Mark Dubowitz

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Foundation for Defense of Democracies
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Mark Dubowitz and Saeed Ghasseminejad: “Tehran Can Afford to Fight COVID-19 Even Without Sanctions Relief”

April 8, 2020 by Mark Dubowitz

Tehran Can Afford to Fight COVID-19 Even Without Sanctions Relief

The following is an excerpt:

The Iranian government is leading an international campaign to pressure the United States to lift sanctions. American and European negotiators of the ill-fated Iran nuclear deal, along with dozens of pressure groups, are lending their support. They claim U.S. sanctions have made it impossible for Tehran to fight COVID-19 and are killing the Iranian people. They are wrong.

To fight and control the virus, the Iranian leadership has to do what most governments around the world are doing: Curb its spread by imposing strict social distancing measures and ramping up the capacity to identify and treat the infected until a vaccine is discovered. Social distancing inflicts substantial economic damage, which most governments are mitigating by sharply increasing their own spending. What the advocates of lifting sanctions fail to understand is that the Iranian government can still afford both the public health measures and the economic relief programs necessary to deal with COVID-19.

The Islamist regime’s officials say they have achieved self-sufficiency and face no shortage of testing kits, medicine, or personal protective equipment; this contradicts numerous messages directed at Western audiences, which assert there are dire shortages. Indeed, Tehran claims it is producing testing kits beyond its needs and is ready to export them. What Tehran lacks in domestic production, it can import from other countries, especially China, the largest producer of personal protective equipment – and a close ally. Reports show that Tehran is doing precisely that. European trade data and remarks by Iran’s public health officials confirm that Tehran does not face any significant trouble importing what it needs.

Yet Tehran has so far refused to implement strict social distancing measures, which, as other countries have demonstrated, requires the shuttering of major parts of the economy. This kind of shutdown is always costly, but the last two weeks have coincided with the country’s traditional two-week Persian New Year holiday, during which economic activity is normally limited. This was the opportunity for Iranian officials to impose quarantines and stay-at-home measures on a mass scale. Despite grave warnings issued by Iran’s public health officials, President Hassan Rouhani resisted such measures, and so millions of Iranian traveled across the country during the New Year holiday. Now Rouhani is trying to reopen key sectors of the economy.

[…]
Read Mark and Saeed’s FDD Insight piece on FDD’s website here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Mark Dubowitz and Richard Goldberg in Foreign Policy: “The Coronavirus Is Absolutely No Excuse To Lift Sanctions on Iran”

March 31, 2020 by Mark Dubowitz

The Coronavirus Is Absolutely No Excuse To Lift Sanctions on Iran

Exploiting Iran’s coronavirus crisis to demand an end to sanctions is fundamentally dishonest—and panders to a brutal regime.

The following is an excerpt:

Iran’s clerical dictatorship cares more about its own survival than it cares about the welfare of the Iranian people. But you wouldn’t know it from the chorus of Americans and Europeans exploiting the coronavirus crisis in Iran to push the Trump administration to lift sanctions against Iran. This is fundamentally dishonest—the sanctions do not restrict medical supplies and other forms of humanitarian aid—and plays into the hands of a brutal regime.

Iran’s human rights record is one of the worst in the world. Last fall, the regime killed 1,500 people who peacefully protested the dictatorship’s mishandling of the economy. Soon after, it blew a passenger airliner out of the sky, killing everyone on board. A few weeks ago, Iranian-backed militias killed two U.S. and one British soldier in Iraq.

Last week, we learned that Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent held by Iran, died in captivity. His captors refused to provide information on his whereabouts to his long-suffering family for 13 years. More Americans and other foreigners, arbitrarily detained and falsely accused of being spies, remain hostage in Iranian jails today.

Are we to believe the same Iranian leaders committing these human rights crimes when they say they need wholesale relief from U.S. sanctions to combat the coronavirus? To an unwitting American audience, such Iranian propaganda can be quite persuasive, particularly when the request for sanctions relief is endorsed by the United Nations secretary general, the Chinese foreign minister, European politicians, and even former officials from Barack Obama’s administration.

Let’s separate fact from fiction.

[…]

Read Mark and Richard’s piece for Foreign Policy on the outlet’s website here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Mark Dubowitz and Alireza Nader in The Globe and Mail: “Expect instability in Iran for years to come”

January 10, 2020 by Comms Intern

Expect Instability in Iran for Years to Come

The following is an excerpt:

The general was also seen by some regime insiders as a possible president or even successor to Mr. Khamenei. Many Iranians and even some non-Iranians saw him as irreplaceable, a larger-than-life myth builder taking selfies on the front lines with his fighters. His role combined the roles of America’s CIA director, secretary of state, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and head of the Joint Special Operations Command.

But his writ went beyond the traditional to the murderous. Gen. Soleimani was responsible for rescuing the Assad regime as it faced defeat, led the ground forces in the brutal siege of Aleppo, and was complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and thousands of Iraqis and Iranians. His genius for destruction terrorized Middle Easterners and terrified many Iranians. His death could make the region less bloody.

With his death, the U.S policy of maximum pressure on the regime in Iran has entered a new phase beyond sanctions to the selective use of military power. This could lead the regime to escalate its violence, reach out for renewed negotiations or collapse. The U.S. has much reason to welcome the fall of the Islamic Republic, a state responsible for attacking U.S. interests and thousands of Americans since the 1979 revolution. But we should be ready for a range of unpleasant scenarios. As welcome as the end of the clerical and revolutionary regime would be, it’s difficult to see this happening relatively peacefully given the theocracy’s propensity for violence. We should expect instability in Iran for years to come, especially if the Islamic Republic hangs on.

[…]

Read Mark’s piece for The Globe and Mail here. 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Mark Dubowitz in USA Today: “Iran strategy of ‘maximum pressure’ continues after the killing of Qassem Soleimani”

January 6, 2020 by Comms FDD

Iran strategy of ‘maximum pressure’ continues after the killing of Qassem Soleimani

President Trump has been remarkably consistent even if the rest of Washington hasn’t

 

The following is an excerpt:

The lawful killing of arch terrorist Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, should be welcomed by all who applauded the liquidation of Osama bin Laden by President Barack Obama.

Soleimani, like bin Laden, murdered and maimed thousands of Americans. He also destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Israel, Gaza — and in Iran itself.

A debate about the wisdom of the strike has predictably erupted in Washington along partisan lines. But the chatter obscures a crucial question. Does President Donald Trump have a coherent Iran strategy?

He does. It’s called “maximum pressure.”

[…]

Read Mark’s piece for USA Today here. 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Mark Dubowitz on the death of Soleimani with Fox News

January 5, 2020 by Comms Intern

Journal Editorial Report

Paul: Welcome to the Journal Editorial Report, I’m Paul Gigot. A new year and a new set of challengers for President Trump both at home and abroad. We begin in the Middle East with the Pentagon confirming Thursday night that the powerful commander of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp General Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad Airport. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo telling Fox on Friday that President Trump made a necessary decision. 

[Video of Pompeo Statement]

Mark Dubowitz is Chief executive of the FDD, Welcome Mark good to see you again. SO i was reading your twitter feed and i noticed that you were saying that this killing of Soul might be more significant even than the killing of Osama bin Laden, how so?

Mark: Paul, Qassem Soleimani for 23 years has dominated the Mid East. I mean if you can imagine a combination of our joint Special Operations Commander with our Joint Chiefs of Staff with our CIA Director, Foreign Minister, or Secretary of State — you roll all that into one man and that Qassem Soleimani. 

Paul: Really? So he had that much influence? 

Mark: Huge influence, huge power. Really somebody to be admired for his prowess and his operational capacity as well as his tactical brilliance. I mean he really has created an enormous difficulties for US interests. As Sec. Pompeo said, he has American blood on his hand as well as the blood of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Iranians and Lebanese and Iraqi. This is a consequential move by the president and president trump really deserves enormous credit.

Paul: Let’s talk about the impact in the Mid east. First of all the impact inside Iran. The Ayatollah Khamenei had said before this that the US could do nothing at all to stop what Iran did. Clearly he was wrong about that. But what happens next in Iran? Are they going to strike back here? They’re promising to do so.

Mark: Look, this was a severe blow to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. I mean, Soleimani was his left hand and his right hand. He was the second most powerful man in Iran after the Supreme Leader, answered directly to him, not through the chain of command. And so the regime is going to have to strike back and the real question is how and where? And they’ve certainly learned to their horror that President Trump unlike previous presidents was willing to enforce red lines, specifically a red line against taking US casualties. And so I think they’re gonna have to be very careful about striking out at US personnel or US interests. But again, their is to go after our allies, hit oil facilities, go after tankers, but Iraq will probably be the main battleground. They want to drive us out and if they can drive us out that certainly would be a testament to Soleimani and that was, after all, Soleimani’s objective — to drive the United States out of Iraq and out of the Middle East. I think that’ll be the main battleground.

Paul: But I guess the question they face is, do you really target Americans? Do you target our diplomats? Do you target our military troops that are on the ground? We have about 5,000 of them in Iraq. Because if you do and you end up killing Americans, the message from this attack on Soleimani is we will strike back and I assume that that would not be limited just to Iraq.

Mark: Well I think that’s exactly right. I mean I think President Trump has made that very clear again that he will enforce the red line against the taking of American lives. And so that kind of escalation would be enormously risky for the regime because they could be risking their military, they could be risking the survival of the regime itself. So again, their traditional playbook will maybe do everything short of that — go after US allies, go after the assets of our allies, go after energy resources. And inside Iraq, perhaps create massive demonstrations, rally these Shiite militias, and certainly work against us politically to try and force the Iraqi government to force us out of that country.

Paul: Right, but there’s a split point of view inside Iraq about the Iranian presence. I mean, some of the protests in recent weeks have been against the Iranian meddling in Iraq, although it is true that the Prime Minister denounced the American attack on Soleimani and so did the Ayatollah Sistani the Shiite leader. How do you see that playing out? I mean can we, do you think we’ll be able to maintain a presence inside Iraq?

Mark: It’s a good question, I mean you’re exactly right. I mean actually for months hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, including especially Shiite Iraqis have been on the streets protesting against Iran, against Iranian imperialism, yelling ‘death to the dictator,’ ‘Iran out of our country.’ And so certainly Iraqi nationalism has been fueled by the heavy hand of Iranian imperialism in that country. So it may be very difficult for Iranians to rally the Iraqis around the Iranian flag. But again politically it’ll kill the enormous pressure, the popular mobilization unit which is banded together all these Iranian-backed Shiite militias has enormous influence in the Iraqi political system and in the Iraqi parliament. And so I expect that they will be to try and force this out politically and try to force the hand of the Iraqi politicians to defend Iran and defend Iraqi sovereignty and try to force us out of that country.

Paul: What’s the larger impact of this and then in the Middle East more broadly? Because there’s been real concern there particularly after the president’s pledge to get out of — impulsive move to get out of Syria twice which he’s twice taken back, but maybe he wants to get out. Does this send a reassuring message to some of the rest of the region?

Mark: Look, I hope it does and I think it should, but it really depends on President Trump’s next move. I mean how does her respond to regime’s escalation? How does he respond to more violent attacks against our allies? If the message is you can go after our allies as long as you don’t kill Americans, they’re not going to be reassured. If the message is, “the United States is here to stay in the Middle East, we’re going to be very selective but very deadly about how we use military force. We’re not going to have a huge footprint, but the footprint we have will be there to defend US interests and US allies,” then I think it’s quite a devastating blow to the regime in Iran which did not expect this from Donald Trump.

Paul: Right. 

Mark: It certainly did not expect this. I mean, I think no one expected this from Donald Trump. I mean it was only, you know, two months ago that I was calling Donald Trump a Twitter tiger —

Paul: Right.

Mark: — and now I take it back. I mean I commend him for doing what no other US president in 23 years was willing to do, which is to take out this master terrorist. So I think Donald Trump’s next move is going to be the very important move. And that’s the move that our allies and our adversaries will be looking at.

Paul: All right. Mark Dubowitz, very instructive. Thanks for coming in.

Mark: Thanks so much for having me, Paul.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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