Page 229 – Nejat Society

Rudy Giuliani advises foreign clients while working for Trump

Rudy Giuliani is working with foreign clients as he continues to advise President Donald Trump on the Russia investigation, which raises conflict of interest and federal ethics issues, according to a new report.

Giuliani told The Washington Post in interviews that he maintains clients in Ukraine, Brazil and Colombia, as well as delivers paid speeches for Mujahedin-e-Khalq, a controversial Iranian exile organization that was formerly listed as a terrorist group by the US State Department.

Lobbying experts told the Post that some of Giuliani’s work for foreign clients is likely to require disclosure under the Foreign Agent Registration Act.

According to the Post, Giuliani has not registered with the Department of Justice for his work, arguing that it’s not necessary because Trump isn’t paying him for his counsel and he does not directly lobby the US government.

“I don’t represent foreign governments in front of the US government. I’ve never registered to lobby,”he told the Post.

Two spokespeople with the White House declined to comment to the Post about Giuliani or whether his overseas work poses a conflict of interest for Trump.

Giuliani told the Post that he’s never lobbied Trump for anything and he never mentions his other clients to the President.

White House officials told the Post they cannot be sure of Giuliani’s claim that he never discusses his clients with Trump.

Giuliani was hired in April to represent Trump in the special counsel’s Russia investigation.

By Veronica Stracqualursi

July 12, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Politics Behind The Sabotage Of The Iran Deal In Europe

As the EU scrambles to offer a viable package of economic incentives to convince Iran to stay in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) after the US withdrawal, some forces are attempting to undermine this effort and fully align the bloc’s policies with the Trump administration’s strategy of isolating Iran.

A case in point was an attempt in the European Parliament to block one of the key measures that EU governments proposed to preserve the JCPOA: to give a mandate to the European Investment Bank (EIB) to support financing investment projects in Iran. As of June 4, when the proposal was made, the Parliament had two months to object by issuing a resolution blocking the measure.

The first such attempt was undertaken on June 28 in the Budget committee (BUDG). A resolution was drafted by Gerard Deprez, a Belgian politician and the spokesman in BUDG for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats of Europe (ALDE). It included some genuine concerns expressed by the senior management of the EIB about the bank’s exposure to US sanctions if it engaged in Iran.

But there were also some blatantly political statements, unrelated to either the JCPOA or the measure at hand, namely, that Iran is a “significant state sponsor of terrorism” and a “theocratic, centralized state” where “power is invested with unelected institutions” and human rights violations are “still rampant and systematic.” It also accused Iran of “consistently violating its international obligations regarding its nuclear deterrent” and, bizarrely, “preparing for the failure of the JCPOA”—despite Iran’s certified record of compliance with the agreement. The resolution was roundly defeated in the committee.

Why would a mainstream, pro-European political group like ALDE, led by former Belgian prime minister and passionate Euro-federalist Guy Verhofstadt move to undermine the JCPOA, a singular diplomatic achievement of the EU? The reason is that Deprez is the chair of an informal “Friends of Free Iran” caucus in the EP. The sole purpose of this group is to act as a mouthpiece for the violent, exiled Iranian cult Mojaheddeen-e Khalk (MEK), on the EU terrorist list until 2012 and bitterly opposed to any thaw between the EU and Islamic Republic.

Not to be deterred by their defeat in BUDG, the promoters of the blocking motion pushed for a full floor vote. A different vehicle was found this time: the far-right Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group that includes euroskeptics from UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) and other populists. The group copy-pasted the same resolution defeated in the committee. It was duly rejected in the EP plenary as well, by a whopping 573 votes to 93, with 11 abstentions.

The main political blocs in the house—the center-right conservatives and center-left social democrats, joined by smaller groups like the Greens and the Left—backed the EIB mandate to work in Iran. But an overwhelming majority of ALDE MPs voted against as well, thus confirming that Deprez acted on behalf of MEK rather than his political faction. In the end, only the far right and assorted MEK supporters, including Deprez himself, voted to support the blocking motion.

In truth, there was never a realistic chance that the motion would pass. The clout of MEK has been on the wane in recent years. It has lost some influential backers. More MPs are willing to speak up against MEK abuses, as evidenced by hearings recently held in the EP. Overall, the group has been reduced to obstructing and delaying the normalization of ties between the EU and Iran, rather than shaping outcomes. When it truly mattered, the vote on the EIB exposed its real weight.

On the other measure to preserve the JCPOA—the reactivation of the Blocking Statutes to protect EU companies from US secondary sanctions—MEK and other anti-Iranian lobbies, like the right-wing pro-Israeli groups and their Saudi and Emirati allies, did not manage even to table an objection, let alone win it. This means that the Parliament has decisively backed both measures to enter into force as of August 5, the day before the re-imposed US sanctions kick in.

The fight, however, is not over. In theory, the national governments could still block the measure before it enters into force. The US is already reaching out to weaker members of the EU, such as the Baltic states, Poland, and Hungary, to force them to take Washington’s, rather than Brussels’s side when it comes to Iran. As the vote in the EP revealed, these efforts are matched by those on the far right in Western Europe who synchronize their agenda with Trump’s.

Given this context, the vote in the European Parliament gave a significant political boost to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini as she gears up to present, together with the EU trio of France, Germany, and UK, a package of economic incentives to Iran. Ultimately, for the EU the fight to preserve the JCPOA has become about something bigger than just a non-proliferation agreement with Iran. It’s a battle to save the rules-based, multilateral world order from an assault by those who seek to dismantle it.

This article reflects the personal views of the author and not necessarily the opinions of the European Parliament.

By ELDAR MAMEDOV

Eldar Mamedov has degrees from the University of Latvia and the Diplomatic School in Madrid, Spain. He has worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia and as a diplomat in Latvian embassies in Washington D.C. and Madrid. Since 2007, Mamedov has served as a political adviser for the social-democrats in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP) and is in charge of the EP delegations for inter-parliamentary relations with Iran, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, and Mashreq.

July 11, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

British MPs should be ashamed of supporting Mojahedin Khalq

The backing inside the Tory party for the MEK, once on the US’s terrorist list, is a sign of a party that has taken leave of its senses

Britain’s prime minister has been fighting a valiant, losing battle to rescue British relations with Iran in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s reckless attempts to wreck them.

But last week Theresa May was dealt a devastating blow to her authority after several Tory MPs defied her by going to Paris for a meeting designed to promote regime change inside Iran. This event is the latest sign that the prime minister and her foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, are facing a mutiny over Iran.

No regime change

Former cabinet minister Theresa Villiers was among senior Tories who travelled to Paris last week to hear Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and Trump’s highly influential lawyer, call for the downfall of the Iranian government.

This meeting was a direct defiance of British government policy, which aims to save the Iran nuclear deal intact, and is against engineering a change of government in Iran. Indeed, Johnson assured Parliament in May that “I do not believe that regime change in Tehran is the objective that we should be seeking.”

Three Tory MPs – along with one Labour MP – travelled to the event, organised by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a front organisation for Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organisation (MEK), once listed by the US as a terror organisation.

There is no question that these reflect a powerful and vocal body of sentiment inside the Conservative Party.

This has been clear ever since the House of Commons debate on Iran on 9 May. The overwhelming majority of Conservative MPs favoured Trump’s policy of dismantling the JCPOA – and condemned May’s policy of keeping it. The overwhelming majority of speakers (I calculate 19) in the debate spoke out against the JCPOA, and only five were explicitly in favour.

Those opposing the JCPOA included former defence secretary Michael Fallon and former cabinet minister Stephen Crabb. Former leader Iain Duncan Smith also spoke out against the deal in a Commons debate later in May.

Troubling questions

These interventions raise troubling questions about the judgment and the allegiance of Tory backbenchers. So yesterday I approached the three Tory MPs who attended last weekend’s conference in Paris with a series of questions.

I asked them: who paid for and authorised their attendance at the MEK conference? Why as a signatory for the JCPOA are members of the current government pushing for the toppling of a signatory nation? Is it the government’s policy to pursue regime change in Iran? Do they think the MEK actually have popular legitimacy in Iran?

There was no reply from any of them. Tory MP Matthew Offord’s office even hung up the phone on MEE rather than answer legitimate questions.

Then I asked the Conservative Party’s central office if they knew about and had given permission for the Tory MPs to attend. Once again – no response. A wall of silence from all involved. The support inside the Tory party for the MEK looks like a sign of a party that has taken leave of its senses.

Here is an organisation with a proven history of terrorism, including against Western interests. Though founded by the husband and wife team of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, the MEK reportedly forces members to divorce and give up their children to foster care so as to avoid the distraction of familial love.

It has other characteristics of a cult.

For instance, former members also describe participating in regular public confessions of their sexual fantasies. The clear ambition of last week’s meeting was to use the MEK as a vehicle to bring down the current government in Iran.

No coherent plan

This conference in Paris comes against a menacing international background. The Trump administration is working flat out to destabilise Iran through the installation of brutal economic sanctions. Some observers believe the conduct of the US is very similar to the CIA destabilisation campaign aimed at Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953.

The CIA then at least had a clear alternative future in mind for Iran – restoration of the shah under American tutelage. In American terms, this policy was a success for the next two decades. Trump’s people have no coherent plan for Iran.

The cultivation of the MEK – an opposition group based outside Iran and thought to be supported by a rackety coalition of international backers including Saudi Arabia – has strong echoes of Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress in the run-up the Iraq invasion in 2003.

Chalabi was hugely influential in convincing the neo-conservative backers of the Iraq invasion that he had strong support inside Iraq and could turn the country into a model state. He was proved wrong.

Giuliani boasted how Trump had “turned his back on that very dangerous nuclear agreement with Iran”. He further boasted that recent popular protests inside Iran have been orchestrated from outside the country, insisting that they “are not happening spontaneously”.

And he ended his speech exclaiming: “Next year, at this time, I want us to have this convention in Tehran!”

Ominously, last year’s chief speaker at the Paris conference was John Bolton, one of the most eloquent advocates of the Iraq invasion, who has now become Trump’s national security adviser. This means that Trump has decided to repeat – in a larger and more dangerous country – all the errors of American policy in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He intends to hand over Iran to politicians with no democratic legitimacy – and no more loyalty to the United States and Western values than America’s former protégés, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. British MPs should be ashamed of helping him.

– Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in 2017 and was named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He also was British Press Awards Columnist of the Year 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, and Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Additional reporting by Florence Ward

Peter Oborne, Middle East Eye,

July 11, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Giuliani works for foreign clients while serving as Trump’s attorney

Rudolph W. Giuliani continues to work on behalf of foreign clients both personally and through his namesake security firm while serving as President Trump’s personal attorney — an arrangement experts say raises conflict of interest concerns and could run afoul of federal ethics laws.

Giuliani said in recent interviews with The Washington Post that he is working with clients in Brazil and Colombia, among other countries, as well as delivering paid speeches for a controversial Iranian dissident group. He has never registered with the Justice Department on behalf of his overseas clients, asserting it is not necessary because he does not directly lobby the U.S. government and is not charging Trump for his services.

His decision to continue representing foreign entities also departs from standard practice for presidential attorneys, who in the past have generally sought to sever any ties that could create conflicts with their client in the White House.

“I’ve never lobbied him on anything,” Giuliani said, referring to Trump. “I don’t represent foreign government in front of the U.S. government. I’ve never registered to lobby.”

Carrie Menkel-Meadow, a legal ethics professor at University of California-Irvine, said it is generally unwise for the president’s lawyer to have foreign business clients because of the high likelihood they will have competing interests.

“I think Rudy believes because he is doing the job pro bono the rules do not apply to him, but they do,” Menkel-Meadow said.

Since Trump hired him in April, Giuliani has repeatedly crossed the lines traditionally followed by presidential lawyers. He has regularly opined on Iran, North Korea and other policy issues outside his purview, while also publicly revealing details about his discussions with his client and with the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, which is investigating whether the Trump campaign assisted Russia in interfering with the 2016 election.

Among the clients represented by Giuliani’s consulting firm is the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, whose mayor was a leading figure in Party of Regions, the Russia-friendly political party at the center of the federal conspiracy prosecution of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. His firm worked for the mayor in 2018 and is expected to work for him again later this year, Giuliani said in an interview.

Kharkiv has contracted with a subsidiary of Giuliani’s consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, to help set up a new office of emergency management there, according to Giuliani and others involved in arranging the deal. Giuliani traveled to Ukraine last November to meet with Kharkiv officials and then hosted a delegation from the city in New York in March, about three weeks before he was hired as Trump’s attorney, according to officials and Ukrainian news reports.

Another current Giuliani client is the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian resistance group operating in exile that was listed as a terrorist group by the State Department as recently as 2012. Giuliani said he has regularly received payments from MEK over the past 10 years; he declined to disclose his fees.

Giuliani acknowledges giving a paid speech to the group in May in Washington, and he delivered another speech at an MEK gathering outside Paris on Saturday advocating regime change in Tehran. He said before the conference he planned to spend “three or four days” in Paris helping the group.

His consulting firm has also been hired by cities in Brazil and Colombia looking for new policing strategies and for ways to reduce crime, Giuliani said. He recently returned from a trip to Brazil to meet with clients before leaving for the MEK conference.

Lobbying experts said some of Giuliani’s work for overseas clients is likely to require registration under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), which mandates disclosure to the Justice Department of attempts “to influence U.S. public opinion, policy, and laws” on behalf of foreign entities or individuals. Although violations are punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, the Justice Department has prosecuted only a handful of cases in recent decades.

Joshua Ian Rosenstein, a partner at the Sandler Reiff law firm, which specializes in FARA and other lobbying registration questions, pointed to Giuliani’s MEK speech in Washington in May as an example of political activity requiring registration.

“Political activity is a broad term,” Rosenstein said. “It includes any actions — including speeches, PR work and media outreach — that are intended to or anticipated to influence the U.S. government or the U.S. public with regard to the formulation, adoption, or modification of the policies of the U.S., or with regard to the political or public interests, policies, or relations of a foreign political party.”

Two White House spokespeople declined to comment on Giuliani or whether his work for foreign entities posed any conflict of interests for the president.

But Giuliani’s talkative and freewheeling style has irritated many White House officials, who say his frequent pronouncements are unhelpful and have often put the president in difficult positions. Giuliani often gives Trump personnel advice, White House aides said, and he said in a recent Post interview it would be good for Trump to have a more “political” chief of staff than John F. Kelly ahead of the 2018 midterms.

“He seems to be blending the services of a lawyer with the services of policy in the White House,” said William Jeffress Jr., a lawyer who represented Richard B. Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby. “If you begin to stray to seek to influence the president or the White House that could be a problem. If you are seeking to influence the government in representing a foreign power, then you have a duty to register.”

Giuliani has also lobbied the president to promote his son, Andrew, a low-level White House aide who has clashed with Kelly and others in the West Wing. The elder Giuliani said that before becoming Trump’s attorney, he asked about a promotion he believed Trump had promised his son, and the president responded in the affirmative. He said he has not talked to the president about the issue since becoming his lawyer.

But three White House officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Giuliani continued to lobby Trump for his son’s promotion after he became the president’s lawyer.

Andrew Giuliani, who works in the White House Public Liaison Office, often arranges sports team visits to the White House and has been a regular Trump golfing partner for years. He suggested in an interview with The Post that some at the White House have bristled at his efforts to root out leaks.

“I’ve been lucky enough to know the president for close to 30 years and known him well for 20 years,” Andrew Giuliani said. “I find him to be similar to an uncle, and I’m lucky enough to be very close to his family.”

Trump remains pleased with Giuliani, lunching with him in New Jersey this weekend ahead of his Supreme Court nomination, praising his attacks on the special counsel and telling others that his situation has improved because of the former mayor, White House officials said.

After leaving the New York mayor’s office following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Rudolph W. Giuliani built a lucrative career soliciting well-heeled clients for Giuliani Partners. He also worked with two law firms while accepting speaking fees on his own. He has since severed ties with the law firms but retains his security firm while representing Trump.

Giuliani said he is not as involved at the consulting company as he was before taking over as the president’s lawyer. The firm did not respond to a request for comment.

Giuliani said he never brings up his other clients with the president. He also said he has turned down some potential clients who have approached him recently, including a Russian business; he declined to identify the company.

“I really don’t think he does,” Giuliani said, when asked if the president knew who his clients were. “He knows I do a lot of security work all over the world.”

White House officials say they cannot be sure if Giuliani’s claim about not discussing clients with the president is true or not. The two men often talk late at night and early in the morning, and the conversations are frequently wide-ranging.

Giuliani also defended his work with Kharkiv Mayor Gennady “Gepa” Kernes, who was close to deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych before he fled to Russia and who has since sought to align himself with the new government in Kiev. Kernes uses a wheelchair after nearly being killed by an unidentified gunman in 2014. His allies have blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the attack, an allegation the Russian government has denied.

“I wasn’t concerned about them because he just got his legs blown off by Putin,” Giuliani said, referring to alleged links between Moscow and Kernes. “Maybe those ties were before.”

Representatives for TriGlobal Strategic Ventures, a New York consulting firm involved in arranging the meetings between Kharkiv officials and Giuliani, did not respond to requests for comment.

On Giuliani’s MEK relationship, a spokesman for the group, Shahin Gobadi, did not respond to a question about payments to Giuliani for speeches but said his appearances were not the same as working for the group.

“Mayor Giuliani’s advocacy for the human rights and democracy in Iran has been consistent with his long-held views,” Gobadi wrote in an email to The Post. “He has never worked for the MEK in any shape or form. He has never done any lobbying on behalf of the MEK.”

He added later, “Of course, he has relation with the MEK and has publicly said to have worked with them in line with his views but he has not worked for them.”

MEK was formally listed as a terrorist group by the State Department until the Obama administration dropped the designation in 2012 amid a sustained lobbying campaign. Members of the group have been implicated in the deaths of Americans and thousands of Iranians, primarily in the 1980s when the neo-Marxist group was allied with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the war between Baghdad and Tehran.

MEK supporters, including many U.S. conservatives, say the group has changed since then and is a valuable bulwark against the theocratic Iranian regime.

Daniel Benjamin, a State Department counterterrorism coordinator during the Obama administration, criticized Giuliani’s advocacy for the MEK and suggested he and others may have violated the law. Benjamin said the Treasury Department was so concerned about an MEK lobbying and public relations program featuring Giuliani and other notables in 2012 that it opened a preliminary inquiry into the issue.

“Plenty of us working in counterterrorism found just the appearance of support for a listed organization that had American blood on its hands to be outrageous,” said Benjamin, now a scholar at Dartmouth College. “An unfortunate consequence of the decision to delist was that this investigation got shelved.”

MEK officials deny any inappropriate lobbying and said the Treasury review cited no violations by the group. They also say allegations of terrorism and of responsibility for the death of Americans are unfounded and distributed as part of a propaganda campaign on behalf of the Iranian government.

Carol D. Leonnig in Washington contributed to this report.

by Josh Dawsey, Tom Hamburger and Ashley Parker,

July 11, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Trump admin. plotting to use MKO terrorists against Iran

The administration of United States President Donald Trump is plotting to use a terrorist outfit called the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO) to promote regime-change in Iran, according to a former long-time MKO member.

MKO, which was listed as a terrorist organization in the US and Europe, had collaborated with the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his imposed war on Iran in the 1980s in addition to killing as many as 12,000 Iranians in a violent campaign of terrorist bombings and assassination across the Islamic Republic and Iraq, is strongly despised by the Iranian nation.

The collaboration between the Trump administration and MKO leadership to overthrow the government in Iran is based on false pretenses and will be a futile attempt, former MKO member Ebrahim Khodabandeh told Press TV on Saturday.

Recently, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and 33 senior US officials and military brass recently took part in an event organized by the notorious outfit in the French capital city, Paris.

Khodabandeh said the anti-Iran members of the Trump administration aim to use MKO as a mouthpiece or speaker for the dissidents to promote anti-Iran sanctions and regime-change in the country.

The Trump administration pretends that Iranian dissidents want regime-change in Iran which is not true, Khodabandeh said. The Trump administration’s show of support for the MKO terrorist organization, which has as well Iranian and Iraqi blood American blood on their hands, is based on the terrorist outfit’s anti-Iran stance, Khodabandeh told Press TV in an exclusive interview on Saturday.

Trump’s administration “cannot openly talk about imposing sanctions against the Iranian people. They do it under the cover of Iranian dissidents’ gatherings,”he said.

The gatherings promoting regime-change in Iran are”organized by the [MKO] terrorist organization which has claimed many lives inside Iran,” he noted.

The MKO terrorist outfit “is very much hated by Iranian people. It is the only Iranian opposition group that supports sanctions against the Iranian people, “according to Khodabandeh, who was a member of the terrorist organization for 23 years.

July 10, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

On The Path To Failure

In early 2014 we remarked on Color Revolution by Force in Syria and Ukraine:

Accompanying the demonstrations and illegal occupations of government buildings are in both cases brutal, criminal attacks on the police and other government forces. In Syria the violence”muscle”part was done by foreign financed Jihadists while neo-nazi gangs are used in the Ukraine. The demonstrations and the attacks on the state are planned and go together. There is nothing”peaceful”in demonstrations that are only the public-relations cover for attacks on the state. But the foreign politicians and media immediately utter”concerns”and threats over completely normal government responses to them. It is a scam to justify”western””support”for the demonstrators and to further the violence.

The aim is”regime change”of legitimate governments by small minorities. Should the”regime”resist to that the alternative of destroying the state and the whole society is also wholeheartedly accepted.

We have since seen similar CIA operations in Venezuela and most recently in Nicaragua. The same concept is used to attack Iran. In December peaceful economic protests were hijacked by violent elements. Last night a similar attempt occurred:

Khoramshar water shortage protest turned violent tonight.

What we know:

– At least 2 protesters shot, possibly by getting close to military zones

– Mobs set 2 museums on fire (reports)

– 1 hour of calm

– No base takeovers (anti-regime journos have claimed)

– Armed bike is suspicious

via Sayed Mousavi – bigger

The scene with the”armed bike”in the video attached to the above tweet can be seen better in another video. It shows two”peaceful protesters”on a motorcycle shooting at police with an automatic gun. The shooter is hit and falls off. Another”peaceful protester”picks up the gun and continues shooting.

A year ago the CIA created a new mission center to attack Iran:

The Iran Mission Center will bring together analysts, operations personnel and specialists from across the CIA to bring to bear the range of the agency’s capabilities, including covert action. …

To lead the new group, Mr. Pompeo picked a veteran intelligence officer, Michael D’Andrea, who recently oversaw the agency’s program of lethal drone strikes …

… Mr. D’Andrea, a former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, is known among peers as a demanding but effective manager, and a convert to Islam who works long hours. Some U.S. officials have expressed concern over what they perceive as his aggressive stance toward Iran.

The tool the U.S. is using in Iran are operatives of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a terror cult that has been fighting with Saddam’s Iraq against Iran and is despised by the Iranian people. When the U.S. was kicked out of Iraq it transferred the MEK camps from Iraq to Albania where the cult is now training its terrorists.

Yesterday a conference of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a political umbrella controlled by the MEK, was held in Paris. One of the well paid guest speakers was Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudi Giuliani. He acknowledged U.S. involvement in the protests in Iran:

“Those protests [in Iran] are not happening spontaneously. They are happening because of many of our people in Albania and many of our people here and throughout the world.”

The MEK is just a front group, trained by Mossad and financed with U.S. and Saudi money. It is not backed by Iranian people. Only half of the attendees of the conference were Iranians at all:

The other half consisted of an assortment of bored-looking Poles, Czechs, Slovakians, Germans and Syrians who responded to a Facebook campaign promising travel, food and accommodation to Paris for a mere €25.

These”color revolution by force”regime change protests are only one of the tools the U.S. is using to destroy Iran.

Trump wants to end all oil exports from Iran to starve the country of foreign currencies. Iran’s biggest customers are Europe, India and China. The big Europe oil companies have already folded under Trump’s pressure, India followed and China has still to decide if it wants to take a (costly) stand. Trump is pressing Saudi Arabia to increase its oil supplies to replace the Iranian oil that can no longer reach the world market.

Making Iranians poorer is thought to lead to an uprising and regime change. But it is doubtful that such will work. The identity of the Islamic Republic is quite strong. It is more likely that the Iranian people will pull together and accept the hardship while asymmetric Iranian operations slowly destroy the U.S.’s policies. Saudi oil ports are quite vulnerable targets …

Within the Trump administration Secretary of State Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton are the biggest proponents of regime change in Tehran:

Bolton views the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state of the country’s economy as an indication of the regime’s weakness. He has told Trump that increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime’s collapse.

One person who recently spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized Bolton view in the words: “One little kick and they’re done.”

Secretary of Defense Mattis is said to be opposed to regime change in Iran. He fears that such an effort might lead to a larger Middle East war. Trump will likely fire him soon. Sheldon Adelson, the Zionist billionaire who financed Trump’s campaign, paid Bolton and supports Netanyahoo, will have Trump ears. He demands regime change in Iran no matter what.

Regime change in Iran is not just a Trump administration project. The support for the MEK nutters is bipartisan. Several Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, also spoke at the MEK conference in Paris. The neo-conservative lunatics are established in both parties. Here is Obama’s ambassador to Russia who tried and failed to implement regime change there:

Michael McFaul @McFaul – 18:21 UTC – 30 Jun 2018

A democratic Iran not only would free Iranians from repressive theocracy but produce closer ties between our two countries; real security, economic, and moral benefits for both Iranians and Americans.

To which the father of the neocons responded:

Bill Kristol @BillKristol – 18:29 UTC – 30 Jun 2018

Bill Kristol Retweeted Michael McFaul

Very true. And great to see a bipartisan consensus for regime change in Iran! (It would be happily ironic if, totally inadvertently, tough sanctions followed by the JCPOA followed by withdrawal from the deal caused so much whiplash that the regime crumbled.)

Surely, the U.S. will be welcome in Tehran with candy and flowers (not). Such neo-conservative”moral benefit”nonsense has already led to the disaster of the war on Iraq. Iran is several times larger. It has a quite modern economy, effective proxy forces and very significant allies. Any attempt to defeat it militarily will be a hopeless endeavor.

The U.S. has only weak allies in the Middle East. Should a conflict with Iran become hot it would have its hands full with trying to save them from falling apart.

For now we can expect more protests in Iran that will be hijacked in an attempt to create a”revolution”. There will be U.S. directed proxy attacks by Kurdish and Baluchi forces on iran’s borders. The economic pressure within Iran will increase further.

But all these efforts are likely to fail. Since its Islamic revolution in 1979 every U.S. attempt to damage Iran or its allies has led to the opposite effect. Every time Iran emerged stronger than before. It is likely that the current attempt will have a similar result.

moon of alabama

July 10, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US scholar describes US plot to topple Iranian govt. as a joke

The United States’ plot to exert economic pressure on the Iranian nation in order to trigger a government change in the country is a joke, according to American US scholar and political analyst Kevin Barrett.

Barrett, who is an author and political commentator in Madison, Wisconsin told Press TV on Saturday that the odds for the US to succeed in its plot for regime change in Iran were minuscule.

He said US President Donald Trump and top officials in his administration like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security adviser John Bolton were revealing the ugly face of American leaders to the Iranians.

Barrett quoted the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei as saying that the US did a favor to the Iranian nation by showing the true face of the White House’s leaders.

The analyst said Washington is planning to replace the present government with terrorists.

“With ugly faces of the like of Trump, Pompeo and Bolton in power, the Iranian people are highly unlikely to be going along with the program,” he said.

Barrett said US leaders were clueless about the situation in Iran, calling the regime change plan for Iran a “joke”, and described the devious plan to put internationally-recognized terrorists belonging to the banned People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran or the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (abbreviated MEK or MKO), commonly known by the Iranian nation as Munafiqin [hypocrites] at the helm of the Islamic Republic as “humorous”.

Barrett acknowledged that Iranians hate MKO more than Americans hate al-Qaeda terrorists.

“They are actually trying to make the MKO terrorist group the next government in Iran, promising them to be in control of the country in less than a year . What a joke …This program for regime change in Iran which Bolton and Pompeo are leading is humorous, and it’s complete cluelessness,” he said.

Barrett reiterated that the plan would never work.

July 10, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

It is OK for Mr. Harper to take MEK’s money

Stephen Harper’s Paris speech to Mojahedin-e Khalq: No laws were broken; appropriate interests were served; get over it!

Many readers would be offended if someone were to suggest the Roman Catholic Church was a former terrorist organization with cult-like attributes.

Still, wouldn’t terrorism be a fair description of the Inquisition, the brutal effort to root out heresy carried out from the 12th to the early 19th centuries by what was effectively a non-state actor, as we say in the bland militaristic bureaucratese of the 21st Century?

And isn’t the idea of excommunication for whatever reason, even if it is not much practiced any more, the sort of behaviour we associate to this day with religious cults?

I ask these questions only as a sort of back-handed defence of Stephen Harper, the former Conservative prime minister who obviously has far too much time on his hands these days, for travelling to Paris last Saturday to give an apparently well-compensated speech to a “Free Iran” rally sponsored by an Iranian exile group Mr. Harper’s own government classified as terrorists as recently as 2012.

And 2012, alert readers will grasp, isn’t as long ago as the 12th Century. But that was then and 2018 is now, and not just as far as Mr. Harper is concerned.

Mojahedin-e Khalq, the group in question, often referred to as MEK and also known as the People’s Mujahadeen, was declared by various Western governments to be a terrorist group in 1979, back in the days it wanted to overthrow the Shah of Iran, a geopolitical ally of the United States.

The same year, as it turned out, someone else overthrew the Shah. Eventually, MEK ceased to be officially branded a terrorist group. This was probably because, over time, it began to talk instead about overthrowing the Shia Islamic religious government of Iran, which is emphatically not a geopolitical ally of the United States.

While Mojahedin-e Khalq doesn’t seem to have repeated the assassinations and terrorist attacks it perpetrated in the 1980s, it continues, by all accounts, to be a rather unsavoury organization that has a weirdly cult-like structure. This makes it quite unlike the Catholic Church, which, by comparison, nowadays plays a largely positive role throughout the world.

Given its new status as a non-terrorist cult-like organization, it must be said, Mr. Harper is entirely within his rights to address the MEK rally in Paris. No laws were broken.

It’s likely, moreover, that he was well compensated for his histrionics, as MEK is reputed to pay North American politicos sums in the order of $50,000 US to address its gatherings for a few minutes. We all have to make a living.

Plus, the restless former MP had company. Conservative House Leader Candice Bergen, former Harper Era foreign affairs minister John Baird, and Liberal MP Judy Sgro all trooped to the podium in Paris with him. Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, confidants of U.S. President Donald Trump, also addressed the group, and posed for photos with Mr. Harper and MEK leader Maryam Rajavi.

I’m sure Mr. Harper won’t mind if we refer to him henceforth as, say, “Mojahedin Steve.” After all, it was under Mr. Harper’s leadership in 2006 that the Conservative Party of Canada smeared the late Jack Layton, leader of the NDP in Parliament, with the sobriquet “Taliban Jack” for daring to suggest that what was really needed in Afghanistan was “a comprehensive peace process … to bring all the combatants to the table.”

Mr. Layton was excoriated as naive at best and treasonous at worst. He was accused by the then-nascent online Conservative Rage Machine of failing to support Canada’s soldiers abroad and giving comfort to people who were shooting at them.

The Conservatives have never apologized for this, and never explained themselves. Meanwhile, however, the world has moved on and, nowadays, even the U.S. armed forces gingerly talk to the Taliban, which we mostly recognize is an important part of a coalition that enjoys considerable support from Afghanistan’s Pashtun ethnic majority and will someday probably return to power.

This illustrates the point made by Lord Palmerston, twice prime minister of Britain in the 19th Century, that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.”

For the moment, the interests of the United States and those of Mojahedin-e Khalq align, and therefore it is OK for Mr. Harper to take MEK’s money and give them a nice speech about freedom, with a little arm waving thrown in, no matter how unmoved the sentiments he expressed may actually have left the organization’s leaders.

Will the day come when it is acceptable for a Canadian Conservative politician to give a speech to a freedom rally in a nice Western capital put on by the Islamic State, better known as ISIS? This may seem unlikely right now, but never say never.

There’s been evidence Western military forces mucking about in Syria were willing to let ISIS fighters go, as long as they directed their terroristic attentions at the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom the Americans would like to topple. Mr. Assad’s Russian allies, at any rate, have accused the Americans of that, and worse.

Indeed, this may present a future business opportunity that Harper & Associates – whose spokesperson defended Mr. Harper’s Paris speech on the grounds he didn’t endorse a MEK government for Iran – for that time in the future when the West has a self-serving public Road to Damascus moment about the nature and intentions of ISIS.

In the meantime, he might be smart to stick to meetings of the International Democrat Union, the right-wing Internationale he heads.

As for the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, it’s changed its name and doesn’t seem to have executed anyone for heresy since 1826.

David Climenhaga , Alberta politics.ca

July 7, 2018 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 234

++ This year’s Villepinte event turned out to be a failure. The event not get any favourable coverage in spite of the presence of the notorious Rudi Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and many others including some Albanian wannabes. Instead there was substantive negative reporting in Farsi and non-Farsi media. Even their own supporters are talking against MEK. Their main complaint is that Rajavi cannot tolerate any other Iranian speaker on the same platform as herself. Nor can she attract an Iranian audience beyond her own loyal followers. Reporters from BBC, VOA and Radio Farda and elsewhere tried to get in to report the event but were refused entry. If accredited journalists can’t get in, it is nothing more than a totally stage-managed propaganda event held behind closed doors.

++ However, Iran International TV did report from Villepinte because they were contracted to broadcast the event live. Even this did not work as debating guests on the day denounced Rajavi and her foreign backers. Reporting from Villepinte, Iran International TV showed tens of buses at the venue discharging audience members who were Eastern European students or asylum seekers (many were Syrians who look Iranian but carried Syrian flags and spoke Arabic). Inside the salon people were shown looking bored; even sleeping on benches in the salon because they didn’t speak either English or Farsi. Some simply admitted they were paid to come. Media, including the UK’s Guardian newspaper, widely reported that the audience could not exceed 4,000. Iran International TV coverage showed that beyond the first few rows, the audience were mostly non-Iranians.

++ Due to the failure of Villepinte, MEK apparently went to Plan B – which also failed. An Iranian man and wife were arrested in Belgium carrying 500g of a homemade explosive while on their way to France. After their arrest they claimed that an Iranian diplomat from the embassy in Austria had ordered them to blow up the MEK in Villepinte. MEK did not reveal until later that those arrested are long serving MEK activists. It was claimed that Iran was behind the planned bombing because President Rouhani was due to visit Austria. Putting aside issues of competence and potential outcome (500g), a simple ‘who benefits’ test leads us back to MEK and its arrested operatives.

++ Meanwhile in Albania, MEK claim that the body of drowned Malek Shara’i has been found. The Albanian authorities have made no such statement. A Coroner’s report should come next.

++ Also in Albania, MEK are continually attacking ex-members in the streets physically and verbally, telling them ‘you can’t stay here, you have to go, Albania is ours because the Americans have given it to us’. MEK ‘encourage’ them to go to Greece with the promise of help to get them to Germany. When they arrive in Greece, MEK inform the authorities so the ex-member is forced to claim asylum in Greece where there is no social security or support. MEK target these individuals deliberately from among those who have no families to support them or whose families are too poor to send money. They are used as an example for others – ‘if you leave this will happen to you’.

Samples of pictures reported from Villepinte (Paris) during the speach made by Maryam Rajavi, Rudy Giuliani and such likes:

July 06, 2018

July 7, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

The MKO’s Villepinte show in the eye of the Western media

The Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ the PMOI/the Cult of Rajavi) held its annual gathering in Paris on Saturday, June 30, as what it calls the “Grand Gathering for a free Iran”. The group’s well organized event in Villepinte that costs them it large sum of money each year is supposed to be the voice of the Iranian opposition but it is hardly ever followed by reactions from Iranians inside and outside Iran.

Regarding the speakers at the gathering one may see a large range of former western politicians among whom the most prominent figure is former New York mayor Ruddy Guiliani, but no Iranian except Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the group. The Guardian’s report on the recent gathering denounces the MKO as a fake unpopular group which does not embrace the criteria of an opposition group except that it has enough money to bring together foreigners from all over the world.

Giuliani spoke to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella coalition largely controlled by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), which was once listed as a terrorist organization in the US and Europe and is still widely viewed as a Marxist-Islamist cult built around the personality of its leader, Maryam Rajavi, reported the Guardian. [1]

“We are now realistically being able to see an end to the regime in Iran,” Giuliani told a crowd of about 4,000, many of them refugees and young eastern Europeans who had been bussed in to attend the rally in return for a weekend trip to Paris, according to the Guardian. [2]

Interviewing the bussed participants of the rally, the Guardian correspondents document the assertion of “Most observers of Iranian politics” who “say the MeK has minimal support in Iran and is widely hated for its use of violence and close links to Israeli intelligence.” [3]

Around half of the attendees were Iranian. The other half consisted of an assortment of bored-looking Poles, Czechs, Slovakians, Germans and Syrians who responded to a Facebook campaign promising travel, food and accommodation to Paris for a mere €25, based on the report. “Hundreds of Syrian refugees settled in Germany also attended. Many snoozed under trees during speeches.” [4]

“We saw the deal on Facebook and we agreed to come on a holiday,” told the Guardian, a young Syrian mother as she sat on the conference floor, fanning her two young children. “I have never seen Paris. I don’t know anything about the MeK.” [5]

The MKO’s longstanding critic, Daniel Larison of the American Conservative accurately asserts that “the MEK has no support in Iran or the Iranian diaspora, and no one wants anything to do with it except for paid Western shills and the government of Saudi Arabia”. Referring to Guilliani’s desire to have this convention in Iran next year, he writes, “No matter what happens in Iran, the MEK won’t be returning there next year or fora long time to come. They are understandably reviled in Iran for their crimes and treachery, and anyone embracing them reveals an intense hostility to Iran and an equally profound ignorance of the country and its people.” [6]

American scholar and political analyst Kevin Barrett told Press TV, “US leaders were clueless about the situation in Iran, calling the regime change plan for Iran a “joke”. Barrett acknowledged that Iranians hate the MKO more than Americans hate al-Qaeda terrorists. [7]

“They are actually trying to make the MKO terrorist group the next government in Iran, promising them to be in control of the country in less than a year. What a joke …This program for regime change in Iran which Bolton and Pompeo are leading is humorous, and it’s complete cluelessness,” he said. Barrett reiterated that the plan would never work. [8]

Maryam Rajavi seems to be alone in her own rally. Her speech is not reflected or analyzed in the media; the gathering was considered as a whole. No prominent expert view Maryam Rajavi and her cult-like group as a movement that might be involved in the Iranian political relations. This year’s gathering was just like the recurrence of a ceremony for the insiders of the group and its paid supporters.

Mazda Parsi

References:

[1]Merat, Arron & Borger, Julian, Rudy Giuliani calls for Iran regime change at rally linked to extreme group, The Guardian, June 30,2018.

[2] ibid

[3] ibid

[4] ibid

[5] ibid

[6] Larison, Daniel, The Despicable Hawkish Embrace of theMEK, The American Conservative, July 1, 2018.

[7]Press TV, US scholar describes US plot to topple Iraniangovt. as a joke, June 30, 2018.

[8] ibid

July 7, 2018 0 comments

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