Saturday, September 19, 2015

What matters for MEDIA MATTERS?

After my report on the Namazi family was published, Media Matters made a number of claims. This is my response:

1. "Daily Beast: NIAC Represents The "Iran Lobby," And Supports The Regime. " 
The article is clear that NIAC pushes rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran. The issue of NIAC apologia for the regime was dealt with by the judge in the defamation case NIAC lost. As the article argued, NIAC promotes rapprochement and soft soaps regime excesses. 

2. "Wash. Post: NIAC Is Frequently "Tarred By Critics As A Lobbyist For The Ayatollahs." 
See point 1. The article did not call them lobbyists for the ayatollahs, but for rapprochement.

3. "The author provides no clear evidence that the Namazis will definitely financially benefit from the Iran deal. Furthermore, the claim that the Namazis and NIAC are clearly linked involves a convoluted series of connections."

The evidence of contact between the Namazis and Parsi and the founding of NIAC is laid out going back to 1999. The evidence that the Namazis business services companies that will benefit from the lifting of sanctions is also laid out.

4. "Parsi, President Of NIAC: "I've Known Siamak Namazi For Years, But He Was Never Involved In The Founding Of NIAC." 
The article argued that the paper that Siamak Namazi and Parsi presented in 1999 at a conference convened by two organizations (one of which was chaired by Siamak's father) was "influential" and that it led to NIAC's founding in 2001. The details cited from the paper are precisely the activities that NIAC undertook.  Note that Parsi previously claimed he founded NIAC so that Iranian-Americans could condemn the 9/11 attacks. NIAC's FAQ page does not state this but says that NIAC was founded "with the express mission to promote Iranian-American civic participation." Note that there is evidence of discussions on the creation of what would become NIAC in June 2001(1), three months before 9/11 http://iraniansforum.com/index.php/factbook/390-creation-of-niac.html.


5. Media Matters quotes Parsi as saying "We may have spoken to Mohammad Namazi on technical details and best practices for putting an organization together, because he has over 50 years of experience in NGO work, but he and his family were not involved in the founding." [Media Matters, 9/16/15]

Parsi is wrong. They actually did consult with Mohammad Namazi, the evidence is in the article http://www.iranian-americans.com/docs/ned1/conferenceCall.pdf

6. "Parsi: I Did Not Produce Work For AB Consulting." "The confusion, Parsi said, came from the fact that Bijan Khajehpour is both the founder of AB Consulting and, to this day, a "senior associate" at a separate British consultancy known as Menas Associates. According to Parsi, "when [he] was a PhD student," Menas Associates paid him for analysis briefings on media and politics "for three or four months or so," and Khajehpour helped arrange those payments. AB Consulting, and other companies, then purchased the analysis from Menas, which is why his work may have appeared under AB's letterhead."

Parsi was not just a Ph.D. student at the time, he was also working for Congressman Bob Ney. This means he used his Hill work to make money. Parsi's statement does not explain why Khajepour would have paid him and written "I wanted to transfer some funds to your account" when the work was in fact for Menas Associates (see http://iraniansforum.com/index.php/factbook/385-parsi-worked-with-atieh.html).

7. "Parsi explained to Media Matters that in addition to Namazi not being involved in the actual founding of NIAC, that paper had little to do with his current organization, though he "thought it was realty flattering that [the Daily Beast] said a paper I wrote when I was 24, which was never published, was 'influential'" to the work of NIAC. [Media Matters, 9/16/15]"

See point 4 above.

8. "Parsi: Namazis Were Also Not "Big Financial Backers" To NIAC. Media Matters asked Parsi if the Namazi family had contributed financially to his organization in any way. He responded, "Not a dime." He noted that someone in the large family may have been a member at one point and paid minor membership dues, but he was unaware of any instances of that and insisted "they have not been big financial backers." [Media Matters, 9/16/15]

This is an irrelevant point. The article did not state that the Namazis backed NIAC financially.

9. "NIAC Has Frequently Criticized The Iran Government"

This is an irrelevant point. The article mentioned that Parsi criticized the regime for imprisoning Khajehpour. This was also dealt with by the judge in the defamation case NIAC lost.

10. "Experts Support The Iran Deal And Note It Will Support The Whole Iranian Economy"

This is an irrelevant point. The article took no stand for or against the Iran deal. The claim that the deal will support the whole economy is also irrelevant to the article. The article argued that the Namazis have positioned themselves to benefit from the lifting of sanctions.


NIAC’s public and some of its internal documents released during the defamation lawsuit reveal continued coordination and collaboration between NIAC, its president Parsi and the directors of Atieh Bahar in Tehran.
In 2002-2003, while president of NIAC, Parsi profited from his presence inside the Congress to prepare reports about the latest developments regarding Iran and sent these reports to Atieh in Tehran. Atieh published these reports for their clients, mostly foreign businessman and diplomats stationed in Tehran. Atieh paid Parsi for his work. This is Khajehpour’s email to Parsi asking his bank account information to send Parsi’s remunerations. (See Documents)
NIAC started its large-scale lobbying at the end of 2005 and from the beginning, Siamak Namazi the managing director of Atieh Bahar who was at that time temporarily in Washington, assisted Parsi in advancing the lobby, connecting to influential people and getting support for his lobbying activities. For example, he arranged a meeting between Parsi and Julia Nanay, the Caspian region director at Energy Consulting Firm PFC. This Company was one of Atieh’s customers in Iran.
Parsi and Namazi planned to meet with the US Deputy Secretary of State Burns, and in their email exchange they discussed their "game plan" to influence the US government. In an email dated January 21, 2006, Namazi wrote: “we need to carve out time to work on our discussion with Burns. If you have any policy papers I can look at, I could also start working on one for Hadley's office. Once a draft is available, we can get input from our network and make it stronger.”
On January 24, Parsi responded: “I guess the plan you list below is for us to first come up with some recommendations, try them on our group, then take the modified version to Burns? That sounds good. I think Burns is interested in hearing our views across the board. My responsibility as the NIAC president is to also present the majority view per our statistics and mention the minority view. Other than that, we should stick to the game plan. I am not sure whether a third person will be included or not. If so, it will be the Legislative Director that we are about to hire.”
Parsi and Namazi’s emails show that Parsi frequently sent reports about NIAC’s lobby activities or Congressional activities to Namazi in Tehran and in return, Namazi prepared and sent talking points and analysis to Parsi that he consequently used for his activates.
On the other hand, Parsi and NIAC’s collaboration with Bijan Khajehpour, the founder and chairman of Atieh is also revealing. In April 2009, Parsi tried to arrange a meeting between Bijan Khajehpour and Puneet Tawar, the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf States at the White House National Security Council.
NIAC's collaboration with Atieh Group continues to this day. Bijan Khajehpour is mostly in Vienna, Austria where he leads the newly launched office of Atieh International. He regularly comes to the US to participate in NIAC's Congressional and policy meetings and speaks at NIAC conferences. In 2013, Khajahpour, Parsi and his assistant Reza Marashi, co-authored an anti-sanction report that was published and presented during a conference in Washington. Recently in June 2015, during the nuclear negotiations in Vienna, NIAC and Atieh organized a joint Conference titled: “Iran’s economy after nuclear deal” (See picture


(1) In June 2001, Parsi began consultations for the creation of NIAC. He was helped and instructed by Baquer Namazi from Tehran.
Parsi’s consultations for creation of NIACFew months after his arrival in the US, Parsi began the creation of his lobby group. Several documents released during the defamation lawsuit are related to Parsi’s consultations in June 2001 to create the anti-sanction lobby organization that later became NIAC. (Conference call documents)During the conference calls, they discussed about the legal format for the organization and its strategy to lobby against the sanctions.
In one of the emails, Parsi indicated that Tehran based Baquer Namazi was helping him to create NIAC. Parsi wrote: “There has been silence since the draft minutes of last week’s telephone conference was sent to the group for your review and approval. I assume that everyone has been busy, but it would be good if we could finish the minutes by Tuesday so that we can follow Mr. Baquer Namazi’s instruction and send it to Amb. Bill Miller.”
Ambassador William Miller is a veteran of pro-Tehran and anti-sanction lobby in the US. Since 1997 he has been an active board member of AIC and participated in track-II meetings and behind the scene dealing with Iran.

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