The Iran Policy Committee (IPC), formed in February, 2005, is a pressure group meant to influence US government policy towards Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

. IPC is made up of former White House, State Department, The Pentagon

The Pentagon

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

 and CIA officials as well as scholars from think tanks and academia.

Aims

According to its website, the Iran Policy Committee sees the current debate on American policy towards Iran as focused on two strategies: diplomatic engagement with the Iranian government or military strikes. The IPC says that while it believes that both of these options should be considered, it favors a third proposal, namely, working with Iranian opposition groups "to facilitate democratic change." Its support of opposition groups includes support of the People's Mujahedin of Iran

People's Mujahedin of Iran

The People's Mujahedin of Iran is a terrorist militant organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran....

 (MEK)

Co-chairs, directors, and personnel

The most important members of the committee apart from the President, Prof. Raymond Tanter, include the following: http://www.nci.org/05nci/02/IranPolicyCommittee.pdf

• James E. Akins
  James E. Akins
  James Elmer Akins was the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from September, 1973 to February, 1976, just in time to serve during the 1973 Oil Crisis of October, 1973 - March, 1974. Akins was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and on the advisory council of the Iran Policy Committee...
  
  
• Bill Cowan
  Bill Cowan
  William V. Cowan, often nicknamed Bill Cowan , is a retired USMC Lieutenant Colonel, co-founder and CEO of wvc3, inc., a Reston, Virginia based company specializing in international security...
  
   (CEO of private military corp the WVC3 Group, Inc.)
• Paul Leventhal
• Neil Livingstone
• R. Bruce McColm
• Thomas McInerney
  Thomas McInerney
  Thomas G. McInerney is a retired United States Air Force Lieutenant General. He is a command pilot with more than 4,100 flying hours, including 407 combat missions during the Vietnam War...
  
  
• Charles T. Nash
• Edward Rowny
  Edward Rowny
  Lieutenant General Edward L. Rowny, born in Baltimore, Maryland on April 3, 1917, was a U.S. Army general and an ambassador, chief U.S. negotiator in arms reduction talks with the Soviet Union, and one of the originators of the helicopter as a platform for combat...
  
  
• Paul E. Vallely
  Paul E. Vallely
  Paul E. Vallely is a retired US Army Major General and senior military analyst for Fox News. He served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and retired in 1993 as Deputy Commanding General, Pacific Command. In 2004, together with retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, Vallely...
  
  

External links

• http://www.iranpolicy.org Iran Policy Committee website
• Press Release, "Members of Congress, Iran Policy Committee Meet to Discuss U.S. Policy Options for Iran", April 7, 2005
• Barbara Slavin, "Iran's 'terrorists' helped disclose nuke program", USA Today, April 14, 2005. Discusses another IPC rumination: "Ray Tanter, a Middle East expert on the National Security Council under President Reagan, said the United States should use the MEK to try to destabilize Iran's government before it acquires nuclear weapons"