Trita Parsi, is the founder and President of the National Iranian American Council. This is a group that may be illegally serving as an unregistered lobbying group for Iran and an organization whose goals certainly show little daylight between those of the mullahs in Tehran -  and who may have played a role in promoting a fraudulent fable regarding a spurned (and spurious) Iranian peace gambit towards America, won a 2010 Grawemeyr Award for "Ideas Improving World Order" for his book, "The Treacherous Alliance-The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States."

This is a disgrace.

The book promotes an anti-Semitic canard regarding Jewish control of American foreign policy and seeks to explain Iran's quest for nuclear weapons as a natural and entirely supportable development -a reaction to Israel's putative nuclear program. He sees both nations (Israel, with a few million in population, surrounded by adversaries, with no oil wealth) as a hegemonic power that threatens Iran (population: 71 million, with vast oil and natural gas wealth; with Shiite co-religionists throughout the Middle East).

The premise is absurd, as is Parsi's fervid imagination regarding American foreign policies that he sees being controlled by pro-Israel Jews in America.

Who granted him this award (worth $200,00) for a book that not only purveyed these images as "facts" but barely made a ripple in terms of people buying the book?

The award is given by the University of Louisville from a fund set up by a local industrialist and investor. A flavor of what determines the award might be seen in one of last year's awards to Donald Shriver, Jr. who stated the United States must own up to our sins, such as slavery and taking lands from Native Americans, before it can become a great power.

Rodger Payne, a University of Louisville political science professor, directs the award. He has left-wing views which is not a surprise. He thought George Bush's foreign policy was Orwellian. And he is a big believer in climate change (at least before Climate Gate).

He also is a big fan of the Israeli left and wants a one-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians that would inevitably lead to the destruction of Israel as millions of Palestinians who live in Gaza and the West Bank are joined by millions of refugees.

He was a research fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and at the University of Chicago. Is it a coincidence that the two men most responsible for promoting the conspiracy theory regarding Jewish control of American foreign policy (Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer ) both teach at these universities?