Having devoted itself to orchestrating and campaigning for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), a Washington-based organization with close ties to the regime in Tehran, has now turned its attention to easing restrictions on Iranians seeking to enter the U.S. Jordan Schachtel writes:

The . . . Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 passed in the House with an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 407 to 19.

The new law tightens the already-established U.S. Visa-Waiver Program (VWP) to prohibit some Iranian, Syrian, Sudanese, and Iraqi nationals from entering the United States, recognizing that the citizens of these nations come from war-torn states and live under the control of anti-American . . . regimes and Islamic insurgencies. The Iranian regime fiercely opposes the measure. Tehran has accused AIPAC and other “Zionist” entities of being behind the measure.

Though the bill received almost unanimous support from the public at large and in the halls of Congress, NIAC has implemented the same strategy it used in garnering support for the Iran deal. It has described the bill as “racist” and “discriminatory,” and has called upon Congress and the president to revoke the national-security legislation. It has achieved some success thus far.

Members of Congress have alleged that the Obama administration—which remains close with NIAC (and employs a NIAC alumna, Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, as the National Security Council’s director for Iran)—is carving loopholes into the waiver restrictions, specifically for Iranian nationals.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.