Iran Lobby

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

Postponing the Inevitable on Iran

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hourglassIn calling a Hail Mary pass from his own party, President Obama managed to secure a two-month reprieve from Senate Democrats who were on the verge of joining their Republican colleagues in offering up a new sanctions bill on Iran should the third and latest round of talks fail to produce an agreement.

The new deadline is now March 24th and in a letter to the President, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee left no doubt that he and other Democrats remained “deeply skeptical that Iran is committed to making the concessions required to demonstrate to the world that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.”

Adding in the letter “we will only vote for this legislation on the Senate floor if Iran fails to reach agreement on a political framework that addresses all parameters of a comprehensive agreement.”

Other Senators signing the letter included Charles E. Schumer of New York, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

Iran loyalists such as the National Iranian American Council were quick to hail the agreement as a “breakthrough” for nuclear talks and patted themselves on the back publicly for their perceived win.

What they and other Iran sympathizers failed to realize or admit publicly is that the Democrats letter only cemented the very real possibility of sanctions since the last round of talks having ended last November there has been a virtual stalemate and no movement from the Iranian side towards any meaningful agreement.

The prospects of substantial movement occurring during the next two months are remote and Senate Republicans know this which is why they agreed to the Democratic proposal in the hope of gaining a veto-proof supermajority by March 24th.

Ironically, The New York Times noted that while the Democrats were offering up their extension, the Iranian Parliament was moving forward with proposals to bind their own negotiating team and preventing them from any agreement on production limits on nuclear fuel.

“In fact, their own proposals would require Tehran to deploy centrifuges that can enrich uranium far more efficiently than ever,” according to the Times.

Coupling this with the periodic statements given by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei bolstering this position and one can easily see why Senator Menendez’s concession to President Obama wasn’t much of a concession. The decision gives Democrats the breathing room to say they want to support the Administration, yet retain the flexibility to quickly join Republicans to move ahead with sanctions.

So while the NIAC may be dancing with joy, it’s a Pyrrhic victory since the essential facts surrounding negotiations have not changed. Iranian regime is hardening its stance and continues on a human rights and terror rampage that alarms the American people every night while they watch the news and emboldens them to urge their Congressional representatives to take a harder stance with respect to Iran.

On March 24th, Iran and its lobbying allies are in for a rude awakening.

By Michael Tomlinson

The State of the Union and Iran

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State of the UnionPresident Barack Obama delivered his sixth State of the Union address and like the previous five other speeches, he largely dealt with domestic issues as the nation continues to struggle with a lingering recession, stagnant wage growth and deadlocked politics in Washington.

And like his other speeches, this one ran slightly under 7,000 words in length and in it, President Obama mentioned Iran a grand total of four times, which is comparable to how many times he spoke about Iran in 2014, 2013, and 2012. The only difference in this speech was a slightly longer emphasis on the need to avoid the additional levying of economic sanctions on Iran during the third and latest round of nuclear negotiations.

Similarly, Iran’s coterie of apologists and cheerleaders went on the offensive in advance of the speech as early copies were circulated amongst administration supporters. The National Iranian American Council notably and predictably lauded the President’s statement with a statement warning of the possibility of war breaking out with Iran should sanctions be levied.

Of course what NIAC fails to address is that this so-called last best hope for peace for Iran is actually the third go-around for this administration and doesn’t include efforts by every previous Presidential administration who had attempted to rein in Iran’s ruling mullahs.

While Iran has played revolving chairs with presidents in order to first get tough with the West with Ahmadinejad, it then tried a different tack with a so-called moderate face now under Hassan Rouhani. In both cases, the heavy hand of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continues to sabotage any nuclear deal with his insistence that Iran retain not only its refining and enrichment capacity, but also its missile technology to potentially deliver a nuclear warhead.

NIAC’s hyperbole is indicative of the simple truth surrounding the issue of Iran; the American people simply do not trust the mullahs running Iran, least of all with nuclear weapons.

The fact that previous sanctions bills and the most recent one being proposed in Congress have been highly bipartisan with large numbers of Democrats joining with Republicans in an overwhelming show of solidarity on the issue demonstrates more powerfully than any speech that the President and NIAC are very much alone on this issue.

The funny thing is that the only people who are mentioning a possibility of war are only the NIAC and Iranian regime’s supporters, that have engaged in hyperventilating over the inevitable onset of war should sanctions come.

They neglect to mention that the same claims were made when previous sanctions were levied and in each case, war did not come. In fact the opposite occurred as Iran was forced to the bargaining table as its ability to export its brand of radicalized Islam became more difficult with fewer resources available. Couple that with crushing oil prices, and the timing is near perfect to forge a historic agreement with Iran to not only halt nuclear weapons development, but also seek improvements in Iran’s horrific human rights record, worsened under the “moderate” president Hassan Rouhani.

The U.S. and the West are being provided with an opportunity to use its significant leverage to move Iran forward back into the community of nations as a more democratic, pluralistic and free society than at any other time in recent memory. While the President focuses on nuclear talks, the window that has opened here is much more significant and should be taken advantage of immediately.

In short, the President needs to aim higher on behalf of the Iranian people, as well as the American people; a notion that the NIAC would be well served to adopt as well.

By Michael Tomlinson

Equating Cuba to Iran is More Smoke and Mirrors

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Cuba FlagPresident Obama laid out a move to normalize relations with Cuba after over half a century of unrest in relations. North Korea comes to mind too, but that involves another discussion on another day.

Sympathizers and supporters of Iran’s ruling regime have seized on the proposal to try and draw parallels to the U.S. approach to Iran. Most notably Trita Parsi and Ryan Costello of the regime’s foremost lobbyists at the National Iranian American Council, write in The HuffingtonPost that America’s perceived failed Cuba policy is akin to its similar flawed policy as it relates to Iran.

They attempt to draw parallels to economic sanctions placed on Cuba and Iran as both being failures in policy and deserving of retraction. They go to heap praise on President Obama’s recent efforts to advance a nuclear arms deal with Iran as evidence of this new pivot that can usher in an era of normalized relations between the two adversaries.

Unfortunately their obtuse logic is about as straightforward as a pretzel. Cuba and Iran are vastly different countries with vastly different economic, political and military histories.

Anyone over the age of 60 clearly remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis and the razor sharp edge the U.S. and old Soviet Union navigated as the world was pushed to the brink of global war. In a sharp twist of irony, Cuba’s placement of nuclear missiles aimed at the U.S. 90 miles away proved to be intolerable and were eventually removed through some last minute diplomacy and a heavy dose of military hardware in the Caribbean. Similarly, Iran faces the same choice in whether or not to pursue a nuclear arms program that could place Iran in the same position Cuba found itself in.

But the differences between Cuba and Iran are largely glossed over by Parsi and Costello. Whereas Cuba was a virtual vassal state to the Soviets and heavily dependent on imports of oil, food and other goods to keep the island nation going, Iran sits on one of the world’s largest reserves of oil and uses illicit petro dollars to fund a myriad of military activities as well as fund several of the world’s most notorious terror organizations.

It would be a remarkable display of honesty if Parsi and Costello were to actually use the terms “Hezbollah, ISIS and Iran” in the same sentence.

Iran has been governed by an unrelenting, unforgiving and uncaring religious cadre of mullahs who through advocacy of a particularly harsh and radicalized brand of Islam have managed to oppress the Iranian people for decades.

But par for the course for Parsi and Costello, they conveniently ignore the human rights abuses, depredations and decades-long effort by Iran to develop a nuclear capability in defiance of worldwide condemnations.

Iran remains deeply involved in the Syrian conflict, now manipulates Iraq in its fight against ISIS and continues to fund and support Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as shield its nuclear activities from international inspectors and continue to squeeze its own people with a stepped up campaign of arrests, imprisonments and executions that would make North Korea pale by comparison.

But none of that seems to make the proverbial exhortations of Parsi and Costello who remain slavishly obedient to Iran’s beck and call and are using the Cuba situation in another desperate attempt to push through a nuclear deal that would set Iran on a path not too dissimilar to the near global catastrophe of 1962.

By Michael Tomlinson

Whitewashing Iran’s human right’s records to lobby softer position on nuclear talks

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Photo credit: The gulf and Middle East Association for civil society-August 2014

Photo credit: The gulf and Middle East Association for civil society-August 2014

The Ministry of Intelligence and Security of Iran had instructed its agents to try to advocate themselves as opposition by writing 80% against the regime and the violation of human rights in Iran, but they have to dedicate 20% to denying the opposition, namely the MEK (Mujahedin-e-Khalq), by spreading rumors discredit them. This seems to be the copy framework agreement with the Iranian regime’s lobby and appeasers with respect to the failed Iran talks in Vienna.

Recently, some advocates of Iranian origin who claim to be human rights activists are expressing concerns over the recent resolution of the House of Representatives against the human rights violation in Iran.

One of these “human rights activists” has written an article in The Hill today, expressing concerns that “seeking ways to achieve tangible human rights improvements inside Iran is also closely related to the outcome of the nuclear negotiations” and that including “separate issues – such as Iran’s rights record, or its support for terrorism – will make it more difficult to reach a nuclear deal”.

The author who by the way is a well-known advocate and affiliate of “NIAC” claims that “the Iranian human rights community strongly supports a successful diplomatic resolution of the nuclear crisis, particularly because many believe that without a deal, the human rights crisis in Iran will worsen”. He goes further in whitewashing the regime’s president Rouhani who is just another mullah within the hierarchy of the theocracy ruling Iran, saying: “the perpetuation of tensions over the nuclear file is likely to result in continued and even increased gross human rights violations. For example, throughout the past decade, Iranian hardliners, opposed to a deal, have thrived by capitalizing on the nuclear confrontation and using it to justify their repressive measures. Failure of the negotiations would embolden them. They would seek to weaken the government of relative moderate President Hassan Rouhani.”

This is while in Iran under the so called “moderate” Rouhani, over 1,100 people have been executed and thousands are on death row. Based on the number of executions that mainly appear on state newspapers in Iran, on average every 8 hours one person is being executed. Women are disgracefully attacked by regime-related thugs, either by acid or being stabbed under the pretext of disobeying the dress code. There is no free access to information, Iran is the biggest prison for journalists and the situation of religious minorities is outrageous, to name a few.

Last November, the United Nations General Assembly’s third committee adopted the UN’s 61st resolution condemning human rights abuses in Iran and urged the regime to stop the executions, in such conditions, overlooking the human rights in Iran and ignoring the fact that people and particularly women in Iran are living under despicable conditions is nothing but cruel, shameful and immoral. Asking the US politicians to be softer on the regime with such inhumane records of human rights, is even worse.

The author is also quoting some activists to strengthen his proposition and represent it as a request by the Iranian human rights community. He writes: “As Nasrin Sotoudeh , the prominent human rights lawyer and former political prisoner put it: ‘It is obvious that we welcome peaceful relations with all countries and as such support the negotiations’.”  This is while reading Nasrin Sotoudeh’s entire quote, you can see that she is actually demanding the human rights issues to be discussed during negotiations and not to be ignored, exactly the opposite of what the Iranian lobby is criticizing the congress for in the Hill article. Here is her quote from the same source:

“if the Iranian state wants to rehabilitate its relations with the international community, it must certainly address fundamental human rights concerns on issues such as juvenile executions and freedom of expression. The Iranian government should clearly state its position on these issues during the nuclear negotiations. In my opinion, keeping silent on such issues until the end of negotiations will make it more difficult. My understanding is the European countries say we cannot easily bring up human rights issues because it will potentially threaten the negotiations. We say at a minimum ask the Iranian negotiators to express their position on fundamental human rights concerns such as juvenile executions which are banned by all international conventions.”

The truth of the matter is that the Iranian regime has strategically invested in its nuclear program. It is doing everything to get more time to complete the program and will not shift from this unless faced with more pressure and more sanctions. After all it was the sanctions that finally forced the mullahs to go to the negotiation table and accept the Geneva accord, not the appeasement policy that has unfortunately been the dominant policy of the West towards Iran in the past two decades.

The Pretzel Logic of the Iranian Lobby on the Nuclear Deal

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"Dedicated to Improving the Relationship Between the U.S. and Iranian Governments"

“The Pretzel Logic of the Iranian Lobby on the Nuclear Deal”

With the deadline of November 24th fast approaching for the P5+1 negotiators to reach a deal with Iran over its nuclear weapons program, the chorus of the PR machine working on behalf of the regime is reaching a crescendo.

The opening shot came from disclosures in the Washington Free Beacon that the Truman National Security Project issued a call to arms for writers and bloggers to join in the effort to comment, post and tweet U.S. media in favor of a nuclear deal.

This was followed by a virtual avalanche of editorials and commentary that sometimes borders on the ludicrous such Gary Sick’s piece in Politico where he argued that giving Iran a deal that preserves its ability to enrich uranium was preferable to letting Iran walk away. Sick’s piece attempts to make the leap of logic that failure to reach a deal would potentially place Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani at some crucial disadvantage with perceived hardliners in Iran and lead to his ouster.

It’s an argument that reminds me of MIT professor and Obamacare advisor Jonathan Gruber’s recently unearthed comments about the lack of intelligence amongst American voters. Sick must carry a similar opinion of Western negotiators.

This theme that letting Iran walk away from the negotiating table would be disastrous is being echoed on pro-Iranian blogs such as LobeLog.com and lobbyists such as the National Iranian-American Council. All have let loose shrill cries that almost any deal is preferable than letting Iran walk…even if the deal is viewed as an awful one by the West.

What all of these sympathizers ignore though is the biggest obstacle to closing a deal and it is not the West, it is Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei who previously sank negotiations with public comments against reaching a deal that would impede Iran’s ability to develop a weapon. His most recent comments reinforced that view. In fact, the mullah-in-chief  has doubled down with another series of speeches denouncing efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear capacity.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other negotiators were also stunned to hear even more denunciations by Iran’s religious leaders who decried any efforts to cave in to what they considered were excessive demands by the West. Iran has also raised the specter that any deal must first be predicated on the unconditional lifting of economic sanctions without a reciprocal rapid deconstruction of Iran’s nuclear program; a non-starter for almost every nation at the bargaining table.

The pathway now shaping up is a potential for yet another deadline extension without any agreement being reached. The impact of the Iranian lobby and PR machine is being severely undercut by Iran’s own leaders out of their own mouths and it seems the best they can hope for now is not a complete meltdown in talks.

There almost seems a calculation by Iran’s mullahs that President Obama needs a foreign policy triumph more than Iran’s economy needs help. It is a calculation seemingly destined to failure with the midterm election results and American voters expressing great alarm over the disintegrating nature of affairs in the Middle East with ISIS, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Gaza and Afghanistan.

This is one of those times where pretzel logic doesn’t trump the common sense of American voters.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Truth about Iran’s Religious Exceptions on Nuclear Weapons

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Iran missile program

Iran’s Sejil 2 missile is seen in front of a picture of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei before a test launch.
Photo credit: The Daily Signal

In a recent piece in Truthout, Gareth Porter lays out a historical rationale for Iran not wanting to develop nuclear weapons based on a fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He goes on to cite a historical precedent with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s first supreme leader in the new Islamic Republic, issuing his own fatwa against chemical weapons after Iraq used them in Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran.

Unfortunately Mr. Porter’s observations and conclusion are fatally flawed for a number of reasons, the biggest being that unlike he has reasoned, the Iranian regime did use chemical weapons against Iraqis, and since the then Supreme Leader lied about it, the present one can certainly lie as well. It is also worth mentioniong that the present Supreme Leader is often  under question as a habitual liar.

It is a given of politics since the dawn of civilization that people in power will do or say most anything that preserves their power or position. Iran and its religious theocracy are not immune to the same temptations. Running a nation state in the service of your religious belief is not much different than serving your political party. In Iran’s case, Khamenei has exemplified the slightly bipolar nature of politics by condemning nuclear weapons, yet ardently defending Iran’s capabilities to develop them.

Mr. Porter fails to note during this summer’s first round of nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 group of Western nations, Khamenei delivered his nation’s version of the State of Union where he went into highly technical detail about Iran’s desire to not only preserve its enriching capacity, but indeed significantly expand it almost a hundredfold from where negotiators were at. While negotiators were debating allowing Iran to keep anywhere from 1,900 to 4,000 centrifuges, Khamenei called for 190,000 Separative Work Units (SWU) and the presumption of the rights to build enough centrifuges of the next-generation models (which are the most efficient at refining uranium into highly enriched fuel suitable for nuclear warheads or heavy water reactors which could produce plutonium) as the minimum requirements for their “peaceful nuclear program”.

Since Khamenei represents the final authority in Iran on international treaties, that round of talks was effectively dead on arrival this past July. It is a credit though to the significant international circle of Iranian regime sympathizers and cheerleaders that that collapse was not fatal and in fact another round of talks were scheduled with a November 24th deadline this year.

Mr. Porter bases nearly all his story on the single viewpoint of Mohsen Rafighdoost, who served as minister of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard during the Iran-Iraq war and is obviously responsible for any chemical attacks carried out during the war, and claims that he had broached the subject of weapons of mass destruction to Khomeini who dissuaded him at the time. However as documented by many media outlets, including an article in New York Times, dated January 31, 2003, the truth is the polar opposite.

We only have the current Supreme Leader’s words to go by and unlike the tea reading that went on at May Day parades in front of Lenin’s Tomb of the Politburo members from the old Soviet Union, we are left to discern the rants and ravings of a theocrat that hasn’t spared anything against his own people, while his men in power are widely known to govern the primary state sponsor of terrorism, and had already run a clandestine nuclear program for 18 years before it was first exposed by its opponents in 2002. And in his most recent comments, he certainly lays open the door for enriching on a massive scale.

Indeed the clear facts, unlike Mr. Porters picture of the situation is totally different. In Iran’s case under the leadership of president Hassan Rouhani, Khamenei’s handpicked moderate face to the world, police crackdowns on dissent have sharply risen as have executions; now in excess of 1,000 according to Amnesty International. Access to the internet and outside communications and social media are sharply curtailed if not blocked completely and Iran has stepped up its military and financial support to terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as become involved in the Syrian civil war and the battle with ISIS in Iraq in an attempt to preserve its control of a Shiite hegemony in the region.

Given those actions, it is hard for anyone to take Iran’s leadership at its word that its only interest is in boosting its economy to give its people more access to iPhones and clothes from Gap Kids.

While Mr. Porter’s hopes for a nuclear-free Iran may be commendable and sincere, he may very well have been taken for a ride by an Iranian flying carpet courtesy of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

By: Michael Tomlinson

Call for Investigation into VOA for Pro-Iran Corruption

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Iranian Lobby

Archive Photo -Taken from Google for Iran lobbies and appeasers

The Washington Free Beacon, has recently reported that a group of bipartisan congressmen have written to Senator Kerry asking for a probe in to the VOA- Persian program’s pro-Iranian regime policies. The program is viewed by the Iranian diaspora as biased and cozy to the Iranian dictatorship for widely censoring the views and activities of the pro regime-change opposition in Iran, or for always offering a negative and absurd picture perpetuated by Iranian intelligence or Iranian lobbies abroad.

The report written by Adam Kredo, a senior commentator of the website, was published on October 17, 2014 on the website.

Excerpts of the article that show how the media is used in favor of the Iranian regime and its lobbies to advocate favorable reports to the Mullahs in Iran is published here:

“Congress is calling for an investigation into Voice of America’s (VOA) Persian language news service as a result of what they say is the station’s systemic pro-Iran bias and cozy ties to the anti-American ruling regime, according to a letter sent recently to Secretary of State John Kerry”, writes Adam Kredo.

Explaining the background, Washington Free Beacon (WFB) writes: “Lawmakers and Iranian dissidents have long accused VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN) of producing sympathetic coverage of the Iranian regime and blacklisting prominent Iranian opposition voices from appearing on the air.”

“The call from Congress for an investigation into these alleged practices comes just a month after the Washington Free Beacon revealed that PNN had banned from the network a prominent Iranian opposition member and placed him on a so-called “black list” after he attacked Iran’s ruling regime for sponsoring terrorism.”

The article continues, “Nine House lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are now demanding that the State Department launch a formal investigation into potential mismanagement at PNN, according to a letter sent to Kerry on Wednesday and obtained by the Free Beacon.”

“We request that you [Kerry] look into this matter and investigate any possible mismanagement and slanted coverage of news by VOA-PNN, including the oversight of management, staffing, and content,” the lawmakers wrote.

“Those members concerned about PNN’s coverage include Reps. Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.), Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.), Steve Stockman (R., Texas), Trent Franks (R., Ariz.), Howard Coble (R., N.C.), and several others.”

The core of the corruption

In the article, Adam Kredo explains that “The lawmakers say that their Iranian-American constituents have been complaining about PNN’s failure to cover Iran’s human rights abuses and other matters that are potentially embarrassing to the ruling regime.

“We have received complaints from our Iranian-American constituents that VOA-PNN programs have neglected to adequately cover the abysmal situation of human rights violations in Iran, particularly the alarming and dramatic rise in executions,” they write in the letter.

Examples of the misbehavior of VOA-PNN

Giving examples of the misbehavior of the program, WFB reiterates: “During [Iranian] President Hassan Rouhani’s first term in office, nearly 900 hangings have been ordered with very few of these executions receiving VOA-PNN coverage,” they say. “In our efforts to protect and give voice to vulnerable populations, we must ensure that VOA-PNN upholds its mission to provide truthful news and does not suppress the voices of those Iranians seeking human rights protections and Democratic change in their country.”

“In addition to a significant rise in executions, including one scheduled for a female rape victim who spoke out against her attacker, Iran has continued its pursuit of nuclear weapons and support for terrorism in the Middle East.”

“PNN critics, including former staffers and guests, have discussed systematic corruption at the network that includes a policy of censoring those who criticize the regime and those who may reveal information damaging to the network’s senior officials, some of whom have had ties to the Iranian regime,” WFB’s article continues.

“We are concerned that this network, which is meant to promote freedom and democracy through objective news and information, may have harmed instead of helped the plight of Iranians seeking to claim their human rights,” the lawmakers state in their letter.

Iranian-American community leaders welcomed Congress’ call to investigate PNN.

Majid Sadeghpour, political director of the Organization of Iranian-American Communities-US (OIAC), said that U.S. taxpayers expect better of VOA.

“Regrettably, while VOA-PNN has given voice to the pro-Tehran crowd inside the Beltway, it has censored the views of those who seek a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear republic in Iran,” said Sadeghpour in a statement provided to the Free Beacon.

Regime opponents who have been invited onto PNN say that their comments have been censored, and in some cases have been thrown off the air.

Nikahang Kowsar, an Iranian cartoonist, journalist, and regime critic, told the Free Beacon that he was booted off PNN’s airwaves in March, in the midst of an interview, for discussing corruption in Iran’s oil industry that could be traced back to high-level officials.

Kowsar was being interviewed on VOA Persian’s Last Page program when the host was apparently ordered to stop the interview.

“I was waiting for the second round of questions” when a PNN host claimed that “he was told and ordered not to ask any more questions to me,” recalled Kowsar. “Then a gentleman from the studio came and disconnected my microphone.”

Kowsar said he was shocked by the experience. He later petitioned the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees VOA and PNN, about the incident.

“When I was in Iran I went to prison for drawing a cartoon, I was cut off from national TV … I was censored in Iran, so somebody who has been censored inside the Islamic republic is not news. But being in the VOA studios in the U.S., the land of the free, and then learning that I have to be censored is … news.”

“If VOA is the channel that wants to talk about American values and freedom of speech and is run by people who have the Islamic republic mindset, that’s not nice,” Kowsar said. “In a way you see that the Islamic republic has exported its values to the heart of Washington and I can’t tolerate that.”

In September – a few months after Kowsar was booted off air – Majid Mohammadi, an Iranian-American academic and critic of Tehran’s hardline regime, was purportedly placed on the station’s “black list” for comparing the Islamic Republic to the terror group Islamic State (IS, ISIS, or ISIL).

“After the program, I was called and one of the staff members of PNN (Mr. Homan Bakhtiar) told me that Mr. Mohammad Manzarpour, the editor, has put me in the black list and PNN will no longer contact me for providing my expertise on Middle East issues in VOA Persian programs,” Mohammadi later wrote in a letter to the BBG.

PNN editor Manzarpour has been singled out for particular criticism by several of the station’s critics and even former employees who have worked with him.

Manzarpour, they allege, has had ties to the Iranian regime and uses his platform at PNN to censor information he finds objectionable.

Manzarpour, his critics note, has previously worked for Iran’s Atieh Bahar Consulting company, which helps foreign companies invest in Iran’s oil sector and “acts as intermediary between them and the government,” according to the Iranian American Forum.

Manzarpour’s previous ties to Atieh Bahar could influence his editorial decisions at PNN, Kowsar said.

“There is something wrong over there, a virus,” Kowsar explained. “You feel there is a sort of conflict of interest over there. Why should somebody coming from Atieh Bahar be in charge of the editorial staff over there?”

“When he cuts me off from a program relating somehow to the oil [industry] … you feel something sketchy over there,” he said.

Read the Source article here

 

Explosion in Parchin Nuclear Site – Is Iran Pursuing development of Warheads?

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Satellite photo of the Parchin military complex in Iran where an explosion killed two workers (The photo credit to digitalglobe

Satellite photo of the Parchin military complex in Iran where an explosion killed two workers (The photo credit to digitalglobe

Iran’s official news agency reported an explosion and fire on Monday, 6th of October at its Parchin military facility in which at least two workers were reported killed. Iran’s Defense Industries Organization said the fire broke out on Sunday evening, IRNA said, giving no further detail.

Reuters reports that the site has been a contentious issue for the International Atomic Energy Agency and Western nations opposed to Iran’s nuclear arms program for some time now since it has long been rumored to be a site for testing of components for its nuclear weapons development program including missile technology development. In fact the IAEA suspected that Iran conducted high explosives testing a decade ago that would be integral in the development of a nuclear warhead. The IAEA has long wanted to inspect the facility, but Iran has steadfastly refused all international access.

According to Reuters, only three years ago, Iran said a massive explosion at a military base 45 km (28 miles) west of Tehran killed 17 Revolutionary Guards, including the head of the elite force’s missile program. It said the blast was caused by an accident while weapons were being moved.

The explosion, raises serious suspicions about the regime’s firm rejection of any visits to the site, by the IAEA inspectors. One can conclude that perhaps significant munitions activity related to its nuclear program is underway at Parchin and out of the sight of international inspectors lays bare the falsehood that Iran and its lobbyist allies in the US have been spreading for a decade now that it is committed to a peaceful nuclear program.

Iran’s allies will make every effort to ignore today’s latest development, but they can no longer hide the fact that even while it bargains at the negotiating table with the P5+1, Iran still actively seeks to refine its explosives program for nuclear warheads.