UNGA – Iran Lobby

Iran Regime Scrambles at UN Meeting for a Lifeline

On the popular television show, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” one of the helpful aids for contestants is to use a “lifeline” and call a knowledgeable friend who can help answer a particularly difficult question.

For the Iranian regime, the annual United Nations General Assembly session in New York presented an opportunity to cast about and desperately try to find a lifeline in the face of a stuttering economy and economic sanctions being imposed by the Trump administration.

The appearances by President Donald Trump and Iranian president Hassan Rouhani at the UN podium punctuated vastly different views on the situation in Iran.

For President Trump’s part, he delivered a speech critical of the Iranian regime and the nuclear deal it received and the havoc it has wrecked on the regime since then.

For Rouhani, he predictably refuted those points and said U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal and re-imposition of economic sanctions would eventually be reversed.

The annual forum gave Rouhani the opportunity to try and resurrect the battered moderate image he had when he first addressed the session years ago amid much fanfare from the Iran lobby.

Since then he has presided over a regime that has helped a Syrian regime gas its own people, topple a government in Yemen, spark sectarian bloodshed in Iraq, funded terrorist activities around the world and abused the Iranian people to such a degree they are now openly chanting for an overthrow of the government.

“We do not wish to go to war with America anywhere in the region, we do not wish to attack them,” Rouhani told reporters in New York. “But we ask America to adhere to laws and respect the national sovereignty of nations.”

That last line would be hilariously funny if it wasn’t so cruelly absurd since Iran has not respected the sovereignty of its own neighbors in attempting to control Iraq, incite a rebellion in Yemen and conduct terror operations in Europe.

The contrast between reality and Rouhani’s statements were only highlighted even more as the Iran lobby pushed out the same narrative in an effort to rebuild the regime’s tattered image.

But the struggle the U.S. is trying to resolve is the unfinished business from the nuclear deal which is how to restrain Iran’s regional ambitions and destabilizing effect it has had throughout the Middle East.

The focus on Iran’s expansionist efforts and meddling in neighboring countries is an inconvenient truth that European leaders have tried to ignore even as Islamic terrorists inspired by Iran’s flaming rhetoric have attacked and killed innocents from Paris to Berlin to Nice.

The impact of American sanctions is having such a dramatic effect on the Iranian economy, as well as the mullahs’ tenuous hold on power that they have worked feverishly in an attempt to persuade Europe to build alternative economic lifelines to keep the regime afloat.

But a proposed plan by the European Union, Russia and China to sidestep U.S. sanctions on Iran by using an alternative payment system won’t give its oil buyers a free pass to handle Iranian crude.

Legal sanctions experts and oil traders said the creation of a special purpose vehicle and payments channel to keep trade open with Iran, unveiled this week by EU Foreign Affairs chief Federica Mogherni, would still leave traders handling crude from the Islamic state vulnerable to punitive actions by the U.S. treasury department.

Even if they used an alternative payment system incorporating bartering, envisioned in the proposal from the EU, Russia and China, any customers would still be vulnerable to secondary sanctions for simply buying the oil, according to Bloomberg.

The financing initiative was condemned by U.S. Secretary of Secretary Mike Pompeo at an anti-Iran event in New York on Tuesday. At the same gathering, National Security Adviser John Bolton said, “We do not intend to allow our sanctions to be evaded by Europe or anybody else.”

Bolton’s tough talk drew an unsurprising response from the National Iranian American Council which trotted out the tired refrain of war mongering.

“Bolton has called for the U.S. to bomb Iran for over a decade and is now in the driver’s seat of the Trump Administration’s foreign policy. His threats are aimed at inflaming tensions, preventing any possibility that his boss might negotiate with Iran, and goading Iran into to doing something that could justify a U.S. attack,” the NIAC said in a statement on its website.

The NIAC has been accusing the Trump administration of wanting to start a war with Iran in a blatant effort to divert attention away from the hard truth the administration is pressuring the world into seeing, which is Iran’s effect on the region and its harsh treatment of its own people.

The fact that the NIAC continues to trot out war fears is a reflection of how terrified the Iran lobby is the U.S. message of Iranian malfeasance might actually be gaining traction. At the very least the rest of the world cannot ignore the economic muscle of U.S. sanctions and is casting about for solutions to satisfy U.S. demands.

But while the Iran lobby has denounced U.S. actions, it has also cast aspersions on U.S. offers to engage in diplomacy to settle their differences with Iran.

At a meeting of the UN Security Council chaired by President Trump, he was quick to include a thanks for Iran, Syria and Russia to restrain a pending attack on Idlib and renewed his offer to meet with Rouhani.

Rouhani was quick to deny any such offer was extended and the Iran lobby ignored the president’s remarks; all of which was necessary because acknowledging either act would effectively box Iran in and show that it really doesn’t care about diplomacy and instead is only interested in finding alternative means to keep cash flowing into the faltering economy.

The reality is that the mullahs are increasingly growing desperate and running out of options, time and cash and caving into U.S. demands to change how they behave might be the only way out.

Laura Carnahan

Hassan Rouhani Begins Charm Tour Leading to UN Speech

The United Nations General Assembly Session over the years has been the scene of many speeches both famous and infamous. Some of the more memorable addresses by some infamous people include Venezuelan strong man Hugo Chavez in 2006, Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2009 and Iranian regime leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2010.

It has been used as a platform to bully the world. It has been used to make extravagant accusations. It has been used to charm and lull the world into believing false narratives.

It has also been used to raise human rights issues. It has been used to advocate for peace, democracy and tolerance. It has been used to raise the hope for a world seeking to make a better place for the future.

The General Assembly exists to serve the aims of whoever chooses to speak and the annual general session is a free for all so world leaders can make their rhetorical claims on whatever topic they choose.

Into this platform has stepped Hassan Rouhani, the handpicked president of the Iranian regime who has used previous sessions to make lofty promises of openness, moderation and dedication to finding diplomatic solutions to intractable problems.

Unfortunately, the reality of the Iranian regime’s actions has never lived up to his rhetoric.

As recently as Rouhani’s address to the UN last year, he suggested that the nuclear agreement reached with Iran and world powers would help create the basis for broader engagement, in a speech that was noted for its departure from the strident tone of his boss, top mullah Ali Khamenei.

Last year Rouhani spent considerable time extolling the diplomatic success of the agreement, claiming it would lift years of painful economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for verifiable guarantees that its nuclear activities remain peaceful.

In the year since he gave that optimistic speech, relations between the Iranian regime and the rest of the world has plummeted to new lows. Among the regime low-lights since he gave his speech:

Iranian regime has stepped up arrests of dual-national citizens following the linking of releasing American hostages in exchange for $1.7 billion from the U.S.;
Iranian regime has expanded proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen through its continued support of terror groups such as Hezbollah and its recruitment of Afghan mercenaries and arming of Shiite militias and Houthi rebels;
The regime has continued development and test firing of ballistic missiles in defiance of UN restrictions, alongside being granted exemptions from the nuclear deal allowing it to maintain large stockpiles of heavy water and operating “hot cells” for the handling of nuclear materials;
Iranian regime has instituted large crackdowns against dissidents, students, journalists, ethnic and religious minorities, including knocking off the majority dissident and moderate candidates from parliamentary election ballots; and
Iranian regime stepped up open confrontations in the Persian Gulf with U.S. Navy warships, necessitating evasive maneuvers and even warning shots to be fired, even as the regime engages in a massive military build-up with purchases from Russia.

It has hardly been a year of peace and moderation as Rouhani claimed and the Iran lobby has argued for since the nuclear deal was reached.

A closer look at Rouhani’s travel itinerary shows his focus on a tour of designed to expand the regime’s sphere of influence into Latin America as he visits Venezuela this week.

At the UN General Assembly though, Rouhani’s task will be more difficult—not only because more people are likely disbelieve his assertions given the regime’s track record—but also that Khamenei may be finding Rouhani’s utility waning and the need for this particular puppet lessening.

Many analysts and Iranian dissidents have predicted that Rouhani’s selection in a purportedly rigged presidential election was designed to allow the regime to present a more genial and media-savvy face to open a rapprochement with the U.S. in order to secure a favorable deal alleviating the regime of crippling economic sanctions.

Now that the regime has been appeased through the nuclear agreement, the need for friendly regime face may be fading as Khamenei has indulged his desire for more aggressive confrontations with the U.S. and its allies.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, president of the International American Council, says a sign of that shift may come if Rouhani’s speech criticizes the U.S., highlighting Washington’s failure to let Tehran rejoin the financial global system.

Iran’s UN speech will most likely repeat Khamenei’s message, in a more diplomatic way, that the US has been “breaking oaths, not acting on their commitments and creating obstacles,” he said.

Rouhani’s speech is also unlikely to make any mention of the current hostages being held by the regime, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual citizen, who was detained in April at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport.

An Iranian court just handed down a harsh five year prison sentence on her, even though the exact charges have not been disclosed by the regime. Zaghari-Ratcliffe works at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the company that owns the Reuters news agency and her plight, along with other hostages such as Canadian professor Homa Hoodfar, have revived concern about the regime’s plans for more cash for hostage swaps.

As the Wall Street Journal editorialized in an opinion piece:

“One purpose of the harsh sentence is to remind Iranians in the diaspora tempted to return home in the wake of the nuclear deal that the regime sees them as traitors. It’s also no accident that the sentence came shortly after the U.K. upgraded its diplomatic relations back to ambassador level.

“Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson cheered the new opening to Tehran last Monday, only to receive a rude awakening days later. Now the regime has a new political and financial bargaining chip, and Mr. Obama has created a cash-for-hostages incentive system with his earlier ransom. Let’s hope the British government is wiser than to stuff briefcases with unmarked bills.”

The UN should plan on asking Rouhani the tough questions it didn’t ask him the last three times he spoke at the General Assembly.

By Michael Tomlinson