Resources for Iranian Threat

Clarion Fund presents a webinar: Women's Rights & Human Rights Under Shariah Law

Webinar with Nonie Darwish

Clarion Fund presents a webinar: Women's Rights & Human Rights Under Shariah Law presented by leading Middle East expert and acclaimed author, Nonie Darwish. This webinar was originally broadcast on November 2, 2011
Please note: there is a problem with the audio quality at the beginning of this webinar, so please forward to 05:45 when the audio quality improves. We apologize for any inconvenience.

IRANIUM: 30 Years of Terror

IRANIUM: 30 Years of Terror

For over 30 years the Iranian regime has used international terror in its struggle to spread Khomeini's revolution.

Iran Is at War with Us

National Review Online
By Andrew C. McCarthy
July 9, 2011

‘You can clearly see what they are doing in Iraq.” Sen. Lindsey Graham was talking about the Islamic Republic of Iran, specifically the death trade plied by the mullahs, their Revolutionary Guard Corps, their Hezbollah operatives, and the assorted jihadists under their control. And while the plying is being done “in Iraq,” it is being done against America.
Senator Graham elaborated that Iran is setting the stage to frame the long-scheduled withdrawal from Iraq as a case of the United States being “driven out,” a cowardly retreat under fire. Nor is this happening solely in Iraq. Iran’s fortification of the Afghan Taliban also continues at a steady clip. It may even be spiking now as the planned drawdown of American forces gets under way. Again, the mullahs are determined to pose as Allah’s avengers, casting the infidels out of Dar al-Islam.
They are getting plenty of help from the Obama administration. The U.S. withdrawal is being driven by the political calendar, not conditions on the ground. Thus our enemies — and Iran has always been our principal enemy — get to make it look like whatever they want it to look like.
So, as 33,000 U.S. troops begin making their quietus, the Taliban and its jihadist allies are emboldened, not vanquished. In fact, Fox’s Jennifer Griffin reports that superior Iranian rockets enable our enemies to fire from 13 miles away, twice the range of the Taliban’s former arsenal. With U.S. air power paralyzed by the demagoguery of Iran’s new best friend, Hamid Karzai — the Afghan president minted by our government’s Islamic-democracy project — it gets awfully difficult to defend against such attacks.
Defending themselves is about all our troops will be able to do in the coming months. Karzai and the mullahs have finalized a joint defense and security agreement — in the jihadi pincer, Iran arms both the sharia “democracy” and its Taliban opposition; it’s the American troops getting squeezed. Meanwhile, fresh off the anti-American duet Iraq’s Pres. Jalal Talabani crooned with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the mullahs’ recent “anti-terrorism” summit, Iran’s vice president visited Baghdad this week to call on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, another democracy project success story. As they forged deeper economic, security, and cultural ties, they also marked a month in which 15 Americans were killed in Iraq, making it the worst month for U.S. forces in over two years.
You may recall that time in 2009 as the fleeting period of euphoria after President Bush’s troop surge transformed Iraq just as it was about to become a humiliating American failure. According to received Washington wisdom, the surge was a triumph — indeed, so spectacular a triumph that even President Obama now claims the Iraq mission as his own, as if we all share the Obamedia’s amnesia about their hero’s prominence in Harry Reid’s anti-surge legion of “This war is lost” Democrats.
To be sure, Iraq is Obama’s kind of foreign-policy triumph. The strategy was not to defeat the enemy but to stabilize a sharia democracy and protect a population that remains rabidly anti-American. So we have built Baghdad into a reasonably stable Iranian client state, pulled ever deeper into the mullahs’ orbit.
Iran has spent eight years killing Americans in Iraq. We responded by doing nothing. Attacking the source of the problem might have jeopardized Iraq’s fragile new government, whose leading factions are beholden to Tehran, a complication we chose to paper over. In fact, even as democracy-project enthusiasts crowed about Iraq’s purported evolution into a key American ally against the jihad, the Bush administration acceded to Maliki’s demand that Iraq not be used as a staging ground for U.S. operations against other nations (translation: against Iran, the kingpin of the jihad). It seems the only country we’d be permitted to attack from Iraq is Israel. And that’s no joke: Obama adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski actually suggested that the U.S. would shoot Israeli bombers down over Iraq if they dared try to take out Iran’s ripening nuclear arsenal.
Of course, the 15 Americans killed in Iraq last month are fewer than the 19 Americans that Iran killed in Saudi Arabia in 1996, in the Khobar Towers bombing. And it is considerably less than the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11. Noting that the mullahs had been supporting al-Qaeda since the early 1990s, the 9/11 Commission gingerly related sketchy evidence of Iranian involvement in the suicide hijackings that vaulted the U.S. to war: the provision of safe conduct into and out of Afghanistan for al-Qaeda operatives, the “remarkable coincidence” (to borrow the commission’s phrase) that Hezbollah leaders ended up on the same Iranian transit flights as the future hijackers, etc. Iran even harbored al-Qaeda leaders, including two of Osama bin Laden’s sons, in the years after 9/11.
Yet, these were dots the commission was content to leave unconnected. And no one — not the Bush administration, not the Obama administration, and not Congress — has shown much interest in revisiting them, despite the hundreds of Americans Iran has since killed, and continues to kill.
Here at home, a phony debate rages over whether conservatives are becoming “isolationist” — whether we are the Right’s version of George McGovern’s “Come Home America” Left. But most of us have never been isolationist. We’ve been realists about the enemy — specifically, about the need to defeat rather than court the enemy.
In the days after 9/11, President Bush outlined the only plan that had a chance of achieving victory: Hunt terrorists down wherever they operate and treat terror-abetting regimes as terrorists. That should have been the mullahs’ death knell. Instead, we’ve tried to fight a war the enemy prosecutes globally as if it were happening in only two countries, neither of them Iran.
Putting aside the merits of a Marshall Plan analogue for the Muslim Middle East, the original Marshall Plan was undertaken only after total victory was achieved over America’s enemies. There could be no free, independent, pro-American Europe without Normandy and D-Day and Hitler’s annihilation. If you leave the enemy undisturbed while indulging in self-congratulation over democracy and the Arab Spring, you’re choreographing a farce. I’d call it “Springtime for Khamenei,” except the tragic joke is on us.
“Intervention” in 2011 has become what “negotiation” was in the Obama hey-day of 2009 — something purportedly good for its own sake. The inconvenient reality is that, if it is not based on a strategy designed to defeat America’s enemies, it is inevitably counterproductive. It gives our enemies countless opportunities to show, quite dramatically, that we lack both resolve and a cogent plan.
It is not isolationist to conclude that if we are not in it to win, we are wasting time, billions of dollars that we don’t have, and precious lives. I may be wrong to deem it highly unlikely that true democracy will ever take in Islamic soil. I may be wrong in concluding that the Arab Spring is diplo-lipstick on a pig better seen as the Islamist Ascendancy. But I do know one thing for certain: Freedom has no chance of advancing in the Middle East, any more than it would have advanced in Europe, unless we conquer the enemy.
There was a moment in time when we knew that. It was long ago, though, and perhaps beyond recapturing by a war-weary, financially tapped-out nation.
If we’re not in it to win it — for victory, not for tilting at windmills — we should come home. But regardless of what we do, what was true in 1983, when Hezbollah bombed our Marines, remains true today: Iran is at war with us, whether we choose to engage or not. If we are not going to win, we are going to lose. Happy talk about democracy and springtime won’t obscure the fact that there is no middle ground.

‘You can clearly see what they are doing in Iraq.” Sen. Lindsey Graham was talking about the Islamic Republic of Iran, specifically the death trade plied by the mullahs, their Revolutionary Guard Corps, their Hezbollah operatives, and the assorted jihadists under their control. And while the plying is being done “in Iraq,” it is being done against America.

Senator Graham elaborated that Iran is setting the stage to frame the long-scheduled withdrawal from Iraq as a case of the United States being “driven out,” a cowardly retreat under fire. Nor is this happening solely in Iraq. Iran’s fortification of the Afghan Taliban also continues at a steady clip. It may even be spiking now as the planned drawdown of American forces gets under way. Again, the mullahs are determined to pose as Allah’s avengers, casting the infidels out of Dar al-Islam.

They are getting plenty of help from the Obama administration. The U.S. withdrawal is being driven by the political calendar, not conditions on the ground. Thus our enemies — and Iran has always been our principal enemy — get to make it look like whatever they want it to look like.

So, as 33,000 U.S. troops begin making their quietus, the Taliban and its jihadist allies are emboldened, not vanquished. In fact, Fox’s Jennifer Griffin reports that superior Iranian rockets enable our enemies to fire from 13 miles away, twice the range of the Taliban’s former arsenal. With U.S. air power paralyzed by the demagoguery of Iran’s new best friend, Hamid Karzai — the Afghan president minted by our government’s Islamic-democracy project — it gets awfully difficult to defend against such attacks.

Defending themselves is about all our troops will be able to do in the coming months. Karzai and the mullahs have finalized a joint defense and security agreement — in the jihadi pincer, Iran arms both the sharia “democracy” and its Taliban opposition; it’s the American troops getting squeezed. Meanwhile, fresh off the anti-American duet Iraq’s Pres. Jalal Talabani crooned with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the mullahs’ recent “anti-terrorism” summit, Iran’s vice president visited Baghdad this week to call on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, another democracy project success story. As they forged deeper economic, security, and cultural ties, they also marked a month in which 15 Americans were killed in Iraq, making it the worst month for U.S. forces in over two years.

You may recall that time in 2009 as the fleeting period of euphoria after President Bush’s troop surge transformed Iraq just as it was about to become a humiliating American failure. According to received Washington wisdom, the surge was a triumph — indeed, so spectacular a triumph that even President Obama now claims the Iraq mission as his own, as if we all share the Obamedia’s amnesia about their hero’s prominence in Harry Reid’s anti-surge legion of “This war is lost” Democrats.

To be sure, Iraq is Obama’s kind of foreign-policy triumph. The strategy was not to defeat the enemy but to stabilize a sharia democracy and protect a population that remains rabidly anti-American. So we have built Baghdad into a reasonably stable Iranian client state, pulled ever deeper into the mullahs’ orbit.

Iran has spent eight years killing Americans in Iraq. We responded by doing nothing. Attacking the source of the problem might have jeopardized Iraq’s fragile new government, whose leading factions are beholden to Tehran, a complication we chose to paper over. In fact, even as democracy-project enthusiasts crowed about Iraq’s purported evolution into a key American ally against the jihad, the Bush administration acceded to Maliki’s demand that Iraq not be used as a staging ground for U.S. operations against other nations (translation: against Iran, the kingpin of the jihad). It seems the only country we’d be permitted to attack from Iraq is Israel. And that’s no joke: Obama adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski actually suggested that the U.S. would shoot Israeli bombers down over Iraq if they dared try to take out Iran’s ripening nuclear arsenal.

Of course, the 15 Americans killed in Iraq last month are fewer than the 19 Americans that Iran killed in Saudi Arabia in 1996, in the Khobar Towers bombing. And it is considerably less than the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11. Noting that the mullahs had been supporting al-Qaeda since the early 1990s, the 9/11 Commission gingerly related sketchy evidence of Iranian involvement in the suicide hijackings that vaulted the U.S. to war: the provision of safe conduct into and out of Afghanistan for al-Qaeda operatives, the “remarkable coincidence” (to borrow the commission’s phrase) that Hezbollah leaders ended up on the same Iranian transit flights as the future hijackers, etc. Iran even harbored al-Qaeda leaders, including two of Osama bin Laden’s sons, in the years after 9/11.

Yet, these were dots the commission was content to leave unconnected. And no one — not the Bush administration, not the Obama administration, and not Congress — has shown much interest in revisiting them, despite the hundreds of Americans Iran has since killed, and continues to kill.

Here at home, a phony debate rages over whether conservatives are becoming “isolationist” — whether we are the Right’s version of George McGovern’s “Come Home America” Left. But most of us have never been isolationist. We’ve been realists about the enemy — specifically, about the need to defeat rather than court the enemy.

In the days after 9/11, President Bush outlined the only plan that had a chance of achieving victory: Hunt terrorists down wherever they operate and treat terror-abetting regimes as terrorists. That should have been the mullahs’ death knell. Instead, we’ve tried to fight a war the enemy prosecutes globally as if it were happening in only two countries, neither of them Iran.

Putting aside the merits of a Marshall Plan analogue for the Muslim Middle East, the original Marshall Plan was undertaken only after total victory was achieved over America’s enemies. There could be no free, independent, pro-American Europe without Normandy and D-Day and Hitler’s annihilation. If you leave the enemy undisturbed while indulging in self-congratulation over democracy and the Arab Spring, you’re choreographing a farce. I’d call it “Springtime for Khamenei,” except the tragic joke is on us.

“Intervention” in 2011 has become what “negotiation” was in the Obama hey-day of 2009 — something purportedly good for its own sake. The inconvenient reality is that, if it is not based on a strategy designed to defeat America’s enemies, it is inevitably counterproductive. It gives our enemies countless opportunities to show, quite dramatically, that we lack both resolve and a cogent plan.

It is not isolationist to conclude that if we are not in it to win, we are wasting time, billions of dollars that we don’t have, and precious lives. I may be wrong to deem it highly unlikely that true democracy will ever take in Islamic soil. I may be wrong in concluding that the Arab Spring is diplo-lipstick on a pig better seen as the Islamist Ascendancy. But I do know one thing for certain: Freedom has no chance of advancing in the Middle East, any more than it would have advanced in Europe, unless we conquer the enemy.

There was a moment in time when we knew that. It was long ago, though, and perhaps beyond recapturing by a war-weary, financially tapped-out nation.

If we’re not in it to win it — for victory, not for tilting at windmills — we should come home. But regardless of what we do, what was true in 1983, when Hezbollah bombed our Marines, remains true today: Iran is at war with us, whether we choose to engage or not. If we are not going to win, we are going to lose. Happy talk about democracy and springtime won’t obscure the fact that there is no middle ground.

This article was originally published here. 

10 Things You Need to Know about…the Islamic Republic of Iran

 

  1. The head of the Iranian regime is not the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but rather the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.                                                  
  2. The Iranian regime, according to its 1989 constitution, is dedicated to jihad to spread the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution, to re-establish the Caliphate, and impose Islamic law (sharia) globally. These are precisely the same objectives pursued by terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, HAMAS, and Hezbollah—which may explain why they have all been linked together with Iran in operational relationships for so many decades.                                                          
  3. The primary mission of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is to keep the regime in power. In an especially visible way since the popular uprising after the fraudulent 2009 presidential elections, the IRGC and its subordinate Bassij units have used sheer brutality and terror to suppress the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people.                                                                              
  4. The Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the IRGC to acquire deliverable nuclear weapons in the mid-1980s. Every Iranian president—including those touted as ‘moderate’—has supported the acquisition of nuclear weapons, but the program has accelerated markedly under the last two presidents: Khatami and Ahmadinejad.                                                                                                                          
  5. By sheer numbers, Iran is the number two state killer of its own citizens in the world, second only to China, a country with 20 times the size of its population.  Per capita, Iran may be the biggest killer.                                                                                
  6. The Iranian regime has supported the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in a vocal way ever since the uprising began there in early 2011. The Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist organization with a pervasive presence in the U.S. government, intelligence community, and society as a whole, has reached out to the Iranian regime in return and openly expressed interest in forging close ties with it. The Obama administration recently announced that it is expanding its long-standing ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.                                                                                                                    
  7. Current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes that the Shi’a messianic figure (the Mahdi, or Twelfth Imam), who allegedly disappeared down a well 1,000 years ago—is helping guide his government and manage world affairs.   He has publicly expressed his belief that apocalyptic violence can hasten the return of this figure.                                                                                                                  
  8. In spite of sanctions, Iran is far from isolated.  It is actively involved with many countries, diplomatically and economically, buying influence at a growing pace.  This includes the viscerally anti-American regime of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and a growing list of other countries in America’s backyard of South and Central America. Iran also has been developing relations with countries like Eritrea, Sudan,  Algeria,  Afghanistan, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Qatar, and recently Israel’s neighbor Jordan.                                                                                                                  
  9. “Iran has methodically cultivated a network of sponsored terrorist surrogates capable of conducting effective plausibly deniable attacks against Israel and the United States.”   This includes a network of terror proxies, such as Hezbollah, which has an extensive presence across Latin America, especially in Venezuela, and also in Mexico.  Hezbollah operates at least a dozen cells within the U.S. as well.                                                                                                  
  10. The Havlish case (Havlish et al vs Osama bin Laden, Iran, et al.), filed in New York in May 2011, presented compelling evidence that the Iranian regime provided direct and material assistance to al-Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks. 

Iran Delivers Threatening Letter to President Obama

Pajamas Media
By Reza Kahlili
July 3, 2011

 

The Arab-language newspaper Al-Ahram reports that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently sent a letter filled with threats to American officials. The letter, which is said to have been delivered by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, accuses the U.S. of meddling in Syrian affairs. According to Al-Ahram, Khamenei has ordered the U.S. to cease and desist pressuring the Syrian regime leadership, cautioning that Iran will retaliate against American troops stationed in Iraq should Obama refuse to take the warning seriously.
Jalal Talabani, who recently participated in the “International Conference for the Global Fight against Terrorism” in Tehran, promised Khamenei that he would deliver the letter and the message to American officials.
Ayatollah Khamenei, in a meeting with Iranian officials on June 30, warned that the U.S. — in a complicated plot — tries to create problems for Syria, and that the nature of the regional awakening was anti-U.S. and anti-Zionist.
Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, which is a media branch of Hezbollah , quoted several of its Tehran-based sources as saying that the Iranian leadership also warned Turkey against taking any military action against Syria. The report adds that any militaristic meddling in Syria by the Turks would be considered “crossing a red line” and will not be tolerated by the Iranian regime.
The Iranian regime has denied delivering an ultimatum to Turkey, calling the reports propaganda by the West. But according to these sources, Tehran is of the belief that pressures directed at Bashar Al-Assad and the Syrian leadership in general are a pretext for the main target, which is Hassan Nasrallah and ultimately the disempowerment of Iran. Therefore, as far as the Iranian leadership is concerned, defending Damascus is a part of the defense of Tehran and Beirut.
The Iranian threat against Turkey and the U.S. is due to the fact that several Arab-language and Turkish media outlets have suggested that an area on the Syrian border should be turned into a free zone in order to protect Syrians taking refuge in Turkey. The Turkish government has not made any official comments to that effect. Purportedly, Turkish authorities have assured the Iranian regime that they would not take any such action and that they would not go along with U.S. plans against Syria. On the other hand, a large majority of the Turkish media actively mentions this as a viable option.
An analysis written by Mehmet-Ali Birand in the Turkish daily Milliyet puts forth the scenario of the occupation of a piece of Syria’s land as a possible solution. However, Birand believes that this undertaking is filled with risks that at present Turkey cannot withstand or enforce. Birand concludes that the creation of a free zone will not only not resolve the Syrian refugees’ problem, but that the Turkish army will not be able to protect more than fifty thousand refugees. This will lead the UN and foreign forces into taking action, further complicating the issue.
The Iranian leadership, concerned about the situation in Syria, exacerbated their threats by conducting missile war games, and for the first time they used missile silos which they claim satellites can’t detect. The head of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division, Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh, in an interview with the Iranian Fars News Agency, stated: “The Americans have reduced our labors.” He further elaborating that all U.S. military bases in the region and the Zionist regime (referring to Israel) are fully within range of the Iranian missiles. The deputy commander of the Guards, Hossein Salami, also stated : “We still have our fingers on the trigger, but the number of the triggers has increased.” The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, also boasted about Iran’s military capability, saying that the fact that Iran’s show of strength rattles the West “is a source of delight for us.”
The Iranian leadership perceives America’s involvement on three fronts — Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya — as a limitation, and they have become emboldened. They see themselves as a powerhouse in the region, pushing to diminish U.S. supremacy in the Middle East.
The Iranian missile war games are intended to send a strong signal to both the U.S. and Israel that they should not be thinking of attacking the Iranian nuclear facilities, and that they should leave its allies, such as Syria and Hezbollah, alone.
With Iran pursuing its nuclear bomb project in confrontation with the West (despite four sets of UN sanctions), with Syria continuing to brutally suppress the Syrians in their uprising, with the international community’s pressure on the Assad government, and with an imminent indictment in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri implicating Hezbollah, it appears the Middle East is a tinderbox ready to explode.
On June 30, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that Iran is furnishing new, more deadly weapons to Shiite Muslim militias targeting U.S. troops in Iraq, and that about 40 percent of the deaths of American soldiers since the official end of U.S. combat operations almost 10 months ago have occurred in the past few weeks as a result of the attacks.
One day earlier, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague told the House of Commons that Iran had conducted secret nuclear missile tests.
It seems the Iranians are getting ready for a confrontation. Are we?
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. A Time to Betray, his book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was published by Simon & Schuster on April 6.

The Arab-language newspaper Al-Ahram reports that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently sent a letter filled with threats to American officials. The letter, which is said to have been delivered by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, accuses the U.S. of meddling in Syrian affairs. According to Al-Ahram, Khamenei has ordered the U.S. to cease and desist pressuring the Syrian regime leadership, cautioning that Iran will retaliate against American troops stationed in Iraq should Obama refuse to take the warning seriously.

Jalal Talabani, who recently participated in the “International Conference for the Global Fight against Terrorism” in Tehran, promised Khamenei that he would deliver the letter and the message to American officials.

Ayatollah Khamenei, in a meeting with Iranian officials on June 30, warned that the U.S. — in a complicated plot — tries to create problems for Syria, and that the nature of the regional awakening was anti-U.S. and anti-Zionist.

Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, which is a media branch of Hezbollah , quoted several of its Tehran-based sources as saying that the Iranian leadership also warned Turkey against taking any military action against Syria. The report adds that any militaristic meddling in Syria by the Turks would be considered “crossing a red line” and will not be tolerated by the Iranian regime.

The Iranian regime has denied delivering an ultimatum to Turkey, calling the reports propaganda by the West. But according to these sources, Tehran is of the belief that pressures directed at Bashar Al-Assad and the Syrian leadership in general are a pretext for the main target, which is Hassan Nasrallah and ultimately the disempowerment of Iran. Therefore, as far as the Iranian leadership is concerned, defending Damascus is a part of the defense of Tehran and Beirut.

The Iranian threat against Turkey and the U.S. is due to the fact that several Arab-language and Turkish media outlets have suggested that an area on the Syrian border should be turned into a free zone in order to protect Syrians taking refuge in Turkey. The Turkish government has not made any official comments to that effect. Purportedly, Turkish authorities have assured the Iranian regime that they would not take any such action and that they would not go along with U.S. plans against Syria. On the other hand, a large majority of the Turkish media actively mentions this as a viable option.

An analysis written by Mehmet-Ali Birand in the Turkish daily Milliyet puts forth the scenario of the occupation of a piece of Syria’s land as a possible solution. However, Birand believes that this undertaking is filled with risks that at present Turkey cannot withstand or enforce. Birand concludes that the creation of a free zone will not only not resolve the Syrian refugees’ problem, but that the Turkish army will not be able to protect more than fifty thousand refugees. This will lead the UN and foreign forces into taking action, further complicating the issue.

The Iranian leadership, concerned about the situation in Syria, exacerbated their threats by conducting missile war games, and for the first time they used missile silos which they claim satellites can’t detect. The head of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division, Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh, in an interview with the Iranian Fars News Agency, stated: “The Americans have reduced our labors.” He further elaborating that all U.S. military bases in the region and the Zionist regime (referring to Israel) are fully within range of the Iranian missiles. The deputy commander of the Guards, Hossein Salami, also stated : “We still have our fingers on the trigger, but the number of the triggers has increased.” The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, also boasted about Iran’s military capability, saying that the fact that Iran’s show of strength rattles the West “is a source of delight for us.”

The Iranian leadership perceives America’s involvement on three fronts — Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya — as a limitation, and they have become emboldened. They see themselves as a powerhouse in the region, pushing to diminish U.S. supremacy in the Middle East.

The Iranian missile war games are intended to send a strong signal to both the U.S. and Israel that they should not be thinking of attacking the Iranian nuclear facilities, and that they should leave its allies, such as Syria and Hezbollah, alone.

With Iran pursuing its nuclear bomb project in confrontation with the West (despite four sets of UN sanctions), with Syria continuing to brutally suppress the Syrians in their uprising, with the international community’s pressure on the Assad government, and with an imminent indictment in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri implicating Hezbollah, it appears the Middle East is a tinderbox ready to explode.

On June 30, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that Iran is furnishing new, more deadly weapons to Shiite Muslim militias targeting U.S. troops in Iraq, and that about 40 percent of the deaths of American soldiers since the official end of U.S. combat operations almost 10 months ago have occurred in the past few weeks as a result of the attacks.

One day earlier, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague told the House of Commons that Iran had conducted secret nuclear missile tests.

It seems the Iranians are getting ready for a confrontation. Are we?

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. A Time to Betray, his book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was published by Simon & Schuster on April 6.

 

Iran's execution binge

Los Angeles Time
By Mark D. Wallace
July 6, 2011
Why not Iran?
Egypt and Tunisia have overthrown repressive regimes. Citizens in Syria, Yemen and other Middle East countries are demanding change. Yet in Iran, where a wave of 2009 demonstrations helped spark the movements we are now witnessing elsewhere in the Middle East, the populace is strangely silent.
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What accounts for the relative quiet in Iran? The answer, at least in part, is that one of the great human rights tragedies of the modern era is underway in Iran.
From the moment the first protesters hit Tahrir Square in Cairo, Iran's leadership has cracked down hard, instituting a brutal campaign of terror against its own people. The most gruesome manifestation of this repression has been a wave of public executions.
Since January, Iran has been on an execution binge. In February, the United Nations reported that the rate of executions in Iran had increased threefold in 2011 over the previous year. Amnesty International reported that Iran is the only country this year known to have executed juvenile offenders, a violation of international law. And though exact numbers are difficult to come by, it is now estimated by human rights organizations that more than 140 people have been executed in Iran so far this year, a rate that, if continued, would push the number far past the total for 2010.

Los Angeles Times
By Mark D. Wallace
July 6, 2011

Why not Iran?

Egypt and Tunisia have overthrown repressive regimes. Citizens in Syria, Yemen and other Middle East countries are demanding change. Yet in Iran, where a wave of 2009 demonstrations helped spark the movements we are now witnessing elsewhere in the Middle East, the populace is strangely silent.

What accounts for the relative quiet in Iran? The answer, at least in part, is that one of the great human rights tragedies of the modern era is underway in Iran.

From the moment the first protesters hit Tahrir Square in Cairo, Iran's leadership has cracked down hard, instituting a brutal campaign of terror against its own people. The most gruesome manifestation of this repression has been a wave of public executions.

Continue reading here. 

 

Iran: World Victim of Terrorism

FrontPage Magazine
By Joseph Klein
June 29, 2011

Has the United Nations no shame? Apparently not, as it continues to legitimize some of the world’s worst tyrants and human rights abusers.
The most recent example is the UN leadership’s endorsement of the so-called “World Without Terrorism Conference” hosted by the Iranian regime in Tehran on June 25-26, 2011. The “distinguished” roster of attendees included the indicted international criminal Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, the corrupter-in-chief Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and the hear-no-bin Laden, see-no-bin Laden Pakistani president Asif ‘Ali Zardari.
The conference website set the tone with an anti-Semitic cartoon depicting a hooked-nose Israeli soldier looking like the devil with horns and another cartoon displaying the Statue of Liberty holding a stick of dynamite in her hand.
Kicking off the conference were the Iranian terrorist-sponsoring leaders, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Each of them tried to outdo the other in branding the United States and Israel as the world’s leading terrorist states.
Khamenei, who fancies himself as the 12th Imam’s deputy on Earth, lamented the “satanic world powers which use terrorism in their policies and in their planning to achieve their illegitimate goals.” Of course, he wasn’t talking about his own government or the genocidal Al-Bashir, as he should have been doing. He was referring to the “Zionist regime” and to the U.S., the United Kingdom, and other Western governments that have a “black record of terrorist behaviors.”
Ayatollah Khamenei also pointed to “noble teachings of Islam” as the solution to ending the global terrorist threat. He just happened to leave out the “noble teachings of Islam” which teach about jihad against all unbelievers to establish Islam’s Sharia law worldwide.
After all, it was Mohammed himself who said “I have been ordered to wage war against mankind until they accept that there is no god but Allah and that they believe I am His prophet and accept all revelations spoken through me.”
To make sure that nobody misunderstood his “noble teachings” Mohammed also said: “To battle Kafirs [unbelievers] in jihad for even one day is greater than the entire earth and everything on it.”
Then again, Khamenei does not link the killing of unbelievers and all enemies of Islam to terrorism. Killing every Jew or “Crusader” in his mind is simply fulfilling the Islamist duty of jihad as laid out by Mohammed.
For his part, Ahmadinejad claimed that Iran was one of the chief victims of terrorism. He also revived his 9/11 truther claims:

Has the United Nations no shame? Apparently not, as it continues to legitimize some of the world’s worst tyrants and human rights abusers.

The most recent example is the UN leadership’s endorsement of the so-called “World Without Terrorism Conference” hosted by the Iranian regime in Tehran on June 25-26, 2011. The “distinguished” roster of attendees included the indicted international criminal Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, the corrupter-in-chief Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and the hear-no-bin Laden, see-no-bin Laden Pakistani president Asif ‘Ali Zardari.

The conference website set the tone with an anti-Semitic cartoon depicting a hooked-nose Israeli soldier looking like the devil with horns and another cartoon displaying the Statue of Liberty holding a stick of dynamite in her hand.

Kicking off the conference were the Iranian terrorist-sponsoring leaders, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Each of them tried to outdo the other in branding the United States and Israel as the world’s leading terrorist states.

Khamenei, who fancies himself as the 12th Imam’s deputy on Earth, lamented the “satanic world powers which use terrorism in their policies and in their planning to achieve their illegitimate goals.” Of course, he wasn’t talking about his own government or the genocidal Al-Bashir, as he should have been doing. He was referring to the “Zionist regime” and to the U.S., the United Kingdom, and other Western governments that have a “black record of terrorist behaviors.”

Ayatollah Khamenei also pointed to “noble teachings of Islam” as the solution to ending the global terrorist threat. He just happened to leave out the “noble teachings of Islam” which teach about jihad against all unbelievers to establish Islam’s Sharia law worldwide.

After all, it was Mohammed himself who said “I have been ordered to wage war against mankind until they accept that there is no god but Allah and that they believe I am His prophet and accept all revelations spoken through me.”

To make sure that nobody misunderstood his “noble teachings” Mohammed also said: “To battle Kafirs [unbelievers] in jihad for even one day is greater than the entire earth and everything on it.”

Then again, Khamenei does not link the killing of unbelievers and all enemies of Islam to terrorism. Killing every Jew or “Crusader” in his mind is simply fulfilling the Islamist duty of jihad as laid out by Mohammed.

For his part, Ahmadinejad claimed that Iran was one of the chief victims of terrorism. He also revived his 9/11 truther claims:

Some believe that the motive behind the September 11 attacks was to ensure the safety of [the] Zionist regime, to foment insecurity in regional countries, to distract U.S. public opinion from the chaotic economic situation in the country, and to [line] the pockets of uncivilized, belligerent capitalists… Two years after the incident that provided an excuse for the invasion of two countries (Afghanistan and Iraq) led to the killing, injuring, and displacing of millions… the U.S. government, under pressure from public opinion, tasked a group to investigate the reason behind the attacks. But the real truth has been kept from the Americans and the world[.]

Khamenei and Ahmadinejad wouldn’t let their conference go by without making sure they got together for a tête-à-tête with Sudanese president Al-Bashir. Perhaps Al-Bashir gave them some friendly advice about how to brutally suppress their own people and get away with it. After all, Al-Bashir can speak from long experience that continues right up to the present day. His Islamist Arab regime presses on with its relentless massacre of the defenseless black African population inhabiting central Sudan’s Nuba Mountains located in an area known as South Kordofan.

Did the United Nations condemn the travesty of this supposed conference against terrorism hosted by terrorist-sponsoring Iran and attended by the international criminal Al-Bashir? Did it call for the immediate arrest of the Sudanese president on the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court? Not a chance. To the contrary, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon actually praised Iran for its initiative in hosting the conference.

The news agency FARS reported that in a message delivered to the conference via special envoy, Ban said:

The U.N. has an important role in fighting terrorism and I hope that the Tehran conference can attain [this] great goal.

FARS also quoted Ban Ki-moon as saying that the UN had approved a large number of resolutions against terrorism in recent years and that “holding conferences like the Tehran conference can be considerably helpful in implementing these resolutions.”

Lest anyone think that the UN secretary general’s words got lost in the translation or taken out of context, a UN spokesperson defended Ban Ki-moon’s message to the conference, saying, “The UN believes that it is important for all nations to work together in the fight against terrorism.”

How about we start working together “in the fight against terrorism” by ostracizing the state sponsors of terrorism like Iran itself, which has also flouted a series of UN Security Council resolutions aimed at stopping its drive for nuclear weapons? One of the best ways to start towards Iran’s self-proclaimed conference goal of a “World Without Terrorism” is to strive for a world without the current terrorist Iranian regime.

Instead, the UN continues to reward Iran for its bad behavior. Just last week, the UN General Assembly elected Iran as one of its vice presidents and Qatar as president, each for a year-long term starting in September. Qatar is no angel either, by the way. Aside from financing the terrorists’ propaganda arm, Al-Jazeera, Qatar protected terrorists, including the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, according to the 9/11 Commission.

Sadly, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon let another opportunity go by without calling out the Iranian government’s evil when he sees it and exposing its blatant hypocrisy. Instead, he allowed the United Nations to legitimize yet another Iranian exercise in anti-Western, anti-Semitic propaganda.

Joseph Klein is the author of a recent book entitled Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations and Radical Islam.

Iran Human Rights Head: Execution, Eye Gouging, Cutting off Hands and Feet ‘Beautiful and Necessary’

Pajamas Media
By Reza Kahlili
June 6, 2011
On May 1, Mohammad-Javad Larijani — head of the human rights council in Iran’s judiciary — participated in a conference where he offered his analysis regarding Iranian penal laws, which he claims are being attacked and criticized by international human rights organizations.
He said that retaliation, the cutting off of hands and feet, the removal of a “defendant’s” eye, and even stoning were a very real part of Iranian judicial law:
The problem is that these Westerners go on and on about their own laws. The interpretation of laws in Iran is based on Islam and our constitution. We have made concessions to some of the international demands, but we have our own laws and we will carry them out as interpreted.
Speaking out against the Western rule of law with regards to Iran, Larijani added:
Westerners make a mockery of the partnership between a man and a woman as a family unit by saying that two men or two women, homosexuals, can live together as life partners; so based on this analysis, in the near future a human being will be also allowed to marry a cat.
Regarding marriage, Larijani maintained:
Westerners believe that the marriage between a man and a woman is an earthly contract and, if that contract is annulled, they either pay a penalty or they are released. But when we say that we are going to have someone stoned, it is supposedly against human rights. At the same time, these Westerners do not even speak out against a woman who cheats on her husband and produces an illegitimate child.
Larijani, who had previously claimed that the sentence of stoning is much lighter than actual execution because the “defendant can actually survive,” also said:
Retaliation and punishment are beautiful and necessary things. It’s a form of protection for the individual and civil rights of the people in a society. The executioner or the person carrying out the sentence is in fact very much a defender of human rights. One can say that there is humanity in the act of retaliation.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei also criticized the West last week for demeaning the value of women in their societies. He claimed that the Islamic regime of Iran has upheld the status of women, and that under Islam much attention is given to the role of women in society.
These two Iranian officials failed to mention that women in Iran are constantly attacked for not adhering to the Islamic hijab, or that thousands are in prison suffering torture, rape, and execution for seeking their rights. Just days ago, Iranian humanitarian and democracy activist Haleh Sahabi died after being severely beaten by Iranian security forces during her father’s funeral. Her body was immediately seized by Iranian authorities and her family forced to watch as they buried her that same night. No autopsy was allowed. Her father, also an activist, had been arrested several times in the past.
In spite of these atrocities, Iran was recently allowed to join the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
Meanwhile, the West has done little to support women’s rights in Iran, or to support those bravely calling for freedom. How many more deaths like those of Haleh Sahabi and Neda Agha-Soltan (the student shot in cold blood on the streets of Tehran last year) will it take before the international community stands against the barbaric Islamic regime of Iran?
If Western leaders think there is still hope for negotiations with the radicals ruling Iran, they are gravely mistaken: if this is how they treat their own, imagine how they will treat those they consider infidels? The West should be reminded that the Islamists in Tehran believe in the rule of Allah and the establishment of an Islamic caliphate for the world, and hence they are pursuing  the bomb. And they take their directions from the Quran:
(8:12) I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. A Time to Betray, his book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was published by Simon & Schuster on April 6.

Pajamas Media
By Reza Kahlili
June 6, 2011

On May 1, Mohammad-Javad Larijani — head of the human rights council in Iran’s judiciary — participated in a conference where he offered his analysis regarding Iranian penal laws, which he claims are being attacked and criticized by international human rights organizations.

He said that retaliation, the cutting off of hands and feet, the removal of a “defendant’s” eye, and even stoning were a very real part of Iranian judicial law:

The problem is that these Westerners go on and on about their own laws. The interpretation of laws in Iran is based on Islam and our constitution. We have made concessions to some of the international demands, but we have our own laws and we will carry them out as interpreted.

Speaking out against the Western rule of law with regards to Iran, Larijani added:

Westerners make a mockery of the partnership between a man and a woman as a family unit by saying that two men or two women, homosexuals, can live together as life partners; so based on this analysis, in the near future a human being will be also allowed to marry a cat.

Regarding marriage, Larijani maintained:

Westerners believe that the marriage between a man and a woman is an earthly contract and, if that contract is annulled, they either pay a penalty or they are released. But when we say that we are going to have someone stoned, it is supposedly against human rights. At the same time, these Westerners do not even speak out against a woman who cheats on her husband and produces an illegitimate child.

Larijani, who had previously claimed that the sentence of stoning is much lighter than actual execution because the “defendant can actually survive,” also said:

Retaliation and punishment are beautiful and necessary things. It’s a form of protection for the individual and civil rights of the people in a society. The executioner or the person carrying out the sentence is in fact very much a defender of human rights. One can say that there is humanity in the act of retaliation.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei also criticized the West last week for demeaning the value of women in their societies. He claimed that the Islamic regime of Iran has upheld the status of women, and that under Islam much attention is given to the role of women in society.

These two Iranian officials failed to mention that women in Iran are constantly attacked for not adhering to the Islamic hijab, or that thousands are in prison suffering torture, rape, and execution for seeking their rights. Just days ago, Iranian humanitarian and democracy activist Haleh Sahabi died after being severely beaten by Iranian security forces during her father’s funeral. Her body was immediately seized by Iranian authorities and her family forced to watch as they buried her that same night. No autopsy was allowed. Her father, also an activist, had been arrested several times in the past.

In spite of these atrocities, Iran was recently allowed to join the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

Meanwhile, the West has done little to support women’s rights in Iran, or to support those bravely calling for freedom. How many more deaths like those of Haleh Sahabi and Neda Agha-Soltan (the student shot in cold blood on the streets of Tehran last year) will it take before the international community stands against the barbaric Islamic regime of Iran?

If Western leaders think there is still hope for negotiations with the radicals ruling Iran, they are gravely mistaken: if this is how they treat their own, imagine how they will treat those they consider infidels? The West should be reminded that the Islamists in Tehran believe in the rule of Allah and the establishment of an Islamic caliphate for the world, and hence they are pursuing  the bomb. And they take their directions from the Quran:

(8:12) I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. A Time to Betray, his book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was published by Simon & Schuster on April 6.

This article was originally published here. 

Iranian Commander: ‘We Have Infiltrated America and the UK’

 

Pajamas Media
By Reza Kahlili
June 20, 2011
According to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Fars News Agency, on Tuesday night — during a gathering of high-ranking members of the IRGC command and the Basij militia — Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Naghdi announced:
Today we are in a full-scale war with our enemies. During the last 32 years, the enemy has gone from pillar to post and from one angle to another in order to find a way to bring us down. But the enemy has been hit hard and the proof of that is in the collapse of the Western block, the humiliation of the banking and investment sector, the awakening of our various nations, the spread of the religion of God, and people distancing themselves from the devil-worshipping elitists. This is a sign of our populist progress.
Naghdi, the commander of the Basij militia, added:
You all have managed to infiltrate into the heart of the enemy’s various nests to the point where even in the streets of New York, Ashura is known as Imam Hossein Day and it is observed by pious self-mortification and prayer; in London, the month of Muharram and the passing of Fatimah are observed. This is what it means to penetrate into the enemy camp. Today, our enemy is at the front line of a confrontation with us.
…
The enemy hides behind many masks, but you all have managed to expose their conspiracies in order to expose their real character. Once upon a time the United States was thought of as the standard-bearer of human rights and liberty, but the truth came out and all was revealed. Now as a result of our strength, resistance, courage, and sacrifice, everyone knows that the U.S. is nothing more than a rogue criminal enterprise.
…
Today the enemy has put up all these fronts so that they can fight our people, but they have lost miserably as we have arrived at their doorstep. When they create figures, who are behind various conspiracies and the organization of all kinds of coups, that person ends up being directly linked to their vice president and secretary of state. Ultimately they have been discredited and shown for their incompetence. One can now clearly see who is really responsible for these plots and treachery. Our people, however, are aware and enlightened and at this point in time, the United States and the evil British, who are always looking to bluff us, will be outwitted until the point where they no longer have any cards to play.
Naghdi, born in Iraq, was a member of Iranian Quds forces involved in international terrorism before he was appointed in 2009 by Ayatollah Khamenei as commander of the Basij. He has previously threatened the assassination of American generals in retaliation for the killing of the Iranian nuclear scientists.
On June 12, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi — chairman of Iran’s Joint Chiefs of Staff — stated that the culture of jihad should be developed in Muslim nations which have been experiencing an Islamic awakening:
According to the supreme leader, the Islamic Revolution has given us the culture of jihad as a gift and now jihadists should grant it to other nations.
The senior commander also said that jihadists should not forget about jihad principles if they want to find a place among the poor. He added that jihad culture would actually provide moral support for the people and was an important factor in the victory of the Islamic Revolution, in the sacred defense against Iraq’s war against Iran in the 1980s, and in safeguarding the Islamic Revolution’s values.
I have been outspoken about the fact that the infiltration of jihadists in our society is deep and wide. I learned during my spy activities for the CIA in the Revolutionary Guards how the Guards successfully use mosques, Islamic cultural centers, Islamic student associations, alliances with other Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and Muslims from Afghani and Pakistani groups to infiltrate the West and to infect its society.
The radicals in Iran also use assets, such as non-profit organizations in America, in an effort to promote better ties with Iran. These entities warn that taking any harsh action against Iran or attacking the country will cause Iranians to then support the very regime they resent. They further spread their propaganda with repeated arguments such as: “Sanctions hurt the people of Iran, not the government”; the nuclear issue is a matter of national pride; negotiation is the best course because the Iranian regime can help with the U.S.’s problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, they fail to mention that their true plans are to ultimately destroy America and Israel.
Hassan Abbasi, a longtime top officer of the Guards and a political strategist, stated openly that the duty of Muslims is to create terror and fear in the land of infidels. He emphasized that Islamic agents have identified about 800 sensitive sites within the U.S, and when the time is right their cells will attack those very same locations to create fear, chaos, and instability.
Please, wake up America!
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. A Time to Betray, his book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was published by Simon & Schuster on April 6.

Pajamas Media
By Reza Kahlili
June 20, 2011

According to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Fars News Agency, on Tuesday night — during a gathering of high-ranking members of the IRGC command and the Basij militia — Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Naghdi announced:

Today we are in a full-scale war with our enemies. During the last 32 years, the enemy has gone from pillar to post and from one angle to another in order to find a way to bring us down. But the enemy has been hit hard and the proof of that is in the collapse of the Western block, the humiliation of the banking and investment sector, the awakening of our various nations, the spread of the religion of God, and people distancing themselves from the devil-worshipping elitists. This is a sign of our populist progress.

Naghdi, the commander of the Basij militia, added:

You all have managed to infiltrate into the heart of the enemy’s various nests to the point where even in the streets of New York, Ashura is known as Imam Hossein Day and it is observed by pious self-mortification and prayer; in London, the month of Muharram and the passing of Fatimah are observed. This is what it means to penetrate into the enemy camp. Today, our enemy is at the front line of a confrontation with us.

…

The enemy hides behind many masks, but you all have managed to expose their conspiracies in order to expose their real character. Once upon a time the United States was thought of as the standard-bearer of human rights and liberty, but the truth came out and all was revealed. Now as a result of our strength, resistance, courage, and sacrifice, everyone knows that the U.S. is nothing more than a rogue criminal enterprise.

…

Today the enemy has put up all these fronts so that they can fight our people, but they have lost miserably as we have arrived at their doorstep. When they create figures, who are behind various conspiracies and the organization of all kinds of coups, that person ends up being directly linked to their vice president and secretary of state. Ultimately they have been discredited and shown for their incompetence. One can now clearly see who is really responsible for these plots and treachery. Our people, however, are aware and enlightened and at this point in time, the United States and the evil British, who are always looking to bluff us, will be outwitted until the point where they no longer have any cards to play.

Naghdi, born in Iraq, was a member of Iranian Quds forces involved in international terrorism before he was appointed in 2009 by Ayatollah Khamenei as commander of the Basij. He has previously threatened the assassination of American generals in retaliation for the killing of the Iranian nuclear scientists.

On June 12, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi — chairman of Iran’s Joint Chiefs of Staff — stated that the culture of jihad should be developed in Muslim nations which have been experiencing an Islamic awakening:

According to the supreme leader, the Islamic Revolution has given us the culture of jihad as a gift and now jihadists should grant it to other nations.

The senior commander also said that jihadists should not forget about jihad principles if they want to find a place among the poor. He added that jihad culture would actually provide moral support for the people and was an important factor in the victory of the Islamic Revolution, in the sacred defense against Iraq’s war against Iran in the 1980s, and in safeguarding the Islamic Revolution’s values.

I have been outspoken about the fact that the infiltration of jihadists in our society is deep and wide. I learned during my spy activities for the CIA in the Revolutionary Guards how the Guards successfully use mosques, Islamic cultural centers, Islamic student associations, alliances with other Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and Muslims from Afghani and Pakistani groups to infiltrate the West and to infect its society.

The radicals in Iran also use assets, such as non-profit organizations in America, in an effort to promote better ties with Iran. These entities warn that taking any harsh action against Iran or attacking the country will cause Iranians to then support the very regime they resent. They further spread their propaganda with repeated arguments such as: “Sanctions hurt the people of Iran, not the government”; the nuclear issue is a matter of national pride; negotiation is the best course because the Iranian regime can help with the U.S.’s problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, they fail to mention that their true plans are to ultimately destroy America and Israel.

Hassan Abbasi, a longtime top officer of the Guards and a political strategist, stated openly that the duty of Muslims is to create terror and fear in the land of infidels. He emphasized that Islamic agents have identified about 800 sensitive sites within the U.S, and when the time is right their cells will attack those very same locations to create fear, chaos, and instability.

Please, wake up America!

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. A Time to Betray, his book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was published by Simon & Schuster on April 6.

This article was originally published here. 

 

Murdered Activists can No Longer Cry

Commitments to liberty made by the living must be fulfilled.

By Nir Boms and Homayoun Mobasseri / The Washington Times / Friday, June 17, 201
It was just two years ago when Neda Agha Soltan was shot to death in the streets of Tehran. Neda died with eyes wide open after the rigged 2009 presidential elections of Iran, where millions of people poured into the streets with a demand for change. Neda’s death shocked many who watched in disbelief from the comfort of their homes. A picture is worth a thousand words, it is said. But reality is often stronger than its captured moments.
Ironically, a few days short of the anniversary of Neda’s death, another senseless killing occurred. Haleh Sahabi, 54, an ardent humanitarian and democracy activist, died from wounds inflicted following her father’s funeral. Haleh, a member of Mothers for Peace and a campaigner for women’s rights, was arrested on Aug. 5, 2010, with numerous other activists. Her father, Ezatollah Sahabi, a former member of the Iranian parliament and prominent dissident who served sporadic jail terms throughout his life, was hospitalized because of a brain hemorrhage. Haleh was released from jail with a two-week pass to visit her ailing father. It was too late, and sadly, Mr Sahabi went into a deep coma and died.
Mr. Sahabi’s funeral was scheduled for the morning of June 1 at 8 a.m. However, security forces postponed it for a later time as a very large crowd gathered and tried to confiscate the corpse of the deceased. There was also an attempt to alter the direction of the funeral procession, much to the disapproval and protest of Mr. Sahabi’s daughter, Haleh. At this point, the infamous plainclothes security forces attacked the crowd. In an attempt to disburse them, police announced the funeral procession’s closure. Consequently, a scuffle with police occurred in which Haleh Sahabi was thrown to the ground. She was brutally kicked and eventually was beaten to death.
A large number of funeral attendees were arrested. Among them was the grandson of Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri – the heir to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic of Iran. Montazeri lost the leadership of the country because he opposed Khomeini for the killings of political prisoners in 1988. Khavaran is perhaps the most renowned site that marks these mass graves of the reported 30,000-plus murdered political prisoners of that era.
Needless to say, the Islamic Revolution of Iran has failed to deliver on its promises. Tragically, Iran’s leadership has proved to be one of the most repressive regimes of recent times. Rather than providing prosperity and progress, the Islamic republic ended up setting new records in other areas, such as executions per capita (including executions of children), the imprisonment and torture of journalists and bloggers, the number of prisoners of conscience and the arrest of human rights activists.
Saeed Pourheydar, a reformist-journalist and ex-political prisoner who recently fled Iran, has painted a very gruesome picture of the physical and psychological tortures that occur inside Iran’s prison walls. These include hanging a detainee from a ceiling in an upside-down position, dropping the detainee into icy water, lashing the detainee with cables, squeezing the testicles and holding mock executions. Rape and threats on the wife and daughters of the detainee are also a sadistic norm.
Followers of the Baha’i faith have been deprived of a higher education, and just a few weeks ago more than 30 were arrested for attending an online higher-learning institution.
At the Group of Eight (G-8) meeting in France, President Obama and other world leaders pointed out that the recent Middle East and North African uprisings – now known as the “Arab Spring” – actually began in Iran and that current events have not pushed the Iranian issue to the sidelines. “We deplore violence which has led to the loss of lives of Iranian civilians, and we deplore interference with media, unjustified detentions and arrest,” a G-8 statement said. It also called on Iranian officials to “respect their international commitments.”
But what will another statement – one of many – do to prevent the next brutal death? What will another round of negotiations do, aside from gaining time for the Islamic republic?
The West must bring the human rights issues to the forefront. Khomeini, the founder of Iran, promised a democratic nation with all the freedoms and liberties based on the International Declaration of Human Rights. Are we to deliver the same hollow promises? Or will our words actually have meaning?
Haleh Sahabi, may she rest in peace, is also watching us with her eyes open. If she could speak, she probably would ask when our words will turn to actions. Millions of Halehs in places like Iran and Syria are waiting for just that.
Nir Boms is co-founder of Cyberdissidents.org and a board member of Neda for a Free Iran. Homayoun Mobasseri is a founder of Neda for a Free Iran.
The Washington Times

By Nir Boms and Homayoun Mobasseri
The Washington Times
June 17, 2011

It was just two years ago when Neda Agha Soltan was shot to death in the streets of Tehran. Neda died with eyes wide open after the rigged 2009 presidential elections of Iran, where millions of people poured into the streets with a demand for change. Neda’s death shocked many who watched in disbelief from the comfort of their homes. A picture is worth a thousand words, it is said. But reality is often stronger than its captured moments.

Ironically, a few days short of the anniversary of Neda’s death, another senseless killing occurred. Haleh Sahabi, 54, an ardent humanitarian and democracy activist, died from wounds inflicted following her father’s funeral. Haleh, a member of Mothers for Peace and a campaigner for women’s rights, was arrested on Aug. 5, 2010, with numerous other activists. Her father, Ezatollah Sahabi, a former member of the Iranian parliament and prominent dissident who served sporadic jail terms throughout his life, was hospitalized because of a brain hemorrhage. Haleh was released from jail with a two-week pass to visit her ailing father. It was too late, and sadly, Mr Sahabi went into a deep coma and died.

Mr. Sahabi’s funeral was scheduled for the morning of June 1 at 8 a.m. However, security forces postponed it for a later time as a very large crowd gathered and tried to confiscate the corpse of the deceased. There was also an attempt to alter the direction of the funeral procession, much to the disapproval and protest of Mr. Sahabi’s daughter, Haleh. At this point, the infamous plainclothes security forces attacked the crowd. In an attempt to disburse them, police announced the funeral procession’s closure. Consequently, a scuffle with police occurred in which Haleh Sahabi was thrown to the ground. She was brutally kicked and eventually was beaten to death.

A large number of funeral attendees were arrested. Among them was the grandson of Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri – the heir to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic of Iran. Montazeri lost the leadership of the country because he opposed Khomeini for the killings of political prisoners in 1988. Khavaran is perhaps the most renowned site that marks these mass graves of the reported 30,000-plus murdered political prisoners of that era.

Needless to say, the Islamic Revolution of Iran has failed to deliver on its promises. Tragically, Iran’s leadership has proved to be one of the most repressive regimes of recent times. Rather than providing prosperity and progress, the Islamic republic ended up setting new records in other areas, such as executions per capita (including executions of children), the imprisonment and torture of journalists and bloggers, the number of prisoners of conscience and the arrest of human rights activists.

Saeed Pourheydar, a reformist-journalist and ex-political prisoner who recently fled Iran, has painted a very gruesome picture of the physical and psychological tortures that occur inside Iran’s prison walls. These include hanging a detainee from a ceiling in an upside-down position, dropping the detainee into icy water, lashing the detainee with cables, squeezing the testicles and holding mock executions. Rape and threats on the wife and daughters of the detainee are also a sadistic norm.

Followers of the Baha’i faith have been deprived of a higher education, and just a few weeks ago more than 30 were arrested for attending an online higher-learning institution.

At the Group of Eight (G-8) meeting in France, President Obama and other world leaders pointed out that the recent Middle East and North African uprisings – now known as the “Arab Spring” – actually began in Iran and that current events have not pushed the Iranian issue to the sidelines. “We deplore violence which has led to the loss of lives of Iranian civilians, and we deplore interference with media, unjustified detentions and arrest,” a G-8 statement said. It also called on Iranian officials to “respect their international commitments.”

But what will another statement – one of many – do to prevent the next brutal death? What will another round of negotiations do, aside from gaining time for the Islamic republic?

The West must bring the human rights issues to the forefront. Khomeini, the founder of Iran, promised a democratic nation with all the freedoms and liberties based on the International Declaration of Human Rights. Are we to deliver the same hollow promises? Or will our words actually have meaning?

Haleh Sahabi, may she rest in peace, is also watching us with her eyes open. If she could speak, she probably would ask when our words will turn to actions. Millions of Halehs in places like Iran and Syria are waiting for just that.

Nir Boms is co-founder of Cyberdissidents.org and a board member of Neda for a Free Iran. Homayoun Mobasseri is a founder of Neda for a Free Iran.

The Washington Times