Iran Lobby

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

Iran Lobby in Full Attack Mode Against Trump

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Iran Lobby in Full Attack Mode Against Trump

Iran Lobby in Full Attack Mode Against Trump

The Iran lobby is in full attack mode against President Donald Trump and it’s not a surprise. We predicted as early as last December that the Iran lobby would mobilize to block any moves made by the new Trump administration to curb Iranian regime excesses.

It did not matter what the administration did so long as it might be construed to make things more difficult for the mullahs in Tehran then it deserved fierce opposition from the Iran lobby.

To that end the Iran lobby’s chief architect, the National Iranian American Council, first turned its attention to the debate over immigration, since for the NIAC, it was a perfect opportunity to burnish its credentials as a progressive fighter for human rights. An ironic notion since it all but encourages Iran to abuse its own people by not voicing any opposition to the continued imprisonment, torture and execution of thousands of Iranians.

It then tried to attack the Trump administration over its escalation in Syria in the fight against ISIS and the Assad regime, but as they say in the Deep South, “that dog just wouldn’t hunt.”

The NIAC and its allies got little traction on that issue, especially in light of horrific scenes of chemical attacks by Assad forces on Syrian civilians and the increase of direct attacks on U.S.-backed forces by Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite militias.

The handwriting was on the wall that trying to defend Iran in Syria was a no-winner for the NIAC.

It then shifted back to familiar ground by pushing the idea that the president was actively seeking a war with Iran and looking for excuses to start one.

It’s a stupid notion since the provocations for starting a conflict with Iran are already abundant and excessive:

  • Iranian regime has detained American sailors and repeatedly made attack runs at several U.S. warships in international waters warranting the firing of warning shots;
  • They have falsely arrested and detained several American citizens;
  • Iranian regime has supported the smuggling of weapons and insurgents to U.S. allies in Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait—home to important U.S. military bases—in an effort to de-stabilize and topple those governments;
  • Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders have consistently made threats of attacks on U.S. personnel in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq and have used their Quds Force units to supply insurgents and militias with IEDs and weapons to target them;
  • Iranian regime has launched multiple missiles in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions with heavier payload capacity and extended ranges now long enough to strike throughout Europe, Africa and Asia;
  • Iran mullahs have used cash gained from the lifting of economic sanctions from the nuclear deal not for restarting a moribund economy, but rather to fund its wars in Syria and Yemen with the express purpose of destabilizing Saudi Arabia, the most important Arab ally the U.S. has in the region; and
  • Iranian regime has continued to escalate cyberattacks against U.S. financial institutions, commercial enterprises and infrastructure elements in a wide-ranging effort to de-stabilize the U.S.

Any of these actions, by themselves, would warrant a strong U.S. response and yet the NIAC and its cohorts in the “echo chamber” of Iranian regime support have always sought to portray the mullahs as some poor, defenseless lambs.

Take for example Mitchell Plitnick, a so-called policy analyst that has bounced around several progressive Jewish outfits and now finds a home as a frequent supporter of the Iranian regime.

He authored a recent editorial that appeared on the same day in noted Iran lobby mouthpiece, Lobelog, and +972 Magazine, that President Trump’s demand for more access for international inspectors to Iranian military bases for evidence of nuclear development work was a “red line” for the mullahs and would effectively kill the deal.

“Access to those sites was an Iranian red line during negotiations, and the agreement to omit that access from the deal was an important component in getting the deal done,” Plitnick writes.

It’s a stupid argument to make since he neglects to mention that Iran’s deep desire to keep its military bases off limits from inspection already created the high probability that Iran is cheating and conducting nuclear work in those safe zones.

Remember, in the ramp up of its nuclear program, which Iran always claimed never existed, the regime spread its development and research work across the vast deserts of Iran and buried them deep in fortified bunkers. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, has never had a complete and thorough accounting of every potential nuclear site in Iran.

Also, Iran was allowed to scrub several sites clean with bulldozers in clearing tons of dirt and debris away before soil samples were taken by Iranians and handed over to the IAEA. Even then, particles of nuclear materials were still detected.

The position that Trita Parsi of the NIAC takes that the president is actively seeking to invalidate the nuclear agreement is false since the truth is that the nuclear agreement is largely being ignored by Iran already.

Also, he fails to note in his extensive press interviews this week that the president’s own State Department has certified Iran every 90 days even though it could have pulled the plug from the president’s swearing in.

All of which means, President Trump is not in a hurry to dump the nuclear deal as much as he is eager to find a plausible pathway for addressing all of the concerns he has with Iran including terrorism, human rights and ballistic missiles.

Parsi’s intense focus on the nuclear deal is yet another distraction to turn attention away from the most menacing aspects of Iran today which is its North Korean-like march to missile dominance.

That is the issue grabbing headlines and global attention and Parsi and his friends are desperate to turn the spotlight away.

Michael Tomlinson

Why Does the Iran Lobby Care About the Nuke Deal?

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Why Does the Iran Lobby Care About the Nuke Deal?

Why Does the Iran Lobby Care About the Nuke Deal?

The Iran lobby, including the National Iranian American Council and other groups, invested heavily in supporting the Iran nuclear deal. They lobbied for it, wrote editorials, sent out loads of press releases, made appearances on news programs, held meetings with elected officials and coordinated strategy with the Obama White House through countless meetings.

The Iran lobby ostensibly was doing all this in the name of peace and in support of a whole host of promised positives coming from its passage, including:

  • Bolstering moderate elements within the Iranian regime and aiding their cause in upcoming elections;
  • Shifting Iran back towards diplomacy and serving as a moderating force in a deeply destabilized Middle East;
  • Empower international inspectors to keep Iran under close scrutiny and push back its development of a nuclear weapon; and
  • Propel Iran’s re-entry in the community of nations and become a partner economically and politically with the world once again.

It was a nice idea and attractive to many in Congress. Unfortunately, like most good intentions, it fell flat on its face when confronted by the evil nature inherent within the ruling mullahs in Tehran.

The one thing everyone seemed to forget and the Iran lobby was careful to obscure was that the Iranian regime never really cared about a nuclear deal since the mullahs knew it would never halt their nuclear program, only postpone it slightly.

What they and their Iran lobbyist allies really cared about was the lifting of crippling sanctions that, more than anything else, was and still is the true goal of the regime and its allies.

Preserving the nuclear deal is not the real concern of the regime. It is the potential for the re-imposition of economic sanctions under a skeptical Trump administration and a reset back to 2012 in which the Iranian regime was on the verge of collapse and widespread dissatisfaction among the Iranian people still simmered from the violent crackdown on the 2009 democracy protests.

This is why the deal was crafted to preserve Iranian regime’s missile program and never take up the issues of human rights and terrorism since the mullahs had always planned to use the cash it received from the nuclear deal to jumpstart their ballistic missile program and keep the Assad regime afloat in Syria.

The mullahs and by extension the Iran lobby relied on the passiveness of the U.S. under Obama. As British politician Edmund Burke once famously said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

In this, the Iran lobby sought to dissuade action against Iran by promising a changed regime, but since none of that has happened and the situation throughout the Middle East has clearly gotten worse under the expansion of several proxy wars by Iran, the Iran lobby has shifted its tone and tactics to a much darker and fear-based message.

It now relies on the banging of war fears in trying to keep the nuclear deal alive as evidenced by the mounting PR push by groups such as the NIAC which put out a policy memo outlining how the Trump administration could undermine the nuclear agreement.

It is typically long-winded and rests its logic on the notion that President Trump can kill the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement by choosing not to certify the JCPOA or implementing “snap back” sanctions.

The NIAC memo then goes on to exhaustively explain the various steps the Congress would take in reviewing either action by the president.

What the NIAC does not discuss is the fact the Congress voted to pass new sanctions on Iran by stunningly huge bipartisan majorities that made clear no one actually believes in any of the promises made by the NIAC earlier.

Iranian regime has clearly become a threat not only to the U.S., but to the entire region as its ballistic missiles can now reach targets throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

The NIAC briefing also glaringly misses the essential point of what is happening now which is the Iranian regime’s actions on human rights violations, sponsorship of terror and accelerating a missile program that will soon surpass North Korea is what is driving the debate about Iran; not the nuclear agreement.

But the NIAC hopes that focus on the JCPOA will deflect attention on these other areas where Iranian regime is so blatantly awful on right now. It is akin to pointing at the crack den and ignoring the building on fire right next to it.

You can see how the Iran lobby is trying to push issues such as terrorism and missiles off the front pages by talking about the nuclear deal, when the nuclear deal isn’t even the issue being debated by Congress and the Trump administration.

This is the “new” grand lie of the Iran lobby and its supporters. They hope that by focusing on the JCPOA and Iranian regime’s continued “compliance” with the agreement that mullahs’ regime in Iran is somehow still a good global citizen. The lobby never addresses the ballistic missile program or the threat it poses, especially with heightened concerns over North Korea. It also never deals with the horrific human rights violations Iranian regime and its IRGC has perpetuated in the Syrian conflict.

Unfortunately for the NIAC and other Iran lobby members, everyone has pretty much caught on to the lie and ignoring what they say which explains the overwhelming bipartisan push to target Iran.

For the NIAC, it quickly finds itself alone in Washington’s Beltway with few open supporters and even less leverage in trying to boost Iranian regime’s fortunes. It’s time for the NIAC to pack it in.

Michael Tomlinson

More Sanctions Levied on Iran for Missile ProgramMore Sanctions Levied on Iran for Missile Program

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More Sanctions Levied on Iran for Missile Program

More Sanctions Levied on Iran for Missile Program

Iran’s recent launch of a rocket carrying a satellite into space served more as a test for the regime’s accelerating ballistic missile program in terms of lofting heavier payloads over greater distances.

In many ways, the Iranian regime’s missile program has mirrored the development of the North Korean program which now threatens the continental U.S. with its own launch of a ballistic missile last Friday.

Intelligence agencies have long believed that Iran’s missile program was kickstarted by a technology licensing agreement between the two rogue regimes, but Iran’s larger industrial capacity and ample financial resources due to illicit sales of its embargoed oil supplies over the years have enabled Iran to leapfrog the pace of development by North Korea.

It also explains why the mullahs were so intent on ensuring that the nuclear deal had no explicit restrictions on their missile program; an omission by the Obama administration in the false hope of fanning the flames of moderation.

All of which means a mess has been left to the Trump administration to sift through and it has done so with an admirable degree of incremental steps designed to slowly isolate the regime and target the most problematic parts of the regime’s terror industry.

For every provocation by the Iranian regime, the Trump administration has responded in direct proportion to send an unmistakable message to the Tehran.

A joint statement on Friday from the United States, France, Germany and Britain said Iran’s launch was inconsistent with a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on Iran not to conduct such tests.

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed new sanctions on six Iranian firms owned or controlled by the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group. The move enables the U.S. government to block any company property under its jurisdiction and prevents U.S. citizens from doing business with the firms, according to Reuters.

“These sanctions … underscore the United States’ deep concerns with Iran’s continued development and testing of ballistic missiles and other provocative behavior,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a statement.

“The U.S. government will continue to aggressively counter Iran’s ballistic missile-related activity, whether it be a provocative space launch … or likely support to Yemeni Houthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia such as occurred this past weekend,” Mnuchin said.

The six Shahid Hemmat units targeted by the U.S. sanctions manufacture missile components, missile airframes, liquid-propellant ballistic missile engines, liquid propellant, guidance and control systems. They also do missile-related research and maintenance.

The move comes on the heels of the Congress passing by overwhelming majorities legislation to impose new sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Russia, as well as sanctions imposed last July 18 directed at 18 people and entities for supporting Iran’s missile program or—more importantly—the Revolutionary Guard Corps which directly supports terrorism.

The moves from the Trump administration are slowly rolling back all the moves made by the Obama administration, but smartly are being done in a manner not to give the Iranian regime an excuse to claim the U.S. is violating the nuclear deal.

That of course has not stopped Iran lobby members such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council from claiming that the U.S. was indeed trying to wreck the deal.

Parsi took to Lobelog, another well-worn Iran lobby booster blog, to bray away that President Trump was actively seeking a war with Iran in another pathetic attempt at trying to drum up war fears.

“The American public knows the Iraq playbook quite well. Trump’s own supporters remain enraged by the disastrous war with Iraq. They know how they got played. It’s difficult to imagine why they would allow themselves to get played again by a president who has left little doubt about his intent to deceive,” Parsi said.

Parsi tries to press home the point that President Trump is some crazed warmonger, but even he admits that his presidential campaign was propelled in part by America’s dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq and the pretext for it.

Parsi cannot have both sides of the argument. He either must believe the president is actively seeking a war with Iran and is thumbing his nose at the very voters who put him in office, or Parsi must acknowledge the truth; which is that President Trump isn’t seeking a war, but is repairing the damage done by the Obama administration in enabling the mullahs in Tehran to act with impunity.

The president certainly doesn’t want a war, but he must correct the course set by the previous administration by attempting to restrain the Iranian regime, begin the laborious process of rebuilding the international coalition against the regime, cut off the flow of money funding its missile program and either hold the regime strictly accountable to the nuclear deal or force a better deal to be crafted.

In essence, President Trump is trying to get a do-over from the fumble made by the Obama administration and reset the terms of engaging with Iran to place issues such as ballistic missiles, human rights and terrorism back at the top of the agenda where they belonged in the first place.

It is an argument that has been made for years now by the Iranian opposition movement which warned that Iran would take advantage of the nuclear deal to rebuild its armed forces and fund its proxy war efforts rather than invest it back into the economy for the benefit of the Iranian people.

In hindsight, opposition leaders such as Mrs. Maryam Rajavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran look almost prescient now in light of how the regime has acted in the two years since the deal was crafted.

For the regime, it must seem like they are trying to hold off the inevitable with the ever-rising tide of sanctions now being imposed almost daily.

This ultimately gives the Trump administration significant leverage to force back an expansionist Iran; leverage that the Obama administration never sought to use much to the dismay of the peoples of Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Remains Top Global Sponsor of Terrorism

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Iran Remains Top Global Sponsor of Terrorism

In this picture taken on Friday Feb. 14, 2014, Hezbollah fighters hold flags as they attend the memorial of their slain leader Sheik Abbas al-Mousawi, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in 1992, in Tefahta village, south Lebanon. Hezbollah says Israel carried out an airstrike targeting its positions in Lebanon near the border with Syria earlier this week, claiming it caused damage but no casualties. Hezbollah said the attack was near the eastern Lebanese village of Janta. It vowed to retaliate but said it will “choose the appropriate time and place.” (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Unsurprisingly, the U.S. State Department once again listed the Iranian regime in its annual Country Reports on Terrorism; keeping it atop a dubious list of countries involved in the sponsorship and support of terrorism.

The report based the designation on the regime’s continued support for terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah and its overall efforts to destabilize the Middle East as a whole as evidenced by its spurring of the Houthi rebellion in Yemen and its long support for the Assad regime in Syria, as well as the rapid growth of Shiite militias in Iraq involved in new rounds of sectarian warfare with Sunni tribes.

Iranian regime has been designated as a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. since 1984, making it one of the longest-running state sponsors of terror in the world. Iranian regime sits alone only next to Sudan and Syria as officially designated state sponsors in the annual report.

The report cited a wide range of activities the Iranian regime has undertaken to foster the spread of terror and violence:

“Iran used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps‑Quds Force (IRGC-QF) to implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East. Iran has acknowledged the involvement of the IRGC-QF in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria and the IRGC-QF is Iran’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad,” the report said.

“In 2016, Iran supported various Iraqi Shia terrorist groups, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, as part of an effort to fight ISIS in Iraq and bolster the Assad regime in Syria. Iran views the Assad regime in Syria as a crucial ally and Syria and Iraq as crucial routes to supply weapons to Hezbollah, Iran’s primary terrorist partner. Iran has facilitated and coerced, through financial or residency enticements, primarily Shia fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan to participate in the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown in Syria. Iranian-supported Shia militias in Iraq have committed serious human rights abuses against primarily Sunni civilians and Iranian forces have directly backed militia operations in Syria with armored vehicles, artillery, and drones,” the State Department added.

In another nod to the Iranian regime expanding its actions to destabilize the Gulf states, the report also detailed how “Iran has provided weapons, funding, and training to Bahraini militant Shia groups that have conducted attacks on the Bahraini security forces. On January 6, 2016, Bahraini security officials dismantled a terrorist cell, linked to IRGC-QF, planning to carry out a series of bombings throughout the country.”

And contrary to the repeated denials of regime officials and the Iran lobby, Iran has “remained unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qa’ida (AQ) members it continued to detain and has refused to publicly identify the members in its custody. Since at least 2009, Iran has allowed AQ facilitators to operate a core facilitation pipeline through the country, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters to South Asia and Syria.”

The facilitation of terrorism from within its own Quds Forces and through external terror groups directly under Iran’s control such as Hezbollah, as well as others it has shielded such as Al-Qaeda and helped facilitate such as ISIS, points out the consistent lies perpetuated by the Iran lobby and regime supporters in maintaining that Iran’s government was locked in a power struggle with “moderate” elements.

There are no moderate elements within the regime’s government.

Supporting terror is a tool of statecraft for the Iranian regime and an important lever the mullahs in Tehran use frequently to advance their foreign policy goals.

This is also the reason why the Iran nuclear deal was never going to work in the first place since it did nothing to change the behavior of the mullahs. They remain as intent as ever on spreading their extremism, known as “Shia sphere” of influence and using violence to achieve it, which is why the Trump administration has moved on imposing additional sanctions even as it certifies the regime in compliance with the nuclear agreement.

The Iran lobby, especially advocates such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, have shouted to the rooftops that Iran mullahs are acting in a moderate and open manner with respect to the nuclear agreement, but refuse to acknowledge the near-homicidal behavior of mullahs regarding terrorism and war.

There can be no clear approach to Iranian regime without recognizing the linkages that exist between the regime’s behavior on terror and human rights, as well as its approach to nuclear weapons development. The great flaw in the Obama administration’s approach to Iran was to treat these issues as separate and apart.

It’s a silly notion since one can no more divorce a substance abuser from one drug than he starts using another. For the Iranian regime, violence is its narcotic of choice and it is addicted to it in all facets of its society.

This explains why the Iranian regime reacted so violently to the continued run of new sanctions by the Trump administration which led its leaders to make some outrageous boasts and demands this week.

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said on Wednesday that Iran would stand up to the U.S. and hit back with its own sanctions.

Meanwhile his foreign minister, Javad Zarif, took to CBS News to warn that the sanctions could jeopardize the nuclear deal; a curious position to take since President Trump seems intent on scrapping it in the first place.

Also on Wednesday, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guard, warned the U.S. against imposing sanctions on the paramilitary group. He said the Guard’s missile program is not negotiable and hinted that new sanctions could put U.S. military bases in the region in danger.

“If the U.S. intends to pursue sanctions on the Guard, it should first disassemble its military bases within 1,000 kilometers, or 620 miles,” Jafari was quoted as saying by state TV, apparently referring to the range of Iranian missiles.

It was a not-too subtle threat against U.S. bases in Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain all of which ties back to the original point made in the State Department’s annual report: the Iranian regime can never be trusted.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Begins Threatening with Ballistic Missiles

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Iran Regime Begins Threatening with Ballistic Missiles

Iran Regime Begins Threatening with Ballistic Missiles

Just as the world saw North Korea ramp up its production of ballistic missiles and begin launching them with greater regularity, we have seen a similar scenario begin to play out with the Iranian regime’s own missile fleet.

For the mullahs in Tehran, their ballistic missile fleet represents their ace in the hole; a weapon platform that can reach faraway enemies, threaten its neighbors and provide the ultimate leverage by carrying nuclear or chemical warheads.

You don’t build a weapon system unless you are prepared to use it and the mullahs are prepared.

What distinguishes the Iranian regime from North Korea is that Iran has fired its missiles in anger, unleashing a salvo of missiles at targets in Syria that it claimed were ISIS strongholds.

With one action, the mullahs served notice they were more than willing to push the proverbial red button; a disturbing thought when one considers the regime’s extensive list of enemies which seems to grow longer by the day.

Besides its nemesis in the U.S., the regime has added Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Pakistan to its list, not to mention anyone following the Sunni, Christian, Jewish and any other faith you can think of.

Add to that the increasing range of its missile fleet and you can see how Iran is able to drop missiles on virtually anyone it thinks is a threat to the regime.

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Iran possesses the “largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East” with literally thousands of short- and medium-range missiles stockpiled on mobile launchers and underground bunkers.

Maps overlaid with the range of its missiles, shows that Iran can strike targets as far away as India, China and Russia to the east and most of Europe and North Africa to the west.

It’s Shahab-3 missile has a range of over 2,000 km with a payload capacity heavy enough to accommodate a nuclear or chemical warhead of over 2,000 lb.

The Iranian regime has used this weapon system to hint strongly at the U.S. that its military bases in the Middle East are subject to being destroyed by Iran’s missiles; a not too subtle threat that raises the level of tensions in the region despite the reassurances of the Iran lobby.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari demanded Wednesday the U.S. withdraw all its military bases within 1,000 kilometers of Iran’s borders, a distance that encompasses most of the U.S.’s operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan, including massive bases in Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait.

The U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf are especially problematic for the Iranian regime since they present a direct challenge to the regime’s authority in what it considers its territorial waters and has often acted to threaten and imped international shipping through the Gulf; recently culminating in the detention of two American navy patrol boats and their crews.

Jafari made his threats because he is worried, as are all the mullahs, that the Trump administration is incrementally acting on its campaign promises to get tough on the Iranian regime and actively encourage regime change.

While the Obama administration, with the not so subtle direction and guidance of the Iran lobby, sought to keep various issues separate from the nuclear deal it negotiated including Iran’s missile fleet, the Trump administration is acting aggressively on those other fronts much to the consternation of the mullahs.

By levying new sanctions on Iran this week, as well as openly contemplating designating the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, President Trump is setting up a slow, methodical and thorough constricting of the regime’s finances and ability to export its brand of terrorism.

Trump is resetting the playing board to the conditions prior to the nuclear deal negotiations in which sanctions had crippled Iran and threatened to topple its regime leadership. The president is undoubtedly taking a course of action that can only lead to one goal which is regime change.

It is logical to assume that the U.S. would react violently and unilaterally should the Iranian regime use any of its missiles against U.S. personnel directly, which makes much of the threats by Jafari and other regime leaders empty and hollow.

On the border between Syria and Iraq, the U.S. already flexed its muscle when Navy jets attacked a convoy of Iranian-backed Shiite militia that were approaching a Syrian rebel base occupied with U.S. advisors. We can only imagine what would happen if Jafari were to lob a Shahab missile at a U.S. base in Afghanistan for example.

The mullahs in Tehran are reactionary, bellicose and even blood thirsty, but they are not crazy. They understand that their options are shrinking and Trump is only a few steps away from not certifying Iran in compliance with the nuclear agreement and triggering the 60-day review period for open debate in a Congress that has already shown bipartisan hostility to the regime.

From that point, it’s only a proforma matter before President Trump nullifies the Boeing deal, cuts off Iran’s access to U.S. currency markets and begins to penalize foreign businesses for investing in Iran.

In short order, the mullahs could find themselves back in 2009 where the economy was in shambles and an unpopular president was being met with massive street protests that rocked Tehran for days.

The recipe for regime change is well known and the mullahs are doing everything they can to avoid a repeat which is why they are so eager—or desperate—to threaten everyone with a rain of ballistic missiles.

Michael Tomlinson

Fight Over American Hostages in Iran Escalates

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Fight Over American Hostages in Iran Escalates

Xiyue Wang, a naturalized American citizen from China, arrested in Iran last August while researching Persian history for his doctoral thesis at Princeton University, is shown with his wife and son in this family photo released in Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. on July 18, 2017. Courtesy Wang Family photo via Princeton University/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY.

Ever since Otto Warmbier was brought back from his imprisonment and torture in North Korea only to suffer from severe brain damage and eventually succumbing to his injuries, President Donald Trump has become more personally involved in the plight of Americans being held hostage in Iranian prisons.

Though there is a large partisan divide that separates the president from Democrats and Republicans, on the issue of American prisoners he has become quietly, but forcefully involved in sending unmistakable messages to the mullahs in Tehran that he wants them freed.

While there is plenty of speculation as to why the president takes a personal interest in this issue, there is none regarding the correctness of his position. Even the Iran lobby’s most ardent supporters, the National Iranian American Council, could not hide from the cruelty in the regime’s latest hostage taking, Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-American graduate student from Princeton University, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Trita Parsi, the head of the NIAC, put out a statement condemning Wang’s “unjust detention and sentencing.” Of course, Parsi couldn’t help but tie the case back to old message of the sentencing as an effort by hardline elements in Iran seeking to “undermine Iran’s economic reintegration into the world.”

His statement underscores the ever-shrinking island for the Iran lobby when it comes to supporting the Iranian regime. The past two years since the nuclear deal was agreed to have fully demonstrated how incapable Iran has become to living up to the false promises of moderation made by people such as Parsi.

The Iranian regime has never made it a secret that it views hostage-taking as an essential tool of statecraft and not just American citizens either. It has detained and imprisoned Canadians and European citizens and used them as pawns in negotiations with their nations in trying to wring out concessions.

The fact that the Obama administration essentially rewarded the regime by paying pallets stacked with cash for the return of Americans including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, only incentivized the mullahs to take more hostages.

But for now, the Trump administration has openly called for the release of three Americans currently still in Iran, including former FBI agent Robert Levinson and Siamak and Baquer Namazi, son and father who are Iranian-American businessmen.

In Levinson’s case, he has been held in Iran for over 10 years and Iranian officials refused to make him part of the deal that released Rezaian and other hostages.

“The United States condemns hostage takers and nations that continue to take hostages and detain our citizens without just cause or due process. For nearly forty years, Iran has used detentions and hostage taking as a tool of state policy, a practice that continues to this day with the recent sentencing of Xiyue Wang to ten years in prison,” the White House statement read.

The statement urged that Iran is responsible for the care and well being of all US citizens it has in its custody. It added that Trump is willing to impose new consequence unless all “unjustly imprisoned’ American citizens are released by Iran.

The White House announcement comes at the heels of a new administration policy — banning Americans from visiting another country known for imprisoning Americans — North Korea.

In addition, Congress has moved forward with legislation imposing new sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Russia, adding to the pressure now coming from a U.S. government freed from the previous policies of trying to appease Iran.

Of course, none of this stopped the Iranian regime from making its own demands and accusing the U.S. of holding Iranian citizens in “gruesome prisons.”

“You are keeping our innocent citizens in gruesome prisons. This is against the law and international norms and regulations,” said Sadegh Larijani, head of the regime’s judiciary, quoted by Iran’s state broadcaster.

“We tell them that you must immediately release Iranian citizens locked up in US prisons.”

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused Washington of holding Iranians on “charges of sanction violations that are not applicable today… for bogus and purely political reasons”, at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank in New York last week.

Larijani also criticized the seizure of Iranian assets in the United States, such as a recent ruling to seize a Manhattan skyscraper to compensate victims of terrorism.

“They confiscate the assets of the Islamic republic. This is a blatant robbery. Americans behave as a bully and they want to oppress people of other countries,” he said.

Larijani’s comments deserve a good chuckle or at least a shocked gasp considering how abysmal Iranian regime’s prisons are, including the notorious Evin prison, as well as the regime’s reliance on medieval punishments such as public hanging and amputations.

Of course, given the regime’s past history of using hostages as pawns, the Larijani’s rhetoric may just be an opening prelude to another offer by the regime to swap Iranians convicted of smuggling material out of the U.S. for Wang and other Americans.

Remember, Iranian regime already has a taste of a quiescent U.S. in the prisoner swap from 2016, and may be lining up to orchestrate a similar move.

Even Reza Marashi of NIAC, acknowledged a similar move was afoot.

“I think it’s pretty clear that the Iranians are looking for another prisoner swap,” Marashi told Newsweek Monday.

The larger policy question for President Trump will be, if the regime offers a repeat of 2016, will he take the deal?

We would caution that doing so only encourages the Iranian regime to take even more hostages in 2018.

Michael Tomlinson

US Sanctions Set to Begin as Iran Threatens Hostages

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US Sanctions Set to Begin as Iran Threatens Hostages

US Sanctions Set to Begin as Iran Threatens Hostages

In a sign of not-so surprising bipartisan agreement in the highly charged partisan atmosphere of Washington, DC, Republican and Democratic lawmakers announced an agreement on legislation that will impose new sanctions on the Iranian regime, North Korea and Russia.

To say that there is very little Republicans and Democrats agree on today would be a colossal understatement, but it is clear dealing with Iran and North Korea has moved to the forefront because of their respective ballistic missile programs and Russia for alleged interference in U.S. elections.

The decision of how best to deal with Iran and North Korea seems to be about the only issues that draws popular and wide-ranging support from both sides of the political aisle; much to the consternation of the Iran lobby.

One of the most consistent arguments made by Iran supporters such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council has been the idea that the issues such as Iran’s nuclear program should be addressed separate and apart from ballistic missiles, human rights or sponsorship of terrorism.

The Obama administration followed through on that idea by not conditioning the nuclear agreement on those “side issues,” but all that did was enable the Iranian regime to act on all of those issues with impunity and a sense of invulnerability seeing how the U.S. would be unwilling to jeopardize the agreement no matter how egregious the actions by the regime.

It was a similar scenario that followed North Korea and sanctions were ramped up with each North Korean aggressive action only to be traded for concessions which enabled yet another round of militancy.

Tyrannical regimes soon figured out that if you wanted to get something from the Obama administration, you just had to act a little crazy and you would get it or have the U.S. back down; i.e. never crossing that “red line in the sand.”

Not coincidentally, that separation of issues doesn’t work both ways according to the Iran lobby. If the U.S. could not criticize or act against the regime for its conduct on ballistic missiles or human rights, then the U.S. could also be criticized for acting on its own against Iran for any of those issues.

Parsi and his colleagues have also chimed in that imposing sanctions on Iran for human rights violations is a separate issue and would only jeopardize the nuclear agreement. Its collapse would only force an arms race and speed up Iran’s path to the bomb.

Unfortunately for them and other supporters of the Iran regime, that is exactly what the U.S. Congress has done with this bill. It has finally acted on imposing sanctions separate and apart from the conditions of the nuclear deal—just as the Iran lobby demanded before.

Even the Los Angeles Times editorial board, long an advocate of the nuclear deal, agreed that issues such as ballistic missiles and support for terror groups such as Hezbollah ought to be addresses separately and so they have at last.

The House is set to vote on Tuesday on a package of bills on sanctions covering Russia, Iran and North Korea, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office. The measure will “hold them accountable for their [alleged] dangerous actions,” McCarthy claimed in a statement on Saturday, Reuters reported.

The legislation would also impose sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile development program and its activities in the region, especially the support provided by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps for Tehran’s allies in their campaigns to fight in Syria.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a strong sanctions bill is “essential”, and said in a statement that he expects “the house and senate will act on this legislation promptly, on a broad bipartisan basis.”

The bills are now shaping up as only the opening chess move between President Trump and the mullahs in Tehran as he has demanded the release of imprisoned Americans in Iranian jails, which received a similar demand from Tehran for the release of Iranians convicted on charges related to the attempted export of nuclear materials.

In the arena of prisoners and hostage taking, Iran and North Korea are again joined at the hip in terms of tactics since North Korea imprisoned and then released American Otto Warmbier who was released and died as a result of severe injuries suffered in what was described by medical officials as torture or savage beatings.

Iran has similarly detained Americans, Canadian and European citizens and subjected then to torture that has been widely documented and condemned by human rights and Iranian opposition groups such as Amnesty International.

In the face of the American action, the Iranian regime predictably announced the launch of a new production line to mass manufacture a new version of its Sayyad-3 air defense missile in a photo opportunity moment to shake the spear so-to-speak and warn against any efforts to attack Iran.

The Sayyad 3 missile can reach an altitude of 16 mile and travel up to 74 miles, Iranian defense minister Hossein Dehghan said at a ceremony, as reported by Reuters. The missile is copied after similar Russian designs.

The missile can target fighter planes, unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles and helicopters, Dehghan said.

The implied threat by Iran was again the tired old line that the only inevitable outcome of the dispute between itself and the U.S. had to lead to war. For the Iran lobby and Iranian regime, rattling the saber and banging war drums seems to be about their only response to the issue of increasing sanctions aimed at the threat posed by Iran’s missile fleet.

But as Harry J. Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, pointed out in a Fox News editorial, the close working relationship between North Korea and Iran only means Iran will be able to deploy nuclear weapons on its missiles even more quickly in spite of the nuclear deal.

“Many experts have been warning for years now that Tehran and Pyongyang have been trading missile technology. If the Trump administration doesn’t act fast it won’t be just the hermit kingdom that has nukes that can strike at targets thousands of miles away” Kazianis writes.

It is clear that the best possible solution is to continue moving forward with sanctions against Iran and North Korea and reverse the damage done by President Obama’s eight years of appeasing the Iranian regime.

Michael Tomlinson

Trump Administration on Verge of Junking Iran Nuclear Deal

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Trump Administration on Verge of Junking Iran Nuclear Deal

The announcement came just hours before the midnight deadline for US President Donald Trump to inform congress whether Iran had met the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal. | Nicholas Kaam/AFP

The Trump administration once again announced the Iranian regime was following the two-year old nuclear deal, but barely.

In several revealing and extraordinary news stories, including one from Bloomberg which disclosed how President Trump was ready at the last minute to pull the trigger and find the Iranian regime was no longer in compliance with the agreement.

“So just as (Secretary of State Rex) Tillerson was preparing to inform Congress on Monday that Iran remained in compliance with what is known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Trump called it off, according to administration officials. He wanted to know his options and what would happen if Tillerson didn’t make the announcement,” Bloomberg wrote.

“And for a few hours on Monday afternoon, it looked like the White House was going to tell Congress it could not certify Iran was complying, without saying Iran was in breach of the pact. This would have triggered a 60-day period in which Congress could vote to re-impose the secondary sanctions lifted as a condition of the deal, or to strike it down altogether,” Bloomberg added.

The fact that Trump was serious about getting tough on the Iranian regime was a welcome departure from the last eight years under the Obama administration, but also points to the tight spaces he must navigate to restrain the mullahs in Tehran.

The central driving force behind decertifying Iran lies with the regime’s behavior since the deal was signed. The president recognizes, as do most Americans, that in the past years Tehran has operated as if there wasn’t any agreement in the first place.

Its’ nuclear program was never halted, only briefly delayed, and it received vast economic benefits from the lifting of sanctions that essentially saved the regime from collapse and allowed it ramp up its proxy wars in Syria and Yemen.

Most importantly, the deal allowed Iranian regime the funding and breathing room to develop its ballistic missile program. Nuclear warheads aren’t much use unless you can deliver them to their targets and missiles make for an excellent Sword of Damocles to hang over Iran’s enemies.

The fact that the regime, along with the Iran lobby, fought hard to keep issues such as its ballistic missile program, separate and apart from the nuclear deal demonstrated its desire to have its cake and eat it too.

This is the quandary that President Trump finds himself in since confronting the Iranian regime isn’t just about the nuclear deal, but includes a whole host of issues including the wars it is fomenting in Syria and Yemen and the crises it created in Qatar, Pakistan and Qatar; not to mention the escalating tensions in international waters in the Persian Gulf and Suez Canal.

The president also needs to find ways to empower the Iranian resistance movement in order to foster the kind of internal regime change most likely to produce a peaceful transition in government without the specter of starting another war in the Middle East.

The potential key to making all this happen may be the potential of closing Iran off to further foreign investment and business as Lake makes clear in his article.

“All of this is also a lesson to Western businesses hoping Iran will be a safe place to invest in the aftermath of the nuclear bargain. Administration officials on Monday said the Treasury Department was still reviewing a proposed sale of civilian airliners from Boeing to Iran’s largest airline. That deal is under scrutiny because Iran uses its civilian air fleet to send supplies, personnel and weapons to the war in Syria,” Lake said.

The administration also moved forward in slapping additional sanctions on Iran not related to nuclear issues the other day in a demonstration of its willingness to hold the regime accountable, while at the same time certifying the nuclear deal in compliance. For President Trump, it is his way of having his own cake and eating it too.

The Treasury Department blacklisted 18 people and entities for supporting Iran’s military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which it said harassed U.S. naval vessels and tried to build ballistic missiles and steal U.S. computer software.

The sanctions mean it is illegal for U.S. citizens or companies to do business with those on the list, and any assets they have in the U.S. can be seized. It’s unclear whether the 18 have such assets or businesses.

Predictably the Iranian regime responded to the sanctions with what it called its own “reciprocal actions,” but it pointed out an uncomfortable truth for the mullahs which is that President Trump was moving closer to potentially designating the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, which could potentially cripple the regime’s flow of illicit funds.

The Iran lobby also weighed in with the National Iranian American Council’s Trita Parsi issuing a press release criticizing the moves by the administration.

“Under Trump, diplomacy has been traded for threats, placing the US and Iran at risk of war once more. Rather than pursuing dialogue with Tehran to resolve remaining disputes, as every one of our European allies have done, the Trump administration has chosen to escalate tensions and eschew opportunities to come to a mutual understanding,” Parsi said.

Parsi continues to try and split the difference in separating the nuclear deal from other issues such as Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for terror or poor human rights record. While that strategy worked with the previous administration, President Trump seems to have determined that all of these issues are interconnected.

This will no doubt cause Parsi to be dismayed and the mullahs to be frightened, but it’s the correct pathway to follow and one that President Obama should have done four years ago when negotiations opened on a deal.

If he had connected the dots of Iran’s bad behavior with the leverage he possessed in negotiating the deal, things might have been very different these past two years.

Unfortunately, it is now up to President Trump to clean up the mess.

Laura Carnahan

Arrest of American and Brother of Rouhani Signals Chaos Inside Iran

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Arrest of American and Brother of Rouhani Signals Chaos Inside Iran

Arrest of American and Brother of Rouhani Signals Chaos Inside Iran

Just when you think things can’t get crazier inside the Iranian regime, the mullahs fooled us again by announcing a pair of actions this weekend including the arrest of the brother of regime president Hassan Rouhani on corruption charges and the sentencing of a Chinese-American college student to a shocking 10-year prison term for espionage.

Both incidents point to what has clearly become a struggle for power amongst the various factions inside the regime, but unlike what the Iran lobby has characterized a battle between “hardline” and “moderate” factions, the fight is between groups seeking to preserve their slice of the ill-gotten gains being milked from the economy.

It is important to remember that the Iranian regime is one of the most corrupt and least transparent on the planet. It has virtually no independent news media—having jailed almost all dissenting journalists in the run-up to last year’s parliamentary elections—and the bulk of its economy is controlled by the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the families of the ruling mullahs through a series of shell companies.

Together, these elements stifle dissent and criticism, especially focusing on brutally putting down any economic protests such as over low wages, lack of jobs or corporate corruption. None of that has stopped the near constant occurrence of demonstrations that take place on an almost daily basis throughout Iran from disgruntled small business owners, coal miners, unemployed women and unhappy students with few job prospects.

Rouhani’s brother, Hossein Fereydoun, was taken into custody and is eligible for bail, Tasnim news agency cited regime judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei as telling reporters on Sunday. Mohseni-Ejedi did not elaborate on why Fereydoun, who served as an aide to the president during nuclear talks that led to the 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers, was arrested.

In the recent presidential election where Rouhani was re-elected, the results were seen as a sharp rebuke of top mullah Ali Khamenei’s choice in Ebrahim Raisi, who’s candidacy was hurt by revelations of his participation as a member of a “death commission” that ordered the execution of over 30,000 Iranian men and women perceived as dissidents and political opponents in 1988.

The irony of Fereydoun’s arrest coming on the second anniversary of the Iran nuclear deal was apparent since many within the IRGC feel Rouhani has not been able to deliver on all of the promised ill-gotten financial windfall promised with the deal; even though the billions that were delivered were squandered by the regime in fueling proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and lining the pockets of prominent IRGC commanders and their families.

All of which points to the dog-eat-dog nature of the current fight as regime leaders fight for cash the way starving dogs fight over a bone or scraps from the dinner table.

The fact that Iran’s economy remains stagnant is not a reflection on the nuclear deal since it did indeed deliver billions in cash to the regime, but rather to the incompetence and corruption rooted deeply within the regime leadership.

Fereydoun’s arrest on corruption charges is then the ultimate irony since if the claims being made of using his influence to place colleagues in high-paying positions such as being the heads of banks are true, the accusers within the regime have committed the exact same crimes over and over again.

Meanwhile, Mizan news agency, the mouthpiece of Iran’s judiciary, identified the American as Xiyue Wang, a 37-year-old researcher at Princeton University. Wang, who was born in China, was arrested in August 2016 while trying to leave Iran, the report said.

Mizan reported that Wang had “digitally archived” 4,500 pages of Iranian documents for foreign research institutions, including Princeton and the British Institute of Persian Studies.

The news agency published screenshots of Wang’s Princeton web page and an excerpt of a March 2016 report from the British institute that quoted Wang as saying he had been in contact with “senior scholars” at Iranian government archives in Tehran and Mashhad.

Mizan cited the statement as evidence that Wang was on a covert mission, even though the institute’s report was publicly available.

His case is reminiscent of the case of at least three Americans who are still imprisoned in Iran. Baquer Namazi, 80, and his son Siamak are serving 10-year sentences in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison and are believed to be in ill health. Karan Vafadari, who owns an art gallery in Tehran, was arrested last July with his wife, a U.S. green card holder.

A fourth American, Gholamrez Reza Shahini of San Diego, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on national security crimes but has appealed the judgment and is free on bond.

The U.S. government has repeatedly called for the Americans’ release. An unknown number of Iranians holding European passports are also believed to be jailed, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“We call for the immediate release of all US citizens unjustly detained in Iran so they can return to their families,” the State Department said on Sunday.

The arrest of the Princeton student is similar to North Korea’s arrest of university faculty and academics, making them targets of convenience.

The recent turmoil within the Iran regime and the continued arrest of American citizens will undoubtedly provide even more fuel for a Congressional push for new economic sanctions on the Iranian regime.

We only hope it comes before more Americans are tossed into Evin prison.

Laura Carnanhan

Two Year Anniversary of Iran Nuclear Deal Shows Its Failures

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Two Year Anniversary of Iran Nuclear Deal Shows Its Failures

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif before a meeting in Geneva January 14, 2015. Zarif said on Wednesday that his meeting with Kerry was important to see if progress could be made in narrowing differences on his country’s disputed nuclear program. REUTERS/Rick Wilking (SWITZERLAND – Tags: POLITICS) – RTR4LDZW

Two years ago, President Barack Obama was lauding a landmark nuclear deal, while the image of Iran’s foreign minister, Javid Zarif, shaking hands with U.S. officials was beamed around the world by a global news media largely snookered by the Iran lobby into believing that the Iranian regime had turned the corner and could be trusted as a responsible member of the international community.

What a difference two year’s make.

The world has witnessed the Middle East plunge into chaos with a body count in Syria alone reaching 400,000 dead and four million displaced as refugees. Conflicts rage from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean with the threat of wider wars now appearing on the horizon in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and around the Persian Gulf.

More importantly, conflict is not only confined to the battlefields with armies and proxies, but has been stretched by Iran’s introduction of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can now reach well into Europe, Asia and Africa.

Combine that threat with the insidious rise of North Korea’s own mushrooming missile launches and the world is now faced with missile threats from both sides of the planet controlled by autocratic regimes that have shown a complete disregard for the value of human life.

The picture is bleak and the reason for it rests largely on what the Iran nuclear deal failed to accomplish which is to alter the behavior of a regime controlled by mullahs in Tehran who viewed the deal as a windfall energizing their faltering government.

The Obama administration slowly and inexorably whittled away concession after concession at the request of the mullahs and recast the nuclear deal in evolving terms that changed its nature from a potential instrument of regime change to little more than a slight postponement in the regime’s plans for regional domination.

In the annals of international diplomacy, it has vaulted to rank near the Munich agreement that Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler brokered that gave away Austria in terms of futility.

The central conceit of the Iran lobby was that the nuclear agreement would bring Iranian regime back into the fold of civilized nations and empower the “moderate” elements within the government; none of which has come to pass. If anything, the reactionary, cold-blooded mullahs have demonstrated they remain firmly and clearly in control of the levers of powers and were only emboldened by the agreement.

For top mullahs Ali Khamenei, the nuclear agreement only confirmed in his mind that the Obama administration was less concerned about restraining Iran than in securing a historical legacy for the president. Obama showed his inclination to avoid confrontation with Iran and his willingness to compromise on any issue:

  • Remove human rights and support for terrorism from the terms of the nuclear deal? Check;
  • Remove any restrictions from Iran’s ballistic missile program from the nuclear deal? Check;
  • Include provisions to ransom American hostages as a condition of finalizing the nuclear deal? Check;
  • Eliminate any inspection of suspected nuclear sites in Iran by international inspectors on the ground? Check;
  • Allow Iranian regime to retain all of its centrifuges and allow it to acquire better and more efficient centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel? Check.

In each case, the Iranian regime was allowed to lift restrictions from some of its more problematic activities such as its missile program, but most importantly, it eliminated “consequences” for the regime’s actions.

The nuclear deal was a badly flawed document because there were no mechanisms to adequately punish the regime for breaking the agreement since it reaps virtually all of its benefits—namely cash—from the outset.

Now the Trump administration is faced with having to live with the consequences of this deal, specifically whether or not to renew another 90-day compliance finding for the JCPOA, as the agreement is called, to Congress.

President Trump is likely to renew the compliance finding since his administration is in the midst of a policy review for Iran, as well as engaging Iranian-backed militia units on the battlefield in Syria.

If Trump does state Iran is in compliance, it would be his second time since taking office in January to do so despite his promise during the 2016 campaign to “rip up” what he called “the worst deal ever,” according to Reuters.

What is troubling are recent reports from German intelligence agencies that the Iranian regime is still actively seeking components used in nuclear weapons manufacturing and research. This and other disturbing actions by the regime over the past two years point to a pattern that the mullahs are still actively and aggressively seeking to build their nuclear program.

The advanced ramp up of its ballistic missile program mirrors the same crash program North Korea pursued in developing its nuclear and missile programs.

None of this stopped the Iran lobby from praising the anniversary of the nuclear deal as the National Iranian American Council issued a self-congratulatory press statement and criticized efforts to dismantle the agreement:

“Unfortunately, however, the JCPOA remains under attack from elements within both countries that prefer conflict over dialogue and mutual suspicion over greater understanding. Continued sanctions, calls from the White House for nations to refrain from investing in Iran, and an increase in military encounters between the US and Iran all threaten the deal. The JCPOA represented an opportunity for the US and Iran to change course, broaden engagement and end the policy of sanctions and antagonism. Unfortunately that opportunity has largely been squandered,” said Trita Parsi, head of the NIAC.

On the second anniversary of the Iran Deal, the remarks to dub the flawed deal, as a good deal continues, by the Iran Lobby. It is indeed time to rid Washington from the Iranian regimes lobbies such as NIAC and from people like Trita Parsi.

Michael Tomlinson