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Money trail behind Kerry's Iran stance
WorldNetDaily ^ | 10/3/04 | WorldNetDaily

Posted on 10/03/2004 7:40:37 PM PDT by wagglebee

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kerry's call for providing Iran with the nuclear fuel it seeks, even while the regime is believed to be only months away from developing nuclear weapons, is being linked to his campaign contributions from backers of the mullah government in Tehran.

During last Thursday's nationally televised debate between the Democratic presidential candidate and President Bush, Kerry insisted as president he would provide Tehran with the nuclear fuel it wants for a pledge to use it for peaceful purposes only.

"I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes," Kerry said in a critique of the Bush administration's handling of Tehran's nuclear program, which the Iranians claim is only for civilian purposes.

The comments came in response to a question about whether diplomacy and sanctions can resolve the "nuclear problems" with North Korea and Iran.

"If they weren't willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together," Kerry said of Tehran. "The president did nothing."

Among Kerry's top fund-raisers are three Iranian-Americans who have been pushing for dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Most prominent among them is Hassan Nemazee, 54, an investment banker based in New York. Nominated to become U.S. ambassador to Argentina by President Clinton in 1999, Nemazee eventually withdrew his nomination after a former partner raised allegations of business improprieties, WND previously reported.

Nemazee was a major Clinton donor, giving $80,000 to the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 election cycle and attending at least one of the famous White House fund-raising coffees.

In 2001, at the invitation of Mobil Oil Chairman Lucio Noto, whom he counts as a "personal friend," Nemazee joined the board of the American-Iranian Council, a U.S. lobbying group that consistently has supported lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran and accommodating the Tehran regime.

The Kerry camp has identified Nemazee as having raised more than $100,000 for the senator's campaign, WND reported last spring.

A Nemazee friend in Silicon Valley, Faraj Aalaei, has raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the Kerry campaign. Aalaei has worked in the telecommunications industry for 22 years and is the chief executive officer of Centillium Communications, a publicly traded company.

Last year, Aalaei married a 35-year-old recent immigrant from Iran named Susan Akbarpour, whom the Kerry campaign also lists as having raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the campaign.

In just six years since coming to the United States on a tourist visa from Iran, Akbarpour has started a newspaper, a magazine and, most recently, a trade association whose goal is to get sanctions lifted and promote U.S. business and investment in Iran.

Most odd about the support from Akbarpour, writes Kenneth Timmerman in this month's issue of the American Spectator, is that she claimed political asylum from the Iranian regime when she came to this country.

Meanwhile, Kerry has embraced the entire political agenda of Akbarpour and other wealthy Iranian-Americans embracing Tehran. Those positions include:

ending the fingerprinting of Iranian visitors to the U.S.;

expanding "family reunion" visas to allow extended family members of Iranians living in the U.S. to immigrate here legally and in large numbers;

offering a "dialogue" with the hard-line, terrorist-supporting clerics in Tehran;

help Iran join the World Trade Organization. The stunning remarks by Kerry were initially reported only by WorldNetDaily, and some analysts suggested the statements were misunderstood, taken out of context or simply a verbal gaffe by the candidate.

However, the same policy of accommodation toward Iran's nuclear aspirations is clearly outlined on Kerry's campaign website as well.

Under the heading "Prevent Iran From Developing Nuclear Weapons," the Kerry campaign makes the same point emphatically – that the U.S. should still give or sell the nuclear fuel Iran wants in exchange for a promise not to build nuclear weapons.

"A nuclear armed Iran is an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States and our allies in the region," the campaign policy statement reads. "While we have been preoccupied in Iraq, Iran has reportedly been moving ahead with its nuclear program. We can no longer sit on the sidelines and leave the negotiations to the Europeans. It is critical that we work with our allies to resolve these issues and lead a global effort to prevent Iran from obtaining the technology necessary to build nuclear weapons. Iran claims that its nuclear program is only to meet its domestic energy needs. John Kerry's proposal would call their bluff by organizing a group of states to offer Iran the nuclear fuel they need for peaceful purposes and take back the spent fuel so they cannot divert it to build a weapon. If Iran does not accept this offer, their true motivations will be clear. Under the current circumstances, John Kerry believes we should support the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) efforts to discern the full extent of Iran's nuclear program, while pushing Iran to agree to a verifiable and permanent suspension of its enrichment and reprocessing programs. If this process fails, we must lead the effort to ensure that the IAEA takes this issue to the Security Council for action."

However, according to the latest intelligence reports, Iran has decided at the highest levels of government to build its nuclear weapons program within the next four months. Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has urged his country's weapons developers to step up work on making a nuclear bomb, a U.S. official said, according to Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service.

Citing an authoritative source in the Iranian exile community, the official said Khamenei met recently with senior government and military leaders regarding the nuclear weapons program.

Khamenei told the gathering, "We must have two bombs ready to go in January or you are not Muslims," the official said.

Tehran has said the recent International Atomic Energy Agency resolution calling on Iran to halt uranium enrichment could lead to the country's withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Officials of the Kerry campaign were unavailable this weekend.

In addition to the nuclear weapons threat, Iran test-fired a Shihab-3 medium-range ballistic missile, capable of reaching Israel, Sept. 18 and also in August. The missile is reportedly capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

During the debate, Bush said he wants to continue to work with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Great Britain to "convince the Iranian mullahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions."

Responding to Kerry, Bush noted the U.S. already has sanctioned Iran.

"We can't sanction them any more," he said. "There are sanctions in place on Iran."

Israel has said it wants to await the outcome of international pressure on Iran before it considers a pre-emptive military strike on reactors as it did in 1981 in Iraq.

At another point in the debate, Kerry also said he wants to end research on bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons, which presumably could take out an Iranian reactor if his sanctions are ineffective.

Kerry said it "doesn't make sense" for Bush to be pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons when the U.S. is trying to tell countries, such as North Korea, to disarm.

"You talk about mixed messages," he said. "We're telling other people, 'You can't have nuclear weapons, but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using.'"

"Not this president," Kerry said. "I'm going to shut that program down, and we're going to make it clear to the world we're serious about containing nuclear proliferation."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: debate; iran; iraniansanctions; kerry; kerryforeignpolicy; kerryiran; moneytrail; napalminthemorning; nucleararms; wot
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Even for a man with a history of treason, this goes beyond the pale.
1 posted on 10/03/2004 7:40:39 PM PDT by wagglebee
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To: wagglebee

wow---the Manchurian candidate


2 posted on 10/03/2004 7:43:46 PM PDT by rang1995
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To: wagglebee; kdf1; AMERIKA; Lancey Howard; MudPuppy; SMEDLEYBUTLER; opbuzz; Snow Bunny; gitmogrunt; ..
We can no longer sit on the sidelines and leave the negotiations to the Europeans. It is critical that we work with our allies to resolve these issues and lead a global effort to prevent Iran from obtaining the technology necessary to build nuclear weapons.

He flipped in the 2 consecutive sentences!!

We can no longer sit on the sidelines and leave the negotiations to the Europeans.

Then he says, the very next sentence...

It is critical that we work with our allies to resolve these issues and lead a global effort to prevent Iran from obtaining the technology necessary to build nuclear weapons.

Unbelievable!

3 posted on 10/03/2004 7:49:13 PM PDT by RaceBannon (KERRY FLED . . . WHILE GOOD MEN BLED!!)
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To: rang1995

My God...sell out your country for a campaign contribution!! The Manchurian Candidate, without a doubt. I look forward to extensive and penetrating MSM coverage of this bombshell!


4 posted on 10/03/2004 7:52:48 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: rang1995

Well Put !!!!

Kerry is clearly the Manchurian Candidate for Chirac, Annan, and ANY TERRORIST-DICTATOR nations...throw in the Commies too --- he is just continuing the Clintoni legacy of support for anti-American countries.

Our RADICAL LEFT OF THE USA -- are they not beautiful ???


5 posted on 10/03/2004 7:54:05 PM PDT by EagleUSA
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To: wagglebee
And we thought Clinton was bad, I think if Kerry gets in the White House he will be the most corrupt president in history. Kerry seems to have no clue, he really thinks no one is smart enough to find out about all the lies he has repeated through is life. It is absolutely bizarre. Kerry thinks he is above all of the rules.
6 posted on 10/03/2004 7:59:21 PM PDT by mammer
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To: wagglebee

You know wagglebee you do post some very good things. Thanks


7 posted on 10/03/2004 8:01:31 PM PDT by mammer
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To: wagglebee

BUMP


8 posted on 10/03/2004 8:08:37 PM PDT by browardchad
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To: mammer; wagglebee; Fedora; Cincinatus' Wife; RaceBannon

Yes, agreed: wagglebee's posts are superb!


9 posted on 10/03/2004 8:10:40 PM PDT by risk
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Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: Fatty McGee

This election would be over if GWB Said as follows:

"This debate has shown that there is clear choice in this election. Senator Kerry said tonight that he wants to end our program to develop weapons necessary to fight the war on terror, he wants to give Iran nuclear materials, and finally, he wants to add a Global Test to determine whether America defends itself in these uncertain times. I disagree. We will continue to take the fight to the terrorists, continue to protect the homeland, and continue to do whatever is necessary to defend our country. I ask that you continue to pray for the members of our armed forces, and vote for me on election day.'

CHECKMATE!


11 posted on 10/03/2004 8:12:18 PM PDT by chris1 ("Make the other guy die for his country" - George S. Patton Jr.)
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To: wagglebee

Judicial Watch reported a month or so ago (with copies of documents) that Clinton, Gore and Kerry took money from the Chinese for their re-election campaigns... so this doesn't surprise me at all. We need to majorily change how campaigns are financed in this country... not McCain-Feingold, but the whole banana... 527's and all ...


12 posted on 10/03/2004 8:12:37 PM PDT by Arizona Carolyn
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Comment #13 Removed by Moderator

To: wagglebee

Clinton's boys keep popping up in all of Kerry's plans ? One "Slick Willie" is enough, this country will not survive another. There selling us out.


14 posted on 10/03/2004 8:15:35 PM PDT by 26lemoncharlie (Defending the USA)
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To: wagglebee
John Kerry thinks nuclear proliferation - not terrorism - is the greatest security threat facing America. He said so in the first debate. He said in order to show sincerity about stopping proliferation he would END U.S. research into underground nuclear bunker busters. Kerry thinks America having nuclear weapons is akin to terrorists and rogue regimes having them. HE DISPLAYS THE INTOLERABLE EVIL OF ALL MORAL RELATIVISTS, EXACTLY WHAT COULD LEAD TO THE SUICIDE OF CIVILIZATION.

He's been consistent about one thing -- believing in disarming America -- because his attitude is that America is evil or really capable of it and must be cut down to size -- to be on a par with France and dictatorships run by nutcases and islamo-fascists.

Here's the part of the debate where he talked about killing yet another weapons system:
http://snipurl.com/9hf0

Here's an excellent commentary on it by Bill Hobbs:
http://billhobbs.com/hobbsonline/004622.html

For Kerry to even "contemplate" giving the Iranian ayatollahs enriched uranium is INSANITY of the worst order.  It's worse than his insisting that any so-called pre-emptive action requires "passing a global test.  It's even worse than Jimmy Carter's thinking we could bank on the North Koreans' promise to him not to develop nuclear weapons.  These are the kinds of suicidal ideas that George Orwell said only an intellectual could believe -- "because no one else could be such a fool."

“I’m an internationalist,” Kerry told The Harvard Crimson in 1970.  “I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only  at the directive of the United Nations.”  -- see  http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357339

Kerry's ACTIONS for the past 30 years are consistent, but his WORDS are not.  He has ALWAYS felt the same way.  His words are not consistent for one very good reason; he must distract the voters with a few pro-American comments now and then to obscure how fundamentally anti-supremacy he really is and always has been.  That's why he habitually says "but" after every strong-sounding comment he makes (see:  http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005704  )

(BTW, according to http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2004/0413.asp  the Adam Clymer mentioned in the piece is the same guy as "Big Time.")

also see:  http://freedomkeys.com/propagandist.htm  (which is just as easy to copy and email as this post is)  

15 posted on 10/03/2004 8:16:56 PM PDT by FreeKeys (So SeeBS must think it's OK to plant evidence if you think -- or at least hope -- someone's guilty.)
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To: FreeKeys

IMO our greatest security threat is John Kerry.


16 posted on 10/03/2004 8:20:37 PM PDT by Arizona Carolyn
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To: rang1995

"The Manchurian Candidate" is a very good description of Kerry. We need to spread this image of Kerry out. Can somebody call Rush or Sean so that they can help spread out this name?


17 posted on 10/03/2004 8:49:51 PM PDT by RedRepublic
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To: wagglebee

Another interesting article on this topic from FrontPage Mag

Kerry's Iranian Connection Fights Democracy
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 8, 2004

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=14977



Frivolous lawsuits have long been used as weapons of the powerful against the weak; a particularly egregious example is now playing out in Texas, courtesy of one of John Kerry’s most controversial supporters: the Iranian Hassan Nemazee. Nemazee is pursuing a ten-million-dollar damage claim against the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI) and its coordinator, Aryo B. Pirouznia. A Nemazee victory in this suit would almost certainly muzzle or destroy altogether the SMCCDI, one of the most energetic and courageous opponents of Iran’s entrenched but uneasy mullahocracy. But now that Nemazee’s lawsuit has been filed, it has become increasingly clear that it could embarrass the entire Democratic Party — and severely damage the already flagging candidacy of John Kerry.


Nemazee is an influential figure with many friends in high places in groups such as the American-Iranian Council (AIC), the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), and the Iranian-American Bar Association (IABA). Nemazee’s name is also well known in Democratic Party circles. He was a prominent contributor to Bob Torricelli’s New Jersey Senate campaign. The multimillionaire entrepreneur also contributed $50,000 to his friend Al Gore’s Recount Fund (and $250,000 to the Gore campaign), $60,000 to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund, and over $150,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Clinton attempted to reward him by naming him U.S. Ambassador to Argentina — but the Senate declined to confirm him after Forbes magazine published, in May 1999, an extremely damaging expose of his shady financial dealings.

Undaunted, Nemazee continued efforts to establish fruitful contacts between Iranian groups advocating normalization of relations with Iran and high-level members of the Democratic Party. He joined the Board of Directors of the AIC, an organization whose president, Hooshang Amirahmadi, is identified on the SMCCDI website as a “well known lobbyist for the Iranian Mullahocracy.” Nemazee was involved in a March 2002 fundraiser for Senate Foreign Affairs Committee heavyweight Joe Biden (D-DE). This event was hosted by Sadegh Namazikhah, another AIC member whom Aryo Pirouznia charges with trying to improve public perception of “one of the most despotic regimes in the world.”



Three months later it was Kerry’s turn: Nemazee invited the future Democratic standard bearer to speak at an AIC dinner. Nemazee himself also spoke, declaring that the AIC “does not attempt to explain or rationalize the position of the government of Iran, nor does it attempt to do so for the government of the United States. Its mission is to educate both sides and to attempt to establish the basis and the vehicle for a dialogue which will ultimately lead to a resumption of relations.” If Kerry registered any protest against this assertion that the United States should normalize relations with one of the world’s bloodiest dictatorships, it was not recorded. Nemazee, according to Iran experts Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi and Elio Bonazzi, now seems to be denying that he ever made this speech at all — although it is still posted on the AIC’s website.



Outside San Francisco’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where this grand event was held, the SMCCDI organized a large protest rally. Nemazee, evidently, would not forget this and other affronts. In his lawsuit, he charges that the SMCCDI knowingly and repeatedly made “false and defamatory statements” about his support for the Iranian regime. His complaint states categorically that “Nemazee does not ‘support … the Islamic Republic and the Revolution.’”



But his friend Kerry, meanwhile, seems to have absorbed the very lessons that Nemazee now denies having tried to teach. Before the Council on Foreign Relations in December 2003, Kerry announced that he would be willing as President to pursue rapprochement with Iran: “As president, I will be prepared early on to explore areas of mutual interest with Iran, just as I was prepared to normalize relations with Vietnam a decade ago.” And most notoriously, his staff sent out an email that somehow made its way to the government-controlled Mehr News Agency in Tehran, where it was trumpeted as evidence of his resolve to patch things up with the mullahs. “It is in the urgent interests of the people of the United States,” the message read, “to restore our country’s credibility in the eyes of the world. America needs the kind of leadership that will repair alliances with countries on every continent that have been so damaged in the past few years, as well as build new friendships and overcome tensions with others.”



Kerry’s camp professed puzzlement over how this email made it to Tehran. Initially, a Kerry aide dismissed the story as “just a hoax.” But this pose proved impossible to maintain. Kerry’s senior foreign affairs advisor, Rand Beers, later admitted that the message was genuine, saying: “I have no idea how they got hold of that letter, which was prepared for Democrats Abroad. I scratched my head when I saw that. The only way they could have gotten it was if someone in Iran was with Democrats Abroad.” In light of the ties between the AIC and the Democratic Party, that possibility is at least open to question.



But Kerry’s olive branches to the regime that carries on the legacy of the Ayatollah Khomeini now embarrass him: his Council on Foreign Relations remarks seem to have been removed from the Kerry-Edwards website. Hence also the Nemazee lawsuit: to silence the SMCCDI and its inconvenient protests. One way to do that is indirect, by using the suit to put the SMCCDI out of action. According to documents that Pirouznia/SMCCDI defense attorney Bob Jenevein made available to me, the prosecution has been playing several such games. On August 20, 2004, Jenevein wrote a letter to Rob Wiley of Locke Lidell & Sapp, the elite Texas law firm representing Nemazee. He proposed five stipulations — points that both sides could agree to, so that they need not spend the court’s time trying to establish or disprove them. These included: “1. The Islamic regime in Iran is sympathetic to terrorists. 2. The Islamic regime in Iran poses a threat to the security of the United States and/or its citizens at home or abroad. 3. For the United States to normalize its diplomatic relations with Iran at this time would lend credibility to the Islamic regime in Iran. 4. For the United States to ease trade sanctions against Iran at this time would lend credibility to the Islamic regime in Iran. 5. Anything that would lend credibility to the Islamic regime in Iran at this time would have value to that regime.” Wiley answered on the same day that his team had taken the stipulations “under advisement”; but in the almost two weeks since then, gave no further answer. Thus Nemazee’s attorneys effectively agreed to none of the stipulations, raising the prospect that Jenevein would have to spend hours upon hours in court establishing these points, thereby endangering the SMCCDI by straining its financial resources.



Other documents furnished by Jenevein suggest that the prosecution is trying to run up the costs of the litigation in other ways also — attempting to find out who is paying Pirouznia’s legal bills and to drive SMCCDI into destitution. One example was a fax that Wiley sent to Jenevein last Monday afternoon, informing him of a draft motion that the prosecution was planning to file on certain matters regarding the case unless the prosecution and defense reached an agreement by 5PM Tuesday. Jenevein immediately faxed a response, suggesting ways to agree, but the prosecution ignored it and filed the motion the next morning anyway. This multiplication of motions, of course, is a classic tactic to drive up court costs.



Related to all this is the curious fact that, according to an inside source close to the case, Nemazee has never made himself available for a deposition. Pirouznia’s defense attorney contacted Nemazee’s lawyers in early August, immediately after taking the case (five months after it was filed), to request dates for this deposition; Nemazee’s team responded that he would only be available on two dates in November and two in December – all four after the election, and all over seven months after the case was filed. “He’s saying we want his deposition for political reasons,” the insider exclaimed incredulously, “but HE filed the lawsuit!” The Pirouznia/SMCCDI team has filed a motion ordering Nemazee to appear for a deposition on September 20; no ruling has been made on it yet.



Why file a lawsuit, and then play hide-and-seek with the defense? The lobbyist and his team seem to be trying to keep the case under wraps until after the presidential election. “Nemazee is worried that his candidate will be embarrassed if the facts of this litigation are made public,” observes Jenevein. “I’m afraid that this case would appear typical of the frivolous lawsuits about which Republicans complain so loudly. To the extent that Hassan Nemazee constitutes a link between a presidential campaign and the Iranian regime, that link would be considered a grave political liability for the campaign.

The lawsuit is designed to silence those who speak about this.”



The Nemazee camp appears to be growing increasingly anxious lest details of their suit leak out. That may be why, according to an informed source, the founder of a public relations firm and international speaker’s bureau that specializes in foreign policy and terrorism-related issues recently contacted Pirouznia and invited him to lunch — ultimately, two lunches on consecutive days, all to argue that he should drop the suit. Important figures of the Iranian democracy movement, the PR wizard intimated to Pirouznia, really wanted him to forget the whole thing. Dumbfounded, Pirouznia reminded the PR maven that it was he who was the target of the suit, and that he was only defending himself and his organization. Several other people who figures connected to the defense team wryly term “Nemazee’s messengers” also contacted Pirouznia to make the same appeal.



The SMCCDI and Aryo Pirouznia are evidently not the only ones in Nemazee’s sights. According to an informed source, Nemazee’s lawyer asked in official documents used by the plaintiff to build the case about the relationship between Pirouznia and another pair of stalwart Iran democracy activists: Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi and Elio Bonazzi. Said the source: “Aryo’s lawyer objected that this is not relevant, but basically this means that even if Nemazee didn’t sue the Bonazzis directly, they are among his targets.” This despite the fact that the Bonazzis have never advanced any political agenda for Iran beyond promoting the idea of a genuine (not UN- or Jimmy Carter-led) internationally monitored referendum to decide on Iran’s form of government after the complete ousting of any form of theocracy. Zand-Bonazzi’s father, Siamak Pourzand, is a well-known Iranian journalist, intellectual, freedom fighter – and political prisoner of the Islamic regime.



Thus the mullahs fight on for their survival in the courtrooms of Texas.



Frivolous lawsuits have long been used as weapons of the powerful against the weak; a particularly egregious example is now playing out in Texas, courtesy of one of John Kerry’s most controversial supporters: the Iranian Hassan Nemazee. Nemazee is pursuing a ten-million-dollar damage claim against the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI) and its coordinator, Aryo B. Pirouznia. A Nemazee victory in this suit would almost certainly muzzle or destroy altogether the SMCCDI, one of the most energetic and courageous opponents of Iran’s entrenched but uneasy mullahocracy. But now that Nemazee’s lawsuit has been filed, it has become increasingly clear that it could embarrass the entire Democratic Party — and severely damage the already flagging candidacy of John Kerry.


Nemazee is an influential figure with many friends in high places in groups such as the American-Iranian Council (AIC), the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), and the Iranian-American Bar Association (IABA). Nemazee’s name is also well known in Democratic Party circles. He was a prominent contributor to Bob Torricelli’s New Jersey Senate campaign. The multimillionaire entrepreneur also contributed $50,000 to his friend Al Gore’s Recount Fund (and $250,000 to the Gore campaign), $60,000 to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund, and over $150,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Clinton attempted to reward him by naming him U.S. Ambassador to Argentina — but the Senate declined to confirm him after Forbes magazine published, in May 1999, an extremely damaging expose of his shady financial dealings.

Undaunted, Nemazee continued efforts to establish fruitful contacts between Iranian groups advocating normalization of relations with Iran and high-level members of the Democratic Party. He joined the Board of Directors of the AIC, an organization whose president, Hooshang Amirahmadi, is identified on the SMCCDI website as a “well known lobbyist for the Iranian Mullahocracy.” Nemazee was involved in a March 2002 fundraiser for Senate Foreign Affairs Committee heavyweight Joe Biden (D-DE). This event was hosted by Sadegh Namazikhah, another AIC member whom Aryo Pirouznia charges with trying to improve public perception of “one of the most despotic regimes in the world.”



Three months later it was Kerry’s turn: Nemazee invited the future Democratic standard bearer to speak at an AIC dinner. Nemazee himself also spoke, declaring that the AIC “does not attempt to explain or rationalize the position of the government of Iran, nor does it attempt to do so for the government of the United States. Its mission is to educate both sides and to attempt to establish the basis and the vehicle for a dialogue which will ultimately lead to a resumption of relations.” If Kerry registered any protest against this assertion that the United States should normalize relations with one of the world’s bloodiest dictatorships, it was not recorded. Nemazee, according to Iran experts Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi and Elio Bonazzi, now seems to be denying that he ever made this speech at all — although it is still posted on the AIC’s website.



Outside San Francisco’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where this grand event was held, the SMCCDI organized a large protest rally. Nemazee, evidently, would not forget this and other affronts. In his lawsuit, he charges that the SMCCDI knowingly and repeatedly made “false and defamatory statements” about his support for the Iranian regime. His complaint states categorically that “Nemazee does not ‘support … the Islamic Republic and the Revolution.’”



But his friend Kerry, meanwhile, seems to have absorbed the very lessons that Nemazee now denies having tried to teach. Before the Council on Foreign Relations in December 2003, Kerry announced that he would be willing as President to pursue rapprochement with Iran: “As president, I will be prepared early on to explore areas of mutual interest with Iran, just as I was prepared to normalize relations with Vietnam a decade ago.” And most notoriously, his staff sent out an email that somehow made its way to the government-controlled Mehr News Agency in Tehran, where it was trumpeted as evidence of his resolve to patch things up with the mullahs. “It is in the urgent interests of the people of the United States,” the message read, “to restore our country’s credibility in the eyes of the world. America needs the kind of leadership that will repair alliances with countries on every continent that have been so damaged in the past few years, as well as build new friendships and overcome tensions with others.”



Kerry’s camp professed puzzlement over how this email made it to Tehran. Initially, a Kerry aide dismissed the story as “just a hoax.” But this pose proved impossible to maintain. Kerry’s senior foreign affairs advisor, Rand Beers, later admitted that the message was genuine, saying: “I have no idea how they got hold of that letter, which was prepared for Democrats Abroad. I scratched my head when I saw that. The only way they could have gotten it was if someone in Iran was with Democrats Abroad.” In light of the ties between the AIC and the Democratic Party, that possibility is at least open to question.



But Kerry’s olive branches to the regime that carries on the legacy of the Ayatollah Khomeini now embarrass him: his Council on Foreign Relations remarks seem to have been removed from the Kerry-Edwards website. Hence also the Nemazee lawsuit: to silence the SMCCDI and its inconvenient protests. One way to do that is indirect, by using the suit to put the SMCCDI out of action. According to documents that Pirouznia/SMCCDI defense attorney Bob Jenevein made available to me, the prosecution has been playing several such games. On August 20, 2004, Jenevein wrote a letter to Rob Wiley of Locke Lidell & Sapp, the elite Texas law firm representing Nemazee. He proposed five stipulations — points that both sides could agree to, so that they need not spend the court’s time trying to establish or disprove them. These included: “1. The Islamic regime in Iran is sympathetic to terrorists. 2. The Islamic regime in Iran poses a threat to the security of the United States and/or its citizens at home or abroad. 3. For the United States to normalize its diplomatic relations with Iran at this time would lend credibility to the Islamic regime in Iran. 4. For the United States to ease trade sanctions against Iran at this time would lend credibility to the Islamic regime in Iran. 5. Anything that would lend credibility to the Islamic regime in Iran at this time would have value to that regime.” Wiley answered on the same day that his team had taken the stipulations “under advisement”; but in the almost two weeks since then, gave no further answer. Thus Nemazee’s attorneys effectively agreed to none of the stipulations, raising the prospect that Jenevein would have to spend hours upon hours in court establishing these points, thereby endangering the SMCCDI by straining its financial resources.



Other documents furnished by Jenevein suggest that the prosecution is trying to run up the costs of the litigation in other ways also — attempting to find out who is paying Pirouznia’s legal bills and to drive SMCCDI into destitution. One example was a fax that Wiley sent to Jenevein last Monday afternoon, informing him of a draft motion that the prosecution was planning to file on certain matters regarding the case unless the prosecution and defense reached an agreement by 5PM Tuesday. Jenevein immediately faxed a response, suggesting ways to agree, but the prosecution ignored it and filed the motion the next morning anyway. This multiplication of motions, of course, is a classic tactic to drive up court costs.



Related to all this is the curious fact that, according to an inside source close to the case, Nemazee has never made himself available for a deposition. Pirouznia’s defense attorney contacted Nemazee’s lawyers in early August, immediately after taking the case (five months after it was filed), to request dates for this deposition; Nemazee’s team responded that he would only be available on two dates in November and two in December – all four after the election, and all over seven months after the case was filed. “He’s saying we want his deposition for political reasons,” the insider exclaimed incredulously, “but HE filed the lawsuit!” The Pirouznia/SMCCDI team has filed a motion ordering Nemazee to appear for a deposition on September 20; no ruling has been made on it yet.



Why file a lawsuit, and then play hide-and-seek with the defense? The lobbyist and his team seem to be trying to keep the case under wraps until after the presidential election. “Nemazee is worried that his candidate will be embarrassed if the facts of this litigation are made public,” observes Jenevein. “I’m afraid that this case would appear typical of the frivolous lawsuits about which Republicans complain so loudly. To the extent that Hassan Nemazee constitutes a link between a presidential campaign and the Iranian regime, that link would be considered a grave political liability for the campaign.

The lawsuit is designed to silence those who speak about this.”
The Nemazee camp appears to be growing increasingly anxious lest details of their suit leak out. That may be why, according to an informed source, the founder of a public relations firm and international speaker’s bureau that specializes in foreign policy and terrorism-related issues recently contacted Pirouznia and invited him to lunch — ultimately, two lunches on consecutive days, all to argue that he should drop the suit. Important figures of the Iranian democracy movement, the PR wizard intimated to Pirouznia, really wanted him to forget the whole thing. Dumbfounded, Pirouznia reminded the PR maven that it was he who was the target of the suit, and that he was only defending himself and his organization. Several other people who figures connected to the defense team wryly term “Nemazee’s messengers” also contacted Pirouznia to make the same appeal.



The SMCCDI and Aryo Pirouznia are evidently not the only ones in Nemazee’s sights. According to an informed source, Nemazee’s lawyer asked in official documents used by the plaintiff to build the case about the relationship between Pirouznia and another pair of stalwart Iran democracy activists: Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi and Elio Bonazzi. Said the source: “Aryo’s lawyer objected that this is not relevant, but basically this means that even if Nemazee didn’t sue the Bonazzis directly, they are among his targets.” This despite the fact that the Bonazzis have never advanced any political agenda for Iran beyond promoting the idea of a genuine (not UN- or Jimmy Carter-led) internationally monitored referendum to decide on Iran’s form of government after the complete ousting of any form of theocracy. Zand-Bonazzi’s father, Siamak Pourzand, is a well-known Iranian journalist, intellectual, freedom fighter – and political prisoner of the Islamic regime.
Thus the mullahs fight on for their survival in the courtrooms of Texas.


18 posted on 10/03/2004 8:51:57 PM PDT by kc125
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To: Modernman

Way too complicated for the MSM to pick up on, but it's worth looking at this. The dots connect. Too bad it will never get play . . .


19 posted on 10/03/2004 8:57:31 PM PDT by BroncosFan (NJ 2005: Schundler for Governor)
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To: wagglebee

Words fail me. I hope Bush picks up on this.


20 posted on 10/03/2004 9:02:05 PM PDT by RedBloodedAmerican
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