The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) (of which Leftist establishment media darling Reza Aslan and Leftist “academic” Juan Cole are Board members) is quite influential in Washington, and lobbied hard for the disastrous Iranian nuclear deal. It has also been established in court as a lobbying group for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Said Michael Rubin: “Jamal Abdi, NIAC’s policy director, now appears to push aside any pretense that NIAC is something other than Iran’s lobby. Speaking at the forthcoming ‘Expose AIPAC’ conference, Abdi is featured on the ‘Training: Constituent Lobbying for Iran’ panel. Oops.” Iranian freedom activist Hassan Daioleslam “documented over a two-year period that NIAC is a front group lobbying on behalf of the Iranian regime.” NIAC had to pay him nearly $200,000 in legal fees after they sued him for defamation over his accusation that they were a front group for the mullahs, and lost.
“Protests planned against Iranian American council accused of lobbying for Tehran,” by Rebal Abdulrahim and Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English, July 16, 2019 (thanks to Lookmann):
Members of the Iranian diaspora are planning to protest against the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) in Washington DC on Friday, with the hashtag #ProtestAgainstNIAC gaining traction as protesters accuse the council of lobbying on behalf of the Iranian regime.
Despite NIAC’s claim to be a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, it has been repeatedly accused of lobbying on behalf of the Iranian regime and against the interests of the Iranian disapora in the US, whom it claims to represent.
“For too long we have stood by as NIAC has promoted to the US government harmful appeasement policies toward the Islamic Republic. NIAC protects the interests of the ruthless, corrupt regime suffocating our beloved homeland. It neither represents Iranian-Americans who aspire for an end to the repression of the Iranian people nor the hope for true peace between Iran and the US,” a statement from a press release by the protest organizers read.
“As inside Iran our courageous countrymen and women wage their struggle against tyranny, we here will broaden awareness of the true motives behind what is essentially the regime’s lobby in America,” the statement added….
NIAC has a history of attempting to raise unsuccessful lawsuits against its critics. The council and its founder, Trita Parsi, have previously sued Iranian-American bloggers and intellectuals who published pieces which challenged its status as an independent nonprofit organization.
In 2015, two circuit judges and a senior circuit judge from the US Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia forced NIAC to pay $183,480.09 in monetary sanctions to a blogger named Hassan Daioleslam. The court decided NIAC had to reimburse the blogger for the money he had spent fighting a defamation lawsuit NIAC brought against him in 2008, which was decided in his favor and dismissed in 2012.
“That Parsi occasionally made statements reflecting a balanced, shared blame approach is not inconsistent with the idea that he was first and foremost an advocate for the regime,” US District Judge John D. Bates wrote in his ruling summary at the time.
CRUSADER says
Reading books by Juan Cole and by Reza Aslan can make a person ill !
Elsewhere in D.C. (Devil’s Crypt):
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar proposed a resolution this week supporting the right to boycott Israel, likening the boycott of the Jewish state to boycotts of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Omar’s resolution seeks to push back against U.S. laws banning the boycott of Israel and affirms the right of Americans to organize boycotts of foreign countries if they so wish.
While the resolution doesn’t explicitly name Israel or the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, she told media outlets that the resolution concerns the Jewish state.
“And it is an opportunity for us to explain why it is we support a nonviolent movement, which is the BDS movement.”
— U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.
“We are introducing a resolution … to really speak about the American values that support and believe in our ability to exercise our First Amendment rights in regard to boycotting,” Omar told Al-Monitor.
“And it is an opportunity for us to explain why it is we support a nonviolent movement, which is the BDS movement,” she added.
The resolution attracted some Republican detractors, with Rep. Lee Zeldin slamming Omar for introducing it, saying she brought “her hateful twist” by propping up the BDS movement.
“Israel is our best ally in the Mid East; a beacon of hope, freedom & liberty, surrounded by existential threats,” Zeldin wrote in a tweet. “Shame on Rep Omar for bringing her hateful twist on that reality to House Foreign today, propping up the BDS movement & blaming Israel for all of its challenges.”
The resolution affirms the right to boycott as an expression of free speech and cites examples of boycott movements against Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and apartheid South Africa.
“Americans of conscience have a proud history of participating in boycotts to advocate for human rights abroad including … boycotting Nazi Germany from March 1933 to October 1941 in response to the dehumanization of the Jewish people in the lead-up to the Holocaust,” Omar said in the resolution introduced Tuesday.
“Americans of conscience have a proud history of participating in boycotts to advocate for human rights abroad including … boycotting Nazi Germany from March 1933 to October 1941 in response to the dehumanization of the Jewish people in the lead-up to the Holocaust.”
— U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.
Omar’s measure will be co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the first female Palestinian-American lawmaker in Congress who openly supports a one-state solution in the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.
But the resolution will likely lead to yet another clash with her fellow Democrats who are mulling a resolution condemning the boycott movement.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed Wednesday a resolution that accuses the BDS movement of promoting “principles of collective guilt, mass punishment and group isolation,” the Times of Israel reported.
It remains unclear if the resolution will be introduced to the whole Congress next week amid fears over intra-party clashes.
“I think the timing would not be very wise to take up additional measures around the Middle East,” Rep. Mark Pocan told Politico. “Donald Trump just brought us all together, so let’s take advantage of that.”
(Fox News)
Walter Sieruk says
It’s very well worth reiterating the important information as explained by the following essay.
If and that is “If’ Obama was sincere, and not traitorous to America as he may have been, in trying to negotiate a deal than he was an unrealistic deluded fool if the actually, really, felt that there was any actual value of that “deal” with that tyrannical “mullah regime” of Iran .When ,Obama in his folly attempted work out a compromise with those Muslim tyrants in power in Iran only had an awful results, This was outcome of foolishly trying to work out a compromise resulted that the hoax and farce of a “deal.” A former US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt , had well-spoken when he said “There has never been – there never can be – successful compromise between good and evil.”
Furthermore all that foolishness ,folly and wickedness of Obama might cause all sensible Americans to wonder “Just how irresponsible, treacherous and even treasonous could that former US President Obama actually be ? Some of those Iranian who Obama allowed to become US citizens might be dangerous and deadly jihadist operatives of Iran. What’s more that so called “deal” with Iran is a sick joke at its best and a horrible hoax at its worst.
This is a very strong reminder that during the summer month of August in the year of 2010 I had attended a lecture in a church about the subject of Islam. The guest speaker was a man who in times past was a Muslim and a Hezbollah member as well as an Iranian citizen. Now he’s Christian and an American citizen. After the lecture, during the question and answer part, he was asked “Is Obama a Muslim?” The speaker replied that “I don’t know if he is a Muslim but his deception is Islamic.” Then he added about Obama “Whenever he talks he sounds just like a Muslim.” Moreover the guest speaker further said about Obama “He is going to hurt this country.” As just keyboarded above that lecture was hold in the year 2010 and since then Obama had ,indeed, hurt America by and through his words , actions , politics and polices .
That “deal” with Iran is one of the many examples of harm done by his s polices.
CRUSADER says
And yet, FDR compromised among good/evil
with his burgeoning bureaucracy of the Big Ass New Deal….
This got the ball rolling from the Left toward Big Government!
Then, we got to MObama….
Have you read the pamphlets available at Freedom Center?
Here is some of the list:
——————————-
Thought Control, Inc. :
Monopolies Hacked the Bill of Rights to Impose Their Radical Politics on America
Government Unions
Government Versus the People
10 Reasons to Abolish the UN
The Shadow Party and the Shadow Government
Who is the Peace Movement?
Black Skin Privilege
Obama’s Insurrection
Obama’s 1984
Obama’s War on the Young
How Obama Betrayed America
Obama and the War Against the Jews
UPDATED AND REVISED: Obama & Islam
The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration
Barack Obama’s Unholy Alliance : Romance with Islamism
Breaking the System : Obama’s Strategy for Change
Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinksy Model
Obama’s Professors
================
FREEDOM CENTER:
https://horowitzfreedomcenterstore.org/collections/pamplets
==============================================
Walter Sieruk says
To Crusader, yes I strongly disagree with many of the politics of FDR. Nevertheless as in the saying “A broken clock is right twice a day” applies here . So once in a while FDR spoke some fine precepts of worth. As cited above. Likewise John Kennedy didn’t always have good conservative polices. Still .He did speak out ,at time good ideas.
CRUSADER says
Whereas MObama was wrong most of the time,
because he certainly damaged the nation of USA
with his oversight….
Very
sCAIRy….
Battle says
Robert Spencer hits nail on head. Good.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Nowadays protests are “protests” replete with professional demonstrators paid to go out and push wrongheaded positions. I don’t think that’ll be the case with this one. Iranians among the demonstrators will be aware of the personal danger to them for making public trouble for the Supreme Leader.
CRUSADER says
If Leftist politicians get their way with taxes funding ne’erdowells in society
to just sit around and collect checks, then there’ll be plenty of demonstrators
at protests, round the clock, in a neighborhood near to you!!!
Charles says
All the American Iranians I know are pretty secular and appreciative of American freedoms. I even know a couple who toy with fire in allusion to their Zoroastrian past. Its ironic that there are half a million prosperous Iranian Americans, and 0 prosperous American Iranians. Perhaps they are racists in the Islamic Republic.
Angemon says
That alone should tell everyone what they need to know about the NIAC…
Georg says
Pretty sad when it’s trendy to lobby on behalf of Ayatollah Khamenei. Then again, “liberals” were much more consumed with outrage over waterboarding a smattering of jihadist lunatics than they were over the 9/11 attacks themselves, which all betrays their deeper, mind-bending sentiments which can’t be stated plainly or you’re the bad guy. Gotta love reverse psychology and passive-aggression. Like propaganda, unfortunately, they are quite effective as they are cheap to manufacture and expensive to counteract.