Reza Marashi – Page 3

“NIAC Leadership” Conference Showcases Influence Pedaling

September 26, 2016 by admin

“NIAC Leadership” Conference Showcases Influence Pedaling

How much does it cost to meet your lawmakers in a venue where you can exert the influence of the mullahs in Tehran? Apparently only $349 and that also gets you three lunches and two breakfasts!

What a deal.

But if you’re strapped for cash, maybe because you have to pitch in for your family to hire a lawyer in an effort to reach your dual-nationality relative who is sitting in Evin prison in Iran, for only $175 you can still get access to lawmakers, but you miss out on a “Gala Reception” and hors d’oeuvres.

So less pizazz, but still you can buy access and who is selling this access at such bargain rate prices? The National Iranian American Council which held its “Leadership Conference” this weekend in Washington, DC.

The conference was a veritable who’s who of Iranian regime activists and lobbyists, all previously dedicated foot soldiers in the fight for securing a nuclear deal with Iran, as well as the fight to buy reprieves for the regime from ongoing sanctions for violations of human rights and sponsorship of terrorism.

Some of the more notable speakers included Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund,which received and distributed cash to various members of the Iran lobby including NIAC according to investigative media reports, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor to President Obama and architect of the now-infamous “echo chamber” of supporters used to deceive media and the American people as to the inherent flaws of the nuclear agreement.

Other key participants curiously included Christopher Backemeyer, deputy coordinator of sanctions policy in the State Department, and Michael Mosier, associate director at the Office of Sanctions Policy & Implementation in the Office of Foreign Assets Control. These two men hold considerable power over the question of whether or not Iran is complying with the nuclear agreement and whether or not certain sanctions should be enforced such as bans against the regime accessing US currency exchanges.

The fact that such key regulatory officials are participating in a conference sponsored by an organization identified as having strong links to high ranking Iranian officials should prove troubling. It is similar to having members of the Treasury Department’s securities enforcement division having drinks with executives from Enron or Lehman Brothers prior to the mortgage meltdown.

What is always fascinating about the NIAC’s annual confab is the packing of the speakers list with its own staffers, in this case Trita Parsi, Reza Marashi and Tyler Cullis, each of whom have worked diligently to carry Iran’s water and make excuses for the worst excesses of the regime. Watching these three “stooges” try to divert attention away from ballistic missile launches, mass arrests of journalists, public hangings of Iranians or arrests of Americans, Brits and other citizens is like watching a bad sketch comedy troupe.

Considering that one of the self-proclaimed mandates of the NIAC is “to ensure that human rights are upheld in Iran and that civil rights are protected in the US. NIAC believes that the principles of universal rights – Freedom of assembly, religion, and speech, as well as dignity, due process and freedom from violence – are the cornerstones of a civil society” one might ask why NIAC never invites any of the Iranian-Americans who can tell their story first hand of what Iranian justice is like.

Why is it that NIAC never has people such as Saeed Abedini, the Christian pastor held and tortured in Iran, or Amir Hekmati, the former US Marine brutalized in prison, or Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter, to attend a conference and tell their story in furthering an understanding of the terrible forces at work within Iran’s religious leadership?

Of course the NIAC would never showcase any of these Americans since their presence would be a terrible embarrassment and highlight the true nature of the Iranian regime which is cruelty, punishment, abuse and control. Even though these Americans were released in exchange for $1.7 billion in cash, more Americans have been taken this year and the NIAC holds no fundraiser for them; launches no grassroots campaign for their release and holds no protest in their honor.

Even after the regime’s president, Hassan Rouhani, appeared on NBC prior to his speech before the United Nations General Assembly, he confidently admitted to Chuck Todd that Iran did not recognize dual nationalities.

“Therefore those who have dual citizenship, from the interpretation of the Iranian laws, are Iranian citizens solely and only,” Rouhani said. “And any legal prosecution is carried out on the foundation that they are Iranian citizens subject to Iranian law.”

And yet the NIAC issued no condemnation, no rebuke, not even a single tweet objecting to the extralegal procedures against Iranian-Americans, which the NIAC was ostensibly working on behalf of.

The height of absurdity was reached and exceeded by several speakers at this weekend’s proceedings, including this juicy quote from Rhodes.

“Acceleration of tensions between Gulf partners and Iran is a serious problem across the region,” said Rhodes as quoted by NIAC.

You think? It might be one of the better understatements, ranking up there with “peace in our time” by Neville Chamberlain.

The Iranian regime has pushed the possibility of all-out conflict with regional rival Saudi Arabia, while at the time supporting three proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen that have claimed the lives of almost 750,000 people. NIAC’s promises that Iran would be a partner for peace and moderation following the nuclear deal have turned out to be false and alarmingly so.

What was promising was the position taken by Philip Gordon, a senior foreign policy advisor to Hillary Clinton and senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, who reiterated the presidential candidates public statements of skepticism about Iran’s conduct and the need to “distrust and verify” when it comes to enforcing the nuclear deal, much to the chagrin of Parsi who tried everything short of begging to get Gordon to make positive statements about the regime.

Gordon’s reticence provides hope that the next president will approach Iran with a clean slate and not be motivated to the falsehoods and “echo chamber” of the NIAC.

By Laura Carnahan

Iran Lobby Working Hard to Preserve Flawed Nuclear Deal

July 19, 2016 by admin

Iran Lobby Working Hard to Preserve Flawed Nuclear Deal

It has been one year since the Iran nuclear deal was agreed approved and freed the Iranian regime from a host of economic sanctions, as well as gave itself truckloads of political and diplomatic capital it has spread around the world in support of three proxy wars it is now waging.

By any objective standard, the Iranian nuclear deal has been a failure because it never was tied to modifying the behavior of the mullahs in Tehran. If the mullahs suffer no consequences for actions to support terror, commit cruel human rights violations and continue to build the infrastructure necessary to deliver a nuclear warhead to a target, then they are going to continue with that abhorrent behavior.

Nowhere was that point made more clear than in revelations by the Associated Press that in a secret side deal with the Iranian regime granted by the Obama administration, key restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program will start to ease years before the publicly-stated 15 year accord’s expiration, thus allowing the regime to pursue full development of a nuclear bomb well before the end of the pact.

The confidential document is the only text linked to last year’s deal between Iran and six foreign powers that hasn’t been made public, although U.S. officials say members of Congress who expressed interest were briefed on its substance. It was given to the AP by a diplomat whose work has focused on Iran’s nuclear program for more than a decade, and its authenticity was confirmed by another diplomat who possesses the same document.

although some of the constraints extend for 15 years, documents in the public domain are short on details of what happens with Iran’s most proliferation-prone nuclear activity — its uranium enrichment — beyond the first 10 years of the agreement.

The document obtained by the AP fills in the gap. It says that as of January 2027 — 11 years after the deal was implemented — Iran will start replacing its mainstay centrifuges with thousands of advanced machines.

Continue reading the main story

Centrifuges churn out uranium to levels that can range from use as reactor fuel and for medical and research purposes to much higher levels for the core of a nuclear warhead. From year 11 to 13, says the document, Iran will install centrifuges up to five times as efficient as the 5,060 machines it is now restricted to using.

Those new models will number less than those being used now, ranging between 2,500 and 3,500, depending on their efficiency, according to the document. But because they are more effective, they will allow Iran to enrich at more than twice the rate it is doing now, according to the New York Times.

The blockbuster revelations mean that Iran can massively expand its uranium enrichment capacity to produce several nuclear warheads within a time frame as little as 10 years, which contradicts virtually every public reassurance uttered by Iran lobby proponents such as the National Iranian American Council and Ploughshares Fund.

The NIAC’s deliberate misleading of the public continued during a briefing on Capitol Hill in which the NIAC was represented by noted regime apologists Reza Marashi and Tyler Cullis. Also attending were Suzanne DiMaggio of New America and Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress.

DiMaggio was especially adept at turning verbal gymnastics in trying to pound home the idea that the nuclear agreement should not be tied to other issues such as Iran’s consistent support for the Assad regime as it busily wipes out virtually the entire civilian population of Syria.

It is funny DiMaggio also mentioned the heightened state of crisis in the Strait of Hormuz and thought it would be a good idea for the U.S. and the regime to negotiate an agreement government interactions at sea. That would be nice since Iran has been busy continually threatening U.S. and foreign vessels, capturing and parading U.S. sailors and threatening to blow up commercial shipping repeatedly, as well as use its own vessels to smuggle illicit weapons and arms to Houthi rebels in Yemen, threatening Saudi Arabia and opening a new war front.

Yeah, that would be a nice idea. So would hitting the lottery three times in a row, but you shouldn’t count on it.

Most remarkable of all was the complete absence of any discussions about human rights in the presentations. Only during questioning did Marashi mention human rights in the context of having a dialogue, which is cold comfort to the thousands of Iranians and dual-nationality citizens currently being held in Evin prison.

The fact that the Iran lobby never discusses human rights reveals the Achilles heel of its position in trying to defend the nuclear deal. Regime apologists such as Trita Parsi of NIAC understand the threat that discussing human rights poses to the nuclear deal since the topic is deadly radioactive to them. They have no defense for the barbaric actions of the regime and no deflection of the human misery being suffered by Iranians at the hands of their own leaders.

In a lengthy piece in Politico, Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, a Boston Globe columnist, wrote extensively about efforts to derail the nuclear deal, taking special effort to go after Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and staunch opponent of the nuclear deal.

She also ironically only mentions human rights once in her piece and only in terms of what Dubowitz is focusing on in working against the flawed deal. She quotes Parsi in his efforts to portray the potential consequences of the nuclear deal failing and blaming it on the U.S. exclusively, even though the Iranian regime has moved aggressively to exceed the limits of the agreement with a huge increase in testing of ballistic missiles outlawed by United Nations sanctions.

Iran is barred from conducting ballistic missile tests for eight years under UN Resolution 2231, which went effect July 20, 2015, days after the nuclear accord was signed.

Iran is “called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology,” according to the text of the resolution.

Yet, only two days before the anniversary of the agreement, Iran conducted its fourth missile test since the deal was signed in clear violation of the sanction and has boldly proclaimed it would accelerate its missile program; choosing the same path that pariah state North Korea has taken in missile development.

With the looming end of the Obama administration and the very real possibility of a Trump or Clinton administration seeking to redo the deal to address these concerns, the Iran lobby is working feverishly to buy the mullahs more time to accelerate its nuclear infrastructure work before the start of 2017.

By Michael Tomlinson

Why the Iran Lobby Avoids Discussing Human Rights and Terrorism

June 8, 2016 by admin

Why the Iran Lobby Avoids Discussing Human Rights and Terrorism

In a world where it is common place knowledge that the Iranian regime is a state sponsor of terrorism, with a long and bloody history, it always seems that the Iran lobby operates in a different plane of existence.

For regime supporters such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council and Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund, issues such as human rights violations and terrorism are less than inconvenient truths about Iran; they are things never meant to be spoken of in public or on social media.

The Iran lobby consistently seems to operate on the premise that if you never mention either of these topics, then they must not be real.

This is obvious by simply perusing the blogs and social media feeds for these Iran support groups periodically. Reading them within the context of what is happening in real time in the Middle East and Iran provides a surreal view that is totally disconnected from reality.

It’s also pretty darn funny to read.

Take for example Trita Parsi’s Twitter feed (@tparsi) which can’t help but be viewed as comedy material or pure ignorance. More likely it resonates as part of the famed “echo chamber” that national security staffer Ben Rhodes boasted about in a recent New York Times Magazine article.

Take for example this nugget in which Parsi derides the U.S. State Department’s annual terrorism report in which it identifies Iran as a leading state sponsor of terrorism:

“Still a mystery to me why State doesnt release this on April 1,” he tweets, implying that the report is a joke better left for an April Fools prank.

Unfortunately for Parsi and the rest of the Iran lobby, mockery and ridicule can’t hide the facts laid out in the report in which the State Department spells out the Iranian regime’s longstanding support for Hezbollah, a key cog in the regime’s long-running involvement in the Syrian civil war, and its support for Shiite militias in Iraq that have roamed throughout Sunni areas as death squads and Houthi rebels in Yemen that have displaced nearly half of the country’s population as part of a civil war.

Parsi’s Twitter feed is absent any mentions of those Iran-backed wars and the role the mullahs and the regime’s Quds Forces and Revolutionary Guard Corps play in them. He does make mention of the plight of Syrian refugees fleeing the war and the high price they pay in trying to cross the Mediterranean, but never urges Iran to seek a peaceful resolution of the conflict or even open its borders to those refugees it is forcing out.

Parsi does however spend considerable social media time attacking Saudi Arabia, the Iranian regime’s biggest rival, accusing it of “terrorism” and acts more readily identified with the mullahs in Tehran.

He even goes to the absurd level of defending top mullah Ali Khamenei’s incendiary speech over the weekend in which he denounced the U.S. and called Great Britain “evil” and blamed his country’s continued economic woes on existing U.S. sanctions on Iran’s access to U.S. currency markets tied to human rights violations and not the nuclear deal from last year.

“Khamenei said today what Iran’s been signaling the US for a while: Anti-ISIS cooperation on hold due to sanctions relief problems,” Parsi tweets.

The implication Parsi tries to make is that continued sanctions against Iran for the mass executions of over 2,500 Iranian men, women and children, as well as its sponsorship of three major wars is somehow halting the war against ISIS.

He conveniently ignores the bulk of Khamenei speech which is filled with vitriol and hate and the usual threats to wipe Iran’s enemies off the face of the Earth.

The more appropriate evaluation to make of Parsi social media postings and those his colleagues at NIAC is that they spend more time posting about Donald Trump than they do about the misery being suffered by Iranians at the hands of their own government.

They spend more time posting about the Cannes Film Festival than they do about the threats being made by the creation of a new morality police force designed to enforce strict Islamic codes against Iranian women.

They spend more time discussing the plight of Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American arrested and imprisoned in Iran who is a long-time supporter of the NIAC, than the thousands of Iranian dissidents, journalists, artists, bloggers and activists that were rounded up, imprisoned and tortured leading up to parliamentary elections.

The priorities of the Iran lobby are always on display to anyone who wishes to scan through the social feeds of supporters such as Parsi. What is telling is what is NOT in those feeds, such as any criticism of the mullahs, any calls for a Syrian cease fire, any demands for a release of all Iranian journalists or dissidents, any urging for the end of the barbaric practice of public hangings of prisoners, or any hopes for a cessation of the practice of beating women who do not wear hijabs.

Parsi and his cohorts do not do any of these things because they are – above all else – committed to supporting the Iranian regime and keeping it safe from any threats.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Demands Social Media Sites Store Data Only In Iran

June 1, 2016 by admin

Iran Demands Social Media Sites Store Data Only In Iran

The Iranian regime issues ultimatums with the regularity of a cuckoo clock. Whether it’s an indictment of perceived transgressions by human rights groups to blustery pronouncements threatening devastation on its enemies, the mullahs in Tehran are frequently making demands, threats and promises.

The latest demand came this weekend courtesy of the regime’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, which said:

“Foreign messaging companies active in the country are required to transfer all data and activity linked to Iranian citizens into the country in order to ensure their continued activity,” in new regulations carried by state news agency IRNA on Sunday.

Putting aside the fact that the regime has a group dedicated to cyberspace with a name straight out of bad James Bond villain list, the regime has put a public face to one of the more sinister efforts it pushes in using the internet to track down dissenters, activists and others that oppose the rule of the mullahs.

Iran has some of the strictest controls on internet access in the world and blocks access to social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, although many users are able to access them through widely available software; notably the regime’s leadership has free access to those same platforms to push out its propaganda such as social feeds for Hassan Rouhani and even Ali Khamenei.

The council, whose members are selected by Khamenei, gave social media companies a year to comply, IRNA said, adding that the measures were based on the “guidelines and concerns of the supreme leader.”

The new requirements could affect messaging app Telegram in particular. The cloud-based instant messaging service has gained popularity because of its high level of security and is estimated to have about 20 million users in Iran, which has a total population of about 80 million, placing it at the forefront of most of the digital communications taking place among ordinary Iranians the regime cannot spy on.

Iranians have proven adept at using technology to circumvent strict government rules in the past. The Gershad app, launched in February, helps Iranian women track the morality police in large cities, so they can avoid being stopped for dress code violations.

The technology community, especially social media companies based in Silicon Valley such as Facebook and Twitter and in Silicon Beach such as Snapchat, reacted negatively to the mullahs’ demands.

The tech blog TechCrunch noted how the “Iranian government wants to be able to track private and semi-private conversations on messaging apps. Many social networks are already blocked in Iran, but it looks like the government wants even more control.”

But TechCrunch explained the devil was in the details since moving servers to Iran might not be enough, as WhatsApp recently completed its rollout of end-to-end encryption. With end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp can’t even read the content of communications, as they are encrypted, and only WhatsApp users involved in these conversations can decrypt them.

Apple’s iMessage is another example of an encrypted messaging protocol. Apple isn’t able to hand out messages to a government.

Earlier this month Iranian authorities placed eight women under arrest for posting Instagram photos of themselves without a headscarf on as part of a larger crackdown on social media usage that began before the most recent parliamentary elections.

The regime had previously arrested the entire staff of an Iranian tech blog and actively seeks out Iranian citizens posting on social media anything that could be construed as defying the Iranian regime’s extremist rule and authority or posing a threat to the regime leaders.

Even in the face of tough web censorship, Iranians are still using the internet in droves. A government report last year showed that 67.4 per cent of the country’s youth are online, with 19.1 percent claiming that they use messaging apps, and 15.3 per cent on social media. It is also widely believed that Iran’s tech-savvy citizens are utilizing VPNs to access sites blocked by the government.

This poses a significant problem for the regime since news often is smuggled out electronically of the atrocities and human rights abuses within Iran by dissident and human rights activists, including shocking photos and videos of public executions, amputations and other medieval punishments enforced by the regime.

Unsurprisingly, the Iran lobby has remained silent on this issue and the threat to free speech and freedom it poses. For groups such as the National Iranian American Council, whose members such as Trita Parsi, Ryan Costello and Tyler Cullis make ample and aggressive use of social media, the attempt to electronically spy on and muzzle Iranians, including those living in places such as the U.S. with relatives in Iran, have been met with silence.

This move by the Iranian regime only adds to the mountains of evidence proving the mullahs are neither moderate, nor peaceful.

By Laura Carnahan

Iranian Regime Increases US Tensions Despite Promises by Iran Lobby

May 5, 2016 by admin

Iranian Regime Increases US Tensions Despite Promises by Iran Lobby

The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world and through it flows about 20 percent of the world’s petroleum supplies making it one of the most important trading routes in the world.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an average of 14 tankers per day transit the Strait carrying 17 million barrels of crude oil, representing a hefty 35 percent of the world’s seaborne shipments of oil. The vast majority of that oil, over 85 percent, goes to Asian markets such as Japan, China, India and South Korea.

It is a chokepoint that the Iranian regime has used as a threat to the rest of the world repeatedly since 1988 when it first laid mines in the Strait contrary to all international agreements. Iranian regime has been involved in a series of confrontations there, including:

2008 with a series of stand-offs with the U.S. Navy and threats to close the Strait;
2011-12 Iranian regime again threatened to close the gulf forcing a coalition of navies to send ships to confront regime vessels;
2015 Iran seized the Maersk Tigris container ship; and
Earlier this year, Iranian vessels seized a U.S. Navy patrol boat with its 10 sailors and detained them.

The Iranian regime has used the threat of war and violence in the Strait as a form of diplomacy and regards such aggression as a tool of statecraft.

According to the New York Times, tensions between Iran and the United States, never far from the surface, showed signs of worsening on Wednesday, with the Iranians threatening to block a vital Persian Gulf access route and protesting what they called the American “meddling approach and tone.”

The Iranian regime messages, conveyed in statements by a commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and by the Foreign Ministry, came a few days after top mullah Ali Khamenei expressed exasperation with the U.S., questioning the longstanding deployment of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf.

“It is Americans who should explain why they have come here from the other side of the world and stage war games,” Khamenei said in remarks widely reported in Iran’s state news media.

Together, the messages appeared to reflect a steady buildup of anti-American sentiment in Iran recently despite the nuclear agreement that took effect in January, which, on paper at least, eased the country’s economic isolation and was hailed by the Iran lobby as a force for moderation, which seems to have been a false promise so far.

The warning from the Revolutionary Guards about blocking American access to the Persian Gulf waterway appeared to be partly a response to a congressional resolution introduced April 28 by Representative J. Randy Forbes, Republican of Virginia.

The resolution condemned what it called Iran’s illegal detention of American sailors patrolling near Iran in January and said Iran had “undermined stability in the Arabian Gulf.”

On Wednesday, Iran’s Fars News Agency, which has links to the Revolutionary Guards, said Lt. Cmdr. Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami had issued a warning to the United States to avoid escalation.

“Iran will decisively confront any menacing passage through the Strait of Hormuz,” Fars quoted him as saying. “We warn the Americans not to repeat their past mistakes, and they should learn from historical realities.”

The aggressive statements made by regime officials underscore the de facto methodology employed by the mullahs in Tehran to state their case which is always by way of threat and coercion. The siren song promises made by Iran lobby supporters

By Michael Tomlinson

The Lie That Is Iranian Moderation

April 11, 2016 by admin

EDITORS’ NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.
Members of Iran’s Basij militia march during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), in Tehran September 22, 2010. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl (IRAN – Tags: ANNIVERSARY MILITARY POLITICS)

Nothing illustrates the confusion over the nuclear deal with the Iranian regime than one simple fact: Even as the Obama administration is encouraging new trade and investment opportunities with the regime as a reward for the deal, it is also at the same time seeking to impose new economic sanctions for violating prohibitions against developing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

The flip-flopping is emblematic of what makes diplomacy towards the mullahs in Tehran an exercise in frustration and futility because the truth of the matter is that they are not committed to a path towards true peace and civility. Rather Iranian leaders such as Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani are playing the long game of chess moves designed to break down barriers; allowing the regime to access resources while playing off the desires of the West for peace vs. pushing the envelope of newly aggressive acts.

The mullahs and their allies in the Iran lobby recognize that time is running out to play this game since virtually all of the leading contenders to replace President Obama this fall have denounced the regime and have publicly staked out territory to hold the mullahs accountable.

Consequently, regime allies such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council have been usually quiet in their public statements and social media posts about what is happening with Iran such as the missile launchings, the smuggling of weapons to Yemen, the escalation in sending fighters to Syria and the continued incarceration of dissidents and journalists in Iran.

The strategy for them is to be as deaf and dumb as a lamp post and not provide fodder for the foes of Iran to tee off against them and expose the hypocrisy of their support for a regime which has ably shown itself to have intentions or desires for moderation.

Matthew Lee, the Associated Press’ diplomatic writer, examined this conundrum for the Obama administration over the weekend.

“Eager that a successful deal and a new era in the U.S.-Iran relationship be part of President Barack Obama’s legacy, his administration finds itself encouraging foreign trade with Iran even as it forbids most American commerce with the Islamic Republic. Those efforts are complicated by the fact that the United States continues to condemn and try to punish Iranian actions in non-nuclear arenas such as Tehran’s support of terrorist groups and belligerence toward Israel,” Lee writes.

“Asian and European government and companies, primarily banks, are balking at doing now-legal business with Iran, because of uncertainty over those remaining sanctions. They want written clarification about what current U.S. laws and financial regulations allow them to do. Essentially, they want a promise that the U.S. will not prosecute or punish them for transactions that involve Iran,” he added.

The fact that the Obama administration is trying to navigate a path for the Iranian regime to receive benefits from the nuclear deal even as it violates other international agreements demonstrates how ineffective U.S. policy has become in reigning in the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

What has not been focused on by most Western media is the intricate network of Iranian companies owned and operated by the Revolutionary Guard Corps and regime leaders and their families such as Khamenei.

In 2013, Reuters published a three-part investigation into what it called Ayatollah Assets. Now, Khamenei wants certain companies to be the main beneficiaries from lifting the sanctions, mainly the economic arm of the Revolutionary Guard — stamped by many around the globe as a terrorist organization.

The fact that Khamenei has been on a verbal rampage over the slow drip of funds into companies he controls is not so much a desire to help ordinary Iranians as much as it represents his frustration over not getting his payday and like a petulant child, Khamenei has ordered a paramilitary force comprised of zealot students loyal to him to fight in Syria.

A media group close to the Iranian government, Mehr News Agency, reported Tuesday at least 30 members of the regime’s Basij Resistance Force have been killed fighting in Syria and Iraq. Iran’s military influence in both countries is significant, with around 212 killed in both countries, according to a report by Al-Jazeera. Analysts conservatively estimate there are around 7,000 Iranian forces operating in Iraq and Syria.

While the Iranian regime escalates its military involvement in Syria, the Obama administration held its second Nowruz celebration observing the Persian New Year with First Lady Michelle Obama. It is worth noting the flood of social media messages coming in from activists and Iranian dissidents urging the First Lady not to forget about the terrible human rights abuses going on in Iran.

Protests over the regime’s policies though come in all sizes and shapes and its latest request comes in response to the plight of a group of female crew members at a French airline.

When it was announced that Air France would begin flying into Tehran after an eight year hiatus, a number of the female crew demanded the right to opt-out of working on the new route. Many objected to an internal memo asking them to wear a hijab when disembarking the plane in the Iranian capital.

The crew members have now won the battle. On Monday Air France announced it would allow its female staff to be reassigned to other flights, should they not wish to fly to Iran.

We can only hope that more acts of “soft power” defiance take place in support of those shackled by the regime.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Excuses Get Stranger and Stranger

March 17, 2016 by admin

Iran Lobby Excuses Get Stranger and Stranger

The Iran lobby has offered up a variety of excuses for the actions and militant behavior of the Iranian regime ranging from pleas of peace-loving intent and political moderation to feigned ignorance and indignation over escalating human rights abuses and proxy wars throughout the Middle East.

One of the newest lines being trotted out by the Iran lobby is the absurd notion that Iran has never started a war.

A scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, took that claim to task in a column for Commentary Magazine.

He showcased comments made by Iranian regime apologists Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor, and retired Congressman Ron Paul who said “There’s no history to show that Iran are aggressive people. When’s the last time they invaded a country? Over 200 years ago!”

“Iran has not launched an aggressive war in modern history (unlike the US or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of ‘no first strike.’ This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders,” said Cole.

The Iranian regime knows when it has got a good thing going. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif yesterday tweeted, “Iran hasn’t attacked any country in 250 years. But when Saddam rained missiles on us and gassed our people for 8 yrs, no one helped us.”

These are absurd comments when looked at in the context of what the mullahs have wrought since the Islamic revolution in 1979. The mullahs preferred method of aggression is to use proxies, either in the form of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah or local militias such as in Iraq and Yemen.

Hezbollah alone has served as a conduit of death and destruction for decades by carrying acts of terror either under the direction of or direct cooperation with Revolutionary Guards and Quds Forces personnel. In the most recent Syrian conflict, senior Iranian commanders have been in the field directing combat operations and even getting killed.

It’s noteworthy that Syria never posed a direct conflict with Iran, not even sharing borders, but the mullahs felt it necessary to engage in armed conflict there and even expanded it by calling for Russia to join in the bloodshed and widen the war.

Since the revolution, Iran has been involved in military campaigns in:

1982-present: Lebanon
2003-present: Iraq
2006: Israel (via Hezbollah)
2011-present: Syria
2015-present: Yemen

Not exactly a record of pacifism, but certainly in line with the extremist nature of the regime and the duplicitous nature of the excuses made by the Iran lobby.

Another example of that stranger than fiction messaging came when regime-controlled media blasted the report issued by Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, which blistered the regime for appalling human rights abuses, including a near historic 1,000 executions in 2015 and a distressing willingness of the mullahs to kill children and women.

Iran Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari criticized the recent report as “biased,” “politically motivated” and “prejudicial, Tasnim news agency reported.

He said that the report is “imbalanced” and has been prepared based on “unreliable information.”

Those criticisms fell on deaf ears though as the Committee to Protect Journalists joined 34 other organizations in calling on the U.N. Human Rights Council to vote in favor of renewing the mandate Shaheed’s term as special rapporteur. The vote is scheduled to take place during the 31^st session of the council, which ends March 24.

In the joint letter, the organizations drew attention to the range of “serious and systematic violations” of civil and political rights in Iran, as well as the need for the council to urge Iranian authorities to implement long overdue legal changes that would address the grievances of those who have borne the brunt of human rights abuses.

Journalists and other political and civic actors are “arbitrarily detained and given increasingly harsh prison sentences, often for trumped-up national security-related charges,” the letter said. Iran is one of the leading jailers of journalists, with 19 behind bars as of CPJ’s annual prison census on December 1. Ahead of last month’s legislative elections, journalists were arrested and at least one publication was banned, CPJ research shows.

In the meantime, even the modest “moderate” election wins hailed by the Iran lobby were under assault as several women who won seats were being verbally attacked for making comments deemed threatening to the regime, such as criticizing laws mandating women wear traditional veils and coverings.

All of which provides additional proof that any hope of moderation offered up by the Iran lobby is never really going to happen. This was put on bold display when Reza Marashi, research director for the National Iranian American Council, published a plaintive editorial in Huffington Post pleading for the release of his fellow regime supporter, Siamak Namazi, who was arrested and imprisoned by the regime and not part of the prisoner swap resulting from the nuclear deal.

“After finishing his graduate studies abroad, he again returned to Iran in 1999, this time as a consultant. Most people in his shoes returned to try and make a quick buck as a big fish in a small pond. Not Siamak. He helped run a world-renowned consulting firm – staffed predominantly with Iranian-born citizens – that facilitated badly-needed foreign investment from blue-chip multinational corporations,” Marashi said.

Unfortunately, Marashi neglects to mention how that firm, Atieh Consulting, become embroiled in regime politics since his family had deep connections to various parts of the regime’s leadership and actively cooked up the idea of creating an Iran lobby in the U.S. through the NIAC to help advocate for the lifting of international sanctions and far from being a selfless act, Namazi and others had hoped to position themselves to serve as middlemen to funnel foreign investment back into the regime and steer it towards their political allies as described in several investigative pieces.

It is also noteworthy how Marashi did not write similar heartfelt pieces on behalf of other Americans held captive in Iranian prisons such as Amir Hekmati or Saeed Abedini or endured years of torture in Iran.

It would certainly be interesting to see Marashi put his feet where his mouth is and go to Iran himself to plead with the mullahs and see if he can avoid a lengthy prison term as well as another political pawn for them.

By Michael Tomlinson

Pushback Grows Against Iran Lobby Claims of Moderate Win

March 4, 2016 by admin

Pushback Grows Against Iran Lobby Claims of Moderate Win

Basking in the afterglow of the Iranian regime’s parliamentary election results, the Iran lobby predictably boasted of the massive wins by moderate and reformist forces within Iran, but now the pushback is coming from a wide variety of the political spectrum as the results and actual winning candidates are absorbed and evaluated.

The realization is settling in that far from the moderate tsunami described by regime supporters such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council, the truth is that very little has changed within the regime leadership and the Iranian people still remain firmly in the grip and thrall of the mullahs.

The parade of cold water on the moderate landslide theory was led by the editorial board of the Washington Post, which has intimate first-hand knowledge of the extremist nature of the regime through the hostage taking and eventual prisoner swap of its reporter, Jason Rezaian. It editorialized:

“Claims of a reformist triumph, however, are overblown. Before the elections, an Iranian liberal coalition said that 99 percent of 3,000 pro-reform candidates had been disqualified by a hard-line clerical council. Most of those in Mr. Rouhani’s coalition are, like him, moderate conservatives, meaning they favor economic reforms and greater Western investment, but not liberalization of the political system or a moderation of Iran’s aspiration to become the hegemon of the Middle East. True Iranian religious and political reformers, like those who joined the 2009 Green Movement, are in jail or exile, or were banned from the ballot.

“For now, Iran can be expected to continue the course it has been pursuing in the months since the nuclear deal was struck: waging proxy wars against the United States and its allies around the Middle East, using its unfrozen reserves to buy weapons, and defying non-nuclear limits — such as by testing long-range missiles. The elections won’t make the regime more pliable, and they won’t change the need for a U.S. counter to its aggressions. They shouldn’t provide an excuse for the Obama administration to tolerate Tehran’s provocations,” the Post said.

The Post is correct in its assertions and admits to the basic problem facing those nervously praising the “moderate” wins: they are left with hoping for the best outcome even though it will most likely come to pass since the alternative is to face the difficult choices of pushing for regime change against a regime firmly entrenched.

The Atlantic’s Kathy Gilsinan noted some of the difficulties in the tea leaf reading going on post-election in discerning who actually won.

“Institutions whose members aren’t popularly elected, including the office of the supreme leader, the Guardian Council, the judiciary, and the security services, are the most powerful in Iran’s government. And they remain in the hands of hardliners,” she writes.

“Another reason it’s difficult to know the significance of these elections—aside from the dueling claims of victory from each camp, and the fact that, as Thomas Erdbink of The New York Times reported Wednesday, ‘there has been no official comment on the affiliation of the winning candidates’—is that Iran does not have strong political parties. Knowing that Republicans have a majority in the U.S. Congress, for example, gives you a rough sense of that body’s legislative priorities and how they would differ from those of a Democratic Congress. As Majlis Monitor, a website devoted to Iranian politics, notes, ‘While political parties help us see a country’s political fault-lines, their absence in Iran makes it difficult to understand how politics are actually [organized] and work there.’”

This points out the fundamental problem with the claims being made by Parsi or Jim Lobe over at Lobelog that moderates won the election: the absence of political parties stems from the mullahs aim to eliminate all dissent and organize the government around homogenous support for the Islamic revolution. True dissident parties such as the Mojahedin Khalgh (MEK or PMOI) were outlawed and membership was classified as punishable by death.

There is no doubt that the Iranian people want real reform and a true turn towards democracy. They are tired of living in an oppressive regime where their every online move is monitored and their every economic move is stymied by widespread official corruption.

The New York Times’ Erdbink also explained how results of the election may never be publicly revealed.

“The Interior Ministry, which is overseeing the voting for the 290-seat Parliament and the clerical Assembly of Experts, announced on Tuesday the names of 222 parliamentary candidates who won nationwide. It also announced that there would be a second round of voting for 68 seats in several constituencies in April,” he said. “But there has been no official comment on the affiliation of the winning candidates, and there may never be, making it difficult to determine how many seats the various factions have won.”

The Interior Ministry also oversees the internal security for the regime and already has a checkered history with the hijacking of the 2009 elections. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to see some similar shenanigans with these results to ensure the right kinds of “moderates” eventually won seats.

Former UN ambassador John R. Bolton took a similar viewpoint in writing for the American Enterprise Institute:

“Efforts to distinguish Tehran’s moderates from hard-liners have a long historical record of failure, as have similar precedents in analyzing Moscow and Beijing. Today in Iran, while there are disagreements over economic, social and religious policies among the elite, there is no disagreement over the objective of mastering the difficult science and technology required to achieve nuclear weapons deliverable on ballistic missiles. There is simply no credible evidence that the ayatollahs and other key Iranian leaders have ever diverged on that goal. Moreover, the nuclear and ballistic missile programs are firmly controlled by the Revolutionary Guards, which is about as likely to cede responsibility to the elected Majlis as to America’s Congress,” he writes.

Ultimately the real test of real reform will come if Evin Prison is emptied, ballistic missiles are shelved and support is withdrawn from Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

I wouldn’t hold your breath for that.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Working Hard to Spin Iran Elections

March 3, 2016 by admin

Iran Lobby Working Hard to Spin Iran Elections

With the recent parliamentary elections in Iran, the regime and its allies are working hard to project the image of a moderate landslide setting the stage for a new era of peace, prosperity and happiness. Somewhere in there are probably also promises that eating ice cream doesn’t make you fat and pots of gold lie at the end of rainbows.

At the center of that spin control exercise stands the National Iranian American Council, the chief lobbyist and public advocate for the mullahs in Tehran, which sent its leaders out to talk to virtually any journalist that would listen to them about how great things turned out in Iran.

“The stunning setback of the hardliners in the elections is precisely why they opposed the Iran nuclear deal,” said Trita Parsi, president of the NIAC. “They knew that if successful, the Rouhani faction would benefit electorally from the significant achievement of resolving the nuclear issue and reducing tensions with United States.”

Parsi’s comments are the key message for regime supporters: that approval of the nuclear deal was the key for the moderate wins. It makes for a nice fiction, but it is also as blatantly wrong.

First, Parsi’s contention of a moderate win is beguilingly false since he ignores the months-long vetting process in which the handpicked members of the Guardian Council bounced over half of the 12,000 candidates that submitted for approval to appear on the ballot. Those that survived were largely approved based on their allegiance to the Supreme leader of the mullahs and adherence to the supporting the policies of the ruling mullahs, backed by the Revolutionary Guard.

Anyone who deviated from those goals was arrested and thrown in jail during a massive crackdown across Iran that saw journalists, dissidents and potential opposition politicians rounded up. Of course, Parsi and his colleagues did not utter a word of protest during these arrests.

In another quote given in an editorial in the Washington Post, Parsi added that hardliners “knew that if successful, the Rouhani faction would benefit electorally from the significant achievement of resolving the nuclear issue and reducing tensions with United States. These benefits would not just be limited to the parliamentary elections, but could establish a new balance of power in Iran’s internal politics with significant long-term repercussions.”

It’s the second falsehood Parsi preaches in claiming there are indeed factions splitting the Iranian regime, including a bloc of moderates aligned with Hassan Rouhani.

Where Parsi is wrong is his claim that the differences separating these so-called “faction” are political, when they are in fact more about power and greed.

The Iranian regime ranks as one of the most corrupt economies in the world with the Revolutionary Guard and the families of the mullahs running the regime deeply involved and controlling of virtually all the major industries in Iran, including petroleum, aviation, telecommunications, mining, shipping and manufacturing.

With the cash infusion of $100 billion in hard currency being made available, the mullahs and military are loathe to give up control of those assets, or the billions in foreign investment that will flow as a result of the nuclear deal. The fight over parliamentary seats is less about opening up Iranian society and broadening human rights and more about securing enough seats to control how that spoils of the nuclear deal get divided up.

The mullahs have long made clear their political strategy in crafting a regime modeled after China in which the economy is liberalized while maintaining tight political control over the people. In that manner, the parliamentary elections and claims of moderation by the Iran lobby make perfect sense. As Parsi and others proclaim moderation, the government is still left firmly in the hands of those intent on enriching themselves and not improving the lot of the Iranian people.

The deception by Parsi does go to some absurd lengths as he claims in an interview on The Real News that Ali Larijani, the current head of the parliament and overseer of the judiciary, is actually in favor of moderate policies.

“Ali Larijani, who is the current head of the parliament, is a conservative. And he’s been a conservative for a very long time, belongs to a very conservative and well-established family. But he has aligned himself with Rouhani most of the time on most issues. And he’s not considered right now to be in the anti-Rouhani camp,” Parsi claims.

It’s a silly claim when you consider that the regime’s judicial and police functions are firmly in control of hardliners that enforced the vetting process in the first place and removed all the opponents to Rouhani’s slate of “moderate” allies. This is also the same judiciary that has consistently imprisoned Americans, Christians and sentences children to death, and most recently snatched up Parsi’s friend and ally, Siamak Namazi, and threw him in prison without legal representation or charge.

The fact that Parsi called these “the most consequential non-presidential elections in Iran at least for the last two decades” in an interview with the Cato Institute, is even more absurd given that many would claim that the disputed 2009 presidential elections that were stolen and protested with mass demonstrations that were brutally put down violently by the mullahs were the most consequential elections in Iran since that was the last time the Iranian people actually took a stab at real regime change.

The last false argument being put forth by the Iran lobby is the contention that real change is possible down the road with the possibility of a new supreme leader being elected following the inevitable death of the 76-year old Ali Khamenei.

“In the short term the parliamentary elections will impact Iran’s economic policies. But for the long term, this assembly could elect the next supreme leader, which has greater long-term implications for Iran and its people,” said Reza Marashi, also of the NIAC.

It is laughable to think there will be any real possibility of installing a new top mullah that would deviate from the path the Islamic revolution has taken, or loosen the control the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard have over the country. For Marashi to think there would be any change over a long, incremental pathway ignores the abject suffering and brutality being meted out against the Iranian people every day.

When the Rouhani regime has overseen a record number of executions, far exceeding the high water mark set by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the idea of a loosening of the regime is merely a smokescreen.

Already Rouhani has seen fit to keep the vast majority of the billions in released funds in overseas accounts to help pay for the new military hardware Iran is busy buying from Russia and soon China. The Iranian people are unlikely to see any of it and ultimately their hopes for an improving economy will remain only an unfilled dream so long as the mullahs are in Power.

By Michael Tomlinson

Who Are These So-Called “Moderates” in Iran Elections?

March 1, 2016 by admin

Who Are These So-Called “Moderates” in Iran Elections?

The New York Times, among other news outlets, trumpeted the election results from Iran with great fanfare announcing “strong” gains by moderates and reformists in this weekend’s parliamentary elections. Predictably, the spin revolved around the notion that this was a step in the right direction towards a more moderate future in Iran.

“Though hard-liners still control the most powerful positions and institutions of the state, two national elections last week appeared to build on the slow but unmistakable evolution toward a more moderate political landscape — now and into the future,” wrote Thomas Erdbrink in the Times. “While the hard-liners still remain firmly in control of the judiciary, the security forces and much of the economy, the success of the moderate, pragmatic and pro-government forces seemed to give Mr. Rouhani political currency to push a course of greater liberalization of the economy at home and accommodation abroad.”

What Erdbrink and most other Western journalists miss is the simple fact that the mullahs in control of the regime – virtually all of the important sectors of power as Erdbrink notes – have allowed a smattering of candidates to run that can appear “moderate” when compared to the more vocal conservatives in power, but in fact all share the same loyalty to the aims of the Islamic state.

Revolution and regime change are not coming anytime soon to Iran under these mullahs no matter what rosy picture some media wish to paint.

What is even more amusing is that all the celebration is focused on the election of a small minority dubbed “moderates” in the lower house parliament, but in the 88-member Assembly of Experts, over three-quarters of the original candidates seeking to run were swept off the ballot before voting even began, leaving only hardcore supporters of top mullah Ali Khamenei to win seats.

As to whom actually won, the Wall Street Journal editorial board took a closer look at the winners and found them less than “moderate” and downright unsavory.

Mostafa Kavakebian. The General Secretary of Iran’s Democratic Party, Mr. Kavakebian is projected to enter the Majlis as a member for Tehran. In a 2008 speech he said: “The people who currently reside in Israel aren’t humans, and this region is comprised of a group of soldiers and occupiers who openly wage war on the people.”

Another moderate is Kazem Jalali, who previously served as the spokesman for the National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee of the Majlis and is projected to have won a seat. In 2011 Mr. Jalali said his committee “demands the harshest punishment”—meaning the death penalty—for Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the two leaders of the Green Movement that was bloodily suppressed after stolen elections in 2009. Those two leaders are still under house arrest.

According to the Journal, as for new Assembly of Experts, many of the “moderates” projected to have won seats were also listed on the hard-liners’ lists, since the ratio of candidates to seats was well below two, including:

Mohammad Reyshahry, a former Intelligence Minister believed to have helped spearhead the 1988 summary execution of thousands of leftists;
Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi, another former Intelligence Minister believed to have directed the “chain murders” of the late 1990s; and
Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabainejad, a fierce opponent of women’s rights who has called Israel “a cancerous tumor.”

That seems like quite a slate of “moderate” new faces that got elected. Maybe Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi from the National Iranian American Council, can fly over and have lunch with these moderates, unless they are worried they might be arrested like their fellow Iran lobby supporter Siamak Namazi who now languishes in an regime prison.

“The political reality in Iran is that the Ayatollahs, backed by the Revolutionary Guards, remain firmly in control,” the Journal correctly points out.

The funny thing about the parade of optimistic and sunny news headlines is how they eerily echo the same notes of hope that came in the wake of the nuclear agreement only to be followed by grimmer headlines of illegal ballistic missile tests, detaining of American sailors, rocket launches at U.S. and French navy warships, recruiting Russia to fight in Syria and the largest refugee crisis since World War II.

Even as regime supporters laud these “moderate” wins, shocking news came of a village in southern Iran of a heinous incident announced by Shahindokht Molaverdi, the ironically named vice president for women and family affairs.

“We have a village in Sistan and Baluchestan province where every single man has been executed,” she said, without naming the place or clarifying whether the executions took place at the same time or over a longer period. “Their children are potential drug traffickers as they would want to seek revenge and provide money for their families. There is no support for these people.”

Maya Foa, from the anti-death penalty campaigning group Reprieve, said: “The apparent hanging of every man in one Iranian village demonstrates the astonishing scale of Iran’s execution spree. These executions — often based on juvenile arrests, torture, and unfair or nonexistent trials — show total contempt for the rule of law, and it is shameful that the UN and its funders are supporting the police forces responsible.”

Amnesty is particularly concerned about Iran’s execution of juveniles. In a report published in January, the group said Iran had carried out 73 executions of juvenile offenders between 2005 and 2015.

Sistan and Baluchestan, where the unnamed village is situated, “is arguably the most underdeveloped region in Iran, with the highest poverty, infant and child mortality rates, and lowest life expectancy and literacy rates in the country,” according to Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran. “The province … experiences a high rate of executions for drug-related offences or crimes deemed to constitute ‘enmity against God’ in the absence of fair trials.”

Even as the Iran lobby celebrates these wins, an Iranian village has seen all the men in it killed indiscriminately by these same “moderates.”

By Laura Carnahan