The Tehran-based “New Horizon” Organization, which also bills itself the, “International Institute of Independent Thinkers and Artists,” just wrapped up its latest conference in Beirut, Lebanon. Taking place from September 20th to the 26th, the conference was hosted at a Hezbollah-run venue, Assaha Village.
Sanctioned by the US Treasury Department this February for being a “platform for the IRGC-QF (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – Qods Force) to recruit and collect intelligence from attendees,” the New Horizon conferences are primarily known for promoting conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism.
The main of topic of the Beirut discussions was “the role of the U.S. administration under Donald Trump in regional and international instability which is fully compatible with Israel’s agenda in the region, and the possible consequences, as well as highlighting the crisis of liberal globalization, excessive sanctions and unfair and persistent use of power.” Two special sessions were devoted to the “deep divisions within the United States of America and their reflection on its external role,” and “U.S. sanctions and their impact on the global system and the choices left for the targeted forces to create alternative frameworks.” As can easily be discerned, the topics were all designed as, as the organization’s chairman stated, a form of “both public diplomacy and soft war” which “helps the [Iranian] government.”
Primary guests at this latest gathering included Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian geopolitical strategist and advisor to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has become well-known around the globe over the past few years for his promoting of neo-fascism, anti-modernism, and racism. 11 Americans gave speeches to the conference via video link, after receiving warning from the FBI that attending the conference would be considered a crime. They included Michael Maloof, a former Pentagon staffer, J. Michael Springmann, a former US foreign service officer, and Scott Rickard, a former US Air Force and National Security Agency translator. All are frequent guests on Khomeiniist regime-controlled media, and are known for promoting theories that “Zionists” control the USA and were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Another American participant was Vernellia Randall, an African-American radical academic. (African American extremists have long been considered prime candidates for recruitment the by regime’s intelligence agencies.)
New Horizon is run and was founded by Gholam-Reza Montazami, a former regime diplomat. Day to day operations are chaired by Nader Talebzadeh. A graduate of Columbia University, and participant in Khomeini’s seizure of power in 1979, Talebzadeh formerly worked for the regime’s Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance, as well as Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. The organization’s international affairs secretary is Hamid Ghashghavi, who formerly worked with the IRGC to spread propaganda promoting regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei. All three men, as well as Montazami’s assistant, Zeina Mahana, are personally sanctioned by the US for operating on behalf of the IRGC. According to Mahana, the organization “gets its funding from three Islamic Shrines.”
In Iran, shrines and mosques, controlled by the ruling mullahs, are business conglomerates. Much of their income is used to support the IRGC’s wars and proxy forces, as well as terrorist groups.
Among previous attendees at New Horizon conferences were Holocaust-denying author Norman Finklestein, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, former politicians radical leftist Cynthia McKinney and Mike Gravel, and leftist activist Medea Benjamin of CodePINK. All are longtime regime supporters and frequent guests at events it sponsors.
Source » thefreeiranian