The report, authored by Clare Lopez, said the lobbyists have been funneling money to key members
of Congress as well as penetrating the Obama administration. The lobbyists were said to be
supported by the highest level of the Iranian leadership.
"Of special concern is the growing penetration of the Obama
administration by a number of individuals with such associations," the
report said. "Specifically, the de facto alliance between CAIR, one of the
Muslim Brotherhood affiliates named by the U.S. Department of Justice as an
unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 and 2008 Holy Land Foundation trials,
and groups such as NIAC and its predecessor, the American-Iranian Council,
which long have functioned openly as apologists for the Iranian regime, must
arouse deep concern that U.S. national security policy is being successfully
targeted by Jihadist entities hostile to American interests."
The report said the establishment of the Iranian lobby took about a
decade as it has sought to recruit prominent American academics to support
the Teheran regime. Today, the report said, key figures in such U.S. think
tanks as the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Council on
Foreign Relations, the Institute for Science and International Security and
the Woodrow Wilson Center have become supporters of a diplomatic approach
toward a nuclear Iran.
Obama began talks with the Iranian lobby during his campaign for the
Democratic presidential nomination. The report, based on open sources, said
Obama met a leading pro-Iranian lobbyist, Hassam Qazwini, head of the
Islamic Center of America, in May 2008. Since then, Obama has been
appointing or preparing to name such leading pro-Iranian speakers such as
Richard Haas, Vali Nasr, Dennis Ross to senior positions in the
administration. Ross has been selected to be Obama's special envoy to Iran.
"That so many respected Middle East and foreign policy experts seem to
have bought into the Iranian regime's agenda is testament to the
extraordinarily effective information operation that has been waged against
U.S. national security interests by the Iran Lobby's network over the last
several years," the report said.
Charles Freeman, appointed chairman of the National Intelligence
Council, was identified as a key member of the Iranian lobby. Others cited
by the report were U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Susan Rice, a
predecessor, Thomas Pickering, [Ret.] Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, former U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering, former National Security
Council official Gary Sick, former Rep. Robert Ney and Rep. Keith Ellison, a
Minnesota Democrat.
Ney, convicted of accepting bribes in 2006, was directed by his
then-aide Trita Parsi, who later became a key pro-Iranian lobbyist and
president of the National Iranian-American Council. The report identified
Parsi, a Swedish-Iranian, as a leading organizer in winning support for a
U.S. rapproachment with Iran from prominent Americans, many of whom with
access to Obama.
"Under the leadership of Mr. Obama's prospective National Intelligence
Council chairman, Chas Freeman, the Middle East Policy Council has closely
aligned with Trita Parsi's NIAC in urging the U.S. to adopt an agenda of
dialogue and rapprochement with Teheran," the report which was written before Freeman withdrew from the post said.
"It is
inconceivable that a man as publicly and closely aligned with the views of
Iran and its agents of influence in America will be able to exercise truly
independent judgment about what the mullahs are up to, let alone offer
objective intelligence analysis about how best to contend with them."
U.S. oil majors have also backed a new American policy that supports the
Teheran regime. The report cited the American-Iranian Council, founded more
than a decade ago with support from Aramco, Chevron Texaco, and Conoco
Phillips.
"At present, a major objective of the Iran lobby is to weaken U.S.
support for Israel," the report said. "The lobby advocates permitting the
Iranian nuclear weapons program to push forward with no serious
consequences, while urging an 'evenhanded' policy that would ban all nuclear
weapons from the Middle East region. An impressive array of prominent think
tanks and Middle East experts has been lining up to echo this party line."
"If the Obama administration does not hear
a persuasive alternative position, cogently presented, and soon, Iran's
carefully-crafted clandestine intelligence operation to exercise effective
control over America's Iran policy could succeed — to the profound
detriment of U.S. national interests and those of our friends and allies in
the Middle East region and around the world."