Iran – Page 12 – Iran Lobby

Iran Regime Taunts US for More Ransom Payments to Free Americans

October 21, 2016 by admin

Iran Regime Taunts US for More Ransom Payments to Free Americans

Who actually runs Iran?

It’s not a silly question. It’s an important one because it goes to the heart of the central assertions made repeatedly by the Iran lobby that there is an internal struggle between “moderates” and “hardliners” for the future of Iran.

If you listened to people such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council or bloggers such as Jim Lobe or Ali Gharib, the struggle was a titanic war being waged between good and evil with Hassan Rouhani carrying the banner for all the true moderates in Iran seeking a better life for every Iranian.

What a load of fragrant cattle by-products to put it nicely.

The reality has been quite starkly different as the Iranian regime now controls conflicts in three countries, woos foreign nations and countries to invest and snatches up even more dual national citizens from around the world.

The latest provocation was the sentencing of several Americans to extended prison sentences in secret trials, which earned condemnation from almost every quarter of the political and diplomatic spectrum, but instead of offering any olive branches, the Iranian regime went deeper into its extremism.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Iranian regime is seeking “many billions of dollars” in payments from the US in exchange for the release of several American hostages still being detained in Iran, according to reports by Iran’s state-controlled press that are reigniting debate over the Obama administration’s decision earlier this year to pay Iran $1.7 billion in cash.

Senior Iranian officials, including the Rouhani, have been floating the possibility of further payments from the US for months. Since the White House agreed to pay Tehran $1.7 billion in cash earlier this year as part of a deal bound up in the release of American hostages, Iran has captured several more U.S. citizens.

Future payments to Iran could reach as much as $2 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter, who said that Iran is detaining U.S. citizens in Iran’s notorious Evin prison where inmates are routinely tortured and abused.

Iranian news sources close to the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, which has been handling prisoner swaps with the United States, reported on Tuesday that Iran expects “many billions of dollars to release” those U.S. citizens still being detained.”

Which leads us to the question we started with: Who’s calling the shots in Iran? Rouhani, who previously has served as a regime cheerleader for moderation now openly admits in interviews with Western journalists that Iran does not recognize dual nationalities, even though he previously issued a call for ex-pat Iranians to return and help rebuild its shattered economy.

“We should wait and see, the U.S. will offer … many billions of dollars to release” American businessman Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer, who was abducted by Iran after the United States paid Iran the $1.7 billion, according to the country’s Mashregh News outlet, which has close ties to the IRGC’s intelligence apparatus.

The Persian language news report was independently translated for the Washington Free Beacon.

Six hostages have been sentenced to 10 years in prison by Iran in the past months, including the Namazis.

One senior congressional adviser familiar with the issue told the Free Beacon that Iranian officials have been pressing for another $2 billion from the United States for months.

“Iranian officials including Foreign Minister [Mohammad Javad] Zarif have been bragging for months that they’re going to force the U.S. to pay them several billion dollars more,” the source said. “Now officials across the spectrum in Iran—from IRGC hardliners to the ostensibly moderate President Rouhani—are talking about those billions, and maybe several more, alongside chatter about the U.S. hostages.”

The Washington Post editorial board acknowledged the true nature of the regime with the harsh sentences handed down.

“The government of Hassan Rouhani, which negotiated the nuclear deal with the Obama administration, is often portrayed as opposed to this de facto hostage-taking. If so, the government appears powerless to prevent it. Instead, officials complain about the relatively slow return of Western investment and trade following the lifting of United Nations sanctions, even as some of those who promote the opening are unjustly imprisoned,” the Post said.

“Though it was officially part of a separate claims settlement, the Obama administration’s delivery of $400 million in cash to the Iranian regime at the time of the release of (Washington Post reporter Jason) Rezaian and other prisoners may have whetted the appetites of Tehran’s jailers.”

Clearly now, everyone can see Rouhani is not a moderate. When it comes to main policies of the regime, he was and still is merely no different than the top mullah Ali Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guard Corps which controls Iran and its people as tightly as a hangman’s noose wraps around a condemned prisoner’s neck.

Michael Tomlinson

Why Hassan Rouhani’s Calls for Co-Existence Are Meaningless

October 21, 2016 by admin

Why Hassan Rouhani’s Calls for Co-Existence Are Meaningless

Iranian regime controlled media loudly broadcast remarks made by Hassan Rouhani at a ceremony marking National Exports Day in Tehran in which he called for peaceful co-existence with the rest of the world and Iran’s neighbors.

No, this was not an April’s Fool joke come early, nor was it an attempt at early Halloween gallows humor.

Rouhani was making his appeal because the world has not reacted well to the regime’s militant and aggressive moves since a nuclear agreement was reach over 18 months ago. There has arisen significant uncertainty among foreign companies, institutional investors and many governments over entering into business agreements at a time when new sanctions may be coming.

Rouhani was making his appeal on a strictly commercial basis in which he hoped to see Iran enter the global marketplace as a significant consumer market, as well as an eventual exporter of goods.

According to Trend News Agency, “Iran has no choice other than forming a constructive interaction with the world in order to boost its export,” he said.

He further said that constructive interaction with the world means establishing suitable ties with global community for exports, and import of capital goods and raw materials as well as employment of youth.

There is good reason for Rouhani and his fellow mullahs to be worried. Iran’s economy remains stagnant, with little benefits trickling down to ordinary Iranians as promised by Rouhani. Youth unemployment remains staggeringly high and wages have not risen significantly in over a decade leading to widespread discontent and protests throughout Iran.

Scandals involving excessive compensation for high-placed executives at regime-controlled industries have rocked Rouhani’s term, as does a high-profile crackdown against journalists, students, artists, bloggers, dissidents, and religious and ethnic minorities.

The mullahs’ “morals” police squads are working overtime arresting and abusing everyone from Iranian women riding bicycles to Iranian youth congregating in coffee shops.

But what has most foreign companies and investors worried is the regime’s rapid escalation in its involvement in three widening proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, in which US armed forces are increasingly being drawn into direct conflict with Iranian and Iranian-backed forces.

In Yemen, Iranian regime-backed Houthi rebels reportedly fired cruise missiles at US warships three times in one week; resulting a response from the US of three cruise missiles hitting radar installations in Yemen.

US Army Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of US forces in the Middle East, said on Wednesday that he believes Iran was behind the missile strikes on US Navy ships in Yemen.

“I do think that Iran is playing a role in some of this. They have a relationship with the Houthis, so I do suspect there is a role in that,” said Votel at the Center for American Progress, The Hill’s Kristina Wong reports.

Now news reports have surfaced detailing how the Iranian regime has stepped up weapons transfers to the Houthis threatening to widen and prolong the now 19-month-old war.

Much of the recent smuggling activity has been through Oman, which neighbors Yemen, including via overland routes that take advantage of porous borders between the two countries, the officials said.

U.S. and Western officials who spoke to Reuters about the recent trend in arms transfers said it was based on intelligence they had seen but did not elaborate on its nature. They said the frequency of transfers on known overland smuggling routes had increased notably, though the scale of the shipments was unclear.

A senior Iranian diplomat confirmed a “sharp surge in Iran’s help to the Houthis in Yemen” since May, referring to weapons, training and money.

“The nuclear deal gave Iran an upper hand in its rivalry with Saudi Arabia, but it needs to be preserved,” the diplomat said.

Ironically, the timing of the increased flow of cash and arms to the Houthis coincides with the ransom payments of $1.7 billion made to the Iranian regime by the US to free four American hostages.

Meanwhile in Syria, the growing failure of repeated cease-fires have placed US personnel dangerously close to being targeted by Russian and Syrian airstrikes, as well as facing Shiite militias imported from Iraq by Iranian airliners to fight alongside Syrian forces against US-backed rebels.

It is against this backdrop of global uncertainty that Rouhani is making one of the most absurd sales pitches anyone can recall since it is exactly because of the Iranian regime’s acts that have made many companies and investors skittish at risking billions of dollars.

That idea of co-existence draws little weight as Rouhani himself has admitted that the regime does not recognize dual national citizens and is in the midst of an unprecedented binge of hostage-taking of US, British, Canadian and other citizens.

Even more disturbing has been taunting statements made on regime-controlled websites demanding “billions in cash” as ransom payments for these new hostages.

Even Rouhani has taken a personal hand in tightening the figurative noose among his fellow Iranians by firing Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ali Jannati, Education Minister Ali Asghar Fani and Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Mahmoud Goudarzi all on the same day.

It’s interesting to note that all three ministers oversaw parts of Iranian society which enjoyed a bit more creative freedom during the run-up of the nuclear negotiations in an effort to present a more “open” society to the world. With the nuclear deal accomplished, their dismissals and subsequent crackdown on freedoms should not be a surprise.

Laura Caranahan

Iran Regime Pushes Oil Contracts to Raise Cash for Wars

October 19, 2016 by admin

Iran Regime Pushes Oil Contracts to Raise Cash for Wars

The Iranian regime’s Hassan Rouhani put out the invitation to a select group of high-powered investors to come visit the regime in the hopes of garnering new investments to help jump-start a stagnant economy that has only gotten worse after promises for improvements by Rouhani proved false after the nuclear agreement. Rouhani did not mention anything about the dual citizens who will end up in prison for a cash ransom.

Rouhani’s invite went to the 20-20 Investment Association, a group of influential investors overseeing $7 trillion of assets, much of it though is held within government-run pension funds which are prohibited by many state laws from investing in Iran because of its support of terrorism. This includes some of the biggest pension funds run by California, New York and Texas.

James Donald, head of emerging markets at Lazard Asset Management, the US fund company that oversees $174 billion of assets, and a board member of the 20-20 association, said the invitation reflected the Iranian regime’s desire to attract more foreign investors.

Donald said: “The group at this stage has not accepted the invitation. An awful lot of large government pension plans have restrictions on Iranian investments and [on] any company that does business in Iran. There is talk of [the remaining sanctions being removed]. I think there would have to be a federal law change [for banks and asset managers to move en masse into the Iranian market].”

In addition Rouhani’s pleas, the regime-controlled National Iranian Oil Co. issued a request for bidders to invest in Iran’s slumping oil industry which powers much of the regime’s overseas and military activities.

The Iranian regime wants to attract more than $100 billion in investment to increase its oil production by 1 million barrels a day by the start of the next decade and raise its current oil output of 3.63 million barrels a day under a compromise agreement reached with other oil producing countries.

The mullahs in Tehran are anxious to try and diversify its investors because in the prior decade of sanctions imposed stemming from its illicit nuclear weapons program, the only dominant investor willing to ignore Western sanctions was China. In many cases, Iran’s oil, telecommunications, manufacturing and other heavy industries are run almost entirely by Chinese workers and managers.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Western investors have been slow to arrive. That’s especially true in the energy sector, where pressure to increase production is intense. Elsewhere, Western clearing banks still refuse to do business with Iran for fear of falling foul of non-nuclear U.S. sanctions that remain in effect, meaning Western companies can’t raise project finance.

This has created intense pressure on the mullahs to find some way to bring in foreign dollars to modernize its antiquated oil industry in order to get more oil out of the ground and sold to bring in hard dollars to fund three widespread wars Iran is now fighting in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

The regrettable end game for the mullahs is to rip off Iran’s natural resources not for the benefit of the Iranian people, but rather fund the Islamic revolutionary expansion they are pushing abroad.

Recognizing the limitations of sanctions still in place, in spite of recent moves by the Obama administration to further accommodate a regime threatening to walk away from the nuclear deal in order to extort more concessions, the Central Bank of Iran announced it had informed banks throughout Iran that any failure by non-American banks to provide dollar-related services to Iranians would be “unacceptable” according to regime-controlled media.

“Providing dollar-related services [to Iranians] will no longer expose non-American banks to the risks of sanctions provided that they stay clear of US financial system,” the CBI said in its statement.

“Therefore, non-American banks cannot use US sanctions against Iran as an excuse for refusing to provide dollar-related services to Iranian individuals and entities.”

It is a desperate statement to make since Iran is not the final arbiter of what is and is not allowed under existing sanctions still in place, but the regime is so desperate for cash it is bullying financial institutions into handling US currency in order to get the flow of cash moving through Iran again.

It’s an explicit warning aimed especially at European and Asian banks who have been reluctant to engage in US currency exchanges with Iran for fear of running afoul of US officials, especially since there is significant uncertainty with the upcoming presidential election virtually guaranteeing a change in policy towards Iran come next January.

All of which highlights the futility of the promises and claims made by the Iran lobby following the nuclear deal in which leading supporters of the regime such as the National Iranian American Council promised a more moderate Iran willing to work to end the series of conflicts in the Middle East.

Instead, the world has amply seen the exact opposite with the breaking out of a shooting war between the US Navy and Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen, the ferrying of thousands of Iranian-backed Shiite militias from Iraq into Syria via Iranian airlines to fight for the Assad regime.

The rapid escalation in fighting in these countries is draining the regime’s treasury in spite of the billions of dollars it received as part of the hostage exchange of Americans and the release of frozen assets back to the Iranian regime.

The mullahs squandered those funds and it seems that they are now rapidly trying to squander billions more in foreign investment.

By Michael Tomlinson

WikiLeaks Reveals a Much Tougher Hillary Clinton on Iran Regime

October 19, 2016 by admin

WikiLeaks Reveals a Much Tougher Hillary Clinton on Iran Regime

The Iran Lobby, led by the National Iranian American Council, have often publicly argued for a more moderate approach to the Iranian regime and encouraged efforts by the Obama administration to appease the mullahs in Tehran in the hopes of changing their historically extremist behavior and policies.

The past two years have shown how foolish it was to believe those promises as the Iranian regime is now the central player in three wars raging across Syria, Iraq and Yemen; all conflicts in which the world is increasingly being dragged into the crosshairs of a shooting war.

The Obama administration has called for another increase in US forces in Iraq to combat ISIS insurgents, yet now find that Iraqi militias it trained are now fighting in Syria against rebel forces the US supports.

Now in Yemen the US Navy is exchanging missile fire with Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Not exactly a recipe for “moderation.”

The NIAC and other Iran lobbyist members have gone all in with the Democratic Party in backing their candidates for House and Senate races in the hopes of overturning a Republican majority that is skeptical of Iran’s professed moderate intentions, but that hope might prove just as illusory as the idea of Iranian moderation.

WikiLeaks has been dumping thousands of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee, party officials and members of the Clinton campaign, including from Hillary Clinton itself.

What they reveal is a much different picture of the candidate’s opinions on Iran that what the NIAC would have everyone believe.

According to a speech transcript made public this weekend by WikiLeaks, Clinton on October 28, 2013, told the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago: “I believe that Rouhani was allowed to be elected by the two major power sources in Iran, the supreme leader and the clerics and the Revolutionary Guard … in part because the sanctions were having a quite damaging effect on the economy.”

She continued: “I don’t think anyone should have any illusions as to the motives of the Iranian leadership. What they really want to do is get sanction relief and give as little as possible for that sanction relief.”

According to Eli Lake in Bloomberg, Clinton, in private at least, has taken a more realistic view since leaving the administration. In her Chicago speech, she called Rouhani’s outreach to the West a “charm offensive,” and argued that U.S. negotiations were important as a sign of good faith to the international community, but not as a way to influence Iranian internal politics.

In another speech sure to dismay NIAC and other Iranian supporters, Clinton even advocated privately for U.S.-led strikes against Iranian regime nuclear facilities and acknowledged regime’s ability to terrorize the United States through Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operatives and other proxies in Latin and North America.

Clinton expressed a willingness to bomb the Iranian regime facilities as an “option” to prevent the Shiite powerhouse from developing a nuclear weapon in a June 4, 2013 speech to Goldman Sachs and elaborated further about the threat Iranian regime, the IRGC, and its proxies pose to the United States in a separate speech on October 24, 2013.

She warned that there would be “consequences” carried out through the IRGC and Iranian regime’s other proxies if the United States took military action against it. Although she did not specifically mention Hezbollah by name, it is the most active Iranian mullah’s terror proxy across the world, including the Western Hemisphere.

In a bit of prescience, Clinton reiterated: “So it’s a wicked problem, as we like to say, because Iran is not only troubling because of its nuclear program, although that’s the foremost threat, it’s the primary conductor and exporter of terrorism.”

“I mean, if you had a big map here behind us, literally from North America to Southeast Asia, there are so many thoughts, so many bombs, so many arrests that are all traced back to the Iranian regime’s revolutionary guard, and their constant efforts to sell (inaudible)….So even if a miracle were to happen and we came up with a verifiable nuclear deal, there would still be problems that Iran is projecting and causing around the world that had real consequences for our friends and ourselves.”

Her recognition of the Iranian regime’s true nature is a welcome boost to those that have opposed the entreaties of NIAC and other Iranian regime supporters. It is also understandable that her comments were private since they were at odds with her party’s leader in President Obama, but with her possible election as president, her core beliefs that the Iranian regime is not a huggable, fluffy teddy bear, but rather a central conduit for the exporting of death, destruction and terrorism is heartening to regime opponents and Iranian dissidents.

On another accout, the Iranian regime blasted comments made by Secretary of State John Kerry who blamed Iran’s provocative actions in Syria and Yemen as being the creator of uncertainty to the extent foreign banks and businesses are reluctant to invest in Iran and not US sanctions on currency exchanges.

In an interview published Friday, Kerry told Foreign Affairs magazine that Iranian regime’s support for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Yemen’s Houthi rebels made it “very difficult” to help Iran improve its banking system and business practices.

“Mr. Kerry’s comments are totally unacceptable,” Iranian regime’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told state television on Sunday night.

“We are surprised. During the nuclear negotiations, we clearly said that questions of security, defense, ballistic missiles and our regional policies were not negotiable and are not linked to the nuclear talks,” he said.

“It is unacceptable that Mr. Kerry is today talking of new conditions.”

No matter how the regime wants to spin it, these problems are problems of its own creation.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Escalating Tensions With US Navy

October 14, 2016 by admin

Iran Regime Escalating Tensions With US Navy

This week has seen tensions rise off the coast of Yemen to unheard of levels as Iranian-backed Houthi rebels twice fired cruise missiles at US Navy warships and in response, a US Navy destroyer fired Tomahawk cruise missiles destroying three coastal radar installations that were used to track the American ships.

Tensions rose even more when the Iranian regime announced it was sending two Iranian warships to the Gulf of Aden in close proximity to one of the world’s most important shipping routes.

“Iran’s Alvand and Bushehr warships have been dispatched to the Gulf of Aden to protect trade vessels from piracy,” regime-controlled Tasnim News Agency reported.

The move introduces Iranian warships far from their operating bases and coastline along the Persian Gulf and puts them adjacent to US warships at a time when threatening behavior is being met with salvos rather than radio warnings.

The Iranian regime has used its navy over the past year to engage in an escalating game of chicken in the Persian Gulf, including having ships make aggressive high speed runs at US warships and ignore radioed warnings and even shots fired across their bows.

Earlier, the Iranian regime detained two US patrol boats that had strayed into waters claimed by the regime and paraded captive US sailors on television and even built a monument to the episode.

The move was seen as the latest escalation in U.S.-Iran tension related to a proxy war in Yemen, where the two are backing opposing sides. The U.S. in March 2015 joined a Saudi-led military coalition to support the embattled Yemeni government against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, according to The Hill.

Although the Tasnim News Agency reported that the Iran ship deployments were to “protect the country’s trade vessels against piracy in the unsafe zone,” it also noted that it “coincides with the US decision to directly get involved in a Saudi-led war against Yemen.”

For the Iranian regime and its mullahs, Yemen is rapidly rising in importance as it becomes a proxy war for the larger conflict it is pursuing in the region. The use of Houthi rebels as proxies is similar to the game plan used by the mullahs with Hezbollah in Syria and Shiite militias in Iraq, all of which are supplied by Iran’s Quds Forces and Revolutionary Guard Corps with weapons, ammunition and training.

The Houthi’s use of Chinese-made cruise missiles against the US Navy warships is a disturbing escalation since the weapons are not cheap and require a fairly high level of technical know-how to operate in coordination with radar tracking; technical expertise almost surely provided by the Iranian military.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), a leading advocate of a tough foreign policy toward Iran, said it was unacceptable that the Obama administration continues to relax financial sanctions on Iran while it supports the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“I am relieved the crew of the USS Mason remain safe and unharmed in the Red Sea after Iran-backed Houthi rebels repeatedly launched missile attacks at them,” Kirk said in a statement.

“It’s counterproductive, absurd and unacceptable that the White House keeps unilaterally relaxing financial sanctions against the Iranian terror-sponsoring regime while Iran continues to actively support Houthi militants in Yemen that are trying to kill American servicemen and servicewomen in the Middle East,” he said.

The inconvenient truth for the White House is that after over a year of appeasing the Iranian regime, the US now finds itself on a brink of an actual shooting war with Iran; a fact that the Wall Street Journal editorial board warned about.

“The White House doesn’t want Americans to notice, but the tide of war is not receding in the Middle East. The Navy this week became part of the hot war in Yemen, with a U.S. warship launching missiles against radar targets after American vessels were fired on this week. Just when President Obama promised that American retreat would bring peace to the region, the region pulls him back in,” the Journal wrote.

“Don’t expect the White House to acknowledge this because the ironies here are something to behold. Mr. Obama is backing the Saudis in Yemen in part to reassure them of U.S. support after the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal that the Saudis opposed. Mr. Obama’s Iran deal was supposed to moderate Iran’s regional ambitions, so Mr. Obama could play a mediating role between Tehran and Riyadh. But the nuclear deal has emboldened Iran, and fortified it with more money, so now the U.S. is being drawn into what amounts to a proxy war against Iran. Genius,” the Journal added.

The increase in attacks against the US by Iran may be designed to weaken its support for Saudi Arabia and further fragment the coalition fighting Iranian adventures in Syria, Iraq and Yemen right now.

By Michael Tomlinson

Starting With US Navy Versus Iran Missiles

October 13, 2016 by admin

Starting With US Navy Versus Iran Missiles

You may not have noticed the news, but there is a shooting war going on off the coast of Yemen between the US Navy and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels trying to overthrow the government in Yemen.

According to US military sources, the US Navy destroyer, USS Mason, was targeted in a failed missile attack as it operated north of the Bab al-Mandab Strait. It was the second attack in the last week against US warships.

The Mason fired defensive salvos in response, bringing down one of the missiles fired at it according to the Pentagon.

In response, the US Navy reportedly fired Tomahawk cruise missiles Thursday morning from the Red Sea at coastal radar sites in Yemen, destroying targets believed to have targeted the US warships.

The missiles were launched from the destroyer USS Nitze at three locations north of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, said Pentagon press spokesman Peter Cook.

“These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships, and our freedom of navigation in this important maritime passageway,” Cook said. “The United States will respond to any further threat to our ships and commercial traffic, as appropriate, and will continue to maintain our freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb, and elsewhere around the world.”

Michael Knights, an expert on Yemen’s conflict at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the targeting of U.S. warship suggested the Houthis, fighters from a Shi’ite sect that ruled a 1,000-year kingdom in northern Yemen until 1962, could be becoming more militarily aligned with groups like Lebanon’s Shi’ite militant group Hezbollah, according to Reuters.

“Targeting U.S. warships is a sign that the Houthis have decided to join the axis of resistance that currently includes Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran,” Knight said.

The Mason was also the target of a failed missile attack off Yemen on Sunday, and the Navy praised the resolve of sailors aboard the ship.

U.S. officials have told Reuters there are growing indications that Houthi rebels, despite those denials, were responsible for Sunday’s incident. The rebels appeared to use small skiffs as spotters to help direct the missile attack on the warship on Sunday.

The United States is also investigating the possibility that a radar station under Houthi control in Yemen might have also “painted” the USS Mason, something that would have helped the Houthi fighters pass along coordinates for a strike, the officials have said.

Reuters has learned that the coastal defense cruise missiles used against the USS Mason on Sunday had considerable range, adding to concerns about the kind of heavy weaponry that the Houthis appear willing to employ and some of which U.S. officials believe is supplied by Iran.

Another missile launched Oct. 1 caused near-catastrophic damage to the HSV-2 Swift, a catamaran-style high-speed vessel that was operated by the Emiratis and once was a part of the U.S. Navy. Video of the strike published online shows the ship engulfed in a fireball.

It’s no secret that the Iranian regime has been supplying the Houthis in their insurgency campaign and warships from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have intercepted ships coming from Iran to Yemen loaded with illegal weapons, including rockets, mortars and launchers.

Even the U.S. Navy intercepted an Iranian shipping vessel sending vast shipments of arms to the Houthis in April 2016.

Attacking American ships in Yemen is becoming a disturbingly all too common affair since this Wednesday also marked the 16^th anniversary of the terrorist attack against the USS Cole in Aden harbor, which killed 17 American sailors.

The fact that Iranian regime supplies virtually all of the arms to the Houthis, especially sophisticated weapons such as the cruise missiles fired at the US Navy ships, many members of Congress suspect that some of the $1.7 billion cash ransom payment made to the Iranian regime in exchange for the release of American hostages may have paid for the Houthi weapons.

The weekend attack on the U.S. Navy by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels has sparked another official inquiry surrounding the cash payment to Iran, with a group of 17 senators now seeking to obtain an official assessment by the Pentagon of how Iranian regime has allocated this cash to its military operations, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Lawmakers, led by Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.) and Ted Cruz (R., Texas), are petitioning the Pentagon to provide a full analysis of Iran’s military activity since last summer’s nuclear agreement went into effect.

Senior Pentagon leaders have said in recent weeks that the Obama administration kept them in the dark about the cash payment to Iran. The U.S. defense establishment widely believes this money will help Iran foster instability across the Middle East.

The 17 senators sent a letter late Tuesday to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford. The inquiry centers around evidence that Iran has significantly increased its military activity since the nuclear accord went into effect.

“The plain purpose of transferring the payment in cash to Tehran was to circumvent the effects of U.S. and international financial sanctions,” the lawmakers wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Free Beacon. “Iran is almost certainly using this windfall to skirt the arms embargo and illicitly purchase weapons for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the terrorist organization Hezbollah, and/or the murderous Assad regime in Syria.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board took a hard line at the possibility of Iran supplying and directing the use of these weapons against US forces, which “were attacked by two Chinese-built C-802 cruise missiles fired from territory controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi militia. Iran is a major operator of the C-802; its proxy Hezbollah used it in 2006 to punch a hole in an Israeli corvette off the coast of Lebanon.”

“More significantly, the attack on the Navy ships—with hundreds of American sailors aboard—is another reminder that the nuclear deal has done more to embolden than moderate Tehran’s ambitions, despite a cascade of U.S. concessions.”

“The Journal’s Jay Solomon and Carole Lee reported last month that the Administration secretly agreed in January to lift sanctions on two of Iran’s state banks involved in financing its ballistic-missile program seven years ahead of schedule. More recently, the Administration has granted Boeing and Airbus export licenses to sell passenger jets to Iran, and last week it issued new guidelines to facilitate dollar transactions with Iranian firms.”

“So let’s get this straight: The Administration grants the mullahs unprecedented concessions not called for by the nuclear deal, and they respond by attacking the U.S. Maybe President Obama sees a foreign-policy paradox at work. A better way of describing the dynamic might be cause-and-effect.”

So while the Iran lobby, especially the Ploughshares Fund and National Iranian American Council promised better relations with Iran, the US Navy already finds itself in a shooting war against Iranian proxies and missiles.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Trying to Execute 22-Year Old Woman

October 12, 2016 by admin

Iran Regime Trying to Execute 22-Year Old Woman

The Iranian regime is not a nameless, faceless bureaucracy. Its leadership is made up of men, virtually all of whom are deeply indoctrinated and adhering to an extremist form of Islamic belief that is at odds with the rest of the modern world.

These men are handpicked, have lifelong associations and cover for one another to ensure the continuation of their rule. Their families profit handsomely from the control these men exert over virtually all of the industries within Iran, while they are protected from prosecution and accusations of corruption by a system of religious courts that answer to no one except the ruling class.

The Iranian people are kept in check by a paramilitary force that enforces not only legal codes, but also morality codes of conduct, all of which are designed to keep free expression and even outside-the-box thinking firmly suppressed.

Elections are essentially rigged where these rulers decide who can run for office and routinely clear the field of any potential reformists or would-be moderates.

Their rule and effectiveness at ruling are put on display almost every day with public executions held in open squares throughout the country, usually from construction cranes and sometimes involving scores of prisoners.

It is within this ruling class, dominated by religious mullahs, that has seen fit to imprison thousands of ordinary Iranians for crimes that would be anathema in the West. No case illustrates this disparity more than the case of Zeinab Sekaanvand, a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman who was arrested when she was just 17-years-old and convicted of murdering her husband after a grossly unfair trial according to Amnesty International.

The Iranian regime plans to execute her as early as October 13th, despite an international outcry for her release.

“This is an extremely disturbing case. Not only was Zeinab Sekaanvand under 18 years of age at the time of the crime, she was also denied access to a lawyer and says she was tortured after her arrest by male police officers through beatings all over her body,” said Philip Luther, Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

“Iran’s continued use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders displays the authorities’ contempt even for commitments they themselves have signed up to. The Iranian authorities must immediately quash Zeinab Sekaanvand’s conviction and grant her a fair retrial without recourse to the death penalty, and in accordance with principles of juvenile justice,” he said.

Sekaanvand was 17-years-old when she was arrested in February 2012 for the murder of her husband, whom she had married at the age of 15. She was held in the police station for the next 20 days where she has said she was beaten by male police officers. She “confessed” to them that she stabbed her husband after he had subjected her to months of physical and verbal abuse and had repeatedly refused her requests for divorce, according to Amnesty International.

Her trial was grossly unfair. She was denied access to a lawyer during her entire pre-trial detention period and only met her state-appointed lawyer for the first time at her final trial session on October 18, 2014, the human rights group said.

The Iranian regime’s parliament has passed laws allowing marriage for girls as young as 13-years-old, including even a man marrying his own stepdaughter, in examples of the misogynist tendencies of these ruling men.

“Child marriage isn’t just a form of discrimination, it’s a form of violence,” Save the Children CEO Kevin Watkins told the New York Post.

“Forcing girls to marry much older men robs them of their freedom and amounts to sexual slavery. Instead of being in school, married girls face domestic violence, abuse and rape,” he said.

Human rights groups have long criticized Iran’s Penal Code which falls woefully short of safeguards required for juvenile offenders under international human rights law, and even those limited safeguards that do exist, such as informing juvenile offenders of their right to apply for a retrial, are often not implemented by the authorities.

While in prison, Sekaanvand become pregnant from a relationship with another prisoner, stalling her planned execution by the regime until she delivered a stillborn child on September 30^th.

Doctors said the young woman’s baby died in her womb two days before she gave birth as a result of the shock she suffered after her friend and cellmate was executed.

According to Human Rights Watch, another 49 people who were children when they committed an offense are currently on the regime’s death row. In the past decade, Iran has executed at least 73 juvenile offenders, according to a January Amnesty report.

It is noteworthy that while the Iranian regime’s leadership pursues this binge of killing children, the Iran Lobby has been stunningly silent on the issue, offering almost no criticism of the practices.

A perusal of the social media feeds for notable Iran lobby members such as Trita Parsi, Reza Marashi and Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council reflect a shocking lack of commentary of the regime’s willingness to incarcerate, torture and execute children, especially battered women who are victims of appalling domestic violence.

We can only assume the higher priorities for the NIAC is urging the lifting of more restrictions on the regime’s access to US currency so the mullahs can get more cash to line their pockets.

By Laura Carnahan

Key to Syrian Solution Lies in Pushing Iran Out

October 10, 2016 by admin

Key to Syrian Solution Lies in Pushing Iran Out

Sunday night’s presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is sure to be analyzed, dissected and poured over for days, but while both candidates traded accusations on Syria and its effect to refugees, terrorism and geopolitics, neither candidate hit the mark when it came to highlighting the real solution to the Syrian civil war.

The real solution to stopping the bloodshed in Syria lies in getting the Iranian regime out of Syria.

The Syrian civil war has been raging since 2011 and it is easy to forget its beginnings and how it grew into the global conflagration it has become, but what has been indisputable has been the influence of the Iranian regime from the very beginning.

It is useful to recall that the source of the original unrest were protests by ordinary Syrians demanding democratic reforms in March of 2011 and the release of political prisoners. In many respects, the protests taking place on the streets of Damascus were eerily similar to protests on the streets of Tehran by Iranians protesting similar issues in the wake of a presidential election widely recognized as being fraudulent.

Within a month protests had spread throughout Syria and the Assad regime responded just as the mullahs in Tehran did two years earlier; with massive crackdowns by the military that included the indiscriminate shooting of civilians in the streets.

The images of dead and dying civilians in Tehran and Damascus are not the only things that connected the two regimes.

The Iranian regime acted quickly to funnel funds to the cash-strapped Assad regime after a series of punishing international sanctions were imposed for the regime’s use of chemical weapons and mass killing weapons such as barrel bombs on civilians, including hospitals; that support was estimated by the UN to be as high as $6 billion annually, with other human rights groups doubling that amount.

Additionally, the Iranian regime sent senior commanders from its Quds Forces to plan and lead operations involving Hezbollah terrorists to help repel the gains of Syrian rebels. This level of involvement increased with the forced recruitment of thousands of Afghan refugees as mercenaries, along with the shifting of Shiite militias from Iraq to fight in Syria.

The involvement of so much Iranian military capacity led to declarations from Syrian military officials that Syria might as well become a province of Iran.

Even with all of that Iranian regime interferences, the rebels were still making gains leading up to the actual shelling of Assad regime buildings in Damascus, which led to the now not-so-secret trip to Moscow by Quds Force commanders to beg for Russian intervention in Syria.

The increasing tempo of military actions collapsed a proposed cease-fire and led to claims and counter charges between the US and Russia reminiscent of the Cold War. Nothing illustrated that confusion more than the situation in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.

The New York Times examined the zany alliances at work in Aleppo where there are Iraqi Shiite militiamen cheering for clerics who liken the enemy to foes from seventh-century battles. There are Iranian Revolutionary Guards fighting on behalf of a Shiite theocracy. There are Afghan refugees hoping to gain citizenship in Iran, and Hezbollah militants whose leaders have long vowed to fight “wherever needed.”

The messy mosaic of ground fighters on both sides has challenged Washington’s tangled allegiances. The United States is effectively allied with Iraqi Shiite militias to thwart the Islamic State in Iraq, but in Syria, some of those same militias are fighting on the side of the Assad government, which the United States opposes, and against a mix of rebel groups, some of them backed by the Obama administration.

The Daily Caller discussed the vast increases in Shiite militias in Syria.

“Most estimates of the total number of Shi’a militia fighters in all of Syria now exceed 60,000,” U.S. strategic advisory firm The Soufan Group notes. The Soufan Group highlights that this number may even exceed that of the actual Syrian Arab Army under command of Assad. These Shiite militias take orders only from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Alarmingly, even though the evidence is overwhelming that the only viable solution to Syria’s war lies in containing and ultimately removing Iran’s control of the Assad regime, the Washington Post reported efforts were underway by the Obama administration to actually weaken sanctions imposed on Syria.

According to lawmakers and staffers in both parties, the White House is secretly trying to water down the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, a bipartisan bill that would sanction the Assad regime for mass torture, mass murder, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The bill, guided by House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking Democrat Eliot Engel (N.Y.), would also sanction entities that aid the Syrian government in these atrocities; that includes Russia and Iran.

The bill, named after a Syrian defector who presented the world with 55,000 pictures documenting Assad’s mass torture and murder of more than 11,000 civilians in custody, has 70 co-sponsors, a majority of whom are Democrats.

Now the White House has told members and staffers that the bill’s sanctions on Iran could violate the nuclear agreement the Obama administration struck with Tehran last year and the Russia sanctions could hurt any future efforts to work with Moscow diplomatically on Syria.

It is a stunning position to take and one disturbingly similar to arguments made by Iran lobby members such as the National Iranian American Council.

It seems that the similarities between Syria and Iran be beyond just murdered civilians in the street.

By Michael Tomlinson

How Did the Iran Nuclear Deal Become a Partisan Talking Point?

October 6, 2016 by admin

Republican vice-presidential nominee Gov. Mike Pence and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Tim Kaine stand after the vice-presidential debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Va., Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2016. (Joe Raedle/Pool via AP)

Last night’s vice presidential debate had its usual highs and lows, sprinkled with verbal fisticuffs and even some thoughtful answers, but the most interesting tidbit that came through was the sharp disparity over the Iran nuclear deal in which Democratic running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) all but gushed over the deal’s alleged stoppage of nuclear weapons versus Gov. Mike Pence’s (R-ID) blistering retorts against it.

Putting aside the relative merits of each side’s arguments, the larger question that needs addressing is “how did the nuclear deal ever become a partisan talking point?”

In many ways, it’s lamentable and regrettable that it has gotten to this point. For much of the past three decades both parties have been uniformly united over confronting Iran. That lock-step solidarity is what has driven the vast majority of successes against the Iranian regime such as the imposition of stiff sanctions following the crackdown on demonstrators to the stolen 2009 presidential elections.

Even top mullah Ali Khamenei recognized the terrible blows to the regime’s economy that resulted from those bipartisan sanctions when he summarily decided that the regime needed a new “moderate” face to win back international support after a deplorable eight years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The regime also recognized that in putting forth a “moderate” face, it had to cobble together a better lobbying effort to drive wedges in the united political front America and its allies had presented for much of the regime’s existence.

Those twin goals led to Hassan Rouhani’s selection and the creation of lobbying groups such as the National Iranian American Council and its offspring, NIAC Action.

Happily for the mullahs, the Obama administration was looking for a foreign policy win to close out its term having been unable to solve the puzzle of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rising tide of Islamic extremism that sprang forth from the Syrian civil war and Iranian regime’s use of terror proxies throughout the region.

It was an unfortunate decision because it enabled the Iran lobby to begin driving that wedge between Democrats and Republicans and shaping a message that if you supported Iran deal you were for peace and if you were against Iran deal you had to be for war.

Most Democrats frankly didn’t buy it as leading members of Congress such as Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) opposed the Iran nuclear deal, but the Iran lobby worked furiously to try and shape the debate as a Democrat vs. Republican one when in fact it wasn’t.

For other Democrats, the choices were simpler in which they chose party loyalty in an election cycle, many privately hoping to impose additional sanctions after the presidential elections.

In fact, in the year since the Iran deal was approved, and the mullahs have showed their true nature with the widening of the wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as well as the renewed crackdowns and human rights violations at home and escalation of its ballistic missile program, many of these same Democrats have offered up new proposals to impose new watchdogs or sanctions on Iranian regime.

Coupled with the fact that the mullahs have obliged by going on a binge of militant and aggressive acts including threatening US warships in the Persian Gulf and snatching up even more dual nationals for future hostage swapping, it is almost certain that after the November elections, the US will once again present a united front in confronting Iranian regime’s extremism.

But that prospect hasn’t stopped the Iran lobby from desperately trying to make Iran a partisan issue as NIAC head, Trita Parsi was busy tweeting out his enthusiastic support for Kaine’s comments in support of the nuclear deal, probably had to make many Clinton supporters cringe slightly.

In regards to the actual facts surrounding the nuclear deal, the media fact checkers waded through the statements and found some by Kaine to be slightly wanting of clarity.

From the Washington Post: “The deal, which has been sharply criticized by Republicans, did increase the amount of time that Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon by reducing its centrifuges for uranium enrichment and its stockpile of enriched uranium. But the deal expires in 15 years, and Iran’s nuclear infrastructure remains in place.

“While Iran has insisted it has no interest in building nuclear weapons, the deal does not eliminate the risk that it will obtain nuclear bombs.”

The New York Times called the claim that the Iran nuclear deal eliminated Iran’s nuclear weapons program an “exaggeration.”

A report released this September by the Institute for Science and International Security found that the deal will also allow, through an exemption, Iran to keep 50 tons of heavy water and “continue operating 19 ‘hot cell’ radiation containment chambers.”

Possessing materials such as enriched uranium and heavy water does not necessarily mean Iran will have the capacity to restore its nuclear program. The deal will not allow nuclear inspectors to confirm, however, whether or not Iran is complying with the deal. Iran got negotiators to agree that no U.S. nuclear inspectors will be allowed on Iranian soil, according to Breitbart News.

Ultimately, the issue of containing and confronting the Iranian regime has historically been a bipartisan effort. We hope that after November, it once again becomes bipartisan.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Inks Oil Deal Benefiting Khamenei

October 5, 2016 by admin

Iran Regime Inks Oil Deal Benefiting Khamenei

The Iranian regime signed its first oil production deal under a new less restrictive model that it hopes will boost its production output in spite of a new agreement with other oil producing nations to curb production in an effort to boost sagging oil prices worldwide.

The clincher is that the Iranian oil ministry’s news agency Shana said the government had signed a $2.2 billion contract with a unit of Iranian company Tadbir Energy, which is controlled by a religious foundation overseen by top mullah Ali Khamenei, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The regime hopes its new Iran Petroleum Contracts (IPC), part of an effort to sweeten the terms it offers on oil development deals, will attract foreign investors and boost production after years of sanctions.

The National Iranian Oil Company also signed a contract with Persia Oil & Gas Industry Development Co., an Iranian firm, according to Reuters. The U.S. Treasury Department named Persia Oil & Gas in 2013 as part of Setad Ejraiye Farman-e Emam, or Setad, a secretive and powerful organization overseen by Khamenei.

With stakes in nearly every sector of Iran’s economy, Setad built its empire on the seizure of thousands of properties belonging to religious minorities, business people and Iranians living abroad, according to a 2013 Reuters investigation, which estimated the network’s holdings at about $95 billion. (reut.rs/1g1qkCg)

The U.S. Treasury in 2013 sanctioned Setad and 37 companies it said it oversees, calling it “a major network of front companies controlled by Iran’s leadership.” Those sanctions were lifted in January, as part of the historic nuclear deal reached between Iran and world powers in 2015.

The deal, the first to be clinched under new improved terms for oil companies, is aimed at increasing output from four fields located near the Iraqi border to 260,000 barrels a day, compared with 185,000 barrels a day previously.

The deals target an increase in overall output to 5.7 million barrels a day by the end of 2020, compared to only 3.6 million barrels a day reached just last August. The increase in production is being allowed under an exemption granted to the Iranian regime by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which may threaten the long-term prospects of the reduction deal.

Ali Kardor, the head of the National Iranian Oil Co., said Monday that Iran intended to return to the market share it held before international sanctions, implying a production level of over 4 million barrels a day.

The near-desperate desire by the regime to hit the increased production levels reflects the mullahs need to gain market share and sell aggressively in order to bring badly needed revenue back into the regime’s bank accounts, which have been largely drained dry through its support of the prolonged wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

The United Nations special envoy for Syria previously estimated the Iranian regime’s support for the Assad regime in Syria topped a whopping $6 billion annually alone, with other analysts estimating the total Iranian support for Syria more than double that amount to $15 billion in military and economic aid in 2012 and 2013.

By signing the first deal under this new IPC structure, the regime hopes to entice foreign oil companies to return to Iran and invest in the development of these fields. Previously, foreign firms were reluctant because of buy-back contracts that only benefitted the regime and often left foreign operators with little to no profit.

The push to boost production is also seen as an attempt by Hassan Rouhani to boast of better economic news as he prepares to run for re-election in next year’s presidential election. Iran’s economy has remained stagnant even after the completion of the nuclear deal last year in which Rouhani promised significant economic benefits that have failed to materialize.

The lack of economic improvement for ordinary Iranians have led to renewed discontent in the form of protests by large sectors of the Iranian economy; from teachers protesting low wages to small business owners chafing under poor sales and workers angry over inflated salaries for high-ranking regime officials.

The inclusion of the first oil deal with a firm under the control of Khamenei also signals that the regime’s leadership is still in primary control over Iran’s future and alongside the Revolutionary Guard Corps, virtually every sector of the Iranian economy is controlled by the regime’s leadership.

That belief in the re-opening of the oil markets to Iranian oil may also be behind the recent snub of the German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel who was in Tehran on a high profile visit, but took the opportunity to urge the Iranian regime to pursue reforms at home and act more responsibly in Syria.

He also said Iran, which provides economic and military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, should help push for a ceasefire in Syria’s civil war, adding: “I think Iran knows its responsibility there.”

His comments did not go over well with Iran’s parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, who opted to skip a meeting with the German cabinet member in a display of annoyance over the criticism.

Sadeq Larijani, brother of the parliament speaker and head of Iran’s judiciary, criticized Gabriel on Monday for his comments. “If I were in the government’s position or in the foreign minister’s shoes I would never let such a person come to Iran,” he said.

As Iran tries to re-enter the global markets, it should be ready for even more criticism as the world takes greater notice of the regime’s policies and practices.

Ultimately, Iranian mullah’s desire to regain a spot on the global stage may eventually make it once again even more vulnerable to new sanctions for its bad behavior.

By Michael Tomlinson