Tablet Mag, Hassan Dai:
In 2005, Jack Abramoff’s corruption and lobbying scandal became public. One of Abramoff’s main accomplices was Bob Ney, a former congressman from Ohio who was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Part of the corruption charges against Ney, exposed in DOJ documents, were related to the bribes that he had received from two businessmen in London who tried to buy an airplane for the leadership of the Iranian regime—an export prohibited by sanctions. Ney had been hired to resolve the legal issues prohibiting the export of the place.
Ney’s foreign-policy adviser during the time Ney was advocating the removal of sanctions against Iran was a young Iranian-Swedish student named Trita Parsi (according to Parsi’s resumes), now better known as the founder and president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a Washington-based, pro-Tehran advocacy and lobbying organization founded in 2002. Back then, it was hard to explain why a Congressman with no official role in US foreign policy had a foreign policy adviser on Iran. Parsi began his pro-Tehran activities in 1997 in Sweden as he founded a small lobby organization called “Iranians for International Cooperation” (IIC) that used its few Washington members to send petitions and letters to Congress members. In an IIC document released during a subsequent lawsuit, Parsi explained IIC’s activities and goals as follows: “IIC was founded in August 1997 by Trita Parsi, the present President. … Our agenda is topped by the removal of US economic and political sanctions against Iran. … IIC is capable of organizing the grassroots and pressure US lawmakers to pose a more Iran friendly position.”
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What Dai doesn't say is that had RP not been so weak and apologetic for his father's so called "Crimes", about the monarchy which he has disavowed and danced to the tune of the "Mossadeghis", the leftists and the confused Pro Green after 2009 and surrounded himself with the most incompetent and insensitive lot of losers of the current generation of amateurish activists and lastly had not confused his priorities by remaining loyal to his base and the 1906 Constitution from which his entire legitimacy derives from ... a loser like Trita Parsi would never had had the success he had in the first place.
Here are my questions: If NIAC is as strong and as effective as some people say, then what does it say about Iranian Ex-pat communities interest towards their country, specialy the one's in U.S and in particular in California and in Washington D.C area? (Compare it say with Cuban's in florida) I don't like to call people traitor and / or be hovyat, but it some thing to ponder!
How does a middle age uncharesmatic swedish born man becomes an spoke man for Iranians or new fashionable term Eyeranian-Americans as some now call themseleves?
What does it say about our former prince and current shahrvand that has now less recognition and even following than Swedish meatball?
Perhaps the issue is not NIAC ( I love MR. Dai's comments and blogs ), perhaps the issue is a bit deeper!
MRX,
You must be surrounded by some of the finest people on the face of the earth.
Throughout history, the likes of TP have been labeled "useful idiots!"
You criticize "Iranians" for not doing something. The answer is simple, they are not sure what to do.
Just take a good look at Bob Ney's and Thomas Pickering's cases. Whereas Bob Ney is treated as a "مفسد فى الارض" and a villain. Thomas Pickering is being treated as a hero.
It's all temporal! Anachronism vs opportunism. Time seems to take care of lots of things.
Daily Beast
Boeing’s Man Pushed for the Iran Nuclear Deal and Now the Company Is Selling $25 Billion Worth of Planes to Tehran
06.22.16 6:41 PM ET
"Thomas Pickering, one of the country’s most respected diplomats and a and former ambassador to Israel and the United Nations, has been quietly taking money from Boeing while vocally supporting the Iran nuclear deal—testifying before Congress, writing letters to high-level officials, and penning op-eds for outlets like The Washington Post."
GR
There is no excuse for lazyness and lack of care by the Iranian ex-pats. Compare cuban ex-pats and the Iranian one. The fact that a usefull idiot like TP can become an sopkeman for Iranians in U.S speaks a volume. Bottom line is if you don't take responsibility and make decisions in your life some one else will do all of it for you and the people who are going to make the decsions for country are neither kind or they care!