Sanctioning the Terrible Twosome Deep military and nuclear cooperation between North Korea and Iran makes sanctions on both regimes all the more essential

The world currently faces two atomic crises in Iran and North Korea, despite long strides in the effort of nuclear non-proliferation. Deep military and nuclear cooperation between the two states makes dealing with these challenges even more difficult. One may have thought lessons would have been learnt from the devastating lessons of appeasement from World War II – yet the approaches adopted vis-à-vis North Korea and Iran in signing nuclear agreements have raised accusations that Neville Chamberlain’s famous policy is still alive and well.

It’s obvious that Iran has learned from North Korea, and vice-versa, in both military and diplomatic spheres: in a recent Raddington Report article we argue that there are few nations that view North Korean missile tests with more interest than Iran. The Islamic Republic yearns to be in the position North Korea finds itself in – to have developed a nuclear arsenal, along with the means of deliver the payload. And North Korea covets to have had the opportunity Iran found: usurping Obama’s desperate need for a legacy-defining foreign policy achievement to garner a slate of concessions.

There is seemingly little appetite for a military confrontation with North Korea or Iran – yet the appeasement of these two rogue regimes have left the international community in more of a quagmire. North Korea is holding South Korea and Japan hostage (along with tens of thousands of stationed US troops) while Iran continues its regional meddling, support for terrorism, ballistic missile advances and human rights violations, all whilst reaching an agreement with the P5+1.

Pyongyang and Tehran have both sought nuclear weapons as insurance for their notorious regimes. Enjoying enticement by US administrations since the 1990s, North Korea has reached its objective, at the expense of it’s starving people – and economy more broadly. Iran, whilst seeking nuclear capability, began feeling the heat of international sanctions and escalating public anger, which forced it to trade a curbing of its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. What goes unnoticed, however, is how agreements signed by the international community with these two regimes provide a green light to the ruling autocrats to pursue the oppression of their own populations.

Iran has continued its practice of abducting American citizens and sentencing them to long prison terms. A situation in which Kim Jung Un was provided more inducements to come to the negotiating table – as in Iran’s case – could possibly result in further abductions, assassinations and more tens of thousands of political prisoners held in facilities so large they are visible in satellite images. Concessions have already provided Iran a green light to expand its domestic crackdown and meddling abroad. The definition of insanity, famously, is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

Offering a possible insight into the Trump administration’s future approach to Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Nikki Haley delivered a speech recently in the American Enterprise Institute, stating that; “…if the President does not certify Iranian compliance, the Corker-Cardin law also tells us what happens next. What happens next is significantly in Congress’s hands,” she explained, in reference to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.

“Congress could debate whether the nuclear deal is in fact too big to fail. We should welcome a debate over whether the JCPOA is in U.S. national security interests. The previous administration set up the deal in a way that denied us that honest and serious debate,” the US Ambassador to the United Nations continued.

Following Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, which led to claims that the DPRK has acquired the ability to test a hydrogen bomb, there is belief amongst high circles in Washington that North Korea is supporting Iran in return to the path of obtaining nuclear weapons. While Washington is weighing its options in responding to North Korea’s latest nuclear bomb test, most concerning are obvious shows of allegiance, such as a recent 10-day visit to Tehran by Pyongyang’s parliament speaker Kim Yong Nam.

Thanks to a ‘windfall’ of billions of dollars provided by the Obama-blueprinted nuclear deal, Iran has the hard currency and financial assets North Korea needs. In return, Pyongyang can deliver the nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology Tehran wants to acquire. It has become increasingly obvious these regimes are far from rational actors who can be persuaded into taking action for the better benefit of the international community. North Korea must be made to bow before demands to give up nuclear weapons, whilst Iran must be made to understand that following the path of its East Asian partner is not an option.

The response Tehran receives from the international community, with the US at the helm, is of vital importance. The failure of previous US administrations to take any meaningful action to prevent the growth of such a dangerous nexus leaves us with the circumstances we face today. It is a known fact that many of Tehran’s ballistic missile designs, such as the Hwasong series, are based on Pyongyang prototypes. This is the result of political and military ties leading back to the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Concerns escalate to a highly lethal level when we realize Iran’s missiles, mirroring those of its North Korean sisters, could enjoy the capability of delivering nuclear payloads. These decades-long close exchanges have now also provided Iran the ability to construct missile production factories in Syria and Libya, some underground.

It is increasingly difficult to deny Tehran’s diplomatic, economic and military ties with Pyongyang. It is even possible the two country’s scientists have been present at each other’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests, one after another. Tehran and Pyongyang must be made to comprehend that a continuation of their provocations cannot not be tolerated – senior Iranian and North Korean leaders, along with the institutions maintaining their rule, should be the target of crippling international sanctions. Kim, Khamenei and their henchmen, must find it far more difficult to plunder their people’s wealth for their own interests, while the two populations suffer in poverty. The international community should also boost campaigns aimed at drying up the two regimes’ supply chains providing the needs for their missile and nuclear drives.

This question is now raised over the meaning of seeking a new nuclear arrangement with North Korea, especially as the JCPOA is currently being usurped by Iran. Surely rapprochement will only encourage Pyongyang to continue its current aggressive nature – and what lessons would Tehran, a regime enjoying a dangerous reach across the Middle East, learn from this? There is no need to explain how Tehran and Pyongyang have most likely followed each other’s negotiations with the international community, the deals sealed to buy time, the successful and unsuccessful lies and deceptions and how to come to each other’s support when needed. Most importantly, however, they have learned how to create rifts amongst Western countries, such as the United States, France and Britain, and to utilise Russian and Chinese postures, to divide in the UN Security Council.

As Haley correctly said, “Enough is enough.” War is neither needed nor welcomed. An international consensus to impose crippling sanctions on the regimes of Iran and North Korea is necessary.

Although watered down to garner the support of Beijing and Moscow, the sanctions adopted unanimously by the United Nations Security Council on Monday against North Korea, capping the regime’s oil imports from China and banning its profitable textile exports, is a step in the right direction. One hopes this is the beginning of a continuing trend to bring an end to Pyongyang’s dangerous bellicosities, and sends a powerful message to Tehran of the international community’s resolve and intolerance for such rogue behavior.

If history is to teach us any lesson, it is that of rapprochement rendering nothing but death and destruction. If we seek an end to the current nuclear standoffs, all parties must further set aside their short term interests and think for the better good of all.

Sanctioning the Terrible Twosome

Iranian forces on Army Day parade in Iran

Deep military and nuclear cooperation  between North Korea and Iran make sanctions on both regimes all the more essential

By: HESHMAT ALAVI

Raddington Report, September 12, 2017 - The world currently faces two atomic crises in Iran and North Korea, despite long strides in the effort of nuclear non-proliferation. Deep military and nuclear cooperation   between the two states make dealing with these challenges even more difficult. One may have thought lessons would have been learned from the devastating lessons of appeasement from World War II – yet the approaches adopted vis-à-vis North Korea and Iran in signing nuclear agreements have raised accusations that Neville Chamberlain’s famous policy is still alive and well.

It’s obvious that Iran has learned from North Korea, and vice-versa, in both military and diplomatic spheres: in a recent Raddington Report article  we argue that there are few nations that view North Korean missile tests with more interest than Iran. The Islamic Republic yearns to be in the position North Korea finds itself in – to have developed a nuclear arsenal, along with the means of delivering the payload. And North Korea covets to have had the opportunity Iran found: usurping Obama’s desperate need for a legacy-defining foreign policy achievement to garner a slate of concessions.

There is a seemingly little appetite for a military confrontation with North Korea or Iran – yet the appeasement  of these two rogue regimes have left the international community in more of a quagmire.

North Korea is holding South Korea and Japan hostage (along with tens of thousands of stationed US troops) while Iran continues its regional meddling, support for terrorism, ballistic missile advances and human rights violations,  all whilst reaching an agreement with the P5+1.

Pyongyang and Tehran have both sought nuclear weapons as insurance for their notorious regimes. Enjoying enticement by US administrations since the 1990s, North Korea has reached its objective, at the expense of its starving people – and an economy more broadly. Iran, whilst seeking nuclear capability, began feeling the heat of international sanctions and escalating public anger, which forced it to trade a curbing of its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. What goes unnoticed, however, is how agreements signed by the international community with these two regimes provide a green light to the ruling autocrats to pursue the oppression of their own populations.

Iran has continued its practice of abducting American citizens  and sentencing them to long prison terms. A situation in which Kim Jung Un was provided more inducements to come to the negotiating table – as in Iran’s case – could possibly result in further abductions, assassinations and more tens of thousands of political prisoners held in facilities so large they are visible in satellite images.

Concessions have already provided Iran a green light to expand its domestic crackdown  and meddling abroad. The definition of insanity, famously, is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

Offering a possible insight into the Trump administration’s future approach to Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Nikki Haley delivered a speech recently at the American Enterprise Institute, stating that; “…if the President does not certify Iranian compliance, the Corker-Cardin law also tells us what happens next. What happens next is significantly in Congress’s hands,” she explained, in reference to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.

“Congress could debate whether the nuclear deal is in fact too big to fail. We should welcome a debate over whether the JCPOA is in U.S. national security interests. The previous administration set up the deal in a way that denied us that honest and serious debate,” the US Ambassador to the United Nationscontinued.

Following Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, which led to claims that the DPRK has acquired the ability to test a hydrogen bomb, there is a belief amongst high circles in Washington that North Korea is supporting Iran in return to the path of obtaining nuclear weapons. While Washington is weighing its options in responding to North Korea’s latest nuclear bomb test, most concerning are obvious shows of allegiance, such as a recent 10-day visit to Tehran by Pyongyang’s parliament speaker Kim Yong Nam.

Thanks to a ‘windfall’ of billions of dollars  provided by the Obama-blueprinted nuclear deal, Iran has the hard currency and financial assets North Korea needs. In return, Pyongyang can deliver the nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology Tehran wants to acquire. It has become increasingly obvious these regimes are far from rational actors who can be persuaded into taking action for the better benefit of the international community. North Korea must be made to bow before demands to give up nuclear weapons, whilst Iran must be made to understand that following the path of its East Asian partner is not an option.

The response Tehran receives from the international community, with the US at the helm, is of vital importance. The failure of previous US administrations to take any meaningful action to prevent the growth of such a dangerous nexus leaves us with the circumstances we face today. It is a known fact that many of Tehran’s ballistic missile designs, such as the Hwasong series, are based on Pyongyang prototypes. This is the result of political and military ties leading back to the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Concerns escalate to a highly lethal level when we realize Iran’s missiles, mirroring those of its North Korean sisters, could enjoy the capability of delivering nuclear payloads. These decades-long close exchanges have now also provided Iran the ability to construct missile production factories in Syria and Libya, some underground.

It is increasingly difficult to deny Tehran’s diplomatic, economic and military ties with Pyongyang. It is even possible the two country’s scientists have been present at each other’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests, one after another. Tehran and Pyongyang must be made to comprehend that a continuation of their provocations can not be tolerated – senior Iranian and North Korean leaders, along with the institutions maintaining their rule, should be the target of crippling international sanctions. Kim, Khamenei and their henchmen, must find it far more difficult to plunder their people’s wealth for their own interests, while the two populations suffer in poverty. The international community should also boost campaigns aimed at drying up the two regimes’ supply chains providing the needs for their missile and nuclear drives.

This question is now raised over the meaning of seeking a new nuclear arrangement with North Korea, especially as the JCPOA is currently being usurped by Iran. Surely rapprochement will only encourage Pyongyang to continue its current aggressive nature – and what lessons would Tehran, a regime enjoying a dangerous reach across the Middle East, learn from this? There is no need to explain how Tehran and Pyongyang have most likely followed each other’s negotiations with the international community, the deals sealed to buy time, the successful and unsuccessful lies and deceptions and how to come to each other’s support when needed. Most importantly, however, they have learned how to create rifts amongst Western countries, such as the United States, France, and Britain, and to utilize Russian and Chinese postures, to divide in the UN Security Council.

As Haley correctly said, “Enough is enough.” War is neither needed nor welcomed. An international consensus to impose crippling sanctions on the regimes of Iran and North Korea is necessary.

Although watered down to garner the support of Beijing and Moscow, the sanctions adopted unanimously by the United Nations Security Council on Monday against North Korea, capping the regime’s oil imports from China and banning its profitable textile exports, is a step in the right direction. One hopes this is the beginning of a continuing trend to bring an end to Pyongyang’s dangerous bellicosities and sends a powerful message to Tehran of the international community’s resolve and intolerance for such rogue behavior.

If history is to teach us any lesson, it is that of rapprochement rendering nothing but death and destruction. If we seek an end to the current nuclear standoffs, all parties must further set aside their short term interests and think for the better good of all.

HESHMAT ALAVI is a political and rights activist covering issues focusing on Iran, ranging from human rights violations, social crackdown, the regime’s support for terrorism and meddling in foreign countries, and the controversial nuclear program.

Millions without power in Florida in deadly Irma's wake

Florida residents return to what is left of their belongings after the monster storm Irma

AFP, September 12, 2017 - Millions of Florida residents were without power Tuesday as the remnants of Hurricane Irma spun northwest into the southeastern US, drenching the region and causing rivers to overflow.
Most of the Sunshine State appeared to have dodged forecasts of catastrophic damage despite dire early warnings.
But Irma's overall death toll jumped to at least 40 after Cuba reported that 10 people had been killed there over the weekend.
Irma roared ashore as a powerful Category 4 hurricane when it hit the far southern Florida Keys on Sunday, tearing boats from their moorings, uprooting palm trees and downing power lines, after devastating a string of Caribbean islands.
By the time it hit the US mainland the storm had been downgraded, and by late Monday it had weakened further to a tropical depression.
Across the Caribbean, hard-hit island residents struggled to get back on their feet as Britain, France, the Netherlands and the United States increased relief efforts.
French President Emmanuel Macron traveled to the region Tuesday to tour devastated French territories, joining the Dutch king who had arrived in his country's Caribbean territories on Sunday.
In Florida, the damage in most cases were not as bad as feared.
'If this had been a Category 4 hurricane the whole scenario would have been completely different,' said Bob Lutz, a 62-year-old business owner.
About 15 million people in Florida were without power, however, and Governor Rick Scott said the island chain known as the Keys had suffered widespread damage.
'It's horrible what we saw,' Scott said after flying over the island chain aboard a Coast Guard helicopter.
He said the water, electricity and sewage systems in the Keys were non-operational, and that trailer parks had been 'overturned.'

 
Residents sit on rubble in the Cojimar neighborhood of Havana following Hurricane Irma

'We now go through the much longer phase, which is the recovery phase,' said Miami Mayor Carlos Gimenez. 'And believe me, folks, some of this is going to take a while, especially power restoration.'
Most Keys residents evacuated from the low-lying tourist archipelago, known for its fishing, scuba diving and boating, before Irma struck.
The storm felled trees and left debris and vehicles strewn across the streets. But concrete homes appeared to have withstood the powerful gusts.
Authorities were allowing residents and business owners in the upper part of the Keys to begin returning on Tuesday.
'Returning residents should consider that there are limited services. Most areas are still without power and water. Cell service is spotty. And most gas stations are still closed,' Monroe County authorities said in a Facebook post.

- Irma now a tropical depression –

 

A fallen tree toppled by Hurricane Irma blocks a street in downtown Miami

The National Hurricane Center downgraded Irma to a tropical depression in its 0300 GMT Tuesday bulletin.
Irma's maximum sustained winds dropped to 35 miles (56 kilometers) per hour, and the storm's eye was in western Georgia, and expected to cross into eastern Alabama and Tennessee later Tuesday.
'Additional weakening is forecast, and Irma is... likely to dissipate by Wednesday evening,' the NHC said.
Heavy rain, however, was a problem: Florida's northeastern city of Jacksonville, population 880,000, ordered urgent evacuations amid record flooding along the St Johns River.
Flooding was also reported in Charleston, South Carolina.

 
      Irma's path from Africa to North America

Irma had triggered orders for more than six million people to flee to safety, one of the biggest evacuations in US history.
In flood-prone Miami, the largest US city in Irma's path, crews were busy clearing branches, debris and fallen street signs from downtown.

- 10 dead in Cuba –

 

    A police checkpoint on US Highway 1 blocks access to the Florida Keys following        Hurricane Irma

In Bonita Springs, a city of 50,000 people on Florida's hard-hit southwest coast, large areas were flooded and the entire city was without power. Some residents were trying to reach their homes by walking through waist-high floodwater, while others paddled canoes.
'I don't think I can make it over to the house. I'd like to walk through there, but it looks like it's three feet (one meter) deep at least, and my boots are only a foot deep and I don't like cold water, which explains why I live here,' local resident Sam Parish told AFP.
Authorities across the state warned of downed power lines, raw sewage in floodwaters and -- being Florida -- displaced wildlife like snakes and alligators.
'Don't think just because this has passed you can run home,' Governor Scott said. 'We have downed power lines all across the state.
'We have roads that are impassable,' he said. 'We have debris all over the state.'
President Donald Trump has approved the state's request for emergency federal aid to help with temporary housing, home repairs, emergency work and hazard mitigation. He has promised to travel to the state 'very soon.'

 
A family is escorted by a French soldier at the Grand-Case Esperance airport on the French Caribbean island of Saint-Martin

Before reaching the United States Irma tore through a string of Caribbean islands, going from tiny Barbuda on Wednesday to the tropical paradises of Saint Barthelemy and Saint Martin, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Panama said it was distributing at least 90 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Saint Martin and Cuba, while Venezuela -- itself beset by shortages amid a crippling economic crisis -- sent 30 tonnes of food, drinking water and supplies to Cuba and other Caribbean islands.
About 400 exhausted and traumatized hurricane survivors landed in France and the Netherlands on Monday aboard military planes.
Both the French and Dutch governments have been criticized for delaying their emergency response, and especially over the handling of looting on Saint Barthelemy and Saint Martin, the latter an island with both French and Dutch sectors.
Cuban officials said Irma was the deadliest hurricane to strike the island since Dennis in 2005, adding that three-quarters of the population was without power.
'This is a big warning already, when you know that climate change is getting more and more cruel,' said Francisco Garcia, coach of Cuba's national karate team, whose home was damaged by Irma.

Myanmar’s Suu Kyi to skip UN General Assembly amid Rohingya crisis

Aung San Suu Kyi addresses the 71st United Nations General Assembly in Manhattan, New York, US September 

Reuters, YangonWednesday, 13 September 2017 -
Myanmar’s national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, facing outrage over ethnic violence that has forced about 370,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh, will not attend the upcoming UN General Assembly session in New York, a party spokesman said on Wednesday.

The crisis over the security forces’ fierce response to a series of Rohingya militant attacks is the biggest problem Suu Kyi has faced since becoming Myanmar’s leader last year. Critics have called for Suu Kyi to be stripped of her Nobel peace prize for failing to do more to halt the strife.

In her first address to the UN General Assembly as a national leader in September last year, Suu Kyi defended her government’s efforts to resolve the crisis over treatment of the Muslim minority. This year, her party spokesman said she would not be attending, although he said he was unsure why.

Muslim Rohingyas at a camp on the outskirts of Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state.

“She’s never afraid of facing criticism or confronting problems. Perhaps she’s got more pressing matters here to deal with,” Aung Shin, the spokesman, told Reuters.

International pressure has been growing on Myanmar to end the violence in the western state of Rakhine that began on Aug. 25 when Rohingya militants attacked about 30 police posts and an army camp. The attacks triggered a sweeping military counter-offensive that refugees say is aimed at pushing Rohingya out of Myanmar.

Reports from refugees and rights groups paint a picture of widespread attacks on Rohingya villages in the north of Rakhine by the security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, who have put numerous Muslim villages to the torch.

Rohingya refugees stretch their hands to receive food distributed by local organizations in Kutupalong.

But Myanmar authorities have denied that the security forces, or Buddhist civilians, have been setting the fires, instead blaming the insurgents. Nearly 30,000 Buddhist villagers have also been displaced, they say.

The Trump administration has called for protection of civilians, and Bangladesh says all of the refugees will have to go home and it has called for safe zones to be created in Myanmar to enable them to do so.

But China, which competes with the United States for influence in the Southeast Asian nation, said on Tuesday it backed Myanmar’s efforts to safeguard “development and stability”.

The military, which ruled with an iron fist for almost 50 years until it began a transition to democracy in 2011, retains important political powers and is in full control of security. Suu Kyi has no say over those matters.

The UN Security Council is to meet on Wednesday behind closed doors for the second time since the latest crisis erupted. British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said he hoped there would be a public statement agreed by the council.

The Challenges President Trump Faces from Iran's Malign Act The Challenges President Trump Faces from Iran's Malign Act

In this regard, President Trump should put pressure on EU allies to adjust their policy in accordance to this law.

By Hamid Bahrami

American thinker, September 11, 2017-- Almost seven months have passed since President Trump received the keys to the White House, which forced him to address a series of wrong policies of past presidents.

Dealing with Iran's malign behaviors and destabilizing activities is one of the these challenges.

During the presidential campaign, President Trump described the nuclear deal with Iran, famously known as the Join Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as a disastrous agreement. He argued that the deal did not completely limit Iran's ability to make nuclear weapons. Appeasers of the Iranian regime and proponents of dialogue accused him of disregarding the reality and the advantages of the deal.

But comments from senior Iranian regime officials last week showed that all propaganda against critics of the JCPOA were dishonest and inappropriate slogans.

In a speech, the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani , threatened that if the U.S. imposed new sanctions on Iran, his country will turn its nuclear program in a matter of hours to where it was before 2015.

Considering this threat, who can guarantee that Tehran will not surreptitiously abandon the deal.

Rightfully at the same time, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Hale asked officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) if Iran's military sites need to be inspected because past experience show that the regime in Tehran is able to bypass any scrutiny and is not to be trusted.

She pointed out to this fact by saying that “Iran is a country that has a clear history of lying and pursuing covert nuclear program.'

Both Rouhani and the Supreme Leader know that President Trump reluctantly recertified Tehran’s compliance with the deal for a second time earlier this year. This was due to Tehran’s ability to skilfully maneuver between existing American and European disagreements about the deal. In the other words, the theocracy in Tehran has consistently prolonged its grip on power by capitalizing on international conflicts, especially disagreements between Western democracies and allies.

Now, why are the Iranian authorities trying to show a united front at home, which was indicated by President Rouhani's new cabinet? The answer should be in understanding its deceptive policy. Actually following a good cop/bad cop routine, Iran pretends that there are significant differences between the so-called moderates and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Indeed this trick does not deceive the U.S. but apparently cajoles the European Union into embracing Tehran’s empty economic promises. Consequently, one must ask the EU, how it wants to trade with Iran while nearly 70 percent of its economy is in IRGC's hands, a paramilitary force that seen as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Congress.

Apparently, these EU officials have not read the new American bill imposing sanctions on Iran and the IRGC, dubbed the Mother of all Sanctions, which was recently signed into law by President Trump.

In this regard, President Trump should put pressure on EU allies to adjust their policy in accordance to this law.

How to end Iran's policy of hostage-taking

President Trump's election promises on Iran explain what he expects. In reality, he is not satisfied with the policies of the two previous U.S. presidents against Iran. His dissatisfaction is understandable considering Tehran’s increased interventions in the region since the 2015 nuclear deal.

It is crucial to point out that as history reveals, the Iranian regime has cosistantly forced the West into submission and offering consessions by taking international security as a hostage. For example, the seizure of U.S. Embassy in 1979, the protraction of nuclear negotiations for nearly 10 years, and now by the JCOPA.

To understand what the U.S. can do about this crisis, one should first explain what are the best policies to end the challenges Iran poses worldwide. There are the following choices:

Renegotiation of the JCOPA by forcing Iran’s hand

It is a known fact that the nuclear agreement paves the way for Iran to increase its threats of abandoning the deal and thereby holding the international community hostage. In this regard, on August 22, the Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, threatened that the Tehran regime can ramp up its uranium enrichment to 20 percent in only in five days. This is one of the agreement's catastrophic shortcomings and no one can guarantee with certainty that the regime has not already done this in secret.

In this case, the U.S. can unilaterally abandon the nuclear deal and convince Iran's oil customers to put pressure on Tehran to comeback to the negotiating table. And the U.S. has enough economic leverage to do that. If Iran does not accept it, the clerics will be in a political impasse. In this way, the U.S. must issue an ultimatum to Iran’s customers to choose between the Iranian or the American market.

Cut Iran's tentacles in the Middle East

Iranian authorities and senior officials believe that their security borders are in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Thus, an international effort to expel the IRGC and its allies and proxies from these countries will be a major blow to the regime in Tehran and its policy of securing its survival through increased hegemony in the region.

A policy of regime change provides a permanent solution

Although U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced in a congressional hearing that the U.S. policy toward Iran will include support for “peaceful” regime change, in reality this has so far not yet materialized in concrete policies.

To understand how this policy will trap the regime in Tehran, we should ask what other ways are there to fulfill the democratic aspirations of millions of Iranians, who are not able to live up to their potential under the current theocracy.

In this regard, there is an influential organized opposition coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ), which leads a huge, organized movement against the mullahs inside and outside of Iran. Their motto has always been No to War, No to Appeasement, support the Iranian people and their legitimate resistance for a democratic change in Iran.

The NCRI is a criterion that determines whether one is a friend or an enemy of the Iranian regime. If President Trump really wants to end crises that Iran is causing, it is necessary to recognize the NCRI as the viable alternative to the current theocracy and support their efforts to organize the Iranian people to bring about a free and democratic Iran.

Hamid Bahrami is a former political prisoner from Iran. Living in Glasgow, Scotland, he is a human rights and political activist.

Ruthless Iranian militia vows to turn against U.S. troops once Islamic State is defeated in Iraq

In a show of support, Iraqi Hezbollah scouts parade with a portrait of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s most violent proxy militia in Iraq has vowed to start killing Americans again once the Islamic

By Rowan Scarborough

 The  Washington Times,  September 7, 2017 -- The U.S. military is keeping a wary eye on Iran’s most violent proxy militia in Iraq, which has vowed to start killing Americans again once the Islamic State is expelled.
With the Islamic State’s defeat in Iraq coming closer — the U.S. estimates that the once 25,000-strong terrorist group is down to a few thousand followers at most holding only pockets of resistance — the danger from the HezbollahBrigades is fast approaching.
A commander in the Shiiite battalion, also known as Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH) and the largest and most ruthless Iranian-trained militia fighting in Iraq and Syria, warned Americans on Sunday that they must leave Iraq or face a new war, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.
Said the Fars headline, “Iraqi Popular Forces Warn to Target US Forces after Defeating ISIL Terrorists.”
Spokesman Jafar al-Hosseini issued a similar threat in March. His scripted messages on Beirut’s al-Mayadeen Arab-language TV station suggest the militia is not bluffing and is preparing for that day.
A military official told The Washington Times that the U.S. has plans to counter KH if it begins attacking Americans.

“Regarding the sense of Iranian malign influence, we’re trying alert NATO, the coalition, the State Department, the U.N. and the Gulf countries,” the military official said. “It’s a really big question. We’re very aware of it. We’re watching the move to post-ISIS. What the Iranians are saying is of significant concern.”
The Hezbollah Brigades of 5,000 fighters already has American blood on its hands.
Tehran organized the group in 2007 via its Quds Force, an arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to target American troops in Iraq.
Quds operatives schooled the Shiites in building improvised explosive devices and rocket systems that ultimately killed about 500 U.S. personnel, the Pentagon reported.
Analysts say Iran’s broader goal is not just the defeat of the Salafist Sunni Islamic State in Iraq but also to spread a crescent of Shiite hegemony across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Tehran finances and equips the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah.
The 2015 nuclear deal with the Obama administration provided Tehran with billions of dollars to increase the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps budget and pay various militias, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
Standing in the way is the U.S. military, which wants to maintain some force presence in Iraq and nurture a more independent Baghdad not controlled by Tehran.
“With the Iranians, clearly the goal is a pathway all the way to Lebanese Hezbollah,” the military official said.
This is why scholars such as Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute say that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “has a history of saying what it means, no matter how inconvenient that might be for the wishful thinking in which so many in Washington and Europe engage.”
He added, “Iranian leaders aren’t willing to let U.S. forces stick around. They see U.S. commitment as weak, especially on the homefront, and they believe that so long as they use proxies, they can enjoy plausible deniability. After three decades of not being held to account for their actions, the Revolutionary Guards has grown cocky.”
The military official said the U.S.-led coalition’s downing of an armed drone in Syria in June shows how closely it watches Iran’s proxies. U.S. Central Command described the drone’s operators as “pro-regime.”
“Our actions speak for ourselves,” the U.S. source said. “We’ve shown that if they come even close to threatening any position, we’re going to take action in self-defense. We absolutely take it seriously.”
The official said U.S. commanders talk to the Russians about the Shiite militia activities because Russian officials “talk to people we don’t talk to.”
There is a big difference in the Iraq battlefield from what it was in 2007 and 2008. At the peak of the troop surge, over 157,000 Americans fought in Iraq, primarily against a Sunni insurgency, al Qaeda in Iraq.
Today, only about 5,000 U.S. military personnel are inside Iraq. As trainers and advisers, they maintain an arm’s length from ground combat.
“We really changed our strategy,” the official said. “The good news is there is not a lot of force presence to be targeted for that sort of thing. That makes it a little less complicated for us.”
If the Hezbollah Brigades turns from being an odd U.S. ally against the Islamic State to a direct foe, then American troops will be facing an organization so dangerous that the Obama administration added it to the official list of terrorist groups.
“Kata’ib Hezbollah is one of the biggest and most vicious and dangerous Iraqi militia and terror groups,” said Shahin Gobadi, spokesman for the Iran opposition organization People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK).
“It was one of the main Iraqi militia groups that the Quds Force dispatched to Syria to assist the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in massacring the Syrian people,” he said. “At some points, up to 2,000 of Kata’ib Hezbollah forces were sent to Syria to help Assad.”
A report by the bipartisan Counter Extremism Project states, “KH earned a reputation for planting deadly roadside bombs and using improvised rocket-assisted mortars (IRAMs) to attack U.S. and coalition forces.
“According to U.S. diplomat Ali Khedery, KH is responsible for ‘some of the most lethal attacks against U.S. and coalition forces throughout [the war.] The group is suspected of involvement in extrajudicial killings and abductions in Iraq’s Anbar province, including the May 27, 2016, abduction of more than 70 Sunni boys and men from al-Sijir, and the murder of 49 men from Saqlawiyah,” the project’s report stated.

The State Department

In June 2009, the State Department put the Hezbollah Brigades on the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organizations list, calling the group “an anti-Western establishment and jihadist ideology that has conducted attacks against Iraqi, U.S. and coalition targets in Iraq.”
“KH has ideological ties to Lebanese [Hezbollah] and may have received support from that group. KH gained notoriety in 2007 with attacks on U.S. and coalition forces designed to undermine the establishment of a democratic, viable Iraqi state. KH has been responsible for numerous violent terrorist attacks since 2007, including improvised explosive device bombings, rocket propelled grenade attacks and sniper operations. In addition, KH has threatened the lives of Iraqi politicians and civilians that support the legitimate political process in Iraq,” the State Department wrote.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who commanded troops in Iraq, said American diplomacy post-Islamic State must persuade the Iraqi government to blunt KH’s anti-American messaging in the country and make U.S. troop security a top priority.
Part of KH’s propaganda war via Iranian media is to tell Shiites falsely that the U.S. created the Islamic State and is helping it on the battlefield.
Mr. Dubik, an analyst at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, questioned whether the Trump administration is planning for a new Iraq.
“Reading between the public statements does not lead me to conclude we have a strategy beyond ‘eject ISIS,’” he said.
He said one important agreement would be to have U.S. intelligence and special operations forces working closely with Iraq’s counterterrorism squads to track Iran’s militias.
Washington must also issue a clear warning to Tehran, Mr. Dubik said, one that would “make clear our intent to expose their nefarious actions, something that at times we refused to do, and to protect our own forces.”
The Washington Times asked the joint Iraq task force if it had plans to deal with Iran-backed militias once the Islamic State is defeated, but the statement declined to specify.
“Force protection is a critical element of coalition operations. However, in order to ensure operational security, force protection and tactical surprise, we do not confirm or deny information about capabilities, force numbers, locations, or intent for future operations, in or out of Iraq and Syria. Forces are always prepared to act in self-defense and plan accordingly,” the command said.

New MEK Secretary General Pledges Regime Change in Iran

Ms. Zahra Merrikhi, swearing in the new MEK Secretary General

By: Keyvan Salami

News Blaze, September 9, 2017 - On Wednesday September 6, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, (PMOI/MEK) held its annual Congress. The Congress elected Ms. Zahra Merrikhi, 58, as its new Secretary General.
The MEK is the main opposition to the Iranian regime, and it has been brutally suppressed by the Iranian regime. Over 120,000 MEK members and supporters have been executed by the regime. 30,000 political prisoners, a majority of them members and supporters of the MEK, were massacred in the summer of 1988 alone. Iran kept a lid on the massacre for three decades.
In this year’s presidential election, a conservative cleric by the name of Ebrahim Raisi, one of the perpetrators of the massacre, was selected as a main candidate, resurfacing the 1988 massacre and forcing regime officials, one after another, to confess about the carnage and their fear of the MEK’s popular support.
Last July in an unprecedented interview, former Iranian intelligence minister Ali Fallahian revealed the mindset behind the 1988 mass execution. In his interview Fallahian explains whoever had any relationship with MEK was condemned to death.
“Imam [Khomeini] said you must execute those who are steadfast in their beliefs,” he said referring to the Iranian regime founder. “We couldn’t let them go and couldn’t keep them in jail. If we had kept them in jail, we would have had a bunch of people over our head telling us don’t keep them in jail. So a 3-man team of judges and ministers was assigned to oversee these cases, release those who were eligible and execute those that were not,” he continued.
In the summer of 1988 Khomeini issued a religious decree calling for the massacre.
“Whoever at any stage continues to belong to the (PMOI/MEK) must be executed. Annihilate the enemies of Islam immediately! … Those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain steadfast in their support for the MEK are waging war on God, and are condemned to execution … It is naive to show mercy to those who wage war on God,” the decree reads in part.
A committee of four men was formed to implement the order, and in a matter of a few months, more than 30,000 political prisoners were executed, mostly members and supporters of the MEK.
Last year the revelation of an audio tape and unpublished letters of the late Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, former successor to Khomeini, shed new light on dimensions of this grave crime. Pregnant women and girls as young as 14 and 15 years old were among those executed, Mr. Montazeri wrote.
Despite the brutal crackdown, during more than three decades, the MEK has managed to survive and grow, and it enjoys vast popular support among Iranians inside and outside of the country. Its annual gathering assembles over 100,000 Iranians from all over the world and millions watch the event inside Iran.
This year’s congress was important, because the new Secretary General was elected.
“Today, the PMOI, with the help of the Iranian people, is prepared as never before to overthrow the clerical regime,” Ms. Merrikhi the new elected Secretary General said. Ms. Merrikhi also introduced Narges Azodanlou, 36, Rabi’eh Mofidi, 35, and Nasrin Massih, 39, as new deputies to the Secretary General.

 

PMOI Congress on the 52nd founding anniversary of the MEK.

According to a PMOI statement, the new elected Secretary General became acquainted with the PMOI during the 1979 anti-Monarchic Revolution and joined the PMOI after the revolution. She was soon appointed head of the women’s section in Qa’emshahr, in Northern Province of Iran, and later became a member of the editorial board of the PMOI publication in Mazandaran. She was transferred to Tehran in 1981 and acted as liaison between the PMOI and its branches in the forests of northern Iran. In 1984, she moved to PMOI bases in the border region with Iraq, and a year later became a member of the Central Council. Her younger brother, Ali Merrikhi, was killed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in 1988.
The statement adds that Ms. Merrikhi oversaw PMOI branches in Scandinavia and Germany for some time. In 1991, she became a member of the Executive Committee and was later appointed head of MEK’s Radio and television network, she was also in charge of the MEK publication, Mojahed newspaper.
In 1992 she became a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) the coalition of different opposition groups and individuals, of which MEK is the largest. She was appointed Chairwoman of the Public Affairs Committee of the NCRI. Since 2003 she had been the coordinator of the offices of Mrs. Rajavi, the President elect of Iranian resistance. She also was the Vice-president of the PMOI’s Central Council since 2004.

 

 Mrs. Rajavi and Ms. Zahra Merrikhi.