In January, three senators sent a formal letter to the Department of Justice exhorting it to investigate the National Iranian American Council (NIAC)—a lobbying group in favor of improved relations between Washington and Tehran, and a reliable source of anti-Israel propaganda—for violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Michael Johns, Jr. lays out the case:

Since its 2002 founding, NIAC’s vision for getting Washington to remove sanctions against the Iranian regime and to reduce or even end its military engagement in the region, including strategic ties with Israel and Saudi Arabia, has drawn the attention and support of a variety of predominantly left-of-center philanthropic foundations. . . . In 2015, NIAC also launched NIAC Action, a lobbying arm that expanded its reach directly into American electoral politics.

A review of NIAC policy stances reveals that the organization frequently echoes Tehran’s rhetoric in redirecting blame at the U.S., not the regime, for Iranian aggression and malfeasance. Its messaging this month, for example, is that U.S. sanctions—not the Iranian regime currently spending nearly $7 billion on its terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and billions more on corruption, foreign-arms export ,and nuclear-weapons development—is to blame for Iranian poverty and suffering.

In 2019, NIAC’s president, Jamal Abdim echoed an Iranian-regime conspiracy theory that Iranian attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman—allegations that were corroborated by the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany, and regional allies—were false-flag operations “orchestrated” by the Trump administration to provide a pretext for war with Iran. The list of similar regime-sympathetic positions held by NIAC goes all the way back to its founding.

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.