Josh Rogin of The Cable of Foreign Policy magazine offers a revelation about the efforts of the Obama Administration, or at least the State Department, to get control of the Congressional push for sanctions:

The State Department sent a letter to Congress Friday…asking lawmakers to hold off on an Iran sanctions bill until the New Year. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg wrote:

We are entering a critical period of intense diplomacy to impose significant international pressure on Iran. This requires that we keep the focus on Iran At this juncture, I am concerned that this legislation, in its current form, might weaken rather than strengthen international unity and support for our efforts.

In addition to the timing, we have serious substantive concerns, including the lack of flexibility, inefficient monetary thresholds and penalty levels, and blacklisting that could cause unintended foreign policy consequences.

The Latest from Iran (15 December): The Path to Moharram

Rogin notes, from a source, that the issue is not whether there should be sanctions but what form they should take. In particular, the Obama Administration is walking a tightrope — in trying to get international support — between getting acceptance of restrictions while not punishing those who trade with Iran too much: “One issue, the source said, is whether the bill’s sanctions on third-party countries who are involved in selling refined petroleum products to Iran could be exempted if they are part of efforts to combat Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

The battlefront is likely to be in the Senate, as the lower house of the US Congress is likely to pass a parallel bill, focused on petroleum sanctions, next week.

Tags: Foreign Policy Magazine, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, James Steinberg, Josh Rogin, The Cable, US Congress

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.

Tags: Eli Lake, foreign policy, ForeignPolicy.com, Foundation for Democracy in Iran, Hassan Daioleslam, Iran, Jeffrey Goldberg, Josh Rogin, Joshua Muravchik, Kenneth Timmerman, MKO, Mujahedin-e-Khalq, National Iranian-American Council, NIAC, Peter Rodman, The Atlantic, Trita Parsi