NIAC Stands by its Record of Pursuing Peace Through Diplomacy

The following statement was issued by NIAC in response to today’s article in the Washington Times:

Washington DC – NIAC is proud of its work to advance US national security through a smarter and more effective policy on Iran. NIAC rejects the insinuations made by Washington Times that its activities are in violation of tax laws, the Foreign Agents Registration Act and lobbying disclosure laws.

NIAC has provided tens of thousands of documents and all its financial records in order to prosecute a defamation case against Hassan Dai. Those documents prove the allegations made against NIAC are completely false. The judge denied Dai’s motion to dismiss the case on 18 out of 19 counts. Realizing this, the defendants have decided to maliciously leak those documents to a reporter at the Washington Times, Eli Lake, in an attempt to litigate the case in the media rather than in a court of law.

NIAC is a 501 (c)3 educational organization representing Americans of Iranian descent. It engages in educational, advocacy and limited lobbying activities in accordance with US laws and regulations. NIAC does not lobby on behalf of the Islamic Republic. NIAC advocates on behalf of the Iranian-American community, who overwhelmingly oppose the policies of the government of Iran.

Mr. Lake’s article does not present any evidence for any of its claims and stops short of making any direct accusations. Instead, it makes insinuations and engages in conspiratorial speculation, presumably with the aim of sowing seeds of doubt in the minds of the public about NIAC and fabricating a controversy around the organization.

This follows by now a familiar pattern in which neo-conservative activists have sought to smear and defame NIAC by making accusations, innuendos and speculation, without providing any evidence to back their claims.

In fact, evidence is to the contrary. Why would Ambassador John Limbert, a former hostage imprisoned for 444 days by the government in Iran, join the advisory board of an organization that supposedly represents the interests of the very same government that imprisoned him? This claim is illogical at best and ludicrous at worst.

Mr. Lake has selectively focused on emails and documents that fit with his pre-determined verdict against NIAC. Though the basis of Lake’s article is misinformation about NIAC provided by Hassan Dai, Lake did not ask a single question about our lawsuit, why it was filed, our understanding of Dai’s political motivations and Dai’s connections to the Iranian terrorist organization, the Mujahedin-e Khalq.  NIAC encouraged Lake to investigate the evidence of Dai’s role in the Mujahedin-e Khalq. However, Lake declined to investigate his own sources.

It is clear that some neo-conservative elements wish to divide the Iranian Diaspora at a time when unity is needed more than ever for the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people to be achieved. While some prominent figures in the Iranian Diaspora have misunderstood NIAC’s activities, we are reaching out to them and we refuse to walk into this trap of pitting members of the community against each other.

NIAC has given the Iranian-American community a powerful voice in Washington DC that has effectively pushed for greater focus on human rights in Iran, opposed war between the US and Iran, opposed broad-based sanctions that hurt the Iranian people while strengthening its hard-line government, and supported diplomacy between the two countries to resolve their differences in a peaceful manner.

A History of Exchange

As I meandered through the Falnama: The Book of Omens exhibit at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, I was reminded once again of the shared history between Europe and Iran, the East and the West or the Occident and the Orient. However and wherever the dividing lines are drawn, they obscure a history that is far richer in cultural and intellectual exchange than is often recognized or acknowledged. Among the paintings depicting events that are specifically Persian in heritage, there were ornate paintings of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and, my personal favorite, Hippocrates riding the Simorgh.

The Simorgh is a creature of Persian mythology that symbolized, among other things, nearness to the Divine and wisdom. The image is evocative of the Simorgh carrying Zal to its nest. In Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh the Simorgh imparted some of its wisdom to Zal, including showing Zal how to perform a cesarean. What a perfect image then, the Simorgh carrying Hippocrates who is lauded as the progenitor of modern medicine.

The picture reminded me of a point made at a colloquium on Islamo-Christian civilization I attended some years ago. The speaker said that if you compared the total time that consisted of peaceful intercultural exchange between the East and the West is compared to the total time that was consumed by hostilities, the relationship is overwhelmingly defined by peaceful exchange and not by mutual hatred and mistrust.

Unfortunately, the media and academia are nearly always focused on the instances when communication has broken down. This presents a skewed view of history that sees current conflicts and tensions as the result of historical events, as simply the nature of things. For example, this attitude can be found in works such as Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations.   

The truth of the matter is that internal conflicts, i.e. Christian vs. Christian or Iranian vs. Iranian etc., has been a far more regular occurrence than us-versus-them style conflicts. One great example is that at the height of its power Venice built forts along the Mediterranean coast ostensibly for defense against the Ottoman Empire. In reality, however, Venice had a fantastic trade relationship with the Ottomans, and was building the forts as a defensive line against the Holy Roman Empire. In fact, Venice often continued trading with the Ottomans, albeit surreptitiously, when other European countries had declared general war on the Turks.

I do not mean to portray an idealized past of perfect cooperation, but, instead, to point out the fact that there has been an enormous degree of cultural exchange between the East and the West. Cultures do not exist in individual bubbles isolated from the rest of the world. They are syncretic. They are the products of a continuous process of the borrowing and exchange ideas and beliefs.    

We would do well to think of the current tensions between Iran and the United States, or between the Muslim world and the West, as an interruption in a long tradition of exchange, and not as a continuation of historical practice. The blame for this break with tradition cannot be assigned to any one group. We are all responsible, and we should all work towards re-forging avenues of intellectual and cultural exchange.

Flux In Iran affecting its handle on foreign policy, nuclear issues?

In an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, Iran expert Ray Takeyh suggested that the Iranian government is preoccupied with internal divisions both among its officials and with a state-society divide that has subsequently impeded its foreign policy.

Takeyh:

I don’t believe at this point that the Islamic Republic has a foreign policy if you classify foreign policy as when a country identifies its interests abroad and tries to achieve them, or as when a country seeks to export its revolution, or as when a country seeks to project its power. The Iranian foreign policy is currently derived almost entirely from domestic political considerations, which are evolving in unpredictable ways.

Further, he suggests Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is using the nuclear negotiations to mitigate international attention on Iran’s domestic turmoil and human rights violations.

Analysts have speculated that changes in the Iran’s political structure, with its increasing shift in power towards its military complex, has been an important factor.  Since June 12, the IRGC has monopolized telecommunications in Iran, violently cracked down on protests and dissidents, and established a new intelligence body led by the former head of the Basij, in effect nullifying the old intelligence ministry.

Recent reports also suggest that Iran has not significantly increased its uranium enrichment since September. Motives for the slower production are unclear. From the outside, it is unclear whether adjustments are being made due to shifting concerns in light of both domestic unrest as well as what appears to be a changing political structure, not to mention the ongoing negotiations with P-5+1 countries.

Reuters:

While Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium (LEU) has likely risen by 200-300 kg from 1,500 kg reported by U.N. monitors in August, the number of operating centrifuge machines at its Natanz enrichment plant has remained at about 4,600, they said.

Iran’s potential enrichment capacity was much higher. It had installed at least 8,700 centrifuges in all by late September, diplomats said. A fresh figure was not yet available.

But it was unclear why almost half the centrifuges were not yet enriching, remaining idle or undergoing vacuum tests.

Diplomats and analysts said possible reasons ranged from technical glitches to politically motivated restraint, to avoid closing the door to diplomacy with world powers and provoking harsher international sanctions or even Israeli military action.

“The situation is now pretty much as it was in September,” said a senior diplomat in Vienna, where the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is based. Officials at Iran’s IAEA mission were unavailable for comment.

The IAEA’s report on its visit to Iran’s Qom facility is also due next week, but Mohamed ElBaradei has previously suggested the facility is no more than “a hole in a mountain,” built as a backup facility in case of military strikes from an external source.

A Proxy War in Yemen?

The protracted conflict in Northern Yemen has become “a bit” more complicated – sarcasm intended – with Saudi Arabia joining the fray in attempting to destroy the Houthi rebels. However, what has become the source of serious debate is not so much the heavy fighting that is most likely taking and displacing so many lives, but whether Iran – according to both the Saudi and Yemeni government – is actually supporting the Houthi rebellion.

A recent article by Scott Peterson suggests that an Iranian-Houthi connection is more fiction than fact, and posits that such hyperbole distracts from the Houthis’ actual claims of mistreatment by the Yemeni government. As the article points out:

“Iran’s influence may be marginal. ‘There is probably next to no Iranian involvement. I have seen no evidence for it [and] it’s really a bit too far afield,’ says Joost Hiltermann, the deputy Middle East program director for the International Crisis Group (ICG) in Washington.

A Saudi source…told Agence France-Presse that there was no evidence of active Iranian involvement in the Yemen conflict.

‘This gets played off as Sunni-Shia, and it’s wrong,” says Hiltermann of ICG. ‘The Shia of Yemen are more Sunni than any other Shia in the world. And the Sunni of Yemen are more Shia than any Sunni in the world.’”

Deal or No Deal, Talks Must Continue

The rigmarole surrounding the supposed failure of negotiations with Iran is causing the media and government to lose sight of what is really important: talking with Iran. Talking is, in and of itself, a confidence building measure. It allows for the growth of familiarity between the parties, and, therefore, greater confidence that the other side will honor any agreements. At this early stage, negotiations with Iran should be viewed as means to that end.

Negotiation is the ongoing process of discussion. A failure of negotiations, as they currently exist with Iran, would only really happen when the talking stops.  What is currently happening between the U.S. and Iran is a failure to compromise–it’s frustrating, seems like a deadlock, and feels like we’re banging our head against a brick wall.  But it’s not a failure. Further rounds of talks will beget further confidence from both sides, and toward that end even the stalemate over the Vienna proposal is not necessarily a cause for alarm.

The possibility of Iran gaining nuclear weapons in the future must be dealt with in a serious matter. But there is time before Iran will be able to construct a working nuclear weapon.

Clinton Appoints NIAC Advisory Board Member to Senior Iran Post

Amb. John Limbert Speaking at the NIAC Conference

Cross posted from www.niacouncil.org.

Washington, D.C. — The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) applauds the appointment of Ambassador John Limbert as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the US Department of State.

Amb. Limbert, who served on NIACs Board of Advisors up until his appointment, is a decorated career US diplomat who has previously held posts in Iraq, Mauritania and Guinea, in addition to holding several senior positions in Washington with the State Department. Amb. Limbert is currently Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at the US Naval Academy.

Amb. Limbert is one country’s foremost experts on Iranian issues. He began his career in the 1960s as a Peace Corps volunteer and an English instructor at Shiraz University. In 1979, Amb. Limbert was held hostage in the American Embassy in Tehran for fourteen months. A fluent Persian speaker, Limbert will be a vital asset to the United States throughout the continuing negotiations and conversations with the Iranian government.

“The Obama administration has declared that they want to find a new future with the people of Iran,” said Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council. “With Limbert in the State Department tasked to complete that vision, history will be completed: A person who stood at the center of US-Iran relations when they broke down 30 years ago, will lead the efforts to restore the broken ties.”

The day before getting sworn in, Amb. Limbert spoke at a conference hosted by NIAC on Capitol Hill, along with other senior US diplomats and experts on US-Iran relations. Amb. Limbert stressed the importance of patience and persistence in the ongoing negotiations, and argued that productive discussions on the fate of Iran’s nuclear program could also allow the United States to press Tehran on its human rights record.

“There are few people in the United States that know Iran as well as Amb. Limbert,” Parsi said. “He’s not only expert on Iranian foreign policy, but also on Iranian poetry, which matters a lot. I can’t think of anyone more suitable for this job.”

Amb. Limbert has frequently spoken at NIAC events and fundraisers. NIAC welcomes this appointment and wishes Amb. Limbert the best of luck in tackling the complex issues that lie ahead in finding a better future for the peoples of Iran and the US.

NIAC rejects Rep. Kirk’s accusation

Cross-posted from www.niacouncil.org

The National Iranian American Council issued the following statement today, in response to Rep. Mark Kirk’s (R-IL) slanderous allegation last week that NIAC is a “regime sympathizer.”

Representative Kirk spoke last week before the US Institute of Peace, and issued his allegation against NIAC saying: “Regime-sympathizers like the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) came to Capitol Hill urging members of Congress to cut off U.S. funding for democracy programs in Iran. Democracy funding ‘taints’ Iranian dissidents, they claimed, and only invites harsher crackdowns on the Iranian people.”  He provided no explanation backing up his statement, nor did he acknowledge that the foremost leaders of Iran’s pro-democracy movement have denounced the very same Congressional “regime change fund” that Kirk has championed.

NIAC communicated with Representative Kirk’s office immediately after his statement, requesting a retraction. His office refused to respond.

“The foreign policy apparatus in Iran has frozen”

“‘The foreign policy apparatus in Iran has frozen,” IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei has told the New York Times. ElBaradei’s comments come in light of Iran’s apparent unwillingness or even inability to accept the deal that their own diplomats negotiated with the P5+1 and the IAEA.

While the talks were successful in getting the IAEA access to Iran’s nuclear facility under construction in Qom, Iran’s government rejected the deal (verbally) on the grounds that they were not willing to trust Russia or France with the majority of their low-enriched uranium stockpile.

ElBaradei came up with a clever response, which was to find a third party country that both sides could trust that would hold the uranium – with Turkey appearing to be the most likely candidate.

However, instead of responding favorably to this deal, Iran simply responded with their own counter-proposal. It certainly plays into the narrative presented by CFR Iran expert Ray Takeyh on Friday:

In the coming months, Iran will no doubt seek to prolong negotiations by accepting and then rejecting agreed-upon compacts and offering countless counter-proposals. The United States and its allies must decide how to approach an Iranian diplomatic stratagem born out of cynical desire to clamp down on peaceful dissent with relative impunity.

International scrutiny remains trained on Iran’s nuclear program, but outside that glare, the structure and orientation of the Revolutionary Guards are changing dramatically. The regime in Tehran is establishing the infrastructure for repression. The leadership of the Guards and the paramilitary Basij force have been integrated and are much more focused on vanquishing imaginary plots by a (nonexistent) fifth column.

Takeyh then argues — as we have been — that human rights should should be elevated in the talks with Iran. Takeyh then takes it a step further:

Western officials would be smart to disabuse Iran of the notion that its nuclear infractions are the only source of disagreement. Iran’s hard-liners need to know that should they launch their much-advertised crackdown, the price for such conduct may be termination of any dialogue with the West.

Radio Free Liberty also talked to a number of reformists who argue any deal that ignores human rights will be fundamentally flawed and likely viewed with suspicion.

Reformist journalist Serajedin Mirdamadi, who campaigned for opposition leader Mir Hossein Musavi ahead of the contentious June election, tells Radio Farda that a deal with Tehran that is solely focused on the nuclear issue will not be a lasting one.

(Updated) Espionage Charges for American Hikers?

Reuters is reporting that the three Americans who crossed into Iran while hiking in Iraq are being charged with espionage.

“The three are charged with espionage. Investigations continue into the three detained Americans in Iran,” Tehran general prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said.

The three were held after they strayed into Iran from northern Iraq at the end of July.

The three, Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, crossed into Iranian territory nearly two months ago. Their families say they strayed across the border accidentally.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested in an interview with the American television network NBC in September that the Americans’ release might be linked to the release of Iranian diplomats he said were being held by U.S. troops in Iraq.

Under Iran’s Islamic sharia law, espionage is punishable by death.”

Important update (h/t Sanaz): According to IRNA, the hikers are “accused” of espionage, not charged. Tehran’s prosecutor said “investigations about these three people continue and an opinion will be issued soon…”

http://www.irna.ir/View/FullStory/?NewsId=780145

Officials: Police detain more than 100 at protests on Wednesday

Officials say police detained 109 protestors on Wednesday as the demonstrations marking the 30th anniversary of the storming of the US Embassy and the illegal seizure of American diplomats took place. But the annual demonstration, usually a day the government uses to stir anti-Western sentiment, was hijacked by supporters of the Green Movement. The detained individuals were charged with public order offenses. The BBC has more:

Security spokesman Azizollah Rajabzadeh said 62 are due to face trial while the others were released after questioning.

In recent months the opposition has used officially sanctioned demonstrations to come out in big numbers and publicise its own own messages.

Witnesses told the BBC the security forces had used tear gas and batons on Wednesday. The government defended the response, saying that the protests had been illegal.

Videos on YouTube and other sites that have emerged these past few days have confirmed this but also shown that members of the opposition are fighting back.

Texas Rep. Introduces Resolution Supporting Iranian People’s Struggle for Rights

Congresswoman Kay Granger (R-TX) has introduced a resolution expressing continued support for the Iranian people as they stand up for freedom, human rights, and fundamental elements of democracy.  The legislation, H.Res. 888, “condemns the brutal suppression of the Iranian people through censorship, imprisonment, and continued acts of violence” and calls on the international community to maintain robust communication with the Iranian people via the media, the Internet, and telecommunications.

Rep. Granger, as a founding member of the Trans-Atlantic Parliamentary Group, is also coordinating with members of the European Union Parliament and the Canadian Parliament to introduce similar resolutions in their respective bodies.  Thus, the initiative transcends any one country or government, uniting an coalition of nations in support of the principles Iranians are standing up to defend: those of freedom, human rights, and fundamental elements of democracy.

If these are principles that you support as well, ask your member of Congress to support H.Res. 888.

Iranian Nuclear Official: No Reason to Reject Nuclear Deal

ILNA interviewed an Iranian nuclear official recently who criticized the Iranian leadership for not accepting the proposed nuclear deal offered by the P-5+1. The official, Ahmad Qarib of the Iranian Atomic energy Organization, said Iran does not currently have the capacity in its nuclear infrastructure to use all of its enriched uranium, and that therefore they have nothing to lose from signing on to the deal.

In an interview with the Iranian news agency ILNA, Ahmad Qarib, Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Scientific Committee member and former director of the organization’s research institute, criticized Iran’s rejection of the Vienna draft proposal under which Iran would transfer 75% of its stock of enriched uranium (its total stock is estimated at 1,600 kg) for further enrichment in a third country, so that Iran will have a supply of fuel for its Tehran nuclear reactor.

Qarib stated that because Iran does not have an infrastructure of nuclear plants that would require such a stock of enriched uranium for operation, the country really has no reason to reject the Vienna proposal. He also pointed out that the Tehran facility is not expected to operate efficiently for longer than another 10 years.

Qarib explained: “Iran has no reactor besides the Tehran research reactor and the Bushehr plant [which is not yet operational]. All this fuss [by Iran] over fuel for them comes at a time when the Bushehr [plant] is not yet finished; and even if it is completed, Russia will supply the fuel that it requires. In effect, right now we don’t need all of the 1,600 kg of uranium that we now have…”

He added that “in the era of the Mir Hossein Mousavi [government, 1981-1989], Iran purchased 680 tons of uranium, and so far has used only 12 tons of that, as fuel for the research reactor in Tehran. Over 660 tons remain – and our enrichment process [at the Natanz facility] is ongoing.”

He continued, “So it is not clear why this issue has become so complex, [when] the Tehran research reactor will be operating [efficiently] for no more than another decade [and then will have to be shut down]; [in any event,] it does not need all that fuel.”