Congressmen probe reputed agents of influence for mullahs

US congressmen committed to promoting a secular and democratic Iran are concerned about a group that reputedly works as an agent of influence for the Islamic Republic of Iran, while posing as a pro-western organization, IranChannel.org has learned.

Of concern is that group’s alleged influence with the Voice of America’s (VOA) Farsi-language section, the Persian News Network (PNN) and with Radio Farda, which is Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s popular culture programming into Iran.

That group is the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), led by Trita Parsi. NIAC has strong connections with the US Department of State and has received federal funding to promote democracy in Iran. NIAC has a clouded reputation.

IranChannel reported in September that a well-informed organization in Washington, the Center for Security Policy, has called NIAC an agent of the regime in Tehran.

Here’s what we reported in September 2010:

The Islamic Republic of Iran operates a network of front organizations and co-opted individuals and groups, including agents of influence, to shape public opinion and national policy in the United States. Chief among them is the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), led by Trita Parsi.

A new study on shariah outlines the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the main instruments of coercion and violence that operationalize the regime’s doctrine, including the Qods Force, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and the “Iran lobby” of fronts and agents in the United States.

Shariah: The Threat, was published by the Center for Security Policy in September 2010. What follows is excerpted from that report concerning the agent of influence network:

“In addition to the formidable capabilities the IRGC, Qods Force, MOIS and their proxies represent for influencing and, where desirable, violently attacking the Tehran regime’s enemies, the Islamic Republic of Iran also can rely upon a well-organized network of influential individuals and groups in this country that its own government-controlled media have dubbed ‘the Iran lobby in America.’

“That network generally operates from a common script to urge a U.S. foreign policy towards the Tehran regime that features accommodation, concessions and unconditional dialogue, while arguing strenuously against coercive measures – notably, the imposition of political and economic sanctions and most especially military action against Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities.

“The preeminent figure in the ‘Iran lobby’ is an Iranian-born agent of influence named Trita Parsi. Emulating the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood [MB] model of spawning front organizations, Parsi founded the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) in 2002. Under his leadership, NIAC has, in turn, helped to found and/or established relationships with a variety of sympathetic organizations, including: some MB fronts like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR, founded as noted above by Hamas in 1994); the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Interven- tion in Iran (CASMII, founded in December 2005); the Center for a New American Security (CNAS, founded in February 2007), the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran (CNAPI, founded in June 2008), and the American Foreign Policy Project (AFPP, founded in December 2008).

“It is of considerable concern that individuals associated with the Iran Lobby network, often through one or more of these organizations, have found their way into influential posts in the Obama administration.

“Even as events in the Middle East move inexorably toward renewed conflict and Iran defiantly accelerates its nuclear weapons program, such ‘friends of Iran’ as Dr. Vali Nasr (the senior advisor to [the late] Ambassador Richard Holbrooke for Afghanistan/Pakistan issues), Dr. Susan Rice (U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations) and John Limbert (until July 2010 a top official at the State Department’s Iran desk) – have helped ensure that U.S. policy towards Iran remains incoherent and contrary to long-term U.S. national security interests.

“The magnitude of damage Iranian elements are capable of perpetrating in America in furtherance of their shariah agenda is greater if, as seems to be the case, senior U.S. national security policymaking circles have been penetrated by agents of influence and those influenced by them whose actions, intentional or otherwise, serve to support the objectives of a hostile foreign power. To date, there is no evidence that such a possibility has been seriously considered, let alone thwarted by American counterintelligence.”

Source: http://iranchannel.org/archives/1267