The Protest Factory: How a Foreign-Funded Network Turned “Hands Off Iran” Into a Street Franchise

The “Hands off Iran” marches did not spring up organically. They arrived on cue. Within hours of U.S. strikes on Iran, the same black‑and‑yellow placards, the same slogans, the same organizers were back in American streets, just as they were for anti‑ICE, pro‑Cuba, anti‑Israel, and pro‑Maduro rallies over the last several years. The common denominator is the ANSWER Coalition, a professional protest hub with an infrastructure built to convert foreign policy crises into domestic pressure campaigns.​

That is the core finding of Tal Fortgang and Stu Smith’s investigation for City Journal, which maps how ANSWER sits at the center of what they call a “demonstration‑industrial complex” linked to far‑left parties, nonprofit fronts, and foreign‑funded media outlets. The story is not just about chanting students. It is about how a small cluster of groups with foreign ties manufacture the optics of nationwide opposition whenever U.S. policy crosses the interests of regimes in Tehran, Caracas, or Beijing.

What actually happened

Start with the protests themselves. After American strikes on Iran, activists quickly appeared in cities with coordinated messaging: “Hands off Iran,” “No New US War in the Middle East,” and familiar accusations of U.S. “imperialism.” ANSWER handled what it always handles: setting protest times and locations, pushing turnout through allied media, and printing the standardized signs that make a fringe coalition look like a mass movement.

ANSWER’s record is not limited to peaceful marches. In July 2024, it led a Washington, D.C. protest that devolved into a riot: streets blocked, U.S. flags stolen and burned, the Freedom Bell defaced, and “Hamas is coming” spray‑painted on a public fountain. The National Park Service had issued a permit despite internal doubts, then revoked it after concluding ANSWER had encouraged violations of “nearly every permit provision.” In April 2024, ANSWER‑led demonstrators blocked Interstate 676 in Philadelphia and the Ben Franklin Bridge and then bragged that the disruption was a deliberate tactic, not an accident.​

Fortgang and Smith argue that this pattern qualifies as “civil terrorism,” defined as strategic lawbreaking to coerce political change. Even if one rejects that label, the intent is clear: turn foreign policy disputes into domestic disorder large enough that officials and corporations feel threatened.​

Who is in the network

The latest pro‑Iran mobilization pulled in a familiar set of partners. For a March 7 “National Day of Action” to “Stop the War on Iran,” primary endorsers included American Muslims for Palestine, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), National Iranian American Council, The People’s Forum, Code Pink, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Black Alliance for Peace, and a group called 50501.​

Some of these organizations market themselves as mainstream advocacy groups. DSA, for instance, runs candidates and cultivates a respectable electoral image, even as it increasingly co‑organizes events with ANSWER and publicly calls the coalition a partner. Others are explicit revolutionary projects. The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a hard‑left party advocating the “revolutionary overturn” of capitalism, operates in more than 50 cities and runs “Liberation Centers” that double as local organizing hubs.

ANSWER’s national coordinator, Brian Becker, is also a PSL co‑founder, and the overlap is not just ideological. The PSL’s Liberation Centers, along with spaces like The People’s Forum in New York and the Nuestro Barrio Liberation Cafe in Durham, provide venues for political education, cultural programming, and rapid mobilization. These are physical nodes of the demonstration‑industrial complex, able to switch from community center to protest launchpad without missing a beat.​

Follow the money

The key to this network is not just bodies in the streets. It is funding and media.

Many of the groups orbiting ANSWER connect back, directly or indirectly, to Neville Roy Singham, an American‑born tech entrepreneur who sold his company Thoughtworks in 2017 and has since emerged as a central figure in a transnational far‑left media and nonprofit ecosystem aligned with the Chinese Communist Party. Singham lives in Shanghai and is now a CCP member, according to multiple investigations.

Singham’s money reportedly flows through donor‑advised funds and nonprofits such as the United Community Fund and the Justice and Education Fund. The People’s Forum publicly acknowledged his support in 2021 and praised him as a “Marxist comrade” following in the footsteps of his activist father. Congressional investigators say The People’s Forum and related entities have received more than $20 million in Singham‑linked funds between 2017 and 2022.

Code Pink, the long‑standing anti‑war group, is also tied into this financial web. Singham‑linked funding reportedly provides roughly a quarter of Code Pink’s budget since 2017, and Singham is married to Code Pink co‑founder Jodie Evans. BreakThrough News, a media outlet that platforms Becker’s show, is described in congressional letters as Singham‑funded. Becker also sits on the advisory board of Singham’s Tricontinental Institute and participates in the International Peoples’ Assembly’s media network, another project of that institute.

ANSWER itself is fiscally sponsored by the San Francisco‑based Progress Unity Fund and has received grants from The People’s Forum. The PSL relies more heavily on membership dues, but both organizations benefit when allied nonprofits with deeper pockets receive large infusions of foreign‑linked money and then amplify ANSWER’s work through events, media, and shared infrastructure.

In short, the street‑level protests that present themselves as grassroots opposition to U.S. policy are, in many cases, downstream from a professional apparatus fueled in part by donors and entities aligned with hostile foreign regimes.

The enforcement lag

Officials are not blind to this. Several strands of law‑enforcement and regulatory scrutiny are already underway.

The House Ways and Means Committee has requested financial records from BreakThrough News and the Tricontinental Institute to examine potential financial links involving ANSWER and the PSL and to determine whether foreign sources are shaping their activities. Senators Mike Braun, Tom Cotton, and Ted Cruz have previously urged the Justice Department to investigate the National Iranian American Council under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), arguing that its advocacy may align too closely with Tehran’s interests.

State‑level efforts are emerging as well. In 2024, then‑Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares opened a civil investigation into American Muslims for Palestine on suspicion that it misused charitable funds and possibly provided support to terrorist organizations. A federal judge later halted the probe, but other states have launched their own inquiries. In 2025, Cotton called on the IRS and FBI to investigate the Palestinian Youth Movement after an organizer discussed “disrupting the F‑35 supply chain,” raising concerns about incitement and material support.​

At the same time, the State Department has told Congress that Code Pink and The People’s Forum are vectors for “Chinese influence operations,” and the Network Contagion Research Institute has released a report arguing that DSA’s foreign engagements merit a FARA compliance review. NCRI and related analyses describe ANSWER, The People’s Forum, and the International Peoples’ Assembly as conduits through which CCP‑affiliated entities have “effectively co‑opted” parts of pro‑Palestinian activism in the United States.

The pattern is clear: investigative letters, reports, and warnings are piling up faster than formal enforcement actions. It is still an open question whether DOJ, Treasury, and the IRS will treat this as a coordinated foreign influence campaign or as protected political speech with some messy funding.

Who benefits from the current narrative

The public framing of the protests emphasizes dissent and civil liberties. Organizers invoke the First Amendment and position themselves as peaceful opponents of war. That framing obscures two important beneficiaries.

The first are the foreign regimes whose positions the network reliably advances. When ANSWER and its partners mobilize against U.S. strikes on Iran, when they lobby against sanctions on Venezuela, when they echo Chinese talking points on Gaza and U.S. policing, they provide those governments with a domestic echo chamber that looks spontaneous to casual observers.

The second beneficiary is the small cluster of U.S. organizations and personalities that control the infrastructure. By centralizing permitting, messaging, media, and on‑the‑ground logistics, ANSWER and its allies turn each new crisis into an opportunity to grow email lists, raise money, and deepen ties with foreign‑aligned funders. They control the megaphone and, therefore, the terms of debate inside the broader activist left.

The losers are the institutions that must respond to what may be partly manufactured public pressure, and citizens who cannot easily distinguish between authentic local protest and a professional operation built with outside help.

What accountability would look like

Fortgang and Smith argue that there is “credible reason” to suspect ANSWER has crossed legal lines, including potential violations of FARA and statutes governing material support for hostile foreign entities. They call for deeper investigations into whether the coalition has organized criminal activity, acted as a foreign front, or provided any tangible aid to sanctioned regimes.​

Beyond enforcement, they suggest Congress could require nonprofits to disclose foreign funding more clearly and that Treasury could consider designating ANSWER or its leaders as “Specially Designated Nationals” if evidence shows they act “for or on behalf of” sanctioned countries. That would be an extraordinary step and would demand a high evidentiary bar. It is also a test of whether the United States treats foreign‑backed political operations carried out under the cover of protest with the same seriousness as more traditional lobbying fronts.​

If nothing happens, the signal is simple: foreign‑aligned donors and organizations can continue to build turnkey protest machines in the United States, confident that the First Amendment will be treated as a shield for every part of the operation, including the money.

The article that surfaced these links is not coming from political operatives. Tal Fortgang is a legal policy fellow and adviser to the president at the Manhattan Institute; Stu Smith is an investigative analyst at City Journal. Their work deserves to be treated as a roadmap, not an endpoint.

For your own reporting, what aspect is most urgent to drill into next: the money flows, the foreign government links, or the enforcement gap?

Disclosures + source attribution

This article relies heavily on reporting and analysis by Tal Fortgang and Stu Smith in “What the Pro‑Iran Protests Reveal About Foreign Influence,” City Journal, March 2026. Additional context is drawn from congressional correspondence, State Department reporting on Code Pink and The People’s Forum, and Network Contagion Research Institute reports on Singham‑linked networks and DSA’s foreign alignments. No parties mentioned had an opportunity to comment for this piece beyond statements already cited in the public record.