Iran Lobby

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

Upcoming Presidential Elections in Iran Just More of the Same

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Upcoming Presidential Elections in Iran Just More of the Same

Upcoming Presidential Elections in Iran Just More of the Same

Elections in the Iranian regime are not left up to chance or to the Iranian people for that matter. The ruling mullahs have always wanted a neat, tidy election process that harbors no dissent and provides for no surprises.

In practicality, the mullahs admire the no-contest elections where the ruling elite often hold all the cards. This may explain why Iran has worked closely with North Korea in exporting that regime’s ballistic missile technology, while it seeks to be a major oil trading partner to China and a major arms buyer to Russia.

The history of Iranian elections has been less than spectacular. Last year during parliamentary elections, the regime wiped off the ballots thousands of candidates deemed unsuitable for running. The most common attribute of the eliminated candidates was a disturbing tendency to being a dissident voice.

In the infamous presidential election of 2009, the much-reviled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in what was widely regarded as a rigged election that resulted in massive protests harshly put down by the regime’s military resulting in thousands of deaths, arrests and prison sentences.

The mullahs learned their lesson in 2013 by installing Hassan Rouhani as an affable, cheery candidate in contrast to the typical regime clerical candidate.

Now with presidential elections looming on May 19th, Iran is entering into another familiar cycle of political speculation. Unfortunately, none of it will matter much since the regime’s leadership, led by top mullah Ali Khamenei, controls the councils which will decide who will be allowed to run in the first place.

But the Western media will again make the same mistake as it did before in trying to parse the Iranian regime’s politics into “moderate” and “hardline” camps, of which there are none. Iran has no viable opposition parties and all members and candidates swear the same allegiance to the Shia revolution and Khamenei.

It is akin to essentially trying to find nuances between members of the same Nazi party in World War II-era Germany.

Just because Rouhani likes to use Twitter does not excuse the fact his tenure is marked by the highest rate of public executions ever, putting Ahmadinejad to shame, nor does it make him a “moderate.”

The best example of this mislabeling comes in the form of coverage over the announcement that certain candidates were put forward to challenge Rouhani as being part of the regime’s “hardline, conservative” blocs.

As Reuters described it: “A bloc of conservative Iranian political parties has nominated a powerful cleric as their candidate to run in next month’s presidential election to try to unseat the moderate Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s state news agency IRNA said.

“Seeking to regain the presidency by stopping Rouhani winning a second four-year term, Iran’s powerful hardliners have been gearing up for a showdown in the May 19 vote.”

Five candidates were nominated, including Ebrahim Raisi, a powerful cleric who last year was appointed custodian of the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, Iran’s second city. He also controls what is believed to be the Islamic state’s wealthiest institution: Astan-e Qods Razavi, a religious foundation that owns properties and land across the country.

The 56-year-old cleric has held senior judicial positions, including prosecutor-general. Dissidents accuse him of authorizing a brutal crackdown against the opposition in the 1980s.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, the largest Iranian dissident groups, detailed Raisi’s bloody history on behalf of the regime.

“In 1988, when he was Deputy Prosecutor of Tehran, he was one of the four individuals who Khomeini appointed to carry out his order to massacre the activists of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). During that massacre, 30,000 political prisoners, who were primarily from the PMOI, were executed within a few months. An audio tape surfaced last summer, after 28 years, of Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Khomeini’s designated successor at the time, meeting with the ‘death committee’ in Tehran, including with Raisi, about 20 days after the start of the massacre. Montazeri told them that these executions were the biggest crimes committed by the Islamic Republic,” the NCRI said in a statement on its website.

In that meeting Montazeri talked about how pregnant women and 15-year-old girls were executed during the massacre. Those who attended the meeting (including Raisi) condoned the mass executions. It was subsequently exposed that Raisi was the most active and most ruthless member of the committee. The audio file of the meeting between Khomeini’s then-successor and the “death committee” also corroborated this reality, the NCRI added.

The Guardian Council, a powerful body controlled by Khamenei, will announce later this month which candidates are qualified to contest the election. All contenders must be deemed loyal to the Islamic republic and the final candidates appearing on the ballot will go a long way in showing what Khamenei’s thinking is moving forward for the regime.

Raisi’s elevation and election to president could very well set him up as the successor to Khamenei which from the perspective of the mullahs makes sense since he is a steadfast loyalist to preserving the mullahs power and has demonstrated a willingness to massacre dissidents and rivals.

All of which does not bode well for the future of the Iranian people.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Stands by Assad in Chemical Attack

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Iran Regime Stands by Assad in Chemical Attack

Iran Regime Stands by Assad in Chemical Attack

In the aftermath of the grisly chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians that killed more than 100 men, women and children, the Iranian regime predictably stood by their man in Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, even as it publicly condemned the attack.

“Iran strongly condemns all use of chemical weapons regardless of who is responsible and who are the victims,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghassemi told reporters in Tehran, according to an account carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

But Ghassemi cautioned against “rushed judgments and accusations that benefit … certain actors,” claiming that anti-Assad rebel groups — which Tehran calls “terrorists” — have also been known to have stored and used chemical weapons.

It’s a strange position to take since the only people attacked were in rebel-controlled areas. It is unlikely rebels would be dropping chemical agents on their own positions, but logic was never a strong suit of the Iranian regime.

Citing Assad’s frequent past use of chemical weapons, the Trump administration and governments across Europe have said Damascus was most likely behind the attack on the Syrian province of Idlib.

The reaction of Assad’s patron is not unexpected, but while media attention is focused on their denials, one important fact seems to be escaping most analysts’ attention which is the fact that Iran had previously committed to the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons earlier as part of an agreement to avoid President Obama’s infamous “red line” mandate.

The fact that chemical weapons were used, especially a more sophisticated compound in sarin gas, demonstrates the Iranian regime’s comfort level with its ally using these weapons.

On another account, Dr Joseph Kechichian, an author and writer, penned an editorial in Gulf News detailing how Iran actually continues to focus on interfering in the affairs of its neighbors.

“The intrepid Iranian spokesperson further rejected as groundless all of the claims made by several Arab leaders in their pronouncements that the Islamic Republic of Iran openly interfered in the internal affairs of Arab countries, saying that Tehran ‘never interfered in the internal affairs of any country and feels no need at all for such interference,’ which must also be challenged. He added his deep sorrow as several Arab and Muslim leaders, ‘either intentionally or by mistake… go astray and fail to distinguish friend from foe,’ allegedly because they point the finger at Iran instead of ‘dealing with the most important crises in the region,’” Kechnichian writes.

In fact, and lest the fearless Qassemi may have forgotten, it was Ali Akbar Velayati, a former Iranian minister of foreign affairs and an adviser on international affairs to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — as well as the president of the Expediency Council’s Centre for Strategic Research — who told a group of Yemeni clerics gathered in Tehran in October 2014 that “The Islamic Republic of Iran supports the rightful struggles of Ansar Allah [Al Houthis] and considers this movement as part of the successful materialisation of the Islamic Awakening [the name Iran uses for the Arab Uprisings] movements”.

Velayati boasted of Al Houthi victories in Yemen, which came to naught after the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia led a coalition to restore the legitimately elected president in Sana’a, even if the war is now in its third year. Velayati and his colleagues may be sure of an Al Houthi triumph in Yemen, though there is little to back that presumption, except that Tehran successfully managed to empower Al Houthis to play the same role that Hezbollah plays in Lebanon, he added.

Article in the Commentary Magazine added another perspective in the Iranian regime’s willingness to keep using Afghan refugees impressed into service as mercenary fighters for the regime’s campaigns.

“Increasingly, however, the Islamic Republic of Iran is replicating the former Soviet and Cuban strategies in Syria, where its intervention to support Bashar al-Assad has cost the Islamic Republic several thousand Iranian soldiers and cadets. The Iranian use of Hezbollah in Lebanon should have put permanently to rest any notion that Hezbollah has evolved into a Lebanese national organization. Rather, it remains what it always has been: A proxy for the Islamic Republic of Iran. But Hezbollah is not alone. A couple of years ago, I noted the increasing number of funerals of foreign nationals—especially Afghans—occurring in Iran whom Iranian news sources said had died fighting in Syria,” The Commentary Magazine writes.

The chemical attack in Syria is just symptomatic of the broader problem of the Iranian regime’s control of the battles being waged in Syria with the influence of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Unless Iranian control is removed from the equation more Idlib attacks will happen.

Michael Tomlinson

New Chemical Attack in Syria Shows Iran Complicity

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New Chemical Attack in Syria Shows Iran Complicity

New Chemical Attack in Syria Shows Iran Complicity

If your neighbor is about to get arrested for being a pedophile and polluting the neighborhood by burning toxic waste in his backyard, it seems like a no-brainer to remove the offending person.

But what if their distant cousin from across town moves in to save them from being arrested and evicted by persuading authorities they will serve as a careful guardian and custodian? Now imagine the courts and law enforcement allow that creep to stay, but he just goes right on pillaging the neighborhood kids.

That pretty much sums up Bashar al-Assad in Syria and his Iranian benefactors.

But now the United States blamed the Syrian government and its patrons, Russia and Iran, on Tuesday for one of the deadliest chemical weapons attacks in years in Syria, one that killed dozens of people in Idlib Province, including children, and sickened scores more, according to the New York Times.

A senior State Department official said the attack appeared to be a war crime and called on Russia and Iran to restrain the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria from carrying out further chemical strikes.

Britain, France and Turkey joined Washington in condemning the attack, which they also attributed to Assad’s government. The United Nations Security Council was scheduled to be briefed on the attack on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the White House called the attack a “reprehensible” act against innocent people “that cannot be ignored by the civilized world.”

The State Department official who briefed reporters on Tuesday, also said that it appeared Russia was unable or unwilling to hold the Syrian government to the agreed cease-fire.

He reiterated that the attack on civilians appeared to be a war crime. The official, who could not be identified under the State Department’s protocol for briefing reporters, also asserted that even before the alleged chemical strike, the Trump administration had shelved the idea of cooperating militarily with the Assad government against the Islamic State.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based monitoring group, said 58 people were killed in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in northern Idlib province, including 11 children. The  death toll is likely to rise, the group said.

Turkey said it dispatched 30 ambulances to Idlib following chlorine gas attacks in the northwestern province, the Turkish Anadolu news agency reported. Syrian opposition health minister Firas Jundi put the death toll at more than 100 civilians and said 500 others, mostly children, were sickened or burned by the gas.

“I believe this horrible memory will stay with me for the rest of my life,” Jundi told CNN.

The Syrian anti-government activist group Idlib Media Center published photos of young children receiving medical treatment, and a video showed what appeared to be bodies of children lined up on a blanket.

On Tuesday, Tillerson released a statement condemning the attack, one that took aim at Russia and Iran.

“There are reports of dozens dead, including many children.  While we continue to monitor the terrible situation, it is clear that this is how Bashar al-Assad operates: with brutal, unabashed barbarism,” the statement said. It also called on the countries to act. “As the self-proclaimed guarantors to the cease-fire negotiated in Astana, Russia and Iran also bear great moral responsibility for these deaths.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called the attack “further evidence of the barbarity suffered by the Syrian people.” British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said he was “horrified” by the attack that “bears all the hallmarks” of chemical weapons previously used by the Syrian regime. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the attack “inhuman” and “unacceptable.”

Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the largest Iranian resistance group, pointed blame at Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps for protecting and enabling the Assad regime with fighters, arms, cash and equipment.

“Persistence of the war crimes in Syria with the growing involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and its affiliated militia clearly shows that as long as the Iranian regime is not evicted and its IRGC not expelled from Syria, and so long as their puppet government is in power in Damascus, peace, tranquility and even a ceasefire could not be upheld in that country and the region,” she said.

The attack appeared to be the largest and deadliest chemical attack in Syria since August 2013, when more than 1,000 people were killed in the Damascus suburbs by the banned toxin sarin. Under threat of United States retaliation, Assad agreed to a Russian-American deal to eliminate his country’s chemical weapons program, which until that time it had denied having, and to join an international treaty banning chemical weapons.

With this week’s attack, it clearly shows that guarantees on chemical weapons being banned in Syria are pretty much worthless.

Laura Carnahan

Iran Regime Plays With Lives of Innocent Pawns

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Iran Regime Plays With Lives of Innocent Pawns

Iran Regime Plays With Lives of Innocent Pawns

One of the hallmarks of the Iranian regime has been its callous disregard for the value of human life. It is a characteristic that pervades much of the regime’s activities from its foreign policy to judicial process to economy.

If one examines history, totalitarian and fascist governments have often worked diligently to reduce the value of an individual life in favor of the collective good as a means of exerting greater control over the people.

Iran is no different as the mullahs figured out that the pathway to ironclad control in the wake of the revolution was to ensure that dissenters could be arrested, beaten, imprisoned, exiled and even killed with virtual impunity.

That philosophy has been at the center ever since and to this day has manifested itself in policies that have caused pain and suffering across the entire Middle East.

In foreign policy, the Iranian regime has pursued conflicts that have resulted in some of the worst humanitarian disasters since the end of World War II, namely the Syrian civil war which has claimed 400,000 lives and displaced over four million people.

The mullahs’ decision to enter that war—after the Assad regime was found to be using chemical weapons on its own people—and save Assad sparked a sectarian conflict that now rages across Iraq, Yemen and has sparked now into the Gulf States.

The fact that Iranian regime is so willing to start conflicts, especially through the use of proxies such as terror groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis. Now come increasingly more worrisome reports over evidence that the Iranian regime may be behind terror activities in Bahrain including the operation of a secret bomb factory.

According to the Washington Post, the men who built the secret bomb factory had been clever — suspiciously so, Bahraini investigators thought, for a gang known mostly for lobbing Molotov cocktails at police. The underground complex had been hewed, foot by foot, beneath the floor of a suburban villa, with no visible traces at street level and only a single entrance, hidden behind a kitchen cabinet.

But the real surprises lay inside. In one room, police found $20,000 lathes and hydraulic presses for making armor-piercing projectiles capable of slicing through a tank. Another held box upon box of the military explosive C-4, all of foreign origin, in quantities that could sink a battleship the Post said.

“Most of these items have never been seen in Bahrain,” the country’s investigators said in a confidential technical assessment provided to U.S. and European officials this past fall that offered new detail on the arsenals seized in the villa and in similar raids that have occurred sporadically over nearly three years. In sheer firepower, the report said, the caches were both a “game-changer” and — matched against lightly armed police — “overkill.”

The report, a copy of which was shown to The Washington Post, partly explains the growing unease among some Western intelligence officials over tiny Bahrain, a stalwart U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf and home to the Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Six years after the start of a peaceful Shiite protest movement against the country’s Sunni-led government, U.S. and European analysts now see an increasingly grave threat emerging on the margins of the uprising: heavily armed militant cells supplied and funded, officials say, by Iran.

That disturbing revelation shows that the mullahs’ decision to widen conflict in the region and continue pursuing their vision of a greater sphere of Shia influence; contrary to all the protestations and messaging of the Iran lobby, is a core cause of most of the turmoil in the Middle East.

Even the practice of snatching hostages has become a standard practice for the mullahs from the very beginning of the revolution with the American embassy takeover to the recent practice of arresting and imprisoning dual-national citizens based on the despicable principle that Iran does not recognize dual citizenship.

For the mullahs, the value of hostages has been unfortunately proven true by the rash and unwise decision by the Obama administration to effectively ransom American hostages as part of the nuclear agreement negotiations. That only emboldened the mullahs to continue the practice.

Several of their current prisoners include a British mother and charity aid worker, a missing American former FBI agent, two businessmen and an American college student who was recently released on bail.

The American of Iranian descent was arrested in Iran in July and sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment on dubious charges has been released on bail after he went on a hunger strike, rights activists reported on Monday, according to the New York Times.

The American, Robin Shahini was released about two weeks ago, just before the start of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, according to news by rights groups.

It was unclear whether Shahini’s release was temporary or if he could leave the country, Shahini had been required to post bail of 2 billion rials — about $60,000 — and that he could be sent back to prison if his conviction were affirmed on appeal.

Shahini, a graduate student at San Diego State University, is one of at least four Americans of Iranian descent who have been imprisoned in Iran since the country negotiated a nuclear agreement with major powers including the United States in 2015.

Many rights activists regard the imprisonments as a warning to Americans of Iranian descent not to view the nuclear agreement as a sign of better relations between the United States and Iran.

 

Other Americans held in Iran include Siamak and Baquer Namazi, a father and son who were sentenced in October to 10 years’ imprisonment, as well as Karan Vafadari, an art gallery owner, and his wife, Afarin Niasari, an Iranian with permanent United States residency status. The precise nature of the charges against them are unclear.

Iranian regime considers imprisoned Iranian-Americans to be citizens of Iran and does not afford them consular privileges ordinarily granted to foreign citizens.

For the mullahs, granting any individual basic human rights seems to be out of their plans.

Michael Tomlinson

The Double Standard of the Iran Lobby

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The Double Standard of the Iran Lobby

US Defence Minister James Mattis addresses the press during a NATO defence ministers’ meetings at the NATO headquarters in Brussels on February 15, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / EMMANUEL DUNAND

Consistency of thought has never been the strong suit for members of the Iran lobby such as the National Iranian American Council. Often staffers from the NIAC write editorials that passionately argue to right some perceived wrong being perpetrated by the U.S. government, while at the same time ignoring the exact same violation being committed by the Iranian regime.

Take for example the issue of detention of Iranians within the U.S. under the Trump administration’s new immigration rules versus the long-running policy of the mullahs in Tehran of snatching up and imprisoning dual-national citizens.

The NIAC issued a statement by Ryan Costello arguing against the arrest of an Iranian citizen holding a U.S. visa in Michigan. According to the statement, the “news comes amidst an uptick in government harassment of visa holders and citizens entering the U.S. We are concerned this is further evidence of a discriminatory culture being promoted by Donald Trump and his administration, particularly towards people of Middle Eastern descent.”

While the attention to this case seems to be the primary focus of the NIAC, the notorious supporters of the Iranian regime are virtually silent on the same practice by the mullahs in arresting dual-nationals such as Iranian-Americans on bogus or secret charges and held in deplorable conditions.

Consider the long-running saga of British charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who was arrested at Tehran Airport on April 3 last year while visiting family with daughter Gabriella.

She was imprisoned for five years in September for allegedly plotting to topple the Iranian government and lost an appeal against her sentence in January but maintains her innocence.

On Sunday – the 365th day since the arrest – family and friends gathered at Fortune Green close to Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s home in north-west London according to the Standard.

Supporters tied yellow ribbons to a tree in the park along with quotes from inmates at Evin prison in Iran, where Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being held, describing what they would do with one day of freedom.

Her painful and heartfelt wish reads: “My fondest dream has always been to arrive at our home, you ask me if I want to have a cup of tea, then make me one.”

“I just sit back and watch you two play. This is the image I had most when in solitary confinement.

“How I wish I could watch you both dance in the middle of our sitting room to the Michael Jackson music – like when Gabriella was only tiny.”

The NIAC makes no mention of her incarceration, not even a plea for humanitarian release because of her sharply declining health and denial of adequate medical care. Why the double standard?

One of the more stunning double standards was an editorial in the Atlantic Council by NIAC’s Adam Weinstein which argued why Iran views its ballistic missile program as a “red line” that warrants full protection by the mullahs.

He predictably recounts the same old arguments from Iran’s experiences in the Iran-Iraq War in which Saddam Hussein showered Iranian troops with missile barrages and how the mullahs in Tehran vowed to develop their own missile capability to defend themselves in the future, especially as a deterrent from perceived enemies such as the U.S. and Saudis.

Weinstein argues—incredibly—that alleviating Iran’s sense of vulnerability might be a better way to approach Iran.

Using his logic, if your neighbor has decided to arm himself and occasionally takes shots at you, Weinstein argues that you should be the one of reassure your violent neighbor, not the other way around?!

Weinstein even stretches his bizarre logic by trying to tie into a historically revisionist view of Shi’ism portraying it as choosing pragmatism over ideology.

Not many Syrians or Yemen civilians being subjected to Iranian bombs, mortars, rockets, drones and militia would find any proof of that sentiment.

What Weinstein never discusses though is the rapid development of Iran’s missile program in creating and testing ever more powerful boosters designed to reach intercontinental distances and lift capability approaching via nuclear payload capabilities.

Why Iran needs a ballistic missile with the range to reach into New Delhi or Rome is never mentioned by Weinstein because there is no reason other than to hold a dagger over Europe, Asia and the rest of the Middle East like the sword of Damocles.

But that double standard is nothing new to the Iranian regime as Iran’s Foreign Ministry called on the United States to pressure its regional allies into abandoning their support for terrorism and not level “malicious” allegations against the Islamic state.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi made the statement on Saturday, reacting to earlier comments by US Defense Secretary James Mattis claiming that Iran continued to sponsor terror, Press TV reported.

Asked about comments Mattis made in 2012 that the three primary threats the United States faced were “Iran, Iran, Iran,” Mattis told reporters in London on Friday that Iranian regime’s behavior had not changed in the years since.

“At the time when I spoke about Iran I was a commander of US central command and that (Iran) was the primary exporter of terrorism, frankly, it was the primary state sponsor of terrorism and it continues that kind of behavior today,” Mattis said.

Laura Carnahan

 

Bipartisan Consensus Forming on Dealing with Iran Regime

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Bipartisan Consensus Forming on Dealing with Iran Regime

Bipartisan Consensus Forming on Dealing with Iran Regime

In today’s turbulent political environment there is not much anyone agrees on, except that maybe the New England Patriot comeback in the Super Bowl was astounding or that the Chicago Cubs win of the World Series was historic.

Other than that, most politicians can’t even seem to agree on the weather and what causes a shift in temperature day to day.

On one topic though there seems to be a growing bipartisan consensus, not just in the U.S. but around the world and that is more needs to be done to rein in the intransigence of the Iranian regime and the threat posed by its burgeoning military and ballistic missile program.

Monday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iran was an example of a political environment with a rare and welcomed unanimity. Ranking member Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) remarked that although he voted against the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran, he doesn’t think it would be wise to withdraw, saying:

“Iran’s activities today are as bad as they have ever been and probably worse. They are certainly increasing their terrorist sponsorship in the Middle East as we see in so many different countries in that region. Their record on violating the ballistic missile obligations are well known and well understood. Their human rights violations against their own citizens are horrible, one of the worst countries in the world. They violate the arms embargo and the list goes on and on. So, it is appropriate to get this Committee to look at what we can do to make sure that first, the Iran nuclear agreement is honored so that Iran does not become a nuclear weapons state, but then secondly, look at those activities that were not covered under the JCPOA as to how we can play a stronger role.”

He was joined by his Republican colleague, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the committee who said:

“One of my criticisms of the JCPOA was that it would become our de facto Middle East policy and Iran would expand their destabilizing activities. I think we are seeing a lot of that today. Regionally, we’ve seen an escalation in Iranian intervention. Iran, along with its allies in Russia, has continued to prop up Assad at the cost of countless lives in Syria. Iran’s support to the Shia militias in Iraq threatens the interests of Sunnis and Kurds alike, not to mention the Shia in Iraq that don’t subscribe to the anti-American, zero-sum politics of the militias that are there.”

Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post’s Right Turn blog opined that “given this shared assessment of Iran — the JCPOA is not going away but the United States needs to confront Iran in other arenas — it’s not surprising that a bipartisan bill, the Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017, with seven co-sponsors from each party, was introduced last week.”

“The act establishes new sanctions targeting Iran’s testing of ballistic missiles and its backing for terrorism, and also seeks to block the property of any entity involved in the sale of arms to or from Iran. It does not reintroduce sanctions lifted from Iran as part of the 2015 nuclear deal.”) In a summary released last week, senators described potentially far-reaching measures including mandatory sanctions on those involved with Iran’s ballistic missile program, new sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a requirement for the president “to block the property of any person or entity involved in specific activities related to the supply, sale, or transfer of prohibited arms and related material to or from Iran,” Rubin added.

But it wasn’t just on Capitol Hill where there was unanimous consent as all 15 resolutions passed by the Arab summit which took place in Jordan Wednesday were devoted to an indictment of Iran, its Revolutionary Guards Corps and Lebanese surrogate, Hezbollah. They were a testament to the depth of Arab-Iranian animosity and exposed the extent of the rift between the Sunni and Shiite Muslim worlds.

Iran was accused of meddling in the internal affairs of Arab nations, inciting Shiites against Sunnis, and arming and training Shiite terrorist groups for operations against legitimate Arab governments. The Arab rulers combined to put Tehran in the dock for its interference in the Syrian civil war and assault on its sovereignty.

It was notable that at an Arab summit that has in the past concerned itself with issues related to Israel and the plight of the Palestinian people, the entire focus of the summit was on the Iranian regime; demonstrating how important the issue of confronting Tehran has become to the wider Arab world.

In the annual AIPAC conference a clearer united vision of the importance to oppose the Iranian regime was surfaced. American authorities and law makers used the opportunity to show their unanimous visions on the threat they feel from the Iranian regime and the need to take action to contain the growing destabilizing activities of the mullahs in the region.

The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, called to designate the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group, describing it as a “terrorist army.” He said “Iran supports the terrorist dictator of Damascus and the militias in Yemen, Baghdad and Beirut.”

Furthermore, Nikki Hailey, the US ambassador to the United Nations asserted at the conference that “Iran’s nuclear deal is worrisome because it empowered Russian and Iran and encouraged the latter to act freely without fear of accountability.”

Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader in the Senate added: “Today we must adopt a different approach. We must combat Iran’s ability to finance, arm and train terrorists, such as Hezbollah, Hamas and its proxies in Syria.”

McConnell criticized Iranian regime’s nuclear deal, saying that it disabled the United States from taking more aggressive steps against Iran.

Meanwhile the Iran lobby was once again beating the war drum in an editorial in Huffington Post by Jamal Abdi of NIAC Action and Adam Weinstein of the National Iranian American Council, in which they claimed that this bipartisan consensus would only provide incentives for the U.S. to be plunged into a war with Iran at the behest of President Trump.

They go on to argue that if the proposed sanctions bill passes, Tehran would respond negatively and all the positive gains made by the nuclear deal would evaporate. What positive gains?

Since the deal was agreed to, the Iranian regime has broken every promise of moderation, stability, peace and partnership made by the NIAC and other Iran lobby supporters.

The harsh proof of Iranian regime’s track record over the past years has been so convincing that a bipartisan consensus is seen among both houses of congress to try to oppose the mullahs in Tehran.

All we can say is that it’s about time.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Desperate for Foreign Policy Wins

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Iran Regime Desperate for Foreign Policy Wins

Soldiers loyal to Yemen’s government stand next to mines planted by the al-Houthi group in locations where they controlled in frontline in the province of Marib, October 4, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Next May Iran will hold a presidential “election” that will lack for one thing: suspense. In the Iranian regime, uncertainty is anathema to the mullahs, especially Ali Khamenei and his handpicked minions on the various parliamentary councils that review and decide which candidates will appear on the ballot.

For all the handwringing and angst being generated by the Iran lobby over the perceived vulnerability of current president Hassan Rouhani, there is no doubt that if Khamenei wants Rouhani back to carry out his policies, he’s going to be the next president.

Given that certainty, the domestic situation for the ruling mullahs is anything but favorable to them. The Iranian economy remains stuck in reverse. Any hopes for it to be jumpstarted by the billions of dollars released as part of the nuclear agreement evaporated as the mullahs chose to redirect those funds to support the teetering Assad regime in Syria and the war in Yemen, as well as go on a multi-billion dollar buying binge of Russia weapons.

Unemployment remains high, especially among Iranian youth, coupled with rising prices for everything from fuel to consumer goods. Add that to miserable environmental conditions that have resulted in long droughts that have devastated farming and turned vast stretches of Iran into desert, and you get massive street protests—not about politics, but about economic conditions.

The mullahs are not fools, they are crafty political hands, adept at deception and misdirection, and they have dredged up another diversion in constantly pitting Iran in perpetual cycles of war and foreign policy crisis.

If it wasn’t the Syrian civil war, it was the rebellion in Yemen. If it wasn’t the sectarian conflict in Iraq, it was the decades-long civil war in Lebanon. Throughout all of it, the mullahs have used foreign policy to divert attention from the misery at home and gin up a jingoistic fervor.

Now as Iran stares at another presidential election, the mullahs don’t want a repeat of 2009 where massive street protests were violently put down in response to cries of a rigged election.

This explains why Rouhani has made a trek to Moscow to call upon Russia to serve as a guarantor of sorts for Iranian regime’s interests in Syria. Rouhani is dangling the prospect of forming a mutual barrier to U.S. policy interests in the Middle East, as well as the tempting offer of access to Iranian bases for Russian military forces.

Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif reopened the door to Russian use of Iranian airbases to carry out strikes in Syria, in another sign of increasing cooperation between the two countries, according to the Daily Caller.

Russia carried out some airstrikes on Syria from an Iranian airbase in August, but was later rebuked by Iranian authorities for bragging about it. After Russian state media trumpeted the strike as a major strategic coup, Iran’s minister of defense accused them of a “betrayal of trust” publicly. He declared at the time, “it is finished, for now.”

Zarif signaled that this time-out may be over saying “Russia doesn’t have a military base (in Iran), we have good cooperation, and on a case by case basis, when it is necessary for Russians fighting terrorism to use Iranian facilities, we will make a decision.”

In Moscow, Rouhani and Putin signed several bilateral agreements that served as window dressing for these kinds of state visits. The two leaders affirmed their commitment to peace in Syria, where they have both backed the Assad regime, as well as introducing new economic cooperation mostly in energy and industry, especially calls for reduction in oil production as a means of boosting global oil prices.

 

Both nations’ economies have been severely impacted by the steep decline in petroleum as a result of stepped up production from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

 

Though Moscow and Tehran both support Assad, their views on Turkey and its involvement in the conflict have differed. Though Moscow envisions Ankara as a part of the solution to the Syrian conflict, Tehran has been more wary – particularly after Moscow and Ankara left Tehran out of a truce they brokered in December, according to Voice of America News.

 

Aside from the photo opportunities for Rouhani, the Iranian regime stayed the course in maintaining its ever-increasing variety of militant and extremes actions, including reports of a renewed military commitment to Houthi rebels in Yemen in an increasingly volatile war that threatens to drag Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States into direct conflict with Iran.

A group of analysts known for research in global security threats said in a new report that the increase in Iranian involvement is to offset the gains made by Yemeni government troops supported by the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces.

An increased Iranian role will prolong Yemen’s civil war and make the conflict more sectarian, worsening Yemen’s humanitarian crisis and allowing Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to expand its support base within Yemen, according to Gulf News.

“The deployment of inter-operable proxy forces is part of Iran’s evolution of a form of hybrid warfare that will allow it to project significant force far from its borders and fundamentally alter the balance of power in the region. Iran may increase its engagement in Yemen if US support for the Saudi-led coalition threatens the Al Houthi-Saleh faction’s survival,” they said.

The Critical Threats Project run by the public policy think tank the American Enterprise Institute has published the analysis on their website, providing information on Iranian military assistance to Yemeni rebels.

“Iran may attempt to incorporate the Al Houthis into its Axis of Resistance coalition, which Iran uses to contain the US and its regional allies,” the report stresses, warning that further escalation in the Yemeni civil war will threaten freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, risking both global commercial markets and the US Navy’s freedom of movement in the region.”

The analysis claimed that Iran had attempted to smuggle over 2,000 small arms into Yemen in 2015 and 2016, in addition to a large stockpile of other weapons.

“Iran likely facilitated the development of an Al Houthi-Saleh naval mining program. Mines struck a government coast guard ship near Mokha port, Taiz governorate on March 11 and a fishing vessel near Midi district, northwestern Hajjah governorate on March 8. Iran provides sophisticated weaponry that allows the Al Houthi-Saleh faction to hold terrain, counter Saudi-led coalition capabilities, and threaten US freedom of movement in the Red Sea,” the report warned.

As the flashes go off in Moscow, the rest of the Middle East is dreading what next chapter of hell the Iranian regime is set to unleash.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Steps Up Global Spy and Lobbying Efforts

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Iran Regime Steps Up Global Spy and Lobbying Efforts

Iran Regime Steps Up Global Spy and Lobbying Efforts

The Iranian regime is sensing an opportunity to expand its influence through its use of its operatives and proxies in the Ministry of Intelligence and its lobbying and public relations efforts that were used during the run up to the nuclear agreement reached with the U.S. and five other nations.

The regime’s own intelligence minister has been busy boasting about the regime’s ability to run a lobbying group in the very heart of the “Great Satan” in Washington, DC.

Amir Basiri, a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and an Iranian human rights activist, detailed these claims in an editorial.

“Mahmoud Alavi, Iran’s spy chief, bragged about the regime’s capability to run a lobby group in Washington with the aim of promoting Tehran’s hardline agenda,” Basiri wrote.

According to Alavi, Iranian dual citizens in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have maintained their loyalty to the “Islamic revolution,” the mullahs’ hallmark motto ever since 1979, through which they have wreaked havoc across the region and beyond, he said.

A “lobby group for the Islamic Republic of Iran” is actively bolstering Tehran’s status in the international stage and helping to sell and legitimize its nuclear ambitions as just causes to the globe, Alavi claimed.

“The head of Iran’s intelligence apparatus did not bother to name the specific lobby entity. One certain group, however, the National Iranian American Council, has been the target of major criticism in the past several months, with accusations of the group lobbying on Tehran’s behalf. Various dissident organizations are demanding the Trump administration to launch an official probe digging into NIAC’s history and nature of its current events,” Basiri added.

What was interesting was that the NIAC, did not deny Alavi’s claims.

Basiri pointed out that Congress has also been petitioned to investigate ties between Iran and the NIAC, and the latter’s active drive to promote a pro-Tehran agenda in Washington. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., who chair the foreign affairs committees in each chamber of Congress, have received specific letters signaling the importance of urgent action in this regard.

NIAC was once again under the spotlight this January for its actions of presenting a positive image of the Iran nuclear deal and advocating a pro-diplomatic approach with Tehran. The media reported extensively on how two senior Iranian regime supporters, former Iranian nuclear diplomat Hossein Mousavian and NIAC founder and president Trita Parsi, enjoyed access to the Obama White House on more than 30 occasions, conducting meetings with senior administration officials, while a former NIAC staffer now directs Iran policy at the State Department.

Alavi’s recent remarks are source for serious concern as entities advocating Iran’s agenda in the American capital are obliged by the Foreign Agents Registration Act to disclose the nature of their work. This even includes conditions where the relationship does not involve money exchanges, at least not through legal and opaque channels.

For years Iran has been known to forward an official plot of boosting relations with groups promoting anti-war and pro-regime policies in the West. Improving contacts with Iranian dual nationals living in the West has been high on Tehran’s agenda on this matter.

One major task of this network has been discrediting those opposing the regime in Tehran and taking measures against any efforts voicing support for Iran regime change. The main Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and its most important member, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), have been the constant target of smear campaigns launched and orchestrated by the Iranian regime and NIAC, according to Basiri.

Not only has the Iranian regime worked hard to develop its lobbying resources, but it has continued to expand on its efforts to spy and conduct terror operations on its neighbors as the government of Bahrain announced Sunday that it had arrested over a dozen individuals believed to have planted a bomb on a police bus and received training from Hezbollah and the government of Iran.

Bahrain’s interior ministry issued a statement Sunday confirming the arrests of 14 individuals who “are suspected of receiving overseas military training under the supervision of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah in Iraq,” according to the Associated Press. The men were arrested as part of a larger raid on a property that authorities claimed was stocked with weapons; police say the terror cell was planning assassinations, though they did not specify if they believed the men were targeting any officials in particular.

Al-Arabiya adds that authorities believe the alleged terrorists arrested were working under the supervision of Mortadha Majeed al-Sindi and Qassim Abdullah Ali, the latter of which has received a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” label from the U.S. State Department. Reuters identifies both men as “exiled Bahrainis living in Iran.” In addition to being led by individuals living in Iran, the terror cell boasted a number of individuals with ties to Iranian terror groups. Voice of America cites local outlets who reported that official identified five alleged terrorists as having received training from Hezbollah, and another six who had been trained by IRGC leaders.

In another case, a Pakistani man was convicted in Germany on Monday of spying for Iran to search out potential attack targets for the Revolutionary Guards.

The defendant, 31-year-old Mustufa Haidar Syed-Naqfi, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison “for working for a foreign intelligence service”, a spokeswoman for Berlin’s superior court said.

The court found he spied “against Germany and another NATO member”, France, for the Quds Force, the foreign operations wing of the elite Revolutionary Guards.

Syed-Naqfi compiled dossiers on possible attack targets – a German lawmaker who is the former head of a German-Israeli organisation, and a French-Israeli economics professor.

Investigators found detailed dossiers on the men and their daily routines, with hundreds of photos and video clips.

A representative of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, which handles counterespionage, said it was alerted to the defendant by a “reliable” source.

The service suspected the Quds Force was preparing for a possible future conflict with the United States and Israel, when it could hit targets in Europe in a form of “asymmetrical warfare”.

Laura Caranahan

Khamenei Promises More Crackdowns on Election Protests

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Khamenei Promises More Crackdowns on Election Protests

Khamenei Promises More Crackdowns on Election Protests

Back in 2009, the Middle East was being rocked by the Arab Spring, a pro-democracy movement that toppled governments throughout the region and put despotic regimes on the defensive.

At the time, the Iranian regime’s much despised president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was running for “re-election” in a contest widely viewed as unlikely for him given the historic disapproval of the Iranian people and their deep desire for democratic change.

But as with all things under the careful watch of the mullahs, his election was essentially guaranteed in what the international community dubbed a rigged election.

In response, Iran was rocked with mass protests and demonstrations the likes of which the Iranian regime had not seen before in the most serious threat to the iron rule of the religious establishment. Alarmed and in response to keep their hold on power, the top mullah Ali Khamenei ordered a widespread crackdown that set human rights back in Iran decades in resulted in scores killed and thousands beaten, arrested and imprisoned.

The mass protests were aided in large part by the emergence of social media which helped rally young and old Iranians alike to dispute the election and served as a splash of cold water in the regime’s face that it would have to change as well, but not in terms of granting more freedoms.

By the time 2013 rolled around, the mullahs had gotten wise to international opinion and instead staged an election by removing anyone from the ballot that could even be considered a dissident and instead offered up an old loyalist in Hassan Rouhani repackaged as a smiling, tweeting, kindly “moderate.”

The end result was another sham election and in comparison to 2009 with favorable media attention abroad. It was also aided by the creation of an Iran lobby apparatus designed to push forward more positive narratives about the regime in news media and among elected officials, especially the National Iranian American Council.

Since then, while Rouhani has paraded himself as ca champion of the oppressed, Iran has plunged even further into disrepair.

It is involved now in two full-blown wars in Syria and Yemen, while spending billions of dollars in cash to support the Assad regime, Shiite militias in Iraq, its long-time Hezbollah proxy, and a rebuilding of its vast military.

It has also cracked down viciously at home, oppressing women, religious and ethnic minorities and even going on a binge of hostage taking amongst dual-national citizens including Americans, Canadians and Brits.

Now the stage is set for another election this May and once Khamenei has set the table by declaring that the regime would not tolerate any interference; meaning only the regime’s candidate will be elected and everyone should stay off the streets.

“I will confront anyone who wants to tamper with the results of the people’s vote. In previous years and previous elections …, it was the same. Some of it was in front of people’s eyes and they became aware of it. And some of it they were not aware of but I was informed about it,” he said in Iranian New Year remarks carried live on state television, according to Reuters.

“It was revealed in 2009 – they came out and drew battle lines. And in other years in other ways, but in all these years I stood against them and said whatever the results of the election are, they must be carried out.”

Two of the candidates from the 2009 presidential election, which put hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into office for a second term despite large protests over alleged vote fraud that shook the Islamic Republic, have been under house arrest since 2011. Although part of the regime apparatus, they were detained for calling for street protests at the same time that pro-democracy uprisings were convulsing Tunisia and Egypt.

This year’s election will never be in doubt. Whoever Khamenei wants is going to win, this is a matter of course since he controls the policy making body that will have final say on whoever gets on the ballot in the first place.

Imagine if the Democratic or Republican parties had final say on who got on a presidential ballot without having to suffer through the rigors of a primary contest? In essence, that is what the Iranian regime does on a regular basis; it’s a rigged game.

But the Iranian regime is becoming more sophisticated in the ways of politics. Just as it adjusted to the brutal crackdowns following the 2009 elections, it is following up on the initial creation of the Iran lobby with a broader call for more Iranians in the West to become active lobbyists for the regime’s causes as outlined in an editorial by Michael Rubin in Commentary.

“An Iran watcher and Iranian citizen recently alerted me to this clip showing Mahmoud Alavi, Iran’s intelligence minister, on Iranian national television suggesting there are Iranians in the West who have a lobby for the regime,” Rubin said.

“Alavi does not mention NIAC, but the number of politically active groups that focus on issues of sanctions, defending Iran’s ballistic missile program, and Iran’s nuclear program can like be counted not only on one hand but rather on one finger. If Iran’s intelligence minister believes that Tehran can leverage a specific lobby in the West on behalf not of Iranians but rather of the Islamic Republic, perhaps it is time for American counterintelligence authorities to take a far harder look at whatever lobby to which Alavi might be referring,” he added.

Rouhani’s election will be critical as the regime enters a new phase of expansion and aggression as it puts its newfound billions in cash it received as part of the nuclear deal to good use in furthering the war in Yemen and securing Syria as part of its Shiite sphere of influence.

According to Reuters, Iran is sending advanced weapons and military advisers to Yemen’s rebel Houthi movement, stepping up support for its Shiite ally in a civil war whose outcome could sway the balance of power in the Middle East, regional and Western sources say.

Sources with knowledge of the military movements, who declined to be identified, say that in recent months Iran has taken a greater role in the two-year-old conflict by stepping up arms supplies and other support. This mirrors the strategy it has used to support its Lebanese ally Hezbollah in Syria.

A senior Iranian official said Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Qods Force – the external arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – met top IRGC officials in Tehran last month to look at ways to “empower” the Houthis.

We may very soon see the Arabian Peninsula erupt in a war not unlike what has convulsed Syria if the mullahs have their way.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Charting a Pathway for Aggression

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Iran Regime Charting a Pathway for Aggression

This picture released by the official website of the Iranian Defense Ministry on Sunday, March 12, 2017, shows domestically manufactured tank called “Karrar” in an undisclosed location in Iran. Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency is reporting that the country has unveiled a domestically manufactured tank and has launched a mass-production line. (Iranian Defense Ministry via AP)

The Iran lobby has consistently pushed a message that the Iranian regime was always interested in pursuing a pathway towards moderation and only needed the cooperation of the U.S. and its allies in empowering “moderate” elements in the government to take control and nudge the religious theocracy back to center.

The truth has been far bleaker and starker and nowhere has that been more obvious than in Iran’s constant efforts to build out its military capabilities and size of forces. Already possessing one of the largest standing armies in the world, the Iranian regime has been on a buying and building binge lately to expand its military using billions in new cash garnered from the lifting of sanctions under the nuclear agreement.

Iran has used its newfound wealth to buy advanced missile systems from Russia, along with sophisticated radar and communications equipment, as well as licenses to mass produce arms such as guns, rockets, missiles, drones and in its latest unveiling, a new main battle tank.

Tehran formally announced it will begin mass producing its domestically built main battle tank during a ceremony attended by the country’s defense leadership, according to Russia Today.

The tank has been compared to Russia’s T-90MS, the latest variant in the Kremlin’s T-90 series.

Russia’s Uralvagonzavod production corporation announced it was ready to export the new variant to foreign customers during the IDEX 2017 trade show in late February.

The T-90MS is able to conduct self-testing and self-diagnostics on the field, and is designed to integrate with foreign components including communication systems and air-cooling units.

The introduction of a new advanced tank system paves the way for a major upgrade to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and an imposing threat to its neighbors, which have already been under near constant assault from Iranian-backed proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Syria.

  1. Todd Wood, a contributor to Fox Business, wrote about the concerns of this new found arms bazaar between Iran and Russia in the Washington Times.

“Russia has been keen to sell Iran military equipment and technology since the sanctions were lifted on the Islamic theocracy and the billions started flowing from the Obama administration. In fact, you could say that President Obama was the best thing that ever happened to the Russian armament industry. You could also say Hezbollah, the Iranian terror army in Lebanon and Syria, feels the same about Mr. Obama, as they were surely the recipient of all those pallets of billions in cash, but that’s another story,” he writes.

“The Iranian armor capability was severely degraded during the Iran-Iraq War and the real Shia Islamic state never had the money to change that reality. After the dollars started flowing, thanks to Valerie Jarrett and Ben Rhodes, Iran made noise about wanting to license the Russian T-90 tank technology and build the war machines ‘in-country,’” Wood added.

In addition to the upgrade in armor, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of Iranian dissident and human rights groups, released information about claims made by a IRGC commander detailing the construction of several arms factories throughout Lebanon and handed over to Hezbollah three months ago.

These factories are able to build various types of missiles with ranges of over 500 kilometers. This includes surface-to-surface, surface-to-sea, and torpedoes designed to be launched from light and fast-attack boats. Armed drones, anti-tank missiles and fast armored boats are also built in these factories.

The weapons produced in these factories have been successfully tested in Syria, this IRGC commander added. These factories were handed over to Hezbollah experts through a step-by step process.

Anti-tank weapons built by these factories have been used time and again in Syria.

Rifles, cannons, anti-air artillery, mortar launchers, various types of missiles and bullets, especially anti-armor are other weapons built and tested by Hezbollah arms experts in these factories.

These sites, spread across the country in unknown locations, are located more than 50 meters below ground level and protected by numerous layers of armored cement to prevent Israeli fighter jets from destroying them, sources say.

Each factory produces a particular part of the missiles and weaponry, and they are assembled at yet another unknown site, according to a report published Saturday in the al-Jarida daily.

All of this military build-up is also being put on display in an aggressive fashion by the regime as detailed by Dr. Majid Rafizadeh in a piece in Huffington Post.

“It has become an alarming and dangerous pattern; a pattern of provocative actions initiated by Iran against many nations in the region, the U.K., the U.S. and its allies,” he writes.

“Just in the last week, several of these provocative operations unfolded. On March 4 U.S. officials pointed out that several of Iran’s assault crafts came dangerously close to the USNS, within 150 meters. A similar incident occurred two days earlier, on March 2 as well,” he added.

These swift-moving assault vessels operate under Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has been empowered and emboldened by the continuing relief of sanctions as well as the lack of a robust reaction against Iran from the international community.

These incidents clearly highlight the fact that Iran is attempting to showcase its military power and regional preeminence to the United States. Some of Iran’s Persian-language newspapers boasted about Tehran’s military capacity to counter the U.S. navy and dominate the Strait of Hormuz, an area that roughly a third of all oil traded by sea must pass through. Iran has frequently exploited the strategic location of the Strait of Hormuz by threatening to shut it down or conducting military exercises meant to intimidate, Rafizadeh points out.

As Iran puts its military might on display, it is clear that the mullahs in Tehran are not preparing for moderation, but a showdown.

Michael Tomlinson