Iran Missile program

Iran Tries Blackmail in Threatening Failed Nuclear Deal

August 16, 2017 by admin

Iran Tries Blackmail in Threatening Failed Nuclear Deal

One of the key provisions of the Iran nuclear deal was an agreement to not include so-called “side issues” into the agreement such as the regime’s sponsorship of terrorism or any improvement in its human rights record.

The mullahs in Tehran knew they would instantly fail any of those litmus tests and fought hard to keep them out of the agreement, but in doing so they set themselves up for failure down the road when continued abuses would force the U.S. to act in levying new sanctions for terrorism support and Iran’s burgeoning ballistic missile program.

The mullahs found themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. The nuclear agreement did not contain any language prohibiting economic sanctions on non-core nuclear issues per the mullahs’ demands so as the Trump administration and U.S. Congress imposed new sanctions the mullahs were left to cry foul without any basis to stand on.

The Iran lobby then went to work trying to stave off sanctions by pushing the message that these additional sanctions would threaten the “essence” of the agreement and cause its collapse leading to Iran building a nuclear arsenal.

Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council tried to blame President Donald Trump for the potential collapse of the deal and issued a statement that reeked of falsehoods commonly trotted out by the Iran lobby.

“It should now be clear that Donald Trump’s moves to violate and hold certification of the Iran nuclear deal in doubt are actively destabilizing the accord. Unfortunately, in response to Trump’s increasingly hostile rhetoric, as well as Congress’ moves to escalate sanctions, Iran is now warning that it has its own options to back out of the deal if the U.S. continues to undermine it,” Parsi said.

Let’s be clear: Iranian regime, not the U.S., is responsible for destabilizing the nuclear deal with their bloody war in Syria, efforts to sow insurrection in the Gulf states, and start launching ballistic missiles at a clip rivaling North Korea. The U.S. did nothing to inspire those acts and all those acts began actually years ago and under the Obama administration.

Also, the U.S. Congress and American electorate has had the luxury to see how the nuclear deal has turned out after two years and their answer has been overwhelmingly negative. While Parsi may try to affix blame on President Trump, the real culprits are in Tehran.

But Parsi didn’t stop there.

“We have repeatedly warned that President Trump’s beating of the war drum with Iran, even if confined to rhetoric, in addition to new Congressional sanctions and zero diplomatic outreach, could only produce negative consequences. Iran’s parliament has now voted to increase spending on its ballistic missile program and the IRGC in direct response to new sanctions on the country,” Parsi added.

Incredibly, Parsi tries to also blame the U.S. President for Iranian regime’s decision to ramp up its missile program; ignoring the fact the regime’s missile program was begun a decade ago with technology licensing agreements with North Korea and fully funded by illicit oil sales.

It is a blatant example of how the Iran lobby tries to rewrite history to protect the Iranian regime after it acts to toss away the international agreements it signs.

Regime president Hassan Rouhani did his part in warning the regime could quickly ramp up its nuclear program and achieve an advanced level if the U.S. continued its “threats and sanctions.”

Rouhani’s remarks to Iranian regime lawmakers were his most direct warning that the deal could fall apart and risked ratcheting up tensions with the United States.

While most media focused on Rouhani’s threats, virtually no one picked up on the key inconsistency he made which is that Iran could “quickly” build nuclear weapons. This simple declaration proves the biggest lie offered by the regime and Iran lobby supporters such as Parsi: the nuclear deal did not push back the much-debated “breakout” period for Iran to build a nuclear device.

“In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced (nuclear) level than at the beginning of the negotiations” that preceded the 2015 deal, Rouhani said.

The nuclear deal has been a complete and utter failure.

United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley issued a stern and forceful rebuke to Rouhani’s comments and accurately pointed out the problem with the arguments being made by the Iran lobby about saving the nuclear deal at all costs.

Haley said on Tuesday Iran must be held responsible for “its missile launches, support for terrorism, disregard for human rights, and violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions.”

“Iran cannot be allowed to use the nuclear deal to hold the world hostage … The nuclear deal must not become ‘too big to fail’,” Haley said in a statement, adding that new U.S. sanctions were unrelated to the Iran nuclear deal.

What is ironic in all this debating about Iran is how North Korea is widely reviled, heavily sanctioned and appropriately feared by the rest of the world over its ballistic missile program, but in the case of Iran’s missile program, the European Union has struggled to stay mute and not offend the mullahs.

Why does North Korea’s missile program drive the world to the brink of striking back, but in the case of Iran, many American partners refuse to criticize Iran?

Part of the answer lies in the Iranian regime’s aggressive efforts to open its markets to European firms to make investment and economic hamstring themselves from taking future action against Iran. Another explanation comes from EU policy makers who naively believe in the lies of the Iran lobby and hope for the best while ignoring the evidence of Iranian regime’s extremism.

Europe’s reaction is eerily similar to the reaction their predecessors had to the rise of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

We can only hope the world doesn’t pay again for that same policy of appeasement.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime and Lobby Using Fear of War to Stave Off Action

June 23, 2017 by admin

Iran Regime and Lobby Using Fear of War to Stave Off Action

The Iranian regime’s default argument in favor of its militant actions is usually for self-defense. Why did we save the Assad regime in Syria? For self-defense.

Why did we not object to Assad using chemical weapons against his own people? For self-defense.

Why did Iran supply the Houthis in Yemen and foment a revolution that threatened a war with Saudi Arabia? For self-defense.

Why did Iran crack down on journalists, dissidents, students, artists and even women who take Zumba dance classes? For self-defense.

The Iran lobby was no different with regime advocates such as the National Iranian American Council consistently excusing regime acts such as firing ballistic missiles as a necessary adjunct to national defense in the face of U.S. or Saudi aggression.

Few people around the world actually believe these are really acts designed for self-defense so for our purposes, let’s move past the false arguments and get to the real heart of the matter; Iranian regime is posing for the world stage.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, president of the International American Council, wrote about this in an editorial for the Arab News.

“Iran’s military adventurism and destabilizing behavior have reached an unprecedented level that could turn regional tensions into a conflagration. Tehran’s stepped-up interference in Yemen is a direct threat to the Bab Al-Mandab strait and the security of neighboring countries. US officials say Iran is now providing cruise missiles to Yemen’s Houthis,” he writes.

“In Iraq, Tehran is obstructing efforts by state and non-state actors to bridge Sunni-Shiite gaps. It seeks to control Iraq, and has started a widespread campaign to influence decision-making and secure a victory for Shiite groups in parliamentary elections,” he adds.

He also cites Iran’s first use of ballistic missiles on the battlefield as a disturbing development since it crosses the proverbial Rubicon for Iran in the mullahs’ willingness to use these weapons.

“Iran is beginning a new stage in its interventions in Arab countries via its ballistic missile capabilities. This will intensify sectarianism, radicalization and militarization of regional conflicts. If this is met with silence, Tehran will be further empowered and emboldened because it interprets silence as weakness,” Rafizadeh said.

“The US and the international community should hold Iranian leaders accountable. This can be accomplished by a combination of political pressure, economic sanctions and force. The US should seek assistance from European allies and a united front with several Middle Eastern powers; this would be a powerful bulwark against Tehran. Sanctions from Muslim countries would be a significant blow to Tehran’s self-portrayal as a leader of the Muslim world,” he added.

But none of that has stopped some world leaders from slipping back into questioning whether or not appeasing Iran might not still be a sound policy to follow; all evidence to the contrary.

Security Council Resolution 2231 called on Iran not to test ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. When Iran conducted missile tests in March 2016, critics led by the United States were infuriated, calling the country’s behavior a violation of the Security Council resolution and a sign that it would not honor provisions of the nuclear accord.

In a report to the Security Council last July on compliance with Resolution 2231, Ban Ki-moon, then the secretary general, said he was concerned that the missile tests might not be consistent with the “constructive spirit” demonstrated by the nuclear accord. He called on Iran to “refrain from conducting such launches, given that they have the potential to increase tensions in the region.”

Of course, with the missile launches in Syria, the Iranian regime basically burned Resolution 2231 in a dumpster.

Which leads us back to the original issue of the mullahs trying to distract attention from their extremist activities.

Brenda Shaffer, a professor with the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown and a fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, discusses Iran’s use of ISIS to district from its actions in cracking down in dissidents in a piece for Fox News.

“Through recent news reports we’ve learned that those rounded-up as part of the attacks are all members of the Kurdish and Baluch ethnic minorities. The conflict with Iran’s Kurdish and Baluch minorities is not new: Tehran has been battling for close to a decade a much larger insurgency with both groups, without any evidence of direct links to ISIS,” Shaffer said.

“Tehran’s focus on ISIS as the driving force behind recent terror attacks is right out of the country’s playbook for dealing with ethnic conflict. Even if the Kurdish attackers cooperated with ISIS, their motivations and goals are very different than other affiliates. And even while dozens of Kurds and Baluch have now been jailed, this conflict is not going away anytime soon. Kurdish, Baluch and other domestic ethnic groups in Iran have extensive grievances and there continues to be fallout from the regular executions of activists from these communities,” she adds.

For Iran, the use of fear, distraction and misdirection all are tools to hide the truth.

Michael Tomlinson

Iranian Ballistic Missiles Take Center Stage in Global Debate

June 21, 2017 by admin

Iranian Ballistic Missiles Take Center Stage in Global Debate

Iranian regime ballistic missiles have moved to the forefront of discussions and military action around the world as events shifted rapidly putting a spotlight on the mullahs’ use of the weapons for the first time on the battlefield.

All of the debate and editorials produced by the Iran lobby has always consistently tried defusing Iran’s escalating supply of longer range ballistic missiles as nothing more than a defensive armament, but the recent launching of these missiles at targets in Syria moved them from the theoretical to the practical.

There can be no argument now that Iran possesses and has shown the willingness to use weapons that can prove just as destabilizing to the region as nuclear weapons. In fact, the mullahs’ willingness to continue investing heavily in the development of longer-range missiles with heavier lift capabilities and more sophisticated targeting systems makes Iran the pre-eminent threat in the Middle East.

The fact that the Iranian regime fought hard to exclude ballistic missile development from the nuclear talks two years ago demonstrates the value the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard Corps places on these weapon systems.

In a practical sense, ballistic missiles provide a longer reach for the IRGC to attack targets far from Iran’s borders and gives the mullahs the political leverage to blackmail neighboring Gulf states for example into compliant behavior.

Previous sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program from the United Nations Security Council have been largely ignored by the mullahs and the sheer size and scope of its program has been largely unknown to the rest of the world.

But Iranian opposition groups did hold a press conference the other day in Washington, DC to disclose additional missile sites previously unknown to the rest of the world.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella group for Iranian opposition groups, citing sources of coalition member the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) network inside Iran, in this case in Iran’s Defense Ministry & the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has a history of blowing the whistle on Tehran’s ballistic missile program, nuclear weapons drive, terrorism and meddling across the Middle East and beyond, and human rights violations, according to Heshmat Alavi in Forbes.

Various aspects of the dozen hitherto-unknown sites involved in ballistic missile production, testing and launches, all controlled by the IRGC, were also unveiled.

NCRI U.S. Office Deputy Director Alireza Jafarzadeh presented satellite imagery on the sites and details of North Korean experts who took part in the construction of such highly essential centers.

The scope of Iran’s IRGC-pursued missile program is far more extensive than previously perceived. In this press conference the NCRI identified the locations of 42 IRGC sites, of which 15 are involved in missile manufacturing and containing several factories linked to a missile industry group.

Four of Iran’s most important missile sites are located in the cities of Semnan (east of Tehran), Lar (southcentral Iran), Khorramabad (western Iran) and near Karaj (west of Tehran), according to the PMOI/MEK sources. Iran has only acknowledged the existence of two of these sites to this day, Alavi said.

The Semnan site has been actively associated to SPND, Iran’s organization in charge of building a nuclear weapon, PMOI/MEK sources revealed. SPND has carried out many of its tests at this site.

SPND is the Persian acronym for the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, including Iran’s nuclear weapons program engineering unit. The NCRI first unveiled the existence of SPND in July 2011, leading to its sanctioning three years later.

IRGC missile sites have all been constructed based on North Korean blueprints, according to PMOI/MEK sources, adding Pyongyang’s experts have also been present at sites assisting their Iranian counterparts.

The existence of the Iranian missile program and North Korean cooperation is not news, but the ramp up in size of the missile fleet and Iran’s willingness to use it now are deeply disturbing to policymakers from Washington to Riyadh.

U.S. senators who passed tough new legislation imposing sanctions for Iran’s missile program stated flatly that the Iranian regime now poses the greatest security threat to the U.S. as U.S. warplanes shot down yet another Iranian drone over Syria.

“The Iranians never like sanctions, but if they don’t like them, then they should stop testing ballistic missiles in violation of U.N. resolutions,” said Connecticut senator Chris Murphy.

Texas senator Ted Cruz warned Tuesday that Iran and the potential for a nuclear Iran are “the single greatest national security threat facing America.”

The discussion over Iranian missiles didn’t stop the regime’s ardent supporters from weighing in and coming to the mullahs’ defense, as well as opponents in verbal fireworks rivaling what is happening on the battlefield.

Dennis Ross, a former U.S. Mideast negotiator and author, laid out the unpleasant choices left on the table as Iran steps up its military involvement in Syria, Iraq and now the Gulf region.

“Amid this confusion, Iran is pressing ahead to strengthen its grip on Syria, even as Trump goes after ISIS. Iran’s intervention to save President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has involved sending not just elite Iranian military advisers but also bringing in Lebanese Hezbollah and other Shia militias from as far away as Afghanistan. While estimates vary on the size of these forces, the numbers are in the tens of thousands. Iran’s sectarian shock troops are being used to extend the regime’s writ, especially as the Syrian regime’s deployable military manpower has shrunk to about 20,000 forces,” he writes in Politico.

“Iran is actively trying to create a land corridor through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. To that end, Iran is pushing from within Iraq and Syria, using its Shia militia proxies on both sides of the border. On the Iraqi side, the Shia militias have now largely cleared ISIS from border crossings. Within Syria, Iran has sent significant Hezbollah forces eastward to Deir ez-Zour, a major Syrian city along the Euphrates River. With the U.S.-supported effort to liberate Raqqa under way, Iran wants to prevent any U.S.-backed groups from establishing themselves in eastern Syria—something that could preclude the Iranian aim of controlling Syria’s borders with Iraq and Jordan. (With Hezbollah also now active in the area of Deraa, a southern Syrian city close to the Golan Heights, the Iranians have their eye on the Syrian-Israeli border as well,)” Ross adds.

The implications are clear. The price of not confronting Iranian aggression will soon become very expensive, which is what the mullahs are hoping for; a victory without cost is their mantra.

The world should make the mullahs have to pay a very heavy price.

Laura Carnahan

Iranian Regime Steps Up Provocative Actions

April 6, 2016 by admin

Iranian Regime Steps Up Provocative Actions

The Iran nuclear deal is pretty much dead…at least according to the Iranian regime as regime officials on Monday accused the U.S. of violating the agreement by working behind the scenes to stop American companies from conducting business with Iran, according to regional media reports.

The regime has been complaining for months that it is not being granted enough sanctions relief under the agreement in a bizarre example of bipolar thinking. On the one hand Iran complains about sanctions relief and on the other it boasts of the billions in new business deals it has signed with foreign companies.

These complaints have reportedly pushed the Obama administration to consider offering Iran greater concessions, including access to the U.S. dollar and American financial markets in an even more desperate bid to appease the mullah’s regime.

Sadeq Amoli Larijani, Iran’s judiciary chief, “warned” the United States in remarks on Monday, claiming that the administration’s current actions violate the agreement.

“The Americans are now acting in violation of the nuclear agreement,” Larijani was quoted as saying on Monday before high-ranking Iranian officials.

Larijani accused the Obama administration of “pressuring companies which are interested in investment in Iran to withdraw from their decision,” according to reports carried in Iran’s state-controlled media.

“The Americans should know that the Islamic Republic of Iran would never compromise its interests and would never agree with investment of foreign firms in the country at any price, while it enjoys rich resources and abundant talents,” Larijani was quoted as saying, obviously bluffing about regime’s bankrupt economy.

At the same time, ironically the regime leaders borrowed from President Obama’s own rhetoric in warning the U.S. not to cross a “red line” when it came to sanctioning the regime’s ballistic missile program.

Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazzayeri, deputy chief of staff of the Iranian military, claimed the Obama administration has been intentionally prolonging the removal of sanctions as outlined by the nuclear deal. He believes the U.S. is trying to connect the terms of agreement with the regime’s ballistic missile program, which it explicitly sought to delink during talks last year.

“The White House should know that defense capacities and missile power, specially at the present juncture where plots and threats are galore, is among the Iranian nation’s red lines and a backup for the country’s national security and we don’t allow anyone to violate it,” said Jazzayeri, as reported by Iranian media outlet and government mouthpiece Fars news.

The general’s reference appears to mirror language used by President Obama who claimed on September 4, 2013, that any use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against the Syrian opposition would cross a “red line.”

The regime’s full-court assault on the Obama administration over the nuclear deal is part of an overall effort to set up the potential for walking away from the deal and blame its failure on the U.S. Such a move would allow Iran to restart its nuclear program with speed after it has received over $100 billion in fresh cash to stuff its coffers and complete a series of military deals with Russia to replenish and upgrade its forces.

Part of strategy can be seen in a series of moves to expand and reinforce its proxy forces currently fighting in Syria and Yemen, including deploying a top army unit to Syria in what commanders call an advisory mission, according to state-run media.

Regime general Ali Arasteh, deputy chief liaison of the army’s ground force, said the unit comprises “commandos” in a force from the 65th NOHAD — a Persian abbreviation for Airborne Special Forces Brigade.

“We are sending commandos from army’s Brigade 65 and other units to Syria as advisers,” Arasteh told the Tasnim news agency.

The move bolsters an already robust Iranian military presence in Syria, analysts say.

In the last two years, Iran has sent thousands of its Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to fight ground battles for the Syrian regime, joining with Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon. Tehran reportedly increased the number of IRGC personnel in Syria in the final months of 2015, sending as many as 3,500 militia fighters to the frontlines, as well as recruit paid Afghan mercenaries to supplement its forces.

Additionally, the U.S. Navy intercepted and seized an arms shipment from Iran likely bound for Houthi fighters in Yemen in the Arabian Sea in a statement on Monday.

The weapons seized last week by the U.S. warships Sirocco and Gravely were hidden on a small dhow and included 1,500 AK-47 rifles, 200 rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers, and 21 .50-caliber machine guns, according to the Navy statement.

“This seizure is the latest in a string of illicit weapons shipments assessed by the U.S. to have originated in Iran that were seized in the region by naval forces,” the statement said.

It cited a Feb. 27 incident in which the Australian Navy intercepted a dhow in late February and confiscated nearly 2,000 AK-47s, 100 RPG launchers, and other weapons. On March 20, a French destroyer seized almost 2,000 AK-47s, dozens of Dragunov sniper rifles, nine antitank missiles, and other equipment bound from Iran to the Houthis.

The evidence is abundant and widespread of the regime’s aggressive posturing and direct involvement in causing the wars now ranging in three different countries. The mullahs the last few months before the presidential election as a fire sale to grab everything they can before the appeasement potentially ends since virtually all of the leading candidates – both Democrat and Republican – have vigorously denounced Iran’s actions.

Ironically the Iran lobby has pushed the same party line as the mullahs in accusing the U.S. of not following through on the nuclear deal.

We can only hope the region doesn’t fall so far into a bottomless black pit of Islamic extremism and war that the world can’t dig the cancer of the Iranian regime out in 2017.

By Michael Tomlinson

Khamenei Defends Illegal Missile Program as World Worries

April 1, 2016 by admin

Khamenei Defends Illegal Missile Program as World Worries

In a speech that reinforced the fact that he alone was firmly in control of the Iranian regime’s military policies, top mullah Ali Khamenei firmly defended the regime’s ballistic missile program in the face of mounting concerns around the world as missile after missile has been launched.

In a speech on Wednesday, Khamenei said that Tehran would lose its leverage in negotiations with the world’s major powers if it were to abandon its missile program.

“These are times of both missiles and negotiations,” he said. “If the Islamic establishment seeks technology and negotiations but does not have defensive power, it will have to back down in the face of any petty country that threatens it.”

It’s a curious point to make since Iran currently possesses the largest military in the region, and now flushed with over $100 billion in cash from the nuclear agreement, has gone on a furious buying binge of new advanced military hardware including tactical fighters, anti-aircraft and anti-ship missile batteries, tanks and encrypted communications equipment.

The regime also exerts influence and power through its network of terror groups and proxies such as Hezbollah, Shiite militias and the Houthis in maintaining control. The argument of needing intercontinental ballistic missiles for defense is farcical since such weapons are commonly characterized as first-strike offensive weapons.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 expressly restricts the regime from developing such weapons and Khamenei has openly dismissed such restrictions as being inapplicable to Iran.

Khamenei was speaking to religious eulogists in Tehran a day after it emerged that the US and its European allies in the security council had written a joint letter warning that recent missile tests by Iran were in defiance of a UN security council resolution adopting last year’s nuclear agreement.

The letter, which claimed that Iranian missiles were “inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons”, was carefully drafted and did not say, however, that the tests violated the accord itself, which would have serious implications on its implementation.

Earlier in March, the Revolutionary Guards claimed to have successfully tested two ballistic missiles, Qadr-H and Qadr-F, during large-scale drills. The Fars news agency, which is affiliated to the guards, said the missiles carried a message in Hebrew written on them: “Israel must vanish from the page of time.”

His speech was aimed not only at international audiences, but also to domestic ones in which he sought to tamp down any expectations of hope for moderation or change in the regime’s leadership. Even at age 76, Khamenei remains engaged and committed to the extremist principles it espouses.

The furor over how to rein in the regime’s missile program is an ironic repeat of the same consternation and debate that enveloped the regime over its nuclear program three years ago. While Groundhog Day already came, it still seems like the cycle of Iranian violations and threats of new sanctions is repeating itself.

This also points out the inherent weakness of the Iran lobby’s argument last year in which groups such as the National Iranian American Council argued strenuously to remove subjects such as the ballistic missile program from nuclear negotiations in the false hope it would lead to moderation.

The opposite has occurred now that the regime, led by Khamenei, feels it has the upper hand in pushing forward with its military programs without worry of repercussions or penalties.

But if signs that the United Nations Security Council might not sanction Iran over its ballistic missile program continue, a key member of Congress vowed an angry response, potentially increasing the incentives for lawmakers to come down hard on Tehran with congressional sanctions.

That “directly contradicts assurances made by the administration,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said in a statement Wednesday. “As many of us feared, now it appears Iran can defy those restrictions with impunity, fearing no pushback from the U.N. Security Council.”

The Treasury Department has taken steps to sanction Iran over the reported ballistic missile tests, blacklisting individuals and companies that it determined are working to support Iran’s ballistic missile program. There is strong bipartisan support for coming down hard on Iran for the missile tests as well, with several Democrats who supported the Iran deal arguing it is essential to the integrity of that deal to make sure Iran is held to account for its actions elsewhere.

Sens. Corker and Ben Cardin (D-Md.), are expected to soon release bipartisan legislation stepping up sanctions against Iran over its ballistic missile program.

The flurry of action shows the price to be paid for previous inaction in opposing the regime. Sooner or later, the world will have to come to the realization that appeasing the mullahs only emboldens them.

By Michael Tomlinson