Nuclear – Iran Lobby

Iran Regime Unveils Missile Base to Cover Weakness

October 16, 2015 by admin

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

Trita Parsi and Paul Pillar Outdo Themselves

June 3, 2015 by admin

Trita Parsi, head of the Iran regime’s top cheerleader, the National Iranian American Council, and Paul Pillar, a former assistant at the Central Intelligence Agency, authored an editorial in Huffington Post in which they attempted to make the argument that Israel was preparing to attack its adversary Hezbollah in an effort to derail nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 group of nations.

It’s an odd editorial since it reinforces the Iran lobby’s belief that in order to save a faltering nuclear deal it needs to raise the boogeyman of Israel. For the Iran lobby, Israel serves the same purpose as neo-cons, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) or Fox News, it gives people like Parsi and Pillar the opportunity to run hysterical promising war, apocalypse and mayhem should a nuclear deal not be achieved with Iran’s mullahs.

It’s a typical effort to cajole a reaction from American voters by promising war. A curious tactic considering NIAC has consistently promised a pathway to peace, but logic has never been a NIAC strong suit.

In fact, Parsi and Pillar are scraping the bottom of the barrel when they cite a NPR poll as evidence of shifting momentum for a nuclear deal among Americans. A closer reading of the article they cite reveals points quite unfavorable to them. Among those include:

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll last month found more than 7-in-10 said they thought a deal would “not make a real difference in preventing Iran from producing nuclear weapons.”
A Pew survey found that 73 percent said they either knew “a little” or “nothing at all” about nuclear talks. That same poll also found that a strong majority (62 percent) wants Congress to “have the final authority for approving any deal” not President Obama.

The funny thing is that the overwhelming majority of Americans don’t mind talks with Iran on a nuclear deal. Where they disagree with Parsi and Pillar is that the majority of Americans don’t believe Iranian regime will adhere to any deal and that mullahs in Iran simply can’t be trusted.

Americans are an optimistic people. They want to believe negotiations can yield peaceful fruit, but Americans are not stupid – much to the dismay of Parsi and Pillar – they recognize that trust for a regime run by mullahs that has launched and supported three major proxy wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq can’t be trusted.

Americans also know all too well the brutal human rights situation in Iran and are acutely aware of the inhumane treatment being perpetrated in Iran on these same people.

Anyone typing in the words “Iran” and “hanging” in Google under an image search can see the ample proof on display of how Iranian regime’s judicial system dispenses justice. Americans also see Iran’s mullahs playing games with the lives of four Americans being held in Iranian prisons as pawns in the hopes of bartering concessions in nuclear talks.

It’s also even more galling to see that while Parsi and Pillar produce so much editorial copy aimed at warning of a war, they have never condemned the wars that Iran is already waging:

Wars against women, children and anyone who cannot exercise their basic human rights without fear of arrest or public beating;
Wars against Christians, Jews, Hindus, Yazadis, Sunni Muslims, or anyone else that doesn’t share their brand of extremist Islam; and
Wars against bloggers, journalists, pastors, businessmen, tourists, YouTubers and anyone else that dares shine a light on what is happening within Iran.

These are the wars Parsi and Pillar are not prepared to talk about and the real wars happening now that matter.

By Michael Tomlinson

NIAC Book Gift Embarrassing

February 27, 2015 by admin

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) has been a dutiful spokesperson for the Iranian regime and has carried the mullahs water no matter how ridiculous the claims it had to make, but today was an epic new low in absurdity.

The NIAC delivered to all 100 members of the U.S. Senate a book entitled “In the Lion’s Shadow: The Iranian Schindler and his Homeland in the Second World War,” and autographed by its author Dr. Fariborz Mokhtari. The book details the efforts by Abdol-Hossein Sardari, an Iranian consular official in Paris in 1941 who aided Iranian and non-Iranian Jews by issuing them passports to exit during the war.

While the efforts of Sardari are rightly lauded for his efforts during the war, it is patently absurd that the NIAC would be passing these books out in an effort to portray itself and the Iranian regime in a more positive light in regards to the Jewish people.

It seems that there is a relation between distributing that book and the almost vitriolic nature of near-daily attacks coming from NIAC against Israel and the pending speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before a joint session of Congress on the Iranian regime’s negotiations over its nuclear weapons development program, Iran’s policies have been anything but humane or peaceful not only against the Jewish people, but the rest of the world.

It’s no secret there are many things wrong with Israel and its policies, especially the plight of the Palestinian people and the roadmap to peace in that part of the world, but there is no doubt that Iran’s long-standing support of terrorist groups hostile and active in and around Israel such as Hezbollah run contrary to any idea of peaceful motives.

Also, the fact that Iran’s mullahs espouse an extremist view of Islam that has fueled and provides intellectual and religious fodder for many of the region’s most extreme Islamic groups such as Boko Haram, ISIS and the Houthis in Yemen, points to the dangers it poses for peace. Not to mention the global range of attacks specifically targeting Christians and Jews by these fanatic Islamic groups supported by mullah’s ideology.

The book giveaway was accompanied by a note from NIAC’s head, Trita Parsi, in which he expressed his hope the book would be a reminder of the potential for a “different reality between the Jewish and Iranian peoples.”

He alluded to the ongoing talks as the linchpin to that new reality. The truth is far from what Parsi depicts. If news reports are accurate, the P5+1 led by the U.S. is prepared to offer Iran’s mullahs a deal that lifts economic sanctions and barely touches Iran’s existing nuclear infrastructure without any commensurate change in Iran’s policies in human rights or the treatment of political and religious dissidents. Yet mullahs have a different agenda.

The reality is that Iran’s mullahs intend to carry out a vision of regional influence for their radical form of Islam across the Middle East and Africa and gain virtual control of the of governments of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Yemen.

It is also worth noting that the hero of the book, Sardari, was left penniless after the Iranian revolution in 1979 with his property seized by the mullahs, he eventually died in Nottingham, England in 1981 in penury; a tragic end for a man of conviction who did so much in the name of humanity.

It is a travesty the NIAC seeks to make hay of this man’s actions and even worse to use it as a fig leaf cover for the brutality of a regime well-known for its hatred of other religions, even of other Muslims who do not share its violent visions.

By Sheldon March

The Truth about Iran’s Religious Exceptions on Nuclear Weapons

October 23, 2014 by admin

Iran’s Sejil 2 missile is seen in front of a picture of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei before a test launch.
Photo credit: The Daily Signal

In a recent piece in Truthout, Gareth Porter lays out a historical rationale for Iran not wanting to develop nuclear weapons based on a fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He goes on to cite a historical precedent with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s first supreme leader in the new Islamic Republic, issuing his own fatwa against chemical weapons after Iraq used them in Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran.

Unfortunately Mr. Porter’s observations and conclusion are fatally flawed for a number of reasons, the biggest being that unlike he has reasoned, the Iranian regime did use chemical weapons against Iraqis, and since the then Supreme Leader lied about it, the present one can certainly lie as well. It is also worth mentioniong that the present Supreme Leader is often under question as a habitual liar.

It is a given of politics since the dawn of civilization that people in power will do or say most anything that preserves their power or position. Iran and its religious theocracy are not immune to the same temptations. Running a nation state in the service of your religious belief is not much different than serving your political party. In Iran’s case, Khamenei has exemplified the slightly bipolar nature of politics by condemning nuclear weapons, yet ardently defending Iran’s capabilities to develop them.

Mr. Porter fails to note during this summer’s first round of nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 group of Western nations, Khamenei delivered his nation’s version of the State of Union where he went into highly technical detail about Iran’s desire to not only preserve its enriching capacity, but indeed significantly expand it almost a hundredfold from where negotiators were at. While negotiators were debating allowing Iran to keep anywhere from 1,900 to 4,000 centrifuges, Khamenei called for 190,000 Separative Work Units (SWU) and the presumption of the rights to build enough centrifuges of the next-generation models (which are the most efficient at refining uranium into highly enriched fuel suitable for nuclear warheads or heavy water reactors which could produce plutonium) as the minimum requirements for their “peaceful nuclear program”.

Since Khamenei represents the final authority in Iran on international treaties, that round of talks was effectively dead on arrival this past July. It is a credit though to the significant international circle of Iranian regime sympathizers and cheerleaders that that collapse was not fatal and in fact another round of talks were scheduled with a November 24^th deadline this year.

Mr. Porter bases nearly all his story on the single viewpoint of Mohsen Rafighdoost, who served as minister of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard during the Iran-Iraq war and is obviously responsible for any chemical attacks carried out during the war, and claims that he had broached the subject of weapons of mass destruction to Khomeini who dissuaded him at the time. However as documented by many media outlets, including an article in New York Times, dated January 31, 2003, the truth is the polar opposite.

We only have the current Supreme Leader’s words to go by and unlike the tea reading that went on at May Day parades in front of Lenin’s Tomb of the Politburo members from the old Soviet Union, we are left to discern the rants and ravings of a theocrat that hasn’t spared anything against his own people, while his men in power are widely known to govern the primary state sponsor of terrorism, and had already run a clandestine nuclear program for 18 years before it was first exposed by its opponents in 2002. And in his most recent comments, he certainly lays open the door for enriching on a massive scale.

Indeed the clear facts, unlike Mr. Porters picture of the situation is totally different. In Iran’s case under the leadership of president Hassan Rouhani, Khamenei’s handpicked moderate face to the world, police crackdowns on dissent have sharply risen as have executions; now in excess of 1,000 according to Amnesty International. Access to the internet and outside communications and social media are sharply curtailed if not blocked completely and Iran has stepped up its military and financial support to terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as become involved in the Syrian civil war and the battle with ISIS in Iraq in an attempt to preserve its control of a Shiite hegemony in the region.

Given those actions, it is hard for anyone to take Iran’s leadership at its word that its only interest is in boosting its economy to give its people more access to iPhones and clothes from Gap Kids.

While Mr. Porter’s hopes for a nuclear-free Iran may be commendable and sincere, he may very well have been taken for a ride by an Iranian flying carpet courtesy of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

By: Michael Tomlinson