United Against Nuclear Iran
United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a bi-partisan, non-profit advocacy organization in the United States. Its stated objective is to "prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons."[1] Along with other advocacy campaigns, the organization leads efforts to pressure companies to stop doing business with Iran as a means to halt the Iranian government's nuclear program and its alleged development of nuclear weapons.
Formation
In 2014, the United States Department of Justice intervened in a private lawsuit filed against UANI and requested its dismissal on the ground that the continued litigation of the case would jeopardize US national security. The government's motion was granted by a federal judge in 2015, marking a rare expansion of the state secrets privilege into private civil litigation in which the government was not a party.[2][3][4][5]
Leadership[edit]
The CEO of the UANI is Mark Wallace, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, representative for UN Management and Reform.[6] Former United States Senator from Connecticut Joe Lieberman serves as the organization's chairman.[7]
Ambassadors Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross were the original co-founders and co-chairman of the organization before being appointed to positions in the Obama administration.[8] David Ibsen is the executive director.
In May 2012, UANI formed a transatlantic partnership to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank.[9] August Hanning, former president of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) of Germany, is senior advisor to the initiative.[10]
Funding[edit]
The top donors to UANI are a pair of trusts associated with the billionaire Thomas Kaplan and a family foundation operated by Republican mega-donors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson. Together, the funding associated with Kaplan and the Adelson's accounted for more than three-quarters of the group's total revenue of $1.7 million for the 2013 tax year.[11][12][13]
State secrets case[edit]
In July 2013, Greek shipping magnate Victor Restis brought a defamation lawsuit against UANI for claiming that his companies were "front men for the illicit activities of the Iranian regime." In September of the following year, the United States Government (which was not party to the case) filed a motion asserting its right to intervene in the proceedings and requesting that Restis's complaint be dismissed because "continued litigation would risk disclosure" of sensitive matters pertaining to national security.[26] On March 23, 2015, the court granted the government's motion for dismissal.[27] Judge Edgardo Ramos cited four previous cases in which a US court had dismissed a lawsuit on the basis of state secrets when the case did not directly involve the government,[28] but this was the first time in history when the case involved neither the Government itself nor a defense contractor in its employ.[27]
MINERVA Iranian vessel tracking system[edit]
In June 2013, UANI launched its Maritime Intelligence Network and Rogue Vessel Analysis (MINERVA) system. The New York Times described this as using "publicly available satellite transmissions from ship transponders, including data on speed, identity, direction and destination, and correlated the information with other navigational data and computer algorithms" to track Iranian vessels potentially violating sanctions. The system then creates "vessel behavior profiles that could identify questionable activities even if the transponders were temporarily turned off." According to UANI, "the system had exposed possible sanctions violations that the group had then publicized, forcing the Iranians or their partners to change plans."[29]
Legislation[edit]
In October 2009 Ron Klein (D) and John Mica (R) of Florida introduced the United States House of Representatives Accountability for Business Choices in Iran Act (ABC Iran Act) which would preclude companies that conduct business in Iran from receiving U.S. government contracts. The legislation was created to prevent Iranian business partners like Nokia and Siemens from receiving large government contracts as well as foreign banks like Credit Suisse from receiving federal bailout money. Representative Klein stated, "We need to send a strong message to corporations that we’re not going to continue to allow them to economically enable the Iranian government to continue to do what they have been doing." Klein credited UANI for assisting with drafting the bill.[30] The act fell at the end of the 2009 Congressional session.[31]
Campaigns[edit]
Hotels campaign[edit]
In the run-up to the September 2009 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), UANI called on New York hotels and venues to refuse to host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In its boycott campaign, UANI succeeded in having the Helmsley Hotel cancel his reservation.[32] Gotham Hall, and the Dubai-owned Essex House[33] followed suit.
Criticism[edit]
Sasan Fayazmanesh, California State University professor emeritus of Economics, described UANI as a neoconservative organization.[34] He also stated that a video advertisement created by UANI used mostly false and fabricated news to encourage an urgent reaction to its frightening predictions of a nuclear Iran. The video featured suspenseful music, scary pictures of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis, mobs demonstrating and burning the US flag, massive car bombs from Iraq, and PMOI's demonstrations against the Iranian government, all mixed with pictures of Iran's nuclear facilities.[34]
In 2013, Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for Iran's permanent mission to the UN, said the Iranian government considers the activities of UANI "counterproductive and contrary to the policy announced by the new administration in early 2009, which purportedly sought to diplomatically interact with Iran."[29] On September 25, 2019, Iran designated the company a terrorist organization.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran that caused thousands of infections and hundreds of deaths, UANI was pressuring pharmaceutical companies to "end their Iran business." These companies were specifically exempt from sanctions for humanitarian reasons. According to Tyler Cullis, an attorney specializing in sanctions law at Ferrari & Associates: "These groups [including UANI] have sought to impose reputational costs on companies that engage in lawful and legitimate trade with Iran, including humanitarian trade." Despite it being widely reported that existing legal channels for medicinal trade already did not provide a sufficient flow of medicine and other humanitarian goods to Iran, UANI used name and shame tactics against nine pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical-device corporations with special licenses that did still follow these channels.[35]