Posted on 07/27/2007 5:54:43 AM PDT by nuconvert
Ayatollahs’ Lobby In Washington Offering Human Rights as a Negotiating Item
By Hassan Daioleslam
Binding accountability for Iran’s suppression of its population to nuclear issues and Iran’s meddling in Iraq amounts to doing the bidding of the ruling ayatollahs.
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and its president Trita Parsi have organized a panel in the US House of Representatives on July 26th, 2007, titled “Human Rights in Iran and US Foreign Policy Options.”1 According to the published agenda, representatives from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch will participate. The sponsors of the program (NIAC and Trita Parsi) are key players in the lobbying enterprise of Tehran’s ayatollahs in the United States. The Iranian regime’s violations of human rights have reached unprecedented levels. Its barbaric suppression of women, workers, students and dissidents, and the stoning of a man after 11 years of imprisonment, have been the subject of broad international condemnation. The reason Iran’s lobby is organizing the program is twofold:
1. To present “human rights” as a negotiating item on the “engagement” table with hopes of having human rights entities argue for Tehran-friendly rapprochement, easing of sanctions, and tolerance of a nuclear Iran. In a nut shell, the lobby’s message is that the more the West pressures the regime, the more violent it becomes; hence, lift the pressure.
2. To keep the Ayatollahs’ friends and inner circle in control of international reaction to Tehran’s human rights abuses.
The Iranian regime’s lobby has continuously tried to justify Iran’s clerical behavior and especially its record of human rights violations, by arguing that its causes are external factors and coercive US policies. If Iranian-American scholars are arrested, blame the US administration for allocating funds for Iranian activists. If Ahmadinejad has embarked on a policy of total repression inside the country and antagonism abroad, blame the US administration for the famous axis of evil speech and not supporting Khatami.
At the infamous Holocaust conference, Ahmadinejad declared that “Israel should be wiped off the map.” Trita Parsi and his cohorts did not condemn this outrageous act, but rather launched a campaign directed by Siamak Namazi (Parsi’s main partner in Tehran) to blame the “neocon” media which allegedly misinterpreted Ahmadinejad’s declarations.2
The lobby’s PR tactic on the human rights issue in Iran is best presented in Trita Parsi’s own declarations. In 2005, he called for linking improvement of the human rights situation in Iran to a guarantee of security for the mullahs and the lifting of sanctions.3
While the world has focused on discussions over Tehran's nuclear capability, human rights in Iran have suffered severe setbacks . . . With the rest of the world distracted by the nuclear issue, anti-democratic forces in Iran have clamped down on the Iranian democracy movement . . . For Tehran, a nuclear arsenal is only really useful as a deterrent against possible US aggression. Iran does not need a nuclear deterrent against any other Middle Eastern country . . . Only security guarantees from the US, as part of a broader political arrangement, can convince Iran to agree to lasting compromises in the nuclear area.
The mullahs’ message in this article is clear: If the West does not guarantee their uninterrupted rule (“security”) by providing ample financial resources (elimination of sanctions) and allowing an unimpeded path to superpower status through development of nuclear capabilities, the regime will continue to suppress, kill and torture the Iranian people.
Binding accountability for Iran’s barbaric suppression of the population to nuclear issues and Iran’s meddling in Iraq per the demands of their US lobby, amounts to doing the bidding of the ruling ayatollahs. The participation of international human rights organizations in this charade would be a grave mistake.
NIAC, Trita Parsi and The Iranian Regime
Officially founded in 2002, NIAC is one of the Iranian regime’s lobbying arms in the US. In a recent article, I wrote about NIAC and its critical role as a lobbying node for Tehran’s rulers.4,5
In order to fully understand the relation between NIAC and Tehran, we should refer to several figures directly involved in NIAC's creation. First and foremost is Bob Ney, a current federal prisoner and former Ohio Congressman. Ney reportedly received bribes from lobbyists and two international arms dealers in a conspiracy to circumvent sanctions prohibiting the sale of US-made airplane parts to Tehran.6,7,8 At the time, Trita Parsi was Ney’s assistant for Iran-related matters.9
Then, there are two of Ney’s accomplices in his relations with the arms dealers. These two are well-known Washington lobbyists Roy Coffee and Dave DiStefano. Roy Coffee, in a letter to the Dallas Morning News in February 2006 justifying his relationship with Ney and the arms dealers, discussed their collaboration with Trita Parsi in creating an Iranian-American lobby in 2002.10 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 4 of us worked very hard for about 9 months to form this committee.
One of the most important figures behind the creation of NIAC is Siamak Namazi, who along with his sister and brother, controls the Atieh Bahar enterprise, a major umbrella firm for several companies in Iran. Atieh’s customers include the foreign corporations who wish to do business in Iran and have no option but to bribe officials.
(excerpt - see source link for more)
pong
Do whatever you want Ayatollah, as long as you treat women like equals and renounce violence.
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