Monday, March 10, 2025
The Iranian Americans for Liberty directs the attention of the Trump administration to the new influence operation by the Islamic regime in the United States. The Islamic Republic had for years successfully, albeit illegally, lobbied the US government and politicians for leniency and appeasement, through overtly political entities such as NIAC - National Iranian American Council, and covert, ostensibly cultural bodies like PAAIA - Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans.
With increasingly hostile attitudes of Americans toward NIAC and other fronts of Islamic regime lobby, the regime has changed tactics, trying to infiltrate the Iranian Constitutionalists, i.e., advocates of the return of constitutional monarchy in Iran. The regime’s focus appears to be concentrated on NUFDI - National Union for Democracy in Iran, that has in recent years deliberately gotten close to the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. Several former activists from the faux-reformist faction of the Islamic Republic currently serve in the advisory roles and affiliates of NUFDI. The most worrisome, however, are the children of regime officials becoming a fixture of the events organized by NUFDI. Take the example of Elica Mojtahed-Zadeh, the daughter of a known regime collaborator, Pirouz Mojtahedzadeh. She does media appearances and is active on social media under the
pseudonym Elica Le Bon to hide the family tie to her notorious father. Her father, Pirouz, now based in the UK, has been a de facto lobbyist for the Islamic Republic regime in the West for decades. In June 2004, Pirouz Mojtahedzadeh co-authored an article with Kaveh Afrasiabi, titled "Iran's nuclear program: Threats are not the way to influence Tehran". (1)
Afrasiabi was later arrested by the FBI for working as an unregistered agent of the Iranian government. Ultimately, the charges against Afrasiabi were dropped as as part of a prisoner exchange deal between Iran and the US under the Biden administration, mediated by Qatar. Elica’s father, Pirouz, is also a member of the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) UK. (2),(3)
Pirouz co-founded the Iranian Association of Geopolitics in Tehran, along with a number Islamic Republic diplomats (ambassadors) and IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) Generals, the most prominent of whom was Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who is currently the Speaker of the Islamic Republic Parliament. (4)
Just recently, at the Upfront Conference, NUFDI knowingly and deliberately provided a photo op for Elica Le Bon (Mojtahed-Zadeh) to pose with the Pahlavi family. These people's proximity to the Crown Prince and his family is both a national security threat to the United States and a threat to the Pahlavis' safety. (Image 1)
The IAL calls upon the intelligence community to investigate the relationship between the Islamic Republic affiliates and NUFDI to transparently explain their role in this influence operation.
References:
3) https://web.archive.org/web/20110614071953/http://www.tehrantimes.com/NCms/2007.asp?code=3144
