Iran Lobby

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

The Truth About Working With the Iran Lobby

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The Truth About Working With the Iran Lobby

The Truth About Working With the Iran Lobby

The New York Times magazine published an in-depth examination by David Samuels of Ben Rhodes, the 38-year-old deputy national security advisor for strategic communications in the Obama administration, who detailed his strategy for passing the Iranian nuclear agreement and close coordination between the administration and various members of the Iran lobby, including several people and organizations closely tied with the regime.

The piece is a stunning admission of how the Obama administration’s policy of appeasing the mullahs in Iran was closely coordinated with the Iran lobby and how their efforts were designed to build a PR campaign designed to project a false image of the regime and cover the most extreme actions by Iran including severe human rights violations and its sponsorship of terrorism.

Since the nuclear agreement was completed, Rhodes has worked overtime to continually keep bad news about the Iranian regime from obstructing the president’s goals of fostering new relations with the regime no matter how provocative the acts.

One example was the unlawful detaining of 10 U.S. sailors by the Iranian regime and how Rhodes worked to keep the news from breaking before President Obama’s final State of the Union speech.

As the Times recounts, Rhodes found out about the Iranian action earlier that morning but was trying to keep it out of the news until after the president’s speech. “They can’t keep a secret for two hours,” Rhodes says, with a tone of mild exasperation at the break in message discipline.

Rhodes commanded a large and sophisticated network described by the Times of officials, talking heads, columnists and newspaper reporters, web jockeys and outside advocates who can tweet at critics and tweak their stories backed up by quotations from “senior White House officials” and “spokespeople.”

The defense of the Iranian regime goes out to “the three big briefing podiums — the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon — and across the Twitterverse, where it springs to life in dozens of insta-stories, which over the next five hours don formal dress for mainstream outlets. It’s a tutorial in the making of a digital news microclimate.”

These messages were also conveyed in cooperation with regime supportive groups such as the Ploughshares Fund, which helped fund the notorious National Iranian American Council which similarly carried the administration’s messages, as well as fed them through ex-staffers who were now working with Rhodes.

The story goes on to describe how the administration had been eager to do a deal with the Iranian regime going as far back as 2012 irrespective of the regime’s countless violations and aggressive acts.

The narrative Rhodes developed centered around the perception that “moderates” led by Hassan Rouhani beat “hardliners” and provided the opening to do a deal with Iran and empower these “moderates.” It was a well-worn lure the mullahs had tossed out time and time again, and in Rhodes, they found a receptive and willing audience for their lies.

“The idea that there was a new reality in Iran was politically useful to the Obama administration. By obtaining broad public currency for the thought that there was a significant split in the regime, and that the administration was reaching out to moderate-minded Iranians who wanted peaceful relations with their neighbors and with America, Obama was able to evade what might have otherwise been a divisive but clarifying debate over the actual policy choices that his administration was making,” the Times wrote.

An aggressive digital outreach campaign was launched in support of the nuclear deal that included using the Twitter handle @TheIranDeal to ensure no negative tweet about the deal passed without a rebuttal, as well as enlisting journalists who supported the Iranian regime such as Laura Rozen of Al-Monitor, who essentially served as an automatic retweeter for the administration and Iran lobby on the subject.

The White House point person during the later stage of the negotiations was Rob Malley, a favored troubleshooter who is currently running negotiations that could keep the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in power, another high priority item for the Iranian regime.

At one point Rhodes even acknowledges that regime leader Hassan Rouhani and Javad Zarif, the regime foreign minister, are in fact not “real reformers,” which makes his work to sell the deal to the American public one of the greatest deceptions ever played on them.

The condemnation and reaction was swift and unequivocal as John Podhoretz took the administration to task in the New York Post:

The Iran deal, you may recall, was wildly unpopular with the American people. To ensure senators didn’t cast a two-thirds vote against it and kill it, the White House set up a digital response “war room” whose purpose was relentlessly to make the case that a vote against the deal was a vote for war, he writes.

It could only work if water-carriers did the White House’s job for it, and nonprofit water-carriers did their faithful duty. “We created an echo chamber,” Rhodes tells Samuels about the journalists and think-tankers who were discussing the Iran deal based almost entirely on information given to them by the White House. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say,” Podhoretz adds.

The reality of the Times piece is to shine a bright light on how disingenuous the entire debate was around the Iran nuclear deal; a deal that has empowered a weakened, unstable Iranian regime and allowed it to continue during a time following the Arab Spring and protests over the 2009 uprisings in which it teetered on the brink of collapse.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iraq Looms Large in Iranian Regime Plans for Control

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Iraq Looms Large in Iranian Regime Plans for Control

Iraq Looms Large in Iranian Regime Plans for Control

It has been well documented how the Iranian regime has gone all-in supporting the Assad regime in Syria with all resources at its disposal, including cash, weapons, fighters, and even diplomacy in recruiting the Russians to fight in support as well.

For the mullahs in Tehran, Syria is a key linchpin in their grand plan to build a Shia arc of influence across the Middle East and they have fought tooth and nail to preserve the Assad regime since its collapse could lead to the type of regime change within Iran they have long feared.

But now Iraq is looming just as large for them as a prize worth defending and the mullahs see an opportunity in the turmoil that is now roiling Iraq.

Remember that under the maligned tenure of former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki the Iranian regime had literally run the Iraqi government, forcing the ouster of Sunni partners from the coalition government which then provided the ground for ISIS spreading out of Syria and into Iraq’s western provinces and setting the stage for the quick takeover of Mosul.

This weekend however saw a new threat to Iraq’s stability, as followers of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr staged a protest by storming and taking over the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad’s fortified International Zone; ostensibly over government corruption. The protesters were angry of the government’s failure to fight corruption within the institutions and particularly to oust Maliki and his men from various security and government apparatus.

But the takeover may portend a power struggle between Iraqi and Iranian Shiite factions over who controls Iraq as the Iranian regime has armed, trained and supported Shiite militias that are on par with the Iraqi army in terms of capabilities, spurring many Iraqis to resent Iranian influence over their country.

During the takeover Sadr departed for Iran in a meeting that many analysts suspected was an effort to broker a power-sharing arrangement with the mullahs in Tehran. His departure came as a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, “expressed Iran’s readiness to use all its links in line with paving the way for Iraqi talks,” according to an official statement carried by Iran’s state-controlled news agency.

Though Sadr is considered by some in Iran’s political establishment as an unpredictable partner, he is unlikely to buck the wishes of a key patron, said Kenneth Pollack, a Middle East expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

“I can’t remember him ever going against the Iranians,” said Pollack in the Wall Street Journal. “Whatever he has done has tended to be quite consistent with Iranian interests.”

A more practical suggestion for Sadr’s actions being made is that he may simply be applying pressure on his Iranian patrons in order to elevate his own standing within Iraq and make clear his militias and followers deserve the lion’s share of political patronage within the country.

Sadr’s history of close coordination with Iran brings back memories of the bloody battles his forces fought against U.S. and coalition forces during the sectarian uprising in Iraq from 2005-06, which caused scores of American deaths, especially with explosive devices built by Iran’s Quds Forces.

Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney explained his view of how Sadr may be actually working to strengthen the Iranian hold over Iraq.

“What you’re seeing right now is that (radical Shiite cleric) Moqtada al-Sadr is responsible for creating a greater wedge when the current Iraq prime minister wanted to make Iraq more independent from Iran,” McInerney told WND and Radio America.

“You have a combination of Iranian Shiite and Iraqi Shiite competing as to who controls the government and who controls Iraq. That’s the bottom line of what’s going on over there right now,” he added.

Many critics of the Obama administration’s policies in Iraq, including the withdrawal of U.S. forces, point out the similarities of how the U.S. has created power vacuums the Iranian regime has been eager to fill and expand its influence in an effort to build a perception throughout the region that Iran was a powerful force, when in fact its holds over Iraq, Syria and Yemen have become more precarious.

That policy of appeasing the Iranian regime has been contrasted during the presidential campaign Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s more hawkish views on Iran, especially holding the regime accountable for its behavior in the areas of human rights and sponsorship of terrorism.

The fact that both candidates may end up being the presumptive nominees this fall has forced the Iran lobby to step up its campaign to influence the election debate, especially aiming key messages at the Clinton campaign in the hopes of convincing it to follow through on Obama administration policies that have grown lenient on the Iranian regime.

Proponents of U.S.-Iran diplomacy have voiced concern in the past over the fate of relations between the two countries if (Clinton) succeeds Obama. “I am worried about her instinct,” Trita Parsi the head of the National Iranian American Council, told The Huffington Post in January. “She is far too inclined to think that only pressure works.”

Clinton vowed in a speech in September 2015:

“I will build a coalition to counter Iran’s proxies, particularly Hezbollah.  . . . Beyond Hezbollah, I’ll crack down the shipment of weapons to Hamas and push Turkey and Qatar to end their financial support. I’ll press our partners in the region to prevent aircraft and ships owned by companies linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard from entering their territories and urge our partners to block Iranian planes from entering their airspace on their way to Yemen and Syria. Across the board, I will vigorously enforce and strengthen if necessary the American sanctions on Iran and its Revolutionary Guard for its sponsorship of terrorism, its ballistic missile program, and other destabilizing activities. I’ll enforce and strengthen if necessary our restrictions on sending arms to Iran and from Iran, to bad actors like Syria. And I’ll impose these sanctions on everyone involved in these activities, whether they’re in Iran or overseas. This will be a special imperative as some of the U.N. sanctions lapse, so the U.S. and our partners have to step up. . . .”

We can hope she continues on that track and ignores the entreaties of Parsi and his ilk from the Iran lobby.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Tries to Influence Presidential Campaign

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The Iranian lobby, led by the National Iranian American Council, has decided to up its efforts to influence the ongoing U.S. presidential election by directing messages at the campaigns of the front runners.

The reason for this is simple: The NIAC and other Iranian regime supporters want to do whatever they can to ensure that a new incoming administration continue to toe the line in appeasing the mullahs in Tehran and support a deeply flawed nuclear agreement that has allowed the regime to continue its militant ways without serious repercussions.

In an editorial by Tyler Cullis and Ryan Costello, the NIAC laid out a presumptive roadmap for Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton on how to “woo back Iranian Americans,” but in reality it should be viewed more as a roadmap to “helping the Iranian regime.”

Cullis and Costello spell out how her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, garnered overwhelming support from an internal poll of NIAC supporters – Sanders received 62 percent vs. 19 percent for Clinton – based on a perception he was more anti-war.

“Clearly, Iranian Americans who have gravitated towards Sanders have largely done so for the same reasons as other Sanders supporters – because of a distrust of the Washington establishment, anti-war and anti-interventionist sentiments, disillusion with incrementalist political change and concerns about increased economic injustice,” Cullis and Costello write.

“But Clinton’s approach toward Iran is also a major reason why she lagged behind Sanders among Iranian Americans.”

What is amazing is how the NIAC is attempting to portray support for Sanders principally being driven by foreign policy concerns when almost every poll taken during the primary season has shown his supporters backing his domestic views on the economy, wage inequality and regulation of Wall Street as the energizing factors in his campaign.

The NIAC is taking this position largely because it can read public opinion polls and see how American opinion has shifted on the Iranian regime and the rise of Islamic extremism in the wake of a worsened Syrian situation and almost regular terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels since the deal.

Cullis and Costello have taken Clinton to task for her previous statements against normalizing relations with the Iranian regime, especially if the regime continued its support for terrorism and regional conflict.

“The dispute reflected the debate eight years ago when Clinton, along with other candidates, attacked Obama for his statement that he would sit down with hostile nations, including Iran, without preconditions,” they write.

“Clinton’s stance toward further Iran negotiations might not ultimately be that different than Sanders, but her attacks on normalization send a worrying signal that engagement would be the exception rather than the rule,” they add.

One cannot help but notice a slight hint of desperation in the NIAC and other Iranian regime supporters as they take a deeper dive into the U.S. presidential campaign as they are faced with the very real possibility of having either a Clinton or Trump administration already publicly committed to opposing Iranian extremism.

The lobby’s efforts also highlight the one significant weakness of the Iran nuclear deal in that it is an executive action by President Obama and can just as easily be undone by a new president. The tenuous nature of the deal providing the mullahs in Tehran with relief from sanctions is worrisome to supporters such as Cullis and Costello.

The fact that the NIAC is upping its game in order to try and shape the public perception of how these candidates should perceive the Iranian regime is – on the surface – pretty pathetic and indicative of how weak its position is.

It also explains why other parts of the Iran lobby are making blatant warnings that failure of the deal will lead to serious consequences; although one finds it hard to believe things could get much worse in the Middle East right now.

One of those making those statements is Seyed Hossein Mousavian, formerly of the regime’s National Security Council who wrote in Huffington Post:

“If the deal collapses, not only would there be no chance for any compromise between Iran and the U.S on any other issue, but Iran would also lose its faith in the Security Council,” he writes in the hyperbole that has become typical of the lobby’s efforts.

“Unfortunately, there are powerful forces in U.S. politics that seek to increase U.S.-Iran enmity and revert Iran and the United States back onto the path to war. These special interest groups are doing everything in their power to destroy the landmark diplomatic agreement and have strong sway over Congress, which is pushing for over a dozen new sanctions against Iran,” he added.

These efforts may end up being futile gestures as the Iranian regime seems intent on proving wrong every promise the Iran lobby makes.

For example Iran’s parliament voted to boost the country’s missile capabilities. Members approved an additional article to the next five-year development plan. The article will see Iran’s missile production grow and anti-missile capabilities enhanced even though the United Nations and U.S. considers such missile development in violation of existing sanctions banning them.

Iranian state-run news also reported that an Iranian woman was reportedly publicly flogged 100 times in the Iranian state of Isfahan for an alleged extramarital affair four years ago. The incident earned condemnation from human rights and Iranian dissident groups and continues to highlight the regime’s disregard for human rights.

No matter what the Iran lobby says about the presidential campaign, it’s almost a given the regime will act to contradict it.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Tries to Influence Presidential Campaign

Iran Lobby Tries to Influence Presidential Campaign

Iran Lobby Starts Blame Game for Failed Nuclear Agreement

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Iran Lobby Starts Blame Game for Failed Nuclear Agreement

Iran Lobby Starts Blame Game for Failed Nuclear Agreement

The Iran lobby is at it once again. The various supporters, apologists and columnists that make up the spider web of support for the mullahs in Tehran is now spinning away a tale blaming the U.S. for the current failure of the nuclear deal only reached last year.

The twisted logic being espoused by faithful regime supporters such as Paul R. Pillar and Tyler Cullis is that the U.S. is not fulfilling its end of the bargain by allowing the Iranian regime unfettered access to U.S. currency markets and promising not to go after any foreign entity that moves forward to do business with Iran for violations of sanctions and restrictions on U.S. currency.

The reek of the arguments being made by these regime supporters is about as foul as the stench coming off a landfill and just as pleasant to experience.

Writing in the National Interest, Pillar tries to make the inane argument that U.S. sanctions are the chief impediment to successfully implementing the nuclear deal.

“The extensive and complicated U.S.-imposed sanctions are still the chief impediment to implementation, thus continuing to demonstrate how U.S. sanctions can actually reduce U.S. influence,” Pillar writes.

“When the complicated and cumbersome U.S. sanctions scare European banks away from making possible the kind of renewed trade with Iran that the European allies understood to be an intended consequence of the agreement, this presents a problem of U.S. credibility not only with Iran but with the Europeans. Talk among JCPOA opponents on Capitol Hill about imposing still more sanctions on Iran, in the name of whatever cause, damages U.S. credibility even further,” he adds.

What Pillar neglects to mention is that the history of U.S. sanctions on Iran has been a cumulative process, each added as Iran commits another transgression or gross violation of human rights or international law. Sanctions did not appear magically in one fell swoop, they occurred over years of Iranian provocations.

Pillar also tries to posit the theory that U.S. credibility is on the line and it is, just not the way he is proposing. Since the nuclear deal was agreed to, the Iranian regime has made a mockery of compliance by pushing the boundaries in other areas such as launching ballistic missiles, widening the wars in Syria and Yemen, detaining and parading U.S. sailors and rigging elections to eliminate virtually all other condidates.

Of course Pillar cannot cite these since it would undermine his arguments and only serve as a reminder as to why U.S. sanctions have not all fallen completely away. He also neglects to mention that many sanctions, including those related to access to U.S. currency exchanges by Iran were never part of the nuclear agreement since they were put in place after human rights violations and sponsorship of terrorism incidents.

The fact that the Iran lobby and regime argued so strenuously against linking related issues to the nuclear agreement such as development of ballistic missiles and human rights to the nuclear deal now works against them in arguing that all sanctions need to be lifted.

The credibility of the U.S. would indeed be on the line if it lifted these restrictions in order to appease an Iranian regime that sees no reason to curtail its military and terrorism activities. The rest of the civilized world would come to realize that no one would stand in the way of the militancy of the mullahs of Tehran.

Tyler Cullis if the National Iranian American Council, another long-time supporter of the regime, makes a similar irrational argument in the regime-sympathetic blog Lobelog.com and echoes the party line Pillar is pushing almost word for word.

“Iran’s ballistic missile program is not a serious threat. Without any real offensive capabilities, the program is second-rate and possesses only deterrent value. Surely, when compared to the current problems in the region, Iran’s ballistic missile program ranks low as a factor playing into the ongoing tumult,” Cullis writes.

It is shocking how plainly stupid the logic he uses here in arguing that developing a ballistic missile capable of hitting most of Europe, Asia and Africa is not a problem. An intercontinental ballistic missile doesn’t have to carry a nuclear warhead to be devastating. A simple biological or chemical warhead or even a mere 2,000 pounds of high explosives can do more than enough damage.

How does Iran’s development of a missile capable of hitting Berlin, Rome or Vienna serve to deter threats to the regime? Do the Swiss plan to assault Tehran with chocolate thereby requiring the mullahs to need a missile that can strike at Geneva?

Ballistic missiles by their very nature are first-strike weapons. They cannot be recalled after launching. They are virtually impossible to bring down. What’s next? Iranian ballistic missile submarines?

Cullis neglects to mention that the development of such missiles is already restricted by the United Nations and their launching is a violation which is separate and apart from the nuclear deal. But Cullis most strongly mimics Pillar in decrying the lack of flowing American dollars to the regime.

“Iran is not merely failing to see substantial trade and investment in Iran by foreign parties, but it is also unable to fully access much of its overseas oil revenues. These diminished expectations in Tehran could ultimately undermine the Rouhani government,” he writes.

Cullis again neglects to mention that Iran’s first moves once the deal was in place was to purchase $8 billion in Russian military hardware and take delivery of advanced anti-aircraft missile batteries. It wasn’t to shore up a crippled economy, bring Iranian citizens better healthcare or improve their shattered environment. Not even buying an iPhone or bringing in a neighborhood Starbucks was on the mullahs shopping list.

Cullis blames the U.S. reaction to Tehran’s launching of illegal ballistic missiles as the root cause of new tensions, but gives a pass to Iranian mullahs for launching the missiles in the first place! That’s like blaming a pedestrian for getting in the way of a drunk driver while crossing a street only to get run over.

It is even funnier when Cullis blames the situation on “hawks” within Iran’s government who are seeking to kill the deal as a perceived threat to their power. Of course, Cullis not too long ago wrote glowing pieces about the results of the parliamentary elections detailing how the “hawks” had been defeated and a new era of moderation was being ushered in.

Cullis and Pillar cannot have it both ways and their verbal gymnastics cannot hide the fact that Iranian regime is acting in bad faith and is demanding even more as it uses the threats of walking away from a nuclear deal it already has broken as a leverage point.

Washington should ignore these threats and continue to hold the regime accountable for every deceitful act it commits.

By Michael Tomlinson

Mullahs in Tehran Only Have Themselves to Blame

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Mullahs in Tehran Only Have Themselves to Blame

Mullahs in Tehran Only Have Themselves to Blame

Iran’s economy still struggles along anemically. The Iranian people find commodities in short supply with high prices and poor job prospects. Thousands of young Iranian men are being shipped off to fight in the deepening Syrian war, while at home Iranian women continue to be oppressed and denied job opportunities and any freedom to decide their own lives.

The mullahs in Tehran and the regime leaders such as Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani have sought to blame at various times: the U.S., the U.S. Congress, Hollywood movies, decadent American culture, Starbucks, American consumerism, Christians, Jews, Sunnis, Donald Trump and even each other for the ills that plague Iran.

What they have failed to do is look themselves in the mirror and focus blame squarely where it belongs: themselves.

The New York Times editorial board published a piece that questions the deep level of corruption that still pervades the regime government and economy, as well as the regime’s commitment to support terrorism and human rights abuses that remain rampant.

“One impediment is that most American sanctions remain in place because of Iran’s involvement in terrorism and human rights abuses and its testing of ballistic missiles. Iran knew that lifting all American sanctions was never part of the nuclear deal,” the Times wrote.

“Experts say Iranian banks are badly run, politicized and lack transparency — warning signs for risk-averse foreign banks. Iran’s warlike behavior in the region — supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, arming Hezbollah and testing missiles — further discourages investment.”

As President Obama said recently, “Businesses want to go where they feel safe, where they don’t see massive controversy, where they can be confident that transactions are going to operate normally.”

The Times is correct in that Iran’s behavior is the source of most of the problems it encounters, but it only scratches the surface of the true problems plaguing Iran since the Times diagnoses the symptom, but not the cause.

That cause lies in the foundation of the velayat-e-Faqih system in the first place as a religious theocracy dominated by a strict interpretation of Islam that allows no compromise or quarter. It regards even other Muslim faiths as blasphemous and generally seeks to solve its problems through the use of terror, war and violence.

The collision of religious rule and commerce do not produce good results on the whole and while the Times correctly points the obstacles to foreign companies and banks face in trying to restart business in Iran, it misses the correct prescription to fix it, which is regime change and the implementation of a true, non-secular democratic government in which religion plays no part in its governance.

As many Iranian dissident groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran have long pointed out, the transition of Iran from a theocracy to a true democracy is the only viable pathway for regional stability and peace.

The fact that Iran’s extremist rulers have sought to shift blame for the nation’s woes onto anyone they can blame hides the fact that corruption and violence have become so ingrained within the policies and practices of the Iranian regime, the rest of world has come to accept it as a status quo; much in the same way we’ve become accustomed to the paranoid vitriol that often flows from North Korea.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and the United Nations human rights monitors have long documented the cruelty and barbarism that occurs within Iran, but over time even the most despicable acts such as the execution of juveniles have become commonplace and no longer merit worldwide media scrutiny.

Maybe that is the regime’s game plan, to play the long game and bore the rest of the world with endless streams of violence and inhumanity we take it as common practice and no longer react with revulsion?

Recently, some news media reported on an Iranian teenager who was told to “retain her chastity,” but instead bravely shared her account of being stopped by morality police for having the wrong hairstyle, amid a crackdown on women veiling incorrectly.

The 15-year-old and her 12-year-old friend from school reported seeing the morality police and hiding while they attempted to tuck their hair under their veils, but were stopped for having hair too close to their faces and wearing make-up.

After the ordeal, described by the 15-year-old as “humiliating and harrowing,” she decided to share a video account of what happened on social media.

Anywhere else in the world, viral social media such as this would generate firestorms of attention, but in Iran where a great cyber wall keeps social media in check, incidents large and small like this are only intermittingly revealed.

It is also through the diligent work of the Iran lobby network of columnists, bloggers, lobbyists and PR spinners that continually fight to keep a lid on such incidents and discount them as isolated ones and not representative of the regime as a whole.

But such actions are par for the course with the Iranian regime, which uses threats to try and force agreements.

The governor of Iran’s central bank, Valiollah Seif, threatened to walk away from the nuclear deal if the United States did not give Iran access to the American financial system during a 90-minute speech in Washington last week.

In response, Matthew Levitt, a former Treasury Department official and who now works at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Monday that “Iran seems to expect the Obama administration to provide benefits beyond those in the nuclear deal.” Levitt noted that Seif admitted that Iran has not changed how it does business, and added “that Iran has not changed is at the core of its problem.”

As the New York Times notes, the problem is not with the rest of the world, but with the mullahs themselves.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iranian Regime No Longer Hiding Its Military Intentions

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Iranian Regime No Longer Hiding Its Military Intentions

Iranian Regime No Longer Hiding Its Military Intentions

The Iranian regime held its annual Army Day parade as a showcase to pose itself as a mighty power in the region, but more importantly for the mullahs it provided an opportunity to show off parts of the long-awaited new S-300 air defense system from Russia.

While the advanced anti-aircraft missiles were originally ordered by Iran in 2007, their delivery was held up due to the imposition of sanctions related to Iranian regime’s violations concerning the development of nuclear weapons. Only after the nuclear agreement was reached last year was the delivery allowed to go through.

The delivery of the missile system is significant since it instantly brings the regime’s air defense to a much more modern and sophisticated level; a major issue for the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard since without it, any effort to restart its nuclear program would be subject to air attack by the U.S. and its allies.

The fact that the mullahs pushed hard to remove weapon systems such as this and the development of new ballistic missiles from the nuclear negotiations spoke volumes of their determination to upgrade their military capabilities far beyond where they stand today, particularly since they see this the only path to survival of the vast internal discontent.

According to pictures published by the semi-official ISNA news agency, S-300 missile tubes and the radar equipment were shown during the military parade held in southern Tehran.

Iran and Russia are also in talks on a sale of the advanced Sukhoi SU-30 fighter, another proposal criticized by the U.S. The regime’s current air force fleet dates from the pre-revolutionary era of the former Shah.

Speaking at Sunday’s parade, Hassan Rouhani insisted Iran’s plans to upgrade its military capabilities were defensive in nature, referring to the worst conflicts in the Middle East.

“Our military, political and economic power is not directed against neighboring countries and the countries of the Islamic world.

“When Baghdad was threatened by terrorists, the Islamic Republic of Iran responded to the call of the people, the army and the Iraqi government to defend Baghdad and the holy places,” he said, referring to the surge of the ISIL group in June 2014.

The argument he makes is similar to those consistently made by the Iran lobby from groups such as the National Iranian American Council which has sought to portray the Iranian regime as some sort of dedicated freedom fighter against Islamic extremism. The only difficulty with that portrayal is that Iran’s mullahs are the ones spreading it, not the other way around.

The beefing up of its military capability, including the multiple test launches of new ballistic missiles, comes at a time when the Iranian regime is also ramping up its military presence in Syria in support of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, except now the Iranians are not even trying to hide their deepening presence even as they pretend to advocate for peace talks.

Fearing that Russia may side with the U.S. and approve the removal of Assad from power, the Iranian government is now, more than ever, investing in propping up the regime’s dwindling army and air force.

“They [the Iranians] saw it as an opportunity to move closer to the regime,” one U.S. official told the Financial Times.

The Russian military pullback announced last month threatens Tehran’s position not only in Syria, but in the region. If Assad is ousted, Iranian military presence in the country will be diminished and Iran will no longer be able to present itself as a player in the region.

Iranian regime officials have in number of times reiterated that Syria is their front line and if they don’t fight the enemy in Syria, soon they have to do it in Tehran, referring to the strategic importance of Syrian dictatorship for the Ayatollahs in Iran. That’s why Iran is deploying more troops to Damascus. Those deployments, though, come at a cost. At least four Iranian soldiers have been killed in one week. Iranian media have reported that more than 150 Guards died in more than a year of fighting in Syria.

Tehran has kept its army at home for decades and tried to keep conflict at bay through a strategy — manned and managed by the Guards — of fighting its regional rivals through proxies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Syria is crucial to its success. It is on the ‘frontline’ with Israel and is an important bridge to Hezbollah, Iran’s Shia proxy force in Lebanon.

Iran has vowed that it will not compromise on the fate of Assad, and backs his offer to include opposition figures in a national unity government while ruling out a “transitional governing body with full executive powers” — the formula agreed at talks in Geneva in 2012.

In the meantime, the high casualty rate among Revolutionary Guards — whose “military advisers” are reckoned by a western diplomat in Tehran to number fewer than 10,000 — has prompted Tehran to deploy its regular army to bolster Assad’s forces in Syria.

The stakes are high for the Iranian regime as it again sent Qassem Soleimani, the notorious leader of its Quds Force, to Moscow again in violation of international travel bans restricting his movements to discuss with Russian military officials on the deteriorating situation in Syria and the delivery of nearly $8 billion of new weapons just purchased by Iran.

The delivery of new military hardware is viewed by Tehran as an important adjunct to the use of Hezbollah proxies, Quds Force fighters, Basiji paramilitaries and thousands of paid mercenary Afghans that the Iranian regime has been sending to Syria in a desperate bid to keep Assad in power.

According to the BBC, the first Afghan militias began to arrive in 2012 in Syria.

“The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps decided that the Syrian military could not succeed on their own,” one former Afghan fighter told the BBC. “The frontlines were too depleted and men were trying to avoid conscription.”

The Iranians decided to set up a 50,000-strong National Defense Force to fight alongside the Syrian army.

With a shortage of willing fighters inside Syria, they began looking elsewhere – signing up Iranian Afghans, Lebanese, Iraqi and Pakistani Shia recruits. The fact that the mullahs are now committing Iranian regular army units to the Syrian fight shows a significant leap in their desperation over the situation there.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, one of the leading Iranian dissident groups in the world, took note of these changes in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat on Sunday in which she pointed out that the Iranian regime would collapse consequentially should Assad be toppled in Syria, which is why Iran’s regime has been trying to keep Assad in power at any cost.

“If Assad falls out of power in Damascus, then the Iranian regime will evidently follow and collapse in Tehran,” Mrs. Rajavi said.

By Michael Tomlinson

Meeting of Arab States Shows Challenge of Confronting Iran

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Meeting of Arab States Shows Challenge of Confronting Iran

Secretary of State John Kerry talks with Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, right, after they and Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, left, gathered for a family photo at the start of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Ministerial meetings in Manama, Bahrain, Thursday, April 7, 2016. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP)

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a regional political and economic union of Arab States within the Persian Gulf and includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Since 1981 when it was founded, it has come to form a cohesive union of Arab states that share in the massive oil wealth of the Persian Gulf and within the last few years has created military alliances to combat the rise of ISIS and the increased militant forays of the Iranian regime.

These states have found themselves at the forefront of various Iranian provocations ranging from Bahrain battling insurgents armed by Iranian agents to Saudi Arabia which is trying to stem a full-scale insurrection on its border with neighboring Yemen fueled by Houthi rebels armed, trained and advised by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

These Arab states have also intercepted considerable amounts of arms being smuggled by Iran to various proxies and terrorists to fuel insurrection and strikes at the various states in a stark reminder of how committed the mullahs in Tehran are in destabilizing their Arab neighbors.

All of this highlights one of the untruths uttered by the Iran lobby during the run up to the nuclear deal last year which was securing a deal would empower moderate forces within Iran to take greater control over Iran’s government and temper its more extreme elements.

We now know since the deal was agreed to last July, the Iranian regime has taken every opportunity to step up its military activities throughout the region; from Syria on the Mediterranean to Yemen on the Indian Ocean.

It is against this backdrop that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Bahrain for a meeting of the GCC whose members are intent on reading Kerry the riot act about the rise of Iranian extremism.

Part of that process included statements from Kerry and Bahrain’s foreign minister on Thursday urging Iran to stop escalating its provocative behavior and pursue a more constructive foreign policy.

Kerry is in Bahrain to consult with officials from Bahrain and other Gulf Arab countries frustrated by Tehran’s policies and lay the groundwork for meetings between President Barack Obama and Gulf Arab leaders in Riyadh later this month. The president held a meeting in Washington last year with Gulf Arab leaders and senior officials to pledge military aid and calm allies’ nerves about Tehran as the nuclear deal neared completion.

“Today we are noticing two things that we kind have expected,” Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s foreign minister, said, outlining the views of Bahrain and the GCC. “The missile program is moving forward with full support of the leadership of the Islamic Republic and we are seeing the hegemonic interventions through proxies in several parts of our region continuing unabated.”

While Kerry once again stressed the positive virtues of the nuclear agreement, the reality is that the almost slavish dedication to keeping afloat a nuclear deal that is already – for all intents and purposes – dead from the Iranian point of view has allowed the Iranian regime to move forward aggressively on several other fronts now that sanctions have been lifted and it can access a new credit line of $100 billion to replenish its military losses at a critical time for the mullahs.

That reality has forced Kerry to make a complex argument here to the ministers of the GCC, where he repeated that the U.S. would continue to lift the economic sanctions against Iran that it agreed to as part of the nuclear accord, even while imposing new ones to counter Tehran’s missile launches, an effort now underway in the United Nations Security Council.

The bipolar nature of American diplomacy has caused consternation and confusion among America’s allies such as the Gulf states and what can only be construed as unbridled joy amongst the mullahs who are taking advantage of the mixed messages.

But sentiment was hardening against Iran and the weak administration position as the editorial board for the Washington Post decried the ramp up in missile testing by Iran and the need to sanction the regime.

“Tehran’s behavior comes as no surprise to the many observers who predicted the deal would not alter its hostility to the West or its defiance of international norms. Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s response has also been much as critics predicted: It has done its best to play down Iran’s violations and avoid any conflict out of fear that the regime might walk away from a centerpiece of President Obama’s legacy,” the Post wrote.

In reference to a push by Iran to lift restrictions on accessing U.S. currency markets, the Post said “Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the accord’s architect, said Tuesday that the regime ‘deserves the benefits of the deal they struck.’ There’s logic to that. But there’s also a problem of reciprocity: Should the United States take steps not strictly mandated by the text of the nuclear accord at a time when Iran is testing nuclear-capable missiles?”

What has all this wrought? Not the peace and moderation promised by Iran lobby supporters such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, but instead the world has witnessed a global military spending boost of nearly $1.7 trillion in 2015, the first increase in several years as a result of Iranian regime’s rise and increase in global terrorism and proxy wars fueled by Iran according to a new report.

Tiny Qatar has signed a deal for $7.6 billion to buy 24 Dassault Rafal fighter jets from France. Kuwait on Tuesday finalized a deal to purchase 28 Eurofighter Typhoons, a deal estimated to be worth around $8 billion; all in response to the uncertainty the Iranian regime is sowing.

By Laura Carnahan

 

Iranian Regime Steps Up Provocative Actions

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Iranian Regime Steps Up Provocative Actions

Iranian Regime Steps Up Provocative Actions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Michael Tomlinson

Iranian Regime Delivers Nowruz Message of Hostility

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Iranian Regime Delivers Nowruz Message of Hostility

Iranian Regime Delivers Nowruz Message of Hostility

This weekend marks the start of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, which coincides with the spring equinox and includes many traditions such as a spring cleaning of one’s home, visiting with family and friends and feasting. It is regarded as the most important holiday in Iran and is always a prime opportunity for the Iranian regime to make a strategic and public point each year.

This year, top mullah Ali Khamenei did not disappoint in delivering a Nowruz message that could be considered an annual laundry list of grievances and perceived slights against the regime by the U.S. and was a reminder of just how ridiculous the Iran lobby’s contentions were of spurring a new “moderate” Iran after the nuclear deal.

Khamenei on Sunday said sanctions continue to bite the country’s economy, and again warned against trusting the U.S. — further indicating that the nuclear deal has not changed the mullah’s behavior towards West.

“They removed the sanctions in paper only,” Khamenei said in a televised address. “We don’t have any problem with the American people. What we are dealing with here is the politicians. They are the enemies.”

Khamenei’s remarks came after President Obama delivered his own Nowruz message to the Iranian people with his hopes for a more peaceful future. It obviously fell on the deaf ears of Khamenei.

“In Western countries and places which are under U.S. influence, our banking transactions and the repatriation of our funds from their banks face problems … because (banks) fear the Americans,” he said.

“The U.S. Treasury … acts in such a way that big corporations, big institutions and big banks do not dare to come and deal with Iran,” Khamenei added. The Central Bank of Iran has also said remaining U.S. sanctions have scared off European firms.

To drive the point home, the stage on which Khamenei sat carried a giant banner reading “the year of the Resistance Economy: Action and Implementation”, his chosen slogan for the Iranian year 1395 that began on Sunday. The banner was a not-too-subtle declaration of how the mullahs view the relationship the regime will have in the upcoming year with the rest of the world and it isn’t one of moderation.

“The candidates for the American presidency have competed to vilify Iran in their speeches, and this is a sign of hostility,” he added as he portrayed all of the candidates running for office as enemies of the regime.

Khamenei’s comments come also following an announcement that the regime’s Revolutionary Guard intends to build a statue commemorating the capture of ten U.S. sailors by the regime.

“There are very many photographs of the major incident of arresting US Marines in the Persian Gulf in the media and we intend to build a symbol out of them inside one of our naval monuments,” said Ali Fadavi, the head of the Guard’s naval forces in comments made to Iran’s Defense Press news agency.

It is expected the statue will built on Kharg, a small Iranian island in the Persian Gulf close to where the servicemen were captured, the Telegraph reported.

The regime never seems to miss an opportunity to publicly troll the U.S. and announce its antagonism and vitriol with almost child-like glee. It is a remarkable affirmation of how incredibly silly the Iran lobby’s positions on moderating Iran have been over the past several years.

Another example of that hypocrisy came in the form of an editorial published by the National Iranian American Council discussing Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, in which Shervin Vahedi lauded his most recent report criticizing the regime for brutal human rights abuses as somehow showing it was making clear progress towards improvements.

Vahedi bases those comments on a lone section discussing how the regime’s Supreme Court signaled it might take up the issue of executing citizens over drug-related offenses since the bulk of executions are said to be for similar offenses.

What Vahedi – and the most of the Iran lobby – ignore is how the regime uses trumped up drug offenses as a convenient means of executing and eliminating political dissidents, religious minorities and anyone else that opposes their rule.

Vahedi also reiterates much of what Shaheed has already cited in terms of the abuses and crackdowns aimed at journalists and artists, but does not make any comment condemning the abuses, nor calling for changes in Iran’s policies or in the regime’s leadership.

He only gives a limp and half-hearted endorsement from NIAC of continuing Shaheed’s mandate. You can almost imagine how difficult it was for the NIAC to utter even that small concession in the face of such overwhelming evidence.

For many languishing in the regime’s prisons, this is not a happy Nowruz for them or their families. The NIAC would do better to acknowledge their suffering and call for an end to it.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Excuses Get Stranger and Stranger

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Iran Lobby Excuses Get Stranger and Stranger

Iran Lobby Excuses Get Stranger and Stranger

The Iran lobby has offered up a variety of excuses for the actions and militant behavior of the Iranian regime ranging from pleas of peace-loving intent and political moderation to feigned ignorance and indignation over escalating human rights abuses and proxy wars throughout the Middle East.

One of the newest lines being trotted out by the Iran lobby is the absurd notion that Iran has never started a war.

A scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, took that claim to task in a column for Commentary Magazine.

He showcased comments made by Iranian regime apologists Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor, and retired Congressman Ron Paul who said “There’s no history to show that Iran are aggressive people. When’s the last time they invaded a country? Over 200 years ago!”

“Iran has not launched an aggressive war in modern history (unlike the US or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of ‘no first strike.’ This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders,” said Cole.

The Iranian regime knows when it has got a good thing going. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif yesterday tweeted, “Iran hasn’t attacked any country in 250 years. But when Saddam rained missiles on us and gassed our people for 8 yrs, no one helped us.”

These are absurd comments when looked at in the context of what the mullahs have wrought since the Islamic revolution in 1979. The mullahs preferred method of aggression is to use proxies, either in the form of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah or local militias such as in Iraq and Yemen.

Hezbollah alone has served as a conduit of death and destruction for decades by carrying acts of terror either under the direction of or direct cooperation with Revolutionary Guards and Quds Forces personnel. In the most recent Syrian conflict, senior Iranian commanders have been in the field directing combat operations and even getting killed.

It’s noteworthy that Syria never posed a direct conflict with Iran, not even sharing borders, but the mullahs felt it necessary to engage in armed conflict there and even expanded it by calling for Russia to join in the bloodshed and widen the war.

Since the revolution, Iran has been involved in military campaigns in:

  • 1982-present: Lebanon
  • 2003-present: Iraq
  • 2006: Israel (via Hezbollah)
  • 2011-present: Syria
  • 2015-present: Yemen

Not exactly a record of pacifism, but certainly in line with the extremist nature of the regime and the duplicitous nature of the excuses made by the Iran lobby.

Another example of that stranger than fiction messaging came when regime-controlled media blasted the report issued by Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, which blistered the regime for appalling human rights abuses, including a near historic 1,000 executions in 2015 and a distressing willingness of the mullahs to kill children and women.

Iran Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari criticized the recent report as “biased,” “politically motivated” and “prejudicial, Tasnim news agency reported.

He said that the report is “imbalanced” and has been prepared based on “unreliable information.”

Those criticisms fell on deaf ears though as the Committee to Protect Journalists joined 34 other organizations in calling on the U.N. Human Rights Council to vote in favor of renewing the mandate Shaheed’s term as special rapporteur. The vote is scheduled to take place during the 31st session of the council, which ends March 24.

In the joint letter, the organizations drew attention to the range of “serious and systematic violations” of civil and political rights in Iran, as well as the need for the council to urge Iranian authorities to implement long overdue legal changes that would address the grievances of those who have borne the brunt of human rights abuses.

Journalists and other political and civic actors are “arbitrarily detained and given increasingly harsh prison sentences, often for trumped-up national security-related charges,” the letter said. Iran is one of the leading jailers of journalists, with 19 behind bars as of CPJ’s annual prison census on December 1. Ahead of last month’s legislative elections, journalists were arrested and at least one publication was banned, CPJ research shows.

In the meantime, even the modest “moderate” election wins hailed by the Iran lobby were under assault as several women who won seats were being verbally attacked for making comments deemed threatening to the regime, such as criticizing laws mandating women wear traditional veils and coverings.

All of which provides additional proof that any hope of moderation offered up by the Iran lobby is never really going to happen. This was put on bold display when Reza Marashi, research director for the National Iranian American Council, published a plaintive editorial in Huffington Post pleading for the release of his fellow regime supporter, Siamak Namazi, who was arrested and imprisoned by the regime and not part of the prisoner swap resulting from the nuclear deal.

“After finishing his graduate studies abroad, he again returned to Iran in 1999, this time as a consultant. Most people in his shoes returned to try and make a quick buck as a big fish in a small pond. Not Siamak. He helped run a world-renowned consulting firm – staffed predominantly with Iranian-born citizens – that facilitated badly-needed foreign investment from blue-chip multinational corporations,” Marashi said.

Unfortunately, Marashi neglects to mention how that firm, Atieh Consulting, become embroiled in regime politics since his family had deep connections to various parts of the regime’s leadership and actively cooked up the idea of creating an Iran lobby in the U.S. through the NIAC to help advocate for the lifting of international sanctions and far from being a selfless act, Namazi and others had hoped to position themselves to serve as middlemen to funnel foreign investment back into the regime and steer it towards their political allies as described in several investigative pieces.

It is also noteworthy how Marashi did not write similar heartfelt pieces on behalf of other Americans held captive in Iranian prisons such as Amir Hekmati or Saeed Abedini or endured years of torture in Iran.

It would certainly be interesting to see Marashi put his feet where his mouth is and go to Iran himself to plead with the mullahs and see if he can avoid a lengthy prison term as well as another political pawn for them.

By Michael Tomlinson