Seyed Mostafa Maghloubi, an American citizen of Iranian origin, was sentenced today to three years and five months in connection with his attempt to export night vision goggles and up to 10,000 Uzis to Iranian government officials opposed to the current regime of current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Maghloubi previously pleaded guilty to this offense in August 2007. Maghloubi had been apprehended in a sting operation during which a Los Angeles detective pretended to be an arms dealer.

The sentence may seem light, and it might be easy to attribute this to the fact that the weapons were destined to opposition groups in Iran. U.S. District Court Judge George King, who sentenced Maghloubi, dismissed any notion that the sentence should have been, or was, mitigated based on the intended recipients of the weapons. According to Judge King, Maghloubi’s actions might have resulted in “actually destabilizing an area of the world that has suffered enough from continuing upheaval.” King said while Maghloubi’s motivations were not anti-American, it was the job of the government, not U.S. citizens, to pursue foreign policy.

[Thanks, Linda, for the tip!]

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