Executive Summary
Introduction
Since it became an Islamic republic in its 1979 revolution, Iran has become the top Middle Eastern adversary of its erstwhile cherished American ally. Amidst the chants of “death to Israel, death to America” and the desperate screams of the American diplomatic corps in Tehran, the Iranian regime started a lengthy process of consolidation. In it, the ayatollahs heading the new regime seized every opportunity to destabilize the Middle East. After Saddam Hussein’s attack, they sought to weaken Iraq and pushed it to the brink of financial ruin.[1] When the Israelis were driving Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) out of Lebanon because of its terrorist acts, the Iranians helped galvanize that country’s Shiite faction in the middle of Lebanon’s civil war to form Hezbollah, which killed 241 US servicemen in 1983.[2]
After the 2011 Arab Spring, Iran opportunistically exploited the hopes of millions of Arabs for more prosperity and accountability. It propped up Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria and prolonged its civil war, with a fatal outcome. By supporting the Houthis, Iran squandered hopes for a peaceful transition of power in Yemen. It also created a regional threat, which would end up attacking an oil refinery inside America’s Saudi Arabian ally in 2019.[3] In 2011, Iran capitalized on the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and pushed its former foe out of the American sphere of influence. More worryingly, Iran is menacing the very existence of Israel, the United States’ top Middle Eastern ally and the world’s sole Jewish state, 80 years after the Holocaust.
Through its gains in Iraq and Syria after 2011 and its alliance with the most important political actor in Lebanon, Iran attained a military objective that had eluded it for so long: a direct route from which to threaten, harass, and attack Israel. Ever since, Israel, which had withdrawn from Southern Lebanon under the wholesome wish for peace, stood aghast as increasingly sophisticated weaponry reached its borders under Iranian auspices. To achieve its raison d’être of destroying Israel, Iran left no single link untouched. For this reason, Israel has faced a seven-front war since October 7, 2023, simultaneously combatting Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iraq, Palestinian militants in Judea and Samaria, the Houthis, and an Iran so unhinged to launch hundreds of ballistic missiles—that miraculously left only one victim—against Israeli civilian population centers. Nevertheless, this scenario, as bleak as it sounds, pales in comparison to Iran’s nuclear program. As this paper is published, Iran is just several weeks away from developing a nuclear bomb. If we take the regime’s fanaticism into account, the ayatollahs could attempt a nuclear attack against Israel, whose population has the horrors of the Holocaust fresh in the minds of its people, many of whom are survivors. In an ordinary conflict, such a juncture would at least imply sanctions and would never involve talks of normalization; however, in the case of the double standards applied to Israel, such talk is bewilderingly commonplace.
In 2009, with the idea of diminishing tension between the United States and Iran, the Obama administration sought to engage in dialogue until the Iranian regime repressed the Green Movement protests after a questionable presidential election. In 2010, it ramped up the pressure on the United Nations (UN) to levy sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program.[4] However, the Obama administration resumed its pro-normalization course and, near the end of 2013, sketched the first contours of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, or Iran deal), wherein sanctions relief would match Iranian consent to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visits.[5] By 2015, despite an acrimoniously fought vote in the Senate, the United States committed to the Iran deal’s tenets and joined the other four UN Security Council (UNSC) permanent members and Germany as one of its interested parties. Nonetheless, the Trump administration exited the Iran deal in 2018 because of repeated Iranian violations of the JCPOA’s terms.[6] The Trump administration also imposed new financially punitive measures against Tehran to weaken its nuclear program and even ordered the assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) General Qassem Soleimani in 2020. However, the Biden administration’s choice to (still fruitlessly) revive the Iran deal and shy away from sanctions enforcement has emboldened the regime—which was already savvy in evading sanctions through clandestine finance operations, including proxy companies, according to an article from the Wall Street Journal—and may have contributed to the attacks against Israel on October 7.[7]
Behind the talks of normalization with Iran, there is a network. The pro-Iran interest groups include a loud, sympathetic minority within the United States’ Persian diaspora, non-interventionist American leftists, and businesses looking for access to Iran’s sizable market and oil reserves. As disparate as these groups can be, they have proven able to foster a suitable environment for their interests and to come together through the network’s three pillars: diaspora, ideology, and bureaucracy. As legally entitled as they are to advocate for their views, the network’s members are not alone; backing them has been the Iranian regime. Hence, combatting the network constitutes a paramount national security concern.
This paper will describe the Iranian enabler infrastructure within the United States.
Figure 1.
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC)
NIAC covers the Iran enabler network’s diaspora pillar and is an offshoot of an organization known as Iranians for International Cooperation (IIC). According to journalist Eli Lake, IIC’s founding by Trita Parsi—whom this paper will treat below—dates to 1997, when Iranians elected so-called reformist president Mohammed Khatami. According to IIC’s former website, its main objectives were to “safeguard Iran’s and Iranian interests” and to ensure “the removal of U.S. economic and political sanctions against Iran, and the commencement of an Iran-U.S. dialogue.”[8] Three events in 1989 would lead to the creation of IIC: the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his replacement by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the election of President Akbar Rafsanjani, who was willing to do business with Western countries as long as they did not challenge the Islamic republic. Because of these changes, many personalities with personal connections to the Iranian regime opted for the business route to profit from their contacts.[9]
Along with such people were the Namazi family. The family’s patriarch, Mohammad Bagher Namazi (Baquer Namazi), had been governor of the province of Khuzestan before the Revolution and, after 1983, was an Iranian immigrant to the United States. Seeing the opportunities that Rafsanjani’s regime afforded, Baquer Namazi’s sons Siamak and Babak, and his niece Pari and her husband Bijan Khajehpour, returned to Iran during the 1990s. Pari Namazi and Bijah Khajehpour founded Atieh Bahar Consulting (AB) in 1993 to help Western companies settle in Iran and gain access to the government.[10] Babak and Siamak Namazi joined AB between 1994 and 1996 after working at a law firm and Iran’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning, respectively. By 1997, the year of Khatami’s election, companies like BP, Statoil, Shell, Toyota, BMW, Daimler, Chrysler, Honda, MTN, Nokia, Alcatel, and HSBC were among AB’s Iranian clients. Only American firms were missing because, after public outcry against Conoco’s 1995 agreement with the Iranian government to exploit an offshore gas field, the Clinton administration imposed sanctions and forbade American companies from engaging in business with Iran.[11] One year later, in 1996, Siamak Namazi met Trita Parsi.[12]
Although it is uncertain whether Siamak Namazi played any role in IIC’s establishment in 1997, he did work with Trita Parsi to establish NIAC as its successor. As Siamak Namazi himself made known in 1998, IIC was still ineffective in influencing the American government.[13] Therefore, Namazi and Parsi decided to change their modus operandi. In a 1999 conference in Cyprus, both lay the justification for a diaspora organization sympathetic to normalizing relations with Iran based on encouraging dialogue and understanding and catalyzing the formation of an Iranian American interest group in the mold of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which they perceived as an example of the power and influence of Jewish Americans to shape future leaders and turn them into pro-Israel advocates.[14] NIAC has consistently referred to what it deems a Jewish lobby. Parsi and Namazi’s outlook for NIAC included leadership seminars for Iranian American youth, detailing the harmful effects of sanctions on ordinary Iranians, and working on a new approach to relations with Iran.[15] Although Parsi would later dispute basing NIAC on AIPAC, this remains NIAC’s blueprint.[16]
In 2002, NIAC supposedly appeared as an organic response of part of the Iranian American community to condemn the 9/11 attacks and, at the same time, comfortably express openness to a rapprochement between Iran and the United States in the name of dialogue. Despite harboring IIC’s positions, two structural changes finally awarded Parsi the influence he had sought. One of those changes was to increase the flow of money that NIAC would receive by eluding a lobby designation and seeking 501(c)(3) tax-deductible status. This fundamental change would allow NIAC to receive $200,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which partnered with Baquer Namazi’s Iran-based Hamyaran Foundation. The other one was to shed the Iran representative label by focusing more on the human aspect, including the discrimination that Iranian Americans were facing.[17]
After Parsi established NIAC’s position in the American political landscape between 2002 and 2005, he became confident enough to focus on NIAC’s real goal: rescinding sanctions against Iran.[18] Although Parsi had published an Iranian offer to President George W. Bush in 2003 to strike a grand bargain, NIAC only promoted rapprochement aggressively starting in 2006, when Parsi started to offer meetings between interested Americans—including members of Congress—and Iranian UN Ambassador Mohammad Javad Zarif under the excuse that, were there not dialogue between Iran and the United States, war would ensue because of the more aggressive government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[19] He even directly worked with billionaire George Soros towards that goal.[20] Shortly after, in 2007, Iranian diaspora journalist Hassan Daioleslam (also known as Hassan Dai) revealed NIAC’s lobbying efforts.[21]
Because the law only allows non-profits to use up to 20% of their funds for lobbying activities and NIAC’s lobbying was undisclosed (it reported no lobbying activities), NIAC should have had to pay financial sanctions for false reports and lost tax-exempt status.[22] Nevertheless, since it was firmly ensconced in the American political system, NIAC only had to make internal documents public because it sued Daioleslam for defamation in 2008—it also sought to exclude him from the Persian-language programs of Voice of America (VOA) and alleged that he was part of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran Marxist terrorist group.[23] During the lawsuits, the judge reprimanded Parsi for modifying 1999 documents stating that IIC was an “advocacy” rather than a “lobbying” group. NIAC also did not produce 5,500 emails related to employee Babak Talebi, misrepresented how its computer and record systems worked, delayed handing the lists of its members by two-and-a-half years, and, according to audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), deliberately modified or deleted 4,159 calendar entries.[24] In 2012, the judge ruled against Parsi and ordered him to pay Daioleslam’s attorney fees; in a 2015 appeal decision, Parsi did not succeed at reversing the spirit of the decision but had its compensation amount revised downward: $183,480.09.[25]
After the regime suppressed the Green Movement in 2009 and steamrolled Ahmadinejad’s reelection, Parsi and NIAC momentarily lost popularity. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) imposed sanctions on Iran in 2010 because of the repression and the regime’s obstinate continuation of the Iranian nuclear program. Besides the lawsuit against Daioleslam, the Iranian government imprisoned Bijah Khajehpour, who later fled to Vienna with his wife, while Siamak Namazi escaped to the United Arab Emirates.[26] In 2013, with the election of Hassan Rouhani—Khajehpour’s former employer and closer to Rafsanjani than Ahmadinejad—and Mohammad Javad Zarif’s appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs, the situation changed because of the Obama administration’s renewed desire to negotiate.[27]
Strategically placed, NIAC helped bring Iran and the Obama administration together in negotiating a nuclear agreement between Iran and Germany and the five permanent UNSC members. The Obama administration adopted several NIAC positions in negotiating what would later become the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, or Iran deal). It even named former NIAC employee Sahar Nowrouzzadeh as National Security Director for Iran, a post she occupied between 2014 and 2016.[28] NIAC, however, failed in its attempt not to constrain Iran to “breakout” phases by which it would have to abide to guarantee it would not develop an atomic weapon.[29] In Vienna and Geneva, where the negotiations took place, Parsi constantly appeared with the Iranian delegation. He also discussed business opportunities in Iran with Bijan Khajehpour.[30] That same year, NIAC created NIAC Action, a 501(c)(4) organization that would allow it to engage in lobbying.[31] After the Trump administration exited the JCPOA in 2018, NIAC has pushed for another understanding with Iran at the cost of American concessions.
NIAC’s mission is, according to its website, to empower Iranian Americans so that they can “advance peace & [sic] diplomacy, secure equitable immigration policies, and protect the civil rights of all Americans.”[32] For NIAC, the everyday concerns of Iranian Americans are merely a way of giving the Iranian regime more breathing space. Despite NIAC’s founding by Trita Parsi, Jamal Abdi is its current president.[33] As the information on NIAC’s website describes Abdi’s home state as Washington, where he studied at the state university (the University of Washington) from 2002 to 2006, Abdi’s birth most probably occurred within the United States.[34] After graduating, Abdi worked as a Policy Advisor for the House of Representatives between March 2007 and November 2009. According to NIAC’s website and LinkedIn, Abdi entered NIAC in November 2009 as a Policy Director, became NIAC Action’s Executive Director since its founding in July 2015, and took over the position of President of NIAC in August 2018, the same year that the Trump administration exited the JCPOA and one year before Trita Parsi founded the Quincy Institute.[35] Because of his background, Abdi helps lend credence to NIAC’s claims that the organization represents the concerns of ordinary Iranian Americans who want to promote normalized relations between Iran and the United States.
Most of NIAC’s staff is Iranian American in origin and politically leftist. Among the staff’s other Iranian Americans, one is Kurdish (Operations Manager Sara Hawrami) and another is Jewish (Community and Advocacy Associate Etan Mabourakh).[36] Hawrami, a Tennessee native, joined NIAC in 2021.[37] She lists no other activity between her graduation from college in 2019 and the start of her work at NIAC.[38] Meanwhile, Mabourakh, who hails from Florida, worked with Hakeem Jeffries in the summer of 2022 and for New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie between February and May 2020.[39]
Both Hawrami and Mabourakh have published retweeted aggressive comments against Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Benjamin Netanyahu. In one of her retweets, Hawrami conveyed the idea that any thought of restoring the Iranian monarchy is tantamount to racism.[40] At the same time, Mabourakh insinuated that Senator John Fetterman wore a suit to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress because Netanyahu was Fetterman’s actual boss.[41] He also retweeted in support of Jamaal Bowman during this year’s Democratic Party primary.[42] In one of his tweets, Mabourakh claimed credit for organizing a coalition of 30 different organizations to promote treating advocacy campaigns favoring the democratic state of Israel as an influence campaign from Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs in the mold of those that autocratic Russia and Iran have waged.[43] Besides NIAC and the Iran enabler network’s Quincy Institute, many of the organizations that Mabourakh assembled, including American Muslims for Palestine, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action, and the MPower Change Action Fund, have links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and coordinate the actions of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which has terrorized Jewish students across American college campuses.[44]
Nevertheless, the presence of non-Iranian Americans inside NIAC is indicative of the importance that the organization assigns to normalized relations with Iran despite the supposed chief goal of looking after the concerns of Iranian Americans. In NIAC’s board, which surprisingly has a small number of two members, only one, OB/GYN Payman Jarrahy, is Iranian American.[45] Siobhan Coley, NIAC’s Board Chair, does not have Iranian origins.[46] Furthermore, NIAC’s Policy Director is Ryan Costello. Costello had served as a Program Associate at the Connect U.S. Fund—where he focused on nuclear terrorism through the Fissile Materials Working Group—before joining NIAC in 2013.[47]
NIAC’s 2021 990 Tax Form included around $1.2 million in grants from “10,000 individual donors.”[48] The only donors to which NIAC directly refers by their name are the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ploughshares Fund (Ploughshares).[49] Ploughshares, in operation since 1981, is “singularly focused on reducing the threat of nuclear weapons” by pursuing targeted investments.[50] Those targeted investments seek “to create a global norm against nuclear weapons and increase the momentum toward zero,” focusing on Russia and the United States to reduce nuclear arsenals, prevent the emergence of new nuclear states, and look to understand the causes of nuclear policy in South Asian countries. Ploughshares’ tactics include traditional grants for long-term change, venture capital projects to allow new ideas to take root, and philanthropic campaigns to modify stakeholder behavior.[51] Ploughshares list non-proliferation efforts between the United States and the Soviet Union, winning the fight against “bunker buster” weapons, the 2010 New Start Treaty, the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, and the JCPOA among its achievements.[52]
Ben Rhodes, one of President Barack Obama’s speechwriters, leader of the secret negotiations that reestablished diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, and advisor on the JCPOA, is one of Ploughshares’ board members. Other Ploughshares members include William Cohen, President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Defense.[53] Within the Iran enabler network, the Quincy Institute, Alireza Vaezzadeh (Ali Vaez), and the International Crisis Group have been among Ploughshares’ other grantees. So have left-wing groups like J Street, MoveOn.org, and the National Committee on North Korea.[54] Ploughshares has not been exempt from anti-Semitism controversies. In 2017, employee Valerie Plame retweeted an alt-right article tying American Jews to wars fought by the United States.[55]
Another instance of the significance that normalized relations between the United States and Iran have for NIAC is that it promotes an initiative named Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy (GCNP) to foster the presence of women in nuclear negotiations.[56] The initiative also helps to refute the conception that NIAC is a regime acolyte since Iran is a regime that has repeatedly oppressed women. An instance of this is how the Iranian morality police beat Mahsa Amini to death for presumably wearing her hijab inappropriately.[57] Additionally, NIAC has focused on LGBT issues despite the fact that homosexuality is illegal in Iran.[58] Finally, NIAC has also publicly advocated for left-wing Iranian activists.[59]
The actions that NIAC considers its most important achievements starkly relate to sanctions and nuclear negotiations. The first category NIAC lists is “advancing peace & [sic] diplomacy.” The items in that category are helping pass the JCPOA, fighting sanctions legislations, avoiding a 2007 House of Representatives resolution in favor of a naval blockade of Iran, and securing commitments on favoring diplomacy over regime change during the 2020 election campaign.[60] The second category was “equitable immigration.” For this category’s achievements, NIAC listed securing multiple-entry visas for Iranian students, guaranteeing Iranian dual nationals were eligible for the Visa Waiver Program when applicable, ending the Trump 2017 travel ban, and upholding the green card process for Iranian nationals.[61]
Domestically, NIAC has pushed for companies like Apple to hire more Iranian Americans when they previously did not hire some individuals because of sanctions concerns, reversed a long-standing USPS policy of not sending mail to Iran in 2018, has lobbied for banks to exercise less scrutiny over the bank accounts that some Iranian Americans own—which had led to Bank of America shutting down 15,000 accounts owned by Iranian Americans—, has endorsed political candidates like former Washington Lieutenant Governor Cyrus Habib and helped defeat hardliners on Iran such as Congressman Dana Rohrbacher in 2018.[62] In what concerns sanctions, NIAC has only supported targeted sanctions on Iran, requested their withdrawal from communications equipment, and secured a permanent exemption for humanitarian organizations in 2013. NIAC even successfully pushed for the National Geographic Society to change the name of the body of water overlooking the Iranian coastline in its maps. That name, previously Arabian Gulf, became the Persian Gulf.[63] Recently, NIAC ensured a 2021 commitment from the Biden administration to end the Trump travel ban, finally opened NIAC Academies in 2022 to train Iranian American leaders—23 years after the 1999 Trita Parsi proposal—, blocked Texas Senate Bill 147, which restricted land purchases by citizens of countries openly hostile to American interests in 2023 and made the Census Bureau include Iranian Americans as a subcategory of the Middle East and North African (MENA) primary racial category. NIAC has also sought to prevent an Iran travel ban.[64]
NIAC has repeatedly opposed Israeli interests. After the October 7 attacks in 2023, NIAC did acknowledge some Hamas atrocities and lamented the Hezbollah attack on children playing soccer on a playground in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in July 2024.[65] NIAC has supported a ceasefire in Gaza, whose result would be Hamas continuing to exist.[66] Despite continued Iranian and Hezbollah attacks on Israeli civilians, NIAC has demanded that the United States not allow the Middle Eastern conflict to escalate.[67] It has also established a moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas.[68] Because it dislikes Israeli policies, NIAC has opposed military aid to Israel, called for a boycott of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, and, after the Israeli strike that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, lamented dashed hopes for a quick ceasefire and stated that, after having exercised restraint, Iran, needed to retaliate to save face.[69] As this declaration shows, NIAC shies away from condemning the Iran regime. In January 2024, after an Iran-affiliated militia killed 3 US service members, NIAC only expressed a concern about regional escalation.[70]
Given its positions on Middle Eastern affairs, and as the case of Hassan Daioleslam shows, NIAC has been swift in countering its association with Tehran’s geopolitical interests. The first frequently asked question that NIAC cites on its website is whether it lobbies for Iran, which NIAC denies for obvious reasons.[71] NIAC does acknowledge NED grants during its early years and also mentions donations from Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 2010 and 2012 that totaled around $170,000 but cites that two-thirds of its funds come from small donors and mentions its Platinum Seal of Transparency, awarded by Goldstar. For NIAC, the people who oppose them promote “misinformation” and represent “many in the pro-intervention political sphere, others in the rightwing pro-Israel crowd,” and some “Iranian dissident groups in the diaspora.”[72]
Regarding the Iranian diaspora, NIAC has attempted to weaken the claims and voices of the vast majority of Iranian Americans, who are opposed to the Islamic Republic regime. To do this, NIAC has sought to cast individuals in the Iranian American diaspora that favor regime change, and vocally oppose their policies as irrationally angry and opposed to constructive dialogue and to giving peace a chance because of their traumas. To that end, NIAC has received assistance from journalists who were sympathetic toward the JCPOA and normalization efforts and, to score points with Iranian allies, it has also looked to characterize a large percentage of American Jews and dissident-led diasporas, such as the Cuban and Venezuelan diasporas in the United States, as dangerously unhinged.[73]
In a Politico article, journalist Daniel Block defended Sherry Hakimi, who had supported the 2015 Iran deal and had met in person with Mohammad Javad Zarif after people in the diaspora attacked her, even to the point of sending death and rape threats.[74] Hakimi had participated in the NIAC-promoted Camp Ayandeh—which focused on Iranian American heritage—in 2008 as part of the Iranian Alliances Across Borders (IAAB).[75] He also defended Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, who, in November 2016, had been a panelist at a NIAC event regarding what to expect regarding American Iran policy during the Trump administration.[76] Block also quoted Ali Vaez, who accused sectors in the Iranian American community of trying to “intimidate and silence people.”[77] In that same article, Block considered the case for normalization with Iran “compelling” and regarded Iranian Canadian dissident Kaveh Shahrooz as a “bombastic voice” that did not provide sufficient evidence for his claims, whose receipt of threats was a mere assertion, and whose discomfort at receiving those threats was ironic given Shahrooz’s frequent use of strong language.[78]
NIAC has expressed that, despite its (nominal) “opposition” to the Iranian regime, its constitutionally protected right to free speech entitles it to claim different views. Legally, this may be true. However, by doing so, NIAC has helped the Iranian diaspora remain divided—as it has been since 1979 when it used to come together under the Confederation of Iranian Students (CIS)—and thereby benefit the regime.[79] The Iranian diaspora expresses itself on news outlets with divergent views, such as BBC Persian, Manoto, Radio Farda, IranWire, and Iran International.[80] The Iranian opposition is split between far-right, liberal, leftist, social democratic, and monarchist factions. In February 2023, after the Woman, Life, Freedom Movement gained strength after the killing of Mahsa Amini the previous year, a conference at Georgetown University that included renowned diaspora personalities like former Iranian crown prince Reza Pahlavi, journalist Masin Alinejad, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. Even though the meeting led to the Mahsa Charter and the establishment of the Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran (AFDI) by March, the meeting had already lost two prominent members. This infighting continued until most of the alliance disintegrated by April 2023.[81] Despite NIAC not being the chief factor impeding the opposition from coming together, it certainly helps the Iranian diaspora stay disorganized and thereby helps the regime stand strong.
One important common denominator in NIAC’s preferred policies is that, in the name of furthering exchanges with people in Iran and creating mutual understanding, Iranian university students stand to benefit the most. With multiple entry visas, Iranian students can now visit Iran more often. With the changes in the university admissions policies that NIAC has promoted, more Iranians with active links to their homeland will access cutting-edge research. NIAC’s initiatives help Iran-based students access the American financial system when they otherwise would not. Fighting the Trump administration’s travel ban means that Iranians with links to the Islamic Republic, including some of the students’ family members, are entering the United States at higher rates. Lenient vetting of Iranian students in the United States presents many worrying outcomes that are not mere suppositions.
In countries where Iranian students have been more active, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) demands cooperation from every Iran-based student and academic in serving the Islamic Republic. In Sweden, the IRGC uses student exchange programs to seize research such as “drone technology, artificial intelligence, data management and software for the military industry,” as Alireza Akhondi says.[82] In a similar case, Iran has gained knowledge from Cambridge University to make the kamikaze drones it has handed Russia to support its invasion of Ukraine because of a British-Iranian research program.[83] Iran has also obtained European components to manufacture its drones.[84] Because some Iranian students have benefited the regime militarily, it is less surprising that some of these students also advance the Islamic Republic’s political objectives. Since many prominent personages in the Iran enabler network initially came to the United States as students and the number of Iranian students in the United States has more than doubled to more than 10,000 since 2010, NIAC’s work in enlarging the network’s reach is paramount.[85] After examining the diaspora pillar, the paper shall review the network’s ideological pillar.
The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (Quincy)
Founded in 2019 with a Koch Foundation and Open Society Foundations grant, the Quincy Institute is a think tank that looks to “rethink[] U.S. foreign policy assumptions” given a multipolar world and overcome the limitations of the military-industrial complex when doing so.[86] For Quincy, locally solving local problems, American restraint, involving itself in debates, and promoting journalism through the Responsible Statecraft magazine are the methods Quincy uses to accomplish its objectives.[87] The motives that Quincy brandishes to justify its approach are looking after the interest of the broader public, respecting international law and shunning worldwide supremacy, using war as a last resort, and bolstering the authority of Congress. For this reason, Quincy enjoys the backing of non-interventionists on both sides of the political spectrum and attempts to work to bridge the perceived foreign policy gap between what think tanks and academia propose.[88]
According to a tax filing at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), former Army Colonel and historian Andrew Bacevich and NIAC’s Trita Parsi are Quincy’s co-founders.[89] According to journalist Armin Rosen, Parsi’s $275,000 salary as Executive Vice President at the time, more than five times Bacevich’s stipend of $50,000, was a sign that Parsi ran and still manages Quincy.[90] This event is not surprising. For Parsi, who is bent on normalizing Iran’s heavily ideological and anti-American Islamic Republic on the world stage, Quincy is a step up from NIAC because it allows him to favor Iran and its allies on multiple fronts. Quincy also offers Parsi a platform from which he could gradually turn normalizing relations with Iran into a bipartisan issue.
A reading of Quincy’s proposals shows that non-intervention for its sake—even when being more active internationally would prove the most effective course of action—and downright but subtle hostility to Israel are at the core of its proposals. Repeatedly, Quincy has urged Israel to exercise restraint to prevent regional tensions from escalating.[91] Rather than celebrating the benefits of the Abraham Accords in which Israel normalized relations with four Arab states (the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco), Quincy acknowledged some of their benefits.[92] Nevertheless, it expressed ample reservations because the Abraham Accords rendered Iran queasy and because they made a détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran more unlikely, even though more widespread recognition of Israel can reduce tensions and American involvement in the unstable Middle Eastern theater: one of Quincy’s goals.[93]
Regarding its policy of non-intervention for its own sake, Quincy does fulfill its ambition of turning every American foreign policy assumption on its head through its recommendations. Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia Program at Quincy, has suggested that Russian peace terms are relatively peaceful and realistic and that Ukraine should accept them to prevent more losses despite the precedent that it could set and the possible weakening of American relations with NATO allies Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.[94] He also considered a June 2024 Geneva summit a way to advance that initiative in the long run.[95] Lieven has also expressed that the United Kingdom’s foreign policy should be increasingly independent of the United States, fundamentally transforming the special relationship between the Americans and the British.[96]
Quincy has proposed that the United States negotiate another nuclear deal with newly inaugurated President of Iran Masoud Pezeshkian even though Iran has destabilized the Middle East by sponsoring Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.[97] Concerning Cuba, which has recently propped up Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship in Venezuela, Quincy has openly suggested disregarding the concerns of Cuban Americans in favor of the larger picture.[98] Quincy has also indicated that Congressmen like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greg Casar showed the rest of the United States how to deal with the new leftist leadership in Latin American countries such as Brazil, Chile, and Colombia.[99] Concerning Brazil in particular, Quincy has proposed that differences over Ukraine were not vital enough to affect American bilateral ties with Brazil in any shape or form.[100] Regarding China, Quincy has advocated for giving the government more weight in international mediation; Quincy has also shown “pragmatism toward the persecution of Uyghurs” and proposed negotiating maritime agreements that would limit the extent of freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea.[101] In the Korean peninsula, Quincy has advanced the idea of not confronting North Korea whenever its regime makes overtures toward dialogue, even though these supposed advances have been spurious in the past.[102] In Syria, Quincy has considered “the survival of the Assad regime” the best among the worst alternatives and has suggested the withdrawal of American troops from that country and Iraq.[103] This last action would only solidify Iran’s position by letting it reach the Mediterranean Sea completely untrammeled.
In Afghanistan, before August 2021, Quincy suggested an American withdrawal without any preconditions.[104] Implementing this strategy had pernicious consequences for America’s national interests since it entailed that the Taliban would resume their rule at Afghanistan’s helm, that 13 United States service members would die in Kabul Airport during the evacuation, and that a significant migration and humanitarian crisis took place.[105] In Yemen, Quincy has advocated for an end to foreign intervention with the pretext of safeguarding Yemeni sovereignty.[106] According to Quincy’s non-resident fellow Shireen Al-Adeimi, the attacks by Shiite Houthi militias on international shipping passing through the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait were an attempt at “genocide prevention” in Gaza.[107] In the Sahel region, which has recently seen a rise in jihadist movements, a rejection of French influence, and Russian inroads in countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea, Quincy’s recommendation was to scale down French and American operations, without concern about Russia or China pushing the region’s states toward their sphere of influence.[108] Quincy has also recommended a change in policy about Belarus, despite its increasing alignment with Russia.[109]
Although Quincy looks to bolster the powers of Congress, it is not receptive to state governors and legislators when they intend to shape foreign policy. In Quincy’s Responsible Statecraft magazine, Junior Research Fellow Nick Cleveland-Stout wrote in rejection of state bills mandating the registration of workers of foreign-owned companies as foreign agents. He also expressed reservations about naming “countries of concern” such as “China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, and Venezuela.” His argument in favor of international issues requiring review by the federal government notwithstanding, the article’s title of letting “the feds handle foreign influence” indicates hostility to the states exercising their constitutional powers as an equal level of government in a federal republic.[110]
By itself, it is not questionable to consider that the best way to serve American interests is by reducing the involvement of the United States around the globe and giving way to a world order less based on unilateral action and focused on upholding a set of international rules. Moreover, many people in the Quincy Institute may pursue this policy with the best intentions. Nevertheless, simultaneously implementing every Quincy policy would inevitably lead to a power vacuum. This power vacuum would have dual effects. The first would be that, despite reduced American coercion, many governments would not have the financial and knowledge resources to step up if the United States left. The second one would be that adversaries of the United States, unwilling to be rule-takers any longer, such as Russia and China, would aggressively irreversibly erode or replace American influence worldwide. This outcome would humiliate the United States’ international standing and make it harder for Americans to influence their access to foreign markets and overall prosperity. In short, Quincy’s recommendations are utterly reckless. Given Trita Parsi’s Iranian links and executive role at the Quincy Institute, it is not outlandish to conclude that the basis for the organization’s proposals is a deliberate scheme to undercut and stultify the United States to benefit the Iranian regime and its international allies.
Complicit with Quincy in this initiative of American decline by design is an intricate donor network. The donors that Quincy lists include the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Colombe Foundation, the East-West Bank Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Nasiri Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Pivotal Foundation, Ploughshares, the Samuel Rubin Foundation, the Stand Together Trust, the Stichting Giustra International Foundation, the Arca Foundation, and the Streisand Foundation.[111] Quincy’s expanded donor list for the last twelve months also includes the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, and many of its board members.[112] The Koch Foundation—which had handed Quincy part of its initial assets—no longer figures among Quincy’s funders after 2021, meaning that Quincy is acquiring an increasingly left-wing bent.[113] According to that webpage, Lawyers for Reporters also gives Quincy non-financial support by helping it with litigation challenges.[114] The Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice (Vance Center) started Lawyers for Reporters.[115] The Vance Center also funds Fundación Pro Bono in Chile, which in 2019 sympathized with the goals a series of protests that ended in riots that ravaged capital city Santiago, destroyed large swaths of the local subway system, and led to the country paralyzing itself by participating in two failed constitutional revision processes.[116]
For 2022, Quincy’s revenue amounted to $4,857,094, roughly $1.1 million less than in 2021, according to its 990 Tax Form. However, what is remarkable is that Quincy experienced a growth in salary expenses from around $3 million to $3.7 million, which probably points to higher hiring numbers. By working at Quincy rather than at NIAC, Parsi has been able to quadruple, at least, the total resources that he can manage and maintain the same compensation levels he previously enjoyed at NIAC (between $270,000 and $290,000).[117] Quincy’s resources have allowed the organization to continue operating normally despite a negative revenue of $128,775 in 2022. In terms of programs, Quincy spent $4,160,186 in 2022. The chief program expenses were the General Program ($880,326), the Middle East Program ($825,685), and the Communications Program ($655,473).[118] The prominence of the Quincy Institute Middle East Program, just like its proposals, is another way of lending credence to the conception that the think tank functions to allow Trita Parsi to spread his ideas of rapprochement with Iran on a grander stage.
Although he is Quincy’s cofounder, Trita Parsi only holds the position of Executive Vice President.[119] Lora Lumpe, who formerly worked for the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations as Advocacy Director, currently holds the position of CEO of the Quincy Institute. According to Quincy’s webpage, Lumpe “engaged in strategic grantmaking, field building, and campaigning aimed at ending America’s endless wars” during her time at the Open Society Foundations.[120] According to Influence Watch, Lumpe has also participated in “[the] Federation of American Scientists, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the Small Arms Survey, the United Nations, and American Friends Service Committee.”[121] Lumpe’s hiring is one proof that Trita Parsi—and not she—controls Quincy, despite her CEO role. Although Quincy’s founding occurred in December 2019, Lumpe’s selection as CEO took place three months later, in March 2020.[122] At the time, Trita Parsi personally commended Lumpe for her hiring.[123] After Lumpe’s hiring, Parsi suffered no demotion. The Quincy report that named Lumpe CEO also described Parsi as Quincy’s Executive Vice President.[124] Consequently, one can deduce that Parsi helped select Lumpe despite his lower nominal rank at Quincy and his non-participation in Quincy’s Board. This also leads to the possibility that, because of his previous work for NIAC, Parsi intended to give Quincy a more independent image by showing some distance from top management.
A look into Quincy’s board and staff provides a comprehensive picture of the organization and its people, some of which express problematic views. Some Quincy staff have contributed to make life difficult for Jewish students on college campuses. For instance, Quincy Advocacy Associate Rawan Abhari, who worked for Congressman Andy Kim, accused Israel of apartheid and defended Florida State University (FSU) student and SJP member Ahmad Daraldik, after he managed to wrestle the position of FSU Student Senate President from someone else, for statements comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, for comments accusing Zionists—the overwhelming majority of whom are Jews—of not empathizing with the Black community because of their supposed white skin color, and for directly accusing Jews of “mak[ing] everything about themselves.”[125] Abhari has also promoted the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement.[126]
Other Quincy staff have direct link to Islamist organizations or countries. Senior Video Producer Khody Akhavi has worked for Al Jazeera English, which receives most of its funding from Muslim Brotherhood-friendly Qatar.[127] Director of Advocacy Tori Bateman has worked for the American Friends Service Committee (ASFC), with direct links to the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR).[128] Senior Advisor Eli Clifton has directly accused television network Fox News and right-wing think tanks like the Middle East Forum of fanning Islamophobic sentiments.[129] Amir Handjani, a Quincy Non-Resident Fellow, is even part of the board of RAK Petroleum, based in the Emirate of Ras Al-Khaimah, in the UAE.[130] Even though the UAE is not an Islamist country like Qatar, simultaneous participation in a foreign policy think tank and a foreign oil company may signal a potential conflict of interest. Moreover, Ras Al-Khaimah is an Iranian money laundering hub.[131] Another one of Handjani’s conflicts of interests is his involvement in PG International Commodity Trading Services, which represents American agricultural company Cargill in Iran. Cargill still operates in Iran because United States sanctions there do not cover agriculture.[132] Another one of Handjani’s previous conflicts of interests is that, as part of the Atlantic Council’s board, he donated $500,000 to that think tank, some of which he earmarked to the Future of Iran Initiative.[133]
Reporter Connor Echols, who worked for Quincy until June 2024, holds two types of links to Qatar. The first is his work for the Arab Center Washington DC, whose primary affiliation lies with the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS).[134] ACPRS also has sister organizations in Paris and in two Muslim-majority countries with strong Islamist and previous Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) presence before the Oslo Accords: Lebanon and Tunisia.[135] The second link relates to Echols’ journalism degree from Northwestern University because Northwestern has a Doha campus whose degree offer revolves almost entirely around journalism.[136]
Eurasia Program Director Anatol Lieven has previously taught at Georgetown University in Qatar, where the Qatar Foundation has access to the intellectual property of research conducted therein and significant sway over the curriculum.[137] Deputy Director of the Middle East Program Adam Weinstein has worked for NIAC and “regularly travels throughout Pakistan.”[138] Non-Resident Fellow Shireen Al-Adeimi has repeatedly sought to counter Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s involvement in the Yemeni Civil War.[139] Quincy’s Iran Program director is William H. Luers, Non-Resident Fellow and former US Ambassador to “Czechoslovakia (1983-1986) and Venezuela (1978-1982)” and “Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe (1977-1978) and for Inter-American Affairs (1975-1977)” inside the State Department.[140]
Many other Quincy staff hold positions that imperil the continued existence of American ally Israel. Director of Communications Jessica Rosenblum has previously worked for J Street—a fringe voice within the American Jewish community that looks to revisit United States policy toward Israel—as Senior Vice President of Jewish Engagement.[141] Research Fellow Annelle Sheline resigned her position at the Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor’s Office of Near Eastern Affairs in protest of President Biden’s support of Israel during its defensive war against Hamas.[142] Sheline is also Non-Resident Fellow of the Baker Institute, which has promoted Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum—often at odds with American foreign policy interests—and doubted the effectiveness of Texas’ border security strategy to counter illegal immigration.[143] Non-Resident Fellow Nando Villa also heads Hollywood studio Exile Content, focused on Latino audiences, which is strange for someone working at a think tank like Quincy. In 2016, Villa’s documentary The Naked Truth: Trumpland received an Emmy Award nomination.[144]
Unlike NIAC, Quincy’s board is entangled with part of the upper crust of American society. The Chairman of the Board of the Quincy Institute is Stephen Heintz, President of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which supports leftist causes and has “an endowment of approximately $1.2 billion.”[145] Board Member Lea Hunt-Hendrix, a Hunt family heiress, is co-founder and former Executive Director of Solidaire, which seeks to “support resistance” to “dismantling and disrupting extractive, exploitative, and oppressive systems steeped in structural racism,” aims to “fund imagination and futures” by “envisioning and creating (…) decolonized systems that recognize and respect the dignity of all oppressed peoples,” and aims to upend American institutions through “[l]iberat[ing] wealth to support Black liberation and Indigenous Sovereignty.”[146] Among the organizations Solidaire supports is Palestine Legal, which assists pro-Palestinian protesters who get into trouble with law enforcement.[147] Hunt-Hendrix also works as “a Senior Advisor at the American Economic Liberties Project and a member of the Board of Directors of the Solutions Project.” Currently, one of the American Economic Liberties Project’s board members is Laleh Ispahani, who heads Open Society’s American operations.[148] Staff member Faiz Shakir has previously advised Bernie Sanders.[149] Personally, Hunt-Hendrix participated in the Occupy Wall Street Movement in the early 2010s and, after 2017, founded progressive political organization Way to Win to mobilize voters in its stated goal to build a multiracial democracy.[150] In 2020, Way to Win deployed $110 million in funding.[151] After Way to Win, Hunt-Hendrix also helped establish what is today the Valiente Fund to help make Latino Americans a more cohesive voter bloc.[152]
Board Member Jessica Matthews headed the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace between 1997 and 2015 and has also held positions in the Council for Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the editorial board of The Washington Post, among others.[153] Another board member at Quincy is Iranian American Francis Najafi, who is active in the Chief Executives Organization, the World Presidents’ Organization, and the Aspen Institute think tank.[154] Besides those commitments, he is the founder and CEO of the Pivotal Group. The Pivotal Group is a private equity firm that has included some Ritz Carlton and St. Regis hotels in its real estate portfolio.[155] Board Member Thomas R. Pickering is a former ambassador and was US Representative to the United Nations under George H.W. Bush. During the Clinton administration, he was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.[156] In 1988, Pickering denounced Israeli expulsion of terrorists against the backdrop of the First Intifada.[157] Board Member Liz Theoharis is Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign.[158]
Board Member Katrina vanden Heuvel is Editorial Director and Publisher of The Nation and directs the American Committee for US-Russian Accord (ACURA).[159] ACURA has dismissed warnings about Vladimir Putin’s expansionist ideology in Russia and has decried the Washington, DC meeting for the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for being a presumed self-congratulatory event.[160] Vanden Heuvel is also part of the Council of Foreign Relations and supported Senator Bernie Sanders in his 2016 presidential bid.[161] Board Member Stephen Walt is a contributing editor at Foreign Policy. He notoriously criticized domestic American support for Israel in the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which he co-authored with University of Chicago professor Dr. John Mearsheimer.[162] Another one of Quincy’s board members is venture capitalist Michael Zak, who founded Cornell University’s China & Asia-Pacific Studies program, heads Boston’s flagship National Public Radio (NPR) station, and also partakes in the Board of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).[163]
Trita Parsi and His Motives
Despite Trita Parsi’s prominent role within the Iran enabler network, this paper has avoided dealing with him in depth up to this point. There is a reason behind this approach. Although NIAC and Quincy are deeply intertwined with Parsi since he contributed to their founding, they are separate organizations. Hence, it is better to draw the first contours of the Iranian enabler network to comprehend better how details in Parsi’s background and ideology influence the network’s functioning and can also direct the actions of other members.
Trita Parsi was born in Ahvaz, in the Iranian province of Khuzestan.[164] His family was Zoroastrian.[165] His father, Touraj Parsi, was a college professor whom Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had arrested. Just after the Iranian Revolution succeeded, Trita Parsi emigrated to Sweden with his family when he was four.[166] The timeline of Touraj Parsi’s arrests, both before and after the Iranian Revolution, and the destination that the family chose after fleeing Iran indicate that Touraj Parsi had left-wing sympathies. Heshmat Alavi reports that Touraj Parsi belonged to the communist Tudeh Party.[167] This left-wing support is no surprise. For several decades, political parties of Islamist and leftist persuasion had allied themselves in opposition to the Shah. Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani had been an ally of Mohammad Mosaddegh during his 1951 nationalization of the Iranian petroleum industry. He also supported him as Speaker of the Majlis (the Iranian legislature). The 1953 coup that overthrew Mosaddegh did not occur until Kashani withdrew his support from the government.[168] In 1978 and 1979, left-wing and Islamist political forces coordinated and helped topple the Shah. Even today, despite its exclusion from Iran’s political life, the Freedom Movement of Iran—affiliated with Mosaddegh’s legacy—still declares its support for the Islamic Republic regime.[169] Conversely, the Islamic Republic joined the left-wing Non-Aligned Movement in 1979 to shore up its international legitimacy, still uses anti-imperialist and Third World rhetoric to this day, and cites the 1953 coup that overthrew Mosaddegh as a justification for its hostility to the United States.[170]
Trita Parsi’s time in Sweden may have also rendered him more supportive of Iranian interests. Moreover, Trita Parsi spent many years of his childhood under the effects of Olof Palme’s premiership (1969-1976, 1982-1986). In foreign policy, Palme led Sweden in a decidedly leftist direction that glanced warmly at any movement with whichever tinge of Third World liberation as an ideology. For instance, although Palme heavily opposed Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, he was receptive to Fidel Castro in Cuba and even visited him. In Central America, Palme supported left-wing Guatemalan guerrillas and the FMLN movement in El Salvador. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Palme supported and funded organizations like the Polisario Front in Western Sahara against Spain and Morocco, the PLO, and the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa—at a time when it was employing violent methods. In the Iran-Iraq War, Palme even served as a mediator.[171] Unlike the United States, which suffered from the trauma of the 1979-1980 embassy attack and hostage-taking, Sweden never broke diplomatic relations with Iran.[172] Just like NIAC and Quincy do, Palme considered Iran a normal country. Moreover, Trita Parsi’s archeologist father Touraj never stopped being involved with Iran. At least during the 2000s, he was part of the Pasargad Heritage Foundation.[173] For these reasons, Trita Parsi’s leftist family and his upbringing in Sweden left an indelible mark on his ideological convictions and more sympathetic to the Iranian government, as opposed to most diaspora Iranians.
The 1990s were some of Trita Parsi’s defining years. Starting in 1994, Parsi studied for bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Political Science and Government at the University of Uppsala, one of the finest in Sweden. According to his LinkedIn profile, Parsi finished his master’s degree in 2000. During those years, Parsi also studied for a master’s degree in International Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics between 1996 and 2000. He studied Political Science and Government at the University of Stockholm between 1995 and 1996.[174]
During that time, not only did Parsi create IIC; he also established his reputation as an unapologetic Iranian nationalist. Journalist Armin Rosen liked Parsi to two Google posts, both under Parsi’s name, dating to 1996 and 1997—two years before Google released its search engine.[175] The 1996 post was an unabashed ode to Parsi’s country of birth, which declared that “[t]here is no substitut (sic) for Iran! There is a reason why all my letters end with ZENDE BAD IRAN [long live Iran].”[176] In that post, Parsi also declared some lines before that, he wanted to see a “free,” “proud,” and “strong” Iran. He also mentioned that the one-million dead in the Iran-Iraq War the previous decade “still died for Iran” and perished so “that another beautiful Iranian child could be born and be called Shirin or Darius.” He also mentioned phrases that were problematic for American national interests, including “[o]ur brothers and sisters did not die for us so we could marry an [A]merican and call our child Betty-Sue or Joey, they did not die so we could speak [E]nglish to our children. WE OWE IRAN OUR LIVES.”[177]
The 1997 post, directed at Kenneth R. Timmerman of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, included vulgar and biased, if not anti-Semitic, language. He accused Timmerman of not caring about the lives of Iranians and thought that “[i]t is just unbelievable that an American thinks Iranians are so stupid that they would buy your crap.” Regarding Israeli opposition to Iranian policies, he said that “[b]y your name, I suspect that you are a Jew.” He also mentioned that, often, “Israelis run their business under the safety of an American flag.”[178] In that post, Parsi distinguished between reformist and radical factions in Iran’s regime and accused Timmerman of emboldening the radicals.[179] Given Parsi’s actions, it is plausible to believe that, despite his non-Islamist personal background, Parsi may be aligned with the Iranian regime because it represents the continuity of a Persian polity, just as Vladimir Putin showed nostalgia for the Soviet Union as a Russian polity in 2005 by considering the USSR’s collapse as a “geopolitical tragedy.”[180]
Between 1997 and 1998, Parsi had the opportunity to work for the Swedish delegation to the UNSC, when Sweden was a non-permanent member, which shows Parsi’s Third World and nationalist credentials.[181] During that period, as a fortunate coincidence, he specifically reviewed the dossiers of locations of interest to Iran: the Western Sahara, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.[182] After the Revolution, Iran became friendlier to the left-wing Polisario Front than under the Shah. The Polisario Front is a Western Saharan guerrilla movement that looks to wrestle control of the region away from Morocco. Morocco even protested against Iran in 2018 for supposedly funneling money to the Polisario Front through Hezbollah.[183] In 1997 and 1998, Sweden, together with the rest of the international community, attempted to organize a self-determination referendum for the Western Sahara. In Afghanistan and Tajikistan, which have a rich historical Persian heritage and where the common language is still almost entirely based on Persian, Sweden looked to ensure that both countries’ civil wars ended peacefully and did not compromise the stability of surrounding states.[184] In the case of Tajikistan, Sweden helped achieve this by 1997.[185] In the UN General Assembly, Parsi also addressed “human rights in Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Iraq.”[186]
Another one of Parsi’s motives has been to acquire prestige steadily to spread his message. As he was establishing NIAC, Parsi enlisted the help of Rutgers professor Hooshang Amiramahdi to obtain a work visa around 2001 and to receive an introduction to then-Iranian diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif.[187] According to The Washington Times, Amirhadi would later register as a candidate for Iran’s presidential election in 2005.[188] He has received participation bans from the Iranian regime ever since.[189] Parsi also worked for the Iranian company AB during some of those years.[190]
Between 2001 and 2006, Parsi completed a PhD at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.[191] For his thesis, he chose Francis Fukuyama, who in 1992 famously predicted an end to history, as his advisor. He also chose former Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski to be part of his dissertation committee.[192] Parsi would later turn his thesis into a book called Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States.[193] Published in 2007 and containing direct quotes from Iranian and Israeli public officials, Parsi’s work argues that there is a complex triangular relationship between Israel, Iran, and the United States, and—continuing his interest with Jewish American lobbying efforts—Parsi accuses AIPAC of sabotaging normalization efforts between the United States and Iran.[194] Ever since Parsi obtained his PhD, “[h]e has served as an adjunct professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, New York University, Georgetown University, and George Washington University, as well as an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, and as a Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC.”[195]
As his work for Quincy and his thesis—with more liberal Fukuyama and more right-wing Brzezinski—show, Parsi has worked with people on both sides of the aisle despite his firm left-wing views. From 2001 to 2004, Parsi worked as a Foreign Policy Advisor to Republican Congressman Robert Ney of Ohio.[196] With links with Iran since the late 1970s and fluent in Persian, Ney was a perfect fit for Parsi’s views.[197] Ney is also proof of Parsi’s multi-pronged connections to the Iranian regime. In 2006, Ney resigned his seat before an imminent expulsion vote. He also pleaded guilty to a corruption investigation of Republican Party lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In 2007, he received 30 months in prison.[198] According to an article by Patrick O’Connor at Politico about the plea deal Ney’s chief of staff Will Heaton faced in 2007, Heaton admitted that “he and Ney both accepted ‘thousands of dollars (sic) worth of gambling chips’ during a trip to London from a foreign businessman who wanted to sell U.S.-made airplanes and parts to Iran.” This act was forbidden because Americans could not and still cannot help Iran obtain airplanes or airplane components.[199] The businessman involved in Will Heaton’s deal was Syrian national Fouad al-Zayat, who headed an aviation firm in Cyprus and was involved in aircraft transactions on behalf of the Iranian military.[200] In summary, as Trita Parsi’s connections demonstrate, he is a significant building block of the Iranian enabler network in the United States.
Rethinking Iran: The Network’s Secondary Protagonists
Within the Iranian enabler network, Trita Parsi and the Quincy Institute are the indisputable cornerstones of the ideological pillar. Nevertheless, they are not the only ones. Most of the network maintains academic connections to the two most prestigious universities of international relations in Washington, DC: Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins SAIS. Consequently, it is not surprising that the second organizational component of the network’s ideological pillar is the Rethinking Iran Initiative (Rethinking Iran) at Johns Hopkins SAIS. Professors Vali Nasr and Narges Bajoghli head the organization as co-directors. Currently, three SAIS students are on the staff of Rethinking Iran.[201]
Using language similar to that of NIAC and Quincy, Rethinking Iran considers that “the lens to understand Iran continues to be a very narrow one that does not consider the country’s complex realities.”[202] To counteract this perceived inaccuracy in depicting the landscape of the Islamic Republic, Rethinking Iran looks to supply the information it believes to be more precise. Those particulars include a noticeable left-wing bent and resemble the positions of NIAC and Quincy. For instance, Rethinking Iran categorizes the Israeli killing of Ismail Haniyeh as an attack against regional stability, lauds the China-sponsored deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran; and focuses on women, with a specific emphasis on the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom Movement that resulted from the violent death of Mahsa Amini.[203] Not astonishingly, Rethinking Iran has generally rejected sanctions as a policy.[204]
In 2024, Nasr, Bajoghli, Virginia Tech academic Djavad Salehi-Isfanhani, and International Crisis Group (ICG) Iran Program Director Ali Vaez wrote a book named How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare. The work argues that rather than propitiating regime change and stymieing Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions embolden authoritarian regimes and only affect the population at large, thus disfavoring American interests.[205] The book asserts that sanctions create the ideal atmosphere for the IRGC to increase its smuggling and black market proceeds. It also mentions that, amidst its sanctions, Iran has reinforced its links with Russia and strengthened its domestic industrial capacity.[206] Although the book quotes some events that have materialized, its narrative is flawed.
History is the best proof of the effectiveness of sanctions. When the United States subscribed to the JCPOA in 2015, Iran gained the right to develop its nuclear program as long as it did not reach a breakout window in uranium enrichment. Even though it had to comply with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visits, it subsequently ignored them and constrained the entry of inspectors when it allowed them to come.[207] During that time, Iran increased its stranglehold over Iraq, bolstered Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, and continued to support the Houthis in Yemen.[208] When the United States left the JCPOA in 2018 and reinstated some of the sanctions that it had stopped applying, the IRGC suffered considerable blows—as with the death of Qassem Soleimani in 2020—and an anti-Iranian axis consolidated, leading to the Abraham Accords, which shed some of the tension between Israel and the Arab states.
After the United States enforced sanctions less energetically since 2021, the anti-Iranian coalition has weakened, Israel has not normalized relations with any more Arab states, and, since October 7, 2023, it has waged war on seven fronts. Moreover, Iran has only grown closer to Russia because the latter country has faced increasing international isolation after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.[209] Given the state of current affairs and the backgrounds of the book’s authors, it is easy to conclude that dispelling the effectiveness of sanctions is merely an attempt to justify normalizing American relations with Iran.
Narges Bajoghli is one instance of this case. Born in Iran, Bajoghli has barely shared personal information such as her hometown and the year of her move to the United States.[210] Bajoghli is a political scientist and anthropologist by training.[211] Between 2000 and 2004, she pursued a bachelor’s degree in Political Science at Wellesley College. Between 2002 and 2003, she took courses at the SOAS University of London (SOAS), known for its well-reputed African, Asian, and Middle Eastern programs. Between 2007 and 2009, Bajoghli pursued a Master of Arts in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. After that, she pursued a PhD in Anthropology at New York University, which she completed in 2016. That year, she worked at Brown University as a Postdoctoral Research Associate and became an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS in 2018.[212] In 2019, Bajoghli published Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic, for which she interviewed young people joining regime-aligned paramilitary organizations such as the Basij, Ansar Hezbollah, and the IRGC. The book concluded that the regime had to tailor its message to a new generation and that class differences animated a large part of the lives of Iranian fighters.[213] The book could belong to a larger strategy of voiding the conception of the Islamic Republic as an ideological regime by determining that even the members of Iran’s most ideologically committed units have their standard of living as their primary motivation.
Another example is Vali Nasr. Born in 1960 to eclectic, current George Washington University Shia theologian Seyyed Hossein Nasr in Tehran, Nasr left the country for schooling in London in 1976. In 1979, with the advent of the Iranian Revolution, he moved to the United States to be closer to his father, who left Iran that same year.[214] Nasr then pursued bachelor’s and master’s degrees in International Relations at Tufts University, which Nasr concluded between 1983 and 1984, respectively. Between 1986 and 1991, he pursued a PhD in Political Science at MIT. After that milestone, Nasr held various academic positions at prestigious American universities, including Tufts University, Harvard University, and Stanford University. He also advised Richard Holbrooke at the State Department in Afghan and Pakistani affairs between 2009 and 2011. Between 2012 and 2019, he was the Dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS, where he still works as a professor.[215] Nasr has suggested subjecting Saudi-Israeli normalization efforts to the creation of a Palestinian Arab state, has expressed hopes about the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, being a reformer in a regime where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wields power, and has considered that dealing with Iran reinforces the Middle Eastern order and adds an element of stability.[216] As this section has shown, Rethinking Iran and its co-directors complement Trita Parsi’s contributions to the Iran enabler network’s ideological pillar and intersect with its bureaucratic pillar.
The International Crisis Group (ICG), the Iranian Experts Initiative, and Alireza Vaezzadeh
Looking to normalize American ties with Iran necessitates grassroots support and an ideological basis. However, normalization also requires implementation to transition from theory to practice. That is where the Iran enabler network’s bureaucratic pillar comes in. The chief organization within this pillar is the ICG. The organization started in 1995 with seed capital from George Soros ($200,000), President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari ($100,000), and Foreign Minister of Australia Gareth Evans ($500,000).[217]
Interestingly enough, in 2000 Ahtisaari and Evans would become Chairman and CEO of the ICG, respectively.[218] According to its mission, the ICG works “to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world.” To accomplish this, it sets to promote what it regards as good governance practices and work with multiple actors.[219] the ICG’s presence is global, which allows it to work on numerous fronts. Headquartered in Brussels, the ICG can boast offices in New York City, Washington, DC, Bogotá, London, Istanbul, Dakar, and Nairobi. It also enjoys a presence in Toronto, Mexico City, Caracas, Geneva, Rome, Kyiv, Tunis, Abidjan, Yaoundé, Abuja, Kigali, Addis Ababa, Johannesburg, Maputo, Damascus, Beirut, Erbil, Tel Aviv, Gaza, Amman, Doha, Tblisi, Baku, Kabul, New Delhi, Bangkok, Manila, and Taipei.[220]
The motives that the ICG states for its establishment are an inadequate reaction to the humanitarian tragedies in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Somalia. Initially, there was a triumvirate at the ICG’s helm, which included former US Ambassador and President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Morton Abramowitz; former head of the United Nations (UN) Development Program, and later UN Deputy Secretary-General and UK Minister Mark Malloch-Brown; and former Democratic Party US Senator from Maine Robert Mitchell. In 1995, a meeting that included the former Canadian, the current Australian, and the future French foreign ministers; Rajan Tata, the Indian owner of the Tata Group; and the Nigerian president led to the approval of an $8 million budget for 75 full-time staff members. the ICG also secured tax-exempt status in the United States and opened its London and New York offices in 1995.[221]
In 2003, when Trita Parsi was publicizing Mohammad Javad Zarif’s supposed “grand bargain” with the United States, the ICG began campaigning in favor of what would turn into the JCPOA in 2015.[222] In 2005, the ICG pushed to adopt the Responsibility to Protect principle in foreign interventions, which supported foreign interference in cases of human rights abuses. In 2009, Louise Arbour became president of the ICG. In 2014, she ceded her post to UN bureaucrat Jean-Marie Guéhenno. In 2017, Robert Malley, whom this paper will address later, became President of the ICG. In 2021, Malley stepped down, and Africa Program Director Comfort Ero, of British nationality, assumed the role of President and CEO of the ICG.[223]
Significant numbers of former UN staff members currently work in the ICG. In the ICG’s Board of Trustees, Susana Malcorra and Frank Giustra are co-chairs. Malcorra was Chef de Cabinet to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, while Giustra is the owner of the Giustra Foundation and the founder of Lionsgate Entertainment. Carl Bildt, formerly Prime Minister (1991-1994) and Foreign Minister (2006-2014) of Sweden, is a board member; in 2023, he accused Israel of being a partial apartheid state. Board member Sandra Breka is part of the European Endowment for Democracy. Board member Ine Eriksen Søreide was formerly Defense Minister (2013-2017) and Foreign Minister (2017-2021) in Norway. Sigmar Gabriel was Foreign Minister (2017-2018) and Vice-Chancellor (2013-2018) of Germany. Pekka Haavisto was President of Finland (2019-2023). María Fernanda Espinosa was the Foreign Minister of Ecuador (2017-2018) and President of the UN General Assembly (2018-2019). Mahamadou Issoufou was President of Niger (2011-2021). Tzipi Livni was Israeli Foreign Minister (2006-2009) and Leader of the Opposition (2009-2012, 2018-2019). Board member Bert Koenders was the Foreign Minister of the Netherlands (2014-2017). Koenders also was the UN Under-Secretary-General. Stephen Hadley was National Security Advisor under the George W. Bush administration (2005-2009). Former President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) is also a board member.[224] In 2016, he rammed through an agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) despite a nationwide referendum to the contrary.[225]
Ahmed Charai is a Moroccan businessman who heads the Global Media Group, which publishes the newspaper l’Observateur du Maroc et d’Afrique, which has criticized Israel for imposing tariffs on Turkish goods and canceling its free trade agreement after increased hostility from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.[226] Wadah Khanfar was the former Director General of Al Jazeera, a Qatar-funded television network that constantly spews viewpoints hostile to Israel. Some Al Jazeera journalists even participated in the October 7 massacre.[227] Maria Livanos-Cattaui is an Open Society Foundations board member and was Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce. Zeinab Badawi heads SOAS in London. Helge Lund heads British oil company BP and Danish petroleum conglomerate Novo Nordisk.[228] Nasser al-Qidwa is also a board member at the ICG. A nephew of PLO terrorist leader Yasser Arafat, he heads the Yasser Arafat Foundation, which celebrates Arafat’s legacy.[229] The foundation has claimed that Yasser Arafat’s death may have been an assassination and maintains Arafat’s mausoleum in Ramallah[230]. It also distributes anti-Israel messaging and criticizes Israel in its current defensive war against Hamas.[231] Members include Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and Arab-Israeli Members of the Knesset Ahmad Tibi and Ayman Odeh.[232] Kidwah has also been PA Foreign Minister, former Palestinian UN Permanent Observer, and has represented the UN in Libya and Syria.[233]
Illustrative of the ICG’s preference for engagement rather than sanctions and the use of force is Afghan-Australian board member Saad Mohseni. Mohseni founded the Moby Group, a pioneering media company in Afghanistan that included the television channel TOLO, after the American invasion in 2001.[234] Although the United States withdrew and the Taliban took over the country in 2021, the Moby Group has continued to operate despite the new regime’s continued censorship.[235] So is the presence of Andrey Kortunov, Director of the Russian International Affairs Council, as an ICG board member.[236] Another board member is Naz Modirzadeh, who directs the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict.[237] Modirzadeh has criticized normalization between Israel and the UAE for supposedly excluding Palestinian Arabs.[238] She also accused Israel of violating the spirit of international law as it defended itself.[239] Board member Ivan Krastev heads the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia and has collaborated with the Open Society Foundations.[240]
Especially conspicuous as board members are George Soros—founder and chief funder of the Open Society Foundations—and his son Alexander, who recently became engaged with Hillary Clinton staffer Huma Abedin.[241] Stephen Heinz, Chairman of Quincy’s board, and Thomas R. Pickering, another Quincy board member, are also affiliated with the ICG, which proves that Quincy and the ICG are related to each other to a certain extent.[242] As the ICG’s board members show, the ICG stands for the Iran enabler network’s bureaucratic pillar.
A conclusion that one can draw from the composition of the ICG’s board is that its positions, including some very hostile to Israel, are common currency in the UN. During the current Israel-Hamas War, the ICG has supported a ceasefire that would keep Hamas in place and not solve the underlying issues. In its ceasefire proposal, the ICG has stated that Israel—which is fighting a defensive war—and the terrorist organization Hamas should make concessions to each other.[243] The ICG has hailed the arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the name of accountability.[244] It has even defended that China does not warrant ICC probes because of its treatment of the Uighur minority since it is not an ICC member, while Palestinian Arabs are.[245] However, the ICG claims concerning the legality of the ICC’s attempt to arrest Netanyahu are deceptive. Palestinian Arabs currently do not have a state, and Israel is not an ICC member.[246] The ICG has expressed sympathy with Egypt’s position to do little to relieve the plight of Palestinian Arabs because of the potential harms to its national interests, despite the apparent complicity of some Egyptian border officials in the smuggling of war materials through the Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.[247] The ICG has also favored that the UAE use its recent normalization of relations with Israel as leverage to push for a ceasefire or more limited fighting.[248] The ICG’s skepticism toward Israel contrasts with its hawkish attitude toward Ukraine. Unlike Quincy, the ICG prefers a Ukrainian victory rather than outright peace negotiations.[249]
According to the ICG’s 2023 990 Tax Form, it received around $41 million in 2022 and $31 million in 2023 in contributions, leading to total revenues of roughly $243,000 in 2022 and a loss near $7 million in 2023 because of bad investments. In 2022, the ICG registered a net income of approximately $19 million, while it registered a loss of about $1.5 million because of increased expenses by an order of around $3 million.[250] Between 2022 and 2023, the ICG’s salary expenses grew by around $1.5 million, from $13 million to $14.5 million. Total assets also increased from roughly $68 million to $71 million. The ICG’s chief expense categories concerning programs were Africa ($3.8 million), advocacy ($2.8 million), and the Middle East ($2.8 million). Other programs accrued about $8.7 million in the ICG expenses.[251]
The ICG can count on very influential supporters. Countries and multilateral organizations that directly finance the ICG’s operations include Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, the European Union (EU), Finland, France, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Ireland, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the UN, the United Kingdom, and the World Bank.[252] The Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the Global Challenges Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Open Society Foundations, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Ploughshares, the Pivotal Foundation, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Stand Together Trust, Stiftung Mercator, and the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund comprise the private foundations backing the ICG financially.[253] Oil companies such as BP, Chevron, Eni, and TotalEnergies encompass the ICG’s more renowned corporate sponsors.[254]
The reach of the ICG across all of the world’s regions implies that the only the ICG staff members this paper will consider are those dealing with Iran. These people include Dina Esfandiary, Robert Malley, and Ali Vaez. Dina Esfandiary currently holds the position of ICG Senior Advisor for the Middle East and North Africa.[255] Possibly Iranian by birth, Esfandiary pursued a bachelor’s degree in International Relations at the University of Geneva between 2002 and 2006. Between 2007 and 2008, she worked for her master’s degree in Intelligence and International Security from King’s College London, and she later obtained a PhD in War Studies from that university in 2021.[256]
Throughout her career, Esfandiary has busied herself with security and nonproliferation issues, which are sure to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. To that end, most of the positions that he has held relate to research, both in Europe and inside the United States. Esfandiary interned at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (2007). She undertook research at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London (2008, 2009-2015). She worked as a Fellow at the Centre for Science and Security Studies (2015-2018), as an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and as a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School (2018-2019) and The Century Foundation. She directed commercial intelligence firm Herminius (2019-2021). Since February 2021, one month after a Biden administration that believed the JCPOA was the best course of action took office, Esfandiary has worked as Senior Advisor at the ICG’s London offices.[257] In her writing, like other Iran enabler network members, Esfandiary has shown her skepticism toward the Israel-UAE normalization of relations and celebrated the resumption of Saudi-Iranian relations.[258]
Robert Malley, former President and CEO of the ICG, is another person of interest. Born in New York to a Jewish family in 1963, Malley’s entourage was involved in left-wing politics. His mother, Barbara Silverstein, worked at the UN delegation of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), which fought the Algerian War with France, which led to that country’s independence as a nation fundamentally opposed to Western interests.[259] Malley’s father, Simon, was born in Cairo, supported Gamal Abdel Nasser when he took power in 1952, continued to do so even in the Six-Day War in which Nasser sought Israel’s destruction and, until 1969, was the New York correspondent for Egyptian state newspaper Al Gomhuria.[260] Although he was Jewish, Nasser did not strip Simon Malley from his Egyptian citizenship because of his support for him.[261] In 1969, Simon Malley moved the family to Paris and founded a magazine named Africasia (later Afrique Asia).[262] According to his obituary from The Guardian, Malley had privileged access to Non-Aligned Movement meetings and conferences and interviewed leftist politicians such as Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, and Oliver Tambo.[263] In 1980—the year of Robert Malley’s high school graduation—French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing would briefly expel Simon Malley because of his opposition to French policies in Africa.[264] Therefore, as many in the Iran enabler network do, Robert Malley had a background in Third World politics.
Also paramount about Robert Malley is the strength of his contacts. When he lived in Paris, Malley belonged to the same class as current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken at the École Jeannine Manuel.[265] During the 1980s, Malley earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts at Yale University and the British equivalent of a PhD (DPhil) as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.[266] At Yale, Malley wrote an article comparing Zionism, the self-determination movement of Jews, to the Nazism that animated their wardens in Europe during World War II.[267] He would later finish a law degree (JD) at Harvard University by 1991, where he was the classmate of future President of the United States Barack Obama.[268]
Between 1994 and 2001, Malley served the Clinton administration in the National Security Council (NSC).[269] By that time, Malley had purportedly shifted his views Third World solidarity. However, he still openly expressed left-wing views, such as blaming the failure of the negotiations that took place during the Oslo Accords on Israel and the United States and not on Yasser Arafat and the PLO.[270] Anthony Blinken also worked at the NSC during those same years.[271] After the George W. Bush administration took over, Malley worked for the Council on Foreign Relations (2001-2002) and joined the ICG as the Middle East and North Africa Program Director (2002-2014). In 2014, President Obama made him Special Assistant and Senior Advisor to the President to help fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group and to negotiate what would become the JCPOA.[272] During those same years, Blinken held the roles of Deputy National Security Advisor (2013-2015) and Deputy Secretary of State (2015-2017).[273] After his second stint at the ICG between 2017 and 2021, Malley returned to government work as a Special Envoy to the President of Iran to help negotiate another deal with Iran. The position was under the supervision of Anthony Blinken’s State Department.[274] In June 2023, the federal government placed Malley on administrative leave without pay and later under FBI investigation because of how he handled classified materials, indicating possible ties to Iran, on which this paper will elaborate later.[275]
The other ICG staff member of interest is Ali Vaez. Born in Iran, Vaez has been the most reticent member of the Iran enabler network to share biographical information, even less than Narges Bajoghli and Dina Esfandiary. According to an article that Jay Solomon published at Semafor, Vaez was born in Iran and participated in protests in 1999 against the regime, which mostly wanted the Iranian government to liberalize rather than abolish the Islamic Republic.[276] In Iran, Vaez declared to the Georgetown Security Studies Review that he had studied technology because being apolitical served as a survival tactic in Iran’s authoritarian regime.[277] Vaez has not shared his hometown, the university where he pursued his undergraduate studies and the full name of his bachelor’s degree program.[278]
Before 2002, Vaez moved to Switzerland, where he possibly learned French at the Migros Language School to pursue his master’s degree in Biochemistry at the University of Geneva, which he pursued between 2002 and 2004. Vaez also studied for his PhD, which he concluded in 2008, at the University of Geneva.[279] During that time, he may have kept contact with Dina Esfandiary. According to his interview for the Georgetown Security Studies Review, Vaez also used those years to study nuclear physics.[280] In 2008, Vaez moved to the United States and worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University until 2010.[281] During that time, Vaez helped organize voting for the 2009 Iranian presidential election in Boston.[282] According to Vaez, the reaction of Iranian students to the Green Movement and the supposed lack of American understanding of Iran’s intentions made Vaez transition from a career in science to a career in politics. Vaez held, as he did now, that Americans are still traumatized because of the 1979-1980 US Embassy takeover, that Iran had a popular revolution in 1979, that other countries were unwillingly provoking Iran through their actions, that the best way to deal with Iran was through diplomacy, and that the Democrats but not the Republicans had started to realize it.[283] Therefore, Vaez took the next logical step and pursued a Master of International Public Policy at Johns Hopkins SAIS, which he finished in 2011.[284]
After Johns Hopkins SAIS, Vaez worked for the Iran Project between 2011 and 2012 and then entered the ICG, where he has worked continuously ever since.[285] In 2015, he used his position at the ICG to help negotiate what would become the JCPOA.[286] In 2018, Vaez became an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, a position he still holds today. From 2019 to 2023, Vaez was a Non-Resident Fellow at Johns Hopkins SAIS. In 2020, Vaez worked as a Senior Political Affairs Officer at the United Nations.[287] During this time, Vaez has constantly advocated for normalization with Iran, for acknowledging a so-called reformist faction within the Islamic Republic, and for the avoidance of any warlike escalation on the part of Israel. He also has become one of the foremost analysts concerning Iran.[288] Sometime before 2024, Vaez became an American citizen.[289]
In September 2023, two articles resulting from a joint-reporting project between Semafor and Iran International accused Esfandiary, Malley, and Vaez of being part of an Iranian influence network known as the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI). The reports asserted that Iran had founded the IEI in 2014 to strengthen support for sanctions relief inside the West.[290] Supposedly, Berlin-based Iranian diplomat Saeed Khatibzadeh came up with the idea to enlist people from think tanks to shape Western public opinion and included the Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), located in Tehran, to secure that goal. He also summoned IRGC member Mostafa Zahrani.[291] The IEI’s first meeting supposedly happened in Vienna in May 2014 and included people from the ICG; the European Council of Foreign Relations (ECFR), headquartered in Berlin; the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and the Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient (CARPO).[292] Mohammad Javad Zarif gave its endorsement.[293] Direct Iranian involvement with American analysts is a possibility. On January 19, 2021, the Department of Justice arrested political scientist Kaveh Afrasiabi for being an undeclared Iranian agent.[294] In September 2023, Afrasiabi received a presidential pardon.[295]
According to the reports, the IEI rendered coordination between its members and the Iranian government easier. Through the IEI, the Iranian regime could deliver article prompts and offer opinions on the materials the analysts were writing and even the conferences they attended.[296] As the JCPOA talks took place around 2015, the IEI’s activities intensified. IPIS, involved in founding the IEI, would even sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the ICG in 2016, according to a February 2024 Iran International report.[297] IPIS also signed MoUs with the EastWest Institute—which would dissolve itself in 2021—and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) around that time. The ICG MoU included Zahrani and then-ICG president Guéhenno.[298] Guéhenno even attended an IPIS conference in Tehran in 2014, despite other organizations’ avoidance of IPIS due to a 2006 conference. That conference, named “Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision,” featured individuals who denied the Holocaust.[299] Cooperation continued many years later. According to Iran International, Malley sought to include Vaez in his federal government team, but Vaez failed to obtain clearance.[300] According to a Washington Free Beacon article, he visited the White House five times during the Biden administration and met with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.[301]
After the first allegations came out in late 2023, the ICG stepped in to defend its members. Although the ICG acknowledged the existence of the IEI and Vaez’s and Esfandiary’s therein, it asserted that they did not coordinate with Iran.[302] The ICG’s communiqué also stated that the reports misrepresented an email between Mohammad Javad Zarif and Ali Vaez.[303] Between mid-July and late August 2024, the ICG deleted that communiqué.[304] EINPressWire still keeps it on its website.[305] The communiqué also appears on the ICG’s official X account.[306] Subsequent communiqués declared that IEI member Ariane Tabatabai was not part of the ICG and that an unnamed European country had helped finance the IEI.[307]
Ariane Tabatabai is of particular interest to the IEI. She was born in Iran to Javad Tabatabai, who would become deputy dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Tehran until his dismissal in the 1993. He would later return to Iran and assist Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani.[308] Similarly to Ali Vaez, Ariane Tabatabai has been reluctant to share personal biographical information relating to her Iranian origins.[309] According to Mary Kay Linge, Tabatabai followed her father to Germany, France, and the United States.[310] Between 2006 and 2008, she studied for a bachelor’s degree in International and Comparative Politics at Stony Brook University. Between 2010 and 2011, Tabatabai obtained her master’s degree in International Peace and Security from King’s College London. Between 2012 and 2015, she pursued her PhD in War Studies from that institution.[311] Tabatabai has worked as a Consultant at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (2013-2015), Director of Curriculum and Visiting Professor at Georgetown University (2015-2018), Civilian Consultant at NATO (2015-2018), Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University (2013-2018), Senior Associate at CSIS (2016-2018), Adjunct Senior Fellow for CNAS (2018), Associate Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation (2018-2020), Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University (2019-2021), and Middle East Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.[312]
Since 2021, Tabatabai has worked at the US government. She has been Senior Advisor at the State Department (2021-2022) and Senior Policy Advisor at the Department of Defense (2022-2023).[313] During her work at the State Department, Tabatabai advised Robert Malley.[314] Since July 2023, one month after Robert Malley’s placement on administrative leave, Tabatabai has been working as the Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict.[315] She has, therefore, had access to materials concerning Israel’s defense in the context of its war against Hamas.[316] The federal government has dismissed the allegations against Tabatabai: she still has her clearance; visited the White House eight times between October 2023 and April 2024, according to an article by The Washington Free Beacon; and has allegedly kept ties with Vice President Kamala Harris’ National Security Advisor Philip Gordon.[317] According to another report by The Washington Free Beacon, Gordon has ties with the IEI and NIAC, besides his ties to Tabatabai.[318]
Conclusion
As this paper shows, the Iran enabler network has achieved noticeable degrees of influence through its diaspora, ideological, and bureaucratic pillars. Although most of its members are not Islamist, they are hostile to American hegemony and hold views reminiscent of leftist Third World politics. This indisputable reality casts doubt on whether current and past American policies toward Iran originated from a full-fledged desire to promote the interests of the United States and its allies. The JCPOA and more limited enforcement of sanctions since 2021 have only strengthened an Iranian regime destined to collapse and lent it additional space to breathe as it continues to smother and infringe the rights of the majority of its population. They are also among the deep causes that helped spark the multi-pronged attack against Israel that has increased tensions in the Middle East and threatens to become a worldwide conflict.
Because of this, the United States should immediately stop its appeasement of Iran. That starts with renouncing any attempt to renegotiate the JCPOA and involves stepping up sanctions on Iran. It also requires work by intelligence agencies to determine whether fostering regime change in Iran to end its oppressive Islamic Republic once and for all is feasible and, should it prove so, what would be the best particular course of action in that regard.
Furthermore, to correct course, no matter the approach the federal government chooses to implement in reexamining its Iran policy, Congress should lead an inquiry into the Iran enabler network, its members, and the specific federal government policies the network succeeded in disrupting through its influence. Some of the committees in the Senate that should partake in these investigations are the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services; the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; the United States Senate Committee on Finance, the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. In the House of Representatives, the committees that should concern themselves with this investigation include the United States House Committee on Armed Services, the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the United States House Committee on Homeland Security, and the United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
The inquiry’s lines of questioning should span the diaspora, ideological, and bureaucratic pillars of the Iran enabler network. Institutionally, NIAC, Quincy, Rethinking Iran, and the ICG should all receive subpoenas. So should some of the network’s biggest donors, including the Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Ploughshares. Personally, the committees leading the investigations should call Trita Parsi, Siamak Namazi, Bob Ney, Jamal Abdi, Hassan Daioleslam, Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, Lora Lumpe, Stephen Heintz, Andrew Bacevich, Amir Handjani, Thomas R. Pickering, Robert Ney, Vali Nasr, Narges Bajoghli, Comfort Ero, Robert Malley, Ali Vaez, Dina Esfandiary, Ariane Tabatabai, Philip Gordon, and Anthony Blinken—as Malley’s friend since childhood and in his role as Secretary of State—to testify. Additionally, Trita Parsi, Jamal Abdi, Robert Malley, Narges Bajoghli, Robert Malley, Ali Vaez, Dina Esfandiary, Ariane Tabatabai, and Philip Gordon should come under investigation themselves for possible sanctions enforcement violations and have their backgrounds examined, if they came to live the United States starting in the mid-1980s. As workers for the federal government, Tabatabai and Gordon should also have their clearance revoked while the investigation proceeds because of the existence of the IEI. This precautionary measure could help prevent further risks to American national security. Moreover, Congress should coordinate with law enforcement to deter potential flight risks.
As drastic as these suggestions may appear, they are necessary to safeguard American democracy. Just like imposing sanctions and waging war, normalizing relations with any country is one valid option among many others. Indeed, some of those who seek the normalization of ties between the United States and Iran hold these views because of how they assess American interests. Nevertheless, since the early 2000s, the power, breadth, and political connections of the American Iran enabler network have tainted the United States’ strategic calculus by inserting a pro-Iranian bias. Consequently, and because of Iran’s links to the top challengers of the current international order, the West, the Middle East, and the world have become less safe places.
Although there were warning signs about the American Iran enabler network as early as 2007, the American political class, in general, failed to act decisively because of a lack of immediate political benefits and political will and because of the network’s contacts and resources. Even today, large parts of the federal government still do not heed these exhortations. To cite an example, the federal government failed to take preventive measures against IEI members—excluding Robert Malley—after the Iran International and Semafor reports appeared on September 26 and September 29, 2023, eleven and eight days before the October 7 massacre! Even after that tragic date, Ariane Tabatabai and Philip Gordon have still shaped the conversation around American national security. This situation continued, even when the ICG acknowledged the IEI and its MoU with IPIS in February 2024. Undoubtedly, this must come to an end once and for all. Doing so will ensure that the United States grows closer to its founding goal: a government that is fully of the people, by the people, and for the people.
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Annex 1: Screenshot ICG Deleted Communiqué from October 4, 2023, Extracted from Saved Webpage
Annex 2: Screenshot of ICG Tweet Proving Existence of Deleted Communiqué from October 4, 2023
Annex 3: Proof of Communiqué Deletion
Annex 4: Text of Deleted ICG Communiqué from October 4, 2023
Statement 04 October 2023 3 minutes
On 26 September, two media outlets – Semafor and Iran International – published articles referencing employees of the International Crisis Group that contain mischaracterisation and inaccuracy. Their reports led to a series of secondary commentaries, many of which compound the flaws of the original accounts.
As an independent non-governmental organisation committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflicts, Crisis Group’s methodology and mandate are clear. We speak to all sides in all of the 70-odd conflict areas we cover, develop practical policy solutions and communicate our analysis through written reports and advocacy. In the case of Iran, our track record goes back more than two decades, with much work focused on diplomatic efforts around Iran’s nuclear program.
Recent reporting mischaracterises Crisis Group’s mandate and methodology.
The recent reporting draws on selected email correspondence primarily dating from the period when Iran and world powers were engaged in the talks that led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. It focuses on the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI), referencing one Crisis Group staff member at the time, Ali Vaez, and another researcher, Dina Esfandiary, who later joined our staff. While Crisis Group was not involved in the IEI, we reject the key claims and insinuations made against our staff members. To set the record straight:
We make no secret of the fact that talking to all sides is integral to our work.
Crisis Group’s recommendations and analysis are, of course, not universally shared. On Iran policy in particular, there are strong critics of our approach in Washington and Tehran. We welcome that debate, when conducted on its merits, but we reject claims and conclusions aimed simply at maligning us and our work. The reporting by Semafor, Iran International and others is best seen as part of a sustained effort to discredit and silence voices that support diplomacy with Iran. It undercuts serious deliberation about how to address the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program.
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[2] Anthony Blinken, “40th Anniversary of the Beirut Marine Corps Barracks Bombing,” U.S. Department of State, October 23, 2023, https://www.state.gov/40th-anniversary-of-the-beirut-marine-corps-barracks-bombing/#:~:text=On%20October%2023%2C%201983%2C%20Hizballah,civilians%20also%20lost%20their%20lives.
[3] Geoff Brumfiel, “What We Know About The Attack On Saudi Oil Facilities,” NPR, September 19, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/762065119/what-we-know-about-the-attack-on-saudi-oil-facilities.
[4] United Nations, “Security Council Imposes Additional Sanctions on Iran, Voting 12 in Favour to 2 Against, with 1 Abstention,” United Nations, June 9, 2010, https://press.un.org/en/2010/sc9948.doc.htm.
[5] Kali Robinsion, “What Is the Iran Nuclear Deal?,” Council on Foreign Relations, October 27, 2023, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-iran-nuclear-deal.
[6] Al Jazeera, “Iran Accuses US of Nuclear Deal ‘Sabotage,’” Al Jazeera, July 21, 2017, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/7/21/iran-accuses-us-of-nuclear-deal-sabotage.
[7] Ian Talley, “How Iran Tapped International Banks to Keep Its Economy Afloat,” The Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-iran-tapped-international-banks-to-keep-its-economy-afloat-11655899201.
[8] Eli Lake, “Exclusive: Iran Advocacy Group Said to Skirt Lobby Rules,” The Washington Times, November 13, 2009, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/13/exclusive-did-iranian-advocacy-group-violate-laws/.
[9] Alex Shirazi, “The Shady Family Behind America’s Iran Lobby,” The Daily Beast, April 14, 2017, https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-shady-family-behind-americas-iran-lobby.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Eli Lake, “Exclusive: Iran Advocacy Group Said to Skirt Lobby Rules,” The Washington Times, November 13, 2009, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/13/exclusive-did-iranian-advocacy-group-violate-laws/.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Siamak Namazi and Trita Parsi, “Iran-Americans: The Bridge Between Two Nations: Paper Presented to DAPIA Conference Cyprus, November 1999,” Iranians Forum, 1999, https://iraniansforum.com/Document/iranamericans.pdf.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Eli Lake, “Exclusive: Iran Advocacy Group Said to Skirt Lobby Rules,” The Washington Times, November 13, 2009, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/13/exclusive-did-iranian-advocacy-group-violate-laws/.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Eli Lake, “Exclusive: Iran Advocacy Group Said to Skirt Lobby Rules,” The Washington Times, November 13, 2009, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/13/exclusive-did-iranian-advocacy-group-violate-laws/.
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[22] Ibid.
[23] Eli Lake, “Exclusive: Iran Advocacy Group Said to Skirt Lobby Rules,” The Washington Times, November 13, 2009, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/13/exclusive-did-iranian-advocacy-group-violate-laws/.
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[26] Alex Shirazi, “The Shady Family Behind America’s Iran Lobby,” The Daily Beast, April 14, 2017, https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-shady-family-behind-americas-iran-lobby.
[27] Ibid.
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Arial Starks, “International House Hosts International Festival, Gives UT Community Taste of Different Cultures,” TNJN, September 30, 2017, https://tnjn.com/blog/2017/09/30/international-house-hosts-international-festival-gives-ut-community-taste-different-cultures/.
[37] Arial Starks, “International House Hosts International Festival, Gives UT Community Taste of Different Cultures,” TNJN, September 30, 2017, https://tnjn.com/blog/2017/09/30/international-house-hosts-international-festival-gives-ut-community-taste-different-cultures/.
[38] Sara Hawrami, Sara Hawrami – Washington, District of Columbia, United States, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahawrami19.
[39] Etan Mabourakh, “Etan Mabourakh,” Facebook, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.facebook.com/etan.mabourakh/.
Etan Mabourakh, “Etan Mabourakh – Protect Our Kids’ Health,” LinkedIn, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/etan-mabourakh-592245131/.
[40] Sara Hawrami, “Sara Hawrami on the Shah,” X (formerly Twitter), July 10, 2024, https://x.com/sharghzadeh/status/1811125978615173161.
[41] Etan Mabourakh, “Etan Mabourakh on John Fetterman,” X (formerly Twitter), July 24, 2024, https://x.com/MazMHussain/status/1816175558352396793.
[42] Etan Mabourakh, “Etan Mabourakh on Jamaal Bowman,” X (formerly Twitter), June 23, 2024, https://x.com/asiahq11/status/1804983613907185998.
[43] Etan Mabourakh, “Dozens of Civil Society Organizations Demand Federal Investigation Into Israeli Campaign Targeting Americans,” NIAC, July 24, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/press_room/society-demands-federal-investigation-into-israeli-campaign-targeting-americans/.
Etan Mabourakh, “Etan Mabourakh on the Coalition,” X (formerly Twitter), July 24, 2024, https://x.com/etanmab/status/1816162769906913671.
[44] Etan Mabourakh, “Dozens of Civil Society Organizations Demand Federal Investigation Into Israeli Campaign Targeting Americans,” NIAC, July 24, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/press_room/society-demands-federal-investigation-into-israeli-campaign-targeting-americans/.
Joseph Schneider Malamud, “Possible Structure of Hamas’ American Operations,” EMET, July 15, 2024, https://emetonline.org/resource/possible-structure-of-hamas-american-operations/.
[45] National Iranian American Council, “PAYMAN JARRAHY,” NIAC, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/board_of_directors/payman-jarrahy/.
[46] National Iranian American Council, “SIOBHAN COLEY-AMIN,” NIAC, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/board_of_directors/siobhan-coley-amin-2/.
[47] National Iranian American Council, “RYAN COSTELLO,” NIAC, April 1, 2020, https://www.niacouncil.org/staff/ryan-costello/.
[48] National Iranian American Council, “Transparency,” NIAC, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/transparency/.
[49] Ibid.
[50] Ploughshares Fund, “About Us,” Ploughshares, October 16, 2023, https://www.ploughshares.org/about-us.
[51] Ploughshares Fund, “Our Investment Strategy,” Ploughshares, December 20, 2017, https://ploughshares.org/issues-analysis/article/our-investment-strategy.
[52] Ploughshares Fund, “About Us,” Ploughshares, October 16, 2023, https://www.ploughshares.org/about-us.
[53] Ploughshares Fund, “Board & Advisors,” Ploughshares, accessed August 21, 2024, https://ploughshares.org/about-us/board-advisors.
[54] Ploughshares Fund, “Our Grantees,” Ploughshares, August 15, 2023, https://www.ploughshares.org/what-we-fund/our-grantees.
[55] Sophie Tatum, “Ex-CIA Operative Apologizes for Tweet of Anti-Semitic Article,” CNN, September 21, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/21/politics/valerie-plame-wilson-tweet/index.html.
[56] National Iranian American Council, “Gender Champions,” NIAC, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/about-niac/gender-champions/.
[57] The Associated Press, “UN: Iran Responsible for ‘Physical Violence’ That Killed Mahsa Amini,” Voice of America, March 9, 2024, https://www.voanews.com/a/un-iran-responsible-for-physical-violence-that-killed-mahsa-amini/7520833.html.
[58] Etan Mabourakh, “Pride Belongs to the Global LGBTQ+ Community,” NIAC, June 15, 2022, https://www.niacouncil.org/human_rights_tracker/pride-belongs-to-the-global-lgbtq-community/.
[59] National Iranian American Council, “A Step Towards Justice: Iran Releases Environmentalists Amid Ongoing Human Rights Concerns,” NIAC, April 9, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/human_rights_tracker/a-step-towards-justice-iran-releases-environmentalists-amid-ongoing-human-rights-concerns/.
[60] National Iranian American Council, “Accomplishments,” NIAC, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/about-niac/accomplishments/.
[61] Ibid.
[62] National Iranian American Council, “Accomplishments,” NIAC, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/about-niac/accomplishments/.
David Voreacos and Daniel Flatley, “Bank of America (BAC) Wins Dismissal of Iranian Discrimination Claims,” Bloomberg, March 27, 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-27/bank-of-america-wins-dismissal-of-iranian-discrimination-claims.
[63] National Iranian American Council, “Accomplishments,” NIAC, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/about-niac/accomplishments/.
[64] Ibid.
[65] National Iranian American Council, “Statement on Strikes Killing Civilians Playing Soccer in Golan Heights,” NIAC, July 29, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/press_room/statement-on-strikes-killing-civilians-playing-soccer-in-golan-heights/.
[66] National Iranian American Council, “Tell Congress Ceasefire in Gaza Now,” NIAC, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/campaign/ceasefire/.
[67] National Iranian American Council, “Israeli Attack Kills Senior Iranian Officials in Damascus, Deepening Regional Tensions,” NIAC, April 2, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/news_publications/israeli-attack-kills-senior-iranian-officials-in-damascus-deepening-regional-tensions/.
[68] National Iranian American Council, “Netanyahu Is Coming to Washington to Sell War with Iran,” NIAC, July 17, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/news/netanyahu-is-coming-to-washington-to-sell-war-with-iran/.
[69] National Iranian American Council, “NIAC Statement on Assassination of Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh,” NIAC, July 31, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/press_room/statement-on-assassination-of-hamas-leader-ismail-haniyeh/.
[70] National Iranian American Council, “NIAC Statement on Attack Killing Three U.S. Servicemembers,” NIAC, January 28, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/press_room/niac-statement-on-attack-killing-three-u-s-servicemembers/.
[71] National Iranian American Council, “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ),” NIAC, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.niacouncil.org/about-niac/faq/.
[72] Ibid.
[73] Ibid.
[74] Daniel Block, “‘I’Ll Burn You Alive,’” Politico, April 22, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/22/iran-diaspora-harassment-00092598.
[75] National Iranian American Council, “‘I Can’t Wait ‘Til Ayandeh,’” NIAC, July 18, 2008, https://www.niacouncil.org/iranian-american-activism/i-cant-wait-til-ayandeh/.
[76] Daniel Block, “‘I’Ll Burn You Alive,’” Politico, April 22, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/22/iran-diaspora-harassment-00092598.
National Iranian American Council, “NIAC Panel Explores Iran Policy Under Trump Administration,” NIAC, November 21, 2016, https://www.niacouncil.org/news/niac-panel-explores-iran-policy-trump-administration/.
[77] Daniel Block, “‘I’Ll Burn You Alive,’” Politico, April 22, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/22/iran-diaspora-harassment-00092598.
[78] Ibid.
[79] Arash Azizi, “Opposition Politics of the Iranian Diaspora: Out of Many, One – But Not Just Yet,” Clingendael, October 27, 2023, https://www.clingendael.org/publication/opposition-politics-iranian-diaspora-out-many-one-not-just-yet.
[80] Ibid.
[81] Ibid.
[82] Erik Wiman, “Irans Spionage På Svenska Universitet Avslöjat: ”Naivitet”,” Expressen, May 7, 2024, https://www-expressen-se.translate.goog/nyheter/irans-spionage-pa-svenska-universitet-avslojat-naivitet/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en.
[83] Gabriella Swerling and Louisa Clarence-Smith, “The 11 UK Universities Accused of Helping to Develop Iran’s ‘Suicide Drones,’” The Telegraph, June 8, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/08/drones-cambridge-iran-raf-ukraine-suicide-universities/.
[84] Daniel Boffey, “Revealed: Europe’s Role In the Making of Russia Killer Drones,” The Guardian, September 27, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/27/revealed-europes-role-in-the-making-of-russia-killer-drones.
[85] Stefan Trines, “Déjà Vu? The Rise and Fall of Iranian Student Enrollments in the U.S.,” WENR, February 6, 2017, https://wenr.wes.org/2017/02/educating-iran-demographics-massification-and-missed-opportunities.
[86] Philanthropy New York, “Open Society Foundation Partners with Charles Koch Foundation to Launch Foreign Policy Think Tank,” Philanthropy New York, July 4, 2019, https://philanthropynewyork.org/news/open-society-foundation-partners-charles-koch-foundation-launch-foreign-policy-think-tank.
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “About Us,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/about/.
[87] Ibid.
[88] Ibid.
[89] Armin Rosen, “Washington’s Weirdest Think Tank,” Tablet Magazine, April 28, 2021, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/quincy-trita-parsi-soros-koch-armin-rosen.
[90] Ibid.
[91] Annelle Sheline and Adam Weinstein, “Will Israel Drag the U.S. Into a New Forever War?,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, August 1, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/2024/08/01/will-israel-drag-the-u-s-into-a-new-forever-war/.
[92] Steven Simon, “Israel and the Persian Gulf: A Source of Security or Conflict?,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, June 30, 2021, https://quincyinst.org/research/israel-and-the-persian-gulf-a-source-of-security-or-conflict/#.
[93] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “About Us,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/about/.
Steven Simon, “Israel and the Persian Gulf: A Source of Security or Conflict?,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, June 30, 2021, https://quincyinst.org/research/israel-and-the-persian-gulf-a-source-of-security-or-conflict/#.
[94] Anatol Lieven, “Yes, We Can Reconcile Absurd Russian & Ukrainian Peace Plans,” Responsible Statecraft, June 19, 2024, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-peace/.
[95] Anatol Lieven, “What the Swiss ‘Peace Summit’ Can Realistically Achieve,” Responsible Statecraft, June 14, 2024, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-peace-summit-2668521120/.
[96] Anatol Lieven, “Labour’s Delusions About UK Foreign Policy,” Responsible Statecraft, July 17, 2024, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/uk-foreign-policy/.
[97] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Should Washington Revive Nuclear Diplomacy With Pezeshkian’s Iran?,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, July 25, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/events/should-washington-revive-nuclear-diplomacy-with-pezeshkians-iran/.
[98] William M. LeoGrande, “Cuba’s Role in U.S. Presidential Elections,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, May 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/research/cubas-role-in-u-s-presidential-elections/#h-introduction.
[99] Andre Pagliarini, “The American Left Realigns Its Relationship to Latin America,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, August 31, 2023, https://quincyinst.org/2023/08/31/the-american-left-realigns-its-relationship-to-latin-america/.
[100] Nick Cleveland-Stout, “Biden, Don’t Let Differences Over Ukraine Tank Your Relations With Lula,” Responsible Statecraft, August 23, 2023, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/08/23/us-should-move-past-differences-with-brazil-over-ukraine/.
[101] Armin Rosen, “Washington’s Weirdest Think Tank,” Tablet Magazine, April 28, 2021, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/quincy-trita-parsi-soros-koch-armin-rosen.
Jake Werner, “A Program for Progressive China Policy,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, July 30, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/research/a-program-for-progressive-china-policy/#h-two-countries-dominated-by-anxiety-and-insecurity.
[102] Jessica J. Lee and Sarang Shidore, “The Folly of Pushing South Korea Toward a China Containment Strategy,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, May 5, 2022, https://quincyinst.org/research/the-folly-of-pushing-south-korea-toward-a-china-containment-strategy/#.
[103] Steven Simon and Adam Weinstein, “How to Withdraw From Iraq Within Five Years,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, May 9, 2023, https://quincyinst.org/research/how-to-withdraw-from-iraq-within-five-years/.
[104] Adam Weinstein, “Beyond May 1: The Future of U.S. Engagement in Afghanistan,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, April 8, 2021, https://quincyinst.org/research/beyond-may-1-the-future-of-u-s-engagement-in-afghanistan/#a3f411f2e40a.
[105] Dave Mistich, Wynne Davis, and Scott Neuman, “13 Service Members Killed in Kabul Attack Honored With the Congressional Gold Medal,” NPR, October 25, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/08/29/1032044382/what-we-know-about-the-13-u-s-service-members-killed-in-the-kabul-attack.
[106] Democracy Now!, “‘A Breach of Yemeni Sovereignty’: Biden Becomes Fourth U.S. President to Bomb Yemen,” Democracy Now!, January 12, 2024, https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/12/yemen_strikes_houthis_red_sea_gaza.
[107] Ibid.
[108] Alex Thurston, “An Alternative Approach to U.S. Sahel Policy,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, November 7, 2022, https://quincyinst.org/research/an-alternative-approach-to-u-s-sahel-policy/.
[109] Mark Episkopos, “Rethinking the U.S.–Belarus Relationship,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, May 13, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/research/rethinking-the-u-s-belarus-relationship/.
[110] Nick Cleveland-Stout, “States Should Let the Feds Handle Foreign Influence,” Responsible Statecraft, July 15, 2024, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/foreign-influence/.
[111] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Supporters,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/about/supporters/#.
[112] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Transparency,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/about/transparency/#.
[113] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft: Financial Statements—December 31, 2021,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, December 31, 2021, https://quincyinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FINAL-Audit-12-31-2020.pdf, 11.
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[114] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Supporters,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/about/supporters/#.
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Fundación Pro Bono, “Memoria Anual 2019,” Fundación Pro Bono, 2019, https://probono.cl/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/memoria2019.pdf, 10.
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[117] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Quincy Institute 2022 990 Tax Form,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, 2022, https://quincyinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/QIRS-990-Public.pdf.
[118] Ibid.
[119] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Trita Parsi,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/author/trita-parsi/.
[120] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Lora Lumpe,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/author/lora-lumpe/.
[121] Capital Research Center, “Lora Lumpe,” InfluenceWatch, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.influencewatch.org/person/lora-lumpe/.
[122] Jessica Rosenblum, “Lora Lumpe to Head Quincy Institute As First CEO,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, March 3, 2020, https://quincyinst.org/2020/03/03/lora-lumpe-to-head-quincy-institute-as-first-ceo/.
[123] Ibid.
[124] Ibid.
[125] Canary Mission, “Ahmad Daraldik,” Canary Mission, August 2, 2024, https://canarymission.org/individual/Ahmad_Daraldik.
Canary Mission, “Rawan Abhari,” Canary Mission, August 2, 2024, https://canarymission.org/individual/Rawan_Abhari.
Byron Dobson, “Former FSU Student Senate President Appeals to Return to Leadership,” Tallahassee Democrat, November 5, 2020, https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2020/11/05/former-fsu-student-senate-president-appeals-his-removal/6152081002/.
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[126] Canary Mission, “Ahmad Daraldik,” Canary Mission, August 2, 2024, https://canarymission.org/individual/Ahmad_Daraldik.
[127] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Khody Akhavi,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/author/khody-akhavi/.
[128] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Tori Bateman,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/author/tori-bateman/.
[129] Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, and Matthew Duss, “Fear, Inc..,” Center for American Progress, August 26, 2011, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/fear-inc/.
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[130] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Amir Handjani,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/author/amir-handjani/.
[131] Armin Rosen, “Washington’s Weirdest Think Tank,” Tablet Magazine, April 28, 2021, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/quincy-trita-parsi-soros-koch-armin-rosen.
[132] Ibid.
[133] Ibid.
[134] Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, “Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies – Branches,” المركز العربي للأبحاث ودراسة السياسات – Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/AboutUs/Pages/Offices.aspx.
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[164] Trita Parsi, “Trita Parsi on Birthplace,” X (formerly Twitter), September 22, 2018, https://x.com/tparsi/status/1043494765545902080?lang=en.
[165] New York State Writers Institute, “Trita Parsi,” New York State Writers Institute, 2012, https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/parsi_trita12.html.
[166] Heshmat Alavi, “Who Is Trita Parsi?,” Substack, June 27, 2021, https://heshmatalavi.substack.com/p/who-is-trita-parsi.
[167] Ibid.
[168] Bethany Allen, “64 Years Later, CIA Finally Releases Details of Iranian Coup,” Foreign Policy, June 20, 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/20/64-years-later-cia-finally-releases-details-of-iranian-coup-iran-tehran-oil/.
[169] Iran Data Portal, “The Freedom Movement of Iran,” Iran Data Portal, December 30, 2011, https://irandataportal.syr.edu/the-freedom-movement-of-iran.
[170] Giorgia Perletta, “Iran’s Foreign Policy from Non-Alignment to ‘Look to the East’: Between Ideology and Pragmatism,” Taylor & Francis Online, August 2, 2024, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19368623.2024.2368040.
[171] Anton Ösgård and William Westgard-Cruice, “Olof Palme Was an Internationalist Hero,” Jacobin, February 28, 2020, https://jacobin.com/2020/02/olof-palme-sweden-prime-minister-chile-allende.
[172] Semira N. Nikou, “Timeline of Iran’s Foreign Relations,” The Iran Primer, July 27, 2023, https://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/timeline-irans-foreign-relations.
[173] World Cultural Heritage Voices, “Board of Advisors,” World Cultural Heritage Voices, accessed August 22, 2024, https://worldculturalheritagevoices.org/board-of-trustees/advisors-biography/.
[174] Trita Parsi, “Trita Parsi – Reston, Virginia, United States,” LinkedIn, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tritaparsi/.
[175] Armin Rosen, “Washington’s Weirdest Think Tank,” Tablet Magazine, April 28, 2021, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/quincy-trita-parsi-soros-koch-armin-rosen.
[176] Trita Parsi, “Let’s Not Leave Iran Alone .,” Google Groups, June 18, 1996, https://groups.google.com/g/soc.culture.iranian/c/BtwA5QH8kYo?pli=1.
[177] Ibid.
[178] Trita Parsi, “To Mr Timmerman (FDI),” Google Groups, December 17, 1996, https://groups.google.com/g/soc.culture.iranian/c/C31dVMfaiOk/m/c0IfYYVJEygJ.
[179] Ibid.
[180] The Associated Press, “Putin: Soviet Collapse a ‘Genuine Tragedy,’” NBC News, April 25, 2005, https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7632057.
[181] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Trita Parsi,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/author/trita-parsi/.
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[182] Ibid.
[183] Al Jazeera, “Morocco Cuts Diplomatic Ties with Iran over Western Sahara Feud,” Al Jazeera, May 1, 2018, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/5/1/morocco-cuts-diplomatic-ties-with-iran-over-western-sahara-feud.
[184] Parviz Mullojanov, “Tajikistan’s Peace Process: The Role of Track 2 Diplomacy and Lessons for Afghanistan,” United States Institute of Peace, April 4, 2023, https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/04/tajikistans-peace-process-role-track-2-diplomacy-and-lessons-afghanistan.
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[186] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Trita Parsi,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/author/trita-parsi/.
[187] Hassan Dai, “How Trita Parsi and NIAC Used the White House to Advance Iran’s Agenda,” Tablet Magazine, June 28, 2017, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/parsi-niac-advance-irans-agenda.
[188] The Washington Times, “Iranian in U.S. Takes on Tehran,” The Washington Times, May 15, 2005, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/may/15/20050515-011256-2801r/.
[189] Arash Bahmani, “The Arbiter of State Expediency Is Disqualified,” Rooz 2500, May 22, 2013, https://web.archive.org/.
[190] Eli Lake, “Exclusive: Iran Advocacy Group Said to Skirt Lobby Rules,” The Washington Times, November 13, 2009, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/13/exclusive-did-iranian-advocacy-group-violate-laws/.
[191] Trita Parsi, “Trita Parsi – Reston, Virginia, United States,” LinkedIn, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tritaparsi/.
[192] Armin Rosen, “Washington’s Weirdest Think Tank,” Tablet Magazine, April 28, 2021, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/quincy-trita-parsi-soros-koch-armin-rosen.
[193] Ibid.
[194] Ibid.
[195] Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “Trita Parsi,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, accessed August 22, 2024, https://quincyinst.org/author/trita-parsi/.
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, “Iran: Expert Says UN Sanctions Leading To Lose-Lose Situation,” RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, December 27, 2006, https://www.rferl.org/a/1073703.html.
[196] Trita Parsi, “Trita Parsi – Reston, Virginia, United States,” LinkedIn, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tritaparsi/.
[197] Elaine Sciolino, “Expert on Iran, G.O.P. Lawmaker Pleads to Be Heard,” The New York Times, December 22, 1997, https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/22/us/expert-on-iran-gop-lawmaker-pleads-to-be-heard.html.
[198] United States Department of Justice, “Former Congressional Chief of Staff William Heaton Sentenced on Corruption Charge,” United States Department of Justice, August 16, 2007, https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2007/August/07_crm_621.html.
[199] Patrick O’Connor, “Former Ney Aide Pleas Guilty to Conspiracy,” Politico, February 26, 2007, https://www.politico.com/story/2007/02/former-ney-aide-pleas-guilty-to-conspiracy-002898.
[200] Ibid.
[201] Rethinking Iran, “About,” Rethinking Iran, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.rethinkingiran.com/about.
[202] Ibid.
[203] Rethinking Iran, “Feminist Futures,” Rethinking Iran, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.rethinkingiran.com/feminist-futures.
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[204] Rethinking Iran, “How Sanctions Work,” Rethinking Iran, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.rethinkingiran.com/how-sanctions-work-book.
[205] Ibid.
[206] Zep Kalb, “Who Benefits From Sanctions?,” Phenomenal World, August 15, 2024, https://www.phenomenalworld.org/reviews/how-sanctions-work/.
Elaine Pasquini, “Sanctions: Ineffective Economic Warfare,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2, 2024, https://www.wrmea.org/book-talks/sanctions-ineffective-economic-warfare.html.
[207] Peter Kenyon, “Access to Military Sites Debated as White House Reconsiders Iran Nuclear Deal,” NPR, September 13, 2017, https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/09/13/549217764/should-nuclear-inspectors-be-demanding-access-to-irans-military-sites.
[208] Al Jazeera, “Yemen’s Houthis in Talks with Saudis, Reports Say,” Al Jazeera, March 9, 2016, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/3/9/yemens-houthis-in-talks-with-saudis-reports-say.
[209] Zep Kalb, “Who Benefits From Sanctions?,” Phenomenal World, August 15, 2024, https://www.phenomenalworld.org/reviews/how-sanctions-work/.
[210] Atta Kenare, “Iranian-Americans Respond to the Nuclear Deal,” WNYC Studios, July 15, 2015, https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/iranian-americans-respond-nuclear-deal.
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[214] Carnegie Corporation of New York, “Profile: Vali Nasr,” Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2010, https://media.carnegie.org/filer_public/42/fa/42fab256-9060-4ace-b8cb-113cef89b315/ccny_report_2010_scholars_nasr.pdf.
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[216] Maria Fantappie and Vali Nasr, “The Dangerous Push for Israeli-Saudi Normalization,” Foreign Affairs, July 11, 2024, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/dangerous-push-israeli-saudi-normalization.
Steve Inskeep, “Iranian Voters Chose Masoud Pezeshkian, a Reformist as Their New President,” NPR, July 8, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/07/08/nx-s1-5032069/iranian-voters-chose-masoud-pezeshkian-a-reformist-as-their-new-president.
Ali Vaez and Vali Nasr, “The Path to a New Iran Deal,” Foreign Affairs, May 8, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/path-new-iran-nuclear-deal-security-jcpoa-washington.
[217] International Crisis Group, “Fifteen Years on the Front Lines: 1995-2010,” International Crisis Group, 2010, https://ggc-mauldin-images.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/pdf/TFTF_Feb_20_2021.pdf.
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[226] Yaval Barnea, “Smotrich Annule L’Accord de Libre-Échange et Impose Des Droits d’importation de 100 % Sur Les Produits Turcs Alors Que Le Fossé Se Creuse,” L’Observateur du Maroc et d’Afrique, May 17, 2024, https://lobservateur.info/article/110697/jerusalem-post/smotrich-annule-laccord-de-libre-echange-et-impose-des-droits-dimportation-de-100-sur-les-produits-turcs-alors-que-le-fosse-se-creuse.
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[233] International Crisis Group, “Board of Trustees,” International Crisis Group, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/who-we-are/board-trustees.
[234] Akmal Dawi, “Taliban Impose More Restrictions on Afghan Media,” Voice of America, March 18, 2022, https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-impose-more-restrictions-on-afghan-media/6489780.html.
[235] Akmal Dawi, “Taliban Impose More Restrictions on Afghan Media,” Voice of America, March 18, 2022, https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-impose-more-restrictions-on-afghan-media/6489780.html.
[236] International Crisis Group, “Board of Trustees,” International Crisis Group, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/who-we-are/board-trustees.
[237] Ibid.
[238] International Crisis Group, “Israel, the UAE, and Normalisation,” International Crisis Group, September 3, 2022, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/hold-your-fire-israel-uae-and-normalisation.
[239] Maryam Jamshidi, “How Israel Weaponizes International Law,” Boston Review, May 24, 2021, https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/how-israel-weaponizes-international-law/.
[240] European Council on Foreign Relations, “Profile: Ivan Krastev,” European Council on Foreign Relations, accessed August 22, 2024, https://ecfr.eu/profile/ivan-krastev/.
[241] International Crisis Group, “Board of Trustees,” International Crisis Group, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/who-we-are/board-trustees.
Jordan Valinsky, “Huma Abedin Is Engaged to George Soros’ Son Alex,” CNN, July 11, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/11/business/huma-abedin-alex-soros-engagement/index.html.
[242] International Crisis Group, “Board of Trustees,” International Crisis Group, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/who-we-are/board-trustees.
[243] International Crisis Group, “A Gaza Ceasefire,” International Crisis Group, June 7, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/east-mediterranean-mena/israelpalestine-united-states/gaza-ceasefire.
[244] Brian Finucane et al., “All Eyes on The Hague: The ICC Prosecutor’s Move against Hamas and Israeli Leaders,” International Crisis Group, May 24, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/east-mediterranean-mena/israelpalestine/all-eyes-hague-icc-prosecutors.
[245] Ibid.
[246] Caroline B. Glick, “The ICC’s War Crimes,” JNS, May 22, 2024, https://www.jns.org/the-iccs-war-crimes/.
[247] 1. Riccardo Fabiani, “The Gaza War’s Main Impacts on Egypt,” International Crisis Group, May 24, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/egypt-israelpalestine/gaza-wars-main-impacts-egypt.
[248] Dina Esfandiary and Dialla Jandali, “The UAE, Israel and a Test of Influence,” International Crisis Group, June 14, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/united-arab-emirates-israelpalestine/uae-israel.
[249] International Crisis Group, “Ukraine: How to Hold the Line,” International Crisis Group, May 28, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/eastern-europe/ukraine-russia-internal/270-ukraine-how-hold-line.
[250] International Crisis Group, “International Crisis Group 2023 990 Tax Form,” International Crisis Group, 2023, https://www.crisisgroup.org/.
[251] Ibid.
[252] International Crisis Group, “Governments & Multilaterals,” International Crisis Group, June 27, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/support-us/our-supporters/governments-multilaterals.
[253] International Crisis Group, “Foundations,” International Crisis Group, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/support-us/foundations.
[254] International Crisis Group, “Global Corporate Council,” International Crisis Group, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/support-us/our-supporters/global-corporate-council.
[255] International Crisis Group, “Our People,” International Crisis Group, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/who-we-are/our-people.
[256] Dina Esfandiary, “Dina Esfandiary – Senior Advisor at International Crisis Group,” LinkedIn, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/.
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[258] Dina Esfandiary and Dialla Jandali, “The UAE, Israel and a Test of Influence,” International Crisis Group, June 14, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/united-arab-emirates-israelpalestine/uae-israel.
Heiko Wimmen et al., “The Impact of the Saudi-Iranian Rapprochement on Middle East Conflicts,” Crisis Group, April 19, 2023, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iran-saudi-arabia/impact-saudi-iranian.
[259] Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, “Robert Malley and the Call from the Third World,” EMET, July 20, 2023, https://emetonline.org/robert-malley-and-the-call-from-the-third-world/.
[260] Francis Ghiles, “Has Robert Malley’s Life and Career Prepared Him for His New Job?,” The Arab Weekly, February 18, 2021, https://thearabweekly.com/has-robert-malleys-life-and-career-prepared-him-his-new-job.
Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, “Robert Malley and the Call from the Third World,” EMET, July 20, 2023, https://emetonline.org/robert-malley-and-the-call-from-the-third-world/.
[261] Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, “Robert Malley and the Call from the Third World,” EMET, July 20, 2023, https://emetonline.org/robert-malley-and-the-call-from-the-third-world/.
[262] Ibid.
[263] Victoria Brittain, “Obituary: Simon Malley,” The Guardian, September 27, 2006, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/sep/27/guardianobituaries.pressandpublishing.
[264] Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, “Robert Malley and the Call from the Third World,” EMET, July 20, 2023, https://emetonline.org/robert-malley-and-the-call-from-the-third-world/.
[265] Ibid.
[266] Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, “Robert Malley and the Call from the Third World,” EMET, July 20, 2023, https://emetonline.org/robert-malley-and-the-call-from-the-third-world/.
[267] Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, “Robert Malley and the Call from the Third World,” EMET, July 20, 2023, https://emetonline.org/robert-malley-and-the-call-from-the-third-world/.
[268] Ibid.
[269] Robert Malley, “Robert Malley – President & CEO – International Crisis Group,” LinkedIn, accessed August 23, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-malley-285a01168/.
[270] Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, “Robert Malley and the Call from the Third World,” EMET, July 20, 2023, https://emetonline.org/robert-malley-and-the-call-from-the-third-world/.
[270] Ibid.
[271] U.S. Department of State, “Antony J. Blinken: Secretary of State,” U.S. Department of State, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.state.gov/biographies/antony-j-blinken/.
[272] Robert Malley, “Robert Malley – President & CEO – International Crisis Group,” LinkedIn, accessed August 23, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-malley-285a01168/.
[273] U.S. Department of State, “Antony J. Blinken: Secretary of State,” U.S. Department of State, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.state.gov/biographies/antony-j-blinken/.
[274] U.S. Department of State, “Special Envoy for Iran,” U.S. Department of State, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.state.gov/bureaus-offices/secretary-of-state/special-envoy-for-iran/.
[275] Kylie Atwood et al., “Biden’s Iran Envoy Placed on Leave after Security Clearance Suspended amid Investigation into Possible Mishandling of Classified Material, Sources Say,” CNN, June 29, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/29/politics/rob-malley-leave-investigation-classified-material/index.html.
[276] Jay Solomon, “How Iran Used Its Ties to a Top Global NGO,” Semafor, February 2, 2024, https://www.semafor.com/article/02/02/2024/how-iran-used-its-ties-to-a-top-global-ngo.
[277] Meghan McGee, “Faculty Interview with Ali Vaez,” Georgetown Security Studies Review, March 25, 2020, https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2020/03/25/faculty-interview-with-ali-vaez/.
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[280] Meghan McGee, “Faculty Interview with Ali Vaez,” Georgetown Security Studies Review, March 25, 2020, https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2020/03/25/faculty-interview-with-ali-vaez/.
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[282] Meghan McGee, “Faculty Interview with Ali Vaez,” Georgetown Security Studies Review, March 25, 2020, https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2020/03/25/faculty-interview-with-ali-vaez/.
[283] Ibid.
[284] Ali Vaez, “Ali Vaez – Georgetown University,” LinkedIn, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-vaez-8b647a12.
[285] Ali Vaez, “Ali Vaez – Georgetown University,” LinkedIn, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-vaez-8b647a12.
[286] Meghan McGee, “Faculty Interview with Ali Vaez,” Georgetown Security Studies Review, March 25, 2020, https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2020/03/25/faculty-interview-with-ali-vaez/.
[287] Ali Vaez, “Ali Vaez – Georgetown University,” LinkedIn, accessed August 22, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-vaez-8b647a12.
[288] Till Schmidt, “Can the Situation in the Middle East Still Be Deescalated, Ali Vaez?,” libmod.de, August 15, 2024, https://libmod.de/en/laesst-sich-die-situation-in-nahost-noch-deeskalieren/.
[289] International Crisis Group, “The International Crisis Group Responds to Letter from Congress to DOJ,” International Crisis Group, February 8, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/united-states/international-crisis-group-responds-letter-congress-doj.
[290] Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, “Inside Tehran’s Soft War,” Iran International, September 26, 2023, https://content.iranintl.com/en/investigates/inside-tehran-softwar/index.html.
Jay Solomon, “Inside Iran’s Influence Operation,” Semafor, September 29, 2023, https://www.semafor.com/article/09/25/2023/inside-irans-influence-operation.
[291] Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, “Inside Tehran’s Soft War,” Iran International, 2023, https://content.iranintl.com/en/investigates/inside-tehran-softwar/index.html.
[292] Ibid.
[293] Ibid.
[294] Jay Solomon, “Inside Iran’s Influence Operation,” Semafor, September 29, 2023, https://www.semafor.com/article/09/25/2023/inside-irans-influence-operation.
[295] Ibid.
[296] Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, “Inside Tehran’s Soft War,” Iran International, 2023, https://content.iranintl.com/en/investigates/inside-tehran-softwar/index.html.
[297] Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, “Covert Ties between Iran and the International Crisis Group,” Iran International, February 2, 2024, https://content.iranintl.com/en/investigates/covert-ties-between-iran-and-the-international-crisis-group/index.html.
[298] Ibid.
[299] Ibid.
[300] Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, “Inside Tehran’s Soft War,” Iran International, 2023, https://content.iranintl.com/en/investigates/inside-tehran-softwar/index.html.
[301] Adam Kredo, “Member of Iranian Influence Network Visited White House Five Times,” The Washington Free Beacon, October 3, 2023, https://freebeacon.com/national-security/member-of-iranian-influence-network-visited-biden-white-house-five-times/.
[302] International Crisis Group, “Crisis Group Rejects Recent Allegations against Our Staff,” International Crisis Group, October 4, 2023, https://www.crisisgroup.org/crisis-group-rejects-recent-allegations-against-our-staff.
[303] Ibid.
[304] Refer to annexes 1-4 for proof thereof and the complete text of the communiqué. The link in question is https://www.crisisgroup.org/crisis-group-rejects-recent-allegations-against-our-staff.
[305] International Crisis Group, “Crisis Group Rejects Recent Allegations against Our Staff,” EIN Presswire, October 5, 2023, https://www.einpresswire.com/article/659752743/crisis-group-rejects-recent-allegations-against-our-staff.
[306] International Crisis Group, “ICG Tweet Proving Existence of Deleted Communiqué,” X (formerly Twitter), October 4, 2023, https://x.com/CrisisGroup/status/1709683783270633679.
[307] International Crisis Group, “The International Crisis Group Responds to Letter from Congress to DOJ,” International Crisis Group, February 8, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/united-states/international-crisis-group-responds-letter-congress-doj.
[308] Mary Kay Linge, “Top Iranian Pentagon Aide Keeps Security Clearance despite ‘spying for Tehran’ Accusation,” New York Post, October 20, 2023, https://nypost.com/2023/10/20/pentagon-aide-called-iran-spy-keeps-security-clearance/.
[309] Wilson Center, “Ariane Tabatabai,” Wilson Center, accessed August 23, 2024, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/ariane-tabatabai.
[310] Mary Kay Linge, “Top Iranian Pentagon Aide Keeps Security Clearance despite ‘spying for Tehran’ Accusation,” New York Post, October 20, 2023, https://nypost.com/2023/10/20/pentagon-aide-called-iran-spy-keeps-security-clearance/.
[311] Ariane M. Tabatabai, “Ariane M. Tabatabai, Ph.D. – Senior Policy Advisor,” LinkedIn, accessed August 23, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/aritabatabai.
[312] Ibid.
[313] Ibid.
[314] Mary Kay Linge, “Top Iranian Pentagon Aide Keeps Security Clearance despite ‘spying for Tehran’ Accusation,” New York Post, October 20, 2023, https://nypost.com/2023/10/20/pentagon-aide-called-iran-spy-keeps-security-clearance/.
[315] Ariane M. Tabatabai, “Ariane M. Tabatabai, Ph.D. – Senior Policy Advisor,” LinkedIn, accessed August 23, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/in/aritabatabai.
[316] Ryan Lovelace, “Suspected Iranian Agent Working for Pentagon While U.S. Coordinated Defense of Israel,” JINSA, April 15, 2024, https://jinsa.org/suspected-agent-working-for-pentagon-while-u-s-coordinated-defense-of-israel/.
[317] Adam Kredo, “A Pentagon Official Saw Her Ties to an Iranian Influence Network Exposed-Then Visited the Biden-Harris White House 8 Times,” Washington Free Beacon, August 12, 2024, https://freebeacon.com/national-security/a-pentagon-official-saw-her-ties-to-an-iranian-influence-network-exposed-then-visited-the-biden-harris-white-house-8-times/.
[318] Adam Kredo, “Kamala’s NatSec Adviser Probed over Ties to Iranian Influence Network,” Washington Free Beacon, July 31, 2024, https://freebeacon.com/national-security/kamalas-natsec-adviser-probed-over-ties-to-iranian-influence-network/.
Iran’s Strategy for Attacking Israel and the United States Transcript
PRESS RELEASE: EMET Applauds Letter by Chairs Comer and Foxx, Continued Congressional Push for Accountability on Antisemitism and Support of Hamas
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