Iran Lobby

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

Iran Regime Bulks Up Military In Grab for Power

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Iran Regime Bulks Up Military In Grab for Power

Iran Regime Bulks Up Military In Grab for Power

With the nuclear agreement reached almost two years ago, the Iranian regime has used the $1.7 billion cash it received from the Obama administration as part of the swap for American hostages to help solidify its precarious position in Syria, while it has used new oil revenues to pump badly needed cash back into its military operations depleted from years of war abroad.

With three conflicts going on in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, the mullahs placed a priority in supplying the terrorist proxies doing the heavy lifting for the regime such as Hezbollah, but they have also expanded the scope of their funding to include Afghan mercenaries recruited among the multitude of refugees living in Iran, as well as transporting Shiite militias from Iraq to fight in Syria.

The expenditure of ammunition, weapons and arms has been prodigious as the Iranian regime has been the sole supplier to the Houthis in Yemen waging a protracted civil war against the elected government.

The drain in foreign currency has exacerbated the regime’s economy to the point where the rial has plunged against the U.S. dollar and ordinary Iranians still struggle with anemic wages and an economy that is not capable of meeting basic needs leading to widespread discontent.

For the mullahs though the priority is on their military, especially since the Revolutionary Guard Corps leadership controls much of the Islamic state’s economy and reaps tremendous personal wealth from the skimming and corruption running through it.

With that emphasis on the military come the needs to constantly bolster the image of the regime’s armed forces, even if most of the boasting is illusory and aimed more for propaganda effect than practical military applications.

The Iranian regime constantly boasts of new military inventions such as patrol boats, drones, and new missiles, but lately the boasts are getting more grandiose to the point where many military analysts are shaking their heads.

For example, Hassan Rouhani claimed that the regime would now focus on building nuclear-powered ships even though the technology to do so is massively expensive and would require highly enriched uranium well in excess of what the country is allowed under the nuclear agreement.

Now come the latest boasts that the regime is going to build an aircraft carrier, a ship-type that even Russia and China struggle to grasp in building successfully.

“At present, the Defense Ministry and the Navy are both after building military equipment for naval warfare but the Defense Ministry is producing different types of missiles indigenously and the Navy’s needs to missiles are met using this capacity,” Deputy Navy Commander for Coordination Admiral Peiman Jafari Tehrani said on Monday, as cited by semi-official Fars news agency.

“Building an aircraft carrier is also among the goals pursued by the Navy and we hope to attain this objective,” he added.

It’s not the first time Iran has floated the idea of building aircraft carriers, since 2011 and 2014, Iranian defense officials have claimed to be moving forward with the idea even though there has been no evidence of such a building program.

Far from being able to develop advanced weapons systems, the Iranian regime is usually relegated to holding war games exercises and parades in order to beat its chest for public consumption.

For example, Iran kicked off a five-day large scale military exercise in the country’s southern region warning that civilian and military aircraft risk being shot down if they stray into Iranian airspace occupied by the drill.

The exercises, codenamed Modafe’an-e Aseman-e Velayat 7 or Defenders of Velayat Skies 7, include air defense drills and various missile, artillery and radar equipment as well as cyber and electronic warfare exercises, according to regime media.

Speaking Sunday, the commander of the regime’s air force Gen. Farzad Esmaili warned foreign aircraft trespassing the airspace covering the drill area would be shot down immediately, even though there were no foreign aircraft anywhere near the area, demonstrating the regime’s need to appear the bully.

The regime planned on using U.S.-made F-4 Phantom fighter jets older than the pilots flying them, as well as test firings of newly acquired Russian-built S-300 anti-aircraft missile batteries.

All too often the regime’s military displays only succeed in reminding the world how grossly inadequate its military is in today’s modern battlefield. The Iranian regime excels in the kind of low-intensity, urban conflicts where proxies and terror groups can be used, but little else.

This inherent weakness in the regime’s military capability probably leads to a certain level of paranoia amongst the mullahs which is why they spend so much time, effort and energy arresting, torturing, imprisoning and executing any dissenters.

This has included mass arrests of journalists, students, artists, bloggers, social media users, fashion models and just about anyone else you can think of. It also includes a respectable number of dual-national citizens that Iran does not recognize, including Canadians, French, Brits and Americans.

The regime has expanded its efforts during this holiday season to target Christians, arresting any who preach the Gospel or attempt to convert a Muslim to Christianity. This follows the regime’s prior efforts to arrest and abuse others faiths such as Ba’hai and Kurds.

Ultimately much of the Iranian regime’s military boasting is so much hot air, but not the sincerity of the threats it makes against its neighbors. Even an old and weak animal can still cause havoc and mayhem.

Michael Tomlinson

Evidence Mounts of Iran Leadership in Aleppo Atrocities

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Outrage over the carnage in Aleppo has so far been directed mainly at Damascus, but activists on the ground say Tehran has a top general on the scene and has established secret camps where Iraqi mercenaries are trained to root out rebels in the Syrian city.

Evidence Mounts of Iran Leadership in Aleppo Atrocities

Evidence Mounts of Iran Leadership in Aleppo Atrocities

According to information provided to FoxNews.com, the forces currently controlling the city of Aleppo are under the command of the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The military outfit under its command includes foreign mercenaries such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, and also the Shiite fighters of the Liwa Fatemiyoun from Afghanistan and the Liwa Zainebiyoun from Pakistan.

At the same time, Iran participated in a summit in Moscow with Turkey and Russia to begin discussions on dividing up the spoils of the conflict now that Aleppo had fallen under merciless bombardment.

The meeting was further evidence of Iran’s emerging role in Syria, both during the ongoing civil war and the expected aftermath.

According to reports received by the opposition to the Iranian regime, the number of IRGC forces and its hired hands in Aleppo and the surrounding area has reached 25,000, while the number of military personnel from Assad’s army is very limited.

“This report leaves no doubt that the Iranian regime is the primary obstacle to any solution in Syria,” Shahin Gobadi, spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) told FoxNews.com. “The current situation in Aleppo and the role of the Iranian regime in the atrocities committed on the ground require the immediate expulsion of the IRGC and its mercenaries from Syria. By meddling in other countries the mullahs try to cover up their vulnerability at home. The survival of the [Iranian] regime has been intertwined with maintaining the Assad dictatorship in power in Syria.”

The reports, which were obtained by the NCRI and its sister organization People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), state that the commander of the Quds Force – as IGRC units operating outside Iran are known – in Aleppo is Brigadier General Javad Ghafari, who is described as the right-hand man of the Revolutionary Guard’s commander-in-chief, Qassem Soleimani, who has been referred to as the architect of Iran’s role in Russian operations in Syria, according to FoxNews.com

The MEK has established a track record of accurately reporting misdeeds by Tehran over the past decade, including its attempts to hide nuclear weapons-related facilities from UN inspectors, according to Middle East Eye.

The NCRI has also alleged that the Revolutionary Guard has established its main headquarters around 20 miles southeast of Aleppo in a garrison called Behuth, or Fort Behuth, which used to be one of the most important centers of missile and chemical weapon production for the Assad regime.

It is now under the supervision of Ghafari, but it also contains a center operated by Lebanese Hezbollah commanders, as well as a number of Syrian army officers who are also present, according to the intel reports.

“The fact is that Aleppo has been occupied by the IRGC and its mercenaries,” Gobadi said to FoxNews.com. “Mass executions, preventing the transfer of civilians including women and children, attacking the civilians – has all been done by the forces of the mullahs’ regime.

“[They] are the main source of crisis in Syria and the region,” he went on. “By abusing the inaction of the international community and being convinced of not being held accountable for its crimes, [Iran] has continuously become more emboldened.”

The U.N. puts the overall death toll in Syria’s civil war at 400,000. More than 30,000 have died in the Battle of Aleppo, a last urban rebel holdout against President Bashar Assad’s regime.

The Institute for the Study of War, a nonprofit research group in Washington, has reported that Iran organized thousands of Shiite militias in Iraq not only to fight the Sunni Muslim Islamic State there, but also to deploy them to fight rebels in Aleppo.

The Washington Times recently interviewed Iranian dissidents who had escaped to Western Europe. They said Iran’s brutality at home and aboard has increased, not decreased, since the landmark nuclear deal with the U.S. that provided Tehran billions of dollars.

The MEK report provided to The Times says that Syrian government forces are scarce around Aleppo, meaning it is Iran doing the lion’s share of offensive maneuvers and killings.

“On two occasions the transfer of Aleppo residents were hindered and their buses were fired upon under the instructions of the IRGC to gain concessions on the residents [of] al-Foua and Kefraya,” said the MEK, referring to two towns north of Aleppo.

State Department spokesman John Kirby was asked Monday whether the U.S. will protest to the U.N. Security Council the fact that Gen. Soleimani has been spotted in Aleppo. The U.N. has banned him from international travel for his role in terrorism.

“We do intend to consult with our partners on the Security Council about how to address our concerns with this,” Kirby said. “We’ve long said that Iran needs to choose whether it’s going to play a positive role in helping peacefully resolve conflicts such as in Syria or whether it will choose to prolong them. And you’re absolutely right: His travel is a violation.”

Jim Phillips, a Middle East expert at The Heritage Foundation, said that Assad’s army is depleted and stretched thin protecting government-held territory.

“Without Iran’s expanding military intervention, the Assad regime would have fallen months ago,” Phillips said. “While Russia’s military intervention has dominated media coverage on Syria, Iran has been responsible for almost all of the ground offensives in recent months that clawed back territory from the rebels and encircled Aleppo. It has deployed thousands of Revolutionary Guards.”

Michael Tomlinson

 

Complications and Conflicts Are Coming with Iran in 2017

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Complications and Conflicts Are Coming with Iran in 2017

Complications and Conflicts Are Coming with Iran in 2017

Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Physics states that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. The same could be said for geopolitics as it relates to the Middle East where every act of terror seems to be met with a corresponding act of retribution and every scheme is met with another scheme by a competing entity or enemy.

For the Iranian regime, its actions throughout the Mideast has wrought suffering and destruction on a level not seen since World War II as the fall of Aleppo demonstrated with pictures and images reminiscent of bombed out cities such as Dresden or Tokyo.

Iran’s intervention at the start of the Syrian civil war to prop up the Assad regime set into motion a conflict that has claimed over 800,000 men, women and children and turned into refugees a whopping eight million people who have overwhelmed nations from Greece to Sweden.

Iranian regime sits at the center of most of the foreign policy challenges facing it in 2017, including:

Hezbollah

Long a loyal military proxy for the Iranian regime, the terrorist group Hezbollah has risen in prominence with its long campaign in Syria culminating in the fall of the rebel stronghold Aleppo. Iran has supplied Hezbollah with arms, cash and advanced weaponry for its campaigns, but the terror group’s bank account got a huge influx in cash coincidentally when the Obama administration secretly transferred $1.7 billion to Iran as part of the nuclear deal and hostage swap.

“While we cannot establish whether the money transferred from the U.S. went directly into the expanded defense budget, it, at a minimum, enabled the government to release an equal amount of money for defense purposes,” said Nimrod Raphaeli, a senior analyst at the Middle East Media Research Institute.

“It is noteworthy that the increase in the proposed defense budget for 2017 is approximately equal to the amount transferred by the U.S.,” he continued.

Raphaeli explained the government of Rohani “has submitted to the Majlis (parliament) a draft budget for the fiscal year March 2017-March 2018 for a total of $99.7 billion equivalent.”

That, he said, is up 13.9 percent, with a “sharp increase of 39 percent … in funds earmarked for defense, including a big increase in the budget of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards.”

The report described the IRGC as “a potent military force accountable to the supreme leader, in regional politics, and particularly in Syria and Iraq.”

“A branch of the IRGC, the Qods Force Brigade, commanded by Gen. Qasem Soleimani, is responsible for spreading Iran’s subversive and, often, terrorist activities across the Middle East and beyond.”

Soleimani was seen in eastern Aleppo this weekend surveying the remains of the city as residents, long trapped by the fighting, struggled to evacuate.

Syria

Syrian rebel leaders blamed Iran for halting the evacuation of civilians from Aleppo, leaving an uncertain fate for residents as Iranian forces backed Syrian government troops entering the beleaguered city.

The operation to evacuate fighters and civilians from the last opposition-held area of Aleppo was suspended on Friday, its second day, after pro-government militias demanded that wounded people also be brought out of al-Foua and Kefraya, and protesters blocked the road out of Aleppo.

Munir al Sayal, the head of the political wing of the Ahrar al Sham rebel group involved in negotiations over the deal said Iranian-backed Shi’ite fighters led by Hezbollah militia and other Iraqi Shi’ite groups were behind the detention of hundreds of people trying to leave on Friday, leading to some deaths before they were turned back, in an effort to disrupt the evacuation.

Iran Nuclear Deal

The success or failure of the Iran nuclear deal (depending on your affiliation with the Iran lobby) hinges not so much on whether or not Iranian regime adheres to the deal (since it already has broken several sections of it) but rather whether or not the U.S. finally holds Iran accountable for specific violations instead of trying to paper them over with waivers and exemptions.

The process of appeasing of the Iranian regime in order to support an illusory “moderate” movement within the Iranian government has yielded nothing of tangible worth and has only emboldened and empowered the regime and strengthened the hold the Revolutionary Guards Corp has on virtually every aspect of Iran.

In many ways, the UN’s international nuclear watchdog agency has already been compromised by politics by looking the other way with violations by Iran in heavy water limits, enrichment levels and amounts of enriched uranium. Hassan Rouhani’s recent pledges to launch a crash program to develop nuclear-power naval vessels would require fuel far in excess of the agreement’s levels; thereby putting the UN’s watchdog again on the spot.

Economic Sanctions

Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s insistence on paying $1.7 billion in cash to Iran and opening up the doors to foreign investment weakened the usefulness of future of economic sanctions by providing the Iranian regime with an economic cushion.

The mullahs recognize their vulnerability on this score and are in a mad dash to complete as many business deals as possible even threatening Trump with harsh repercussions should he interfere in the recently announced deal by Boeing to sell $16.6 billion worth of jet airliners to Iran.

For the mullahs, the airliners are vital since a nation cannot operate in a global economy without a strong and viable air network, but in Iran’s case airliners also serve as the vital air bridge to move arms, cash, supplies and fighters to their proxies in far flung battlefields. Emanuele Ottolenghi wrote in the Hill of Iran’s use of its airlines to support its wars.

“It is well known that Iranian passenger planes ferry Iranian-backed militias to Damascus from Iran’s airports such as Abadan, Yazd and Tehran. The aircraft also carry weaponry in their cargo compartment. Weapons flown to Damascus supply Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the regime forces of the Syrian army, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and their Afghan, Iraqi and Pakistani Shiite militias,” Ottolenghi wrote.

“Conclusive evidence that Iran’s aircraft is the principal conduit for Tehran’s weapons and military personnel airlift in support of Assad’s war of extermination against his own people emerged recently, as Boeing representatives were in Tehran to finalize a $16.6 billion aircraft deal with Iran Air. Airbus will soon follow suit with an even larger deal,” he said.

While the outlook for the Mideast remains murky to say the least, there is no doubt that Iranian regime’s role and how it can be confronted will dominant much of 2017.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Rolls Out Threats of Global Destruction

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Iran Regime Rolls Out Threats of Global Destruction

Iran Regime Rolls Out Threats of Global Destruction

Most of the public pronouncements made by leaders of the Iranian regime are meant to incite strong reactions be it threats to destroy its enemies or bury large swathes of the world under a barrage of Islamic missiles and rockets.

Targets for the verbal histrionics typically includs the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Canada, the U.K., France, Sunnis, Christians, women, Iranian dissidents, Instagram users and just about anyone else that seems to offend the mullahs; which seems to be about everyone on the planet not aligned with them.

Often the threats are hollow and empty and indicative of the weakness inherent in a regime that has to resort to verbal threats to get its point across, but every so often the regime makes itself known and to more discerning ears, therein lays nuggets of truth.

When top mullah Ali Khamenei called a resistance economy of sacrifice and deprivation from the Iranian people in order to keep the supply pipeline filled to prop up the Assad regime in Syria, he was telling the truth.

When Hassan Rouhani said in an interview that Iran does not recognize dual national citizens and that any Iranian, regardless of their passport was fair game for arrest, he wasn’t kidding.

Now we have the latest example of regime bloviating in the form of comments made by regime defense minister Hossein Dehghan, a well-known regime blowhard, who claimed that Donald Trump’s election could lead to a “world war” if the president-elect fulfilled his promise of altering the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Dehghan promised that Israel and all of Iran’s enemies in the region, including the Gulf states, would be destroyed. He further claimed that Trump’s previous statements had caused “unease” among America’s allies in the region, according to the regime’s Mehr’s news agency.

Dehghan’s singling out of the Gulf states of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Qatar was not by coincidence. They, along with Saudi Arabia, have proven to be the biggest thorn in Iranian regime’s side, especially in the Syrian civil war and uprising in Yemen, both fomented by Iran.

Dehghan’s bluster also includes the truth that the Iranian regime is pretty concerned over what Trump and his new cabinet will do as it relates to future relations with Iran. It is unlikely Trump will seek out confrontations with Iran as the Iran lobby has maintained since the election last month.

Given Trump’s penchant for hammering out deals and extracting concessions, he is likely to view the Iranian regime as an untrustworthy partner in any deal that requires close monitoring and specific punishment for any violation.

The difficulty Trump faces are the result of the failed policies of trying to appease the Iranian regime in order to change it by the Obama administration. Fortunately for Trump, he has a history of blunders to learn from over the past two years, which makes Dehghan’s comments noteworthy—not for the bluster—but for the real anxiety that seems to be gripping a Tehran that doesn’t quite know what to expect from Trump and how to deal with him.

Consequently, the default setting for the regime is to threaten first and then threaten again.

For Tehran, the operating manual for diplomacy now seems to be consist of making threats over and over again.

In order to back up those threats, the Iranian military has launched into a series of massive war drills to showcase it supposed muscle and fend off any potential attacks against it. The fact that Iran has to hold military drills because it fears an actual attack clearly shows how the attitude of the mullahs in Tehran has shifted rapidly from smugness to fear.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s military forces enjoy supremacy over the Persian Gulf region more than any other time,” Brigadier General Massoud Jazzayeri, the deputy chief of staff of the regime’s armed forces, was quoted as saying over the weekend. “The military and security conditions of the Persian Gulf are in a way that the enemy’s forces and equipment are fully within the range of the Iranian military men.”

As part of these drills, the regime’s military was busy unveiling almost every piece of new hardware it claimed to have developed including a new drone in a ritual of show-and-tell designed to mollify Iranian leaders more than dissuade the U.S.

What probably concerns Tehran more is not the threat of war, as much as the possibility that Trump will use the subtle levers of power to nudge the regime back on a course of real diplomacy and meaningful reforms at home. Bloomberg editorialized that Trump has ample tools at his disposal to crack down on Iran without necessarily tearing up the nuclear agreement on day one of his administration.

“At least Trump’s job will be made easier by Congress, which just extended the Iran Sanctions Act, allowing the U.S. to punish Iranian entities involved with terrorism, illegal weapons and human-rights violations. Trump can and should also end the de facto policy of looking the other way at Iran’s early infringements of the pact, such as the recent revelation that it had exceeded the deal’s cap on how much heavy water it is allowed to stockpile,” the Bloomberg editorial board said.

“In the long term, the six nations should try to negotiate changes in both the nuclear pact itself and the related side agreements (all of which the U.S. should make public). Iran may well be willing to come to the table. It complains that it has seen very little of the estimated $100 billion of its assets that had been frozen in foreign banks, due to other U.S. sanctions and rules making it hard to “dollarize” the funds for transfer. In addition, the hoped-for rush of investment by European energy companies — and the banks that accompany them — has been slow to materialize,” Bloomberg added.

That economic hammer remains the biggest one the U.S. possesses and one Trump understands intimately. For Trump, this new “art of the Iran deal” may very well prove to be right up his alley and that has the mullahs terrified.

Michael Tomlinson

The Race is On for Iran to Close All Deals

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hourglass-running-out-1January is not only the start of the New Year and 2017, it also marks a race against the clock for the Iranian regime as it struggles to close as many business deals as it can before Donald Trump is sworn into office as the new president.

There also seems to be a fever gripping the mullahs in Tehran beyond the normal insanity of religious fervor that grips them. In this case, it is a fever for cash.

With the nuclear agreement reached with Iran and the P5+1 group of nations came a lifting of economic sanctions. The Iran lobby argued that the removal of these sanctions would empower moderate elements in the Iranian government and usher in a new period of cooperation and diplomacy.

Unfortunately none of that has come to pass as Iran’s government became even more rigidly dominated by the mullahs and their cohorts in the military and Revolutionary Guards and Iran’s military activities through its terrorist proxies have plunged it into fighting wars in three countries at once.

The drain on the regime’s coffers have been enormous and led to a stagnation of the economy that has caused the Iranian people to become restless to a point where the regime instituted a large-scale crackdown aimed at journalists, students, artists and other dissidents.

The election of Trump poses a new risk for the regime as he selects cabinet picks that have a long and critical history of U.S.-Iran relations under the Obama administration. The comprehensive nature of his cabinet choices has clearly shown the mullahs that the free ride of appeasement they have enjoyed the past several years is coming to an end.

All of which leads to an astonishing effort by the Iranian regime to close as many investment and business deals as possible before the potential re-imposition of economic sanctions since Iran has done little to conform to the spirit, let alone letter of the nuclear agreement.

Hassan Rouhani and his master, Ali Khamenei, know the necessity of securing as many business deals as possible since the regime is badly in need of cash. It is also why the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council, have been fixated with preserving the commercial aspects of the agreement.

The New York Times described the race by Rouhani to close these deals, especially bolstering its oil industry in regaining its international status as a top oil producer.

Iran’s oil industry, the lifeblood of its economy, was devastated by the cumulative impact of the nuclear sanctions, which halved petroleum exports and left the country ostracized economically, the Times wrote.

The international nuclear agreement that lifted those sanctions nearly a year ago, one of the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy initiatives, has enabled Iran to partly recover. But Mr. Trump has warned that he may dismantle the deal, a threat that has injected new urgency into Iran’s push to build up its oil industry before Mr. Trump takes power next month,” the Times added.

Over the last four weeks, Tehran has negotiated agreements with the oil field services giant Schlumberger and companies from China, Norway, Thailand and Poland, including a deal just announced with Royal Dutch Shell.

“They are signing before Trump does something,” said Dragan Vuckovic, president of Mediterranean International, a Texas-based oil services company that works in North Africa and the Middle East. “The Iranians will give the Europeans favorable terms because of Trump. They want to send a message to Trump that if you try to cancel this agreement, we will just go to the Europeans.”

It’s a strategy that carries significant risk since the combative election demonstrated how the incoming president reacts to threats from opponents.

The Iranian regime also announced the completion of its $16.6 billion deal to buy 80 jetliners from Boeing. Planned aircraft sales by Boeing and European plane maker Airbus Group SE have been among the most high-profile transactions pursued by Iranian regime after Western powers in January removed sanctions in return for its agreeing to constrain its nuclear program. U.S. officials cleared the way in September for Airbus and Boeing to start contract talks.

The plane deals have been staunchly opposed by critics of the nuclear accord with Iran, which has come under fire from Trump and his emerging national-security team. Some U.S. lawmakers have also tried to block any financing for the planned sales, the Wall Street Journal reported.

What troubles the mullahs and Iran lobby is that the members of Trump’s team include ex-military officers who have been battle-tested in combat against Islamic extremist groups and terror proxies. For them, their world view has been shaped by actual experience with terror and Islamic extremism and the horrors they bring.

According to the Washington Post, the three generals making up the core of Trump’s foreign policy team have views cutting against the grain of U.S. policies seeking to empower moderates in Iran and of U.S. intelligence assessments that terrorism no longer stands alone atop the rankings of global security threats now crowded by concerns about cyberattacks and renewed aggression by China and Russia.

Their views, though far from uniform, have been heavily influenced over the past 15 years by intensely personal battlefield losses, the country’s waning attention to the wars and an up-close view of a ruthless enemy, said the Post.

“I think it’s likely there will be terrorist attacks in the coming years, and I think Trump will feel tremendous pressure to be seen as acting very decisively,” said Dan Byman, a former Middle East analyst at the CIA and a professor at Georgetown University.

Byman cited the example of the Iranian seizure of American sailors shortly before the Iran nuclear deal was signed as an example of an overseas provocation that had the potential to derail broader U.S. policy goals.

Trump’s advisers “have a lot of personal experience and might be more inclined to see Iranian hostility as deeply planned,” rather than the act of a rogue faction or a function of chaos, Byman said. “They’re more likely to read things negatively than the Obama administration would have.”

While the Iran lobby may believe that is a pathway to armed conflict, the growing consensus is that Trump’s team is more likely to avoid that option by simply finally holding the Iranian accountable diplomatically and through a rigorous sanctions process that does now reward Iranian regime for belligerent behavior.

For Tehran, the clock is running out on them.

Michael Tomlinson

Pressure Mounts on Iran Lobby as Consensus Builds Against Iran Regime

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Pressure Mounts on Iran Lobby as Consensus Builds Against Iran Regime

Pressure Mounts on Iran Lobby as Consensus Builds Against Iran Regime

Since the Iran nuclear deal was agreed to last year have things gotten better or worse in the Middle East?

It isn’t just a speculative question for polite cocktail conversation. It goes to the heart of a key question facing not only the incoming Trump administration, but the entire world really since if the answer is a definitive “No” the world will have to significantly alter its approach to the Iranian regime since the policy of appeasing it over the past two years has been an abject failure.

Part of the challenge in dealing with the mullahs in Tehran is that while the nuclear agreement only dealt with the nuclear portion of Iran’s actions, it has been the Iranian regime’s actions in all other areas that have contributed to what can only be called a mess of global proportions.

One of the central tenets of the Iran lobby’s support for the nuclear agreement was that it would foster more moderate behavior from Iran, empower moderate elements in the government and lead to a pathway for regional peace with Iran as a central broker.

None of those things have come to pass. In fact, since the agreement, things have only gotten significantly worse, which is why a debate is raging in Washington and other capitals about what to do with Iran and the nuclear agreement moving forward after the Trump administration assumes office.

For the Iranian regime and the Iran lobby, the threats have been clear and loud; revocation of the agreement would lead to “dire” consequences with intimations of a new arms race and confrontation.

It’s hard to imagine how much worse things could get as the Iranian regime has helped contribute to the deaths of 800,000 people in Syrian, turned another four million in refugees swamping nations from Germany to Hungary to Greece, to starting a conflict in Yemen that threatens to start a regional war with Saudi Arabia and potentially drawing in the U.S. and Russia into direct military conflict.

This is not hyperbole. It is a very real possibility and much of it can be blamed squarely at the policies of Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani and their clerical brethren.

The response from U.S. lawmakers has become increasingly tough as Democrats and Republicans have joined in criticizing the Iranian regime as they recognized the political mood of the American voter after a historic election.

Senate Democrats are ripping Iran over threats issued by top Iranian officials to retaliate if Congress extends sanctions that the Obama administration has said are permitted under last summer’s nuclear deal, according to conversations with lawmakers conducted by The Weekly Standard.

Iranian regime officials have threatened reprisal in recent weeks if Congress extends the longstanding Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) and have called the potential 10-year extension a violation of the nuclear deal.

“Iran is making this up. These problems don’t exist,” Maryland senator Ben Cardin, ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told The Weekly Standard. “Congress, by extending ISA, is not taking any new steps against Iran at all.”

Fellow New Jersey Democratic senator Bob Menendez, who also voted against the deal, said that the ISA is critical for reigning in illicit Iranian activity and should be reapplied regardless of Iranian threats.

The ISA had already been passed by the House by a near-unanimous vote and the Senate vote is expected to deliver a similar result even though Secretary of State John Kerry made a last-ditch appeal to Senate Democrats.

The Obama administration has joined the Iran lobby is trying to stoke fears of Iranian retaliation should the ISA be renewed. A remarkable position to take since the administration has not offered any retaliation for similar missteps by the regime including two clear violations of the agreement found by the UN’s watchdog agency.

Last month, seven Democrats who voted for the deal last year wrote to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to urge him to schedule a vote on the bill, arguing that it strengthens the deal by giving the White House an “unambiguous ability to immediately snap back sanctions in the coming years.”

But none this has stopped supporters of the Iranian regime from continuing to make silly claims such as Massoumeh Torfeh in Al-Jazeera, in which she claimed that if Trump were to confront Iran, it would embolden and help “hardliners” in Iran.

This is again the same misleading argument made endlessly by the Iran lobby which tries to mask the inescapable fact of life now in Iran: the hardliners have always been in charge anyway.

“The year 2017, in which Iran would be holding presidential and provincial elections, would be dominated by a heated debate between the hardliners and the centrists on how to handle the new US presidency and the nuclear deal signed with the so-called P5+1 endorsed by the United Nations Security Council,” Torfeh writes.

It is nearly word for word the same argument made earlier this year in advance of Iran’s parliamentary elections which were supposed to deliver a larger “moderate” body, but instead became ever more hardline as Khamenei’s handpicked councils wiped away thousands of potential candidates from even appearing on the ballot.

A similar outcome is expected in 2017 regardless of what Iran sympathizers like Torfeh promise.

The reality of Iran’s bad behavior is undisputable. The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East reinforced that view this week.

Army Gen. Joseph Votel said the agreement, which lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits to its nuclear program, was being “implemented appropriately,” but that it has not changed Iranian behavior.

“I am concerned about continued malign activities of Iran across the region,” Votel, commander of U.S. Central Command, said at a forum hosted by the Foreign Policy Initiative.

Those included Iran’s cyber activities, the use of surrogate forces, facilitation of lethal aid, buildup of missile and anti-access capabilities, and unprofessional and aggressive activities in the Persian Gulf, he said.

Michael Tomlinson

 

 

NIAC Tries to Fool the Public on Iran Again

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NIAC Tries to Fool the Public on Iran Again

NIAC Tries to Fool the Public on Iran Again

The National Iranian American Council is in overdrive using the proverbial firehouse to blanket websites, blogs and comment forums in the hope that the incoming Trump administration doesn’t undo the past three years of achievements on behalf of the Iranian regime.

It’s latest contribution was a piece appearing on CNN authored by Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi who again attempt to portray the choices facing the new administration in regards to the nuclear agreement reached with Iran as an either or proposition of leaving it alone or ripping it up and risking grave consequences.

It’s a Hobson’s choice that the NIAC has become adept at: Follow our suggestion and everything will be fine, but dare threaten Iran and risk cataclysm.

The 800,000 people killed in the Syrian conflict so far at the hands of the Assad regime, Hezbollah and Iranian fighters would be hard pressed to agree with those choices.

The Iranian regime has established itself clearly as uninterested in peaceful conflict resolution and instead has doubled down and gone all in using military force and violence in an effort to impose its religious will on its neighbors in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Parsi and Marashi argue that Trump should take the “political risk necessary to broaden the opening to Iran precisely to avoid replicating recent US policy failures in the Middle East.”

This may be the stupidest statement made yet by Parsi and Marashi.

Why on Earth would Donald Trump want to take a political risk on behalf of Iran, especially as he is already being assailed by the mainstream press and the political elites that turned their noses up at his candidacy (Parsi and Marashi included)?

Parsi and Marashi attempt to force the focus on the survival of the nuclear agreement with Iran when the issue has never been the agreement itself, but rather the behavior of the mullahs in Tehran.

No agreement is worth the paper it’s printed on if one of the participants in the agreement willfully ignores it right from the beginning. The fact that the Obama administration and European Union granted several waivers and exemptions right at the start made the agreement ineffectual and impotent.

During the campaign, Trump correctly focused not on the agreement itself, but the conduct of the mullahs after the agreement was reached. His criticism of the billions of dollars in cash released to Iran and its use in funding conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen demonstrates he looked at the optics correctly, optics that Parsi and Marashi are trying hard to change now with their desperate lobbying campaign.

Parsi and Marashi attempt to frame the discussion around one of Trump’s biggest pledges which was to destroy ISIS and argue that “he cannot walk away or renegotiate the nuclear deal without undermining the coalition against the terror group.”

Unfortunately, Parsi and Marashi never acknowledge that Iranian regime itself is part of the axis of terrorist sponsors with its long-running support for Hezbollah and its sheltering of Al-Qaeda leaders in Iran after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan drove them out.

They also incorrectly state that the Iran nuclear deal cannot be re-negotiated when in fact any agreement can be re-negotiated; a simple fact that the businessman in Trump knows full well. When you have a rotten deal on the table, it’s the idiot that accepts it as gospel. Trump is no idiot, much as Parsi and Marashi have claimed in the past.

Parsi and Marashi are correct when they characterize Iran as having “substantial latent power – population size and potential for wealth generation,” but miss the most crucial aspect of that power, which is “how will Iran’s leaders choose to apply it?”

Will clerical leaders such as Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani seek to use that potential to improve the lives of ordinary Iranians? Of course not.

Iran’s economy has spiraled downward generating massive protests from small businessmen to school teachers, only to engender a broad and punishing crackdown on dissenters that have filled Iran’s prisons to capacity.

Will the Iranian regime seek to stabilize the Middle East and seek to reduce tensions and conflict? Absolutely not.

Iranian regime deepened the Syrian conflict and broadened it, while bringing Russia into the fight and setting the stage for a return to Cold War confrontations between the U.S. and Russian armed forces. Iran mullahs ignited the Yemen civil war with its clandestine military support for Houthi rebels and plunged Iraq back into sectarian conflict by raising Shiite militias in fighting Sunni insurgents tossed out of the power-sharing government of former president Nouri al-Maliki.

What is even more astonishing is Parsi and Marashi’s suggestion that the solution to the Middle East’s problems is to solve the “Saudi-Iran cold war”; an observation that is ludicrous given the fact that any solution to the current crop of problems in the Middle East starts and stops in Tehran.

Until Parsi and Marashi actually admit that Iran needs to curb its military adventures and support for insurgency and terrorism in order to advance the prospects for peace, nothing they say or write should be considered legitimate policy discussions and instead simply be viewed as propaganda for the mullahs in Tehran.

The quest for peace begins only when Tehran stops trying to rule its neighbors.

Laura Carnahan

Why the NIAC Has Lost All Credibility

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Why the NIAC Has Lost All Credibility

Why the NIAC Has Lost All Credibility

The National Iranian American Council has gotten virtually nothing correct over the last three years when it comes to predicting the behavior and actions of the Iranian regime.

That in and of itself should not be too surprising since in its role as a chief advocate and lobbying force for the Iranian regime, its responsibility is not to journalistic fact, but to lobbyist advocacy. That fact alone should make any journalist talking to them or reading their publications slightly skeptical from the outset.

Also, it is erroneous to consider the NIAC a “human rights” organization when its stated mission goal of helping Iranian-Americans is plainly shown to be ignored at best and duplicitous at worst since the NIAC does not mount media or grassroots efforts on behalf of imprisoned Iranian-Americans in Iran. Nor does the NIAC ever join with mainstream human rights groups such as Amnesty International in pressing the Iranian government to release these American hostages.

While the NIAC takes out full page ads in the New York Times touting the moderation of the Iranian regime, it does not similarly take out full page ads critical of Hassan Rouhani’s public statements in which he reaffirms the regime’s policy of not recognizing dual citizenship; the only nation on the planet to do so.

The NIAC promised Iranian moderation in light of a new nuclear agreement, but in the 18 months since, Iran has embarked on what is arguably the widest range of war, insurrection and human rights abuses spanning four countries including Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

At home it has defeated, removed and imprisoned virtually all political opponents. It has resorted to mass arrests of students, journalists, artists, bloggers and anyone else showing any inkling of rebellion to the mullahs.

It has conscripted Afghan refugees to fight and die as mercenaries in Syria, while it brought Russia into the conflict resulting in the mass bombing of civilians, hospitals and reduced Aleppo to a pile of dust.

All of these things NIAC promised would not happen, yet it has all come to pass.

Now the NIAC has issued a 45 page “report” of recommendations to the incoming Trump administration on how to secure American interests in the Middle East.

While mildly entertaining as a work of fiction, the Trump transition team would be wise to consider using this report to wrap up food leftovers since that is all it is good for.

This document is nothing more than a retread of the same tired and now proven false assumptions the NIAC has been peddling now for the past decade. It loses all credibility for one basic omission: It never acknowledges nor criticizes Iran’s role in the escalation of tensions and bloodshed in the Middle East.

That’s like blaming the weather for a mass murderer on the loose.

If one understands that the NIAC is an Iranian regime advocate and not a human rights organization, it is easy to understand the priorities it places on its discussion topics in the document.

It places the nuclear agreement and the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia as its two more important topics, which coincidentally are the two most pressing concerns for the Iranian regime.

It then dives into Iraq and Syria, the two principle battlefields Iran is involved with in creating its Shiite sphere of influence. Oddly, the report does not mention Yemen or the rise of Islamic militants in sub-Saharan Africa which are now responsible for instability stretching from Egypt to Nigeria to Yemen.

Lastly, the report devotes a scant three pages to human rights and only from the perspective that Washington can only improve human rights by essentially trusting the Iranian regime to do the right thing if Washington caves in and appeases the mullahs fully.

The one thing the report does say is that the Trump administration “should heed the advice of Iranians themselves.” On this point, NIAC is correct, but not in whom it believes are the right Iranians to listen to.

The Trump administration needs to part ways from failed policies of the Obama administration and muzzle the “echo chamber” of Iranian lobbying it created. It needs to chart its own pathway and listen to the concerns, thoughts and advice of Iranian dissidents and opponents both within Iran and outside.

Let the Iranian people counsel on what are the best approaches to bringing back a secular, democratic government in Iran. That kind of advice is not likely to come from the NIAC, Ploughshares Fund or similar Iranian lobbyists.

It will come from opponents such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Amnesty International and outspoken leaders on the human rights situation in Iran such as Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

The most amusing part of the NIAC report is the claim that was signed by 76 “national security experts” but a closer review of those names and titles reveals that:

  • 3 are staff members of NIAC
  • 47 are professors, mostly from history, linguistics and anthropology disciplines
  • 1 has a military background
  • Zero are human rights activists

The overwhelming number of these so-called “experts” is in reality advocates and lobbyists for the Iranian regime or commercial interests tied to the Iranian regime such as Bijan Khajehpour, managing partner of Atieh International which works to line up foreign businesses with Iranian-state industries.

Mainstream media outlets would do well to finally stop quoting these sources that are as accurate as pollsters on election night.

Michael Tomlinson

What Would Make the Iran Lobby Stop Supporting the Iran Regime?

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What Would Make the Iran Lobby Stop Supporting the Iran Regime?

What Would Make the Iran Lobby Stop Supporting the Iran Regime?

One of the more interesting questions making the cocktail circuit in the Beltway is what would actually make the Iran lobby’s members, including the National Iranian American Council, Ploughshares Fund and others, stop supporting the Iranian regime?

While said mainly in jest and incredulity at the near slavish devotion maintained by the Iran lobby towards the regime, it does raise a legitimate question worth examination. Where would the NIAC for example draw a red line in the sand?

If we take the NIAC at its word in its own explanations and denials, we have to first start with the assumption that the NIAC’s very existence is not dependent on financial support from the regime or affiliated groups. That in of itself would make the question moot since you could not expect Trita Parsi, Reza Marashi or Tyler Cullis to kiss away their paychecks no matter how odious the source of the funding.

So assuming the NIAC is indeed funded through the generosity of independent-minded people who similarly are willing to overlook the excesses of the Iranian regime, what would make them change their minds?

It’s an important question since the mission statement of the NIAC reads that it supports Iranian-Americans and seeks to build bridges. We did not read anything about eliminating nuclear weapons in the mission statement, but we’ll let that slide.

From the NIAC’s own statements during the nuclear negotiations, it tried to sell the idea that reaching a nuclear agreement would usher in a new “moderate” Iran and this in turn would help Iranian-Americans. Indeed, one of the most compelling arguments used by the Iran lobby and echoed by Hassan Rouhani was the idea that Iranian-Americans and others in the Iranian diaspora could come home to help rebuild and revitalize their homeland.

How did that work out? The Iranian regime began arrested and sentencing dual national Iranians at a fast clip. In fact, Rouhani himself gave an interview in New York before his annual address to the United Nations General Assembly in which he emphatically pointed out that Iran did not recognize dual nationalities.

So for all of the Iranians yearning to come back home, the simple truth was that you were rolling the dice as to whether or not the Revolutionary Guard Corps was going to arrest you for visiting an ailing relative, toss you in prison, rush through a sham, secret trial and then sentence you to 18 years in prison as in the case of San Diegan, Reza “Robin” Shahini.

Obviously the arrest of Iranian-Americans and the statements made by regime officials to hold them hostage for a “few billion” dollars more isn’t enough to get NIAC off the regime wagon.

How about support for terrorism and proxy wars?

It has been well documented how the Iranian regime is now the primary supporter, sponsor and even combatant in three wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Its use of terrorist allies in Hezbollah, recruited Afghan mercenaries, Shiite militias and Houthi rebels has caused a refugee crisis, brought Russia and the US into conflict, threatened the stability of Turkey and pushed Saudi Arabia to the brink of war.

So even though groups such as Ploughshares Fund ostensibly fight against nuclear proliferation for fear of killing people on a global scale, apparently it’s okay to massacre people on a regional scale.

The hypocrisy is rank, but let us be generous and say that “low-intensity” conflicts do not rise to the level of nuclear war. Fine. How about the much talked about moderation from the Iranian regime?

Well, on the anniversary of the US embassy takeover in Tehran in 1979, top mullah Ali Khamenei offered a few pointed comments about the regime’s opinion of the US.

“Negotiations with the US will not resolve our problems, because firstly, it is a liar, disloyal, cheater and stabber in the back, and secondly, the US itself is crisis-stricken – and how can a crisis-hit country resolve another country’s problems?” he said at a gathering of school students and teachers.

It’s nice to see how the Iranian regime’s highest official preaches the children of Iran on the regime’s viewpoint on the US.

Since the NIAC has never condemned any of these or endlessly similar volatile statements we can only assume that Parsi et al operate under the childhood motto of “sticks and stones” when it comes to calling for the destruction of the US.

How about the misery being caused by the regime at home during a ruthless crackdown on human rights including the mass arrests of students and young people using the social media, beating of women for violating dress codes and the execution of nearly 3,000 people (most by grisly public hangings in which children are encouraged to watch) since Rouhani came to power?

Not a peep from the Iran lobby, probably because these were only “Iranians” and not “Iranian-Americans” so we can only assume their human rights are less valuable according to the NIAC.

About the only Iranian-American that has warranted anything resembling ongoing support has been Siamak Namazi, a long-time friend and associate of Parsi and Marashi, who was snatched up by the IRGC along with his father.

Ironically his association with the NIAC was cited by revolutionary courts as the reason he was arrested!

No, it seems there are no real red lines in the sand the NIAC and other members of the Iran lobby would not cross.

It’s a shame really. We were hoping there might be a spark of defiance somewhere there against the injustices being wrought by the regime.

Michael Tomlinson

Why is the Iran Lobby Obsessed with Sanctions?

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Why is the Iran Lobby Obsessed with Sanctions?

Why is the Iran Lobby Obsessed with Sanctions?

For an organization that considers itself an activist group fighting for the rights of Iranian-Americans, you would think the National Iranian American Council would be hard at work trying to build grassroots support for the release of Iranian-American hostages.

Maybe Trita Parsi, head of the NIAC, might offer a blistering editorial attacking the regime’s policies of not recognizing dual nationalities?

Maybe Reza Marashi or Tyler Cullis could take a break from giving interviews demanding a lifting of economic sanctions and instead question what else could be done to help get these Iranian-Americans released?

The stark reality is that the NIAC and its members cannot even be bothered to send out tweets, let alone press releases in support of these captive Iranian-Americans, nor try to persuade the Iranian regime to let go of such a damaging and harmful policy that puts countless Iranian-Americans at risk who travel back to Iran to visit relatives.

Instead, the most pressing priority for the Iran lobby—judging by the volume of press releases, statements, editorials, tweets, interviews and speeches—is the lifting of all economic sanctions against the Iranian regime, including all of those not included in the nuclear agreement and were originally imposed because of Iranian regime’s support of terrorism and abysmal human rights record.

The arguments being made by the Iran lobby, especially the NIAC, for lifting of economic sanctions still in place, such as restrictions on Iran’s use of US currency exchanges, resemble the kind of twisted pretzel logic you might find from an extremist that claims to be helping people as he beats them with a club.

One recent example is an editorial by Marashi on the self-publishing blog TopTopic (probably because no self-respecting mainstream publication could print it with a straight face), in which he makes the silly argument that the US is not in compliance with the noxious nuclear deal and is purposely dragging its feet because:

  • It is intentionally squeezing Iran because it has nothing better to do;
  • President Obama wants to protect Hillary Clinton from having to bear an unpleasant political cost of appearing friendly to a bloodthirsty regime widely untrusted by American voters; and
  • The US government is still fighting an internal battle between those committed to punishing Iran and those wanting to set it free.

It is an utterly inane position to advocate since it ignores the most basic and unavoidable truth about the Iranian regime which is compelling most Americans and their leaders to be remain wary of the mullahs in Tehran: the Iranian regime is simultaneously engaged in three wars, while grabbing dual citizens and trying them in secret courts, all during a human rights crackdown that abuses women, religious minorities, children and even gays.

About the only thing most Americans can agree on in this divided political season is that Iran should be restrained, not encouraged.

The sight of pallets full of cash delivered on midnight flights to buy the release of Americans left a sour taste that is hard to forget. The sight of American sailors made to kneel under the guns of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps soldiers was unforgettable.

The sight of Iranians hanged publicly almost on a daily basis, including women and children as young as 15 when convicted horrifies most Americans.

And yet, the Iran lobby does not tackle any of these issues. Instead, it focuses on trying to get the mullahs more cash. One might think NIAC’s fundraising budget is dependent on earning commissions for every billion raised for Iran’s coffers.

The fact that the Iran lobby ignores the almost daily pronouncements proving the regime’s true intentions demonstrates clearly it has no regard for the enormous human suffering being caused by the Iranian regime.

Take for example statements made by Salar Abnoush, deputy coordinator of Iran’s Khatam-al-Anbia Garrison, an IRGC command front, who was quoted as saying in an Iranian state-controlled publication closely tied to the IRGC that is sending assets to infiltrate the United States and Europe at the direction of Iran’s top mullah Ali Khamenei.

The IRGC “will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” according to Abnoush, who said that these forces would operate with the goal of bolstering Iran’s hardline regime and thwarting potential plots against the Islamic Republic.

“The whole world should know that the IRGC will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” he said.

According to Fox News, the military leader’s comments come as Iran is spending great amounts of money to upgrade its military hardware and bolster its presence throughout the Middle East and beyond. Iran intends to spend billions to purchase U.S.-made planes that are likely to be converted for use in its air force.

Given these developments, it’s easier to understand the rationale for NIAC’s emphasis on lifting sanctions and it’s not about the poor Americans being held in Iranian prisons.

It’s about cash for Iran, plain and simple.

Not even the sham punishment of 135 lashes given to Saeed Mortazavi, former head of the regime’s Social Security, because of accusations of widespread financial violations and irregularities could cover from his past record as a former prosecutor who was responsible for the mass killings of detainees and political dissidents following the infamous 2009 protests over the stolen presidential election.

It seems in Tehran, you get punished for ripping off your fellow regime leaders, but not for killing innocent protestors.

Too bad the NIAC didn’t have anything to say about it.

Michael Tomlinson