The American Iranian Council (AIC) was formed in 1990 as a US-based bi-partisan think tank focused upon promoting better relations between the United States and Iran. Former United States Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was the original honorary Chair of the organization. The AIC is an academic research and education organization that is focused upon improving the dialogue between two countries that often fail to take into account misperceptions, misunderstandings, and mischaracterizations. The AIC seeks to help policy makers as well as concerned citizens become better aware of the interests in common to both countries.
Goals and mission
The AIC is designated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan, non-political, non-sectarian organization that is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. The AIC is generally focused upon working at the national and international levels of public policy, it is also increasingly involved in helping Iranian-American citizens in the United States to have their voices and concerns articulated and heard.[citation needed]
The AIC is guided by its core values – (i.) truth, (ii.) understanding, (iii.) dialogue and (iv.) participation – for an organization to promote and protect those values, the AIC helps turn these into more specific principles. The organization believes in intellectual and practical rigor, a free and open and nonpartisan inquiry, full accountability and transparency, fair and balanced treatment of issues, the enhancement of a public-service ethic, broad participation of those who wish to be involved, and the promotion of common ground and mutual interests.[citation needed]
Achievements
The AIC was granted permission by the U.S. government to open an office in Iran. The AIC will be the only U.S.-based peace and conflict resolution Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) operating in Iran. The AIC has hosted members of both political parties in the United States at its meetings. Most recently, Senator Chuck Hagel and Congressman Dennis Kucinich have been involved in helping to move the U.S. and Iran away from armed conflict. The past Iranian Ambassador to the U.N., Javad Zarif, and the present Ambassador, Mohammad Khazaee, have both worked with the AIC.[citation needed]
In 2007, the AIC helped to arrange a meeting between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and U.S. academics, business leaders and members of the media. The difficulties and problems in the ongoing relationship between the two countries was the primary topic of the discussion.[citation needed]
The AIC has announced that it is planning a meeting with Mohammad Khazaee,[when?] Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations.[citation needed]
Ali Shakeri, founding member of the University of California-Irvine Center for Peacebuilding in Los Angeles, called the AIC on Tuesday, October 2, 2007 to thank the AIC and its members for diplomatic actions taken to gain his release from prison in Iran. Mr. Shakeri has worked with and supported the activities of the AIC for many years. Shakeri had been unlawfully detained in Iran's notorious Evin Prison on charges of security violations since May 2007.[citation needed]
Leadership
The AIC has a prominent board which includes many of the top academics, diplomats, and business leaders. AIC's honorary board includes secretary Donna Shalala, and its board of directors is composed of Thomas R. Pickering, former Senator J Bennet Johnson, former Vice-Chairman of Chevron Richard Matzke, Dr. Fereidun Feksharaki President of FACTS, and Professor Hooshang Amirahmadi of Rutgers University, Ambassador Sargent Shriver, R.K. Ramazani, Ambassador Robert H. Pelletreau, Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Judith Kipper, Roy Mottahedeh.[citation needed]
Controversial actions and conferences
The AIC has organized conferences and events to advance its agenda of closer U.S.-Iranian ties. Notably, on March 13, 2002, the AIC held a conference in Washington that featured Zalmay Khalilzad, a member of President George Bush's National Security Council staff, along with Senators Joseph Biden, Robert Torricelli, and Chuck Hagel.[2] While Mr. Khalilzad criticized Tehran's support for terrorist groups, the senators' speeches raised eyebrows due to their perceived departure from reality and alignment with the AIC's agenda.[2] Senator Hagel's previous denouncement of U.S. sanctions against Iran and Libya further fueled skepticism about the AIC's stance on Iran-related issues.[2]
Amirahmadi as the president of the org became a reformist candidate for the country's presidential election in 2009,[5] 2013,[6] and 2017.[7] The agendas and the list of accomplishments that AIC lists on its website closely resemble those of the reformist party.
AIC's list of accomplishments:[8]
- Secretary Madeleine Albright’s historic speech on Iran, when she expressed regret about 1953 coup and past US policy mistakes, lifted sanctions on carpets and food items, and offered Iran a global settlement. Years later, Iran's President Mohammad Khatami would characterize this initiative as a "missed opportunity";
- Vice President Joe Biden’s and Senator John Kerry’s proposals for dialogue between the US Congress and the Iranian Parliament;
- Meeting among Speaker Mehdi Karubi and other members of the Iranian parliament and their American counterparts in New York City;
- US-Iran dialogue over Iraq and the so-called Grand Bargain initiative;
- The American Iranian Council's presence in Iran under a rare OFAC license; President Obama’s humanitarian attention to Iran’s civilian airline tragedies and his Administration’s agreement to entertain a proposal from Iran to purchase spare parts from the United States
- Release of Sarah Shourd, the American hiker arrested in Iran, and the continued efforts to free her colleagues, Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal; and
- Introduction of the Shield Iranian-Americans from Sanctions (SIAS) as a civil right project.
Among other controversial policies of the AIC is the whitewashing of human rights conditions in Iran.[citation needed] This include gross omission of facts or justifications provided in the myth-busting reports AIC publishes for example omission Baháʼís being barred from attending universities in Iran[9] in its MYTH vs. FACT: Education in Iran[10] or the justifications provided in MYTH vs. FACT: Homosexuality & Gender Assignment in Iran[11] while the regime is one of the worst violators of LGBT rights. And among the most controversial articles they claimed that women are not second class citizens in the article MYTH vs. FACT: Women in Iran[12] which was published less than three months before the brutal killing of Mahsa Amini by the morality police.[citation needed]
AIC released a statement more than one and a half month after the death of Mahsa Amini while there were daily protests in Iran with people were demanding for a regime change and addresses it with a lukewarm and hijacked objective as "Young Iranians - women and men alike - have come out in a show of unity demanding change for their country, including the removal of restrictive dress codes for women and the "morality police" system, which led to Mahsa Amini's death. They are also demanding a broader array of changes, including better economic conditions and renewed integration with the rest of the world."[13]
Critics[who?] of the AIC argue that the organization's efforts to foster U.S.-Iranian ties overlook Iran's troubling actions, such as its alleged support for terrorist organizations and its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict.[2] They[who?] express concerns that the AIC's lobbying efforts may inadvertently promote the interests of the regime in Iran.[citation needed] Despite being perceived as an Iran lobby in the US, the alignment of the lobbying firm's agenda and that of the Islamic Republic of Iran's, and the proximity of Amirahmadi to the regime officials, there are no records that it has been subject to investigation for violating Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as an unregistered foreign lobby.[citation needed]
