viewpoint: ben cohen

The truth about the Iran lobby

Posted

In the weeks since the Obama administration announced the perilous international nuclear deal with Iran, growing attention has been paid to the network of organizations and foundations that have been actively lobbying to normalize relations between the U.S. and the Islamist regime in Tehran.

Rightly, that network is being referred to as the “Iran lobby.” The welcome and much-needed scrutiny of its workings and contacts provides a salutary lesson in how to identify enemies who present themselves as friends.

At the head of the pack is the Washington, DC-based National Iranian American Council (NIAC). Led by Trita Parsi, a Swedish-Iranian immigrant, NIAC has artfully worked itself into the center of the Iran policy debate. The organization has close relations with many liberal Democrat legislators and progressive outfits like J Street, the Jewish-but-anti-Israel advocacy group, as well as minted foundations including the Ploughshares Fund and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, both of which have donated generously to NIAC’s coffers. Some of its alumnae, like Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, have even made it into the White House—in her case, as desk officer for Iran.

NIAC presents itself as a moderate, thoughtful organization. It also claims to advocate on behalf of human rights in Iran, but check the page on its website ostensibly devoted to the subject, and you will see the odd press release urging the release of Iranian-Americans currently incarcerated by the mullahs interspersed with plenty of propaganda defending the nuclear deal. Executions, torture, repression of religious minorities, systemic anti-Semitism and homophobia are all staples of the Iranian regime’s outlook and behavior—but in NIAC’s airbrushed world, such matters don’t even exist.

Page 1 / 5