Iran Lobby

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

Iran Regime Taunts US for More Ransom Payments to Free Americans

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Iran Regime Taunts US for More Ransom Payments to Free Americans

Iran Regime Taunts US for More Ransom Payments to Free Americans

Who actually runs Iran?

It’s not a silly question. It’s an important one because it goes to the heart of the central assertions made repeatedly by the Iran lobby that there is an internal struggle between “moderates” and “hardliners” for the future of Iran.

If you listened to people such as Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council or bloggers such as Jim Lobe or Ali Gharib, the struggle was a titanic war being waged between good and evil with Hassan Rouhani carrying the banner for all the true moderates in Iran seeking a better life for every Iranian.

What a load of fragrant cattle by-products to put it nicely.

The reality has been quite starkly different as the Iranian regime now controls conflicts in three countries, woos foreign nations and countries to invest and snatches up even more dual national citizens from around the world.

The latest provocation was the sentencing of several Americans to extended prison sentences in secret trials, which earned condemnation from almost every quarter of the political and diplomatic spectrum, but instead of offering any olive branches, the Iranian regime went deeper into its extremism.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Iranian regime is seeking “many billions of dollars” in payments from the US in exchange for the release of several American hostages still being detained in Iran, according to reports by Iran’s state-controlled press that are reigniting debate over the Obama administration’s decision earlier this year to pay Iran $1.7 billion in cash.

Senior Iranian officials, including the Rouhani, have been floating the possibility of further payments from the US for months. Since the White House agreed to pay Tehran $1.7 billion in cash earlier this year as part of a deal bound up in the release of American hostages, Iran has captured several more U.S. citizens.

Future payments to Iran could reach as much as $2 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter, who said that Iran is detaining U.S. citizens in Iran’s notorious Evin prison where inmates are routinely tortured and abused.

Iranian news sources close to the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, which has been handling prisoner swaps with the United States, reported on Tuesday that Iran expects “many billions of dollars to release” those U.S. citizens still being detained.”

Which leads us to the question we started with: Who’s calling the shots in Iran? Rouhani, who previously has served as a regime cheerleader for moderation now openly admits in interviews with Western journalists that Iran does not recognize dual nationalities, even though he previously issued a call for ex-pat Iranians to return and help rebuild its shattered economy.

“We should wait and see, the U.S. will offer … many billions of dollars to release” American businessman Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer, who was abducted by Iran after the United States paid Iran the $1.7 billion, according to the country’s Mashregh News outlet, which has close ties to the IRGC’s intelligence apparatus.

The Persian language news report was independently translated for the Washington Free Beacon.

Six hostages have been sentenced to 10 years in prison by Iran in the past months, including the Namazis.

One senior congressional adviser familiar with the issue told the Free Beacon that Iranian officials have been pressing for another $2 billion from the United States for months.

“Iranian officials including Foreign Minister [Mohammad Javad] Zarif have been bragging for months that they’re going to force the U.S. to pay them several billion dollars more,” the source said. “Now officials across the spectrum in Iran—from IRGC hardliners to the ostensibly moderate President Rouhani—are talking about those billions, and maybe several more, alongside chatter about the U.S. hostages.”

The Washington Post editorial board acknowledged the true nature of the regime with the harsh sentences handed down.

“The government of Hassan Rouhani, which negotiated the nuclear deal with the Obama administration, is often portrayed as opposed to this de facto hostage-taking. If so, the government appears powerless to prevent it. Instead, officials complain about the relatively slow return of Western investment and trade following the lifting of United Nations sanctions, even as some of those who promote the opening are unjustly imprisoned,” the Post said.

“Though it was officially part of a separate claims settlement, the Obama administration’s delivery of $400 million in cash to the Iranian regime at the time of the release of (Washington Post reporter Jason) Rezaian and other prisoners may have whetted the appetites of Tehran’s jailers.”

Clearly now, everyone can see Rouhani is not a moderate. When it comes to main policies of the regime, he was and still is merely no different than the top mullah Ali Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guard Corps which controls Iran and its people as tightly as a hangman’s noose wraps around a condemned prisoner’s neck.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Trying to Execute 22-Year Old Woman

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Iran Regime Trying to Execute 22-Year Old Woman

Iran Regime Trying to Execute 22-Year Old Woman

The Iranian regime is not a nameless, faceless bureaucracy. Its leadership is made up of men, virtually all of whom are deeply indoctrinated and adhering to an extremist form of Islamic belief that is at odds with the rest of the modern world.

These men are handpicked, have lifelong associations and cover for one another to ensure the continuation of their rule. Their families profit handsomely from the control these men exert over virtually all of the industries within Iran, while they are protected from prosecution and accusations of corruption by a system of religious courts that answer to no one except the ruling class.

The Iranian people are kept in check by a paramilitary force that enforces not only legal codes, but also morality codes of conduct, all of which are designed to keep free expression and even outside-the-box thinking firmly suppressed.

Elections are essentially rigged where these rulers decide who can run for office and routinely clear the field of any potential reformists or would-be moderates.

Their rule and effectiveness at ruling are put on display almost every day with public executions held in open squares throughout the country, usually from construction cranes and sometimes involving scores of prisoners.

It is within this ruling class, dominated by religious mullahs, that has seen fit to imprison thousands of ordinary Iranians for crimes that would be anathema in the West. No case illustrates this disparity more than the case of Zeinab Sekaanvand, a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman who was arrested when she was just 17-years-old and convicted of murdering her husband after a grossly unfair trial according to Amnesty International.

The Iranian regime plans to execute her as early as October 13th, despite an international outcry for her release.

“This is an extremely disturbing case. Not only was Zeinab Sekaanvand under 18 years of age at the time of the crime, she was also denied access to a lawyer and says she was tortured after her arrest by male police officers through beatings all over her body,” said Philip Luther, Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

“Iran’s continued use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders displays the authorities’ contempt even for commitments they themselves have signed up to. The Iranian authorities must immediately quash Zeinab Sekaanvand’s conviction and grant her a fair retrial without recourse to the death penalty, and in accordance with principles of juvenile justice,” he said.

Sekaanvand was 17-years-old when she was arrested in February 2012 for the murder of her husband, whom she had married at the age of 15. She was held in the police station for the next 20 days where she has said she was beaten by male police officers. She “confessed” to them that she stabbed her husband after he had subjected her to months of physical and verbal abuse and had repeatedly refused her requests for divorce, according to Amnesty International.

Her trial was grossly unfair. She was denied access to a lawyer during her entire pre-trial detention period and only met her state-appointed lawyer for the first time at her final trial session on October 18, 2014, the human rights group said.

The Iranian regime’s parliament has passed laws allowing marriage for girls as young as 13-years-old, including even a man marrying his own stepdaughter, in examples of the misogynist tendencies of these ruling men.

“Child marriage isn’t just a form of discrimination, it’s a form of violence,” Save the Children CEO Kevin Watkins told the New York Post.

“Forcing girls to marry much older men robs them of their freedom and amounts to sexual slavery. Instead of being in school, married girls face domestic violence, abuse and rape,” he said.

Human rights groups have long criticized Iran’s Penal Code which falls woefully short of safeguards required for juvenile offenders under international human rights law, and even those limited safeguards that do exist, such as informing juvenile offenders of their right to apply for a retrial, are often not implemented by the authorities.

While in prison, Sekaanvand become pregnant from a relationship with another prisoner, stalling her planned execution by the regime until she delivered a stillborn child on September 30th.

Doctors said the young woman’s baby died in her womb two days before she gave birth as a result of the shock she suffered after her friend and cellmate was executed.

According to Human Rights Watch, another 49 people who were children when they committed an offense are currently on the regime’s death row. In the past decade, Iran has executed at least 73 juvenile offenders, according to a January Amnesty report.

It is noteworthy that while the Iranian regime’s leadership pursues this binge of killing children, the Iran Lobby has been stunningly silent on the issue, offering almost no criticism of the practices.

A perusal of the social media feeds for notable Iran lobby members such as Trita Parsi, Reza Marashi and Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council reflect a shocking lack of commentary of the regime’s willingness to incarcerate, torture and execute children, especially battered women who are victims of appalling domestic violence.

We can only assume the higher priorities for the NIAC is urging the lifting of more restrictions on the regime’s access to US currency so the mullahs can get more cash to line their pockets.

By Laura Carnahan

Iran Lobby Working Feverishly to Save Nuclear Deal

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Since talks began with the Iranian regime on a potential nuclear agreement, the Obama administration has redefined generously its interpretations of “sanctions” on the regime to the point where billions of dollars have flowed to Tehran in ways unthinkable just a year ago.

The justification for the broad easing of sanctions has been the mantra that the alternative would be worse for the world; that failure to do so would empower “hardline” elements in Iran to seize the opportunity to take control and force out “moderates” and abandon the deal and start a nuclear arms race.

The administration’s position echoes the positions pushed by the Iran lobby, including prominent supporters such as the National Iranian American Council, which repeatedly claimed that the deal was helping cement support for perceived moderates such as Hassan Rouhani.

In response, the Obama administration has ignored, overlooked and even enabled a long string of accommodations for the Iranian regime that has emboldened the mullahs in Tehran. While no one disputes the intentions of the president in wanting to make a world free from nuclear weapons, we respectfully judge his efforts to have been a monumental waste of time.

The misguided belief by the US that Rouhani is a moderate that needs to be supported and whose re-election should be a priority is dumbfounding given the year of bloodshed caused by Rouhani’s policies including the massive escalation in the Syrian war, severe domestic crackdowns on human rights and the unprecedented executions of almost 3,000 Iranians, including women and children ranking Iran second in the world in state-sanctioned killing.

The latest act of appeasing the regime comes in the form of new guidance from the Treasury Department that effectively lifts the last remaining sanctions on the regime’s access to US currency exchanges.

The New York Post editorial board issued a blistering response to the action:

“The latest betrayal: The Treasury Department just lifted key restrictions on Iran’s ability to do business in US dollars and access world financial markets — breaking Team Obama’s explicit vows as it lobbied Congress not to nix the deal.

“Iran’s banks weren’t even cut off from the US financial system over the nuclear issue — but over Tehran’s funding of terrorism, its regional aggression and so on.

“Which makes another Treasury move even more squalid: It will now also let foreign firms and branches of US firms do business with Iranian groups like the Revolutionary Guard.

“The Guard is the chief conduit for Tehran’s support of terrorism, tied to numerous plots, including one in DC aimed at a Saudi envoy. And it’s also a prime force helping Syria’s Bashar al-Assad massacre civilians in his bloody bid to keep power.”

The guidance offered by the Treasury Department was designed to provide reassurance to foreign banks which have been skittish about conducting business in US dollar transactions with Iran.

According to Reuters, the guidance comes after months of complaints from Tehran, which says that remaining US sanctions have frightened away trade partners and robbed Iran of the benefits it was promised under the nuclear deal it concluded with world powers last year.

The guidelines, issued by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Friday, clarify that non-U.S. banks can do dollar trades with Iran, provided those transactions don’t pass through financial institutions in the United States.

What is even more incredible was that Michael Mosier, the associate director at the Office of Sanctions Policy & Implementation of Foreign Assets Control, and Christopher Backemeyer, deputy coordinator of Sanctions Policy, both were featured speakers at the NIAC’s Leadership Conference in an appalling act of conflict of interest.

The timing of their appearance before the leading lobbying arm of the Iranian regime shortly before the release of guidelines that effectively encourages and shows foreign banks how to avoid existing US sanctions put in place to stem the flood of cash flowing to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah is mind boggling.

Ironically, in an effort to minimize the impact of the Treasury Department’s guidance, the NIAC quickly issued a press release in an attempt to explain that this was not an evasion of existing sanctions, as well as encouraged the expansion of even more channels to accommodate the regime.

“The administration should take steps consistent with the U.S.’s stated policy that it will not stand in the way of legitimate business involving Iran.  Such measures include licensing U.S. person employees of foreign companies to engage in transactions involving Iran and licensing U.S. persons in general to facilitate transactions between foreign persons and Iran,” read the NIAC’s statement from Tyler Cullis.

Of course, the NIAC neglected to mention that any dual-national Iranian-American that traveled to Iran on business was likely to be arrested and held for ransom or a future prisoner swap.

The guidelines earned a quick rebuke from Congressional critics who warned of dire consequences in allowing the Iranian regime easier access to US dollars.

“The new guidance overturns the long-running understanding that the U.S. dollar cannot be used to facilitate international trade with any Iranian entities, let alone sanctioned entities. And by allowing foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies to transact business with Iranian entities, the president is ignoring the clear text of a law passed by Congress,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) said on Sunday.

Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, who chairs a Senate banking committee with oversight over Iran sanctions law, said the new guidelines amounted to the White House granting Tehran new concessions.

Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) said Treasury’s changes “green-light business with terrorists. The updated FAQs remove barriers for foreigners to engage with firms the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps controls.”

By Michael Tomlinson

“NIAC Leadership” Conference Showcases Influence Pedaling

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“NIAC Leadership” Conference Showcases Influence Pedaling

“NIAC Leadership” Conference Showcases Influence Pedaling

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

What a deal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Laura Carnahan

The Disconnect Between Iran Lobby Priorities and Reality

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The Disconnect Between Iran Lobby Priorities and Reality

The Disconnect Between Iran Lobby Priorities and Reality

Money makes the world go around

The world go around

The world go around

Money makes the world go around

It makes the world go ’round.

 

A mark, a yen, a buck, or a pound

A buck or a pound

A buck or a pound

Is all that makes the world go around,

That clinking clanking sound

Can make the world go ’round.

 

These are lyrics from the 1972 Academy Award-winning movie “Cabaret” which depicted the last final days of freedom in the Weimar Republic of Germany in 1931 during the rise of the Nazi Party.

The tune entitled “Money, Money” is sung by the cabaret’s emcee as a narrative about the pervasive influence of money and the desperate pursuit of it.

The movie was also noteworthy because of its depiction of issues such as homosexuality and hedonistic club life, as well as the virulence of anti-Semitism and even abortion. It was a movie widely considered to be one of the best 100 movies of all time.

The show tune is appropriate though for our world today and is still powerfully relevant as we consider the current priorities of the Iran lobby and its most conspicuous leaders such as the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).

It also helps illustrate the wide disparity between the priorities of the Iran lobby and the most pressing issues surrounding the Iranian regime today. If we examine the public statements and recent policy memos issued by the NIAC especially this week, we would assume that the most pressing issues confronting the U.S. and Iranian regime is how to get the mullahs more money.

At the top of NIAC’s legislative priorities is to prevent renewal of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 (ISA) which is up for consideration by Congress before the end of this year and along with it, the tacit lifting of all remaining restrictions and sanctions against the Iranian regime.

The impetus for the legislative push by NIAC and other Iran lobby allies is recognition that the upcoming presidential election is likely to bring significant changes in the U.S. foreign policy approach to the Iranian regime no matter who wins, be it Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, because an incoming administration is likely to gain political capital by taking an aggressive stand against Iran, especially in light of the global deterioration of stability with terrorism and proxy wars on the rise.

To that end, the NIAC has been busy churning out policy papers arguing not only against renewing the ISA, but also the lifting of all remaining sanctions, especially prohibitions against the regime’s access to U.S. currency exchanges and the reluctance of foreign banks to handle Iranian regime transactions for fear of running afoul sanctions still in place pertaining to Iran’s human rights abuses and support for terrorism.

Interestingly, one policy paper authored by Ryan Costello of NIAC, argued that expiration of the ISA would still allow the president the ability to re-impose the same sanctions, but he neglects to mention the real reason the mullahs wish to shift authority away from Congressional legislation and onto the president: President Obama has demonstrated with his policies of appeasement the value to the mullahs of a president willing to accommodate their wishes and avoid the messy spectacle of a Congressional hearing and floor debate which would almost certainly go against them on almost any issue given the current climate.

More importantly, by trying to sell the idea that a new president could re-impose sanctions at will, ignores the most obvious flip side of that proposition, which is that the same president could choose to ignore Iran’s conduct and not impose sanctions that might otherwise be forced by a renewed ISA.

The NIAC and its allies in the Iran lobby are counting on their ability to duplicate last year’s “echo chamber” to apply political pressure on a new administration to keep the Iranian regime off the sanctions hit list.

Another policy memo authored by Tyler Cullis of NIAC, goes even further to make the explicit link between the need to lift all sanctions and the potential for the nuclear agreement with Iran—the  Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—to fail.

What Cullis and the NIAC fail to admit is that the limits of the JCPOA stop at the issue of human rights violations and support for terrorism; issues that the regime stridently wanted to be de-linked from the nuclear negotiations for fear that they would bring down any hope of a deal and the lifting of economic sanctions that had succeeded in crippling the Iranian economy and weakened the mullahs grip on power.

Cullis’ conclusion reveals the true goals of the Iran lobby when he writes:

“Despite the formal lifting of U.S. nuclear-related sanctions, implementation of U.S. obligations under the JCPOA has not proceeded altogether smoothly. In order to safeguard the decades-long restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. must faithfully observe its JCPOA sanctions-related obligations in full. To do so, though, there must be a common understanding as to the full scope of those U.S. sanctions-related commitments.”

It is a bizarre statement to make since it places the burden solely on U.S. actions and speaks of nothing in regards to growing Iranian regime’s recalcitrance and militant stances; nor takes into account the abysmal state of human rights in Iran.

That situation has grown appallingly worse as the regime has moved aggressively to execute citizens at a fast and monstrous clip, including the mass execution of 25 Sunni Muslims it accuses of “enmity against God,” which earned the regime a blistering condemnation from Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups.

“Iran’s mass execution of prisoners on August 2 at Rajai Shahr prison is a shameful low point in its human rights record,” said Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “With at least 230 executions since January 1, Iran is yet again the regional leader in executions but a laggard in implementing the so far illusory penal code reforms meant to bridge the gap with international standards.”

Two lawyers who represented some of the men told Human Rights Watch that their clients did not get a fair trial and that their due process rights had been violated.

Ultimately, while the Iran lobby fights to fill the Iranian regime’s coffers, we have to ask why it doesn’t also fight to save Iranian lives.

Indeed, money does make the world go round.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Working Hard to Preserve Flawed Nuclear Deal

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Iran Lobby Working Hard to Preserve Flawed Nuclear Deal

Iran Lobby Working Hard to Preserve Flawed Nuclear Deal

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading the main story

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Michael Tomlinson

Why the Boeing Sale Matters to Iran Regime

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Why the Boeing Sale Matters to Iran Regime

Why the Boeing Sale Matters to Iran Regime

The Iranian regime trumpeted with much fanfare an agreement to buy 80 commercial airliners from Boeing, as well as lease another 29 airliners for a total value estimated upwards of a whopping $25 billion for Iran Air. Far from being a simple transaction for new aircraft any national airline might make, this deal represents far more for both the Iranian regime and the hopes of the mullahs in Tehran to gaining unrestricted access to currency exchanges.

The deal is the linchpin to a larger effort by the regime to lift restrictions put in place limiting the regime’s access to U.S. currency exchanges, as well as access to sensitive technology that could be used by Iran for illegal or military purposes.

While the nuclear deal reached with Iran last year lifted a number of economic sanctions, it did not lift sanctions still in place related to Iran’s abysmal human rights record, support of terrorism and the illegal test launches of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, but that has not stopped some in the U.S. administration from trying an end-run in supporting the Boeing deal and using loopholes such as the creation of a new Iranian bank located literally offshore its coast on an island to get around currency restrictions.

An effort was mounted in Congress to block the sale with the House approving two amendments by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) to block sales by Boeing and Airbus aircraft to Iran to the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act 239-185.

The amendments both passed by voice vote, which a statement from Roskam’s office said indicates “overwhelming, bipartisan support.”

One amendment prohibits the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) from using funds to authorize a license necessary to allow aircraft to be sold to Iran.

The other amendment ensures Iran will not receive loans from U.S. financial institutions to purchase militarily-fungible aircraft, by prohibiting OFAC from using funds to authorize the financing of such transactions.

Democratic Representative Denny Heck of Washington state, where Boeing has major operations, said that if proposed bills to restrict the deal became law they would also affect other companies’ sales to Iran. Because virtually all modern jets have more than 10 percent U.S. content, including those Airbus plans to sell, they already require export licenses from the U.S.

This is precisely the reason why the Boeing deal needs to be blocked because its passage would open the proverbial floodgates for the Iranian regime to pursue unrestricted deals with virtually any business without fear of sanctions or consequences. The deal would also essentially make null and void all sanctions in place for human rights and terrorism violations.

It would be hard to contemplate a more universal dismissal of the importance of human rights than the explicit approval to resume business with the regime and ignore all of the vile acts it commits against its own people and the rest of Middle East.

Can we imagine past “business as usual” deals with the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia during the killing fields or with Serbia or Rwanda as genocides were being committed? When does conscience give way to financial gain?

Republican and Democratic critics of the deal expressed concern that the aircraft would be used by Iran for illicit activities, such as ferrying weapons to Syria in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) wrote a letter to the Obama administration in June saying it is “virtually certain” the aircraft would be used for nefarious purposes, since Iran Air is aligned with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which remains under sanction.

Iran Air was removed from a sanctions list as part of the nuclear deal with Iran, which rolled back sanctions in exchange for limits to Iran’s nuclear program.

“Iran Air’s aircraft will undoubtedly be used in the future to continue to funnel lethal assistance to Assad, to Hezbollah, and to other terrorist entities,” Sherman wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker on June 30.

Opponents of the Boeing deal pointed out that the Treasury imposed sanctions on Iran Air in 2011 for using passenger and cargo planes to transport rockets and missiles to places such as Syria, sometimes disguised as medicine or spare parts. At other times, members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards took control of flights carrying sensitive cargo. Those sanctions were lifted in July 2015 after the nuclear deal was signed.

“Boeing is signing a deal with an Iranian aviation company and an industry complicit in the regime’s weapons proliferation and destabilizing adventurism,” Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based public policy group, testified at the hearing.

Dubowitz said that Iran Air made three trips to Syria just last month carrying weapons and supplies for Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria that’s opposed by the U.S.

“The deal between Boeing and Iran risks implicating major U.S. companies in the Islamic Republic’s support for terrorism and regional adventurism,” said Dubowitz, who has advocated tough sanctions against Iran and helped lawmakers craft them.

Predictably, the Iran lobby voiced its displeasure over the efforts to kill the deal.

“By attempting to block Boeing’s pending sale of commercial passenger aircraft to Iran, opponents of the Iran nuclear accord are also seeking to undermine significant U.S. commercial interests and to impose humanitarian suffering on the Iranian people by denying them access to safe air travel,” said Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council in a press release.

It’s a noteworthy sentiment since not many ordinary Iranians are likely to be flying Iran Air flights loaded with military hardware and ammunition bound for Syria, Iraq or Yemen, but naturally Cullis and the rest of the Iran lobby ignore the illicit uses the Iranian regime has used commercial aircraft for previously.

It’s also important to remember that Cullis and the NIAC make no promises or guarantees that the aircraft would not be used for military purposes, which lies at the heart of why this deal frankly stinks. Without any reasonable guarantees or enforcement or monitoring mechanism, the U.S. and Europe through Boeing and Airbus would essentially be providing the Iranian government and military with a massive upgrade in its airlift and cargo capabilities at a time when its’ military is deeply involved in three proxy wars straining the regime’s ability to move supplies, hardware and troops.

While the first step was taken by the House to stop this bad deal, the Senate needs to take the matter up quickly and pass similar legislation.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Tries to Spin Continued Blacklisting of Iran Regime

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Iran Lobby Tries to Spin Continued Blacklisting of Iran Regime

Iran Lobby Tries to Spin Continued Blacklisting of Iran Regime

An international group that monitors and combats money laundering worldwide decided this weekend to keep the Iranian regime on its blacklist of high-risk countries, which included notably Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan; all countries the regime is currently engaged in proxy wars.

At a meeting of its 37 members in South Korea, the Financial Action Task Force also moved to keep North Korea on its blacklist and urged countries to be on guard against Pyongyang’s attempts to bypass sanctions to finance illicit weapons programs.

“The FATF, therefore, calls on its members and urges all jurisdictions to continue to advise their financial institutions to apply enhanced due diligence to business relationships and transactions with natural and legal persons from Iran,” read the statement FATF issued.

The FATF deferred to the potential for the Iran nuclear deal to help motivate Iran’s support of terrorism, and opted to defer further sanctions for another 12 months to see if the Iranian regime follows through on its promises.

But it is interesting to note the FATF only list 11 nations as being high-risk or non-cooperative in the areas of money laundering and support for terrorism and the Iranian regime is affiliated in its support with five of them. Almost half of the nations on the planet engaged in these activities are tied to the mullahs in Tehran.

That is a remarkable achievement for any regime to take, especially one that is constantly defended by the Iran lobby as a peaceful and moderate nation.

The absurdity of that defense reached new levels with a statement issued by the National Iranian American Council’s Tyler Cullis, which welcomed the deferred action by the FATF, but ignored the continued presence of the regime on the blacklist; choosing instead to look at the glass half-full scenario.

“FATF has suspended its call for Member-States and other jurisdictions to impose counter-measures against Iran and its financial institutions, which should send a clear signal to international banks and businesses that economic opportunities with Iran can move forward,” Cullis said.

It’s a rather willfully ignorant statement since the FATF clearly warned member countries to exercise due diligence when dealing with anyone connected to Iran. When applied to financial institutions such as commercial banks, that is a clear warning to stay away from Iranian regime, which virtually all major banks have opted to do given the uncertainty raised by the FATF.

Cullis claims that the regime has made meaningful steps to counter the financing of terrorism in what has to be the biggest obfuscation since Adolf Hitler said Czechoslovakia invited the Nazis in.

Cullis ignores the interception of several Iranian boats attempting to smuggle guns, rockets and ammunition to Houthi rebels in Yemen. Cullis ignores the arming and support Shiite militias in Iraq which are now meting out retribution against Sunni tribes in furthering sectarian bloodshed. Cullis ignores the long-term funding of Hezbollah and the use of terror in the Syrian conflict in targeting civilians and Doctors Without Borders hospitals.

There is good reason why Transparency International ranks the Iranian regime 130th out of 168 countries in the world for corruption with a score of 27 out of 100. Cullis claiming there are meaningful reforms coming from the mullahs in Tehran to combat terrorism is like claiming a butcher shop is trying to go vegan.

Sanctions experts, banking sources and Western officials say little will change regarding financial institutions’ “hands off” approach to Iran, above all due to concerns about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) omnipresence in the Iranian economy. The IRGC is still under international sanctions, according to Reuters.

“Practically speaking the FATF decision changes little since global financial institutions will continue to voluntarily implement strict counter-measures given their serious concerns over Iran’s illicit financial conduct,” said sanctions expert Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

To further illustrate how Cullis and the rest of the Iran lobby is wrong, the regime’s top mullah Ali Khamenei obliged with yet another warning of violence to a neighbor, in this case Bahrain.

He blasted as “foolishness” a decision by Bahrain’s leaders to strip a top Shi’ite Muslim cleric of his citizenship, and said it could provoke violence from Shi’ites, who make up the majority in the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom.

The speech by Khamenei, carried by state media, came after Bahrain’s Sunni authorities stepped up measures against the island’s Shi’ites and stripped their spiritual leader, Ayatollah Isa Qassim, of his citizenship.

“This is blatant foolishness and insanity. When he still could address the Bahraini people, Sheikh Isa Qassim… would advise against radical and armed actions,” Khamenei said in remarks carried by state television on Sunday.

“Attacking Sheikh Isa Qassim means removing all obstacles blocking heroic Bahraini youths from attacking the regime,” he said.

Of course he neglected to mention that Bahrain has long maintained that Iran funnels financial material support to would-be insurgents.

Again, that pesky “funding terrorism” problem.

Aside from funding terrorism, the Iranian regime still remains a black hole for human rights and its continued arrests of foreign nationals alone should keep it in the sanctions pokey.

In the case of Montreal-based university professor, Homa Hoodfar is being held in an Iranian jail and being investigated for “dabbling in feminism and security matters,” according to her family, while in the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British woman arrested by regime authorities, who claimed she was being held in solitary confinement for three months because she helped to “design a website.”

If the Iranian regime is afraid of women like these, its days in power are surely numbered.

By Michael Tomlinson

Why New Business Deals with Iran Should Be Tied to Human Rights

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Why New Business Deals with Iran Should Be Tied to Human Rights

Why New Business Deals with Iran Should Be Tied to Human Rights

Although the nuclear deal with the Iranian regime reached last April lifted economic sanctions related to trade and released $100 billion in frozen assets back to the control of the mullahs in Tehran, it did not lift sanctions put in place for Iran’s abysmal human rights record and sponsorship of terrorism.

These sanctions largely affect U.S. currency exchanges and the ability to transact business through financial institutions connected to U.S. exchanges where currency would need to be converted, transmitted or deposited.

The sanctions lifted as part of the nuclear accord permits Iran to sell its oil back on the open market (even though it had already been doing so illicitly for some time), allow foreign firms to invest in Iran’s oil and gas industry and other industrial sectors such as automobiles and hotels, as well as allow Iran access to the global banking system known as SWIFT.

Predictably there has been a rush of foreign companies looking to get back into the Iranian marketplace; primarily firms that had pre-existing relationships within Iran prior to the imposition of most sanctions.

These largely comprised European, Chinese and Russian firms looking to announce deals, but most financial institutions in those same countries have been reluctant to jump in and engage in business with the regime; largely because of the regime’s unstable record on worsening human rights and the turbulence created by its involvement in proxy wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

Now comes word – premature it seems – that U.S.-based Boeing was negotiating to sell 100 commercial aircraft to the regime in one of the largest re-entries into the Iranian market by a U.S. company.

There is already significant opposition building in Congress on both sides of the aisle to the deal since Iran’s previous use of commercial airlines such as Mahan Air to ferry troops and supplies to Hezbollah in Syria makes the potential high that American-made aircraft could be used in a similar military capacity, not to mention the technology transfer involved in advanced navigation, communications and avionics systems that the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps could take and adapt to their own purposes.

All of which raises a simple question: Should any business deal with the Iranian regime be predicated on improvements in human rights or the halt of sponsoring terror?

Two former U.S. Treasury officials cast doubt Wednesday on the prospects of the deal between Iran and Boeing, claiming concerns about Iranian money laundering and terrorism financing activities are likely to scuttle the agreement.

“The risks associated with doing business with Iran haven’t changed,” said Chip Poncy, who headed Treasury’s office of strategic policy for terrorist financing and financial crimes through 2013.

Eric Lorber, a former attorney in Treasury’s office of foreign assets control, said the Boeing deal will likely face the same problem that has kept a similar deal between Tehran and Airbus, Boeing’s European rival, from getting off the ground for the past seven months.

The mullahs have complained vigorously that the nuclear deal implementation applied to the lifting of all sanctions and that any sanctions still in place or the threatened imposition of new sanctions such as those proposed for its violation of ballistic missile testing would jeopardize the nuclear agreement.

The regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei, regularly threatens to tear up the nuclear deal each week for one reason or another. This past weekend it was because he didn’t like presidential candidate Donald Trump. The week before that it was because he thought Iran was being shortchanged by the U.S. on cash. Next week it will probably be about his inability to comprehend Snapchat.

The fact that the Obama administration inserted language in the nuclear deal specific to allowing investments in aircraft is seen as an effort to boost Boeing’s chances of doing the deal, but in the year since that deal was reached, the Iranian regime has been anything but compliant with efforts to moderate itself.

The litany of aggressive and illegal actions it has taken range from detaining American sailors on the high seas to widening the war in Syria to arresting just about any dual citizen it feels like including mothers, aid workers, journalists and businessmen without trial or charge.

The difficulty in many of these deals lies in the fact that the Revolutionary Guard Corps owns most of the economic and industrial capacity within Iran through a myriad of shell companies. In telecommunications for example, the IRGC owns the state phone company and controls virtually all internet access in Iran. The same goes for the oil and gas industry and airlines, which makes the Boeing deal problematic in many ways.

If we know the IRGC is engaged in supporting terrorism aggressively around the world and if we know its intelligence units and court system regularly sentences dissidents to death and uses torture on a mass scale on the Iranian people, then how can any U.S. entity conduct business in Iran without stepping on existing sanctions?

Jonathan S. Tobin writes in Commentary Magazine that Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies told the New York Times, despite the exception for aircraft sales in the text of the nuclear deal, much of Iran’s civilian aviation industry is run by companies linked to or run by the IRGC, which also operates the regime’s terror network.

Business with the IRGC and everything related to it is still very much against U.S. law and nothing in the Iran deal supersedes that fact. As Dubowitz notes, that makes any Boeing-Iran transaction a “due-diligence nightmare” for any U.S. companies as well as the banks that will also be involved, he added.

The conundrum is one that the Iran lobby is attempting to tackle head on with its typical subterfuge as evidenced by a piece written by Tyler Cullis of the National Iranian American Council in Foreign Policy, in which he makes the inane argument that since the nuclear deal is in danger of collapse, the U.S. should double down on it and go even further in accommodating the regime.

Cullis makes the argument that the Obama administration must provide foreign companies essentially a “get out of jail card” in terms of setting out guidelines essentially setting a legal standard for compliance with sanctions in order to engage in activities expressly forbidden by those same sanctions!

As Cullis is loath to mention, sanctions still in place are not related to the nuclear deal! In order for those sanctions to be lifted, the mullahs need to stop butchering their own people, stop arresting American businessmen, British mothers and Canadian professors and they need to stop sending guns, rockets and ammunition to terrorists around the world.

Is that too hard? For Cullis and the rest of the Iran lobby, it apparently is.

By Michael Tomlinson

Iran Demands Social Media Sites Store Data Only In Iran

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Iran Demands Social Media Sites Store Data Only In Iran

Iran Demands Social Media Sites Store Data Only In Iran

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Laura Carnahan