Billionaires Make War on Iran And the United States Government is Helping
by Philip Giraldi (source: UNZ Review)
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
There is a group of Jewish American billionaires who are apparently doing their best to make sure than negotiations with Iran go
nowhere in the mistaken belief that they are doing what is best for
Israel. And they would also appear to be assisted in their efforts by
the White House, which is at the same time claiming that it wants the
talks to be successful. The odd relationship is currently playing out
in a Manhattan courtroom
where the Justice Department is seeking to squash a lawsuit that it
fears might expose the extent to which the government has hypocritically
played fast and loose with classified information while simultaneously
sending journalists and whistleblowers to jail over allegations that
they have done the same.
The power and wealth of the anti-Iran groups as well as their
unrivalled access to the United States government means that a policy of
détente with Iran, which would be a no brainer based on both American
and Iranian interests, only proceeds by fits and starts with the US
Congress and much of the media lined up solidly to stop the effort. The
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliated
educational foundation, which have focused on the “Iranian threat” over
the past three years, have a combined budget of more than $90 million while AIPAC’s spin-off the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) has $8.7 million.
The American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) efforts are more
diversified but uniformly hawkish when it comes to the Middle East. It
has a budget of $45 million. Identified
multi-million dollar donor/supporters of AIPAC, AEI, and WINEP include
Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands, Paul Singer of Elliot Management
hedge fund and Bernard Marcus of Home Depot.
Other right wing think tanks including Heritage and Hudson in
Washington also support unrelenting pressure directed against Iran. Even
the more centrist Brookings Institute is hard core
when it comes to Middle Eastern politics by virtue of its Saban
Institute funded by Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban. And then
there are the mainstream Jewish organizations to include the Anti
Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish
Organizations and the American Jewish Congress, all of which have vast
resources and unparalleled access to the White House, Congress and the
media.
All the pro-Israel anti-Iran groups engage in pressure tactics on
Capitol Hill and have been effective in dominating the political debate.
Of thirty-six outside witnesses
brought in to testify at seven Senate hearings on Iran since 2012 only
one might be characterized as sensitive to Iranian concerns. The
enormous lobbying effort enables the anti-Iran groups to define the
actual policies, move their drafts of legislation through congress, and
eventually see their bills pass with overwhelming majorities in both
the House and Senate. It is democracy in action if one accepts that
popular rule ought to be guided by money and pressure groups rather
than by national interests.
Less well known is United Against Nuclear Iran,
which has a budget just shy of $2 million. UANI is involved in the New
York lawsuit. The group, which has somehow obtained a 501[c]3
“educational” tax status that inter alia allows it to conceal
its donors, has offices in Rockefeller Center in New York City. It is
active on Capitol Hill providing “expert testimony” on Iran for
congressional committees, to include “help” in drafting legislation. At a
July Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iran all three
outside witnesses were from UANI. It is also active in the media but
is perhaps best known for its “name and shame” initiatives in which it
exposes companies that it claims are doing business with Tehran in
violation of US sanctions.
UANI is being sued
by a Greek billionaire Victor Restis whom it had outed in 2013.
Restis, claiming the exposure was fraudulent and carried out to damage
his business, has filed suit demanding that UANI and billionaire Thomas
Kaplan turn over documents and details of relationships regarding UANI
donors who it is claimed are linked to the case. Kaplan, a New York
City resident, made his initial fortune on energy exploration and
development. More recently he has been involved in commodities trading
in precious metals. His wife Daphne is Israeli and his involvement
in various Jewish philanthropies both in the US and in Israel have
invited comparison with controversial deceased commodities trader Marc
Rich, who reportedly worked closely with the Israeli government on a number of projects.
The Justice department would like to the see the UANI lawsuit go away
as it is aware that what is being described as “law enforcement”
documents would include both privileged and classified Treasury
Department work product relating to individuals and companies that it
has investigated for sanctions busting. Passing either intelligence
related or law enforcement documents to a private organization is
illegal but the Justice Department’s only apparent concern is that the
activity might be exposed. There is no indication that it would go after
UANI for having acquired the information and it perhaps should be
presumed that the source of the leak is the Treasury Department itself.
Who or what provided the documents to a private advocacy group that
is also a tax exempt foundation supported by prominent businessmen with
interests in the Middle East is consequently not completely clear but
Restis is assuming that the truth will out if he can get hold of the
evidence. The lawsuit claims that UANI intimidates its targets by
defaming their business practices as well as by demanding both examination of their books and an audit carried out by one of its own accountants followed by review from an “independent counsel.”
Kaplan is named in the suit as he appears to be the gray eminence behind UANI. He once boasted
“we’ve (UANI) done more to bring Iran to heel than any other private
sector initiative.” Kaplan also employs as a director or officer in six
of his companies the Executive Director of UANI Mark Wallace and reportedly arranged the awarding of the Executive Director position at Harvard’s Belfer Center to its President Gary Samore.
Kaplan is a business competitor to Restis, whose lawyers are
apparently seeking to demonstrate two things: first, that the US
government has been feeding sometimes only partially vetted information
to UANI to help in its “name and shame” program and second, that UANI
is itself supported by partisan business interests like Kaplan as well
as by foreign sources, which apparently is meant to imply Israel. Or
even the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Meir Dagan, former head
of Mossad, is on the UANI advisory board, which also includes
ex-Senator Joseph Lieberman and former Senior Diplomat Dennis Ross,
both of whom have frequently been accused of favoring Israeli interests
and both of whom might well have easy access to US government
generated information.
And then there is the Muhadedin-e-Khalq, the Iranian terrorist group that has assassinated at least six Americans and is now assisting the Israeli government in killing Iranian scientists, a prima facie definition
of what constitutes terrorism. The group was on the State Department
terrorist list from 1997 until 2012, when Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton de-listed it in response to demands coming from friends of
Israel in Congress as well as from a large group of ex government
officials, many of whom were paid large honoraria by the group to serve
as advocates. The paid American shills included
former CIA Directors James Woolsey and Porter Goss, New York City
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, former
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Louis Freeh and former
United Nations Ambassador John Bolton. The promoters of MEK in congress
and elsewhere claimed to be primarily motivated by MEK’s being an
enemy of the current regime in Tehran, though its virulent
anti-Americanism and terrorist history make it a somewhat unlikely
poster child for the “Iranian resistance.”
Supporters of MEK also ignore the fact
that the group is run like a cult, routinely executes internal
dissidents, and has virtually no political support within Iran. But such
are the ways of the corrupt Washington punditocracy, lionizing an
organization that it should be shunning. MEK’s political arm is located
in Paris and it has long been assumed that it is funded by the Israeli
government and by at least some of the same gaggle of billionaires,
possibly including their Israeli counterparts, who support the
anti-Iranian agenda in the United States.
Iranian negotiators have accepted that their country should have only
limited uranium enrichment capabilities coupled with a rigorous
inspection regime but the talks in Geneva drag on and on as the United
States continues to hesitate, raising new objections regularly in spite
of claims that it operates in good faith and seeks a settlement. That
an agreement is within reach is undoubtedly true and it would even be
good for Israel as it would remove the regional nuclear option while
making much less likely another pointless and devastating war. But the
men who write the checks do not see it that way and, unfortunately,
they are the ones who all too often both pay the piper and call the
tune.
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