Andrew:

On the specific matter of Trita Parsi: I have no long-term knowledge of the dude (and for quite a while thought he was a woman) and have never met him. I just know that when the Dish was covering Iran’s revolution, few people were as committed or as devoted to the Greens as Parsi or his organization. To conflate him with the dictators he so actively exposed and resisted and who murdered or tortured people he loves and cares about is just wrong. After the trauma of last June, it’s deeply hurtful and offensive.

Andrew is correct about all this, but this doesn’t go quite far enough. The attack to which he is responding is fundamentally dishonest. Parsi has argued against additional sanctions on Iran on the reasonable grounds that additional sanctions would not force Tehran to make any concessions, would not undermine the regime and would not advance the cause of reformers. I don’t believe Parsi has argued for an end to all sanctions currently imposed on Iran, but even if he were to make that argument he would have legitimate reasons for thinking that sanctions have helped to weaken Iranian opposition forces and consolidate the regime’s hold on the country. If Goldberg had any interest in being fair to Parsi, he would have to acknowledge that Parsi has also argued for a pause in pursuing any engagement with Tehran in the wake of the June crackdown. That means that Parsi has changed his position on engaging Tehran to take a somewhat harder line than he once held. Whether or not this is the right move, this put him among those opposed to engaging the Iranian government under its current leadership at the present time. As far as I know, this remains Parsi’s position today. Obviously, he is nothing like “the AIPAC of Iran,” and referring to him as a lobbyist for Tehran is false and reprehensible.