Iran Lobby

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

While Iran Maintains Hostility, Iran Lobby Stays Silent

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While Iran Maintains Hostility, Iran Lobby Stays Silent

While Iran Maintains Hostility, Iran Lobby Stays Silent

Iran’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, used his weekly appearance on state-run television to renew his hostility to the West and reinforce the commitment by the regime to pursuing policies that advance its own agenda of expanding the regime’s influence and control over the Middle East.

The statement by Khamenei, made in a nationally televised speech, was the latest in a series of signals that the regime’s senior leadership was not likely to allow any easing of hostility toward what he called “many small and big enemies”, referring to the U.S. and the West.

While much of the vitriol he directed at the U.S. and its allies is historically the same as he usually trowels out in these speeches, it is noteworthy to read media reports on the growing dissatisfaction within the regime about the inability to generate the significant economic benefits from the nuclear deal reached last year.

Much of that inability is attributed to the inept management of the Iranian economy by the mullahs in which corruptions runs deep and wide throughout a system rigged to benefit the ruling elites and the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Some of that also is attributed to U.S. sanctions still in place not related to the nuclear deal, but linked to the regime’s historic support for terrorism and abysmal human rights record which prevents Iran from having access to U.S. currency markets and exchanges. These restrictions have stymied efforts by the regime to broaden its foreign trade, especially with European Union and Asian financial institutions reluctant to run afoul of any future U.S. sanctions.

Predictably the mullahs in Tehran and their allies in the Iran lobby have decried these sanctions and accuse the U.S. of trying to sabotage the nuclear deal, which is an absurd argument to make since the Obama administration has done virtually everything in its power to accommodate the Iranian regime including leading Americans astray with false arguments in support of the deal to doctoring official State Department video to cover up references to the early start of negotiations with hardliners in Tehran.

“They use human rights, terrorism … as pretexts to avoid fulfilling their commitments,” Khamenei said.

“If we remain strong and united and revolutionary, those who are trying to bully Iran and are against us will not succeed,” he told a gathering to commemorate the anniversary of the death of the founder of the Velayat-e-Faqih (The mullah’s supreme leader), Rouhollah Khomeini, in 1989.

Khamenei referred to Iran’s “important” role in the Middle East’s political direction, stating that Iran is the only obstacle preventing the triumph of Washington’s strategy for the volatile Middle East region.

They were planning for a “new Middle East”, a “greater Middle East”, several years ago, but their plans for Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, have failed due to Iran’s defiance, Khamenei said.

Khamenei’s comments point out the regime’s expansionist policies to create an arc of Shia influence stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and have used terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah, armed militias in Iraq and rebel groups such as the Houthis in Yemen in blatant military efforts to topple governments, expel undesirables such as Christians and Sunni Muslims, and persecute dissidents.

The map of the Middle East is basically a human rights wasteland unlike anything the world has seen since the heyday of terrorism and Cold War in the 1970s, that in the absence of a firm policy towards the mullahs in Tehran, the mullahs have been eager to exploit and take advantage of.

The determination of the Iranian regime to push past the boundaries of the nuclear deal and make it a shambles was again on display as the Iranian regime announced the launch of an offshore bank on one of its Gulf islands according to a report by the regime’s IRNA news agency, as it continues to seek ways around restrictions on international payments.

The bank will be set up on Kish Island, which has been developed as a tourism destination and a free trade zone over the past few decades. The aim is to tap into rising demand for cross-border banking transactions, according to comments by Ali Jirofti, deputy head of the Kish Free Zone Organization. He told IRNA on June 5 that the new, unnamed offshore bank will be able to transfer money and facilitate domestic and foreign investment activities.

The establishment of such an offshore facility would make a mockery of sanctions on Iran for human rights and terrorism violations and if allowed, it would prove devastating in efforts to hold the regime accountable for its appalling human rights record.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department released its annual report on terrorism and again listed the Iranian regime as a chief sponsor of terrorism worldwide.

Predictably the regime rejected the damning report.

As in many previous years, the report identified Iran as the world’s “foremost state sponsor of terrorism in 2015” through its financing, training and equipping of various armed groups, notably Lebanon’s Hezbollah, as well as the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The report said that despite reaching a landmark agreement with world powers on its nuclear program, Iran continued to use the Quds Force of its Revolutionary Guard to create instability throughout the Middle East.

In addition to arming Hezbollah and the Assad government, Iran also provided weapons and other assistance to militants in Bahrain and remained active in supporting groups such as Hamas, the report said.

The report is an annual rite of summer now to point a bloody finger at the mullahs. It is a reminder never to allow wiggle room to the mullahs and reinforce the efforts of Iranian dissident groups and human rights organizations working for freedom in Iran.

By Michael Tomlinson

Why Iran Role in Syria Should be a Warning for Iraq

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Why Iran Role in Syria Should be a Warning for Iraq

Why Iran Role in Syria Should be a Warning for Iraq

The Syrian civil war could have turned out much differently. With the advent of Arab spring democracy protests sweeping through the region in 2011, Syria was rocked by nationwide protests against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which responded with violent crackdowns spawning armed conflict.

It quickly degenerated into sectarian conflict as Assad’s Alawite-dominated government forces joined with other Shia groups to fight against predominantly Sunni-led rebel groups. Those groups included non-sectarian groups backed by the West that gained significant wins against the Assad regime, threatening his rule.

In response, the mullahs in Tehran directed their Hezbollah terrorist proxy to join the fighting in 2013 in an effort to save Assad, who was a crucial ally to the Iranian regime. Coupled with indiscriminate bombings on civilians by the Assad regime with barrel bombs and the wholesale destruction of villages, the war quickly escalated into a humanitarian disaster and laid the ground for the birth of radicalized extremist groups such as ISIS which broke away from Al-Qaeda elements that had originally been given sanctuary in Iran after being forced out of Afghanistan by the U.S.-led invasion.

By September 2015, Iran entreated Russia to enter the conflict to rescue the Assad regime after Iranian-led forces faced defeat on the battlefield and losses mounted. The situation grew so dire for the mullahs that they forced the enlistment of thousands of Afghan refugees living in Iran to join the fight as mercenaries.

During this escalation, the Iran lobby led a PR campaign to hide the truth of the Iranian regime’s involvement and attempted to distance it from the nuclear agreement being negotiated at the same time. It was crucial for the Iran lobby to keep the issues separate even though the evidence was mounting of how deep the Iranian regime’s involvement in Syria.

At the same time, the Iranian regime increased its efforts in Yemen and Iraq. First by stirring up the Houthis and arming them and inciting them to rebellion aimed squarely at Saudi Arabia’s doorstep in an effort to distract the kingdom from confronting Iran’s expansionist aims in Syria and Iraq.

But it is in Iraq where the battle is shifting as Iran applies lessons learned in Syria to mounting a new effort to exert greater control over Iraq.

Iran has fought to maintain control in Iraq. During the administration of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, the mullahs in Tehran forced out Sunni partners and split the Iraqi government in an effort to gain absolute control, which backfired when ISIS attacked from Syria and took over Mosul and much of northern Iraq. The push into Iraq threatened Iran and the Maliki government fell as the debacle caused consternation among Iraqis with ire aimed directly at Iran.

Now Iranian regime is attempting to manipulate and control the battlefield in Iraq, much in the same way it tried to control what was happening in Syria. Iraq’s abrupt departure from the war against the Islamic State group, which its priority was above all else the liberation of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, shows the influence of Iranian regime at work. Iran has reportedly been pressuring Iraqi government for weeks, if not months, to prioritize Fallujah.

Tehran has more influence on Iraq’s focus, whether on Fallujah or anywhere else, than Moscow, Washington and Ankara combined, says a former U.S. combat commander with extensive experience working with Iraq’s senior leaders.

Paul D. Shinkman, senior national security writer for U.S. News, pointed out the threat Iran poses to the future of Iraq as it purposely seeks to create a destabilized situation to better influence the Iraqi government in the absence of a U.S. presence.

Other forces are also at play behind the decision, including influences from Tehran that would like the Shiite majority in Iraq’s government to protect Baghdad from what it sees as the threat posed by the proximity of Sunni extremists, like the Islamic State group, while also solidifying its hold on power, Shinkman writes.

“Iran does not see a government of Iraq that has a Sunni presence in it,” says Scott Mann, who retired as a lieutenant colonel after 18 years as a U.S. Army Special Forces officer with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. “This is a way to further divide those ethnicities, between Persians and Arabs, and between Sunni and Shiite, and create a more polarized environment around that conflict.

It’s the same formula Iran pursued in Syria and is attempting to replicate in Iraq by purging the government of any Sunni influence and use sectarian conflict as the excuse to wage war, rather than allow a coalition government of Sunni and Shia work together for the benefit of Iraq.

General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, the special operations branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, met with leaders of the Iraqi coalition of Shi’ite militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, the most extremist forces in Iraq that have been massacring, burning alive innocent Sunnis in any area they have overtaken in the past few years.

Sunni politicians in Iraq condemned the involvement of Soleimani and other Iranian advisers in the battlefield preparations, saying it could fuel sectarian tension and unleash a new round of Sunni-Shi’ite bloodletting. They also cast doubt on the Iraqi government’s assurances that the offensive is purely an Iraqi-led effort to defeat Islamic State. “Soleimani’s presence is cause for concern,” said an Iraqi member of parliament from Falluja. “He is absolutely not welcome in the area.”

The threat of Iraq turning into an Iranian vassal state has alarmed Arab nations throughout the region and rightly so. What is even more alarming are news reports that Iraqi forces were assisting Iran in the construction of permanent military bases within Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

Last week, Arabic and Turkish media reported that Tehran had launched construction of the largest missile base in the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range in Iraqi Kurdistan, which reportedly aims to protect the religious borders of Iran.

If true, the news would only add to the powder keg Iranian regime is creating and potentially turn the Iraq-Turkey border into another Syria.

The international community needs to re-engage in Iraq and not allow the Iranian regime a free hand. All of which reiterates the fact that Iran mullahs are not part of the solution to any crisis in the region. They are indeed the source of the problem.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Paying Price for Echo Chamber of Lies

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Iran Lobby Paying Price for Echo Chamber of Lies

Iran Lobby Paying Price for Echo Chamber of Lies

The much-discussed article in the New York Times Magazine describing the Iran Lobby orchestrating of the push for the Iran nuclear deal has set off a chain of events throughout American politics and news media have begun digging deeper into the Iran lobby’s role in the effort to portray the Iranian regime as a moderate government.

Revelations have rippled out like so many stones dropped into a still pond, intersecting and converging as more news reports have come out detailing the flow of cash throughout the Iran lobby and into news organizations to help promote the nuclear deal.

Other stories have gone on to examine in great detail the organization and structure of the Iran lobby’s plans years before actual negotiations began with the Iranian regime, all of which goes to demonstrate the long view the mullahs have in achieving their goals.

Now Congress has stepped up its scrutiny, including demands for greater accountability from the Obama administration, as well as the Iranian regime’s compliance of a nuclear deal that is now suspected of being badly and deeply flawed.

This all came to the forefront as Treasury and State Department officials appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in an effort to reassure skeptical Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

“We need to make sure it’s implemented to the letter,” said New York Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel, “and hold Iran’s feet to the fire with respect to” what he called its troublemaking in the region.

Engel and other lawmakers cited Iran’s support for the militant groups like Hezbollah, as well as Shiia militants in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Yemen and the regime of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. They also raised Iran’s ballistic missile tests in March, in particular two test-fired rockets inscribed with the Hebrew phrase “Israel must be wiped off the Earth,” according to the regime’s semi-official Fars News Agency.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D., Calif.) heaped criticism on the Iranian nuclear deal at the hearing, calling for more sanctions on Iran to punish its military involvement in Syria.

“People in this country want us to get along with everyone around the world. We long for peace. And there are those who say that sanctions contradict that,” Sherman said. “But when you look at what Iran has done in Syria, hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million people killed by Assad, with funds provided, weapons provided, thugs provided by the Iranian government, when you see people killed by barrel bombs and sarin gas, we realize that the right response to the Iranian regime cannot be ‘kumbaya.’”

Sherman and Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), the committee chairman, raised the potential for the reauthorization of the Iran Sanctions Act to keep the bulk of financial restrictions in place, especially in light of the regime’s actions following the completion of the nuclear deal.

Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, gave blistering testimony explaining how the Iranian regime is taking advantage of a weak nuclear deal and the Obama administration’s persistent efforts to assist the regime.

“Iran is engaged in a robust effort to legitimize its financial sector despite a decades-long rap sheet of financial crimes and illicit financial activities that it shows no sign of curbing. Since the conclusion of the JPCOA, the Obama administration has missed numerous opportunities to push back against Iran’s legitimization campaign,” Dubowitz said.

“Instead of insisting on an end to Iran’s continuing malign activities (terrorism, human rights violations, and other destabilizing activities in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and other countries across the Middle East), and using non-nuclear sanctions to deter and punish these activities, the administration is now effectively acting as Iran’s trade promotion and business development authority. Indeed, the administration may be departing from its original JCPOA negotiating position that it would only suspend or lift so-called U.S. “nuclear sanctions” under its executive authority. Rather, the administration is allowing Iran to hold the U.S. responsible for delivering financial and economic outcomes,” Dubowitz added.

Dubowitz’s testimony also highlighted the awkwardness of Secretary of State John Kerry’s trips around the world recently as he found himself in the odd position of negotiating on behalf of promoting investment in the Iranian regime.

It is a situation that Rep. Royce highlighted at the hearing that Kerry was taking “the odd step” of reassuring foreign firms that Iran is open for business, Royce said, while “other administration officials go so far as to say that Iran economic growth is in our national security interest.”

It’s now a fact that the reassurances by the Iran lobby have less impact now that the full scope of their efforts have come to light. Coupled with the regime’s own actions over the past year, the entire basis of the Iran nuclear agreement – that the mullahs could be trusted to adhere to any international agreement – was built on an “echo chamber” of lies.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Echo Chamber of Iran Rings with Hardliners

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The Echo Chamber of Iran Rings with Hardliners

The Echo Chamber of Iran Rings with Hardliners

In the now-infamous article by the New York Times Magazine on how a network of Iranian regime lobbyists, activists and journalists was created to feed a false narrative about the Iran nuclear deal. National security staffer Ben Rhodes called it an “echo chamber” where so-called independent experts were in actuality actively working at the direction of the White House media operation.

The key messages, social media postings and parade of so-called “experts” was designed to put forward the story that the nuclear deal would put a stop to Iran’s nuclear development, empower moderate elements within the Iranian government and stabilize the Middle East.

Alternatively, this same echo chamber fought against any effort to link human rights, sponsorship of terrorism or strict guidelines on inspections of Iran military facilities as being destabilizing the prospects of an agreement.

Since the deal was struck last year, the world has discovered how completely wrong all those assumptions were, but worse, how the Iran lobby, directly funded with cash from groups aligned with Iran, was essentially lying.

The avalanche of disclosures now come fast and furious as we begin to see the scope, size and sophistication of the Iran lobby’s efforts, especially in swaying favorable media coverage by paying news outlets such as National Public Radio hundreds of thousands of dollars for positive coverage of the deal.

Bloomberg in a report examined the full scale of the Iran lobby’s network and operations in supporting the Iran nuclear deal based a series of leaked emails he received.

It discovered that the actual campaign for the nuclear deal did not start in 2015 with negotiations as Iran regime supporters claim, but rather launched a full four years earlier with Ploughshares Fund leading the initial organization long before Rhodes began meeting with progressive groups on shaping the Iran narrative, which may indicate that the administration itself may have been played for fools by the mullahs in Tehran all along.

Beginning in August 2011, Ploughshares and its grantees formed the Iran Strategy Group. Over time this group created a sophisticated campaign to reshape the national narrative on Iran. That campaign sought to portray skeptics of diplomacy as “pro-war,” and to play down the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program before formal negotiations started in 2013 only to emphasize those dangers after there was an agreement in 2015, Bloomberg writes.

The strategy group, which included representatives of the Arms Control Association, the National Security Network, the National Iranian American Council, the Federation of American Scientists, the Atlantic Council and others, sought to “develop process and mechanism to implement Iran campaign strategies, tactics and narrative,” according to an agenda for the first meeting of the group on Aug. 17, 2011, Lake adds.

The fact that Ploughshares funds the NIAC, the chief lobbyist for the Iran regime, and convened these strategy sessions back in 2011 clearly shows the planning by the Iran lobby to create a false narrative and then sell it to the White House. That sales job was undoubtedly helped in no small part by the inclusion of former NIAC staffers hired into the National Security Council, with one former Iran lobby staffer now heading up the NSC’s Iran desk.

The centerpiece of those early strategy meetings was that the Iran lobby needed to change the “message” narrative, even though facts on the ground in Iran proved otherwise. While Iran was developing links to Al-Qaeda and exporting terrorism via Hezbollah and Houthi proxies, the Iran lobby needed to kill those stories in the media and substitute a more favorable one.

According to Bloomberg, in an Aug. 20, 2013, e-mail to the Iran Strategy Group, Joseph Cirincione, president of Ploughshares, encouraged the Ploughshares grantees to “create a social media, web, expert push that carries our main points into the media and policy discussions in the first 12-24 hours.”

The rest is – as they say – history, as the Iran lobby, led by Ploughshares money and NIAC staff, began pushing alternative messages into the media and spread around cash to news media, as well as recruiting supportive journalists such as Laura Rozen of Al-Monitor to serve as mouthpieces.

The group relied on their own network of “experts” such as Paul Pillar to serve as “impartial” third-party analysts to discuss the nuclear deal on news outlets such as NPR which was receiving funding from Ploughshares.

The sad truth is that the Middle East is by far more chaotic and dangerous than at any other time in recent memory. The international community essentially has no idea what Iranian regime’s military is doing in developing ballistic missiles or nuclear warheads in fortified bunkers that no one even knew existed until the regime showed them off in videos.

Human rights in Iran are abysmal and thousands of innocent Iranian men, women and children have been hanged, had limbs amputated, acid thrown into their faces and eyes gouged out as part of the normal Iranian justice system.

And yet, the Iran lobby utters not one word of protest. Makes no harsh remark and takes no blame for essentially creating the world we have today.

Even their most basic claim of empowering moderate elements in Iran’s government was slapped hard in the face by the announcement of the appointment of Ahmad Jannati to head up the powerful Assembly of Experts.

The 89-year old hardliner is well known for being a religious radical devoutly committed to exporting the Islamic extremism and protecting the mullahs and their ill-gotten gains.

In addition to his new post, Jannati leads the influential Guardian Council, a vetting body that disqualified over 3,000 less loyal candidates for the February elections, which were held in parallel with the vote for the Assembly of Experts.

All of which just goes to show how there are really no moderates within Iranian politics and government and to make any such distinction is to play into the narrative the Iran lobby has so studiously cultivated over the last five years.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

Iran Lobby Damaged by Revelations of Funding for Nuclear Deal Campaign

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Iran Lobby Damaged by Revelations of Funding for Nuclear Deal Campaign

Iran Lobby Damaged by Revelations of Funding for Nuclear Deal Campaign

The expose of national security staffer Ben Rhodes admission in the New York Times Magazine concocting a string of false messages to sell the Iran nuclear deal sent shock-waves through American politics and around the world as the revelations began to sink in that the entire basis of the agreement with the Iranian regime may have been built on lies.

Even more disturbing news reports has come out now that one of the principal advocates for the deal and a central pillar of the Iran lobbying effort had paid cash directly to news organizations in a brash effort to influence favorable coverage of the agreement.

The Associated Press reported that the Ploughshares Fund gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the nuclear deal according to the group’s own annual report, while also funding reporters and partnerships with a wide array of other news outlets.

In the Times article, Rhodes explained how he  worked with nongovernmental organizations, proliferation experts and even friendly reporters to build support for the seven-nation accord that curtailed Iran’s nuclear activity and softened international financial penalties on Tehran.

“We created an echo chamber,” said Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, adding that “outside groups like Ploughshares” helped carry out the administration’s message effectively.

Most news organizations, including The Associated Press, have strict rules governing whom they can accept money from and how to protect journalistic independence.

Ploughshares’ backing is more unusual, given its prominent role in the rancorous, partisan debate over the Iran deal.

The Ploughshares grant to NPR supported “national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran’s nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and U.S. policy toward nuclear security,” according to Ploughshares’ 2015 annual report, recently published online.

Ploughshares Fund provided over 90 grants to various organizations in 2015 in order to engage in reporting, research and analysis on Iranian nuclear issues. The over 90 grants given out in 2015 nearly doubles those the organization provided in 2014, and triples the amount given in 2013. Ploughshares’ increases in grant funding directly coincides with the time period during which the Iran nuclear deal was being finalized and presented to Congress.

Also receiving grants were think tanks such as the RAND Institute which was given $40,000 to write “a series of articles that analyze specific elements of the diplomatic agreement with Iran on its nuclear program.”

Ploughshares Fund President Joseph Cirincione spoke about the Iran deal on NPR twice last year. He was identified as a donor to the radio station on only one of the two occasions.

Ploughshares also provided over $280,000 to the Iran lobby leader National Iranian American Council (NIAC) for its work supporting the Iran deal, some of which went directly towards sending NIAC staff to the nuclear negotiations in Vienna. NIAC was accused of engaging in lobbying efforts on behalf of the Iranian regime around 2007, which led to the organization’s president Trita Parsi bringing suit against journalist Hassan Daioleslam for defamation. Parsi eventually lost the protracted legal battle.

The New York Post joined in the mounting criticism of the massive lobbying and PR effort with an editorial casting doubt on Ploughshares’ claims:

“And though Ploughshares claims to be working against nuclear proliferation, it backed a soft line toward Iran and worked to enable a deal that at best will only delay Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” the Post said.

Meanwhile the Washington Free Beacon examined claims by NPR that it did not deliberately deny airtime for anti-Iran deal advocates such as Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) who claimed to have scheduled interviews with NPR cancelled at the last time and spots given instead to Iran deal support Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).

While NPR executives claimed to have no records of such bookings, emails reviewed by the Free Beacon between NPR and Pompeo’s office show otherwise, casting more doubt on the validity of NPR’s claims of journalistic integrity on the Iran nuclear deal while it was being funded by the Ploughshares Fund.

These revelations expose the tangled connections between the Iranian lobby, its financial backers and its efforts to manipulate news media and manage directly the so-called “hundreds of often-clueless reporters” as characterized by Robert Malley, senior director at the National Security Council, as quoted in the Times article.

As to where Ploughshares gets its money? Ploughshares is financed by billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute, the Buffett Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others including several notable Hollywood celebrities such as actor Michael Douglas and entertainer Barbra Streisand.

Joseph Cirincione, the president of Ploughshares, went on the offensive in an effort to blunt the growing embarrassment of these revelations with an editorial on Huffington Post in which he blamed all the attacks on a right-wing, neo-con conspiracy.

While Cirincione took aim at the writers of the Times and AP stories, he neglected to mention the central characters in this entire episode and it wasn’t Ploughshares.

It was the mullahs in Tehran for which Ploughshares and others of the Iran lobby do their bidding.

The core issue is not about donations, coverage and lobbying. It is very much about how a despotic, extremist, religiously fanatical regime is escaping notice as it executes a record 2,500 people, brutalizes the women of Iran and fights three wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq which has turned much of the Middle East and Europe into the largest refugee center in history since World War II.

Nowhere does Cirincione defend the recent conduct of the mullahs. Nowhere does he mention the rapid development and launching of illegal ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads. Nowhere does he mention the blatant violations of even the flimsiest provisions of the Iran nuclear deal such as the inability to inspect Iranian military facilities.

The money Ploughshares has spread around like so much horse manure was never intended to expose the Iranian regime, but only to cover it up.

By Michael Tomlinson

Group that helped sell Iran nuke deal also funded media

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Group that helped sell Iran nuke deal also funded media

Group that helped sell Iran nuke deal also funded media

WASHINGTON (AP) — A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in selling the Iran nuclear deal gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues, according to the group’s annual report. It also funded reporters and partnerships with other news outlets.

The Ploughshares Fund’s mission is to “build a safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world’s nuclear stockpiles,” one that dovetails with President Barack Obama’s arms control efforts. But its behind-the-scenes role advocating for the Iran agreement got more attention this month after a candid profile of Ben Rhodes, one of the president’s top foreign policy aides.

In The New York Times Magazine article, Rhodes explained how the administration worked with nongovernmental organizations, proliferation experts and even friendly reporters to build support for the seven-nation accord that curtailed Iran’s nuclear activity and softened international financial penalties on Tehran.

“We created an echo chamber,” said Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, adding that “outside groups like Ploughshares” helped carry out the administration’s message effectively.

The magazine piece revived Republican criticism of the Iran agreement as they suggested it was evidence of a White House spin machine misleading the American people. The administration accused opponents of trying to re-litigate the deal after failing to defeat it in congressional votes last year.

Outside groups of all stripes are increasingly giving money to news organizations for special projects or general news coverage. Most news organizations, including The Associated Press, have strict rules governing whom they can accept money from and how to protect journalistic independence.

Ploughshares’ backing is more unusual, given its prominent role in the rancorous, partisan debate over the Iran deal.

The Ploughshares grant to NPR supported “national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran’s nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and U.S. policy toward nuclear security,” according to Ploughshares’ 2015 annual report, recently published online.

“It is common practice for foundations to fund media coverage of underreported stories,” Ploughshares spokeswoman Jennifer Abrahamson said. Funding “does not influence the editorial content of their coverage in any way, nor would we want it to.”

Ploughshares has funded NPR’s coverage of national security since 2005, the radio network said. Ploughshares reports show at least $700,000 in funding over that time. All grant descriptions since 2010 specifically mention Iran.

“It’s a valued partnership, without any conditions from Ploughshares on our specific reporting, beyond the broad issues of national and nuclear security, nuclear policy, and nonproliferation,” NPR said in an emailed statement. “As with all support received, we have a rigorous editorial firewall process in place to ensure our coverage is independent and is not influenced by funders or special interests.”

Republican lawmakers will have concerns nonetheless, especially as Congress supplies NPR with a small portion of its funding. Just this week, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee tried to summon Rhodes to a hearing entitled “White House Narratives on the Iran Nuclear Deal,” but he refused.

Ploughshares’ links to media are “tremendously troubling,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas, an Iran-deal critic.

Pompeo told the AP he repeatedly asked NPR to be interviewed last year as a counterweight to a Democratic supporter of the agreement, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who he said regularly appeared on the station. But NPR refused to put Pompeo on the air, he said. The station said it had no record of Pompeo’s requests, and listed several prominent Republicans who were featured speaking about the deal or economic sanctions on Iran.

Another who appeared on NPR is Joseph Cirincione, Ploughshares’ president. He spoke about the negotiations on air at least twice last year. The station identified Ploughshares as an NPR funder one of those times; the other time, it didn’t.

Ploughshares boasts of helping to secure the deal. While success was “driven by the fearless leadership of the Obama administration and supporters in Congress,” board chairwoman Mary Lloyd Estrin wrote in the annual report, “less known is the absolutely critical role that civil society played in tipping the scales towards this extraordinary policy victory.”

The 33-page document lists the groups that Ploughshares funded last year to advance its nonproliferation agenda.

The Arms Control Association got $282,500; the Brookings Institution, $225,000; and the Atlantic Council, $182,500. They received money for Iran-related analysis, briefings and media outreach, and non-Iran nuclear work.

Other groups, less directly defined by their independent nuclear expertise, also secured grants.

J-Street, the liberal Jewish political action group, received $576,500 to advocate for the deal. More than $281,000 went to the National Iranian American Council.

Princeton University got $70,000 to support former Iranian ambassador and nuclear spokesman Seyed Hossein Mousavian’s “analysis, publications and policymaker engagement on the range of elements involved with the negotiated settlement of Iran’s nuclear program.”

Ploughshares has set its sights on other media organizations, too.

In a “Cultural Strategy Report” on its website, the group outlined a broader objective of “ensuring regular and accurate coverage of nuclear issues in reputable and strategic media outlets” such as The Guardian, Salon, the Huffington Post or Pro Publica.

Previous efforts failed to generate enough coverage, it noted. These included “funding of reporters at The Nation and Mother Jones and a partnership with The Center for Public Integrity to create a national security desk.” It suggested using “web videos, podcasts, photo-based stories” and other “attention-grabbing formats” for “creatively reframing the issue.”

The Center for Public Integrity’s CEO, Peter Bale, confirmed the grant.

“None of the funding received by Ploughshares was for coverage of the Iran deal,” said Bale, whose company received $70,000. “In general, we avoided that subject because the topic did not lend itself to the type of investigative reporting the Center does.”

Caitlin Graf, a spokeswoman at The Nation, said her outlet had no partnership with Ploughshares. She referred queries to The Nation Institute, a nonprofit associated with the magazine that seeks to strengthen the independent press and advance social justice. Taya Kitman, the institute’s director, said Ploughshares’ one-year grant supported reporting on U.S.-Iran policy, but strict editorial control was maintained.

Mother Jones’ media department didn’t respond to several messages seeking comment.

The AP has taken grants from nonpolitical groups and journalism foundations such as the Knight Foundation. As with all grants, “AP retains complete editorial control of the final news product, which must fully meet AP standards for independence and integrity,” Standards Editor Thomas Kent said.

May. 20, 2016 3:43 PM EDT
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7044e805a95a4b7da5533b1b9ab75cd2/group-helped-sell-iran-nuke-deal-also-funded-media#

Iran Lobby’s Failed Attempt to Stop Sanctions on Iranian Regime

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Iran Lobby Cannot Stop Sanctions on Iranian Regime

Iran Lobby Cannot Stop Sanctions on Iranian Regime

The House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 which included several provisions aimed at monitoring and curbing some of the excesses of the Iranian regime and while these do not go far enough to actually halt some of the worst atrocities committed by the regime, they do serve as a reminder that the mullahs are under even more scrutiny.

The House-passed bill includes provisions to restrict the use of commercial aircraft by Iran for military or illicit purposes, as well as reporting requirements for the Obama administration to notify Congress within 48 hours of any new ballistic missile launch and detail what steps would be taken in response.

The bill also called for closer cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the group of nations in the Persian Gulf threatened by the regime, in developing an integrated ballistic missile defense system.

Additional amendments were incorporated authorizing assistance and training to countries in the Gulf to deter and counter illicit Iranian smuggling activity, such as the regime’s shipments to Yemen, as well as various reporting requirements on Iran-Russian cooperation and activity at Iranian seaports and foreign airports, including the importation of new weapons and coordination of military activities.

The measures fall short of what Iranian dissident groups and human rights activists have called for in confronting the worst excesses of the regime, but even these modest steps help keep the ball moving in the right direction in holding the regime accountable.

Predictably the Iran lobby decried these efforts and characterized them as attempts to “kill the nuclear agreement.” Unfortunately, they fail to say that the deal is dead already since Iranian regime has consistently violated the letter and spirit of the deal in every way imaginable.

Ryan Costello of the National Iranian American Council penned his own editorial that did little to discuss in any meaningful way the fact the American public consistently puts terrorism and extremism overseas at the top of their concerns and how this has been fueling Congress to act and presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump articulate policies in how they would curb the Iranian regime.

Costello tries to put the best face on the House action, hoping for better results in the Senate’s version.

“While many of the Iran provisions may become law, they also may be stripped out as the Senate and House must agree on a final text before it is sent to the President. The Senate will take up its own version of the NDAA next week,” Costello writes.

Given the even stronger stance against the Iranian regime taken by Senators such as Tom Cotton (R-AK), Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Bob Corker (R-TN), Costello’s hopes seem to be a bit fanciful.

The provisions placed in the House bill were not flight so fancy though. They are grounded in the facts coming out of the Iranian regime.

Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has documented numerous Mahan Air flights over the past several months using global flight trackers which show the Iranian regime-owned airline making stops in Syrian cities like Damascus and Latakia and also flying to Baghdad from the Iranian cities Tehran and Abadan, a Revolutionary Guard Corps logistical hub.

The regime is using these commercial airliners to ferry fighters and weapons to Syria, but this is nothing new for Mahan Air, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. for support of terrorism. Mahan Air operates regular flights from Tehran to Dusseldorf and Munich. But now German politicians are seeking to ban the airline for its alleged ties to Iran’s regime.

With a fleet of over 50 aircraft, Mahan Air has been making secret trips to Syria since August 2015 and has been delivering weapons and fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon to support and reinforce Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s forces, Germany’s Bild newspaper reported.

This explains why the House included the provisions aimed at preventing new aircraft purchased from Boeing to be used by the regime for military or illicit purposes.

The escalation of the Iranian regime’s involvement in the Syrian war, the mounting casualties it is taking amongst its forces there and the widening use of Afghan refugees as cannon fodder have forced these moves to hold the regime more accountable.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a leading Iranian dissident group, reported that steep losses suffered by one province in Iran, Mazandaran, in the Syrian war prompted calls to stop sending its young men to fight and die in what is increasingly an unpopular war among Iranians.

The NCRI issued a statement saying, “The ever-increasing presence and unprecedented casualties of the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and mercenary militias in Syria demonstrate well that the main issue and the source of the crisis in Syria are the criminal ruling mullahs in Iran who have tied the fate of their regime to that of Syria and despite consecutive losses and coffins arriving in various cities of Iran dispatch even more IRGC and mercenaries to Syria, which for them has become such a lethal quagmire.”

In another sign of deep discontent in Iran, Afghan refugees who have left Iran are reporting of terrible human rights violations being perpetrated against the three million Afghan refugees living in Iran; of which only an estimated 950,000 are United Nations-registered, as Iranian authorities have not provided all Afghan refugees with an opportunity to legally claim asylum.

Those born in the country are afforded UN-recognized refugee status, but they hold only a fraction of the rights granted to Iranian citizens. Many live without residency documents and are forced to exist off the grid, making their living from the black market.

These refugees are easy prey to the mullahs who seek to exploit them by sending them to fight in Syria, often times threatening their families with expulsion if they do not fight.

“For Afghans, there is no chance for a future in Iran,” said Jawad Jafari, an Afghan who fled Iran to Germany with his wife in an interview with Al-Jazeera. “For the Iranian government, it wasn’t enough that we are Muslims like them. I had to pay bribes to work, and the police were always harassing me.”

“We were both born in Iran, but neither of us has documents,” his wife Masoomi explains. “We don’t want our children to face the same problems and racist treatment.”

Even though Costello tries to spin a positive, the House bill reflects the mounting interest in putting a halt to the Iranian regime.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran, Its Missiles and the Failure of the Nuclear Deal

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Iran, Its Missiles and the Failure of the Nuclear Deal

Iran, Its Missiles and the Failure of the Nuclear Deal

Ballistic missiles by definition are any kind of missile that achieves powered launch, an arching trajectory and then comes down on a target some distance away. Intercontinental ballistic missiles are ones with the extended range to reach targets outside of the launch area, often traversing into another continental mass or even hemisphere.

They are the most destabilizing and devastating weapons in any nation’s military and have been at the heart of nuclear arsenals since the dawn of the atomic age. Ballistic missiles were at the center of the Cuban missile crisis. The mere threat of ballistic missiles placed in Europe by the U.S. was enough to force landmark reduction treaties with the Soviet Union.

The development of nuclear missiles in North Korea poses one of the most significant threats in the Pacific today and sit at the center of the current crisis with the Iranian regime.

Because ballistic missiles are the primary launch platform for any nuclear, chemical or biological warhead, their development is often part and parcel of any nuclear agreement.

The SALT treaties between the U.S. and Soviet Union dealt not only with warheads, but most importantly launch vehicles. Both sides knew if you did not address the launch systems, simply reducing nuclear warheads would do nothing. Either nation could simply build new warheads and attach them.

Ironically, the nuclear agreement with the Iranian regime and the P5+1 group of nations pointedly excluded launch systems from the agreement. The silence of the agreement on missile development was a key component of efforts by the Iran lobby to push through a deal.

Groups such as the National Iranian American Council and Ploughshares Fund made the argument to the Obama administration that including launch systems would unnecessarily complicate talks and drive a deeper wedge in the “moderate” factions in Iran fighting for normalization with the West.

We know now through revelations in the New York Times that that argument was false. The leadership of the Iranian regime has no moderates within it. It’s a strict religious theocracy that demands absolute dedication and devotion to the Islamic revolution it spawned and has worked hard imprisoning, torturing and executing any dissenters to that vision.

It also fought hard to keep missiles out of the agreement because of its close and ongoing ties to the North Korean regime which has provided Iran with missile designs, launch motors, guidance systems, engineers and expertise in manufacturing under license. For Iran’s mullahs, losing this valuable chain of military supplies – one of the only few available to it illicitly for sophisticated weapons – would be a strategic loss.

For top Ali Khamenei and his handpicked team of Hassan Rouhani and Javad Zarif, preservation of missile technology was critical in maintaining the regime’s ability to project force outside of its borders. For the past three decades, Iran has had to rely on proxy terror groups such as Hezbollah, foreign fighters such as Iraqi Shiite militia and Houthis to project its power.

This is why the Iranian regime has ignored United Nations Security Council sanctions against missile development and fights against any restrictions on this technology. It serves the mullahs’ propaganda purposes to show off videos of missile test launches and underground bunkers filled with missiles; given them the appearance of a formidable military.

All of which explains why the Iranian regime continues to push messages through the Iran lobby to sow confusion in the West about the regime’s missile program.

Iran’s military recently publicized a third underground missile facility and showed the launch of a new ballistic missile through the top of a mountain.

U.S. intelligence agencies said in a recent internal report on the launch that the new underground missile facility was disclosed by Iran in March.

It was the third time since October that Tehran showed off an extensive network of underground missile facilities. The new video, however, for the first time shows a missile launch from one of the country’s underground launch facilities.

Even more startling were comments made by Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Aerospace and Missile Force, in recent remarks that the Obama administration does not want Iran to publicize its ongoing missile tests, which have raised questions about the regime’s commitment to the nuclear agreement.

“At this time, the Americans are telling [us]: ‘Don’t talk about missile affairs, and if you conduct a test or maneuver, don’t mention it,’” Hajizadeh was quoted as saying during a recent Persian-language speech that was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Ali Safavi of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a leading Iranian dissident group, warned against continuing to appease the Iranian regime.

“The United States and its European allies must abandon their policy of appeasement. What is needed is quite simply a policy that recognizes the facts: there are no moderates in the Tehran regime; it need not include direct military action against Iran, but it does need to be based on action, not simply harsh words, much less willful ignorance,” he said.

That fact was even more important when compared to news that Russian S-300 mobile anti-aircraft missile systems purchased by the Iranian regime have been installed at the Khatam al-Anbia base, which contains Iran’s entire air-defense system. This represents a serious commitment by the regime’s military to safeguard its missile force with its most valuable new military purchase.

This follows previous announcements that the Iranian regime was finalizing deals for another $8 billion in Russian military hardware, including the high-end Su-30 warplane, Yak-30 training aircraft, military helicopters such as the Mi-8 and Mi-17 and K-300 Bastion coastal defense systems.

Now comes news that the regime is in the midst of new negotiations with Russia to acquire advanced naval weapons and ships to improve its ability to project force into the Persian Gulf and the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, which the regime has repeatedly threatened to close the past few months.

The nuclear deal has been a failure. The world should not compound it by allowing the Iranian regime to fully deploy its missile force.

By Michael Tomlinson

US Struggles Against Helping Iranian Regime

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Human Rights Worsen in Iran and so Does Accountability

Human Rights Worsen in Iran and so Does Accountability

For anyone who has been involved in an intervention with a loved one who has battled alcoholism or some other addiction, the first thing you need to do is get them to admit they have a problem in the first place.

Only when you admit your behavior is self-destructive and puts everything you hold dear at risk can you take the first steps toward recovery. In the case of the incorrect and bad bets the Obama administration has made in making efforts to appease the Iranian regime, admitting it has a problem seems to be difficult if not impossible.

Within weeks of completing its nuclear deal with the Iranian regime, the U.S. recanted on earlier claims of “anytime, anywhere” inspections; giving the regime what amounted to a free pass in bypassing suspected military sites from international inspections.

When Iranian regime leaders such as Hassan Rouhani begged Russia to intervene in Syria and save Assad and its forces from collapse, the Obama administration demurred and hoped for a political solution even as Russian warplanes attacked Syrian rebel factions backed by the West and failed to target ISIS and other extremist targets.

As Iran began launching ballistic missiles in violation of international sanctions and bipartisan members of Congress offered legislation to punish Iran for it, the administration threatened to veto any of those bills in the belief that the entire deal would collapse.

It is debatable as to whether or not the administration pursued this policy based on the pervasive influence of the Iran lobby and its efforts to pollute the storyline or the misguided belief that a collapse of the deal would cause even worse harm.

In Syria, Iran was flailing and Assad was on the brink of being toppled until the infamous red line in the sand was crossed with chemical weapons and Assad was allowed to stay in power resulting in the deaths of a stunning 400,000 Syrians and half of the country’s population turned into refugees.

In the implementation of the nuclear deal, the U.S. had all the leverage to hold the regime accountable since it needed the deal badly to open access to foreign markets, hard cash and allow it sell oil back on the open market, but the ability to finally crack open Iran’s military facilities was lost, as was an effort to rein in its support for terrorism and halt the rise in human rights violations.

Now Secretary of State John Kerry has met with a consortium of European banks in the awkward position of trying to “sell” them on making new investments in Iran and putting potentially billions of dollars and euros at risk in the regime.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the meeting, which followed repeated complaints by Iranian officials that they aren’t getting the benefit of the bargain under the nuclear deal, was an effort by the State Department to persuade major non-U.S. banks that doing Iran-related business is not only permitted following the relaxation of Iran sanctions, but is actually encouraged.

The irony will not be lost on these financial institutions. Most of them were similarly gathered almost 10 years ago by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to discuss Iranian banking matters, but that discussion focused on protecting the integrity of the global financial system against the risk posed by Iran.

No one has claimed that Iran has ceased to engage in much of the same conduct for which it was sanctioned, including actively supporting terrorism and building and testing ballistic missiles. But the fact that Washington is pushing non-U.S. banks to do what it is still illegal for American banks to do only demonstrate the desperation of the Iran lobby as it seeks to sway the story that Iran is still acting “moderately.”

Even though Washington has warned repeatedly that the Revolutionary Guard Corps controls broad swaths of the Iranian economy and it remains sanctioned by both the U.S. and the EU because of the central role it plays in Iran’s illicit conduct, the U.S., EU, and U.N. removed sanctions from several hundred Iranian banks and companies even though there were no assurances that the conduct of those banks and companies had changed.

The fact that the vast majority of these financial institutions are still reluctant to do business in Iran is less an indictment of Secretary Kerry’s sales skills, as much as these banks are fearful the mullahs cannot be trusted not to continue engaging in activities that will force the world to re-impose aggressive sanctions since empowering “moderates” has proven to be useless. Not to mention the risks involved in investing in to a bankrupt economy.

Last week, more than 100 Iranian members of the parliament urged Iran’s Hassan Rouhani to abandon the nuclear agreement and resume past nuclear activities if the U.S. goes ahead w ith its plan to distribute the court-approved terror funds, according to Iran’s Press TV.

Iran’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, last month accused the United States of “deception” to obstruct international trade with Iran. The U.S. agrees “on paper” to allow foreign banks to do business in Iran, “but in practice they create Iranophobia so no one does business with Iran,” Khamenei said, according to the Tehran Times.

Sen. Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said last Thursday the Iranian reaction is no surprise.

Under the nuclear agreement, “we are fully permitted to take independent actions with respect to” ballistic missiles, terrorism and human rights — “and we will,” Cardin told USA TODAY. “Congress is prepared to support the administration, and if it’s needed we will strengthen those tools.”

All of which goes to prove that European banks are correct in being reticent about re-entering the Iranian market and should refrain from doing business with the regime no matter what Kerry says.

It also is a clear signal of the Iran lobby’s desperation to keep the finger in the dike as pressure mounts in hold the Iranian regime accountable for the growing number of militant acts it undertakes.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Struggles to Keep Message off Bad News

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Iran Lobby Struggles to Keep Message off Bad News

Iran Lobby Struggles to Keep Message off Bad News

The week could not go much worse for the Iran lobby. Revelations about the outright fabrications concocted by national security staffer Ben Rhodes in pressing for passage of the Iran nuclear deal blew battleship-sized holes in the idea that the deal was a good one.

Political pressure ratcheted up quickly as Republicans denounced the alleged lying, while Democrats that supported the deal scrambled to distance themselves and urged tougher accountability of the Iranian regime.

The situation worsened as the State Department admitted to a “glitch” that erased over six minutes of video in which an answer to a question posed by Fox News reporter James Rosen as to whether or not the Obama administration had engaged in secret negotiations with the Iranian regime a full year before it said it did mysteriously disappeared only to reappear after scrutiny.

The Iran lobby has furiously tried to hold the line on the false narrative. Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund offered an editorial in Politico that was absurd as it was desperate in trying to denounce the New York Times piece that Rhodes interview was published in.

Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council was left to offering weak opinions as to why most European and Asian financial institutions have halted efforts to open up transactions with the Iranian regime.

Those same institutions were scheduled to meet with Secretary of State John Kerry this week in an apparent attempt to “save” the nuclear deal by convincing banks to do business with Iran even though they are reluctant given the tangled web of Iranian human rights violations, support for the war in Syria and violations of international sanctions against developing ballistic missiles.

Financial institutions are in the business of assessing risk. They make lending decisions solely on the basis on the risk versus the reward. For many of the world’s banks, doing business with the Iranian regime is a bad bet.

Bankers doubt Kerry will be able to change their cautious approach to Iran. They fear that even if they receive assurances from the Treasury Department, U.S. prosecutors and independent regulators might adopt a different and stricter interpretation of the rules.

They add that Iran presents multiple challenges for banks other than the prospect of breaching U.S. sanctions, including the risk of inadvertently aiding money laundering, financing terrorism and financial crime in a country that almost all the economy is run by the IRGC, and has for many years been in the financial wilderness and remains “off the grid” for most compliance systems. Also

Not helping has been a near-constant stream of dubious arrests of dual citizenship nationals by the regime which has only heightened tensions and raised even more red flags about the regime and the leadership of Hassan Rouhani.

Is the Iranian regime committed to opening up to the rest of the world or is it the same regime relying on Islamic extremism and militants? The answer so far since the nuclear deal was signed seems unequivocally the latter.

The Obama administration argues that the real issues are Iran’s poor business environment and policies that undermine investor confidence — including ballistic missile tests, arms shipments to rebels in Yemen and the imprisonment of businessmen accused of espionage.

Iranian regime officials complain that the United States has warned bankers away from deals that could run afoul of U.S. sanctions that still target the country.

The United States says that those sanctions were imposed because of Iran’s continuing human rights violations and ties to terrorist groups.

And U.S. officials said Iran needs to look to its own practices. The country routinely scores low on a number of indexes ranking countries’ business climates, including those by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Transparency International.

“The most pressing concern about doing business in Iran does not have to do with sanctions but with really grave and long-standing concerns about the risks of doing business there,” said Elizabeth Rosenberg, a fellow with the Center for a New American Security. “Inadequate transparency, potential money laundering and garden-variety corruption have nothing to do with nuclear proliferation.”

Adding to the ever increasing levels of tension were statements made by Revolutionary Guards commanders to sink American ships if they approached Iranian waters.

The senior naval officer making the threat referenced a “secret arsenal” of weapons Iran has developed or acquired that would be effective against American naval vessels.

Most likely the Iranian regime officials are referencing anti-ship missiles acquired from China or Russia according to the Washington Times, whose navies have long pursued a “carrier killer” missile capability to deter Western power projection capabilities.

“We have informed Americans that their presence in the Persian Gulf is an absolute evil,” Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi stated to state media. “Americans are aware that Iran would destroy their warships if they take a wrong measure in the region.”

His statements follow an incident in which Iranian forces captured and detained 10 U.S. sailors before parading them for propaganda purposes on state-run media.

Obviously none of this reassures anxious bankers who prize stability more than anything else. The mullahs in Tehran have demonstrated they are far from being stable.

By Michael Tomlinson