Trump’s State Department spent over $1m in Iran to exploit unrest for ‘regime change’, documents reveal
At
the end of 2017, a dozen cities across Iran, including the capital
Tehran, were rocked by spontaneous protests which continued into the
New Year. What role did the United States play?
Part
6 - The National Endowment for Democracy and the subsidising of
revolt
In
addition to the tens of millions of dollars a year supporting
information influence operations through some of these various media
and broadcasting efforts, US government funding documents provide
further information on funding for ‘democracy promotion’ efforts
in recent years.
USAID
and State Department records reveal that the Trump administration
provided at least $1,146,196 to various opposition NGOs in Iran, from
2016 through some of 2017. The funds were provided by the State
Department through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Full
data for the year 2017 is not yet available.
For
context, this is considerably more than what Russian-linked actors
reportedly paid Twitter, Facebook and Google combined to influence
the American elections (a maximum total of around $447,100).
The NED
is a non-profit organization funded by US Congress via the State
Department, founded in 1983 originally to support anti-Soviet foreign
political movements.
Declassified
documents released by the Reagan Presidential Library confirm that
then CIA director William Casey played a lead role in the NED’s
establishment, seeing it as a way to provide legitimate cover to fund
groups that would undermine or overthrow foreign governments inimical
to US interests.
As of
January 2017, the NED has been chaired by Dr Judy Shelton, who served
on Trump’s economic advisory team during the 2016 presidential
campaign.
For the
vast majority of the projects funded in Iran, the recipient NGOs
supported have not been disclosed.
The
Trump administration ‘democracy promotion’ funding continues a
seamless policy pursued by successive Democrat and Republican
administrations. The Obama administration spent a total of $1,802,537
from 2014 to 2015.
Axiom:
From 2014 to 2017, the Obama and Trump administration spent a total
of nearly $3 million (precisely, $2,948,733) through the State
Department to fund opposition activists in Iran promoting a vision of
‘democracy’ aligned with US strategic interests.
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