bahmani

Happy 4th of July, may we take inspiration from this day of independence and achieve our own, soon.

Everything you want to know about NIAC can be summarized, clarified, and simplified by watching the following video. This is my last post on the personal investigation I have been making into NIAC, and how and why it still kicks.

[SPOILER ALERT: NIAC is a joke. On us. It is actually all just a dream. Or in Hassan Daie's case, a nightmare. Poor Hassan! Someone wake him up! I know you're not supposed to in the middle of dreams, but it's crueler letting him think it's all real.]

At first, I was a lawn chair critic like most, one of an army of Monday morning quarterbacks, angrily and sarcastically attacking NIAC for posing and proposing the preposterous. Cynically ridiculing the posturing and positing. And finally satirically lambasting the pontificating and punditry.

That's a lot of work!

Finally I decided to do something about it. It's one thing to throw opinions, chants, and epithets from the cheap seats and the safety of a website forum/therapy couch. An altogether different affair to put your money where your mouth is.

So I put in the $50, and joined NIAC.

The video you can watch at the end of this piece, is a panel event I attended. It was an analysis of the US-Iran Baghdad meeting, the same old largely predictably inconclusive events that we have all pretty much come to accept will almost surely now result in a soft landing for the news that we all anticipate, namely Iran announcing it has finally acquired a nuclear weapon. Sometime in October, I am betting. Because that's the favorite month for Iran to go, "Surprise!"

Oddly enough, and not deficient of irony, this NIAC event was sponsored by the Ploughshares fund. Get it? No, seriously do you Get it?

OK, since you didn't say you got it loud enough, and since I can't hear you if you did, the funny thing about the Ploughshares fund sponsoring this NIAC event, is that the Ploughshares fund is supposedly an organization created to prevent the escalation of Nuclear War. Here they are, supporting an event that EXACTLY INCREASES the chance of Nuclear War by supporting the kind of dialog that NIAC seems to support, that will undoubtedly and exactly result in Iran getting a Nuclear Weapon. Again, by my unscientific estimates, sometime around October. I could be wrong. But I don't think so. I will let you know as soon as I change my mind.

That's the new rule. We can change our minds about shit from now on. Everyone can be right, and wrong. No one is Superman.

- NIAC's position on Iran always seems to be Iran-centric. Which is good.
- NIAC says it supports Human Rights in Iran. Which is also good. Very good in fact.
- NIAC says it supports a democratic Iran. Which is good too. Although it is sort of unclear whether NIAC considers the current government of Iran to be Democratic or not. I would like a clarification. Like us, NIAC needs to address and refer to Iran using the quintessential, undisputed, formal, and scientific term of: "Dictatorship", because that's what it is.
- NIAC says it is against sanctions that hurt ordinary Iranians. Me too. I just don't see how you can avoid it when the Iranian people are being held hostage by the government that sells them everything and controls every single thing that they buy. I mean there is no way to avoid it. So NIAC needs to get off that. Because it's actually childish. And Naive. NAIVE ruins NIAC's expressed expertise.
- "NIAC supports targeted measures against human rights violators in Iran’s government." This is also Good, but again, NAIVE. The entire Iranian Government is a Human Rights Violator. Human Rights Violation is the Stated Policy and Institutionalized Foundation of the Iranian Government. Again, NAIVE and it ruins NIAC's now jittery and faltering image.

While there are many scary omissions in the list of things that NIAC stands for, the scariest is that nowhere on the NIAC website have I been able to find ANY mention of NIAC opposing Iran getting a Nuclear Weapon. Actually I can't find ANY mention of NIAC's position against ANY official Iranian position. Maybe the folks at the Ploughshares fund can help me find someth... Wait... nevermind.

I think this is part of the problem. We don't exactly know what NIAC is. NIAC is most certainly not NIC.

Which brings me to this video.

As I said, everything you want to know about NIAC can be gotten from watching this video. This video has American guests on it. These Americans have made careers and money using their opinions on shit and stuff. Simply, they speak and opinionate on the goigns on of the day - shit, on their chosen topic of expertise - stuff, and then people pay them. Based on their credentials, or books, or the most recent rate they charged to speak, at the most recent event they were invited and paid to speak at. Almost all of them have been fired from the very same government jobs that they claim as the basis of their expertise.

Or exactly like what the MEK is doing.

Funnily, exactly what Trita is doing. Like his colleagues, Trita has made a career and money using his opinions on shit and stuff.

AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

As you can see in the video, everyone knows everyone. They are all cordial colleagues in the same line of work, in the same industry. In this line of business, you have to do your colleagues a favor, so they "owe you one" when you need a favor. Like if you need a good write up on your book, or if you need an introduction to a group that pays better than you usually get paid. A fellowship at a University or a Thinktank. And so on.

I know it sounds corrupt. It isn't. And I know we have huge impatient regime-changing expectations and so on. But get over it. It's simple common professional courtesy. It and NIAC, is what it is. A business, designed to do what you will see next in this video. That's the show, that's the entire product. Nothing more. Above all it is a fun and exciting business. Kind of like acting in a play. In this case an Off-Broadway play. Off-Off-Off-Broadway. Possibly Flatbush.

Our expectation that NIAC is supposed to be this magical next coming of the Christ of opposition movements, that would finally save us and Iran is, well, about as Naive and wishful as NIAC is relevant to that very noble endeavor.

Let me be clear. If things between Iran and the US actually got better, NIAC would be out of work. Trita would be out of a job. And NIAC and Trita most certainly do not want to be out of work. Not in this, or any other economy. Do you now get it?

And you know what? Who can honestly blame NIAC? At the end of the day, whether you or me or Hassan Daie likes it or not, NIAC has the right to play off our cowardice, and our collective stammer, and our gross paraplegic inability to stand together, even in the face of the most obvious wrong, and make a semi-honest buck out of it.

THEY CAN AND MOST CERTAINLY DO THAT.

At least let us all agree that we above all, most certainly deserve the NIAC we've got. Want to stop NIAC? Easy, just contact everyone of NIAC's contacts, colleagues, and connections and simply give them an alternative to consider. That's it! Should take maybe 30-45 days tops. Given the average intelligence of the American politician, it doesn't even have to be a coherent alternative apparently. That's the extent of the "put up" required to offset the collective "shut up" we have chosen instead.

Finally, I am unable to find any credible evidence that NIAC is a paid lobby of Iran. No, I know it's there, I was just unable to expend the energy or interest to find it. Because I don't really care about any of that. Because at some level, if you think about it, we are ALL the bought and paid lobbyists of Iran. I mean look at the glorious 33-year long running results!

I will apologize for this last final bit, at Trita's expense, but it is irresistibly unavoidable for someone with my degree of vanity, attention-span, and terminal turrets infection. Utterly impossible for me not to say. Even knowing I should not say it, makes me have to say it even more.

Partially, through the cruelty of nature, genetics, Higgs boson, and God, and not inconsequentially by taunts like this one, from self-admitted scum like me, Trita is just like every other height-disadvantaged Iranian businessman. Nothing more. By his fate and destiny, he has been forced to "open up his own business". Because no one will hire a short Iranian (or any short man) with an aptitude for, and an attitude of self promotion and superiority. And the best revenge for our koochooloo brethren, is always the sweet taste of material success. It is the napalm they love to smell in the morning. The Heroin in his Hookah.

The ultimate answer and alternative to NIAC is and has always been staring us right in our face. It is at once simple and complex. It is simultaneously logical and conflicted. For, equal and opposite in strength and effectiveness to NIAC, is the degree and level of our own apathy, towards getting off our more than fat asses, and doing something about our condition and Iran.

Or, it is time for us all to collectively Put Up, or Shut Up.

Trita jan, thanks for the hospitality, and best of luck. I have a feeling you will need it. Keep the $50. As Sacha Baron Cohen (a good Jew) said in the role of "Haffaz Aladeen" in the film "The Dictator",

"You were worth every penny."

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