Iran Lobby

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

Iran Regime Unveils Missile Base to Cover Weakness

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Iran Regime Unveils Missile Base to Cover Weakness

Iran Regime Unveils Missile Base to Cover Weakness

Mother Nature provides us excellent examples of weaker insects or animals using the art of disguise to shield themselves from predators. The katydid tries to look like a leaf, while the elephant hawkmoth caterpillar looks like a snake head. Both use deception to keep from becoming someone else’s lunch.

In a case of man imitating nature, the Iran regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps released video footage of secret missile base in an underground tunnel deep in a mountain side.

“The video, aired on semi-official Fars TV and set to rousing music, shows an extensive tunnel packed with medium- and long-range missiles and launcher units. The Guard said the missiles were on their launch pads, ready to be fired in the event of an attack on the country,” according to Fox News.

The video of the missile base, so far unconfirmed by independent sources, follows the recent test firing of a new ballistic missile that the U.S. claims violates terms of a United Nations Security Council sanction prohibiting the regime from developing new missiles. The video’s airing raises some basic questions such as: Why?

Dominic Waghorn, reporting for Sky News, said the video’s release was designed for domestic consumption as leaders within the Revolutionary Guards Corps worry about appearing weak to the rivals such as Saudi Arabia, especially at a time when its Syria campaign all but collapsed until the last-minute intervention by the Russians.

“But an attempt to project strength is in itself a sign of weakness. Neither Russia nor Iran would be in Syria were their ally Bashar al Assad not in trouble,” Waghorn said. “Their forces are there because his have been crumbling and that has threatened their interests there. Their presence invites a response from his enemies and their backers, and is not therefore without considerable peril.”

But the Iran regime’s effort to project a more assertive posture as it has seen a rolling series of setbacks didn’t stop with the missile video and test launch. It included grainy video released through Twitter showing the regime’s Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, purportedly addressing Iranian and Syrian troops in Syria on the eve of launching a new offensive to attack rebel militias.

Showing Soleimani taking direct command of ground forces following the deaths of two other senior IRGC commanders strongly shows the mullahs near-desperation to pull out a victory in Syria after so much blood and treasure has been spent with little to show for it as Assad’s forces have been pushed nearly all the way back to the sea.

But with the looming deadline for certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency to complete its investigation of Iran’s past nuclear activities, the regime – which had been slow in responding to the inquiry – stepped up at the last minute to be responsive to the UN probe.

In the past two weeks, after Iran had largely brushed off serious questions about its past nuclear activities, the IAEA and some Western governments directly warned Tehran that it must increase cooperation if it wanted IAEA board members to conclude it had sufficiently addressed their concerns, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The board must decide in mid-December, based on a report by Director General Yukiya Amano, whether Tehran has done enough for the nuclear agreement it signed in July with six world powers to proceed.

As the regime is confronted with the costs of a massive new offensive in Syria, it may very well have concluded that it needs the scheduled $150 billion in frozen assets as quickly as possible to replenish its coffers as part of the nuclear deal, as well as keep its economy afloat.

That became painfully apparent as the engine from an Iranian Mahan Air 747 fell off shortly after takeoff from Tehran. The regime badly needs new aircraft to replace a fleet hampered by economic sanctions.

Ultimately, many of the regime’s most recent moves can be seen as desperate acts by a leadership of mullahs being pressed in on all sides.

By Michael Tomlinson

Syria is Just Tip of Iran Regime Iceberg

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The Restocking of Iran Regime Bank Accounts and Weapons

The Restocking of Iran Regime Bank Accounts and Weapons

In what has to be regarded as one of the strangest lobbying efforts being mounted, Iran regime foreign minister Javad Zarif is being put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize Award for his work in actually duping the West, during the P5+1 talks that resulted in crafting a deeply flawed nuclear deal. Putting him forward as Nobel recipient would be akin to giving the peace prize to António Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz in 1949 for inventing the prefrontal lobotomy, and almost as appropriate.

If the idea wasn’t so serious, it would be laughable given what has happened since the agreement was reached.

Zarif himself has echoed public statements by Hassan Rouhani and Ali Khamenei in drawing a firm red line in the sand that Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, has to be part of any Syria plan and that Russia is on board with efforts to keep him in power.

Ironically, Zarif put forward the idea that any decision on Assad has to be made by the Syrian people. He neglected to mention that Assad and Iran’s Quds Forces and Hezbollah allies have driven four million Syrians out of the country and gassed and barrel bombed the remaining 600,000 who oppose Assad in a virtual siege aided by Russian air strikes.

But the coordination between the Tehran and Moscow goes much deeper than the regime has let on. In a compelling Reuters story, Iran’s Qassem Soleimani, the head of the regime’s Quds Forces, went secretly to Moscow last July and laid out the strategy for Russian intervention to save Assad in Syria.

“Soleimani put the map of Syria on the table. The Russians were very alarmed, and felt matters were in steep decline and that there were real dangers to the regime. The Iranians assured them there is still the possibility to reclaim the initiative,” a senior regional official said. “At that time, Soleimani played a role in assuring them that we haven’t lost all the cards.”

The decision for a joint Iranian-Russian military effort in Syria was taken at a meeting between Russia’s foreign minister and Khamenei a few months ago, said a senior official of a country in the region, involved in security matters according to Reuters.

“Soleimani, assigned by Khamenei to run the Iranian side of the operation, traveled to Moscow to discuss details. And he also traveled to Syria several times since then,” the official said.

In the biggest deployment of Iranian forces yet, sources told Reuters last week that hundreds of troops have arrived since late September to take part in a major ground offensive planned in the west and northwest.

Around 3,000 fighters from the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah have also mobilized for the battle, along with Syrian army troops, said one of the senior regional sources.

The military intervention in Syria is set out in an agreement between Moscow and Tehran that says Russian air strikes will support ground operations by Iranian, Syrian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces, said one of the senior regional sources.

The agreement also included the provision of more sophisticated Russian weapons to the Syrian army, and the establishment of joint operations rooms that would bring those allies together, along with the government of Iraq, which is allied both to Iran and the United States.

All of this flies in the face of claims made by the Iran lobby that the nuclear deal would bring forth a more moderate Iran intent on bringing stability to region and fighting ISIS. Nothing could be further from the truth as the mullahs have boldly flexed their military muscle openly now.

The regime isn’t even hiding its military intentions now that it’s been given tacit approval by the rest of the world with the nuclear deal.

Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, said that “all U.S. military bases in the Middle East are within the range of” Iran’s missiles and emphasized that the Islamic Republic will continue to break international bans on the construction of ballistic missiles, in a statement to the regime’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.

“We do not see any restriction for our missiles and the IRGC’s preparedness and missile drills are conducted without a halt and according to our annual time-table, but only some of them are publicized through the media,” Hajizadeh said.

The comments echo similar rhetoric of IRGC Navy Commander Ali Fadavi, who warned last month that “the U.S. knows the damages of any war and firing bullets in the Persian Gulf.”

“The U.S. is obedient and passive in the Persian Gulf and we impose our sovereignty right in the Persian Gulf very powerfully,” Fadavi said.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the Iran regime has been planning this coordinated military mission to save Assad long before the nuclear deal was finalized and with full knowledge and consent of Iran’s top mullahs. It is also clear that the messages delivered by the regime’s lobbyist allies such as the National Iranian American Council, Ploughshares Fund and J-Street were fundamentally wrong.

The mullahs have now gained a valuable military partner in Russia and are intent on pushing their gains across the rest of the Middle East.

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

The Big Lie About Human Rights and the Iran Nuclear Deal

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The Big Lie About Human Rights and the Iran Nuclear Deal

The Big Lie About Human Rights and the Iran Nuclear Deal

One of the more incredible stretches of imagination surrounding the proposed nuclear deal between the Iran regime and the rest of the world is the notion that the agreement with Tehran’s mullahs might somehow spur improvements in the regime’s bleak human rights record.

One of the strongest proponents of that lie has been the regime’s paid lobbyists, the National Iranian American Council, which put out a policy memo on its website attempting to reinforce the misconception.

The memo essentially consists of quotes taken from various people and groups identified with human rights issues in Iran, but notably does not include any quotes or comments from groups who have traditionally monitored regime human rights abuses, such as Amnesty International, nor does it include any comments from relatives or families of loved ones who languish in regime prisons or been subject to torture and executions.

It is also notable how many of the quotes are taken from purported human rights activists who in reality serve the regime such as Akbar Ganji, a self-described Iranian journalist who was previously a commander in the regime’s Revolutionary Guard and still has deep ties to the regime’s leadership.

The fact that NIAC also used a quote from Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights in Iran is laughable considering revelations that the Iran regime launched a sophisticated smear campaign against him through the use of a fabricated WikiLeaks cable purporting to show bribes from Saudi Arabia that never existed.

“The apparently orchestrated campaign against Shaheed seems to fit into a familiar pattern of Iran smearing activists, dissidents, or even journalists by propagating misinformation about them.

Iran has repeatedly condemned Shaheed’s reports as unsubstantiated, biased and collated from anti-Iranian outlets. Shaheed has never been allowed to travel to Iran since his initial mandate was approved by the UN in 2011.

One could go through practically the entire list of quotes provided by the NIAC and simply use Google searches to reveal how factually incorrect and in error they are. It is an admirable show of deception on the NIAC’s part that rivals many of their past efforts to distort the regime’s true record.

The real record on the regime’s abysmal human rights record has been well documented not only by Shaheed and Amnesty International, but also by opposition groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, news media and through the statements and actions made by ordinary Iranians demonstrating and protesting against the regime and those imprisoned such as Americans Jason Rezaian, Saeed Abedini and Amir Hekmati who still languish despite the nuclear agreement.

But everything the NIAC says seems to be constantly undercut by their masters in Tehran. Another glaring example was the complaint filed by the regime against White House press secretary Josh Earnest who has taken to insisting the U.S. retained the right to “use military force in the long run and the use of nuclear inspections to gain intelligence about Iran’s nuclear facilities”; calling Earnest’s statements a “material breach” of the nuclear deal itself.

The outlandish complaint was lodged with the International Atomic Energy Agency which has come under heavy criticism for negotiating two secret side deals with the regime and not making either available to the public or members of Congress currently reviewing the agreement.

The irony of the Iran regime’s complaint is that it exposes both provisions as being completely false and unenforceable since the regime has already clearly considered both to be invalid, even though deal supporters such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of the NIAC have gone to great lengths to champion those same provisions of key examples of why the deal works.

One has to wonder who the American public should believe on this issue: the Iranian government or those lobbyists being paid by that same government and its allies?

By Michael Tomlinson

Shrinking Hopes of the Iran Regime

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Shrinking Man (1)The Iran regime continues to suffer reversals on several fronts as it becomes increasingly clear it has overreached in supporting proxy wars and acting as an international rogue state, alarming its neighbors, as well as members of Congress even as it seeks to close a favorable nuclear deal.

Even while the third round of nuclear talks to move the April framework forward begins shortly, Iran’s mullahs have exhibited a callous disregard for international opinion as it engages in an ever brutal human rights crackdown which was highlighted by the arrest of noted human rights lawyer and death penalty opponent Narges Mohammadi without warning or explanation.

According to report released by Iran Human Rights group, in the 18 months since the election of President Rouhani in June 2013, Iranian authorities executed more than 1,193 people. This is an average of more than two executions every day.

The number of executions in that period was 31 percent higher than the number in the 18 months before President Rouhani assumed power. The number of juvenile offenders executed in 2014 was the highest since 1990.

Other human rights and Iranian resistance groups have pegged the number of executed by the regime even higher at 1,500 men, women and children.

But the prospect of a nuclear agreement is being met with growing skepticism with unexpected signs of trouble emerging including the potential for Iran to vastly increase its cyber warfare capabilities.

In a piece in The Hill, Fred Kagan, a national security scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and co-author of a recent report on the Iranian cyber threat, said “We’re in a lose-lose situation from that standpoint. Would you rather have them do that with more resources or fewer?”

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), recalled a speech last year in which Iran’s top mullah Ali Khamenei reminded university students they were “cyberwar agents.”

“I do not expect Iran’s quest for power to decrease if an agreement is reached, and cyber warfare is clearly part of its strategy,” he said.

In another clear signal about the threat the Iran regime poses to the region, a summit organized by the Obama administration in Washington invited the leaders of the six Arab Gulf states involved in the military campaign in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, but only two monarchs confirmed their attendance with Saudi Arabia’s King Hamad bin Isaa Al Khalifa conspicuously declining the invitation.

The decision amounts to a public vote of no confidence in the U.S.-led response to Iranian aggression and proxy wars in Yemen, Syria and Iraq fueled by Iranian cash, weapons and fighters.

All of which served as a backdrop to a vote in the U.S. Senate yesterday by an unanimous zhi90-0 margin calling for the Iran regime to release three Americans – Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati and Jason Rezaian – that it holds in its prisons and assist in locating still-missing former FBI agent Robert Levinson.

Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho), who introduced the measure, argued the four should have been released before the U.S. started negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran.

“Iran thinks it elevates its position in the world because it does these kinds of things. It does not,” Risch said. “Certainly it shows toughness, but a barbarian type of toughness that the world is not impressed with at all.”

The contradictions in these nuclear talks were described by Jennifer Rubin writing in the Washington Post’s Right Turn blog:

“In short, not only can we not trust the Iranians to comply with whatever is in a final deal but we also cannot trust the administration to call them on it when Iran again cheats, as we know it will. In big ways and small, the administration has already signaled it will have a high tolerance for violations so as not to upset its diplomatic goals. Imagine how much more tolerant the Obama administration will be when cheating would spell the demolition of the president’s ‘legacy.’”

As the scrutiny deepens and expands on the Iran regime, more of the world’s news media are beginning to ask the kinds of hard questions the mullahs do not want to answer as they see their hopes for pulling a fast one on the world quickly shrinking.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby-Attempts To Seal A Deal

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Iran Lobby trying to seal a deal

Iran Lobby trying to seal a deal

The phrase “cause and effect” can be applied to virtually every facet of life; from history, physics, marketing, politics and even the dinosaurs. Such a small phrase embodies so many connections in today’s world between actions and the aftermath of those actions.

In the context of today’s volatile Middle East, the Iran regime’s top lobbyist, the National Iranian American Council has argued its own cause and effect strenuously saying that failure to seal a deal on nuclear weapons development would inevitably lead to war, regardless of the facts failing to indicate any path to war.

But on the flip side, the NIAC has just as vigorously opposed any causal connection between the actions of the regime’s mullahs in directing a slew of proxy wars and human rights abuses and their ability to abide by any international agreement they sign.

Any objective observer can draw a straight line from point A to point B when looking at the cause and effects of Iran’s actions. For example:

  • The regime’s crackdown on opponents and protests through arrests, torture, imprisonment and public executions have effectively muzzled dissent at home;
  • The regime’s violation of international inspection agreements over the past decade have allowed it to quadruple the number of centrifuges it added to enrich uranium for its nuclear program; and
  • The regime’s support of proxies and terror groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen have allowed it to build a buffer of extremist Shiite support surrounding it, displacing hundreds of thousands of refugees and killing tens of thousands of men, women and children.

The fact that Iran has engaged in nuclear talks over the past three years while it has engaged in a slew of blatantly arrogant moves in violation of the spirit of those talks has laid bare the hypocrisy of the regime and its supporters.

Even today, cybersecurity firm Norse and the American Enterprise Institute released a new study chronicling the regime’s dramatic increase in cyberattacks on thousands of American targets. According to The New York Times, “the report, and a similar one from Cylance, another cybersecurity firm, make clear that Iranian hackers are moving from ostentatious cyberattacks in which they deface websites or simply knock them offline to much quieter reconnaissance. In some cases, they appear to be probing for critical infrastructure systems that could provide opportunities for more dangerous and destructive attacks.”

Norse’s study shows the Iran regime’s attacks have shown no signs of letting up, even during critical nuclear talks. Between January 2014 and just last month, Norse’s sensors picked up a whopping 115 percent increase in attacks launched from Iranian controlled Internet protocol, or I.P. addresses, with more than 900 attacks daily in the first half of March alone.

At a time when the leverage the West has over the regime through these talks is significant because of the economic mess the mullahs have created, it is a lost opportunity not to force changes upon the conduct of the regime.

The old proverb, “Turnabout is fair play” certainly applies here and especially with the NIAC who have made a living on accusing the West of double standards in its actions towards Iran, but yet do not hold Iran’s mullahs to the same standards.

It makes sense and is imperative that we understand the true nature of the effects the regime’s actions and lay the blame squarely at the feet of the mullahs ruling Iran.

 

Iran Regime Rulers Undermine NIAC Claims…Again

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Backstabbing BusinessmanIt seems the National Iranian American Council can’t catch a break from its Iran regime taskmasters. Just as NIAC is ramping up a new campaign to try and sway one or two Democratic Senators away from the building coalition in favor of the Corker-Menendez bill to place any nuclear agreement with Iran under Congressional review, the regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei and his handpicked president Hassan Rouhani blasted the U.S. version of the framework agreement.

Khamenei strongly denounced two bedrock American principles in nuclear negotiations declaring all economic sanctions from the U.S., European Union and United Nations had to be lifted immediately and military sites would remain strictly off-limits to foreign inspectors.

His comments echoed similar statements made by Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, the regime’s nuclear chief and military officials, all of whom within the past few days have similarly denounced the U.S. position on the framework agreement and reiterated the regime’s red lines in the sand before the June 30th deadline for a final agreement.

The contradictions to U.S. positions extended to Central Intelligence Agency director John O. Brennan who believed Khamenei had been persuaded to approve a deal to avoid economic free fall in Iran, but Khamenei disputed that contention.

“There was no need to take a position,” Khamenei said. “The officials are saying that nothing has been done yet and nothing is obligatory. I neither agree nor disagree.”

Khamenei even took to Twitter claiming that an American fact sheet on the framework deal was “contrary to what was agreed.”

“We will not sign any agreement, unless all economic sanctions are totally lifted on the first day of the implementation of the deal,” Rouhani said during a ceremony marking Iran’s nuclear technology day, which celebrates the country’s nuclear achievements.

The fact that Khamenei is empowered under the regime’s constitution to be the final and authoritative voice on all foreign policy matters leaves its lobbyists like the NIAC in a pickle. While spokesmen such as Trita Parsi have been loud in praising the framework, they’ve been as mute as a monk taking vows of silence over the broad and vociferous denunciations of the same agreement by the Iran regime’s top leadership.

The imposition of a sanctions red-line by Khamenei may again sink nuclear talks for a third time and may very well be the eventual aim of Khamenei unless he gets what he desires most – the immediate lifting of all economic sanctions so he can replenish the coffers of a treasury bled dry by four proxy wars and a plummeting oil market.

“The supreme leader is saying all sanctions must be lifted as soon as a deal is signed, which is an impossible hard line,” said Michael Singh, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former senior director for Middle East affairs for the National Security Council. “President Obama can agree to almost anything, but he cannot promise immediate and total sanctions relief because that’s up to Congress and Congress is not going to do that.”

All of which explains NIAC’s desperation to persuade one or two Democratic Senators to switch and support the regime in order to avoid a veto override by Congress. Like the jury in the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the object is to not defend on guilt or innocence, but to simply convince one jury to not impose the death penalty. The NIAC could care less what Iran’s leaders say in denouncing the deal, but what they care about is pressuring just one or two Senators enough to preserve the Administration’s ability to deliver a win for the mullahs.

The real prize for the regime is not nuclear weapons – that would be a bonus – the real win is the lifting of economic sanctions which have placed the mullahs in the uncomfortable position of trying to hold a lid on a dis-satisfied population asking the question: “Why not have regime change and make things better?”

It’s a question worth supporting.

By Michael Tomlinson