Iran – Page 15 – Iran Lobby

Why Remembering Massacres Matter

September 1, 2016 by admin

Why Remembering Massacres Matter

Throughout history, there have been many monuments to man’s cruelty against his fellow man. In the Ancient World, the sack of Carthage, fall of the Roman Empire and countless other battlefields have yielded massacres, mass executions and enslavement of entire populations.

In the Modern Era, not much has changed as we’ve witnessed two world wars, the killings fields of Cambodia, the Nazi’s Final Solution, China’s Cultural Revolution, Stalin’s purges and today we see the eradication of Syria’s population, the concentration camps in the Balkans and hostage taking and mass murders by Islamic terrorists.

Throughout human history memorializing, recognizing and judging these horrific incidents has been a vital part of moving civilization forward. Without reconciliation, without the healing that comes from accepting blame and responsibility for these acts, peace is hard to achieve for any nation or people.

Take for example post-war Germany and wrestling with the black marks of Nazism and the Holocaust. Beyond the Nuremburg trials and other efforts by the Allies to punish the heinous acts of former Nazi leaders, Germany has been a model of confronting its past and not shying away from it. It has ensured its history is taught in schools, it combats hatred and discrimination and ultimately today has led all nations in the acceptance of Syrian refugees.

Other nations still wrestle with their pasts such as Turkey’s Ottoman Empire past and the Armenian genocide, but while can be slow and incremental, open societies continue to make progress.

It is within regimes, dictatorships and governments that stifle freedom that continue to hide their past and cover up the crimes of the present. The clearest example of that practice is the Iranian regime.

While the term “massacre” conjures up vivid imagery of near cataclysmic events, in the case of the Iranian regime, the term is appropriate, especially as it applies to a particularly grim event in 1988.

In 1988, the Iranian regime was wrestling with its war with Iraq and the failing health of its leader, Ruhollah Khomeini. It was also faced with internal dissent as the promise of the revolution faded away under the oppressive rule of the mullahs. Chief among those dissenters was the opposition group, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), and was targeted by the mullahs for elimination.

That process took place when the mullahs used the end of the Iran-Iraq as a pre-text to begin a series sham retrials of political prisoners, tagging many with affiliation with MEK and other dissidents, even if they were not, and then began the deadly process of executing them as quickly as possible.

An audio tape of an interview with Hossein Ali Montazeri, who was in line to succeed Khomeini at one point, revealed his condemnation of the massacre that eventually claimed the lives of 30,000 Iranians in one of the largest politically motivated mass murders in modern history.

He warns those gathered they’ve committed “the biggest crime in the history of the Islamic Republic,” while criticizing them for misleading a then-ailing Khomeini.

The criticisms by Montazeri, who lived for years under house arrest and died of natural causes after Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election, long ago surfaced in his own memoirs and writings. But the furor ignited by the release of the tapes by his family this month expose the lingering, unhealed wounds of the chaotic years that followed Iran’s 1979 Revolution, as well as politics now at play in the greater Middle East.

Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions, apparently carried out on Khomeini’s orders, even though other regime officials were effectively in charge in the months before his 1989 death.

In the audio recording, Montazeri apparently addresses prosecutors, a judge and an intelligence official over the executions, warning they will tarnish Khomeini’s image.

“I believe that the biggest crime in the history of the Islamic Republic, which will be condemned by history, happened by your hands,” Montazeri says.

He goes on to say that “fighting against ideology with killing is totally wrong.”

Dr. Mohammad Maleki, a well-known human rights activist who was formerly chancellor of Tehran University, also strongly condemned the 1988 massacre in an interview with Al-Arabiya published by the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

“From the very beginning this regime executed people in the name of drug addicts and political figures, launched the 1988 killings, and killed its dissidents abroad. I was personally prosecuted and placed behind bars for five years from 1981 to 1986,” Maleki said.

“I have seen how these people were executed, and how the regime launched 2-minute court trials. Around 30,000 people were executed [in 1988], they were all prosecuted and in the initial courts they were sentenced to prison terms, not to be executed. They were all prisoners and were serving their time, and some had even served their entire sentences. Therefore, all the massacres from day one to this day, and to this moment, are all legally void, illegal, can be subject to prosecution and are considered a crime against humanity,” he added.

In response to the Montazeri audio tape and the recent anniversary of the massacre which has been marked with protests and demonstrations around the world, regime officials have steadfastly defended the massacre and the decisions made to execute it.

No one has more vociferously defended their actions from that time than Justice Minister of the current “moderate” regime, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who was the Intelligence Ministry’s representative at Evin Prison when the executions took place. Pourmohammadi and three other individuals were in charge of the committee that oversaw the executions.

The regime’s hatred and fear of the MEK and other dissident groups is such that they have made every effort to denounce the massacre and efforts to hold the regime accountable for that piece of bloody history.

As history has shown us though, unless and until a nation accepts the worst parts of its history, it will have no hope of ever changing. Only when the mullahs stop denying the 1988 massacre, can they ever hope to truly reform themselves.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Cannot Stop From Arresting Everyone

August 30, 2016 by admin

Iran Regime Cannot Stop From Arresting Everyone

The famous physicist Albert Einstein is credited with coining the phrase: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

While Einstein was referring to the area of physics, quantum theories and the nature of the universe, his quote is very much appropriate for something a bit more rooted in the here and now: the Iranian regime.

It seems the mullahs in Tehran have an addiction to arresting people. They arrest dual nationals visiting from other countries. They arrest journalists. They arrests dissidents. They arrest Christians and other religious minorities. They arrest bloggers. They arrest women, children, students, artists, professors and just about anyone else that annoys them.

They even arrest members of their own government that helped bring them a nuclear deal that lined their pockets with billions of dollars in sanctions relief.

Yes, sometimes it doesn’t even protect you from being arrested if you are even part of the regime.

The regime said on Sunday that a person close to the government team that negotiated the nuclear agreement with foreign powers had been arrested on accusations of espionage and released on bail.

The disclosure, reported in the state media, appeared to be the latest sign of the Iranian regime’s leadership’s frustration over the agreement, which has failed so far to yield the significant economic benefits for the country that the accord’s advocates had promised. Regime officials and members of the Iran lobby have blamed the United States for that problem.

According to the New York Times, there had been unconfirmed reports last week that regime authorities arrested Abdolrasoul Dorri Esfahani, who has dual Iranian and Canadian citizenship, on espionage suspicions. Esfahani, an adviser to Iran’s central bank, was involved in helping the Iranian nuclear negotiators bargain for sanctions relief in exchange for Iran’s pledges of verifiably peaceful nuclear work.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency said a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, speaking at a weekly news conference on Sunday in Tehran, had “confirmed the arrest of an individual from the negotiating team.”

There was no immediate comment on Esfahani’s fate from the government of Canada, which already has wrestling with the arrest of another dual citizen in Iran; Homa Hoodfar, a Canadian-Iranian anthropologist who studies the role of women in Muslim societies. There has been no announcement from the regime as to why she was arrested.

This new arrest occurrs against the backdrop of other hostile actions from regime, including:

Regime officials announced the execution of a nuclear scientist who had returned home from the United States, where, he claimed, he had been kidnapped by the U.S. government. The Iranians said the scientist had betrayed secrets to the enemy;
Last week, a series of run-ins with high-speed boats from the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy harassed American warships patrolling international waters in the Persian Gulf region at least four times, U.S. Navy officials called the actions dangerous, unsafe, unprofessional and illegal.

The rash of arrests, especially of dual national citizens who seem to be the latest targets of the regime, has caused consternation among supporters of the regime within the Iran lobby and the Obama administration’s vaunted “echo chamber” all of whom have remained studiously silent on the matter.

The uptick in arrests is worrisome given the contention that the $400 million cash payment made by the U.S. was done explicitly in exchange for U.S. hostages and has convinced the mullahs in Tehran that this is a more profitable and quicker tactic for recouping gains than tiresome diplomatic forays, which many in the regime leadership, including top mullah Ali Khamenei, have openly called a waste of time.

Khamenei himself seems perfectly happy in his usual vein of saber rattling and lengthy denunciations of the West as the regime’s Tasnim News Service issued a press release this weekend of his remarks in which again threatened the world.

The fact that Khamenei and the rest of the clerical leadership of the Iranian regime seems intent on committing the Islamic state to a course regional proxy wars, conflict, hostility and unremitting bombastic hatred of the liberal and pluralistic West, the obvious question now is just what the heck should the next Congress and president do about it next year?

That question seems to preoccupy the Iran lobby to no end as its official lobbying arms, such as NIAC Action, have fully engaged in U.S. Congressional races, especially Senate ones to ensure that candidates supportive of the nuclear deal and of maintaining friendly relations with the Iranian regime are elected.

What is interesting is that NIAC Action has clearly decided on a partisan course in only supporting Democratic candidates in key races who have come out in favor of the Iran nuclear deal, even though many of those same candidates, when questioned about Iran’s human rights situation and support for terrorism, quickly disavow any support for the mullahs.

The real litmus test is not going to be in who controls the Senate, but in ensuring that no matter what party controls the Congress and White House, they continue to hold the regime accountable for these transgressions or face more multi-million dollar ransom payments for our citizens.

By Michael Tomlinson

US Warns of Travel to Iran as Regime Shows off Military Might

August 24, 2016 by admin

US Warns of Travel to Iran as Regime Shows off Military Might

In what is becoming annual rite of summer, the U.S. State Department on Monday issued a warning urging U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to Iran. This latest advisory, which emphasizes Iran’s desire to capture U.S. citizens, comes on the heels of a growing scandal over the Obama administration’s decision to pay Iran $400 million in cash on the same day that it freed several U.S. hostages, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

The new warning replaces an existing one the department issued on March 14, 2016 and reiterates and highlights the risk of arrest and detention of Americans, particularly dual national Iranian-Americans, which the Iranian regime does not recognize.

“Iranian authorities continue to unjustly detain and imprison U.S. citizens, particularly Iranian-Americans, including students, journalists, business travelers, and academics, on charges including espionage and posing a threat to national security,” the advisory said.

“Iranian authorities have also prevented the departure, in some cases for months, of a number of Iranian-American citizens who traveled to Iran for personal or professional reasons. U.S. citizens traveling to Iran should very carefully weigh the risks of travel and consider postponing their travel. U.S. citizens residing in Iran should closely follow media reports, monitor local conditions, and evaluate the risks of remaining in the country,” the advisory added.

The advisory goes on to warn of the threats posed to religious minorities and a wide range of other classifications of individual at risk of arrest, harassment and detention by regime authorities.

“The Iranian government continues to repress some minority religious and ethnic groups, including Christians, Baha’i, Arabs, Kurds, Azeris, and others. Consequently, some areas within the country where these minorities reside, including the Baluchistan border area near Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Kurdish northwest of the country, and areas near the Iraqi border, remain unsafe.

“Iranian authorities have detained and harassed U.S. citizens, particularly those of Iranian origin. Former Muslims who have converted to other religions, religious activists, and persons who encourage Muslims to convert are subject to arrest and prosecution,” the advisory said.

Despite the warning, Iran remains a tourism destination for some with The New York Times offering two-week trips to Iran several times a year. It is noteworthy that the Times has long been an editorial supporter of accommodating the Iranian regime as part of the Obama administration’s echo chamber of support.

The warning flies in the face of the all of the claims made by the Iran lobby during the nuclear talks last year when prominent advocates for the regime such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, bloggers Ali Gharib and Jim Lobe, all promised a more moderate and stabilizing Iranian regime.

Clearly the opposite has happened if the U.S. government has to update warnings about its citizens being kidnapped by the Iranian government and then warning that it can do little to help you out if you are taken hostage.

Top that level of aggressive militancy with new announcements by the Iranian regime of is newly grown military muscle which it puts on display with the glee of a child showing off a new bicycle.

The regime released images of its first domestically built long-range missile defense system on Sunday, a project started when the country was under international sanctions.

Images on multiple state news agencies showed President Hassan Rouhani and Minister of Defense Hossein Dehghan standing in front of the new Bavar 373 missile defense system, according to France 24 News.

The system was designed to intercept cruise missiles, drones, combat aircraft and ballistic missiles, according to earlier statements by Dehghan. He claimed that Iran’s missile range capabilities have been expanded by two to three times across its arsenal. The upgrades now give Iran’s current stock of cruise missiles the ability to hit targets 62 miles off its coast, easily putting ships traveling through the Persian Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz at risk.

Rouhani said in a televised speech on Sunday that Iran’s military budget had more than doubled compared with last year.

“If we are able to discuss with world powers around the negotiating table, it is because of our national strength” he said.

Rouhani also unveiled the first Iranian-made turbo-jet engine on Sunday, saying it was capable of flight at 50,000 feet.

“The Islamic republic is one of eight countries in the world who have mastered the technology to build these engines,” Rouhani said.

Dehghan added that Iran was now looking to develop seaborne cruise missiles capable of supersonic speed.

The new missile was developed as a response to the suspension of delivery of a Russian-made S-300 missile system because of earlier sanctions, but with those sanctions lifted because of the nuclear agreement, Russia completed delivery of the advanced weapons system this year.

Dehghan also boasted on regime television that the regime would also negotiate with Russia to acquire its sophisticated Sukhoi fighter and attack aircraft to bring its air force capability for long-range force projection and air combat against the more sophisticated air forces of regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

Iran has also discussed with Russia the production licensing of the Russian T-90 tank inside Iran. The focus of the Iranian regime is on acquiring the capability and technology to produce the systems in-country rather than depending on the mood of the Kremlin to sell Iran weapons.

The world should be aware now that the Iranian regime’s intentions are anything but peaceful and moderate.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Goes For Broke to Save Assad in Syria

August 17, 2016 by admin

For the first time in the five year long Syrian civil war, Russian bombers took off from Iranian airfields to carry out strikes in Syria against ISIS; opening up a new and potentially disturbing new dimension to the widening war.

While the Russian military alerted U.S. military commanders in advance—a welcome break from past episodes that almost resulting in strikes against U.S. personnel—the attacks can be debated as to whether or not ISIS was truly the target or moderate rebel forces opposed to Assad were targeted instead.

The complications arising out of Syria grow even more intertwined as the mullahs in Tehran ratchet up the stakes to keep Assad in power and maintain their own foothold on that important region of the Middle East.

That commitment of going all in to save the Assad regime as well as their Shiite sphere of influence was confirmed by U.S. military officials who now estimate as many as 100,000 Iranian-backed Shiite militia are fighting on the ground in Iraq, raising legitimate concerns that if ISIS is defeated in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. would now be stuck facing a hostile force in three unified countries.

Whether the force size is 80,000 or 100,000, the figures are the first-known estimates of the Iranian-backed fighters. The figure first surfaced in a recent Tampa Bay Times article and marks the latest evidence of Tehran’s deepening involvement in the war against ISIS. The growth also could create greater risk for Americans operating in the country, as at least one Iran-backed group vowed earlier this year to attack U.S. forces supporting the Iraqis.

Last August, Fox News first reported Qassem Soleimani, head of the regime’s Quds Forces, visited to Moscow 10 days after the landmark nuclear agreement in July to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and top Russian officials to plan Russia’s upcoming deployment to Syria in late September.

That was followed by a massive arms purchase of Russian weapons by Iranian mullahs, following the nuclear agreement and now comes the staging of air strikes from Iranian airfields.

The strikes in Syria and Iraq mirror and heightened intensity within Iran to suppress dissent as well as gather more pieces to be used on the hostage chessboard as the regime confirmed the arrest of yet another dual-national citizen, this one reportedly a British subject.

The person faces espionage charges after being taken into custody, prosecutor general Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi told the official Islamic Republic News Agency. He didn’t disclose the person’s name or second nationality, or elaborate further on the case according to the Wall Street Journal.

At least six other Iranian dual nationals have been arrested this year, many of whom stand accused of spying or attempting to undermine the Iranian system. The pickup in arrests follows a rare prisoner swap agreed to in January under which Iran released four prominent American prisoners—including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian—and the U.S. freed seven Iranians, along with a widely ridiculed payment of $400 million in cash the regime has claimed as ransom.

Recent arrests in Iran include Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of media giant Thomson Reuters, who was picked up in April and later accused of being a spy. Others include three Iranian-Americans and an Iranian-Canadian professor.

The latest American to be arrested, San Diego-resident Robin (Reza) Shahini was formally charged with “acting against national security,” “participating in protest gatherings in 2009,” “collaborating with Voice of America (VOA) television” and “insulting the sacred on Facebook,” but his lawyer has not been granted access to the evidence being used against Shahini, an informed source who requested anonymity told the media.

Interestingly, the Iran lobby has been particularly silent on the new wave of hostage taking, as well as the expansion of the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts and news came out today of how one of the ardent supporters of the regime’s receipt of the $400 million ransom payment was on the payroll of a prominent Iran lobby group without disclosing it.

A Washington Post writer who recently claimed that a $400 million cash payment to Iran was “American diplomacy at its finest” failed to disclose that he has been on the payroll of an organization that emerged as a chief architect of the White House’s self-described campaign to build a pro-Iran “echo chamber,” according to information obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Allen S. Weiner, a Stanford law professor and contributor to the Post’s opinions section, co-authored a piece arguing in favor of the Obama administration’s decision to pay Iran $400 million in hard currency in what many described as a “ransom payment” for the release of several U.S. hostages.

Weiner and the Post failed to disclose that the writer has long been on the payroll of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization recently exposed as a key cog in a White House-orchestrated campaign to build what it called a pro-Iran “echo chamber.”

Ploughshares provided millions of dollars to writers and experts who publicly pushed for last summer’s nuclear deal with Iran. Senior White House officials subsequently cited the group as its top pro-Iran ally.

The disclosure paints an even more disturbing picture of the efforts the Iran lobby and supporters of the regime will go to in order to paper over the bloody conflicts the Iranian regime is now waging around the world.

By Michael Tomlinson

For Iran Regime Religion Defines Policies

August 16, 2016 by admin

For Iran Regime Religion Defines Policies

From the beginning of the Islamic revolution, the mullahs and religious cleric followers of Ruhollah Khomeini secured for themselves a nation-state completely under their control. Over three decades before ISIS spawned its own dreams of an Islamic caliphate, the mullahs in Tehran had already achieved that goal.

As a religious state, the Iranian regime stands virtually alone in a secular world of nations governed by parliaments, democracies, constitutional monarchies and even communist or socialist regimes.

Aside from the Vatican city-state, Iran is unique among nations, which makes understanding its religious leaders vital in understanding its national goals and policies.

For the mullahs, there were only one goal they had: To preserve power under the banner of the Islamic revolution and expansion and exporting of that same revolution.

Iranian regime’s constitution is emblematic of those priorities; vesting all final authority with the supreme leader, especially critical areas such as foreign policy, the military and judiciary. The control of virtually all sectors of Iranian life places the Iranian people squarely under the thumb of the mullahs.

They subject the Iranian people to the harshness of the religious courts that control daily family life. They subject the Iranian people to legions of morality police that enforce moral codes for everything from women driving cars and their style of dress to the gathering of young men and women at cafes.

With each beating given out, with each Iranian thrown into prison, with each public execution, the mullahs attempt to enforce their control over the Iranian people and in doing so only sow the seeds of discontent deeper into the soil of Iranian society from which springs for dissent and discontent in ways large and small.

Opposition to the mullahs rule can come in the form of a selfie by a young Iranian woman posting without a hijab or another young Iranian woman holding up a sign courtside of a volleyball game at the Rio Olympics.

It can take the form in mass protests and street demonstrations or it can take the form of hooking up a simple satellite dish to watch banned newscasts from Europe or the U.S.

For the mullahs, each rising level of defiance has to be met with even more brutal suppression because allowing even a small crack or glimmer of hope to shine through would only undermine their rule and bring forward the prospect of regime change.

This explains why the mullahs are always seeking provocations to fight against or blame for their own inadequacies. It is also why they regularly snatch hostages and balance their fate against the needs of the religious regime.

The mullahs inability to improve the economy following the nuclear deal points to their own ineptness, as well as their priorities to shift billions in recovered funds, as well as a $400 million ransom payment for American hostages, to use not for the Iranian people, but to line their own pockets and continue to fund their terrorist proxies in wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Regime-controlled media, as well as the Iran lobby have been busy pushing the idea that the lack of progress in improving the Iranian economy is to be blamed on the U.S. failure to open up all financial channels for the mullahs’ use.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the regime’s judiciary council , was quoted citing perceived serious flaws in the nuclear agreement leaving Iran without benefits it was promised.

“The US has completely retained the structure of the sanctions, and is not intending to lift them in the near future,” he said.

The flawed documentation and ill-definition of commitments in the JCPOA and the subsequent UN Security Council Resolution 2231 enable Washington to make very little concessions to Iran, Larijani explained, adding that having control over how to interpret the deal has given US politicians the power to impose what they want.

That point of view by the regime was reinforced over and over by statements by top mullah Ali Khamenei who claims that the duty to lift all sanctions lies with the U.S. and failure to do so would end up negating the agreement.

It is conspicuous Khamenei makes these claims on the eve of the U.S. presidential elections in which the days of the current administration are numbered as is the continuation of the same policy of appeasement it has been following for the past two years.

What remains is a violent regime bent on preserving its religious control over the Iranian people and willing to commit any atrocity to achieve it and preserve its Islamic revolution.

If the world truly wants a free and democratic Iran, the first step will have to be the continued opposition to the rule of the mullahs and the empowerment of the Iranian people through the dissidents and oppressed fighting for their freedom.

By Michael Tomlinson

Abuses and Reach of Iranian Regime is Proof to Keep Sanctions

August 16, 2016 by admin

Abuses and Reach of Iranian Regime is Proof to Keep Sanctions

The sign read “Let Iranian women enter their stadiums.”

As protest signs go against the Iranian regime, this one was pretty tame, but the setting of where it was held aloft made for news; it was at the Rio Olympics.

Darya Safai, an Iranian-born Belgian, held aloft the sign during the men’s volleyball match between Iran and Egypt. As security personnel approached her to take down the sign, she broke into tears. Safai was allowed to stay and keep her sign and she vowed to show up—with sign—at all other matches with Iran’s volleyball team, even though the International Olympic Committee bans political statements at games.

Safai was protesting an Iranian regime edict that bans women from attending sporting events. She has lived in Belgium since 2000, after being arrested in Iran in 1999 and put in prison for taking part in anti-government demonstrations. She has been staging sports protests since 2014.

Since 2012, the Iranian government has banned women from attending volleyball tournaments as the sport became increasingly popular in Iran with both sexes.

It has arrested women for trying to enter stadiums, human rights groups say.

Her small protest is emblematic of the much larger protests and demonstrations that have become part and parcel against the Iranian regime, including a recent hunger strike staged in front of 10 Downing Street in London and the recent mass gathering outside of Paris by 100,000 human rights activists and Iranian dissidents.

The protests have stepped up as the Iranian regime has stepped up its various human rights abuses, most notably the renewal of its penchant for nabbing dual-nationality citizens without charge and tossing them into prison.

An editorial by Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, president of the International American Council on the Middle East, in Huffington Post, talked about the sharp spike in arrests of foreigners by the Iranian regime.

“Even the State Department has acknowledged the increasing threat ‘Iran has continued to harass, arrest, and detain US citizens, in particular dual nationals,” he said.

“Many believed that Iran would open up politically and socially after rejoining the global financial system and after sanctions were lifted. Rouhani encouraged the Iranian Diaspora to visit Iran without fear,” he added. “Iranian authorities use dual citizens as pawns for extracting economic concessions or receiving political and financial gains and can also use them to swap prisoners.”

The use of hostages pales in comparison though to the regime’s heavy use of executions, especially mass executions lately, to reinforce its policies of fear and dread, as described in a piece for The Hill by Shahriar Kia, a press spokesman for residents of Camp Liberty, Iraq, and members of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran opposition group (PMOI, also known as MEK).

Iran is known for its skyrocketing number of executions and practice of obtaining coerced confessions through torture and other banned methods. The mullahs have also proved their “sickening enthusiasm” of sending juveniles to the gallows, all in violation of international laws and respecting no bounds in this regard, said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Program Director of Amnesty International. International law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Iran is a state party, absolutely prohibits the use of death penalty for crimes committed when the defendant was below 18 years of age. Yet apparently this is a pretext Iran refuses to respect.

“The recent execution of nearly three dozen Sunni Kurds in one day adds to Iran’s already dismal human rights history, especially in the past three years after the ‘moderate’ Hassan Rouhani came to power,” he writes.

The Iranian regime’s brutal policies have also helped serve as a breeding ground of discontent that is driving willing Sunni recruits into the arms of ISIS. Far from the public perceptions being pounded by the Iran lobby the truth is that Iran is doing more to drive ISIS’s growth than anything the West is doing.

Wahab Raofi, a former interpreter for NATO forces in Afghanistan, described such a problem in a piece for Huffington Post.

“Politicians keep taking jabs at ISIS, yet the world’s most notorious terrorist group continues to carry out spectacular, deadly attacks around the world. This is because politicians jab only at the extremities of their foe – they cannot win unless they deliver a knockout blow to the head. And that target is Iran,” he said.

“Peace-seeking governments need to pinpoint the source of the problem. Why is ISIS, for all its brutality, still able to recruit young Sunni Muslims from around the world? The path of destruction leads to the doorstep of Shiite Iran,” he added.

The Iranian regime stands as the most destabilizing influence throughout the world today and ignoring that threat under the misguided hope of gaining favor with “moderate” forces within Iran is a mistake of monumental proportions.

The fact that human rights and sponsorship of terrorism were not attached to the Iran nuclear agreement and thus the opportunity exists to reauthorize the Iran Sanctions Act, as well as maintain existing sanctions related to those areas where the regime’s conduct has been plain for the world to see.

A reminder of what the mullahs in Tehran believe in comes from an editorial penned by Barry Rosen, one of the 51 Americans taken hostage 40 years ago in the takeover of the American embassy during the Islamic revolution, in the Telegraph where he voiced his support and concern for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian aid worker imprisoned by the regime who’s health is reported to be in steep decline.

“She is a young mother of British-Iranian citizenship who has dedicated her life to aid and charity work. And, simply because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, she has been taken from her family, and is subject to the brutality of the Iranian prison regime,” he writes.

“In 1979, the Iranians were very clear that I and the other hostages would only be released if there was a financial payment to Iran. The deal was made in 1981 and that’s why we were free. And no matter how much the agencies dress it up, the $400m that has just been paid to Iran by the US, at the same time as five Americans were released from Iranian jails, was just the same. Some $400m in foreign currency, packed onto crates and delivered to Iran on the same day as our hostages being released is a quid pro-quo that bad timing alone cannot explain,” he added.

Rosen knows the regime well and has found that in 40 years very little has changed.

“Businesses, organizations, charities and agencies that operate in Iran are at risk, and the people who work for them – especially if they have dual nationality – are in a very dangerous position. It is my deep concern that further investment in Iran will, rather than open it to the world, will actually put more dual citizens at risk; will help the country obtain nuclear weapons; and will help fund human rights abuses,” Rosen warns.

It is a warning the world would be well served to remember.

By Laura Carnahan

Protests and Demonstrations Mount Against the Iranian Regime

August 10, 2016 by admin

Protests and Demonstrations Mount Against the Iranian Regime

In many ways, defiance at the Iranian regime occurs on a daily basis around the world, although much of it escapes the glare of media coverage. Sometimes it is brash and displayed on social media such as when Iranian women took selfies without wearing hijabs as required by the regime or when their husbands or friends posted selfies of themselves wearing hijabs in support.

Defiance flows out of Iran itself as thousands of Iranians express their anger and frustration over the deeply rooted corruption within Iran’s government and industries as exemplified in the revelations of rich paychecks for top regime officials.

Around the world that defiance comes from places high and low as evidenced by U.S. Senators who grilled Secretary of State John Kerry over the $400 million cash payment to the Iranian regime at the same time four American hostages were being released; in an exchange widely viewed by them as a ransom payment.

The Obama administration has vigorously denied any connection or a ransom payment, but more important than the administration’s denials is the admission by Iranian regime officials that as far as they are concerned, release of the hostages was intricately linked to the cash payment. For the regime, the two issues are indistinguishable, which bodes ill for future American hostages.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American political scientist, author, business advisor and public speaker and president of the International American Council, wrote an editorial in FrontPage magazine warning of the problems this precedence will cause.

“Iran is quietly arresting American citizens and taking them as hostages in order to utilize them as pawns for extracting economic concessions or receiving political and financial gains,” he writes. “As part of a string of arrests of American citizens, the Iranian authorities confirmed that they have arrested yet another US citizen, Robin Shahini, who was visiting his ailing mother. Mr. Shanini was not a political or human rights activist. The Iranian government arrested him on vague charges such as conducting crimes against the Islamic Republic. The Iranian government warned his family not to speak with the media.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is clearly attempting to show the United States as well as young Iranians that the nuclear agreement does not mean the Islamic Republic will welcome Westerners, open up its political and economic systems, and promote social justice and civil liberties,” he added.

The world even got a startling reminder of the Iranian regime’s past when former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President Obama asking for the U.S. to return $2 billion in damages the U.S. Supreme Court awarded to families of people killed in attacks linked to the Iranian regime.

The timing of the letter, however, is interesting as Ahmadinejad’s name continues to circulate as a possible challenger to current leader Hassan Rouhani in Iran’s coming May 19 election and may indicate that Rouhani’s usefulness as a “moderate” face to the regime may be coming to an end.

The most heart-rending and indeed most poignant acts of defiance come from those opposed to the Iranian regime’s bloody records of executions; something Rafizadeh noted in another piece he submitted to Huffington Post.

“Since January 2016, Iran has executed at least 230 people that is at least one person a day on average. The number of executions has recently increased and Iran ranks first in the world, followed by China, when it comes to executions per capita. Iran executed approximately 1000 people in 2015,” he writes.

“In 2016, Iran is yet again the regional leader in executions – at least 230 – while it continues to be a laggard in implementing illusory penal code reforms meant to bridge the gap with international standards.”

Among these executions is the largest mass execution of its kinds in years, of a religious minority in which at least 20 Sunni inmates were mass executed. Human Rights Watch denounced the mass execution and called it “shameful low point in its human rights record”

In addition, among the latest and prominent executions in the months of August and July are the executions of the nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri and a gay adolescent Hassan Afshar, a 17-year-old high school student when he was arrested.

Marzieh Amiri, the mother of the executed nuclear scientist, said she obeyed the regime authorities’ orders and refrained from speaking to the press until now because she had been led to believe that her son would eventually be freed if she stayed quiet, said she visited him at what appeared to be a military barracks on August 2, 2016, the day before his execution.

“At first there was no talk of putting him in prison or executing Shahram. All this happened later on.…It is Iran’s hardliners who are creating chaos in the world. They hanged my son. They framed him. Whatever my son said, they wrote down the opposite. They picked a lawyer for him who was on their side. They wrote down what they wanted, showed it to the judge, and he would agree. Shahram wasn’t even taken to court to be told what he had done wrong,” she said.

Another form of protest is taking place in front of 10 Downing Street in London, the official residence of the British prime minister, in which protestors launched a three-day “hunger strike” over mass killings in Iran.

They are urging the UK government and the UN to condemn hanging in the country, which carries out the second highest number of executions in the world.

Newly installed British Prime Minister Theresa May raised her own concerns with Rouhani in a phone call over the plight of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian charity worker, 37, of north London, who was arrested while she was at an airport with her daughter Gabriella after visiting her family on holiday is due on trial on as yet unspecified charges.

Her two-year-old daughter had her British passport taken away and is staying in Iran with Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s parents but is unable to leave the country.

Her husband said he believes his wife and child are being used as a “political bargaining chip.”

We can only hope it won’t cost the British $400 million for her release.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Tries to Hold Off Iran Sanctions

August 2, 2016 by admin

Iran Lobby Tries to Hold Off Iran Sanctions

The Iran lobby, led by the National Iranian American Council, has consistently raised the idea that Iran has not been rewarded with the full lifting of economic sanctions per the nuclear agreement reached last year.

It makes this case based on the continued shaky nature of the Iranian economy, and by the threatening statements of various regime officials such as top mullah Ali Khamenei and foreign minister Javad Zarif who maintain the U.S. is deliberately trying to sabotage the deal.

It is a profoundly ludicrous ideal given the fact that the Obama administration has broken with past U.S. policy over the past three decades in maneuvering to get this deal done in the first place. The Obama administration has set new standards for political gymnastics in trying to secure this policy win, including treating the agreement as a political framework and not a formal treaty in order to avoid an uncertain Senate vote.

It even de-linked Iranian regime’s notoriously bad human rights record and sponsorship of terrorism as conditions for doing the deal; an unheard of step in modern diplomacy.

It also ignored blatant tampering by the Iranian regime in sanitizing military sites where prior uranium enrichment had been ongoing and ignored copious mountains of evidence that Iran was still pursuing dual-use nuclear technology from Germany and ballistic missile designs from North Korea.

Even after all that, the Iran lobby and regime still blame the U.S. for not following through on its commitments.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

A key goal for the regime remains the lifting of the remaining sanctions put in place by the U.S. in response to Iran’s abysmal human rights record and terror support. These items were ostensibly left out from the nuclear deal since—by the Iranians argument—they had nothing to do with nuclear production, but now the mullahs want these sanctions lifted even though Iranian regime has done nothing to improve its conduct in either area.

The fact that the Iran lobby and regime are now trying to link these sanctions—previously off the table—now back on the table and have threatened to walk away from a deal they have already walked away from, demonstrates how completely useless the nuclear exercise has become.

In a posting on its website, the NIAC, argued that the pending renewal of the Iran Sanctions Act could bring disastrous consequences if it was amended with so-called “poison pills” to impose new restrictions, sanctions or even lengthen its term.

“There is a danger that passage of new sanctions legislation, even if it is to renew sanctions already on the books, could exacerbate tensions over JCPOA sanctions relief. The prospect of Congress renewing ISA, especially extending them beyond the 2023 deadline for lifting sanctions, could send troubling signals regarding the U.S. commitment to the JCPOA at a time of ongoing political uncertainty. Iranian officials and many in the broader Iranian public say the sanctions relief promised under the deal has not been delivered,” the NIAC statement said.

It’s a perverse position to take since the gross mismanagement of the regime’s economy and the decision to support three ongoing wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have badly hobbled an economy already rife with public corruption and battered by plummeting oil prices that have nothing to do with the sanctions; especially since Iranian regime is now free to sell the country’s oil back on the open market.

The Iranian people are rightly angry and upset at the stagnant economy, but Tehran’s streets and the channels of social media are not being filled with vocal denunciations of the U.S., instead it is filled with harsh protests of inflated paychecks for regime officials and the pouring of thousands of young Iranian lives to die on the battlefields far from Iran’s borders.

The effort to misdirect attention away from the real failings of the regime and try to blame it on the U.S.—even after the U.S. has tried to do everything it can to appease the Iranian regime short of baking cookies—is a time-worn tactic of the mullahs and we should not fall for it.

Robert Spencer, noted author and director of Jihad Watch, wrote an editorial in the New York Post warning that the Iranian regime is the greatest threat the U.S. and West face right now and dwarfs ISIS in its threat.

“Iran is not as flashy as ISIS but is actively working now on numerous anti-American initiatives that could turn out to be even more lethal than anything ISIS has yet perpetrated,” he said. “The nation is a breeding ground for terrorist activity: funding and controlling a global network of jihad terror organizations with a truly global reach, ready to do Iran’s bidding up to and including the killing of its perceived enemies.”

“Iran’s Hezbollah doesn’t just operate in Lebanon. It continues to target the United States through Mexico, where it has teamed with drug cartels along the US border. This partnership is mutually beneficial: Hezbollah gets massive amounts of cash to finance its jihad operations, and the drug cartels receive extensive training in ways to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. That is one principal reason why the Mexican drug cartels have adopted what up until recently had been two trademarks of jihad groups: kidnapping and beheading,” he added.

Bob Blackman, a member of the British Parliament, similarly warned of trusting the Iranian regime in a piece in The Hill after the United Nations released a report assessing the regime’s compliance with the nuclear agreement, which found it had failed to meet the higher standards for compliance.

“The critical report by the UN is only the latest in a long series of marks against the Rouhani administration’s supposedly moderate credentials. In order to believe in that moderation in the first place, Western policy-makers had to ignore Rouhani’s long history in the security apparatus of Iran’s clerical regime, including his former role as lead nuclear negotiator, about which he boasted of raising Tehran’s nuclear profile while keeping international scrutiny at bay. And in order to keep the moderation narrative alive to the current date, those same policy-makers have had to ignore various statistical indicators and warnings from the Iranian opposition,” he said.

“The U.S. gave up important leverage in hope of improved relations, but it remained the main object of Tehran’s wrath. The UN closed the file on Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and Iran has continued to accuse it of political bias. And the six major powers involved in the JCPOA, having given in to even last-minute demands by the Islamic Republic, received nothing in return but the most cursory and minimal compliance with the deal. As the Associated Press reported last week, secret side-agreements already outline the expanded nuclear activities that Iran plans to pursue at its earliest possible opportunity,” Blackman added in a warning we should all heed.

By Michael Tomlinson

Who is Really in Charge of the Iran Regime?

July 29, 2016 by admin

Who is Really in Charge of the Iran Regime?

The Iranian regime has been busy snatching up citizens of other countries without charge, trial or contact with the outside world. They have been U.S., British, French and Canadian citizens; dual national Iranians. They have been professors, students and aid workers.

None were terrorists, criminals or even political. They all had the misfortune of being in Iran and possessing a passport of a foreign country. It seems that alone was sufficient for the Revolutionary Guards to pick them up, put them in prison and walk away.

The New York Post editorial board blasted the practice and blamed earlier acts of appeasement for sowing the seeds for this behavior.

“Iran is re-stocking its larder of American and other Western hostages, clearly convinced the Obama administration won’t dare make it an issue. Tehran this week arrested yet another US citizen and plans to place him on trial — though on what charges, it won’t say,” the Post said.

“The State Department says it’s ‘looking into’ the latest arrest, which is pretty much all it can do. Iran doesn’t recognize dual citizenship, so won’t even allow consular visits to those being held.

“Some analysts suggest the Revolutionary Guard is insisting on the arrests in order to deter Western businessmen from visiting Iran with investment cash. Funny: Getting such investment was supposedly Tehran’s major motive for accepting the deal’s supposedly tough restrictions on its nuclear-weapons program in the first place,” it added.

The arrests do raise an interesting question: Who is calling the shots in the Iranian regime?

The Iran lobby has long maintained that a rift and power struggle is going on within the regime between the forces of moderates versus hardliners. Loyalists such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council have used that talking point incessantly in pushing for approval of the nuclear deal with Iran last year.

They promised a nuclear deal would usher in a period of moderation and empower these so-called moderates in upcoming elections.

The opposite has happened as the region has literally gone up in flames with wars now raging from Syria to Yemen and terrorist attacks striking the U.S. and Europe with almost daily frequency.

In Iran, parliamentary elections were rigged with the removal of virtually all perceived dissenters or moderates removed from the ballot even before voting began. The only group of “moderates” elected was a small cadre in Tehran only and even they have turned out to be loyal to the regime and ruling mullahs as evidenced by elections to return the hardest core extremists to leadership positions in the parliament and supreme council.

Many media outlets have characterized the hostage taking as evidence of the internal power struggle within the regime.

The Christian Science Monitor described by saying “the targets of the most radical elements of Iran’s competing power blocs are increasingly Iranian-Americans and other dual nationals visiting Iran to see family or pursue academic interests. They are being ensnared in the upheaval and redistribution of power in the wake of last year’s nuclear deal, experts in United States-Iran relations say.”

“Iranian hardliners opposed to President Hassan Rouhani and his diplomatic opening to the US and the West are widely assumed to be behind the detentions – and would not appear to be easily persuaded to permit the detainees’ release. But at the same time, some Iran experts say they see a window of opportunity for some kind of prisoner deal before President Obama leaves office,” it added.

The fact that speculation centers on the Iranian regime snatching up Americans and Brits for the purpose of another round of prisoner swaps in exchange for more economic concessions says volumes about the intentions about the regime, but it says even more about who is calling the shots in the leadership of the regime.

The time-honored tradition of hostage taking by the mullahs in Tehran was even conceded by Iran lobbyists as being unlikely to die off.

“But the prospects for freeing Iran’s imprisoned dual nationals before Mr. Obama leaves office – not to mention ending the practice altogether – are not bright,” says Reza Marashi of the NIAC.

“You have to put the likelihood at 50-50 at best,” he says. “The ability to align timing and interests, that’s completely up in the air.”

The best the Iran lobby can offer these poor, innocent victims of the regime are 50-50 odds they will be joined by more hostages.

All the evidence points to the fact that Hassan Rouhani has never been a moderate and is rock-solid in step with Ali Khamenei and his fellow mullahs on these actions. Has Rouhani called for these prisoners’ release? Has he condemned them? Has he even so much as posted a tweet describing any regret over these actions?

The answer is a resounding no.

The hardline nature of the regime can be seen in the everyday cruelties and injustices visited on ordinary Iranians. Beyond the more gruesome aspects of the regime’s rule, including public executions, amputations and beatings of women on the street, everyday acts that seem perfectly normal to any Western citizen are viewed as subversive and dangerous.

A group of women were reportedly arrested for riding bicycles in Iran and made to sign pledges not to repeat the “violation”.

They were planning to participate in a cycling event in the north-western city of Marivan when police told them a new government directive had barred women riding bicycles in public.

The opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran said officers ordered them to sign written pledges vowing not to repeat the “unlawful violation” and took several women who protested into custody, according to the Independent.

In another incident, up to 150 people were detained by Iran’s morality police at a mixed-gender party in Tehran. In the sweltering heat of summer, as people spend more time outside, the authorities tighten their grip on social norms, cracking down on activities deemed un-Islamic.

Such restrictions have become a regular feature of Iranian life since the current theocracy has come to power after the 1979 revolution, as members of the morality police appear on the streets, or are deployed in vans at public places, to tackle women defying the compulsory hijab, men with non-approved hairstyles, or males and females partying together, according to the Media outlets.

But even with all these acts of suppressing free expression, defiance among the Iranian people still finds a way to surface as many men have posted photos of themselves wearing the hijab to social media, in solidarity with women in the country, who are forced to cover their heads in public, the Independent reported.

Many of the photos show a man wearing the hijab next to his wife or a female relative whose hair is uncovered.

It isn’t much in the way of defying the regime, but in a nation where simply holding a U.S. passport and being an Iranian can land you in prison, even these small acts can grow to become important changes to the regime.

By Laura Carnahan

Why the Iran Regime Needs ISIS

July 28, 2016 by admin

Why the Iran Regime Needs ISIS

Rev. Jacques Hamel was an 85-year old priest shepherding a flock in a small church in Normandy, France. He was celebrating Mass when two dedicated followers of the terrorist group ISIS stormed in, made him kneel at the altar and then slit his throat in front of two shocked parishioners and two nuns who then heard a sermon from the killers.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack and fulfilled its long-standing vow to bring a war against Christians and the Catholic Church by killing a priest in the sanctity of a church.

“They forced him to his knees and obviously he wanted to defend himself and that’s when the drama began,” said one nun, who identified herself as Sister Danielle, The Guardian reported. “They were filming themselves preaching in Arabic in front of the altar. It was a horror.”

The attack comes amid a spate of terror strikes in France, including Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s truck rampage in Nice on July 14, when he plowed into a crowd of Bastille Day revelers – killing 84 and wounded over 300.

For two years, the black-clad jihadist army has called for attacks on Christians in Rome, throughout Europe and across the world. It has even called for the assassination of Pope Francis. The attack — which the knife-wielding ISIS killers reportedly videotaped — in the northern French town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray shows Islamist killers have heeded the call.

“The Islamic State is persistently demoralizing European unity by launching divisive attacks within its borders — the most recent attack on the Catholic Church aims directly at the French sense of identity,” said Veryan Khan, editorial director for the U.S.-based Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium.

Over the weekend, ISIS Twitter accounts called for more operatives to take up arms in France and carry out additional deadly attacks, according to an analyst with the U.S. based company GiPEC.

ISIS warned that London and Washington DC are next on the list of target cities, with images threatening major world capitals being posted online.

With a secure base of operations extending from Syria to northern Iraq, ISIS can continue to recruit young extremists, engineer the return of fighters to their home countries and supply arms, cash and documents to move terrorists around the world.

The inability to crush ISIS in Syria and Iraq has been largely the result of the almost-never ending wars brought about by Iranian intervention in both countries. It has been well-known that Iran’s last minute support for the Assad regime kept it from falling during the Arab spring protests.

The decision by Iranian commanders to target not extremist Islamic groups, but instead go after Western-funded and backed rebels, was a key step towards freeing militants to expand their ranks. Iranian regime’s manipulation of the administration of former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki was the defining blow though in driving out Sunnis from a coalition government straight into the arms of ISIS and leading to the downfall of Mosul, the most important victory for the terror group.

The cold calculation of the mullahs in Tehran explains why the regime did not go after ISIS and why ISIS has so far largely left Iranian interests and its citizens alone and untouched.

For the mullahs ruling Iran, the mere existence of ISIS and its sheer brutality provides a usual counterweight to attacks on its own human rights record and support for terrorism such as its long-standing partner Hezbollah. As ISIS ratchets up the severity, frequency and brutality of its attacks, Iranian regime’s conduct begins to pale in the opinions of media and governments.

Imagine a wife beating, rapist living on your block. You would be rightly worried about him, but instead a notorious serial killer moves into the neighborhood and starts slaughtering people. Who would you be more concerned about?

It’s a sleight of hand trick that gives the mullahs freedom to operate and gain some political cover for their abuses. If the world protests the arrests of dual-national citizens by Iran, don’t worry, there’s an ISIS attack on a church.

These efforts at deception have been part and parcel part of the tools the mullahs use to distract attention. They used it to great effect during the negotiations for the nuclear talks by pointing to the Syrian conflict’s start and how a more “moderate” Iran could help ease tensions there; never mind Iran started it all in the first place.

It is also why Iranian regime has done little to actually combat ISIS. Even with the enlistment of Russia to fight in Syria alongside Iran, the targeting list for Russian warplanes includes American-backed militias and not ISIS units.

Now that the regime has set the date for its next presidential election for May 2017, you can be assured the mullahs will use ISIS to demonstrate their commitment to helping combat terrorism, while continuing its own sponsorship of terror.

Predictably the media, with the help of the Iran lobby, was pedaling the notion that the election represents a battle between “moderates” vs. “hardliners.” If the past three years under Hassan Rouhani have taught us anything, it is that there are no real moderates within the Iranian regime.

Anyone espousing a dissenting view has either been put in prison or sent to the gallows to be hung. It’s a tidy way to clear your ballot of any dissenting views.

By Michael Tomlinson