Iran Lobby

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

NIAC Gets It Wrong About President Trump and Hassan Rouhani Again

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NIAC Gets It Wrong About President Trump and Hassan Rouhani Again

NIAC Gets It Wrong About President Trump and Hassan Rouhani Again

The National Iranian American Council has become one of the most vocal and ardent purveyors of shameless cheerleading for the mullahs in Tehran and has established itself with a solid track record of making statements and promises about future behavior from the Iranian regime only to see virtually all of them proven false over time.

Yet, the NIAC’s continued churning of so-called “fake news” still finds a home in some publications and blogs—albeit a shrinking circle from the heady heydays enjoyed during the Obama administration’s policy of appeasing the regime.

The latest missive comes from Reza Marashi, NIAC’s research director, who has built an uncanny ability to publish “researched” editorials that are consistently wrong, in Al-Monitor in which he makes the claim that recent actions by President Donald Trump against Iran may have helped Hassan Rouhani.

Marashi bases his claim that President Trump’s decision not to recertify Iran in compliance with the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and sending the matter for Congressional review, has helped fortify Rouhani’s troubled administration because it has rallied Iranian stakeholders against the U.S.

Let’s be very clear on a very important point Marashi ignores: There are no factions within the Iranian regime’s government that are even remotely favorably disposed towards the U.S.

This is an Islamic theological state run by clerics that mandate weekly “Death to America” observances, openly and actively fund terrorist groups that target and kill American service personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, have taken American citizens hostage and held them for ransom, and have built a ballistic missile capability designed to deliver nuclear payloads as far away as Europe and Asia.

Marashi also claims that Rouhani and top mullah Ali Khamenei are united in a strategic vision to maintain a unified policy towards the U.S. regardless of whatever the outcome of nuclear deal negotiations.

On this point, he is partially correct since Rouhani is the handpicked front man for Khamenei to offer the West a kinder, gentler face of the regime that also tweets in order to build a perception that Iran was a moderate state when in fact it was plotting to massively expand its military operations in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

“Whatever their differences, Khamenei needs Rouhani and his technocrats to repair the damage wrought by former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Rouhani needs Khamenei to provide political protection while he does so,” Marashi writes.

It’s a silly statement to make, especially for someone who purports to be a “research director” since it doesn’t take much research to know that the damage Khamenei needed for Rouhani to repair was an Iranian economy crippled by sanctions aimed at its secret nuclear program and the enormous drain on its treasury by bankrolling the Assad regime’s desperate war to hold onto power in Syria.

Marashi makes it sound that Rouhani is merely trying to rebuild an economy hurt by the mismanagement of the Ahmadinejad administration, when in fact Khamenei was desperate to gain an injection of billions of dollars in fresh capital to stave off a total collapse of the economy and consequently the Islamic state.

“Since entering office four years ago, Rouhani has maintained arguably the most diverse and inclusive political coalition in the 38-year history of the Islamic Republic,” Marashi adds.

This is one of the more astounding claims he makes since the Iranian regime allows no dissident political activities, and openly and aggressively rounds up dissenting voices and tosses them into prison, as noted by the harsh crackdown of journalists, artists, students and others by the Rouhani administration prior to parliamentary elections.

The contention Marashi makes that Rouhani was somehow in jeopardy has never been real in fact since Rouhani serves only at the pleasure of Khamenei and it is up to the supreme leader to decide when his usefulness is at an end. For as long as Khamenei perceives Rouhani can maintain the fiction of a more moderate Iran then Rouhani and his allies in the Iran lobby will continue to push their false messages.

The strategy Rouhani employs that Marashi defends in outlining support for the JCPOA had little to do with nuclear power and more with lifting economic sanctions to save the regime with a fresh infusion of capital.

The fact that the Obama administration were eager to do a deal with little consequences attached to its support for terrorism, abysmal human rights and the build out of ballistic missiles only served to reinforce the perception among the mullahs that Rouhani was useful in keeping up the perception that Iran was genuinely interested in becoming a “moderate” player when in fact it was only seeking massive piles of cash.

Marashi does not credit the Obama administration’s unsavory willingness to kowtow to the regime and even arrange for a midnight flight of pallets stuffed with cash sent to Tehran on the eve of the agreement as evidence not of Rouhani’s acumen, but rather American miscalculation that has been borne out over the last two years.

What Rouhani “sold” to Khamenei was a vision that Iran could have its cake and eat it too by negotiating a nuclear agreement that never eliminated its nuclear development—only delayed it—and freed it to move aggressively forward with its missile program to someday threaten its neighbors with ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads,

The only kernel of truth Marashi does offer is the idea that Iranians would not blame Rouhani for the nuclear agreement’s failure. The Iranian people would certainly not blame him since they live under a repressive government that punishes contrary thinking with stiff prison sentences and quick trips to the gallows mandated by clerical courts.

Marashi also failed to note how under Rouhani, Iran’s pace of public executions set a record-breaking pace pushing it far beyond almost every nation on Earth. It’s no wonder no Iranian would openly blame Rouhani since to do so almost guarantees a prison sentence.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Tries to Separate North Korea from Iran Regime

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Iran Lobby Tries to Separate North Korea from Iran Regime

Iran Lobby Tries to Separate North Korea from Iran Regime

In the long-running battle to combat the falsehoods of the Iran lobby, this site has uncovered the facts behind some of the most ridiculous assertions made by Iranian regime advocates such as the National Iranian American Council.

We’ve unveiled the inner workings of the lobby, its intertwined relationships with families of regime officials and the consistency its messages are aligned with those pushed by the regime.

Since the start of negotiations for the nuclear agreement over two years ago, we’ve documented the multiple falsehoods uttered by the Iran lobby in support of the deal, such as that it would help empower “moderate” elements in Iran’s government and usher in an age of international cooperation and good will.

Of course, none of that has come to pass and we’ve hit the Iran lobby hard on the utter failure of their promises. Iran has become arguably the most destabilizing force in the Middle East right now next to the Islamic State.

While ISIS has time and again spread its terror operations around the world, including most recently in Barcelona, Spain, the real linchpin to regional destabilization has been the Iranian regime and its proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Most importantly though, Iran has helped fuel the sectarian nature of the conflicts going on, introducing the deep schism dividing Sunni and Shia populations and setting their respective governments against each other.

The mullahs in Tehran have sought to divide and conquer the Arab world and the result has been widespread chaos. Throughout all this, the Iran lobby has steadfastly sought to shift blame to more traditional whipping posts including the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia.

It didn’t matter which U.S. administration was in office or which political party controlled Congress; the Iran lobby always found it convenient to shift blame away from Iran no matter what the transgression was such as appalling human rights violations or the deepening wars in neighboring countries.

The arrest of dual-national Iranians? Blame the U.S. policy on immigration.

The execution of Iranians convicted as children with false confessions extracted under torture? Blame the opium trade from neighboring Afghanistan.

The miserable economic conditions strangling the Iranian people? Blame U.S. sanctions.

The Iran lobby has consistently always shifted blame and never affixed it squarely where it belonged: the mullahs in Tehran.

Now comes one of the more incredibly ridiculous claims made yet by the Iran lobby in the form of an editorial by Reza Marashi of the NIAC in Haaretz, which warned the U.S. from using the North Korean threat as a tie-in to Iran.

“First, conflating Pyongyang and Tehran is troublesome for an obvious reason: One has the bomb, and the other does not,” writes Marashi in one of the more glaring misstatements ever uttered by a member of the Iran lobby.

Iran’s own president, Hassan Rouhani, declared to Iranian lawmakers this week that Iran could walk away from the nuclear deal and restart its nuclear program in a “matter of hours” and bring a weapon to fruition in short order.

The gap between North Korea and Iran’s nuclear capabilities was supposed to be measured in years according to the Iran lobby, but in reality it’s only a matter of hours.

Marashi then goes on to claim that American policies in confronting other rogue regimes with nuclear ambitions such as Libya and Iraq have only motivated the Iranian regime to work harder to build their nuclear program.

Let’s think about that piece of fetid logic for a minute.

Iran only pursues a nuclear program because of American efforts to restrain other rogue regimes to create their own nuclear arsenals? Rarely have we read a more bizarre theory than that one.

But Marashi doesn’t stop there. He tries to tie in the Trump administration’s decision to kill the Transpacific trade deal and pull out of the Paris climate change agreements as motivating factors for Iran not to trust the U.S. on the nuclear deal.

The cherry on top of Marashi’s bloviating is the contention that the North Korea deal was doomed to failure since the U.S. never had any intention of ever allowing the Hermit Kingdom to ever develop a nuclear capability and thus provides an impetus for Iran to believe the U.S. is similarly disingenuous with its deal.

“If Trump corrects course and fully implements Washington’s JCPOA obligations, the risk of Tehran pursuing Pyongyang’s path is slim to none. The longer he continues violating the terms of the deal, the more likely it becomes that Iran resumes systemically advancing the technical aspects of its nuclear program – without the unprecedented, state-of-the-art monitoring and verification regime currently in place,” Marashi added.

These claims by Marashi are not even worth calling an obfuscation. They are clearly falsehoods. Tehran always intended to follow a nuclear pathway and ensured that the nuclear deal would preserve its enrichment infrastructure and allow it to restart quickly without any serious interruption.

Also, the “state-of-the-art monitoring” Marashi cites is neither state of the art, nor is it any meaningful monitoring. The agreement gave away any serious oversight by prohibiting international inspectors from most of Iran’s military bases and allowing collection of soil samples only after extensive scrubbing and removal of topsoil and only by Iranian hands to be handed over to inspectors.

But what is most appalling is how Marashi never mentions the word “missile” which is the most glaring connection between Iran and North Korea and the real reason why the two nations are indeed joined at the hip.

North Korea jump started Iran’s ballistic missile program by licensing its technology in the first place and has provided steady upgrades, improvements and technical advice. Iran is now following the exact playbook North Korea has followed in building ever-increasingly powerful missiles that can now reach the U.S. mainland.

North Korean officials have made regular visits to Iran and vice versa to exchange technical data and now there have been increasing news reports of the potential for Iranian scientists working in North Korea on learning its manufacturing processes for building nuclear warheads for its missiles.

Marashi is not only wrong, he is again engaging in the art of misdirection in trying to divert attention from the real alliance between Iran and North Korea.

Staff writer

Iran Tries Blackmail in Threatening Failed Nuclear Deal

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Iran Tries Blackmail in Threatening Failed Nuclear Deal

Iran Tries Blackmail in Threatening Failed Nuclear Deal

One of the key provisions of the Iran nuclear deal was an agreement to not include so-called “side issues” into the agreement such as the regime’s sponsorship of terrorism or any improvement in its human rights record.

The mullahs in Tehran knew they would instantly fail any of those litmus tests and fought hard to keep them out of the agreement, but in doing so they set themselves up for failure down the road when continued abuses would force the U.S. to act in levying new sanctions for terrorism support and Iran’s burgeoning ballistic missile program.

The mullahs found themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. The nuclear agreement did not contain any language prohibiting economic sanctions on non-core nuclear issues per the mullahs’ demands so as the Trump administration and U.S. Congress imposed new sanctions the mullahs were left to cry foul without any basis to stand on.

The Iran lobby then went to work trying to stave off sanctions by pushing the message that these additional sanctions would threaten the “essence” of the agreement and cause its collapse leading to Iran building a nuclear arsenal.

Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council tried to blame President Donald Trump for the potential collapse of the deal and issued a statement that reeked of falsehoods commonly trotted out by the Iran lobby.

“It should now be clear that Donald Trump’s moves to violate and hold certification of the Iran nuclear deal in doubt are actively destabilizing the accord. Unfortunately, in response to Trump’s increasingly hostile rhetoric, as well as Congress’ moves to escalate sanctions, Iran is now warning that it has its own options to back out of the deal if the U.S. continues to undermine it,” Parsi said.

Let’s be clear: Iranian regime, not the U.S., is responsible for destabilizing the nuclear deal with their bloody war in Syria, efforts to sow insurrection in the Gulf states, and start launching ballistic missiles at a clip rivaling North Korea. The U.S. did nothing to inspire those acts and all those acts began actually years ago and under the Obama administration.

Also, the U.S. Congress and American electorate has had the luxury to see how the nuclear deal has turned out after two years and their answer has been overwhelmingly negative. While Parsi may try to affix blame on President Trump, the real culprits are in Tehran.

But Parsi didn’t stop there.

“We have repeatedly warned that President Trump’s beating of the war drum with Iran, even if confined to rhetoric, in addition to new Congressional sanctions and zero diplomatic outreach, could only produce negative consequences. Iran’s parliament has now voted to increase spending on its ballistic missile program and the IRGC in direct response to new sanctions on the country,” Parsi added.

Incredibly, Parsi tries to also blame the U.S. President for Iranian regime’s decision to ramp up its missile program; ignoring the fact the regime’s missile program was begun a decade ago with technology licensing agreements with North Korea and fully funded by illicit oil sales.

It is a blatant example of how the Iran lobby tries to rewrite history to protect the Iranian regime after it acts to toss away the international agreements it signs.

Regime president Hassan Rouhani did his part in warning the regime could quickly ramp up its nuclear program and achieve an advanced level if the U.S. continued its “threats and sanctions.”

Rouhani’s remarks to Iranian regime lawmakers were his most direct warning that the deal could fall apart and risked ratcheting up tensions with the United States.

While most media focused on Rouhani’s threats, virtually no one picked up on the key inconsistency he made which is that Iran could “quickly” build nuclear weapons. This simple declaration proves the biggest lie offered by the regime and Iran lobby supporters such as Parsi: the nuclear deal did not push back the much-debated “breakout” period for Iran to build a nuclear device.

“In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced (nuclear) level than at the beginning of the negotiations” that preceded the 2015 deal, Rouhani said.

The nuclear deal has been a complete and utter failure.

United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley issued a stern and forceful rebuke to Rouhani’s comments and accurately pointed out the problem with the arguments being made by the Iran lobby about saving the nuclear deal at all costs.

Haley said on Tuesday Iran must be held responsible for “its missile launches, support for terrorism, disregard for human rights, and violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions.”

“Iran cannot be allowed to use the nuclear deal to hold the world hostage … The nuclear deal must not become ‘too big to fail’,” Haley said in a statement, adding that new U.S. sanctions were unrelated to the Iran nuclear deal.

What is ironic in all this debating about Iran is how North Korea is widely reviled, heavily sanctioned and appropriately feared by the rest of the world over its ballistic missile program, but in the case of Iran’s missile program, the European Union has struggled to stay mute and not offend the mullahs.

Why does North Korea’s missile program drive the world to the brink of striking back, but in the case of Iran, many American partners refuse to criticize Iran?

Part of the answer lies in the Iranian regime’s aggressive efforts to open its markets to European firms to make investment and economic hamstring themselves from taking future action against Iran. Another explanation comes from EU policy makers who naively believe in the lies of the Iran lobby and hope for the best while ignoring the evidence of Iranian regime’s extremism.

Europe’s reaction is eerily similar to the reaction their predecessors had to the rise of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

We can only hope the world doesn’t pay again for that same policy of appeasement.

Michael Tomlinson

Hassan Rouhani Cabinet Picks Reveal Campaign Lies

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Hassan Rouhani Cabinet Picks Reveal Campaign Lies

Hassan Rouhani Cabinet Picks Reveal Campaign Lies

One of the hallmarks of the Iranian regime is to do whatever it takes to mollify the anger of the Iranian people and then go ahead and do what is in the best interests of the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard Corps that backs their rule.

A large dose of that is promising everything under the sun during an election and then promptly ignore every one of those promises. The repercussions of those lies largely goes unnoticed because the regime uses harsh methods to punish dissent and keep protests at a minimum.

During the most recent presidential election, Hassan Rouhani, aided by the Iran lobby abroad, touted promises to advance the cause of Iranian women by addressing extreme gender imbalances that exist between men and women in Iranian society.

The idea was to continue promoting the idea that Rouhani was some enlightened moderate fighting hardline forces and promising a more open and inclusive society. Why anyone would believe him after the past four years of brutal crackdowns on almost every sector of Iranian society is beyond normal thinking.

But when faced with unremitting cruelty, in an environment of rampant corruption, under constant threat of death and imprisonment, hope is a challenging thing to keep alive and shows why many Iranians might be willing to even believe in lies because the alternative can be soul-crushing.

So, after Rouhani was sworn in for his second term, he released a list of cabinet appointments and unsurprisingly, not a single woman was named to a senior position.

Rouhani nominated men to fill 17 of 18 ministerial slots in his new government, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, with no one yet put forward for science minister. He appointed three women among a dozen vice presidents in his previous administration.

“Right now, many members are expressing their opposition,” Tayyebeh Siavashi, a reformist lawmaker who was among the 17 women elected last year to represent pro-Rouhani factions, said by phone to Bloomberg from inside parliament after the ministerial list was submitted. “It’s a big question for us: Why after all our efforts and hard work do we have no women at all?”

Most Western media attempted to frame the omission as an effort by Rouhani to appease hardliners within the government who oppose his “reformist” efforts, including the nuclear agreement and opening dialogue with the West.

Pardon us while we cough.

The truth of the matter is simple: This is who Rouhani is; a loyal, dedicated and faithful member of the regime going back to his earliest days.

Rouhani never had any intention of advancing a moderate agenda. He always has been a product of the regime and was constructed with a mythology that served the interests of the regime. The mullahs needed the nuclear deal to lift crippling economic sanctions to help fund their wars and keep the IRGC afloat.

Rouhani did not disappoint while he also actually stepped up the repression of the Iranian people; nearly tripling the rate of public executions from the much-reviled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tenure; no small feat.

Not all Iranians were fooled as many took to social media to express their frustration at the lack of advancement for women on this significant social issue.

“Up until the last moment, serious efforts were underway to make sure there would be names on there,” said Amene Shirafkan, a journalist who campaigns on women’s issues and stood as a candidate in Tehran’s city council elections, referring to the list. “It’s a rather conservative cabinet, much like Rouhani himself.”

In many ways, with the nuclear deal behind him and the prospect of a Trump administration seeing through the false moderate façade and taking direct action against the regime, Rouhani and his fellow mullahs have figured out there may no longer be any need to continue with the fantasy of playing at moderation.

This may explain the rapid escalation in tensions between the Iranian regime and U.S. Navy as an Iranian drone buzzed a F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter as it prepared to land on the USS Nimitz in the Persian Gulf.

“Despite repeated radio calls to stay clear of active fixed-wing flight operations within the vicinity of USS Nimitz, the QOM-1 executed unsafe and unprofessional altitude changes in the close vicinity of an F/A-18E in a holding pattern preparing to land on the aircraft carrier,” said Commander Bill Urban, a spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

The Navy F/A-18E had to execute a quick maneuver to avoid contact with the drone, which at one point was roughly 200 feet away horizontally and about 100 feet vertically, according to the Washington Examiner.

According to the U.S. Navy, this is the thirteenth time this year there has been an unsafe or unprofessional interaction between U.S. and Iranian maritime forces.

This hasn’t been the only confrontation with an Iranian drone. Last June, U.S. forces shot down two Iranian-made drones that approached U.S.-backed troops in Syria.

It is important to note that all of these actions, plus the abduction of additional American hostages occurred well before President Trump ever took office, bringing out the untruth of the Iran lobby who claim his policies in confronting the regime are responsible for the escalation in tensions.

Most worrisome are reports that North Korea is deepening its ties to the Iranian regime with Kim Yong Nam, head of the rogue regime’s parliament attending Rouhani’s swearing in ceremony.

Kim’s trip though is expected to stretch to 10 days in Tehran, permitting a more detailed series of meetings about the military alliance the two nations share, as well as Western intelligence reports that say North Korea has constructed a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on one of its ballistic missiles.

It is reasonable to think since North Korea licensed its missile technology to Iran that it is also willing to share its nuclear technology in exchange for much-needed cash which Iran has thanks to the nuclear agreement.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Remains Top Global Sponsor of Terrorism

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Iran Remains Top Global Sponsor of Terrorism

In this picture taken on Friday Feb. 14, 2014, Hezbollah fighters hold flags as they attend the memorial of their slain leader Sheik Abbas al-Mousawi, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in 1992, in Tefahta village, south Lebanon. Hezbollah says Israel carried out an airstrike targeting its positions in Lebanon near the border with Syria earlier this week, claiming it caused damage but no casualties. Hezbollah said the attack was near the eastern Lebanese village of Janta. It vowed to retaliate but said it will “choose the appropriate time and place.” (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Unsurprisingly, the U.S. State Department once again listed the Iranian regime in its annual Country Reports on Terrorism; keeping it atop a dubious list of countries involved in the sponsorship and support of terrorism.

The report based the designation on the regime’s continued support for terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah and its overall efforts to destabilize the Middle East as a whole as evidenced by its spurring of the Houthi rebellion in Yemen and its long support for the Assad regime in Syria, as well as the rapid growth of Shiite militias in Iraq involved in new rounds of sectarian warfare with Sunni tribes.

Iranian regime has been designated as a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. since 1984, making it one of the longest-running state sponsors of terror in the world. Iranian regime sits alone only next to Sudan and Syria as officially designated state sponsors in the annual report.

The report cited a wide range of activities the Iranian regime has undertaken to foster the spread of terror and violence:

“Iran used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps‑Quds Force (IRGC-QF) to implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East. Iran has acknowledged the involvement of the IRGC-QF in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria and the IRGC-QF is Iran’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad,” the report said.

“In 2016, Iran supported various Iraqi Shia terrorist groups, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, as part of an effort to fight ISIS in Iraq and bolster the Assad regime in Syria. Iran views the Assad regime in Syria as a crucial ally and Syria and Iraq as crucial routes to supply weapons to Hezbollah, Iran’s primary terrorist partner. Iran has facilitated and coerced, through financial or residency enticements, primarily Shia fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan to participate in the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown in Syria. Iranian-supported Shia militias in Iraq have committed serious human rights abuses against primarily Sunni civilians and Iranian forces have directly backed militia operations in Syria with armored vehicles, artillery, and drones,” the State Department added.

In another nod to the Iranian regime expanding its actions to destabilize the Gulf states, the report also detailed how “Iran has provided weapons, funding, and training to Bahraini militant Shia groups that have conducted attacks on the Bahraini security forces. On January 6, 2016, Bahraini security officials dismantled a terrorist cell, linked to IRGC-QF, planning to carry out a series of bombings throughout the country.”

And contrary to the repeated denials of regime officials and the Iran lobby, Iran has “remained unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qa’ida (AQ) members it continued to detain and has refused to publicly identify the members in its custody. Since at least 2009, Iran has allowed AQ facilitators to operate a core facilitation pipeline through the country, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters to South Asia and Syria.”

The facilitation of terrorism from within its own Quds Forces and through external terror groups directly under Iran’s control such as Hezbollah, as well as others it has shielded such as Al-Qaeda and helped facilitate such as ISIS, points out the consistent lies perpetuated by the Iran lobby and regime supporters in maintaining that Iran’s government was locked in a power struggle with “moderate” elements.

There are no moderate elements within the regime’s government.

Supporting terror is a tool of statecraft for the Iranian regime and an important lever the mullahs in Tehran use frequently to advance their foreign policy goals.

This is also the reason why the Iran nuclear deal was never going to work in the first place since it did nothing to change the behavior of the mullahs. They remain as intent as ever on spreading their extremism, known as “Shia sphere” of influence and using violence to achieve it, which is why the Trump administration has moved on imposing additional sanctions even as it certifies the regime in compliance with the nuclear agreement.

The Iran lobby, especially advocates such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, have shouted to the rooftops that Iran mullahs are acting in a moderate and open manner with respect to the nuclear agreement, but refuse to acknowledge the near-homicidal behavior of mullahs regarding terrorism and war.

There can be no clear approach to Iranian regime without recognizing the linkages that exist between the regime’s behavior on terror and human rights, as well as its approach to nuclear weapons development. The great flaw in the Obama administration’s approach to Iran was to treat these issues as separate and apart.

It’s a silly notion since one can no more divorce a substance abuser from one drug than he starts using another. For the Iranian regime, violence is its narcotic of choice and it is addicted to it in all facets of its society.

This explains why the Iranian regime reacted so violently to the continued run of new sanctions by the Trump administration which led its leaders to make some outrageous boasts and demands this week.

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said on Wednesday that Iran would stand up to the U.S. and hit back with its own sanctions.

Meanwhile his foreign minister, Javad Zarif, took to CBS News to warn that the sanctions could jeopardize the nuclear deal; a curious position to take since President Trump seems intent on scrapping it in the first place.

Also on Wednesday, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guard, warned the U.S. against imposing sanctions on the paramilitary group. He said the Guard’s missile program is not negotiable and hinted that new sanctions could put U.S. military bases in the region in danger.

“If the U.S. intends to pursue sanctions on the Guard, it should first disassemble its military bases within 1,000 kilometers, or 620 miles,” Jafari was quoted as saying by state TV, apparently referring to the range of Iranian missiles.

It was a not-too subtle threat against U.S. bases in Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain all of which ties back to the original point made in the State Department’s annual report: the Iranian regime can never be trusted.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Turns Attention to Protecting Iranian Regime

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Iran Lobby Turns Attention to Protecting Iranian Regime

Iran Lobby Turns Attention to Protecting Iranian Regime

The effort by President Trump to build a new international coalition to confront and contain the Iranian regime got off to a solid start with summits and meetings in Saudi Arabia and Israel. The warm welcome he received from Arab leaders must have unnerved the mullahs in Tehran since the Iran lobby has turned its attention a full-throated defense of the regime.

Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council took to authoring an editorial on the NIAC website that attempts to downplay Trump’s efforts.

“A key factor explaining the violence in the Middle East in the past few decades is that the region has lacked a sustainable, indigenous order. The process of establishing an order is by definition disruptive and the Middle East has almost continuously been in this state since the end of the Cold War,” Parsi writes.

“To make matters worse, the temporary equilibriums that briefly provided a resemblance of order were established and sustained by an external power – the United States – rather than by the states of the region themselves. As a result, these temporary periods of stability could only last as long as the external power was willing to sustain the order with its own blood and treasure,” he adds.

Parsi’s logic is perverse since he effectively argues for a process in which Iranian regime institutes order by eradicating everyone else that stands in its path. Of course, Parsi claims that Iran only has the best of intentions for its neighbors, but the track record does not show that as Iran is now embroiled in three wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Parsi goes on to blame Saudi Arabia for Middle East turmoil all in an effort to isolate Iran, but Parsi never admits to Iranian regime’s own culpability in setting the region ablaze in bloodshed and sectarian violence.

We have seen the profound loss of life after the Obama administration abdicated any role in fixing Syria in favor of the Iranian regime settling issues through barrel bombs and chemical gas attacks.

Parsi’s colleague, Reza Marashi, takes up the cause of whitewashing Iran in his own editorial reiterating the tired old refrain of Hassan Rouhani of being a tried and true moderate, whose real goal is only alleviating the economic malaise gripping Iran.

Unfortunately, no one told Marashi it seems that Iran’s economy will not improve so long as the mullahs continue to siphon billions for their own personal enrichment, as well as ship off more billions to prop up the Assad regime in Syria and pay to support Hezbollah and Houthi rebels in their wars.

Marashi even dubs the newly formed partnership against Iran as an “Axis of Rejection” a nifty piece of word play that reminds us of President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech.

“Rouhani’s track record demonstrates that sustained engagement can lower tensions and produce peaceful solutions to conflict,” Marashi writes.

It is a claim that is both surreal and fantasy since Rouhani has presided over a massive escalation in wars that Iranian regime is fighting with no discernible pathway to peace other than to kill off Iran’s enemies.

But the NIAC isn’t through trying to support Iran as Ryan Costello weighed in with a press release lauding tweets made by former Secretary of State John Kerry who negotiated the horrific Iran nuclear agreement in the first place opposing proposed Senate legislation to levy new sanctions on the regime.

“Sec. Kerry’s public intervention cautioning against new Iran sanctions legislation should be another wake-up call that this is the wrong bill at the wrong time. Sec. Kerry would not be turning to the microphones unless the bill was an Iran deal-killer and private efforts to remove poison pills had failed,” Cosello writes.

“Lawmakers must ask themselves why they would give President Trump a mandate to undermine the Iran nuclear deal, ratchet up tensions in the region and undermine Iran’s moderates on the heels of their election victory. Tens of millions of Iranians voted in favor of openness and engagement with the outside world while Trump danced with unelected Saudi monarchs and called for Iran’s isolation,” he adds.

The more appropriate question back to Costello would be “why would lawmakers ever think they could trust the Iranian regime anymore after its commitment to waging proxy wars on its neighbors.”

The NIAC wasn’t the only Iran lobby supporter busy propping up the mullahs. Hooman Majd, a former advisor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, offered up the fairy tale that Iran had opted for peaceful co-existence with Rouhani’s re-election in a piece for Foreign Policy.

“Iran’s presidential election also proved the adage that the only thing predictable about Iranian politics is its unpredictability. Which, to the consternation of the Washington foreign-policy class, puts Iran experts on the same professional level as astrologers or palm readers,” Majd writes.

Again, Iranian regime supporters like Majd show their silliness when the election outcome in Iran was far from unpredictable. In fact, no incumbent Iranian president has ever lost re-election, not even Ahmadinejad when his re-election had to be rigged with widespread ballot tampering.

Iranian elections are so predictable, they remind us of the old Soviet Union-style elections with 99 percent voter participation and zero percent uncertainty.

The more the Iran lobby tries to prop up the Iranian regime the more it reveals how weak and vulnerable the mullahs have become.

 

Iranian Regime Uniting the World…Against It

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Iranian Regime Uniting the World…Against It

U.S. President Donald Trump takes his seat before his speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia May 21, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The Iranian regime election has given the world another dose of Hassan Rouhani, but in and of itself, his election to another term is meaningless since the world has seen that Ali Khamenei and his close circle of mullahs set policy, backed by the muscle of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The arguments against the Iranian government have never been directed at its people. For the most part, the Iranian people have been manipulated, coerced, bullied and even brutalized into submission. It has been the conduct of the leadership of the mullahs that have brought so much misery to that part of the world.

The leadership of Iran has pursued a policy that emphasizes harsh suppression of internal dissent, while using brute force to enact a foreign policy of war and terrorism to advance its aims, which is to expand the sphere of influence for its form of radicalized Shia theology.

But in an interesting twist of irony, Iran’s very actions to unite underneath its own banner have yielded the opposite effect: countries that have previously been adversaries are now aligning to form an international coalition to halt Iranian regime’s expansion.

President Trump’s first overseas trip started off with Saudi Arabia and extended into Israel, two countries that have not only been at odds and even war, but are also under their own scrutiny. Now both they and other countries, including the Gulf states, have begun the tenuous process of working together at keeping the Iranian regime contained.

The ancient proverb: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is finding utility now among countries that are being confronted by Iranian extremism and for President Trump, the opportunity exists to redefine a new order in the Middle East predicated at halting Iranian expansion and bring about a political realignment within the Iranian regime.

Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia was the first to a Muslim majority nation for an incoming U.S. president and set the tone for reaching out to the Muslim world in a manner his predecessor never managed to achieve.

Trump said on Monday that shared concern about Iran was driving Israel and many Arab states closer and demanded that Tehran immediately cease military and financial backing of “terrorists and militias”.

In stressing threats from Iran, Trump echoed a theme laid out during weekend meetings in Saudi Arabia with Muslim leaders from around the world, many wary of the Islamic state’s growing regional influence and financial muscle.

Trump said there were opportunities for cooperation across the Middle East: “That includes advancing prosperity, defeating the evils of terrorism and facing the threat of an Iranian regime that is threatening the region and causing so much violence and suffering.”

Worried about the movement being made in realigning against the Iranian regime, newly minted Rouhani claimed that regional stability could not happen without Iran.

He said the summit in Saudi Arabia “had no political value, and will bear no results”.

“Who can say the region will experience total stability without Iran? Who fought against the terrorists? It was Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Syria. But who funded the terrorists?”

In this one area, Rouhani is correct, but not for the reasons he claimed. Regional stability is dependent on Iran, but only if Iran stopped fueling the instability it has caused across the Middle East in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Rouhani also trotted out the time-worn claim that Saudi Arabia was in fact more dangerous because of the rise of Sunni-dominant terrorist groups such as ISIS, but ignored his own country’s role in helping spawn ISIS with the downfall of the Sunni-Shia coalition government of Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq.

While Rouhani tries to diminish the importance of Arab states aligning against Iran, the broader and more important strategic implications are more troubling for Rouhani and his fellow clerics. A clear alliance among fellow Muslim nations with non-Arab states such as Israel, the U.S. and Turkey would represent a sea change in relations among countries with long histories of opposing each other.

It also puts to a lie the message Rouhani and his Iran lobby supporters have long pushed which is that opposition to Iran has always been built around sectarian issues and as such lack legitimacy. The opposite is now true; a coalition of diverse nations with varying beliefs all share the same concerns over an Iran that stands at the center of virtually all the instability now wreaking havoc there.

The real proof of Iran’s intentions will not come from words but deeds. If the Iranian regime continues to fling ballistic missiles and supply its various proxies in their ongoing wars, then the regime has no intention of altering its course.

It is ironic that Rouhani pointed a finger at Saudi Arabia claiming it held no free elections when Iran’s own history of elections is more checkered, including the debacle of the 2009 disputed elections.

“Mr. Trump has come to the region at a time when 45 million Iranian people went to polling stations, and he went to a country where they don’t know what elections are about,” Rouhani said. “It’s not in their dictionary.

“Hopefully the day will come when Saudi Arabia will adopt this path.”

His triumphant comments neglected to mention that Iran’s elections are hardly free or fair, with candidates chosen by an unelected 12-man council, according to the Los Angeles Times, not to mention that the figure made up by the regime could not be verified, given no independent monitoring has been present, and Iran’s state media are full of facts on how both rivals have made unprecedented deceits in the ballots. The opposition to the Iranian regime has estimated the total number of participants in the fake election, to have been increased by four in order to cover, the regime’s isolation at home.

Rouhani for his part deflected questions about Trump’s calls to isolate Iran over its support for militant groups and its ballistic missile program, suggesting that the new U.S. administration had yet to “settle down” and formulate a coherent policy in the Middle East.

“We are waiting for this new U.S. government to be settled in terms of their stances, posture and future plans,” Rouhani said.

“Hopefully things will be settled down and well established in the U.S. so that we can actually pass judgments on the new administration.”

We can only assume Rouhani hopes to squeeze a few more months out of the appeasement policy pursued by the Obama administration before things go south on him and his fellow mullahs.

Michael Tomlinson

What Happens After the Iran Presidential Elections?

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What Happens After the Iran Presidential Elections?

What Happens After the Iran Presidential Elections?

The steady flow of analysis and opinion pieces regarding the upcoming Iranian presidential election keeps on coming and much of it is critical of anything really changing after the election no matter who gets elected.

One such piece comes in TIME magazine from Dennis B. Ross, co-founder of United Against a Nuclear Iran, and Jason M. Brodsky, policy director for UANI.

“Iran’s upcoming presidential election on May 19th has all the hallmarks of a Western-style democracy: a series of television debates, endorsements by elder statesmen and catchy campaign banners adorning cityscapes,” they write. “But it is all window dressing.”

“The Supreme Leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) control much of the economy, and they continue to block deals that might build the strength of the private sector in Iran. Yes, there has been an infusion of cash, but following the money shows that funds have flowed to the Supreme Leader, to companies he controls and to the security services — not to ordinary Iranians,” they added.

The structural control of much of Iran remains firmly in the hands of the ruling clergy and the military that backs them. There is no opportunity for anyone rising to the top of the political pyramid without their explicit permission. This eliminates any real meaningful change from ever taking root within the regime’s government.

The evidence of that lack of change in direction has been on display for the last four years of Hassan Rouhani’s term when his much-anticipated election came with near-reverent promises of moderation and openness from the Iran lobby.

The only problem is that since his election, Iran has been anything but moderate. It’s track record since 2013 has been littered with a brutal and savage war in Syria that has claimed almost half a million lives and another insurrection in Yemen spurred by Iran that threatens to drag Saudi Arabia into direct conflict with the Islamic state.

Add to that a brutal crackdown on human rights that has all but wiped out any dissenters within Iran, and a rash of arrests and prison sentences for dual-national citizens, including five Americans, and things don’t look so great now.

The smoke signals moving forward after the election are just as bleak.

Ross and Brodsky point out that Rouhani has warned in this campaign cycle of increased “extremism” in Iran, saying “[w]e will not let them bring the security and police atmosphere back to the country.” But actions of the deep state inside the regime — the judiciary and security services — speak louder than words.

In March, to lay the groundwork before the presidential election, officials arrested administrators of twelve Telegram (an instant-messaging service) channels on unspecified charges, they noted.

Sonna Samsami, the U.S. representative for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, one of the largest Iranian dissident groups, wrote about the lack of changes coming in a piece for the Hill.

“In a recent survey of Iranians in 15 provinces, by the International American Council on the Middle East and North Africa, 79 percent of those asked said they don’t believe the outcome of the election will make any difference in their lives. Faces change, but policies remain the same,” Samsami writes.

“Meanwhile, the lot of the Iranian people remains dire as wages stagnate, needed investments in infrastructure are deferred and corruption runs rampant. These grievances have no real outlet and no real hope for redress. The greatest danger in a theocracy is that all state actions are sanctified by an authority for whom there is no higher appeal. Democracy is but a mirage under the theocracy,” Samsami adds.

The sorry state of the Iranian economy and rampant corruption has caused a simmering discontent among the Iranian people which explains why the mullahs exert such ruthless control over the electoral process for fear of an actual reformist candidate getting elected.

Author Seth M. Siegel writes about this deep dissatisfaction in an opinion piece in the Washington Post resulting from the collapse of the regime’s water supplies.

“Due to gross water mismanagement and its ruinous impact on the country, Iran faces the worst water future of any industrialized nation. After the fall of the shah in 1979, water policy became a victim of bad governance and corruption, putting the country on what may be an irreversible path to environmental doom and disruption that owes nothing to sanctions or years of war with its neighbors,” Siegel writes.

“Recklessly, these companies began damming major rivers, changing the historical water flows of Iran. This was done to give water preferences to powerful landowners and favored ethnic communities while also transferring billions from the public treasury to IRGC leaders’ accounts. In all, since the 1979 revolution, more than 600 dam projects have been completed, contrasted with 13 dams built in Iran prior to the shah’s fall,” he adds.

These policies after only a few years resulted in dammed rivers and over-drafted groundwater, aquifers began to go dry and lakes shriveled. Iran’s once massive Lake Urmia, until recently 2,000-square-mile expanse, contracted 90 percent between 1985 and 2015, creating cascading regional environmental problems. Other surface water resources experienced similar shrinkage and ecological consequences.

“With farmland ruined, topsoil blown away and insufficient water to grow crops, millions of farmers and herders have left the countryside to live in dismal conditions in Iran’s growing cities. Meanwhile, deserts have also expanded, and the environmental damage to the country continues,” Siegel said.

The end result has been a country on the path to ruin that no amount of militant police can control.

All of which means that the pathway to democracy may not lie in the ballot box, but in the parched soil of destroyed farmlands.

Laura Carnahan

 

Iran Lobby Peddles False Narratives for Iran Elections

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Iran Lobby Peddles False Narratives for Iran Elections

Iran Lobby Peddles False Narratives for Iran Elections

With only scant days before the Iran presidential election, the Iran lobby’s most ardent supporters weighed in on the race with typical obsequiousness. The best example was an editorial by Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council, in Foreign Affairs.

Predictably he offered up one of the more ridiculous spin lines in the history of disinformation on behalf of the Iranian regime. Parsi actually tried to push the idea that top mullah Ali Khamenei had no influence on the outcome of the election and that “reformist” former president Mohammad Khatami was the real power in this election.

Parsi bases that silly idea on the concept that Khamenei represents the “establishment” and as such his perceived candidates are constantly defeated at the polls by the Iranian people.

To say Parsi’s reasoning is flawed is like saying President Trump likes to tweet.

First of all is the idiotic idea that Khamenei has no influence on the election.

The Supreme Council has the final say in terms of vetting candidates to appear on the ballot for any election right down to a lowly provincial seat. Khamenei has the right to directly select half of the Council’s members. The others are appointed indirectly by him as well.

So right off the bat, Khamenei exercises a monopoly on who even goes on the ballot before the first vote is cast.

Secondly, the regime’s constitution itself ensures that only candidates meeting specific loyalty tests to the regime and its theocracy are allowed to run for office, thus ensuring adherence to preserving the mullah’s rule in Iran.

Control of who appears on the ballot allows Khamenei to control the narrative as to which candidates are perceived to be “moderate.” By stacking the ballot with four candidates who essentially have no chance at all, Khamenei can create the perception of a clear choice between a “moderate” Hassan Rouhani or a “hardline” Ebrahim Raisi.

Over 1,636 people registered to appear on the ballot for president. Only six were approved by Khamenei’s council.

Both of these men are dyed-in-the-wool insiders who are dedicated to serving the religious theocracy and Khamenei’s wishes, but Iran, with the help of the Iran lobby, creates a false perception of a real “choice” in the election.

“Another unknown candidate by the name of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated the presumed favorite, the late Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is considered one of the pillars of the revolutionary regime. But precisely because Rafsanjani was perceived as an embodiment of the establishment, the antiestablishment vote went to Ahmadinejad,” Parsi writes.

Of course, Parsi tries to posit that the 2009 race, which was widely considered rigged for Ahmadinejad causing widespread mass protests, was in fact actually a portrayal of the former “outsider” to be an “insider” now which caused the vote discrepancy.

Far from being honest with the reader, Parsi tries yet again to pull the wool over everyone by slicing Iran’s politicians into neat little camps opposed to each other and representing widely divergent viewpoints.

The reality is that there is very little difference between these candidates since are all loyal members of the regime.

Take Rouhani for instance. He was elected on the platform of being a moderate vowing reforms, but during his tenure, Iran has taken a huge step backward in human rights and now is involved in three wars sending thousands of young Iranians to fight and die, while the mullahs and elites skim huge personal fortunes through a massive network of corrupt shell companies.

These are not the facts that Parsi wants people to know about since it would ruin his carefully constructed fantasy.

Benny Avni writes in the New York Post how this election may be one where Khamenei decides the pretense of a moderate face for the regime is no longer necessary since Iran gained concessions from the nuclear deal already.

“Just as Americans and others are reorienting themselves for the age of President Trump, so are the mullahs. In their calculation, they now need to replace the friendly sounding voices, like those of Rouhani and his sidekick, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, with angrier men,” Avni writes.

“Raisi is an insider who has climbed the political ladder. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is said to favor him as successor, when the time comes,” he adds.

“But before Raisi follows Khamenei and his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, at the top of the mullahs’ greasy poll, Raisi first needs a bit of public exposure. He could also use some governing experience, which he currently lacks. The position of president, which doesn’t have nearly as much power as Supreme Leader, is a perfect stepping stone.”

More evidence in the manipulation of the outcome was on display when Raisi’s path to the presidency became easier Monday, when a fellow hardliner, Tehran’s Mayor Mohammad-Baghar Ghalibaf, dropped out of the race.

Analysts believe Ghalibaf won the TV debates and is clearly more qualified, but, under pressure, he’s now calling on supporters to vote for Raisi.

What is clear from all this is that Parsi makes no mention of Raisi in his editorial which only demonstrates how close Raisi is to becoming elected and returning a public hardliner back into power to confront a U.S. administration no longer committed to a policy of appeasing Tehran.

We can be assured that if Raisi is elected, Parsi will no doubt ascribe his election as resulting from being a “outsider.”

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Covers for Chemical Attacks on Innocents in Syria

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Iran Lobby Covers for Chemical Attacks on Innocents in Syria

Iran Lobby Covers for Chemical Attacks on Innocents in Syria

True to form, the Iran lobby—in this case the National Iranian American Council—dutifully stepped up to the plate to defend the Assad regime’s continued existence by bashing the Trump administration decision to attack a Syrian regime airbase that flew the strikes.

Trita Parsi, the NIAC’s founder and president, offered up some gems of disingenuousness in Huffington Post claiming that the decision to finally cross the red line that President Obama balked at would have serious consequences.

“By now, it is clear that the missile strike has not impeded Assad from using his air force to strike rebel strongholds. In fact, Syrian warplanes reportedly carried out strikes yesterday against rebels near the city of Homs — taking off from the very air base hit by U.S. missiles. Trump even gave Assad advanced notice via Russian President Vladimir Putin, which enabled the Syrian dictator to move his troops and bunker his planes. Moreover, Trump left one of the airstrips at the targeted base untouched, which is why Assad could quickly use the base to launch further attacks,” Parsi said.

To be blunt, that’s a pretty stupid observation, even for someone claiming to be as learned as Parsi.

President Trump’s decision to strike was not a military one, but a strategic political one. In the old parlance of diplomacy, the Syrian chemical attack was a “Casus Belli;” an act so egregious and reprehensible to the sensibilities of international community and American values that the U.S. had no choice but to act.

In the history of U.S. diplomacy, this kind of retaliation is a no-brainer until President Obama decided he wanted to test out his quaint theory of appeasement in modern diplomacy; much to the shame of human rights history as over 500,000 people have lost their lives now and over four million have flooded out as refugees.

Parsi is quick to point out the lack of military effectiveness of the strikes since he skips over the most obvious benefit, which is to put Bashar al-Assad, and his allies on notice that the U.S. is perfectly willing and able to blow the Syrian military back into the Stone Age and outside interference would be grounds to include their forces in the fracas.

In one fell swoop, President Trump has neatly turned the tables on the Syria-Allies axis and forced them to calculate their own response without setting off another violent U.S. response.

Referring to consequent assault on the rebel’s strong hold and the civilians living in those areas, Parsi concludes: “The end result will be a more intensified civil war with more civilian casualties and even greater difficulty for diplomatic efforts to bear fruit,”.

For the people of Syria, no one will claim that the Syria and Iranian bombardments, assaults and revenge killings against Sunni Muslims can “intensify” as Parsi claims. How do you step up from massive aerial bombardments and the pervasive use of sarin and chlorine gas attacks?

About the only thing the Iranians have not tried against Syrian rebels is using biological agents and we don’t put it past Tehran to go that far as the mullahs have already decided to militarize hospitals and health clinics in this fight by targeting them specifically for attack.

The key to solving the Syrian crisis has always been pushing out foreign elements and leaving the Syrian people to resolve their own dilemma and achieve a political solution. If Iran had not intervened in the first few months of the popular revolt against Assad’s rule, we would find ourselves in a very different situation.

But the fact that Iran has poured billions in cash, sent thousands of soldiers and terrorist fighters, along with planeloads of advanced weapons to keep Assad in power has been the principle reason why Syria is such a mess in the first place; a fact that Parsi never admits to.

“Helping ensure that children and civilians aren’t trapped in Syria should be the first and most obvious thing the U.S. can do to help,” Parsi said in what has to be one of his all-time inane comments.

Trying to find a way to export more Syrian refugees while allowing Syria to descend into more chaos is the recipe the mullahs in Tehran have followed and Parsi has preached. It has not been a recipe for success for the Syrian people though.

Of course, no Parsi editorial would be complete without a defense of the idiotic Iran nuclear deal.

With the revelation that the accord on Syrian chemical weapons turned out to be a complete falsehood, the obvious question everyone is asking—and Parsi never answers—is how can you expect the Iran nuclear deal to be working if the same people are guaranteeing it as guaranteed the Syrian chemical weapons deal?

David French in the National Review asks the same important question as he takes up Glenn Kessler’s fact-checking piece in the Washington Post which gave former National Security Advisor a whopping four Pinocchios for her assertion that the chemical weapons deal worked.

“Media accountability is worthwhile, but we don’t need fact-checkers to tell us that the Obama administration’s Syria policy was a miserable failure. We saw the evidence in the bodies of the children slain by sarin gas. However, we do need to remember the sorry recent track record for WMD deals with hostile countries… The Obama administration was supposed to have stripped Syria of chemical weapons. Syria gassed its citizens,” French writes.

“Vicious liars like the North Koreans, Syrians, and Iranians tend to be vicious liars no matter the documents they sign. That’s a truth worth remembering as another WMD deal collapses and further destabilizes and already-dangerous world,” he adds.

French is correct and Parsi is dead wrong—which isn’t a first for him.

Michael Tomlinson