Report: Iran has assembled network of lobbyists that has 'penetrated' administration
Thursday, March 19, 2009 E-Mail this story Free Headline Alerts
WASHINGTON Ñ The number of significant pro-Iran lobbyists has grown and key players have gained access to the new administration of President Barak Obama, a report said.
The Center for Security Policy said veteran Iranian lobbyists, several of them former government officials, have been granted access to the Obama administration.
"A complex network of individuals and organizations with ties to the clerical regime in Teheran is pressing forward in seeming synchrony to influence the new U.S. administration's policy towards the Islamic republic of Iran," the report, titled "Rise of the Iran Lobby," said.
"Spearheaded by a de facto partnership between the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other organizations serving as mouthpieces for the mullahs' party line, the network includes well-known American diplomats, congressional representatives, figures from academia and the think tank world."
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 Ñ 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."