Parsi And The Regime, Ctd

A reader writes:

Eli Lake's Twitter from Friday after he published the article: "I will not allow the Iran lobby to silence me." Sounds a lot like Chas Freeman after Eli Lake himself was the one that got credit for derailing his appointment.

Funny how the story comes out the day after the DOJ - Alavi Foundation NY Tower story. Lake probably assumed the story would pick up steam if it got muddled in with the "Iranian money in America" story (which is probably legit).

I'm an Iranian American and I told many of my friends and family on Friday when they asked me about the Washington Times piece: Either A) Trita Parsi is an Iranian agent and has fooled the Iranian American Community, the MSM, Brzezinski (who he studied under), hundreds of historians and academics, half of Washington, and the Obama administration -- for which he deserves an academy award or B) This is a well coordinated attack on the part of neoconservatives to take down someone who is being effective in advocating a non violent approach. We have seen their track record recently with the derailment of Freeman, and we see how they are going after J Street.

What about Karim Sadjadpour, Reza Aslan, Vali Nasr (who works for Holbrooke), Hooman Majd, Afshin Molavi, and the countless other analysts and academics who advocate the same relative approach when it comes to Iran as Parsi? Are they all agents of Iran? Why would NIAC publish videos of the violence against the protestors constantly when the same Iranian government they supposedly work for was trying to suppress the images? Why would NIAC demand the admin include Human Rights in their negotiations with Iran? I can go on, but I wouldn't want to be labeled an Iranian agent

The sad part of all of this is that just like in the '08 campaign with Obama, the emails and links to Lake's article will be going around within the Iranian American community. A community that is already vulnerable to paranoia and distrust in the political arena given our recent history. People like my parents barely speak english, let alone know who Eli Lake or Michael Goldarb are. Given this unfortunate reality, NIAC is now going to be very damaged within the community.