The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has issued a press release welcoming the nuclear arms agreement with Iran announced by the US last weekend. According to the release:
Council on American Islamic Relations
WASHINGTON, Nov. 24, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed the deal announced yesterday that places limitations on parts of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from some economic sanctions.
CAIR also called on Iran to drop its ongoing support for Syria’s brutal dictatorship.
SEE: Iran’s Leaders Call Nuclear Deal a Success http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-irans-leaders-nuclear-deal-20131124,0,4099996.story
In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:
‘We welcome the agreement signed in Geneva and hope it will reverse the counterproductive decades-long push toward conflict between Iran and Western nations.
‘We look forward to a time when the Iranian people will no longer suffer under unprecedented international sanctions and in which the international community is satisfied that Iran’s nuclear program is devoted to exclusively peaceful purposes.
‘While we welcome this move toward international peace and stability, we must also call on Iranian leaders to realize the un-Islamic nature of their massive political, military and financial support for the brutal Syrian dictatorship.
‘Iranian support for the Assad regime has contributed to the killing of more than 120,000 Syrians, including some 11,000 children. No government that claims Islamic legitimacy can continue to back those who are massacring Muslims.'”
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) describes itself as “a grassroots civil rights and advocacy group and as “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group.” CAIR was founded in 1994 by three officers of the Islamic Association of Palestine, part of the U.S. Hamas infrastructure at that time. Documents discovered in the course of the the terrorism trial of the Holy Land Foundation confirmed that the founders and current leaders of CAIR were part of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood and that CAIR itself is part of the US. Muslim Brotherhood. In 2008, the then Deputy leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood acknowledged a relationship between the Egyptian Brotherhood and CAIR. In 2009, a US federal judge ruled “The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (“IAP”), and with Hamas.” CAIR and its leaders have had a long history of defending individuals accused of terrorism by the US. government, often labeling such prosecutions a “war on Islam”, and have also been associated with Islamic fundamentalism and antisemitism. The organization is led by Nihad Awad, its longstanding Executive Director and one of the three original founders.
