Trita Parsi is at it again. In his latest feat of absurd logic and distorted facts, Parsi has claimed that a bi-partisan group of Senators who voted to enact increased sanctions on Iran are somehow, “Khamenei’s Little Helpers in the Senate.” This is just the latest move to distort the reality that Parsi himself has been advocating the same demands that Khamanei and his nuclear team have been pursuing throughout negotiations.

So let’s get this straight. Over the last few months we have seen Khamenei give his “full backing” to the nuclear negotiating team headed by Javad Zarif, and go out of his way to shield them from criticism by hardliners, stating : “No one should consider our negotiators as compromisers,” and “They have a difficult mission and no one must weaken an official who is busy with work.”
Yet according to Trita Parsi’s illusory world of politics, Khamenei’s real plan was to instigate an increase in sanctions against Iran.
Parsi claims “As long as he patiently waits till the talks either succeed or collapse due to American foul play – courtesy of senators Menendez and Kirk – he will strengthen his position both internationally and domestically.”

Parsi’s claims make no sense. If Khamenei wanted negotiations to fail, why would he go on record to defend them, and push for their continuation. The Supreme leader clearly has no shortage of excuses to sabotage talks if that was his goal. Secondly, if talks did fail, how would this strengthen his position in a regime that is crumbling under the weight of international sanctions? Lastly, now that a deal has been reached to ease sanctions, are we to believe that Khamenei has somehow been weakened by this? If his ultimate goal was to increase sanctions, why would he authorize a deal that would hurt him?
Unfortunately Parsi is only half right. Khamenei’s goal is certainly NOT to increase sanctions against his floundering regime, but instead to seek sanctions relief through patience and negotiation, a fact that anyone can recognize. This has been the agenda of the Iranian regime for the last ten years, and has been the reason why they have always been so eager to come to the negotiating table, yet so reluctant to actually implement any real changes. They are simply buying time, while obtaining temporary relief, a fact that Parsi knows all too well.

The implication that the Senate group who moved to increase sanctions against Tehran is somehow on the same page as Khamenei is completely absurd. These two groups could not be more diametrically opposed.

A recent report by Reuters documents just how ridiculous Parsi’s claims are, stating: ” One of the chief beneficiaries of this week’s easing of Iranian sanctions is the country’s ruler – Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.”

What Parsi is trying so desperately to do is to distort the reality that both he and Khamenei are pursuing the same end game: the removal of sanctions on the Iranian regime. In doing so he has attempted to cast the Senate group, who clearly understand Iran’s goals, into the same camp that they are attempting to confront, namely Khamenei and the regime.

The fact is that any rational observer can see that Parsi fits into the same camp as Khamenei and his ilk who have been doing anything they can to seek sanctions relief. It appears that Khamenei does have a Little Helper in Washington, and it is none other than Trita Parsi.

Hamid Yazdan Panah is an Iranian-American human rights activist and attorney focused on immigration and asylum in the San Francisco Bay Area.