The โIranian Lobbyโ and the Rights Watch
Uncomfortable Middle Eastern questions for two American NGOs.
Byย The Washington Post Editorial Board
Feb. 5, 2026 5:31 pmย ET
Two stories about NGOsโthe nongovernmental organizations that news reporters love to quote to smuggle their own views as someone elseโs analysisโcaught our eye this week. And not only for reasons of schadenfreude.
The first concerns Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, which supports an isolationist U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Parsi previously founded and led the National Iranian American Council, or NIAC, which advocates friendlier U.S. policy toward the Tehran regime.
Prof. Foad Izadi, an Iranian expert on America who appears on state TV, was asked about Iranโs lobbying efforts on an debate program released Sunday. โOur way should be discussed off the record,โ he said.
โOur way was Trita Parsi, right?โ his student interlocutor asked.
โYesโno, this is being recorded!โ he replied.
Mr. Izadi went on to explain that a previous Iranian President sought an โIranian lobbyโ in the U.S., but this has proved too weak, more trouble for the regime than it was worth.
Mr. Parsi shared a statement by NIAC in reply: โNIAC is 100% an Iranian-American organization and has no connection to the Islamic Republic,โ it said, denying that theย video clipย supports claims to the contrary.
In the clip, Mr. Izadiโs interlocutor didnโt mince words: โYou made a lobby there called NIAC, which dishonored Iranโ by failing in its mission, he said. It certainly hasnโt been able to influence President Trump. The regime has misread him every step of the way.
The second story concerns Human Rights Watch, the watchdogย captured long agoย by anti-Israel obsessives. On Tuesday its โIsrael/Palestine directorโ resigned, denouncing Human Rights Watch for not being anti-Israelย enough.
Omar Shakir says the top brass blocked his teamโs report accusing Israel of a โcrime against humanityโ for not accepting a Palestinian โright of return.โ The latter is the idea, required nowhere else, that Israel must accept the millions of descendants of the Palestinians Arabs displaced in the 1948 war they started until thereโs no longer a Jewish state.
Human Rights Watch says the report didnโt meet its standards. Even Ken Roth, under whose leadership (1993-2022) Human Rights Watch waged political warfare against Israel, said the report used an โunsupported legal theory.โ In reply Mr. Shakir asked if Mr. Roth has โdifferent rules for Palestine.โ
Mr. Roth, who hired Mr. Shakir and took such relish in denouncing Israel, now learns a hard lesson: Once you start abusing the language of human rights for political purposes, it isnโt easy to stop.
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