In late June, when the U.S. executed its Operation Midnight Hammer strikes to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, the widespread outcry in support of Tehran wasn’t organic.

It was stoked by three radical organizations deeply connected to foreign regimes: the National Iranian-American Council or NIAC, the ANSWER Coalition, and — in the case of the protest in Washington, D.C. — the Manassas Mosque. These groups provided logistical, financial, and messaging support for protests that echoed the ideological lines of Iran’s regime.

Sadly, this is part of a broader trend where our adversaries use our processes and freedoms against us to recruit advocates and make their governments' propaganda seem like organic and homegrown outrage among Americans.

NIAC bills itself as a bridge between Iranian Americans and U.S. policymakers. But its record tells a different story. The Hoover Institution has labeled it “the Iranian regime’s (de facto) lobby in the West,” noting that NIAC was allegedly created with input from Iran’s then-Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, with an agenda of normalizing U.S.-Iran ties under the guise of business and diplomacy, while ignoring human rights abuses.

In 2020, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) demanded a Department of Justice probe into NIAC and its affiliate NIAC Action for potential Foreign Agents Registration Act violations, citing its consistent echoing of Tehran’s propaganda. NIAC has long........

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