{"id":19324,"date":"2021-01-23T09:51:53","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T14:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=19324"},"modified":"2021-01-23T09:51:53","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T14:51:53","slug":"iranian-propaganda-operates-freely-in-the-west-with-sources-both-overt-and-subtle-written-by-shahriar-kia-22nd-january-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/2021\/01\/23\/iranian-propaganda-operates-freely-in-the-west-with-sources-both-overt-and-subtle-written-by-shahriar-kia-22nd-january-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian Propaganda Operates Freely in the West, With Sources Both Overt and Subtle Written by Shahriar Kia 22nd January 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Written by<\/span>Shahriar Kia\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>22nd January 2021<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On Tuesday, a so-called political scientist by the name of Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi made his first appearance before a\u00a0US federal court<\/a>\u00a0after being outed as a long-time agent of the Iranian regime. Since 2007, Afrasiabi had been quietly receiving payment from Iran\u2019s Permanent Mission to the United States, in blatant violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. His charging documents indicate that he ultimately received at least 265,000 dollars in exchange for activities that conveyed the Iranian regime\u2019s talking points to media outlets, members of Congress, and the general public.<\/p>\n

His story is not unique, and many serious critics of the regime have already seized upon it as a case study in the overall phenomenon of covert Iranian influence. In so doing, they have pointed out that while Afrasiabi, a 35-year resident of the United States, may not have been an obvious subject for scrutiny by law enforcement, the same cannot be said of other apparent members of the Iranian influence network. For many of those who have been targeted by that network, including Iranian expatriates advocating for domestic overthrow of Iran\u2019s theocratic dictatorship, Afrasiabi\u2019s arrest represents an opportunity to expose these other individuals and uproot the destructive propaganda they have sown into Western political discourse.<\/p>\n

The relevant content of allegations against the\u00a0MEK<\/a>\u00a0and the Iranian resistance can be traced back to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security. And quite frequently, it can be found to have been conveyed through a familiar handful of pro-Iran lobbyists and supposed academics whose work is all but indistinguishable from Afrasiabi\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Chief among these is\u00a0Trita Parsi<\/a>, the founder of the National Iranian-American Council\u00a0 (NIAC) whose activities outside of writing and media interviews include arranging meetings between members of Congress and Iranian officials like the current Foreign\u00a0Minister Javad Zarif<\/a>. After those activities were revealed as part of discovery in a 2008 defamation lawsuit that Parsi himself filed in US court, former FBI associate deputy director Oliver Revell was quoted as saying that anyone who arranged such meetings would be required by law to register as an agent of the relevant foreign power.<\/p>\n