by Eli Clifton
On Friday, the State Department suspended its funding for a mysterious website and Twitter account, IranDisInfo.org and @IranDisInfo, after the project attacked human rights workers, journalists and academics, many of whom are based inside the U.S. But the role of the U.S. government in financing IranDisInfo’s criticisms of Human Rights Watch and the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a group that has been outspoken in warning about the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive military posture towards Iran, appears to have been in collaboration with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
FDD pushes for military confrontation with Iran and has received funding from some of Trump and the GOP’s biggest campaign megadonors. While simultaneously denying their support for a war with Iran, FDD’s scholars have repeatedly urged U.S. military action against the Islamic Republic.
In 2011, FDD CEO Mark Dubowitz revealed that regime change in Tehran was his organization’s real mission. “The best way [to end Iran’s nuclear program] is to work toward changing the regime,” he said. Dubowitz’s FDD colleague Reuel Marc Gerecht quipped, “I’ve written about 25,000 words about bombing Iran. Even my mom thinks I’ve gone too far.” Unsurprisingly, Dubowitz and his FDD colleagues have been advising the Trump White House on their regime change strategy in Iran.
FDD’s involvement with IranDisInfo was thinly concealed. The website and Twitter account heavily promoted Mark Dubowitz and FDD advisor Saeed Ghasseminejad. Buried on FDD’s website is an “Iran Disinformation Project” that publishes the identical content from Ghasseminejad that was cross-posted on IranDisInfo’s website. And on at least five occasions FDD’s Twitter account promoted articles by Ghasseminejad “in @IranDisInfo.” Except the links didn’t send users to IranDisInfo’s website. Instead, the links were to FDD’s own “Iran Disinformation Project,” hosted on FDD’s website.
On Saturday, Dubowitz addressed the growing controversy over IranDisInfo, tweeting that “conspiracists” see “FDD’s hand in everything.” Ghasseminejad tweeted, “FDD is not involved in any way with the [Iran Disinformation Project].”
Dubowitz did not respond to a question about whether Ghasseminejad was involved in operating IranDisInfo.
FDD would be a natural choice of partners for the Trump State Department. In 2017, FDD received $3.63 million from billionaire Bernard Marcus, which constituted over a quarter of FDD’s contributions that year. Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, is outspoken about his hatred of Iran, which he characterized as “the devil” in a 2015 Fox Business interview. Marcus is Trump’s second biggest campaign supporter, contributing $7 million to pro-Trump super PACs before the 2016 election.
Marcus, who sits on FDD’s board, is also a supporter of Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton. He contributed $530,000 to Bolton’s super PAC over its lifetime.
And by the end of the 2011 tax year, Sheldon Adelson, who went on to become Trump’s single biggest campaign funder, the GOP’s biggest funder in the 2018 midterms, and personal advocate for Trump to take Bolton as his national security adviser, was FDD’s third biggest donor, contributing at least $1.5 million. (Dubowitz says Adelson no longer contributes to FDD.) In 2013, Adelson publicly proposed the U.S. launch a preventive nuclear attack on Iran, targeting the desert, and threaten to launch a second nuclear weapon at Tehran if Iran didn’t abandon its nuclear program.
The IranDisInfo project fits solidly within FDD’s modus-operandi of pushing for increasingly hawkish measures against Iran and working to undermine efforts, such as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to constrain Iran’s nuclear program through diplomatic measures. But the Trump administration’s decision to seemingly enter into a collaborative arrangement with FDD or Ghasseminejad, an FDD “adviser,” points to the State Department, under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s leadership, moving to increasingly align itself with organizations and individuals pushing the U.S. towards another war in the Middle East.
Trump and FDD’s overlapping billionaire donor base is a strong indication that the White House and FDD and are working towards a shared goal. Marcus and Adelson publicly endorse a militarist posture towards Iran and aren’t shy about writing big checks to politicians and organizations that share that mission. With Adelson and Marcus’s preferred national security adviser, John Bolton, evidently pushing the U.S. towards a military confrontation with Iran, it’s no wonder that FDD, possibly (until Friday) with the support of U.S.-taxpayer funding, is engaged in a public-diplomacy campaign against critics of Trump and Bolton’s Iran policy.
Monty Ahwazi
You are clearly unaware of the historical development of Protestanism in UK and US.
You are also dismissing the empirical fact that Israel has been a political failure and a huge liability for the United States.
Only religious sentiment can explain that, look at Iraq and see which foreign companies are active in her oil sector.
Excellent article Eli. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Iran is being bombarded by 100’s social media propaganda & misinformation sites, dozens of bogus human rights organizations, fake labor union advocacy groups (yes, from #Trump & #Bolton!), 100+ satellite TV channels offering news (propaganda & lies), HBO movie channels in Persian (selected on basis of nudity & sexual acts), & dozens of SW radio stations.
It is clear that the Zionist & arms industry stock holders (Marcus & Adelson) are aware of Gallup Polls & University of Maryland Iran Poll 2018. They know the majority of Iranians are behind their indiginous independent government. The Zionist servants’ tsunami of propaganda & misinformation is intended to change that through deception & propaganda — perhaps, to lower the number of men who will rush wave after waves to defend their homeland as their fathers & forefathers have done for hundreds of century.
Among all the propaganda beamed & transmitted into Iran, I see a significant effort waged at young Iranian girls & women. Perhaps, the evil Zionist servants have realized that the fact that Iran, with its magnificent, ancient, and original culture and civilization, has succeeded to survive uninterruptedly throughout its history from ancient time to present has a lot to do with its women — its mothers, those who Iranians from the dawn of their existence, believed God has reserved a special place for them in Heaven.
Thank you very much Eli Cliftn for a very comprehensive and informative article. Excellent!