Mehdi Khalaji

I was pleasantly surprised when the Iranian publication "Asr Diplomacy" pointed an accusatory finger at a very dangerous criminal: Mehdi Khalaji.

6-7 years ago, when I started publishing articles on The Huffington Post, I wrote an article about Khalaji (2010) called "Father And Son" (published below).  Little did I know how prominent he was amongst neoconservatives and those would want to destroy Iran and Iranians.   After this publication, The Huffington Post stopped publishing all my articles.  I called out the names of those who wanted to stop me from writing in this article:  "Out of the Loop" (published below).  

Seems with Trump and Woosley in tow, Khalaji may have gained new prominence.

THE BLOG

Father And Son

 03/22/2010 05:12 am ET | Updated May 25, 2011

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

A response to Mehdi Khalaji

A senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Mr. Khalaji writes a heart wrenching account of his father’s life, his devotion to the Islamic Republic’s founder, Khomeini, and his arrest by the current government for speaking up against the post-election abuse in Iran. One has to wonder why this good man, Mr. Khalaji senior, who according to his son kept ‘Khomeini’s shoulders warm with his mantle’, never spoke up of his son’s perceived betrayal towards his country? 

In 2006, almost four years before the June presidential elections, Mehdi Khalaji established his usefulness in a panel discussion with neoconservative extremists James Woolsey, Ilan Berman, and Patrick Clawson when he appeared on a panel discussion with them entitled “Understanding the Iranian Threat”. He thus earned himself a place at the pro-Israeli think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 

Founded in 1985, the Washington Institute specializes in Arab-Israel relations. It should come as no surprise that AIPAC’s research director for 3 years, Martin Indyk was its founding member for 8 years. Indyk moved on to become special assistant to Bill Clinton and senior director of Near East and South Asian Affairs at the United States National Security Council (NSC). 

While at the NSC, he served as principal adviser to Clinton and the National Security Advisor on Arab-Israeli issues, Iraq, Iran, and South Asia. This afforded him the opportunity to be the principal architect behind the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), underwritten by AIPAC. Clearly the sanctions were not weighing on the old man’s mind. Nor was it troubling to this devout revolutionary with a ‘conscience’ that his son was working with an organization that promotes terrorism. 

Michael Eisenstadt, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute in his book titled: “The Challenges of U.S. Preventive Military Action”, suggested the following covert actions  against Iran’s nuclear facilities: : 
“harassment or murder of key Iranian scientists or technicians;” 
“introduction of fatal design flaws into critical reactor, centrifuge, or weapons components during their production, to ensure catastrophic during use;” 
“introduction of destructive viruses into Iranian computer systems controlling the production of components or the operation of facilities;” 
“damage or destruction of critical facilities through sabotage...” 

Likewise, Patrick Clawson, recommended sabotaging the Iranian nuclear plants indicating that this would ‘kill’ less people than an all out war (C-Span, Woodrow Wilson Center 2005). Patrick Clawson’s quest to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program stems from his desire to drive out Islam and an Islamic regime. On March 2, 2006, he delivered a statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that as long as Iran has an Islamic Republic, it will have a nuclear weapons program. The intolerance felt for Islam and Iran is what made Khalaji junior a prime candidate. 

Perhaps Mr. Khalaji and his father were not aware that sanctions were not ‘color-coded’. Or perhaps he was blind to the fact that by joining neoconservatives and preventing Iran from having a civilian nuclear program, he would undermine all Iranians, but as long as he could fool some of the people, some of the time....

It is not unusual to be repelled by an ideology that has been forcefully indoctrinated. Mr. Kahlaji junior’s rejection of Islam is not surprising. His hairless face is more refreshing, but it does little to mask the real man. It is offensive that he should solicit sympathy from Iranians and Americans while betraying both nations. It is possible that his father was ignorant of his activities or was silent in the face of his treachery. Confucius says: ““The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them”.

And:

December 20, 2010

Out of the Loop

By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

Proposal by former officials to delist MEK terrorists to change regime in Iran.
::::::::

Out of the Loop

Thomas Moore believed glory to be fleeting and obscurity endless.   Former officials Tom Ridge, John Bolton, Frances Townsend and Michael Mukasey, buried in obscurity,   are foolishly attempting to revive their 'glory' by proposing that the Obama administration delist the MEK -- a terrorist group , in order to replace the regime in Tehran.   These officials argue that delisting terrorists would   "show the world the United States is committed to its own values of freedom."
At least, the values and the freedom to commit murder and terrorism.       

The recommendation of the obscure four comes on the   heels of a Jundallah suicide attack which took the lives of 38 civilians on December 15, 2010.    The Jundallah, another   U.S. supported terrorist group   with   a long history of attacks on civilians inside Iran, seems to be competing with the MEK to promote the 'values and freedom' the U.S. is committed to.   

It appears the foursome's anonymity has kept them out of the loop.   Busy and eager to promote their pet terrorists, they have lost sight of the fact that the MEK, the Jundullah, the Shah's son,   and all other wannabe puppets are no longer favored by the neoconservatives - the American policy makers.    The golden goose that the whole town is talking about is non other than Mehdi Khalaji - a mullah's son.

I came to this realization the hard way. An   article I posted on Huffington Post (the backlash caused Huffington to reject future articles) in response to Mehdi Khalaji, a native Iranian at the pro-Israel think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP),   drew unprecedented fire from neocons of all stripes.   Given that this was not the first time I had gone after the neocons and their lackeys , I was left wondering what was so special about the mullah's son?     

The most prominent of the neocons who attacked me had been strong supporters of Chalabi, the man who was instrumental in helping America engage in an illegal war against Iraq - a war which took hundreds of thousand of innocent lives and bankrupted America morally and fiscally.    Oddly, these same neocons were feigning compassion for a single Iranian - Mr. Khalaji senior -- the mullah.    

How quickly they rushed to Khalaji's defense -- John Hannah, while Dick Cheney's   national security advisor,   showed little sign of compassion for 70 million Iranians as he 'conducted high-level, strategic meetings with Israeli officials regarding the Iranian government's refusal to capitulate (State Department, November 29, 2005).    

Danielle Pletka, the other well-known defender of Khalaji,   insisted that she had   sympathy for his father, Khalaji senior.   One has to wonder why the rest of the Iranians did not deserve her 'compassion'.   Pletka has   made it clear that she would support military action against Iran to prevent a nuclear-capable Iran (AEI, September 7, 2006).   "We have seen that engagement with the current leadership of Iran would not achieve policy change; all it would do is buy an evil regime the time it needs to perfect its nuclear weapons and to build a network of terrorists to deliver them" (Los Angeles Times, July 23, 2004).   Her reeling empathy towards the Iranian people has been ongoing.     In October 2009,   she was a moderator at a policy meeting at the American Enterprise Institute discussing Should Israel Attack Iran?     

Other noteworthy neocons such as Michael Ladeen and Ali Alfoneh joined the chorus of Khalaji. defenders.    Surely then, Khalaji is someone to reckon with? 

What the obscure four, and all the other wannabes neglect to understand is that Khalaji has left them all in the dust.     Khalaji works with the outfit that is set on destroying Iran's nuclear program, killing the scientists, undermining the people, and overthrowing the regime.   

Needless to be reminded that there has been some success, but the plan will not succeed.  It would be wise for Tom Ridge, John Bolton, Frances Townsend and Michael Mukasey to retire in obscurity, if not with dignity.     It would be wiser still to invite Pahlavi, the MEK, and the rest of the wannabes   to join them.    It seems that the new game in town is Mehdi Khalaji - a mullah's son.     

Neocons on Yemen and Bab-al Mandab

The neocons at Washington Institute are looking for an excuse to OPENLY take control of Bab-al Mandab, pointing the blame at Iran.   The whole reason behind the Yemen war has been to secure this strategic waterway for American/Israeli benefit.

"Tehran is ramping up its sanction-busting military support to the Houthis, necessitating a coordinated international response to close off Red Sea access to antigovernment forces.

This week, credible evidence surfaced that Iran may be violating the UN embargo on arms transfers to the Houthi rebels, Tehran's proxy in the Yemen war. On November 29, the EU-funded group Conflict Armament Research (CAR) released a "Dispatch" paper titled "Maritime Interdictions of Weapon Supplies to Somalia and Yemen: Deciphering a Link to Iran." The group's findings give the U.S. government an important opportunity to weaken Iranian-backed militias in Yemen, demonstrate U.S. strength, and resolve the antishipping threats that have hung over the vital Bab al-Mandab Strait for months. "

See link to full article HERE

Dennis Ross: Syria in Transition

Discussing destroying Syria with traitors!

Trump: Better The Devil We DON'T Know?

Did the Americans vote for Trump based on the assumption ‘better the devil we don’t know’?   It appears that those who lent him irrefutable support believing that he would avert wars, be pals with Russia, and avoid a nuclear holocaust are in for a surprise.  At least, as far as wars and relations with Russia are concerned. 

Many analysts and researchers have been of the opinion that involvement in Syria would lead to circumstances beyond control.  Assured by Trump’s campaigning, many analysts and intellectuals believed Trump would allow President Assad, Russia, and Iran to rid Syria of ISIL.  Their hope trumped scrutiny.   Hillary, it was thought, would start WWIII whereas Trump would build a new world! 

The day after Trump was elected President, Erdogan and Trump had a cordial chat.  This was to be expected as General Flynn was lobbying on behalf of Turkey and has ties with Turkish businesses.    Yesterday, November 28, 2016, Foreign Affairs (a publication of Council on Foreign Relations) published an article by Dennis Ross and Andrew Tabler.  (Ross was the man behind the unrest in Syria.   In 2008 he met with Syria dissidents and held a meeting called 'Syria in Transition" ).   In this must read article, it was stated that the best option for Syria and getting rid of Assad is Turkey and SDF.  Paper’s recommendations  to Trump in this paper called:  “A Syria Policy for Trump; How Washington Can Get to a Settlement”

         “The first option, the establishment of limited no-fly/safe zones, has already received some support from both Trump and Vice-President-elect Mike Pence. Announcing the intention to establish no-fly/safe zones would signal to Assad that the new administration does not believe he can actually retake “every inch” of Syrian territory. Of course, a no-fly zone over the entire country would require the United States to attack Syrian and Russian air defense systems—something no president is likely to do given the threat of war with Russia. However, limited no-fly zones along Syria’s borders with Turkey and Jordan already exist, and Turkey’s de-facto safe zone north of Aleppo is an example of how these areas can be blocked off without military confrontation. A smart U.S. strategy would involve deploying special forces to shore up safe zones on the ground and using air strikes and cruise missiles to target regime aircraft and artillery.”

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria/2016-11-28/syria-policy-trump

It is fascinating to see how much influence Ross has (and WINEP where he works among other places. 

Emboldened by the Trump presidency, Erdogan has formally declared war on Syria to rid Syria of Assad.  

Russia needs to wake up to the fact that Trump’s card is ‘surprise’.  It must wake up to the reality that Washington (Trump) is using Turkey as a NATO ally to attack Syria (it is mentioned in the paper).

As predicted, Israel is also getting more aggressive bombing Syria.   No one should wait for Trump to make his Secretary of State pick, etc.  These are distractions.  The assault are happening now.

The Dangerous Deception Called The Trump Presidency

Brilliant article by F. William Engdahl.

The project called the Trump Presidency has just two months before its formal beginning. Yet already the hopes and fantasies of much of the world are making him into something and someone Donald Trump most definitely is not. Donald Trump is yet another project of the same boring old patriarchs who try again and again to create a one world order that they control absolutely, a New World Order that one close Trump backer once referred to as universal fascism. Ignore the sometimes fine rhetoric in some of his speeches. Talk is cheap. If we consider rather the agenda that’s taking form even in these very early days of cabinet naming, we can see that Donald Trump is the same agenda of war and global empire as Obama, as Bush before him, as Bill Clinton and Clinton’s “tutor”, George H.W. Bush before him. There is no good side to what the world is about to experience with President Trump.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, It’s Showtime!’ Today we give you Donald Trump. He will tell you just what many of you want to hear. Trump the showman will tell you he will make America great again; Trump will say he will ship at least 3 million illegals back across the Rio Grande; Trump will introduce a bill to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization; Trump will bring jobs back to America from China and other low wage countries; Trump will sit down with Putin and work out some kind of a deal to calm things down; Trump will scrap the Iran nuclear deal of Obama…Read Full Text
http://journal-neo.org/2016/11/25/the-dangerous-deception-called-the-trump-presidency/Read full text to article ...

Turkey invasion of Syria

Interview with Press TV on Turkish incursion into Syria.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1xJTOblA-c

US Gov’t Refused US Entry to Jihadist It Employs for Overthrowing Assad

Excellent article by Eric Zuesse

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/08/04/us-govt-refused-us-entry-jihadist-employs-overthrowing-assad.html

A four-minute video that was posted to YouTube on April 29th documents that the US government has been lying about an organization, the White Helmets, the US government hires to assist Syria’s al-Qaeda, called «al-Nusra», to dispose of corpses of persons al-Nusra executes. Al-Nusra kills Syrian government soldiers; and, according to Seymour Hersh and other investigative journalists, has, throughout the Syrian war, been supplied guns and other weapons by the governments of the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, for that purpose. This is part of America’s operation to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, whom even Western polling shows to be popular amongst the Syrian general population. That same polling shows Nusra and other jihadist organizations (and the US government, which arms them) to be extremely unpopular in Syria.

On April 19th, the US State Department had blocked entrance into the United States by Raed Saleh, the head of the White Helmets, and refused to say why. Saleh had been invited to receive in NYC an award by USAID and NGOs that the US government finances, but he was barred at the airport, apparently because the FBI had placed him onto its no-fly list as a known terrorist.

The White Helmets claim to receive no funds from any government, but the four-minute video shows a State Department official admitting «we supply through USAID about twenty-three million dollars in assistance to them» (which might be annually, but that question wasn’t addressed in the video). The White Helmets’ founder, James Le Mesurier, is himself funded by the governments of the UK, Japan, Denmark and the Netherlands, all of which are likewise trying to overthrow Assad.

Thus, US and other Western taxpayers are funding this allegedly ‘non-partisan’ and ‘humanitarian’ but actually jihadist, organization, whose leader was, on April 19th, prevented from receiving in the US, a ‘humanitarian’ award, for processing corpses that Nusra – which the US government also supports – is producing. The White Helmets also rescue jihadists (and their inevitable civilian hostages), who have been injured by Syrian government forces. That’s their ‘humanitarian’ work. This video shows jihadists cheering White Helmets. The anti-Assad ‘charities’ that were wanting to award Raed Saleh in the US, have said they’ll instead do it in Turkey, which is a US ally – even a member of NATO.

As regards what the Syrian people think, it’s highly favorable toward Assad and highly unfavorable toward the jihadist organizations that now infest their country from abroad, and also against the United States, which they view as being the main source of this ‘civil war’ (which is instead actually a foreign invasion of their country).

The video also shows the British agent (and Britain is yet another US ally) who founded and organized the ‘non-partisan humanitarian organization’, White Helmets, Mr Le Mesurier.

The Syrian government is an ally of Russia, and America’s policy is to overthrow and replace the leader of any nation who is friendly toward Russia, such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Manuel Zelaya, Viktor Yanukovych, or Bashar al-Assad. These governments then become failed states. When Zelaya was replaced in 2009, the country he led, Honduras, became a narco-state and has since had the world’s highest murder-rate. Jihadists weren’t even needed in the Honduran case. The US government didn’t perpetrate that particular coup, but only helped it succeed and enabled the installed new regime to remain in power. The Honduran coup was actually perpetrated by agents of that country’s twelve aristocratic families, who own almost all of the country. However, normally, the US government itself overthrows the leaders it doesn’t like, and doesn’t merely aid the regimes that a coup by the local aristocracy has already installed. Hillary Clinton, the US Presidential candidate, was the key person in the Obama Administration who worked, behind the scenes, to keep in power the coup regime that took over in Honduras on 28 June 2009. Without her assistance to the Honduran coup-regime, Zelaya, whom virtually all other governments supported as being still the legal leader of Honduras, would have been restored to power; the coup-regime would have had to bow out. By contrast, her – and President Obama’s – efforts to replace Syria’s secular but nominally Shiite President Assad, by using Saudi-funded foreign-imported Sunni jihadists, haven’t been nearly so successful, unless creating the highest degree of misery among the residents in any country in the world, is viewed by Obama and Clinton as ‘success’.

As I had reported on April 16th, headlining, «Why Obama Prioritizes Ousting Assad Over Defeating Syria’s Jihadists»: «The 2016 Global Emotions Report by Gallup, surveying over a thousand people in each one of 140 different nations, found that, by far, the people in Syria had ‘the lowest positive experiences worldwide,’ the people there were far more miserable than in any other nation. The score was 36 (on a scale to 100). Second and third worst were tied at 51: Turkey because of the tightening dictatorship there as Turkey has become one of Obama’s key allies in toppling Assad; Nepal, on account of the earthquake».

So, America certainly doesn’t give a damn about the sufferings of the Syrians, and of the Iraqis, sufferings that the US itself caused and which invasions by us (and by the jihadists we and our Saudi and other ‘friends’ have armed and assisted to get into Syria through our ‘friend’ Turkey) have produced the two nations with the most misery on this planet. Our Presidents mouth platitudes of ‘caring’, but, to judge by their actions, are merely lying psychopaths. But whatever they are, they’re causing the most misery of anyone. How much coverage of that fact is there in the American press? Hasn’t America’s press actually been complicit in this, all along?

So, this is the reason why the US government refuses entry to a terrorist it hires to create hell for the people in Syria: it doesn’t want individuals such as Raed Saleh inside the United States. America’s leaders know that, if something like this happens, and if word of it becomes well known, the American public could become even less supportive of their leaders than they already are. It’s not what America’s aristocracy want. They might not care about the American public, but they care very much about staying in power, regardless whether under the «Democratic» or under the «Republican» label.

Back on 26 June 2015, Raed Saleh had somehow been allowed into the United States, to address an «Arria» briefing (named after the far-right aristocratic military Venezuelan diplomat and member of the US aristocratic Council on Foreign Relations, Diego Arria) to the UN Security Council, where Saleh announced in his opening paragraph that his focus would be «to convey the message of the search and rescue teams in Syria about the suffering of the Syrian people due to the regime’s bombing with indiscriminate weapons, particularly barrel bombs». Those were the cheap, even amateurish, improvised bombs that the Syrian Army were using to kill as many of the jihadists as they could, but which also inevitably killed and maimed also many Syrian civilians in the occupied areas of the country – there’s no way to avoid it. Saleh’s speech didn’t mention any of the many foreign jihadist groups such as Nusra and ISIS that were and are killing far more of everybody than Assad’s forces were. His focus was instead totally against Assad and the government’s forces, not at all against the jihadist mercenaries who had entered the country and made hell there; and, Saleh said, «The Syrian people who are being killed every day, Ladies and Gentlemen, hold you responsible» for not helping those jihadists eliminate the existing Syrian government. He said this without at all referring to what even Western polling of Syrians had consistently shown to be the case, which was the exact opposite: they hold the US to blame and they loathe the jihadists and support the government. So, clearly, the United States did the correct thing when finally placing this jihadist of theirs onto America’s no-fly list. To the exact contrary of the US government’s propaganda which says that he’s a hero and that he and his organization are ‘nonpartisan’ and that he is, as he calls himself, «the head of Syrian Civil Defense», that appellation for him is like calling Hitler’s medics during his invasion of, say, France, «French Civil Defense». George Orwell’s allegorical novel 1984 has clearly been surpassed in today’s reality. The extent to which Western publics accept the arrant lies they’re fed is exceeding, perhaps, even Orwell’s expectations.

So: one typical piece of Republican propaganda about the White Helmets is the May 1st article in the Wall Street Journal, «White Helmets Are White Knights for Desperate Syrians», while a typical piece of Democratic propaganda about them is the New York Times eleven days earlier, on April 20th, which headlined «Leader of Syria Rescue Group, Arriving in US for Award, Is Refused Entry», and it reported there that «Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma at Norman, called the denial of entry ‘a scandal’. ‘The White Helmets are one of the few organizations in Syria that have been above reproach,’ he said. ‘They have tried to observe strict neutrality in order to facilitate their humanitarian work and save lives. To do this they have worked alongside all sorts of militias in order to get to victims of the fighting’». He didn’t say that the «militias» are overwhelmingly foreign jihadist groups paid by America’s fundamentalist-Sunni allies the Sauds, and Qatar’s royal family the Thanis, to overthrow the secular Shiite Assad. But, after all, it’s only propaganda, anyway. Right?

Furthermore, the Syrian public might view that conception of ‘strict neutrality’ much the way Jews in Hitler’s concentration camps viewed the conception of ‘strict neutrality’ as between themselves and their oppressors, or the way Chinese in the Nanjing Massacre viewed that ‘strict neutrality’ between themselves and the Japanese invaders. And, polls in Syria do show they view the US and its allies as the invaders. Instead of ‘strict neutrality,’ the US and its allies are the foreign invaders, and not at all ‘neutral’. And, to state this documented fact (documented here by the links) isn’t propaganda at all; it’s news-reporting, in an entirely verified historical context (which is very different from propaganda).

What that four-minute video shows is news-reporting, in exactly this sense. That’s why it’s presented here: it brings all of this together, succinctly; and what I’ve done here is to document some of its important historical context, to help people who are skeptical of it (and, in such a lying world, everything should be viewed with a scientist’s skepticism) understand and evaluate it, at a deeper level than a mere four minutes can possibly present, even in a video.