Iran Lobby

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

Iran Lobby Frantically Tries to Counter Trump Administration Warnings

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Iran Lobby Frantically Tries to Counter Trump Administration Warnings

Iran Lobby Frantically Tries to Counter Trump Administration Warnings

Less than 24 hours the Iran lobby was crowing about the Trump administration’s decision to re-certify the Iranian regime in compliance for another 90 days with the nuclear agreement, it went on the offensive as it faced a barrage of explicit statements from high-ranking officials denouncing the Iranian regime including United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

All three, top foreign policy and defense officials made the same statement that the source of trouble in the Middle East today was based in Tehran and that only a policy comprehensively dealing with all aspects of the Iranian regime was going to work moving forward in returning stability to the region.

For the mullahs in Tehran and their Iran lobby supporters, the objective has always been to divide and conquer the issues the rest of the world finds objectionable towards Iran; such as its support for terrorist groups like Hezbollah and dictators like Bashar al-Assad in Syria, as well as a dismal human rights record that would make Joseph Goebbels proud.

Which is why the Iran lobby’s cheering for the 90-day compliance notice had a lifespan of a gnat since it was merely a formality while the administration conducts a national security review of policy towards Iran.

But that didn’t stop the National Iranian American Council from bloviating like a water buffalo in heat.

“It’s a significant contradiction to first come out and say that the Iranians – contrary to all of their claims that Iran would be cheating – actually is living up to the deal only to come out the day after and saying, well, we hate the deal anyways and signaling that the U.S. might actually be walking away from the deal, unless of course the aim is to get rid of the deal without the U.S. having to pay the cost for it, meaning instead of the U.S. violating the deal directly by not renewing these sanctions waivers, killing the deal by escalating tensions in Yemen and elsewhere in the region and hoping that that will force the Iranians out of the deal,” said Trita Parsi, NIAC president on NPR.

Parsi is trying to have it both ways in separating the nuclear from other issues such as human rights or Iran’s meddling in wars raging in Syria and Yemen, but he deliberately skips over the most glaring consequence of the nuclear deal which is because we separated these issues, the mullahs were free to act without fear of reprisal in their ambitions for Syria or in the crushing of dissent at home.

The cold hard truth is that these are all connected issues like the strings of a spider web; the web would never succeed or exist unless all the strands were connected and working together.

The Iranian regime, for lack of a better comparison, is a legal criminal enterprise on a national scale. It concentrates power ruthlessly at the very top, uses the judicial system and religion to enforce disciple and stifle dissent while its military owns just about every industrial activity and skims off the top to line the pockets of the elites.

It’s like the Sopranos on steroids, except Ali Khamenei isn’t seeing a shrink unfortunately.

Of course other members of the Iran lobby weighed in too as Reza Marashi from the NIAC penned a ludicrous piece on TopTopic in which he claimed the European Union was galvanized and united in supporting the Iranian regime.

Unfortunately, yesterday’s terror attack on the Champs-Elysees in Paris only reinforced a growing uncertainty throughout a Europe that has been rattled by Islamic extremists attacks in Berlin, Brussels, Paris and elsewhere.

“While U.S. policy congeals, most European stakeholders remain in wait-and-see mode before making policy decisions – rather than taking steps to shape American policy,” Marashi writes.

We’re sure Marashi wishes for the good old Obama days when the NIAC could pick up the phone and call the White House and find a receptive audience, but it and Europe and finding that shaping policy in the White House now is not about lobbying, but about answering the central question the Obama administration never bothered to ask: “How do we rein in Iranian excesses across the board?”

Parsi reinforced that complete lack of understanding in an editorial in the New York Times in which he cited “a number of potential land mines on the near horizon. The first is in Congress, where a bipartisan effort is underway to introduce new sanctions on Iran that, despite the protestations of the legislation’s sponsors, would violate the terms of the nuclear agreement by adding new conditions onto the deal.”

Once again Parsi ignores the inconvenient truth for the Iran lobby which is that in their mind anything “new” in terms of sanctions levied against the Iranian regime would be considered a violation of the terms of the agreement, even though the agreement was purposely devoid of any clauses or mention of issues such as human rights.

Their twisted pretzel logic has them boxed in where now they are forced to denounce any and all efforts to sanction Iran as a threat to the regime. If Iranian warplanes dropped sarin gas on Sunni refugees in Iraq, Parsi and his colleagues would undoubtedly argue against any sanctions as a violation of the agreement; a convenient catch-all.

It’s also hilarious Parsi raises the prospect of a “moderate” Hassan Rouhani being defeated at the ballot box in next month’s elections since he ignores Iran’s long history of rigging every election. In fact, the regime’s Guardian Council only yesterday tossed former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad off the ballot after much fanfare of him registering as a candidate.

In Iran, you don’t get on the ballot unless you are expected to get the blessing of the mullahs.

The most absurd comment Parsi makes is the assertion that if the U.S. reneges on the deal, Iran will undoubtedly move forward with its nuclear ambitions.

We hate to break it to the regime lackey, but the deal—by Parsi’s own admission—was never designed to halt Iranian nuclear work, only slow it down by a decade before the much ballyhooed “breakout period,” but even that has been whittled down by most analysts to just a few years.

All of which makes the statement issued by the NIAC in response to Secretary Tillerson’s remarks the other day even more laughable.

“There is little room to interpret this statement as anything less than a proclamation of the Trump administration’s intent to scrap the nuclear deal and reset the United States on a path to war,” said the NIAC.

Have they not been paying attention to Syria, Iraq, Yemen or Bahrain lately?

Michael Tomlinson

Bipartisan Consensus Forming on Dealing with Iran Regime

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Bipartisan Consensus Forming on Dealing with Iran Regime

Bipartisan Consensus Forming on Dealing with Iran Regime

In today’s turbulent political environment there is not much anyone agrees on, except that maybe the New England Patriot comeback in the Super Bowl was astounding or that the Chicago Cubs win of the World Series was historic.

Other than that, most politicians can’t even seem to agree on the weather and what causes a shift in temperature day to day.

On one topic though there seems to be a growing bipartisan consensus, not just in the U.S. but around the world and that is more needs to be done to rein in the intransigence of the Iranian regime and the threat posed by its burgeoning military and ballistic missile program.

Monday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iran was an example of a political environment with a rare and welcomed unanimity. Ranking member Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) remarked that although he voted against the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran, he doesn’t think it would be wise to withdraw, saying:

“Iran’s activities today are as bad as they have ever been and probably worse. They are certainly increasing their terrorist sponsorship in the Middle East as we see in so many different countries in that region. Their record on violating the ballistic missile obligations are well known and well understood. Their human rights violations against their own citizens are horrible, one of the worst countries in the world. They violate the arms embargo and the list goes on and on. So, it is appropriate to get this Committee to look at what we can do to make sure that first, the Iran nuclear agreement is honored so that Iran does not become a nuclear weapons state, but then secondly, look at those activities that were not covered under the JCPOA as to how we can play a stronger role.”

He was joined by his Republican colleague, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the committee who said:

“One of my criticisms of the JCPOA was that it would become our de facto Middle East policy and Iran would expand their destabilizing activities. I think we are seeing a lot of that today. Regionally, we’ve seen an escalation in Iranian intervention. Iran, along with its allies in Russia, has continued to prop up Assad at the cost of countless lives in Syria. Iran’s support to the Shia militias in Iraq threatens the interests of Sunnis and Kurds alike, not to mention the Shia in Iraq that don’t subscribe to the anti-American, zero-sum politics of the militias that are there.”

Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post’s Right Turn blog opined that “given this shared assessment of Iran — the JCPOA is not going away but the United States needs to confront Iran in other arenas — it’s not surprising that a bipartisan bill, the Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017, with seven co-sponsors from each party, was introduced last week.”

“The act establishes new sanctions targeting Iran’s testing of ballistic missiles and its backing for terrorism, and also seeks to block the property of any entity involved in the sale of arms to or from Iran. It does not reintroduce sanctions lifted from Iran as part of the 2015 nuclear deal.”) In a summary released last week, senators described potentially far-reaching measures including mandatory sanctions on those involved with Iran’s ballistic missile program, new sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a requirement for the president “to block the property of any person or entity involved in specific activities related to the supply, sale, or transfer of prohibited arms and related material to or from Iran,” Rubin added.

But it wasn’t just on Capitol Hill where there was unanimous consent as all 15 resolutions passed by the Arab summit which took place in Jordan Wednesday were devoted to an indictment of Iran, its Revolutionary Guards Corps and Lebanese surrogate, Hezbollah. They were a testament to the depth of Arab-Iranian animosity and exposed the extent of the rift between the Sunni and Shiite Muslim worlds.

Iran was accused of meddling in the internal affairs of Arab nations, inciting Shiites against Sunnis, and arming and training Shiite terrorist groups for operations against legitimate Arab governments. The Arab rulers combined to put Tehran in the dock for its interference in the Syrian civil war and assault on its sovereignty.

It was notable that at an Arab summit that has in the past concerned itself with issues related to Israel and the plight of the Palestinian people, the entire focus of the summit was on the Iranian regime; demonstrating how important the issue of confronting Tehran has become to the wider Arab world.

In the annual AIPAC conference a clearer united vision of the importance to oppose the Iranian regime was surfaced. American authorities and law makers used the opportunity to show their unanimous visions on the threat they feel from the Iranian regime and the need to take action to contain the growing destabilizing activities of the mullahs in the region.

The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, called to designate the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group, describing it as a “terrorist army.” He said “Iran supports the terrorist dictator of Damascus and the militias in Yemen, Baghdad and Beirut.”

Furthermore, Nikki Hailey, the US ambassador to the United Nations asserted at the conference that “Iran’s nuclear deal is worrisome because it empowered Russian and Iran and encouraged the latter to act freely without fear of accountability.”

Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader in the Senate added: “Today we must adopt a different approach. We must combat Iran’s ability to finance, arm and train terrorists, such as Hezbollah, Hamas and its proxies in Syria.”

McConnell criticized Iranian regime’s nuclear deal, saying that it disabled the United States from taking more aggressive steps against Iran.

Meanwhile the Iran lobby was once again beating the war drum in an editorial in Huffington Post by Jamal Abdi of NIAC Action and Adam Weinstein of the National Iranian American Council, in which they claimed that this bipartisan consensus would only provide incentives for the U.S. to be plunged into a war with Iran at the behest of President Trump.

They go on to argue that if the proposed sanctions bill passes, Tehran would respond negatively and all the positive gains made by the nuclear deal would evaporate. What positive gains?

Since the deal was agreed to, the Iranian regime has broken every promise of moderation, stability, peace and partnership made by the NIAC and other Iran lobby supporters.

The harsh proof of Iranian regime’s track record over the past years has been so convincing that a bipartisan consensus is seen among both houses of congress to try to oppose the mullahs in Tehran.

All we can say is that it’s about time.

Michael Tomlinson

Hypocrisy of Iran Lobby Extends to Criticizing Trump Speech to Congress

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Hypocrisy of Iran Lobby Extends to Criticizing Trump Speech to Congress

Hypocrisy of Iran Lobby Extends to Criticizing Trump Speech to Congress

There is no doubt that President Donald Trump is a polarizing figure and has become a lightning rod for criticism for everything ranging from his affinity for tweeting to his policies such as his roll back of regulations and imposition of a temporary moratorium on visas from several countries in the Middle East.

The jury is still out on much of his agenda since he has yet to collaborate with Congress to bring forth specific legislative proposals, but that has not stopped the torrent of criticism being directed at him by the Iran lobby as it works to oppose anything that might be perceived as upsetting the goals and plans of the mullahs in Tehran.

This was true when Iran lobby advocates such as the National Iranian American Council’s Trita Parsi blasted Trump’s decision to impose fresh sanctions on members of the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps for its support for ballistic missile launches that violated United Nations sanctions.

It has also been true of the Iran lobby’s efforts to deflect attention away from the Iran regime’s litany of problems at home with increasing mass demonstration and protests to issues abroad as it encounters growing calls for resistance amongst its Sunni neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States; alarmed at the turmoil surrounding them caused by the Iranian regime.

The Iran lobby has been particularly focused on the debate over Trump’s immigration policies leveraging it to its advantage to raise funds and maintain its ties to progressive Democratic groups that it previously aligned with in the efforts to support the Iran nuclear deal.

The reasons for these efforts are simple: In a post-Obama world, the Iran lobby is desperately trying to stay relevant.

Since the electoral sweep that not only saw Trump elected, but also radically changed the complexion of the Congress, the Iran lobby has been on the defensive ever since. It has found little support within the much-vaunted “echo chamber” of support previously cobbled together to help push for negotiations with the regime.

Iranian regime’s ever growing militant actions in launching ballistic missiles, supplying proxy wars in Yemen and Syria and flexing its military muscle in expansive war games have proven to be almost impossible for the Iran lobby to defend.

Predictably, after President Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress, the NIAC’s Jamal Abdi sent out a statement criticizing the speech, but in his criticism he revealed the bias and hypocrisy of the NIAC and the Iran lobby.

Abdi makes the claim that “no Iranian has ever been implicated in a terrorism-related death inside America,” which is a convenient distinction since it ignores the fact that the Iranian regime has been directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in terrorist attacks in Beirut, Lebanon, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and in IED attacks throughout the Iraqi war.

In each case, Iranian regime controlled, supplied, participated or directed the attacks directly resulting in the deaths of Americans. In fact, several court decisions have held the Iranian regime responsible for these deaths and injuries and confiscated financial assets of the regime as part of court settlements to the victims and their families.

Abdi also fails to mention the violence fueled by the Iranian regime’s efforts to export its brand of extremist Islamic vision that has sparked sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites all across the Middle East, including the Syrian civil war, the Houthi coup attempt in Yemen and the expansion of ISIS arising out of the dissolution of the coalition government in Iraq.

All of these debacles were fueled by the Iranian regime and have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children and Abdi and his colleagues have remained stonily silent.

But the hypocrisy of criticizing Trump’s policies while ignoring the much harsher realities of the regime’s policies echoes the same treatment given by regime foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who lauded the protest by Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi who won the Oscar for best foreign film against Trump’s immigration policies, yet at the same time did not acknowledge the regime’s imprisonment and torture of several prominent Iranian filmmakers for engaging in acts against the Islamic state.

The rank hypocrisy of the Iranian regime and Iran lobby was taken to task by prominent journalists such as CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Human Rights Watch.

“Farhadi’s movie deserves the praise it has received – and much more. Iranian cinema has a long-established and well-earned reputation for providing a powerful, nuanced perspective into Iranian society,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director for Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division in an editorial. “Yet while Iranian officials bask in pride on the international stage, their rhetorical support does not translate into respect for filmmakers at home, where they have harassed and jailed movie directors and other artists for work they find displeasing.”

“In the aftermath of the 2009 presidential elections, authorities arrested Jafar Panahi, a prominent director, for allegedly attempting to make a movie about protests that followed the vote. In December 2010, Tehran’s revolutionary court sentenced Panahi to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on all his artistic activities. Following international outcry, the government did not execute Panahi’s sentence but kept the ban in place, forcing him to make movies without an official permit,” Whitson added.

“These filmmakers could serve as powerful messengers for the diversity and talent in Iran today. But until the authorities stop censoring and imprisoning them, they put into question the Iranian government’s expressed commitment to supporting the country’s millennia of “culture & civilization,” she warned.

Michael Tomlinson

 

Case For Designating the IRGC as Terrorists Builds

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Case For Designating the IRGC as Terrorists Builds

Case For Designating the IRGC as Terrorists Builds

Momentum continues to build for the U.S. to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a Foreign Terrorist Organization as a whole. Much of that momentum stems from the IRGC’s own actions over the years in supporting terrorism worldwide as well as initiating, supplying and controlling many of the proxy wars breaking out throughout the Middle East.

Even though there has already been well-documented disclosures about the IRGC’s illicit activities, new information continues to come to light as was the case on Tuesday when the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a leading global organization of Iranian dissident and human rights groups, held a press conference in Washington, DC to disclose details of the IRGC’s terrorist training activities.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the Washington Office of the NCRI, presented information to reporters gathered by the social network of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, a dissident group located inside Iran. He said that information shows that since 2012, the NCRI has seen an increase in the training of foreign nationals in its terrorist training camps, which threatens a wide scope of countries, not just those beset by conventional warfare.

Using intelligence gleaned from sources within Iran, the NCRI claimed that the IRGC had created a training command operating dozens of military bases across Iran specializing in all aspects of warfare with units divided by national origin and specialization such as missile and naval operations to insurgency and urban warfare.

The IRGC that is answerable only to the Iranian regime’s top mullah, Ali Khamenei. It specializes in insurgency and guerilla tactics and is notorious for having supplied most of the IEDs used by Iranian-controlled Shiite militias in Iraq targeting U.S. and foreign troops; resulting in the deaths and wounding of thousands of Americans.

The IRGC was the initial unit that came to the rescue of the Assad regime in Syria as it teetered on the brink of collapse by smuggling in weapons and cash, as well as recruiting and directing Hezbollah fighters. It eventually expanded its role to include Iranian military, as well as the recruitment of Afghan mercenaries and deployment of Shiite militias from Iraq.

According to the NCRI, every month, hundreds of forces from Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Lebanon — countries where the regime is involved in frontline combat — receive military training and are subsequently dispatched to the various frontlines. For operations in countries where there is no open warfare – including Persian Gulf countries, such as Bahrain and Kuwait – terrorists cells are trained instead.

The NCRI highlighted 14 IRGC training camps, as well as described the command structure, detailing how the commander of the Training Directorate, reports directly to Quds Force Commander, Qassem Soleimani.

Terrorist training for operatives from across the globe is commanded by Colonel Tahmasebi. Codenamed ‘320’, the commander of heavy weapons training at Imam Ali military base is Colonel Ali Mohammad. In charge of ‘VIP Security’ is Colonel Ramky, the NCRI said.

The sheer scale of the Training Directorate’s efficiency in producing fighters is underscored by the fact that just one of its training camps is currently sending 2,000 Afghans to Syria every week, according to the NCRI.

“The IRGC is actually the entity that runs the whole show when it comes to terrorism,” even though they are spearheaded by the Quds force, Jafarzadeh said. “You cannot do the separation. You cannot have the Quds force designated as a terrorist entity, but not the IRGC.”

Jafarzadeh said there is bipartisan support in Congress for the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist group, and suggested that with the new Trump administration, there is “a better possibility for those measures to move forward.”

The disclosures by the NCRI are significant since they provide first-hand and eyewitness accounts of the IRGC and Quds Force activities as it relates to the active support of terrorism and terror-related operations. It also points out with disturbing clarity the efforts by the Iranian regime to ramp up its military activities outside of its borders during the time it sought to portray itself as a “moderate” nation intent on resolving disputes peacefully.

Another example of those destabilizing activities has been the IRGC’s initiation of the revolt in Yemen with Houthi rebels supplied by IRGC forces; mostly smuggled aboard non-descript fishing boats in the Gulf of Aden.

Many of these ships have been intercepted and weapons confiscated by Saudi Arabian and Gulf State warships; the arms eventually traced back to Iranian factories.

Sanam Vakil, Ph.D an Associate Fellow at Catham House told IBTimes UK that the PMOI report spoke to the extent of the IRGC’s training scheme, although she could not independently verify the numbers.

“What I take from this is that this is a very sophisticated operation,” Vakil said. “Iran’s strategic strength is in a-symmetrical proxy relationships. Its conventional military is weak particularly in Iraqi and Syria they have had success in the past. Of course we also know they are the God Parents of Hezbollah.”

It is becoming increasingly clear that in order to effect the growth of Islamic-inspired terrorism abroad, the restraint of the IRGC will be a key factor. Designating it a FTO would be an important step in the right direction.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Suffering Setbacks on Multiple Fronts

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Iran Regime Suffering Setbacks on Multiple Fronts

Iran Regime Suffering Setbacks on Multiple Fronts

The start of the Trump administration is coinciding with a tougher time for the Iranian regime as it begins to suffer setbacks large and small, causing anxiety amongst the mullahs in Tehran as they try to figure out how to deal with President Trump.

Their initial comments to the new president were cautious and low key as Iranian regime Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told reporters on Monday that the Islamic state had no immediate pronouncement on Trump.

Ghasemi says that it’s “too soon to assess him and analyze his remarks, stance and the framework of his viewpoints.”

Ghasemi’s remarks mark the first official comment from Iran on Trump since his inauguration as the 45th American president.

That lack of response may be calculated to minimize the risk of antagonizing Trump or be placed in the infamous target of his tweeting habits which have laid low his political opponents, but for Iran the news to start the week only looked worse.

In the Syrian peace talks that began in Astana, Kazakhstan, Syrian rebel groups have rejected a plan that allows the Iranian regime to play a role in monitoring the ceasefire.

The proposal for a trilateral ceasefire commission, overseen jointly by the talks’ sponsors, is the most specific new measure set out in a draft communique the Russians hope to release on Tuesday, the second and closing day of the talks.

The Syrian fighting groups believe militia linked to Iran, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, are – along with Bashar al-Assad’s government – systematically breaching the ceasefire agreed on 29 December. The Syrian fighters believe Iranian regime, as perpetrators of innumerable ceasefire breaches, cannot credibly monitor or enforce a ceasefire, according to the Guardian.

As well as the ceasefire commission proposal, the leaked draft communique also broadly supports the existing UN talks process and calls for joint action to defeat Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Syria.

The fact that Syrian rebel groups actively engaged in fighting Syrian and Iranian regime military units have a seat at the table at last marks a significant step forward in diminishing Iranian influence in the long conflict.

The Syrian civil war erupted over opposition to harsh crackdowns by the Assad regime on the Syrian people and gaining momentum when Iranian regime opted to back Assad with Hezbollah fighters and cash to prop up the regime. The conflict escalated when the Iranian regime recruited Afghan mercenaries, Iraqi Shiite militias and eventually brought Russia into the civil war.

The prospect of peace talks moving forward that pushes the Iranian regime out of the way must be causing severe handwringing in Tehran, but more bad news came for Iran as Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that they seized a shipment of missile system components bound for Iran, according to official statements that could put the Islamic state in violation of international bans on such behavior.

The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, or DPSU, announced late last week that it had seized at least 17 boxes filled with missile components bound for Iran, according to IHS Jane’s.

“The DPSU said that, during an inspection of the aircraft on 19 January, its personnel had found 17 boxes with no accompanying documents, which the aircraft’s crew said contained an aircraft repair kit,” according to the report. “Three boxes contained components that were believed to be for a Fagot anti-tank guided missile system, the rest contained aircraft parts.”

Days after this finding, the DPSU said that it had confirmed the missile components were destined for Iran’s Fagot system.

Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser and expert on rogue regimes, said that Iran has been illicitly moving such weapons for quite some time.

“This isn’t the first time Iran has gotten caught red handed smuggling weapons with false manifests, for example, in 2010 in Nigeria,” Rubin said. “The question is how often does Iran get away with such smuggling and for what purpose? After all, if the weaponry is legal, there’s no reason for lying. If it’s not, Iran is violating international agreements. Either way, only fools and secretaries of state would trust Iran to uphold its agreements.”

While many countries around the world listened with concern to Trump’s protectionist inaugural address, Gulf Arab officials appear optimistic. In Gulf Arab eyes, that involves above all checking what they see as a surge of Iranian support for paramilitary allies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon and for fellow Shi’ite Muslims in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s oil-producing Eastern Province.

There have been tensions over Syria, where Obama dismissed Gulf Arab urgings to give more aid to rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, who has survived thanks to Iranian backing.

“Perception is important: Trump does not look like the kind of guy who will bend towards Iran or anyone else,” said Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a veteran Saudi commentator.

“If he behaves as he says, then we will see another Ronald Reagan, someone all the forces in the region will take seriously. That’s what we have missed in the past eight years, unfortunately.”

We can only hope that the Gulf States are right about the new president.

Michael Tomlinson

Evidence Mounts of Iran Leadership in Aleppo Atrocities

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Outrage over the carnage in Aleppo has so far been directed mainly at Damascus, but activists on the ground say Tehran has a top general on the scene and has established secret camps where Iraqi mercenaries are trained to root out rebels in the Syrian city.

Evidence Mounts of Iran Leadership in Aleppo Atrocities

Evidence Mounts of Iran Leadership in Aleppo Atrocities

According to information provided to FoxNews.com, the forces currently controlling the city of Aleppo are under the command of the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The military outfit under its command includes foreign mercenaries such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, and also the Shiite fighters of the Liwa Fatemiyoun from Afghanistan and the Liwa Zainebiyoun from Pakistan.

At the same time, Iran participated in a summit in Moscow with Turkey and Russia to begin discussions on dividing up the spoils of the conflict now that Aleppo had fallen under merciless bombardment.

The meeting was further evidence of Iran’s emerging role in Syria, both during the ongoing civil war and the expected aftermath.

According to reports received by the opposition to the Iranian regime, the number of IRGC forces and its hired hands in Aleppo and the surrounding area has reached 25,000, while the number of military personnel from Assad’s army is very limited.

“This report leaves no doubt that the Iranian regime is the primary obstacle to any solution in Syria,” Shahin Gobadi, spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) told FoxNews.com. “The current situation in Aleppo and the role of the Iranian regime in the atrocities committed on the ground require the immediate expulsion of the IRGC and its mercenaries from Syria. By meddling in other countries the mullahs try to cover up their vulnerability at home. The survival of the [Iranian] regime has been intertwined with maintaining the Assad dictatorship in power in Syria.”

The reports, which were obtained by the NCRI and its sister organization People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), state that the commander of the Quds Force – as IGRC units operating outside Iran are known – in Aleppo is Brigadier General Javad Ghafari, who is described as the right-hand man of the Revolutionary Guard’s commander-in-chief, Qassem Soleimani, who has been referred to as the architect of Iran’s role in Russian operations in Syria, according to FoxNews.com

The MEK has established a track record of accurately reporting misdeeds by Tehran over the past decade, including its attempts to hide nuclear weapons-related facilities from UN inspectors, according to Middle East Eye.

The NCRI has also alleged that the Revolutionary Guard has established its main headquarters around 20 miles southeast of Aleppo in a garrison called Behuth, or Fort Behuth, which used to be one of the most important centers of missile and chemical weapon production for the Assad regime.

It is now under the supervision of Ghafari, but it also contains a center operated by Lebanese Hezbollah commanders, as well as a number of Syrian army officers who are also present, according to the intel reports.

“The fact is that Aleppo has been occupied by the IRGC and its mercenaries,” Gobadi said to FoxNews.com. “Mass executions, preventing the transfer of civilians including women and children, attacking the civilians – has all been done by the forces of the mullahs’ regime.

“[They] are the main source of crisis in Syria and the region,” he went on. “By abusing the inaction of the international community and being convinced of not being held accountable for its crimes, [Iran] has continuously become more emboldened.”

The U.N. puts the overall death toll in Syria’s civil war at 400,000. More than 30,000 have died in the Battle of Aleppo, a last urban rebel holdout against President Bashar Assad’s regime.

The Institute for the Study of War, a nonprofit research group in Washington, has reported that Iran organized thousands of Shiite militias in Iraq not only to fight the Sunni Muslim Islamic State there, but also to deploy them to fight rebels in Aleppo.

The Washington Times recently interviewed Iranian dissidents who had escaped to Western Europe. They said Iran’s brutality at home and aboard has increased, not decreased, since the landmark nuclear deal with the U.S. that provided Tehran billions of dollars.

The MEK report provided to The Times says that Syrian government forces are scarce around Aleppo, meaning it is Iran doing the lion’s share of offensive maneuvers and killings.

“On two occasions the transfer of Aleppo residents were hindered and their buses were fired upon under the instructions of the IRGC to gain concessions on the residents [of] al-Foua and Kefraya,” said the MEK, referring to two towns north of Aleppo.

State Department spokesman John Kirby was asked Monday whether the U.S. will protest to the U.N. Security Council the fact that Gen. Soleimani has been spotted in Aleppo. The U.N. has banned him from international travel for his role in terrorism.

“We do intend to consult with our partners on the Security Council about how to address our concerns with this,” Kirby said. “We’ve long said that Iran needs to choose whether it’s going to play a positive role in helping peacefully resolve conflicts such as in Syria or whether it will choose to prolong them. And you’re absolutely right: His travel is a violation.”

Jim Phillips, a Middle East expert at The Heritage Foundation, said that Assad’s army is depleted and stretched thin protecting government-held territory.

“Without Iran’s expanding military intervention, the Assad regime would have fallen months ago,” Phillips said. “While Russia’s military intervention has dominated media coverage on Syria, Iran has been responsible for almost all of the ground offensives in recent months that clawed back territory from the rebels and encircled Aleppo. It has deployed thousands of Revolutionary Guards.”

Michael Tomlinson

 

Iran Lobby Launches Media Blitz to Save Iran Nuclear Deal

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Iran Lobby Launches Media Blitz to Save Iran Nuclear Deal

Iran Lobby Launches Media Blitz to Save Iran Nuclear Deal

We’ve already chronicled recent efforts by the National Iranian American Council to try and save the flawed Iran nuclear agreement with a flurry of press releases, editorials and social media posts in an attempt to attack everything from President-elect Donald Trump’s tweets to his Cabinet selections.

Not to be outdone, the other leader in the Iran lobby stepped up the plate with another media blitz by the Ploughshares Fund, which sent out its own editorials in an effort to dredge up the same old arguments similar to the arguments used by the Iran lobby during the run up to the nuclear agreement last year in which groups such as Ploughshares and NIAC tried to portray anyone opposed to the deal as a militaristic hawk hell bent on carpet bombing Iran.

In the year since the deal was approved, it is ironic to see the Iranian regime being the one to carpet bomb cities in Syria and funnel arms to terrorist proxies and militias in Iraq and Yemen. Of course Ploughshares offers no editorials condemning the cycle of war and violence the Iranian regime feeds and nurtures.

Paul Pillar, a former intelligence officer that has been penning on behalf of the Iranian mullahs in various occasions, joined at the hip to the Ploughshares Fund, offered up one such editorial in the National Interest in which he pedaled the same old idea that anyone critical of the Iran nuclear deal was a neo-con war hawk.

Pillar again raises the specter of the Iraq war as a harbinger of war with Iran in order to try and scare readers as he bangs the drum against President-elect Trump.

“None of this is a prediction that there will be such a war.  But the danger of one is greater now than it was before November 8th and the appointments that followed.  Vigilance is required to avoid further steps that would increase the chance of a war,” Pillar adds. “Also to be watched for are any moves, such as aggressive U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf, that could become steps down a slippery slope to conflagration.”

That last statement by Pillar really demonstrates how bought in he is for Iranian regime, when he makes no mention of the devastation Iranian regime’s military actions in the region have caused.

Unlike what Pillar says, the aggression is coming from Iran.

But Pillar wasn’t the only Iran lobbying ally to get in on the act, Tytti Erästo, a fellow at Ploughshares, also offered up her own editorial at the National Interest as well trying to sell the idea that Trump needs the Iran nuclear deal to engage with Russia and North Korea.

She tries to make the case that North Korea would somehow view an intact nuclear deal as the appropriate pathway since it would demonstrate the benefits of diplomacy.

Let’s think about that idea carefully for a moment:

  • North Korea supplied Iranian regime with information and designs for its nuclear program, as well as licensed its ballistic missile designs to jumpstart the regime’s missile program;
  • North Korea has consistently been the most sanctioned nation on the planet over its nuclear program as it developed the capability, actually built warheads and then exploded them in tests; and
  • North Korea is widely regarded as the world’s most notorious rogue state after it consistently broke every international agreement negotiated with it.

Yes, that sounds like a wonderful template of how Iran can positively influence North Korea!

And how could nuclear deal influence anyone, particularly since we are talking about a flowed agreement with no teeth that provides ample exemptions and waivers for violations and lift all economic sanctions without the need for compliance monitoring?

In fact, her statement reflects a key component of all the Iran lobby’s positions which is that the International community bears the burden for compliance and any failure in the agreement must stem from the U.S. and others not from anything the Iranian regime did.

It is the same frivolous thinking that paved the way for a badly flawed deal which led us to the crises the world currently faces.

While such efforts by the Iran lobby reveals the weak position and the fear the mullahs have, it also proves that the right policy towards Iran is and has always been a firm policy that should hold the Iranian regime finally accountable for its actions and not the other way around.

Michael Tomlinson

Unanimous Passage of Iran Sanctions Act Signals End of Appeasement

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Unanimous Passage of Iran Sanctions Act Signals End of Appeasement

Unanimous Passage of Iran Sanctions Act Signals End of Appeasement

The experiment to see if the Iranian regime could be moved to join the community of nations and act in a moderate manner is officially over with the unanimous passage of the extension for renewal of the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA).

The U.S. Senate passed a 10-year extension of sanctions against the Iranian regime, following a similar vote in the House, sending the bill to President Obama’s desk where he is expected to sign it.

The measure passed by a 99-0 vote after passing the House with only one dissenting vote in a bipartisan display of unity among Democrats and Republicans rarely seen in Washington.

Without the votes, the ISA was due to expire on December 31st. Leaders of both parties and the U.S. State Department have said passage of the extension would not violate the terms of the current nuclear agreement with Iran, even though the Iranian regime has threatened harsh retaliation in response.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) said the renewal ensures Trump can re-impose sanctions Obama lifted under the deal, in which Iran curbed its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

“Extending the Iran Sanctions Act … ensures President-elect Trump and his administration have the tools necessary to push back against the regime’s hostile actions,” Corker said in a statement.

“Given Iran’s continued pattern of aggression and the country’s persistent efforts to expand its sphere of influence across the region, preserving these sanctions is critical,” the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said on Thursday. He said he expected the Trump administration and the new Congress to “undertake a total review of our overall Iran policy.”

As the U.S. legislation advanced, Iranian regime officials said that the country may increase its stockpile of enriched uranium, a move that could spark a new international crisis in the weeks before Donald Trump takes office.

“Iran has made necessary preparations for potential U.S. decisions about the extension of sanctions,” the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Monday, according to Iranian state media.

The threats are not surprising since top mullah Ali Khamenei has been making regular threats about tearing up the agreement even during negotiations last year.

What has changed though is that the gravy train of appeasement policies coming from the Obama administration in the hopes of moderating Iranian behavior probably has come to an end. The stunning majorities in passing the renewal demonstrate both political parties desire to taker tougher stand against Iran especially as yet another potential terror-related attack occurred on the campus of Ohio State University.

“The practical effect is the Iran nuclear agreement depends on our resolve, on our commitment to… stop a nuclear-armed Iran by using sanctions and other means if necessary,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who supported the Iran deal.

The passage marks just how far American opinion has swung over the past year in which the Iran lobby trumpeted the nuclear agreement as a landmark effort to bring the U.S. and Iran closer together only to see the Iranian regime launch three wars, arrest American citizens and threaten the U.S. with military confrontations almost everywhere throughout the Middle East.

Iranian regime’s actions have only grown worse under the nuclear agreement and the 99-0 vote is a recognition that more needs to be done to confront Iranian extremism and push back on it even as the mullahs devise new ways to sow chaos and confrontation.

One example of those methods came in the form of a new report issued by Conflict Armament Research (CAR), an independent research group, which tied markings on munitions used by Houthi rebels in Yemen to arms shipments from Iran.

The markings found on rifles, rocket launchers, anti-tank guided missiles and munitions provided some of the more concrete evidence to date of Iranian regime’s logistical support to Houthis fighting in Yemen’s nearly two-year-old civil war, according to the Washington Post.

Vice Admiral Kevin M. Donegan, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces in the region, told reporters that the first of the five weapons shipments were seized in April 2015. CAR’s report focuses on three weapon caches recovered in early 2016.

“CAR’s analysis of the seized materiel … suggests the existence of a weapon pipeline extending from Iran to Somalia and Yemen, which involves the transfer, by dhow, of significant quantities of Iranian-manufactured weapons and weapons that plausibly derive from Iranian stockpiles,” the report says.

A Somalia-bound dhow was stopped with 2,197 weapons onboard. Aside from a smattering of small arms including Kalashnikovs and medium machine guns, the vessel was laden with roughly 100 Iranian-made RPG-7-style rocket launchers.

While the Iran lobby continues to try and discount the votes on ISA, they ignore the unanimous majorities it garnered for its passage. Most disturbing for Iranian regime sympathizers such as the National Iranian American Council is how far the pendulum has swung away from appeasing the regime to finding ways to hold it accountable.

Laura Carnahan

Iran Lobby Members Step Up Their Own PR Efforts

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Iran Lobby Members Step Up Their Own PR Efforts

Iran Lobby Members Step Up Their Own PR Efforts

Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, the Iran lobby launched a large PR effort aimed at trying to influence the debate starting to form as to how the incoming Trump administration should approach the problem of Iranian extremism in the Middle East, especially its support for terrorism and the escalating conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

President-elect Trump has already begun forming his national security team with the announced appointments of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as United Nations ambassador, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn as national security advisor, Fox News commentator K.T. McFarland as deputy national security advisor, and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) as CIA director.

His selections signal a likely end to the previous administration’s policies of trying to appease the Iranian regime in order to secure a more accommodating stance from Tehran. Those policies—as evidenced by the aftermath of the nuclear agreement—clearly demonstrated that the mullahs in Tehran were no mood for moderation and clearly believed they could take advantage of the U.S. and other nations that brokered the agreement.

Since the election, the Iran lobby has been faced with the uncomfortable truth that its influence in Washington is going to be greatly diminished in light of the new election results and the continued skepticism of the Iran nuclear deal by leaders like Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

But the Iran lobby is doing the bidding of the mullahs by ramping up its efforts in a last-ditch effort to try and spin a new web of obfuscations to replace the failed “echo chamber” of voices urging accommodation with Iranian leaders.

The most offensive product to be produced as part of that effort was a so-called “report” issued by the National Iranian American Council and signed by 76 so-called “national security” specialists, the vast majority of whom lack any national security or military credentials or experience at all. Most were either paid staffers or consultants allied with the NIAC or academics from fields as national security related as linguistics and anthropology.

While the issuance of the report itself and accompanying NIAC statement did not garner much media attention outside of blogs such as Lobelog.com supportive of the Iranian regime, some of the individuals named in the report have taken up the cause with their own media efforts to flog the idea of support for Iran.

One of those was Stephen Kinzer, who penned an editorial in the Boston Globe urging Donald Trump to pursue a pathway of what he calls “dual conciliation” which reads more like a warmed over version of the failed policy of appeasement he previously urged.

Kinzer’s piece is interesting for several reasons, especially one thing he wrote which was that the U.S. should judge Iran not by sentiment, “but strictly according to whether their actions promote our interests. Our central interest in the Middle East is containing violent radicalism.”

It is an odd thing to say since the actions of the Iranian regime have not matched the sentiments it has publicly urged. While leaders such as Hassan Rouhani have purred lines of peace and moderation, the leadership of Ali Khamenei has directed Iranian forces to deepen the war in Syria, widen sectarian violence in Iraq and start an insurgency in Yemen that threatens a direct conflict with Saudi Arabia.

Kinzer is right, we should judge Iran on its actions and not the sentiments the Iran lobby would have us believe. It’s a path that Trump’s national security team has already publicly advocated during the course of the campaign in urging significant reforms to the nuclear deal, as well as holding Iran accountable for its actions.

Kinzer also tries to portray Iranian mullahs as a valiant enemy of Islamic extremism in the form of ISIS, but does not even attempt to distinguish the type of Islamic extremism Iranian regime itself is responsible for. It’s another attempt by Kinzer to try and portray Iran as a “good” Islamic extremist and ISIS as a “bad” Islamic extremist.

The distinction he tries to make is like trying to distinguish between Hitler’s SS and Brownshirts. To their victims, there is no difference.

Similarly, he fails to note that the Iranian regime is the central source of the instability raging through the Middle East. By trying to link the unrest to a supposed Saudi Arabia vs. Iran conflict, he ignores Iranian regime’s use of terrorist proxies in Hezbollah or insurgents such as the Houthis in Yemen or Shiite militias in Iraq to wage unrelenting war. Therefore unlike his proposal, Iranian regime is not going to be any kind of security partner for the rest of the world.

Iranian regime has attempted to build a Shiite extremist dominant empire with wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen to wrest those controls under its control alongside Lebanon and possible Egypt.

None of this should be unexpected since Kinzer is widely known to be a left leaning and a strong critic of the correct policies, especially as it relates to in confronting Latin American and Middle Eastern dictatorships, authoring books on the subject, which we assume makes him a “national security” expert.

Kinzer has long advocated policies of non-intervention which makes him an adequate tool for the NIAC in trying to protect Iranian regime from any repercussions for its actions.

Like his fellow Iran lobby advocates such as Trita Parsi of the NIAC, they are finding a shrinking audience for their message of appeasing the mullahs in Tehran in light of the evidence of a year of Iranian human rights crackdowns and several violations of the nuclear agreement.

We can only hope the Trump administration maintains its skeptical eye to future promises of Iranian moderation.

Michael Tomlinson

NIAC Tries to Fool the Public on Iran Again

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NIAC Tries to Fool the Public on Iran Again

NIAC Tries to Fool the Public on Iran Again

The National Iranian American Council is in overdrive using the proverbial firehouse to blanket websites, blogs and comment forums in the hope that the incoming Trump administration doesn’t undo the past three years of achievements on behalf of the Iranian regime.

It’s latest contribution was a piece appearing on CNN authored by Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi who again attempt to portray the choices facing the new administration in regards to the nuclear agreement reached with Iran as an either or proposition of leaving it alone or ripping it up and risking grave consequences.

It’s a Hobson’s choice that the NIAC has become adept at: Follow our suggestion and everything will be fine, but dare threaten Iran and risk cataclysm.

The 800,000 people killed in the Syrian conflict so far at the hands of the Assad regime, Hezbollah and Iranian fighters would be hard pressed to agree with those choices.

The Iranian regime has established itself clearly as uninterested in peaceful conflict resolution and instead has doubled down and gone all in using military force and violence in an effort to impose its religious will on its neighbors in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Parsi and Marashi argue that Trump should take the “political risk necessary to broaden the opening to Iran precisely to avoid replicating recent US policy failures in the Middle East.”

This may be the stupidest statement made yet by Parsi and Marashi.

Why on Earth would Donald Trump want to take a political risk on behalf of Iran, especially as he is already being assailed by the mainstream press and the political elites that turned their noses up at his candidacy (Parsi and Marashi included)?

Parsi and Marashi attempt to force the focus on the survival of the nuclear agreement with Iran when the issue has never been the agreement itself, but rather the behavior of the mullahs in Tehran.

No agreement is worth the paper it’s printed on if one of the participants in the agreement willfully ignores it right from the beginning. The fact that the Obama administration and European Union granted several waivers and exemptions right at the start made the agreement ineffectual and impotent.

During the campaign, Trump correctly focused not on the agreement itself, but the conduct of the mullahs after the agreement was reached. His criticism of the billions of dollars in cash released to Iran and its use in funding conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen demonstrates he looked at the optics correctly, optics that Parsi and Marashi are trying hard to change now with their desperate lobbying campaign.

Parsi and Marashi attempt to frame the discussion around one of Trump’s biggest pledges which was to destroy ISIS and argue that “he cannot walk away or renegotiate the nuclear deal without undermining the coalition against the terror group.”

Unfortunately, Parsi and Marashi never acknowledge that Iranian regime itself is part of the axis of terrorist sponsors with its long-running support for Hezbollah and its sheltering of Al-Qaeda leaders in Iran after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan drove them out.

They also incorrectly state that the Iran nuclear deal cannot be re-negotiated when in fact any agreement can be re-negotiated; a simple fact that the businessman in Trump knows full well. When you have a rotten deal on the table, it’s the idiot that accepts it as gospel. Trump is no idiot, much as Parsi and Marashi have claimed in the past.

Parsi and Marashi are correct when they characterize Iran as having “substantial latent power – population size and potential for wealth generation,” but miss the most crucial aspect of that power, which is “how will Iran’s leaders choose to apply it?”

Will clerical leaders such as Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani seek to use that potential to improve the lives of ordinary Iranians? Of course not.

Iran’s economy has spiraled downward generating massive protests from small businessmen to school teachers, only to engender a broad and punishing crackdown on dissenters that have filled Iran’s prisons to capacity.

Will the Iranian regime seek to stabilize the Middle East and seek to reduce tensions and conflict? Absolutely not.

Iranian regime deepened the Syrian conflict and broadened it, while bringing Russia into the fight and setting the stage for a return to Cold War confrontations between the U.S. and Russian armed forces. Iran mullahs ignited the Yemen civil war with its clandestine military support for Houthi rebels and plunged Iraq back into sectarian conflict by raising Shiite militias in fighting Sunni insurgents tossed out of the power-sharing government of former president Nouri al-Maliki.

What is even more astonishing is Parsi and Marashi’s suggestion that the solution to the Middle East’s problems is to solve the “Saudi-Iran cold war”; an observation that is ludicrous given the fact that any solution to the current crop of problems in the Middle East starts and stops in Tehran.

Until Parsi and Marashi actually admit that Iran needs to curb its military adventures and support for insurgency and terrorism in order to advance the prospects for peace, nothing they say or write should be considered legitimate policy discussions and instead simply be viewed as propaganda for the mullahs in Tehran.

The quest for peace begins only when Tehran stops trying to rule its neighbors.

Laura Carnahan