Exclusive: How Iran is Taking Over America

Once it was Reds under the Bed. Now it's the Mullahs Hiding behind the Curtains.

Human Events sounds the warning, exposing all the pseudo-Americans who are actually working for Tehran. Our only qualm with this article is that --- as it outed Trita Parsi, Juan Cole, and Gary Sick, all of whom we have featured on this website --- somehow it forgot to mention Enduring America amongst the threats to Mr and Mrs USA.

Why U.S. Policy Leans Too Close to Terrorist Appeasement
Clare M. Lopez

The Obama administration has lost no time extending an outstretched hand to Iran’s terrorist regime, just as promised during the election campaign. The president assured the mullahs of his pacific intentions in a January 2009 interview on al-Arabiya TV, asking nothing more than that Iran unclench its fist.

Secretary of State Clinton echoed Obama after an early February 2009 meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Absent from either of their comments was any mention of Tehran’s obligations before the world community to comply with United Nations resolutions to immediately and verifiably suspend all nuclear enrichment activity. Also missing was any criticism of Iran’s massive support for terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hizballah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- not to mention its long-standing affiliation with al-Qa’eda.

As for introduction of a U.N. resolution to condemn Iran for repeated incitement to genocide of a fellow U.N. member state -- the State of Israel -- somehow that didn’t come up either. Holding to account a regime that stones girls to death for being raped, hangs gays from construction cranes, and executes juveniles also doesn’t seem central to the new agenda. Perhaps we missed it and the United States actually signed on to the Cairo Declaration. For those who don’t remember that ignominious piece of paper, it is the 1990 opt-out by Muslim states from the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights.

An 8 February 2009 speech by Vice President Joe Biden (in Munich, of all places) did note U.S. readiness to take pre-emptive action against Iran if it does not abandon its nuclear ambitions and support for terrorism, but also repeated that the U.S. is open to talks. This is what your mother always warned you against: mixed signals.

Under the Bush administration we had no Iran policy. Now, our policy leans too close to appeasement. How did it get this way?

America’s foreign policy toward Iran did not reach this level of malleability overnight or by accident. A well-organized plan to infiltrate and influence U.S. policymakers at the highest levels has been operating on American soil for well over a decade. Conceived in Tehran under the direct authority of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the plan set out to create a network of top U.S. academics, diplomats, journalists, NGOs, and think tanks that would advocate a policy of appeasement towards Iran. Iran’s top strategic objective has always been to buy time for its nuclear weapons program, which now is well along in developing the three critical components: enriched uranium, warhead weaponization, and a credible missile delivery system.

Beginning in the late 1990s, a de facto alliance between Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the U.S. (such as CAIR -- the Council on Islamic American Relations) and frank Tehran regime advocates like the American-Iranian Council (AIC) openly began to promote public support for a U.S. foreign policy based on the favored positions of the Islamic Republic. In 2002, a new pro-Iran group was formed by a young Swedish-Iranian immigrant named Trita Parsi. That group, the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) quickly established itself as the nexus of a growing network of individuals and organizations that openly lobby for a U.S. policy of acquiescence, diplomacy, incentives, and negotiations with the Tehran regime -- while strongly opposing coercive diplomacy, sanctions, or threat of military action. Part and parcel of this advocacy on behalf of Tehran is a pattern of antipathy towards Israel that minimizes its security concerns and dismisses its legitimate defense needs.

Under Parsi, who is closely connected to the Tehran regime, the NIAC network has expanded to include a growing number of new groups. Some of them -- such as The Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) -- are NIAC clones. CASMII was founded in December 2005 to oppose all forms of pressure on Iran. Others, such as the Center for a New American Security (CNAS, founded in February 2007) play the role of useful idiots. CNAS had Dr. Susan Rice, the Obama administration’s appointee as Ambassador to the UN, on its Board of Directors.

Dr. Vali Nasr, who has been named senior advisor to U.S. Afghanistan/Pakistan envoy Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, was one of the authors of a September 2008 CNAS publication called Iran: Assessing U.S. Strategic Options. Nasr’s chapter, "The Implications of Military Confrontation with Iran," urged the U.S. to take the military option for dealing with Iran off the table and instead focus on how best to accommodate Tehran’s rising power in the Middle East region. The Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran (CNAPI) launched its pro-Iran activities with a cross-country event called The Folly of Attacking Iran Tour, which crisscrossed the U.S. in February and March 2008.

The American Foreign Policy Project (AFPP) was founded in December 2008 with an “experts list” that reads like a remix of other CAIR and NIAC affiliates, including former Ambassadors Thomas Pickering, James Dobbins, and William Miller plus well-known academic figures such as Professors Gary G. Sick of Columbia University and Juan R. Cole of the University of Michigan. These groups’ interlocking Boards of Advisors, Directors, and Experts include many other nationally-known figures from public policy and international business arenas, including some big oil companies.

All are associated in one way or another with Trita Parsi and NIAC and all advocate a policy of accommodation with Iran.

The Iranian regime makes no attempt to disguise its links to this network. NIAC, for instance, was openly mentioned in the 7 December 2007 issue of the government-controlled Aftab News, where the NIAC network was called the regime’s “Iran lobby in the U.S.” In March 2007, the Fars News daily described NIAC as ‘a non-profit’ organization with headquarters in Washington, D.C. that was established to counter the influence of AIPAC [the American-Israeli Political Action Committee, a legal lobby group] and to enlist the support of Iranian expatriates living in the U.S. in order to ‘penetrate U.S. politics.’

Maneuvering behind Washington, D.C. policymaking scenes to exert influence on U.S. decision makers is pretty standard for a host of legitimate interest groups, including many foreign countries. Concern is indicated, however, when the guiding influence behind such maneuvering emanates from the top levels of a regime like Iran’s that holds top spot on the Department of State’s state sponsors of terror list, makes no secret of its hatred and enmity for the U.S. and our ally Israel, and acts in myriad ways to support those who have assassinated, held, kidnapped, killed, and tortured American civilians and military over a 30-year period. The expanding influence of this pro-Iran lobby on U.S. foreign policy attests to a determined and sophisticated operation that serves only the interests of regime implacably hostile to America’s own national security interests.

Ms. Lopez is the Vice President of the Intelligence Summit and a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies.

Anticipating the New Israeli Government: Netanyahu or Livni?

According to the Associated Press, the Obama Administration has praised the Israeli elections and has called the voting by millions of Israelis the sign of a strong democracy. The White House spokesman Robert Gibbs stated that the President Obama was excited to work with the new Israeli government, and on Wednesday, Obama called Israeli President Shimon Peres to express his gratitude for American and Israeli model democracies and to emphasise his personal efforts for a two-state Israel-Palestine solution.

The question is how much room there is for such a solution. While relatively moderate Tzipi Livni, the leader of the Kadima Party is ready to pursue peace talks with the Abbas Government, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Likud, considers the US-backed negotiation process as a waste of time.

Meanwhile, Livni has demonstrated her "hawkish" reflexes in the name of "Israeli interests" during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. This was reminiscent of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's 2006 Lebanon War when there were serious questions in Israelis' minds whether the inexperienced Olmert was able to handle the weight of the Israeli politics after his predecessor Ariel Sharon's illness. The only difference is that Olmert had to prove himself after Sharon was no longer able to be the Prime Minister, while Livni had to sharpen her position against Hamas, "the common enemy" of all Israelis, to increase Kadima`s votes. Waging war against Hamas while giving priority to the peace process with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas --- including giving up land, dismantling settlements in West Bank, and sharing Jerusalem --- indicate the balance of her expected policies. Livni`s position is closer to peace when compared to that of Netanyahu, but the Iron Lady offers no concession on the most sensitive notion of the Israeli society: "security".

For Netanyahu, as we see in his election motto (“Likud: Because the state needs to be run”), Kadima has been incompetent in its rule, including its conduct of the Lebanon War and the most recent Gaza War. Netanyahu has criticized the government for being insufficiently strong against Hezbollah and Hamas in these two wars and insisted on the continuation of Operation Cast Lead. Netanyahu`s "security pack", which includes toppling Hamas in Gaza, keeping the Golan Heights, and expanding current settlements in the West Bank, is much more important than giving priority to the peace process.

It is clear that a peace agreement is unlikely to come under an Netanyahu administration, but his agenda is wide enough to keep peace proponents busy, at least in the mid-term. What is missing in this analysis, however, are the Obama Administration`s regional policies the application of these to Israel and its new Gvoernment, as it seeks a "secure" Israeli society and/or "strong" steps for peace.

Iran's Presidential Election: What Difference Does Khatami Make?

Our colleague Chris Emery offers this incisive assessment of former President Mohammed Khatami's declaration that he will stand in June's Presidential Election in Iran, taking us beyond the simplistic formula of Ahmadinejad v. Khatami:

Former two-term Iranian President Mohammed Khatami waited until almost the last possible minute before deciding to put his name on the ballot for the presidential elections in June. He only declared after a careful examination of the political environment and, more importantly, his electoral chances.



This scrutiny was not matched by the western media.

Their haste was perhaps predictable: Khatami is well-known and respected in the West. It was just too tempting to paint him as the reformist liberal who, in conjunction with the new saviour of American diplomacy, could genuinely transform US-Iranian relations. So it will now hold its collective breath that he will prevail against the hard-line incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The context of renewed hopes for rapprochement is, I suspect, of much less significance to the Iranian public’s perception of Khatami’s decision to run. And it is unlikely, though still unclear, that Khatami's decision was relatded President Ahmadinejad’s reciprocation of Barack Obama's offer for dialogue with America.

Whilst the prospect of a more moderate leadership in Washington and Tehran is gratifying, the characterisation of Khatami as "the Iranian Obama" or, even more erroneously, that Obama’s election provoked Khatami’s decision to run is patently false. Khatami’s decision to run rests on internal Iranian politics, the complex dynamics of which are hard to penetrate.

For example, it had been widely reported that Khatami would not run if former Prime Minister Mir-Hussein Mousavi chose to. Prior to his announcement, Khatami met with Mir Hossein Mousavi at the office of reformist politician and cleric Abdollah Nouri in northeast Tehran. So all Iranian eyes will now watch if Mousavi, another popular reformist, is now the one to withdraw.

Another egregious error, as typified by the BBC article that announced Khamtami’s decision, is the assumption that Iranians now face a choice between one hard-line conservative candidate (Ahmadinejad) and one liberal reformist (Khatami). Quite apart from failing to qualify terms such as "reformist", "liberal", and "conservative2, which have very different and dual meanings in Iran than in the West, it is rash to immediately reduce the election to a two horse race. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the popular Tehran mayor and veteran, remains firmly in the race and the chances of Mehdi Karoubi, who heads the reformist E'temad Melli Party, or former Prime Minister Mousavi cannot simply be discounted.

It is perhaps tempting, given the generally constructive rhetoric emerging from Washington, to link Khatami’s entry to the tentative prospect of normalised relations between Iran and the US. This is also an error. Firstly, Khatami's electoral prospects are not going to stand or fall on current developments in US-Iranian relations. Secondly, both sides will probably refrain from meaningfully pushing rapprochement until the election in Iran is finished. Thirdly, Khatami does not have a radically different attitude to Ahmadinejad on the main American concerns of Iran’s nuclear programme and its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Fourthly, the final decision on rapprochement will not be made, in Tehran, by the president’s office- whoever is occupying it.

In any case, the election in June will not be fought over rapprochement with the US. Instead, if the contest comes down to a battle between Khatami and Ahmadinejad, it will be over presidential legacies and broken promises. Ahmadinejad’s failure to deliver on his promise to improve economic and employment conditions, at a time of increased oil revenue, has led to widespread disillusionment. Khatami has claimed a better economic record as president, yet he failed to deliver the reforms and greater openness his supporters sought.

Many questions, however, remain. Will Khatami’s entry damage the reformists’ prospects, uniting the conservatives against him, as Khatami must have feared? What will be the response of the influential former President Hashemi Rafsanjani who, according to different sources, is either refusing to support Khatami or trying to persuade Karoubi to step aside in favour of him?