As you can see, the Clarion Project seems to be connecting itself to this video via this page here. But I hadn't heard of The Clarion Project before so I did a little more digging, stopping first at Wikipedia:



The Clarion Project (formerly Clarion Fund, Inc.) is a New York City-based nonprofit organization founded in 2006 whose stated mission is to "educate people about the inherent dangers of Islamic extremism, provide a platform for moderate Muslim voices, and motivates people to take an active stand against those who want to deny others their basic human rights." With its main focus on what it calls "the most urgent threat of radical Islam." The organization was founded by Canadian-Israeli film producer Raphael Shore.

The Clarion Fund has collaborated with the pro-Israeli media watch organization HonestReporting in the production of its films. The Clarion Fund has also collaborated or had their films shown at venues such as the Hudson Institute, Heritage Foundation, Library and Archives Canada, and Fox News Channel.

And of course:Its advisors include former Reagan acting Assistant Secretary of Defense and Washington Times/TownHall wingnut Frank Gaffney, The Hudson Institute's Harold Rhode, and "Campus Watch" founder and noted anti-Arab propagandist Daniel Pipes. Its funding and founding have been kept largely secretive, though it was apparently a creation of the Orthodox group Aish HaTorah. Though The Clarion Project shared an address with Aish HaTorah, the groups denied any connection to one another until 2007.

Note: Though Aish HaTorah is an Orthodox Jewish group, I would very much like it if the comments thread below didn't turn into an anti-Semitic battleground either. American and world Jewry is as diverse as American Christendom. Aish HaTorah no more reflects on all Jews than the Heritage Foundation reflects on all Christians. Got it?

And it seems pretty clear why, given the previous work of The Clarion Fund, why Aish HaTorah might want to minimize its involvement. The Clarion Fund's first major work was "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West", an anti-Muslim movie so extreme that Jewish leaders from even conservative denominations denounced Aish HaTorah for its connections to the filmmakers:



"Obsession," said Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas Achim Congregation, a

Conservative synagogue in Alexandria, Va., is "the protocols of the

learned elders of Saudi Arabia." Rabbi Moline, named by Newsweek this year as one of the country's top

25 pulpit rabbis, added, "The integrity of our own Jewish community

requires that people speak up critically" about the film. Hadar Susskind, Washington director of the Jewish Council on Public

Affairs, American Jewry's official umbrella group for domestic issues,

termed the content of "Obsession" as "troubling."

Of course, noted right-wing media scions like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck lauded the movie.

(Oh I should also mention that the website, http://www.clarionproject.org , used to be located at http://radicalislam.org , which still redirects there -- in case you had any doubts what they were all about.)

But it is clear that whatever the level of Aish HaTorah's involvement, the Clarion Project is clearly one propaganda arm of the neoconservative movement, with noted neocon figures detailed above being front and center in its works -- and they're obscuring their involvement in this particular piece of propaganda. And ThinkProgress has done its own work in uncovering the money behind this group as well, coming up with more prominent neoconservative names like Sheldon Adelson and Allen I. Gross.

The propaganda in this "Iran Facts" piece itself, of course, is triangulating both an effort to derail the nascent Iranian diplomatic efforts and to attack President Obama through base fearmongering and promoting hatred against Muslims in general and Iranians in particular. It also, of course, completely ignores the principal reason for Iranian anger toward America: the 1953 CIA-sponsored overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh and (re)installation of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as the Shah of Iran -- all the better to portray the Iranians as hating the West and America in particular for no reason other than religious fervor.

But it's clear that given the video's content and given the groups and individuals involved that this video is part of a concerted, coordinated neoconservative effort to derail the effort to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons capability through diplomatic means. Whether this is due to the desire to align with Israeli PM Netenyahu's desires, or to provoke another war to feed the American military-industrial complex, or whatever reason the neocon ideology provides isn't important. What IS important is that these groups are pandering to our worst instincts of fear and hatred to achieve a destruction of a peaceful resolution to the Iranian nuclear crisis -- and force us, therefore, into a violent one.

I would urge everyone to flag the video and report it to YouTube as promoting hatred. The video is an effort to use evil means to achieve evil ends. Don't let it stand unchallenged.

angry marmot, in the comments below, also notes the Clarion Fund's appearance in CAP's 2011 document Fear, Inc.: the Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America. The PDF report is worth perusal.