Selected Israeli Intelligence Items Revealed on Iran Talks

Posted on July 29, 2015July 29, 2015 by Denise Simon

The deal is just too dangerous, even some Democrats are expressing that dynamic.

On Nov. 26, 2013, three days after the signing of the interim agreement (JPOA) between the powers and Iran, the Iranian delegation returned home to report to their government. According to information obtained by Israeli intelligence, there was a sense of great satisfaction in Tehran then over the agreement and confidence that ultimately Iran would be able to persuade the West to accede to a final deal favorable to Iran. That final deal, signed in Vienna last week, seems to justify that confidence. The intelligence—a swath of which I was given access to in the past month—reveals that the Iranian delegates told their superiors, including one from the office of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, that “our most significant achievement” in the negotiations was America’s consent to the continued enrichment of uranium on Iranian territory.

That makes sense. The West’s recognition of Iran’s right to perform the full nuclear fuel cycle—or enrichment of uranium—was a complete about-face from America’s declared position prior to and during the talks. Senior U.S. and European officials who visited Israel immediately after the negotiations with Iran began in mid 2013 declared, according to the protocols of these meetings, that because of Iran’s repeated violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, “Our aim is that in the final agreement [with Iran] there will be no enrichment at all” on Iranian territory. Later on, in a speech at the Saban Forum in December 2013, President Barack Obama reiterated that in view of Iran’s behavior, the United States did not acknowledge that Iran had any right to enrich fissile material on its soil.

In February 2014, the first crumbling of this commitment was evident, when the head of the U.S. delegation to the talks with Iran, Wendy Sherman, told Israeli officials that while the United States would like Iran to stop enriching uranium altogether, this was “not a realistic” expectation. Iranian foreign ministry officials, during meetings the Tehran following the JPOA, reckoned that from the moment the principle of an Iranian right to enrich uranium was established, it would serve as the basis for the final agreement. And indeed, the final agreement, signed earlier this month, confirmed that assessment.

The sources who granted me access to the information collected by Israel about the Iran talks stressed that it was not obtained through espionage against the United States. It comes, they said, through Israeli spying on Iran, or routine contacts between Israeli officials and representatives of the P5+1 in the talks. The sources showed me only what they wanted me to see, and in these cases there’s always a danger of fraud and fabrication. This said, these sources have proved reliable in the past, and based on my experience with this type of material it appears to be quite credible. No less important, what emerges from the classified material obtained by Israel in the course of the negotiations is largely corroborated by details that have become public since.

In early 2013, the material indicates, Israel learned from its intelligence sources in Iran that the United States held a secret dialogue with senior Iranian representatives in Muscat, Oman. Only toward the end of these talks, in which the Americans persuaded Iran to enter into diplomatic negotiations regarding its nuclear program, did Israel receive an official report about them from the U.S. government. Shortly afterward, the CIA and NSA drastically curtailed its cooperation with Israel on operations aimed at disrupting the Iranian nuclear project, operations that had racked up significant successes over the past decade.

On Nov. 8, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw him off at Ben Gurion Airport and told him that Israel had received intelligence that indicated the United States was ready to sign “a very bad deal” and that the West’s representatives were gradually retreating from the same lines in the sand that they had drawn themselves.

Perusal of the material Netanyahu was basing himself on, and more that has come in since that angry exchange on the tarmac, makes two conclusions fairly clear: The Western delegates gave up on almost every one of the critical issues they had themselves resolved not to give in on, and also that they had distinctly promised Israel they would not do so.

One of the promises made to Israel was that Iran would not be permitted to stockpile uranium. Later it was said that only a small amount would be left in Iran and that anything in excess of that amount would be transferred to Russia for processing that would render it unusable for military purposes. In the final agreement, Iran was permitted to keep 300kgs of enriched uranium; the conversion process would take place in an Iranian plant (nicknamed “The Junk Factory” by Israel intelligence). Iran would also be responsible for processing or selling the huge amount of enriched uranium that is has stockpiled up until today, some 8 tons.

The case of the secret enrichment facility at Qom (known in Israel as the Fordo Facility) is another example of concessions to Iran. The facility was erected in blatant violation of the Non Proliferation Treaty, and P5+1 delegates solemnly promised Israel at a series of meetings in late 2013 that it was to be dismantled and its contents destroyed. In the final agreement, the Iranians were allowed to leave 1,044 centrifuges in place (there are 3,000 now) and to engage in research and in enrichment of radioisotopes.

At the main enrichment facility at Natanz (or Kashan, the name used by the Mossad in its reports) the Iranians are to continue operating 5,060 centrifuges of the 19,000 there at present. Early in the negotiations, the Western representatives demanded that the remaining centrifuges be destroyed. Later on they retreated from this demand, and now the Iranians have had to commit only to mothball them. This way, they will be able to reinstall them at very short notice.

Israeli intelligence points to two plants in Iran’s military industry that are currently engaged in the development of two new types of centrifuge: the Teba and Tesa plants, which are working on the IR6 and the IR8 respectively. The new centrifuges will allow the Iranians to set up smaller enrichment facilities that are much more difficult to detect and that shorten the break-out time to a bomb if and when they decide to dump the agreement.

The Iranians see continued work on advanced centrifuges as very important. On the other hand they doubt their ability to do so covertly, without risking exposure and being accused of breaching the agreement. Thus, Iran’s delegates were instructed to insist on this point. President Obama said at the Saban Forum that Iran has no need for advanced centrifuges and his representatives promised Israel several times that further R&D on them would not be permitted. In the final agreement Iran is permitted to continue developing the advanced centrifuges, albeit with certain restrictions which experts of the Israeli Atomic Energy Committee believe to have only marginal efficacy.

As for the break-out time for the bomb, at the outset of the negotiations, the Western delegates decided that it would be “at least a number of years.” Under the final agreement this has been cut down to one year according to the Americans, and even less than that according to Israeli nuclear experts.

As the signing of the agreement drew nearer, sets of discussions took place in Iran, following which its delegates were instructed to insist on not revealing how far the country had advanced on the military aspects of its nuclear project. Over the past 15 years, a great deal of material has been amassed by the International Atomic Energy Agency—some filed by its own inspectors and some submitted by intelligence agencies—about Iran’s secret effort to develop the military aspects of its nuclear program (which the Iranians call by the codenames PHRC, AMAD, and SPND). The IAEA divides this activity into 12 different areas (metallurgy, timers, fuses, neutron source, hydrodynamic testing, warhead adaptation for the Shihab 3 missile, high explosives, and others) all of which deal with the R&D work that must be done in order to be able to convert enriched material into an actual atom bomb.

The IAEA demanded concrete answers to a number of questions regarding Iran’s activities in these spheres. The agency also asked Iran to allow it to interview 15 Iranian scientists, a list headed by Prof. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, whom Mossad nicknamed “The Brain” behind the military nuclear program. This list has become shorter because six of the 15 have died as a result of assassinations that the Iranians attribute to Israel, but access to the other nine has not been given. Neither have the IAEA’s inspectors been allowed to visit the facilities where the suspected activities take place. The West originally insisted on these points, only to retreat and leave them unsolved in the agreement.

In mid-2015 a new idea was brought up in one of the discussions in Tehran: Iran would agree not to import missiles as long as its own development and production is not limited. This idea is reflected in the final agreement as well, in which Iran is allowed to develop and produce missiles, the means of delivery for nuclear weapons. The longer the negotiations went on, the longer the list of concession made by the United States to Iran kept growing, including the right to leave the heavy water reactor and the heavy water plant at Arak in place and accepting Iran’s refusal of access to the suspect site.

It is possible to argue about the manner in which Netanyahu chose to conduct the dispute about the nuclear agreement with Iran, by clashing head-on and bluntly with the American president. That said, the intelligence material that he was relying on gives rise to fairly unambiguous conclusions: that the Western delegates crossed all of the red lines that they drew themselves and conceded most of what was termed critical at the outset; and that the Iranians have achieved almost all of their goals.

Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Dead Again?

Posted on July 29, 2015July 29, 2015 by Denise Simon

One or more of the Taliban 5 that Obama traded out from Gitmo for Bowe Bergdahl is likely taken control and replaced Mullah Omar, even from the feeble detention in Qatar.

Directly after the attacks of 9/11, the CIA contacted Mullah Omar and said turn over Usama bin Ladin and the United States will not invade Afghanistan, Omar refused, so the war began against the Taliban. (factoid).

As ISIS, Islamic State has moved into Afghanistan and has declared the region a target, Taliban fighters have defected to ISIS. Meanwhile, no one has seen Mullah Omar in at least two years, yet some Afghanistan officials have made some declarations that he is dead. The Taliban has recently made some aggressive and deadly advances in designated Afghanistan territory while there is chatter that the terror group could merge with ISIS.

Given this possibility, it is curious that Mullah Omar has been declared dead, again.

Taliban splinter group claims Mullah Omar was killed 2 yrs ago

In part:

The Afghanistan Islamic Movement Fidai Mahaz’s spokesperson Qari Hamza, said the reclusive Omar was killed by commanders Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansoor and Gull Agha in July 2013.

Hamza said his group has evidence to prove its claims, Khaama Press reported on Thursday.

Afghanistan’s spy agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), had said in November last year that Omar had possibly died. There are also reports that the Afghan Taliban has split into three factions.

NDS spokesperson Hasib Sediqi told the media in November last year that the two Taliban factions are led by Mullah Qayum Zakir and Mullah Agha, while the third comprises “neutral” militant leaders.

Reports last year had also suggested that Omar had given his old friend and deputy, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, the authority to make decisions on his behalf regarding the peace process with the government.

Some officials in the presidential palace have claimed Omar is in custody of Pakistani security forces in the port city of Karachi.

Aimal Faizi, spokesperson for former president Hamid Karzai, said this information was shared by US secretary of state John Kerry. More of the story here.

Meanwhile, a document has been located, written in Urdu that spells out the plan ISIS has for targets in Afghanistan and even India. ISIS plans an end of the world operation.

Reported by Sara Carter via USAToday: The document was reviewed by three U.S. intelligence officials, who said they believe the document is authentic based on its unique markings and the fact that language used to describe leaders, the writing style and religious wording match other documents from the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS. They asked to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The undated document, titled “A Brief History of the Islamic State Caliphate (ISC), The Caliphate According to the Prophet,” seeks to unite dozens of factions of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban into a single army of terror. It includes a never-before-seen history of the Islamic State, details chilling future battle plans, urges al-Qaeda to join the group and says the Islamic State’s leader should be recognized as the sole ruler of the world’s 1 billion Muslims under a religious empire called a “caliphate.”

“Accept the fact that this caliphate will survive and prosper until it takes over the entire world and beheads every last person that rebels against Allah,” it proclaims. “This is the bitter truth, swallow it.”

By Graeme Wood: Bin Laden viewed his terrorism as a prologue to a caliphate he did not expect to see in his lifetime. His organization was flexible, operating as a geographically diffuse network of autonomous cells. The Islamic State, by contrast, requires territory to remain legitimate, and a top-down structure to rule it. (Its bureaucracy is divided into civil and military arms, and its territory into provinces.) Much more detail here.

Published by WaPo in part: The Afghan Taliban recently published a 5,000-word biography hailing its leader, whose whereabouts remain largely unknown. It maintains that Mullah Omar, who has a $10 million American bounty on his head, is alive, well, and in charge.

According to SITE Intelligence group, the lengthy paean comes at a conspicuous moment, given both the political efforts being made to curtail the Taliban’s Afghan insurgency as well as the growing antagonism between the Taliban and the Islamic State, the leading extremist Islamist militants of the moment.

As an aside, negotiations by the new Afghan leadership is still in some peace talks with the Taliban.

NYT: An Afghan government delegation met with Taliban officials in the Pakistani capital for the first time on Tuesday, in a significant effort to open formal peace negotiations, according to Afghan, Pakistani and Western officials.

The Islamabad meeting, brokered by Pakistani officials after months of intense effort by President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan to get them more centrally involved in the peace process, was the most promising contact between the two warring sides in years. And it followed a series of less formal encounters between various Afghan officials and Taliban representatives in other countries in recent months.

Secret White House Meetings on Cuba, Shooting From the Hip

Posted on July 29, 2015July 29, 2015 by Denise Simon

To date, agenda items are in place for normalizing relations with Cuba, while the larger needs list to have business and economic conditions and interactions are far from successful or advancing mostly due to distrust in the banking industry.

In part from the Miami Herald:

During a White House briefing last week with business people, academics and others who have been supportive of the normalization process, briefers said that a revision and clarification of some banking and travel rules would come out shortly. They also asked business executives to keep the feedback coming on the evolving rules.

Pompano-based Stonegate is the first U.S. bank to engage with Cuba under the regulations that came out in January.

But banks in general are very nervous about Cuba, said Ted Piccone, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Part of it is the banking culture is very conservative, but the banks also have seen that they can be heavily penalized if they don’t abide by the letter of the law.”

Meanwhile, as U.S. business pioneers try to strike deals, they must also contend with a Cuban system that doesn’t necessarily mesh with U.S. business practices, limited Internet service, and a Cuban bureaucracy that often seems more interested in going slow than expediting business.

Beyond the sluggish bureaucracy, the government also is testing the shifting currents with caution.

Carlos Alzugaray, a retired Cuban diplomat, points out there are reasons the government wants to go slow and not risk losing political control by allowing too swift an economic transformation or rapprochement with the United States.

Secretive White House meeting reveals Obama’s plan to visit Cuba in 2016

Washington Examiner: A secretive White House meeting on Cuba last week revealed that President Obama is mulling a visit the island nation next year, and also discussed the controversial idea of the Cuban government opening consular offices in Miami.

After hailing embassy openings in Washington and Havana last week, the White House held an off-schedule, private meeting on Wednesday with U.S. officials involved in the administration’s Cuba policy. Nearly 80 activist members of the Cuban-American community from Florida and across the United States — mostly Democrats — were also there.

Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest advisers, was on hand, along with White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes and Roberta Jacobson, assistant secretary of State for the western hemisphere.

The White House Monday at first declined to talk about the meeting, and referred questions about it to the State Department. A State Department spokesman then referred the same questions to the Cuban embassy, which was already closed for the day.

On Tuesday, a White House official told the Washington Examiner that the briefing took place as part of the administration’s ongoing efforts to reach out and engage the Cuban-American community on the president’s efforts to normalize relations with the island nation.

“The president has been very clear that he supports measures to improve travel and commerce and further increase people-to-people contact, support civil society in Cuba, support the growth of Cuba’s nascent private sector and enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people,” the White House official said. “The president has also called on Congress to begin the work of ending the embargo.”

On Obama’s plans to travel to Cuba, the official said there are no announcements.

But according to sources familiar with the meeting, Rhodes told the group that President Obama is considering visiting the island nation next year, and will make an assessment early next year depending on progress in U.S.-Cuba relations.

While that historic visit would likely help Obama cement his legacy as the president who started to open up bilateral relations, it could be marred by or even delayed by Cuba’s arrest of dissidents. Those arrests have continued despite Obama’s gestures to Cuba, and could put Obama at risk of appearing to be too friendly with a country that often arrests members of political or religious groups dozens at a time.

Eduardo Jose Padron, the current president of Miami-Dade College who came to the U.S. as a refugee at the age of 15, used the White House meeting to ask about the state of human rights in Cuba, and State Department officials acknowledged that it is a dangerous time for dissidents on the island, one participant told the Examiner.

Andy Gomez, a retired assistant provost and dean of the University of Miami’s School of International Studies, said that so far, the Castro regime doesn’t appear to be changing its ways. Gomez previously served on the Brookings Institution’s Cuba Task Force from 2008 to 2010, and told the Washington Examiner Cuba needs to demonstrate a stronger commitment to human rights before Obama travels there or the U.S. agrees to allow it to open a consulate in Florida.

“Up until now, the Cuban government hasn’t even brought Cuban coffee to the table … I don’t see any signs of the Cuban government loosening up their control,” he said.

Pope Francis’s visit to Cuba, scheduled for later in September, he said, would be a good time for the Cuban government to release more political prisoners and demonstrate a true commitment to improving relations.

The idea of a consular office of the Cuban government in Florida is one that is already stirring debate among Cuban-Americans. During a question-and-answer session in the White House meeting, one participant asked about the chances for opening a Cuban consulate in Miami, according to a source who was there.

The White House responded that it was up to the Cuban government to decide when and where it would open the consulate.

But that response has only spurred more questions and concerns since the meeting, some of which deal with how it might hurt Hillary Clinton’s White House bid. The opening of an outpost in the heavily anti-Castro area of Miami could further anger Florida’s politically powerful Cuban-American community and create a backlash for Democrats that could hurt Clinton’s Florida presidential campaign operations.

“The consulate in Miami would create a bittersweet taste in the Cuban-American community, including those supporting these [normalization] changes,” said Gomez. “It would also hurt any chances of Hillary Clinton making inroads and gaining support among Miami’s Cuban-Americans.”

“I don’t think President Obama would do that to Hillary Clinton,” he added, noting that he believes a better place for the consulate would be in Tampa or Key West.

Ever since Obama’s December announcement to try to normalize relations with Cuba, South Florida’s major cities have fiercely debated the opening of a consulate, which would provide passport and visas services and emergency aide to visiting Cuban citizens, as well as other resources.

Officials have strongly objected to such an outpost in Miami-Dade County, home to nearly a million Cubans, the largest concentration in the world next to Havana.

But city leadership in Tampa, which has roughly 80,000 Cuban-Americans, is embracing the idea, viewing it as an economic opportunity for the city.

While recent polls have documented a generational shift in Cuban-American feelings about the Obama’s administration’s decision to re-engage with the Castro government, the political leadership in Miami is still heavily anti-Castro, dominated by descendants of those who fled the 1959 communist revolution regime, and some who had their property taken by Castro.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., who vehemently opposes Obama’s decision to restore ties, is strongly against a consulate in Miami. Two other Florida GOP congressmen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Curbelo, also are opposed, along with Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado.

Ros-Lehtinen said opening a consulate in Miami is another Obama administration effort to “legitimize an illegitimate regime.”

“Placing a Cuban consulate in Miami is nothing but an insult to so many who have been arrested, imprisoned, maimed, and tortured by the Castros and their ruthless thugs,” she told the Examiner. “This administration has done nothing but give dictators concession after concession yet what do we have to show for it? More arrests of pro-democracy activists in Cuba, a continued harboring of fugitives from American justice, and total disrespect for the suffering of victims of autocratic despots.”

Ros-Lehtinen also argues that any Cuban consulate would serve as a headquarters for espionage.

But others argue that South Florida Cuban-Americans are in real need of consular services and don’t view the opening as a serious problem.

“I would hope that it would make things easier for those traveling back home, about 400,000 are traveling back to Cuba a year,” said Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. “Right now, it’s very expensive and cumbersome to apply for a visa and make all kinds of travel arrangements.”

Iran Leader’s Nephew To Obama: They’re Lying To You

Posted on July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 by Denise Simon

When Washington DC is full discussions due to the Iran deal and hearings have occurred almost every day since the agreement was signed, there is reason to escalate real concerns for what the White House and John Kerry are attempting to sell.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan underlined that Tehran will not allow any foreigner to discover Iran’s defensive and missile capabilities by inspecting the country’s military sites.

“Missile-related issues have never been on agenda of the nuclear talks and the Islamic system will resolutely implement its programs in this field,” Brigadier General Dehqan said at a meeting with a group of Defense Ministry managers and employees on Monday, commenting on the nuclear agreement recent struck between Iran and the six world powers (the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany).

He pointed to the recent statements of the US officials on Iran, and said, “The US officials make boastful remarks and imagine that they can impose anything on the Iranian nation because they lack a proper knowledge of the Iranian nation.”

The Iranian Defense Minister reiterated that the time has come now for the Americans to realize that they are not the world’s super power and no one recognizes them as such any longer.

Brigadier General Dehqan pointed to the recent nuclear tests conducted by the US concurrent with nuclear talks in Vienna, and said, “Such measures indicate their lack of commitment to international peace and security and it is for the same reason that independent nations and governments can never trust the US.”

On Saturday, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari underlined that there are still some concerns lingering about the sum-up agreement reached between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany) and the relevant draft resolution to be adopted by the UN Security Council.

***

Then the nephew of the Supreme leader wrote a letter to Barack Obama about the lies from the Iranian regime.

PJ Media reports that an open letter to President Obama from the nephew of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Dr. Mahmoud Moradkhani, was posted on an Iranian website this past Tuesday.

The extraordinary letter states in no uncertain terms that Khamenei is lying in his negotiations with the West, relying on taqiyya, (the Shia doctrine which allows Muslims to lie to infidels in order to further Islam’s goals). Moradkhani clearly states that the Islamic regime has deceived the Iranian people, compares their deception to Hitler’s actions, accuses some of the West’s media of censoring remarks made by Iranian opponents of the regime, calls for Obama to reject the nuclear deal and pleads for the end of the Islamic regime in Iran.The full text follows:

Dear Mr. President

I am presenting this open letter as one of the serious opponents of the Islamic republic of Iran on behalf of the like-minded opposition groups and myself. Because of my knowledge of this regime, especially of Ali Khamenei who is my uncle (my mother’s brother), I see it as my duty to inform you about this regime and the issue of nuclear negotiations with the Islamic regime of Iran.

Let me at first inform you that the regime that falsely calls itself a republic came to power in 1979 by deceiving Iranian people and the world through provoking Iranian people against the regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and gaining the support of the world community.

The tragedy of Cinema Rex*, believing in Khomeini’s words and then establishing a backward regime that is violent, medieval and against all international laws are all results of Iranian people and the world community being deceived. We are witnessing that not only a rich and cultured country like Iran has become a victim of this regime but also the Middle East and the whole free world. The intervention of Ali Khamenei’s regime (following Khomeini’s footsteps who had no other intention other that domination of Iraq) in Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria is more than obvious. As if these were not enough, he has now added the Arabian Peninsula to that list.

In any case, this regime has done great damage to Iranians and to the international community.

We can find a historical example of this kind of deception prior to the Second World War. Hitler manipulated and deceived German people and European countries and the hesitation in addressing the problem with Hitler led to a great disaster.

Due to the changes in time, the domain of the disaster might become limited now but breach of human rights is the same, regardless of the number of people who become victimized in the process.

Ali Khamenei and his collaborators know very well that they will never become a nuclear power. They certainly do not have the national interest of Iranian in their mind; they just use the nuclear issue to bully the countries in the region and export their revolution and middle-aged culture to other countries. Obviously, you and European countries do not give the Islamic regime any concession unless you are certain that they comply with the agreement. The Islamic regime of Iran will certainly prolong the verification period the same way that they have delayed and prolonged the nuclear talks. It is in this period that the wounded regime will retaliate with its destructive policies.

The countless breaches of human rights violations, spreading of Islamic fundamentalism, intervention and creating crisis in the Middle East are all unacceptable and contrary to democratic and humane beliefs of yours and ours.

While we can, with some measure of decisiveness and courage, uproot the wicked tree of the Islamic regime of Iran, just settling for cutting its branches is nothing more than avoiding responsibility.

It is clear that the eradication of the Islamic regime of Iran is the responsibility and mission of Iranian people and specially the opposition abroad; however, by putting obstacles in front of Iranian people and the Iranian opposition abroad one prevents them from doing their task.

The Islamic regime of Iran, based on their deceptive nature have sent their mercenaries abroad and even managed to recruit and manipulate some American-Iranians. Individuals who out of self-interest are lobbying for the Islamic regime of Iran and hiding its true nature and giving a false picture of its intentions; in the same manner that while Khomeini was in France, the so-called Iranian intellectuals did not let people of Iran and the world, realize the true meaning “the Islamic republic”. Those so-called intellectuals polished the remarks of Khomeini and converted them to positive, popular, strong and victorious ones.

We see that unfortunately in your country and your state media (the Persian section of Voice of America) and especially in UK (the Persian section of BBC) the remarks of the opposition of Islamic regime of Iran are being censored and instead the indecent habit of analyzing and relaying statements of the Islamic regime of Iran have become a norm.

I have a deep understanding and insight of the habits, morals and true indentions of this regime and I find it necessary to let you and the world know that the true evil of the Islamic regime of Iran is far more damaging and dangerous to be resolved by just signing an agreement.

People who have always lied, deceived and believe in Taqiya**, people whose main goal is supremacy and domination over others can never be trusted.

Instead they should be confronted with the very basic principles that have led to their criminality

and

To put an end on breaching of human rights violations; in other words, an end to Qisas***, random executions, discrimination, suppression of dissent, media repression, religious and ideological hegemony.
Devolving power to the people and the abolition of restrictive laws, such as mandatory supervision in elections.
Giving freedom to religious minorities and repealing laws limiting the choice of thought and religion.
Non-interfere policy toward governments of countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
Cancelling the assassination orders of dissidents in the world that have resulted in the killing of journalists, writers and even cartoonists.

I believe that any agreement or concession that is not associated with these basic conditions in reality will only be assisting this regime in achieving its indecent goals.

The possible disaster following this kind of hesitation will be similar to the historical mistake made prior to the Second World War.

Ali Khamenei will not be satisfied with the little that he has today and surely, and in all secrecy, at the first possible moment will attempt to bully and dominate.

Removing the crippling sanctions without fundamental changes in this regime will not be in Iran’s interest and will only facilitates the Islamic regime of Iran in reaching its objectives.

United States of America and Europe should not jeopardize their long-term interests due to short-term ones.

There are powerful and pro-active forces in the Iranian opposition and if the censorship of the media that are supporting the Islamic regime of Iran were to be removed, the opposition can easily organize and assist the powerful civil disobedience of Iranian people.

Iranian people want peace and freedom; without this regime not only can they ensure the resurrection of a civilized country but also a peaceful region.

Yours respectfully

Dr.Mahmoud Moradkhani

ISIS Online Propagandists are Russian

Posted on July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 by Denise Simon

Personally, I have investigated the matter of the Islamic State cyber-caliphate and all clues led back to Russia. Now others are investigating the same thing and forming the same conclusions. Fundamentally we are in a new dimension of a Cold War tactic using the internet as the platform. So far the Obama administration ignores this but military generals are sounding the alarms.

Why Are Russian Hackers Posing as ISIS Propagandists?

by: Helle Dale

The multi-front cyberspace information war in which we recently have found ourselves just got a little more complicated.

A group which calls itself Cyber Caliphate, assumed to have ties to the terrorist group ISIS, may in fact be a creation of Russian hackers taking advantage of the havoc wrecked on social media and the Internet by ISIS propagandists.

The complex picture this presents adds to the challenges faced by the U.S. government as it seeks to adjust its counterterrorism communication and cybersecurity measures to deal with rising threats from abroad.

According to a new report, “Who Is Cyber Caliphate? Re-examining the Online ISIL Threat,” produced by the State Department’s Office of Diplomatic Security (DS), a major cyber attack on French television TV5Monde last April by Cyber Caliphate hackers took the station off the air for 20 hours and exposed employee email accounts.

It was more sophisticated than anything previously seen from ISIS hackers.

French and American investigators tracking the electronic footprints of the hackers found they led to a Russian hacker group known as APT28, which usually hack in favor of the Russian government and directs its efforts at NATO.

In fact, they found no electronic tracks leading back to ISIS. Russian information warfare, which has intensified massively over the past several years, is taking ever changing twists and turns, and this one took investigators by surprise.

Russian hackers are greatly more sophisticated than the ISIS variety.

The Diplomatic Security report does, however, also stress the heavy influence of ISIS on Twitter in particular, as it seeks to create radicalized followers among disaffected and alienated Muslim youth in Western societies.

From September to December, 2014 alone, an estimated 46,000 Twitter accounts were associated with ISIS, the group’s most potent method to reach into impressionable minds.

Under the new leadership of Rashad Hussein at the U.S. Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communication of the State Department (CSCC,) the policy of the U.S. government is to counter terrorism propaganda with a positive message, presenting a more attractive vision in the war of ideas.

This strategy dovetails with the administration’s dubious argument that terrorist acts arise from populations deprived of economic opportunity and have to be dealt with by addressing “root causes,” like poverty.

The new counterterrorism approach is a departure from the work of the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communication under the recently departed Ambassador Alberto Fernandez, who took a harder line, attacking ISIS (and Cyber Caliphate) propagandists head on, and exposing graphically the brutality and horrors perpetrated by ISIS terrorists.

For this tough and confrontational approach, Fernandez was heavily criticized in the U.S. media and shunned by the executive branch.

With Russian hackers parading as ISIS propagandists, we now seem to have a perfect storm.

The complexity of cyber conflict certainly suggests that the U.S. government must intensify and improve its own efforts to outsmart our enemies.

***

By Jack Murphy at SofRep in part:

ISIS feeds the West loaded information

There is no proof that Russian intelligence has a hand in ISIS information/propaganda operations. However, considering what we have discussed thus far, this scenario should be taken seriously. ISIS is actively gaming the psychological makeup of Western audiences in order to provoke the United States and allied nations into a full-blown military confrontation with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. If the hypothesis about Russian influence agents in ISIS is correct, and if they are participating in ISIS propaganda efforts, then we should ask why Russia would be interested in doing this to begin with.

The answer is fairly straightforward. Keeping America bogged down and preoccupied in the Middle East is of massive benefit to the Russian Federation. By goading America into another war in the Middle East, Russia has more opportunity to engage in military aggression in Ukraine, Dagestan, Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, Akbazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and on and on throughout Russia’s near abroad. For sure, there would also be some more specific tactical and strategic goals, but in the general sense, the Gulf War III would help keep America off Russia’s back.

ISIS, and perhaps Russian intelligence, understands America’s future rationalizations for war very well. In the past we could justify war as being battles against communism or fascism for the preservation of the American way of life. Before that, more jingoistic narratives about manifest destiny were brought into play. But these justifications for war, racial or nationalistic, will have no place in future liberal Western nations. Instead wars will be justified as fights for gay rights, women’s rights, and other equality issues. One hypothetical example: Americans will be told that we have to invade Iran because gays are stoned to death or beheaded by the Iranian regime.

The Islamic State knows that there is no better way to terrify and incite Americans than to use mass executions, the murder of Christians, the use of sex slaves, the destruction of ancient relics, and the killing of homosexuals. ISIS is at war with Western consciousness, and it is a very deliberate effort.