Iran Lobby

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

The Iran Regime’s Red Lines in Nuclear Talks

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Khamenei's Redliens on Nuclear Talks-New deception tecnics

Khamenei’s Redliens on Nuclear Talks-New deception tecnics

With June 30 having arrived and no nuclear agreement being reached between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations, one could call everything “business as usual” with yet another deadline preceded by frantic talks and then slipping away without a ripple of consequence.

Of course the “new” immediate deadline will be July 9, in which the Obama administration needs to deliver an agreement to Congress to trigger a 30 day review period, otherwise if they miss it, Congress will have 60 days to review as part of a compromise deal struck between the administration and Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

But this new deadline is just as likely to slide by as the one today and the reason for it was put on display today in bright, bold red lines by the regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, who wasted no time taking to Twitter and his official website to post his own version of “Major Red Lines in Nuclear Negotiations” for the regime.

Khamenei’s red lines, unlike those laid down by President Obama after Assad in Syria gassed his own people, are firmly set and unlikely to change since Khamenei is empowered by the mullahs’ constitution to hold the final approval of any foreign agreements, which makes his red lines worth examining.

Khamenei’s red lines essentially repudiates every pointed allegedly agreed upon condition in earlier interim, framework agreements and reasserts the regime’s opposition to virtually all the conditions the P5+1 have sought over the past three years; even after making significant and grave concessions to the regime.

They include:

  • No long-term restrictions on the regime’s nuclear program as opposed to the decade-long restriction sought by negotiators;
  • Continuation of the regime’s nuclear research and development program during the restriction period in spite of prior agreements to halt such research;
  • Immediate lifting of all economic, financial and banking sanctions with signing of an agreement, including all sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, European Union and U.S. Congress and administration without requirements the regime was in compliance;
  • Lifting of sanctions must be conditioned on the start of the regime’s implementation of the agreement, not after international inspections have verified its compliance;
  • Verification by the UN’s inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency will not be accepted by the regime, nor will inspectors be granted unconditional access to any regime facility;
  • No inspection of military facilities will be allowed, nor will interviews of any regime scientist or technical personnel; and
  • The regime opposes any longer term period of review, inspection or compliance beyond the fixed term, which means no 15 or 25 year window to maintain compliance.

The fact that Khamenei repudiated almost every condition regime foreign minister Javad Zarif and its president, Hassan Rouhani touted as landmark agreements should come as no surprise really. Khamenei’s public tweets and statements following the interim agreement announced jointly by the regime and the P5+1 to much fanfare on April, 2015 clearly showed his displeasure and contention that the regime had not submitted to any of these conditions.

Not even regime cheerleader Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council could alter the inevitable outcome with his unsurprising appearance in Vienna, Austria, the site of these talks where he attempted to convince any reporter with a notebook, camera or microphone that the regime was indeed serious about these talks and on the verge of closing a deal.

But given the clear and unmistakable conditions laid out by Khamenei, the only real question is how willing is the Obama administration to concede even more and essentially give the regime a blank check or at least a $140 billion check, the amount in frozen assets the regime’s mullahs are lusting after to replenish their coffers drained by three proxy years in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

William Kristol writing in The Weekly Standard warns the administration may have very well caved in on the all-important issue of inspection access by conceding that since the U.S. would not allow universal access to its own military sites, it could afford Iran the same consideration.

All of which sets the stage for the final act before July 9 of whether or not the P5+1 completely cave and adhere to all of Khamenei’s conditions or recognize in the final act that Iran’s mullahs really have no desire for an agreement and instead have been fooling the world for the past three years.

By Michael Tomlinson

What You Need to Know About the Iran Nuclear Talks

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What You Need to Know About the Iran Nuclear Talks

With only a day left before the self-imposed deadline of June 30 for this third and latest round of talks between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations over Iran’s nuclear development program, it is becoming increasingly clear with leaked news reports that the deadline will be missed as regime foreign minister Javad Zarif heads back to consult with his mullah masters in Tehran.

It really is not surprising this deadline will be missed as well. Remember, this session was allegedly set to work out the “details” of the so-called “framework agreement” from last April in which both sides had supposedly agreed on the broad outlines, but within 24 hours conflicting documents were produced on what the framework agreement actually contained.

That “agreement” followed a similar missed deadline the year before and yet another agreement in November of 2013. Remember the 2013 deal? It released $17 billion in cash and assets to the regime for its alleged compliance with reduction in the stockpiles of enriched uranium, but instead, during the past two years under that interim agreement, those stockpiles actually increased by a whopping 20 percent.

It’s worth mentioning that the Iran regime got those billions just as global oil prices slumped and it was shelling out $6 billion to support Assad in Syria with Hezbollah fighters, not to mention the additional billions it spent to support the Houthi revolt in Yemen and Shiite militias in Iraq.

In essence, we have been paying for Iran’s proxy wars for the last two years.

But given the past three years of negotiating, what has been the common thread of failure in each of the previous sessions? Two words: Ali Khamenei.

The regime’s top mullah is empowered by mullah’s constitution with dictatorial powers over virtually all aspects of Iranian life including the judiciary, culture, foreign policy, economy and military matters. Jay Solomon reports in the Wall Street Journal how Khamenei’s constantly shifting demands, almost schizophrenic public rants and hardline stances have doomed every prior negotiating session and has potentially derailed this one as well.

“Mr. Khamenei’s hardline positions, announced in a nationally televised speech, appeared to back away from commitments his negotiators made in April to restrain parts of Iran’s nuclear program and to allow international inspections of the country’s military sites,” Solomon writes. “

“But there is concern in Washington and Europe that Iran’s paramount political leader may be boxing in his own diplomats by establishing terms they can’t deliver on. The 75-year-old cleric is viewed by the White House as the final decision maker on all issues concerning Iran’s nuclear program and foreign policy,” he added.

Solomon also disclosed the existence of secret messages passed between the regime and President Obama in which the mullahs in Tehran demanded as a sign of U.S. good faith the release of certain prisoners in 2009. The regime also demanded the blacklisting of certain Iranian opposition resistance groups and an increase in U.S. visas for regime students to study at U.S. universities.

It is noteworthy that the regime specifically called for actions against Iranian resistance groups, which have helped marshal global opinion against the regime over the years – and in the case of the National Council of Resistance of Iran – have helped disclose once-secret Iranian nuclear facilities angering the mullahs.

But in a startling concession, the U.S. arranged for the release of four Iranians including two convicted arms smugglers and a prominent scientist convicted of illegal exports to Iran. That early example of American concessions set the stage for the regime and Khamenei to believe they could get whatever they wanted from the U.S. and led to two years of mind-numbing talks in which the P5+1 caved on a whole series of concessions designed to appease Khamenei and hardline mullahs.

Now with admission that the June 30 deadline is moot, Western diplomats are breaking their silence and raising the scenario that the Iran regime is now backing out of its earlier commitments.

“There are a number of different areas where we still have major differences of interpretation in detailing what was agreed in Lausanne,” said British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond in a Reuters report.

“There is going to have to be some give or take if we are to get this done in the next few days,” he added. “No deal is better than a bad deal.”

Other Western officials echoed Hammond’s remarks, saying some of the backtracking involved the mechanics of monitoring Iranian compliance with proposed limits on nuclear activities according to Reuters.

The final clues of how far away the regime is removed from reality came in a posting by Reza Marashi from the National Iranian American Council and a lead supporter of the mullahs who is in Geneva along with his colleague Trita Parsi hobnobbing with the Iranian delegation in hotel hallways and lobbies.

Since Marashi and Parsi enjoy such close access to the confidential nature of these talks through the Iranian delegation, it’s worth noting the issue areas they call “myths” as clues to what frightens the mullahs the most.

  • The appearance that the regime will receive a windfall from immediate lifting of all sanctions;
  • The lack of verified inspection measures to prevent Iranian regime from cheating;
  • The emboldening of Iran’s mullahs to act freely in the region now that a deal is in place;
  • The worsening of human rights in Iran now that there is no leverage to improve the situation;
  • The ability to secure a better deal with mounting pressure on the regime from wider protest within Iran and abroad.

Ironically, Marashi has laid out the case precisely posed by opponents of a bad nuclear deal in which Khamenei’s mouth has uttered all of these points in direct contradiction to Marashi over the past two years.

The kicker is the trial balloon floated by Parsi in which he basically delivers the regime’s position on Huffington Post of a three phase approval deal which includes the U.S. Congress approving the lifting of sanctions and the terms of a deal without it even being signed by the Iranians. He must have gotten the idea from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during the healthcare debate when she argued Congress had to pass the law to find out what was in it.

Parsi and Marashi seem to believe Congress and the American people will fall for the same trick twice.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

NIAC Discussion on Geopolitical Implications of Iran Deal or shameful Lobbying for mullah

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Iran Lobby on the Nuclear Discussions

Iran Lobby on the Nuclear Discussions

In an article published on Center for Security Policy, written by Caitlin Anglemier, The National Iranian American Council (NIAC)’s usual approach in serving as Iran’s lobby in Washington D.C. has been highlighted. Excerpts from this article are published here to describe the path the Iranian lobby and fellow travelers are talking while we are getting very close to the June 30th self claimed nuclear talks deadline.

On June 25, NIAC held a discussion on “The Geopolitical Implications of an Iran Deal”. The panel of speakers included: Peter Beinart, contributing editor for The Atlantic and National Journal; Fred Kaplan, war stories columnist for Slate; Dr. Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council; and Barbara Slavin, South Asia Center senior fellow for the Atlantic Council, known within the Iranian community for appeasing the mullahs.

In her article, Caitlin Anglemier reports: “The talk began with a discussion on how foreign policy has become a primary focus of the Republican party and how generally, the Democratic party tends to place more emphasis on social and economic issues. The discussion then drifted towards discussing the negotiation talks themselves and the ten-year time period aspect. The panel acknowledged the concern that many have, which is that the ten-year period is just delaying the inevitable truth that Iran could obtain a nuclear weapon within a year. But the panel emphasized the importance of those ten years. While that negative viewpoint is out there, why not try to focus on the time positively and the opportunity it provides for even more talks, negotiations, and compromising?

In trying to frame the ten-year period in such a positive manner, the NIAC panel attempted to depict a reality that is simply not accurate. Solely based on how the nuclear deal negotiations have gone so far, it would be foolish to think that ten years of talks and additional demands would go any better than what has transpired-which has not been good at all.”

The report continues: “The discussion then moved to reflecting on the implications of all the money involved in the deal talks. “…[the US] will have released a total of $11.9 billion to the Islamic Republic [of Iran] by the time nuclear talks are scheduled to end in June, according to figures provided by the State Department”. The panel seemed to indicate that if a deal is successfully reached, Iran would utilize the freedom gained from lifted sanctions as well as the cash assets given from the United States to benefit the people of Iran. The panel’s theory was that if Iran continued, over the next ten years, to send money overseas for alternative projects, the people of Iran would start questioning the government and would become upset. In the past, Iran has used the funds it had to fund terrorism and terrorist organizations. If the country has placed an emphasis on aiding terrorism over taking care of its people in the past, why would that change after a new deal?”

It is also a fact that a big chunk of Iran’s economy is in the hands of IRGC, which is the main force behind all the nuclear activities, Regime’s meddling in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc (the Quds force), and therefore it goes without saying that all the money that will return to Iran will be channeled in the same manor it did before.

Caitlin Anglemier refers to the last part of the discussion about another tactic used by the Iranian lobby in counting “benefits of collaborations” with the Iranian regime on the fight against ISIS. She says: The last part of the discussion before questioning commenced revolved around the “misfortunate reality” that the US can’t work in alliance with Iran to combat the Islamic State. The panel emphasized how the Islamic State is well aware of the fact that all of its major opponents are at war with one another, and has already taken advantage of this situation. At first glance it does seem that Iran has taken steps towards combatting the Islamic State. However, Iran is actually continuing to fund Hezbollah as well as Shia tribes and militias. While the US clearly wants to abolish the Islamic State, this must be accomplished without simultaneously strengthening Iran and its militant connections. This hypothetical alliance with Iran against IS could never manifest itself in reality.”

Referring to the questions about the the exact details of the deal talks and their implications, she writes: “More importantly, even if we were able to compromise and establish a negotiation with Iran on their desires and demands, we have no reason to believe that they will be honest and follow through on said demands in the future. Therefore, this essentially indicates that a “deal” is just a blissfully ignorant façade.

Conclusive, the discussion was polite, peaceful, and very informative. It would be easy to imagine a listener walking away with a positive mental image of Iran and the extensive benefits a successful nuclear deal agreement. However, we must take it upon ourselves to not be so easily deceived. Pursuing an agreement with Iran in nuclear talks is not only a waste of time and resources, it would result in directly providing Iran with significant relief from sanctions as well as billions of dollars. And contrary to what some apparently believe, these billions will in fact not be used towards benefiting the wellbeing of the Iranian citizens, but will continue to be used in funding terrorism and terrorist organizations.

We must abandon these attempts at negotiations with Iran before we make ourselves out to be even greater pushovers than we have already portrayed.”

Stopping Concessions to Iran Regime Key to Regional Peace

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Stopping Concessions to Iran Regime Key to Regional Peace

Stopping Concessions to Iran Regime Key to Regional Peace

With only a week left before the June 30 deadline for an agreement between the P5+1 group of nations and the Iran regime, the Iran lobby is working overtime spitting out editorials, policy papers and other propaganda stressing the same messages it has been hammering on for three years.

This was no more evident than in a piece published in Foreign Policy by Trita Parsi, head of the regime’s chief cheerleader the National Iranian American Council, who trotted out the old standard that the only choices at the bargaining table was between war and peace; claiming that this dispute was “rarely resolved through diplomacy without the various sides going to war first.”

Of course that is a false choice and a weak scare tactic because the choices are much more varied and numerous than Parsi would have us believe. In fact, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the largest Iranian dissident groups in the world, held a press conference today where they released a report outlining the laundry list of same deceptions and falsehoods Parsi has been flogging.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, the NCRI-US deputy director, outlined some of these other choices for negotiators and chief among them was the potential for regime change itself within the Iran regime which has been wracked by large scale demonstrations across the country by disgruntled teachers and workers who are fed up with large-scale corruption and the diversion of the nation’s wealth away from the economy and to fund terror groups and proxy wars in places such as Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

It certainly did not help that the mullahs decided to fortify a faltering Assad government in Syria with an additional 15,000 troops, comprised heavily of paid mercenaries from Iraq and Afghanistan.

And this is what Parsi attempts to misled with his editorial. While he claims the choices are stark between war and peace, he neglects to mention that Iran mullahs are already at war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Sunnis tribes in Iraq and the Syrian people who are standing up against he dictatorship ruling the country. The regime’s Revolutionary Guards and Quds Force are already fighting on battlefields throughout the Middle East.

And this even isn’t a recent development. Iranian regime’s military has long supplied local militias in Iraq in their fight against U.S. and coalition forces, including training in constructing improvised explosive devices, LEDs, which have claimed thousands of American lives.

“What does this mean? It means that Iran doesn’t seem particularly interested in entering into a dialogue with the Obama Administration at the moment,” wrote Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic in 2011.

All of which puts the lie to Parsi’s chief argument since Iran’s mullahs have already been waging war against U.S. interests and personnel for the past five years. This brings us to another of Parsi’s ham-handed arguments, namely that a deal represents a watershed moment in the relationship between Iran and the U.S. and would make Iran more amenable to working with the U.S.

Another silly proposition since Iran’s mullahs have shown a shocking willingness to turn American hostages into bargaining pawns and demanded – and received – the exclusion of human rights and ballistic missile technology from any part of the negotiations.

The NCRI report clearly showed this by delving deeply into how Tehran has approached nuclear talks by consistently keeping military sites out of inspections, foot dragging requests for disclosure by the International Atomic Energy Agency, retaining its nuclear infrastructure in its entirety including its centrifuges, uranium stockpiles and heavy water reactors, and keeping talks alive after three years with false promises and interim agreements, leaving it free to pursue its military actions abroad.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

NIAC Leads Charge for Great Iran Giveaway

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GiveawayReza Marashi, another one of the National Iranian American Council’s regime cheerleaders, offered an editorial on the final hurdles facing nuclear negotiators in Switzerland. It is an impressive piece of fiction, worthy of a Hugo Award for fantasy writing.

His ignoring the televised rants by top mullah Ali Khamenei in denouncing any freeze on Iran’s nuclear program and opposition to any inspections of military or secret sites and demand for an immediate lifting of economic sanctions by the entire world even before ink is dry on an agreement is proof that Marashi is attempting that unique political high wire act; covering for a boss who suffers foot-in-mouth disease.

But I sympathize with Marashi. It can’t be easy to spin a line when your top guy goes on national television to basically undermine everything you’re saying. Marashi might find better luck defending the Confederate battle flag these days.

In another flight of fancy, Marashi claims that “Iran gave more than it received in the interim nuclear deal, and is looking to collect on that investment.” We certainly agree on the second part of that statement, Iran’s mullahs are certainly looking to collect – about $140 billion in frozen assets in what would be a gigantic payday, but the first part of the statement is disingenuous.

The Wall Street Journal, amongst scores of other news media, has documented the avalanche of concessions granted to the Iran regime by P5+1 negotiators without any comparable concessions from the mullahs. Those concessions began with the most important and earliest concession which was to move away from dismantling Iran’s nuclear program to complex Rube Goldberg structure of stretching out the “breakout” time for creating a nuclear weapon.

Marashi, his colleague at the NIAC Trita Parsi and other regime sympathizers, have created a new vocabulary of deceit with newly invented terms such as “snapback sanctions” and “breakout times” to replace conditions such as “dismantling centrifuges” and “eliminating fuel stockpiles.” It amounts to a shell game any tourist on the sidewalks of New York city would recognize with Iran’s mullahs hiding their nuclear program under a walnut and moving it rapidly around.

But what Iran’s mullahs truly want – and badly – is the cash. The $140 billion at the end of their nuclear rainbow is desperately needed – not by the ordinary Iranian citizen strangled by a corrupted economy – but a religious theocracy bled dry from three costly proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and crashing oil prices. The mullahs need that money to prop their floundering regime afloat and keep their extremists allies well-equipped with guns, rockets and cash to pay mercenaries recruited from Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia and Nigeria.

To put it into perspective, according to the International Monetary Fund, Iran’s total foreign currency reserves amounts to only $110 billion, ranking it 21st in the world. The U.S. only has currency reserves of $121.5 billion, ranking it 19th. A $140 billion cash infusion into Iran would vault it to 11th place, ahead of Mexico, Germany, the U.K., France and Italy and just behind powerhouses Russia, Saudi Arabia, Japan and China.

That, more than anything else, is what the mullahs are craving like heroin to an addict. They need that cash to pay for their military adventures, to support terror groups and to maintain the massive expenditures required to continue building its nuclear infrastructure including new equipment it intends to buy from Russia and North Korea.

And if that wasn’t enough, Marashi also proposes that UN sanctions be rewritten to exclude tying sanctions to non-nuclear issues “such as arms procurement and export, human rights, and terrorism.” In effect, giving Iran a free pass to acquire arms, export them to its proxies, continue hanging people at a breakneck pace and lavish terror groups with more support.

Clearly Marashi has given up all pretense of finding common ground with negotiating countries and instead is all-in with the mullahs in trying to get everything they can before the June 30th deadline. The “throw everything in the basket” approach is reminiscent of looters sweeping through a CVS store grabbing everything they can before burning it down.

The end result will leave a deeply destabilized world with a nuclear-capable and flush with cash Iran still controlled by a small cadre of extremist mullahs.

By Michael Tomlinson

Apologizing for Iran Regime is a Full-Time Job

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ApologyIn our politically-correct, social-media driven society, many smart people have taken to complaining over the use of the public apology for almost every conceivable slight; perceived or otherwise.

In the arena of politics and diplomacy though, the art of apologizing sometime reaches historic proportions with a refinement worthy of a well-aged wine. Often times a political or diplomatic apology takes the form of the “non-apology apology” which is when a politician will often not apologize for a given action or policy, but apologize instead for the perceived distress such action causes.

It usually includes phrases such as “I’m sorry you feel that way” and “to anyone who may be offended” and is a calculated effort to demonstrate compassion and empathy when in fact there is none. For those who have long defended the Iran regime, it is a veritable way of life.

Apologists such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, Jim Lobe of Lobelog, Bijan Khajehpour of Atieh International and Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, have been loud and vocal supporters of the Iran regime and have taken great pains to excuse its actions; even its most barbarous and callous acts.

Parsi for example has historically apologized for Iran’s human rights violations such as the holding of American hostages on trumped up charges with no open trials as being evidence of a political schism amongst moderate and hardline factions within the regime’s ranks.

Fitzpatrick has also made excuses for Iran’s foreign policy adventures and proxy wars in places such as Syria and Yemen as potentially stabilizing actions, rather than the chaotic acts they actually are. Not to mention that mullahs in Iran are indeed the source of the chaos in most cases.

In each case, the Iran lobby’s apologists have gone out of their way to come up with every possible answer explaining the regime’s actions except the obvious, most logical and correct one which is Iran’s mullahs are firmly set on pursuing a course of action that solidifies their grip on power and expands their extremist ideology.

Sohrab Ahmari, an editorial page writer for the Wall Street Journal, has exhaustively written in Commentary Magazine of the deep and incontrovertible connections between the regime and the wide range of apologists covering for Iran’s mullahs, including Parsi.

“Parsi holds views that have surely warmed the ayatollahs’ hearts. An Iranian-born Swedish citizen, Parsi had made a name with his 2008 book Treacherous Alliance. The book’s basic claim was that the conflict between Khomeinist Iran and the U.S. and Israel was primarily a matter of Tehran’s seeking strategic respect in the region and not, as Jerusalem insisted, on anti-Semitic ideology,” Ahmari writes.

“His argument elided the many ways in which the regime had actually attempted to back its ideological proclamations with action. It also invited readers in effect to excuse the regime’s ugly rhetoric as the lashing out of a rising power,” he added.

The failure of constant apologizing for the regime is that it eventually does nothing to cover up the actions the regime takes and rings hollow to anyone with a brain.

As Tyron Edwards, an American theologian best known for a book of quotations called “A Dictionary of Thoughts,” wrote in the 19th century: “Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past.”

What he wrote over 170 years ago still applies today. Actions and not words are the best guide to future behavior and the Iran regime has exhibited plenty of actions which are the only real ruler nuclear negotiators in Switzerland should go by.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

Iran Lobby Calls “Czar” Key to Sanctions Relief

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Czar Nicholas (1)Czar Nicholas II of Russia was the last monarch to bear that title until his execution during the Russian Revolution in 1918, but the title of “czar” would still stay in fashion in American politics as an informal description of high-ranking officials named to oversee specific programs or issue areas.

The first use of “czar” by an American president was Franklin Roosevelt who named 11 “czars” during his administration to oversee areas such as transportation, censorship, petroleum, war production and even rubber; often as part of the recovery from the Great Depression and in response to the demands of World War II.

Since then presidents have used czars sparingly with latter administrations naming one or two periodically. It wasn’t until Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama that the practice mushroomed with the naming of 33 and 38 czars respectively. In President Obama’s case, he has appointed czars for Ebola response, faith-based partnerships, AIDS, trade, information technology and even one for the invasive Asian carp.

But now the Obama administration is considering the appointment of a new czar to oversee final negotiations and implementation of a nuclear agreement between the P5+1 group of nations and the Iran regime. The idea behind this new czar would be to have a single point person serving as lead coordinator for implementation and enforcement.

While State Department sources have mulled the idea of a czar in response to the failure of the U.S. to enforce the 1994 nuclear agreement with North Korea, which eventually was ignored by the rogue state as it violated its terms to build a nuclear arsenal, the Iran lobby views the position as being a key instrument by which to ensure the speedy lifting of economic sanctions.

“It would also send a message to the American bureaucracy to be efficient, not just in making sure that Iran holds up its end of the deal, but also in ensuring that the U.S. fulfills its promises, especially when it comes to easing sanctions,” said Trita Parsi, head of the regime’s chief cheerleading lobby the National Iranian American Council.

The viewpoint of Parsi and other regime supporters is that the consolidation of U.S. responsibility for Iran nuclear issues within a single point person provides an incredibly advantageous opportunity to manipulate a single high-ranking official who could cut through the clutter and get sanctions lifted quickly on the pretext of complying with the terms of an agreement.

Having an Iran czar solves several problems for regime supporters at once:

  • It takes the Obama administration off the hook by de-escalating talks from Secretary Kerry to another official who may face less media scrutiny to complete a deal;
  • It provides direct access for the Iran lobby to a single person responsible for all things related to Iran. Instead of having to slug it out with State Department bureaucrats or intelligence officials at the Defense Department or even members of Congress, the regime’s lobby could have just one “go-to” person; and
  • Given the Iran lobby’s ability to place former employees in high-ranking administration positions, the appointment of a non-Senate approved czar allows them to slide one of their own into the position.

On the other hand, floating the idea of an Iran czar also strikes many observers as an act of desperation in the effort to close a floundering deal with less than two weeks left before a self-imposed June 30 deadline. Under the terms of compromise legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Obama, the U.S. is hoping to have an agreement in place by July 9 in order to trigger the 30 day congressional review period, rather than the 60 day review period should they miss that deadline.

Reports in the Associated Press from diplomats from all six nations participating indicate  “Iran and six powers are still apart on all main elements of a nuclear deal with less than two weeks to go to their June 30 target date and will likely have to extend their negotiations. Their comments enforce concerns that obstacles to a pact remain beyond the public debate on how far Iran must open its nuclear program to outside purview under any deal.”

The appointment of a czar to complete a deal would follow similar pronouncements made of “agreements in principle” with only details to be worked out. Having a designated czar allows the Obama administration to walk away from the bargaining table, away from global press scrutiny, and allow for rapid concessions to be made to Iran’s mullahs in relative privacy.

The scenario becomes increasingly likely as disclosures of new concessions granted to the regime seem to leak out daily from Switzerland. Indeed, the agreement is becoming riddled with as many holes as Swiss cheese.

By Michael Tomlinson

What Price Appeasement of Iran Regime?

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ChamberlainAny kind of negotiation is often an exercise in incremental concession. There is a give and take bound by the needs and desires of the participants at the table. While outside forces influence what happens, the real outcome of any negotiation results strictly from what the parties at the table are willing to give up in order to get what they desire more.

In the case of the ongoing negotiations between the P5+1 group of nations and the Iran regime, the results of nearly three years of talk have revealed these to be less about what the give and take of hard bargaining is, but rather what the U.S. is seemingly willing to give up in order to claim any kind of PR victory in sealing a deal.

As part of that process, the U.S. has steadily given ground on a remarkable range of concessions to mullahs in Iran without securing anything nearly comparable in return. If this was a negotiation between a labor union and company; with the union being Iran and the company being the U.S., the union would have already had the name changed on the building, the managers fired, pay hikes conceded with three days off each week.

So thoroughly have Iran’s mullahs fleeced the world that is it remarkable no one has bothered to catalogue the litany of concessions. Some news media have tried, but the scope of what has been given up exceeds the space available in most daily newspapers.

One columnist taking exception to the Iran fire sale is Lawrence J. Haas of U.S. News and World Report who writes in his World Report blog:

“Facing a June 30 deadline to complete an agreement, U.S. negotiators reportedly are dropping the central demand that, as part of an agreement, Iran must come clean about the ‘possible military dimensions,’ or PMDs, of its nuclear program – that is, the past weapons-related activities,” Haas said.

“Washington’s reversal is particularly striking in light of its insistence – when reports surfaced three months ago that it was considering backing down on possible military dimensions – that it would do no such thing. When, for instance, The Wall Street Journal reported in March that U.S. negotiators were preparing to cave on the issue, Secretary of State John Kerry stated unequivocally that the Iranians would have to come clean about possible military dimensions before the United States would strike a final agreement,” Haas added.

This follows a New York Times report that Secretary of State John Kerry signaled the administration’s willingness to ease economic sanctions without fully resolving evidence suggesting Iranian regime’s scientists have been involved in secret nuclear weapons development.

The ledger of concessions have filled steadily with major heavyweight concessions dealt with years ago including exempting ballistic missile development, improvements in domestic human rights conditions, suspension of death penalty executions and ceasing support for terror groups and militia involved in proxy wars; all given away without any reciprocal concession from Iran’s mullahs.

The most stunning concession came over the weekend in which the Obama administration proposed the U.S. closing the International Atomic Energy Agency’s as yet unresolved case against Iran’s undeclared military sites and forgo actual IAEA inspections of suspect Iranian nuclear sites.

Instead, the U.S. proposed allowing the IAEA conduct token inspections of a handful of sites already publicly known and not allowing inspections of undeclared sites. The stunning news was an about face of a “red-line in the sand” set by the administration for enforcing an agreement with “anytime, anywhere” inspection provisions.

This latest concession effectively permits Iran to develop and assemble nuclear weapons in relative peace and quiet and is an admission by the Obama administration it is prepared to give the mullahs their nuclear weapon.

The Wall Street Journal took a look at more subtle concessions the U.S. has provided during the course of negotiations including pulling U.S. funding support for a Lebanese civil society group aggressively opposed by Hezbollah, the terror group which has enjoyed long-term support from mullahs in Iran.

The Journal also cited the case of Buhary Seyed Abu Tahir, a Dubai-based Sri Lankan businessman who in 2004 was cited personally by President George W. Bush as the “chief financial officer and money launderer” for the nuclear-proliferation network of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. According to a 2004 investigation by Malaysian authorities, in 1994 or 1995 Mr. Khan asked Mr. Tahir to ship uranium centrifuges to Iran.

“The Bush Administration put Mr. Tahir on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list of sanctioned persons. But the Treasury Department removed his name from that list on April 3, exactly one day after the framework agreement was announced,” the Journal said.

The concessions keep coming at a steadily increasing pace to June 30 and indicate a worrisome trend the Obama administration is basically negotiating against itself at this point in making offer after offer to the Iranians without receiving anything in return in a glaring example of desperation.

The policy of appeasement has never succeeded in history and there is no reason to think doing so to mullahs in Iran will yield any different outcome.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Iran Lobby Fig Leaf

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Human Rights for IranThis weekend in Paris was marked by one of the largest gatherings ever assembled of people dedicated to change in the Iran regime and the return of that nation to freedom and democracy.

With a crowd estimated at over 100,000 people, the gathering sponsored by the Iranian diaspora, supporters of the resistance umbrella group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, featured an eight hour marathon of speeches and remarks by delegations representing over 60 nations, all focused on the brutal nature of the regime and the harsh repression and cruel treatment of Iran’s citizens by their religious mullah overlords.

Even with that much program time, a proper accounting of Iran’s human rights abuses would fill a month’s worth of speeches; so vast and large is the ledger of the abuses by the mullahs. The full extent of Iran’s human rights abuses have been so chronic as to warrant the appointment of a Special Rapporteur by the United Nations focused exclusively on Iran.

The appointment of Ahmed Shaheed as the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for Iran is one of only ten such appointments currently in effect; ranking Iran alongside persistent human rights abusers as Haiti, Myanmar, North Korea and Sudan.

Shaheed has continually spoken out against abuses by the mullahs, most notably as recently as June 5, 2015 over the rapid escalation of arrests and imprisonment of journalists, including American journalist Jason Rezaian.

“The recurrent use of vague references to threats to national security, propaganda against the system and insult to authorities to prosecute and detain journalists or activists is in contradiction to both international norms relating to freedoms of expression and association and the principle of legality,” Mr. Shaheed stated.

Amnesty International’s annual report goes into extensive detail on the litany of human rights abuses flowing from the mullah’s mandates including restrictions on the freedom of expression, association and assembly, widespread use of torture, codified unfair trials, institutional mistreatment of ethnic and religious minorities, the broad denial of women’s rights, lack of privacy, denial of education, and frequent and indiscriminate use of the death penalty.

The chronicle of abuses does not even include the special ire and venom reserved for Iranian dissidents such as those who assembled in Paris by Iran’s mullahs who have sought for the past 35 years to discredit, defame, attack and murder members of Iran’s resistance groups such as the NCRI and People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).

In the course of resisting Iran’s despotic rule, the groups have seen over 120,000 members murdered by the regime, most recently in hangings from trumped up show trials and at Camp Liberty in Iraq where 2,500 dissident refugees are frequently attacked by Iranian security forces and paramilitaries.

Yet even after the catalogue and almost daily chronicle of abuses against Iranians and Iranian-Americans by the regime, their most vocal supporter, the National Iranian-American Council, has barely uttered a word of protest or criticism even when the abuses are specifically aimed at Iranian-Americans, nominally the reason why the NIAC exists in the first place.

The litany of abuse had become so rampant, so blatant and appearing daily in the front pages of newspapers and global newscasts, that the NIAC finally had to issue some kind of statement recognizing the gross mistreatment going on or risk become a laughingstock every time they opened their mouths; some might argue it already is a laughingstock, but that’s another matter.

So what did the NIAC do to strike fear in the hearts of the mullahs and their prison guards, torturers, hangmen and puppet jurists? It issued a 379-word long press statement in which it “condemns the Iranian government’s recent violations of its international human rights obligations.”

Most notable in the brief statement was that 148 words of it dealt, not with human rights, but with the proposed nuclear deal being negotiated in Switzerland. Even when faced with the overwhelming human misery and suffering being caused by Iran’s leadership, the NIAC can barely force itself to utter a peep about it.

By way of comparison, an editorial written by NIAC policy fellow Ryan Costello in The Hill blog the same week devoted a brawny 891 words to the topic of the issue of inspections of military sites, nearly four times the amount devoted to human rights.

It is a mere fig leaf by the NIAC to cover up for the fact it is a group appearing to be solely dedicated not to the plight of Iranian-Americans, especially four of them languishing in Iran now, but rather towards supporting the political aims of a small cadre of religious rulers in Iran.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Importance of Linking Iran Sanctions and Human Rights

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Bijan Khajehpour

Bijan Khajehpour

Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) have put forward an amendment to the defense budget that would extend congressional sanctions against the Iran regime for 10 additional years. The amendment is aimed at extending the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996, currently set to expire at the end of 2016, to the end of 2026.

The amendment is an important step in resetting the expectations associated with the Iran regime’s nuclear weapons program because it links it to the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and human rights abuses; a significant step towards properly addressing the central issues with the regime’s conduct towards the world.

The regime’s chief cheerleaders, the National Iranian American Council, predictably were quick to denounce the legislation, warning that passage of the bill would derail ongoing negotiations. The NIAC’s statement was noteworthy for a few things, namely that it placed the burden of completion of a deal on the U.S. and not the regime.

“There are legitimate questions about whether the U.S. will be able to deliver on the terms for sanctions relief under a nuclear deal, and the passage of this amendment would give credence to those concerns,” the NIAC statement said.

It is a remarkable sentence because it firmly ignores the chief obstacle to any agreement between the West and Iran, which is Iran’s historic inability to live up to any of its international agreements. As recently as last month, Iran has steadfastly refused to answer outstanding questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency about the “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear program.

On top of that omission are repeated comments by Iran’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, who has reiterated publicly his opposition to allowing access to any Iranian military facility or Iranian nuclear scientists by international inspectors.

This follows continued denials by Iran that it is involved in proxy wars being waged in Syria and Yemen, not to mention its control of Shiite militias in Iraq that are now being accused of reprisal sectarian killings against Sunni Muslim villagers, all of which points to a disturbing and repeated pattern of deception, denial and distrust.

The action by Senators Kirk and Menendez comes after passage of legislation signed by President Obama and over the vigorous objections of NIAC authorizing congressional review of any nuclear agreement reached with Iran.

This latest bill from Kirk and Menendez addresses a glaring hole in current negotiations, which is the failure of negotiators to hold Iran’s human rights conduct accountable, as well as including the regime’s capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon well outside their neighborhood and threaten Europe and Asia.

The NIAC and the rest of the Iran lobby have fought hard to keep these things out of negotiations because they know full well their inclusion would almost certainly doom Iran’s hopes of securing a deal and lift economic sanctions and flood the regime with billions in new cash and investment.

The proposed amendment is not a deal breaker for the West as much as it is a safety clause assuring the West does not deliver a bad deal that could come back to haunt them.

By Michael Tomlinson