In the November issue of Mother Jones magazine Laura Rozen asks: Has Washington found its Iranian Chalabi?
The piece is about Amir-Abbas Fakhravar, an Iranian dissident.
I had contacted Laura this summer after she had mentioned Fakhravar on her blog and in a Washington Post Outlook piece. In May I had become suspicious of this figure, collected some materials and asked: Is Fakhravar A Fraud?
Laura was not convinced then, though a few weeks later she had looked into it, wrote back and agreed with my cautious "yes".
Turns out Fakhravar is even a double-fraud. Now Laura writes:
A virtual unknown both inside and outside Iran when he arrived in the United States in May, Fakhravar has in the months since then ascended to prominence at a dizzying clip. By midsummer he was rushing from testifying on Capitol Hill one moment to an Iran opposition gathering at the White House the next, meeting regularly with policymakers and influential advisers, chatting with the former Shah’s son on his cell phone, and generally being touted as the young, idealistic face of the movement to overthrow the mullahs.
But Fakhravar may be a false messiah. In interviews with more than a dozen Iranian opposition figures, some of them former political prisoners, a different picture emerged—one of an opportunist being pushed to the fore by Iran hawks, a reputed jailhouse snitch who was locked up for nonpolitical offenses but reinvented himself as a student activist and political prisoner once behind bars.
…
Some dissidents believe they do have an explanation: “As far as the other political prisoners were concerned, he was an antenna for the security of the prison and for the security services,” Bina Darab-Zand, a recently released human rights activist, told me when I reached him in Tehran in late August. Nasser Zarafshan, one of Iran’s most prominent human rights attorneys and also recently released from Evin, echoed that claim. “He has been working for the police,” Zarafshan says.
…
When I asked about his critics’ claims, Fakhravar threw his arms up in frustration. He said that among Iranian political prisoners, there is deep division between liberal and leftist blocks, and that Zarafshan and other leftists had “started rumors” about him that were “all false.” He opened his laptop to show photos of himself on a New York street talking with the dissident Ganji, then autographed a copy of his book, Scraps of Prison, printed by an L.A.-based Persian publisher. It is one of three books for which Fakhravar says he has been persecuted, though none of them appear to be widely known. On his website, Fakhravar says he was on the shortlist for a literary prize, the Paulo Coelho award, but there is no evidence that such an award exists—a point first raised on the blog “Moon of Alabama.”
So Fakhravar is not only a neocon fraud as a dissident, he has also worked as an informant, and may even still work, for some Iranian state security service.
A thanks to Laura for mentioning this blog, but sorry, the point where it is mentioned is a bit wrong. Yes, I did write that I failed to unearth evidence for the awards existence. But a few hours later commentator ASKOD had found a source. Such a prize seems to have been awarded exactly once. Still, there is no record available of a connection between it and Fakhravar other than his say-so.
Anyhow, with all the things known now, we can be sure that Fakhravar is a fraud, a tool for the Neocons and possibly, at the same time, a tool for some Iranian security service – quite a parallel to Chalabi.
But who "built him up"? Who has turned this person into a faux dissident? Who pushed his name for promotion to Amnesty International and the London Pen Club?
Neocons? Some Iranian secret service? An actor for both sides?