Jamal Abdi – Iran Lobby

While Iran Lobby Plays Blame Game Iran Goes Nuclear

January 25, 2019 by admin

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to students at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, January 10, 2019. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS – RC15D1E44B00

The National Iranian American Council stepped up in defense of the Iranian regime by attacking U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent speech in Cairo but failed to recognize the decision by the Iranian regime to launch “preliminary activities for designing” uranium fuel with a purity of 20 percent in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal the Iran lobby group championed.

The juxtaposition between the NIAC’s criticisms of Pompeo, but failure to chastise the Iranian regime demonstrates the rank hypocrisy the NIAC operates under when it comes to picking and choosing what to criticize.

In Pompeo’s speech and in follow up visits to regional allies, Pompeo hammered hard on the point that Iranian extremism and expansionism needed to be restrained by the U.S. and its allies and required a more global approach to stifle the mullahs’ ambitions.

In a stop at Doha in Qatar as part of his nine-country Middle East tour, Pompeo signed a memorandum of understanding expanding the U.S. military base there and renewed efforts to form a tighter coalition with eight Arab states to generate greater pressure on Iran.

Pompeo, who held strategic talks with Qatari leaders, also said reunifying the Gulf states was essential to the success of the new regional body the U.S. hopes to create called the Middle East Strategic Alliance, which would include all six GCC nations in addition to Jordan and Egypt. The Trump administration hopes the new organization will become a bulwark against The Iranian regime.

Earlier, Pompeo had given a speech at American University in Cairo – the same site as President Obama’s speech launching a new relationship with the Muslim world – where he cast the Iranian regime as the top U.S. concern in the region.

“The nations of the Middle East will never enjoy security, achieve economic stability, or advance the dreams of their people if Iran’s revolutionary regime persists on its current course,” he said.

The location was meant to recognize the failure of the previous administration of trying to achieve peace by coddling the mullahs in Tehran only emboldening them to plunge Syria and Yemen into bloody civil wars and launch a crash ballistic missile program.

The laundry list of failures since that ill-fated speech in Cairo by President Obama serves as a reminder once again throughout history that policies of appeasement aimed at totalitarian regimes yields no moderation and little peace.

Typically, the NIAC responded to Pompeo’s speech with its usual bluster but did little to recognize why its previous calls to accommodate the Iranian regime only yielded failure.

“Secretary Pompeo’s speech failed to outline a coherent strategic logic for the Trump administration’s Middle East policy. If Secretary Pompeo wants regional stability, human rights, and an end to U.S. military adventures and endless wars, he would press his boss to return to the Iran deal, pursue and facilitate good-faith diplomacy among all stakeholders, and honor our international agreements,” said Jamal Abdi, NIAC president.

Abdi went on to press his call for saving the nuclear deal, but even the Iranian regime seems to recognize that idea is dead as Iran’s nuclear chief announced the regime would start work on designing nuclear reactor fuel delivering 20 percent purity according to Reuters.

The 2015 nuclear accord capped the level to which Iran is able to enrich uranium to 3.67 percent purity, well below the 20 percent it was reaching before the deal, and the roughly 90 percent that is weapons-grade.

Iran is, however, allowed to produce nuclear fuel under strict conditions that need to be approved by a working group set up by the signatories to the deal. Those conditions include ensuring that the fuel cannot be converted to uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for centrifuges that enrich uranium.

“We have made such progress in nuclear science and industry that, instead of reverse-engineering and the use of designs by others, we can design new fuel ourselves,” state broadcaster IRIB quoted Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, as saying.

The move to design an indigenous nuclear reactor underscores the regime’s long-term goals to develop its own nuclear capability rather than be dependent on foreign suppliers; similar to its push into ballistic missiles by first licensing designs from North Korea and then advancing designs to carry larger warheads over intercontinental distances.

The fact the NIAC made no statement about this latest move by Iran underscores its reluctance to deal with the harsh realities of Iranian intransigence as the mullahs continue their nuclear program and military efforts; now in the open and without pretense.

Even as Iran steps up its nuclear ambitions and threatens to renew a regional arms race for nuclear weapons, the NIAC blasted John Bolton, U.S. National Security Advisor, for requesting contingency plans for taking military action against the Iranian regime should the pressure of renewed economic sanctions fail to change the regime’s behaviour.

The planning is prudent considering the Iranian regime has already thrown Syria, Iraq and Yemen into turmoil and has sent its own Revolutionary Guard Corps to fight in Syria’s bloody civil war and Iraq sectarian conflict.

But Abdi wasted no time in trying to redirect and blame Bolton for war mongering.

“John Bolton and fellow Iran hawks believe they have two years left to collapse the Iran nuclear deal and trigger a disastrous war that the American people want no part of. We know that Bolton and other administration officials preferred an Iran war to negotiations prior to serving Trump. Now there is confirmation that they are still seeking out opportunities to fulfill their war agenda,” Abdi said.

Of course, Abdi neglected to mention that the only nation waging war against a neighboring nation was Iran under the mullahs as its used proxies to destabilize Yemen and launched attacks on Saudi Arabia with Iranian-supplied weapons, but that is something the NIAC doesn’t want to talk about.

Michael Tomlinson

Bad News for Iran Swamps Iran Lobby

January 9, 2019 by admin

While 2019 may be a fresh start for most people, the new year brings more of the same from the Iranian regime as the European Union announced it was imposing new sanctions on Iran’s intelligence ministry and two Iranian nationals for their likely involvement in two assassination plots in the Netherlands.

The charges were laid out in a letter from the Dutch government to parliament indicating the regime was suspected in at least four assassination and bomb lots throughout Europe over the past three years.

The Dutch indicated that investigations of two murders led to the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats from the Netherlands last June as disclosed in the letter signed by Foreign Minister Stef Blok and Interior Minister Kajsa Ollongren.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry cited “strong indications that Iran was involved in the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin,” one in 2015 in the city of Almere and another in 2017 in The Hague.

European intelligence officials have also linked the Iranian government to unsuccessful plots in Denmark and France.

“In the Dutch government’s opinion, hostile acts of this kind flagrantly violate the sovereignty of the Netherlands and are unacceptable,” the letter said.

The sanctions involve freezing assets connected to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and two Iranian officials: Saeid Hashemi Moghadam, a senior Iranian intelligence official, and Assadollah Asadi, an Iranian diplomat arrested in connection with a plot to bomb a rally of an Iranian opposition group in Paris last year, according to the New York Times.

The unified front by the 28-member European Union was surprising given the vocal cheerleading the Iran lobby, particularly the National Iranian American Council, had been giving to the idea of an alternative payment system being set up by the EU to sidestep U.S. sanctions.

On Tuesday, ambassadors from Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands visited the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran “to convey their serious concerns” about Iran’s behavior, according to the Dutch letter.

In response, the regime’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, did not deny the allegations, but accused European countries in a Twitter post of harboring dissidents from the Mujahedeen Khalq, (MEK), the group targeted in the Paris bomb plot and a long-time thorn in the side of the regime.

The growing gap between the publicly advocated idea of adhering to the Iran nuclear deal and the growing terrorist actions under direct control of the Iranian government may prove to be too large for the Iran lobby to overcome as even the staunchest advocates for staying in the nuclear deal such as Germany are pushing hard against the regime over these latest incidents.

Security analysts have said that Iran, under domestic and international pressure, appears to be stepping up its intelligence operations around the world and perhaps even making contingency plans in case of open conflict.

The actions by the regime fly in the face of the messaging the NIAC and other Iran lobby supporters have long advocated of an Iranian government seeking new, more moderate relationships with the West.

These latest incidents and the resulting EU actions undercut virtually all of the past arguments made by NIAC officials such as Trita Parsi and Jamal Abdi, which may explain why the NIAC has gone virtually dark about the new EU sanctions and the revelations of Iranian machinations to carry out terrorist actions on European soil.

While the NIAC has been quick to leap to the defense of the Iranian regime in the past over other transgressions such as test firing of ballistic missiles or bombastic threats by regime leaders, it has become increasingly harder for the long-time regime support group to remain a vocal advocate for Iran as the regime’s actions grow more desperate under the internal pressures of domestic protests and external pressure from renewed sanctions.

What is probably most troubling for the Iran lobby is the direct sanction of an arm of the Iranian government in the form of the MOIS. In the past, the regime has resorted to more clandestine terrorist acts through proxies such as Hezbollah, the Houthi and even Shiite militias to take action against its enemies; often through its special Quds Forces arm of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

But this sanctioning of the MOIS hits directly at an official Iranian government agency and in a regime tightly controlled from top mullah Ali Khamenei on down through his puppet president Hassan Rouhani, there can be little doubt the bomb plots and assassinations were carried out either under the direct orders of Iranian leadership or with its tacit approval.

That places the Iran lobby in a difficult spot. Does it continue to defend the regime in the wake of such overwhelming evidence and risk losing what little credibility it has left or does it try to change channels and messages?

As evidenced by the NIAC website, it’s clear the latter was a more prudent choice as it sought to tackle earth-shattering issues such as the cancellation of user accounts on Slack.com of Iranian users.

What is even more problematic for the Iran lobby is that with the new incoming Congress, the appearance of an Iranian government running assassination plots of foreign soil is likely to counter any hope of persuading the new Democratic majority in the House to fight for lifting sanctions on Iran.

While the EU gives lip service to the idea that the nuclear deal and the bomb plots are separate issues, the incontrovertible truth is that they are not and that fact, more than anything else, is likely to sink any hopes by the NIAC of having any leverage on Capitol Hill.

Michael Tomlinson

Midterm Elections Results Do Not Help Iran Lobby

November 11, 2018 by admin

The U.S. midterm elections saw a divided America as Republicans deepened their hold on the Senate while Democrats took over the House as many pundits predicted. Voter interest and participation were high but exit polling of top concerns amongst voters bears little fruit for the Iran lobby or the mullahs in Tehran who were hoping for signs that a blue wave might help bring down new economic sanctions.

According to most exit polls by news organizations, Americans cited healthcare and immigration as their two biggest concerns with the economy following up in third place. The plight of the mullahs was not high on anyone’s list of concerns.

The political environment is dramatically different than it was in 2014-15 when the Obama administration committed itself fully to pushing through a nuclear deal with Iran no matter the cost and that cost was high coming in the form of billions of dollars in cash, sanctions relief and removal of conditions that allowed Iran to develop long-range ballistic missiles, sponsor terrorism across Europe and start two wars in Syria and Yemen.

That deal was sold by the Obama administration and supported by the Iran lobby’s “echo chamber” on the idea that Iran was headed towards a more moderate course and was receptive to diplomacy and wanted to rejoin the community of nations.

Unfortunately for the Iran lobby, the Iranian regime’s actions since then has blown those ideas out of water. It also didn’t help advocates such as the National Iranian American Council that as recently as this summer and last month, Iranian intelligence services were foiled in attempts to bomb a gathering of Iranian dissidents outside of Paris and assassinate another in Denmark.

Any hope Iran could be perceived as a moderating force was literally blown out of the water leaving the Iran lobby to scramble for any rhetorical foothold with the U.S. media.

Since the knee-capping the Trump administration has given to the Iranian regime through the withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the re-imposition of economic sanctions and efforts to build a consensus among key allies to no longer import Iranian oil, the Iran lobby has cast about wildly to find any topic that might stick and help Tehran.

The NIAC has sought to attack the Trump administration on its immigration policies. That went nowhere and in retrospect did not earn the Iran lobby any favors amongst Americans concerned about the issue.

The NIAC sought to float the idea that the Iranian people would be hurt and not the government. That idea also didn’t fly since the suffering of the Iranian people at the hands of their own government has been well-documented over the past year with violent and widespread demonstrations by Iranians.

The NIAC then tried to mock the president for his recent “Game of Thrones” meme and outside of social media didn’t move the needle in the midst of the midterm elections.

In short, few Americans give a hoot about anything the NIAC has to say. It’s a mighty fall from the heady days of unobstructed access to the White House and State Department previously enjoyed by NIAC officials during the Obama years.

The NIAC is now finding itself playing a game of political “Survivor” as it stands outside the flow of American politics on a lonely island waving its arms and calling desperately for any journalist to pay attention to itself.

All of which raises an interesting question: Is the Iran lobby even worth keeping around anymore by the mullahs?

If the NIAC has outlived its usefulness to Tehran and has never been fully engaged on issues of real concern to the Iranian-American community then where does it go from here?

This may explain why its founder, Trita Parsi, got out of Dodge and quit the NIAC to pursue a more independent path and Jamal Abdi has been left to try and figure out how to keep the increasingly irrelevant movement afloat.

Abdi has tried to take credit for the midterm election results by issuing a statement denouncing Republicans who lost their seats and trumpet it as a movement back towards Iranian engagement.

“Across the country, candidates dedicated to overturning Trump’s outrageous and discriminatory Muslim ban and stopping war with Iran won big. To have a check on Trump is a huge victory for the Iranian-American community, our country and the global community,” Abdi said.

It’s worth noting that Abdi focused on opposition to the administration’s immigration policies and opposing war with Iran, but made no mention of Iran’s horrific human rights record, its abuse of Iranian women or the sponsorship of terrorism in France and Denmark.

He goes on to mention the backing of several candidates, but it remains to be seen if any of them are going to heed the NIAC’s call to place Iran back at the top of the foreign policy agenda in terms of moving diplomacy forward when the mullahs seem only intent on killing as many Iranian dissidents as possible both inside and outside of Iran.

There may come a time in 2020 when endorsement by the NIAC will become as desirable as an endorsement by the KKK.

Iran Lobby Left Sputtering as US Sanctions Take Effect

November 6, 2018 by admin

The U.S. re-imposed economic sanctions on the Iranian regime on Monday targeting the money machine that fuels the mullahs’ religious dictatorship, including petroleum sales, shipping, banking, and insurance. The sanctions were carefully crafted to go at the heavy industries and financial pipelines funneling cash to the regime and funding its proxy wars and terrorist activities.

President Donald Trump trolled supporters of the Iranian regime with a tweet riffing on HBO’s show “Game of Thrones” with a movie-like poster featuring the iconic font reading “Sanctions Are Coming.”

The near-hysterical response from the Iran lobby over the weekend was predictable, but also revealing in that the regime supporters such as the National Iranian American Council were left with little to talk about except blasting the president’s tweet.

“Trump, his war cabinet and regional cheerleaders in Benjamin Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman do not have the Iranian or American people’s best interests at heart,” said Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council. “Instead, they are blowing up an agreement that supports U.S. interests and the aspirations of the Iranian people while planting the seeds for a disastrous war.”

The NIAC added its own tweet trolling attempt by labeling the president a “White Walker,” but while it tried to score points on cheekiness the Iran lobby cheerleader was essentially powerless to stop the imposition of sanctions and the economic hammer blow it will rain down on the mullahs.

Not even the Iranian regime’s leader of its infamous Quds Forces, General Qasem Soleimani, could resist sending his own “Game of Thrones”-inspired post saying he would “Stand Against You” in referring to the president’s tweet.

“Things are escalating and the fact that it’s Soleimani tweeting is a sign that this is moving towards a military confrontation,” NIAC founder Trita Parsi said in response. “This was not a crisis. The only reason this is a crisis is because Trump pulled out of a fully functioning deal.”

Parsi trying to claim Soleimani is gearing up for war with the U.S. through a trolling tweet renders any intelligent reader as sophomoric sophistry at best and idiot banality at worse.

The sanctions are aimed at more than 700 Iranian individuals and entities and are hoped to put a stranglehold on the regime’s economy and force the regime into a new round of negotiations.

“Our ultimate aim is to compel Iran to permanently abandon its well-documented outlaw activities and behave as a normal country,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters Friday in a conference call previewing the sanctions. The U.S. penalties will hit foreign countries and companies that do business with the targeted Iranian entities, including its national oil company, its banks, and its shipping industry.

Abdi claimed though the sanctions would hurt the Iranian people, a silly argument since it virtually ignores how the mullahs have destroyed not only Iran’s economy, but sacrificed its environment and plunged large portions of the Iranian population into near poverty status all on its own.

“Impoverishing ordinary Iranians will not hurt the regime or achieve any of America’s security interests, but it will set back the Iranian people’s aspirations for years to come,” Abdi said.

The messaging by the Iran lobby that the Iranian people are helpless in the face of the powerful regime also ignores an essential truth that has steadily build since last year which is the Iranian people are finally becoming emboldened and taking to the streets, bazaars and markets to voice their collective frustration, fury and displeasure at their religious overlords.

Abdi also ignores how the U.S. is also granted waivers exempting certain countries from select sanctions in order not to overtly harm the Iranian people, including lobbying more than a dozen countries doing trade with Iran – India, Japan, Greece and Turkey – to wean themselves off from Iranian oil in exchange for waivers.

Pompeo said eight jurisdictions, which he declined to name, were cooperating with the administration on its push to move to “zero” oil imports from Iran. Those entities will earn temporary exemptions when the sanctions go into effect on Sunday night, Pompeo said.

There will also be some exemptions for food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods, Pompeo said, further diminishing the Iran lobby’s feeble arguments.

But these are essentially the only talking points left to the Iran lobby. It tries to claim the U.S. is only interested in war and sanctions will hurt the Iranian people.

Absent from any of these points is any blame directed at the regime and the mullahs in Tehran for fueling the crisis in the first place by pushing forward with a massive military build-up including the launching of advanced ballistic missiles, coupled with devastating wars in Syria and Yemen.

Supporters such as the NIAC have also been silent on more recent attempts by the Iranian regime to carry out terrorist attacks and assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe as seen in a foiled bombing attempt outside of Paris over the summer and murder plan disrupted by Denmark.

Both incidents led France and Denmark to demand a harsh response to the Iranian regime; neither of which was answered by the Iran lobby.

The facts are activists such as Abdi and Parsi are left with little to say, except sputtering the same inane banalities as before and their collective effectiveness in stopping the sanctions train has been virtually non-existent.

With few options left, we might advise the NIAC to stop clogging up the airwaves and discussion boards and confine their tweets to speculation on who will come out on top at the end of the “Game of Thrones.”

Our money is on the Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons.

Michael Tomlinson

US Iran Action Group Puts Regime Front and Center of Foreign Policy

August 20, 2018 by admin

Brian Hook, the newly appointed head of the Iran Action Group, speaks about the “Iran Action Group” during a press briefing at the State Department in Washington, DC, August 16, 2018.

A hallmark of the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts with Iran was to try and figure out how much it could giveaway before it could entice the mullahs into doing a nuclear deal. The laundry list was an impressive one:

Ignore Iran’s development and test of the ballistic missiles. Check.
Allow Iran to continue funding terrorist groups such as Hezbollah. Check.
Deliver planes loaded with cash to Iran in a swap for American hostages. Check.
Allow Iran to funnel that cash to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. Check.
Allow Iran to crack down on dissidents, oppress women and execute a record number of Iranians. Check.

It’s an impressive accomplishment with the benefit of hindsight to see how little the U.S. and the rest of the world got for a flawed nuclear deal. The butcher’s bill was heavy with victims that included nearly half a million men, women and children killed in Syria and flooding Europe and the U.S. with over four million refugees.

The response to this unprecedented escalation in violence and regional instability was deafening in its silence as the U.S. led by example and did nothing to counter the rise of Islamic extremism and terrorism unleashed by Iran’s proxy wars, including the creation of ISIS.

Fortunately, President Donald Trump has re-oriented U.S. foreign policy and placed the Iranian regime front and center in terms of trying to find innovative ways to corral Iran’s extremist tendencies and chart a pathway towards democratic reforms for the long-suffering Iranian people.

His first step was to fulfill a campaign promise and withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. Then he moved swiftly to reimpose economic sanctions aimed at hurting industries controlled by and profiting the regime’s military and ruling elites.

The Trump administration also announced the formation of an Iran working group within the State Department to help coordinate the government’s response to Iran and search for ways to help foster democratic reforms in the Islamic state.

Brian Hook, the department’s current director of policy planning, will lead the team as the administration’s “special representative for Iran,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Thursday.

“Our goal is to reduce every country’s import of Iranian oil to zero by Nov. 4,” Hook said in remarks to reporters. “The United States certainly hopes for full compliance by all nations . . . in terms of not risking the threat of U.S. secondary sanctions if they continue with those transactions.”

“That is our strategy,” Hook said. “We have launched a campaign of maximum diplomatic pressure and diplomatic isolation” against Iran. Trump, he noted, “has also said he is prepared to talk” to Iranian leaders without preconditions, an initiative he said was on a “parallel track” to sanctions pressure, according to the Washington Post.

Predictably the Iran lobby attacked the idea, but its effectiveness seems akin to the Little Dutch Boy with his finger in a dike being swamped with storm waters as the Trump administration moves aggressively on several fronts to pressure the mullahs in Tehran.

“Not only is the Trump administration content to sabotage a successful nonproliferation agreement with Iran and collectively punish 80 million Iranians with harsh sanctions, the State Department’s new ‘Iran Action Group’ is nothing more than an attempt to bypass the State Department’s civil servant experts to implement Pompeo’s dangerous vision to destabilize Iran and close diplomatic off-ramps,” said Jamal Abdi, President of the National Iranian American Council.

Abdi recites the same “boy who cried wolf” refrain claiming this is a lead up to war with Iran, but there is no evidence as President Trump has long been a critic of previous U.S. armed intervention, including criticizing the Iraq invasion while on the campaign trail; a fact Abdi neglects to mention.

But while Abdi focuses on the falsehood that the U.S. is supposedly arming for war, the real issue which Abdi and the rest of the Iran lobby is terrified of is that the working group is really focused on finding ways to empower and support the Iranian people who are leading the push for democracy with massive waves of protests that have rattled the mullahs badly.

The internal pressure mounting on the regime has led to in-fighting previously unheard of in the notoriously closed-knit ruling elites, including calls by Iranian lawmakers to launch impeachment proceedings against President Hassan Rouhani’s finance minister on Sunday in a move designed to provide a scapegoat as U.S. economic sanctions hammer the regime.

A group of 33 MPs signed a motion accusing the minister, Masoud Karbasian, of being unable to manage the economy or form and implement policies, according to Reuters.

That was enough votes to force Karbasian to come to parliament to answer questions on his record in the next 10 days.

But that move may only be a band-aid as the real hammer – oil sanctions – loom in November forcing the Iranian regime to take the unusual step of publicly calling on OPEC to ensure that no other member state be allowed to take over its share of exports once sanctions are implemented.

The move was in response to reports that Iran’s chief regional rival in Saudi Arabia was prepared to take over Iran’s share of oil exports once sanctions are implemented, but even that move may be unnecessary since the European Union is still struggling to figure out ways to guarantee Iranian oil exports and sidestep U.S. sanctions in transferring payments to Iran for its oil.

The prospects look bleak as European companies fell like dominos in pulling out of deals with Iran in fear of U.S. sanctions that could cripple their operations elsewhere.

The new U.S. action group has finally placed the Iranian regime in its cross hairs and the Iranian people finally have the powerful ally they have long needed and desired.

Iran Lobby Misinforms on Who is Hurt Most by Iran Sanctions

August 13, 2018 by admin

A student raises her arm in protest to the Iranian regime's repressive measures against peaceful protesters in Tehran-January 2018

The Iran lobby has scrambled to find the right kind of response to the re-imposition of economic sanctions by the Trump administration. It has tried to shield the mullahs from any culpability for leading Iran down this path with their support for terrorism and proxy wars that have devastated the region.

It has even tried to argue that sanctions will only spur a new regional arms race as the regime is sure to race towards developing a nuclear weapon now that it is freed from the nuclear agreement’s restrictions by the U.S. withdrawal.

In each case the response from news organizations and international governments has been muted because there is no argument with the facts that the regime is brutal and at fault for virtually all of the sins President Donald Trump cited in his decision to pull out of the nuclear deal.

The only feeble response from supporters of the regime has been the whining wail that the regime was in compliance with the agreement and all of the other despicable acts the regime commits, especially against its own people, are outside of the agreement’s scope.

That technicality is at the heart of what made the nuclear so problematic in the first place and why the Iran lobby is yet again shifting its message to a new tack.

Jamal Abdi, the new president of the National Iranian American Council and chief Iran lobby cheerleader, offered in an editorial in the progressive blog Lobelog.com, that the real victims of economic sanctions were the Iranian people.

“The reality is that Trump’s pressure campaign weakens those within Iran who seek more conciliatory foreign relations and a more open political and social domestic landscape. It also empowers Tehran’s most reactionary forces,” Abdi writes.

If it is impolite to call someone an outright liar, then we would have to watch our language and simply say Abdi is being disingenuous with his comments.

The stark reality is that there was never any hope of moderation within the Iranian regime with the Obama-negotiated nuclear deal since the ruling mullahs never had any intention of loosening their grip on power.

The elimination of any potential rival candidates from presidential and parliamentary election slates following the deal ensured that, as well as historically massive crackdowns on the Iranian people, including a round up and imprisonment of any dissenting viewpoint – real or imaginary – as thousands of women, students, journalists, activists, bloggers, artists and even YouTubers ended up in Iranian prisons.

“The repressive powers in the Islamic Republic are far more threatened by Iran’s integration into the global economy than by a tit-for-tat dispute with the United States. They worry that the lifting of sanctions will undermine the monopolies established by the well connected few who are aligned with the Revolutionary Guards and other government entities. Indeed, after the nuclear deal, the Supreme Leader issued edicts against a broader opening to the United States and hardliners repeatedly warned of ‘foreign infiltration’ in order to obstruct President Hassan Rouhani’s outreach to the West,” Abdi added.

Another fabrication from him as the reality is that virtually all of the Iranian economy is controlled by the state through the family dynasties of ruling mullahs or the Revolutionary Guard Corps which controls the largest companies in the petroleum, telecommunications, banking, manufacturing, transportation and energy industries.

Integration back into the global economy was a boon for the Iranian military, allowing it to refill its coffers, depleted by the wars in Syria and Yemen, and mobilize proxy militias in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When foreign companies such as Peugeot, Total and Airbus quickly moved in to sign deals with the regime, who was getting the benefits? Certainly not the Iranian people who’s standard of living has plummeted under the mullahs’ rule.

The much-promised economic windfall promised to the Iranian people after the nuclear deal was signed never came and in response the Iranian people have chosen to risk their lives in ongoing, massive demonstrations sweeping throughout the country since last December and into a sweltering summer of discontent.

“The real threats to repressive rule in Iran are a growing middle class, an organized civil society movement, and leaders who have the political capital to push for change against entrenched elements in the system. These trends make a democratic Iran inevitable. But outsiders, often led by the United States, have taken actions to arrest these developments. They have propped up Iran’s repressive rulers with threats of war and invasion, and bailed them out by slapping sanctions and travel bans to isolate Iranians and keep them weak,” Abdi said.

This last point is the most damning by the Iran lobby since the regime has done its level best to eradicate the Iranian middle class with manipulation of its currency and restrictions that have skyrocketed inflation and pushed the rial down to near Weimar Republic levels.

The defiance of Abdi’s claims comes in the form of the protests taking place throughout Iran by the Iranian people, including his much-vaunted middle class who have been hit hard by the regime’s deep corruption in the economy.

Couple that with the oppressive human rights situation in which women have been tossed in jail for protesting hijab requirements and the feisty mood of the Iranian people can be seen almost every day on Iranian streets and in town squares and marketplaces.

What many in the Iran lobby are terrified of is that the Iranian people will indeed be able to exert enough pressure internally to force the kinds of liberalization and democratization it promised with the nuclear deal but failed to deliver.

The Financial Times editorialized the same sentiment in but only gets it half-right:

“It would, however, be far preferable if Iran moved towards a more liberal and open regime through a process of domestic reform, rather than as a result of crushing external pressure. The history of Iran and the wider Middle East gives ample warning that sudden violent changes in government have rarely led to happy outcomes — particularly when they have had external sponsors,” the FT’s editorial board said.

Iran’s mullahs are never going to give up power as a result of gentle persuasion. Only a massive build up of outrage by the Iranian people coupled by economic sanctions aimed directly at gutting the financial pipeline to the military is the only pathway to gain the internal regime change the FT describes.

The history of the Middle East tells us that change does not come easily, nor politely. It comes only through the convergence of external pressure coupled with internal reforms.

We believe that opportunity is finally coming to Iran.

Iran Lobby Approaches Near Hysteria in Statements

July 27, 2018 by admin

Iran Lobby Approaches Near Hysteria in Statements

Last weekend, Hassan Rouhani after delivering a speech warning the U.S. of starting the “mother of all wars” President Trump locked his ALL CAPS key and threatened the Iranian regime with destruction if it ever attacked the U.S. And as some put it the world’s blowhards and fanatics have finally met their verbal match.

But even though the president was responding to a provocation by Rouhani, the Iran lobby predictably went hysterical claiming the president was readying for war against Iran.

Lobby members such as the National Iranian American Council were especially vocal in trying to flood news outlets with statements all blasting the Trump administration for the tough stand against the mullahs.

Jamal Abdi, the incoming head of the NIAC, issued a statement that was hard pressed to find new harsh adjectives to use against President Trump.

“The Iranian-American community was deeply disturbed by Trump’s warmongering last night. When Donald Trump threatens that Iran will suffer the consequences that few in history have ever suffered before, Iranian Americans fear that this unhinged President will follow through on his threats to bomb our friends and family,” Abdi said.

“It is past time for our elected officials to step up and ensure that Trump cannot launch a disastrous war of choice based on his deranged tweets and foolish advice of officials who have been pushing to bomb Iran for decades. The Iranian-American community will not sign up for Trump’s war push, and will push back more than ever to restrain this President,” he added.

Abdi neglected to differentiate that the president’s tweets were in response to Rouhani making threats in the first place. He also neglected to mention the wave of protests spreading across Iran since last December aimed at the mullahs and their corrupt rule.

The same Iranian-Americans Abdi claims who are fearful of the president’s policies are in fact the ones who are nervously talking to relatives in Iran who are subject to mass arrests and imprisonment for committing “crimes” such as taking part in a peaceful demonstration for not receiving their paychecks for months, for not having drinking water, and for the nationwide poverty as a result of the government’s corruption and wasting all resources to prop up Assad’s dictatorship in Syria and to support other terrorist groups such as the Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

But the NIAC’s fusillade didn’t stop with Abdi, as Trita Parsi weighed in with his own diatribe on CNN in which he outlined why he believed any pivot to diplomacy similar to what President Trump did in North Korea was likely to fail with Iran.

Parsi’s arguments ring hollow as he skips over inconvenient truths and glosses over the hard reality of dealing with a religious theocracy hellbent on maintaining its grip on power no matter the cost in lives.

For example, Parsi claims that North Korea and Iran are entirely different situations because of the geopolitics of their neighbors. In this Parsi is correct to a point. While North Korea is surrounded by countries eager to use diplomacy as a tool such as China, Japan, and South Korea, Iran is surrounded by countries it has actively tried to destabilize with military action and proxies such as Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the Gulf States.

By comparison, if North Korea sent special forces into Japan or built explosives to be used by terrorists in China, the “diplomacy” Parsi so craves would never take place.

Parsi goes to explain that economic sanctions didn’t force Iran to the negotiating table, it was only after the Obama administration caved and granted the concession for Iran to continue enriching nuclear materials. Again, Parsi mistakes the concession of proof that diplomacy works, when in fact the lesson is that the Iranian regime is only interested in getting its own way and will not bend.

It is precisely why President Trump’s hardline approach to Iran is the cold, shock of reality the mullahs are afraid of because they know they will not be able to bully him as they did with Obama.

Parsi’s claim also that North Korea is a one-man show and Iran has a complicated political situation is laughable. Iran is a one-man country, ruled by Ali Khamenei. The only complicated factor is the web of financial ties, payoffs, and graft that ties the clerics, army, and bureaucracy to Khamenei.

Iranian regime’s solution to in-fighting is as simple as North Korea’s: arrest any dissidents and hang them.

Lastly, Parsi claims that all the Trump administration wants is a war – all evidence to the contrary – and its cabinet members are working towards that goal. The narrative that the Iranian lobby keeps pressing for in order to divert the attention from the fact that it’s the malign activities of the Iranian regime that is being reciprocated with a firm response.

Parsi forgets to mention how President Trump flogged his Republican opponents in the election over the ill-fated decision to invade Iraq and how he has openly opposed U.S. military commitments abroad; even questioning the role of NATO much to the consternation of European allies.

Far from a war hawk, President Trump has openly called on the Iranian people to lead a push for democratic change.

Iran Lobby Reduced to Begging for Shoes

June 13, 2018 by admin

Iran’s team poses for a team photo prior the international friendly soccer match between Iran and Uzbekistan at the Azadi Stadium in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, May 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

The World Cup is about to begin in Russia with the world’s sports stage about to be taken up by soccer teams from around the world. All of them will be clad in gear provided by leading sports manufacturers, but one of the world’s biggest, Nike, will not be providing cleats for the Iranian regime’s soccer team.

On the eve of facing its first opponent in Morocco, Iranian players won’t be wearing Nike footwear after the U.S.-based sporting giant announced it would no longer supply the Iranian team because of new economic sanctions put in place by the Trump administration.

“The sanctions mean that, as a U.S. company, we cannot provide shoes to players in the Iran national team at this time,” Nike said in a statement.

The decision was accompanied by new economic sanctions. The U.S. Treasury can impose a penalty of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison against any company or person who violates the sanctions.

Predictably the Iran lobby spewed with rage at the perceived injustice with the National Iranian American Council leading the charge.

“I haven’t gotten clarity on what legal basis [Nike] is using to say this. They should reference what part of the sanctions they are talking about since technically they’re not selling anything,” said Trita Parsi, head of the NIAC.

The next incoming head of the NIAC, Jamal Abdi, chimed in as well in a press release issued by the NIAC.

“This flies in the face of any claims by the Trump Administration that it is targeting the Iranian government and not the Iranian people. We are well aware that the President’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, has openly called for the U.S. to take steps to target even sports exchanges with Iran and may relish this shameful situation. Nothing symbolizes the wishes and hopes of the Iranian people more than their national soccer team. And nothing unifies them more than when that team is unjustly targeted and insulted,” Abdi said.

It shows just how far the influence of the Iran lobby has fallen now that President Trump has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal and has placed North Korea negotiations front and center of the global debate when the NIAC is reduced to begging for shoes for the regime’s soccer team.

It’s worthwhile recalling some of the lowlights for the Iran lobby and regime when it comes to sporting events which the Parsi and Abdi have conveniently forgotten about; namely, that regime has historically banned women from even attending and watching sporting events such as soccer, swimming, and wrestling.

Many Iranian women who are fans often resort to wearing beards and disguises to gain entry and cheer on their team. If they are discovered, it often leads to jail time.

Since 1979, women athletes have been subject to strict requirements when competing in Iran or abroad, with the Iranian Olympic Committee stating that “severe punishment will be meted out to those who do not follow Islamic rules during sporting competitions”. The committee banned women athletes from competing in Olympic events where a male referee could come into physical contact with them. At 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics combined, a total of six women represented Iran.

Dorsa Derakhshani, 19, an Iranian chess grandmaster champion who grew up in Tehran, was forced out for choosing not to wear a hijab and now plays for the U.S. Chess Federation.

In many cases, especially women, the Iranian regime has often chased away its best and brightest in favor of maintaining the archaic nature of the theocracy’s laws.

These issues are never mentioned by the Iran lobby nor do they earn condemnation by the NIAC, which instead chooses to attack the issue of sanctions, by using the plight of the men’s soccer team as a PR tool.

The underlying concern for the Iran lobby is what the refusal by Nike represents, which is worry that the new sanctions imposed by the Trump administration will be deeper, harder and more effective than those that originally drove the Iranian regime to the nuclear bargaining table in the first place.

If sporting manufacturers are opting to stay from potential sanctions for participating with Iran, what does that say about heavy industries the regime’s economy and military depend on such as electronics, steel, petroleum, chemicals, and manufacturing?

The worry for Parsi and Abdi is that if other companies, including those in Asia and Europe, take these sanctions by the Trump administration more seriously, the Iranian regime could soon find its faltering economy knocked flat on its back which would pose significant threats to the rule of the mullahs in light of widening protests by ordinary working-class Iranians over the terrible economic conditions they are now facing.

While Abdi tries to frame the debate around noted hawk John Bolton, the reality is that he worries that the tough stance President Trump is taking, especially in recent trade talks, demonstrates his willingness to go after any company that engages in trade with Iran.

This is why regime leaders such as Hassan Rouhani have worked hard in an effort to preserve economic ties with the European Union following the U.S. pullout from the nuclear deal, but that effort looks increasingly like a failure as more and more private companies reassess their potential risk and weigh the disadvantage of doing business with the Iranian regime against the potential for crippling sanctions.

One example of the impact of U.S. sanctions was in the case of Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE Corp which was on the verge of extinction because of sanctions stemming from its illegal trading with Iran and North Korea.

Only after President Trump ordered a review and ZTE paid a whopping $1.4 billion fine and turned over its management and board did it manage to cling to life.

The example was unmistakable for any company deciding to do business with the Iranian regime, even more, a shoe manufacturer.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Chooses its Path Contrary to Iran Lobby Claims

June 7, 2018 by admin

In this picture released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks at a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, April 14, 2018. Khamenei said that the U.S.-led attack on Syria is a “crime” and said the countries behind it will gain nothing. The Iranian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the strikes and warned of unspecified consequences. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

One of the central arguments being made by the Iran lobby, especially led by the National Iranian American Council, has been that the Trump administration is hell-bent on starting a war with Iran and doing all it can to engineer one, including pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.

In all of its recent editorials and media appearances, NIAC staff have consistently tried to argue that the Trump administration alone was responsible for any negative consequences coming out of Tehran.

One such editorial was authored by Jamal Abdi, executive director for NIAC Action and the incoming leader to replace Trita Parsi as head of the NIAC, in Defense One.

“In the lead-up to Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Iran deal, the President operated with near-impunity from Congress and the media. His nomination of Mike Pompeo, an avowed Iran hawk who worked tirelessly in Congress to undercut Obama’s diplomatic efforts and unravel the nuclear deal, met with some controversy but ultimately passed over the toothless opposition of Senate Democrats,” Abdi writes.

“Trump’s appointment of John Bolton to round out his ‘Iran war cabinet’ provoked a handful of headlines but received far less media scrutiny than even Bolton’s 2006 recess appointment to a lower position in the Bush Administration. And in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s decision, it appeared he might also bully his way past Congress, the press, and Europe to begin escalating toward military conflict,” he adds.

Abdi and the rest of the Iran lobby seem to operate under the impression that Iran’s mullahs have no free will of their own and only respond like automatons to whatever provocation President Donald Trump aims at them.

In many ways, Abdi’s argument tries to absolve Iranian regime’s leadership of any responsibility since it can operate under the excuse of being “provoked” by President Trump.

Ultimately, the responsibility for everything Iran does lies not with President Trump, or his cabinet or the European Union or even social media influencers. The mullahs are the only ones who decide what happens in the theocratic dictatorship that is Iran’s government.

This is the inconvenient truth Abdi, Parsi and the rest of the Iran lobby studiously ignore because if the world’s media did affix responsibility on the mullahs for all of Iranian regime’s actions, then all of its atrocities committed in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen and other far flung places around the world—not to mention at home against its own people—would force the regime to pay a heavy price.

The Iran lobby fights mightily to ensure the mullahs do not have to pay that price.

For the NIAC, the war narrative is an important cog in its PR machinery to deflect any attention being focused on the actions of the regime and mullahs. If blame can be affixed on the Trump administration than anything bad that happens must be the president’s fault by this perverse piece of logic.

For example, Abdi boasts of a language inserted by a group of Iran-supporting members in the House in an authorization bill to support Pentagon operations prohibiting the use of U.S. armed forces against Iran as a landmark moment in halting the Trump war train.

What Abdi hopes the American people don’t notice is that the Trump administration is not preparing for war against the Iranian regime, but instead is relying on the diplomatic strategy of applying economic pressure on the regime as it has done with North Korea.

That threat is far greater to the mullahs and the real fear of the Iran lobby since cutting off the economic lifeline to Iran can only exacerbate the pressure on the Iranian economy and further drive deeper the wedge growing between the mullahs and the elites with the common, every day, oppressed Iranian citizen.

The language Abdi puts so much stock in will not survive in the Senate and raises the larger problem looming on the horizon for the Iran lobby which is the complete lack of interest in the American people in supporting the Iran nuclear deal in upcoming midterm elections.

There is literally no Senate or House candidate on either side of the political aisle out there campaigning for reinstatement of the Iran nuclear deal.

In this area, the Iran lobby stands conspicuously alone in the U.S. which is why the Iran lobby is focusing so much of its efforts on trying to keep the European Union in the fold as witnessed with a recent open letter sent to the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini.

“In an increasingly unstable global climate and ever-more precarious ‘age of extremes,’ it is essential that one of the great diplomatic successes of the 21st century not find itself carelessly squandered. By your own estimation, it took some 12 years for this agreement to be reached. If Europe in coordination with its Russian and Chinese partners prove unable to salvage the JCPOA, the likelihood of further instability in the region and even war increases exponentially,” the letter said, which was signed by the usual suspects of Iran lobby academics and cheerleaders including Parsi.

It’s apparent how self-important this group sees itself, naming the Iran nuclear deal as being on par with such notable landmark agreements of the 21^st century, especially when considering there have been no notable landmark agreements yet in the 21^st century.

Typically the signers warn of “war” again but miss the essential point which is the decision of whether or not a pathway to conflict is followed lies firmly in the iron grip of the mullahs in Tehran.

Only leaders such as Ali Khamenei can decide what path the Iranian regime will take. They decided to use the financial windfall from the nuclear deal to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. They decided to build a ballistic missile program. They decided to topple the government in Yemen. They decided to deploy Revolutionary Guard Corps troops to Syria. No one made them do it and the Iran lobby has never criticized the regime for it.

The real threat of war is not in Washington but lies only in Tehran.

Laura Carnahan

Jamal Abdi Responds to Mike Pompeo with Absurdities

May 23, 2018 by admin

Jamal Abdi Responds to Mike Pompeo with Absurdities

In a landmark speech to the Heritage Foundation, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out the Trump administration’s new policy towards the Iranian regime including a list of a dozen conditions the mullahs would need to address to move forward with the U.S. in a new relationship.

Chief among those conditions was a new requirement that the Iranian regime would have to stop enriching all uranium and supporting militant groups such as Hezbollah and the Houthi; conditions that the Obama administration had tossed aside in its haste to nail down a nuclear deal with almost no pre-conditions.

In exchange for accepting these new conditions, Pompeo laid out the U.S. would lift punishing economic sanctions, restore diplomatic relations, open up commercial activity and give Iran access to advanced technology it badly needs to revitalize its economy and infrastructure.

The policy as laid out by Pompeo essentially resets the clock to the period before the Iran nuclear negotiations ran off the rails when crushing and comprehensive economic sanctions from countries around the world had dragged the Iranian regime kicking and screaming to the bargaining table where the Obama administration promptly gave away the proverbial house.

If this was a game of high stakes poker, the Obama team folded even before the flop, paying the price of the ante, but never seeing the hole cards.

Of course, the idea of a new, revised agreement that finally corralled the regime’s worst instincts was greeted with skepticism by European leaders.

Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, said the U.S. decision to fold all of its disputes with Tehran into a “jumbo Iran treaty” would be very difficult to achieve “in anything like a reasonable timetable,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, insisted the Iran agreement President Trump had abandoned remained the best way to contain Tehran’s nuclear efforts and said the EU would support it as long as Iran did. “The deal belongs to the international community,” she said.

But the new policy articulated by Pompeo is a clear demonstration of what should have been on the table in the original negotiations back in 2015. If the U.S. had exercised its leverage at that crucial moment, the devastating wars in Syria and Yemen may have never taken place.

Predictably the National Iranian American Council led the braying chorus of naysayers attacking Pompeo’s speech and leading the charge was Jamal Abdi, recently anointed as the new president for NIAC.

“The Trump Administration is setting the stage for a war of choice with Iran, with Mike Pompeo offering a smokescreen of diplomacy to distract from the administration’s pursuit of Iraq-style regime change,” Abdi said in a statement released by NIAC.

“Trump is renting out U.S. Middle East policy to the highest bidder – in this case Saudi Arabia, the GCC states, and Israel – and expecting ordinary Americans and U.S. service members to shoulder the burden of a regional escalation, a potential trade war with our allies, and a new Iraq-style regime change war in the Middle East.”

Abdi may be replacing Trita Parsi, but the rhetoric and misstatements are still the same. NIAC once again trots out the war fears in a false flag effort to convince Americans that the president wants to wage war against Iran; forgetting that then-candidate Trump was the one of the first on the campaign trail to criticize the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq and has been reluctant to commit U.S. combat troops to any new escalation, especially during the bloody Syria civil war.

Abdi of course neglects to mention that Iranian regime was responsible for the escalation that killed over 400,000 people in Syria, when it shipped Hezbollah fighters, then its own Revolutionary Guards to fight there.

Abdi doles out the same tropes the Iran lobby has used before, but now they ring hollow with the benefit of hindsight. The three years since the deal have shown how an unrestrained Iran has radically reshaped the Middle East and resulted in deaths from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and the essential failure of the promises made by NIAC and the Iran lobby: the nuclear deal did not moderate the Iranian regime but unleashed it.

Now that Iran’s economy is reeling from corruption, mismanagement and diversion of billions of dollars to its military and terrorism, the mullahs in Tehran are under enormous pressure from mass protests across the country since last December, which is why the Trump administration views this as an opportunity to reset the situation and bring about a more comprehensive deal.

In his own unconventional style, President Trump sees an opportunity here to correct what the previous administration fumbled and the Iran lobby has been rendered largely impotent in trying to stop him.

Laura Carnahan