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trita parsi
As DOJ Unseals Murder Plot Charges, Fears of Trump Iran Policy Mount
"Trump is inheriting a mess that he helped create," said the National Iranian American Council. "All parties need to focus not on threats but on dialogue to end these crises."
Nov 08, 2024
Amid growing concerns about what U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House will mean for Washington's rocky relationship with Tehran, the Department of Justice on Friday announced charges against an Afghan national accused of plotting to assassinate the Republican at the direction of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Though Trump survived two shooting attempts during the campaign, neither appears to be tied to Iran's alleged plot to kill him.
"There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran," U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a Friday statement announcing the charges against Farhad Shakeri, "an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran's assassination plots against its targets," including Trump.
"We have also charged and arrested two individuals who we allege were recruited as part of that network to silence and kill, on U.S. soil, an American journalist who has been a prominent critic of the regime," Garland added, referring to New Yorkers Jonathon Loadholt and Carlisle Rivera, who are both in custody—unlike Shakeri, who is believed to be in Iran. "We will not stand for the Iranian regime's attempts to endanger the American people and America's national security."
The department did not publicly identify the reporter but its statement "matched the description of Masih Alinejad, a journalist and activist who has criticized Iran's head-covering laws for women," Reutersnoted Friday. "Four Iranians were charged in 2021 in connection with a plot to kidnap her, and in 2022 a man was arrested with a rifle outside her home."
The Friday announcement about these three men follows another case related to Trump and Iran. As Politicodetailed: "In August, Brooklyn federal prosecutors charged a Pakistani man suspected of plotting on behalf of Iran to kill high-ranking U.S. politicians or officials—including perhaps Trump. The man is accused of trying to hire hitmen to carry out the plot."
The next month, after Trump was reportedly briefed about alleged Iranian assassination threats against him, he declared during a campaign rally that "if I were the president, I would inform the threatening country—in this case, Iran—that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens."
"We're gonna blow it to smithereens, you can't do that. And there would be no more threats," added Trump, whose comments were swiftly decried by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) as "an outrageous threat" and "genocidal."
Responding to Reuters coverage of the Justice Department's Friday statement on social media, NIAC said that "threats of violence against political officials are unacceptable and only risk further opening Pandora's box of war and destruction. Trump is inheriting a mess that he helped create and reports like this demonstrate just how grave the stakes are. All parties need to focus not on threats but on dialogue to end these crises."
During Trump's first presidential term, he ditched the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, often called the Iran nuclear deal; ramped up deadly sanctions against the Middle East country; and ordered the assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq—actions that heightened fears of a U.S. war with Iran.
Such fears have surged since Trump's Tuesday win. He is set to return as commander-in-chief after more than a year of the Biden-Harris administration backing Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip and strikes on other countries including Lebanon and Iran.
NIAC Action executive director Jamal Abdi said in a statement after the U.S. election that "many in our community feared this day—worried about the return of the travel ban, attacks on our civil liberties, demonization of immigrant communities, and deepening militarism in the Middle East. But we have been here before and our resilience is unwavering in standing up for our community and our rights."
"In the coming weeks, Trump, along with his new vice president, JD Vance will select the advisers who will shape his policies," Abdi noted. "We will not stand down, disengage, or give up but will redouble our efforts for peace and justice by any means necessary. The resilience and unity of our community are more vital now than ever."
CNN and Politico have reported that Brian Hook is expected to lead Trump's transition team at the U.S. Department of State. As Drop Site News' Murtaza Hussain wrote, Hook is "known as a major Iran hawk who helped lead the 'maximum pressure' campaign of sanctions, sabotage, and assassinations that characterized Trump's approach to Tehran."
Speaking with Hussain, Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, pointed out that Trump's previous Iran policy was largely guided by John Bolton, who spent over a year as his national security adviser, and Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state and director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
"The Trump administration's approach towards Iran depends very much on who he chooses to staff his administration. In his first term, he was sold on an idea by people like Pompeo and John Bolton that Iran could be sanctioned and pressured into oblivion, but that was an approach more likely to deliver war than an agreement," Parsi said. "The Iranian view is that Trump himself wants to make a deal, but it depends on whether he appoints the same neoconservatives as last time to his administration."
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Gaza Doctor Corrects CNN Anchor: 'This Is Not a Humanitarian Crisis... This Is Genocide'
"History books will be written on this and countries will have to reckon—media agencies will have to reckon—with their major role in the genocide," said Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan.
Oct 11, 2024
Human rights advocates on Friday highlighted a rare instance in which a U.S. corporate media outlet allowed a pro-Palestinian voice to set the record straight about Israel's crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Earlier this week, CNN "News Central" aired a panel segment on the anniversary of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and Israel's retaliatory war. Anchor Kate Bolduan noted that around 1,200 people were killed during the Hamas attack—although she did not say that at least some of them were slain by Israeli forces in "friendly fire" incidents and under the Hannibal Directive—and that 250 others were kidnapped.
Bolduan also acknowledged that nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed and another 2 million displaced by Israeli forces, calling the situation in Gaza a "desperate humanitarian crisis."
"A humanitarian crisis is what you deal with when you have a hurricane, what you deal with when you have an earthquake."
The anchor asked panel participant Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan—an American pediatric intensive care physician who volunteered for two weeks at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip—for her thoughts on the matter.
"In all honesty, a humanitarian crisis is what you deal with when you have a hurricane, what you deal with when you have an earthquake," Haj-Hassan replied. "This is not a humanitarian crisis."
"Kate, and I'm going to say it very clearly for your viewers to hear, this is genocide," the doctor stressed.
Haj-Hassan continued:
When 70% of the population that are killed are women and children, when the population is starved of food, of water, of medicine, when you have attacks, repeated attacks on all the hospitals, the clinics, the aid distribution sites, the humanitarian aid agencies that tried to help, more [United Nations] workers have been killed in Gaza than in U.N.'s history. When you have over 900 families that have been exterminated, that have been taken off of the civil registry, killed, when you have over 17,000 children that have lost one or both parents, when you have bakeries, aid distribution sites, churches, mosques, schools, and in the last three days—in the last 24 hours in fact—a hospital today that was bombed, as you just reported, the hospital where I personally was working, and I can tell you, they are working every second of every day to try and sustain life.
"And so it's really hard to hear it over and over and over again, framed in the way that it's being framed in the media, which, frankly, Kate, is very misleading," Haj-Hassan said. "It is very misleading. Three hundred and sixty-five days of this. Death tolls that are so far outdated we have... no idea how many people are killed."
"But I am... genuinely afraid about what we're going to find out when the dust settles. History books will be written on this," she added. "And countries will have to reckon—media agencies will have to reckon—with their major role in the genocide of an entire population and in the destruction of humanitarian law and rule of order."
Some observers noted the absence of voices like Haj-Hassan's in U.S. mainstream media coverage of Gaza, which is overwhelmingly pro-Israel and almost never airs the word "genocide"—even as Israel is on trial for the crime at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The New York Times, for example, ordered journalists covering the war in Gaza to eschew terms including "genocide," "ethnic cleansing," and even "occupied territory," even though Israel has indisputably occupied Palestine for over half a century and the ICJ recently ruled that the Israeli occupation is a crime of apartheid that must end immediately.
"The media may be forgiven for missing a carefully hidden story. For missing some details," Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft executive vice president Trita Parsi said Friday on social media. "But when a genocide is there for everyone to see and you help conceal it, forgiveness is not in the cards."
Another social media user offered mild praise for Bolduan—who has been criticized by Israel supporters for previous interviews in which Palestine defenders accused Israel of genocide—writing that the anchor "didn't seem happy" to hear what Haj-Hassan was saying.
"Hard to say whether it was because the truth is so horrible or because CNN doesn't want to report that truth—but she did let her say it," the user said of Bolduan.
Allegations of Israeli genocide remain highly contentious—even taboo—in the United States, which provides the key Mideast ally with tens of billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover including multiple vetoes of United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions that were overwhelmingly supported by other countries.
In the United States, Palestinians, Palestinian Americans, and human rights groups are asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to revisit a lawsuit they filed accusing President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin of complicity in the Gaza genocide.
In July, a three-judge panel of the federal court dismissed the lawsuit, in which the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California previously found that "the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law," but dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds.
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'This Maniac Must Be Stopped': Netanyahu Condemned Over Massive Beirut Bombing
While Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah reportedly survived the attack on the densely populated area of Lebanon's capitol, one observer warned that Israel may still "get the regional war it has sought."
Sep 27, 2024
Israel's dropping of massive bombs in Beirut on Friday sparked a fresh wave of global condemnation against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with critics accusing him of trying to drag the Middle East into an even bloodier conflict that could engulf the entire region.
The Israeli attack supposedly targeted Hassan Nasrallah, head of the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah. Multiple media outlets reported that the leader survived, though hundreds of others are feared dead in the "complete carnage" from the bombing that leveled several buildings. While the death toll from Friday is not yet clear, over 700 people have been killed in Israel's strikes in Lebanon since Monday.
As The New York Timesreported:
Lebanon's health minister, Firass Abiad, said that there had been a "complete decimation" of four to six residential buildings as a result of the Israeli strikes. He said that the number of casualties in hospitals was low so far because people were still trapped under the rubble. "They are residential buildings. They were filled with people," Mr. Abiad said. "Whoever is in those buildings is now under the rubble."
Social media and news sites quickly filled with photos and videos of massive plumes of smoke and smoldering rubble.
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, said Friday that she was "deeply alarmed and profoundly worried about the potential civilian impact of tonight's massive strikes on Beirut's densely populated southern suburbs. The city is still shaking with fear and panic widespread. All must urgently cease fire."
However, the bombing is widely expected to worsen this week's escalation, which came after nearly a year of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) trading strikes with Hezbollah over the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 41,000 Palestinians.
"For Israel, it may not matter if Nasrallah was killed. Either way, it believes it'll get the regional war it has sought," Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said of the Friday attack.
Citing an unnamed Israeli official, NBC Newsreported that "Israel expects Hezbollah will attempt to mount a major retaliatory attack" in response to Friday's bombing of the group's command center.
As Reutersdetailed:
Israel has struck the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, known as Dahiyeh, four times over the last week, killing at least three senior Hezbollah military commanders.
But Friday's attack was far more powerful, with multiple blasts shaking windows across the city, recalling Israeli airstrikes during the war it fought with Hezbollah in 2006.
In a video posted on social media, IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari described the Friday attack as "a precise strike" on what "served as the epicenter of Hezbollah's terror," adding that the group's headquarters "was intentionally built under residential buildings."
During Netanyahu's United Nations General Assembly speech on Friday—which was met with a walkout from several diplomats and other officials—the prime minister said that Hezbollah has stored rockets "in schools, in hospitals, in apartment buildings, and in the private homes of the citizens of Lebanon. They endanger their own people. They put a missile in every kitchen, a rocket in every garage."
In response, Middle East expert Assal Rad said, "So he's claiming there's no civilian spaces in Lebanon and Israel has a right to destroy all of it."
Jason Hickel, who has positions at multiple European universities, also sounded the alarm over those lines from the Israeli leader's speech.
Netanyahu is "effectively arguing all homes are a military target," he said. "This is 100% genocidal and this maniac must be stopped."
Hours before the attack in suburban Beirut, the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) strongly condemned "Israel's brutal bombardment of Lebanon, another reckless escalation in the Middle East on behalf of the Benjamin Netanyahu regime that risks further destabilization in an already fragile region."
"The Israeli bombardment of Lebanon is the latest dark chapter in a series of disproportionate displays of force. Its ongoing genocide in Palestine over the last year has proven beyond any doubt that its willingness to commit horrific acts knows no bounds," DiEM25 said. "Rather than seeking a peaceful and just resolution, Israel's government has consistently chosen the path of militarism, often with international support from the European Union and the United States."
"The international community, including the E.U., has a critical role to play in promoting peace rather than enabling violence," the group added. "Peace and security in the Middle East will not come through bombs and military strength. It will come through diplomacy. We remain committed to working towards that aim and stand in solidarity with the Lebanese people, as well as all others suffering from this violent escalation."
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