Iran Lobby

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

NIAC Letter on Iran Nuclear Deal Just More of the Same

by

NIAC Letter on Iran Nuclear Deal Just More of the Same

NIAC Letter on Iran Nuclear Deal Just More of the Same

The National Iranian American Council, that reliable cheerleader for the mullahs in Tehran, cobbled together yet another letter signed by the usual cadre of pro-regime supporters, urging Congress to once again bail out the faltering Iranian regime.

Fortunately, this letter was vastly shorter than previous tomes but still espoused the same essential principles the Iran lobby has been harping on since then-presidential candidate Donald Trump blasted the Iran nuclear deal on the campaign trail in 2015.

In short, the letter urged Congress to continue:

  • Supporting the nuclear agreement and return the U.S. to comply with it;
  • Opposing sanctions that:
    • Disrupt any other country’s efforts to stick with the nuclear deal;
    • Prevent the U.S. from coming back into compliance with the deal in the future;
    • Disproportionately impact Iranian civilians rather than regime officials engaged in illicit or destabilizing activities;
    • Block necessary humanitarian and medical supplies from reaching the country;
  • Support more diplomacy toward additional agreements as the preferred basis for addressing further concerns about Iranian activity; and
  • Oppose starting a war of choice with Iran.

The conditions are typical for what the Iran lobby has pushed for since the Obama administration first opened talks with the mullahs and largely ignores the realities on the ground as the Iranian regime has become the most destabilizing force in the Middle East since the nuclear deal’s passage.

The Trump administration has stated from the very beginning it welcomed renewed diplomatic efforts with Tehran in an effort to achieve a more comprehensive solution to the region’s problems, including curtailing the spread of terrorism, improving human rights conditions and eliminating the delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction in the form o intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The fact Tehran has no desire to take up any of these other, but no less vital issues demonstrates the mullahs complete lack of transparency or willingness to engage in diplomacy to solve these problems.

Also, while Iranian regime leaders such as Hassan Rouhani, have made a public show of discounting the impact of U.S. economic sanctions, the reality is that they have hurt the regime in places where it is most vulnerable: financial services, oil and gas exports, and currency exchanges.

The choices made in the NIAC letter are noteworthy since they are aimed at the most effective portions of the U.S. sanctions program. The letter tries to portray the sanctions as having an impact only on ordinary Iranians and not regime officials, but the opposite is true since the regime, through its Revolutionary Guard Corps, controls much of the economy, especially its heavy industries and continually diverts badly needed capital from growing the economy and instead uses it to finance its military adventures in Syria and Yemen, while also funneling money to support terror groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq and Afghan mercenaries in an effort to extend its sphere of influence.

The proof of the debilitating impact the regime’s decisions has had on ordinary Iranians can be seen in the yearlong series of very public protests staged throughout Iran by these same ordinary Iranians the NIAC describes as being “disproportionately impacted” by the sanctions.

Starting last December and continuing through 2018, the near-daily images of women protesting hijabs and moral codes that restrict education, jobs and even the ability to ride a bicycle, are mingled with those of merchants storming through Tehran’s Grand Bazaar or truckers blocking roads and highways or farmers demanding more water for parched lands to local towns and villages decimated by poverty and a wrecked environment.

All the results of the mullahs’ decisions and nothing having to do with Washington.

The dichotomy between the claims of the NIAC’s letter and the reality in Iran is as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.

Lastly, the NIAC’s false flag of warning of a war with Iran is just another red herring designed to elicit fear and send false worries into members of Congress. It’s interesting to note the only people ever mentioning the words “war” and “Iran” together are the NIAC and its fellow Iran lobby members; the same ones that comprised the infamous “echo chamber” used to bully and persuade reluctant members of Congress to support the nuclear deal in the first place.

It has always been the Iranian regime that has undertaken the provocative military action first in the region and not the U.S. or its allies.

The U.S. did not plot to assassinate Iranian leaders in a foreign country, but the Iranian regime did in Denmark, France, and Germany in efforts to kills dissidents.

The U.S. did not threaten to sink commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and halt oil shipments, but the Iranian regime did.

The U.S. did not take the U.S. and other dual-national citizens hostage on trumped-up charges and throw them in prison without trial and access to legal representation, but the regime did.

All these actions and more have been undertaken by the same regime the NIAC and the rest of the co-signers of the letter are trying hard now to get off the hook.

There is little appetite in Congress, either during this lame duck session, or when the new Congress is sworn in January to reward the mullahs for their abhorrent behavior. Even the harshest critics of the U.S. move to withdraw from the nuclear deal, such as France and Germany, had a change of heart when Iranian agents were caught trying to smuggle a bomb for the purpose of killing a few thousand Iranian dissidents meeting outside of Paris last June.

Unfortunately for the NIAC, they can’t control the mullahs, it’s the other way around.

Laura Carnahan

Iranian Regime Cut Off from SWIFT Banking Network

by

Iranian Regime Cut Off from SWIFT Banking Network

The global financial messaging service that moves money around the world’s banking system, known as SWIFT, acted to cut off Iran’s Central Bank and other designated Iranian financial institutions from using its system.

The action by SWIFT is the latest economic blow to hit the mullahs in Tehran and is widely considered to be one of the most severe sanctions in the U.S. arsenal, next to secondary sanctions on any country or company attempting to buy Iranian oil.

It also continues the onslaught of sanctions resulting from the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal despite the best efforts by the Iran lobby to cry foul and warn this is a prelude to war between the U.S. and Iran.

Last Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told BBC Persian that Iran’s “leadership has to make a decision that they want their people to eat. They have to make a decision that they want to use their wealth to import medicine, and not use their wealth to fund” destabilizing activities in the region.”

His statement neatly encapsulates the main point of the Trump administration’s decision to re-impose economic sanctions. The choices the mullahs have made for Iran since doing the deal with the Obama administration have dictated this course of action.

Contrary to what Iran supporters such as the National Iranian American Council have continually maintained, the Iranian regime has consistently chosen to follow a path of sponsoring terrorism and initiating conflicts with its neighbors while diverting billions from its economy to bolstering its military; literally starving the Iranian people.

The mullahs’ actions – and no one else’s – have determined why sanctions were re-imposed. The Iran lobby has tried to always frame the decision as unilateral on the part of the Trump administration, but it has been Iran that has consistently been the provocateur and instigator of the worst episodes in the Middle East such as Syria’s civil war, Yemen’s insurgency and Iraq’s sectarian conflict.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) provides a network that enables financial institutions worldwide to send and receive information about financial transactions in a secure, standardized and reliable environment.

SWIFT links more than 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories and without access to the system, the Iranian regime’s ability to move and transmit foreign currency is severely curtailed.

It was the cut off from SWIFT during earlier economic sanctions that were widely credited for helping bring Iran to the bargaining table in the first place.

Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the decision by SWIFT would reduce Iran’s room to maneuver around sanctions, but that it wasn’t meant to hurt the country’s people.

“The removal of Iran’s central bank from SWIFT along with other Iranian banks implicated in terrorism, nuclear and missile proliferation, as well human rights abuses will cut the regime’s access to the global financial system,” said Dubowitz. “This will reduce their options to barter trade or sanctions busting. Treasury however has left open humanitarian channels that the regime should use to deliver food, medicine and other goods to the Iranian people.”

The Iran lobby predictably discounted the effect of SWIFT removal in the past and its impact in the future.

“This will create massive problems for Iran, but I don’t think it will paralyze them,” said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council. “I don’t think the end effect will be anywhere near the pressure Trump is talking about.”

What Parsi fails to mention is the unprecedented level of domestic discontent at home where the mullahs have been battling almost constant demonstrations, protests, strikes and other signs of disobedience from all sectors of Iranian society.

The range of protests include Iranian women objecting to moral codes that govern their dress, public conduct and access to jobs and education to truck drivers, small business owners, farmers and government workers who have decried widespread government corruption and an economy in a death spiral.

Supporters of the regime have tried to come up with all sorts of excuses and oddball theories as to why U.S. sanctions will not work.

Max Keiser, a stockbroker-turned-TV personality, told Russia Today that the move will help lessen global dependence on the U.S. dollar in favor of stockpiling gold.

“Iran needs to get smart and start hoarding Gold and Bitcoin if it wants to avoid the worst of the fallout,” Keiser told RT. “It is already, smartly, pursuing bilateral energy deals outside of the $USD, but it needs to add value to its currency with reserves of Gold and Bitcoin.”

Keiser should stick to broadcasting since his monetary theories are more appropriate for late night comedy shows.

Even as European leaders supportive of the Iranian regime have tried to cobble together an ad-hoc system of alternative payments for Iran-related business transactions, U.S. Treasury officials expressed little concern.

The U.S. expects to find other “mechanisms” with which it will work together with European countries to address Iran’s destabilizing activities, said Sigal Mandelker, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official.

When asked about the special purpose vehicle, Mandelker said that, “the bigger news in Europe is that companies are withdrawing from Iran in droves, we know that there’s been discussions about an SPV or other mechanisms to try to continue to invest in Iran, but companies themselves are getting out.”

While the Iran lobby may point to these token efforts as signs of a resistance to U.S. sanctions, the truth is that Asian and European companies are voting with their money as they pull out of Iran.

Iran Lobby Left Sputtering as US Sanctions Take Effect

by

Iran Lobby Left Sputtering as US Sanctions Take Effect

The U.S. re-imposed economic sanctions on the Iranian regime on Monday targeting the money machine that fuels the mullahs’ religious dictatorship, including petroleum sales, shipping, banking, and insurance. The sanctions were carefully crafted to go at the heavy industries and financial pipelines funneling cash to the regime and funding its proxy wars and terrorist activities.

President Donald Trump trolled supporters of the Iranian regime with a tweet riffing on HBO’s show “Game of Thrones” with a movie-like poster featuring the iconic font reading “Sanctions Are Coming.”

The near-hysterical response from the Iran lobby over the weekend was predictable, but also revealing in that the regime supporters such as the National Iranian American Council were left with little to talk about except blasting the president’s tweet.

“Trump, his war cabinet and regional cheerleaders in Benjamin Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman do not have the Iranian or American people’s best interests at heart,” said Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council. “Instead, they are blowing up an agreement that supports U.S. interests and the aspirations of the Iranian people while planting the seeds for a disastrous war.”

The NIAC added its own tweet trolling attempt by labeling the president a “White Walker,” but while it tried to score points on cheekiness the Iran lobby cheerleader was essentially powerless to stop the imposition of sanctions and the economic hammer blow it will rain down on the mullahs.

Not even the Iranian regime’s leader of its infamous Quds Forces, General Qasem Soleimani, could resist sending his own “Game of Thrones”-inspired post saying he would “Stand Against You” in referring to the president’s tweet.

“Things are escalating and the fact that it’s Soleimani tweeting is a sign that this is moving towards a military confrontation,” NIAC founder Trita Parsi said in response. “This was not a crisis. The only reason this is a crisis is because Trump pulled out of a fully functioning deal.”

Parsi trying to claim Soleimani is gearing up for war with the U.S. through a trolling tweet renders any intelligent reader as sophomoric sophistry at best and idiot banality at worse.

The sanctions are aimed at more than 700 Iranian individuals and entities and are hoped to put a stranglehold on the regime’s economy and force the regime into a new round of negotiations.

“Our ultimate aim is to compel Iran to permanently abandon its well-documented outlaw activities and behave as a normal country,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters Friday in a conference call previewing the sanctions. The U.S. penalties will hit foreign countries and companies that do business with the targeted Iranian entities, including its national oil company, its banks, and its shipping industry.

Abdi claimed though the sanctions would hurt the Iranian people, a silly argument since it virtually ignores how the mullahs have destroyed not only Iran’s economy, but sacrificed its environment and plunged large portions of the Iranian population into near poverty status all on its own.

“Impoverishing ordinary Iranians will not hurt the regime or achieve any of America’s security interests, but it will set back the Iranian people’s aspirations for years to come,” Abdi said.

The messaging by the Iran lobby that the Iranian people are helpless in the face of the powerful regime also ignores an essential truth that has steadily build since last year which is the Iranian people are finally becoming emboldened and taking to the streets, bazaars and markets to voice their collective frustration, fury and displeasure at their religious overlords.

Abdi also ignores how the U.S. is also granted waivers exempting certain countries from select sanctions in order not to overtly harm the Iranian people, including lobbying more than a dozen countries doing trade with Iran – India, Japan, Greece and Turkey – to wean themselves off from Iranian oil in exchange for waivers.

Pompeo said eight jurisdictions, which he declined to name, were cooperating with the administration on its push to move to “zero” oil imports from Iran. Those entities will earn temporary exemptions when the sanctions go into effect on Sunday night, Pompeo said.

There will also be some exemptions for food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods, Pompeo said, further diminishing the Iran lobby’s feeble arguments.

But these are essentially the only talking points left to the Iran lobby. It tries to claim the U.S. is only interested in war and sanctions will hurt the Iranian people.

Absent from any of these points is any blame directed at the regime and the mullahs in Tehran for fueling the crisis in the first place by pushing forward with a massive military build-up including the launching of advanced ballistic missiles, coupled with devastating wars in Syria and Yemen.

Supporters such as the NIAC have also been silent on more recent attempts by the Iranian regime to carry out terrorist attacks and assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe as seen in a foiled bombing attempt outside of Paris over the summer and murder plan disrupted by Denmark.

Both incidents led France and Denmark to demand a harsh response to the Iranian regime; neither of which was answered by the Iran lobby.

The facts are activists such as Abdi and Parsi are left with little to say, except sputtering the same inane banalities as before and their collective effectiveness in stopping the sanctions train has been virtually non-existent.

With few options left, we might advise the NIAC to stop clogging up the airwaves and discussion boards and confine their tweets to speculation on who will come out on top at the end of the “Game of Thrones.”

Our money is on the Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons.

Michael Tomlinson

Will Oil Sanctions Crumble the Iranian Regime?

by

Will Oil Sanctions Crumble the Iranian Regime?

There is no doubt petroleum is the lifeblood of the Iranian regime’s economy. It’s one of the few natural resources the mullahs have left that has not been over-exploited or driven to ruin. During the time economic sanctions were lifted because of the Iran nuclear deal, the windfall of selling its oil on the open market once again pumped badly needed hard currency into the floundering Iranian economy and fueled its wars in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

But even during the decade in which sanctions were in place, the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard Corps personally profited from the illicit sale of oil on the black market and pocketed hefty commissions for family members through a shadowy network of middlemen.

Now the re-imposition of economic sanctions by the U.S. after pulling out from the nuclear deal is looming with the ban on sales of Iranian oil to commence next week. The sanctions beginning November 4th are geared to specifically hit the regime where it hurts, including:

  • Sanctions on Iran’s port operators and shipping and shipbuilding sectors, including on the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), South Shipping Line Iran, or their affiliates;
  • Sanctions on petroleum-related transactions with, among others, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO), and National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), including the purchase of petroleum, petroleum products, or petrochemical products from Iran;
  • Sanctions on transactions by foreign financial institutions with the Central Bank of Iran and designated Iranian financial institutions;
  • Sanctions on the provision of underwriting services, insurance, or reinsurance; and
  • Sanctions on Iran’s energy sector.

The sanctions on shipping, petroleum, banking and insurance are aimed squarely at the financial engine that powers the Iranian regime’s corrupt empire. Since virtually all of the major industries in Iran are controlled directly by the government or the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the direct financial impacts of these sanctions hit the theocratic regime and are not aimed at the Iranian people.

It’s an important distinction since the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council, has long pounded on the messaging that the Iranian people are the ones being hurt the most by these sanctions.

Using today’s favorite hashtag, that’s just #fakenews.

The truth is that the regime’s own gross mismanagement, incompetence and deep corruption has been more than sufficient to run the Iranian economy into the ground. The fact that the country’s currency has steadily declined in value under the mullahs’ control is just one of many indicators of how they have managed to muck everything up.

The reason the U.S. sanctions are aimed at these particulars sectors is to deny the regime’s ability to finance terrorism and support the proxy wars it has waged on its neighbors. The sanctions are not aimed at stopping the flow of food, medicine or consumer products to the Iranian people.

The regime for example has been the one to block communications to the outside world, ban access to social media, artificially regulate the consumer market with heavy-handed regulations designed to keep the pipeline of luxury goods flowing to the entitled and privileged, but provide none of the support for the staples the Iranian people need to survive.

In a desperate effort to keep the flow of cash coming in, the regime offered up one million barrels of oil through the regime’s domestic bourse so its private sector could buy oil to resell to the international market.

The response from the global marketplace was tepid at best with only 280,000 barrels of crude oil being sold according to oil ministry news service Shana.

Saeed Khoshroo, NIOC’s director for international affairs, had said Sunday that the eased restrictions would cause the crude offered on the bourse to get snapped up immediately.

The fact that so little crude was bought highlights the growing impotence of the regime in trying to navigate a path out of the economic fallout coming next week.

Of special concern to the regime was the price paid on the bourse which was only $74.85/b in 35,000-barrel consignments. The steady decline in price demonstrates the belief in the global marketplace that shortfalls from Iranian supplies cut off by sanctions can be made up from other sources, as well as a projected global drop in demand, which has increased U.S. crude inventories and further drove the price down.

Iran’s last use of the bourse was in early April 2014, when US and EU sanctions on Iran were in force. Just 2,920 barrels were sold on the first day that the crude was offered, and a second offer a day later failed to find any buyers.

Hopes by the regime that things would be different this time around were dashed and raise an ugly prospect for the mullahs: “What happens when the cash stops flowing?”

For the regime, the cut-off of money raises the specter that the Iranian people may now have the best opportunity ever to force regime change in demanding concessions from the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard Corps to loosen their iron-grip on the country and clear a pathway for greater democracy; especially the introduction of legitimate opposition parties.

The loss of oil revenue is likely to keep driving the value of the rial down and fuel more inflation – both have been drivers of popular uprisings and protests throughout Iran – thereby adding to the volatile and combustible mix of anger aimed at the ruling mullahs.

On Saturday, Iran’s parliament approved a government economic reshuffle, according to a Reuters report in an effort to try and convince the population the regime was trying to address its concerns, but will reshuffling of regime leaders be enough to stave off regime change this time?

We don’t think so.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Taking Desperate Measures to Stave off Sanctions Impact

by

The bad news just keeps building on the sagging shoulders of the mullahs in Tehran as economic body blows continue to rain down as U.S. economic sanctions are resetting global commerce and finance around the embattled religious tyranny.

While the U.S. has rolled out economic sanctions in waves in response to its pullout from the Iran nuclear deal, the hammer of sanctions on Iran’s oil industry are being felt as petroleum markets are becoming roiled at the expected shortfall and impact of secondary U.S. sanctions on any country or company trading in Iranian oil.

Iran’s crude oil exports plunged to 1.1 million bpd in the first seven days of October, sliding further down from 1.6 million bpd in September as sanctions loom just four weeks away, Reuters reported on Monday, citing tanker tracking data and an industry source tracking shipments.

Tanker shipments may vary week to week in a month, but the very low volumes in early October may suggest that Iran’s crude oil exports are taking a hit and are falling faster than the market had expected just two-three months ago.

According to Refinitiv Eikon tanker tracking data quoted by Reuters, not a single Iranian-flagged tanker headed to Europe in the first seven days of October, but Iran’s tankers were bound for China, India, and the Middle East in the first week this month, according to the data.

Oddly enough, according to S&P Global Platts trade flow data, a dozen Iranian oil tankers may have shut off their position devices last month. Nearly 207,000 bpd of Iran’s oil exports that left Iranian oil terminals last month is reportedly unaccounted for, because of switched-off transponders as the regime seems to be reverting to black market tactics to smuggle its oil out.

But those tactics are less likely to aid the Iranian people and more likely to generate illicit profits to continue lining the pockets of the mullahs and their families.

The move to smuggle oil in advance of sanctions comes as the Tehran Stick Exchange suffered heavy losses recently. The market however, posted its fourth straight decline–and one of its biggest in recent history– on Sunday, with the benchmark TEDPIX index ending the day 4.16% lower, taking the market below the 180,000 level it had boasted just days ago.

Head of the Securities and Exchange Organization, Shapour Mohammad offered his take on the reasons behind the market’s rout, saying that crowd behavior, manifested in the irrational thinking of some investors carries the blame.

The uncertainty in Iran’s financial markets mirrored the wild devaluation of Iran’s currency and the concerns of Iranian business owners and workers as they see the regime continue to spend scarcer cash reserves in fueling its wars in Syria and Yemen, including launching missile barrages in Syria in retaliation for recent attacks at a military parade.

The growing lack of cash reserves has the mullahs casting about wildly for money left under some errant stone.

This included a claim by the Iranian regime to try and recover $1.75 billion in national bank assets seized by U.S. courts. The U.S. on Monday asked judges at the International Court of Justice to throw out the claim by Iran.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that the assets must be turned over to American families of victims of the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, among others who were killed in Iranian-planned terrorist attacks.

“The actions at the root of this case center on Iran’s support for international terrorism,” Richard Visek, legal adviser to the U.S. Department of State, said on Monday, calling on the court to reject Iran’s suit.

Meanwhile, the European Union continued its quixotic campaign to try and throw an economic lifeline to Iran. Last month, Brussels provided Tehran with billions of dollars worth of aid to help offset the impact of US sanctions. The bloc agreed to establish an alternative payment system between European and Iranian banks that is designed to skirt the U.S. financial system entirely. 

Patrick Pouyanné, the chairman of the French oil giant Total, told a conference last week in Moscow that even the hint of seeing their assets frozen in a U.S. bank would be too high a price. To be blunt, it would be downright suicidal for companies to take on the U.S. when the benefits of doing so — maintaining trade with Tehran — is a drop in the barrel compared to what the American market provides, according to The Spectator.

Sanctions experts have concluded that Brussels is essentially banging its head against the wall, hoping that their sheer persistence will force the Trump administration into backing down or finding some type of compromise arrangement. But unfortunately for them, businesses will do what’s best for their balance sheets, not what’s convenient for European politicians, wrote Daniel R. DePetris in The Spectator.

In an example of how much pressure the Iran regime is under came in the form of the Iranian parliament’s passage of new measures allegedly designed to halt funding terrorism and move Tehran closer to global norms and standards in the fight against terror.

The measures, which allow Iran to join a convention against the funding of terrorism (CFT), still have to be approved by a clerical body before they become law.

Tehran says it has been trying to implement international standards against money laundering and the funding of terrorism set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), but it has struggled to get the measures passed, according to Reuters.

Its parliament has opposed legislation aimed at moving toward compliance with FATF standards, arguing it could hamper Iranian financial support for allies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which the U.S. has classified as a terrorist organization.

The fact that the Iranian regime is even willing to contemplate such a façade is proof how desperate it is to regain some kind of legitimate status on the global stage. While it’s highly doubtful the regime would ever truly implement any of these anti-terrorism reforms, the mere debate on them shows far the mullahs have been backed into a corner.

Laura Carnahan

Iran Regime Cannot Catch a Break as Stress Increases

by

Rouhani answering questions at regime's parliament
Rouhani, Iranian regime’s President, called to answer questions in the parliament, as a result of the increasing rift among regime rivals.

Their timing is everything and for the Iranian regime, the mullahs’ timing is becoming appallingly bad.

It seems that the halcyon days of 2015 when the Iran lobby was operating smoothly, and the Obama administration was busy giving away the store to appease Tehran and agree to a deeply flawed nuclear deal was the high-water mark for the Iranian regime.

After a bloody war in Syria that drained its treasury of all of the cold hard cash it got from the U.S. following the nuclear deal, the mullahs funded an overthrow of the government in Yemen and poured billions more into buying new arms and supplying terrorist groups and Shiite militias in Iraq fighting a bloody sectarian conflict.

Unfortunately for them, those decisions coincided with a dramatic global drop in oil prices as demand fell and U.S. oil production skyrocketed. The Iranian economy ground to a near halt as the value of its currency plummeted.

Inflation spread and dissatisfaction amongst the Iranian people rose steadily. Coupled with massive government fraud and corruption, things started to get worse for the mullahs.

Add a lingering drought turning once beautiful lakes into parched deserts due to environmental mismanagement and you begin to see the pattern of regime incompetence that has pushed the mullahs to the brink of forcing the very regime change they have fought so hard to oppose.

In true reactionary form, the mullahs have responded with near savage fury in cracking down on all forms of dissent no matter how seemingly innocuous. Regime security forces have arrested almost anyone engaged in any hint of protest, be it a woman waving a hijab, a businessman marching in the Grand Bazaar or a famer in a dusty village square.

Then the real hammer fell when Donald Trump was elected president and proceeded to focus intently on the Iranian regime and promptly fulfilled his campaign promise to pull out of the nuclear deal unless the regime changed its ways.

Now the beleaguered Iranian economy – controlled chiefly by the regime through the Revolutionary Guard Corps – is being hammered as waves of foreign companies pull out and Iranian oil exports grind to a near halt.

The effectiveness of the renewed economic sanctions has stunned the Iran lobby and surprised the mullahs as their hope in the European Union to defy the U.S. sanctions and keep an economic lifeline open to the regime ruling in Iran seems to be evaporating as quickly as water in the hot desert.

The political turmoil engulfing the regime’s leadership has produced some eye-opening moments unthinkable only a few years ago.

Hassan Rouhani, the hand-picked puppet of top mullah Ali Khamenei, was summoned before parliament for the first time as he bore the brunt of anger directed at a crisis spiraling out of control.

Among his most startling statement was “the economic problems are critical, but more important than that is that many people have lost their faith in the future of the Islamic Republic and are in doubt about its power.”

The admission was a stunning reflection on the power the mullahs have exerted over the last three decades and how it is loosening like it has never been loosened before.

The predicament facing the mullahs has even made Khamenei realize their initial hopes of rescue by Europe were seemingly dashed.

In his comments published on his official website Khamenei told Rouhani and his cabinet on Wednesday: “There is no problem with negotiations and keeping contact with the Europeans, but you should give up hope on them over economic issues or the nuclear deal.”

Khamenei told Rouhani and his cabinet to work “day and night” to solve the mounting economic problems which include the collapse of the rial currency and surging unemployment.

But at the same time, he appeared to call on parliament not to press too much on Rouhani who has been severely grilled over economic performance. Officials should unite against U.S. pressure, he said, since publicizing differences would only make the nation more unhappy according to Reuters.

In another sign of the desperate search for scapegoats, the parliament started impeachment proceedings against the education minister and moved to impeach the minister of industry, mines and business. This comes on the heels of sacking the finance and labor ministers.

At the rate the parliament is going, they might impeach Rouhani’s barber and driver next.

The worst may yet lie ahead as senior U.S. officials have said they aim to reduce Iranian regime’s oil exports to zero after the new round of sanctions in November.

Analysts with Oxford Economics issued a new report this week saying they expect U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil industry will “cripple” the Middle Eastern country’s economy after they take effect.

They expect the sanctions to send Iran’s economy into recession, predicting it will contract by 3.7 percent next year, “the worst performance in six years.”

Authors of the Oxford Economics report said it’s unlikely any efforts by other world powers can help Iran find a way to export oil.

“It now looks like the impact will be worse than we initially thought as the other signatories to the original deal have yet to spell out a clear strategy that would allow them to circumvent U.S. sanctions and continue importing Iranian oil,” wrote the report’s co-authors Mohamed Bardastani and Maya Senussi, who are senior economists with Oxford Economics.

Worse for the regime, any hope of a lifeline coming from Russia and China dimmed as both countries are faced with slowing economies and in the case of China, embroiled in its own trade and tariff war with the Trump administration.

Russia is already facing potential sanctions for its purported assassination attempt on a former spy and his daughter in Great Britain.

The final blows coming in November are aimed straight at the regime’s petrodollars.

“In June, Saudi Arabia, pledged to increase oil production by as much as two million barrels a day to replace Iranian crude. Recent reporting shows Saudi Arabia and Iraq attempting to make up Iran’s market share. Last week the Trump administration announced a release of 11 million barrels from America’s strategic petroleum reserve,” wrote Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in a Wall Street Journal editorial.

The stage is being set for the worst crisis ever to confront the mullahs and it may be their last.

Iran Lobby Struggles with Chaos Engulfing Iranian Regime

by

The mullahs in Tehran continued to struggle with the fallout from re-imposed economic sanctions by the Trump administration with its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, as well as mounting pressure from demonstrations and protests enveloping the country as Iranians demand relief from a death spiral of an economy and national currency.

Internal dissent has festered into open chaos as the Iranian parliament acted to remove Hassan Rouhani’s beleaguered finance minister from office in a largely symbolic act to show frustrated Iranians the regime was doing something to fix their problems, although it’s doubtful any Iranian honestly believed that fiction.

The parliament backed the removal from office of Masoud Karbasian, minister of finance and economic affairs, by 137 votes to 121 against, state media said.

The sacking was the latest in a continuing shakeup of top economic personnel. In early August Iranian lawmakers voted out the minister of labor and last month Rouhani replaced the head of the central bank.

“(America’s) focus is on a psychological war against Iran and its business partners,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday, according to the Tasnim news agency.

Zarif’s statement smacks of the desperation the regime is feeling as it tries for any rhetorical volley in an effort to find anything that might stick on the Trump administration in terms of effective messaging.

The fact there has been a wholesale pullout of foreign firms from contracts in Iran such as Total, Peugeot and other leading names demonstrates just how ineffective the regime has been in the face of potential secondary economic sanctions from the U.S. that could punish anyone doing business with Iran.

One of the key requirements by the Trump administration was for the Iranian regime to rein in its support of the Assad regime and stop involving itself militarily in Syria, but the Iranian regime’s top defense official was in Damascus this weekend meeting with Bashar al-Assad and pledged to continue supporting the regime.

Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami said that Iran would help expand Syria’s military arsenal.

“The Islamic Republic has high capabilities in the area of defense and can help Syria in expanding their military equipment,” he said, according to ISNA.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said last week that Iran should remove its forces from Syria.

Senior Iranian officials have said their military presence in Syria is at the invitation of the Assad government and they have no immediate plans to withdraw.

More than 1,000 Iranians, including senior members of the Revolutionary Guards, have been killed in Syria since 2012.

The Guards initially kept quiet about their role in the Syria conflict. But in recent years, as casualties have mounted, they have been more outspoken about their engagement, framing it as an existential struggle against the Sunni Muslim fighters of Islamic State.

In reality, Iranian intervention in Syria was vital in order to preserve one of the very few allies the Iranian regime has from being deposed as part of the democracy movement protests sweeping across the Middle East in 2010.

The end result of that military intervention was over half a million men, women and children killed and nearly five million refugees flooding into Europe as well as the rise of ISIS and years of terrorist attacks on Europe, Asia, the U.S. and Canada.

While there is much speculation about Rouhani’s future, the truth is that he is largely irrelevant since top mullah Ali Khamenei remains the firm head of the regime both spiritually and practically. Rouhani’s ultimate utility will be as a scapegoat to protect Khamenei and the other mullahs from the wrath of the Iranian people.

Parliament members have also called for the impeachment of the education and interior ministers, and others have said the industry and housing ministers should be impeached if Rouhani doesn’t shake up his economic team himself, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Iran’s economic outlook has darkened in recent months. Analysts at BMI Research in London project economic growth to slow to 1.8% this year, followed by a contraction of more than 4% next year.

Of course, the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council, are trying to make the argument that Rouhani’s downfall would only leave the regime in the hands of hardliners, but that message misses the entire fact that since Rouhani’s election which was manipulated by Khamenei, the hardliners have never loosened their grip on power.

The Iran nuclear deal was solely designed to get Iran desperately needed cash to save its military intervention in Syria and allow it to rearm and rebuild its depleted military. The fact that Iran’s economy has tanked is a result of that diversion of much-needed capital from the Iranian people to the military.

It’s no wonder why protesting Iranians have chanted since last December to get out of Syria and stop supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The NIAC posted a roundup of news items in an effort to try and portray how Iran is slipping into the grip of hardliners because of the new economic sanctions, but the past three years prove how silly that idea is since the regime has flexed its military muscle throughout the Middle East while cracking down harshly on dissenters at home.

These are not the actions of a “moderate” government as the NIAC would have you believe. What we may be seeing those are the desperate thrashings of a regime being crushed from all sides.

US Iran Action Group Puts Regime Front and Center of Foreign Policy

by

Brian Hook, the newly appointed head of the Iran Action Group, speaks about the “Iran Action Group” during a press briefing at the State Department in Washington, DC, August 16, 2018. 

A hallmark of the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts with Iran was to try and figure out how much it could giveaway before it could entice the mullahs into doing a nuclear deal. The laundry list was an impressive one:

  • Ignore Iran’s development and test of the ballistic missiles. Check.
  • Allow Iran to continue funding terrorist groups such as Hezbollah. Check.
  • Deliver planes loaded with cash to Iran in a swap for American hostages. Check.
  • Allow Iran to funnel that cash to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. Check.
  • Allow Iran to crack down on dissidents, oppress women and execute a record number of Iranians. Check.

It’s an impressive accomplishment with the benefit of hindsight to see how little the U.S. and the rest of the world got for a flawed nuclear deal. The butcher’s bill was heavy with victims that included nearly half a million men, women and children killed in Syria and flooding Europe and the U.S. with over four million refugees.

The response to this unprecedented escalation in violence and regional instability was deafening in its silence as the U.S. led by example and did nothing to counter the rise of Islamic extremism and terrorism unleashed by Iran’s proxy wars, including the creation of ISIS.

Fortunately, President Donald Trump has re-oriented U.S. foreign policy and placed the Iranian regime front and center in terms of trying to find innovative ways to corral Iran’s extremist tendencies and chart a pathway towards democratic reforms for the long-suffering Iranian people.

His first step was to fulfill a campaign promise and withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. Then he moved swiftly to reimpose economic sanctions aimed at hurting industries controlled by and profiting the regime’s military and ruling elites.

The Trump administration also announced the formation of an Iran working group within the State Department to help coordinate the government’s response to Iran and search for ways to help foster democratic reforms in the Islamic state.

Brian Hook, the department’s current director of policy planning, will lead the team as the administration’s “special representative for Iran,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Thursday.

“Our goal is to reduce every country’s import of Iranian oil to zero by Nov. 4,” Hook said in remarks to reporters. “The United States certainly hopes for full compliance by all nations . . . in terms of not risking the threat of U.S. secondary sanctions if they continue with those transactions.”

“That is our strategy,” Hook said. “We have launched a campaign of maximum diplomatic pressure and diplomatic isolation” against Iran. Trump, he noted, “has also said he is prepared to talk” to Iranian leaders without preconditions, an initiative he said was on a “parallel track” to sanctions pressure, according to the Washington Post.

Predictably the Iran lobby attacked the idea, but its effectiveness seems akin to the Little Dutch Boy with his finger in a dike being swamped with storm waters as the Trump administration moves aggressively on several fronts to pressure the mullahs in Tehran.

“Not only is the Trump administration content to sabotage a successful nonproliferation agreement with Iran and collectively punish 80 million Iranians with harsh sanctions, the State Department’s new ‘Iran Action Group’ is nothing more than an attempt to bypass the State Department’s civil servant experts to implement Pompeo’s dangerous vision to destabilize Iran and close diplomatic off-ramps,” said Jamal Abdi, President of the National Iranian American Council.

Abdi recites the same “boy who cried wolf” refrain claiming this is a lead up to war with Iran, but there is no evidence as President Trump has long been a critic of previous U.S. armed intervention, including criticizing the Iraq invasion while on the campaign trail; a fact Abdi neglects to mention.

But while Abdi focuses on the falsehood that the U.S. is supposedly arming for war, the real issue which Abdi and the rest of the Iran lobby is terrified of is that the working group is really focused on finding ways to empower and support the Iranian people who are leading the push for democracy with massive waves of protests that have rattled the mullahs badly.

The internal pressure mounting on the regime has led to in-fighting previously unheard of in the notoriously closed-knit ruling elites, including calls by Iranian lawmakers to launch impeachment proceedings against President Hassan Rouhani’s finance minister on Sunday in a move designed to provide a scapegoat as U.S. economic sanctions hammer the regime.

A group of 33 MPs signed a motion accusing the minister, Masoud Karbasian, of being unable to manage the economy or form and implement policies, according to Reuters.

That was enough votes to force Karbasian to come to parliament to answer questions on his record in the next 10 days.

But that move may only be a band-aid as the real hammer – oil sanctions – loom in November forcing the Iranian regime to take the unusual step of publicly calling on OPEC to ensure that no other member state be allowed to take over its share of exports once sanctions are implemented.

The move was in response to reports that Iran’s chief regional rival in Saudi Arabia was prepared to take over Iran’s share of oil exports once sanctions are implemented, but even that move may be unnecessary since the European Union is still struggling to figure out ways to guarantee Iranian oil exports and sidestep U.S. sanctions in transferring payments to Iran for its oil.

The prospects look bleak as European companies fell like dominos in pulling out of deals with Iran in fear of U.S. sanctions that could cripple their operations elsewhere.

The new U.S. action group has finally placed the Iranian regime in its cross hairs and the Iranian people finally have the powerful ally they have long needed and desired.

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

by

Trump Offer to Meet Rouhani has Iran Lobby Boxed In

Trump Offer to Meet Rouhani has Iran Lobby Boxed In

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laura Carnahan

Death Spiral of Iran Rial Spells Disaster for Mullahs

by

Death Spiral of Iran Rial Spells Disaster for Mullahs

Death Spiral of Iran Rial Spells Disaster for Mullahs

The Iranian regime’s currency, the rial, plunged to a new record low this weekend, dropping past 112,000 rials to a single U.S. dollar. The stunning drop comes on the eve of the re-imposition of harsh economic sanctions by the Trump administration following the decertification of Iran nuclear agreement because of the regime’s continued support of terrorism, development of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and abysmal human rights record.

The first lot of sanctions go into effect on August 7th, while more severe sanctions, including the halt of imports of Iranian oil, go into effect on November 4th. Failure to do so will bring U.S. financial measures that have already caused a flurry of cancellations of contracts by Asian and European companies worried about them; further crippling the Iranian regime.

The weekend alone saw a drop from 97,500 rials on Saturday to the 112,000 level on Sunday, a one-day plunge of 12.5 percent, according to foreign exchange website Bonbast.com. Other websites said the dollar was exchanged between 108,500 and 116,000 rials, according to Reuters.

The last time the rial experienced a similar death spiral in value was September 2012. The spread between the official trading value set by the mullahs and the black market is a stunning 154 percent. While that may appear to be devastating news for Iran’s ruling regime, the dirty secret is that for anyone holding vast sums of U.S. currency, such as the ruling mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard Corps, they could handsomely profit enormous sums in the blink of an eye, according to an editorial by Steve H. Hanke of John Hopkins University in Forbes.

So, while ordinary Iranians are caught in a financial squeeze, the regime’s leadership and military could weather the short-term chaos personally. The question is whether long-suffering rank-and-file Iranians will push for democratic reforms and eventual regime change?

The other half of the financial picture of the dying rial is spiraling inflation which has grown increasingly ugly. According to Hanke, Iran’s implied annual inflation rate has surged to 203 percent; almost twenty times higher than the official inflation rate of 10.2 percent.

Hanke goes on to give an example of how Bulgaria’s implementation of a currency board helped arrest hyperinflation and put that country back on the road to fiscal health.

It’s a nice thought, but it would never work for Iran because, unlike Bulgaria, the Iranian regime is:

  • Deeply corrupt with graft and skimming taking place throughout the economy by the ruling mullahs, their families and state-owned industries such as petroleum, banking, and telecommunications which supports the military;
  • Heavily involved in funding proxy wars in Syria and Yemen, as well as terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah with massive amounts of cash, especially to prop up the Assad-regime in Syria;
  • Unable to exercise any fiscal discipline when its monetary commitments to its foreign and military initiatives drain it of badly needed foreign currency such as buying expensive weapon systems from Russia and China.

The dilemma facing the mullahs over its dying currency and the looming American sanctions has forced the mullahs to verbally attack the U.S. but offer little else in the way of real resistance in the face of what is sure to be punishing sanctions.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif weighed in by claiming that Iran would survive any U.S. sanctions.

“We have enough power to show the United States that it should abandon this addiction. We believe that the world has come to the conclusion that the United States should overcome its dependence on sanctions,” Zarif was quoted as saying by Iran’s ISNA news agency.

He all but begged the European Union to intervene and act in the interests of its member-states and stop blindly following the policy of President Trump, but the issue is not whether or not the mullahs will endure sanctions since they have already literally ripped off the people of Iran in stockpiling their wealth.

No, the real question is at what point do the Iranian people say enough is enough and seek real democratic reforms, such as allowing the creation of truly independent political parties that can run for parliamentary and presidential campaigns.

Things are so bad in Iran that the regime is preparing to launch its own cryptocurrency to circumvent the decline in the rial.

Alireza Daliri, of Iran’s Directorate of Deputy of Management and Investment Affairs, said several domestic companies are developing a digital currency and will launch it after fixing several persistent flaws. He added the unnamed companies were working in coordination with the Central Bank of Iran.

Alireza told ISNA news agency they were trying to prepare the grounds to use the virtual currency in the country. He further stated that the digital currency would help the country to transfer money anywhere around the world and would also help the nation during the U.S sanctions.

Another piece of fiction being foisted by the regime since crackdowns on global cryptocurrencies by several nations have been effective in combatting their use by narcotics cartels and criminal syndicates.

Iran itself banned the instant messaging app Telegram because of the success of the initial offering of its own cryptocurrency which Iranians were hungry for since it was not tied to the rial.

In another sign of its desperation, the Iranian regime announced plans to offer price and tax incentives to private investors to take over idled state projects to help boost the economy. Most of these projects were originally managed and financed by foreign companies in the wake of the nuclear deal’s signing in 2015, but now have fled Iran with the looming sanctions.

The plan will offer attractive prices and flexible terms as well as tax holidays for investors who agree to take over some of the 76,000 government projects which are unfinished or idle, Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri said on state television.

“Over the past few months, the country’s liquidity has gone into housing, foreign exchange, and gold coins, raising prices and provoking public concerns,” Jahangiri was quoted as saying by the website of the state broadcaster.

The admission by the regime that its economy was headed for a disaster was more proof that the mullahs were reaching the end of the line in trying to keep the sinking ship of state afloat.

Michael Tomlinson