Special to WorldTribune.com

Following are excerpts from an April 21, 2015 statement by the Washington-based Endowment for Middle East Truth.

Today, the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) condemned Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s column featured Monday in The New York Times and the newspaper’s willingness to publish Iranian propaganda intended to boost the Iranian Regime’s quest to develop nuclear weapons.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a brutal, terroristic, genocidal theocratic dictatorship that since 1979 has conducted a war against the United States which has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans. Iran seeks these weapons to threaten the United States, conquer its neighbors in the Middle East, impose brutal Sharia law over the entire area, and obliterate the United States’ strongest ally in the region, Israel. The New York Times’ willingness to publish Iranian propaganda denotes a depraved indifference to the increasing dangers emanating from Iran.

The column by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif published in The New York Times on Monday, April 20, 2015, is nothing more than pure propaganda from the Iranian Regime that seeks to fool Americans – and others reading the Times – that Iran is a responsible nation seeking only peaceful nuclear power and friendship with the United States, and other nations.

Iran, although awash with oil and other natural resources, is actually seeking to develop nuclear weapons with which to conquer surrounding areas of the Middle East and threaten the world. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly said that it cannot consider Iran’s nuclear program as entirely civilian, and in 2011 it released a report stating there is “credible” evidence that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device.” Certainly, the plutonium reactor Iran has built in Arak is completely unnecessary for the development of peaceful nuclear power. Likewise, as President Obama has conceded, the “configuration” of the Iranian Fordow facility – a secret, underground bunker – is “not consistent with a peaceful nuclear program.”

Iran continues to develop ballistic missile technology, whose purpose is to carry nuclear weapons across long distances, such as to Europe and the United States. Iran also refuses to allow the IAEA to inspect all of its nuclear facilities, which it would certainly not do if they were solely for peaceful nuclear technology.

This propaganda piece published by the Times ignores the Islamic Republic of Iran’s brutal and undemocratic nature. Iran is a ruthless theocracy, whose Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei rules corruptly and despotically as an extremist Shia Muslim religious leader. As a democratic fig leaf, Khamenei has allowed the “election” of supposed “moderate” Iranian President Rouhani. However, Iran does not allow for free speech or democratic elections. Iran executed 753 citizens in 2014, “the highest annual figure since 2002,” according to a recent UN Human Rights Council report. It practices extreme Sharia law, which is used to discriminate against women and non-Muslims, and punishes Iranian homosexuals with death (often by hanging them from cranes).

The column also ignores the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the bitterest and most dangerous foreign enemies to the United States. Since 1979, and the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the Iranian regime has committed numerous acts of war against the U.S. It has supported and directed terrorists that have killed hundreds of Americans, including marines in the 1983 bombings in Beirut, and in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers; it has supplied IEDs to Iraqi rebels during the 2000’s that have killed hundreds if not thousands of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it planned a 2011 bombing of a Washington, DC restaurant to kill the Saudi Ambassador. Iran has been the leading state sponsor of terrorism for thirty years. Every year, the Islamist Regime holds celebrations of the seizing of the American Embassy where the crowds chant “Death to America” and burn American flags. Just this month, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself called for “Death to America,” only a day after President Barack Obama appealed to Iran to seize a “historic opportunity” for a nuclear deal.

Recently, Iran captured yet another American, a journalist, and announced that he will be tried for espionage. This American is one of four U.S. citizens held by the Islamist Regime.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is also a dedicated enemy towards the U.S.’s strongest Middle East ally, and the only democratic nation in that region, Israel. Iranian leaders frequently call for Israel’s destruction, and often in hysterical and genocidal terms. For example, Khamenei recently said on Twitter that the “barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of Israel” must be destroyed, and personally posted a nine point plan to do just that.

Since 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has implemented an aggressive plan to dominate the Middle East, and post-2013, it has actually bragged of its success. Iran has long waged a covert campaign to turn Iraq into a virtual client of Tehran — and in the process alienated Iraqi Sunnis and pushed them toward extremism. Iran has also propped up the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria, which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Arab civilians, and allowed for Sunni jihadists groups like Al Qaida and Islamic State [of Iraq and Levant (ISIL)] to take advantage of the chaos by creating their own territories. Iran continues to rule Lebanon through its brutal jihadist proxy, the terror group, Hizbullah, which prior to 9/11 had more American blood on its hands than any other Islamist terror group. Iran is fomenting unrest among Bahrain’s Shiite majority in an attempt to force regime change in the oil-rich Sunni monarchy that is allied with the U.S.

Recently, Iranian sponsored Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen have seized most of that nation, resulting in Sunni Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt to be forced into conducting an air assault on Yemen, and a blockade to prevent Iranian allies from being able to threaten world commerce by cutting off oil trade through the strategically crucial Bab-al-Mandeb strait. The UN has imposed an arms embargo on the Iranian supported Houthi rebels. Iran has responded to the Saudi counterattack by sending naval units to Yemen, which are suspected of carrying weapons to the Houthis, and tensions between Shia Islamist Iran, the Sunni Arab nations, and the U.S. are rising as we speak; full scale war may soon follow.

“The New York Times should be ashamed of itself for its willingness to publish pure propaganda and talking points from the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said EMET Founder and President Sarah Stern.

She continued, “Iran is not just a normal democratic nation seeking peaceful nuclear power; it is a brutal, terroristic, and genocidal theocratic dictatorship. … The New York Times may pretend otherwise, but the truth is patently obvious to all people actually paying attention.”

  Endowment for Middle East Truth, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Washington group slams N.Y. Times decision to publish Iran foreign minister’s ‘propaganda’, Washington group slams N.Y. Times decision to publish Iran foreign minister’s ‘pure propaganda’, WorldTribune.com