The campaign against J Street has contained a fair amount of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry, epitomized by former AIPAC staffer Lenny Ben-David’s attack on any J Street donors unfortunate enough to have Arab names. Now comes a new and equally unseemly line of attack, centering on an Iran panel at the recent J Street conference that featured National Iranian American Council (NIAC) president Trita Parsi. Parsi, Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard claims, is “the Iranian regime’s man in Washington.” Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic similarly accuses Parsi of “doing a lot of leg-work for the Iranian regime.”
To begin with, it’s worth noting the inaccuracy of the charge. NIAC was harshly critical of the Iranian government’s crackdown on protesters following the disputed elections in June, issuing a June 20 statement “strongly condemn[ing] the government of Iran’s escalating violence against demonstrators” and calling for new elections. A later statement urged the Obama administration not to neglect human rights issues in the course of its diplomacy with Iran. Anyone who followed the post-election crisis closely — no matter where they came from on the ideological spectrum — soon came to rely on NIAC’s blog as an indispensabe source of news and analysis about the protests. And Parsi became the most prominent proponent of engagement to change his stance in the wake of the elections, calling for a “tactical pause” in U.S. diplomacy while the political situation within Iran developed.
Why, then, is he being attacked as a stooge for the Iranian regime? The answer is simple: while Parsi has harshly criticized the regime’s actions, he has joined Iran’s leading opposition figures in opposing the use of sanctions or military force against Iran, on the grounds that they would be likely simply to kill innocent Iranian civilians while strengthening the regime’s hold on power. For the Iran hawks, this is a mortal sin. They will settle for nothing less than an Iranian Ahmed Chalabi — someone willing to tell them precisely what they want to hear, to claim that the Iranian people want to be bombed.
But I am less concerned with the substance of Goldfarb’s and Goldberg’s allegations and more with the insinuation they contain of dual loyalty. They accuse Parsi not merely of holding substantively wrong political beliefs but of actively working for Iranian and against American interests (hence Goldfarb: “the Iranian regime’s man in Washington”).
Similarly, neoconservative Middle East scholar Martin Kramer insinuated several months ago that Iranian-Americans are not to be trusted on issues related to Iran. At a panel at this spring’s AIPAC conference with fellow Iran hawk Michael Rubin, Kramer noted that many Iranian-Americans still have family in Iran, and suggested that they could therefore be easily intimidated into backing the regime. Describing the arrest (and subsequent release) of scholar Haleh Esfandiari while visiting family in Iran, Kramer argued as follows:
The entire episode suggests the ways in which Iran can have behind the scenes leverage over Iranian Americans, many of whom occupy key positions in the think tanks and are even being brought now into the administration…What this means is that we have to be extremely cautious about what we take away from Iranian diaspora communities when it comes to understanding Iran. Many of these communities desperately want access to their own country. And it dramatically tilts their analysis toward accommodation.
The convenient conclusion is that we can ignore anything that Iranian-Americans have to say about Iran. (I am not sure if there is a video of the panel, but I attended and taped it, and would be happy to share the recording.)
It need hardly be said that these are the same commentators who would scream anti-Semitism if anyone were to level similar allegations against Jewish-American political figures. Yet it is undeniable that Goldfarb, Goldberg, and Kramer hold positions that are far closer to the Israeli government’s than Parsi’s position is to the Iranian government’s. Would it therefore be fair to label Goldfarb as “the Israeli government’s man in Washington,” or Goldberg as someone who “does a lot of leg-work for the Israeli government?”
To be clear, I do not support these allegations in either case. I have alway found the dual loyalty argument to be highly suspect; there is no reason that Americans should be forbidden from having affinities and loyalties for any country or group that they please, and these affinities only become problematic in special cases (Jonathan Pollard comes to mind). But if Goldfarb and Goldberg want to fling these allegations around, it strikes me that they should be willing to answer them in turn.
[Cross-posted at LobeLog.]
DE Teodoru says:
BRAVO MR. LUBAN, YOU ARE A MODEL OF JEWISH REASONING, UNLIKE SOME OF THE NEOCONS….If my daughters weren’t already married I’d seek a match-maker to introduce you to them for you are indeed a mensch! By the way, are you of Romanian origin, because I think I know your dad?
The neocons are old line Leninist totalitarians who still swear by their old master's dictum: POLARIZE TO MOBILIZE. While insisting that they alone are the voice of American Jews, they call all Jews who criticize tem "self-hating Jews." But this violent verbal rage to feign mensch-hood fools no one for as soon as the rage they seek happens, they run. I had seen it over and over again since the days when today's right wing neocons were commie revolutionaries. Many Americans are silently judging Israel as the source of their problems. Like a widespread subterranean volcano that erupts without warning anti-Semitism will burst forth unexpectedly. And then, where will all these old fart Likudniks thinking themselves safe because of multiple passports go? J Street is Zionist but Zionists who are also Jews with the same Jewish intellectual bend of Maimonides to think and examine and debate. This is also why the Iranian refugees are here, for intellectual freedom. To now face attack because they do not feel they have a right to demand "regime change" or attack of Iran" by the US only brings closer the minute hand of the Krystalnacht clock to Midnight. It is outrageous to call the J Streeters traitors when all they are looking for is Israel's survival. It is idiotic from American Jews to call for "regime change" in Iran, given the consequences of their advocacy for Iraq, while attacking Iranian expatriates for not being stooges to Israel. This only pushes dangerously forward the minute hand of the American Krystalnacht clock.
Arash says:
You are so far out and uninformed about NIAC that I do not know where to begin. NIAC is supported by the big oil and Iranian regime. This is a known fact among the Iranians. Trita Parsi is referred to as Traitor non-Parsi (non-Persian)because of NIAC support of the repressive regime. NIAC is a 501c3 organization and subject to open records...just follow the money and you shall be enlightened. Also, while you are at it ask why Trita Parsi does not give interviews in Iranian opposition televisions.
rostam says:
Well let us assume that all fingers pointing at Trita Parsi, as a spy for Islamic republic, are evil ones and wrong.
As an Iranian I know the Islamic regime. They are very subversive. They plan for their moves in phases. And they are merciless when they have the overhand and they have a lot of money.
They differentiated themselves from other fractions of the opposition to the Shah by the trust they had in lobby.
The history of this goes back into the time of constitution revolution in Iran 1905 when Islamic opposition to that sought support at the Tsars court thanks to a tiny lobby they had. But they failed.
Back in the cold war days USSR backed the communist party of Iran. The Islamic movement sought back up in Egypt 1963 pointless and failed.
It was only in 1971 when they started lobby acting on US soil for real. This time a great success. Google on the name of MR Ibrahim Yazdi as the father of Islamic lobby in US.
That was the beginning of an era of clash of ambitions in my country way over the head of laymen. USSR made some influences and partly provoked the hostage taking of US personal in Tehran1980. Since then the Islamic Republic invested astronomic amount of money in regrouping and reconstruction of its lobby on US soil. In fact not just one but a meshwork of structures with vast levels and missions.
The lobby they had between 1971-1980 was made of students with clear Islamic agenda. But they turned their backs to the regime when they grasped the reality of the monster they helped to release from the Pandora box.
The reinvestment surged 1996. With clear inspiration from the Israeli lobbies and encouraged by the experience of Kuwait in making US react fiercely against Saddam in gulf war. So there is a strong meshwork of lobbies working for them. You defend Trita Parsi. Cool. But do not deny the existence of such. The real falsifiers would be those who deny the whole concept