Radio America Online News Bureau

Iran

The Iranian Terrorism Funding Machine

by

The Iranian exile group that recently unveiled evidence of Iran violating the terms of the nuclear agreement is now detailing how the regime is allegedly fleecing its own people to fund the military and bankroll Hezbollah.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, is responsible for exposing Iranian nuclear ambitions some 15 years ago.  Now the group is releasing, “Iran: The Rise of the Revolutionary Guards’ Financial Empire.”  An additional subhead reads, “How the Supreme Leader and the IRGC Rob the People to Fund International Terror.”

The book maintains that despite appearances of an active private sector, the regime and its elite military wing, the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, really have a stranglehold on economy.  The regime touts an emphasis on privitization, but that means something very different in Iran.

“Back in 2005, the supreme leader basically brought this nice looking plan called privitization, turning everything to the private sector,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the NCRI’s Washington office.

“In fact, that was really a restructuring of the Iranian economy to give the ownership of a wide range of industries and institutions to those either associated directly with the supreme leader or with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” said Jafarzadeh.

He says there was nothing fair about this embrace of “privitization.”

“The government, based on the constitution, has the right to seize and confiscate property if that property is obtained through what they call illegitimate means.  ‘Illegitimate means’ is something they can define any way they want to,” said Jafarzadeh.

In essence, most of the Iran economy is in the hands of just over a dozen government cronies.

“We’re talking about 14 major powerhouses that are controlling the entire economy.  All of these 14 are either entirely controlled by the supreme leader or by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” said Jafarzadeh, who says just one of these entities is sitting on about $90 billion and together the 14 are rolling in hundreds of billions of dollars.

All major sectors of the economy are involved.

“We’re talking about large mines, primary industries including downstream oil and gas industry, power generation, foreign commerce, banks, insurance, roads, railroads, airlines, shipping companies, food companies, agriculture, you name it,” said Jafarzadeh.

Jafarzadeh says the Iranian people are struggling more than ever to get by, so where is this money going?  He says it’s not hard to figure it out, it’s going to the military, meaning the buildup of the nuclear program.

“The official budget is anywhere from 30-35 percentof the budget is allocated to what they call defense-related issues.  On top of all of that, the money they make from running the economy is directly funneled to these programs, including the nuclear weapons program,” said Jafarzadeh.

But that’s not the only places the money goes.  Jafarzadeh says a lot of money also goes to foundations with troubling ties.

“It’s supposed to be a religious foundation to help the poor, but it has turned into a foundation that actually funds terror in Lebanon.  Another foundation…sends a lot of money to Lebanon to support Hezbollah there,” said Jafarzadeh.

While Jafarzadeh believes the evidence of Iran commandeering the economy through a private facade to build nukes and fund terror is strong enough to take to the United Nations, he says there is something even more effective that the U.S. State Department could do by itself.

“By designation the IRGC as a terrorist organization, they can close all of these loopholes.  It would make it illegal for any U.S. person or U.S. entity to deal with any of these institutions run by the IRGC or associated with them,” said Jafarzadeh.

“It would make life a lot more difficult for the IRGC to transfer funds and to all kinds of things they’re doing in the region,” said Jafarzadeh.

Jafarzadeh says the dire straits of the people is also on the brink of boiling over as they watch their government hoarding resources rather than developing ways to help the people.

“Over the past year, we had over 6,000 anti-government demonstrations and protest acts, a lot of them economically driven to begin with but they quickly turned into political slogans by the people who hold the rulers as big thieves who are plundering their resources,” said Jafarzadeh.

“If people thought that things were volatile in 2009, it’s even more volatile now and there is certainly great prospects for change,” he added.

Standard Podcast [ 15:09 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Share

Iran Caught Cheating on Nukes

by

Despite U.S. government conclusions to the contrary, Iran is cheating on the 2015 nuclear deal and is actively weaponizing nuclear weapons, according to the group who uncovered Iran’s most recent nuclear ambitions in the first place.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, unveiled intelligence and satellite imagery in recent days that is says it proof of Iranian actions that violate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.  It also alleges that the activity is taking place in areas and facilities that are off limits to regular inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The NCRI is very confident in the validity of its reports.

“These are the very same sources that have been proven accurate in the past.  The network of the movement inside Iran, the MEK, was responsible for exposing the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the Arak heavy water facility back in August of 2002,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the NCRI’s Washington office.

Those revelations triggered the international response that has played out for the past 15 years.  He says the group’s sources inside Iran have also made many other discoveries that have panned out over the years.  And Jafarzadeh says outside experts back up those conclusions.

“Those that have seen the satellite imagery that we disclosed during our press conference have confirmed that the satellite imagery shows the construction, the way the buildings are configured, basically corroborates what we’re saying, that this facility is being used for nuclear weaponization,” said Jafarzadeh.

He says further proof that the intelligence is right can seen in the official Iranian response.

“None of them denied our claim outright.  Instead, they started attacking us, saying how bad we are and why the United States should not listen to us, without addressing the particular revelation we made.  They made no reference to it, nor did they invite the IAEA to come and visit,” said Jafarzadeh.

Jafarzadeh says the specific facility shown in the satellite photos depicts a location specializing in detonators.  Much of the secret activity is believed to be going on at Iran’s Parchin facility, a spot that Jafarzadeh says Iran blocked inspectors from for years until finally relenting two years ago.  He says it makes sense for Iran to do clandestine work there.

“They thought they closed the chapter on Parchin.  Now with this new information and new evidence, there is a renewed call among nuclear experts that the IAEA should be able to go back to this place among other locations that the IAEA has never inspected,” said Jafarzadeh.

He also outlined what the process ought to include.

“The IAEA now has to have access to all of those buildings, to be able to interview their top nuclear scientists, including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who has been the top person behind the whole program over the past 15-20 years,” said Jafarzadeh.

So why hasn’t Parchin been part of regular inspections since the JCPOA was enacted in 2015?  Jafarzadeh says the Iranians successfully limited inspections to “declared sites.”

“I’m not very comfortable with the term “declared site” because these are not really sites declared by Iran.  It was exposed by us and then Tehran said, ‘Oh yes, we have those sites,'” said Jafarzadeh.

“[The IAEA] basically keeps track of how many centrifuges they have, how much uranium hexafluoride was produced.  They have a checklist they go through, and of course Tehran is very shrewd and they know this is not the place they need to cheat,” said Jafarzadeh, noting the violations happen at facilities the IAEA cannot access or does not know about.

Jafarzadeh says the actions of the West over the past 4-5 years have clearly emboldened the likes of Iran and he notes there are close ties between the two nuclear programs.

“There is a very, very close relationship between North Korea that is helping Iran, not just on their missile program but specifically on their nuclear weapons program,” said Jafarzadeh.  “It’s a very scary situation.”

 

 

Standard Podcast [ 13:47 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Share

Trump & the VA, Obama’s Iran Lie, Latest Flynn Fallout

by

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are encouraged to see President Trump taking steps to make it easier for the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire bad employees.  They’re also furious, but not surprised, to learn that President Obama actually did release prisoners connected to terrorism against U.S. forces despite insisting he hadn’t done so.  And they react to the breaking news that former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn accepted money from Russia in 2015 but allegedly failed to report it.

Standard Podcast [ 17:33 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Share

‘The Obama Era in American Foreign Policy Is Over’

by

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is praising President Trump for ordering a missile strike against a key Syrian airfield in response to Syria’s latest use of chemical weapons against it’s own people, and Bolton says it tells the rest of the world that this administration sees the world much differently than the last one.

“The Obama era in American foreign policy is over and there’s a president in the White House with a very different worldview,” said Bolton, pointing to Obama’s repeated threats of military action in response to using chemical weapons.

He says the Syrians, Russians, and Iranians clearly didn’t expect Trump to act so decisively.

“I think they’re so stunned that Trump acted, given the performance of Obama over the years, saying that that he would view even the movement of chemical weapons as a red line and not enforcing it,” said Bolton.

On Thursday, Trump green-lighted the launch of 59 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles from American ships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.  The missiles targeted Shayrat Air Base, the installation from which the latest chemical weapons attacks were launched.

Reaction has not fallen along traditional lines.  Mainstream Republicans and many liberals are hailing the decision, while some of Trump’s most ardent supporters during the campaign were very critical.

Bolton believes it was the right call.

“Anytime you have an authoritarian regime like this that joins a treaty like the Chemical Weapons Convention, says it will give up these weapons of mass destruction and lies about it and uses the weapons, that is a direct threat to the national security of the United States,” said Bolton.

He is also hopeful that other bad actors around the world will act differently when they see the consequences of Syria’s behavior.

“It’s important around the world that people know that we’re simply not going to tolerate countries entering these treaties and then violating them by using weapons against innocent civilians.  I think it’ll have an impact well beyond Syria.  I think North Korea and Iran, in particular, should draw a lesson from this.  I think China and Russia should as well,” said Bolton.

But is this an isolated strike or the start to a more entangled involvement in the region once again?  Bolton says Trump’s actions are unlikely to trigger a slippery slope of U.S. engagement.  He also says the region is about to look a bit differently and the U.S. must be positioned well.

“We’re going to defeat ISIS, hopefully in a short period of time, maybe by the end of the year.  We need to think ahead to what the Middle East is going to look like post-ISIS and I certainly hope it does not include a Russian airbase at Latakia in Syria, which the Obama administration allowed them to have,” said Bolton.

 

Bolton says this episode should make it clear that assertions of Trump being a Vladimir Putin stooge were grossly unfounded.

“I think this is very interesting commentary for all those in Washington that basically argued that Trump was a Manchurian candidate with his strings pulled by Moscow.  That’s not quite the way this has worked out,” said Bolton.

The timing of the strike played out in response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons, but Bolton says launching the mission while the Chinese president is in the U.S. sends a direct message about North Korea as well.

“It was more than an amazing coincidence that President Xi Xinping of China was in Mar-A-Lago with President Trump when he decided on the airstrike against Syria, certainly people have looked at that possibility with respect to North Korea,” said Bolton.

He says there is great urgency for Trump and Xi to act on North Korea as the communist nation’s nuclear program and missile system continue to advance.

“They’re so far advanced toward putting a nuclear device on an intercontinental ballistic missile and hitting targets on the west coast of the United States in the very near future.  Some people have estimated that to mean next year,” said Bolton.

Bolton believes the common ground for Trump and Xi would be for the two Koreas to be united again and erase the nuclear menace.

Standard Podcast [ 9:34 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Share

‘We Need to Anger the Chinese’ to Stop North Korea & Iran

by

North Korea will pose a nuclear risk to the United States within a few years and stopping the threat means realizing North Korea and Iran are two components of the same threat and getting tough on China is the key to stopping both of them.

Gordon Chang is widely seen as one the world’s leading experts on China and North Korea.  He is the author of “The Coming Collapse of China” and “Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World.”  He says this past weekend’s North Korean test of an intermediate range missile needs to be a call to awareness and to action.

“The North Koreans and the Iranians have been thick as thieves.  This is one program conducted in two separate locations.  When we add in China’s participation in this, we’ve got to look at this as a whole, not just the separate pieces,” said Chang.

Chang says no further evidence is needed than to note the Iranian missile test which made worldwide headlines last month was actually conducted with a North Korean missile.

Officially, China is condemning the latest North Korean provocation, but Chang says Beijing is is doing that largely to sooth the rest of the world.  He says China is notoriously duplicitous when it comes to North Korea.

“The Chinese have consistently been helping the North Koreans develop both nukes and long-range missiles.  We see Chinese banks involved in money laundering for North Korea and involved in North Korea’s illicit commerce.  Chinese entities have been selling things like uranium hexafluoride and components for the North’s uranium weapons program,” said Chang.

“If Beijing wanted this to stop, it would.  It hasn’t been,” added Chang, who says the Chinese are equally deceptive on the diplomatic stage.

“We see China rhetorically supporting sanctions and then turning around and busting them when the world isn’t watching.  So I don’t think the Chinese are genuine in what they say in New York (at the United Nations),” said Chang.

North Korean provocations in the past 20 years are often followed by a familiar pattern of condemnation and sanctions.  Yet, since the failure to stop North Korea’s nuclear ambitions in the 1990s, little has been effective at getting the regime to change course.

Chang says it’s time to get serious with China.

“One thing we could do is unplug Chinese financial institutions from the global system because of their participation in North Korea’s illicit commerce.  That would shock markets but we’ve got to show Beijing that we are serious,” said Chang.

While carrying economic and diplomatic challenges, Chang says the move would gut the nuclear threats emanating from both North Korea and Iran.

“It certainly would but we have not had the political will to do that.  But if some American city ends up to be a radioactive slab, it will not do for the president to say, ‘Well, I could have stopped this but I didn’t want to anger the Chinese.  We need to anger the Chinese because we need, first of all, to protect our homeland,” said Chang.

Chang says are obvious things China could do to show it was serious about stopping the North Korean nuclear program, but like other efforts, Beijing must be closely monitored.

“If we saw commerce between North Korea and China drop to zero, that would be an indication that Beijing is serious about this.  After the next to last sanctions on North Korea, which were in March of last year, there was a brief fall-off in commerce in April and May.  After that, everything went back to pre-sanction levels.  So that is a pattern,” said Chang.

Chang also advocates the financial strategy against China because it’s clear that softer diplomacy is a massive failure.

“Yes, we’ve had diplomacy intended to disarm the North Koreans but we have not seriously pursued it with the vigor that it requires.  That’s why the North Koreans now have nuclear weapons and are on the verge of being able to mate them to their longest-range launchers.  Clearly, our diplomacy over the course of decades has failed,” said Chang.

That’s right.  Chang says the North Korean missile program is making great strides in recent years, regardless of the failed tests that tend to make headlines.

“When they have a test which fails, they learn a lot, so it’s not necessarily a setback.  We know that within 3-5 years, they will be able to have an intercontinental ballistic missile which will be able to reach most of the lower 48 states, and they’ll be able to mate a nuclear weapon to that,” said Chang.

“Right now, they have the launchers.  They have the distance.  They just don’t have the ability to mate a weapon to a long-range launcher,” said Chang.

Standard Podcast [ 7:22 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Share

Three Martini Lunch 1/30/17

by

Greg Corombos of Radio America and David French of National Review discuss President Trump’s orders seeking to reduce federal regulations.  They also say Trump is on the right track with his refugee policy but did not implement it well, and they unload on the hysterical left-wing reaction to the policy.  And they practice their shocked faces as Iran defies the United Nations and tests a ballistic missile – the ones that carry nuclear warheads.

Standard Podcast [ 18:18 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Share