Iran Lobby

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

Iran Lobby Struggles with Tide of Bad Regime News

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Sen Ben Cardin

Passage of the nuclear agreement between the Iran regime and the P5+1 group of nations was aided by a coalition of liberal Zionist groups, progressive organizations and the regime lobbying network, but in the aftermath the fault lines have cracked that coalition and broken it apart as the world struggles with the still unanswered fundamental problem with the Iran regime: How do you restrain its support for terror, proxy wars and sectarian conflict?

Philip Weiss, writing in Mondoweiss, takes note of efforts by Senate Democrats, most of whom supported the nuclear deal, to offer up legislation that the regime lobby has said contains potential “poison pills” liable to derail the agreement.

It’s understandable as many voters are appalled at the downward spiral of events in the Middle East, especially Iran’s newly formed alliance with Syria, Iraq and Russia.

Republicans have pounced on recently announced deals by the Iran regime to acquire $20 billion in new jet aircraft and satellite technology from the Russians as evidence the mullahs are more interested in upgrading their aerospace and defense capabilities than in jump starting a moribund economy driven to near bankruptcy by a corrupt government and siphoning of billions to fund three proxy wars.

This new “Axis of Terror” has greatly unsettled a world that naïvely thought the nuclear deal would usher in a period of greater stability and moderation. Instead, the world has seen Russia – almost overnight – launch an air campaign in Syria, coupled with a large build-up of Iranian and Hezbollah forces along the Syrian border, bolstered by a fresh influx of Afghan mercenaries paid for by the Iran regime’s Quds Force.

The list of acts by the Iran regime according to the Wall Street Journal since the nuclear deal was approved has forced the Iran lobby to work overtime to cover for it:

  • Despite a string of high-level talks with Western leaders, including two bilaterals between Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Iran has displayed little interest in cooperation with the West;
  • Iranian officials publicly backed a Russian military campaign in Syria that is aimed at propping up President Bashar al-Assad, a leader Washington wants out;
  • Saudi Arabia said it seized a large shipment of Iranian arms headed toward Houthi rebels in Yemen who overthrew an allied government this year. Yemen President Abed Rabbo Mansour used his speech to the U.N.’s General Assembly last Tuesday to accuse Iran of seeking his country’s destruction;
  • Meanwhile, Iranian officials publicly demanded that the White House release Iranian prisoners held in U.S. jails in exchange for Americans detained by Tehran—a considerable hardening of the Iranian position; and
  • Western diplomats said regime officials consistently claim Tehran is open to ideas and discussion on Syria. But they add that Iran’s bottom line, like Russia’s, is that Assad is a guarantor of stability in Syria and they will accept no threats to his rule.

In a sign of how bad things have gotten for the region, “dozens of conservative Saudi Arabian clerics have called for Arab and Muslim countries to ‘give all moral, material, political and military’ support to what they term a jihad, or holy war, against Syria’s government and its Iranian and Russian backers,” according to Vice.com

But in spite of the sharp escalation in tensions with the Iran regime, the mullahs still seem intent on keeping their economy on a war footing. Agence France-Press disclosed warnings from Iran regime ministers overseeing the economy, industry, labor and defense who warned of an economic collapse.

Mohammad Gholi Yousefi, an economics professor at Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, said the letter had exposed tensions over the allocation of cash from Iran’s own banks.

“Almost half the banks’ resources is practically blocked by the government, special customers and banks themselves,” he told AFP, meaning it is not reaching businesses crucial to the economy and that much of the regime’s anticipated cash hoard is not accessible by middle class and poor Iranians who have seen their purchasing power plummet since 2012 and the local rial currency losing two-thirds of its value.

The recent aggressive moves by the Iran regime to acquire new military hardware and boost military forces involved in Syria has been fueled in part by the softening of sanctions even during nuclear talks as claimed by many critics of the nuclear deal.

According to  Reuters, “the U.S. government has pursued far fewer violations of a long-standing arms embargo against Iran in the past year compared to recent years, according to a review of court records and interviews with two senior officials involved in sanctions enforcement.”

“The sharp fall in new prosecutions did not reflect fewer attempts by Iran to break the embargo, the officials said. Rather, uncertainty among prosecutors and agents on how the terms of the deal would affect cases made them reluctant to commit already scarce resources with the same vigor as in previous years, the officials said.”

All of these accommodations and acts of appeasing the mullahs in Tehran in the hopes of creating a more moderate Iran regime have come home to roost and borne no fruit other than more war and chaos.

Iran Regime Actions Bolster Efforts to Halt Extremism

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Iran Regime Actions Bolster Efforts to Halt Extremism

Iran Regime Actions Bolster Efforts to Halt Extremism

Reuters reported that hundreds of fresh Iran regime troops have flooded back into Syria over the past 10 days and will soon join their Hezbollah allies in a major ground offensive backed by Russian air strikes aimed at retaking territory lost by the Assad regime to rebels; contrary to Iranian and Russian claims they would be focusing their attacks against ISIS.

It seems clear the mullahs in Tehran are focused on securing the Assad regime by eliminating Western-backed moderate rebel units, rather than tackling their Islamic State rivals. The new offensive clearly points out the false propaganda the regime has been pumping out through its lobbyist allies such as the National Iranian American Council.

Peace is certainly the end goal for the Iran regime, but a peace that eradicates any opposition to Assad and leaves Iranian mullahs in control of a swath of territory stretching from the Mediterranean through Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen and the Indian Ocean. Their territorial ambitions have come fully to light and the bill for accommodating the regime with the nuclear deal is finally coming due.

“The vanguard of Iranian ground forces began arriving in Syria: soldiers and officers specifically to participate in this battle. They are not advisors … we mean hundreds with equipment and weapons. They will be followed by more,” said a Lebanese military source, adding that Iraqis would also take part in the operation.

Interestingly, Hassan Rouhani, the handpicked puppet leader of the Iran regime, tipped the regime’s hand in his speech before the United Nations last week in which he firmly insisted that U.S. policy should be focused on common actions to defeat ISIS before any discussion takes place on the future of Assad. Rouhani laid out the narrative in which the regime justifies the placement of boots on the ground in Syria openly and blatantly instead of relying on proxies such as Hezbollah in what is sure to be a virtual takeover of Syria by the Iranian military.

As Gareth Porter, an appeaser of the mullahs points out in Middle East Eye, “Iran’s national security strategy has had two primary objectives ever since Khamenei became Iran’s leader: to integrate the Iranian economy into the global system of finance and technology and to deter the threats from the United States and Israel. And Rouhani had primary responsibility for achieving both tasks.”

We are now witnessing what the Iran regime’s future plans are now that they have secured these twin goals and it is causing renewed efforts in Congress to stymie the regime in spite of the nuclear deal.

The House voted Thursday by the hefty margin of 251 to 173 to stop the Obama administration from lifting sanctions against the Iran regime “until Tehran pays the $43.5 billion it still owes in damages to the families of terror victims in cases where responsibility can be linked back to Iran — such as the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut and Hezbollah’s 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847,” said the Washington Post.

“Should Iran receive United States sanctions relief before it pays the victims of its terrorism all of what U.S. courts say those victims are owed?” said Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.), who introduced the measure. “I say no. Not one cent.”

If the survivors or victims’ relatives are not paid now, “it definitely won’t happen later,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.) said. He argued that Iran would spend the money freed up from sanctions relief on building up its military force and other nefarious activities, rather than paying the balance of restitution payments ordered by U.S. courts.

Those same voters may also be alarmed at news coming out of Tehran in which Saeed Abedini, the Iranian-American pastor serving an eight-year prison sentence on charges of undermining national security may face more trumped up charges by the regime, including links to antigovernment groups, said Naghbeh Abedini, his wife. Abedini is one of four Americans being held hostage in Iranian prisons including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and former Marine Amir Hekmati.

The move by the regime to place new charges on Abedini flies in the face of the PR move made by Rouhani at the UN in which he floated the idea of a prisoner swap for 19 Iranian agents convicted on arms trading and smuggling of nuclear components.

All of which leads us full circle back to the question of how to check the ambitions of the mullahs in Iran and in what form? One answer was provided by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of Iranian opposition groups, who wrote an editorial in the New York Daily News.

“My message to the United States and the West is that the long-term solution to the Iranian threat lies neither in foreign military intervention nor in collaboration with a regime that is so oppressive at home and so destabilizing abroad,” she said.

“With the nuclear deal, however misguided it may be, in place, the right policy going forward is to encourage and support the Iranian people’s desire for democratic change and to speak out for human rights,” she added.

Sound advice the West would be wise to follow.

By Michael Tomlinson

As Syria Chaos Spreads, Iran Lobby Works Overtime

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As Syria Chaos Spreads, Iran Lobby Works Overtime

As Syria Chaos Spreads, Iran Lobby Works Overtime

Events moved fast in Syria as Russian warplanes mounted air strikes at what they claimed were ISIS strongholds, but U.S. defense officials countered were instead Western-backed rebels opposed to the Assad regime. Coming on announcements by Russian officials of the creation of an intelligence-sharing unit with Iran regime and Iraq officials, the Russian action does not bode well for hopes to topple Assad.

The political calculation made by the Iran regime and its new Russian friends is that the U.S. lacks the political willpower and means to move forward on efforts to dislodge Assad, who has proven to be the mullahs in Tehran’s most stalwart ally and proxy.

Mohammed Alaa Ghanem of the Syrian American Council made the same analysis in Huffington Post as he looked at an editorial by Philip Gordon, the former Middle East chief in the Obama administration, in Politico.

Gordon argues that the goal of “displacing the Assad regime has proven unachievable,” and argues for a new U.S.-led contact group, different from the original one created in 2012, and instead include Russia and Iran in a new one.

Ghanem recites the failures in stemming Iranian backing of Assad at key points such as “when over 3,000 Iranian proxies first flooded into Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry provided no support to stop the assault and even strong-armed the Syrian rebels into attending peace talks. When Assad regime barrel bombs began raining down on Syrian cities, The U.S. again dragged the rebels into talks while blocking weapons transfers to stop the onslaught. U.N. Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who convened those later talks, has since blamed the regime for their failure.”

The Iran regime’s support of Assad and the unwillingness of the U.S. to halt that support – instead prioritizing approval of a nuclear agreement with Tehran – has led to an unimaginable refugees crisis of four million Syrians and civilian deaths numbering in the hundreds of thousands with another 600,000 Syrians opposed to Assad under virtual siege by Syria’s military and Iran regime mercenaries and Quds Forces.

But even with the rollout of the nuclear deal, there remain defiant voices in Congress still working to place restrictions on the Iran regime and connect the dots to the mullahs’ reign of human rights abuses. The fact that incidents of atrocities are sharply on the rise with increased news coverage, which has forced the Iran lobby to step up efforts to portray the regime as being a force for change.

Trita Parsi and Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council, a leading Iran regime lobbying group, have been busy trying to convince news media that the rapid escalation in Syria is not the result of a new Russia-Iran-Iraq axis of terror, but rather the work of neocons bent on sending U.S. troops in.

Putting aside the fact that the only boots on the ground are now Russian and Iranian, the solution to Syria has always been centered in Tehran, not Washington. This point was driven home by protestors outside of the UN during Rouhani’s visit who represented a broad cross section of Iranian dissidents, Iranian-American community groups and Syrian activists opposed to the Assad regime.

Another advocate against the Iran regime is renowned author and Harvard Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz who published a new book, “The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Stop Iran from Getting Nukes?.”

Dershowitz argues that policy makers have bit into a “bill of goods” which states that “any deal is better than no deal.” Historically, the objective of Iran to eliminate the barriers between it and a nuclear arsenal, and simple common sense proves that this deal makes the US and the rest of the world decidedly less safe.

The nuclear deal promises to release the Iran regime from the sanctions that have effectively isolated it for much of the past decade and held back the tidal wave of Islamic extremism that we are now seeing being unleashed.

More evidence of the spread of the Iran regime’s destabilizing influence came when Saudi-led coalition forces seized an Iranian fishing boat loaded with weapons on its way to deliver them to Iran regime-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen according to Reuters.

The announcement came a day after tribal fighters backed by the coalition won control of a strategic dam in central Yemen from Houthi forces following weeks of fighting east of the capital Sanaa.

The coalition, which also includes Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, has been battling the Iranian-backed Houthis for more than six months.

A coalition statement said 14 Iranian sailors were detained on the boat, which was carrying 18 anti-armored Concourse shells, 54 anti-tank shells, shell-battery kits, firing guidance systems, launchers and batteries for binoculars.

I’m sure Parsi and Cullis would argue that the anti-tank shells and guidance systems were actually meant for an Iranian-sponsored fireworks display for children in Yemen.

By Michael Tomlinson

What is a Washington Post Hostage Worth to Iran Regime?

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What is a Washington Post Hostage Worth to Iran Regime?

What is a Washington Post Hostage Worth to Iran Regime?

The world was treated to a third straight year of verbal nonsense from Hassan Rouhani, the handpicked leader of the Iran regime, who delivered his third speech to the United Nations General Assembly in what is fast becoming an exercise in linguistic firebombing as he lambasted the U.S., the West in general, Saudi Arabia and just about everyone else on the regime’s “Death to…” chant playlist.

Rouhani in his speech that managed to give implicit approval of the 9/11 attacks, called for the destruction of Israel, regime change in Saudi Arabia and permanent elevation of Iran as a global superpower all in one fell swoop.

It was noteworthy that Rouhani did not acknowledge Iran’s role in the spread of terrorism throughout the region through its support of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, or its role in the death and maiming of thousands of Americans by training and equipping Shiite militias in Iraq and he failed to confront the truth of Iran’s facilitation of a global refugee crisis with over four million Syrians displaced because of the Syrian civil war.

Rouhani did spend much of his speech denouncing Saudi Arabia for the tragedy during the hajj stampede that killed a reported 167 Iranian pilgrims and calling for an international investigation. He neglected to mention Iran’s support of Houthi rebels who overthrew the Yemen government and sparked a shooting war with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States that led to high seas showdowns in the Straits of Hormuz as Iran threatened international shipping lanes.

The Iran regime’s role in supporting the Syrian civil war and keeping Bashar al-Assad in office was of paramount importance to Rouhani as he went on CNN to make the blanket assertion that any hope for defeating ISIS and terrorism in general rested in keeping Assad in office.

“In Syria, when our first objective is to drive out terrorists and combatting terrorists to defeat them, we have no solution other than to strengthen the central authority and the central government of that country as a central seat of power,” Rouhani said.

It is a remarkable assertion since Assad has been found guilty of wantonly killing his own people with chemical weapons and using barrel bombs to wipe out entire civilian neighborhoods. At Iranian regime’s urging and through its military, Assad has specifically targeted moderate and Western-backed rebel forces, leaving ISIS and other extremist Islamic groups largely untouched in an effort to split the opposition.

Rouhani boosting Assad as a counter-weight to terrorism is like asking a candy manufacturer to promote weight loss programs.

Rouhani went a step further in his CNN interview where he compared opponents of the nuclear deal – specifically Republican presidential candidates who have vowed to tear it up if elected – to Saddam Hussein who launched the Iran-Iraq War.

Far from being the reform-minded advocate the Iran lobby has sought to portray, Rouhani has instead brought a vitriol, while subtle, every bit as incendiary as the much reviled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The height of absurdity by Rouhani was reached when he again proposed the idea of a prisoner swap between the U.S. and regime; trading Iranian-American hostages such as Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini and former Marine Amir Hekmati for several Iranians convicted of arms trading and smuggling in nuclear components for Iran’s nuclear program – which Rouhani coincidentally denied ever existed.

“There are a number of Iranians in the United States who are imprisoned, who went to prison as a result of activities related to the nuclear industry in Iran,” Rouhani said. “Once these sanctions have been lifted, why keep those folks in American prisons? So they must be freed.”

So what are Jason Rezaian and other hostages worth to the Iran regime? Apparently at least 19 Iranian agents convicted of nuclear and weapons smuggling.

The proposed swap linked to convicted arms smugglers was condemned by the Washington Post and family members of the American hostages.

“Not until they’re on American soil can I trust what they say,” said Naghmeh Abedini, wife to Saeed Abedini. “My husband is not collateral. He’s a husband, a father, and he’s broken no law. They’re trying to barter his exchange for 19 criminals. It’s unbelievable. The Iranian government is no different than the government that held Americans hostage in the 1970s.”

Not surprisingly, Trita Parsi, head of the Iran lobby’s National Iranian American Council, tried to make the comparison U.S. airstrikes against ISIS in Syria were akin to bombing Oklahoma without approval of the U.S. government. He neglected to note that in Syria’s case, the government has been condemned as illegitimate and a mass killer by the world and embroiled in a civil war where Syria has invited in foreign governments such as Iran and Russia to kill its own people who are revolting.

Then again, lack of logic has never stopped Parsi from making ridiculous claims. He made the ultimate leap of fantasy when he authored an editorial claiming that the recent visit by Pope Francis to the U.S. could help defeat terror by persuading the U.S. to adopt a more accommodating tenor towards radicalized states such as Iran.

“What has fueled the Syrian crises more than anything else is the false illusion on all sides that a decisive military victory is around the corner,” Parsi said.

An appropriate sentiment if it was only applied to Iran’s military support of Assad, but in this case, Parsi only meant the rebel forces fighting to topple Assad and the rest of the world trying to get the tyrant out.

It was noteworthy that Rouhani’s appearance wasn’t all flowers and songbirds as thousands rallied outside of the UN to protest Rouhani’s speech; with delegations from Syria, Yemen, and Iranian dissidents talked about the abuses and injustices meted out since Rouhani took power.

By Michael Tomlinson

 

Iran Regime Begins Self Inspection Charade of Nuclear Sites

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Iran Regime Begins Self Inspection Charade of Nuclear Sites

Iran Regime Begins Self Inspection Charade of Nuclear Sites

The Iran regime revealed it took its own samples at the Parchin military site as part of the secret side deal it made with the International Atomic Energy Agency as the head of that agency, Yukiya Amano, was in Iran to visit the site and give what appears to be his support of the regime’s handling of the self-inspection protocol.

The regime’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted a spokesman for the Iranian atomic energy agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, as saying samples were taken at Parchin “only by the Iranian experts and without the presence of the agency’s inspectors.”

The fact that regime state media described Amano’s visit as “ceremonial” rather than an inspection tells you all you need to know of how the regime viewed the self-inspection process.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), a chief critic of the Iran nuclear deal, pointed to the regime’s latest disclosures as more evidence of the flaws in the nuclear agreement.

“The fact that Iran is taking its own soil samples shows that the verification scheme is an embarrassing charade, and yet another concession we can add to the pile of concessions that make up the dangerous Iran deal,” he said.

Even though the IAEA has had a long history of complaints lodged against the regime over the last decade for non-compliance, including not answering basic questions about the history of its nuclear program and its military dimensions, as well as the failure of the regime to make nuclear scientists and technical personnel available for interviews, the IAEA has seen fit to enter into a secret deal with the mullahs and not make it available to the rest of the world.

The fact that we even know about the self-inspection protocol and lack of international oversight of sampling from the Parchin site is due more to the intrepid reporting of journalists at the Associated Press than to any government disclosures from the United Nations or P5+1 group of nations that negotiated the deal.

The Obama administration, already duped into believing the regime will not cheat on an already badly flawed agreement, claimed that the self-inspections are a step in the right direction.

Breitbart.com reinforced the absurdity of self-inspection by reminding us the Congress was never shown the IAEA side deal, the regime was allowed to “sanitize” the Parchin site and hand-picked the areas to be sampled and handled the cameras taping the sampling that IAEA officials were watching.

You could not have asked for a more orchestrated act than if you paid a Hollywood studio to stage it.

The regime is certainly not wasting time flexing its new-found freedoms, not only by manipulating what will assuredly be a clean bill of health of Parchin, but also in busily acquiring new, advanced weapons and military hardware and arming its terrorist allies such as Hezbollah.

Al-Rai, a Kuwaiti newspaper, reported this weekend that Hezbollah received all of the advanced weaponry that the Syrian regime has obtained from Russia as the Russians have dramatically boosted their military operations with boots on the ground, tactical fighters flown to Syrian bases and new tanks being off-loaded.

The fact that all these military developments occurred since the nuclear deal was signed, demonstrates clearly the mullahs in Tehran feel extremely confident about their new-found status as international players and intend to flex their muscle visibly and without deception.

But the sales job for the Iran lobby never ends as Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council, went on World Finance to laud the financial windfall the regime is due to receive because of the imminent lifting of sanctions. He continues to advance the absurd proposition that the regime’s newly emerging economic muscle could be used as a moderating influence in the region.

What he fails to discuss is the intent of the ruling mullahs. No one doubts that Iran can be a major economic player in the region; the only question was whether or not the mullahs primary mission was to improve the economic status of their people or push further their brand of fundamentalist Islamic faith? History demonstrates ably that the mullahs have no other concern than preserving and expanding their extremist views throughout the Muslim world.

Parsi’s statements about Iran’s economic potential are only one half of a joke, the real punchline comes with what the mullahs decide to do with all that newfound economic muscle. The unfortunate part is that the joke will be on those who supported and approved this deal based solely on the “hope” that Iran’s mullahs could be worthy of trust.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

By Michael Tomlinson

  Iran Lobby Shifts Focus, Now Demanding More Dialogue With Iran

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Khamenei-with-IRGC-The main force behind Terror in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, etc.

Khamenei-with-IRGC-The main force behind terror in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, etc.

The failure of Congress to halt the implementation of the nuclear deal with the Iran regime opens the floodgates for the regime to reap financial, military, economic and political rewards, but those gains may prove tenuous and illusory since in order to win passage of the agreement, the Obama administration took the unusual route of proposing it not as a full-fledged treaty, but as an administrative action that an incoming administration could conceivably reverse.

Since the Iran regime was adamant on delinking anything not related to the nuclear issue including human rights violations, support of terrorism, development of ballistic missiles and proxy wars, the reality is sinking in for supporters of the regime that they need to pay lip service to these other issues in order to stave off renewed calls to punish Iran for its transgressions.

This was evident by the issuance of a press release by lead regime lobbyist, Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, who even acknowledged that the deal’s passage would not cause significant shifts in regime policy:

“While dialogue does not guarantee that Iran’s foreign policy conduct will shift to Washington’s liking, the absence of engagement all but guarantees that there will be either no change or a change in the wrong direction,” Parsi said.

While Parsi is showing its true face by advocating more dialogue with the criminal mullahs, his call for greater dialogue were again undermined by the statements of the regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei.

In his weekly televised speech, Khamenei warned commanders of the regime’s Revolutionary Guards to be on alert for “political and cultural” infiltration by the U.S. according to Agence France-Press.

“The main purpose of the enemies is for Iranians to give up on their revolutionary mentality,” Khamenei told a gathering of Guards commanders and personnel in Tehran.

“Enemy means global arrogance, the ultimate symbol of which is the United States,” he said, calling on the powerful branch of the military to protect the revolution.

“Economic and security breaches are definitely dangerous, and have dire consequences,” he said.

“But political and cultural intrusion by the enemy is a more serious danger that everyone should be vigilant about,” he added.

Parsi of course did not call for Khamenei to moderate his language or stop the continued depiction of the U.S. as Iran’s greatest “enemy.” Parsi saves his rhetorical fire – not to his mullah taskmasters – but for the U.S. leadership that he actively lobbies.

Khamenei threw more cold water on Parsi’s press release and his call for greater dialogue by saying last week that Iran would not hold any negotiations with the U.S. beyond the nuclear issue. Short of calling Parsi a liar, Khamenei certainly refutes most of what Parsi has to say.

It’s no surprise that Khamenei made his appeal directly to the leaders of the Revolutionary Guards which was created by the mullahs to preserve the mullah’s rule and maintain the stranglehold the leadership holds over Iran’s economy and its people.

The passage of the deadline to sink the nuclear deal also marked a celebration of sorts by supporters of the regime as evidenced by Ben Wikler, Washington director of Moveon.org, piece in Huffington Post which gleefully recounted how the regime’s supporters marshalled their forces to prevent the agreement’s demise.

The only thing missing was a photo of Wikler and Parsi holding hands in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner over an Iranian missile battery.

But while Wikler breathlessly recounts the campaign to support the deal, this moment may prove Pyrrhic for supporters as the next year reveals the true nature of the regime as it no doubt continues to support conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and Americans grow increasingly uneasy about the deteriorating situation in the Middle East along with the rise of extremist groups and a full-blown refugee crisis.

Broad public disapproval of the nuclear deal has already been registered in virtually every public opinion poll and the fact the deal was passed with no bipartisan support and only through a minority vote of 42 Democratic senators may condemn any member running for re-election not only in 2016, but also 2018.

In essence, the regime lobby is praying mightily the American people will have a short memory and that the mullahs don’t blow it for them; neither scenario seems likely.

Already we’ve seen the veneer being peeled off of the Iran lobby with a flood of news articles examining the lobby, especially the NIAC and its financial backers. Ben Cohen, senior editor of TheTower.org, joined in this review by posting a story on JNS.org recounting the various investigative news stories recently published about the NIAC including The Daily Beast and others and smartly asks the inevitable question that should be on the lips of every Capitol Hill staffer:

“Now that the truth about NIAC is emerging, one has to ask why anyone who seeks respectability in Washington would have anything to do with Parsi and his cohorts,” Cohen said.

“The Islamist regime in Iran is the root of the problem, not its cure: as long as it remains in place, there should be no talk of normalization. Second, that there shouldn’t even be an Iran lobby in America, if by ‘Iran lobby’ we mean individuals and groups like NIAC, whose mission is to sell this vicious regime as an attractive partner for Western democracies,” Cohen added.

Cohen is correct when he assesses only regime change in Iran will force changes in policy away from sponsorship of terror and human rights abuses. The real hope and future lies not in the nuclear deal Parsi has championed, but in a new presidential administration that can tear it up.

By Michael Tomlinson

Controversy Over Iran Lobby Connections Grows

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Controversy Over Iran Lobby Connections Grows

Controversy Over Iran Lobby Connections Grows

The fallout from recent revelations about the nature and reach of the Iran lobby continues as more news media pick up various threads that are unraveling from Iran regime supporters such as the National Iranian American Council, which made an effort to pay former president Bill Clinton to deliver a speech to one of its fundraising galas.

“As we’ve said before, as a matter of course, all requests were run by the State Department,” said an official in the former president’s office. “And most importantly, ultimately, the president did not give this speech.”

It says a lot about associating with NIAC when you are relieved you didn’t take its money for a speech. For all of NIAC’s organizing, lobbying and fundraising, the disclosure of the paid speech forced a rapid backpedal away from the NIAC as it became clear no one wanted to be associated with a group so blatantly tied to Tehran’s mullahs. It also demonstrated that close association with the NIAC is not a recipe for long-term political health.

The struggle by the NIAC to overcome the Iran lobby label was taken up by liberal group Media Matters in a piece slamming original Daily Beast article by an Iranian dissident that examined the close ties NIAC and its staffers had with an influential Iranian family, the Namazis, who profit from consulting businesses helping to steer Western companies into partnerships with Iranian ventures, most owned or controlled by Iranian government entities such as the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Conspicuously, the Media Matters piece, which included statements by Trita Parsi of NIAC, failed to address the most basic facts in the Daily Beast article which was the past employment of NIAC staffers by the Namazis-controlled Atieh consulting firm, several of whom later went on to work in positions at the U.S. State Department and National Security Council.

The Media Matters piece also did not address Parsi’s own damning emails and documents that came out of failed defamation lawsuit against Hassan Dai who at the time was a journalist for the Voice of America reporting critically on the NIAC. Parsi and the NIAC not only lost that suit and the subsequent appeal, but were excoriated by the three-judge appeals panel and ordered to pay for Dai’s legal fees for destroying and altering calendars and emails to hide their relationship with regime officials.

Media Matters contention that the Namazis would not materially benefit from the lifting of economic sanctions and that benefits would flow to the Iranian people instead was one of the boldest distortions played out. Iran has consistently been ranked as one of the most corrupt regimes on the planet with vast swaths of the economy such as telecommunications, energy and commodities controlled through shell companies owned by the Revolutionary Guards Corps or regime leaders such as Hassan Rouhani and Ali Khamenei.

Reuters reported on one such arrangement controlled by Khamenei, one of the most powerful and secretive organizations in Iran – “Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam,” or Setad.

“The deal, which is likely to go into effect after clearing a major Congressional hurdle last week, lifts U.S. secondary sanctions on Setad and about 40 firms it owns or has a stake in, according to a Reuters tally based on annexes to the deal.

“The delisting of Setad — which has little connection to Iran’s nuclear program but is close to Iran’s ruling elite — feeds into U.S. Republicans’ criticism that the deal will empower Iran’s hardliners and help fund its regional ambitions.”

Reuters went on to report that with stakes in nearly every sector of Iran’s economy, Setad built its empire on the systematic seizure of thousands of properties belonging to religious minorities, business people, and Iranians living abroad, according to a 2013 Reuters investigation, which estimated the network’s holdings at about $95 billion.

Iranians who said their family properties were seized by Setad described in interviews in 2013 how men showed up and threatened to use violence if the owners didn’t leave the premises at once, said Reuters.

Already, one Setad firm appears to be moving to take advantage of the deal. Ghadir Investment Company, which the U.S. Treasury identified as a Setad-linked firm, signed a 500 million euro ($565 million) contract with the engineering unit of Finmeccanica, a spokesman for the Italian defense group said in August, according to Reuters.

Not only will the regime directly benefit economically from the nuclear deal, Parsi and his allies are now trying to spin the argument that things will improve in places such as Syria where nearly four million Syrian refugees have fled in the face of Afghan mercenaries hired by Iran, Hezbollah fighters armed by Iran and Syrian army troops loyal to the Assad regime funded by Iran.

Parsi went so far as to tell BuzzFeed that the deal would at the least help the conflict from escalating, but he neglected to mention the rapid escalation and destabilizing presence of Russian military troops and hardware now landing with regularity in Syria in support of Assad and working in cooperation with the Iran regime.

He also neglected to mention the regime’s Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani’s secret visit to Moscow in violation of United Nations sanctions to discuss the acquisition of new military hardware and coordinate operations in Syria where his Quds Forces has been in the vanguard of fighting there.

Now as the news media see the deep ties the NIAC has to the regime and with all of the Republican presidential candidates vowing to ditch the nuclear deal on the day they take office, the fire sale is on for the regime to swipe, take and steal as much as it can before the door is finally closed on them.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Iran Lobby’s Plan B

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The Iran Lobby’s Plan B

The Iran Lobby’s Plan B

With the recent failure of the Senate to mount an override of a Democratic filibuster, and the implementation of the proposed nuclear agreement with the Iran regime on the way, it is ironic though that such significant foreign policy issue will be implemented without any bipartisan support and no majority support from the American people.

But regardless of the votes last week, it has become clear that the Iran lobby is gearing up to combat a plethora of “Plan B” options being formulated by opponents of the regime since the decision to submit the agreement not as a formal treaty, but rather an executive action leaves the agreement subject to revision or even reversal when a new president is elected in 2016.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), the ranking Democratic member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who helped craft the bipartisan compromise legislation requiring the congressional vote on the deal, announced his intention to submit new legislation addressing many of the loopholes in the proposed nuclear agreement to which he has publicly announced his opposition.

Jim Lobe of Lobelog.com and Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council both offered up their critiques in an attempt by regime supporters to fend off any new legislation threatening to derail their efforts.

What Lobe and Cullis describe as “poison pills” are actually the kinds of common-sense provisions that should have been included in the nuclear deal in the first place such as requirements that the president cannot lift certain sanctions imposed on regime banks for terrorism-related or ballistic-missile related reasons until the president certifies those banks have ended their facilitation of transactions aiding Iran’s support for terrorism and ballistic-missile development.

Ironically, these conditions were part of the original set of “red lines” drawn by U.S. negotiators at the outset of talks, including requirements for “anytime, anywhere” inspections, all of which were pulled off the table in the final agreement.

The fact that Cullis and Lobe argue so strenuously against these inclusion of these types of restrictions on the regime’s conduct speaks volumes about their commitment not to ensuring peace and stability in the Middle East, but allowing the Iran regime a free hand to conduct its terror operations and development of missile systems that can deliver nuclear warheads over vast distances.

As syndicated columnist Cal Thomas has correctly pointed out in an editorial published on FoxNews.com:

“Promises of stringent inspections are meaningless, especially when Iran has already said it will never allow outside access to its military sites. Ali Akbar Velayati, the Iranian security adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has stated firmly that, ‘Regardless of how the P5+1 countries interpret the nuclear agreement, their entry into our military sites is absolutely forbidden. The entry of any foreigner, including IAEA inspectors or any other inspector, to the sensitive military sites of the Islamic Republic is forbidden, no matter what.’”

But aside from Cardin’s proposal, the Defund Iran coalition also announced an effort to ask voters in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri and Ohio to change their state constitutions to bar any state dollars from being invested in ways that might help the Iran regime, with plans to expand the effort to an additional 25 other states in the coming weeks.

“Every dollar we stop makes a difference to the solider who gets blown up by an IED financed by Iran,” said Sarah Steelman, a former Missouri state treasurer and current chairwoman of Defund Iran. “Not one penny of the people’s money should go to any company that does business that goes to Iran—or any other sponsor of terror.”

According to Philip Elliot writing for Time magazine, banning investments in funds or companies some find objectionable is hardly a new tactic as shown by the pressure built over two decades for Americans to withhold investments with ties to South Africa in order to protest that nation’s apartheid systemic discrimination. More recently, some groups have pressured Americans to do the same toward Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.

Thirty states already have some form of law or regulation that bans state dollars to go to Iran. The new moves would codify existing bans, but perhaps complicate some of them. States will have to decide how aggressively to write the constitutional language. Would they simply ban pensions from investing in energy companies that buy oil from Iran, or would they also ban economic development dollars from going to retailers who open outposts in Tehran? A defense contractor, for instance, could see its tax deals with a state threatened if it also sells parts to a company that does business with Iran, Elliott said.

That groundswell of popular support at the grassroots and state level is in no doubt motivated by the continuing worrisome stream of revelations and news coming out of the regime such as the release of a new book authored by Saeid Golker that took a scholarly look at the regime’s dreaded state-financed Basij militia.

Gareth Smyth of the Guardian’s Tehran bureau examined Golker’s work, writing that “Golkar’s central argument – reflected in the book’s title, Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Iran – is that the Basij is more widespread and effective than generally realized.”

“There are 12,000 Starbucks in the US and 22,000 around the world,” Golker says, “but in Iran we have more than 50,000 Basij bases and offices.”

He estimates one in three students is a member, as are 65 percent of state employees, which clearly shows the expansive and pervasive presence of the militia throughout all levels of Iranian society in a model reminiscent of the much-feared East German Stasi intelligence service that turned family members into informers for the state against other family members.

And in another demonstration of the regime’s flouting of human rights, Amnesty International called on the regime to halt the impending “execution of Mahmoud Barati, a teacher who was convicted of drug-related offences following an unfair trial that is believed to have included a confession obtained through torture and other ill-treatment.”

“The Iranian authorities must end their unprecedented killing spree – more than 700 people have been executed so far this year, most of them convicted on drug-related charges,” said Amnesty International in a statement.

It is doubtful the regime will halt its executions, nor does it seem possible it plans to release any of the Iranian-Americans it is currently holding hostage.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Insidious Infiltration of American Government by Iran Lobby

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Tritta Parsi paying respect to the Iranian regime delegation in Geneva

Trita Parsi paying respect to Iran delegation in Geneva Talks

Matthew RJ Brodsky, senior Middle East analyst at Wikistrat and former editor of inFOCUS Quarterly, took a deep dive in Huffington Post into the lobbying forces of the Iran regime and the progress it has made in infiltrating deep into American policy making positions under the Obama administration.

What piqued his interest and those who track the activities of the Iran lobby was the latest batch of emails released from Hillary Clinton’s email server in which the pro-regime group The Iran Project provided the administration with a 10-page plan that eventually served as the roadmap for engaging with the regime once again and led to the run up in negotiating the nuclear weapons agreement.

Brodsky includes the ground breaking investigative analysis done by Lee Smith, a senior fellow at the Hudson  Institute and senior editor of the Weekly Standard, who examined the ties Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council, has with Iran regime insiders such as Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Parsi founded the NIAC in 2002 and was described by Smith as being the “tip of the spear of the Iran Lobby,” in terms of funneling a large number of former staffers into key administration positions and gaining the ear of key members of the Obama administration.

Breitbart News discovered the hiring of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, a former NIAC staffer, as the National Security Director for Iran who sat in on several high level meetings with President Obama while discussing negotiations with the Iran regime on the nuclear deal.

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

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic referred to Parsi as someone who “does a lot of the leg-work for the Iranian regime.”

Parsi’s close ties to the regime came under greater scrutiny during the tense negotiations between the regime and P5+1 negotiators in which Parsi and his NIAC colleague Reza Marashi were often seen conferring with members of the Iranian delegation and often were quoted by news media covering the talks using the same talking points and keys messages as the official regime news agencies.

Bloomberg reporter Eli Lake wrote about Parsi’s close connection with regime foreign minister Javad Zarif uncovered in documents made public as part of a failed defamation lawsuit brought by Parsi against an Iranian American journalist who accused Parsi of working on behalf of the regime.

NIAC and Parsi have moved out of the legally shadowy world of indirect lobbying by forming an official lobbying arm called NIAC Action which made no bones about its open lobbying for positions favorable to the regime and began the solicitation of funds as it expected to make donations to political campaigns it deems supportive of the Iranian regime.

Brodsky in his Huffington Post column also examined the flow of funds to regime lobbying groups and traced how the Rockfeller Brothers Fund spent millions of dollars since 2003 towards promoting a nuclear agreement with the regime, primarily through donations given to The Iran Project. That funding has been supplemented by additional contributions made through the Ploughshares Fund which has given substantial amounts of funding to the NIAC directly.

Ironically, the policy memos written by The Iran Project proved to be key elements of the Obama administration’s outreach to the Iran regime including a call to open a direct dialogue to top regime mullah Ali Khamenei by promising to not seek regime change as a means of reassuring the mullahs which came in the form of a personal letter from Obama early in his first term.

Paramount for the Iran lobby was not only securing a favorable nuclear deal for the regime, but more importantly unlinking any agreement from conditions related to the regime’s conduct in areas such as terrorism, human rights or military interventions through proxies and terror groups.

The de-linking of all these areas may very well turn out to be the biggest win for the Iran lobby.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Cheating Already Undermines Nuclear Deal

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Iran Regime Cheating Already Undermines Nuclear Deal

Iran Regime Cheating Already Undermines Nuclear Deal

The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, released a new report showing that the Iran regime was engaged in new construction activities at its Parchin military facility which has been at the center of the growing controversy about Iran retaining the ability to self-inspect suspected nuclear facilities.

The document states the IAEA “has continued to observe, through satellite imagery, the presence of vehicles, equipment and probable construction materials” at Parchin.

“In addition,” the report continues, “a small extension to an existing building appears to have been constructed.”

But the IAEA report comes amid renewed scrutiny with regard to the Parchin site after it was revealed that Iranian inspectors would be taking an active role in IAEA-monitored inspections there.

“Allowing the Iranians to inspect their own nuclear sites, particularly a notorious military site, is like allowing the inmates to run the jail,” Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham said of the arrangement in an interview with CNN.

The move to begin construction activities at a key military site the Iran regime has continually denied access to for inspectors is another clear sign of the regime’s efforts to cover up aspects of its nuclear program in advance of the deal being closed. The fact that the IAEA does not even know what exactly the regime is doing at Parchin demonstrates how ineffectual it will be in policing the regime’s compliance with the agreement.

And in another move demonstrating the regime’s commitment to military superiority in the region, regime presidential puppet Hassan Rouhani again took to state-run television to declare Iran’s military capability would not be affected by the nuclear deal and the regime “did not and will not accept any limitations.”

With the Iran regime already cheating at Parchin and reiterating its commitment to military expansion, it comes as no surprise the regime is beefing up its direct lobbying efforts through campaign contributions from pro-regime groups with ties to the Iranian government to at least ten Congressional members as reported in FrontPage Magazine by Daniel Greenfield.

Legislators who took contributions from the Iranian American Political Action Committee and have already announced their support for the nuclear deal included:

  • Edward Markey (D-MA)
  • Alan Franken (D-MN)
  • Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
  • Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
  • Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
  • Michael Honda (D-CA)
  • André Carson (D-IN)
  • Gerald Connolly (D-VA)
  • Donna Edwards (D-MD)
  • Jackie Speier (D-CA)

Iranian dissident Hassan Daioleslam, who won a defamation lawsuit brought by Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, a leading pro-regime lobbying group, detailed the origins of IAPAC in 2007 according to Spryridon Mitsotakis in Breitbart:

“During the eight years of Rafsanjani’s presidency, which ended in 1997, the Iranian regime had attempted without success to attract the Iranian Diaspora to its cause. Khatami’s presidency recharged Tehran’s efforts. With the Supreme Leader’s direct involvement, the High Council for Iranian Compatriots Overseas was created in 2000 under the auspices of the Foreign Ministry. The President heads the Council, and the Foreign Minister serves as its deputy director. The Ministry of Intelligence and the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance collaborate to implement the decisions of the council. The objective was to create a network of organizations to infiltrate and seemingly represent the Iranian community abroad, and promote policies favorable to the Iranian government. Tehran anticipated that this strategy would neutralize opposition activities abroad and legitimize the new lobby.”

He goes on to detail Parsi’s close work with Iran regime officials in launching the Iran lobby in the U.S. modeled closely on Jewish lobbying groups and made to have the appearance of a citizen’s lobby and impede the work of Iranian dissident and opposition groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

The NIAC, IAPAC and a host of other regime front groups have worked hard to reshape and distort the truth about the mullahs’ true intentions which have come to light with this new IAEA report on Parchin. The sheer brazenness of openly working to alter the Parchin site shows the contempt and lack of fear the mullahs have in snookering the rest of the world.

By Michael Tomlinson