wrote that the reason for this suspicion is Parsi’s relationship with former Iranian UN ambassador and current Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif. Email exchanges between Parsi and Zarif “show the NIAC founder seeking to arrange meetings and perhaps coordinate on strategy.” At the time of contact, Zarif was at the Permanent Iranian Mission to the UN. The communication took place over email, as in the case of Afrasiabi.
In 2008, Parsi sued exiled Iranian journalist Hassan Daioleslam for defamation because Daioleslam had
asserted that NIAC and Parsi were lobbying on behalf of the Islamic regime. It was during that trial that Parsi´s correspondence with the regime was revealed. His libel suit against Daioleslam was thrown out in 2012. Whether NIAC one of the most influential foreign policy advocacy groups in the US is a branch of the Islamic regime, its
The FBI recently arrested an Iranian academic for failing to register as a foreign agent in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Kaveh Afrasiabi was arrested in Massachusetts and is believed to have received more than $250,000 from the Iranian regime to disseminate its propaganda in the guise of objective analysis. Iranian agent-scholars are easy to recognize: they always oppose the overthrow of the regime and they oppose any form of sanctions. They criticize the regime on occasion as a means of concealing their role as agents.