Iran Lobby

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

Why Does the Iran Lobby Care About the Nuke Deal?

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Why Does the Iran Lobby Care About the Nuke Deal?

Why Does the Iran Lobby Care About the Nuke Deal?

The Iran lobby, including the National Iranian American Council and other groups, invested heavily in supporting the Iran nuclear deal. They lobbied for it, wrote editorials, sent out loads of press releases, made appearances on news programs, held meetings with elected officials and coordinated strategy with the Obama White House through countless meetings.

The Iran lobby ostensibly was doing all this in the name of peace and in support of a whole host of promised positives coming from its passage, including:

  • Bolstering moderate elements within the Iranian regime and aiding their cause in upcoming elections;
  • Shifting Iran back towards diplomacy and serving as a moderating force in a deeply destabilized Middle East;
  • Empower international inspectors to keep Iran under close scrutiny and push back its development of a nuclear weapon; and
  • Propel Iran’s re-entry in the community of nations and become a partner economically and politically with the world once again.

It was a nice idea and attractive to many in Congress. Unfortunately, like most good intentions, it fell flat on its face when confronted by the evil nature inherent within the ruling mullahs in Tehran.

The one thing everyone seemed to forget and the Iran lobby was careful to obscure was that the Iranian regime never really cared about a nuclear deal since the mullahs knew it would never halt their nuclear program, only postpone it slightly.

What they and their Iran lobbyist allies really cared about was the lifting of crippling sanctions that, more than anything else, was and still is the true goal of the regime and its allies.

Preserving the nuclear deal is not the real concern of the regime. It is the potential for the re-imposition of economic sanctions under a skeptical Trump administration and a reset back to 2012 in which the Iranian regime was on the verge of collapse and widespread dissatisfaction among the Iranian people still simmered from the violent crackdown on the 2009 democracy protests.

This is why the deal was crafted to preserve Iranian regime’s missile program and never take up the issues of human rights and terrorism since the mullahs had always planned to use the cash it received from the nuclear deal to jumpstart their ballistic missile program and keep the Assad regime afloat in Syria.

The mullahs and by extension the Iran lobby relied on the passiveness of the U.S. under Obama. As British politician Edmund Burke once famously said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

In this, the Iran lobby sought to dissuade action against Iran by promising a changed regime, but since none of that has happened and the situation throughout the Middle East has clearly gotten worse under the expansion of several proxy wars by Iran, the Iran lobby has shifted its tone and tactics to a much darker and fear-based message.

It now relies on the banging of war fears in trying to keep the nuclear deal alive as evidenced by the mounting PR push by groups such as the NIAC which put out a policy memo outlining how the Trump administration could undermine the nuclear agreement.

It is typically long-winded and rests its logic on the notion that President Trump can kill the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement by choosing not to certify the JCPOA or implementing “snap back” sanctions.

The NIAC memo then goes on to exhaustively explain the various steps the Congress would take in reviewing either action by the president.

What the NIAC does not discuss is the fact the Congress voted to pass new sanctions on Iran by stunningly huge bipartisan majorities that made clear no one actually believes in any of the promises made by the NIAC earlier.

Iranian regime has clearly become a threat not only to the U.S., but to the entire region as its ballistic missiles can now reach targets throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

The NIAC briefing also glaringly misses the essential point of what is happening now which is the Iranian regime’s actions on human rights violations, sponsorship of terror and accelerating a missile program that will soon surpass North Korea is what is driving the debate about Iran; not the nuclear agreement.

But the NIAC hopes that focus on the JCPOA will deflect attention on these other areas where Iranian regime is so blatantly awful on right now. It is akin to pointing at the crack den and ignoring the building on fire right next to it.

You can see how the Iran lobby is trying to push issues such as terrorism and missiles off the front pages by talking about the nuclear deal, when the nuclear deal isn’t even the issue being debated by Congress and the Trump administration.

This is the “new” grand lie of the Iran lobby and its supporters. They hope that by focusing on the JCPOA and Iranian regime’s continued “compliance” with the agreement that mullahs’ regime in Iran is somehow still a good global citizen. The lobby never addresses the ballistic missile program or the threat it poses, especially with heightened concerns over North Korea. It also never deals with the horrific human rights violations Iranian regime and its IRGC has perpetuated in the Syrian conflict.

Unfortunately for the NIAC and other Iran lobby members, everyone has pretty much caught on to the lie and ignoring what they say which explains the overwhelming bipartisan push to target Iran.

For the NIAC, it quickly finds itself alone in Washington’s Beltway with few open supporters and even less leverage in trying to boost Iranian regime’s fortunes. It’s time for the NIAC to pack it in.

Michael Tomlinson

More Sanctions Levied on Iran for Missile ProgramMore Sanctions Levied on Iran for Missile Program

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More Sanctions Levied on Iran for Missile Program

More Sanctions Levied on Iran for Missile Program

Iran’s recent launch of a rocket carrying a satellite into space served more as a test for the regime’s accelerating ballistic missile program in terms of lofting heavier payloads over greater distances.

In many ways, the Iranian regime’s missile program has mirrored the development of the North Korean program which now threatens the continental U.S. with its own launch of a ballistic missile last Friday.

Intelligence agencies have long believed that Iran’s missile program was kickstarted by a technology licensing agreement between the two rogue regimes, but Iran’s larger industrial capacity and ample financial resources due to illicit sales of its embargoed oil supplies over the years have enabled Iran to leapfrog the pace of development by North Korea.

It also explains why the mullahs were so intent on ensuring that the nuclear deal had no explicit restrictions on their missile program; an omission by the Obama administration in the false hope of fanning the flames of moderation.

All of which means a mess has been left to the Trump administration to sift through and it has done so with an admirable degree of incremental steps designed to slowly isolate the regime and target the most problematic parts of the regime’s terror industry.

For every provocation by the Iranian regime, the Trump administration has responded in direct proportion to send an unmistakable message to the Tehran.

A joint statement on Friday from the United States, France, Germany and Britain said Iran’s launch was inconsistent with a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on Iran not to conduct such tests.

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed new sanctions on six Iranian firms owned or controlled by the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group. The move enables the U.S. government to block any company property under its jurisdiction and prevents U.S. citizens from doing business with the firms, according to Reuters.

“These sanctions … underscore the United States’ deep concerns with Iran’s continued development and testing of ballistic missiles and other provocative behavior,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a statement.

“The U.S. government will continue to aggressively counter Iran’s ballistic missile-related activity, whether it be a provocative space launch … or likely support to Yemeni Houthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia such as occurred this past weekend,” Mnuchin said.

The six Shahid Hemmat units targeted by the U.S. sanctions manufacture missile components, missile airframes, liquid-propellant ballistic missile engines, liquid propellant, guidance and control systems. They also do missile-related research and maintenance.

The move comes on the heels of the Congress passing by overwhelming majorities legislation to impose new sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Russia, as well as sanctions imposed last July 18 directed at 18 people and entities for supporting Iran’s missile program or—more importantly—the Revolutionary Guard Corps which directly supports terrorism.

The moves from the Trump administration are slowly rolling back all the moves made by the Obama administration, but smartly are being done in a manner not to give the Iranian regime an excuse to claim the U.S. is violating the nuclear deal.

That of course has not stopped Iran lobby members such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council from claiming that the U.S. was indeed trying to wreck the deal.

Parsi took to Lobelog, another well-worn Iran lobby booster blog, to bray away that President Trump was actively seeking a war with Iran in another pathetic attempt at trying to drum up war fears.

“The American public knows the Iraq playbook quite well. Trump’s own supporters remain enraged by the disastrous war with Iraq. They know how they got played. It’s difficult to imagine why they would allow themselves to get played again by a president who has left little doubt about his intent to deceive,” Parsi said.

Parsi tries to press home the point that President Trump is some crazed warmonger, but even he admits that his presidential campaign was propelled in part by America’s dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq and the pretext for it.

Parsi cannot have both sides of the argument. He either must believe the president is actively seeking a war with Iran and is thumbing his nose at the very voters who put him in office, or Parsi must acknowledge the truth; which is that President Trump isn’t seeking a war, but is repairing the damage done by the Obama administration in enabling the mullahs in Tehran to act with impunity.

The president certainly doesn’t want a war, but he must correct the course set by the previous administration by attempting to restrain the Iranian regime, begin the laborious process of rebuilding the international coalition against the regime, cut off the flow of money funding its missile program and either hold the regime strictly accountable to the nuclear deal or force a better deal to be crafted.

In essence, President Trump is trying to get a do-over from the fumble made by the Obama administration and reset the terms of engaging with Iran to place issues such as ballistic missiles, human rights and terrorism back at the top of the agenda where they belonged in the first place.

It is an argument that has been made for years now by the Iranian opposition movement which warned that Iran would take advantage of the nuclear deal to rebuild its armed forces and fund its proxy war efforts rather than invest it back into the economy for the benefit of the Iranian people.

In hindsight, opposition leaders such as Mrs. Maryam Rajavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran look almost prescient now in light of how the regime has acted in the two years since the deal was crafted.

For the regime, it must seem like they are trying to hold off the inevitable with the ever-rising tide of sanctions now being imposed almost daily.

This ultimately gives the Trump administration significant leverage to force back an expansionist Iran; leverage that the Obama administration never sought to use much to the dismay of the peoples of Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan.

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

Two Years of Appeasing Iran Regime Officially Ends

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Two Years of Appeasing Iran Regime Officially Ends

Two Years of Appeasing Iran Regime Officially Ends

Two years have passed since the Iran nuclear deal was agreed to by the U.S. and other nations and during that time virtually every promise made by the Iran lobby and the Obama administration about moderating the Iranian regime and improving the stability of the Middle East have fallen faster than Twitter’s stock price lately.

The practice of trying to appease the Iranian regime by conceding just about anything the mullahs wanted bought neither stability nor moderation. In fact, the opposite has occurred and places the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as it is more formally known, on par with the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler or the Treaty of Versailles in terms of effectiveness.

History has demonstrated over again that rewarding tyranny only invites more tyranny and in the case of the Iranian regime, it has been a textbook case of that lesson.

Thankfully that period of appeasement is finally at an end with passage of a sanctions bill approved by a 97-2 margin targeting Iran, North Korea and Russia and headed to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature.

The U.S. House passed the sanctions package Tuesday in a 419-3 vote, sending the legislation to the Senate. The White House has not definitively said that President Trump will sign the bill, but the measure won a veto-proof majority in both the House and Senate, which makes his approval moot.

At its core is the imposition of economic sanctions on Iran for its ballistic missile program which violates a United Nations Security Council resolution, as well as the JCPOA which prohibited Iran’s development of a ballistic launch system with intercontinental range.

That fact was put on display with the announcement by the Iranian regime of its launching of a satellite into orbit on a ballistic missile.

Iranian state media confirmed the launch of a Simorgh rocket which the Trump administration considers a violation of the JCPOA.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the launch appeared to be related to Iran’s attempts to develop ballistic missiles, which is not covered under the nuclear deal but is a subject of protest and sanctioning by the U.S.

“We would consider that a violation of UNSCR 2231,” Nauert said at a briefing with reporters when asked about the launch. “We consider that to be continued ballistic missile development. … We believe that what happened overnight, in the early morning hours here in Washington, is inconsistent with the Security Council resolutions.”

The Simorgh is a two-stage rocket first revealed in 2010. It is larger than an earlier model known as the Safir that Iran has used to launch satellites on previous occasions.

The U.S. National Air and Space Intelligence Center said in a report released last month that the Simorgh could act as a test bed for developing the technologies needed to produce an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM.

“Tehran’s desire to have a strategic counter to the United States could drive it to field an ICBM. Progress in Iran’s space program could shorten a pathway to an ICBM because space launch vehicles (SLV) use inherently similar technologies,” the report said.

Iran’s satellite-launch program falls under the responsibility of the defense ministry, which has denied that the space program is a cover for weapons development, but such denials are silly on its surface since Iran has no civilian space agency.

Clearly the regime is using the guise of “scientific development” to advance its ballistic missile capability, especially now that the mullahs see their advantages disappear under an energized Congress and president intent on rolling back gains made by Iran.

For the mullahs, it is clearly a race now for the regime to develop additional technologies necessary to complete a nuclear delivery system such as heat shields and targeting systems designed to allow a payload to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere to strike at targets thousands of miles away.

The table is now set for President Trump to walk away from the nuclear deal and news media have reported that he has instructed aides to closely re-examine the deal and evaluate against the regime’s actions over the past two years.

While the Iran lobby was nearly apoplectic over the news, it could not ignore the real possibility that all its hard work in securing the deal is about to be erased like tracks across sand dunes swept away by wind.

Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council issued a typically hysterical statement claiming that the president’s call for expanded inspections of Iran’s military installations for nuclear violations was a pretext to war.

“Clearly, facts don’t matter to the Trump administration – their desire to start a war trumps everything. Now, his team appears to be putting his desires into action,” Parsi said.

We advise Parsi to take a Xanax and calm down since his protestations have always been proven false in the past and this latest one is no different.

The fact that the JCPOA excluded large segments of Iran’s military-industrial complex allowed the regime ample room to hide its nuclear activities and the fact that international inspectors are restricted from accessing sites and many sites they were allowed to visit were scrubbed clean of any evidence months in advance shows how wrong Parsi is and how correct the president is in seeking additional inspections.

The Iranian regime predictably reacted with false anger and vitriol at the developments, but could not ignore the fact that the JCPOA is not a treaty and President Trump has wide latitude to simply walk away from the agreement.

Laura Carnahan

US Sanctions Set to Begin as Iran Threatens Hostages

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US Sanctions Set to Begin as Iran Threatens Hostages

US Sanctions Set to Begin as Iran Threatens Hostages

In a sign of not-so surprising bipartisan agreement in the highly charged partisan atmosphere of Washington, DC, Republican and Democratic lawmakers announced an agreement on legislation that will impose new sanctions on the Iranian regime, North Korea and Russia.

To say that there is very little Republicans and Democrats agree on today would be a colossal understatement, but it is clear dealing with Iran and North Korea has moved to the forefront because of their respective ballistic missile programs and Russia for alleged interference in U.S. elections.

The decision of how best to deal with Iran and North Korea seems to be about the only issues that draws popular and wide-ranging support from both sides of the political aisle; much to the consternation of the Iran lobby.

One of the most consistent arguments made by Iran supporters such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council has been the idea that the issues such as Iran’s nuclear program should be addressed separate and apart from ballistic missiles, human rights or sponsorship of terrorism.

The Obama administration followed through on that idea by not conditioning the nuclear agreement on those “side issues,” but all that did was enable the Iranian regime to act on all of those issues with impunity and a sense of invulnerability seeing how the U.S. would be unwilling to jeopardize the agreement no matter how egregious the actions by the regime.

It was a similar scenario that followed North Korea and sanctions were ramped up with each North Korean aggressive action only to be traded for concessions which enabled yet another round of militancy.

Tyrannical regimes soon figured out that if you wanted to get something from the Obama administration, you just had to act a little crazy and you would get it or have the U.S. back down; i.e. never crossing that “red line in the sand.”

Not coincidentally, that separation of issues doesn’t work both ways according to the Iran lobby. If the U.S. could not criticize or act against the regime for its conduct on ballistic missiles or human rights, then the U.S. could also be criticized for acting on its own against Iran for any of those issues.

Parsi and his colleagues have also chimed in that imposing sanctions on Iran for human rights violations is a separate issue and would only jeopardize the nuclear agreement. Its collapse would only force an arms race and speed up Iran’s path to the bomb.

Unfortunately for them and other supporters of the Iran regime, that is exactly what the U.S. Congress has done with this bill. It has finally acted on imposing sanctions separate and apart from the conditions of the nuclear deal—just as the Iran lobby demanded before.

Even the Los Angeles Times editorial board, long an advocate of the nuclear deal, agreed that issues such as ballistic missiles and support for terror groups such as Hezbollah ought to be addresses separately and so they have at last.

The House is set to vote on Tuesday on a package of bills on sanctions covering Russia, Iran and North Korea, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office. The measure will “hold them accountable for their [alleged] dangerous actions,” McCarthy claimed in a statement on Saturday, Reuters reported.

The legislation would also impose sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile development program and its activities in the region, especially the support provided by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps for Tehran’s allies in their campaigns to fight in Syria.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a strong sanctions bill is “essential”, and said in a statement that he expects “the house and senate will act on this legislation promptly, on a broad bipartisan basis.”

The bills are now shaping up as only the opening chess move between President Trump and the mullahs in Tehran as he has demanded the release of imprisoned Americans in Iranian jails, which received a similar demand from Tehran for the release of Iranians convicted on charges related to the attempted export of nuclear materials.

In the arena of prisoners and hostage taking, Iran and North Korea are again joined at the hip in terms of tactics since North Korea imprisoned and then released American Otto Warmbier who was released and died as a result of severe injuries suffered in what was described by medical officials as torture or savage beatings.

Iran has similarly detained Americans, Canadian and European citizens and subjected then to torture that has been widely documented and condemned by human rights and Iranian opposition groups such as Amnesty International.

In the face of the American action, the Iranian regime predictably announced the launch of a new production line to mass manufacture a new version of its Sayyad-3 air defense missile in a photo opportunity moment to shake the spear so-to-speak and warn against any efforts to attack Iran.

The Sayyad 3 missile can reach an altitude of 16 mile and travel up to 74 miles, Iranian defense minister Hossein Dehghan said at a ceremony, as reported by Reuters. The missile is copied after similar Russian designs.

The missile can target fighter planes, unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles and helicopters, Dehghan said.

The implied threat by Iran was again the tired old line that the only inevitable outcome of the dispute between itself and the U.S. had to lead to war. For the Iran lobby and Iranian regime, rattling the saber and banging war drums seems to be about their only response to the issue of increasing sanctions aimed at the threat posed by Iran’s missile fleet.

But as Harry J. Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, pointed out in a Fox News editorial, the close working relationship between North Korea and Iran only means Iran will be able to deploy nuclear weapons on its missiles even more quickly in spite of the nuclear deal.

“Many experts have been warning for years now that Tehran and Pyongyang have been trading missile technology. If the Trump administration doesn’t act fast it won’t be just the hermit kingdom that has nukes that can strike at targets thousands of miles away” Kazianis writes.

It is clear that the best possible solution is to continue moving forward with sanctions against Iran and North Korea and reverse the damage done by President Obama’s eight years of appeasing the Iranian regime.

Michael Tomlinson

Trump Administration on Verge of Junking Iran Nuclear Deal

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Trump Administration on Verge of Junking Iran Nuclear Deal

The announcement came just hours before the midnight deadline for US President Donald Trump to inform congress whether Iran had met the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal. | Nicholas Kaam/AFP

The Trump administration once again announced the Iranian regime was following the two-year old nuclear deal, but barely.

In several revealing and extraordinary news stories, including one from Bloomberg which disclosed how President Trump was ready at the last minute to pull the trigger and find the Iranian regime was no longer in compliance with the agreement.

“So just as (Secretary of State Rex) Tillerson was preparing to inform Congress on Monday that Iran remained in compliance with what is known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Trump called it off, according to administration officials. He wanted to know his options and what would happen if Tillerson didn’t make the announcement,” Bloomberg wrote.

“And for a few hours on Monday afternoon, it looked like the White House was going to tell Congress it could not certify Iran was complying, without saying Iran was in breach of the pact. This would have triggered a 60-day period in which Congress could vote to re-impose the secondary sanctions lifted as a condition of the deal, or to strike it down altogether,” Bloomberg added.

The fact that Trump was serious about getting tough on the Iranian regime was a welcome departure from the last eight years under the Obama administration, but also points to the tight spaces he must navigate to restrain the mullahs in Tehran.

The central driving force behind decertifying Iran lies with the regime’s behavior since the deal was signed. The president recognizes, as do most Americans, that in the past years Tehran has operated as if there wasn’t any agreement in the first place.

Its’ nuclear program was never halted, only briefly delayed, and it received vast economic benefits from the lifting of sanctions that essentially saved the regime from collapse and allowed it ramp up its proxy wars in Syria and Yemen.

Most importantly, the deal allowed Iranian regime the funding and breathing room to develop its ballistic missile program. Nuclear warheads aren’t much use unless you can deliver them to their targets and missiles make for an excellent Sword of Damocles to hang over Iran’s enemies.

The fact that the regime, along with the Iran lobby, fought hard to keep issues such as its ballistic missile program, separate and apart from the nuclear deal demonstrated its desire to have its cake and eat it too.

This is the quandary that President Trump finds himself in since confronting the Iranian regime isn’t just about the nuclear deal, but includes a whole host of issues including the wars it is fomenting in Syria and Yemen and the crises it created in Qatar, Pakistan and Qatar; not to mention the escalating tensions in international waters in the Persian Gulf and Suez Canal.

The president also needs to find ways to empower the Iranian resistance movement in order to foster the kind of internal regime change most likely to produce a peaceful transition in government without the specter of starting another war in the Middle East.

The potential key to making all this happen may be the potential of closing Iran off to further foreign investment and business as Lake makes clear in his article.

“All of this is also a lesson to Western businesses hoping Iran will be a safe place to invest in the aftermath of the nuclear bargain. Administration officials on Monday said the Treasury Department was still reviewing a proposed sale of civilian airliners from Boeing to Iran’s largest airline. That deal is under scrutiny because Iran uses its civilian air fleet to send supplies, personnel and weapons to the war in Syria,” Lake said.

The administration also moved forward in slapping additional sanctions on Iran not related to nuclear issues the other day in a demonstration of its willingness to hold the regime accountable, while at the same time certifying the nuclear deal in compliance. For President Trump, it is his way of having his own cake and eating it too.

The Treasury Department blacklisted 18 people and entities for supporting Iran’s military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which it said harassed U.S. naval vessels and tried to build ballistic missiles and steal U.S. computer software.

The sanctions mean it is illegal for U.S. citizens or companies to do business with those on the list, and any assets they have in the U.S. can be seized. It’s unclear whether the 18 have such assets or businesses.

Predictably the Iranian regime responded to the sanctions with what it called its own “reciprocal actions,” but it pointed out an uncomfortable truth for the mullahs which is that President Trump was moving closer to potentially designating the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, which could potentially cripple the regime’s flow of illicit funds.

The Iran lobby also weighed in with the National Iranian American Council’s Trita Parsi issuing a press release criticizing the moves by the administration.

“Under Trump, diplomacy has been traded for threats, placing the US and Iran at risk of war once more. Rather than pursuing dialogue with Tehran to resolve remaining disputes, as every one of our European allies have done, the Trump administration has chosen to escalate tensions and eschew opportunities to come to a mutual understanding,” Parsi said.

Parsi continues to try and split the difference in separating the nuclear deal from other issues such as Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for terror or poor human rights record. While that strategy worked with the previous administration, President Trump seems to have determined that all of these issues are interconnected.

This will no doubt cause Parsi to be dismayed and the mullahs to be frightened, but it’s the correct pathway to follow and one that President Obama should have done four years ago when negotiations opened on a deal.

If he had connected the dots of Iran’s bad behavior with the leverage he possessed in negotiating the deal, things might have been very different these past two years.

Unfortunately, it is now up to President Trump to clean up the mess.

Laura Carnahan

Two Year Anniversary of Iran Nuclear Deal Shows Its Failures

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Two Year Anniversary of Iran Nuclear Deal Shows Its Failures

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif before a meeting in Geneva January 14, 2015. Zarif said on Wednesday that his meeting with Kerry was important to see if progress could be made in narrowing differences on his country’s disputed nuclear program. REUTERS/Rick Wilking (SWITZERLAND – Tags: POLITICS) – RTR4LDZW

Two years ago, President Barack Obama was lauding a landmark nuclear deal, while the image of Iran’s foreign minister, Javid Zarif, shaking hands with U.S. officials was beamed around the world by a global news media largely snookered by the Iran lobby into believing that the Iranian regime had turned the corner and could be trusted as a responsible member of the international community.

What a difference two year’s make.

The world has witnessed the Middle East plunge into chaos with a body count in Syria alone reaching 400,000 dead and four million displaced as refugees. Conflicts rage from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean with the threat of wider wars now appearing on the horizon in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and around the Persian Gulf.

More importantly, conflict is not only confined to the battlefields with armies and proxies, but has been stretched by Iran’s introduction of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can now reach well into Europe, Asia and Africa.

Combine that threat with the insidious rise of North Korea’s own mushrooming missile launches and the world is now faced with missile threats from both sides of the planet controlled by autocratic regimes that have shown a complete disregard for the value of human life.

The picture is bleak and the reason for it rests largely on what the Iran nuclear deal failed to accomplish which is to alter the behavior of a regime controlled by mullahs in Tehran who viewed the deal as a windfall energizing their faltering government.

The Obama administration slowly and inexorably whittled away concession after concession at the request of the mullahs and recast the nuclear deal in evolving terms that changed its nature from a potential instrument of regime change to little more than a slight postponement in the regime’s plans for regional domination.

In the annals of international diplomacy, it has vaulted to rank near the Munich agreement that Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler brokered that gave away Austria in terms of futility.

The central conceit of the Iran lobby was that the nuclear agreement would bring Iranian regime back into the fold of civilized nations and empower the “moderate” elements within the government; none of which has come to pass. If anything, the reactionary, cold-blooded mullahs have demonstrated they remain firmly and clearly in control of the levers of powers and were only emboldened by the agreement.

For top mullahs Ali Khamenei, the nuclear agreement only confirmed in his mind that the Obama administration was less concerned about restraining Iran than in securing a historical legacy for the president. Obama showed his inclination to avoid confrontation with Iran and his willingness to compromise on any issue:

  • Remove human rights and support for terrorism from the terms of the nuclear deal? Check;
  • Remove any restrictions from Iran’s ballistic missile program from the nuclear deal? Check;
  • Include provisions to ransom American hostages as a condition of finalizing the nuclear deal? Check;
  • Eliminate any inspection of suspected nuclear sites in Iran by international inspectors on the ground? Check;
  • Allow Iranian regime to retain all of its centrifuges and allow it to acquire better and more efficient centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel? Check.

In each case, the Iranian regime was allowed to lift restrictions from some of its more problematic activities such as its missile program, but most importantly, it eliminated “consequences” for the regime’s actions.

The nuclear deal was a badly flawed document because there were no mechanisms to adequately punish the regime for breaking the agreement since it reaps virtually all of its benefits—namely cash—from the outset.

Now the Trump administration is faced with having to live with the consequences of this deal, specifically whether or not to renew another 90-day compliance finding for the JCPOA, as the agreement is called, to Congress.

President Trump is likely to renew the compliance finding since his administration is in the midst of a policy review for Iran, as well as engaging Iranian-backed militia units on the battlefield in Syria.

If Trump does state Iran is in compliance, it would be his second time since taking office in January to do so despite his promise during the 2016 campaign to “rip up” what he called “the worst deal ever,” according to Reuters.

What is troubling are recent reports from German intelligence agencies that the Iranian regime is still actively seeking components used in nuclear weapons manufacturing and research. This and other disturbing actions by the regime over the past two years point to a pattern that the mullahs are still actively and aggressively seeking to build their nuclear program.

The advanced ramp up of its ballistic missile program mirrors the same crash program North Korea pursued in developing its nuclear and missile programs.

None of this stopped the Iran lobby from praising the anniversary of the nuclear deal as the National Iranian American Council issued a self-congratulatory press statement and criticized efforts to dismantle the agreement:

“Unfortunately, however, the JCPOA remains under attack from elements within both countries that prefer conflict over dialogue and mutual suspicion over greater understanding. Continued sanctions, calls from the White House for nations to refrain from investing in Iran, and an increase in military encounters between the US and Iran all threaten the deal. The JCPOA represented an opportunity for the US and Iran to change course, broaden engagement and end the policy of sanctions and antagonism. Unfortunately that opportunity has largely been squandered,” said Trita Parsi, head of the NIAC.

On the second anniversary of the Iran Deal, the remarks to dub the flawed deal, as a good deal continues, by the Iran Lobby. It is indeed time to rid Washington from the Iranian regimes lobbies such as NIAC and from people like Trita Parsi.

Michael Tomlinson

Warnings Not to Soften on Iran Regime Mount

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Warnings Not to Soften on Iran Regime Mount

Warnings Not to Soften on Iran Regime Mount

One of the more interesting aspects of the transition in the White House has been the lack of support the Iran lobby receives. During the Obama administration, key Iran lobbyists such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council had almost unfettered access to the White House; visiting as often as insurance lobbyists during the Obamacare debate.

Key administration staffers helped construct the much-debated “echo chamber” to lend support for the debate about the Iran nuclear deal and help influence the news media with so-called strategic analysts to place editorials and appear on newscasts promoting the agreement.

Even former NIAC staffers were hired to fill key positions in the State Department and National Security Council much to the consternation of long-time critics of the Iranian regime who warned of the conflicts of interest stemming from having staffers with close ties to the Iranian regime overseeing U.S. policy on Iran.

The changeover in administrations not only significantly reduced the influence and clout of the Iran lobby, it also encouraged closer scrutiny and questioning of not only the Iran lobby’s positions, but also the thinking that went into the appeasement policies of the Obama administration.

The world has had the benefit of hindsight after two years since the nuclear deal was signed and has clearly seen that the Iranian regime is now the most destabilizing force in the Middle East with the eruption of proxy wars, terror incidents and deployments of new weapons on a large scale.

The laundry list of Iranian actions reads like a butcher’s bill for chaos, including:

  • Deepening the Syrian civil war the past two years by sending thousands of fighters to support Assad and drawing Russia into the conflict, as well as supporting the use of chemical weapons used on civilians;
  • Provoking open war with Saudi Arabia by starting the Houthi rebellion in Yemen and supporting additional efforts to destabilize Bahrain;
  • Igniting a border conflict with Pakistan that recently escalated to lobbing rockets and mortar shells at each other;
  • Spark the collapse of the Sunni-Shia coalition government in Iraq, thereby driving disenfranchised Sunni tribes to support ISIS leading to the fall of Mosul and giving ISIS its first stronghold to build on; and
  • Launch a massive development program to build a ballistic missile fleet with heavier payloads and intercontinental range, as well as use them for the first time in firing at targets in Syria; and
  • Deploy its military aggressively, including its navy to threaten international shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Gulf of Aden and Suez Canal.

The proof of how false the Iran lobby’s arguments were has been on display the past two years and there is little debate about Iran being at the center of the woes besetting the region. This has led to an emboldened Iranian resistance movement, as well as open criticism of Iran with little defense of the regime from the Iran lobby.

The wave of social media posts, editorial commentary and press releases by groups such as NIAC have fallen precipitously as Iran’s actions have clearly blown them out of the water, though are now trying to prevent policy changes against the regime, namely the black listing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the main vehicle behind its terrorist activities and its interferences in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, etc.

That criticism is now coming from all quarters as the Iranian opposition movement has gathered steam—culminating in the massive rally in Paris of the leading Iranian dissident groups totaling over 100,000 people with a global parade of nations all criticizing the mullahs in Tehran earlier this month.

In the U.S. Congress, the bipartisan support for the imposition of new economic sanctions on Iranian regime for its ballistic missile program grows each day, alongside calls by Senators on the Trump administration and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson not to certify the Iranian regime being in compliance with the nuclear agreement.

“We believe that a change in that policy is long overdue,” Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton and three colleagues wrote to Tillerson in a letter Tuesday.

“In light of Iran’s malign actions since the signing of the [nuclear deal], the only reasonable conclusion is that the full suspension of U.S. sanctions is not in the vital national security interests of the United States and that Iran has consistently violated the terms of the [nuclear deal].”

Under federal law, a finding that Iran is not complying with the deal — the certification must take place every 90 days — would set the stage for “an expedited process for Congress to rapidly restore its sanctions.” Cotton and the other senators said that time has come.

They cited several violations, including Iran’s refusal to allow international inspectors to access their research and military facilities, and exceeding limits on water stocks needed to create a plutonium pathway for nuclear weapons.

Several news organizations similarly reported violations by the Iranian regime, especially in its ongoing efforts to acquire illicit nuclear technology.

Weekly Standard reporter Benjamin Weinthal revealed Friday that recent reports by German intelligence agencies show that Iran is still attempting to procure illicit nuclear technology, such as specialized valves that can be used in the heavy water reactor in Arak.

Weinthal cited a report by the state of Hamburg in northern Germany which said “there is no evidence of a complete about-face in Iran’s atomic policies in 2016” after the announcement of the U.S.-brokered nuclear deal.

Iran is still seeking “products and scientific know-how for the field of developing weapons of mass destruction as well (as) missile technology,” the report claimed.

The Hamburg report also listed “49 separate instances of Iran engaging in illegal procurement and terrorist activities, such as cyberwarfare, espionage, and support for the terrorist group Hezbollah,” according to The Tower.

Another intelligence report by the state of Baden-Württemberg described Iran’s use of foreign import-export firms to obtain equipment that can be used for illicit nuclear activities.

Additional reporting recently indicated that Iran was building additional missile manufacturing facilities in Syria which raises the ugly specter that Iran could marry its ballistic missiles with Syria’s chemical weapons stocks that were never destroyed as part of the much-maligned compromise brokered by Russia that persuaded President Obama not to cross his infamous “red line.”

The only good thing coming out of this summer may be the fact that the Iran lobby is shrinking in influence and importance and that is a positive development.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Attacks Trump Administration for Favoring Regime Change

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Iran Lobby Attacks Trump Administration for Favoring Regime Change

Iran Lobby Attacks Trump Administration for Favoring Regime Change

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave testimony to the House and Senate Foreign Affairs Committees this week in detailing the State Department budget priorities for the upcoming year. While the bulk of his testimony concerned the issues such as North Korea and Russian relations, Tillerson made a few comments on Iran that engendered a full-fledged response from the Iran lobby.

While the majority of news media gave ample coverage to Tillerson’s testimony concerning Russia, he was asked a question regarding Iran by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), a noted critic of the Iranian regime and the mullahs who control it, that drew scant attention, but clearly worried the Iran lobby.

Tillerson was asked about future plans to enter into negotiations with the Iranian regime and he replied the administration had no immediate plans to do so and expressed support for elements within Iran working towards regime change and a transition to democracy in Iran.

Predictably, the National Iranian American Council, staunch supporters of the Iranian regime, led the charge against Tillerson’s comments; literally breathing fire.

It appears that the concept of promoting democracy in Iran strikes mortal terror in the hearts of Trita Parsi and his fellow travelers at the NIAC.

Darius Namazi at NIAC whipped out a statement condemning Tillerson’s remarks and taking a swipe at Iranian dissident movements, namely the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which had supporters in attendance at the hearings to express support for democratic change in Iran.

Poe asked Tillerson whether the U.S. supports “a peaceful regime change” and whether it is U.S. policy “to lead things as they are or set up a peaceful long-term regime change.”

Namazi claimed that Tillerson implied that it was U.S. policy to move toward supporting regime change, stating the U.S. would “work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of those governments.”

Only the NIAC would have a problem with the concept of a “peaceful regime change,” but that is par for the course for the Iran lobby.

The NIAC contends that any effort to force regime change would naturally be tantamount to an open declaration of war on the mullahs in Tehran, which is understandable considering the last time there was a mass effort for regime change following the disputed 2009 presidential elections, protests were brutally put down and innocent Iranians killed in the streets.

Of course, Namazi accuses the MEK of seeking to “violently overthrow the Iranian government,” as part of the Iran lobby’s continuing efforts to denigrate any organized opposition movement to the mullahs’ rule.

Namazi goes on to criticize Tillerson’s statements that the administration had no plans to negotiate with Iran on a range of issues such as the situations in Syria and Yemen, but Tillerson only correctly pointed out that granting Iran a seat at the bargaining table when it is the key agent causing the chaos in the first place was a pointless exercise.

According to Tillerson, “The Iranians are part of the problem…They are not directly at the table because we do not believe they have earned a seat at that table. We would like for the Iranians to end their flow of weapons to the Houthis, in particular their flow of sophisticated missiles to the Houthis. We need for them to stop supplying that, and we are working with others as to how to get their agreement to do that.”

These are not unreasonable sentiments, but apparently for the NIAC they are totally unreasonable.

Not that their efforts mattered since the Senate passed new sanctions on the Iranian regime by near unanimous margins in a further sign that the U.S. is moving past the failed policies of appeasing the Iranian regime under the Obama administration.

The Senate passed the sanctions bill by a 98-2 margin. The bill places new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program and other activities not related to the international nuclear agreement reached with the United States and other world powers.

To become law, the legislation must pass the House of Representatives and be signed by Trump. House aides said they expected the chamber would begin to debate the measure in coming weeks, according to Reuters.

The Iranian regime itself didn’t waste time in attacking Tillerson’s assertions that Iran has “aspirations of hegemony in the region.”

The top U.S. diplomat’s remarks are “interventionist, in gross violation of the compelling rules of international law, unacceptable and strongly condemned,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said in Tehran Thursday.

Qassemi went on to blame a history of U.S. “meddling in Iran in different forms” since the 1950s, saying the policy has only brought about “defeat and global shame” for Washington.

For all the bombastic the Iranian regime and its allies are hurling, the plain truth is that the U.S. is moving quickly and broadly on a number of fronts to rein in Iranian expansionism and militancy.

Congress is seeking new authorities that would enable it to expose and crack down on an Iranian state-controlled commercial airline known for transporting weapons and terrorist fighters to hotspots such as Syria, where Iranian-backed forces have begun launching direct attacks on U.S. forces in the country, according to new legislation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Congressional efforts to expose Iran’s illicit terror networks more forcefully come as U.S. and European air carriers such as Boeing and Airbus move forward with multi-billion dollar deals to provide the Islamic Republic with a fleet of new airplanes, which lawmakers suspect Iran will use to amplify its terror operations.

The new sanction legislation targets Iran’s Mahan Airlines, which operates commercial flights across the globe while transporting militants and weapons to fighters in Syria, Yemen, and other regional hotspots.

A crackdown on Mahan could indicate that Congress is more seriously eyeing ways to thwart Iran’s mainly unchecked terror pipeline in the region.

We breathlessly await the NIAC’s next bout of hyperbole.

 

Iran Lobby Tries to Take Advantage of ISIS Attack to Reset Debate

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Iran Lobby Tries to Take Advantage of ISIS Attack to Reset Debate

Iran Lobby Tries to Take Advantage of ISIS Attack to Reset Debate

The attack claimed by ISIS on Iranian targets the other day, including the Parliament building that killed 17 people, would normally be cause for universal condemnation and sympathy for the dead and wounded, but only the Iran lobby can find a way to use tragedy for its own purposes as various groups stepped up the rhetorical assaults against Saudi Arabia and the U.S.

Most notable was the National Iranian American Council which issued a full broadside of press statements, tweets, editorials and media interviews all focused on blaming Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Iranian dissident groups for the attack.

“ISIS has had very little success striking inside Iran. Main reason is they can’t recruit Iranians easily, so no local knowledge,” said Trita Parsi, president of the NIAC. “Only group with local knowledge that can slip into Iran easily is the Iranian terror group the MEK.”

It is interesting Parsi uses the same language as the Iranian regime in depicting Iranian dissident groups as “terror groups” knowing full well these groups are largely engaged in humanitarian efforts, information and news gathering and exposing the corrupt practices the regime government.

But more interesting is how attempting to reset the debate away from the recent history of Iran’s involvement in the bloody civil war that helped spawn ISIS in the first place, but instead pivot to accusations against Saudi Arabia and foreshadowing military action against the kingdom from Iran.

“Iranians believe there has been a lot of provocation, but they’ve been very restrained so far vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia,” Parsi said to the Washington Times. “Now the nation’s leaders are going to be under a lot of pressure from the Iranian public to respond in some way.”

Parsi said aggressive statements by Saudi leaders have “created a context in which the IRGC can convince the Iranian public not only that the Saudis were connected to Wednesday’s attack, but that the U.S. is also connected,” even if there may not be any evidence for such.

According to Vice News, hours before Wednesday’s attacks, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir characterized Iran as the leading sponsor of terrorism and called for action to be taken against it over its destabilizing actions in the region, where it is involved in Lebanon and Yemen, as well as Syria and Iraq. In turn, Iran blamed Saudi Arabia for supporting the rise of Sunni extremist groups in the region.

Parsi has laid out the argument justifying military action against Saudi Arabia now that the mullahs in Tehran feel they have justification now to engage in even more provocative action. Whereas supplying the Houthis in Yemen to threaten Saudi Arabia’s border was seen as the extent of Iranian actions, Parsi is now laying the intellectual foundation for an ever-widening war.

A curious position for the NIAC to take since its stated purpose is to help resolve differences among Iranian-Americans.

But there is a broader agenda at play here since legislation is moving through the U.S. Senate now to impose new sanctions on Iran for violations of ballistic missile testing. Parsi and his cohorts in the Iran lobby see new sanctions as an existential threat to the Iranian regime and doing all they can to reset the debate away from Iran and even cull some sympathy from the attacks.

The NIAC is now vigorously attacking the sanctions bill and attempting to leverage the ISIS attack into an argument that passing the legislation would even hamper the fight against ISIS.

A corollary to that argument is the opposition by the NIAC to the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the Trump administration.

The NIAC’s Adam Weinstein authored an opinion piece in Defense One arguing that the IRGC was a key element in the fight to oust ISIS from Mosul, Iraq.

“The success of this offensive is in large part due to the ability of the Iraqi army to act as an intermediary between Iran-backed militias and U.S. troops. However, a Senate bill, the Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017, will likely lead the Trump administration to label the IRGC as a terrorist group. Combined with the administration’s increased alignment with Saudi Arabia against Iran, this step threatens to fracture this de facto coalition in Mosul, detract from the fight against ISIS, and recklessly endanger the lives of U.S. forces,” he writes.

It’s a stretch of an argument since IRGC troops are now in the forefront in Syria engaging with U.S.-led forces, even to the point where the U.S. warplanes attacked an Iranian-backed convoy of Shiite militias as it approached U.S. bases.

That hardly sounds like the actions of a U.S. ally determined to fight ISIS.

In fact, the truth is Iran’s play in Syria has always been to target anti-Syrian regime forces and largely leave ISIS forces unscathed. Even after persuading Russia to enter the fray, Iranian officers providing targeting data to Russian warplanes not of ISIS positions, but often anti-regime forces and civilian targets in areas controlled by rebels.

What Weinstein, Parsi and their colleagues fail to recognize is that Iran’s own actions are the determining factor in how the U.S. is going to shape its foreign policy. So long as Iran continues the slaughter in Syria, pushes Saudi Arabia with the Houthi rebellion in Yemen, and broadens tensions with its support for Qatar, as well as increasing turmoil in Bahrain, then the regime is going to reap what it has sown.

Michael Tomlinson