The Shady Lobby that Helped with the Iran Deal


The Daily Beast notes that the NIAC has done Obama’s heavy-lifting—handling all the ad-buying, the leafleting, and congressional meet-and-greets and everything else designed to sell lawmakers on the Iran bomb deal—its political efforts also handle the economic interests of one very well connected but low-profile Iranian family, the Namazis, the intellectual architects of NIAC.
Who?

Yes, they are little known to the American press, but the Namazis have a prominent cause.

They are secretive; attempts to reach various members of the family are were met with increasing levels of hostility and threats of legal action. Yet the Namazi clan is the perfect embodiment of Iranian power politics, at least as it has played out among the Iranian diaspora. Those close to the Namazis say that they are savvy financial operators rather than ideologues, do extensive business with the West and enjoy all of its political freedoms and perquisites. In the background, they are ever mindful that they’re straddling the line between cashing in in Iran’s theocratic dictatorship and being frozen out entirely. They have stayed on the right side of international law and monitored the prevailing political interests in the Islamic Republic.
Mohammad Bagher Namazi, also known as Baquer Namazi, is the patriarch of the family and formerly the governor under the Shah of the oil-rich Iranian province of Khuzestan. Despite his relationship with the ancien régime, Baquer Namazi was not persecuted by the Khomeinists after they seized power in 1979, and he and his family were allowed to emigrate in 1983 to the United States. There he raised two well-educated and Americanized sons, Babak and Siamak, while his niece, Pari Namazi, married Bijan Khajehpour, another Iranian expatriate.

Source: Daily Beast
As the Iran bomb deal moves forward, watch for this family to make its move one way or the other.

 



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