Republican Ties: Iran's Oil Mafia

Frontpage Magazine

Robert William (Bob) Ney is a current federal prisoner and a former Ohio Congressman from 1995 until November 3, 2006. Ney pled guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements in relation to the Jack Abramoff lobbying and bribery scandal. Ney reportedly received bribes from Abramoff, other lobbyists, and two foreign businessmen - a felon and an arms dealer - in exchange for using his position to advance their interests.

Conspicuously missing from this dossier of disservice to the country was Ney’s assistance in the creation of a Washington-based lobbying enterprise for the Iranian theocratic regime, The National Iranian-American Council (NIAC). NIAC is part of an extensive US lobbying web that objectively furthers the interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This article will address the creation of NIAC, Tehran’s role, NIAC’s connection to Iran’s oil mafia, and NIAC attempts to penetrate US political system.

Creation of NIAC

The National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) was founded thanks to the efforts of four non Iranian-Americans: Roy Coffee, Dave DiStefano, Rep. Bob Ney, and Trita Parsi. Coffee and DiStefano, both Washington lobbyists, were investigated by the Justice Department for arranging a trip to London for Bob Ney, where he met a Syrian arms dealer and convicted felon involved in a conspiracy to circumvent sanctions to sell US-made aircraft parts to Tehran.

Roy Coffee sent a letter to the Dallas Morning News in February 2006 to justify his relationship with the two London-based felons. Part of the letter discussed the founding of NIAC:

“Back in the spring or summer of 2002, a good friend of mine from law school, Darius Baghai, had just returned from visiting relatives in Iran for the first time since his family left before the revolution. He spoke with me about how the economy of Iran was humming …….From this, I took Darius in to visit with Mr. Ney. What was to be a 15 minute meeting became a 1 1/2 hour meeting as they spoke passionately about their hopes for the Iranian people. They also spoke in Farsi a great deal - I'm sure talking smack about me. From that meeting, Darius, Dave and I began to work with Trita Parsi, another Iranian-American to try to form a political action committee of Iranian-Americans to pursue a strategy of normalization of relations between the two countries…. The 4 of us worked very hard for about 9 months to form this committee.”

At the time, Trita Parsi was a Swedish-Iranian graduate student in his early twenties, best known for ties to Iran’s ambassador in Sweden. A successful self-promoter, he soon attached himself as a part-time aide to Congressman Ney before he was appointed president of NIAC.

The New Lobby

NIAC’s predecessor, the American-Iranian Council (AIC), was established in the 1990s with backing from multinational oil companies. For many years, it spear-headed pro-Tehran lobbying effort in the US.

AIC president Houshang Amirahmadi had been an active pro-Tehran player since early 1980s. While residing in US, he was also a presidential candidate in Iran’s elections, and officially collaborated with different Iranian institutions and notably the foreign ministry. In 1999 and 2000 Trita Parsi was helping Amirahmadi to organize lobbying events in Washington.

In 2001, the pro-Iran lobby in the United States became intensely active to prevent the renewal of the Iran Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), and to lift U.S. sanctions on Iran. Despite extraordinary pressure from the lobby, ILSA passed overwhelmingly.

Prior to his imprisonment in March 2007, Bob Ney led Congressional efforts to defeat ILSA and initiate Tehran-friendly policies in concert with AIC. Disappointed and angered by the ILSA vote, Ney began to plan for the next battle of the war.

“The ILSA vote doesn’t look very promising, but that doesn’t mean the struggle should stop on this entire issue. It is a matter of education and re-education and people getting together and forming a citizen’s lobby to make sure that members of Congress and their offices are educated on this issue,” Ney told AIC in a June 2001 speech.

While Ney was hard at work “forming a citizen’s lobby,” Trita Parsi claimed that the majority of lawmakers voted against their true wills. In a tone apologetic to Tehran, he expressed his hope that the Iranian regime understood that he and his colleagues had worked hard to prevent this result:

“Hopefully, Tehran will recognize that an honest attempt was made to defeat or at least weaken the sanctions. The call for a review and Speaker Hastert's pledge to insist on Congressional action based on the review must also be interpreted by Tehran as a step in the right direction” (Iran Analysis July 2001 Peyvand Iran News)

This failure to block the renewal of ILSA in 2001 marked the start of a new era for the pro-Iran lobby in the United States. The lobbyists recognized that they must broadly reach out to Iranian-Americans.NIAC was created to put those plans in motion.

Trita Parsi was the regime’s trusted man within the new network. Tehran’s faith in Parsi was so profound that in 2003 when Iran decided to send a highly secret proposal for negotiations to the White House, Parsi was called on to arrange the delivery of the message through Bob Ney to Karl Rove. Parsi, moreover, was among the few chosen men (along with Mahallati, Iran’s former ambassador to UN) to present the results of a shady Tehran-friendly poll of the Iranian population which indicated the popularity of Iran’s nuclear program. .......