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Fictitious narratives sell war on terror and Iran nuclear deal – experts

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NCRI – Former senior staff of the U.S. National Security Council Prof. Raymond Tanter and former European lawmaker Paulo Casaca have written an op-ed on Iran which appeared on The Hill on Wednesday. The following is the text of the op-ed:

Hillary Clinton delivered her main speech on national security on June 2, 2016 Donald Trump gave his speech on national Security on August 15. These addresses began a conversation about national security between Trump and Clinton on the campaign trail, as both also received their respective intelligence briefings.

In the context of presidential commentaries on intelligence, on Aug. 10, a leader of the U.S. House of Representatives Joint Task Force on Intelligence Analysis for the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), released a Report to investigate allegations of whistleblowers: Was intelligence manipulated to present a positive spin on efforts to combat the Islamic State?

The Report left for the Pentagon’s Inspector General to determine why intelligence assessments became more positive. That report might provide evidence of a fictitious narrative by Team Obama that the war against terror was going so well there was no need to redeploy U.S combat troops to Iraq or deploy them to Syria.

On July 25, 2015, The Daily Beast reported that Gen. John Allen said the Islamic State was losing, and July 22, FBI Director James Comey described the movement as resorting to “crowdsourcing” terrorism via social media to inspire attacks outside the Caliphate.

The year of 2015 dovetails with intensification of negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal, agreed to on July 14, 2015. This convergence in time might suggest the Obama White House was spinning similar stories about the war on terror and the nuclear deal.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Selling the Iran deal was easy because the regime infiltrated official and unofficial Washington. The need for Farsi-speaking Iran experts gave Tehran an opportunity to establish a beachhead. Political appointees seek results before the next election or prior to when they depart.

Democracies are soft targets for Iran’s intelligence service to place experts. Because it is difficult to obtain a visa to enter Iran, journalists refrain from asking tough questions, e.g., about the Iran deal, which might compromise them.

Hanging a Kurdish-Iranian nuclear expert by Tehran illustrates the danger of relying on scientists who return after living abroad: They have family to protect in Iran and cannot afford to run afoul of the regime. Better to receive nuclear input from the moderate Iranian opposition that alone rejects clerical rule of Iran and oppose acquiring nuclear weapons in word and deed—the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).

Regarding spinning narratives, consider Ben Rhodes—a low-level White House staffer. On May 8, 2016, David Samuels of The New York Times wrote that Rhodes shaped a “story” of the Iran deal as necessary to reinforce the status of “moderates” over “hardliners.” On April 17, 1992, The New York Times had reported how then-President of Iran, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, sketched a false vision of a moderate Iran.

In 1988, however, Rafsanjani implemented an execution order for 30,000+ political prisoners, a part of a “death commission.” The majority were activists of the PMOI, an assessment acknowledged by an historian not known to be friendly to the PMOI.

Samuels said “By obtaining broad public currency for the thought that there was a significant split in the regime, and that the administration was reaching out to moderate-minded Iranians who wanted peaceful relations with their neighbors and with America, Obama was able to evade what might have otherwise been a divisive but clarifying debate over the actual policy choices that his administration was making.”

Samuels queried Leon Panetta, who headed CIA/DoD during the Obama administration: Was there intelligence Iran was divided between moderates and hardliners? “No,” Panetta answered.

In his memoir, Worthy Fights, Panetta criticized the outsized role White House staffers played in national security, e.g., those who held the Iran deal would help moderates in Iran.

Western endorsement of the 2016 Iranian elections assumed it was better to choose the devil you know as lesser of two evils; but doing so ignored a third option, the PMOI. Critics of Rhodes point out that those allowed to run were fake moderates; the PMOI are the real moderates.

Conclusions

The Task Force report provided evidence of a fiction to sell a narrative that the war on terror was going well enough not to deploy additional American ground forces to Iraq or at all to Syria.

The western powers involved with the nuclear agreement should recognize the Iranian opposition instead of betting on the Islamist theocracy; if Washington even threatens to meet with the [PMOI], “…we would have tremendous leverage over Iran.”

Hoping that the nuclear deal will reinforce so-called Iranian moderates was not based on intelligence and should cease to be part of U.S. policy toward Iran.

Raymond Tanter was on the senior staff of the U.S. National Security Council, 1981-82, and now he heads Iran Policy Committee Publishing. Paulo Casaca was a member of the European Parliament, 1999-2009 and now he directs the South Asia Democratic Forum.

Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/293948-fictitious-narratives-sell-war-on-terror-and-iran-nuclear