Iran Lobby

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

Iran Regime Executions During Dignitary Visits Become Routine

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Iran Regime Executions During Dignitary Visits Become Routine

Iran Regime Executions During Dignitary Visits Become Routine

One of the more peculiar actions taken by the Iranian regime is the unusual habit of executing people during visits by foreign dignitaries. Typically, countries wrestling with intense international scrutiny due to perceived human rights violations have normally been more circumspect when hosting a visiting leader.

The accompanying media attention of a state visit usually has forced countries to hold off on high profile actions such as a crackdown or round up of dissidents or staying the executions of political prisoners.

The one glaring exception to that rule has been the Iranian regime, which seems to perversely revel in executing prisoners whenever someone comes calling.

The most recent example was the execution of three Turkish nationals accused of drug trafficking last year on the heels of a high-profile visit to Tehran by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Iranian regime – which executed nearly 1,000 people alone last year, more than any other country apart from China – usually refrains from sending foreign nationals to the gallows, especially in cases involving countries with which Tehran has maintained friendly relations, according to the Guardian.

The family of a 46-year-old man, Faruk Güner, a father of nine children, confirmed to the Guardian that he was executed. He was a lorry driver working between Afghanistan and Turkey who passed through Iran. “We tried for four years to save him. They didn’t tell us that he was going to be executed. They hanged him in the morning; we got the news in the afternoon,” Güner’s brother said.

The information about the executions was published by several human rights organizations. One of these organizations based in Norway, said two other Turkish nationals, identified as Mehmet Yilmaz and Matin, whose surname is not known, were executed at the same time.

The organization that monitors the human rights situation in Iran, said more than 450 people have been put to death in the country this year. It said at least 264 of them were executed for drug offences. Iran has also executed at least seven people who committed their crimes while they were under the age of 18.The execution of juveniles is prohibited under international law.

The regime has also taken the opportunity to commit executions during other high profile visits in a perverse move that defies logic, such as:

  • Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister of Italy, during April 12, 2016 visit, eight prisoners hanged;
  • Federica Mogherini, European Union foreign policy chief, during April 16-17, 2016 visit, three women executed by regime;
  • Christine Defraigne, president of the Senate of Belgium, during April 27, 2016 visit, 17 executions including three juveniles; and
  • Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, president of Croatia, during May 17, 2016 visit, 21 hangings in a stunning 48 hour window.

The willingness of the regime to execute people relentlessly during these high profiles—even when a dignitary pleads with the regime not to commit any executions—demonstrates the true nature of the mullahs in Tehran which is to signal to the world loudly and clearly that Iran will do as it sees fit regardless of what the world thinks.

What is even more disturbing is how the mullahs are working hard to indoctrinate Iran’s children into the same perverted mindset where violence and executions are a normal part of Iranian society.

Deutsche Welle looked at this trend and what it portends as a new generation of Iranians are taught at an early age that violence as a state tool is welcome.

Books in Iran, in general, are subjected to a strenuous approval process. But, the glorification of violence, even in children’s books, does not appear to be a problem.

“Children’s books have become much more religious. More stories involve mosques or religious ceremonies,” Iranian mother, Shohreh, (name changed) said. She isn’t surprised that books including hanged animals sell well. “People attend public executions and even bring their kids.”

“Society is being intentionally desensitized,” told DW, a human rights lawyer and children’s rights activist that specializes in cases regarding the execution of minors, which is allowed in Iran once they reach 18.

“Statistics show that violence particularly within families has strongly increased,” he said. “There are many causes for this. Violence in public is certainly one of them. People exposed to so much violence don’t shy away from using violence themselves. This must be countered, not celebrated everywhere.”

It is a deeply disturbing trend that harkens to similar indoctrination undertaken by totalitarian regimes such as the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia which employed children to select people for instant executions as part of the notorious killing fields.

Even Hitler’s Nazi Germany relied on the Hitler Youth to serve as a fanatical conduit for its armies; the Iranian regime is no less dedicated to the same tactics.

Ultimately, the fight for human rights in Iran is not just to preserve the people of Iran, but their future through their children.

Michael Tomlinson

“NIAC Leadership” Conference Showcases Influence Pedaling

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“NIAC Leadership” Conference Showcases Influence Pedaling

“NIAC Leadership” Conference Showcases Influence Pedaling

How much does it cost to meet your lawmakers in a venue where you can exert the influence of the mullahs in Tehran? Apparently only $349 and that also gets you three lunches and two breakfasts!

What a deal.

But if you’re strapped for cash, maybe because you have to pitch in for your family to hire a lawyer in an effort to reach your dual-nationality relative who is sitting in Evin prison in Iran, for only $175 you can still get access to lawmakers, but you miss out on a “Gala Reception” and hors d’oeuvres.

So less pizazz, but still you can buy access and who is selling this access at such bargain rate prices? The National Iranian American Council which held its “Leadership Conference” this weekend in Washington, DC.

The conference was a veritable who’s who of Iranian regime activists and lobbyists, all previously dedicated foot soldiers in the fight for securing a nuclear deal with Iran, as well as the fight to buy reprieves for the regime from ongoing sanctions for violations of human rights and sponsorship of terrorism.

Some of the more notable speakers included Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund,which received and distributed cash to various members of the Iran lobby including NIAC according to investigative media reports, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor to President Obama and architect of the now-infamous “echo chamber” of supporters used to deceive media and the American people as to the inherent flaws of the nuclear agreement.

Other key participants curiously included Christopher Backemeyer, deputy coordinator of sanctions policy in the State Department, and Michael Mosier, associate director at the Office of Sanctions Policy & Implementation in the Office of Foreign Assets Control. These two men hold considerable power over the question of whether or not Iran is complying with the nuclear agreement and whether or not certain sanctions should be enforced such as bans against the regime accessing US currency exchanges.

The fact that such key regulatory officials are participating in a conference sponsored by an organization identified as having strong links to high ranking Iranian officials should prove troubling. It is similar to having members of the Treasury Department’s securities enforcement division having drinks with executives from Enron or Lehman Brothers prior to the mortgage meltdown.

What is always fascinating about the NIAC’s annual confab is the packing of the speakers list with its own staffers, in this case Trita Parsi, Reza Marashi and Tyler Cullis, each of whom have worked diligently to carry Iran’s water and make excuses for the worst excesses of the regime. Watching these three “stooges” try to divert attention away from ballistic missile launches, mass arrests of journalists, public hangings of Iranians or arrests of Americans, Brits and other citizens is like watching a bad sketch comedy troupe.

Considering that one of the self-proclaimed mandates of the NIAC is “to ensure that human rights are upheld in Iran and that civil rights are protected in the US. NIAC believes that the principles of universal rights – Freedom of assembly, religion, and speech, as well as dignity, due process and freedom from violence – are the cornerstones of a civil society” one might ask why NIAC never invites any of the Iranian-Americans who can tell their story first hand of what Iranian justice is like.

Why is it that NIAC never has people such as Saeed Abedini, the Christian pastor held and tortured in Iran, or Amir Hekmati, the former US Marine brutalized in prison, or Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter, to attend a conference and tell their story in furthering an understanding of the terrible forces at work within Iran’s religious leadership?

Of course the NIAC would never showcase any of these Americans since their presence would be a terrible embarrassment and highlight the true nature of the Iranian regime which is cruelty, punishment, abuse and control. Even though these Americans were released in exchange for $1.7 billion in cash, more Americans have been taken this year and the NIAC holds no fundraiser for them; launches no grassroots campaign for their release and holds no protest in their honor.

Even after the regime’s president, Hassan Rouhani, appeared on NBC prior to his speech before the United Nations General Assembly, he confidently admitted to Chuck Todd that Iran did not recognize dual nationalities.

“Therefore those who have dual citizenship, from the interpretation of the Iranian laws, are Iranian citizens solely and only,” Rouhani said. “And any legal prosecution is carried out on the foundation that they are Iranian citizens subject to Iranian law.”

And yet the NIAC issued no condemnation, no rebuke, not even a single tweet objecting to the extralegal procedures against Iranian-Americans, which the NIAC was ostensibly working on behalf of.

The height of absurdity was reached and exceeded by several speakers at this weekend’s proceedings, including this juicy quote from Rhodes.

“Acceleration of tensions between Gulf partners and Iran is a serious problem across the region,” said Rhodes as quoted by NIAC.

You think? It might be one of the better understatements, ranking up there with “peace in our time” by Neville Chamberlain.

The Iranian regime has pushed the possibility of all-out conflict with regional rival Saudi Arabia, while at the time supporting three proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen that have claimed the lives of almost 750,000 people. NIAC’s promises that Iran would be a partner for peace and moderation following the nuclear deal have turned out to be false and alarmingly so.

What was promising was the position taken by Philip Gordon, a senior foreign policy advisor to Hillary Clinton and senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, who reiterated the presidential candidates public statements of skepticism about Iran’s conduct and the need to “distrust and verify” when it comes to enforcing the nuclear deal, much to the chagrin of Parsi who tried everything short of begging to get Gordon to make positive statements about the regime.

Gordon’s reticence provides hope that the next president will approach Iran with a clean slate and not be motivated to the falsehoods and “echo chamber” of the NIAC.

By Laura Carnahan

Looking Back at 2015: Iran Lobby Pushes Falsehoods

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Looking Back at 2015: Iran Lobby Pushes Falsehoods

Looking Back at 2015: Iran Lobby Pushes Falsehoods

Our last Look Back at 2015 concerns the Iran lobby itself and the complete lack of moral fiber within them. As 2015 saw a world engulfed in violence and bloodshed borne out of Islamic extremism which sprang forth from the teachings and policies of the Iranian regime, the Iran lobby remained deafeningly silent.

Chief among the leaders of the Iran lobby has been the National Iranian American Council, which has come to symbolize all of the oddities and corruption within supporters of the mullahs.

The NIAC claims an extended mission to help promote universal human rights in Iran saying on its website:

“NIAC works to ensure that human rights are upheld in Iran and that civil rights are protected in the US. NIAC believes that the principles of universal rights – dignity, due process and freedom from violence – are the cornerstones of a civil society.”

Lofty goals, but the record of NIAC’s living up to that mission is pitiful, especially given the plight of Iranian-Americans who have languished in Iranian prisons. These Iranian-Americans seem to be outside the good graces of the NIAC and are rarely mentioned in official public statements, or even social media posts by leading NIAC staffers including Trita Parsi, Reza Marashi and Tyler Cullis.

It is on social media we often see the true nature of the Iran lobby and the allegiances these supporters of the mullahs bear; the most prolific Twitterer is Parsi himself and his political goals are often thinly veiled in his tweets.

Throughout the year, Parsi would again and again go to this basic impulse he has to ridicule American institutions and mock all things even remotely offensive to the mullahs in Tehran.

This includes his tweets through the spring and summer in support of nuclear talks between the P5+1 and the Iranian regime. Parsi often framed the debate about what the U.S. is willing to give up and not the other way around, especially as it applied to delinking contentious issues such as human rights abuses and support of terrorism.

Even after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January, the NIAC was silent. For the NIAC, there was no #jesuischarlie hashtag.

Even when Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeth was burned alive in a cage on video by ISIS, NIAC made no statement condemning the hideous. Nor did the NIAC ever bother to delve into the roots of Islamic extremism, other than to attempt to make the connection in some manner to Saudi Arabia; Iran’s longtime regional rival. Again, it’s all about politics.

But considering Parsi’s past track record in losing a libel lawsuit largely on the grounds of shoddy record-keeping, making false statements and discovery abuses, it seems to be par for the course of how Parsi conducts his public business in the same slipshod manner. It is worth noting that Parsi was ordered to pay the journalist he accused of libel $184,000 to pay for the defendant’s legal expenses.

A closer look at the judge’s ruling in that case exposes many of the falsehoods the NIAC engages in when handling reality and facts, such as:

  • NIAC really didn’t produce calendar records it was ordered to;
  • NIAC initially hid the existence of four of its computers from the court and was not honest about what they were used for;
  • NIAC misrepresented how its computer system was configured;
  • NIAC didn’t explain why it withheld 5,500 emails from its co-founder and former outreach director;
  • NIAC was not truthful about the nature of its record-keeping system;
  • NIAC took two and a half years to produce its membership lists under court order; and
  • NIAC did not turn over mountains of relevant documents and even altered an important document after the lawsuit was brought.

With that much effort devoted to hiding the truth of what the NIAC engages, is it any wonder the plight of imprisoned Iranian-Americans such as Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian is often just the tools for the regime?

Parsi, in an interview with Loyola Marymount University’s Asia Pacific Media Center, claimed the charges against Rezaian were all part of a plot to undermine nuclear negotiations with Iran and the P5+1, which is an odd statement to make. One would think Iran’s provocative attempt to ship arms to Houthi rebels in Yemen via armed convoy was enough to undermine talks, or Iran’s seizure of an unarmed cargo vessel might be enough to trouble negotiators, both acts that Parsi failed to criticize.

By August, protests held in favor of the deal resulted in crowds just as small as the staged regime protests in Tehran with Los Angeles – home to over 800,000 Iranian Americans – protests yielding a paltry 200 participants, most not even of Iranian descent; while rallies in Washington, DC and San Diego were even smaller, barely cracking 100 people.

In contrast, over 10,000 rallied in New York’s Times Square against the deal and another 1,000 gathered in Los Angeles, most of them Iranian Americans demonstrating not only their opposition to the regime, but also for the various resistance movements around the world.

While NIAC staffers such as Parsi, Marashi, Cullis and Jamal Abdi shout until veins bulge out of their collective necks that the mullahs deserve a break, they continued to blatantly ignore the incalculable human suffering being inflicted by those same mullahs on women, children, Christians, Iranian-Americans, Sunnis in Iraq, moderates in Syria or refugees in Yemen. The swatch of human suffering and misery caused by the mullahs has earned neither reproach nor condemnation by the NIAC and its allies.

And those allies pop up in some unusual places as Breitbart News discovered when it looked into the hiring of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, a former NIAC staffer, as the National Security Director for Iran who sat in on several high level meetings with President Obama while discussing negotiations with the Iran regime on the nuclear deal.

The NIAC attempted to dismiss Nowrouzzadeh’s position as a mere intern, but a 2004 document uncovered by Breitbart News described her as a former “staff member” at NIAC.

But the truth about Parsi came out in a serious of journalistic pieces this year as he came under greater scrutiny, including Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic who referred to Parsi as someone who “does a lot of the leg-work for the Iranian regime.”

The crowning hypocrisy came when Parsi denounced comparisons of the Iran nuclear deal to the infamous Munich deal with Nazi Germany and labeled it “fear propaganda” when he himself has been one of the chief merchants of fear mongering by pushing the “war vs. peace” scenario for passage of the deal.

While the passage of the nuclear agreement might be making Parsi and his colleagues feeling good about themselves, the handwriting is on the wall as the presidential election cycle heats up and the rhetoric amongst virtually all of the candidates on both sides of the aisle has turned towards fighting the rise in Islamic extremism and holding the mullahs fully accountable.

In 2016, Parsi and the rest of the Iran lobby might be feeling left out in the cold come November.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Prefers the World Ignores Terror Threats

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Iran Lobby Prefers the World Ignores Terror Threats

Iran Lobby Prefers the World Ignores Terror Threats

Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council and one of the chief supporters and defenders of the Iranian regime, retweeted a cartoon on his Twitter feed which may have been a Freudian slip on his part since, we can deduce it reflects his desperate desire to see the world’s news media and American voters focus on anything else besides the recent spate of terror attacks and the regime’s rampage of human rights violations.

In the cartoon, a man watches television as a reporter yells out “What can we do to lessen the grip of fear from terrorism?” The man hits the remote to turn the TV off with a knowing smirk on his face.

You can almost see Parsi’s face substituted in there as he wishes the world could just turn off their TVs or switch to playing Angry Birds on their smartphones instead of watching photos and videos showing the gruesome aftermath of Paris and Mali as scores of innocent people are killed and injured.

Unfortunately for Parsi and the rest of the Iran lobby, the flow of images won’t stop as terror groups such as ISIS, Boko Harem, Al-Qaeda and others step up their attacks in a sick game of upping the ante on each other. All of these attacks are a constant reminder that the world is not going to be moderate wonderland after the Iran nuclear deal and that the Iranian regime is not a force for stabilizing the Middle East.

Since last July when the agreement was signed, the mullahs in Tehran have engaged in an avalanche of misdeeds that have culminated with the announcement this weekend that the regime formally sentenced imprisoned Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian to an indeterminate sentence for spying.

“We’re aware of the reports in the Iranian media but have no further information at this time,” Washington Post foreign editor Douglas Jehl said. “Every day that Jason is in prison is an injustice. He has done nothing wrong.

“Even after keeping Jason in prison 488 days so far, Iran has produced no evidence of wrongdoing,” Jehl added. “His trial and sentence are a sham, and he should be released immediately.”

Parsi was able to break away from his normal tweeting defending the regime to comment how sad it was that Rezaian had been sentenced. Of course, Parsi could not be bothered to openly criticize Hassan Rouhani or Ali Khamenei or the mullahs running the revolutionary courts or demand for Rezaian’s release or even mention the scores of other journalists recently rounded up by the Revolutionary Guards in a widespread crackdown on dissent. No, that might have taxed his tweeting duties to criticize opposition for calling for a pause in the influx of Syrian refugees.

It is worth noting the debate over the fate of Syrian refugees is misplaced and efforts by Parsi and others in the Iran lobby to politicize the issue are disingenuous because the more fundamental question is not what to do with Syria’s four million refugees, but why are they leaving and not going back in the first place?

The answer to that is even simpler: the Iranian regime’s unquestioned support of the Assad regime has created the very crisis Parsi and his colleagues are now attacking. It’s an absurd scenario since Parsi and the NIAC have never opposed Iran’s military intervention, nor use of Hezbollah as a terrorist proxy in the bloody civil war.

The plight of Syria’s refugees will not be resolved by policy debates over verification, but rather by cutting the Assad regime from Tehran’s coffers and getting rid of the thousands of Hezbollah, Quds Force, Revolutionary Guards, afghan mercenary and Shiite militia fighters the Iranian regime has put into Syria.

There can be no solution to the dilemma of ISIS, without first resolving how we can get Iran out of Syria and create a long-term peaceful solution that allows the Syrian people to go back home, which could only be possible when Assad is put aside.

Part of that solution will come when Russia determines to what extent it wants to keep its interests aligned with the Iranian regime, especially as President Putin travels to Tehran this week for his first visit in eight years and first since Rouhani was elevated. Already there are signs that Russia’s long-term views of how to fix Syria are diverging from the Iranian regime’s plans.

Christopher Phillips, a Syria expert at Chatham House international affairs think-tank in London, describes Iran and Russia as “frenemies” in Syria, fighting in lock-step for a common short-term interest but maintaining divergent long-term goals.

“Iran was happy to say [to Moscow]: send some planes or [President Bashar al-] Assad is in trouble,” said Mr Phillips. “But longer term, Iran will naturally be uncomfortable. Syria was becoming their fiefdom. They invested a lot and now a bigger fish has come along.”

Views differ on the balance of interests between Moscow and Tehran — including over their respective fidelity to the Assad regime. But one European diplomat said the “complex, sometimes unfathomable” relationship was crucial to untying the knotty international politics over Syria’s conflict.

The very fact that the Iranian regime is a religious theocracy, guided by its devotion to an extremist and warped view of Islam makes any kind of stable relationship with the mullahs virtually impossible as the actions taken by the regime since July can attest to.

How does convicting an American journalist serve the regime’s goals? How does supplying thousands of new fighters to prolong a civil war that has spilled over onto the streets of Paris help reduce tensions? How does ignoring a nuclear agreement by test launching banned ballistic missiles help reassure jittery Arab neighbors to Iran?

In all these cases, the answer remains that Iran’s mullahs are the source of these tensions and Parsi’s vocal support for them and lack of criticism only reinforces the growing perception is nothing more than a paid mouthpiece.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Trade Off of Human Rights with Iran Regime

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fed22222-8dbe-49e4-81eb-20be645b4830-460x276Even though the Iran regime has consistently disregarded basic human rights since the revolution in 1979, the world has evolved its approach to this blatant brutality from stern opposition to debased appeasement.

The human rights situation in Iran has gotten progressively worse to a point where the United Nations appointed a Special Rapporteur for Human Rights just for Iran. Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the special rapporteur, released another in a series of critical reports documenting human rights abuses within the regime.

Entitled “The Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the report reveals that Iranians are worse off under the allegedly “moderate” reign of Hassan Rouhani than under the despised Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

While the regime is on pace to execute an astounding 1,000 people this year, the report discusses other brutal acts such as “more than 480 persons flogged during the first 15 days of Ramadan for not fasting.” Also, two people convicted of theft had their limbs amputated mere weeks before the concluded nuclear deal. This is while money laundering and embezzlements by high rank mullahs and officials of the regime, worth of billions of dollars continue unabated.

A man identified as “Hamid S.” reportedly had his left eye and right ear surgically removed in January of this year after being found guilty of attacking another man with acid in 2005, which caused the victim to lose the same body parts. Another man was also forcibly blinded in March of this year in a process known as qisas, or “retribution-in-kind,” for throwing acid on another man in 2009, according to Breitbart News.

While these human rights violations continue relentlessly and have actually increased in severity and frequency after passage of the nuclear agreement, the Obama administration has oddly continued to make qualitative distinctions in picking and choosing options in dealing with a militant Iran regime.

Those distinctions were on display when Rick Stengel, the U.S. undersecretary of state for diplomacy and public affairs, appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program to promote “The International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.”

Under questioning by hosts Joe Scarborough and Mike Brezinski, Stengel struggled to answer why the U.S. had not been able to secure the release of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and other American hostages.

He spent some of the interview explaining why Rezaian’s plight was less important than the overall nuclear issue, according to Business Insider.

He ended up implying that crimes against even American journalists are, at best, a midlevel priority for US foreign policy — an especially awkward tactic, considering the point of his appearance was to discuss US efforts to end impunity for crimes against journalists.

“Stengel perhaps didn’t intend to do this, but he bluntly illustrated the trade-offs in the US’s Iran policy. If you’re going to prioritize arms control above everything else, then it stands to reason that press freedom — and even the freedom and protection of US citizens — is secondary to other, supposedly higher concerns,” writes Armin Rosen in the Business Insider piece.

“Taken one way, Stengel is giving opponents of the US a recipe for getting a relatively free pass on both human rights and the harassment of American citizens. But he’s also admitting that there are unsavory trade-offs at the heart of the Obama administration’s biggest foreign-policy accomplishment,” he concludes.

Rosen is correct and points out why American policy towards the Iran regime is flawed from the start, because it does not recognize the monolithic nature of regime policy as formulated and pursued by the mullahs in Tehran.

As a religious theocracy, Iranian regime is uniformly and unconditionally devoted to its first and primary goal; preserving the Velayat-e-Faqih rule (supremacy of regime’s Supreme Leader on all aspects of the Iranian people’s lives) and the state it spawned.

Efforts to appease Tehran such as the nuclear deal, inviting Iran to talks on Syria, rescinding calls to remove Assad from power, and failing to tie human rights to agreements, all feed into the regime belief that it does not have to do anything to accommodate the West in order to achieve its goals.

This has been shown in yet another way when the International Atomic Energy Agency claimed that the regime had begun the process of shutting down its nuclear centrifuges as part of the nuclear agreement, only to have the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran contradict those claims.

“AEOI’s goal in nuclear negotiations was to minimize the limitations so that they would not deprive the country from nuclear technology, said Behrooz Kamalvandi as quoted in regime-run media. “He pointed out that Iran also wanted its enrichment program to be recognized and the sanctions to be terminated at the same time.”

The regime also showed its disregard for international concerns as it arrested a Lebanese-born tech executive with ties to U.S. businesses. The announcement was the first word from Iran on Nizar Ahmad Zakka, whose colleagues said he did not board a scheduled flight from Tehran on Sept. 18 after attending a conference. Zakka’s organization is an information and communications technology group that has offices in Lebanon, Iraq and Washington.

The arrest follows the arrest of Siamak Namazi, a regime supporter with close ties to the Iran lobby through the National Iranian American Council and its head, Trita Parsi.

On top of which also comes word that an Iranian actress was forced to flee after being criticized for publishing pictures on social media showing her without traditional Muslim head coverings, or hijab.

Her situation is even more striking given the recent leadership conference for the NIAC, which devoted a large section to a discussion on the arts in Iran and why there should be optimism about them.

Paradoxically, while artists, actors and journalists are forced to flee Iran, NIAC notes its belief that economic sanctions have hurt the arts in Iran and never mentions the crackdown on the Iranian creative community by the regime.

We can only hope for a day when Iran’s religious government is changed to a democratic, secular one that respects the rights of women and journalists.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Turns on Its Own

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Trita Parsi traveled with Siamak Namazi to Isfahan, Iran’s third largest city, in August 2000. They also toured the Zoroastrian “Fire of Victory” Temple in Yazd. At the time, Siamak was living in Tehran, working for Atieh Bahar, a consultant company with close ties to the government. In 1999, Parsi and Siamak co-authored a paper that recommended setting up a lobbying organization in Washington to influence US-Iran policy. Siamak took a sabbatical in 2005 to complete a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. While at the Center, Siamak helped Parsi formulate NIAC policies supportive of the Iranian regime.

Trita Parsi traveled with Siamak Namazi to Isfahan, Iran’s third largest city, in August 2000. They also toured the Zoroastrian “Fire of Victory” Temple in Yazd.
At the time, Siamak was living in Tehran, working for Atieh Bahar, a consultant company with close ties to the government.
In 1999, Parsi and Siamak co-authored a paper that recommended setting up a lobbying organization in Washington to influence US-Iran policy. Siamak took a sabbatical in 2005 to complete a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. While at the Center, Siamak helped Parsi formulate NIAC policies supportive of the Iranian regime.

Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American citizen, has been credited with helping found the Iran lobby including the creation of the National Iranian American Council alongside Trita Parsi as the primary vehicle for advocating for a nuclear agreement lifting economic sanctions on the regime.

The Daily Beast chronicled his family’s involvement as an “intellectual architect” for the NIAC as a pathway for empowering those within the regime whom he had a close relationship with and believed by helping secure an agreement it would boost his fortunes within the regime.

In the immortal words of Kevin Spacey who plays the scheming Frank Underwood on Netflix’s “House of Cards,” “We’re all victims of our own hubris at times.”

Truer words were never spoken about the Iran lobby because on the verge of reaping their perceived successes, they discover all they really are, are puppets for a regime of mullahs whose intent is only focused on preserving their own power.

That is because according to regime media reports, while visiting family in Tehran, Namazi was arrested by Revolutionary Guards Corp soldiers and tossed into the notorious Evin Prison.

There is an irony here on par with Alfred Nobel inventing dynamite and then creating the Nobel Peace Prize after his invention was used in war.

Namazi joins four other Americans who are being held hostage by the regime, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, former Marine Amir Hekmati and the former FBI agent Robert Levinson.

According to a piece in American Thinker, Parsi and Namazi founded NIAC as a way to lobby for the removal of sanctions against the regime and promote its foreign policy while combatting anti-regime forces in the U.S.

Both Parsi and Namazi reportedly enjoyed close ties and access to Hassan Rouhani and Javad Zarif, the regime’s president and foreign minister, with Parsi being seen traveling with and in close discussions with the regime delegation during nuclear talks.

Conspicuously, the NIAC have been silent on the issue, declining comment and social media feeds for Parsi and other NIAC staff is devoid of any mention of the arrest.

But Hassan Dai, editor of the Iranian American Forum who won a defamation lawsuit filed against him by Parsi, speculated that the arrest suggests a power struggle of sorts within the regime’s leadership.

Dai explained in an interview with Breitbart News that Namazi had consistently “lobbied in favor of a faction of the regime,” which upset the mullahs because it would only be acceptable to “lobby for the whole regime.”

The fight between the factions in Iran is a fight for “the best solution to preserve the regime,” he explained, adding that groups like NIAC have never sided with true “reformists,” but with people who wish to employ a different strategy to empower the regime, such as Rouhani and former President Akbar Rafsanjani.

Because Namazi and NIAC prefer one faction over the other, “they are undermining the Supreme Leader. They are undermining the Revolutionary Guard,” Dai explained. “When you lobby U.S. policymakers to remove sanctions against Iran with the rationale that it will help reform the regime, you undermine the Supreme Leader, because he wants them to accommodate to the regime now.”

The arrest of Namazi sends a message from Iran’s rulers that “Rouhani has no power,” Dai concluded. “He cannot even protect his own friend.”

Breitbart News further speculates – and rightly so – that the arrest pours cold water on the notion that securing the nuclear deal would empower “moderates” within the regime and help reform it. Evidence since agreeing to the nuclear contradicts that idea completely with the conviction of Rezaian, the test launch of an illegal ballistic missile and the launching of a new offensive in Syria alongside Russian forces.

The arrest of Namazi demonstrates that the leadership of the Iran regime is of one mind and firmly in the control of Ali Khamenei and his religious cohorts and that any idea of moderation within the regime is a pipe dream; which may go to explain why coming off of the NIAC’s recent leadership conference to celebrate the nuclear deal, Parsi’s Twitter feed was filled with posts condemning Saudi Arabia, a bitter enemy of Iran and locked in fighting in Yemen.

If Parsi doesn’t tow the mullahs’ line, he might find a different kind of reception party the next time he travels to Tehran and end up sitting next to his buddy Namazi.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

Human Rights Report Puts Focus on Iran Regime

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Human Rights Report Puts Focus on Iran Regime

Human Rights Report Puts Focus on Iran Regime

Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran issued a new report saying that the Iran regime was on track to execute more than 1,000 people in 2015 in an unrelenting campaign of brutal human rights suppression that continues unabated after agreeing to a nuclear agreement that proponents said would shift the regime to a more moderate stance.

Calling it an “unprecedented assault on the right to life in Iran,” Shaheed described a surge in executions over the past year. He said Iran hanged nearly 700 people since January.

Shaheed said that within the past two weeks, the Islamic Republic violated international law by hanging two juvenile offenders. He added “there are dozens more waiting a similar fate on death row.”

According the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at the end of last year, at least 30 journalists were held in Iranian prisons, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. Others have been detained since, and in August state media accused a senior Wall Street Journal reporter who once served as a correspondent in Iran of conspiring against the government. The Journal called the claims “completely false, outlandish and irresponsible.”

Sherif Mansour, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in an interview with the Associated Press, reporters often get targeted because they are “much easier to frame” as spies.

Additionally, in more signs of a brutal crackdown, the regime jailed and sentenced two Iranian poets. Fatemeh Ekhtesari, a practicing obstetrician, and Mehdi Mousavi, a trained doctor who teaches literature and poetry, were first arrested in December 2013, months after Hassan Rouhani took office and sentenced to 99 lashes apiece for shaking hands with members of the opposite sex. Ekhtesari received an 11½-year prison sentence, while Mousavi got nine years on charges ranging from propaganda against the state to “insulting sanctities,” as well as the lashings, according to PEN America, an organization promoting literature and freedom of speech.

“I think people thought with the nuclear deal, there would be sort of a bit of a thaw as well or a bit of an opening up,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, the director of Free Expression Programs at PEN America. “I think the judiciary is sort of pushing back and trying to make clear that there isn’t going to be that opening people were hoping for.”

Shaheed’s report detailed a grisly butcher’s bill of death by the regime:

  • Between Jan. 1 to Sept. 15 this year, Tehran hanged at least 694 people, the highest rate of executions under the regime in 25 years;
  • The bulk of the crimes committed by those executed were for non-violent, political or drug offenses;
  • By way of comparison, in the last year of Mohammad Khatami’s term as president in 2005, the regime carried out a total of 91 executions according to the report; nearly doubling in the first year of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s term to 177 executions;
  • According to Shaheed, the Iran regime executes more people per capita than any other country on the planet.

In addition to drug crimes, Iranian law applies the death penalty for a range of offenses: from threats to “the security of the state” to “enmity towards God,” also known as moharebeh, to “insults against the memory of Imam Khomeini and against the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic,” according to the State Department’s 2014 human rights report on Iran. “Prosecutors frequently used moharebeh as a criminal charge against political dissidents and journalists, accusing them of struggling against the precepts of Islam and against the state that upholds those precepts.”

Shaheed said a “deeply flawed justice system” that violates international standards and national laws sits at the heart of Iran’s human rights troubles. He said he continues “to receive frequent, alarming reports” about the mistreatment of detainees and the use of torture to obtain confessions. Many of the accused lack access to defense lawyers.

The authorities, he said, have also refused to acknowledge rights for gay, lesbian, or transgender individuals, saying it is incompatible with sharia law. And authorities have imposed harsh sentences, including the death penalty, for posting articles on social media deemed offensive to the government. A semi-official news outlet reported that more than 480 people were flogged during the first two weeks of Ramadan for not fasting.

The regime refused comment on Shaheed’s report and in fact has consistently refused to allow entry into Iran by Shaheed or any member of his office to see first-hand the human rights abuses going on in Iran.

In fact, while Shaheed was issuing his report, Rouhani was holding forth with state-controlled media IRNA in a ceremony welcoming the new Spanish ambassador to Iran, saying he believed sanctions on the regime would be lifted as early as the end of this year, again contradicting assurances by the nuclear deal proponents that the sanctions removal would only come after the regime had met its obligations for dismantling its nuclear infrastructure.

Clearly the regime remains committed to its policy of public executions and cares not a whit about international opinion on the matter.

By Michael Tomlinson

Halloween Comes Early for Iran Lobby

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Halloween Comes Early for Iran Lobby

Halloween Comes Early for Iran Lobby

Halloween involves kids (and adults) firing up their imaginations to come up with costumes and then go knocking door to door seeking treats and getting the odd trick played on them maybe in a haunted house. For the Iran lobby, Halloween came a week early as the chief advocate, the National Iranian American Council, held its annual leadership conference this weekend.

It’s worth noting that the NIAC bills its event as a premier conference for the nation’s Iranian-American community, but its agenda and participants hardly represent the views and beliefs of the estimated one million Iranian-Americans living in the U.S.

In fact, the line-up of speakers at this year’s conference reads more like a line-up card of Iran regime boosters and potential business partners than any group seriously examining the daunting challenges remaining between the U.S. and Iran. What is even more amazing are the lack of any speakers who have first-hand experience with the abysmal human rights situation in Iran, nor were there any speakers offering views on the sizable opposition worldwide to the regime amongst the Iranian diaspora.

Among the highlights of this gallery of apologists and appeasers includes:

  • Bijan Khajehpour, who founded Atieh International and the related Atieh Bahar which employed NIAC staffers to serve as a conduit for directing foreign companies to invest into the regime through the access it provided to top regime officials who controlled most of Iran’s economy through a complex web of shadow companies. Atieh was the subject of an in-depth piece in The Daily Beast on its start and close relationship with leading supporters of the regime and how it profited from those ties and in advocating for a lifting of sanctions against Iran;
  • Joseph Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund which was the largest funder of the lobbying campaign in support of the nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions against the regime. It alone provided NIAC with at $150,000 for its advocacy work on behalf of the nuclear deal; not including money given by its staff. Commentary Magazine poured through tax records to glean the wide scope of Ploughshares giving to groups working on behalf of the regime’s cause; and
  • Alan Eyre, the U.S. State Department’s Persian-language spokesman who came under fire recently for promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy sites demonizing American Jewish groups, as well as postings on his personal social media praising the regime’s controversial Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani according to the Washington Free Beacon. Eyre also posted links to Lobelog, a well-known blog dedicated to supporting the regime’s key messages.

The conference also featured several speakers who are actively seeking business deals within the regime including: Ned Lamont, chairman of Lamont Digital Systems; Jay Pelosky, a self-described advisor on emerging markets who recently visited Iran; and Amir Handjani, president of PG International Commodity Trading Services, a leading importer of agricultural commodities in the Iranian market.

We can’t resist one dig at Reza Marashi of NIAC who called the gathering the “world cup of Iranian-Americans.”

One interesting tidbit were comments made by Dr. Farideh Farhi who lamented the fact the nuclear deal had not led to substantial changes in U.S. policy towards the regime, but failed to note the swift shifts in Iranian policy towards the rest of the world in the rapid buildup of its military in Syria and launching of a new ballistic missile in violation of United Nations Security Council sanctions; both provocative acts.

This was followed by a tweet by Trita Parsi, NIAC’s head honcho, who described comments made by Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Mehdi Hasan, a commentator for Al Jazeera’s English broadcast, as saying about the panic from neighboring Arab nations about the nuclear deal: “If someone panics, you slap them in the face, you don’t indulge them.”

An appropriate comment since it neatly encapsulates the Iran lobby’s response to concerns over what the Iran regime will do now in the wake of the nuclear agreement. The recent rise in belligerent military action, coordination with Russia in blasting Syrian rebels back to the Stone Age and the conviction of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian all point to a slide into anarchy which has even alarmed Democratic lawmakers who initially supported the nuclear deal, but now have begun offering up new legislation designed to keep the regime in check.

The NIAC conference was predictable in celebrating its perceived win with the nuclear deal and the effort now to safeguard potential foreign investment after “Implementation Day” on December 15 when the U.S. will pave the way by lifting economic sanctions and allow Iran to rejoin the world of international commerce.

But the conference also revealed the biggest weaknesses of the lobby which was its inability or unwillingness to meet the most troublesome aspects of the Iran regime head-on; namely it horrific human rights record which leaves a deep and wide trail for the world’s media to follow.

With every arrest, every beating, every public hanging and every denunciation of a minority religious or ethnic group, the regime weakens any argument the lobby can make and increases the pressure on groups such as the NIAC to answer basic questions of “why aren’t you speaking out against the killing of X group?”

Which is why the NIAC conference was so focused on economic issues since the regime is desperate to not only get its hands on the estimated $150 billion in frozen assets to help pay off its military obligations in Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, but is equally anxious to bring in foreign investment to help prop up an economy devastated by gross mismanagement and corruption by regime officials.

By Laura Carnahan

 

The Price of Failure in Syria for Iran Regime

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The Price of Failure in Syria for Iran Regime

The Price of Failure in Syria for Iran Regime

With the Iran regime’s all-in move in Syria through the commitment of thousands of additional troops, the loss of top commanders killed in fighting by Syrian rebels and the new alliance with Russia, the mullahs in Tehran have painted themselves into something of a corner.

The most obvious price to be paid by the regime will be whether or not a military campaign against the broad coalition of rebels, Islamic groups and secular opponents actually succeeds or fails. If it fails, the price will be extraordinarily high for Tehran. It will deal a crushing blow to the carefully crafted image of military supremacy the regime cultivates and it will send its leadership into an inevitable round of finger pointing and blame.

Failure in Syria will also carry a financial price tag since the regime’s previous support in propping up the Assad regime has tallied over $15 billion so far and with the stepped up reinforcements and new offensive, the costs are likely to spiral into the upper atmosphere. Depending on how long the fight takes, that $150 billion the mullahs are eager to get their hands on as the result of the nuclear deal could shrink very quickly.

The stakes for the regime are unquestionably high as it has put Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the leader of its Quds Forces, at the frontlines to direct Shiite forces from three countries including Iraq, Lebanon and Afghan proxies in what is shaping up as a major assault on the rebel stronghold of Aleppo.

The fact that Russia has been bombing rebel forces and not areas controlled by ISIS, and that Iran is targeting Aleppo, a strategic economic hub controlled by rebel forces early in the civil war, tells us all we need to know about the priorities of the regime.

The fact that Soleimani, who only recently was a frequent visitor to the battlefields in Iraq where victories for the regime grew scarce as the war stagnated, was shifted over to Syria shows the changing priorities of the Iran regime as it struggles to find a military victory anywhere in the conflicts it has started.

Just as its fight in Iraq and ground to a halt, the Houthi rebels Iran supports in Yemen have been thrown back under the combined assault of an air and ground campaign backed by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

As the fighting in Syria went badly for Iranian-backed forces, the mullahs sent Soleimani to Moscow to beg for Russian intervention and have set up this new offensive as a last-ditch effort to salvage any kind of good military news.

Kitaeb Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia designated a terrorist organization by the United States, sent 1,000 troops to Aleppo last weekend, said a senior official with the militia. He spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing orders that the deployment not be made public yet according to the Washington Post.

He said the men were part of the group’s elite forces, which have experience from fighting the United States in Iraq. They have done previous rotations in Syria, he said.

“They were sent based on a demand from Soleimani,” he said. “He specifically requested them for the launch of the operation of Aleppo, which is going to be led by Kitaeb directly under the supervision of Soleimani.”

The militia official said the Syrian army would have a “minor role.”

The rapid ramp up in Iranian aggressiveness with the offensive in Syria, launching of new ballistic missiles and conviction of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian have all taken on a certain manic quality as the regime attempts to literally spit out as much vitriol as it can in the shortest amount of time.

It’s a stunning period of chest beating at a time when the regime would be normally seen celebrating what it touts as a victory in its recently completed nuclear negotiations, but this almost bipolar behavior demonstrates the deep schism in regime politics as the religious forces headed by Ali Khamenei exert their control over the political puppets of leaders such as Hassan Rouhani. In many ways, the militant nature of the regime’s recent actions is a reaffirmation that there are no such a thing as moderates within the Iranian regime.

This idea was reinforced when an influential Iranian lawmaker delivered inflammatory new accusations on Monday against Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post’s Tehran reporter convicted of espionage this month, asserting that he had plotted with seditionists.

The New York Times reported that in an interview with Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency, the lawmaker, Javad Karimi-Qoddusi, also sought to depict Rezaian as a nefarious spy who had used his credentials as a journalist as a ruse to gain insights that would be valuable to the Iranian government’s enemies.”

It’s indicative of the deep-seated paranoia that runs throughout the regime’s government and why any agreement negotiated with Iran is doomed to failure as there is very little rational thought within the top ranks of the regime’s leadership.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Has No Intention of Changing

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epa03823138 A general view of the parliament during the parliament session on 13 August 2013 in Tehran, Iran. Iranian president Hassan Rowhani proposed his cabinet to the parliament on 12 August 2013. All designated ministers need the majority votes of the 290 deputies before taking office. Rowhani said that his government will take distance from any form of extremism and rather adopt a moderate approach for ending the country?s international isolation. EPA/ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH

A general view of the parliament during the parliament session on 13 August 2013 in Tehran, Iran. Iranian president Hassan Rowhani proposed his cabinet to the parliament on 12 August 2013. All designated ministers need the majority votes of the 290 deputies before taking office. Rowhani said that his government will take distance from any form of extremism and rather adopt a moderate approach for ending the country?s international isolation. EPA

Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council and chief apologist for the Iran regime, has long maintained that the bluster of Iranian lawmakers and other officials in denouncing a proposed nuclear deal was evidence of a schism within Iran between moderates and hardliners and that only agreement on a deal could empower moderate elements to win out.

 

The NIAC has even gone so far as to claim that heinous and brutal human rights violations are the product of these ideological struggle amongst Iran’s ruling mullahs.

It has been a straw man for the Iran lobby and an effort to divert attention from the truth which is in fact while there are divisions within Iran’s ruling class on how to share power, but both divisions stands firmly united behind a single goal; the preservation and expansion of their power and corrupted extremist Islamic ideology.

With little more than a week remaining before a self-imposed June 30 deadline for a nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of nations, Iran’s mullahs have expressed little to no interest in completing a deal.

This Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to oppose inspections of government military sites as part of any agreement, in direct opposition to what negotiators from the U.S. and France have called a “must-have” condition for any agreement. The legislative move follows similar statements made by the regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, who also declared Iranian regime’s military sites off-limits to inspectors.

The mullah’s legislation states in part: “The International Atomic Energy Agency, within the framework of the safeguard agreement, is allowed to carry out conventional inspections of nuclear sites.”

However, it concludes that “access to military, security and sensitive non-nuclear sites, as well as documents and scientists, is forbidden.”

All of this follows a series of concessions already granted by the P5+1 including the exclusion of ballistic missile technology, the retaining of thousands of enriching centrifuges and moves to accommodate Hezbollah and Pakistani nuclear component exporters. Not to mention the failure of the Iran regime to curb its support for three proxy wars, the release of four American hostages and any loosening of brutal human rights repression. This is while over 1800 people have been executed in Iran during Rouhani’s tenure.

As the Washington Examiner pointed out this weekend, even though the Obama administration is intently focused on securing a nuclear deal with the Iran regime, it has all but ignored the terrorism that Iran sponsors and facilitates throughout the region as outlined in the State Department’s annual report on terrorism released on Friday.

As Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) aptly pointed out: “Now that the administration admits nuclear talks haven’t diminished Iran’s support for terrorism, to what extent has Iran used the interim nuclear deal’s $12 billion in sanctions relief payments to fund terrorists or other terror-supporting regimes?”

“As we move closer to the June 30th deadline for a final nuclear deal that could return as much as $140 billion in frozen funds to Iran, the White House remains silent on this critical question.”

And this strikes to the heart of the argument made by Parsi and other regime allies. If there is a battle of moderate and hardline influences within Iran, where is the proof of moderation on the battlefield so to speak? Nowhere has the regime exercised any restraint or moderation as it pursues its extremist policies.

Has Iran regime cut off aid to Hezbollah and Assad in Syria? No, it’s committed another 15,000 troops, this time, including drawing mercenary recruits from Afghanistan. Have mullahs released American prisoners as a show of good faith? No, it is moving ahead with a closed trial of Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter on espionage charges for reporting. Has Iranian regime sought to reassure the world it will comply with nuclear inspection? No, it still refuses to answer questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency in 12 areas of concern over the military dimensions of its nuclear program.

It does not take a leap of logic to see that the Iran regime is firmly committed to its course of nuclear weapons development and is merely taking the world along for a joy ride as its seeks its real prize; the release of $140 billion in frozen cash and opening the floodgates of billions more in foreign investment.

Parsi and his cohorts can’t even hide this truth with their obfuscations.

By Michael Tomlinson