The bipartisan letter calls on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to remove Iran immediately from its role as host of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, which aims to prevent global nuclear arms races such as the one Iran is currently engaged in.

The conference is scheduled to take place from May 27 to June 23. Many of the lawmakers opposing the forum include high-ranking Republicans and Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs and Middle East committees.

“In what parallel universe could Iran—a world leader in weapons proliferation and terror financing—be taken seriously leading the charge for nuclear disarmament?” Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.), a chief organizer of the letter, said in a statement. “The Iranian regime’s presence at the Conference eludes comprehension and is an insult to those committed to global non-proliferation efforts.”

Lawmakers argued that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear arms and ongoing support for terrorism disqualifies it from presiding over such a sensitive forum. The United States and Canada have already said that they will boycott the forum due to Iran’s presence.

“Iran chairing the U.N Conference on Disarmament undermines the credibility of the United Nations and its effectiveness to resolve dangerous and critical issues,” Rep. Gary Peters (D., Mich.), another organizer of the letter, said in a statement.

“It’s outrageous that a country that refuses to abide by any international proliferation agreements—as it continues its own illicit pursuit for nuclear weapons—is chairing a conference on disarmament,” Rep. Ted Deutch (D., Fla.) a signer of the letter, said in a statement.

Ki-moon should immediately “demand the removal” of Iran from its role as chair of the conference, the lawmakers wrote in their letter.

“By allowing Iran to chair this Conference, the United Nations is legitimizing a tyrannical regime committed to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction while delegitimizing the United Nations as a force to contain nuclear weapons,” the letter says.

“Indeed, a conference seeking nuclear transparency and disarmament will be led by a country operating a dangerous and convert nuclear program that threatens global instability,” the letter says.

A U.N. spokesperson would not comment directly on the letter, telling the Free Beacon “the Conference on Disarmament, sets its own rules and procedures, and its presidency rotates every four weeks in alphabetical order in English.”

Asked if the U.N. would respond to Congress, the spokesperson said that “the Conference on Disarmament sets its own rules and procedures; it is not a U.N. body as such.”

“The General Assembly stipulated that the Conference adopt its own agenda, taking into account the recommendations made to it by the General Assembly and the proposals presented by the members of the Conference,” the spokesperson said.

A representative of the disarmament conference did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to enrich large quantities of uranium and press ahead with its nuclear program despite Western sanctions and condemnations by the United Nations.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported earlier this week that Iran has increased its nuclear enrichment program and has installed hundreds of new centrifuges.

Iran is also believed to be building a new nuclear reactor that could supplement its weapons program and speed its completion, according to the IAEA.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a grassroots advocacy group, sent a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Monday urging him to immediately delete Khamenei’s account on the basis that it is used to promote the regime’s anti-American ideology.

“[Y]ou should be aware that Ayatollah Khamenei’s official Facebook page appears to violate Facebook’s Terms of Use, specifically regarding its policy on safety,” UANI CEO Mark Wallace wrote in the letter to Zuckerberg wrote.

“For example, Facebook’s Terms of Use state that users ‘will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.’”

“The page for Ayatollah Khamenei often displays offensive, anti-Western posts,” he wrote.

“For example, on May 1, 2013, the page displayed an image of Ayatollah Khamenei alongside the statement, ‘You [the U.S. government] are the symbol of evil! This is you who wages war in the world, plunders the nations,” Wallace wrote, noting that the account appears to violate the website’s terms of use.

UANI also has started a petition aimed a pressuring Facebook to eliminate the account. It has already garnered hundreds of signatures, as well as the support of high-profile media personalities such as former Bush administration spokeswoman Dana Perino.

However, Facebook had not yet responded to UANI’s request. It also did not respond to a Washington Free Beacon request for comment on the status of Khamenei’s account, which currently has more than 43,400 “likes.”

“We are still awaiting a response from Facebook about this issue,” said UANI spokesman Nathan Carleton.

Wallace also said that it is hypocritical to give Khamenei free use to the site while Iranian authorities block access for ordinary citizens.

“UANI believes that Facebook should not allow the Iranian regime access to its platform, especially given the fact that the regime severely restricts its own citizens’ use of Facebook and when freedom of expression is so severely repressed in Iran,” Wallace wrote.

Iranian citizens who try to access Facebook are regularly arrested and tortured by Tehran’s cyber police unit, known as FATA. Others have been prosecuted for using the site.

Facebook and Twitter became crucial tools for citizens in the aftermath of Iran’s contested 2009 elections. Protestors used the social networks to express outrage over the results and organize protests.

“The Iranian regime uses [Khamenei’s] account to promote its propaganda even while it bans its own citizens from accessing Facebook,” Wallace wrote. “Moreover, in the aftermath of the fraudulent 2009 presidential elections, the regime severely punished citizens that accessed sites such as Facebook to mobilize protest and opposition activities.”

“Iranians risk arrest, torture, and death for using Facebook, particularly when such use is determined to be political or ‘un-Islamic,’” Wallace wrote.

UANI is asking that the account be suspended ahead of Iran’s June 14 presidential elections.

Iran has already banned at least two progressive-leaning candidates from running in the election, according to the BBC.

“Only eight of the 686 people who registered as potential candidates were reportedly cleared to stand” by an election committee tied to Khamenei, the BBC reported.

Facebook could send a powerful message to anti-regime dissidents and human rights advocates by suspending Khamenei’s account, Wallace said.

“By suspending the official Facebook account of Ayatollah Khamenei and other senior regime officials, Facebook will be sending a powerful message to the Iranian regime that it does not tolerate the regime’s denial of digital freedom for the Iranian people and that all Iranian citizens, not just the Ayatollah, should enjoy the freedom to speak up and express themselves,” he wrote.

Facebook and other social networking sites such as Twitter have come under fire in the past for permitting Islamic extremists and even terror groups like Hezbollah to utilize their services.

Khamenei also has his own active Twitter account.

The “Nuclear Iran Prevention Act of 2013″ passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a unanimous voice vote and is expected to easily pass the full 435-member chamber, where it already has about 340 co-sponsors. A vote by the Republican-controlled House is likely within the coming weeks.

The measure seeks to cut Iran’s oil exports to less than a half-million barrels a day, limit Tehran’s access to foreign currency and expand the list of blacklisted sectors of Iran’s economy. Sponsors called it the strongest sanctions package ever against Iran’s nuclear program.

The United States believes Iran is enriching uranium to levels that could be used in nuclear weapons. Tehran says its nuclear program is intended for producing power and medical supplies. Iran is already under sanctions by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union over the program.

Republican and Democratic U.S. lawmakers have both been pushing President Barack Obama’s administration to do more to crack down on Iran’s nuclear program.

A U.N. report showed on Wednesday that Iran was pressing ahead with constructing a nuclear reactor that Western experts say could offer it a second way of producing material for a nuclear bomb if it decides to make one.

There is not yet a companion Senate bill to the House measure, but the full, Democratic-led Senate was to vote later on Wednesday on a resolution urging Obama to strengthen enforcement of existing sanctions on Iran. The Senate bill, introduced by members from both parties, is expected to pass easily.

A bipartisan group of senators introduced separate legislation earlier this month that would block Iran’s access to billions of dollars worth of foreign currency reserves.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran is pressing ahead with the construction of a research reactor that Western experts say could offer it a second way of producing material for a nuclear bomb if it decides to make one, a U.N. report showed on Wednesday.

Iran has transported the reactor vessel – which would hold the fuel – to the heavy water plant near the central town of Arak but has not yet installed it, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report issued to member states.

“It certainly means that progress is made,” one diplomat familiar with the Iranian nuclear program said, adding that several other major components for the reactor, including control room equipment, had yet to be put in place there.

The United States said Iran was in “non-compliance with its international nuclear obligations”.

“This report marks an unfortunate milestone with regard to Iran’s illicit nuclear activities,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said. Iran he said was “advancing its enrichment program in blatant violation of its international obligations.”

Western concerns about Iran are focused largely on uranium enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow, as such material refined to a high level can provide the fissile core of a nuclear bomb. Iran says it only refines uranium to fuel nuclear energy plants.

But experts say Arak may also be a proliferation issue as it could yield plutonium for nuclear arms if the spent fuel were reprocessed. Iran has said it has no reprocessing activities.

“Once the reactor operates, it could spawn more than enough weapons-grade plutonium for a bomb per year, should Iran ever decide to do that,” said nuclear expert Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment think-tank.

The Islamic Republic, which denies it has any intention of acquiring nuclear arms, plans to commission the plant in the first quarter of 2014 and expects it to become operational in the same year’s third quarter, the IAEA said.

Israel, which has threatened to attack Iranian nuclear sites if diplomacy and sanctions fail to stop Tehran’s nuclear drive, bombed Iraq’s atomic reactor in 1981 and a suspected Syrian nuclear facility in 2007.

“Israel might be tempted to try to repeat what it did previously in Syria and Iraq and destroy the reactor before it goes critical,” Hibbs said.

In its previous report on Iran, in February, the U.N. agency said Iran had almost completed installation of cooling and moderator circuit piping in the Arak facility. Wednesday’s report said Iran planned to produce 55 fuel assemblies for the reactor by August this year.

STOCKPILE BELOW ISRAELI “RED LINE”

Tehran last year postponed the planned start-up from the third quarter of 2013, a target that Western experts said always had seemed unrealistic.

As reported by Reuters on Tuesday, the IAEA report showed Iran increasing its capacity to refine uranium by installing hundreds more centrifuges at Natanz since February, underlining Tehran’s defiance of Western demands to curb the activity.

They included complete or partial installation of more than 500 advanced centrifuges which, once operational, would enable Iran to speed up significantly the accumulation of material the West fears could be put to developing nuclear bombs.

But, in a development that could help buy time for diplomacy between Iran and world powers, the report showed limited growth of Iran’s most sensitive nuclear stockpile, medium-enriched uranium, and it remained below an Israeli “red line”.

Tehran’s holding of uranium gas refined to a fissile concentration of 20 percent – a relatively short technical step from weapons-grade – is closely watched as Israel says it must not amass enough for one bomb if further processed.

Critics say Iran is trying to achieve the capability to make atomic arms. Iran denies this, saying it needs nuclear technology for energy generation and medical purposes and that it is Israel’s reputed nuclear arsenal that threatens peace in the Middle East.

The IAEA report said Iran had continued to carry out “activities” – code for suspected clean-up work of any traces of illicit nuclear-linked work – at the Parchin military site, including asphalting an area U.N. inspectors want to see.

Separately, Iran told the U.N. agency during an inspection this month of the Bushehr nuclear power plant – the country’s only such installation so far – that it was shut down. No reason was given, but it has previously suffered delays in its operations.

The Iran Export Embargo Act would expand existing U.S. sanctions law by prohibiting the purchase or transfer of goods and services from any entity owned or controlled by the government of Iran and banning all transactions on behalf of such entities for the purpose of exports from Iran. The bill would block all assets of entities deemed to be government of Iran and also prohibit any insurance or reinsurance for such entities. […]

“Put simply, countries and companies around the world will be forced to choose – stop doing business with the government of Iran or stop doing business in the United States of America,” Sen. Cornyn said.

The bill has already received support from 17 other Republican senators.

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi revealed the new system at a ceremony in which he announced that the defenses had been built despite U.S. and Western sanctions on Tehran.

“They want to sanction the military parts and ban the aviation industry from selling Iran planes,” Vahidi was quoted as saying by Iran’s Press TV.

“The new achievement has been made despite international sanctions against Iran’s military sector,” Press TV wrote.

“Mass production” of the new defense system began on Monday, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency, which claimed the air system was “highly mobile” and “home-made.”

The defense system marks another in a long line of new domestically produced Iranian military hardware. Tehran has increased the construction of missile systems and naval equipment in the past months, apparently in reaction to increased U.S. pressure on Iran.

“Vahidi noted that Iran has become self-sufficient in manufacturing airplanes,” according to Press TV, which quoted the military leader as saying that “sanctions make us stronger.”

The Iranian Defense Ministry notably partnered with the elite Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force to construct the new defense system, called Herz-9, according to Press TV.

The partnership is a sign that Tehran’s typically separate military units are working more closely to construct what they claim is highly sophisticated weaponry.

Workers at Iran’s Defense Industries Organization are reportedly responsible for construction the new defense system, which is “capable of detecting, identifying and intercepting low-altitude targets through automatic controls,” according to Vahidi.

Iran claims that the system functions particularly well at night and that it can hook into Tehran’s larger defense networks.

Additionally, Iran has recently “test-fired different types of newly-developed missiles and torpedoes and tested a large number of its home-made weapons, tools and equipments [sic], including submarines, military ships, artillery, choppers, aircraft, UAVs, and air defense and electronic systems, during massive military drills,” according to Fars.

Iran made aggressive military moves over the weekend when it dispatched a warship into the critical Strait of Hormuz shipping lane, according to reports. The ship has been “shadowing” a large-scale mine hunting exercise being carried out by the United States and other Western allies.

The warship travelled “within a mile of the western vessels” stationed in the Gulf, according to the Telegraph.

Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to what it claims is Western aggression. Closure of the shipping lane would greatly impact the delivery of oil.

Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran was reviled because of Ahmadinejad’s dismissal of the Holocaust as “a myth.” “We were never against Judaism; it’s a religion,” Ghalibaf said in an interview with Iran’s Tasnim News Agency last week. “What we opposed was Zionism. Denying the Holocaust is not part of our foreign policy.”

Another candidate, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, said Ahmadinejad’s repeated statements on the subject had provoked unnecessary tensions with the international community.

“We paid for it without having gained anything,” he said. “Why must the Security Council admonish us? Why must all European countries condemn us?”

The attacks on Ahmadinejad are in line with hostility expressed towards him on other issues by the Iranian establishment, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Statements by the official press and numerous government figures refer to the outgoing president and the man he is supporting in the presidential race, Esfandiar Rahm Mashaei, as leaders of “the deviant sect” or “perverted group.”

Mashaei, a former intelligence officer who serves as chief of staff of Ahmadinejad’s office, is a relative of his by marriage.

The two share theological views focused on the imminent coming of the Shiite Messiah, putting them at odds with the clerical establishment in Iran. However, Mashei has made surprisingly conciliatory statements about the Jewish state.

“Iranians are friends of all people in the world, even Israelis,” he has said. “Iran is a friend of the nation in the United States and in Israel and this is an honor.”

Hardliners in Tehran are also determined to block the candidacy of a former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is seen as a leader of the reformist camp and a backer of the massive demonstrations that followed the 2009 elections.

The 78-year-old cleric surprised Iranians when he filed his candidacy last week at the last minute. It is not clear whether the moderate figure will be among the candidates chosen by the 12-member Guardians Council, which will publish a short list of approved candidates on Tuesday.

If he is permitted to run, analysts see him drawing widespread support among those disaffected from the regime. Rafsanjani advocates improved relations with the West, the freeing of political prisoners, and economic liberalization. His position on the nuclear question is not clear, but decisions on that issue rest more with the Supreme Leader than the president.

Iran’s election watchdog accused Ahmadinejad, the country’s longtime president who gained worldwide notoriety for his anti-Semitic and anti-American views, of breaking electoral rules earlier this week.

Ahmadinejad was caught “accompanying his former chief of staff to register for June’s presidential vote,” according to al Aribiyah, a Saudi-owned Middle East news network.

Iranian media reported over the weekend that Ahmadinejad helped his confidant and colleague Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei register as a candidate in the upcoming elections.

Iran’s election watchdog organization cited Ahmadinejad for this behavior and for appearing to endorse Mashaie, which constitutes a violation of Iranian election law, according to multiple reports.

Ahmadinejad is not personally eligible for another term in office.

The watchdog group said it would “seek possible charges against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for allegedly violating rules,” according to the Associated Press.

Middle East analysts told al Aribiyah that Ahmadinejad is not likely to be punished in the near term.

“There will be no lashing; the news is hyped and ridiculous,” Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh, the director of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies in London, was quoted as saying by al Arabiya on Monday.

The Iranian group emerged within the last six months and has infiltrated the networks of at least one U.S. corporation, Richard Bejtlich, Mandiant’s chief security officer, said in an interview in Washington today.

“You’re starting to see the Iranians get more active,” Bejtlich said. “We’ve got at least one case where we think it’s Iran, and we think what they are doing is trying to gain some experience on a live network.” [...]

The group’s motivation isn’t clear, and Bejtlich wouldn’t name the U.S. company that has been infiltrated or what industry is involved.

The group that identified the attack, Mandiant Corp., is the same group that determined the Chinese military is behind major cyber espionage efforts in a February report.

American officials have been reporting new cyber attacks originating from the Middle East that, unlike Chinese cyber espionage attacks, have destructive intentions, the New York Times reported Monday.

Colin Kahl, who served as Obama’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East until December 2011 when he transitioned to the president’s reelection campaign, writes in a new report that “if all else fails” the administration could be forced to “shift toward containment [of Iran] regardless of current preferences.”

Critics of the administration say the report appears to mark a significant departure from the administration’s stated policy of discounting containment as a viable option regarding Iran.

The 80-page report “outlines a containment strategy to manage and mitigate the dangers associated with a nuclear-armed Iran if prevention efforts—up to and including the use of force—fail.”

“This preference for prevention [of a nuclear armed Iran] should not be used as an excuse to avoid thinking through the requirements for effective containment,” the report states. It was authored by Kahl of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a Georgetown University security studies student, and another CNAS official, a left-leaning policy shop with ties to the administration.

Kahl told the Washington Free Beacon that he is not advocating for containment, but recommending that the White House “plan for the worst.”

“I haven’t ‘pivoted’ to containment,” Kahl said via email in response to the Free Beacon. “As the report notes numerous times, we do not support a shift to containment. Prevention remains the wisest policy.”

Kahl said he is not giving up on preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capabilities.

“I still think prevention is possible and that all instruments of national power should be employed toward that goal,” he said. “But while I’m hopeful we can still succeed in preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, I also think that we should plan for the worst.”

The CNAS report also acknowledges that the White House is not likely to publicly give up on prevention.

“Although the United States is not likely to acquiesce to the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran, Tehran may be able to achieve an unstoppable breakout capability or develop nuclear weapons in secret before preventive measures have been exhausted,” the report states.

“Alternatively, an ineffective military strike could produce minimal damage to Iran’s nuclear program while strengthening Tehran’s motivation to acquire the bomb,” the report states. “Under any of these scenarios, Washington would likely be forced to shift toward containment regardless of current preferences.”

One Iran expert and former Pentagon adviser said the CNAS report represents a significant step in a dangerous direction.

“Kahl and crew seemingly have no sense of the damage to America’s standing in the region that a nuclear Iran could do,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq.

“Why would any state in the Persian Gulf trust America to have its back after men like Kahl counsel the United States to cast aside its past promises to prevent a nuclear Iran?” he asked. “Why would they risk hosting the bases upon which containment would rest?”

Kahl, who acted as one of Obama’s top national security figures and a key campaign official, is sending the wrong message by lending his name to the report, Rubin said.

“Kahl fails to understand the reasons why containment and deterrence are so risky: He doesn’t address who would have command and control of an Iranian nuclear bomb,” Rubin said.

“In reality, it would be not only the Revolutionary Guards but the most hardline and ideologically pure faction inside that organization,” he said.

Kahl maintains that his views “don’t represent the administration position in any way.”

“Neither our allies nor Iran is likely to read what I say as representing official views,” he said when asked if the report could be misinterpreted by U.S. allies as a tacit endorsement of containment.

“No one would read the report and conclude containment is a great option,” Kahl said, explaining that the report clearly notes containment would be “very difficult, risky, complex, and costly.”

“Our allies and partners know that the administration has zero desire to pursue containment,” he said. “But I also believe that we should plan for the things we don’t want to happen, not just the things we hope will happen.”

Former George W. Bush administration adviser Elliott Abrams said Kahl’s presence on the report suggests “that all options may not really be on the table.”

“This kind of report, from someone who held a key job relating to Iran in the Obama administration, suggests just as the Hagel appointment does that all options may not really be on the table,” Abrams said.

“But as I read the report, the list of things the United States would need to do to try and contain a nuclear Iran actually proves the opposite—that containment is impossible,” he said.

“I think reports like this telegraph to Tehran that they need not take our threats seriously,” he said.

CNAS has been funded in part by the progressive anti-nuclear arms group Ploughshares Fund, which aggressively advocates in favor of engagement with Iran and for a rollback of economic sanctions.

CNAS has received funding from Ploughshares since at least 2009 and was awarded a $100,000 grant in February 2013.

The Ploughshares grant is to “support high-impact research and analysis of the Iranian nuclear question and its ramifications for security in the Middle East and the United States,” according to a description on the group’s grant database.

Ploughshares donates to many pro-Iran groups that have lobbied to lift economic sanctions on Iran.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was a member of the group’s board until his nomination to head the Pentagon. Ploughshares helped fund a media campaign to boost Hagel’s image during his contentious nomination process.