DEFENSE & FOREIGN AFFAIRS SPECIAL ANALYSIS

Founded in 1972. Volume XXV, No. 59

Tuesday, July 31, 2007
© 2007 Global Information System.

Moving Toward a Confluence of Disruptive Events in the Middle East (with AntiMullah article reference)

Analysis. By Gregory Copley, Editor, GIS.

A diverse range of intelligence sources have highlighted a pattern of imminent upheaval across a wide area of the Middle East, expected to culminate during, and following, September 2007, involving

(a) possible military action within Iraq to change the Government; and

(b) renewed provocations against Israel by proxy forces in Lebanon (HizbAllah) and Gaza (HAMAS).

The two issues are intrinsically related, but are being coordinated separately to some extent.

The great strategic substance, however, is that these two events and others are coming together in a confluence of disruptive trends which will profoundly affect the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, and possibly also exacerbate the already worsening US-Russian relationship, given Moscow’s commitment to strong relations with Tehran (and, by default, Damascus) to help stabilize Russia’s southern flank.

The upheavals could also give the Turkish General Staff the opportunity or casus belli it needs to openly intervene militarily in northern Turkey, ostensibly to protect its interests and to suppress activities there by the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).

But the chain of events was also likely to lead to a planned – and well-prepared – escalation by Iran and Syria to engage in activities both against Israel and to expand or preserve their access to and through Iraq.

A move by some Iraqi military officials to change the Shi’a-dominated Government of Nouri Maliki – which is now cooperating closely and openly with the clerical Government of Iran, and deliberately resisting cooperation (insofar as possible) with the US – would not, ultimately, be viewed askance in Washington, which essentially now feels that the original US route to “democracy” in Iraq cannot be achieved rapidly enough to forestall an effective Iranian victory in Iraq.

The comparisons with the November 1, 1963, coup against then-South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem are apparent, and have probably been considered in Washington, but the alternative – the continued slide of a Maliki-dominated Government toward Tehran – is clearly inimical to US interests.

Significantly, and not surprisingly, Washington is not of one mind as to the possible moves against Prime Minister Maliki, and many in official Washington (including some of those who view Maliki with alarm) regarded the revelation by the Saudi Arabian Government in mid-July 2007 of evidence of Mr Maliki’s covert relationship with Tehran as merely evidence that Saudi Arabia wanted to supplant the Shi’a-dominated Iraqi Government with a Sunni-dominated one.

But GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs sources within a variety of Iraqi Government structures confirm that, whatever Riyadh’s motivations for revealing the intelligence documents showing the links between Maliki and Tehran, Prime Minister Maliki has indeed committed himself and his Administration to follow the Iranian clerics’ instructions.

At the same time, as noted in late June by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs, the Iranian and Syrian governments now appear to have completed their preparations for resumed open conflict against Israel,1 initiating through HizbAllah and HAMAS as fairly transparent proxies, in a process designed to lead to an escalation into more direct Syrian (and, perhaps, eventually Iranian) military involvement in conflict against Israel, while Iran attempts to use its present asset base in Iraq to stop an Iraqi nationalist military backlash designed to replace Maliki.

The entire process presages an escalation of conflict in Iraq at the same time that the pressure resumes against Israel. Indeed, the resumption of activities against Israel – seen as a primary goal by HizbAllah and HAMAS, and the Syrian leadership around Bashar al-Assad – is almost viewed as a cover operation by Tehran.

This follows the essential failure of, and the lessons learned from, the Israeli-HizbAllah conflict which began on July 12, 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect on August 14, 2006. While that conflict was – correctly in some respects – perceived as an Israeli military and diplomatic failure, it was also insufficiently successful from an Iranian/Syrian perspective to be escalated into a more general conflict.

And while Bashar al-Assad and his key advisors are pressing for a more “heroic” Syrian war with Israel, in order to consolidate the otherwise weakening position of Bashar in Damascus, the Turkish military leadership is itself is viewing how best it might reverse what it considers to be an undesirable outcome to the July 22, 2007, Parliamentary election which confirmed the Islamist dominance of the Grand National Assembly (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi).

[Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s election win was a landslide for AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi: Justice and Development Party), giving the incumbent party 46.6 percent of the national vote and 340 seats in the Turkish Assembly. It was the first time in half a century that an incumbent party increased its vote.]

The Turkish General Staff (Genelkurmay Başkanları: TAF) had given the impression that it would have liked to have escalated the military situation with regard to northern Iraq before the Parliamentary election, possibly in the hope of being able to forestall the election through the creation of a “national emergency”: constitutional grounds for election deferment.

Now it may still seek to redress the political situation inside Turkey by availing itself of an increasingly unstable situation in the northern parts of Iraq – in which not only are the Iraqi Turkmen now under direct and sustained pressure from the major Kurdish tribes, the Talibani and Barzani, but there is, in any event, growing sectarian conflict – to act.

This may have the added benefit of forestalling – or acting as a cautionary note on – the next major Turkish vote: for the Presidency.

The Grand National Assembly was due to meet on August 4, 2007, with its principal mission to choose a successor for the strongly secular outgoing President, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who has been a fierce critic of the AKP. The AKP now has the strength to guarantee that its nominee for the Presidency, outgoing Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul, a committed Islamist, can win the Presidency.

Unless the TAF moves soon to regain control, its authority and power will continue to be eroded, and yet Turkey’s position on entry into the European Union (EU) will still essentially be unattainable.

But in many respects a possible Turkish intervention in northern Iraq – which would have significant, long-lasting effects, and which the US Government is anxious to avoid – is the smaller part of the equation. A nationalist military coup in Iraq – which could only be conducted by the Turkish Army Special Forces; the Army as a whole is too Shi’a and too difficult to weld into an anti-Maliki force – is something which the Iranian clerics in Tehran fear and are prepared to oppose.

Indeed, the key figure ostensibly involved in the potential coup is a general who has not been seen for at least two years, so concerned are the anti-Maliki figures with ensuring the safety of the proposed event.

This is not the first time rumors of a possible coup against the Maliki Government have surfaced. But Baghdad sources cite a significant number of indicators that this might be the time – if it was ever to occur – that it would have a chance of success. If not now, then the Iranian-sponsored groups, supported inside Iraq by actual Iranian special forces personnel, would grow sufficiently strong to prevent such an occurrence.

Moreover, the Iranian Government is certainly better-equipped to understand what is going on inside the Iraqi Army and Government than is the US Government.

Virtually none of the massive US Embassy staff in Baghdad speaks Arabic; most State Department and military personnel – and even Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) personnel – turn over too rapidly to acquire any real historical knowledge or deep contacts, and yet they dismiss any attempts to provide input, presumably for fear of being misled.

Meanwhile, the Iranian intelligence service, an element of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (Vezarat-e Ettela’at va Amniat-e Keshvar: VEVAK), has been directly observed by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs field operatives to control at least one key brothel (and almost certainly many more) in Baghdad, frequented by US officials based in the city.

Moreover, all of the women working in the facility speak only Farsi, not Arabic, and stay in situ only a few days before being “rotated out” with their intelligence take, to be replaced by fresh girls.

This confirms the obvious: that Tehran is engaged in a massive intelligence operation inside Iraq, and has the tools to do it well.

The lack of even a basic language capability in the US Embassy in
Baghdad confirms that the few US Army intelligence officers engaged “at the coal face”, working with Iraqi police and military units, are being pressed too hard to deliver intelligence and, at the same time, are not believed – or are ignored – at higher levels of the US policy structure.

This, in essence, confirms what this writer said in a speech to a US Army Command & General Staff College course on May 27, 2007:

“With Washington in the mode of thinking that all that matters is ‘how the war plays in Washington’ or the media, it is not surprising that the bureaucracies have failed to sense that what is underway in Iraq and Afghanistan are wars in which survival is at stake.

Not only the long-term survival of the West, which can be rationalized away as a long-term thing, and not immediately pressing, but also the survival of those who fight against the Coalition, who have a far greater sense of urgency than does Washington about how they fight the wars. And they are fighting for survival, which means that they [Iran and Syria] are taking the war more seriously than the Western public.”

The trends toward pivotal action in the region by any of the key players – the Iraqi coup planners, the Iranian clerical leadership, the increasingly isolated Syrian President, and the Turkish General Staff – will depend on how much will they have. The Turkish General Staff, for example, failed to forestall the re-election of the Islamist Government on July 22, 2007, and may be unable to prevent the election to the Presidency of Foreign Minister Gul.

Syria and Iran, both, have demonstrated a strong commitment to supporting proxy war against Israel and the US in the past, but have almost prayed that Israel or the US would start direct conflict against them. Will Tehran and Damascus have the will now to do what they have prepared so long to do?

The US, essentially, is doing nothing. It has not used well the time which continuing the conflict has bought, and the gradual successes on the ground under the generalship of Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of the Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I), is insufficient to meet US strategic needs, which are essentially driven by the timetable of Washington, and particularly the 2008 US Presidential election.

The US, then, has no option but to hope that its increasingly fractious relationship with Prime Minister al-Maliki is ended by Maliki’s ouster.

Certainly, the US is doing nothing to support the Iranian population in removing the Iranian leadership through a psychological strategy campaign, and nor is it doing anything to effectively, and carefully, replace Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and put in place a leader who would break with Tehran (and make peace with Israel), such as Rifa’at al-Assad.

GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Senior Editor Yossef Bodansky, writing in a prescient March 20, 2006, Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis report entitled "As Syrian Government-in-Exile About to Form, the Battle is Joined Between Utopianism and Islamism on the One Hand, and Strategic Interests on the Other", noted:

The only viable alternative to the sustenance of Bashar’s reign or the Khaddam-Bayanouni alliance is the resurrection of the traditional alliance of the minorities and the urban élite blocs on the basis of economic liberalization in, and modernization of, Syria.

This has long been the position of Dr Rifa’at al-Assad and the traditional elements of the minorities bloc leadership he represents. The ascent to power in Damascus of a Rifa’at-led alliance would also further the strategic interests of the US as he has repeatedly promised to stop the Syrian sponsorship of terrorism and insurgencies against all of Syria’s neighbors.

Presently, Rifa’at al-Assad is besieged by representatives of both leading minority and urban élite families to continue to challenge Bashar and return to power in Damascus.

But the US seems to have no coherent policy toward Syria, urging simply “democracy” in Syria.

See: Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, September 12, 2005: Saudi Leadership Launches Initiative With US at Secret Paris Meeting to Topple Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, the US’ only option seems, on the one hand, to be to threaten direct military action against Iran by deploying two highly-vulnerable carrier battle groups (and possibly now a third) into the Arabian Sea, or, on the other hand, to promote the prospect of bilateral negotiations with the Iranian clerics (the plan by US former Secretary of State James Baker, seen in Tehran as a sign of surrender by the US).

This begs the question, then, as to whether the US has a coherent strategy with regard to Iraq. Certainly, Tehran and Damascus do.

And the al-Maliki Government also seems to have made a firm commitment toward joining the Tehran-Damascus alliance.

Senior al-Maliki advisors have made a point of visiting Damascus recently, and taking large cases of cash with them. Beneath the ideology, this is something which the key leaders in Damascus, Tehran, and Baghdad understand: cash, and the retention of power and privilege.

Those in power in both Damascus and Tehran know that their support bases are shaky, which is why both require conflict to galvanize public support around the “state” (ie: the leadership).

That the Iranian clerics are unrepresentative of the Iranian population has long been evident, which is why most critics of the Iraq Study Group recommendations, led by former US Secretary of State James Baker, believe that Washington-Tehran negotiations merely strengthen the anti-Western clerics and undermine the position of the essentially pro-Western Iranian population.

The US-based blog-site, Anti-Mullah, run by experienced, Farsi-speaking security expert Alan Peters, noted on July 29, 2007: “Recent polls from inside and outside Iran indicate that 92 percent of the Iranian population is against this regime, but for whom should they rise up?

For whom should they overthrow the Mullahs? And get what in exchange?”

Peters went on to note:

Having examined all aspects of the situation on the ground to the extent to which I am privy, the West has to have two main goals:

1. To put their backing behind two or more of Iran's major tribes, like the Qashghai and Bakhtiari, perhaps in combination with the Boyer-Ahmadi, which all have tribal borders with each other. And oil rich Khuzestan.

2. To constitutionally establish a separation of church and state (the tribes will not object as they hate the Mullahs so badly they will enjoy poking the secular stick into their eye).

Reason? The Mullahs wanted and tried and pushed to replace the traditional tribal leaders (Khans) with a Mullah appointed by Tehran. To the extent of executing some of those same leaders, notably from the Qashghai tribe.

FULL AntiMullah TEXT http://noiri.blogspot.com/2007/07/god-is-being-removed-and-replaced-by.html

At the same time, while most Iranian opposition leaders are falling by the wayside through lack of credibility, at least one, the nationalist leader of the overarching Azadegan movement, Dr Assad Homayoun, has retained respect by refusing to accept financial support by anyone other than Iranians, and by supporting the approach that the tribal and regional groups should work toward a secular state, and has also worked toward the theory that the Iranian Armed Forces and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC: Pasdaran) should remove support for the clerics and support a popular movement aimed at introducing secular governance, even if temporarily under military leadership.

Meanwhile, reinforcing the reports that the situation inside Iraq is transforming toward a possible nationalist military coup, reliable Baghdad sources noted that, on July 31, 2007, nine senior Iraqi Army generals collectively submitted their resignations to the Iraqi General Staff, ostensibly protesting both the al-Maliki Iraqi Government and the US Government, citing “the conduct of the state by the US occupiers and the Iraqi Government”. The complex chain of events and their strategic ramifications thus appeared, as at July 31, 2007, to be well in motion.

Khaddam can keep Bayanouni and the Ikhwani on his side only if he promises to ensure the Islamic character of the government, something which is not conducive to development of real democracy or economic empowerment, and, most important, out-perform Bashar in providing support for the Islamist-jihadist insurrection in Iraq and against Israel (which gains the Syrian Government Tehran’s support and all-important free oil); hardly a contribution to the US strategic interests in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.”

WHY THE ANTIMULLAH DEDICATION ?

Those who oppose the mullahs oppose Islam itself; eliminate the mullahs and Islam shall disappear in fifty years. It is only the mullahs who can bring the people into the streets and make them die for Islam—begging to have their blood shed for Islam. Ayatollah Khomeini

If we...allow our rulers to be chosen by the ordinary people from among ordinary politicans, we will not have to wait long before we see the end of Islam.- Ayatollah Komeini






Islam is not Christianity...Islam is the religion of agitation, revolution, blood, liberation and martyrdom.

Sheikh Morteza Motahari, quoted in ‘Islamic Movements in the Last One Hundred Years,’ Tehran, 1979



People say, ‘Don’t lie!’

But the principle is different when we serve the will of Allah.

He taught Man to lie so that we can save ourselves at moments of difficulty and confuse our enemies...

People say, ‘Don’t kill!’

But the Almighty Himself taught us how to kill...So shall we not kill when it is necessary for the triumph of the Faith? ...

Deceit, trickery, conspiracy, cheating, stealing and killing are nothing but means.

Muhammad Navab-Safavi, key figure in the fundamentalist movement, ‘Islamic Society and Government,’

Tehran, 1946 (Nazi Time Frame!)

See complete dissertation at the permalink below

http://alanpetersnewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2007/07/truth-project-about-islam.html

GOD IS BEING REMOVED AND REPLACED BY ALLAH plus a SOLUTION to the Iran Situation

You guessed it 'IN GOD WE TRUST' IS GONE!!!

(Reality is that they minted 50,000 of these "errors"

but have now put God back)

While the liberal left and the ACLU scream holy murder if the Christian God is mentioned anywhere, specially in schools or government related or even vaguely connected venues, Islamic school courses, like the obligatory 3-week one in 7th Grade California schools are being promoted. As is the thinly disguised project shown below.

Admittedly, "Allah" is a pagan idol adopted by the prophet Mohammad as his version of God and was there thousands of years before islam, still, proponents claim it as a religion and it should thus be equally banned in schools and any other government funded organization.

Instead, taxpayer funds in New York are being used to build a huge Islamic madrasseh for Arabic speakers and to promote (indirectly) the religion of Islam.

This is a project run by people like the cunning convert Susan Douglass of the Council on Islamic Education and the Islamic Society of North America.

They're very well organized and have been orchestrating this comprehensive educational plan for many years with great success.

Douglass has been very active and effective in Islamicizing the curriculum and textbooks used in the California public schools, the largest textbook market in the country and a bellweather for the U.S.

This is how programs like the required three week course on Islam for all California 7th graders get implemented.

Check out the extensive list of Islamist organizations working on this project under "Community Engagement." It all looks very innocent and legitimate on the surface.

Hat Tip to Janet

http://www.theislamproject.org/education/Lessonplans.htm

Meanwhile, our intelligence and foreign affairs agencies, unwilling to deal forcefully with Iran are trying to use former very left wing socialist and communist minded personalities to infiltate Islamic Iran and try to sow seeds for gathering information. These peope are so "useless" that even the Russians, who would benefit the most from any rise to power of like-minded people has done nothing to support the poorly chosen infiltrators. Read more below:

Received from Parkhash

A few days ago, I had a chance meeting with an old friend who used to be a student in Austria in the 1960s. Our conversation drifted to the subject of the 4 or 5 Iranian-Americans who are currently being detained in Iran.

He clearly remembered Haleh Esfandiari as an active anti-Shah member of the Confederation of Iranian Students with leftist tendencies.

As we know she later returned to Iran and married Shaoul Bakhash, a British educated Iraqi Jew, who was then a correspondent for various foreign news agencies, including the BBC and Kayhan International.

My friend also remembered Ali Shakeri, the so-called Peace building citizen in Orange County, who is now a co-detainee with the rest the group. Shakeri was also a confederation member (of course of a much lower significance than Esfandiari) in Austria before he moved to America.

What is interesting in such findings is that both of these so-called democracy activist, have a long history of working to overthrow the Shah's government in favour of a Leftie-Akhundi regime. (Alan: like the MEK - Mojaheddin).

Ironically the Shah's government didn't touch these characters and even allowed them to return to and work in Iran.

Let us not forget that none of these detainees are opposed to the so-called "reformists", such as Rafsanjani and Khatami's regimes.

(Alan: these Mullahs are also large scale murderers but maybe killed a few less than Ahmadi-Nejad might - specially when he gets his hands on nuclear weapons in greater quantities than he has already - presently about half a dozen).

They were sent to Iran as the foot soldiers for that faction of the American political interests who favour a partnership with a moderate (????) wing of the Islamic republic of Iran.

Obviously Ahmadinejad's regime is not easily fooled by such tricks.

(Alan: Nor willing to waste time on stupid overtures. He hanged 16 people last week for "thuggery" (inappropritate social behavior) and plans to hang another 20 in the coming week.

Nowhere is there any record of where they were arrested, if there were a trial held and what the exact crime was they committed. Thuggery and moral turpitude, which the plural word "obash" describes in Persian is the official catch-all charge for their deaths.

The only notable identifier in all this are the faces of several of the men hanged also seen among the anti-AhmadiNejad students protest at the recent Amir Kabir University demonstration. Being against him is thuggery - punishable by death!

Recent polls from inside and outside Iran indicate that 92% of the Iranian population is against this regime but for whom should they rise up? For whom should they overthrow the Mullahs? And get what in exchange?

They overthrew the monarchy and got what? Sheer hell on earth in the form of purveyors of heaven. Now they want to know the cure is not worse than the sickness.

For instance if they might likely get the MEK Mojaheddin instead of the Mullahs. Wouldn't be much worse for the general populace but politically on the global scene much worse for the world as Russia would then have an inside track, way beyond what is there already with the Mullahs, if the Marxist-Islamist MEK takes charge of Iran.

Having examined all aspects of the situation on the ground to the extent to which I am privy, the West has to have two main goals:

1. To put their backing behind two or more of Iran's major tribes, like the Qashghai and Bakhtiari, perhaps in combination with the Boyer-Ahmadi, which all have tribal borders with each other. And oil rich Khuzestan.

2. To constitutionally establish a separation of church and state (the tribes will not object as they hate the Mullahs so badly they will enjoy poking the secular stick into their eye).

Reason? The Mullahs wanted and tried and pushed to replace the traditional tribal leaders (Khans) with a Mullah appointed by Tehran. To the extent of executing some of those same leaders, notably from the Qashghai tribe.

The new Constitution must simply state that NO religion is the religion of the country (not the case even under the Monarchy). And that the separation of church and state is so firmly driven into the document that it would be impossible to weaken it as time went by.

AND, finally, the Methodology:

Simplistically, these three tribes - for example - would revolt against the central Mullah regime and be assisted in this by he West and Israel. They border on Khuzestan, so they can draw upon the oil rich province to join them and prevent seccession.

These tribes used to be fierce fighters traditionally and have quite large numbers, going into the millions, so would become a force to be reckoned with and because of terrain, not easily suppressed.

As opposed to the Kurds and Azaris, who desire a separationist reward, these are "landlocked" and may desire a federal type of set up with their tribal areas equivalent to the "States" in the USA.

So here in a matter of a few paragraphs is the formula.

Time permitting I shall put this into more analyzed detail on the site. Such as this system being more difficult to penetrate by Socialist or Marxist ideologies. And more easily set up to confront religion because the Khans have power to rule by decree and can thus oppose any Mullahs showing up in their territories.

Finally, since these tribes have rivalries and might need some political refereeing, a Constitutional Monarchy - somewhat along the lines of Britain but with greater final arbitration standing, could prove an effective structural or umbrella solution.

The Supreme court tries to arbitrate in the USA but a monarchy with thousands of years of tradition in Iran would be more effective for the new Iran.

The Monarchy does not have to revert to a previous dynasty but could be one the major tribal leaders jointly accept. Including the Pahlavi one under which some of them died (in early days) but under which they also prospered.

CHECK OUT THE OTHER PAGES

Apart from the Daily Terror News postings (with the occasional hiccup) on a dedicated page, other pages such as News Views, Multilingual, Videos and Graphics have new items posted quite frequently, so have a look at what is going on at those pages.

Links to them are in the left hand column.

Otherwise you might miss some good stuff. Including a few chuckles.

Simply looking at the Terror News Briefs, once a day, presented as descriptive titles with a link to the article, gives an instant overview of events but also offers a deeper look at a subject of interest to you.

For instance, in today's post there is a heading "Iraqi leader tells Bush: Get Gen. Petraeus out". Should pique your interest as to motive and the reason - apart from who is doing the telling.

ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS MINISTER DEMANDS NUCLEAR FUEL

Australian FM rebuffs Pakistan over uranium sale to India

SYDNEY: Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Friday dismissed a plea from a Pakistani minister to supply uranium to his country, saying the South Asian nation did not have any nuclear power stations.

Australia on Thursday said it was considering selling uranium to India after New Delhi finalises a landmark civilian nuclear deal with the United States.

Pakistan’s Religious Affairs Minister Ijazul Haq said if Canberra agreed to sell uranium to India, it should also consider selling the resource to its South Asian nuclear rival.

Alan note: to provide it to Islamic jihadists or Taleban in Waziristan? Sell it to Iran? Advance Al Qaeda aims with hard to obtain nuclear capability?

BY THE WAY: remember that the Taleban are Pakistanis and not Afghans as so many mistakenly believe. They are not of Afghan origin.

“Pakistan should be considered alongside India by countries that are working in this region to maintain the region’s balance of power,” Haq told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The minister said Islamabad would use the uranium for energy purposes. “Pakistan’s nuclear program is totally peaceful,” he said. “If we are going to go further into nuclear research, it is going to be for energy because we are suffering from power shortages.”

But Downer downplayed the request, saying the religion minister may not be the best person to comment on uranium sales.

“Pakistan, I might be wrong, but to the best of my knowledge anyway, have never approached us on this issue before,” Downer told Southern Cross Radio.

“And I’m not sure the minister for religious affairs could really be termed an expert on this subject, he’d be an expert on religious affairs.

I’m not sure about power and energy generation in Pakistan being his area of profound expertise, but I might be being unfair to him, I simply don’t know.”

Alan note: According to fundamental Islam, all knowledge is contained in the Koran and anything outside it has no validity or should be ignored. With that thought as the base, the Minister of Religious Affairs sees no need to know anything about nuclear matters. As an expert on the Koran he is an expert on everything! Even if it were not invented 1,400 years ago.

CAIR STATING THEY WILL IGNORE THE JOHN DOE ACT AND SUE

CAIR DISABLED THE COMMENTS ON THIS VIDEO, HERE IS A COPY WITH THE COMMENTS ENABLED - FEEL FREE TO COMMENT - courtesy http://www.freerepublic.com/

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BY THE WAY - IN BRITAIN WHEN A LAWSUIT BY AN ISLAMIC GROUP AGAINST A GOVERNMENT ORGANZIATION FAILED AND THEY LOST THE SUIT, KNOW WHAT THEY DID?

ISSUED A RELIGIOUS DEATH FATWA AGAINST THE GROUP THEY SUED AND TO WHOM THEY LOST IN THE COURTS.

Can't do it legally and peacefully in the Courts of Justice - issue a death warrant fatwa instead! Islam the religion of peace!

America and Europe be VERY WORRIED!

WHO IS BARACK OBAMA?

U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black Muslim from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white atheist from Wichita,Kansas.

Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii. When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a radical Muslim from Indonesia.

When Obama was 6-years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a Muslim school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim.

He Is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school."

Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best.

In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.

Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.

Wahabism is the radical teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world.

Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when seeking Major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background.

Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.

The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level.

Barack Hussein Obama (remind you of "Saddam Hussein" of Iraq as a name?) has gone on record he will talk with all rogue heads of state like Cuban Castro, Venezuelan Chavez and Iran's Ahmadi-Nejad if he becomes President. Will he also make Cindy Sheehan his secreteary of State?

MARMOULAK - LIZARDS

Another satirical Persian, illustrated song decrying and criticizing the Mullahs, their hypocrisy, their suppression of the populace and their dirty bad habits. Worth watching for the amusement factor.

RADIO HOST CONFRONTS MOSLEM GUEST & Jihadists Online

Long article - big gaps in the scrolling - just jump or scroll down till you get to the main feature links. Worth the read.

JIHADISM ONLINE - A study of how al-Qaida and radical Islamist groups use the Internet for terrorist purposes

ROGAN, Hanna FFI/RAPPORT-2006/00915FORSVARETS FORSKNINGSINSTITUTT Norwegian Defence Research EstablishmentP O Box 25, NO-2027 Kjeller, Norway

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:2gfpOG6LxJ0J:rapporter.ffi.no/rapporter/2006/00915.pdf+jamestown.org+jehad+manual&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&client=firefox-a

CHANGE OF PACE - RANT & SMILE

There are so many undercurrents and pressures building up in the Middle East specially on Israel, that it's exhausting and giving some people a headache.

Iranians - INCLUDING the Mullahs are also stressing out as brinkmanship is hovering an attack over their heads and worrying those in the West with families back home.

So, a change of pace and some very soft humor. Lots of serious stuff coming down the pike.

Current earthquakes could be a precursor to man made earth shaking after the US nuclear carrier arrives in the region.

Regarding many of those in Iran, the 65% under the age of 30-years and children of parents who created this whole mess (with lots of help from Jimmy Carter and the Soviets) I say: "you made your bed now lie in it".

Hard watching so many worthy and valuable former people of importance in Iran's monarchy working as food servers in schools, or three and four star generals in low level jobs because they were honest.

Nor did they deserve the death and destruction that the parents of the current Iranian youth inflicted on them and their families. And on me for that matter.

May sound heartless but many innocents will die if the West attacks Iran but as they say in Farsi "Nousheh-joun-e-toun".

What goes around comes around.

End of rant, now the smile.


Attending a wedding for the first time, a little girl whispered to her mother, "Why is the bride dressed in white?"

"Because white is the color of happiness, and today is the happiest day of her life."

The child thought about this for a moment, then asked, "So why is the groom wearing black?"

<><><><><><> <><><><>

A little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, was running as fast as she could, trying not to be late for Mass. As she ran she prayed, "Dear Lord, please don't let me be late! Dear Lord, please don't let me be late!"

While she was running and praying, she tripped on a curb and fell, getting her clothes dirty and tearing her dress. She got up, brushed herself off, and started running again.

As she ran, she once again began to pray, "Dear Lord, please don't let me be late... And please, don't shove me either!"

<><><><><><> <><><><>

A religion teacher asked her class why Joseph and Mary took Jesus with them to Jerusalem .

A small child replied: "They couldn't get a baby-sitter? "

<><><><><><> <><><><>

Three boys are in the school yard bragging about their fathers.
The first boy says, "My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a poem, they give him $50."

The second boy says, "That's nothing. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a song, they give him $100."

The third boy says, "I got you both beat. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a sermon, and it takes eight people to collect all the money!"

<><><><><><> <><><><>

An elderly woman died last month. Having never married, she requested no male pallbearers. In her handwritten instructions for her memorial service, she wrote, "They wouldn't take me out while I was alive, I don't want them to take me out when I'm dead."

<><><><><><> <><><><>

A police recruit was asked during the exam, "What would you do if you had to arrest your own significant other?"

"Call for backup," he responded.

AMEN BROTHER!

<><><><><><> <><><><>

The religion teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds. After explaining the commandment to "honor thy father and thy mother," she asked "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?"

Without missing a beat, one little boy answered, "Thou shall not kill."

<><><><><><> <><><><>

In religion class they were teaching how God created everything, including human beings. Little Johnny seemed especially intent when they told him how Eve was created out of one of Adam's ribs.

Later in the week his mother noticed him lying down as though he were ill, and said, "Johnny, what is the matter?"

Little Johnny responded, "I have pain in my side. I think I'm going to have a wife."

<><><><><><> <><><><>

Two boys were walking home from church after hearing a strong preaching on the devil. One said to the other, "What do you think about all this Satan stuff?"

The other boy replied, "Well, you know how Santa Claus turned out. It's probably just your Dad."

<><><><><><>

IRAQI ARAB STREET RISING UP IN OUR FAVOR

War On Terror: Not listening to Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, Iraqi Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders have formalized an alliance with U.S. forces and against al-Qaida.

The Arab street is rising up, and they're on our side.

The cut-and-run Democrats have long argued that our presence in Iraq has merely stirred things up and given al-Qaida an effective recruiting tool.

Well, we've certainly stirred things up — and thanks to the success of our surgin' general, David Petraeus, we have a bevy of new Iraqi recruits. Except they've got al-Qaida in their cross hairs.

On Saturday, members of the 1st Cavalry Division based near Taji brokered a formal agreement between Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders to join forces against al-Qaida and other jihadists. The Sunni and Shiite agreed to use members of more than 25 local tribes to protect the area around Taji, just 12 miles north of Baghdad.

The deal is just the latest example of the progress Democrats claim isn't happening in Iraq — a series of deals with various tribes and militia groups that at one point were part of the insurgency. But it's the first involving both Sunni and Shiite sheiks together.

SYMBOLIC TOAST TO THE FALLEN

As you entered the banquet hall this evening, you may have noticed a small table in a place of honor.

It is set for one. Let me explain.

The military caste is filled with symbolism. This table is our way of symbolizing the fact that members of our profession of arms are missing from our midst. They are our fallen comrades. We call them "Brothers." They are unable to be with us this evening and so we remember them because of their dedication to their country.

This table set for one is small -- Symbolizing the frailty of one Soldier alone against his enemies.

ALL: Remember!

The Tablecloth is white -- Symbolizing the purity of their intentions to respond to their country's call to arms.

ALL: Remember!

The single Red Rose displayed in a vase reminds us of the families and loved ones of our comrades-in-arms who keep their memories alive lest we forget.

ALL: Remember!

The Red Ribbon tied so prominently on the vase is a reminder of the blood shed to protect the liberty so loved by our country.

ALL: Remember!

A Slice of Lemon is on the bread plate to remind us of their bitter fate.

ALL: Remember!

There is Salt upon the bread plate -- Symbolic of the families tears.

ALL: Remember!

The Glass is inverted -- They cannot toast with us this night.

ALL: Remember! The Chair -- The chair is empty. They are not here.

ALL: Remember! Remember! --

All of you who served with them and called them comrades, who depended upon their might and aid, and relied upon them, for surely, they have not forsaken you.

IRAN'S CLERICAL SPYMASTERS

Iran’s clerical spymasters



By Mahan Abedin


The recent detentions of four Iranian-Americans in Iran on chargesrelatingto national security have touched off a flurry of speculation about therealmotives behind the arrests.

Much of the speculation is centered on political motives. Anoft-repeatedargument is that Dr Haleh Esfandiari (head of the Middle East Programat theWoodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), Parnaz Azima (ajournalist for Radio Farda, the
Persian-language service of Voice of America/Radio Free Europe), DrKianTajbaksh (an urban-planning expert and a consultant to the World Bankondevelopment projects), and Ali Shakeri (a founder and board member oftheCenter for Citizen Peace building at the University of California,Irvine)have fallen victim to a hostage-taking game by the Iranian and USgovernments.

The detentions of the Iranian-Americans - it is argued - are inresponse tothe detentions of Iranian diplomats and intelligence officers in Iraq.Morebroadly, it is often argued that the detentions must be understood inthecontext of worsening tensions between Iran and the United States.

These arguments not only assume the complete innocence of the accusedbutmoreover dabble in amateurish analysis. The idea that the Iraniangovernment- as cruel and incompetent as it may sometimes be - would detain itsowncitizens to settle scores with the US over Iraq-related issues isdownrightsilly.

This article looks at this sensitive and emotive issue from a purelysecurity/intelligence perspective. The arguments made here should in nowaybe interpreted as support for the Iranian government’s position.

Fromthestandpoint of the author, we simply do not know the precisecircumstancessurrounding these detentions. But to assume the innocence of theaccusedsimply on account of their being well-known and respected academics,journalists and consultants is just as dangerous as assuming theirguilt.

To grasp the different dimensions of this issue, it is important toform abasic understanding of the Islamic Republic’s intelligence community.Rigorous academic research on Iran’s post-revolutionary intelligencecommunity is almost non-existent. And much of the existing researchtends tofocus on the wrong things. For instance, researchers tend to obsessover theextent of continuity and discontinuity between the pre-revolutionaryandpost-revolutionary intelligence communities. While this can be a worthwhile- albeit esoteric - exercise, it runs the risk of blinding theresearcher to the most important aspects of the subject.

More than 28 years after the revolution, the Islamic Republic hascreated an intelligence community that is markedly different - in terms of personnel,constitutional arrangement, ideology and methodology - to thepre-revolutionary intelligence community. The country’s leadingintelligenceagency, the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security, is worldsapartfrom the shah’s notorious SAVAK (Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-eKeshvar, orOrganization for Intelligence and National Security). Since itsformation in1984, the Ministry of Intelligence has deliberately cultivated a lowprofile(as opposed to the effusive and sometimes flamboyant SAVAK) and goneout ofits way to convince political masters and citizens alike that it is anintelligence organization as opposed to a secret-police force.

Another mistake of Western researchers has been to overestimate thestrengthand efficiency of the post-revolutionary intelligence community. Thisispartly due to relentless disinformation on the breadth and depth ofactivities of organizations such as the Ministry of Intelligence andtheIslamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force.

But more important, genuine researchers and spies alike are oftenfooled byfirst impressions. Indeed, Iranian intelligence officers often seemmarkedlydifferent from other officials and servants of the Islamic Republic.Unlikethose of other important bodies - in particular the Foreign Ministryand thestate broadcaster - the Intelligence Ministry’s personnel reflect thediversity of Iranian society. Moreover, the ministry’s personnel areoftenof a much higher quality - better educated, well travelled andbroad-minded.

But this first impression can be profoundly deceptive.
For all its sophistication, the Intelligence Ministry is ultimatelysubordinate to strict clerical control. It is instructive that everyminister of intelligence from 1984 onward has been a cleric. Aside fromafew clerical-dominated organizations such as the Assembly of Expertsand theCouncil of Guardians, no other organization or institution inpost-revolutionary Iran (not even the presidency) has been subject tothislevel of clerical subordination.

This arrangement reflects two realities: first, it underscores theuniqueimportance of the Intelligence Ministry to the clerics who control thecommanding heights of the Iranian government; second, it reflectswidespreadfears inside the inner sanctums of the Islamic regime that the ministry- onaccount of its diverse personnel and higher levels of professionalism -cannot be fully trusted.

While the Islamic Republic’s intelligence agencies are the mostprofessionaland capable in the Middle East (with the possible exception of Israel),theyhave found it very difficult to operate effectively in the West. Sincetheearly 1980s, Iranian intelligence has been able to develop formidableintelligence networks throughout the Middle East, Central Asia andSoutheastAsia. But the Iranians have found it almost impossible to achieve even modest gains in Western Europe and North America.

A combination offactors,including lack of language skills, unfamiliarity with Western cultures,andvery limited liaison relationships with Western intelligence services,is atthe heart of this failure.

The Intelligence Ministry in particular is notorious for spectacularfailures in the West. Its core operations in the West (which mostlyrevolvearound the penetration of dissident Iranian organizations and themanagementof covert arms-procurement rings) have often been easily disrupted byWestern intelligence services. Moreover, the ministry has often failedtoprovide adequate care of its agents.

The Intelligence Ministry tends to arrange meetings with its agents inIstanbul, Athens, Larnaka and Beirut. Very often these agents areeitherinterdicted at Western European airports (on their way to theirdestination), which provides a suitable psychological environment forWestern intelligence to “turn” them into double agents, or they arepickedup by Greek or Turkish intelligence at the point of arrival, whichexposesthe agents to even graver exploitation by hostile and friendlyintelligenceservices alike.

Its operational successes and failures notwithstanding, another keyfeatureof the Iranian intelligence community is its relative lack ofpoliticization. This is often overlooked by specialists on Iranianintelligence and Iran analysts in general. There is a tendency topositiondifferent components of the intelligence community into the dizzyinglycomplex factional politics of the Islamic Republic. Thus theIntelligenceMinistry is often projected as pro-reformist whereas the intelligenceorganizations connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps areseenas naturalallies of the so-called “hardliners”.

The reality is very different. Despite the diversity of its personnel,theIslamic Republic’s intelligence community - as opposed to its politicalsociety - is remarkably cohesive. The designers and watchdogs of thepost-revolutionary intelligence community have expended tremendouseffortsto ensure that the intelligence community remains free from politicalmanipulation.

This is a reflection of the revolutionaries’ desire to avoid themistakesand abuses of the pre-revolutionary era when the SAVAK was far tooclose tothe political elites and hence prone to manipulation and corruption.This isone of the greatest enduring strengths of Iranian intelligence and thesingle most important factor that distinguishes it from other MiddleEasternintelligence communities.

Nevertheless, since the early 1990s, the Intelligence Ministry hascommittednumerous abuses. The most notorious were the so-called “chain murders”ofthe late 1990s when allegedly “rogue” agents inside the ministrymurderedseveral dissident political activists, writers and artists.

AlthoughtheIntelligence Ministry owned up to the crimes, its contention that“rogue”agents controlled by Saeed Emami (a US-educated head of internalsecurity atthe ministry) had planned and perpetrated these murders has never beenseriously tested by competent investigative bodies.

Conflicting conspiracy theories notwithstanding, the tension betweentheministry’s professional core and the absolute determination of a groupoftightly knit “spy-clerics” to oversee and direct the most sensitiveintelligence issues is the likely cause of these abuses. While it is nosurprise that the Islamic Republic of Iran has, from the very outset,been amajor target for US intelligence-gathering and sabotage operations, thesheer breadth and depth of US intelligence activities in Islamic Iran are rarely acknowledged.

The Americans have purposefully cultivated the myth that the IslamicRepublic is a “denied area” to Western intelligence, whereas in realitythecountry - on account of its open borders, divided political society,Westernized middle classes and large diaspora community - can beregarded asthe very opposite.

US intelligence activities in Iran in the 1980s were focused onrecruitingagents from inside the civil service, the military and private sector.Thesenetworks revolved around conventional “agency-agent” relationships andweredirectly controlled by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) stations inTurkey,Greece and the former West Germany.

But despite their best efforts, US intelligence operations camecrashingdown in spectacular fashion in early 1989 when the IntelligenceMinistrybegan releasing detailed information on the detection and destructionof USspy networks inside the air force, army, civil service and privatesector.After each carefully controlled leak to the national and internationalpress, the scale of the disaster became more apparent.

This author has spoken to several Iranians and Americans who were closely involved withtheaffair, and all are adamant that virtually the entire US intelligenceapparatus in Iran had been detected and successfully disrupted by theIranians.

The then minister of intelligence, Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri (who isregarded as the vanguard of a special class of clerical spymasters),brokecover in April 1989 with a series of interviews to the national andinternational press alleging that his ministry had dealt the mostseriousblow to CIA operations and prestige in the agency’s history.

This may be exaggerated, but there was little denying the scale of theCIA’shumiliation. This was exacerbated by details that some of the Americanspieshad been “turned” into double agents barely a few months after theirinitialrecruitment. Some had been feeding their American controllers misinformation as early as the beginning of 1985.

While Western intelligence was no doubt impressed and surprised (inequalmeasure) by the Iranians’ capabilities, a careful review of this affairsuggests that US incompetence - as opposed to Iranian prowess - was thechief factor in the unraveling of these networks. Many of the agentsthathad been recruited were simply fundamentally unsuited to intelligencework.

Some had even discussed their ties to the Americans with close familymembers. Moreover, the Americans had failed to give even basic trainingtotheir agents. None of the agents displayed a satisfactory knowledge ofcounter-surveillance, counter-
interrogation, basic communicationsecurity,and deception techniques.

In one instance, an Iranian RF-4 pilot and colonel in the air force hadbeentaken to a safe house in West Germany and given a two-day crash course.Colonel Bahram Ikani was identified as an American spy by a jointoperationinvolving military intelligence (G2) and the Ministry of Intelligence,barely five months into his assignment. But instead of arresting andcharging Ikani, the Intelligence Ministry “turned” him into a doubleagentand designed and implemented a carefully controlled misinformationpipelinethat had the Americans fooled for two years.

After exhausting his usefulness, armed agents of military intelligenceburstinto Ikani’s office in late 1988 and arrested him on charges of treasonandespionage. Apparently the Intelligence Ministry had failed to honor itspledge either to pardon Ikani or substantially reduce his sentence intheevent of his full cooperation. Bahram Ikani was executed on November 4,1989, the 10th anniversary of the seizure of the US Embassy (dubbed the“denof spies”) in Tehran.

Badly bruised by its catastrophic failure, the CIA embarked on adifferenttrack, focusing far less on recruiting “agents” than developing as wideabase of contacts and informants as possible. Aside from reflecting theresults of a “trial and error” process, this change of approach wasmoreconversant with shifting political and strategic priorities.

By 1990 the US government had given up all hope that the IslamicRepubliccould be significantly weakened (let alone overthrown) throughintelligence-led subversion.

The priority now was to develop along-termintelligence profile on Iran by using more subtle and less conventionalmeans.

To recruit Iranians in western Europe (who have easier access to theirhomeland than fellow expatriates in North America), innocuous-sounding“consultancies” were set up in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Thework ofthese “consultancies” has been massively boosted by the spread of theInternet andelectronic-mail communication from the mid-1990s onward.

The “consultancies” in question would not just deal with political,economicand military matters, but often they would request information on theIranian education and health systems and even such unlikely spheres ofactivity as town planning, architecture and the construction industry.Thekey point is matching the requested information to the profession,skillsand social network of the target.

In many instances, the informationitselfis of little or no value; what is important is to cultivate the target-make him or her develop the habit of volunteering information - andultimately task him or her to facilitate access to important centers ofknowledge and power inside Iran.

The trick is to make the target feel like a “consultant” rather than an“informant” or “agent”. Very often the CIA has minimal contact with thetarget. The relationships are handled by subcontractors, and the CIAonlyassumes direct control when the target is either beginning to produceintelligence-quality information (or breaching the “CX” threshold, asit isknown in British intelligence) or has managed to secure access to people who can.

At this stage, it is difficult to assess the extent of this approach’ssuccesses and failures. What is beyond doubt is that hundreds (possiblythousands) of Iranian expatriates in western Europe, North America andtheMiddle East have been effectively recruited by the CIA (and other USintelligence agencies) without their knowledge. Broadly speaking, thesepeople are highly educated and often come from the very top of theirprofessions; which ranges from medicine, engineering and the law tomorepolitically oriented careers such as journalism and political andmilitaryanalysis.

The great majority of these people are apolitical, and they certainlydo notfit the profile of Iranians who have any axes to grind against theIslamicRepublic. Moreover, these activities are not directly tied to the moreovertly political programs that the US government has promoted inrecentyears, such as allocating tens of millions of dollars to promoting“democracy” in Iran and organizing workshops for Iranian journalistsandnon-governmental activists in western Europe and Dubai.

This “consultancy”-led approach is certainly the gravest intelligencethreatto Iran. It presents a danger to the Islamic Republic because in itsindividual constituent parts it appears innocuous and sometimes evencompatible with Iranian interests. But in reality it is an insidiousthreatthat has the potential to outsmart and overwhelm Iraniancounterintelligence.

The central challenge facing Iranian authorities is how to manage theblurring of legitimate academic research and consulting activities fromthose that are controlled by US and other Western intelligence servicesandwhich - at the very least - do not have the best interests of the country at heart.

It is a formidable challenge and - aside from strengthening traditionalcounterintelligence assets - it requires innovative solutions. In thefirstinstance, the Iranian authorities ought to consider a “Freedom ofInformation Act” or something similar.

At the moment no suchlegislationexists, and this works to the detriment of genuine academic researchersandjournalists. Not knowing what information is classified and what isn’t (and,equally important, on what grounds) is terribly confusing and promotesaculture of abuse by the intelligence services and the judicialauthorities.

By creating a more open information society, the Iranian governmentwouldlessen the incentive for Western intelligence services to recruitindividualIranians (with all the exploitation and dangers that entails) to accessinformation that they cannot obtain through other means. Some of theinformation that the Americans seek on Iran is publicly available inmostWestern and some Eastern countries. This approach would have the addedadvantage of freeing up counterintelligence assets to detect anddisruptmore serious US and other Western espionage activities in Iran.

Moreover, the country’s media and academic laws (both at constitutionalandprofessional levels) are now seriously out of step with the developmentofIran’s vibrant information society, composed of independentjournalists,intrepid academics, private consultancies, private investigators andfreelance industrial spies, bloggers, and no fewer than 10,000non-governmental organizations. The state no longer has any firmcontrol onquality information, and it is about time it recognized this fact.

In recent years there has even been a proliferation of privatedetectiveagencies in Iran, investigating anything from extramarital affairs tofraudby company employees. And this is despite the fact that the nationalparliament (Majlis) refuses to pass a law that would legalize theactivitiesof such organizations.

Proper recognition for the country’s expanding private informationsocietywould constitute the first step in revising a set of entrenchedattitudestoward what does and doesn’t constitute intelligence. While this wouldlikely lessen political tensions with the West, it is unlikely todecreasemore conventional and sensitive Western intelligence operations inIran.

TEN YEARS FOR YOUNIS TSOULI

Younis Tsouli - "irhabi007" - was earlier this month jailed for ten years. It’s a good sentence for the cyber-jihad twit, someone who became fodder for television news shows like 60 Minutes. Wishing to show how al Qaeda was beating the pants off the good guys on the Internet, Tsouli was the perfect example for them, one of fearmongering at its finest.

Tsouli was called the “jihadist James Bond,” which would seem something of an insult to Ian Fleming, and was most often credited, as a so-called Godfather of al Qaeda’s cyberterrorism operation, with world wide distribution of videos of the murders of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl.

He was part of a “cyber-jihad” trio with Tariq al-Daour and Waseem Mughal - they pled guilty and were sent over for slightly less time.

However, Internet jihad is not quite like Iraq or Afghan jihad, none of the three became an expert in the study of inkjet cartridges and then set himself on fire in an attempt to get at airport patrons, like Kafeel Ahmed. Judge Charles Openshaw commented that the trio had used the Internet to encourage the killing of “kuffars” although “[Tsouli]” came no closer to a bomb than a keyboard.” There can be no argument with this, but also interesting was the idea that the case had uncovered a nascent plot of “45 Muslim doctors in the US who threatened to use car bombs and rocket grenades in terrorist attacks in their home country,” according to the Observer.

“The details of the terror discussions were found at the Shepherd’s Bush home of the [cyber-jihad trio’s} 23-year-old leader Younis Tsouli, reported the Evening Standard.
Fortunately, we have a copy of the e-mail chats on the “plot” and it’s certainly worth a look over (http://www.dickdestiny.com/007mails.doc).

By now, there is enough evidence on the books to indicate that al Qaeda terror men - or jihadists inspired by them - engage in the hatching of many plots, some of which are utter nonsense and a few of which have been carried out only to fail in everything except the generation of spectacular publicity, and claims from leaders which spit belligerently into the face of anyone with common sense. By example, “A recent terrorism plot in London and Scotland has America’s defense system on alert,

[Department of Homeland Security leader Michael Chertoff]” told the Los Angeles Times.

“If you look at that picture, you see an enemy that is improving itself...”
But back to the Tsouli plot on America.

“Recently, we have begun to understand that our dear and venerable shaikh OSAMA was send [sic] by Allah to be the thorn in the throat of all those who are hostile to the creed of ‘there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger,’” begins a series of recovered e-mails.

“So, despite the fact that we are not members of al-QA’IDA we are members of the trend, in that al-QA’IDA’s objective is the same as that of any united group or course of action. “We are 45 doctors and we are determined to undertake Jihad for Allah’s sake, and to take the battle inside damaged America, Allah willing.”

At this point, we begin to edit all the references to Allah’s will and willingness from the text for the sake of a less deadening narrative.

“The first target which would be penetrated by 9 brothers is one we know back to front; it is the naval base which gives shelter to the aircraft carrier Kennedy which is here now,” it reads.

“The anticipated number of pig casualties is 200-300 and the complete destruction of the Kennedy and 12 of its smaller support vessels as well as 13 Apaches. By the way, one of the brothers who is a military pilot will take part in the attack using one of the aircraft... His mission will be to give air cover after one of the brothers completes his task of targeting the main electricity generator in the town, and he will then confront any air support which comes to give aid. This will take 1.5 to 2 hours at the quickest.

He will direct them to locations where there are American soldiers, deceiving them that they are terrorists at that moment. After that, our brother will leave to spread terror in the town - let them taste the flavour of bombardment - and he will concentrate on the nightclubs.”

Although not indicated in the substance of the e-mails, the plotter is presumably referring to Mayport, Florida, which was the home port of the John F. Kennedy.
What the plotter does not seem to know - more shabby jihadi research - is the Kennedy was the dowager of the American carrier fleet.

Old and broken down, in recent years it regularly failed readiness inspections, so badly that its commander was relieved in 2001. This limited its deployments, resulting in it being more or less permanently moored at Mayport from 2005 until it was decommissioned earlier this year.

The jihadi is also a little off in his estimation of the Kennedy’s crew complement. Whereas he modestly estimates sinking the Kennedy will result in two to three hundred deaths, the ship’s company consisted of around three thousand crew and an additional twenty-five hundred attached as its air wing.

Which leads one to be suspicious the plotter has never actually seen the Kennedy or been to Mayport.

The Kennedy was to be attacked with six carbombs - specifically Chevrolets - and fishing boats driven by “American sisters” who had converted to Islam after 9/11.

If you are beginning to smirk, the next bits will do nothing to wipe it from your face.
“Petrol tanks” will be blown up with rocket-propelled grenades and the thought of it - “excuse me, tears are pouring from my eyes,” writes the plotter. He is saddened because the martyrs will have been burned beyond recognition, a point he makes repeatedly.

“[Our] experience of preparing car-bombs is zero, except for a method which one of the brothers who is an engineer invented, using 40 gas cylinders tied together with one detonator,” continues the plotter, leading one to imagine how forty cylinders will be shoehorned into a Chevy, perhaps a Suburban SUV.

Now comes the important part.

The six car bombs, writes the plotter, will hit EIGHT targets, including nightclubs where “naked women” dance so that additional casualties, “50-80 whores,” can be generated. “Allah willing,” of course.

The plotter will keep the US Air Force at bay with “a sophisticated anti-aircraft weapon - which the American forces have not used yet.”

The operation will conclude with a bombardment of the town and the entire thing will be photographed from the ground and the air for posterity. Three American Army soldiers will also be part of the operation.

After the attack is concluded, the next target, writes the jihadi, “[Don’t] be surprised - it’s an operation we have called ‘Operation to free the lions of Camp Delta.’” Camp Delta is the US terror gulag at Guantanamo.

“If you have any questions, please ask,” concludes the jihadi.

Perhaps this is to be taken at face value and it is wrong to cast a supercilious eye on such e-mail chatter, recovered during legal proceedings from the war on terror.

On the other hand, it might be good for morale and the critical facility to not only view the jihadis and their desires to kill “naked women,” “pigs” and “kuffars” with contempt, but to more frequently hold their practical initiative and know-how in the same regard.

George Smith is a Senior Fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, a defense affairs think tank and public information group.

At Dick Destiny, (http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/dickdestiny.html) he blogs his way through chemical, biological and nuclear terror hysteria, often by way of the contents of neighborhood hardware stores.Related stories

UK planespotters to battle al-Qaeda (18 July 2007)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/18/planespotter_scheme/

Iraq base plans left on open servers (16 July 2007)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/16/internet_dork_jihad_shocker/

Men jailed for inciting terrorism on the internet (9 July 2007)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/09/internet_terror_incitement_sentence/

Accused web terror trio change pleas to guilty (5 July 2007)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/05/web_terror_mastermind_dunderheads_roll_over/‘

Effete’ Europe useless in GWOT, says bin Laden man (3 July 2007)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/03/scheuer_testimony_bin_laden/

Iraq collapse may pose new WMD threat, say UN monitors (21 June 2007)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/21/unmovic_iraq_bio_chem/

DHS: beware stink-bomb touting terrorists (2 June 2007)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/02/dhs_dud_interesting_chemicals/

Suspect in case that helped sell Iraq war cleared, again (16 May 2007)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/16/siac_clears_ricin_suspect/

Loose mouth and loose change - $5 tip leads to terror finance rap (12 April 2007)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/12/abujihaad_and_azzam/

TV’s cyber-jihad slot exposes al Qaeda’s web ops. Or not (21 March 2007)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/21/60_minutes_e-qaeda/

Fact, fiction or bioterror drill? How to cook up a ricin scare (15 January 2007)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/15/ricin_scare_mashup/

The myth of the home-bake terror nuke ‘cookbooks’ (10 November 2006)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/10/dd_nuke_cookbooks/
Internet has ‘given Al Qaeda wings’ claims BBC potboiler (27 July 2005)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/27/bbc_al_qaeda_internet/

AYATOLLAH BOROUJERDI APPEALS TO POPE

AntiMullah broke the news moments after it happened, providing a blow by blow commentary in English from Persian live phone contacts and reports of the arrest of this Ayatollah, whose father was a deeply respected Ayatollah during the monarchy.

Sadly, his call to supporters in the late hours of the night and early morning were mostly ignored or went unheard by a sleeping populace in Tehran.

Emboldened by this apparent apathy, the Islamic regime's head of information, intelligence and security promised Supreme Ruler ali Khamenei, the Ayatollah's head on a tray by dawn. And succeeded in arresting him, destroying his home and robbing it of all its possesssions - but only after firing live ammunition into the crowd surrounding the Ayatollah's residence and some who were trying to get to him to help.

PARIS -- A senior Iranian cleric, jailed for opposing the Islamic regime in Iran, has appealed to the Pope in a letter smuggled out of Iran by his supporters and made available to NewsMax.

"Time is running out for me as I have been sentenced to death," wrote Ayatollah Hossein Kazemini Borujerdi in the letter, obtained this week from sources close to the jailed cleric in Europe.

"This is my last plea for help."

In addition to the Pope, Borujerdi addressed his appeal to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the president of the European Parliament and to international human rights organizations, asking them to intervene with the Iranian authorities to prevent his execution.

Borujerdi was placed under house arrest in July 2006 after addressing a massive gathering of his followers inside Iran.

Last October, anti-riot troops stormed his family compound, using water cannons to overpower demonstrators who had gathered in his defense. He was then taken to Section 209 of Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, which is reserved for political prisoners.

Since then, he has been beaten and tortured repeatedly, supporters in Europe told NewsMax. He has been denied the right to a lawyer or visitation rights.

The senior cleric fell afoul of the authorities for refusing to acknowledge the role of Islam in politics, and for speaking out against the doctrine of velayat-e faqih, absolute clerical rule.

In his letter, he called the Iranian regime "unlawful."

In a clear attack on Iran's ruling clerics, he wrote, "People who use religion for their own benefits and create their own rules are blasphemous and are destroying the people's belief in their God."

Borujerdi belongs to the "quiestist" school of Shia Islam, which rejects the role of Islam in government.

Associates say he has received support from Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq, and from Grand Ayatollah Sadegh Rouhani, who has been under house arrest in Qom, Iran since 1986 for similarly rejecting the authority of the Islamic regime.

FOR THOSE WHO TURN TO TRITA PARSI - BE AWARE

Robert William (Bob) Ney is a current federal prisoner and a former Ohio Congressman from 1995 until November 3, 2006.

On October 13, 2006 Ney pled guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements in relation to the Jack Abramoff lobbying and bribery scandal.

Ney reportedly received bribes from Abramoff, other lobbyists, and two foreign businessmen - a felon and an arms dealer - in exchange for using his position to advance their interests.

Conspicuously missing from this dossier of disservice to the country is Ney’s masterful creation of an active and disguised Washington-based lobbying enterprise for the Iranian theocratic regime, The National Iranian-American Council (NIAC).

NIAC is an effective node of Tehran’s comprehensive US lobbying web.

(Alan Note: reports, indicators, documentation from a wide variety of sources point to Persian language "independent" TV and radio stations throughout the USA and Europe being stronly subsidized by the Islamic Regime of Iran. To a point of some of them depending on this cash in-flow to operate and survive. One document seemingly issued by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei provides orders to pay an American based Persian language TV station $2,500,000 for its efforts and good performance during the previous year. Indicators, such a clear lack of suffieient advertisers to pay for the cost of satellite fees used by some TV and radio stations send their operations into question and as they do not appear to have "deep pocket" supporters as benefactors, other than invisibly the Islamic Regime of Iran, their true motives and allegiances are put to great doubt.

Remember disinformation is usually 20% of the picture so they can pretend to be pro-West 80% of the time until something important comes up. If they are really "deep cover" then they will play their "pretend to be for Regime change" for 90% of the time. That's the rule for infiltrators like those being sent in various guises to our shores, including "apparently" tortured dissenters. The successful pattern has worled so well for the Islamic regime, it has become a standard playbook M.O.).

This article will address the creation of NIAC, the motives underlying its formation, NIAC’s manifesto, Tehran’s role, NIAC’s connection to Iran’s oil mafia, and NIAC attempts to penetrate US political system.

Creation of NIAC.

The National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) was founded by four non Iranian-Americans:

Roy Coffee,

Dave DiStefano,

Bob Ney and

Trita Parsi.

Coffee and DiStefano, both Washington lobbyists, were investigated by the Justice Department for arranging a trip for Bob Ney to meet a known felon and a Syrian arms dealer in a conspiracy to circumvent sanctions to sell US-made airplane parts to Tehran.

Roy Coffee sent a letter to the Dallas Morning News in February 2006 to justify his relationship with the two London-based felons. Part of the letter discussed the creation of NIAC in 2002. In this letter, Coffee described the events following the meeting of his former classmate Darius Baghai (who had just returned from Iran) with Bob Ney:“From that meeting, Darius, Dave and I began to work with Trita Parsi, another Iranian-American, to try to form a political action committee of Iranian-Americans to pursue a strategy of normalization of relations between the two countries.

The four of us worked very hard for about 9-months to form this committee.

”Trita Parsi at the time was a Swedish-Iranian graduate student in his early twenties with ties to Iran’s ambassador in Sweden. He was working part time as a Congressional aid in Ney’s office in Washington on a temporary visa.

Parsi was subsequently appointed president of NIAC.

Should we believe that one of the most expensive lobby teams in the US, one of the most corrupt lawmakers in Washington and a Congressional aid in his office, none of them Iranian American, worked hard for nine months out of their humanitarian concern for the Iranian people?

The New Lobby

In the 1990’s, the American-Iranian Council (AIC), with backing from multinational oil companies, was a front for the Iran’s lobbying efforts in the US.

Houshang Amir-Ahmadi served as its president. Amirahmadi has been an active pro-Tehran player in the US since early 1980s. While residing in US, he was also a presidential candidate in Iran’s elections.

He officially collaborated with different Iranian institutions and notably the Islamic foreign ministry.

In 1999 and 2000 Trita Parsi was closely working with Amirahmadi and was well positioned in the leadership of AIC.

In 2001, the pro-Iran lobby in the United States became intensely active to prevent the renewal of the Iran Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), and to improve the US-Iran relations.

Despite extraordinary pressure from the lobby, ILSA passed overwhelmingly.

Prior to his imprisonment, Bob Ney, in concert with AIC, was Tehran’s dogged warrior in Washington as he relentlessly led Congressional efforts to end ILSA and initiate Tehran-friendly policies.

Ney, disappointed and angered by the ILSA vote, began to plan for the next battle of the war. “The ILSA vote doesn’t look very promising, but that doesn’t mean the struggle should stop on this entire issue. It is a matter of education and re-education and people getting together and forming a citizen’s lobby to make sure that members of Congress and their offices are educated on this issue.” (speech to AIC, June 2001)

While Ney was hard at work “forming a citizen’s lobby,” Trita Parsi claimed that the majority of lawmakers voted against their true wills.

In a tone apologetic to Tehran, he expressed his hope that the Iranian regime understood that he and his colleagues had worked hard to prevent this result:

“Hopefully, Tehran will recognize that an honest attempt was made to defeat or at least weaken the sanctions.

The call for a review and Speaker Hastert's pledge to insist on Congressional action based on the review must also be interpreted by Tehran as a step in the right direction” (IranAnalysis July 2001 http://www.iic.org-/ Peyvand’ Iran News)

Their failure to block the renewal of ILSA marked the start of a new era for the pro-Iran lobby in the United States. The lobbyists recognized that they must broadly reach out to Iranian-Americans.

(Alan Note: this included bringing pressure to bear on those with families still in Iran and threatening torture and death if co-operation was not forthcoming. Others, who were naturally pro-Islamic were taught how to recruit and pressure American-Iranians they knew or met at schools, mosques or even Persian supermarkets).

Iran became directly involved in creating, organizing and implementing a far-reaching lobbying campaign in the US, fundamentally different in its organization, which targeted the strategic needs of Tehran’s rulers.

The creation of NIAC as the main executer of this new endeavor had been meticulously planned since the late 1990s.

Parsi stepped down from the board of directors of the AIC. An influential US Congressman and a posh Washington lobbyist came to Tehran’s help to create NIAC.

An unknown Iranian Swedish student was selected to serve as president of this new organization.

Trita Parsi was the regime’s trusted man within the new network. Tehran’s faith in Parsi was so profound that in 2003 when Iran decided to send a highly secret proposal for negotiations to the White House, Parsi was called on to arrange the delivery of the message through Bob Ney to Karl Rove.

Parsi, moreover, was among the few chosen men (along with Mahallati, Iran’s former ambassador to UN) to present the results of a shady Tehran-friendly poll of the Iranian population which indicated the popularity of Iran’s nuclear program.

Trita Parsi and the Regime’s Inner Circle

During the eight years of Rafsanjani’s presidency, which ended in 1997, the Iranian regime had attempted without success to attract the Iranian Diaspora to its cause.

Khatami’s presidency recharged Tehran’s efforts. With the Supreme Leader’s direct involvement, the High Council for Iranian Compatriots Overseas was created in 2000 under the auspices of the Foreign Ministry.

The President heads the Council, and the Foreign Minister serves as its deputy director. The Ministry of Intelligence and the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance collaborate to implement the decisions of the council.

The objective was to create a network of organizations to infiltrate and seemingly represent the Iranian community abroad, and promote policies favorable to the Iranian government. Tehran anticipated that this strategy would neutralize opposition activities abroad and legitimize the new lobby.

State-sanctioned Iranian newspapers started a campaign to promote Trita Parsi and NIAC.

Pro-government publications outside Iran followed suit. The former head of the Iran interest in Washington, Ambassador Faramarz Fathnejad thrilled about Trita Parsi’s efforts and NIAC underlined “the importance of relation with Iranian organizations in the U.S. and specially pointed to NIAC and his young leader who is a consultant to CNN and has been very successful in his efforts.”

The Iran Ambassador even claimed 20,000 strong membership for NIAC (while only 150 is claimed by NIAC itself)! (Alan Note: to deflect attention and pretend to be a small, toothless group or little consequence and not worth the bother to investigate in their lobbying efforts since they were not officially registered and thus such activity was illegal).

But token rhetorical support would not alone turn an inexperienced graduate student and a corrupt Washington politician into a lobbying enterprise. Entities with ample financial resources and direct access to Iran’s top leaders had to enter the scene.

Understanding the NIAC’s activities in the US necessitates familiarity with Trita Parsi’s main partner in Iran, Siamak Namazi, one of the most important figures of this new lobby enterprise and a prominent member of the Iranian oil Mafia.

(Alan Note: Namazi has reportedly brought lawsuits against anyone who dared to speak up against him, including a blogger).

Namazi, along with his sister Pari and brother Babak, appear to control the Atieh enterprise in Iran and its three sister companies Atieh Roshan, Atieh Bahar and Atieh Associates, as well as numerous other direct and indirect partnerships, including Azar Energy, Menas companies in England, Atieh Dadeh Pardaz, FTZ Corporate services and MES Middle East Strategie.

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that Bagher Namazi (the father) is the Chairman of Hamyaran, an umbrella organization for the NGOs in Iran - a man of considerable influence in the internal and foreign affairs of the country.

Atieh claims to be “ … fully private strategic consulting firm that assists companies better understand the Iranian market, develop business and stay ahead of competition.” People familiar with the oil industry in Iran know what this description is code for.

In reality, Atieh is allegedly notorious for being a conduit for racketeering, bribery and money laundering, mainly for corrupt Iranian rulers. Atieh’s customers include foreign corporations who wish to do business in Iran and find no choice but to bribe officials.

One of their fiascos apparently involved Norway’s Statoil, a customer of Atieh Bahar. Their bribery of the Iranian officials through consultants was exposed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice. A number of high officials in the company were fired and the company had to pay tens of millions of dollars in penalties to the US and Norway governments for “payments to an Iranian official in 2002 and 2003 in order to induce him to use his influence to obtain the award to Statoil of a contract to develop phases 6, 7 and 8 of the Iranian South Pars gas field.”

The most recent debacle of Atieh enterprise was in March 2007 when the CEO of the French oil company Total SA was charged with bribery of high Iranian officials to secure contracts. Total is one of the major customers of the Namazi’s Atieh enterprise and is mainly represented in Iran by Atieh and its affiliate companies.

Tens of millions of dollars of bribes were reportedly paid by Total through individuals and third party corporations. Tehran’s trust in Namazi is elucidated by the fact that his enterprise provides the network and computer services for almost all Iranian banks, parliament, and other important institutions.

Namazi’s groups monitor nearly all Iranian economic or political activities and have access to the country’s most sensitive data. This is a clear indication of his prominent place inside the inner circle of power in Tehran.

While representing Tehran, Namazi, disguised as a scholar, travels to the US to seemingly pursue academic activities through think-tanks close to the Iranian regime. This link between the Iranian oil Mafia and “scholarly” pursuits in the US is hardly isolated.

Three former Iranian deputy foreign ministers currently live in Boston posing as “scholars”:

Mohammad Mahallati who was also the Iranian ambassador to the UN in the late 1980s

Farhad Atai and,

Abbas Maleki.

In addition to his diplomatic past, Maleki has been one of the most important figures within the Iranian oil Mafia.

Trita Parsi and Namazi worked very closely on developing the details of the grand plan of Iranian-American “Citizen’s Lobby” in the US. They traveled to Iran together. They organized joint conferences and meetings, launched lobby projects and wrote joint papers.The "Roadmap" in 1999, Parsi and Namazi presented a joint paper titled “Iranian-Americans: The bridge between two nations” in DAPIA conference organized by the Iranian government in Cypress.

This report comprises the manifes to and roadmap of the new Iranian lobby in the US.

In this paper, the authors suggest that: “an Iranian-American lobby is needed in order to create a balance between the competing Middle Eastern lobbies. Without it, Iran-bashing may become popular in Congress again.”

The “competing lobby” was AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee). The pillars of the road map were:· To have the appearance of a citizen’s lobby.

To mimic the Jewish lobby in the US.

To impede Iranian opposition activities.

To infiltrate the US political system.

To break the taboo of working with the Iran’s cleric rulers for the Iranian Diaspora.

To improve the image of the Iran’s government abroad.

In their report, Namazi and Parsi admitted that the Iranian community by large rejects the clerical regime and there is no hope that this community would help a pro-regime lobby in the US.

“This group’s [Iranian Americans] role has not been utilized any where close to its potential, however, for several reasons:

A good portion of them were against the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran], therefore would not do anything to help.”

“The point is, the said group [Iranian Americans] was not about to form a lobby group that would benefit the establishment in Tehran, or benefit the Iranian-Americans themselves as a community, nor was it for the most part interested in forming a pressure group against the Islamic Republic.”

This was also underlined by Roy Coffee, one of the NIAC’s founders:

“We [NIAC’s founders] found that most Iranians do not want to get involved in politics because of their experiences in Iran during and after the revolution. They have come to this country to make a better life for themselves and their children and don't want to get involved.” http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/archives/013069.html

The lack of genuine participation from the Iranian American community in this lobby has been overcome with a sophisticated machine of professional lobbyists and “friendly” circles who favor a rapprochement with the Iranian regime.

Tehran’s Advice: Mimic Jewish Lobby in Washington

One of the hallmarks of the new lobby was its desire to rival the “Israeli Lobby” in the United States. This aspiration was so strong that an organization was created and called IAPAC (Iranian American Political Action Committee) as compared with AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee).

Three of IAPAC’s board members came from the AIC’s leadership.

In their 1999 DAPIA paper, Parsi and Namazi analyzed at length the techniques used by AIPAC, and suggested that the same approach should be taken to create an Iranian lobby in Washington:

“Creating similar types of seminars and intern opportunities to Iranian-American youth may not improve Iran-US relations in the short run, but it will help integrate the Iranian-American community into the political life of America.

In the long run, a strong and active Iranian- American lobby, partly established through these seminars and by the participants of these programs, may serve to ensure that the US and Iran never find themselves in violent opposition to each other again.”

Trita Parsi has been reciting this comparison to the Israeli lobby since the late 1990’s, about the time that the High Council was formed. At the beginning his tone was more contentious and resembled the mullah’s usual rhetoric.

While he has toned down his anti-Israeli remarks in his English communiqués, the governmental newspaper Aftab published on December 28, 2006 an interview with Trita Parsi. In his introduction, the reporter underlined the role of Parsi’s lobby on behalf of the Iranian regime.

The article’s title is interesting: “The Iranian Lobby Becomes Active”.

Translation: “The conflict between Iran and the West on Iran’s nuclear file has entered a critical state. The government must now utilize all the possible resources to defend the national interest. In this, we have not paid enough attention to the potentially significant influence of the Iranian American society in moderating the extremist policies of the White House.

In comparison of this untouched potential to the influence of the Jewish lobby in directing the policies of Washington in supporting Israel, we see the difference between what is and what could be.”

In coordination With Trita Parsi, Siamak Namazi also started singing the same songs:

“I propose that we should start showing up to the leadership training seminars and other events organized by the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) for their youth. Not only will this create an opportunity to learn the fine skills of community organization and grassroots lobbying, but it also takes away from AIPAC's ability to spread misinformation about Iran through a deliberate campaign to further its own political agenda.”

Not Lobbyists?

As Ney’s criminal bribery and lobbying fiasco became more public, NIAC’s president Trita Parsi attempted to deny the lobbying nature of NIAC. NIAC was not registered as a lobbying organization, and lobbying activities would have been illegal.

Furthermore, being lobbied by a former aid would have added to Ney’s already complicated and ugly situation. Therefore in an interview with Washington Prism in 2005 Trita Parsi, in response to a direct question asking whether his group lobbies the US congress, declared:

“Our group does not do any lobbying at all. We do not contact the Congressmen to support or oppose a bill”

Reality exposes the falsehood of Parsi’s claim. NIAC has strived to penetrate the US political system as per the 1999 roadmap by Namazi and Parsi. NIAC’s actions lucidly reveal the nature of the organization. The Washington Post reported on June 25, 2006:

“The NIAC helped persuade a dozen conservative House members to sign a letter to President Bush earlier this month calling for unconditional negotiations with Iran's regime.”

The external communications of Parsi and other NIAC leaders shed further light on NIAC’s lobbying activities.

“The NIAC members have educational and experimental knowledge on the lobbying process and politics in America”. “.. we must establish connections on Capitol Hill to establish early-warning systems about proposed votes or bills that may oppose the best interests of Iranian-Americans.”

Bob Ney, Roy Coffee, and Dave DiStefano arranged numerous workshops, training classes, seminars and speeches in which they themselves and others with experience prepared members and affiliates of NIAC to lobby and influence Congress.

Parsi, Namazi and Ney organized public gatherings and discrete and exclusive fundraiser events (with $1000 plates). They developed training manuals on lobbying. NIAC itself admits that, “

In 2002, Congressman Ney benefited from letters sent by Iranian-Americans through NIAC's Legislative Action Center in support of his resolution on US-Iran relations”.

Infiltrating Congress

Trita Parsi, Namazi and company fully intended to infiltrate the US Congress. Its methods included both engaging unsuspecting Iranian Americans working in various Congressional offices and recruiting and placing young Iranian Americans to serve as interns or pages in these offices by offering room, board and financial incentives.

NIAC’s website brags of success stories in this venture. The young Iranian American Press Secretary for Rep. Marcy Kaptur is drafted to help in improving the lobbying skills of NIAC members and affiliates.

An Iranian American student in the University of Minnesota receives a financial scholarship in his senior year and becomes an intern in Senator Norm Coleman’s (R-MN) Washington office.

Expanding the operation to penetrate the US political system, NIAC has now formally implemented a paid trainee program and is actively in search for unwary Iranian American youth.

Conclusion

Since the early 1990’s, Tehran has embarked on developing a sophisticated lobby enterprise in the United States. Iran’s government has devoted significant manpower and financial resources to this cause. This lobbying enterprise consists of a complex, convoluted and intermingled web of entities and organizations with significant overlap of leadership and file and rank, and heavy involvement of the notoriously mafia-like inner circles of the Iranian regime.

Disguised as scholars, many of the former Iranian government officials reside in the US and constitute an important piece of the lobby machine. NIAC and its major figures, such as Bob Ney and Trita Parsi are effective nodes of Tehran’s efforts to manipulate US policy toward self-serving ends.

About the author: Hassan Daioleslam is an independent researcher and writer who worked closely with two experienced investigative reporters inside Iran to explore and expose Iran lobbying enterprise in the United States.

This article is focused on Trita Parsi, Bob Ney and NIAC, as one part of this comprehensive investigation.

(Alan Note: the Farsi links below both provide a translation of the above original text without comments and to related articles)

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