Trita Parsi – Page 20

Iran Lobby Silent as Religious Persecution Rises

June 3, 2015 by admin

There are certain truisms in life. Not paying your taxes will get you into trouble. Eating high fat foods makes you gain weight and the paid lobbying machine for the Iran regime will always remain silent when it comes to the mistreatment of those living in Iran.

That was on display the other as Fox News reported that “Iran’s revolutionary court imposed harsh prison sentences on 18 Christian converts for charges including evangelism, propaganda against the regime, and creating house churches to practice their faith.”

The sentences totaled almost 24 years, but the lack of transparency in the regime’s infamous judicial system did not reveal how the sentences were dished out to each person. In addition to prison time, each defendant was barred from organizing home church meetings and given a two-year ban from leaving Iran.

The Christians, many of whom were arrested in 2013, were sentenced in accordance with Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, a vague law used as a catch-all criminal statute to penalize threats to Iran’s clerical rulers. According to the law, “Anyone who engages in any type of propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran or in support of opposition groups and associations, shall be sentenced to three months to one year of imprisonment.”

It’s a code that has been used widely against religious minority as well as political dissidents as a quick means of throwing them in prison before deciding on more serious charges such as espionage, treason or heresy.

The persecution doesn’t stop with Christians as Iran’s mullahs have also targeted Sunni Muslim sects and other religious minorities such as Baha’is for harassment. The number of Christians in Iran is estimated at between 200,000 and 500,000, out of an overall population of nearly 78 million.

Although the Islamic Republic’s constitution guarantees on paper that Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism are protected religions, the application of mullah’s constitution relegates the members of the minority religions to second class citizens.

Against that backdrop was testimony given on Capitol Hill yesterday by the families of Americans being held hostage in Iran, including Saeed Abedini, a Christian pastor imprisoned by the regime’s revolutionary court.

The family of Amir Hekmati, an Iranian-American Marine, taken prisoner in 2011, testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that he has been subjected to brutal torture both physical and psychological. “Amir’s feet were beaten with cables. His kidneys were shocked with a Taser. He was drugged by his interrogators, who then forced him to suffer through withdrawal. Amir was also kept in solitary confinement for months on end and held in a cell so small for the first year of his imprisonment that he could not fully extend his legs. He was allowed to walk outside his cell once a week,” said Sarah Hekmati, Amir’s sister.

Amir was also kept incommunicado for years. His jailers took advantage of this and falsely told him his mother had been killed in a car accident in a cruel example of the regime’s treatment of its prisoners.

Yet throughout all this mistreatment, Trita Parsi and other advocates for the regime have barely uttered a word of protest, even while Parsi hob nobs with Iranian delegates in Swiss hotel hallways and lounges. Their silence, while deafening, is not unexpected since the brutal treatment of Iranian-Americans could prove troublesome to the end goals of bailing out the Iran regime with a nuclear agreement that lifts all economic sanctions immediately.

It is unfortunate that this Iranian hostage crisis appears to have no end in sight.

By Laura Carnahan

Iran Lobby Can’t Keep Facts Strai

May 27, 2015 by admin

The National Iranian American Council has been unleashing verbal broadsides at Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) alleging he had called all Iranians “liars” and demanded apologies for what it alleges as racist comments.

NIAC’s head, Trita Parsi, issued a statement condemning Sen. Graham, saying “Senator Graham owes the Iranian-American community – one of the most successful communities in the United States – an apology.”

Sen. Graham might very well owe Iranian-Americans an apology – if he was talking about Iranian Americans, but he wasn’t speaking of them, he instead was focusing his ire at the mullahs leading Iran today, especially as it related to ongoing nuclear talks.

You see, the NIAC again missed the mark in its eagerness to defend the mullahs that it got Sen. Graham’s quotes wrong.

Writing in the Slatest for Slate.com, Ben Mathis-Lilley clarified the error after reviewing the video of Sen. Graham’s remarks to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Oklahoma City:

“I met a lot of liars, and I know the Iranians are lying.” The last word is definitely not liars — you can tell by comparing it with when he actually does say liars earlier in the sentence. Moreover, “Iranians” is actually preceded by “the” both times he says the word, which makes a big difference given that referring to “the [name of national population]” is typical diplomatic shorthand for a particular country’s government. See President Obama referring to “the Iranians” here, for example.

Graham’s statement may or may not be correct. But in the context of current events, and with a more accurate transcription, it doesn’t seem to be the attack on an entire nationality that it’s being made out as, Mathis-Lilley wrote.

So if we take Parsi at his word and were feeling generous, we might assume he made an oversight in not checking the video of Sen. Graham’s words and simply relied on the number of liberal-leaning news outlets that mischaracterized the comments. Parsi might be guilty of nothing more than shoddy fact checking.

Considering Parsi’s past track record in losing a libel lawsuit largely on the grounds of shoddy record-keeping, making false statements and discovery abuses, it seems to be par for the course of how Parsi conducts his public business. It is worth noting that Parsi was ordered to pay the journalist he accused of libel for $184,000 to pay for the defendant’s legal expenses.

It does make you wonder how much Sen. Graham might collect from Parsi for making a similar false accusation of racial comments, when the video clearly shows otherwise.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran-Nuclear Talks Going Nowhere Fast

May 21, 2015 by admin

Pity the supporters and cheerleaders of the Iran regime such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council. They have all but shouted themselves blue to the highest mountains that Iran’s mullahs were indeed ready for a sea change in their relationship with the world. They argued that Hassan Rouhani was a new kind of moderate Iranian politician. They urged President Obama to embrace dialogue as the surest path to peace.

Those claims have been undone in large part through Iran’s own actions including the overthrow of the Yemen government, provocative acts in international waters, the decision to move forward with spy trials of American journalists and the continued crackdown at home including stepped up public executions and packing its prisons like sardine cans.

But out of the mouth of the regime’s top leader, Ali Khamenei, comes the most damaging statements to the credibility of the Iran lobbying allies.

In a speech at the Imam Hussein Military University in Tehran yesterday, Khamenei again denounced what he said were escalating demands by the P5+1 negotiating group and flatly declared any interviews of Iranian nuclear scientists by international inspectors to be completely off the table, as well as not allowing inspections of any of Iran’s military sites.

This follows similar statements he made last summer when Khamenei vowed to greatly expand Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity, scaling up to industrial size with 190,000 centrifuges, 10 times the number currently installed.

Not surprisingly, the regime still has not responded to a dozen questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency on the scope and scale of the possible military dimensions of its current nuclear program, leading to the agency’s head declaring serious doubt about Iran’s ability to live up to any agreement.

As the New York Times described, the inability to interview Iranian nuclear scientists makes compliance a moot point.

“Central to that is the ability to interview nuclear scientists, starting with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the man considered by Western intelligence officials to be the closest thing Iran has to J. Robert Oppenheimer, who guided the Manhattan Project to develop the world’s first nuclear weapon,” the Times said.

“The scientists and engineers Fakhrizadeh has assembled over the past 15 years are best suited to explain, or rebut, documents suggesting that Iran has extensively researched warheads, nuclear ignition systems and related technologies. Fakhrizadeh has never been made available to inspectors for interviews, and his network of laboratories, some on university campuses, have not been part of inspections,” added the Times.

Even more surprising were statements made by France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, who unveiled details about the current state of nuclear talks in advance of the June 30 deadline currently taking place in Switzerland, where the Iran regime demanded a 24-day period before international inspectors could visit any of its nuclear sites in the event of a suspected violation.

It is absurd that Iran regime could get over three weeks to cover up or clean out any suspected violation before allowing any inspectors in. It makes a mockery of the P5+1 promise of “anytime, anywhere” inspections as part of the framework agreement previously announced.

Unsurprisingly, Trita Parsi and the rest of the Iran lobby have been as silent as fence posts during all this, probably realizing any comments they make in the face of such explicit statements from the one man in the regime in Iran who has the final say over an agreement would be worthless.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime’s Role as Provocateur

May 20, 2015 by admin

If there is one thing you can always bank on, it is the desire by Iran’s mullahs to always figure out a way to antagonize and terrify the rest of the world even as it says it only wants a nuclear and conflict-free relationship with the rest of the world.

It is an amazing stretch of creativity by Tehran that would rival anything Don Draper could come up with on “Mad Men,” but unlike that seminal cable show which ended its run this weekend with Draper dreaming up the “I Want to Teach the World to Sing” commercial for Coca-Cola, Iran’s mullahs have opted for a repertoire of brutality and provocation.

For example, the regime announced its intention to put Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, imprisoned for the past 10 months, on trial on May 26 alongside his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, who is also a journalist, on charges of spying for the U.S.

What is unusual is Iran’s decision to try the case in the Revolutionary Court which typically handles cases of national security, drug smuggling and espionage. The Court was notorious for holding a series of show trials of more than 250 journalists, human rights advocates, dissidents and protestors after the disputed 2009 presidential election that involved forced confessions, stiff prison time and publicized executions.

To say the move by the regime is worrisome is an understatement. It is also even more mindboggling that while social media such as Twitter was flooded by statements of outrage from news organizations and human rights groups, Iran’s lobbying cohorts in the U.S. such as the National Iranian American Council was conspicuously silent. In fact, a casual perusal of Trita Parsi’s Twitter feed showed no condemnation or mention of Rezaian’s plight.

The regime certainly kept busy sending out aggressive messages including one by top mullah Ali Khamenei who in a speech in which he promised the regime’s support for the “oppressed” peoples of the Persian Gulf region, including Yemen and Bahrain. His comments were aimed squarely at Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States who are currently engaged in an air campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebel forces in Yemen.

Those tensions were exacerbated when an Iranian ship headed to Yemen in violation of a coalition naval blockade was joined by Iranian warships as it headed into the Gulf of Aden.

This comes on top of Iran welcoming a delegation from the Taliban from Afghanistan, while Ramadi in Iraq fell to ISIS and Iranian-controlled Shiite militias prepared to move in what could be a sectarian bloodbath with 25,000 refugees caught in the middle.

But the discontent Iran that is brewing isn’t just abroad. In a move to bolster an economy bled dry from corruption, mismanagement and the diversion of billions of dollars into funding proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, Hassan Rouhani announced the suspension of a program that provided financial handouts to Iranians which was itself a replacement for another broken promise for subsidized electricity, gas, water and bread.

Suspension of the payments is likely to fuel even greater discontent among ordinary Iranians whose economic situation worsens while the elites and families of the politically connected enjoy a luxurious lifestyle.

All of which adds up to what promises to be the beginning of a hot summer for Iran filled with domestic discontent.

By Laura Carnahan

The Delusional Trita Parsi

April 23, 2015 by admin

Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council and apologist-in-chief for the Iran regime, published an opinion piece that may very well be regarded as one of the most delusional pieces of editorial copy written since British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain brought back the Munich Agreement after meeting with Adolf Hitler in 1938.

The Munich Agreement permitted Nazi Germany to effectively annex large portions of then Czechoslovakia and is widely regarded as the most significant example of failed appeasement in modern times. Paris’ editorial rivals that infamous document because he seeks to rationalize the regime’s actions and portrays a post-nuclear Iran as living in peace and harmony with its neighbors.

The most glaring failed piece of logic he attempts to push is the idea that regime top mullah Ali Khamenei is ideologically flexible and committed to the idea of not wanting conflict with the West.

Let’s think about that statement for a minute. Parsi says Khamenei does not want conflict with the West?

The same Khamenei that has led annual “Death to America” chants on national television? The same Khamenei who authorized the incursion of Iranian military forces into Syria, Iraq and Yemen? The same Khamenei who supported the use of Revolutionary Guard troops and Quds Force operatives to target and kill American and coalition personnel during the Iraq war?

Obviously Parsi also believes in the Tooth Fairy, Bigfoot and aliens. It is amusing though when Parsi characterizes Khamenei as offering “heroic flexibility,” especially when considering less than 24 hours after the framework deal was announced in Geneva, Khamenei went on TV to denounce its terms and accuse the U.S. of lying. Sounds pretty flexible to me.

Parsi then charts a torturous path of logic from revolutionary Iran to 9/11 terror attacks trying to portray the regime as a helpful and willing ally to the U.S. He again conveniently leaves out facts such as Iran’s funding of terror groups such as Hezbollah involved in kidnapping and bombing attacks of Americans, including the infamous Marine barracks attack in Beirut.

Parsi also leaves out that Tehran’s race to the bomb really didn’t take off until the beginning of the rapprochement offered by the Obama administration and the subsequent quadrupling of centrifuges for enriching uranium, maybe in a heretofore secret bunker at Fordo that was not known to Western intelligence agencies until disclosed by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the leading dissident groups to the regime.

Even more incredible is Parsi’s framing of this period as a “truce” between the U.S. and Iran post-framework announcement, serving as a calm period for the careful finalization of a nuclear accord. What makes this statement frankly insipid are recent events in Yemen where Iran’s overthrow of the government there has led to a proxy war with Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations in an unheard of before Arab coalition and the movement of massive U.S. naval assets, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, into the Gulf of Aden to interdict Iranian vessels carrying suspected arms to the Houthis.

How Parsi can claim this period as a “truce” while a confrontation brews on the high seas between the U.S. and Iran is beyond imagination.

The real “truce” the mullahs want from the U.S. is not so much a stop in the adversarial relationship against the West they have nurtured for the past three decades, but rather a truce in the crushing economic sanctions placing their hold over the Iranian people in jeopardy. The mullahs would much rather divert their resources to solidifying their hold over their newly acquired territory and expanding their military rather than constantly having to evade the West.

This global strategy is explained away by Parsi when he claims Iran has no ambitions in Syria and that removal of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad would be devastating for peace options. It is the same rhetoric the mullahs use in Iraq when describing the necessity of intervention against ISIS.

The mullahs have created these shadow terrors as a way of engineering access for their military to intervene in wars they helped initiate in the first place. It’s like asking an arsonist to come put out the fires he started.

The one thing Parsi does get right is that “the diplomacy deficit the whole region suffers from exacerbates each of these more localized problems.”

He just neglects to mention that Iran is the one that lacks diplomacy, instead relying on military force, terrorist proxies and militias to exert its will and shape its foreign policy. It bears the question for Parsi; if Tehran was so interested in diplomacy, why not join in the global call to condemn the use of chemical weapons in Syria? Why not urge the Houthis to negotiate with the Yemen government? Why not urge a joint Sunni-Shia coalition government in Baghdad to build a common future for all Iraqis?

A nuclear deal with Iran, without connecting agreements to restrain Iran’s most troublesome actions throughout the region makes any future problematic. Unless Iran’s mullahs are brought to heel, no agreement will ensure a future of peace, only one of Iranian hegemony.

By Michael Tomlinson

The Moral Evil of the Iran Lobby

April 13, 2015 by admin

Trita parsi, greeting the mullah’s delegation in Geneva during the nuclear negotiations -March 2015

With debate building over the proposed framework agreement between the P5+1 and the Iran regime, one of the most compelling questions arising is also the most relevant: “How can any agreement signed by an evil and corrupt regime be trusted?”

Any nation state can be relied upon to operate within the confines of an international community based on several factors. These might include the personal conviction and force of will of its leader or the guarantees embodied in its constitution. It might also be as a result of its culture, history or even religion.

In the case of the Iran regime though, the evidence is overwhelming of not only its moral failure to abide by international standards of peace and civility, but also the moral core of its leadership can be summed up as being one of “convenience in service to theology.”

Iran’s mullahs have been guilty of fomenting terror attacks through proxies such as Hezbollah which have claimed thousands of lives all around the world. They have been guilty of spreading an extremist form of Islam that has sparked sectarian conflicts throughout the Mideast and Africa, claiming thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands. They have been guilty of brutal atrocities and human rights violations on their own people in order to stifle dissent including thousands of hangings and punishments that could only be described as medieval.

Iran’s mullahs have denigrated women, targeted religious minorities and even made the simple act of web surfing a crime punishable by imprisonment. It is a leadership willing to contemplate the development of nuclear weapons as a tool of political expediency. It is a leadership claiming the mantle of religious certainty, but instead uses its power to enrich themselves and their families in a familiar reminder of feudal dynasties.

Aiding and abetting that corrupt regime is a lobbying effort that similarly turns a deaf ear and blind eye to the suffering being meted out by these mullahs. Groups such as the National Iranian American Council and its bosses Trita Parsi, Reza Marashi and others, have loyally placed the value of their contracts to Tehran above the morality required to do good in the world.

Haile Selassie, the former emperor of Ethiopia, famously said to the international community in the League of Nations when Italy invaded and used chemical weapons on his people:

“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”

The international community did not rise up. Only five nations protested the invasion and slaughter of his people and in response, Selassie became an outspoken advocate the rest of his life to international security and multilateral support of justice.

The lack of protest, discussion and debate by the Iran lobby over the voluminous injustices and cruelties dispensed by the Iran regime is damning evidence of the lack of moral fiber within groups like the NIAC.

It leaves one wondering just who these men and women are that write editorials, lobby and speak on behalf of the barbarous cruelty of the mullahs. Are they just collecting a paycheck or do they honestly believe and support the mission of the Iran regime to remake the world in the image of its intolerant, extremist and cruel selves?

Selassie was right that by standing by mutely watching these things happen, the NIAC is just as evil and corrupt as the mullahs they defend.

By Michael Tomlinson

Deal With Iran Regime Already Falling Apart

April 10, 2015 by admin

Just when the Iran regime lobbying network led by the National Iranian American Council tries to make its case, its own masters in Tehran screw things up again it seems for them. Previously message points delivered by Trita Parsi and others were undercut by the regime’s top mullah when Ali Khamenei would call for America’s destruction and vowed to rebuff all efforts to derail Iran’s nuclear program.

Even after crafting a framework agreement with the P5+1 and hailing it as historic, the NIAC and other regime supporters again were faced with contradictions when Iran’s semi-official FARS news agency reported that foreign minister Javad Zarif and its nuclear chief told members of the Iranian parliament that the regime would begin using its latest generation IR-8 centrifuges as soon as its nuclear deal goes into effect.

The news accounts show the empty value of the framework and the lies being perpetuated by the NIAC that the regime truly wants a deal, but already promises to violate key provisions the minute it gets signed.

ccording to the FARS report, “Iran’s foreign minister and nuclear chief both told a closed-door session of the parliament on Tuesday that the country would inject UF6 gas into the latest generation of its centrifuge machines as soon as a final nuclear deal goes into effect by Tehran and the six world powers.”

The IR-8 centrifuges can enrich uranium 20 times faster than the IR-1 centrifuges it currently uses according to the regime.

Additionally, according to FARS, regime defense minister Hossein Dehqan said of the Lausanne Framework “There is no such agreement. Basically, inspection of military facilities is a red line and no inspection of any kind from such facilities would be accepted.”

So what are we to make out of the NIAC’s insistence that Iran’s mullahs are truly interested in peaceful nuclear development? It’s more likely we would believe in unicorns and the Loch Ness monster than the NIAC at this point.

With all of these revelations and statements coming out of Iran, the odds of a Congressional action against the framework and continuing economic sanctions are shrinking to the size of a pinhead with even House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) now mulling the odds of being able to derail the momentum building for Congressional review.

As Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee’s subpanel on the Middle East, said “Last week’s framework contemplates action by the United Nations Security Council. Surely if U.N. Security Council members should have a vote on sanctions relief, members of the United States Congress should as well.”

The support for continued economic sanctions got a boost inadvertently when Central Intelligence Agency Director John O. Brennan claimed Khamenei was persuaded to approve a deal because of the crippling effects of sanctions on Iran. While Brennan attempted to show this was motivation for the regime to compromise, it was in fact evidence of the what the regime is aiming for all along: relief from economic sanctions in order to flood billions of dollars back into the regime’s coffers as it supports four proxy wars.

The fact the regime’s leadership is already talking about violating the terms of the framework or simply ignoring them demonstrates the regime’s incompetence to make a deal and its commitment to preserving its nuclear infrastructure while getting what it most desperately needs right now, which is cold hard cash.

Already regime representatives are scrambling throughout the world in a mad dash to lock up deals to prop up its economy in anticipation of a final nuclear deal. This includes talks in China for oil sales, and invitations for direct foreign investment.

But as political support for the framework agreement begins to unravel, it is likely these moves for economic support will prove as ephemeral as NIAC’s logic and arguments in support of the regime.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Lobby Losing Grip on Congress

April 8, 2015 by admin

Trita parsi, greeting the mullah’s delegation in Geneva during the nuclear negotiations -March 2015

The Iran regime’s lobbying and PR machine, notably led by the National Iranian American Council, invested significant resources in a blatant effort to lobby and influence members of Congress over the recent negotiations on the regime’s nuclear infrastructure.

The NIAC attempted to portray the negotiations as the only clear path towards peace and any member of Congress denigrating it was no better than a war monger. In response, Congress offered up the Corker-Menendez bill which gives Congress the power to keep economic sanctions in place while it reviewed any deal. Despite NIAC’s objections, it passed out of committee on a bipartisan vote.

Then NIAC was part of the “National Day of Action” involving delivering petitions to local Congressional offices. The effort produced sporadic selfies in scattered offices of volunteers, mostly Democrats already pledging to support the regime. In response, 47 Senate Republicans sent an open letter to the Iran regime promising to overturn any bad deal.

Itching for more failure, the NIAC marshalled its forces again for the stretch drive of talks and went on a media blitz and sent Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi to troll lobby bars in Lausanne, Switzerland. Instead, the House this time sent out a letter signed by 367 Democrats and Republicans, representing a veto-proof majority, calling for review and approval of any deal.

Even after talks concluded with a “framework” agreement that appears to be different in its terms if you read Iranian, American or French versions, NIAC continued to call it an historic agreement. On Monday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is on track to be the new Democratic Leader succeeding retiring Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), announced his support for the Corker-Menendez bill and called on Congress to review and halt any deal it deems bad.

His support is crucial and now probably gives Republicans the 60 votes necessary to override any veto from President Obama. Both houses of Congress now stand united in the need to review, debate, verify and approval or disapprove any final agreement coming out of P5+1 talks with the Iran regime.

Why did NIAC fail? Quite simply, it overpromised and underdelivered.

NIAC members, especially Trita Parsi, regularly mistakenly took positions throughout talks over the past three years that ended up having to be retracted or were proved wrong. Most notably were its claims about the Iran regime’s desire for peace, only to be routinely undercut by top mullah Ali Khamenei who gave his annual “Death to America” speech alongside demands that Iran retain all its nuclear infrastructure, immediate lifting of all economic sanctions and promise to keep developing ballistic missile technology.

In a way, you have to pity Trita Parsi and NIAC for having to work for verbal loose cannons like Khamenei who have all the subtlety of a freight train, but then again, Parsi and NIAC enjoy the perks of being mouthpieces for the biggest state sponsor of terrorism. i.e. Iran’s mullahs which explains how they can manage trips to Switzerland and an unlimited bar tab waiting for journalists to ask their opinions.

But has Iran’s mullahs really gotten the results expected from NIAC? If you judge success based on legislative wins in Congress, the answer has to be a resounding “NO!” The NIAC’s grip on Beltway reality grows looser, especially with new revelations from Breitbart News and others about the deep connections now being uncovered between NIAC and national security and foreign policy teams in the Obama administration.

The lack of disclosure by the administration has further tainted arguments made by NIAC for the deal as it becomes increasingly clear the organizations does not stand for the interests of Iranian Americans – four of whom remain in regime prisons without trial or charge – and instead is simply a cheap lobby for the mullahs.

We would urge Khamenei to get a refund from Parsi and cut his expense account for lack of results.

By Michael Tomlinson

Trita Parsi of NIAC Lobbies for Iran

March 29, 2015 by admin

Trita Parsi has had close working relationship with Javad Zarif, when he was Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations. In a deposition, Parsi stated he only communicated in 2006 with Zarif in order to “interview him.” But this is not true.
Emails made public demonstrate that Parsi and Zarif collaborated on numerous political issues. Parsi publicly distributed an Iranian regime document to influence US policy. He made arrangements for the ambassador to participate in a conference on Capitol Hill and to meet members of Congress, and sought the ambassador’s council regarding the feasibility of a new Persian Gulf security arrangement.
About the collusion between Parsi and Zarif, a former Associate Deputy Director of the FBI said Parsi should have been registered as a foreign agent of Iran. Arizona Senator Jon Kyl contacted the US Justice Department, urging an investigation of Parsi.

In an article published at the American Thinker titled “Friends of Iran in the United States” Michael Curtis studies Trita Parsi and his lobby firm, NIAC and how they are acting in favor of the mullahs by demanding annihilation of the nuclear related sanctions on Iran. Given the extent of activities by the Iranian lobby, the entire article is published below for our readers.

“On February 19, 2015, a full-page ad was published in the New York Times by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) opposing the invitation given to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress. It asked the question: “Will Congress side with our President or a Foreign Leader?”

The ad did not disclose that the founder and president of the organization, Trita Parsi, was an Iranian-Swedish citizen who holds a Green Card and has had links with Iranian authorities, especially the Iranian defense minister, Javad Zarif. Those links were held to be extremely close by a critic, Hassan Daioleslam, an Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist who left Iran in 1981 and lives in Arizona. He wrote that NIAC, and its leader Parsi, are an organization engaged in lobbying Congress on behalf of a foreign government – namely, that of Iran.

The invitation to Netanyahu and his speech to Congress became the occasion for dramatic political theater by Team Obama and its supporters, who disliked the Israeli’s criticism of the Obama administration’s attitude toward Iran. Nothing was said by that team or in the mainstream media on the question of whether the NIAC had lobbied or tried to lobby Congress or had any impact on the current policy of the Obama administration in negotiating with Iran.

In his articles, Daioleslam (Dia) claimed that the NIAC, and former Congressman Bob Ney, who was associated with it, were helping Iran to manipulate U.S. policy on Iran’s behalf. Among other issues, in 2007, the organization had lobbied to prevent U.S. funds going to democratic elements in Iran. The NIAC brought a lawsuit in May 2008 in the attempt to halt Daioleslam’s further criticism of the Iranian regime. But it delayed producing, and sometimes failed to produce, necessary information on its computers, calendar entries, and e-mails. In addition, the assistant director of the NIAC changed some files from references to “lobbying” to “legislative direct.”

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judge John Bates) in September 2012 dismissed the lawsuit. The Court found that the NIAC had given false information to it, and it ordered the NIAC to pay Daioleslam’s legal expenses – about $184,000. It held that the work of the NIAC and its founder, Trita Parsi, was not inconsistent with the idea that it was “first and foremost an advocate for the regime.” Consequently, Daioleslam’s statement could not be considered defamatory.

The court in July 2010 had ordered NIAC three times to submit its server for inspection to determine if all documents had been given to it, and complained that additional computers in the network of the NIAC had not been produced. The court found that the NIAC had withheld 5,500 e-mails written by its senior officials. It is unclear whether this refusal or inability to produce documents was deliberate or result or incompetence.

The decision of the District Court was upheld by the opinion of two circuit judges and a senior circuit judge in the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in a decision on February 10, 2015. The Court of Appeals approved the opinion of the District Court that the NIAC was involved in systematic abuse of the legal discovery process and made false declarations to the court.

The court held that the NIAC had “flouted multiple court orders” and taken “inexcusable” action in delaying delivery of documents to during the lawsuit that it had itself brought, and therefore had driven up the costs imposed on the Daioleslam. It referred to the NAIC’s conduct as “dilatory, dishonest, and intransigent.”

Ironically, this case is somewhat similar to other events current in Washington where individuals have refused to provide or have misplaced official documents or have given incomplete records after requests by members of Congress for full documentation.

The Court did not finally decide if the NIAC had violated the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The statute, enacted in 1938, requires that persons acting as agents of foreign authorities in a political or quasi-political capacity make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with a foreign entity. Action of this kind is legally different from advocating better ties with a foreign entity, because this would be in the interests of the U.S.

The NIAC was founded in 2002 by Trita Parsi, who said it would enable Iranian-Americans to condemn the 9/11 attacks. It is organized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and states that it is non-partisan and does not receive funds from the Iranian government or from the United States government. It says it is dedicated to advancing the interests of the Iranian-American community on civic, cultural, and political issues. It speaks on behalf of that community to which it refers as “one of the most highly educated minority groups in the U.S.”

The founder and president of the NIAC has been invited to the White House, has arranged meetings between the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations and members of Congress, and given talks at the CIA. He has done so without registering as an agent of a foreign power.

The NIAC also expresses its “vision” to work to ensure that human rights are upheld in Iran and that civil rights are protected in the U.S. It received funds, almost $200,000, from the National Endowment for Democracy.

More significantly, the NIAC has pressed for an end to international sanctions on Iran. The NIAC has also played a partisan role in U.S. and international politics. It lobbied against the appointment of Dennis Ross to the National Security Council. The documents revealed to the Court that Parsi had helped prepare reports about Iran and helped send them to Atieh Company in Tehran, which paid Parsi for his work.

One can only hope that the NIAC was not consulted in the current negotiations with Iran on nuclear issues.”

By Michael Curtis, published at American Thinker

Iran Lobby – Trita Parsi Can’t Escape His Past

March 13, 2015 by admin

Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and apologist-in-chief for the Iranian regime, was caught in another embarrassing revelation about his past conduct when Breitbart.com ran a story detailing a previous effort by Parsi between 2006-2007 to arrange a meeting between 12 Democratic Senators and Iranian officials to coordinate efforts against then President George W. Bush’s foreign policy.

The revelation came in email correspondence that was only made available after NIAC brought a failed defamation suit against Iranian journalist Hassan Dai, in which the enterprising reporter revealed the NIAC’s connections and lobbying efforts on behalf of the regime.

According to Breitbart.com, “Parsi and his group started a campaign called the ‘Iran Negotiation Project,’ where NIAC would help to link up Democratic Congressmen with the state-sponsor of terrorism. Dai reported that NIAC arranged for a group of 12 Democrat ‘Congress members that opposed Bush’s policy toward Iran’ and that they ‘met regularly to coordinate their efforts and planned to meet members of the Iranian parliament.’”

Parsi’s actions are even more ironic considering his statement to the American Thinker at the time in which he said:

“These [Democratic Party] members are very disillusioned with the Bush foreign policy and are tired to sit on the sidelines as Bush undermines the US’s global position. As a result, they are willing to take matters in their own hands and they accept the political risk that comes with it.”

All of which makes his recent condemnation of the efforts by Senate Republicans to hold the Obama administration accountable in current nuclear talks with the Iranian regime the height of hypocrisy. Parsi cannot help but be boxed in by how own past deeds and actions.

More evidence of NIAC’s hypocrisy was on display with a joint letter signed by it and 50 self-claimed groups largely compassionate to the criminal regime of mullahs sent to Senators urging more accommodation with Iran’s mullahs who urged them to not hold a proposed agreement accountable and subject to review.

But these types of mental gymnastics are nothing new for an organization that has so often tossed logic to the wind all in the service of the mullahs in Tehran that maintain an iron grip over their people and serve as the launching point for a large number of the world’s terror groups.

NIAC’s position in favoring the Iranian regime maintaining its nuclear infrastructure in the absurd piece of logic that it would foster regional peace was put to shame with the news reported in the Wall Street Journal out that Saudi Arabia had reached an agreement with South Korea to launch a feasibility study for building two nuclear reactors worth $2 billion over the next 20 years.

“Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a member of the royal family, has publicly warned in recent months that Riyadh will seek to match the nuclear capabilities Iran is allowed to maintain as part of any final agreement reached with world powers. This could include the ability to enrich uranium and to harvest the weapons-grade plutonium discharged in a nuclear reactor’s spent fuel,” wrote the Journal.

Far from making the region a safer place, the Iranian regime’s relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons is now triggering a full-scale arms race.

The NIAC has long advocated positions that it later contradicts whenever it suits the whims of its regime masters and Senators are right to be skeptical of anything produced by it.

By Michael Tomlinson