Who the Hell is Rick Gladstone?

Does anyone….anyone really take some of the editorials printed by the New York Times seriously? Do the editors there even go through a committee approval process? Is J Street, the lobby group, a constant funder of the NYT’s or could it be CAIR (Council for American Islamic Relations) or could the NYT’s be in collusion with NIAC (National Iranian American Council) or could Rick Gladstone and his ‘g0-to’ experts be on additional payrolls?

Hey Rick, here is a documentary for you sir:

Maybe Gladstone is the roommate of Rashid Khalidi.

Well, read on and then you may have additional questions. Here is lies yet another example of revisionist history.

‘The New York Times’ Goes Truther on the Temple Mount

The newspaper settles the ‘explosive historical question that cuts to the essence of competing claims to what may be the world’s most contested piece of real estate’

Doctor Without Borders, Not What you Think

Doctors Without Borders, known internationally by Médecins Sans Frontières, is a wing of consultation for the United Nations. The medical and humanitarian organization is not without its own controversy. It was expelled from Myanmar.

As written previously on this site in March of 2015, Kayla Mueller from Arizona was working with Doctors Without Borders while both were supporting the International Solidarity Movement currently behind the fresh hostilities in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza. After relocating to Syria, Kayla was in Raqqah, taken as a sex slave by ISIS and later killed.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter is in Spain and was asked about a hospital facility hit by a U.S. airstrike, leaving several dead and others wounded along with a burning building. His responses are here.

A senior defense official said US special operations forces in an “advise and assist” role in Kunduz had been taking fire and called in air support from an AC-130. The plane opened fire but the military wasn’t “positively certain” it hit the hospital, the official said.

Several facts need to be noted. Kunduz is a region where the Taliban had not previously been in control until that is the new leader of the Taliban Mullah Mansour, who rose to power after the secret was telegraphed that Mullah Omar had been dead for two years.

Mullah Mansour is an opportunist and takes the inch of a given order beyond the mile and he has something to prove and did so by taking over the Kunduz region which the Afghan forces with the assistance of the NATO forces took back in a matter of 2 days, yet it remains contested.

From the LWJ in part: While fighting for control of the provincial capital of Kunduz, the Taliban launched a wider offensive in the Afghan north aimed at seizing control of districts in four provinces: Badakhshan, Baghlan, Kunduz, and Takhar. Since Sept. 28, the Taliban has taken control of nine districts in these four provinces and another in the western province of Farah. “Control” means the Taliban is openly administering a province, providing services and security, and also running the local courts. Often, the district centers are under Taliban occupation or have been destroyed entirely. The Taliban does not always hold the districts it takes. It occasionally will seize a district or the district center, occupy it and fly the flag, leave after a few days, then return at a later date. These districts are considered contested at best.

Mansour has a nasty and long history with the Taliban, the Haqqani and the Pakistan intelligence wing known as the ISI. The ISI allowed much of the Taliban and Mansour himself to live and operate with impunity. He is the terror list but travels freely to Dubai where he owns a home as he also does in a Taliban enclave in Pakistan.

Further, when it comes to U.S. air operations in Afghanistan, there are no ground controllers, meaning any coordinates or airstrikes are called in by Afghan forces. Doctors Without Borders tells the story that they provided exact location coordinates to NATO and to Centcom to keep them from being bombed. Logical decision except were those coordinates accurate, later distorted or altered by the Taliban or moles in the Afghan forces in the area? Further, the pilot in not culpable and in a region of hostilities, the U.S. is immune from hitting wrong targets due to responsibility placed on home military unites because of insecure data, insecure Afghan personnel and because the Taliban follow the same terror model of placing weapons, people and sensitive material in hospitals, schools, mosques as other terror networks.

When the investigation is complete, it may omit these details posted below.

It’s Time to Treat Doctors Without Borders as a Terrorist Organization

End non-profit status for them and for any organization that funds them

“Doctors Without Borders has a long history of collaborating with and defending terrorists. And even being terrorists. The issue came up just last month in relation to Hamas.

Its current attacks on America and collaboration with the Taliban are completely unacceptable. Doctors Without Borders’ personnel are once again lying through their teeth, denying the facts put forward by US and Afghan personnel and covering up the use of medical facilities by the Taliban Jihadists as human shields.

This is the same tactic that we’ve seen with Hamas.

It’s time to deal with Doctors Without Borders, a cynical name for an organization in bed with Islamic terrorists.

The acting governor of Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province said Sunday that Taliban fighters had been routinely firing “small and heavy” weapons from the grounds of a local hospital before it was apparently hit by a U.S. airstrike over the weekend.

In an interview, Hamdullah Danishi said the Doctors Without Borders compound was “a Taliban base” that was being used to plot and carry out attacks across the provincial capital, Kunduz city.

“The hospital campus was 100 percent used by the Taliban,” Danishi said. “The hospital has a vast garden, and the Taliban were there. We tolerated their firing for some time” before responding.

Doctors Without Borders is lying and denying everything. The media is predictably taking the side of the extremist left-wing group. But the solution is obvious.

1. Treat Doctors Without Borders members just like ISIS recruits when it comes to international travel. At no point in time should they be allowed to travel to conflict zones since it is manifestly clear that they do so to aid terrorists. If they lie about their travel plans, they should go to jail.

2. End non-profit status for them and for any organization that funds them.

3. End any special status that they have when operating in conflict zones since they aren’t medical personnel, just terrorist auxiliaries who were aiding the Taliban takeover of Kunduz.”

 

Iran Lobby Connections, Axis of Evil

White House Twitter Account promoting the Iran deal noted above

Iranian Nuclear Deal

House of Bribes: How the United States led the way to a Nuclear Iran

“I think that the American companies will be welcomed in Iran… This is not a game for junior companies, and I call juniors anything below a billion-dollar market cap. This is a big-money game.”
– An American Portfolio Manager, July 2015

 

Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Preface
Background
The Trailblazers: Namazi & Nemazee
National Iranian-American Council (NIAC)
The Open (Iranian) Society of George Soros
Valerie Jarrett – The Puppetmaster
Complicity of the GOP
Consequences/Conclusions

 

Executive Summary

The Iranian nuclear deal is a full capitulation to Iran’s terrorist mastermind Mullahs, and the latest in a series of betrayals of the American people and allies by the Obama administration.  At the highest level of the administration, Barack Obama’s Senior Advisor, the Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett, prioritized rapprochement with the terror state.  Throughout the process and negotiations, she had the backing of billionaire investor (and Obama-backer) George Soros, and his multi-headed network of tax-exempt foundations.  Their efforts were driven by deep-rooted anti-Semitism and personal greed.  Meanwhile, since the mid-1990s, a small but very connected Iranian lobby (funded, in part, by George Soros) has been laying the groundwork for normalizing relations with Tehran.  Operating through a variety of non-governmental organizations and political action committees, the lobby courted Democrat and Republican politicians.  With the election of (Soros-backed) Obama in 2008, the Iranian lobby had very receptive ears in the White House.  International business interests were courted and effectively bribed with access to Iranian markets, until finally the deal was realized, approved, and sealed by a vote of the United Nations Security Council.

Preface

Thus far, the reports and exposés issued by the New Coalition of Concerned Citizens* have focused on the threat posed by Islamists to American sovereignty.  The Qatar Awareness Campaign brought to light extensive influence network of the State of Qatar and their ruling al-Thani family.  The Betrayal Papers explained the Muslim Brotherhood’s domination of the Obama administration’s agenda and policies, foreign and domestic.

This report will detail the sinister influence of the small, yet well-connected and very powerful, Iran lobby.  Though the Iran lobby’s highest level contacts are prominent Democrats, their reach spans both major political parties.  Like previous exposés, this investigation will mention familiar names, including George Soros, Valerie Jarrett, and the United Nations.

Iran is widely regarded by counterterrorism experts as the heart of Islamic radicalism, and the point of origin for terrorism with a specific geopolitical agenda (i.e., the creation of an Islamic Caliphate, much like the Islamic State, but dominated by Shiites, not Sunnis).  With the eager embrace of a legacy-hungry Obama administration, the Iran lobby managed to achieve a deal which makes the United States the de facto most powerful backer of Islamic terrorism in the world.

How did this happen?

Background

Since its 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has been the epicenter of Islamic terrorism throughout the region and the world.  Immediately following Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Tehran from France and ascension to power, Iran took American hostages at the embassy in Tehran.  In 1983, Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 307, including 241 American servicemen.  In 1994, Iran’s proxy Hezbollah bombed a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 and wounding more than 300.  Sponsors of both Hamas and Hezbollah, a New York court found that Iran materially supported and directed Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks.

In the decades since the Islamic Republic came into existence, Tehran has proved eager to embrace terror, partnering with various factions around the world.  Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, translated the work of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading author and theorist, Sayyid Qutb, into Persian, proving that Sunnis (Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Al Qaeda, etc.) and Shiites (Iran, Hezbollah) will gladly cooperate in terrorizing the West.

Today, Iran’s presence in Latin America is also strong.  In countries such as Venezuela, Mexico, Peru, and Argentina, Iranian-backed Islamic terror cells work hand-in-hand with drug cartels.  The tri-border region between Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil is Hezbollah’s main hub in South America.  Terrorists, cartels, and organized crime “move liquor electronic goods, cocaine, refugees, even babies” across the region’s three frontiers.  Following the 1992 and 1994 bombings in Buenos Aires, western intelligence tracked Islamic terrorist activity to the tri-border region.  Today, although intelligence continues to operate in the area, the criminal activity is so rampant that local authorities rarely interfere.

Partnering with South American cartels and organized crime provides a revenue source for terror, while increasing Iran’s strategic footprint in our southern hemisphere.  It also highlights a unique problem related to the non-enforcement of security on America’s southern border.

The Trailblazers: Namazi & Nemazee

The Iran lobby of today appears to have its origins in the work of two individuals.  One of those individuals is Baquer Namazi, who heads a central and critical Iranian non-governmental organization (NGO).  Namazi’s son, Siamak, co-founded the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) with Trita Parsi, who was a consultant to Republican Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio.

The other individual is Hassan Namazee, who was a major political fundraiser, especially (but not exclusively) for Democrats.  He is now serving a prison sentence after admitting guilt in committing bank fraud.

Baquer Namazi and Hamyaran – Corruption and Influence through NGOs and the United Nations

In 1998, elements within the Iranian government, Iranian NGO community, and international organizations (including the United Nations) formed the NGO Hamyaran.  It was conceived as, and operates as, an “umbrella” NGO for all other Iranian state-connected NGOs.

As one source explains:

“In addition to monitoring and controlling the Iran’s NGOs, Hamyaran is charged with channeling all contacts and relations of the NGOs with the international organizations and the UN. Under the supervision of the government, Hamyaran is also charged with creating communication channels with the Iranians living in the US.”

In a word, Hamyaran is Tehran’s organization to police and propagate the pro-Iranian (and thus pro-Mullah) message within the United States, and more broadly to the West.  It does this under the auspices of the United Nations.

Since Hamyaran’s founding in 1998 by Dr. Hossein Malek-Afzali, a high ranking Iranian government official who at one time served in President Ahmadinejad’s cabinet, the NGO has been co-led by Malek Afzali and Baquer Namazi.

  • Like Malek-Afzali, Baquer Namazi is closely tied to the government in Tehran. Baquer was previously the governor of the province of Khuzestan, in addition to holding multiple other high level positions in the government.  He has also held positions with the United Nations, including being a Member of the Advisory Panel of U.N. Center for Regional Development, Nagoya.
  • Namazi’s son, Siamak, founded the International Association of Iranian Managers (I-AIM). The organization is dedicated to recruiting high-powered “Iranian elites” in the United States.
  • Siamak’s partner in I-AIM, Ali Mostashari, was a strategic advisor to the Assistant Secretary General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa at the United Nations Development Program. He has been accused by reporters of directing U.N. funds into Iran for his own benefit and the benefit of the ruling Mullahs.
  • Siamak Namazi, with Republican consultant Trita Parsi, founded the National Iranian-American Council. It is arguably the primary lobbying arm of Tehran in Washington, D.C.

Like many of the Obama administration’s other scandals, it is clear from the facts above that the United Nations was used to supersede American law and sovereignty.  Furthermore, in keeping with the trends of Obama scandals, several tax-exempt NGOs were central to the plan.  This points to an inept, if not complicit, I.R.S.

Hassan Nemazee & Iranian- American PAC (IAPAC): Democrat Fundraiser Extraordinaire

If Baquer Namazi, his son Siamak, and their associates cemented the relationship between the Iran lobby and United Nations, Hassan Nemazee[i] was the Iran lobby’s man in the Democrat Party.  Before admitting to bank fraud in 2010, Nemazee was a star fundraiser for top Democrats.

  • In 2008, Nemazee served as one of Hillary Clinton’s national fundraising chairmen when she was running against Barack Obama in the Democrat primary.
  • Nemazee was eventually credited by the Obama campaign with helping raise $500,000, following Clinton’s defeat in the primary. He donated an additional $50,000 to Obama’s inauguration committee.
  • Also in 2008, Nemazee donated $9,200 to Biden for President Inc.
  • In 2007, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was the featured guest speaker at IAPAC’s annual New York City reception.
  • In 2006, Senator Chuck Schumer asked Nemazee to serve as finance chairman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Nemazee raised $119 million, helping to retake the Senate for Democrats and installing Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader.
  • In 2004, Nemazee raised $500,000 for Democrat nominee (and current Secretary of State) John Kerry. Kerry, of course, was the lynchpin in securing the Iranian nuclear deal.
  • In 2000, Nemazee donated $50,000 to the Gore-Lieberman Recount Committee.

 

Hassan Nemazee (right) with Terry McAuliffe

Yet Nemazee’s influence was not limited exclusively to the Democrat Party, and neither is the Iran lobby’s influence in general.   He and his partner, Alan Quasha had a history of giving to Republicans, too.

  • Before joining with the Clintons, Nemazee gave to Republican senators, including: Jesse Helms (R-NC), Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Alfonse D’Amato (R-NY).
  • Nemazee was represented in his fraud case by attorney Marc Mukasey, son of former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2007.
  • In the 1980s, Namazee’s business partner, Alan Quasha, provided George W. Bush a spot on the board of his oil company, Harken Energy.
  • Quasha is a decidedly bipartisan donor: he gave to Bush and Gore in 2000, to Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, and Barack Obama and Chris Dodd in 2008.

Hassan Nemazee was on the board of the Iranian-American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) until 2009.   Public disclosures of IAPAC highlight the bi-partisan nature of their enterprise; from 2008-2014, it gave significantly to Republicans and Democrats.

  • 2014 Total Spent: $87,668       Democrats: 63%               Republicans: 37%
  • 2012 Total Spent: $88,264       Democrats: 59%               Republicans: 41%
  • 2010 Total Spent: $67,609       Democrats: 46%               Republicans: 38%
  • 2008 Total Spent: $395,852     Democrats: 52%               Republicans: 48%
  • 2006 Total Spent: $263,579     Democrats: 58%               Republicans: 42%
  • 2004 Total Spent: $224,871     Democrats: 42%               Republicans: 58%

Source: OpenSecrets.org

(See here for more information related to IAPAC campaign contributions; also available on a per-candidate basis.  A full list of IAPAC endorsed candidates can be found on their website, here.)

Note that the greatest sum of money was spent by IAPAC in 2008, the year that Barack Hussein Obama was elected to the Presidency.  He brought with him his Iranian-born advisor, Valerie Jarrett.

National Iranian-American Council (NIAC)

The Iranian lobby that convinced Washington to thaw relations with the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terror evolved out of the work of Baquer Namazi and Hassan Nemazee, as well as the guiding hand and money of George Soros.

The National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) is the primary conduit for Tehran’s lobby efforts in Washington, D.C.  NIAC managed to pressure the U.S. government to subordinate international security and stability to narrow corporate interests, access Iranian markets, and the revenues that it can potentially provide.

Let’s take a closer look at one of NIAC’s co-founders, Siamak Namazi.

Siamak Namazi – Background Information

  • Son of Baquer Namazi. Family is close to Iranian regime; in particular, they are a core part of the (former president) Rafsanjani faction within Iran.
  • Co-founder of NIAC with Trita Parsi.
  • Works for family company, the Iranian-based consultancy called Atieh Bahar Consulting (AB). The consultancy serves as a facilitator for outside business interests looking to enter the Iranian market.  It does so by brokering relationships with key officials and Iranian powerbrokers.
  • Currently the Head of Strategic Planning at the United Arab Emirates Crescent Petroleum. Gulftainer, which, like Crescent Petroleum, is owned by the Crescent Group, recently acquired a long-term lease of Port Canaveral for container operations.  It is in the immediate vicinity of a nuclear sub pen, a USAF base, and NASA.

The Namazi family business, Atieh Bahar Consulting, depends on foreign business interest in Iran to generate revenues.  Their work is done with the blessing of Tehran, and thus they are in good graces with the Islamic Republic and its ruling Mullahs.

Following first President Clinton’s sanctions on Iran, and then the nuclear issue, American business was blocked from entering the Iranian market.   Siamak needed a way to circumvent Clinton’s sanctions.  He found an academic partner in Trita Parsi, who also brought his critical experience as a Washington-based political consultant.

Siamak Namazi

In 2002, Siamak Namazi, son of Baquer, co-founded the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC).
His partner in this new enterprise was Trita Parsi, an Iranian Swede, then employed as a political consultant to Congressman Robert Ney (R-OH).  (Note: In 2006, Ney pled guilty to corruption charges related to the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and served 17 months in prison.)

Beginning in 1997, Parsi systematically convinced Ney to lobby for the normalization of Iranian diplomatic and economic relations.  He did this through his original organization, Iranians for International Cooperation (IIC).

In the words taken from a document prepared by Parsi himself:

“The first achievement of IIC can be traced back to the summer of 1997 when Trita Parsi worked as a political consultant for Congressman Robert Ney of Ohio. Congressman Ney was at the time a proponent of the US’s isolation policy of Iran and had contacts with the Mujahedine Khalq terrorist organization. Mr. Parsi was hired to consult the Ohio Congressman on his policy vis-à-vis Iran, and persuade him to reconsider his position in favor of a pro-dialogue, pro-engagement policy.”

Like Hamyaran, which is at the center of the Iranian NGO web, NIAC is at the center of the Iran lobby’s web.  It serves as a magnet for Iranian Americans who are sympathetic to Tehran, and in many cases have a financial interest in normalizing relations.

NIAC’s Influence in the United States

NIAC has approximately 5,000 dues paying members, and access to tens of thousands of additional fellow travelers.   The below profiles some of NIAC’s most accomplished associates.

  • Trita Parsi – In addition to the information above, Trita Parsi has courted the leading presidential advisors, Republican and Democrat, including those to George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama. In 2003, Trita had Congressman Ney present a “grand bargain” to Karl Rove from the Iranian government.  Parsi is a practical VIP in the Obama White House, reportedly consulting with Valerie Jarrett and advising both the State Department and the CIA.
  • Reza Marashi – A former employee of AB Consulting, Marashi found employment with the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, which functions as a think tank for the Pentagon. Later he worked for the Office of Iranian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State “as a desk officer overseeing Iran democracy and human-rights programs.”
  • Sahar Nowrouzzadeh – A top advisor to Obama on Iran policy, Nowrouzzadeh is National Security Council director for Iran at the White House. Prior to this position, she worked at the State Department and Department of Defense.

Of course, NIAC propagandists like Marashi and Nowrouzzadeh had a more than friendly audience in the Obama administration: they had a White House willing to finish their work for them.  The whole history of the administration showcases Obama’s and Valerie Jarrett’s infatuation with Iran.

  • Prior to the 2008 election, the Obama team dispatched former ambassador William G. Miller to Iran, informing the Mullahs that they would get a better deal once Obama was in office.
  • Obama ignored the revolutionary Green Movement in 2009, and let the Iranian government kill and imprison the reform-minded protestors.
  • Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State at the time of the Green Movement’s uprising, was advised by Trita Parsi not to support the protesters.
  • John Kerry’s son-in-law’s best man at his daughter’s wedding is the son of Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, the Iranian’s main negotiator in nuclear talks.

Minutes from a 2007 NIAC Board of Directors meeting make it clear that NIAC was in contact with and supportive of Hassan Nemazee’s lobbying efforts.  From the minutes:

“Goli Ameri initiative and the creation of PAAIA with Hassan Nemazee and others… Trita mentioned key Silicon Valley’s IA’s as having contributed… and expressed admiration for Goli Ameri’s fundraising ability… Kami wondered whether we could ask PAAIA to join us in the ‘stop the war’ cause.”

Finally, as if it was written in the stars that the Obama administration would usher in an Iranian nuclear regime, Valerie Jarret was born in Shiraz, Iran, in a hospital named after Hassan Nemazee’s father.

Trita Parsi

NIAC Action – NIAC’s New Political Action Committee

In the opening weeks of the controversy over the Iranian nuclear deal this year, NIAC launched its own political action committee.  A 501(c)(4) organization (i.e., tax exempt), NIAC Action “aims to direct money from the Iranian-American community, which is relatively well-off compared to other immigrant groups, toward more concerted political activism.”

From his earliest days as a pro-Iranian activist, Trita Parsi was deeply impressed by the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC).  Perhaps the clearest indication of the pro-Iranian lobbyists’ awe of the Israeli lobby was the name chosen to be AIPAC’s Iranian counterpart – IAPAC (mentioned above).

NIAC Action is “explicitly meant to counter the influence of AIPAC.”  Minutes from the 2007 NIAC Board of Directors meeting convey NIAC’s near obsession with the Israeli lobby:

“Trita clarified the fact that AIPAC does not debate – they are all-action and only move forward with their clear agenda.  Alex raised the fact that AIPAC is successful in some measure because they operate ‘under the radar’ and employ the axiom ‘don’t do it publicly.’  ‘A lobby is a night flower’ quote was mentioned by Trita as another example of how to lobby effectively.”

Indeed, the origins and thinking of the Iran lobby have been anti-Israel, and anti-American, from the outset.

The Open (Iranian) Society of George Soros

Billionaire investor and political manipulator George Soros played a significant role in shaping and funding the Iranian lobby.  As in the Arab Spring, Soros deliberately sided with the most extreme elements in Iran, who, like the Muslim Brotherhood, also happen to be the most anti-Semitic.

Soros, whose wealth from investing and hedge fund management exceeds $20 billion, has used his political influence to affect political “change” in multiple countries.  For example, in Ukraine, he has funded NGOs going back to the Cold War.  In Egypt, he was instrumental in ousting long-time American ally Hosni Mubarak, and beginning the so-called Arab Spring.

Likewise, Soros has funded, and supported otherwise, various organizations that have been influential in opening Iran to the West.

  • In 2006, the National-Iranian American Council (NIAC), led by Trita Parsi, received $50,000 from Soros’s Open Society Institute.
  • In 2009, NIAC received $125,000 from the Open Society Institute, and an additional $25,000 from its foundation, the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
  • Minutes from a 2007 NIAC Board of Directors meeting indicate that Parsi spent a weekend strategizing with Steve Clemons (spelled “Clemence” in linked document) of the Soros-funded New America Foundation. They discussed how to counter the $75 million that the U.S. government had allocated to support regime change in Iran.
  • NIAC hosted Ambassador Thomas Pickering to lead a panel discussion on “finding the nuclear fix,” a reference to Iran’s standoff with the West. Not only is Pickering a trustee at Soros’ International Crisis Group, but he helped cover up the Benghazi scandal, and has ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (a Muslim Brotherhood front organization).
  • In June 2015, Pickering argued on NPR that the Iranian nuclear deal was good policy.

Soros and the National Endowment for Democracy

Moreover, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is known to be closely associated with George Soros.  It also funded NIAC.

In 2012, documents released by a Malaysian press outfit detailed receiving grants from the National Endowment for Democracy.  Evidencing the corruption that Soros money brings to media, a former news editor of the outfit had resigned a decade earlier because of the NED’s relationship with Soros.

Similarly, NED’s connection to Soros and various “color revolutions,” which have occurred since 2000 (e.g., Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution and Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution), caused Russia to ban the NED this summer.

  • NED is technically a private institution that receives an annual appropriation from the U.S. Congress through the State Department. Many speculate it is also funded privately by Soros.
  • In 2002, shortly after NIAC was formed by Trita Parsi and Siamak Namazi, the National Endowment for Democracy expedited an application for grant money to NIAC.
  • NIAC is estimated to have received approximately $200,000 in grants from the NED.
  • NIAC’s spent the NED grant money on sending two NIAC members to work with Baquer Namazi’s Hamyaran, the Iranian government’s umbrella NGO. Allegedly NIAC was teaching Hamyaran to use “computer based digital media.”

The Ploughshares Fund

The Ploughshares Fund, an international charity, characterizes itself as “a global security foundation.  [Ploughshares] support[s] experts and advocates who implement smart strategies to secure a more peaceful world, including one free of nuclear weapons.”

The Ploughshares Fund describes the Iranian nuclear deal as “a major advance for global security.”  Joe Cirincione, its president, is quoted as saying on July 14, 2015:

“This is a very good deal. It is a major victory for American national security. We have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb, without putting a single U.S. soldier in harm’s way.”

The Ploughshares Fund, besides being a strong proponent of the Iranian nuclear deal, is a Soros-funded operation, with several key connections to American policy makers, and NIAC.

  • Former Secretary of Defense under Obama, Chuck Hagel (a Republican), was on the Board of the Ploughshares Fund when nominated by Obama. (He joined Ploughshares in 2009.)  Ploughshares applauded his nomination to Secretary of Defense.
  • One of the primary advocates of the Iranian nuclear deal for the Obama administration is Robert Creamer. The Wall Street Journal reviewed a transcript of a conference call hosted by Ploughshares, which quoted Creamer as saying: “The other side will go crazy. We have to be really clear that it’s a good deal.”
  • According to Aaron Klein at WND, “a primary Ploughshares donor is the Tides Foundation, a money tunnel in which leftist donors provide funds to finance other radical groups. Tides is itself funded by Soros.”
  • One of Ploughshares other benefactors is Soros’s Open Society Institute.
  • The Ploughshares Fund has partnered with other Soros-funded and anti-Israel groups including Code Pink, the Institute for Policy Studies, and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
  • Former CIA covert officer Valerie Plame, who accused President George W. Bush of outing her in an attempt to intimidate, was hired by Ploughshares Fund in September 2015. In fact, it was Undersecretary of State, Richard Armitage, who, while serving under Colin Powell, “outed” Plame.  The manufactured scandal was used to smear and discredit President Bush, who, at the time, was trying to counter Iran’s influence in Iraq.
  • Powell has come out in support of the Iranian nuclear deal: his support is touted by Ploughshares.
  • Finally, a recent attack piece on one of the deal’s critics provides additional evidence of Soros’s determination to seal the deal. Media Matters, a Soros-funded operation, published a weak retort to an exposé in The Daily Beast.   Among other claims, it attempts to dismiss the overwhelmingly obvious connection between the Namazis and NIAC.

On more than one occasion (see here and here), Soros has used his relationship with the American government for his own financial benefit.  Opening Iran, with the world’s second largest natural gas reserves and fourth largest oil reserves, could prove a windfall for businesses with the right political connections.

Is it Soros’s greed that caused him to support this deal?  Is it his anti-Semitism?  Perhaps, most likely, it is the twisted intersection of both.

Martin Indyk: The Soros-linked, Foreign-funded Salesman for the Iranian Deal

Ambassador Martin Indyk has served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel twice (April 1995 to September 1997 and January 2000 to July 2001), appointed both times by President Bill Clinton.  In July 2013, when Indyk was at the Brookings Institution, Obama appointed Indyk to be Washington’s special Middle East envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.  Indyk has been a vocal critic of Israel – to the point of being insulting – and one of the strongest voices in favor of the Iranian nuclear deal.

  • Indyk is the Executive Vice President at the Brookings Institution and a founding director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings (located in Doha, Qatar).
  • The President of the Brookings Institution is Strobe Talbott, a friend and advisor of George Soros who has interviewed him on the War on Terror.
  • In September 2014, The New York Times ran a story about the influence of foreign governments on American think tanks. The Brookings Institution was one of their focuses.
  • In March 2013, Indyk was a panelist at the Soros-funded Center for American Progress. The topic of the discussion was U.S. policy in the Middle East.
  • In 2013, while Indyk was serving as Obama’s special envoy, the Brookings Institution accepted a $14.8 million check from the State of Qatar, a known backer of Hamas in Gaza.
  • Indyk has a history of degrading and insulting comments directed at Israel. He has used the analogy of the United States as a “circus master” who “crack[s] the whip” and gets Israel and other countries in the Middle East to “move around in an orderly fashion.”
  • He has also justified terrorist violence against Israelis, calling it “a plausible safety valve” through which Palestinians can “vent their anger.”

On the topic of the Iran nuclear deal, Indyk has written a pro-deal position paper for Brookings, the most influential think tank in Washington, D.C., (Parts One and Two).  Calling for collaboration with the terror state as a means to avoid war, Indyk writes, “Without an agreement, it is impossible to imagine cooperation with Iran on regional issues… With an agreement, collaboration . . . becomes possible.”

martin indyk

The folly of engaging a soon-to-be nuclear terror state notwithstanding, Indyk proved that he was completely uninterested in the Israeli perspective (which is driven by self-preservation) through an interchange with the former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren.  Following the release of Oren’s book, in which he criticized the Obama administration, Indyk penned a critical review for Foreign Affairs.  He then verbally sparred with Oren on CNN.  Throughout, there is little indication that Israeli and regional (e.g., Jordanian, Saudi Arabian, Egyptian) security concerns figure into Ambassador Indyk’s thinking.

Valerie Jarrett – The Puppetmaster

President Obama’s Senior Advisor is the Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett.  It was Jarrett who, when working for Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago, first introduced a young Michelle Robinson to Barack Obama.  Ever since then, her influence over the first couple is legendary.  Likely as a result of this domineering influence, other Presidential advisors do not trust Jarrett, nor appreciate her voice in Obama’s ear.  In the words of one former administration official, other presidential advisors “think she’s a spy.”

Reinforcing this view of Jarrett, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), says in regard to Jarrett “She seems to have her tentacles into every issue and every topic… Her name ultimately always comes up.”

The Iranian deal is no exception to the rule:

  • In 2012, news broke that Valerie Jarrett had been acting personally as an emissary to Iran. According to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, Jarrett held meetings with Iranian officials in Bahrain over a period of several months.
  • A month prior to the report in Yediot Ahronot, an unnamed source reported that negotiations between Iran and the United States had occurred in Doha, Qatar. (Note: Doha is the home of the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi.  It is also where the Taliban opened an embassy in 2013.)  In hindsight, it is very likely Jarrett was the American representative at these talks.
  • Former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, wrote in his memoir that Jarrett (as well as other advisors such as David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs) “[has] a role in national security decision making that I had not previously experienced.”
  • Jarrett has earned the menacing nickname “Night Stalker” because of her exclusive, regular visits to the White House’s private residence after dark.
  • Gen. Paul E. Vallely (Ret.) believes that Valerie Jarrett is responsible for the purge of top-level military commanders over the last several years.
  • Jarrett comes from a family of spies, subversives, and aspirational totalitarians. The FBI had a lengthy file on Jarrett’s father, James Bowman, because he was a Big “C”  Bowman, for example, was in communication with the paid Soviet agent, Alfred Stern.
  • Jarrett’s grandmother, Dorothy Taylor, was an early activist with Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood’s founder was eugenicist Margaret Sanger, who published in her magazine Birth Control an article submitted by Ernst Rüdin, founder of the Nazi Society for Racial Hygiene.  The pseudo-science of “racial hygiene” was the Third Reich’s way of justifying their policy of exterminating “undesirables” – the Holocaust – including Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, etc.  (More on Jarrett’s family available here.)

Who is really pulling the strings?

The elusive and mysterious Jarrett, dubbed by The New Republic as “The Obama Whisperer,” undoubtedly found a willing partner in George Soros to help realize her dream of normalizing relations with Iran, thus paving the way for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.  Soros has provided the financial and organizational means to Jarrett, who controls the President of the United States of America.  Together, the two of them leveraged the Iranian lobby as a counterweight against Israel.  Throughout the ordeal, Jarrett’s puppet responded expertly as his strings were pulled.

In the haunting words of Jarrett herself, regarding Obama, “We have kind of a mind meld… And chances are, what he wants to do is what I’d want to do.

Or else….?

Complicity of the GOP

Although the preponderance of the responsibility for the Iranian nuclear deal rests with the progressive left, especially with Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, and George Soros, it behooves recounting the key ways in which Republicans have helped make this disastrous deal a reality.

  • Disgraced Republican Representative Robert Ney helped Trita Parsi to establish the National-Iranian-American Council. Indeed, without Ney and his connections to the establishment (including Karl Rove), it is difficult to conceive how Parsi would have been able to succeed in founding NIAC.
  • Several Republican members of Congress have accepted campaign donations from the Hassan Namazee-connected IAPAC (see above).
  • Obama-appointed Secretary of Defense, Republican Chuck Hagel, was a board member of the Ploughshares Fund, and thus connected to George Soros and various pro-Islamic organizations.
  • Finally, as Andrew McCarthy points out, The Boeing Company is one potential big winner in the deal. They’re also a big GOP donor.  Updating even a fraction of Iran’s commercial airline fleet would be a huge contract.  Specific language was included in the final deal to allow U.S. aircraft manufacturers to sell to Iran, likely to benefit Boeing.  (It is worth noting here Boeing’s massive contracts with the terror-finance center of Qatar.)

Mitch McConnell and John Boehner control Congress, and therefore the power of the purse.  This gives them far more than the ability to merely throw sand in Obama’s gears.  If they had the will, the Iranian deal could have been stopped by threatening to defund Obama’s agenda, period.

Instead, McConnell lamely surrendered and Boehner passed a series of useless resolutions designed to make the Republican base feel good.  Symbolic votes, however, will not stop Iran.

The Republican-controlled Congress put on a decent show for voters, but has done nothing, and apparently has no intention, to stop this disastrous agreement from becoming accepted American policy.

Sellout of Sovereignty to International Business Interests

A few words should be included here on the legal and commercial nature of the Iranian nuclear deal.  The deal’s highly abnormal formulation (not technically a treaty, not strictly a U.N. agreement) creates a number of new paradigms that suggest American sovereignty was not even a thought among the negotiators.  Indeed, it is not even clear that American companies stand to gain much from the deal, in comparison to their European, Russian, and Chinese counterparts.

  • Instead of a traditional treaty, which requires ratification by the U.S. Senate, this deal is a complex of U.N.-centered agreements, overlapping with bi-lateral agreements.
  • Due to the deal’s unusual structure, the Senate was basically powerless to stop it. (To defeat it, Congressional Republicans could have used political guerilla tactics, such as defunding Obama’s agenda.)  This impotence was reinforced once the U.N. Security Council blessed the deal shortly after it was agreed upon by the negotiating parties.
  • The agreement included secret “side deals” that were not presented to the Senate. Included in the deal’s provisions are guarantees for business that, regardless of Iran’s compliance with the agreement, companies would be allowed to continue to do business with Iran.  The agreement also severely limits Congress’s ability to re-impose sanctions on Iran.
  • Almost immediately after the deal was complete, Russia announced that it lifted a ban on the sale of a sophisticated missile system used for air-defense.
  • Likewise, China announced that they would sell Iran 24 J-10 fighter jets. The value of the deal is estimated at $1 billion.
  • Europe is eager to embrace the newly legitimated Iran. Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Austria, Spain, Poland, and Sweden all have plans for Iranian business.

According to one U.S.-based portfolio manager: “I think that the American companies will be welcomed in Iran… This is not a game for junior companies, and I call juniors anything below a billion-dollar market cap. This is a big-money game.”

Yet, strangely, U.S. sanctions on the Iranian regime will remain in force:

“After years of painstaking negotiations and at great political cost, the Obama administration has created a means for foreign businesses to re-enter Iran—but U.S. law still sidelines all but the biggest American multinationals.

Even in the case of big U.S. corporations with foreign subsidiaries, any U.S. citizen employed by an overseas unit would likely be prohibited from participating in transactions with Iran unless granted permission by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Controls, experts said.”

In effect, the deal secures Iranian markets for foreign companies, while American firms still face complex legal and regulatory hurdles should they choose to engage the Iranian market.

Consequences/Conclusions

The information presented above demands that certain observations are called out, and conclusions drawn.

  • Valerie Jarrett, John Kerry, and George Soros have used Barack Hussein Obama and the Presidency to legitimize Islamic terror. Their plans were helped along by a patient and methodical domestic Iranian lobby.
  • The United States government, in particular the White House and Congress, are deeply corrupt. The representatives of the American people put a higher value on personal profit and reelection than they do on national security and the security of America’s allies.  According to a recent Gallup poll, a full 75% of Americans see “widespread corruption” in their government.
  • The sovereignty of the United States has been sold to the international highest bidder. Congress no longer serves as an effective check on treaty-making. The U.S.A.’s foreign policy is now largely directed by the United Nations, which is, in turn, dominated by the 57-state Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
  • The Obama administration seems to be more interested in the profitability of foreign companies as opposed to domestic companies. Indeed, a reasonable reading of events indicates that Obama viewed foreign business interests as his best allies in securing the Iran nuclear deal.
  • IAPAC (Iranian-American Political Action Committee) donated the most money to political candidates in 2008. This was certainly to ensure the election of Barack Hussein Obama.
  • From the beginning, the bi-partisan Iranian lobby was tied to Tehran, the United Nations, and George Soros.
  • The United States’ reputation is now tied to that of Iran, the most prolific state sponsor of Islamic terror. Unless a military strike cripples the Iranian nuclear facilities, the terror regime will very soon have nuclear weapons with which to strike Israel, the Gulf region, Europe, and any other enemy within range.

Finally, while it is impossible to predict the future, a few outcomes appear almost certain as a result of the deal.

  • War is more, not less, likely – the arms race has already begun in the region, beginning with a $1 billion deal agreed upon in September between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
  • The United States has lost the trust of Israel. Russia is filling the American vacuum in the Middle East and Africa (i.e. Egypt, Libya, etc.).
  • America’s traditional Gulf allies, who view Iran and their designs for regional hegemony with great trepidation, are rethinking their alliance with Washington. The ice is melting fast, and previously unthinkable alliances and/or cooperation at various levels are taking place.
  • Political Islam is fully legitimized, rather than reformed to be peaceful. Obama’s acquiescence of Tehran is in direct contrast to his harsh treatment of Cairo, and the reform-minded Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Regardless of who the next American President may be, what will he or she do to rectify this world class nuclear debacle?

 

House of Bribes: How the United States led the way to a Nuclear Iran is a product of the New Coalition of Concerned Citizens:

Adina Kutnicki, Andrea Shea King, Dr. Ashraf Ramelah, Benjamin Smith, Brent Parrish, Charles Ortel, Denise Simon, Dick Manasseri, Gary Kubiak, Hannah Szenes, Right Side News, Marcus Kohan, General Paul E. Vallely, Regina Thomson, Scott Smith, Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, Colonel Thomas Snodgrass, Trevor Loudon, Wallace Bruschweiler, and William Palumbo.

 

[i] Namazi and Nemazee: A Note on Names. It may be that Namazi and Nemazee are different transliterations of the same Persian name.   One internet source suggests that ‘Nemazee’ was the spelling of the name for branch of the family residing in Hong Kong.  Indeed, the Nemazee family was in China and involved with the opium trade.  Though the authors make no claim at a relationship, the possibility seems plausible given the same phonetics and overlapping relationships, interests, and objectives regarding Iran’s relationship with the United States.

Netanyahu Exposes the United Nations and Iran’s Silence

Netanyahu in Fiery Speech, Blasts UN Silence on Iran Threats

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took the podium on Thursday at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York, speaking at the UN headquarters just a day after Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas announced he was no longer bound by the 1994 Oslo Accords from the same platform.

He began his speech by saying: “After three days of listening to world leaders praising the deal with Iran, I begin my speech by saying, ladies and gentlemen, check your enthusiasm at the door. This deal doesn’t make peace more likely. By fueling Iran’s aggressions by billions of dollars in sanctions relief it makes war more likely.

“In the last six months alone, since the nuclear deal’s framework was announced in Lausanne, Iran has boosted supplies of devastating weapons to Syria; sent more soldiers into Syria to prop up Assad’s brutal regime; shipped weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen, including another shipment just a few days ago. Hezbollah smuggled in SA-22 missiles to down our planes.”

“Iran smuggled to Hezbollah missiles to accurately hit any target in Israel; aided Hamas and Islamic Jihad with armed drones in Gaza and the West Bank. In the Golan Heights, Iranian operatives recently fired rockets on Israel. Israel will continue to respond forcefully to any attacks to it from Syria, and will block transfer of weapons to Hezbollah through Syria.”

“The days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies… those days are over!” he asserted.

‘Am Yisrael Chai!’

“I know that preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons remains the official policy of the international community,” he added. “But no one should question Israel’s determination to defend itself against those who seek our destruction. For in every generation there were those who rose up to destroy our people. Babylonia and Rome; Inquisition and expulsion; in modern times – pogroms and Holocaust. Yet the Jewish people persevered.

“And now another regime has arisen, swearing to destroy Israel. That regime would be wise to consider this: I stand here today representing Israel, a country 67 years young, but the nation state of a people nearly 4,000 years old. Yet the empires of Babylonia and Rome are not represented in this hall of nations. Neither is the “Thousand year Reich.” Those seemingly invincible empires are gone, but the people of Israel lives.”

He thundered: “Am Yisrael Chai!”

“I wish I could take comfort in the claim that this deal blocks Iran’s path to nuclear weapons, but I can’t, because it doesn’t,” Netanyahu continued. “This deal does place several constraints on Iran’s nuclear program, and rightly so. Because the international community recognizes that Iran is so dangerous. But here’s the catch: under the deal, if Iran becomes more dangerous, the most important constraints will still be lifted by year 10 and by year 15. That will place a militant Islamic terror regime weeks away from having enough fissile material for an entire arsenal of bombs. That just doesn’t make any sense.”

“The vast majority of Israelis believe that this nuclear deal with Iran is a very bad deal,” he told the Assembly. “And what makes matters even worse is that we see a world celebrating this bad deal; rushing to embrace and do business with a regime openly comitted to our destruction. Last week, Major General Salehi, Commander of Iran’s army, proclaimed this: ‘We will annihilate Israel for sure, we are glad that we are in the forefront of executing the Supreme Leader’s order to destroy Israel.’

30 seconds of silence

And as for the Supreme Leader himself – a few days after the nuclear deal was announced, he released his latest book. Here it is,” said the Israeli leader, holding up a copy of the orange and yellow book. “It’s a 400 page screed detailing his plan to destroy the state of Israel. Last month, Khamenei once again made his genocidal intentions clear before Iran’s top clerical body, the Assembly of Experts. He spoke about Israel, home to over 6 million Jews. He pledged, ‘There will be no Israel in 25 years.’

An angry Netanyahu intoned: “Seventy years after the murder of 6 million Jews, Iran’s rulers promised to destroy my country, murder my people! And the response from this body; the response from nearly every one of the governments represented here, has been absolutely nothing. Utter silence. Deafening silence.”

At this point, Netanyahu employed a creative oratory device and remained silent for a full 30 seconds.

“The dreams of our people, enshrined for eternity by the great prophets of the Bible – those dreams will be fully realized only when there is peace. As the Middle East descends into chaos, Israel’s peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan are two cornerstones of stability.

“Israel remains committed to achieving peace with the Palestinians as well,” he said. “Israelis know the price of war. I know the price of war. I was nearly killed in battle. I lost many friends. I lost my beloved brother Yoni. Those who know the price of war can best appreciate what the blessings of peace would mean for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren.

Palestinians continue rejectionism

“I am prepared to immediately, immediately, resume direct peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority without any preconditions whatsoever.

Unfortunately, President Abbas said yesterday that he is not prepared to do this. Well, I hope he changes his mind. Because I remain committed to a vision of two states for two peoples in which a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizes the Jewish state.

“The peace process began over two decades ago, yet despite the best efforts of six Israeli prime ministers, Rabin, Peres, Barak, Sharon, Olmert and myself, the Palestinians continually refuse to make a final peace with Israel. You heard that rejectionism yet again only yesterday from President Abbas. How can Israel make peace with a Palestinian partner who refuses to even sit at the negotiating table?”

“The UN won’t help peace by trying to impose solutions or by encouraging Palestinian rejectionism,” he stated. “And the UN should do one more thing: the UN should finally rid itself of the obsessive bashing of Israel. Here’s just one absurd example of this obsession: in four years of horrific violence in Syria, more than a quarter of a million people have lost their lives. That’s more than 10 times the number of Israelis and Palestinians combined who have lost their lives in a century of conflict between us. Yet last year this assembly adopted 20 resolutions against Israel. Count them: twenty! Talk about disproportion.”

‘Decisive rebuttal’

Sources close to Netanyahu had said prior to Wednesday night’s speech that his address was to be a decisive rebuttal to Abbas’s lies, in which the PLO chairman accused Israel of breaking international law and agreements, and announced the PA no longer is committed to the very accords that incidentally created the PA.

Just after Abbas’s “bombshell” UN speech on Wednesday, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flag was raised at the UN headquarters for the first time ever.

Ironically, the PLO had its status as an internationally recognized terrorist organization removed in the Oslo Accords – the same Accords that Abbas had just minutes earlier renounced.

Twisted: Arab Countries More Right than Kerry and Europe

Remember when the United States led the world for a better world and was successful?

As the Kurds were once on the side of the United States in Iraq and as up to 400 veterans went back to the fight in Iraq to stand with the Kurds, matters just got exponentially  worse due to Barack Obama betraying the Kurds.

Syria Kurds ask Russia for arms, coordination

YPG chief Sipan Hemo told Sputnik Türkiye that his fighting force wants Russian assistance.

YPG chief Sipan Hemo told Sputnik Türkiye—which is owned by Moscow—that his fighting force requested arms from Russia as well as general military coordination, according to a translation of the interview prepared by Turkey’s Anadolu news agency.

 

“He also called on Moscow to bomb Al-Nusra Front’s positions,” Anadolu added a day after Russia began its airstrikes in Syria on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

 

In turn, the report added that a foreign relations official for the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party—which controls the YPG—said his party was “ready to cooperate with any actor fighting ISIS.”

 

“We are currently receiving support from the US and the [Iraqi Kurdish] Peshmerga,” Idris Naasan added.

 

Syrian Kurds have been rolling back ISIS across large swathes of territory in northern Syria with the assistance of US airstrikes, while also fighting Nusra in the Kurdish-populated Afrin region northwest of Aleppo.

 

The YPG commander’s comments come after a pro-Hezbollah Lebanese daily reported in late September that Russia had set up a coordination process with Kurdish forces and parties in northern Syria.

 

“A Russian military delegate paid a secret visit to a number of Kurdish military commanders in Hasakeh and inspected areas of confrontation between the YPG and the armed groups,” the Al-Akhbar article said.

 

Moscow announced Wednesday that it had begun its air strikes in Syria, insisting it hit “eight ISIS terror group targets,” while rebel groups, the US and France all said Russia had not bombed the extremist group.

 

On Wednesday morning, activists and rebels said that state-of-the-art Russian fighter jets had conducted bombing runs on Lataminah, a town northwest of Hama, as well as a region north of Homs, neither of which are ISIS strongholds.

 

Syrian state TV, for its part, reported that Russian jets hit ISIS targets near Homs’ Rastan and Talbisah—where ISIS does not have a presence—as well as areas near Hama’s Salamiyah, where the group does maintain frontlines with regime troops as well the Nusra Front.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Nine nations or five? In speeches at this year’s U.N. gathering of world leaders, major powers are increasing calls for multilateral negotiations to end the war in Syria. But Europe and the United States are split on who should be at the table.

The Europeans invoke the success of the Iran nuclear talks in arguing for a similar format — with key additions.

Iran negotiated with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany to reach their July 14 agreement. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Wednesday called for a similar arrangement “enlarged with regional partners.”

The Americans, in contrast, want a tighter group, without the Europeans.

Fabius did not elaborate on his vision. But two diplomats told The Associated Press that this time, instead of making demands on Iran, as was the case at the nuclear talks, the Europeans want Tehran to work with them, the Americans, Russians and Chinese on finding a peace formula. Saudi Arabia and Turkey also would be included.

The diplomats — one European the other from the Middle East — said that Britain, France and Germany all spoke up in favor of that format on the sidelines of the U.N summit earlier this week during the first meeting of Iran and the six world powers since the nuclear deal was struck.

But the Americans want any negotiations restricted to themselves, the Russians, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Washington accepted being one of six nations at the nuclear negotiations because they came late. After initially refusing to sit at the same table with Tehran the United States joined in 2006, three years after Britain France and Germany reached out to the Islamic Republic.

A U.S. official familiar with the issue said that in the case of Syria, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry preferred to keep the focus on countries that are directly involved.

He and the diplomats demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the dispute.

Russia, in turn, appears to favor others being kept in the loop, even if they aren’t sitting at the negotiating table.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Security Council on Thursday that Moscow wants “standing channels of communication to ensure a maximally effective fight.” He listed Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the U.S. and China as nations with a role in Syria talks.

Kerry met Lavrov for a third time on the sidelines of the U.N. summit on Wednesday. On Thursday, he huddled with the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

The two told reporters that they swapped ideas about potential options for moving ahead with a political transition in the country and would be examining them in the coming days.

Still, Russia’s launch of airstrikes on Syria on Wednesday appeared to leave serious discussions on who should participate in limbo, with Washington and its allies expressing concern that Moscow might have targeted forces opposed to President Bashar Assad instead of Islamic extremists.

Iran-Saudi rivalries further complicate matters, even if that issue is resolved. The diplomats said that Riyadh is reluctant to sit at any table on the same side as Tehran.

The Saudis want to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, while the Iranians support him. Traditional rivalries have been compounded since last week, with Shiite Iran accusing Sunni Saudi Arabia of gross negligence in the mass deaths of pilgrims in a stampede near Mecca.