Iran Lobby

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

Trita Parsi Stepping Down But Is He Going Away?

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Trita Parsi Stepping Down But Is He Going Away?

Trita Parsi Stepping Down But Is He Going Away?

Our old friend, Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council and chief cheerleader for the Iranian regime, announced he was leaving the post of president and turning the reins over to Jamal Abdi, NIAC’s current vice president for policy and head of its NIAC Action lobbying front.

Should we shed a tear or let out a cheer that the nemesis of Mideast peace is transitioning out?

Probably neither since his departure from NIAC is probably less about stepping away from publicly lobbying for the Iranian regime and more about removing the bulls-eye target that has been affixed to him for the past decade.

Parsi personifies the strengths and weaknesses of the Iran lobby in the U.S. He is educated and has the ability to speak in academic circles by convoluting historical events with twisted assumptions about what they mean.

He understands the soft spots of American democracy and the rise of political correctness and progressivism and parlays them to his advantage by catering to populist messages that support Iran without asking any tough questions.

In the Obama administration, he found kindred spirits and was able to translate that into unprecedented access to the White House—with visitor logs showing a stupefying nearly three dozen visits leading to the run-up of the Iran nuclear deal, which amounted to the high-water mark of his tenure.

But like his would-be masters in Tehran, Parsi was trapped by his own dogged refusal to ever find fault with the regime’s actions never let even the most horrific atrocities committed by Iran or its proxies divert him from his cause of supporting Tehran.

The use of chemical weapons to gas scores of Syrian men, women and children—twice—failed to move him to condemn the Iranian regime.

The snatching of dual citizens from the U.S., Great Britain, Canada and other countries wasn’t enough to get Parsi off his regime wagon train; even when one of them was a putative friend of his.

Over 17 years, Parsi has worked hard off a blueprint he envisioned of creating a strong PR machine designed to give the Iranian regime a moderate face and lobby U.S. decision makers on giving the mullahs in Tehran a break.

“Give peace a chance” became more than a slogan for Parsi and the NIAC, it became a mantra to steer U.S. foreign policy into one of the most disastrous decisions ever: a nuclear deal that came with no strings attached for human rights violations, sponsorship of terrorism, funding of proxy wars in neighboring countries and development of a crash ballistic missile program that would make North Korea look like an Erector-Set toy.

What was Parsi able to gain in return for his partners in Tehran? A cash windfall of billions of dollars in repatriated money, opening the global market for Iranian oil and invite scores of European and Asian companies to lock up investment deals.

What did the world get in return? A postponement, but not an eradication of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. A full-blown civil war in Syria creating four million refugees and killing over 400,000 men, women, and children. Destabilization in Yemen and Iraq and the threat of a full-blown war between Israel and Saudi Arabia with Iran.

That’s quite a butcher’s bill for Parsi and his promise of moderation.

Now Parsi is handing off the NIAC to Jamal Abdi, a man who has spent years working his way into the political warrens of Capitol Hill and influencing policy towards moderating views about Tehran. Alongside his fellow cohorts including Reza Marashi, Tyler Cullis, and Ryan Costello, Abdi helped Parsi flog his untruths and even spearheaded the creation of NIAC Action, the formal lobbying arm of the NIAC.

The creation of NIAC Action and the installation of Abdi as its first leader is no accident. The open secret that NIAC was lobbying on behalf of Iranian interests finally became too hard to sweep under a carpet and the NIAC had to come out into the sunlight as an official lobbying force (paradoxically neither NIAC Action or Abdi are registered with the House of Senate lobbying disclosure databases).

Of course, Parsi is not leaving the baby he gave birth to. His announcement on the NIAC website states he will turn over power on August 1, 2018, but he intends to “continue to be involved and fully committed to the organization but through a different role.”

And what role would that be? It’s too much to hope for that Parsi would simply exit the stage he left in tatters as the Trump administration has killed the Iran nuclear deal he worked so hard to secure and a deluge of global companies have announced decisions to back out of contracts with the Iranian regime as renewed U.S. economic sanctions loom large.

Not even the wailing of European interests about trying to salvage the deal through a European Union-only coalition will be enough to safeguard the Iranian regime.

Even the Iran Parsi promised is just a mirage. The mullahs are under tremendous pressure back home from unrelenting and broad protests that they have met with brutal suppression and efforts to ban messaging apps such as the popular Telegram.

Iran’s economy is reeling, its currency sinking to an all-time low and a united front is now on the horizon in forming policies to block Iranian expansionism.

About the only thing left Parsi has to show for all of his efforts now is a photo of him shaking hands with a smiling Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, in the wake of the nuclear deal.

How fast things have changed for the Iran lobby in just a year.

Michael Tomlinson

Iranian Regime Threats Ring Hollow

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Iranian Regime Threats Ring Hollow

Iranian Regime Threats Ring Hollow

What a difference a year makes. Last year the Iranian regime was riding high with its victories in Syria, its military partnership with Russia, the overthrow of the government in Yemen, billions of dollars to spend on upgrades to its military and successful ballistic missile launches showcased on state television almost weekly.

But in less than 12 months, the regime is under the most severe attack and pressure from all quarters than it has ever been since the nascent days of the Islamic revolution that the mullahs highjacked.

First the foremost, the Iranian economy is in freefall and a basket case. The rial has dropped faster than a lead anchor from a ship and furious attempts by the Iranian regime to artificially boost it and control the flow of foreign currency through local money changers has failed miserably.

The threat of a new cyber currency being offered by the ubiquitous messaging app Telegram didn’t help either which led to the mullahs trying to ban it even though over half of the Iranian population uses it.

On the military fronts, the gains made in Syria have been threatened with Bashar al-Assad’s continued indiscriminate use of chemical weapons to kill men, women, and children leading to the first multi-national military response on Syrian targets by French, British and U.S. forces.

It also forced Russia to sit on the sidelines and allow its ally to be hammered by over 300 missile strikes.

Also, Iran’s move into Yemen had the unintended effect of galvanizing long-time foe Saudi Arabia into action and form alliances that were unheard of only a short time ago such as Saudi and Israeli defense officials meeting to go over planning in defending against Iranian aggression and even permitting mutual flights over each other’s airspace for the first time ever.

The mullahs also probably did not count on the waves of mass protests and public discontent that have sprung up beginning late last year and have been propelled not by a single issue such as the disputed presidential election of 2009, but rather a whole raft of complaints ranging from pathetic job growth and record unemployment among youth, to the constant oppression of Iranians, especially women, over everything from riding bicycles and not wearing hijabs to degraded environmental conditions turning much of the Iranian countryside from fertile farmlands to barren deserts.

Not to mention the election of President Donald Trump and the 180-degree about face from trying to appease the regime under President Obama to the aggressive efforts to match Iranian aggression move for move.

You allow Assad to use chemical weapons? Okay, we’ll bomb sites and if Iranian military personnel happen to be there assisting, tough.

You threaten to walk away from the nuclear deal? Feel free to do it.

Every Iranian regime temper tantrum, taunt, and the threat is now met with a shrug of indifference and steely resolve instead of the constant handwringing that marked the previous administration.

Even the Iran lobby is left with little to nothing to say. In response to the president’s most recent comments to the possibility of Iran walking away from the nuclear deal, Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council issued a curt two-paragraph statement that shows how much his verbosity has plunged in this new era.

“Macron and Europe seem willing to bend over backward to save the nuclear deal and prevent catastrophe. When our closest allies express alarm in unison, we should listen. Trump should quit while he is ahead and reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the JCPOA before it is too late. The alternative would be an isolated America, an unchecked Iranian nuclear program, and an escalation towards war,” Parsi writes.

It’s laudable for Parsi to even admit for the first time that President Trump is actually ahead of the ballgame with Iran. He recognizes, even if he is unwilling to say so publicly, that President Trump’s actions have turned the tables on who controls leverage in the Middle East.

The same approach has brought a startling and breathless turnaround with North Korea in which the Hermit Kingdom has agreed for the first time to put denuclearization on the negotiating table without any preconditions.

Parsi understands that the same mobilization of pressure and harsh rhetoric backed by tough actions are being applied to Iran now with most European allies, who had been staunch supporters of the Iran nuclear deal, now being contortionist moves to appease the Trump administration in an effort to save the deal.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Washington was designed to showcase French unity with the U.S. on issues such as Syria, while also acknowledging the need to address issues left untouched by the Obama administration such as ballistic missile development and unfettered access to now-blocked off Iranian military sites.

The fact that all of Europe is now intensely focused on appeasing President Trump instead of the mullahs is a remarkable feat of diplomatic brinkmanship and indicative of how the tide has utterly turned against the Iranian regime.

Meanwhile as Iran threatens to pull out of the treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons if the Trump administration approves a non-certification of the deal by the May 12th deadline, President Trump now essentially has Iran dancing on a string since he could simply conditionally approve the extension one more time and squeeze Iran and Europe for even more concessions.

The president has taken a page from the mullahs’ playbook and is throwing it right back at them.

The threat to pull out of the NPT rings hollow since by doing so, Iran would be throwing its lot in with countries such as Israel which has not signed the agreement.

Now that would be ironic.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Becomes Unhinged at Selection of John Bolton

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Iran Lobby Becomes Unhinged at Selection of John Bolton

Iran Lobby Becomes Unhinged at Selection of John Bolton

Monday morning dawned across the U.S. to see the news dominated, not by talk of a Final Four match-up featuring Cinderella Loyola of Chicago and Sister Jean, but instead with an intense debate blowing up over President Donald Trump’s selection of former UN ambassador John Bolton to succeed H.R. McMaster as national security advisor.

The loquacious and quotable Bolton has been a frequent commentator and critic of the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal on Fox News and other media outlets and now finds himself in a key policy position to act on those beliefs.

Predictably the response from the Iran lobby was swift, vicious and stupefying. Leading the anti-Bolton charge was the National Iranian American Council, once a ley architect of Iranian appeasement and now finding itself virtually alone on an ever-shrinking game of foreign policy “Survivor” as it allies leave the scene to a newly muscular and empowered Trump administration.

Trita Parsi, NIAC president, issued a blistering statement condemning Bolton and blaming for everything short of triggering the Apocalypse.

“Bolton is an unhinged advocate for waging World War III. He has explicitly called for bombing Iran for the past ten years and has suggested the U.S. engage in nuclear first strikes in North Korea. Bolton’s first order of business will be to convince Trump to exit the Iran nuclear deal and lay the groundwork for the war he has urged over the past decade. Additionally, he has has called for ending all visas for Iranians, shipping bunker busting weapons to Israel, and supporting the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) terrorist organization and other separatist groups inside of Iran. The Iranian-American community and our pro-peace, pro-human rights allies will organize to stop Bolton’s plans from becoming a reality,” Parsi said.

In one paragraph, Parsi has managed to regurgitate virtually every false and misleading key message point the NIAC has articulated over the past five years.

  • Parsi calls Bolton “an unhinged advocate for waging World War III,” but neglects to parse any blame on an Iranian regime that has launched three wars on its own in Iraq, Syria and Yemen in the past three years;
  • Bolton has never called for nuking North Korea or Iran, but he has called for serious discussion about strike first policy options should Iran or North Korea move forward in developing nuclear capable ballistic missiles; a position virtually all Republican and Democratic congressional representatives have supported;
  • Bolton’s urging of the exiting the Iran nuclear deal is not a prelude to war—unless the mullahs in Tehran decide first—but rather a recognition that the deal did little to stymie Iranian extremism, halt terrorism or even delay Iran’s ability to lob nuclear weapons on missiles thousands of miles;
  • Parsi again takes a shot at one of the leading Iranian dissident groups in the MEK, using the “terrorist” label that has already been discredited. It’s also no coincidence Parsi refers to Iranian dissident and democracy groups as “separatist” groups refusing to acknowledge the widespread dissent and protests by ordinary Iranians sweeping across the country.

Parsi’s statement goes on to attack Bolton’s support of Iranian dissident groups as emblematic of war mongering, but Parsi doesn’t recognize the vast coalition of humanitarian, political, ethnic, religious and gender groups opposed to the Iranian regime including Amnesty International, members of the Bah’ai faith and virtually all Iranian women.

His focus solely on the MEK indicates the Iran lobby’s fears of recognizing the broad and deep resentment of the mullahs, especially the ever-unpopular rule of Hassan Rouhani.

Parsi’s hope that somehow slinging the MEK name around might somehow diminish Bolton’s chances for confirmation is a slim one since the MEK and the umbrella group of Iranian dissident and human rights groups it is part of, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has become an important source of information smuggled out of Iran about protests and the activities of the regime such as the secret development of its nuclear program in the first place.

Intelligence services in the EU and the U.S. have commended the quality and veracity of information supplied by these dissident groups, often at great risk to sympathizers in Iran who smuggle out photos and videos, including the most recent Iran protests across the nation.

Parsi and the rest of the Iran lobby know the end is here for their policy of appeasing the regime. Pompeo and Bolton are only vocal supporters of ending it. The real architect of getting tougher with Iran is the president himself who used the Iran nuclear deal as a potent message point with American voters on the campaign trail; most of whom were disillusioned in the wake of massive terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists inspired by Iran’s war in Syria.

For most Americans, the memories of Orlando, San Bernardino and Paris and Nice mingle with vivid images of handguns, trucks, bombs, knives and virtually any other tool grasped by terrorists to kill innocent people.

Parsi is never one for understatement so his statements aimed at Bolton are only natural, but the only unhinged one making crazy statements is Parsi which diminishes his authority and reasonableness in the eyes of many news organizations.

That of course hasn’t stopped the NIAC as it made Parsi and fellow staffers Reza Marashi and Jamal Abdi available to news media to talk Bolton. Considering the only news outlets that seem to have picked their comments are Russian and Iranian publications and an occasional Iranian regime advocate blog like Lobelog, we are heartened to see that fewer and fewer journalists frankly care what NIAC has to say.

The problem with the histrionics of Parsi and his Iran lobby colleagues is that when you consistently scream at the top of your lungs and sound deranged, no one ends up listening to you.

In fact, the much-vaunted echo chamber of the Iran lobby only seems to echo with their own voices and no one else is listening.

Laura Carnahan

Iran Lobby Faces United US-Saudi Front

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Iran Lobby Faces United US-Saudi Front

Iran Lobby Faces United US-Saudi Front

Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman, heir to the Saudi throne, kicked off a two-week tour of the U.S. with a meeting with President Donald Trump which highlighted the close relationship the administration shares with the Kingdom that began with the president’s trip to Saudi Arabia shortly after his inauguration.

Part of that relationship is centered on restoring stability in a Middle East riven asunder by the Iranian regime which has plunged three countries into war in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The latter of most concern to the Kingdom because of its common border and a hail of Iranian-made rockets and mortar shells falling on it.

The Saudi Crown Prince has moved quickly not only to take the reins of foreign and defense policy for the Kingdom, but also to move it into a more progressive era by instituting changes and reforms especially aimed at empowering Saudi women in culture, politics and the economy.

Changes that are anathema to the mullahs in Tehran and evidence of the growing divide between the two countries.

Of course, that has not stopped the Iran lobby, especially the National Iranian American Council, from consistently attacking Saudi Arabia and attempting to portray it as a bloodthirsty state sponsor of terrorism.

Ironically, while Iran occupies almost permanent status on the U.S. State Department’s target list of state sponsors of terrorism, Saudi Arabia has moved quickly to identify and eradicate radicalized Islamic elements in its society, especially those adhering to the Iranian regime’s principles.

But that hasn’t stopped the NIAC’s Trita Parsi from issuing a statement attacking the Crown Prince because of his public statements warning of spreading Iranian extremism.

“While the Saudi effort to drag the US into war with Iran was blocked by previous administrations, Riyadh now appears to be pushing an open door,” Parsi said. “The tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran are destabilizing the Middle East and necessitate strong diplomatic efforts to defuse the conflict before it escalates into a wider war.”

Parsi and the rest of the Iran lobby have consistently banged the war drum in order to stoke fears, but the source of that tension has always been blamed on someone else rather than the mullahs in Tehran; be it the U.S. or Saudi Arabia or Israel, according to Parsi someone else is always to blame.

In Parsi’s worldview, the Iranian regime’s sponsorship of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah is not to blame. Nor has been the arming of Shiite militias in Iraq or Houthi rebels in Yemen. Neither can blame be laid at the launching pads of dozens of ballistic missiles fired off by the Iranians, nor their leaders’ threats to blast its enemies out of existence.

In his statement, Parsi also takes a stab at the president and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has developed a close relationship with bin Salman.

Parsi claims that the Saudis are eager to start a war against Iran using American service personnel. It’s frankly an absurd claim since no one, not President Trump, nor the Saudi royal family, have ever mentioned a war or the prospect of one. In fact, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have started and participated in nearly a dozen peace initiatives aimed at defusing the conflicts Iran has started included several peace conferences aimed at halting the bloodshed in Syria and in each case, Iranian regime’s reluctance to accept any terms that diminish its military or political advantage have torpedoed all of these talks.

In fact, rather than turning to the U.S. for help, the Saudis have taken it upon themselves to fight against Iranian-backed Houthi incursions along their border, as well as use their own navy to intercept Iranian fishing vessels trying to smuggle fresh arms into Yemen.

The portrayal of the Saudi position towards Iran by the Iran lobby is just more evidence of the effort to throw smokescreens up at any effort to affix blame on the Iranian regime for the chaos enveloping the Middle East.

It is also a recognition that the new world order in a post-Obama world has changed radically.

No longer is the U.S. content to try and appease the mullahs in Tehran. No longer will the U.S. bind itself to a flawed nuclear deal that did not attempt to rein in the regime’s ballistic missile program or fundamentally abusive human rights record.

Most importantly, the Iranian people themselves are expressing their own frustrations and desire for change in their oppressive government as protests have swept the country before being ruthlessly put down; crackdowns that drew almost not a whisper of protest by NIAC ironically.

The Saudis know the Iranian playbook because they have seen it put into effect in Lebanon and Syria where Hezbollah was built into a powerful military proxy that eventually served to take over both countries.

All of which rightly worries the Saudis in Yemen as Iran looks to create another Hezbollah with the Houthis it backs. A viewpoint shared by Prince Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.

He told CNN that Iran wants to destabilize Saudi Arabia, and that it poses a threat to the entire region and international security.

“Here’s what happening in Yemen: (Iran is trying to create) another Hezbollah in Yemen, which will not just threaten our security and Yemeni security, but also regional security.”

“We’ve been focusing on the weapon of mass destruction, the WMD. What we should really be focusing on is the MD, the mass destruction that Iran is committing in the region.”

He stressed to CNN that Tehran was stirring unrest and said the so-called “nuclear deal” between Iran and Western powers needs “to be fixed.”

It is ironic that while Saudi Arabia is moving to open up the Kingdom to benefit women and seek diplomatic overtures to contain the Iranian regime, the regime keeps oppressing its citizens and uses terror and military force to achieve its aims.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Pushing Saudi Arabia to Brink of War

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Iran Regime Pushing Saudi Arabia to Brink of War

Iran Regime Pushing Saudi Arabia to Brink of War

Over the weekend, Iranian regime-backed Houthi rebels lobbed a missile at the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh from Yemen in what is being described as an “act of war” by Saudi officials by the Iranian regime.

While tensions have long simmered between Saudi Arabia and Iran—rising to a boiling point with confrontations between the two in the Syrian civil war and Yemen—this is the marks the first-time theater-wide weapons have been introduced aimed at either countries’ capitals.

“We see this as an act of war,” said Adel Jubair, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, in a CNN interview. “Iran cannot lob missiles at Saudi cities and towns and expect us not to take steps.”

This latest provocation seems to be part of the larger chess game being played out between the two countries that includes clashes in Lebanon and Iraq as Saudi Arabia seems determined to step up to the plate and blunt the Iranian regime’s expansionist moves over the past several years as part of an effort to build a Shiite sphere of influence controlled by Tehran.

The two countries had only recently appeared to be working towards a rapprochement offered by the Iranians only to see the regime launch proxy military efforts in backing Houthi rebels in Yemen and using Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon in Syria; both moves seemingly aimed at isolating and diminishing Saudi influence.

The missile launched by the Houthis was intercepted before reaching the capital and while causing no damage, pushed the region dangerously closer to all-out war between the two countries.

The move by Iranian regime to allow such an act underlines how vastly stupefying promises were made earlier by Iran supporters and advocates such as the National Iranian American Council two years ago during negotiations over the Iran nuclear agreement that passage of the deal would embolden moderate forces within Iran and usher in a more moderate and stabilizing Iran.

It’s worth noting again how utterly wrong people such as Trita Parsi of the NIAC have been since then.

While it may be eminently satisfying to call out Parsi and his cohorts on how blatantly obvious it was to simply be shilling for the mullahs, the ramifications of the PR push to essentially grant Tehran a hall pass to sow terror and conflict throughout the Middle East are coming home to bear poisonous fruit.

Far from accepting the blame and pushing for moderation from the mullahs in Tehran, Parsi and the NIAC have only doubled down by aggressively going after the Saudi regime with a spate of editorials, social media posts and statements blasting Riyadh for everything from manipulating the Trump administration’s policies towards Iran to conspiring with conservative Republicans to start to eradicate Iran.

On the surface, the NIAC’s claims are ludicrous, but given the dark history of complicity by it and its allies within the Iran lobbying machine, it’s no wonder that Tehran feels emboldened enough to start lobbing missiles at Saudi Arabia.

Jubair detailed how the missile was smuggled into Yemen in parts and assembled by Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps operatives and fired by Hezbollah from Yemen.

The fact that U.S., Saudi and other coalition naval warships have periodically caught Iranian fishing and commercial vessels smuggling weapons, ammunition and parts to Yemen from Iran have only strengthened these claims over the years of direct Iranian activity in the escalating war in Yemen.

Hezbollah’s participation is worrisome since the IRGC has often used the Lebanese-based terror group as its shock troops in conflicts such as Syria and in targeting U.S. service personnel over the past three decades around the world.

Earlier news disclosures of U.S. State Department cables published on WikiLeaks show that Yemen had acquired stockpiles of missiles from North Korea and that Iran may have shipped components of North Korean missiles to its Houthi allies who in 2015, with the support of Tehran, toppled the internationally-recognized government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi and now control much of the countryside since then.

This new-found “Axis of Evil” between Iran, North Korea and terror groups such as Hezbollah, point out the highly volatile nature of Iranian regime’s expansion plans and how it has built a formula for conquest around using terror groups and insurgents to destabilize a country and then move in to consolidate its power and use it as a base of operations to stage even more actions.

It is a model used effectively in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen and has gained traction in Iraq, but was stymied in the Gulf states by swift action by Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has called for an urgent meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo next week to discuss Iran’s intervention in the region, an official league source told Egypt’s MENA state news agency.

The call came after the resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister pushed Beirut back into the center of a rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran and threatens to re-open that country to bloody conflict.

Even French President Emmanuel Macron is blaming Iran for the missile attack targeting Riyadh and said it illustrates the need for negotiations with Tehran over its missile development.

“The missile which was intercepted by Saudi Arabia launched from Yemen, which obviously is an Iranian missile, shows precisely the strength of their” program, Macron said late as he visited the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

“There are extremely strong concerns about Iran” among its Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf region over the missile launch, and “there are negotiations we need to start on Iran’s ballistic missiles,” he said.

All this flies in the face of the false promises made by Parsi and the NIAC and demonstrates clearly why any reputable news organization should think twice before providing air time or space for them to make such disreputable claims.

Clearly the Iran lobby has become one of the largest machines churning out “fake news” today.

Michael Tomlinson

The Importance of the Hate Machine to Iran

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The Importance of the Hate Machine to Iran

The Importance of the Hate Machine to Iran

Ever since the Iranian revolution that deposed the Shah and installed an Islamic theocracy in Tehran, the ruling mullahs have invested heavily in a state-supported hate machine designed to gin up fierce hatred of the U.S., which typically reaches a crescendo on the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover.

Last Saturday marked the latest iteration of a heavily choreographed spectacle designed to communicate Iranian hatred of the U.S., but also to divert the attention of the Iranian people away from the ever-growing mountain of problems they are struggling with under the mullahs’ rule and towards a perceived common enemy.

For the last nearly four decades, the mullahs have used the anniversary as the culmination of weekly and monthly demonstrations that include the now ritual “Death to America” chants and the parades across painted American flags and posters plastered on city walls mocking American political leaders.

The protests and observances have taken a different tone and edge over the years though; ceasing to be filled with vitriol by the Iranian people and carry more of a resigned air matched only by skies increasingly polluted by lack of regard by the mullahs for the environment or the health of the Iranian people.

For the mullahs these events commemorate a rare victory when hundreds of extremist regime related militant students (The very same militants that later formed the “Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps”, IRGC) took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days in an event that helped cement the mullahs in power as they used the event for its propaganda value to legitimize the theocratic state they wanted to build; thereby stealing the promise of democracy ordinary Iranians had hoped for after the downfall of the Shah.

The mullahs learned from that singular event which is why they have carefully crafted a government built on a state-driven hate machine that attacks not only the U.S., but also other enemies such as the Sunni Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, as well as perceived enemies from within like the Iranian resistance movement.

That machine is comprised of state-controlled media encompassing newspapers, television networks, bloggers, social media and pretty much every other avenue of communication within the regime.

It is backed by the thuggery of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the paramilitaries that enforce the dreaded “morals codes” that oppress the Iranian people. Together with the Islamic religious courts and police, they work in concert to tightly orchestrate these observances and ensure obedience from the Iranian people.

In this aspect, the Iranian regime acts like a mirror image of the cultish North Korean dictatorship that forces citizens there to treat their leader as a deified entity.

While top mullah Ali Khamenei may not aspire to godhood, he certainly relishes having his wishes obeyed as if he was one.

To reinforce the militant aspects of this year’s anniversary celebrations, the Iranian regime’s military rolled out a surface-to-surface Sejjil ballistic missile with a range of 1,200 miles in a show of force. It marks the first time the regime has displayed this particular missile and comes shortly after President Donald Trump moved to decertify the Iranian regime under the current nuclear deal, partly because of the regime’s accelerated missile program.

The Fars news agency posted pictures of demonstrators burning an effigy of Trump and holding up signs saying “Death to America,” Reuters reported.

A statement read out at Saturday’s protest said Iranians “see the criminal America as their main enemy and condemn the denigrating remarks of the hated US president against the great Iranian people and the Revolutionary Guards.”

Khamenei speaking to the regime supporters urged them to never forget that “America is the enemy”. “To give in to the Americans makes them more aggressive and insolent. The only solution is to resist,” he said.

Ali Shamkhani, former chief commander of IRGC and current secretary of the regime’s Supreme National Security Council, addressed the crowd, saying Iran will make any sanctions imposed by the U.S. “ineffective” even as the U.S. targets Iran’s economic, nuclear and defensive power.

Shamkhani, alluding to Trump’s threats against North Korea, said even U.S. allies know that Trump “has no power to realize his bluffs, against Iran, too.” He called the U.S. the “eternal enemy” of Iran.

The regime needs to continually turn up the volume on the hate meter to continue using force and intimidation to keep the Iranian people in line and Iran in a perpetual state of conflict. The mullahs need to generate fear as a means of control as a way for justifying their increasingly punitive decisions.

Entry into the Syrian civil war? Necessary to save the Assad regime and preserve a Shiite ally.

Fostering of another civil war in Yemen? Necessary to counter Saudi expansion.

Fast tracking a ballistic missile program? Necessary to maintain a threat to the U.S. and Israel.

Ultimately though the deepest fears of the mullahs are that the Iranian people will see past these charades and choose a different path for their futures.

The Los Angeles Times quoted one such Iranian at the anniversary observances.

“I wish the hostility between the two countries would end as soon as possible because we are suffering from it,” said Hasan Mahmoudi, a shopkeeper near the embassy. “We want to have normal relations with America and foreign investment here to create jobs for our educated youth.”

For the mullahs, nothing would be more of a threat to their rule than the desire of the Iranian people for a normal life, devoid of fear, hate and conflict, where they could live in a democracy and focus on building a better life for their children.

It’s the one future that can defeat the Iranian regime’s hate machine.

Laura Carnahan

Iran Regime Provokes Confrontation with US

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Iran Regime Provokes Confrontation with US

Iran Regime Provokes Confrontation with US

Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council has been a consistent and vocal supporter of the Iranian regime and its claims to want a pathway to peace. The lunacy of his comments has been laid bare repeatedly over the last two years since the Iran nuclear deal was signed and Iran plunged deeper into wars in Syria and Yemen.

Over the past two years the mullahs in Tehran have focused their efforts at saving the Assad regime in Syria and putting enormous pressure on Saudi Arabia through the Houthi rebellion in Yemen and attempting to destabilize the Gulf states with the smuggling of weapons and explosives.

They have also sought to expand Iran’s power through a rapid development of its ballistic missile program to increase the range and payload capacity to send an unmistakable threat to Europe, Asia and throughout the Middle East.

So far, the Iranian regime has been careful to focus its efforts and its most militant actions against traditional rivals such as Saudi Arabia or to keep allies in place such as Assad or continue cracking down on internal political dissent, but a new trend has emerged lately as Iran directs its provocations directly at the U.S.

Over the past few months, Iran has steadily been ratcheting up the pace and frequency of actions aimed directly at the U.S. and its forces, including running its warships at U.S. Navy ships and using drone aircraft to buzz U.S. forces. It has also loosened the reins on its militias in Syria to provoke U.S. forces there.

In the past, Iran’s Quds Force arm of its Revolutionary Guard Corps took a direct role in supplying IEDs to Shiite militia fighting in Iraq and targeting U.S. personnel. Estimates of over 1,000 American casualties were blamed on explosive devices manufactured by Quds Force personnel in Iran and Iraq, 500 Americans killed alone during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Iran most recently has been flying its drone aircraft dangerously close to U.S. ships in international waters, including close calls during flight operations by the USS Nimitz battle carrier.

There have now been 14 circumstances in 2017 in which unsafe interactions between the U.S. and Iranian maritime forces have occurred, the Navy said.

The increase in direct confrontations with the U.S. mirror the same tactics used by North Korea in its own ramp up in its missile program; leading many analysts to believe both rogue regimes are sharing the same playbook.

What is clear though is that these actions are not the type of actions a state interested in peace undertake as the NIAC has consistently claimed. The mullahs have essentially shed all pretense at showing the world a moderate veil and instead are flexing their muscle in a blatant attempt to trying to bully and strongarm their neighbors.

Coupled with the increase in missile testing comes news that Iranian mullahs are preparing send a naval flotilla to the Atlantic Ocean. This follows a move by the Iranian parliament to allocate an additional $609 million for its missile program and support of increased terror and proxy operations through the Quds Force.

“No military official in the world thought that we can go round Africa to the Atlantic Ocean through the Suez Canal but we did it as we had declared that we would go to the Atlantic and its Western waters,” Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari was quoted as saying over the weekend.

“We moved into the Atlantic and will go to its Western waters in the near future,” Sayyari said.

Iranian regime’s increasingly hostile behavior also follows a little-noticed United Nations report disclosing that Iran has repeatedly violated international accords banning ballistic missile work. Lawmakers in the U.S. Congress and some policy experts also believe that Iranian regime has been violating some provisions in the nuclear agreement governing nuclear-related materials, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

“Little-noticed biannual reporting by the UN Secretary General alleges that Iran is repeatedly violating these non-nuclear provisions,” Iran Watch, a nuclear watchdog group, reported on Monday.

“Thus far, the United States has responded to such violations with sanctions and designations of Iranian and foreign entities supporting Tehran’s ballistic missile development,” the organization found. “However, the U.N. and its member states have not responded. More must be done to investigate allegations of noncompliance and to punish violations of the resolution.”

Washington Free Beacon wrote that Iranian regime’s recent behavior shows the regime has not moderated since the nuclear deal was implemented. The Obama administration sold the deal in part on promises that it could help bring Tehran into the community of nations.

“Every time the Islamic Republic has cash, it chooses guns over butter,” told the Washington Free Beacon. “What the [nuclear deal] and subsequent hostage ransom did was fill Iran’s coffers, and now we see the result of that.”

“What [former President Barack] Obama and [former Secretary of State John] Kerry essentially did was gamble that if they funded a mad scientist’s lab, the scientist would rather make unicorns rather than nukes,” Washington Free Beacon continued. “News flash for the echo chamber: Iranian reformist are just hardliners who smile more. Neither their basic philosophy nor their commitment to terrorism have changed.”

Washington Free Beacon is right about how wrong the promises were made by the Iran lobby and Obama administration. We only hope it’s not too late to stop the mullahs and eventually start the process of regime change.

Laura Carnahan

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 Regime Efforts to Control Middle East Gets Pushback

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Iran Regime Efforts to Control Middle East Gets Pushback

Iran Regime Efforts to Control Middle East Gets Pushback

The mullahs in Tehran have never made a secret of their lust for controlling the Middle East, especially the countries surrounding Iran. Part of the reasoning has been to create a buffer protecting the Islamic state from its perceived enemies, including regional rival Saudi Arabia, but it also was designed to provide the mullahs with a steady supply of proxies that could be used as cannon fodder for conflicts.

The Iranian regime, through its Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Forces, have historically relied on third parties to do its dirty work be it Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Yemen or Afghan mercenaries in Syria.

The willingness of the Iranian regime to use these proxies demonstrates its callous disregard for human life and take no prisoners attitude in achieving its goals. It also ably demonstrates why any agreement reached with the mullahs is essentially worthless since they will always seek to circumvent any accord should it suit their purposes.

Which is why any effort to resolve the civil war in Syria must first and foremost force the expulsion of Iranian forces from that war-torn country. Similarly, as ISIS is defeated in Iraq with the liberation of Mosul, a similar kicking out of Iranian forces would be a positive first step to returning that beleaguered country to normality.

None of this will be easy though since the mullahs are loath to give up their hard-fought gains in securing a so-called “land bridge” linking Tehran to Damascus through Baghdad, which fulfills the long sought-after vision of Shia control from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

The strategic vision of the Iranian regime includes the establishment of permanent naval bases along the Syrian and Yemen coastlines, giving its navy unfettered access to the crowded international shipping lanes in the Mediterranean and through the Persian Gulf and Suze Canal.

The mullahs see themselves being able to keep a loaded pistol pointed at the economic lifeblood of Europe through its use of its military and navy. It also explains why Iran has invested so heavily and fought hard to protect its ballistic missile program from the threat of economic sanctions.

Just as the control of territory and sea lanes are crucial to the mullahs’ vision of maintaining control, its ballistic missile fleet is the hammer necessary to enforce that control by placing Eastern Europe, North Africa and Southeast Asia under threat of attack.

The firing of ballistic missiles for the first time at purported ISIS targets in Syria was less about actually striking at ISIS forces, as much as it was a practical demonstration and testing of its missiles by Iran.

In many ways, the opening salvos are eerily similar to Nazi Germany’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War in 1936, not to support the rule of General Francisco Franco in as much the ability to test new German tactics and weapons that would later be employed in the blitzkrieg of World War II.

The civil war was also notable for the bombing of Guernica in 1937 in which Germany tested out new warplanes in killing hundreds of civilians; a prelude to the mass slaughters to follow. Famed artist Pablo Picasso immortalized the attack with his eponymous painting, but if he were alive today, he could have painted similar works memorializing places such as Mosul, Raqqa or Ramadi where Iranian-backed forces have left swathes of destruction that made Guernica look paltry by comparison.

But all of these efforts by the Iranian regime to exert its control over its neighbors may have finally forced pushback among many of these former perceived allies of Iran.

In Pakistan, tensions have sharply escalated with a serious of border conflicts that got another dose of violence in the form of rocket attacks by Iranian border guards aimed at Pakistan.

“The incident took place in the wee hours of Saturday,” Panjgur’s Deputy Commissioner Jabbar Baloch told The Nation. He confirmed no loss of life or property was caused by the Iranian shelling. The rockets exploded with powerful bang after landing in the area, prompting fear and panic among the residents.

The adjacent areas of Panjgur and Chagai close to Pak-Iran border have repeatedly witnessed rocket shells fired by the Iranian security forces followed by strong protest from the Pakistani side. The regular violation of Pakistani territory by Iranian guards and allegations of cross-border infiltration by Pakistani side has strained ties between the two neighboring countries which share a 900-km long porous border.

This was followed by news from Iraq of threats being made by one of the largest tribes in Karbala against Iranian forces after one of its prominent leaders,  Sheikh Nema Hadi al-Issawi, was killed in the Iranian city of Mashhad.

In order to calm the tribe, Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of Al- Badr militia and who is close to the Iranian regime and the commander of Al- Quds Force, asked to attend the funeral of the killed Sheikh but the al-Issa tribe refused the request and prevented Amiri from entering its houses in Karbala, according to Al-Arabiya.

This comes after massed protests in southern Afghanistan by locals denouncing Iranian regime president Hassan Rouhani over disparaging comments he made in criticizing Afghan water management and dam projects, according to the Voice of America.

Hundreds of demonstrators peacefully marched through the streets of Lashkargah, capital of Helmand province near the Iranian border. They chanted, “Death to Hassan Rouhani” and “Death to enemies of Afghanistan.”

These actions don’t even include the active losses being suffered by Iranian-backed forces in Syria and Yemen at the hands of U.S. and Saudi-backed forces.

All of which points to a turning of fortune for the mullahs that may see their hopes for a Shiite sphere of influence go up like puffs of smoke.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime and Lobby Using Fear of War to Stave Off Action

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Iran Regime and Lobby Using Fear of War to Stave Off Action

Iran Regime and Lobby Using Fear of War to Stave Off Action

The Iranian regime’s default argument in favor of its militant actions is usually for self-defense. Why did we save the Assad regime in Syria? For self-defense.

Why did we not object to Assad using chemical weapons against his own people? For self-defense.

Why did Iran supply the Houthis in Yemen and foment a revolution that threatened a war with Saudi Arabia? For self-defense.

Why did Iran crack down on journalists, dissidents, students, artists and even women who take Zumba dance classes? For self-defense.

The Iran lobby was no different with regime advocates such as the National Iranian American Council consistently excusing regime acts such as firing ballistic missiles as a necessary adjunct to national defense in the face of U.S. or Saudi aggression.

Few people around the world actually believe these are really acts designed for self-defense so for our purposes, let’s move past the false arguments and get to the real heart of the matter; Iranian regime is posing for the world stage.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, president of the International American Council, wrote about this in an editorial for the Arab News.

“Iran’s military adventurism and destabilizing behavior have reached an unprecedented level that could turn regional tensions into a conflagration. Tehran’s stepped-up interference in Yemen is a direct threat to the Bab Al-Mandab strait and the security of neighboring countries. US officials say Iran is now providing cruise missiles to Yemen’s Houthis,” he writes.

“In Iraq, Tehran is obstructing efforts by state and non-state actors to bridge Sunni-Shiite gaps. It seeks to control Iraq, and has started a widespread campaign to influence decision-making and secure a victory for Shiite groups in parliamentary elections,” he adds.

He also cites Iran’s first use of ballistic missiles on the battlefield as a disturbing development since it crosses the proverbial Rubicon for Iran in the mullahs’ willingness to use these weapons.

“Iran is beginning a new stage in its interventions in Arab countries via its ballistic missile capabilities. This will intensify sectarianism, radicalization and militarization of regional conflicts. If this is met with silence, Tehran will be further empowered and emboldened because it interprets silence as weakness,” Rafizadeh said.

“The US and the international community should hold Iranian leaders accountable. This can be accomplished by a combination of political pressure, economic sanctions and force. The US should seek assistance from European allies and a united front with several Middle Eastern powers; this would be a powerful bulwark against Tehran. Sanctions from Muslim countries would be a significant blow to Tehran’s self-portrayal as a leader of the Muslim world,” he added.

But none of that has stopped some world leaders from slipping back into questioning whether or not appeasing Iran might not still be a sound policy to follow; all evidence to the contrary.

Security Council Resolution 2231 called on Iran not to test ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. When Iran conducted missile tests in March 2016, critics led by the United States were infuriated, calling the country’s behavior a violation of the Security Council resolution and a sign that it would not honor provisions of the nuclear accord.

In a report to the Security Council last July on compliance with Resolution 2231, Ban Ki-moon, then the secretary general, said he was concerned that the missile tests might not be consistent with the “constructive spirit” demonstrated by the nuclear accord. He called on Iran to “refrain from conducting such launches, given that they have the potential to increase tensions in the region.”

Of course, with the missile launches in Syria, the Iranian regime basically burned Resolution 2231 in a dumpster.

Which leads us back to the original issue of the mullahs trying to distract attention from their extremist activities.

Brenda Shaffer, a professor with the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown and a fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, discusses Iran’s use of ISIS to district from its actions in cracking down in dissidents in a piece for Fox News.

“Through recent news reports we’ve learned that those rounded-up as part of the attacks are all members of the Kurdish and Baluch ethnic minorities. The conflict with Iran’s Kurdish and Baluch minorities is not new: Tehran has been battling for close to a decade a much larger insurgency with both groups, without any evidence of direct links to ISIS,” Shaffer said.

“Tehran’s focus on ISIS as the driving force behind recent terror attacks is right out of the country’s playbook for dealing with ethnic conflict. Even if the Kurdish attackers cooperated with ISIS, their motivations and goals are very different than other affiliates. And even while dozens of Kurds and Baluch have now been jailed, this conflict is not going away anytime soon. Kurdish, Baluch and other domestic ethnic groups in Iran have extensive grievances and there continues to be fallout from the regular executions of activists from these communities,” she adds.

For Iran, the use of fear, distraction and misdirection all are tools to hide the truth.

Michael Tomlinson