Beheading the Blacksmith of Balkh: Iranian Americans scapegoated again
http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2015/dec/10/iranian-americans-scapegoats-for-terrorist-acts-by-us-congress-hr158
A radicalised, American-born Pakistani went to Saudi Arabia and married another Pakistani brainwashed with an extremist version of Wahhabism that is the Saudi state religion. The couple came to the US and shot up a Christmas office party killing 14 people.
Guess who is being chosen for punishment for this despicable crime? Iranian Americans, who have never shared that extremist ideology and who, as far as we know, have never had anything to do with this or any other act of terrorism anywhere in the world....
The US House of Representatives just reenacted that story. If backed by the Senate and president, then the new law will bar Iranian-Americans from a 38-nation visa waiver programme that allows visits to signatory countries for up to 90 days without a visa.
Even if we grant that prudence in the cause of security justifies collective punishment, HR 158 does not punish either Pakistani or Saudis dual nationals. Instead Iranian Americans are to be punished along with dual nationals from Iraq, Sudan and Syria, as well as anyone who has been to any of these four countries in the past five years.