Why Is a Delegation From Iran Coming to the United States?

On May 17th, an Iranian economic and trade delegation will be traveling to the U.S. to participate in the Futurallia International Business Development Forum.

Mohammad-Reza Sabzalipour, director of the Iranian World Trade Center, who announced this news to a group of reporters, said: “A sixteen-person delegation comprised of private sector Iranians has been invited by the U.S. to attend this three-day conference in Kansas City. Eight hundred trade delegations from thirty countries are expected to participate. This Forum can set the stage and provide the necessary groundwork for the development of international trade and business relations for Iran’s private sector.”

Sabzalipour emphasized that sanctions have neither been very effective, nor a deterrent in Iran’s private sector relations with the U.S. He added: “Though Iran is facing sanctions and the U.S. is the host of this Forum, they could have omitted us from the list of participants but luckily, they did not. The members of our delegations have all also been given three-month visas.”

Reportedly the Iranian companies participating in the forum will be from the industrial sector, which includes producers and manufacturers of chemical materials, household items, paint and coloring, food stuffs and chocolate. A financial analyst is also expected to be accompanying the delegation.

The Futurallia Forum is an annual international conference created for business and trade networking, as well as accessing ways to connect small businesses with larger trade outlets, financial facilities, as well as technological promotion and agreements for greater international economic growth.

This is despite the U.S. sanctions put in place by the Obama administration. The Iranian leaders, who have continuously refused to give in to U.N. demands to halt their nuclear enrichment program and are under four sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions, must be jubilant that the Obama administration is backpedaling on the mandated sanctions and has allowed the State Department to issue them visas and host the delegation here in the United States.

This is in addition to the recent secret meeting in Dubai between officials from the Obama administration and the Iranian delegates sent by President Ahmadinejad! According to reports from Iran, in late January/early February, a group calling itself “a trade association” — all of its members belong to security forces close to Ahmadinejad — traveled to Dubai where they held clandestine meetings with two American officials with political and military connections.

President Obama, who started his approach toward the radical Islamists ruling Iran by extending a hand, turning his back on the Iranian people with their aspirations for freedom and democracy, and hoping that he could be the first U.S. president to break the ice with the Jihadists in Tehran, soon learned that the Iranian leaders cannot be appeased into changing their behavior. He then moved forward with the sanctions process believing that at some cost, the leaders in Iran will think twice about their nuclear program.

However, that has shown also to be a failure as many countries including China, Germany, Italy, India, and others still do business with Iran.

So now the Obama administration has completely thrown in the towel by initiating steps to restart a dialog signaling to the Iranians that America is too weak to confront the Islamic regime, a regime that brutally suppresses its people and supports worldwide terrorism, endangering global stability and our national security.

Instead of allowing the Iranian delegation’s travel to U.S., Mr. Obama should instead openly announce his disgust with the regime in Iran for their crimes against humanity, for torturing and murdering Iranian citizens, for genocide against religious minorities, for involvement in international terrorism, and for killing American soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lets us refuse to allow these very people, who have the blood of our heroes on their hands, to enter the U.S. and to attend the Forum in Kansas City.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reason. “A Time to Betray,” his book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was published by Simon & Schuster in April.