“UANI was established in 2008 by Mark Wallace, former CIA Director Jim Woolsey, Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross. Mark Wallace is a former US ambassador to the UN, a prominent member of the Republican Party and a personal friend of ex-President George Bush Sr. The organization is presided over by Gary Samore, who once advised President Obama on arms control and weapons of mass destruction. This group is trying to hamper Iran’s economic relations with the outside world with the help of negative media coverage and threats to companies doing business with Tehran,” Rahman Hariri said.
Even though “United Against Nuclear Iran” poses as a nongovernmental organization, its leaders have close links to the White House and the US Congress, and have played a role in Washington’s decision to impose sanctions on Iran.
“Judging by what this organization and its supporters are doing, it looks like they are stoking up anti-Iranian sentiment in the world and undermining the Islamic Republic’s foreign trade, especially after Iran and the P5+1 Group came to a final agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program in July 2015,” Hariri noted.
United Against Nuclear Iran is a nonprofit advocacy group that aims to inform the public about the nature of the political regime now existing in Iran, to raise US and global awareness of the threat a nuclear-armed Iran could pose to the world, and to promote efforts that focus on vigorous national and international, social, economic, political and diplomatic measures in this direction.
They make it look as if Iran is posing a triple threat to the world with the development of its nuclear program, human rights violation and sponsoring international terrorism.
Who are the sponsors?
Rahman Hariri said that UANI is sponsored by members of the American-Israeli lobby, including the 100,000-strong American-Israeli Public Relations Committee which spends millions of dollars each a year on its efforts to influence US policy.
The list of other sponsors includes the Gulf states, Western and Asian countries, which have always tried to minimize Iran’s trade and military ties with the outside world and who gained much from the international sanctions imposed on Tehran.
These are also the US Republican Party, the anti-Iranian lobby in the US and the EU, the intelligence agencies of the United States, the European Union and of a number of Arab countries.
And also big cartels and major US companies which come out against Iran’s nuclear program in a bid to phase out competition and be the only ones working in the country.
Who is behind UANI?
Rahman Hariri said that, first and foremost, these are certain political, military and intelligence organizations in the US, as well as the Republicans and members of the Israeli lobby who are against President Obama’s policy and the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran and the P5+1 signed last year.
Secondly, this is the US government which, contrary to its officially declared policy, is providing covert support to UANI thus discouraging Tehran from implementing the JCPOA.
“UANI is using diplomatic resources available to it to undermine Iran’s positions in the world and is working hard to intimidate US and foreign companies willing to do business with Tehran,” he noted.
He added that in order to effectively neutralize the destructive work done by organizations like UANI the world needed to strengthen international nongovernmental institutions, pursue a policy of relaxation of global tensions and provide an undistorted picture of Iran in the media and in the minds of millions of people around the world.
