Iran: More on the Political Attack on the National Iranian American Council

As we expected, the whipped-up controversy over the activities of the National Iranian American Committee --- fuelled by the attack journalism in The Washington Times --- has descended into further invective and allegations.

The Lake piece gave cover to the earlier exaggerations and distortions not only of The Weekly Standard, which is trying to blow apart any engagement with Iran, but also Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic:

A couple of weeks ago I retracted my assertion that Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council, did "leg-work" for the Iranian regime. I was trying to suggest, in a not-so artful way, that Parsi is trying to build his organization into an Iranian version of AIPAC, but "leg-work" seemed, in retrospect, like too harsh a description for his activities.

But now I may have to retract my retraction....

Meanwhile, the counter-allegation is spreading that Hassan Daioleslam, who is the source of the allegations and who is being sued by Parsi for defamation, is a long-term member of Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO). The group has sought the overthrow of the Iranian regime since 1979, often through violence, bombings, and assassinations.

Josh Rogin of the Cable blog of Foreign Policy is writing that Daioleslam is well-connected with Washington neoconservatives who are challenging NIAC to undercut the Obama administration's engagement strategy.

Rogin is posting emails between Daioleslam and Kenneth Timmerman, in which the two plot strategy and discuss the plans to leak documents to Eli Lake, who wrote the Washington Times story. Timmerman is a longtime advocate of regime change in Tehran, through platforms such as the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, which he co-founded in 1995 with Joshua Muravchik and the late Peter Rodman. He has accused Iran of a role both in the September 11 attacks and the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Iran Video & Text: The Mousavi Interview with Jamaran (9 November)

The Latest from Iran (11 November): Revelations & Connections

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Mir Hossein's interview with Jamaran website, published on Monday:

Part 1 of 3

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNnkV75Pj2w[/youtube]

Part 2 of 3

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6rNYSK2wQE&feature=channel[/youtube]

Part 3

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sJrGpNSU3U&feature=channel[/youtube] of 3

Some have their interests in having a divided society
Taking the fanatic approach will take the country to a dead-end

Currently spreading rumours has become very common. We have some individuals whose case, if they were reviewed by Imam Khomeini’s standards, would be considered very tainted. The regime is accusing the people’s great movement of being linked to traitors. It is in their benefit to increase divisions and cynicism in the society in order to prevent their own cases from being unveiled, while it is in everyone’s best interest to acknowledge people’s rights and create optimism.

I feel that the tendency of power to become totalitarian has led to a structured corruption of power in different branches of the establishment....

Considering Imam Khomeini's viewpoint, unity is not achievable based on political loyalties. The union approved by the Imam is a union that relies on components like national interests and a healthy survival of the Islamic establishment, where your connections to power through family, friendship, and acquaintance do not matter.

One of the issues that was raised during the election was on whatever happened to the $300 billion [of oil revenues]. During the [Iran-Iraq] war, if an issue of financial corruption was raised, it was immediately attended to. The smallest corruptions were magnified to a great degree [due to the ongoing war]. In the past, if there was an issue of a missing $10,000, with no record of its expenditure, this could have caused the fall of the Government. Now, the issue is billions of dollars and nobody seems to care.

If it was the early years of the Revolution, this legislation to provide direction to the subsidies [referring to Ahmadinejad's legislation to remove subsidies from food and energy within 3 years] would not have been raised the way it is now. This legislation is not bad in itself. But [right now] the Government are on the one hand talking about removing all the subsidies, causing gas prices to increase, while on other hand they are refusing a budget to the underground subway system. On one side, people's daily affairs will be interrupted under the pressure of high gas prices, and on the other there is no effort put into public transportation. This would cause serious problems for people.

If it becomes common in a system for people to see that their rights are trampled without any objection, that system will move towards violence and dictatorship.

I sincerely believe that granting multi-billion dollar contract to Sepah [the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps] is neither in the interest of the whole regime nor in the interest of Sepah.

There are individuals who live in this way. I sincerely do not know if they have faith or are religious or not....We have people who have a very corrupt record, if it is viewed with the viewpoint of the Imam. But now the regime says that this great popular movement is all connected to the MKO [Mujahedin-e-Khalq "terrorist" organisation].

The interests of the country is in defining the circle of “insiders” such that there is very little left on the outside [thus allowing almost everyone a voice]. Otherwise, we have to doubt our own behavior. We simply cannot put aside thousands of prominent managers who have served this country.

What is happening these days is that the margins have become bigger than the centre. The centre has become very small....
In these margins, we have many managers and clerics, a few marja’ a [senior clerics], a few ex-presidents, and even an ex-head of Parliament....In a situation like this, those who have remained in the main context have to rely on garrisons because they don’t have the support of such a big margin. And this is what has happened: in order to prevent lapsing into a coma, we became numb and insensitive as if suffering from leprosy.

It is in our country’s interest to agree on a fundamental and important matter: the Constitution. You and I may have differences of opinion but we have to agree on the Constitution to solve our problems. We should put aside our differences and attempt to reform.

The people who participated in the revolution didn’t come to the scene to face so many problems. They came for a better life and for freedom.