea, another rogue nuclear state.

With the spread of ISIS and Boko Haram and utter collapse of Yemen, the American people have raised concerns over terror above those of jobs and economy in recent polls. This leads one to wonder why Parsi takes the position that sanctions proponents are now on the margins in this debate.

We might excuse his hyperbole for the simple fact NIAC is a well-greased lackey for the mullahs in Iran, but considering the topic of his editorial, we might be more inclined to think Parsi shares the confusion of the mullahs in simply not understanding how a democratic society truly works.

While Parsi raises his histrionics, the fact remains Congress and a bipartisan coalition of Democrats and Republications numbering at least 62 Senators with an additional 14 patiently waiting two more months before pulling the proverbial trigger on sanctions are more than sufficient to re-impose sanctions and override any presidential veto. We assume Parsi is an intelligent operative for mullahs in Iran and can count votes, which may be why he is throwing everything he can in hopes something sticks before March 24th.

By Michael Tomlinson

Learning the NIAC Two-Step

January 31, 2015 by admin

While the cheerleaders for the current Iranian regime at the National Iranian American Council are busy congratulating themselves on a two month extension on the immediate re-imposition of economic sanctions temporarily suspended because of an interim agreement reached last year by the P5+1 nations and Iran, the Senate Banking Committee by a wide bipartisan 18-4 margin passed out a bill over its first procedural hurdle to set the stage for a showdown vote in March on re-imposing sanctions.

It must not be too reassuring to the NIAC and its Iranian overlords to see this bill pass by such a large margin, nor coming on the heels of what they had hoped would be a pause long enough to allow Iran time to bamboozle the administration into accepting a “framework” by March in order to buy more time until July before having the entire negotiating process collapse again as it has done twice before.

NIAC’s Jamal Abdi in fact, in a piece published on the group’s website, breathlessly recounted the blow by blow narrative of how this two-month sanctions pause was achieved; and of course all because of the NIAC’s massive lobbying effort on behalf of Iran. Mine you, on behalf of Iran’s mullahs and not Iranian Americans, but that’s for another day’s editorial.

What he neglected to mention and what has been widely credited by virtually every political commentator and analyst, including Senate Democrats themselves such as Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), as being the key influencing factor on the delay was Speaker John Boehner’s move to invite Israeli Prime Minister to address a joint session of Congress on Iran and its nuclear weapons program.

For many Democrats, the move smacked of overt politics and stiffened their resolve, but even that was not enough to move them totally off the sanctions bandwagon. All it did was keep alive the central piece of legislation and move the action date from February to March.

The one thing both Democrats and Republicans readily agree on is that the regime in Iran should not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon…period. Both sides of the aisle also agree sanctions should be re-instated broadly and harshly if mullahs in Iran do not deliver a deal agreeable to Congressional review.

So while the NIAC chortle in public, privately they know they are swimming against the tide of sentiment; a sentiment that will inevitably grow stronger as the clock resets and again counts down to March 24 with another round of scrutiny growing day by day with more and more pressure being applied to Senators by a nervous public watching the nightly news of ISIS, Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda and Taliban advances.

So while the NIAC, Al Jazeera and the Obama administration may have excised “Islamic extremism” from their daily use, it has not escaped the attention of Americans who in recent polls have placed concerns about terrorism above even the economy and jobs.

All of which is bad news for mullahs in Iran and its supporters as they try to learn new dance steps.

By Michael Tomlinson

Postponing the Inevitable on Iran

January 28, 2015 by admin

In calling a Hail Mary pass from his own party, President Obama managed to secure a two-month reprieve from Senate Democrats who were on the verge of joining their Republican colleagues in offering up a new sanctions bill on Iran should the third and latest round of talks fail to produce an agreement.

The new deadline is now March 24th and in a letter to the President, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee left no doubt that he and other Democrats remained “deeply skeptical that Iran is committed to making the concessions required to demonstrate to the world that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.”

Adding in the letter “we will only vote for this legislation on the Senate floor if Iran fails to reach agreement on a political framework that addresses all parameters of a comprehensive agreement.”

Other Senators signing the letter included Charles E. Schumer of New York, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

Iran loyalists such as the National Iranian American Council were quick to hail the agreement as a “breakthrough” for nuclear talks and patted themselves on the back publicly for their perceived win.

What they and other Iran sympathizers failed to realize or admit publicly is that the Democrats letter only cemented the very real possibility of sanctions since the last round of talks having ended last November there has been a virtual stalemate and no movement from the Iranian side towards any meaningful agreement.

The prospects of substantial movement occurring during the next two months are remote and Senate Republicans know this which is why they agreed to the Democratic proposal in the hope of gaining a veto-proof supermajority by March 24th.

Ironically, The New York Times noted that while the Democrats were offering up their extension, the Iranian Parliament was moving forward with proposals to bind their own negotiating team and preventing them from any agreement on production limits on nuclear fuel.

“In fact, their own proposals would require Tehran to deploy centrifuges that can enrich uranium far more efficiently than ever,” according to the Times.

Coupling this with the periodic statements given by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei bolstering this position and one can easily see why Senator Menendez’s concession to President Obama wasn’t much of a concession. The decision gives Democrats the breathing room to say they want to support the Administration, yet retain the flexibility to quickly join Republicans to move ahead with sanctions.

So while the NIAC may be dancing with joy, it’s a Pyrrhic victory since the essential facts surrounding negotiations have not changed. Iranian regime is hardening its stance and continues on a human rights and terror rampage that alarms the American people every night while they watch the news and emboldens them to urge their Congressional representatives to take a harder stance with respect to Iran.

On March 24th, Iran and its lobbying allies are in for a rude awakening.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Sanctions Are Sanctions Are Sanctions

January 27, 2015 by admin

There is an interesting effort being mounted by the Iranian lobby in the wake of a growing strong consensus within Congress to support stiffer sanctions on the regime in Iran should nuclear talks fail for a third time.

But Iran boosters such as the National Iranian American Council have lately preached a line of reasoning pointing towards the potential of various pieces of legislation being proposed in Congress as evidence of a splintering of support for harsher sanctions. They point to proposals by Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL), as well as ideas being floated by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) and even stream of thought comments made by Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Bob Corker (R-TN) as proof of disagreement on the question of sanctions.

What NIAC and other Iran sympathizers fail to mention is the one constant amongst all these proposals; the support for some sort of enhanced sanctions should talks fail. The only disagreement is one of timing and severity.

Virtually no Senator in Congress has taken an anti-sanctions stand, nor has there been any vocal support for granting mullahs in Iran a blank check in nuclear talks. At a time when Democrats and Republican can’t seem to agree on what’s on the menu in the Senate cafeteria, there is broad, deep and universal agreement that Iran should not get a nuclear weapon and that Iran is a central character in the global rise in Islamic extremism.

Various analysis of the joint proposal from Senators Menendez and Kirk, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2015, clearly shows this trend. It reinstates sanctions that were suspended as part of the interim agreement if a new and comprehensive agreement is not reached. It also specifically targets Iranian senior officials who are part of the religious leadership and its judicial and military systems which have been responsible for the unprecedented crackdown on human rights the past year and the expansion of militant extremism taking place around the world.

It also explicitly grants the President the ability to waive the application of sanctions should he certify to Congress it is necessary for national security, completion of a nuclear deal or Iran is making no further progress on nuclear development and is in compliance with all interim agreements.

One would have to wonder where the idea is coming from that there is large disagreement within Congress over Iranian regime’s sanctions giving the fact the basic outline of these terms were originally supported by an overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans two years ago when sanctions were originally imposed.

What Iran’s mullahs see is a small window of opportunity coming on President Obama’s unilateral decision to normalize relations with Cuba to gain the same benefit in the lame duck years of the presidency. Consequently, the NIAC and other Iranian lobbyists are pushing hard the concept that sanctions are not universally supported.

It is a line of reasoning doomed to failure given the massive support the idea of sanctions has right now in light of growing public unease and concern over gains being made by ISIS and Boko Haram, the collapse of Yemen and Iraq and the ongoing social media efforts by terror groups to frighten and bully the West for more beheadings.

Iran mullahs and their brand of Islamic extremism is at the heart of these groups flourishing since the regime in Iran essentially wrote the manual with its own broad range of torture and public punishments such as hangings and amputations on its own people that these extremist groups have since adopted.

But you will not find NIAC others denounce these growing atrocities, nor even condemn the most heinous ones. In fact, if one were to peruse the social media feeds for NIAC and its officers such as Trita Parsi, you would find virtually no condemnations. This only reveals their true nature and cheerleaders for mullahs in Iran and nothing more.

By Michael Tomlinson

Stopping the Welcome Wagon for Iran

January 27, 2015 by admin

In the wake of another round of talks underway between Iran and the P5+1 negotiating team of countries, there is emerging a pattern of perceived public support being built by those who support Iran and seek to see its quick re-admission to the international community without making any substantial concessions as part of any agreement.

Many of these Iran apologists are seeking to build what can only be called a “wave of inevitability” towards a normalization of relations between Iran and the West.

There has been a push by Iran’s global network of supporters to create a situation by ginning up a parade of officials, corporate representatives and news media who are speaking and acting on the impending possibility of the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran; even without a nuclear agreement in place.

One glaring example of that effort was the recent delegation of German lawmakers who journeyed to Iran and decided to inappropriately meet with a Holocaust denier and another official implicated in the kidnapping of American diplomatic personnel back in 1979.

A European-wide public interest known as Stop the Bomb, which is dedicated to halting Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, raised the alarm in Berlin over the German delegation’s meeting with Ali Larijani, the president of the Majlis parliament and a notorious Holocaust denier who defended then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his own incomprehensible positions on the Holocaust.

This comes on the heels of other recent overtures extended by Russian and European companies looking to cash in on the possibility of economic sanctions being lifted, as well as the infusion of upwards of $11.9 billion in frozen Iranian assets now being made available and transferred to Tehran’s accounts by the U.S. as part of the interim nuclear agreement struck by negotiators last year.

The Iranian lobby hopes to build momentum on these various trends and create a perception that a deal is all but inevitable, thereby building more pressure on the West in the face of growing violent Islamic extremism which is ironically being spread by Iranian regime itself as part of its religious campaign to remake the Middle East in its own twisted image. Tried and true Iran apologists such as the National Iranian American Council have led the charge.

The leader of the German delegation, Bundestag Vice President Claudia Roth, has already been widely criticized in Germany and internationally for her all too cozy relationship with Iran’s mullahs, culminating in an infamous high-five greeting of Iran’s then-ambassador to Germany Reza Sheikh Attar, whom Iranian Kurdish dissidents accuse of massacring Kurds during his tenure as governor of the Kurdistan and western Azerbaijan provinces in the 1980s.

But what all of these disparate efforts on behalf of the mullahs in Iran fail to realize is the growing anxiety the rest of the world is feeling towards violent extremism and the negotiation fatigue setting in amongst international capitals and news media as yet another round of talks take place with no hope of agreement coming into focus as long as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his handpicked puppet, President Hassan Rouhani, publicly denounce making any concessions to the West, which sank the two previous sessions.

The regime in Iran has never expressed any desire whatsoever to not only meet the International terms on nuclear reduction, but has never even uttered any inkling of improvements to its dismal human rights record at home and its sponsorship of terror abroad.

Iranian regime’s coercive tactics to normalize economic relations even before any kind of agreement is reached in talks that have only begun last week, explains its over eager lobbying

By Michael Tomlinson.

The State of the Union and Iran

January 21, 2015 by admin

President Barack Obama delivered his sixth State of the Union address and like the previous five other speeches, he largely dealt with domestic issues as the nation continues to struggle with a lingering recession, stagnant wage growth and deadlocked politics in Washington.

And like his other speeches, this one ran slightly under 7,000 words in length and in it, President Obama mentioned Iran a grand total of four times, which is comparable to how many times he spoke about Iran in 2014, 2013, and 2012. The only difference in this speech was a slightly longer emphasis on the need to avoid the additional levying of economic sanctions on Iran during the third and latest round of nuclear negotiations.

Similarly, Iran’s coterie of apologists and cheerleaders went on the offensive in advance of the speech as early copies were circulated amongst administration supporters. The National Iranian American Council notably and predictably lauded the President’s statement with a statement warning of the possibility of war breaking out with Iran should sanctions be levied.

Of course what NIAC fails to address is that this so-called last best hope for peace for Iran is actually the third go-around for this administration and doesn’t include efforts by every previous Presidential administration who had attempted to rein in Iran’s ruling mullahs.

While Iran has played revolving chairs with presidents in order to first get tough with the West with Ahmadinejad, it then tried a different tack with a so-called moderate face now under Hassan Rouhani. In both cases, the heavy hand of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continues to sabotage any nuclear deal with his insistence that Iran retain not only its refining and enrichment capacity, but also its missile technology to potentially deliver a nuclear warhead.

NIAC’s hyperbole is indicative of the simple truth surrounding the issue of Iran; the American people simply do not trust the mullahs running Iran, least of all with nuclear weapons.

The fact that previous sanctions bills and the most recent one being proposed in Congress have been highly bipartisan with large numbers of Democrats joining with Republicans in an overwhelming show of solidarity on the issue demonstrates more powerfully than any speech that the President and NIAC are very much alone on this issue.

The funny thing is that the only people who are mentioning a possibility of war are only the NIAC and Iranian regime’s supporters, that have engaged in hyperventilating over the inevitable onset of war should sanctions come.

They neglect to mention that the same claims were made when previous sanctions were levied and in each case, war did not come. In fact the opposite occurred as Iran was forced to the bargaining table as its ability to export its brand of radicalized Islam became more difficult with fewer resources available. Couple that with crushing oil prices, and the timing is near perfect to forge a historic agreement with Iran to not only halt nuclear weapons development, but also seek improvements in Iran’s horrific human rights record, worsened under the “moderate” president Hassan Rouhani.

The U.S. and the West are being provided with an opportunity to use its significant leverage to move Iran forward back into the community of nations as a more democratic, pluralistic and free society than at any other time in recent memory. While the President focuses on nuclear talks, the window that has opened here is much more significant and should be taken advantage of immediately.

In short, the President needs to aim higher on behalf of the Iranian people, as well as the American people; a notion that the NIAC would be well served to adopt as well.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Cannot Have it Both Ways in Nuclear Talks in 2015

January 7, 2015 by admin

On January 15^th, Iran will once again take a seat at the negotiating table with the P5+1 nations and begin a third round of talks over its nuclear weapons program and just as it has done twice before, it will refuse to make any substantial concessions and after another seven tedious months, Iran will undergo its third strike.

Far from crystal-ball gazing, this scenario is more than likely given past history and a newly resurgent Republican majority in both houses of Congress who promise to flex its collective muscle in case President Obama makes any precipitous concessions as he did in normalizing relations with Cuba on his own.

And just as before, Iran’s lobbying and PR machinery has ramped up into overdrive before these talks start to help lay the ground work for another Cuba-like executive action by President Obama for Iran. The initial seeds have been laid by Iran cheerleaders such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council who have saluted the trial balloons for normalizing relations with Iran with the opening of an American embassy in Tehran again.

Ironically, Parsi has sought to frame this latest round of talks around whether or not the U.S. is willing to offer more concessions and can be trusted by Iran in recent comments, saying:

“There are question marks in the minds of the Iranians as to whether the American promises about sanctions relief actually can be trusted – not to say that they don’t have enough confidence in the president, but they may not have enough confidence in the U.S. Congress,” Parsi said.

One can see how he and other Iran allies are seeking to separate any possible normalization action by the President from a Congress that may object to it.

This, more than anything else, represents the “have their cake and eat it too” approach of Iran to nuclear talks. On the one hand Iran, through its perceived moderate President Hassan Rouhani, holds out an olive branch of concessions and flowery speeches, while on the other is the stern and recalcitrant voice of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who’s earlier pronouncements sank the other negotiating sessions.

Now Parsi and his cohorts are once again attempting to provide political cover for progressive liberals in Congress who basically want to give Iran whatever it wants in the misguided belief that everything will turn out alright.

But former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton recently wrote in an editorial in The Los Angeles Times that “Amnesty International has pointed to the presence of Iran’s proxy militias in Iraq as a key source of instability and sectarian conflict there.”

He goes on to point out that Iran is at the heart of most of the region’s conflicts and instability. All of which has been going on during the time of nuclear talks. One cannot claim to aim for peaceful uses for nuclear power while at the same time sponsor most of the wars and conflicts going on at the same time.

This contradiction lies at the heart of these talks and is the unspoken elephant in the room. Iran cannot claim the mantle of peace while it clutches the proverbial sword of war, no matter what Parsi and others claim.

We can only hope round three ends the same way as rounds one and two.

By Michael Tomlinson

Equating Cuba to Iran is More Smoke and Mirrors

December 18, 2014 by admin

President Obama laid out a move to normalize relations with Cuba after over half a century of unrest in relations. North Korea comes to mind too, but that involves another discussion on another day.

Sympathizers and supporters of Iran’s ruling regime have seized on the proposal to try and draw parallels to the U.S. approach to Iran. Most notably Trita Parsi and Ryan Costello of the regime’s foremost lobbyists at the National Iranian American Council, write in The HuffingtonPost that America’s perceived failed Cuba policy is akin to its similar flawed policy as it relates to Iran.

They attempt to draw parallels to economic sanctions placed on Cuba and Iran as both being failures in policy and deserving of retraction. They go to heap praise on President Obama’s recent efforts to advance a nuclear arms deal with Iran as evidence of this new pivot that can usher in an era of normalized relations between the two adversaries.

Unfortunately their obtuse logic is about as straightforward as a pretzel. Cuba and Iran are vastly different countries with vastly different economic, political and military histories.

Anyone over the age of 60 clearly remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis and the razor sharp edge the U.S. and old Soviet Union navigated as the world was pushed to the brink of global war. In a sharp twist of irony, Cuba’s placement of nuclear missiles aimed at the U.S. 90 miles away proved to be intolerable and were eventually removed through some last minute diplomacy and a heavy dose of military hardware in the Caribbean. Similarly, Iran faces the same choice in whether or not to pursue a nuclear arms program that could place Iran in the same position Cuba found itself in.

But the differences between Cuba and Iran are largely glossed over by Parsi and Costello. Whereas Cuba was a virtual vassal state to the Soviets and heavily dependent on imports of oil, food and other goods to keep the island nation going, Iran sits on one of the world’s largest reserves of oil and uses illicit petro dollars to fund a myriad of military activities as well as fund several of the world’s most notorious terror organizations.

It would be a remarkable display of honesty if Parsi and Costello were to actually use the terms “Hezbollah, ISIS and Iran” in the same sentence.

Iran has been governed by an unrelenting, unforgiving and uncaring religious cadre of mullahs who through advocacy of a particularly harsh and radicalized brand of Islam have managed to oppress the Iranian people for decades.

But par for the course for Parsi and Costello, they conveniently ignore the human rights abuses, depredations and decades-long effort by Iran to develop a nuclear capability in defiance of worldwide condemnations.

Iran remains deeply involved in the Syrian conflict, now manipulates Iraq in its fight against ISIS and continues to fund and support Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as shield its nuclear activities from international inspectors and continue to squeeze its own people with a stepped up campaign of arrests, imprisonments and executions that would make North Korea pale by comparison.

But none of that seems to make the proverbial exhortations of Parsi and Costello who remain slavishly obedient to Iran’s beck and call and are using the Cuba situation in another desperate attempt to push through a nuclear deal that would set Iran on a path not too dissimilar to the near global catastrophe of 1962.

By Michael Tomlinson

Whitewashing Iran’s human right’s records to lobby softer position on nuclear talks

December 6, 2014 by admin

Photo credit: The gulf and Middle East Association for civil society-August 2014

The Ministry of Intelligence and Security of Iran had instructed its agents to try to advocate themselves as opposition by writing 80% against the regime and the violation of human rights in Iran, but they have to dedicate 20% to denying the opposition, namely the MEK (Mujahedin-e-Khalq), by spreading rumors discredit them. This seems to be the copy framework agreement with the Iranian regime’s lobby and appeasers with respect to the failed Iran talks in Vienna.

Recently, some advocates of Iranian origin who claim to be human rights activists are expressing concerns over the recent resolution of the House of Representatives against the human rights violation in Iran.

One of these “human rights activists” has written an article in The Hill today, expressing concerns that “seeking ways to achieve tangible human rights improvements inside Iran is also closely related to the outcome of the nuclear negotiations” and that including “separate issues – such as Iran’s rights record, or its support for terrorism – will make it more difficult to reach a nuclear deal”.

The author who by the way is a well-known advocate and affiliate of “NIAC” claims that “the Iranian human rights community strongly supports a successful diplomatic resolution of the nuclear crisis, particularly because many believe that without a deal, the human rights crisis in Iran will worsen”. He goes further in whitewashing the regime’s president Rouhani who is just another mullah within the hierarchy of the theocracy ruling Iran, saying: “the perpetuation of tensions over the nuclear file is likely to result in continued and even increased gross human rights violations. For example, throughout the past decade, Iranian hardliners, opposed to a deal, have thrived by capitalizing on the nuclear confrontation and using it to justify their repressive measures. Failure of the negotiations would embolden them. They would seek to weaken the government of relative moderate President Hassan Rouhani.”

This is while in Iran under the so called “moderate” Rouhani, over 1,100 people have been executed and thousands are on death row. Based on the number of executions that mainly appear on state newspapers in Iran, on average every 8 hours one person is being executed. Women are disgracefully attacked by regime-related thugs, either by acid or being stabbed under the pretext of disobeying the dress code. There is no free access to information, Iran is the biggest prison for journalists and the situation of religious minorities is outrageous, to name a few.

Last November, the United Nations General Assembly’s third committee adopted the UN’s 61st resolution condemning human rights abuses in Iran and urged the regime to stop the executions, in such conditions, overlooking the human rights in Iran and ignoring the fact that people and particularly women in Iran are living under despicable conditions is nothing but cruel, shameful and immoral. Asking the US politicians to be softer on the regime with such inhumane records of human rights, is even worse.

The author is also quoting some activists to strengthen his proposition and represent it as a request by the Iranian human rights community. He writes: “As Nasrin Sotoudeh , the prominent human rights lawyer and former political prisoner put it: ‘It is obvious that we welcome peaceful relations with all countries and as such support the negotiations’.” This is while reading Nasrin Sotoudeh’s entire quote, you can see that she is actually demanding the human rights issues to be discussed during negotiations and not to be ignored, exactly the opposite of what the Iranian lobby is criticizing the congress for in the Hill article. Here is her quote from the same source:

“if the Iranian state wants to rehabilitate its relations with the international community, it must certainly address fundamental human rights concerns on issues such as juvenile executions and freedom of expression. The Iranian government should clearly state its position on these issues during the nuclear negotiations. In my opinion, keeping silent on such issues until the end of negotiations will make it more difficult. My understanding is the European countries say we cannot easily bring up human rights issues because it will potentially threaten the negotiations. We say at a minimum ask the Iranian negotiators to express their position on fundamental human rights concerns such as juvenile executions which are banned by all international conventions.”

The truth of the matter is that the Iranian regime has strategically invested in its nuclear program. It is doing everything to get more time to complete the program and will not shift from this unless faced with more pressure and more sanctions. After all it was the sanctions that finally forced the mullahs to go to the negotiation table and accept the Geneva accord, not the appeasement policy that has unfortunately been the dominant policy of the West towards Iran in the past two decades.