Iran Lobby

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

Human Rights and Nuclear Issues Move to Forefront of Iran

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Human Rights and Nuclear Issues Move to Forefront of Iran

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano reacts as he attends a news conference during a board of governors meeting at the UN headquarters in Vienna November 29, 2012. The U.N. nuclear agency made no progress in a year-long push to find out if Iran worked on developing an atomic bomb, its chief said on Thursday, calling for urgent efforts to end Tehran’s standoff with the West. Amano said he would not give up seeking to end what Western diplomats describe as Iranian stonewalling of the agency’s investigation into possible military dimensions to the Islamic state’s nuclear programme. REUTERS/Herwig Prammer (AUSTRIA – Tags: POLITICS ENERGY HEADSHOT TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) – RTR3B0LF

Like twin hammer blows, breaking news concerning the Iranian regime came out revealing that the two issues the Iran lobby have tried mightily to keep separate and growing more entwined; namely human rights and the nuclear agreement given to the regime last July.

The Iran lobby, led by the National Iranian American Council, rabidly argued that human rights issues – which the regime has an abysmal record on – needed to be decoupled from any nuclear agreement because it could jeopardize momentum for an accord and was outweighed by the perceived benefit of gaining an agreement with the regime.

The logic being, as advanced by regime stalwarts such as Trita Parsi, was that an agreement would empower “moderate” elements led by Hassan Rouhani and usher in a new period of cooperation with the West.

Unfortunately for Parsi, the opposite has come to happen. Reuters reported on a confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report it gained access to which describes that the regime’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium has actually increased instead of decreased under the terms of the agreement.

Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium had increased by 460.2 kg in the past three months to 8,305.6 kg, the report said. Under the deal with major powers, that stockpile must be slashed to no more than 300 kg.

Additionally, the centrifuges being dismantled are only ones previously unused by the regime and those that have been dismantled are only being stored, not destroyed, allowing the regime the flexibility to quickly put them back into service whenever it wants.

That quick restart ability is being preserved also at the Arak nuclear reactor where a regime member of Parliament said it could be reactivated within as little as six months unless all sanctions against the regime were lifted quickly.

“If the Americans break the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding lifting the sanctions, Iran will activate the Arak reactor within six months,” ISNA news agency quoted head of National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, as saying.

The threats have only increased as top mullah Ali Khamenei has voiced displeasure over the slow pace of lifting sanctions repeatedly warned the regime would restart its nuclear program unless all sanctions were lifted at once. This is of course at odds with what was actually agreed to last July under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but it fits with the regime’s pattern of rewriting international accords even before the ink dries to suit its needs.

This pattern of purposeful evasion by the regime also applies to its callous treatment of human rights of its own people, including religious minorities such as those who follow the Baha’i faith who recently have been subjected to mass arrests, Iranian women who have been threatened with arrest for driving cars without proper coverings, and even social media administrators getting rounded up.

But the world is beginning to take notice and coming on the heels of the Friday the 13th massacres in Paris, showing a greater willingness to confront extremist views prevalent in the Iran regime and terror networks such as ISIS, as evidenced by a vote by the United Nations General Assembly’s human rights committee which approved a resolution expressing deep concern about rights violations in Iran by a 76 to 35 vote.

The resolution is the 62nd resolution the UN has adopted censuring the regime for its ongoing human rights violations. This resolution stemmed from the recent report issued by Ahmad Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Iran.

It calls on the Iranian regime “to abolish, in law and in practice, public executions… and executions carried out in violation of its international obligations” and “to ensure, in law and in practice, that no one is subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

The victims of such treatment include political opponents, human rights defenders, women’s and minority rights activists, labor leaders, students’ rights activists and others, the resolution said.

The regime’s notorious Revolutionary Guards Corps has rounded up artists, journalists and U.S. citizens as part of a crackdown on what it has called Western infiltration.

The crackdown includes announcements this week of 170 people arrested in Qazvin Province in Iran, a number of others in Gilan Province, and five journalists in Tehran, all by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, amounts to the largest crackdown since the violent state suppression of the protests that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election in Iran.

The 170 arrested were called “managers of groups active in mobile social networks,” which the regime claimed for acting “against moral security” and distributing “indecent and immoral” content in the form of text and images that “encouraged people to commit obscene acts” and “insult ethnic minorities, officials and distinguished national figures,” according to the Fars news service.

Even with the increased criticism over human rights, the mullahs in Tehran may believe they have an ace up their sleeve with the Paris attacks which they believe may aid the regime in keeping Assad in power and shifting attention away from its involvement in the civil war.

The Guardian in an interview with a MacArthur fellow at King’s College London, said:“I think Iran might think that the Paris attacks give it an upper hand over Syria because naturally it gives a little bit more credibility to the rhetoric that combating Isis is more important than combating Assad.

“Iran will think that its position will be strengthened as the result of the attack but I am not sure it necessarily will. The only thing that the Paris attacks will really change is rhetoric in the west but I’m not sure if it changes much on the ground. France is going to say that the focus is going to be on attacking Isis. To be fair, that’s always been the focus but that hasn’t detracted away [from] trying to get rid of Assad,” she said.

Ultimately, the West must focus on tying the Iranian regime’s human rights record back into judging its progress towards dismantling its nuclear infrastructure as well as its support for terrorism abroad. Without that linkage, the regime is as well shielded against any meaningful reforms as ISIS is from attack if it was using human shields.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Ramps Up Efforts to Influence US Presidential Campaign

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Iran Lobby Ramps Up Efforts to Influence US Presidential Campaign

Iran Lobby Ramps Up Efforts to Influence US Presidential Campaign

The silly season is upon us and we don’t mean the College Football Playoff selection process. We mean the quadrennial presidential election season and with it, what promises to be a year filled with debates, poll results, gaffes, blizzard of television advertising and a healthy barrage of social media postings.

But the stakes for this election cycle are enormous and carry with it a sense of gravity we have not seen since during the height of the Cold War when Lyndon B. Johnson famously aired the “Daisy” ad against Barry Goldwater hinting that electing the Arizona conservative would start World War III.

Even though the ad only aired once, it has become one of the most controversial political ads ever aired used in American politics, but it did show what some political candidates are willing to entertain in terms of tackling controversial topics and issues.

Every campaign season has its own rhythms and rollercoaster swings in emotions and momentum. This season has been no different starting with a Republican field of candidates that has been dominated by two total outsiders in Donald Trump and Ben Carson, while the Democratic side was stuck in relative limbo while Vice President Joe Biden was deciding if he was in or out of the race and Hillary Clinton waded through her email controversy as Sen. Bernie Sanders rallied huge numbers of supporters.

But with the recent nuclear deal with the Iranian regime and the bloody Friday the 13th massacre in Paris, terrorism and what to do with Syria has moved front and center in the consciousness of American voters.

According to a new Reuters/lpsos poll done after the Paris attacks, showed that terrorism had moved to the front of all topics of concern to voters (20.5%), ahead of the economy (15.9%) and healthcare (8.8%) and unemployment (8.6%).

The five-day tracking showed concern over terror effectively doubled over the weekend of the Paris attacks and shows only signs of increasing as France battles additional terror cells in its suburbs while French warplanes bomb targets in Syria.

“What is almost certain is that the demands on the candidates will grow more exacting. As previous presidential campaigns jarred by outside events have demonstrated, how a candidate responds can be as important to a campaign as the event itself,” speculated Jonathan Martin in the New York Times.

What is certain has been the tepid response from the Iran lobby which has gone virtually mute and deaf over the Paris attacks. Iranian regime loyalists such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council, Jim Lobe of Lobelog, The Ploughshares Fund, just to name a few, have offered little in the way of sympathy over the victims, nor condemnation of the terrorists themselves.

If anything, their social media feeds and public statements have been largely focused on centering blame for the attacks and creation of ISIS on the doorstep of Saudi Arabia as the primary regional rival to the mullahs in Tehran.

It’s a curious stand to make since clearly sectarian violence is at the heart of most of what ails the Middle East both historically and moving forward. In fact, Iran’s all-in support for Assad in Syria help spawn ISIS in the first place as Al-Qaeda fighters pushed out of Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. surge flocked to Syria and splintered off to form their own groups, eventually coalescing into the ISIS we know today.

The fact that the Iranian regime has also served as a terror blueprint of sorts through its longtime sponsorship of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq has given ISIS a roadmap for exploiting the shock value of its attacks and dominate the news cycle; gives it the dubious honor of being a “godfather” to ISIS.

This in turn has placed a burden on the Iranian lobby to step up to the proverbial plate to try and influence the presidential elections since a new president – especially if it’s a Republican – will feel no obligation to stay the course President Obama has set with the nuclear deal with Iranian regime and the hands-off policy he has largely taken in Syria and Iraq.

To that end, NIAC Action, the official lobbying arm of NIAC, launched a petition drive directed at all presidential candidates to refrain from using rhetoric that would be deemed “hostile” at the Iranian regime.

The letter it is circulating reads in part:

“That is why we urge you and everyone running for the White House to retire the hostile rhetoric of the past. This hostile rhetoric often makes no distinction between the Iranian government and the Iranian people. It empowers hardliners, undermines those working to resolve challenges, and promotes conflict.

“Instead, we urge you to articulate how you will seize the opportunity created by the diplomatic breakthrough with Iran to build a more peaceful future.”

To say it is a shameful misdirection of the truth would be generous, because the mullahs in Iran have been very open and specific since the nuclear agreement was secured last July in venting their vitriol about the U.S., let alone keeping up the ritual “Death to America” chants at Friday prayers.

As we move deeper into the election cycle, we can be assured of increased action by the Iran lobby as it seeks to keep a lid on American voters’ concerns over terrorism and it combats any damaging news coming out of the Middle East such as more terror attacks or the Iranian regime’s complicity in some new human rights atrocity.

But from the early signs, it seems that Republican candidates have firmly chosen to not swallow the Kool-Aid on a “moderate” Iran and the Democrats will hedge their bets and set terms for Iran that only aid in ensuring a more stable and cooperative Middle East – both goals that the mullahs are opposed to.

By Laura Carnahan

Iran Regime Crackdowns Continues as Paris Weeps

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Iran Regime Crackdowns Continues as Paris Weeps

Iran Regime Crackdowns Continues as Paris Weeps

The contrasts in image and tone could not be more striking. On the streets of Paris, thousands gather to mourn those killed in ISIS terror attacks that shook Europe, while on the streets of Tehran, agents for the Revolutionary Guard are busy rounding up more journalists and dissidents in one of the fiercest crackdowns since the days of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s reign.

The latest victim of the Iran regime’s security crackdown was the arrest of a press cartoonist who was taken into custody while at work at The Shahrvand, a state daily newspaper in Tehran that is owned by Iran’s Red Crescent Society, or Red Cross according to New York Times.

The arrest had not been reported in the official news media as of Monday night. It came after the publication of a cartoon depicting tearful solidarity with the people of France over the attacks Friday that left at least 129 people dead. The cartoon was also posted on the Instagram.

The fact that a cartoonist is arrested by the regime for publishing a cartoon expressing sympathy for those slain by ISIS – the putative enemy of the Iranian regime – tells us all we need to know about what the mullahs in Tehran are thinking about the slaughter of French, German, American, British, Spanish and Swedish citizens.

The cartoonist’s arrest follows a nationwide crackdown in which several journalists and even two poets have been arrested as being subversive to the regime and serving as tools for Western influence as the regime seeks to stifle any voice of dissent in the wake of the nuclear deal it agreed to last July.

The “to-do” list for the mullahs have been busy lately as they have sought to win the civil war in Syria and secure the Assad regime, gone on a shopping spree for new weapon systems from the Russians, and send proxies to attack an Iranian dissident camp in Iraq in a brutal rocket barrage.

The mullahs have even instituted a new policy to impound the cars of any Iranian women caught driving a car without wearing a “proper” hijab or head covering. This follows past policies that forbade Iranian women from driving alone and allowed basij paramilitaries to beat women drivers and failed to prosecute others who threw acid at women while driving.

Senior mullahs have in recent weeks intensified their verbal attacks on “bad-hijab” women in Iran, with one likening them to “soliciting for sex.”

“The courageous decision by the commander of our police force to confront those women who defy and remove their hijab behind the wheel must be appreciated as it amounts to fighting prostitution on our streets,” said a mullah named Ahmed Alam Ulhoda in one of the more absurd comments ever published.

Another series of arrests targeted social media apps as the Revolutionary Guard also went after administrators on the popular Telegram messaging app for spreading “immoral content” according to the regime’s Fars news agency.

Telegram’s Chief Executive Pavel Durov said last month that Iranian regime authorities had demanded he hand over “spying and censorship tools”, and temporarily blocked the app when he refused.

The IRGC announced the Telegram users’ arrests last week, saying they had shared images and text “insulting to Iranian officials” as well as “satire and sexual advice”. At the time, the judiciary denied any such arrests had even occurred.

This comes after efforts by the regime to block access to popular social media platforms such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Tango and Viber.

The crackdowns, especially the widespread nature and swiftness in their enforcement, underscore just how farcical the myth was that Hassan Rouhani’s elevation to president would represent some new “moderate” breakthrough for the regime. Indeed the violations of human rights in Iran has got worse during his tenure.

The alarming rise in human rights abuses moved Human Rights Watch to issue a joint letter signed by 36 human rights groups and other organizations urging support for United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/C.3/70/L.45 which seeks to promote human rights in Iran by calling on the regime to meet its domestic and international obligations to protect human rights.

The vote is scheduled on November 19, 2015 during the 70th session of the General Assembly.

“The Iranian authorities shouldn’t think they are getting a pass on human rights just because the nuclear accord has been signed,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch Middle East director. “Passing this resolution will send the message that the world has not forgotten about the country’s ongoing human rights abuses.”

More importantly, supporters of the regime have uttered not a word of criticism over the recent crackdowns. Groups such as the National Iranian American Council and The Ploughshares Fund and bloggers and commentators such as Jim Lobe and Ali Gharib have shifted their focus not on the tragedy suffered by the people of France, but rather in attempting to link the attacks and ISIS to Saudi Arabia in an effort to attack the Iran regime’s long-time rival.

Trita Parsi, head of the NIAC, has been busy on his social media feeds denouncing Saudi Arabia during the Paris attacks as much as he was busy denouncing Israel during the nuclear talks. In both cases, the real goal of his comments is to shift attention away from the bad acts of the Iranian regime.

Ultimately, the world is beginning to see past the facades put up by Iran lobby supporters and are recognizing that the true center of sectarian hate sits squarely in Tehran.

By Michael Tomlinson

What the Paris Attacks Tell Us About Terror Template

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What the Paris Attacks Tell Us About Terror Template

What the Paris Attacks Tell Us About Terror Template

The tragedy of the Paris terrorist attacks this weekend are so startling in their scope, so appalling in the loss of life and so despicable in the choice of victims, that the world has once again been moved to commemorate with demands for stern action and condemnation of the breed of Islamic extremism flowing out of the war torn streets of Syria and now making its way to the wide boulevards of Paris.

With 132 dead as of the latest reporting with scores more in critical condition, the full scope of the killed may not be known for a little while longer, but what is known is that the attack was sophisticated in planning, meticulous in its execution and devastating in its results. It was also spawned and given life from early reports by the ISIS terror network that now dominates vast swaths of Syrian and Iraqi territory, while its influence and recruitment stretches from the Americas to Africa and Asia.

What is unmistakable is the “template of terror” that has come to be the calling card of terror groups such as Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and ISIS, amongst scores of others. The names might be different, ethnicities varied, even religions at odds with each other, but all share the same fundamental belief in using violence, terror and fear to state their case, sow terror and achieve their aims.

Attacking and striking at these terror groups has de-evolved into a game of “Whack-a-Mole” as militaries strike at individual terrorist leaders like “Jihadi John,” the Briton who was identified as being one of the ringleaders of ISIS who came to the world’s attention decapitating Western hostages.

More astute analysts have pointed out that to curb the threat of global terror, you have to strike at the safe havens offered by sympathetic governments such as the invasion of Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks to dislodge the Taliban’s support of Al-Qaeda. Others have pointed out the need to support unstable democracies as they struggle with the aftermath and chaos wrought by the changes from the Arab spring protests that toppled governments in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere so that they do not become safe havens for terrorists.

But the single largest supporter of terror in the world today, both financially and spiritually, has been and remains the Iranian regime.

The mullahs in Tehran have been the chief sponsors of Hezbollah and have used Hezbollah fighters in proxy wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere. They have also supported Shiite militias in Iraq with arms, including explosive devices manufactured in Iran, used to kill hundreds of U.S. service personnel in Iraq.

The Iran regime has also provided a spiritual template for ISIS and others through the brutal warped application of sharia law to mete out punishment in often ghastly ways. Before ISIS ever decapitated a captive on video, Iranian regime was hanging prisoners in public squares in front of young relatives. Before ISIS ever machine gunned children, Iranian regime was arresting and executing them. Before ISIS ever imposed harsh religious law in the villages and towns it conquered, Iranian regime was flogging women, cutting off the hands of thieves with power saws and beating demonstrators in the street. The medieval measures that are still being practiced under Rouhani.

The visceral brutality of Iranian regime’s justice has long been used as the standard for invoking a twisted form of Islam to justify violence in the name of territorial gain. The mistake most countries make in dealing with Islamic extremism is in thinking it is a religious war.

It is not.

The violence that stems from the Iran regime and flows out to groups like ISIS and Hezbollah is used as a political tool to achieve practical goals such as toppling governments in Yemen, creating safe havens for forces to operate such as in Iraq and Lebanon and building integrated networks to carry out missions around the world such as Iranian-linked terror attacks in Latin America and the U.S.

What is most telling is the response to the Paris attacks by Iran and its lobbyist allies. In the first few hours of the attacks, while the world expressed, shock, outrage and revulsion, social media linked to Iran’s lobbyists did not offer condolences or sympathy, but rather opened up a full bore attack on Iran’s chief regional rival – Saudi Arabia – in an ongoing effort to destabilize that country.

Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, offered up this insightful post on his Twitter feed as the streets of Paris ran thick with blood:

“If it turns out this horrible terror was done by ISIS or AlQaeda, will France rethink its cosy ties with Saudi and those funding Salafists?”

This is the first thing that comes to the mind of Parsi? His next seven posts sought to blame the attacks on Saudi Arabia before he got to his first tweet about Iranians expressing sympathy outside of the French embassy in Tehran.

He even managed to work in a dig at the U.S., tweeting:

“2014, U.S. intel found out that certain equipment sold to Saudi had ended up in ISIS hands. Not sure if they followed up… #ParisAttacks”

Since then, Parsi has continued the drumbeat of linking ISIS to Saudi Arabia, along with other Iran supporters who are marching to the same tune of deflecting blame away from Iranian mullahs.

The only certain thing is that the mullahs in Tehran set the tune and example for the terror industry and by their actions have long validated violence against civilians as a means to an end. It is a pathway that folks like Parsi have never apparently found objectionable judging by their social media accounts and public statements.

Parsi and his colleagues have never made human rights a centerpiece of their lobbying efforts as they have always sought to de-link the issue from any relevancy such as the nuclear talks. The hypocrisy of groups such as NIAC is easily apparent when you peruse their press releases and commentary. The lack of sympathy for the victims of Paris and the all-too-quick efforts to link them to traditional enemies of Iranian regime reveal the true purposes they have.

That true nature of the Iran regime was on front page display in regime newspapers where on its front page, Javan featured an illustration of a masked jihadist with a gun and a machete standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower, waving a mixed flag of the United States and ISIS.

“Return to home,” its headline said, quoting reports that some 200 French extremists had returned to the country after fighting with ISIS abroad.

In Kayhan – Iranian regime’s oldest and most-vocal paper — editor Hossein Shariatmadari, known as the mouth piece for regime’s supreme leader, repeated a conspiracy theory often cited in Iranian media that ISIS is a creation of the West and Israel under an operation dubbed “Hornet’s Nest”.

“Now the designers of the Hornet’s Nest must await the return of the wasps to the real nest — wasps that carry automatic rifles and grenades,” Shariatmadari wrote.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to long-time observers of the regime or to Iranian dissidents who have long warned that ignoring Iranian mullah’s conduct in supporting terrorist groups has only allowed them to flourish.

Unfortunately, unless the world acts to focus on the source of the terrorism occurring in Iran, we will inevitably be faced with more Paris attacks elsewhere.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Breaks Nuclear Agreement Already

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Iran Regime Breaks Nuclear Agreement Already

Iran Regime Breaks Nuclear Agreement Already

The 159 pages in the nuclear agreement with the Iran regime is by the standards of most international agreements, pretty flimsy, but even its meager few pages specify clearly the expectations the rest of the world has for the regime’s centrifuges used to enrich uranium: dismantling them.

Reuters reported that the regime has halted work in dismantling centrifuges at the Natanz and Fordow nuclear enrichment plants. The nuclear agreement struck last July specified that initial dismantling work would begin on some 10,000 decommissioned centrifuges at the two facilities.

The halt in work was announced by Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the National Security Council for the regime, who was quoted as saying by the ISNA student news agency that “the (dismantling) process stopped with a warning.”

He did not specify what the warning was or who issued it, but the head of the regime parliament’s nuclear deal commission, Alireza Zakani, told Mehr news agency that the dismantling had stopped in Fordow because of a letter to Hassan Rouhani from a group of lawmakers complaining that the dismantling process was moving too swiftly and contradicted directives from top mullah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei has publicly stated his opposition to several terms within the treaty, including refusal to allow regime military facilities to be inspected and the need for all Western sanctions to be lifted at once before the regime would comply fully with the agreement.

Khamenei has also said the deal should only be implemented once allegations of past military dimensions of the regime’s nuclear program had been settled.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to announce its conclusions on PMD by Dec. 15, according to Reuters.

The 10,000 older, decommissioned centrifuges are only half of what the regime has available to it to enrich low-grade uranium into highly enriched weapons-grade fuel. The nuclear agreement only allows for the regime to actively use a few thousand centrifuges for medical and scientific research purposes.

As Rick Moran in American Thinker notes, “there’s very little difference between the so-called ‘hardliners’ and those the Western press has designated as ‘moderates.’ And Rouhani may try to use the hardliners as an excuse to not fully implement the deal.  Supreme Leader Khamenei has already redefined key elements of the deal to favor Iran’s nuclear program, which Rouhani will probably cite when he violates the terms of the agreement as we go along.”

It is clear now that the regime has no intention of complying with the nuclear agreement and in fact is doing everything it can to push the West with aggressive moves designed to take advantage of the Obama administration’s lame duck political status and lack of desire to force a confrontation on the eve of U.S. presidential elections.

This is why the mullahs in Tehran have doubled down on wiping out opposition to Assad in Syria with a new offensive alongside Russia, test fired a new ballistic missile that violates United Nations Security Council restrictions, attacked and killed Iranian resistance members in Iraq, smuggled new arms to Houthi rebels in Yemen, completed the sale of advanced anti-aircraft missiles from Russia, and cracked down at home by arresting and jailing dissidents and inflaming ethnic tensions with the Azeri minority group in northern Iran.

All of this has been done because the mullahs have already decided to break from the nuclear agreement and see the opportunity for significant gains in the absence of any real threat of retaliation from the U.S. and the rest of the world.

As the Iran lobby, led by the National Iranian American Council, put so eloquently during the debate over the nuclear agreement, the choice for Americans was between “war” and “peace.”

In fact, they were correct, but only in reverse. Approving the pact has surely put the world on a more dangerous path towards greater conflict, while rejecting it may very well have stopped Iranian aggression and brought about stability in the region.

By Michael Tomlinson

Myth of Hardliners vs. Moderates in the Iran Regime

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Myth of Hardliners vs. Moderates in the Iran Regime

Myth of Hardliners vs. Moderates in the Iran Regime

One of the cornerstones of the arguments made by the Iran lobby in favor of the nuclear agreement with the Iran regime was that its passage would empower “moderate” coalitions within Iran to push against “hardliners” in opening up the regime to the outside world.

It was a nice fairy tale, but like most children’s stories, it’s not based in facts or the real world. Regime advocates such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council and Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund yelled from the rooftops that the nuclear deal would serve as the bridge towards a more open and inclusive relationship between the regime and the rest of the world.

But the reality has been very different and well documented as the mullahs in Tehran doubled down on a policy of aggressive militarism in Syria and Yemen, while also launching a new brutal crackdown at home with scores of new arrests and executions that have been widely condemned by human rights and dissident groups.

But for Iran, the mythology of the “moderate” factions within a fractured government is just too good to let go, so the regime continues to push the story of a “battle” within the regime as personified by Hassan Rouhani leading the charge for moderation and inclusiveness vs. Ali Khamenei and the hardline elements in the military and judiciary.

Many Western news media are lulled into the same storyline by giving it plenty of play such events over the weekend in which Rouhani gave a broadcast speech in which he criticized “hardline media” hinting that some outlets are connected to security forces responsible for a wave of recent arrests in the country aimed at crippling Western influence, according to the New York Times.

The Times dutifully reported that Rouhani had spoken out against the wave of arrests and leveled a veiled criticism at the regime’s 12-member Guardian Council at the potential exclusion of candidates in the upcoming elections.

First of all, the mere fact that Rouhani could be criticizing the Guardian Council for restricting candidates is particularly ironic since it was the Council that cleared the pathway for Rouhani to become president by eliminating hundreds of potential candidates.

Also, the reporting of this so-called rift reveals the knowledge and cultural gap Western news media have about the workings of the regime government. The authority vested in Khamenei is near absolute, as is his control over the military, judiciary and economy. Rouhani’s portfolio by comparison is Spartan at best and serves largely to fulfill the policies and goals of the religious cadre of mullahs that run Iran.

Khamenei, and by extension the mullahs, were interested in a nuclear deal solely to relieve the regime of crippling economic sanctions that were threatening their grip on power by inciting an increasingly restive Iranian people to protests against the impoverished lives they were living.

The object for Khamenei was to secure release of billions of dollars in frozen assets and be given a free pass by the West to pursue his goals without fear of retaliation of threatened new sanctions. To that end, Khamenei achieved his goals which is why he has embarked on his latest plans to secure his domestic base by cracking down on dissidents and the media; even going so far as to arrest another American, Siamak Namazi who is closely tied to Rouhani, and launch a deadly attack on Camp Liberty in Iraq which houses members of the Iranian resistance.

Given the regime’s past history of dealing with internal dissent, including the ouster of officials who speak out against Khamenei or imprisonment of dissenters, one wonders why Rouhani would risk censure or even expulsion by Khamenei for his perceived bold statements supporting a free press and opposing Khamenei.

Simply put: Because it’s just a show. Rouhani always has been and remains a loyal foot solider for the regime and was hand selected by Khamenei for his post. His value to Khamenei comes from being perceived by the West as a “moderate” face. This allows Khamenei the luxury of running the oldest scam anyone watching a police procedural like “Law and Order” would recognize.

Rouhani is the good cop to Khamenei’s bad cop.

Together they have manipulated the West into believing the idea of a schism within Iran to the extent the West needs to do more to help empower Rouhani against the “hardliners.” In essence, the nuclear negotiations are not over for Iran; they never stopped. For Khamenei and Rouhani, the nuclear agreement is still being negotiated and the West needs to deliver in order to gain the regime’s continued “compliance.”

This was evident in the inspection of the Parchin military site by the International Atomic Energy Agency after it had been scrubbed and sanitized. It was also shown by the invitation from the U.S. to include Iran in international talks on Syria even after Iran mullahs mounted a large-scale offensive there alongside Russia.

Sadly Western governments seem to be playing the game the mullah Rouhani and Khamenei want them to, pretending that there are “moderates” within a regime that has plus 2000 executions on his record just during the recent two years.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

The Clenched Fist of the Iran Regime

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The Clenched Fist of the Iran Regime

The Clenched Fist of the Iran Regime

The Wall Street Journal editorialized yesterday about the downfall of the hopes of backers of the Iran nuclear deal in a new, more moderate Iran opening up to the West in the wake of the landmark agreement. It even included a non-too slightly snarky aside about the anticipation the New York Times had about the potential of leading guided tours of the wonders of Iran.

Instead, the Journal rightly outlines the abrupt downward spiral the mullahs in Tehran have charted instead; most especially the spat of arrests the regime has undertaken targeting journalists, dissidents and most disturbing of all: American citizens.

“In recent days Tehran has arrested two U.S. citizens, bringing to five the number of Americans known to be under Iranian lock and key. They include Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who has spent nearly 500 days in prison. Former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati has been imprisoned since 2011 on espionage charges, and Saaed Abedini, a Muslim-born convert to Christianity, was arrested in 2012 on charges of leading an underground house-church movement,” the Journal said.

Interestingly though was the Journal’s insight into the arrest of Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-born American businessman who has been an outspoken advocate of closer U.S.-Iranian ties, even collaborating with Trita Parsi in help support the National Iranian American Council, one of the regime’s chief lobbying vehicles.

Namazi had even worked in the Iranian Housing Ministry under the presidency of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, now perceived to be a moderate, but widely considered a theological hardliner back in the day; all of which goes to prove that the Iran regime is undergoing the same ideological purges that marked the worst of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s.

“Some speculate that the arrests are part of Mr. Khamenei’s effort to underscore his regime’s ideological purity and beat back domestic calls for reform. But the Islamic Republic has been in the business of taking hostages since its beginning, no matter whether the president is a reputed moderate like current leader Hasan Rouhani, or a firebrand like predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” said the Journal.

“When it comes to the Islamic Republic, international goodwill is invariably met with contempt and cruelty. In the wake of the nuclear deal, this is a lesson the West will have to learn all over again,” it added.

The Journal’s lesson is plain to see now as the evidence is now overwhelming that for the mullahs, the nuclear deal isn’t worth the paper it was printed on, but the mullahs recognize correctly that the Obama administration is willing to overlook virtually any violations or aggressions by Iran in order to protect the appearance of preserving a historic foreign policy win.

The mullahs have also correctly calculated that the time remaining before U.S. presidential elections in 2016 literally amounts to a fire sale and they are racing to sweep anything and everything they can before the sale ends.

This includes a number of moves that have come to light further illustrating just how far Ali Khamenei and his fellow mullahs are willing to go to secure their goals.

The Guardian printed a story in which it tracked the recruitment, training and flow of Afghan refugees living in Iran and Syria by the regime and sent to die on Syrian battlefields.

“Iran is recruiting Afghan refugees to fight in Syria, promising a monthly salary and residence permits in exchange for what it claims to be a sacred endeavor to save Shia shrines in Damascus,” Dehghan writes. “The Fatemioun military division of Afghan refugees living in Iran and Syria is now the second largest foreign military contingent fighting in support of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, after the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.”

Horrifically enough, the Guardian revealed that the Iran regime was accepting Afghans below the age of 18. At least one 16-year-old Iran-based Afghan refugee was killed in Syria earlier this year. The allowance for child fighters is a tactic that both the Iran regime, ISIS and Al-Qaeda all share.

Most Iran-based Afghans, who are also Shia, are not going to Syria to risk their lives on religious grounds but because of the financial and stability benefits that their involvement will bring to them and their families. Nearly 1 million Afghans are registered as refugees in Iran but the country is believed to host at least 2 million more that are living there illegally.

In another sign of the growing provocations by the regime, Bahrain convicted five Bahrainis of conspiring with Iran to carry out attacks within the country. Bahrain charged that Tehran was trying to foment unrest in their country by providing training to two of the Bahrainis involved and communicating with the others through the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

This follows an incident last month in which Bahrain security forces uncovered a large bomb-making factory and arrested a number of suspects linked to the Revolutionary Guards.

All of which shows that not only there are no signs of moderation in Iran, but its moving more and more in the opposite direction.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Trade Off of Human Rights with Iran Regime

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Michael Tomlinson

What the Taking of Another American by Iran Regime Tells Us

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What the Taking of Another American by Iran Regime Tells Us

What the Taking of Another American by Iran Regime Tells Us

The sudden and surprising arrest by Iran regime officials of Siamak Namazi raised the eyebrows of many veteran Iran watchers; not the least because Namazi has been an integral part of efforts to build a lobbying force in the U.S. used to support the regime’s political goals, namely passage of a just-completed nuclear agreement.

In fact, the ties between Namazi and Trita Parsi, the founder of the National Iranian American Council and leading lobbyist for the regime, have been well documented, all of which raised the question of why would regime leaders order the arrest of one of their own?

The very question indicates how wrong most analysts are about Iranian mullahs in the first place. Many people, including apparently Namazi, long assumed that if you towed the party line of the mullahs, you were always going to be in their good graces and in Namazi’s case, he hoped to reap the financial rewards that came from that association in the form of guiding foreign investment into Iran following the nuclear deal.

But what he failed to understand and what many others have failed to grasp even as they tried appeasing these same mullahs is that they are never going to allow anyone into their tight circle of control who does not follow their proscribed fundamentalist and extremist religious beliefs.

For the mullahs in Tehran, the coin of the realm is not just money; the constitution vests absolute authority with Ali Khamenei and his cadre of mullahs who oversee the judiciary, military and foreign affairs and vast tracts of the economy, while have an unrelaxing temptation for expansion of their authorities in to neighboring countries.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps wields disproportionate influence through its monopolistic control of entire industries such as telecommunications, petroleum, finance and agriculture. Iran’s theocracy controls planning of the economy and dispenses its meager rewards to the Iranian people, while reserving the bulk of the financial gains for its elites, their families and the military campaigns it funds overseas in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

For Namazi and Parsi and their fellow Iran lobbyists, the suddenness of the arrest was jarring, but it should have not comes as a complete surprise since the mullahs have long practiced the art of score-settling amongst their factions with sham trials, imprisonments and even executions.

But unlike what Parsi and his ilk would have the rest of the world believe, the fight in Iran’s leadership is not between “moderates” and “hardliners,” but in fact is between factions of corrupt mullahs bickering over the booty they rob from the Iranian people. The fact that every effort to promote a “moderate” faction within Iran has met with utter failure is indicative not of the lack of passion within the Iranian people for regime change, but rather the ruthless willingness of the mullahs to use deadly force against their own people to keep tight their grip on power.

Also since signing of the nuclear agreement, Khamenei has made it his mission to remind the world the he does not view adherence to the terms of the agreement to be beneficial to the regime, nor indispensable. In fact, in his mind, anything that compromises the extremist Islamic fanaticism is the antithesis of what the mullahs want. For Khamenei, getting a $150 billion check from unfrozen assets with no strings attached is the best possible alternative.

Khamenei is eager for the money in order to continue funding his vision of an expanding Islamic sphere of influence stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, but he does not want to jeopardize it with young Iranians clamoring for access to Snapchat on their iPhones while wearing clothes from Old Navy, which is why the arrest of Namazi, a putative supporter of the regime, tells us clearly that the regime intends to be the one calling the shots and not the other way around.

By Michael Tomlinson

What Camp Liberty Tells Us About the Iran Regime

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What Camp Liberty Tells Us About the Iran Regime

What Camp Liberty Tells Us About the Iran Regime

Camp Liberty, located near Baghdad International Airport, was originally built by the U.S. military as a base for coalition forces during the Iraq war. Since 2012, it has served as home to over 2,200 Iranian refugees; most are members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK) a longtime resistance group to the current Iran regime.

It has also been subject to an almost endless barrage of attacks from forces aligned with the Iran regime; with the most recent attack coming last night in the form of some 80 rockets falling on the compound and killing at least 23 people with dozens more injured according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an umbrella group of dissident and resistance groups.

This is the fifth attack on the camp since 2003 with international inquiries pointing to Iraqi paramilitary forces, Shiite militia and other terror groups backed by Iran as being responsible. Attacks included four separate mortar and rocket attacks in 2013 alone.

According to NCRI-US office deputy director Alireza Jafarzadeh, some of the missiles used in this week’s attack are Falaq missiles manufactured by the Iran regime.

“The Iraqi Government and the United Nations, which signed a memorandum of understanding in December 2011, guaranteeing the protection of the residents of Camp Liberty, must be held to account,” said opposition spokesman Shahin Gobadi.

The refugees were relocated to Camp Liberty from Camp Ashraf two years ago after suffering similar attacks and under an agreement with the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq to resettle them through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The Iraqi government and UN ostensibly were responsible for the safety and security of the residents, but despite calls by the UNHCR, the Iraqi government has failed to provide adequate security.

The UNHCR issued a statement condemning the attacks saying “This is a most deplorable act, and I am greatly concerned at the harm that has been inflicted on those living at Camp Liberty,” said High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. “Every effort must continue to be made for the injured and to identify and bring to account those responsible.”

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the head of the NCRI, also condemned the attack saying “The government of Iraq and the United Nations who signed a Memorandum of Understanding and built a Temporary Transit Location (TTL) since 2011, are formally and legally accountable for this attack. In our view, however, as was the case in the six previous bloodbaths in Ashraf and Liberty, the Iranian regime’s agents in the government of Iraq are responsible for this attack and the United States and the United Nations are well aware of this fact.”

The timing of the attack is interesting because it follows a string of provocative and aggressive actions by the Iran regime after agreeing to a nuclear agreement that proponents and members of the Iran lobby had touted as ushering in a new era of moderation and openness with the mullahs in Tehran.

In a few short months, Iran has:

  • Convicted Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and continue to hold three other Americans as potential hostage bargaining chips to exchange for 19 Iranian agents convicted of arms trading and smuggling nuclear components;
  • Spurred a military alliance with Russia to come to the rescue of Assad in Syria and launch a new offensive aimed at rebels with Iranian troops, Hezbollah terrorists, Shiite militias and Afghan mercenaries;
  • Launched a new ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear payloads in direct violation of UN Security Council sanctions against their development;
  • Stonewalled inspections and questioning by International Atomic Energy Agency officials on the military dimensions of its nuclear program and scrubbed its Parchin site prior to inspection;
  • Stepped up executions and is on pace to kill over 1,000 people this year alone as revealed in a critical report by the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran and Amnesty International.

And ironically enough, agents of the regime’s Revolutionary Guards Corps even arrested and tossed into Evin Prison one of the key builders of its lobbying network in the U.S. in a bid to reassert the domination of regime policies by Ali Khamenei, its top mullah.

The attack on Camp Liberty is nothing more than a continuation of the same aggressive policies of the mullahs who have increased efforts to stifle any form of dissent and opposition by attacking members of the resistance outside of Iran and cracking down at home against those who foolishly believed in the propaganda of a more moderate Iran post-nuclear deal.

The fact that Iran has been invited to multilateral international talks on Syria is more evidence that the regime is pressing its agenda on all fronts as broadly as possible including its top priority of keeping the Assad regime firmly in power in order to maintain the corridor of for the extremist groups it has built from Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen.

The attack on Camp Liberty is just another reminder that the West should act to restrain the Iran regime and not appease it.

By Laura Carnahan