Iran Lobby

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

Iran Lobby Working Overtime Pushing Fake News

by

Iran Lobby Working Overtime Pushing Fake News

Iran Lobby Working Overtime Pushing Fake News

Merriam-Webster defines “hypocrisy” as “a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not: behavior that contradicts what one claims to be believe or feel.”

In the case of the Iran lobby, hypocrisy runs deep within its press releases, background papers, editorials and blog entries, especially the National Iranian American Council. In the aftermath of the end of the Obama administration’s policies of trying to appease the Iranian regime, the NIAC has been working overtime to push narratives that have come to define this era of “fake news.”

The NIAC website was busy this weekend pumping out several storylines, including attempting to shift blame for global terrorism from the Iranian regime to Saudi Arabia; attempting to character assassinate a vocal critic of the regime in the Trump administration; and tried to claim that Yemen was an example of a failed U.S. policy.

The most hypocritical position taken by the NIAC was an opinion piece by Adam Weinstein in which he called Saudi Arabia the world’s “biggest state sponsor of terrorism.” He makes this claim largely on the basis that many terrorist groups such as ISIS are comprised of Sunni members, while largely ignoring the magnitude of death and destruction meted out by Iranian-backed Shiite terror groups such as Hezbollah.

Weinstein goes on to try and specifically link Wahhabism to the Saudi government, while ignoring the direct support Shiite terror groups receive directly from the Iranian regime through the Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force operations.

While the Saudi government has a myriad of its own problems, such as the status and role of women in Saudi society and the need to rein in rogue Saudis that have engaged in terror, such as Osama bin Laden, the Saudi government does not purse and enact a policy of global terror, nor a systematic effort to attack and kill its enemies and dissidents at home and abroad; all things the Iranian regime does.

Weinstein delves into the complexities of the Islamic religion and its various offshoots and varieties in an attempt to confuse readers when in fact the issue is not about religion, but national policy instead.

What makes the Iranian regime the center point of terrorist activities is that the regime relies heavily on terrorist proxies to conduct military operations, terrorist attacks and assassinations. Notable examples include the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and the flood of Iranian-built IEDs into Iraq targeting U.S. service personnel.

Iran also provided shelter and support for Al-Qaeda leaders fleeing the U.S. invasion in Afghanistan and then later provided passage for these same fighters to enter Syria and from there spawned ISIS and other radical militant groups who were originally turned loose to attack U.S.-backed rebel groups.

But the NIAC’s fake news didn’t end there as Ryan Costello issued a press release attacking Trump national security aide Sebastian Gorka, a vocal and harsh critic of past policies towards the Iranian regime, especially the deeply flawed nuclear agreement.

The irony of Costello’s statement was his attempt to blame Gorka for anti-Semitism, a crazy concept considering the Iranian regime’s naked hostility to Jews and Israel; advocating for its destruction about as often as it holds public “Death to America” chants.

The effort to attack Gorka is not about racism, but about dislodging a strong opponent of the Iranian regime from any position of influence within the administration. This is an especially important consideration when viewed in light of recent disclosures that former Obama administration staffers have managed to burrow their way into the State Department to maintain influence over Iran policy; including one who was a former NIAC staffer.

The strangest piece was another one written by Adam Weinstein in which he attempted to show a clash of policy views over the conflict in Yemen amongst American legislators at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

“As is too often the case on Capitol Hill, the hearing – which was framed as an examination of U.S. interests and risks to U.S. policy in the war in Yemen – devolved into a conversation dominated by Iran hawks who inflated Iran’s influence and sought to play down Saudi Arabia’s role in the conflict,” Weinstein writes.

During the hearing, former Ambassador to Yemen (2010-2013) Gerald Feierstein testified that Iran is benefiting from the conflict in Yemen and even claimed Saudi Arabia’s image was suffering as a result.

Weinstein then goes on to make the extraordinary claim that the Iranian regime attempted to persuade Houthi rebels from moving on Sanaa, the capital and blamed a Saudi naval blockade in 2015 for escalating the conflict.

It’s another silly argument to make since Iran’s Quds Forces have been the primary supplier of arms to the Houthis, with several Iranian fishing vessels being intercepted on their way to Yemen carrying guns, ammunition, mortars, rockets and missiles, many bearing Iranian serial numbers.

What Weinstein characterizes as an “obsession” by Saudi Arabia over Iran in Yemen, belies a basic aspect of Iran’s strategy which is to foment a civil war in a country sharing a border with Saudi Arabia in an effort to place the kingdom under duress even as it opposes Iranian forces in the Syrian conflict.

It is a strategy Iranian regime has used for decades in neighboring countries such as Lebanon and Iraq.

Weinstein goes on to claim the Houthis are not proxies for the Iranian regime because they are “indigenous” to Yemen as if accident of birth defines one as a proxy or not for the Islamic state. The true definition of an Iranian proxy is not where they are from, but rather if you are supplied, controlled and commanded by the mullahs in Tehran.

On that score, the Houthis are identical twins to Hezbollah, Shiite militias in Iraq and recruited Afghan mercenaries, all fighting on behalf of the Iranian regime.

Michael Tomlinson

 

Iran Lobby Goes to Bat for IRGC and Ballistic Missiles

by

Iran Lobby Goes to Bat for IRGC and Ballistic Missiles

Iran Lobby Goes to Bat for IRGC and Ballistic Missiles

The twin pillars of the Iranian regime’s military future lies within the Revolutionary Guard Corps which puts boots on the ground to fight its battles and the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying out its biggest threats of global destruction.

They represent the center of power within the Iranian regime since without the IRGC to enforce its’ will, the mullahs in Tehran would be turned out like beggars in the streets by an oppressed Iranian people, while the threat of ballistic missiles hangs like a dagger over Europe and neighboring Arab countries.

It is no surprise then to see the Iran lobby going all out in pushing silly arguments in support of the IRGC and the regime’s missiles as evidenced by two pieces of fiction from the National Iranian American Council.

In one piece authored by Tyler Cullis and appearing in Foreign Affairs, the Iran lobby argues vehemently against designating the IRGC a “foreign terrorist organization, although many of its leaders and subsidiary commercial entities it controls have already been targeted for sanctions by the U.S. and other government for supporting terrorism.

Cullis argues that designating the IRGC would put “U.S. forces in Iraq” in danger and undermine the nuclear agreement reached with Iran, but Cullis argues against his own position when he readily admits that the IRGC is already heavily sanctioned because of its “Iran’s ballistic missile program, its human rights abuses around Iran’s June 2009 presidential election and its disruption and monitoring of Iranian citizens’ communications.”

He also calls any further sanctions a duplicate of current U.S. sanctions so why does he argue against this effort?

Because he knows, as does the rest of the Iran lobby, that designation of the IRGC as an organizational whole is vastly different that current sanctions which only target individuals within the IRGC and some entities. A designation of the whole effectively targets all of the criminal enterprises the IRGC is involved with that siphon monies away from the Iranian people and economy and directly into the coffers of the regime and the pocketbooks of the elites.

Cullis makes the same claim the Iran lobby has made over and over again which is that anything and everything needs to be done to preserve a badly flawed nuclear deal; including treating the chief sponsor of terrorism in Iran with kid gloves.

Cullis makes the absurd claim that Shiite militias controlled by the IRGC—which have been responsible for the deaths and attacks on American service personnel in Iraq through IEDs—would end up trying to frustrate American efforts against ISIS. It’s a claim so ridiculous that it doesn’t even deserve a response since we already know very well that Shiite militias already actively engage and fight American-backed forces and advisors in Iraq and Syria.

But the IRGC defense is only half the battle, as the NIAC’s Ryan Costello takes up the cause of defending Iran’s ballistic missile program in a briefing memo on NIAC’s website.

Costello bases his arguments on a lawyerly-like parsing of fine print to excuse Iran’s missile program, but ignores the intent of United Nations resolutions which seek to actively discourage Iran from becoming another North Korea. The fact that Costello is arguing against that development is deeply disturbing and indicative of how little the Iran lobby fears Iran’s crash course race to catch up to North Korea.

Where Costello falls in lock-step with his partner Cullis’ editorial, is in making the same silly argument that sanctions against ballistic missiles threatens the nuclear agreement. Using the same twisted pretzel logic virtually anything the mullahs dislikes threatens the nuclear agreement:

  • Protest the hanging of Iranian dissidents? That threatens the nuclear agreement;
  • Demand the freeing of American prisoners? That threatens the nuclear agreement;
  • Call for a halt to Iran’s support for Houthi rebels in Yemen? That threatens the nuclear agreement;
  • Force Iranian-backed Shiite militias to stop killing Sunnis in Iraq and Syria? That threatens the nuclear agreement;
  • Ask that Iran stop allowing its morality police to beat women on the streets? That threatens the nuclear agreement.

At a certain point, the NIAC’s logic becomes insanely stupid and that’s the point it has reached with Costello and Cullis’ propaganda pieces.

Costello even makes the excuse FOR the mullahs that Iran’s ballistic missiles program is “intrinsically” tied to its experience in the Iran-Iraq war and thus Iran has a right to these missiles to prevent any future attacks.

While Costello claims Iran has no interest in developing missiles with a range beyond 2,300 kilometers, he neglects to mention that allowing Iran to have a missile fleet with those ranges puts most of Europe, North Africa, the entire Middle East and virtually every important American military and naval base in the region in the crosshairs of Iranian missiles.

Neither Costello nor Cullis ever address the basic problem with their positions which is the lack of fundamental trust the world has in the religious leadership of Iran. The mullahs are fanatical in their pursuit of expanding the Islamic revolution and zealous in the crackdown of any dissenting opinions.

These heinous positions are illustrated in the decision over the weekend to sentence to death an Iranian and American-Iranian dual national on charges of promoting moral corruption.

The defendants, who have not been named, are believed to be a couple involved in the art industry who were arrested in July last year. They ran a leading art gallery in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and were known to associate with foreign diplomats, according to the Financial Times.

Iran has arrested several Iranians holding dual nationality in recent months in a move analysts suggest is intended to intimidate those associated with foreign businesses or who have social connections with foreigners, the Times said.

Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, Tehran prosecutor-general, said on Sunday that the man and woman had been sentenced because they established “a new cult” and made “alcoholic beverages, encouraged vice . . . through throwing mixed parties [and] . . . exhibiting and selling obscene images at gallery”.

Laura Carnahan

Hypocrisy of Iran Lobby Extends to Criticizing Trump Speech to Congress

by

Hypocrisy of Iran Lobby Extends to Criticizing Trump Speech to Congress

Hypocrisy of Iran Lobby Extends to Criticizing Trump Speech to Congress

There is no doubt that President Donald Trump is a polarizing figure and has become a lightning rod for criticism for everything ranging from his affinity for tweeting to his policies such as his roll back of regulations and imposition of a temporary moratorium on visas from several countries in the Middle East.

The jury is still out on much of his agenda since he has yet to collaborate with Congress to bring forth specific legislative proposals, but that has not stopped the torrent of criticism being directed at him by the Iran lobby as it works to oppose anything that might be perceived as upsetting the goals and plans of the mullahs in Tehran.

This was true when Iran lobby advocates such as the National Iranian American Council’s Trita Parsi blasted Trump’s decision to impose fresh sanctions on members of the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps for its support for ballistic missile launches that violated United Nations sanctions.

It has also been true of the Iran lobby’s efforts to deflect attention away from the Iran regime’s litany of problems at home with increasing mass demonstration and protests to issues abroad as it encounters growing calls for resistance amongst its Sunni neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States; alarmed at the turmoil surrounding them caused by the Iranian regime.

The Iran lobby has been particularly focused on the debate over Trump’s immigration policies leveraging it to its advantage to raise funds and maintain its ties to progressive Democratic groups that it previously aligned with in the efforts to support the Iran nuclear deal.

The reasons for these efforts are simple: In a post-Obama world, the Iran lobby is desperately trying to stay relevant.

Since the electoral sweep that not only saw Trump elected, but also radically changed the complexion of the Congress, the Iran lobby has been on the defensive ever since. It has found little support within the much-vaunted “echo chamber” of support previously cobbled together to help push for negotiations with the regime.

Iranian regime’s ever growing militant actions in launching ballistic missiles, supplying proxy wars in Yemen and Syria and flexing its military muscle in expansive war games have proven to be almost impossible for the Iran lobby to defend.

Predictably, after President Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress, the NIAC’s Jamal Abdi sent out a statement criticizing the speech, but in his criticism he revealed the bias and hypocrisy of the NIAC and the Iran lobby.

Abdi makes the claim that “no Iranian has ever been implicated in a terrorism-related death inside America,” which is a convenient distinction since it ignores the fact that the Iranian regime has been directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in terrorist attacks in Beirut, Lebanon, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and in IED attacks throughout the Iraqi war.

In each case, Iranian regime controlled, supplied, participated or directed the attacks directly resulting in the deaths of Americans. In fact, several court decisions have held the Iranian regime responsible for these deaths and injuries and confiscated financial assets of the regime as part of court settlements to the victims and their families.

Abdi also fails to mention the violence fueled by the Iranian regime’s efforts to export its brand of extremist Islamic vision that has sparked sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites all across the Middle East, including the Syrian civil war, the Houthi coup attempt in Yemen and the expansion of ISIS arising out of the dissolution of the coalition government in Iraq.

All of these debacles were fueled by the Iranian regime and have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children and Abdi and his colleagues have remained stonily silent.

But the hypocrisy of criticizing Trump’s policies while ignoring the much harsher realities of the regime’s policies echoes the same treatment given by regime foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who lauded the protest by Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi who won the Oscar for best foreign film against Trump’s immigration policies, yet at the same time did not acknowledge the regime’s imprisonment and torture of several prominent Iranian filmmakers for engaging in acts against the Islamic state.

The rank hypocrisy of the Iranian regime and Iran lobby was taken to task by prominent journalists such as CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Human Rights Watch.

“Farhadi’s movie deserves the praise it has received – and much more. Iranian cinema has a long-established and well-earned reputation for providing a powerful, nuanced perspective into Iranian society,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director for Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division in an editorial. “Yet while Iranian officials bask in pride on the international stage, their rhetorical support does not translate into respect for filmmakers at home, where they have harassed and jailed movie directors and other artists for work they find displeasing.”

“In the aftermath of the 2009 presidential elections, authorities arrested Jafar Panahi, a prominent director, for allegedly attempting to make a movie about protests that followed the vote. In December 2010, Tehran’s revolutionary court sentenced Panahi to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on all his artistic activities. Following international outcry, the government did not execute Panahi’s sentence but kept the ban in place, forcing him to make movies without an official permit,” Whitson added.

“These filmmakers could serve as powerful messengers for the diversity and talent in Iran today. But until the authorities stop censoring and imprisoning them, they put into question the Iranian government’s expressed commitment to supporting the country’s millennia of “culture & civilization,” she warned.

Michael Tomlinson

 

While Iran Regime Throws Roses It Denies Medical Treatment

by

While Iran Regime Throws Roses It Denies Medical Treatment

While Iran Regime Throws Roses It Denies Medical Treatment

Nothing illustrates the cold, calculating nature of the Iranian regime than two incidents happening this week.

On the one hand, an American wrestling team was welcomed with open arms, red roses and a barrage of social media selfies as it arrived in Iran for a tournament that had been threatened in response to President Trump’s visa moratorium.

The two-day tournament began Thursday, when U.S. wrestlers faced off against Georgia, Russia and Azerbaijan. The Iranian regime didn’t miss the opportunity to stage photos of the Americans being surrounded by well-wishers and flooding social media with comments praising the team, but deriding the U.S. government.

“Welcome to Iran champ!!!!” one Iranian user, Saeed Mohammadi, commented on an Instagram photo.

Another, Nima Jan, said he was traveling to the stadium to cheer for the Americans,

“You proved that you are a noble man.… This is a big chance for us,”Nima Jan commented on an Instagram. “We do not pay attention to the behavior of America’s government” toward Iran, according to the Washington Post.

Widely considered a national sport, wrestling has been one venue to maintain a cultural channel between Iran and the U.S. In fact, a U.S. wrestling team became the first American sports team to visit Iran since the revolution.

In contrast to that public photo opportunity, in the dank, dark confines of Evin prison, a British-Iranian mother and an aid worker languishes, falling ill and being denied medical treatment by the regime.

According to the Times of London, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38, who has been held in prison since April last year, was denied urgent medical treatment for a neck injury sustained in prison that has left her unable to lift her arms or carry her child.

Prison officials last week refused to refer the charity worker to a neurologist, despite an X-ray and MRI scan revealing that vertebrae in her neck were out of place.

She is unable to move her arms beyond a certain point or lift her two-year-old daughter Gabriella, who is also trapped in Iran after regime authorities confiscated her British passport.

The cruelty of Ratcliffe’s continued incarceration and denial of medical care has earned sharp rebukes from the British government and human rights groups, but it follows a typical pattern of abuse heaped on detained dual national citizens by the regime.

Repeated incidents like this, depict an essential truth of the Iranian regime which is that it is without compassion or mercy and utilizes innocent people to its political advantage on the world stage. It will willingly use a sports team to stage a photo opp to protest moves designed to restrict the movement of terrorists supported by the Iranian regime and it will also put the screws to an ailing mother to put pressure on a British government balking at opening up trade with the regime.

The mullahs are cruel and callous and any press releases or news interviews by Iran lobby supporters such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council cannot hide that simple truth.

The mullahs calculate every move and weigh every opportunity. They are less religious leaders and more like accountants and they count up the ill-gotten gains they receive from their various black market channels, especially with the nuclear agreement which opened up additional sources of funding to them.

Heshmat Alavi, an Iranian activist, penned a piece in Forbes looking at how the regime was benefitting from the nuclear agreement.

“Now in early 2017, however, signs indicate the main winners in Iran are none other than state-owned companies. This means Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the terrorist-supporting Revolutionary Guards are enjoying JCPOA benefits,” Alavi writes.  “At least 90 of the nearly 110 agreements, totaling nearly $80 billion, involve such state-controlled companies. This includes the National Iranian Oil Company, parallel to others run by regime pension funds and massive conglomerates of semi-public nature.”

“It is a known fact that Tehran maintains a heavy hand over the economy, providing circumstances allowing state-controlled firms to acquire most business deals made possible after sanctions were lifted. The private sector makes up a mere 20% of Iran’s economy, according to official estimates,” he added. “To this end, private companies have received a dismal 17 deals, including a hotel management contract sealed most probably because of the French partner’s chief executive being the brother of Eshaq Jahangiri, Iran’s vice president.”

For the Iranian regime, decision-making is all about perception, economic benefits and exporting its extremist brand of Islam.

Unfortunately, until the world joins together again to confront the Iranian regime, innocents such as Ratcliffe will continue to pay the price.

Laura Carnahan

Campaign of Disinformation by Iran Regime Revealed

by

Campaign of Disinformation by Iran Regime Revealed

Campaign of Disinformation by Iran Regime Revealed

Besides the much-discussed “echo chamber” that arose out of the negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal utilizing a network of so-called experts in academia and organizations such as the National Iranian American Council to push false narratives about the benefits of the deal, the Iranian regime itself has undertaken several initiatives to push other false and misleading narratives to defame the Iranian dissident movement.

At the center of that disinformation campaign lays the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence Services. If Hitler relied on Joseph Goebbels to help spread Nazi propaganda, the mullahs in Tehran rely on the MOIS to do the same job.

To say the MOIS is a shadowy organization is like saying grease is slippery. The MOIS was created out of the former Shah of Iran’s infamous SAVAK intelligence service which had been notorious for its brutal methods.

The mullahs opted to keep much of the former intelligence services more ruthless elements in support of the founding of their religious theocracy. As part of its first missions, it sought to infiltrate many of the democracy and opposition groups in those early years and insidiously target and even assassinate many of its leaders to help secure the mullahs’ rule.

Since then the MOIS has blazed a trail that included an infamous series of assassinations of dissident writers and intellectuals and Iranian political dissidents both inside and outside Iran. Of special importance were members of resistance groups such as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran otherwise known as the Mojahedin-e Khalq.

For the MOIS and the mullahs it serves, nothing is more galling than to have fellow Iranians actively and aggressively resist their rule because as long as Iranians oppose their rule, the pathway exists for regime change and a transition to freedom and democracy.

One of the more aggressive tactics the MOIS has employed to distort the discussion about the Iranian regime’s policies has been the use of former dissident members who were either recruited or coerced into denouncing opposition movements.

Col. Wes Martin (US), former Anti-terrorism/Force Protection Officer of all Coalition forces in Iraq and a frequent news contributor, wrote about the MOIS use of disinformation in the U.S. in a piece in The Hill.

A report commissioned by the Pentagon and released by the Library of Congress provides an alarming look into the operations of Iran’s MOIS right here in the United States, he writes.

“MOIS recruited former members of the (People’s Mujahedin of Iran-PMOI, also known as MEK) in Europe and used them to launch a disinformation campaign against (PMOI),” the report reads.

Among those named in the Pentagon report are Massoud Khodabandeh and his British wife, Anne. They were recruited by the MOIS in the mid-1990s and used as assets against the opposition before launching the ‘Iran-Interlink’ website explicitly under Tehran’s orders, Martin adds.

“The MOIS resorts to character assassination against lawmakers and reporters who hold positive views of the Iranian opposition, aiming to silence their voices,” he said.

Martin cited a 2014 report by iSight Partners which uncovered a three-year espionage campaign, originating in Iran, that used an elaborate scheme involving a fabricated news agency, fake social media accounts and bogus journalist identities to deceive victims in the United States and elsewhere.

Martin went on to cite other fake news sites operated by Khodabandeh such as mesconult.com are hosted by Ravand Cybertech, an entity run by the Iranian regime directly. It is not a coincidence that postings from these sites are often cited in Iranian state-controlled media as “news sources.”

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American scholar, author and U.S. foreign policy specialist and president of the International American Council, also wrote about the more direct introduction of Iranian regime lobbyists and operatives into the U.S. and Europe on the ground to push the regime’s agenda.

“Many argue that some of Iran’s lobbyists work in plain sight and had access to top officials at the White House and State Department; they lobbied for the lifting of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, top state sponsor of terrorism, and subsequently lifting of sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), while demonizing Iranian-Americans who called for firmness against Iran’s ruling clerics and ayatollahs,” he writes.

“Cutting to the chase, it seems that the lobbyists and advocates for the Islamic Republic, next dismiss anyone suggesting the US should respond to this appalling conduct with firmness as a warmonger. But nobody appears to want, or ask for, armed conflict with Iran, so that is not an option,” he adds.

The disconnect between the claims of the Iranian regime’s lobbyists and supporters and the reality of the day grows larger every day. Unfortunately, those who are capable of setting a new standard for disagreeing with the regime even on a subtle level seem to cave to the Iran lobby’s arguments.

One example was a visit by a delegation from Sweden’s self-declared “first feminist government” which folded and enshrouded themselves in head coverings as they met with Hassan Rouhani in a blatant blow to Iran’s feminist movement, which has been under severe attacks by the mullahs.

UN Watch declared in a press release its concern over Sweden’s failure to promote a “gender equality perspective.”

In doing so, the Swedish female politicians ignored the recent appeal by Iranian women’s right activists who urged Europeans female politicians “to stand for [their] own dignity” and refuse to wear the hijab when visiting Iran.

“European female politicians are hypocrites,” says one activist. “Because they stand up with French Muslim women and condemn the burkini ban—because they think compulsion is bad—but when it happens to Iran, they just care about money.”

The scene in Tehran on Saturday was also a sharp contrast to Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lövin’s feminist stance against Trump, in a viral tweet and then in a Guardian op-ed last week, in which she wrote that “the world need strong leadership for women’s rights.”

Linde “sees no conflict” between her government’s human rights policy and signing trade deals with an oppressive dictatorship that tortures prisoners, persecutes gays, and is a leading executioner of minors, UN Watch declared.

We can only hope that world media attention is more tightly focused on the real machinations going on with the Iran lobby and its MOIS taskmasters.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Echo Chamber Going Full Bore to Support Iran Regime

by

Iran Lobby Echo Chamber Going Full Bore to Support Iran Regime

Iran Lobby Echo Chamber Going Full Bore to Support Iran Regime

With the Trump White House announcing a series of new sanctions aimed at officials of the Revolutionary Guard Corps for the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile program, as well as contemplating broad new sanctions stemming from a possible designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization, the Iran lobby and supporters of the regime have launched an all-out PR effort to prop up the faltering regime.

In a campaign similar to the infamous “echo chamber” of academics and advocates furiously penning editorials and giving interviews to sympathetic media outlets, the Iran lobby is trying anything to deflect attention on the regime’s militancy and instead claim anything aimed at punishing the regime is somehow racist or a prelude to armed conflict.

But the effort to come to the aid of the mullahs in Tehran isn’t just limited to the usual assorted Iran sympathizers as European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini met with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and spoke “at length” about the Iran nuclear deal according to Reuters.

Mogherini helped negotiate the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, along with diplomats from Iran, the United States and other major world powers. The deal curbed Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief said Reuters.

Trump has said the deal is terrible, and Flynn put Iran “on notice” last week for test-firing a ballistic missile, raising the prospect of spiking tensions between Iran and the United States.

Since the deal, Mogherini has visited Tehran while the regime commenced a series of ghastly executions of men and women; none of which were protested by the EU.

Even Russia Today weighed in as well by publishing an opinion piece by John Wright, an outspoken supporter of the Iran nuclear deal, who took the Trump administration to task for focusing on Iran instead of the world’s “number one terrorist state” in his mind—Saudi Arabia.

“The Trump administration’s consistent and ongoing demonization of Iran flies in the face of reality in which Iran has stood, alongside Syria, Russia, the Kurds, and the Iranian-backed Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, as a pillar against the very same Salafi-jihadist terrorism that poses a threat to the American people,” Wright said in a splendid example of mimicking the very same messages consistently uttered by the National Iranian American Council and other Iran lobby members.

Wright went on to hammer Saudi Arabia, while essentially excusing the vile acts of ISIS and downplaying anything the Iranian regime has done by comparison. His logic or lack thereof defies commonsense and represent the intellectual vacuum that characterizes much of the Iran lobby’s arguments.

In a more flimsy example of casting doubt on efforts to designate the IRGC a terrorist organization, the Chicago Tribune offered up a story with the dubious headline of “Warnings for White House on terror designation for Iran Revolutionary Guard” and goes on to hint at warnings from defense officials, but neglects to mention anyone specifically, nor offer a single quote against the planned designation.

It does however rehash the discredited story of the terror designation of Iranian dissident groups in a message point repeatedly endlessly by the Iran lobby as part of the smear campaign against opposition groups.

Another Iran lobby message point was trolled out by William O. Beeman, an anthropology professor and not a national security expert, who nevertheless offered up the same silly arguments that folks like Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of NIAC put forth, in an editorial.

“The tiny issue on which the US objection rests is whether the Iranian missiles are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Iran says: no! The United States (and Israel) say ‘maybe,’ because they can’t know for sure whether this is the case. In the latest missile test, the missile blew up, so no one can say one way or the other,” he writes.

Beeman should stick to teaching about dead civilizations.

The issue of ballistic missiles is not a “tiny” one. Iran’s development of longer-range missiles based on illicitly acquired North Korean designs has produced missiles with over a 2,000-km range, giving it intercontinental reach. Tie this with the development of solid fuel boosters and you now approach the threshold weight necessary for a nuclear weapon. But put that aside, it is more than enough thrust and range for a chemical or biological weapon to be aimed at Eastern Europe, North Africa and India and China.

The Economist went even further claiming that Trump’s punitive actions against the Iranian regime were actually helping it.

Most incredulous of all was the opening line from the piece which claimed “the ritual chants of ‘Death to America’ had grown fainter in recent years. The feverish crowds had thinned. Some demonstrators seemed to wave Uncle Sam banners less to jeer America than to cheer it. Yet thanks to Donald Trump this year’s annual rally to commemorate Islamic Revolution Day on February 10th in Tehran looks set to be one of Iran’s biggest.”

The Economist fails to mention that the regime can ramp up attendance any time it needs to with help from the Basij paramilitaries to round up supporters under threat of beatings and the chants aimed at America have not stopped and will never stop under the mullahs.

It also makes the same mistake all media make who do not understand the dynamics of the mullahs’ hold over Iran by continuing to make a distinction between “hardliners” and “moderates” in Iran’s government.

Let’s set the record straight: There are no moderates in Iran’s government. Moderation within the regime is akin to making distinctions between the SS and Brown shirts in Hitler’s Reich. It’s only variations on the theme of extremism. One could say that compared to ISIS, Al-Qaeda looks like a Boy Scout troop.

The argument that Trump only emboldens the “hardliners” is a self-fulfilling prophecy since the hardliners have been and always will be in control of Iran.

Michael Tomlinson

Possible Designation of IRGC as Terror Organization Huge Step Forward

by

Possible Designation of IRGC as Terror Organization Huge Step Forward

Possible Designation of IRGC as Terror Organization Huge Step Forward

The Trump White House’s deliberations over designating the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) is a monumental and long overdue step on the road to finally blocking the expansion of extremism in the region.

For too long, past administrations have placed sanctions on aspects of the IRGC, including specific leaders and even units within it such as the Quds Force, but none had been willing to seriously raise the question about designating the IRGC as a whole.

For the U.S., this administration’s team is making a series of calculations based on the fundamental truth about the IRGC, which is that to solve the puzzle of rising Islamic extremism, you cannot nibble at the edges, but have to attack it at its center.

The White House is likely to move more quickly on the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which could be less of a challenge to implement, one person familiar with the discussions said. It was unclear when a decision would be made on that designation, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Revolutionary Guard is the Iranian regime’s elite military unit and reports directly to top mullah, Ali Khamenei, with a command separate from Iran’s traditional military. It was established following the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and over the past decade has also grown to dominate Iran’s economy, with holdings in property, oil and gas and telecommunications. U.S. officials estimate the IRGC controls as much as 50% of Iran’s economy.

The Trump administration last week imposed new sanctions on more than two dozen Iranian individuals and entities in retaliation for the country’s latest ballistic missile test launch, in January.

Taking the step of designating the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization would give the U.S. further latitude to target the IRGC’s finances and companies, which would affect large sectors of Iranian regime’s economy.

Emanuele Ottolenghi, an expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who supports the move to designate the IRGC, said it would go beyond efforts by the Bush administration to more narrowly target the military group’s illicit trade and funding for terrorism.

“The net effect would be more significant. It would cast the net more widely,” he said.

According to the Journal, there is broad and bipartisan support within Congress to designate the IRGC and levy additional sanctions much to the chagrin of the Iran lobby which went into full-defense mode and scrambled to block this latest in a string of moves aimed at the regime.

Loyal regime ally, the National Iranian American Council issued talking points opposing the designation which was a verbatim regurgitation of past defenses of the regime and offered nothing new; hanging its hat on the sole prospect that the nuclear deal would be jeopardized.

The move to designate the IRGC strikes at the very heart of the economic engine that fuels the mullahs rule and expansion of terrorism in the region.

Without access to the ill-gotten gains they secure from the industries controlled by the IRGC, the mullahs could not support their proxy wars, could not upgrade its military and could not continue to funnel cash to the Assad regime in Syria or keep Hezbollah afloat.

As pointed at in a piece for the Daily Caller, targeting the IRGC is the culmination of a long series of militant actions by the IRGC that has resulted in loss of U.S. lives.

Iran and elements of the IRGC were implicated several times in assisting in the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress a year ago, “I know the total number of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that were killed by Iranian activities, and the number has been recently quoted as about 500.”

It could also cripple the Iranian regime to a point where the prospect of true democratic reforms could finally emerge.

Of course all of this is only hopeful speculation at this point, but the prospect of aggressive action against the regime after years of trying to appease the mullahs bore no fruit is a welcome turnaround for critics of the regime and should provide a valuable morale boost to the long struggle against the regime waged by Iranian dissident groups.

 

Shahriar Kia, a political analyst and member of the Iranian opposition, the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI, also known as the MEK), wrote in the Hill that the Kayhan daily, the known Khamenei mouthpiece, revealed the Iranian regime’s terrified status quo, describing this as a “historic turn.”

“There are times when developments take such an unprecedented pace, making any forecasting about the future quite difficult,” the piece reads.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in a recent TV interview Tehran’s foreign policy will face serious crises with Donald Trump coming to the White House.

Ali Khorram, an Iranian Foreign Ministry official, suggested the mullahs’ regime should use “common sense” and keep a low profile during such times.

The state-run Iran daily wrote, “This measure by Iran provides an excuse for Trump to take actions against Iran, increasing his intention to disrupt the status quo resulting from the Iran nuclear deal.”

That has to be pretty disturbing to them.

Laura Carnahan

Time for the NIAC to Pack It Up

by

Time for the NIAC to Pack It Up

Time for the NIAC to Pack It Up

The National Iranian American Council was born out of an idea hatched by Trita Parsi to develop a US-based group that could serve as an effective lobbying force for the interests of the Iranian regime. It could help provide “cover” for the mullahs by pushing a narrative seeking to reshape the public image of the Iranian regime.

It did so through editorials and press releases and through the use of NIAC staffers as so-called Iranian “experts” to news media. The intelligentsia and academia were regaled with lofty tales of how Iranian regime could be a friend to the US instead of an enemy and how the intractable problems of the Middle East could be solved through a moderate and willing Iranian partner.

The NIAC became part of the “echo chamber” created by the Obama administration to help push that narrative as it sought a nuclear deal with the mullahs in Tehran. NIAC staff such as Reza Marashi and Tyler Cullis obligingly offered up these fantasies even as Iran mullahs essentially set the stage for the Syrian civil war by jumping in to prop up the Assad regime.

The NIAC deepened its efforts by creating NIAC Action, a direct lobbying arm so it could knock on the doors of Congressmen and Senators and pressure them into supporting a badly flawed nuclear deal and promise them political cover by offering to say “Iranian-Americans” supported it.

Even as the death toll mounted by the thousands in Syria at the hands of Iranian forces and the barrels of Iranian guns and refugees flooded into Europe by the millions, the NIAC was resolutely pushing ahead to preserve the deal by blaming Saudi Arabia and other enemies of Iran for these problems.

Against the dubious backdrop of midnight flights of pallets loaded with cash in exchange for American hostages, the NIAC still kept at the narrative, ignoring the risk to Iranian-Americans and other dual nationals being arrested in Iran at an astonishing rate and Hassan Rouhani’s flat out refusal to recognize dual nationalities.

While the NIAC argued for loosening of restrictions to allow the freer flow of cash to Iran, the regime cracked down even harder on dissent at home with over 3,000 executions in four years and arrests of journalists, students, artists, bloggers and dissidents by the scores.

Even the US news media were getting the idea that NIAC did not have much to offer being apologists for the Iranian regime every time anything went wrong as NIAC staffers found less ink and air time on mainstream media and found themselves relegated to self-publishing blogs and fringe websites more prone to fake news than real news.

The election of Donald Trump and the sweep of Republicans into both houses of Congress put an even bigger damper on NIAC’s prospects to help the Iranian regime any more, which raises the most logical question: Is it time for the NIAC to close shop?

The question is not just rhetorical, but should prompt a serious discussion among supporters of the NIAC and its donors. What role will the NIAC play in a Trump presidency?

The same question must be vexing Parsi and his colleagues since we’ve seen a noticeable shift in their public comments on items. Instead of slavishly towing the party line of the mullahs in Tehran, the NIAC now has been busy commenting on issues related to Trump’s immigration proposes.

Some might argue that these topics should be the more traditional and appropriate topics for support and debate by an organization putatively claiming to support Iranian-Americans.

Unfortunately, the shift has less to do with genuine and sincere attention to a legitimate issue, but probably rather a need to justify the continued existence of NIAC.

One benchmark of that imperiled future will be the NIAC’s Bay Area fundraiser scheduled for February 12, 2017. The NIAC website states that the proceeds will be used “to support immediate efforts to combat discrimination, support civil rights, protect the US-Iran Nuclear Deal, and prevent war.”

Given the NIAC’s track record, virtually all the funds will be used to preserve the Iranian regime’s interest? Parsi and the NIAC have no real interest in the concerns and issues facing Iranian-Americans. They are more concerned about all facets of the Iranian regime and how to keep maintaining support for it. The NIAC’s checklist is absurdly limited given the state of the world:

  • Preserve the Iran nuclear deal so Iranian regime does not suffer renewed sanctions;
  • Oppose any new or re-imposition of sanctions on Iran;
  • Denounce and defend any accusation against the Iranian regime for sponsoring terror or human rights abuses;
  • Tie any effort to rein in Iran as a pathway to war and empowering “hardliners” in Iran; and
  • Keep the money flowing to Tehran and the mullah’s coffers at all costs.

These should not be the priorities of any group concerned with Iranian-American issues. They are the concerns only of an organization dedicated to doing the bidding of the mullahs in Tehran.

It’s time for the NIAC to go away and for a legitimate group to rise in its place to be a true advocate for Iranian-Americans and not a mouthpiece for Tehran.

Michael Tomlinson

Obama White House Logs Disclose Access to Iran Lobbyists

by

Obama White House Logs Disclose Access to Iran Lobbyists

President Barack Obama makes Thanksgiving Day phone calls from the Oval Office to U.S. troops stationed around the world, Nov. 24, 2016. The President’s Coast Guard military aide, LCDR Ginny Nadolny is at right.
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The Washington Free Beacon disclosed that a former Iranian regime official and a leader in the Iran lobby enjoyed unprecedented access to the White House under the Obama administration.

The two were hosted at the White House for more than 30 meetings with top officials at key junctures in the former administration’s contested diplomacy with Iran, according to White House visitor logs that provide a window into the former administration’s outreach to leading pro-Iran advocates, according to the Free Beacon.

Seyed Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and head of the regime’s national security council, was hosted at the White House at least three times, while Trita Parsi, a pro-Iran advocate long accused of hiding his ties to the Iranian government, met with Obama administration officials a stunning 33 times, according to recently updated visitor logs.

Sources familiar with the nature of the meetings told the Washington Free Beacon that both Parsi and Mousavian helped the White House craft its pro-Iran messaging and talking points that helped lead to the nuclear agreement with Iran. These efforts were part of a larger pro-Iran deal “echo chamber” led by senior Obama administration officials who were tasked with misleading Congress about the nature of the deal.

Mousavian, who also served as Iran’s spokesperson during negotiations with the international community on the Iran deal, visited with White House National Security Council official Robert Malley, who advised the former president about the Middle East and the Islamic State terror group.

“Mousavian was Iran’s ambassador to Germany back in the 1990s, when that embassy was the central node of Iran’s European terror network and those in Germany were murdering dissidents in Berlin,” one veteran Iran analyst who frequently works with Congress on the issue told the Free Beacon. “Later he came to the U.S., where he’s being paid for with tens of thousands of dollars from the Ploughshares Fund, which funded the Ben Rhodes echo chamber.”

Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, a group tied to the broader Iran lobbying movement and tied to the Obama White House that helped spearhead a pro-Iran narrative, met with several senior Obama administration officials during dozens of visits to the White House, the logs show.

This included private, one-on-one meetings with Obama adviser Ben Rhodes, who helmed what he described as the White House’s pro-Iran deal “echo chamber,” as well as meetings with Malley and Colin Kahl, national security adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden. Parsi also met with the White House NSC’s director for Iran, its senior director, legislative liaisons, and public engagement officials, according to sources familiar with the nature of these meetings.

In one instance, Parsi was signed into the White House by Solomon Tarlin, a West Wing intern and supporter of the Middle East advocacy group J Street.

Free Beacon quoting an expert on Pentagon writes: “Talk about letting the fox into the hen house. Letting the head of an organization whose foreign policy positions are indistinguishable from the Islamic Republic more than 30 times would be analogous to letting the Soviet Union’s chief lobbyist help guide policy during the Cold War.”

“During the Bush administration, Parsi thought nothing of dining with [Former Iranian President] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his private emails, released as part of a court-ordered discovery process, show that he lied to the U.S. press and coached Iranian officials in order to weaken sanctions and promote the Islamic Republic,” The expert said.

The visitor’s logs reveal the depth of Parsi’s involvement in building the false narrative of the Iran nuclear deal and also may explain why the Obama administration was quick to appease the mullahs in Tehran, by forgoing linking such important issues as ballistic missiles, human rights and terrorism.

With the incoming Trump administration, it is almost assured that Parsi’s access to the White House and key advisors has been reduced to zero, which explains why Parsi now has taken to authoring editorials in a tedious effort to influence a monumental shift in American foreign policy.

In many ways Parsi efforts are more akin to the Little Dutch Boy sticking his finger in dike than his previous august position as White House visitor.

In a piece for Foreign Policy, Parsi trotted out the same, tired talking points: Iran is good. Saudi Arabia is bad. Hard liners will be empowered in Iran. Trump’s cabinet picks are war mongers. Iran does not support proxies.

Parsi’s efforts to try and convince everyone that Iran does not fund and control Hezbollah or Shiite militias in Iraqi or Houthi rebels in Yemen is pathetic and patently false. All anyone has to do is follow the trail of cash and arms from Tehran to all parts of the Middle East and you can see how the Iranian regime sits at the center of the proxy wars in the region.

But Parsi’s efforts may be waning as he and his Iran lobby colleagues shift chaotically from issue to issue in an effort to keep up with the wide ranging agenda of the Trump administration which called for a moratorium on Syrian refugees pending verification of their backgrounds in a nod to the Islamic extremist terror attacks taking place across Europe in Paris, Nice, Brussels and Berlin.

A new poll revealed in the Wall Street Journal that support for Hassan Rouhani among the Iranian people has plummeted as years of war and economic stagnation coupled with unrelenting human rights abuses had sapped his favorability.

The survey results paint a picture of an Iranian public wary and skeptical about the economic benefits they thought it would bring as a result of the Iran Deal.

Conducted in December for the University of Maryland, the survey is based on telephone interviews with 1,000 Iranians and provides a gauge of public opinion in a country where independent polling is rare.

“Rouhani’s popularity is taking a hit primarily because he is perceived to have failed to deliver on his campaign promises,” said the president and chief executive of Toronto-based company which conducted the survey on the school’s behalf.

About 51% said the country’s economic conditions were worsening, up from 43% in June. Almost three-quarters of the Iranians surveyed said the deal hadn’t improved people’s living conditions.

With the presidential election looming in May, it is almost assured that the regime will once again rig the election to deliver a candidate in lock-step with the mullahs’ policies and those of top mullah Ali Khmenei.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Pleading to Save Iran Nuclear Deal Despite Regime Militancy

by

Iran Lobby Pleading to Save Iran Nuclear Deal Despite Regime Militancy

Iran Lobby Pleading to Save Iran Nuclear Deal Despite Regime Militancy

With only a few days left until Donald Trump is sworn in as the next president of the United States, the Iran lobby and their Iranian regime leaders are in an absolute tizzy about the nuclear agreement and its future.

For the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council and the Ploughshares Fund, the nuclear deal with Iran represented a high water mark for their perceived effectiveness, but like a evaporating lake in a desert, their success was illusory since it was largely built on the decision by the Obama administration to try a policy of appeasing the Iranian regime.

With the ascension of the Trump administration with such noted critics of the Iranian deal in many of cabinet nominees now undergoing confirmation hearings, the Iran lobby is faced with rollback of all of their gains in one fell swoop.

Iran lobby supporters such as Trita Parsi have tried all sorts of tactics in an effort to save the deal in a shotgun approach of messages. First they openly criticized Trump during the presidential election, joining the tactics of his opponents with personal attacks.

When that failed and he won election, Parsi and his cohorts shifted to the threat of war if the Iran nuclear deal was scrapped by Trump. When that fell on deaf ears and gained almost no traction with the media and Trump announced his cabinet picks, the attacks shifted to the nominees.

Now that line of attack has essentially failed, the Iran lobby is now trying to float the idea that the Trump is actually in support of the nuclear deal and not likely to scrap it because the consequences would be so devastating.

Trying to keep track of all the misses by the Iran lobby is like trying to keep track of clanks off the rim by a worst shooting team in the NBA.

And now their worst fears are finally starting to come to fruition: the U.S. is finally beginning to realize that instead of appeasing the mullahs in Tehran, it is now time to hold them accountable for their actions.

The Iranian lobby fears that deeds and not words are likely to be the new currency of diplomacy in 2017.

But it isn’t just a Trump administration that is causing the Iran lobby to freak-out, it is the changeover in Congress and the potential for a whole raft of actions aimed at the mullahs ranging from the re-imposition of economic sanctions on the federal level to state-by-state sanctions means the Iran lobby is poised to be overwhelmed.

Congress has already begun offering up a series of bills taking aim at various aspects of the Iranian regime’s conduct including the near unanimous passage of the Iran Sanctions Act. Now comes a bill offered up last week to initiate an investigation into Iran Air and other regime airlines by the new Director of National Intelligence into whether or not they provide support to the Revolutionary Guard Corps or other terrorist groups.

The timing of this legislation is important to the Iranian regime as it takes delivery of new commercial airliners from Airbus and soon Boeing to replace aging aircraft in its fleet. Iran Air took delivery last week of the first of 100 jets it ordered from Airbus with Boeing scheduled to deliver in 2018.

Should the investigation of Iranian airlines lead to the discovery of a link between them and support for terrorist activities, the suspect airline could end up back on the U.S. sanctions list and be prevented from receiving any new aircraft or U.S.-made parts according to CNN News.

There has always been deep suspicion that the Iranian regime uses commercial airliners to ferry troops, ammunition and cash to hotspots such as Syria and Iraq. Should that link prove true, the Iran lobby could find itself fighting for the economic survival of the regime again.

Mahan Air, Iran’s second biggest carrier, is still on the sanctions list for aiding Iran’s military and is barred from buying Western planes and parts.

Iran Air was removed from the U.S. sanctions list in January 2016 as part of an agreement to convince Iran to restrain its nuclear program. It opened the path for multi-billion dollar sales by Boeing and Airbus. That prompted an outcry from some lawmakers who said the Obama administration offered no proof that Iran Air had stopped its support of the Iranian military or designated terrorist organizations.

The news for the Iran lobby got worse with the release of a letter from 23 former U.S. officials urging the Trump administration to open up a dialogue with Iranian dissident groups, specifically the National Council of Resistance, which counts as one of its members the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran; a dissident group the mullahs in Iran have made it their mission to pursue and destroy.

Trump transition officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An NCRI spokesman, Ali Safavi, said the group had no “role whatsoever” in the letter, but forwarded a statement from an NCRI official, Soona Samsami, welcoming the letter as an “appropriate and timely initiative.”

In spite of these changing political fortunes, the Iranian regime seems intent on maintaining the same militant attitude to the rest of the world as news came out of Iran of the mass execution of 20 prisoners over the past two days.

Amnesty International reports indicate that Iran executed at least 977 people in 2015, mainly for drug-related crimes.

The human rights activist NGO also blames Iran for continuing to execute juvenile offenders, those aged under 18 at the time of the crime, in violation of the international law.

For the mullahs, some things don’t change.

Michael Tomlinson