Page 257 – Nejat Society

An Attack on Iran or North Korea Wouldn’t Be Putting ‘America First’

Almost every day I am asked by someone what the likelihood is that we may soon be at war with Iran or North Korea, or conceivably both. As it’s unlikely either of those countries will attack the United States since it would be suicidal, the question of war really means: are we going to attack them?

There are those who say all the tub-thumping emanating from Washington is just bluster. For example, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com writes that President Donald Trump is just engaging in “rhetorical pyrotechnics and scor[ing] political points with certain [domestic] constituencies while maintaining the status quo: in short, he gets to engage in what is essentially a theatrical performance entirely unrelated to what is actually occurring on the ground. His enemies, mistaking rhetoric for reality, have risen to the bait.”

I hope Raimondo is right but I fear otherwise. Underlying his analysis is the all-too-factual reality that attacking either country would result in catastrophe. “Millions would die, on both sides of the demilitarized zone,” if we were to move first, he writes. “For this reason, the US – despite Trump’s tweets – is not going to launch an attack on North Korea.” Similar logic applies to Iran.

Unfortunately, if a prudent assessment of costs and benefits had guided American policy in recent years, none of our other wars of choice would have taken place either – yet they did. The fact that foreseeable consequences may appear “unthinkable” to rational minds does not mean they are not regarded as quite thinkable to those making the decisions.

The potential for war is not, as Trump’s enemies and even some of his lesser-informed supporters would have us think, the product of his populism or nationalism. Quite the contrary, in 2016, Trump excoriated the globalist establishment’s interventions under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. Now he’s adopted those very same policies clothed in Trumpish “America First!” bombast. Why he has done that is unclear and in the end not particularly relevant to what happens next.

To be sure, I do not think that the generals and globalists who now guide Trump’s policies want war with either country, but they are willing to risk war to get what they want. On Korea, they insist on North Korea’s denuclearization, which would likely set the stage for regime change in Pyongyang – which Kim Jong-un well knows, and why he will never agree to it. “The ‘America First’ solution is clear: Kim’s threat to the U.S. is present only for as long as America remains engaged in Korean affairs,” writes Srdja Trifkovic. “Disengage, and it disappears.” But Washington will not countenance ever giving up the U.S. military foothold on the Korean peninsula. To keep it, they would rather put in jeopardy the almost 30,000 American personnel in South Korea and the lives of countless Koreans on both side of the 38th parallel.

Given that any U.S. attack on North Korea, or even Pyongyang’s coming to believe that such an attack may be imminent, would almost certainly trigger a devastating counterstrike against South Korea and perhaps Japan, any American military action would have to be overwhelming from the start. Recent speculative talk of Kim’s ability to wipe out up to 90% of the American population with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack can have only one aim – to lay out a justification for a preemptive U.S. strike, perhaps a nuclear one. Perhaps Trump will wave that scenario under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s nose at their summit next month based on delusions in Washington that if the U.S. can appear sufficiently bellicose, the Chinese will be panicked into solving the problem for us, either by a coup to remove Kim and his entourage or even via an invasion of North Korea.

Trump’s belligerence towards Iran is similarly divorced from American national interests. To start with, the Administration’s claim that Iran is violating the “spirit” of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) is a tacit admission that Tehran is in fact meeting its obligations. Decertification of the agreement has less to do with actual concern about an Iranian nuclear device than seeking to neuter Iran as a regional power. This is clear from Trump’s recently announced new strategy towards Iran, directed against the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), Iran’s missile program, and Iran’s state integrity and regional interests generally. Many of those pushing Trump in this direction make no secret of wanting military action achieve “regime change” in Tehran to install in place of the current theocratic government the so-called Mojahedin-e Khalq-e Iran (MEK) terrorists – subsidized by Saudi Arabia – much as we parachuted the ersatz Iraqi National Congress into Baghdad after overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Full-spectrum hostility to Iran has nothing to do with putting America first. Critics of U.S. foreign policy have long pointed out that we tend to act less in accord with the interests of our people than those of trans-national corporations (notably those connected to what is known anachronistically as the Military-Industrial Complex, more properly called the Deep State) and those of supposed “allies” that do nothing to safeguard our security but are all too happy to drag us into their quarrels to further their interests, not ours. Two of the most powerful foreign lobbies in Washington are those of Israel and Saudi Arabia, which are increasingly linked based on their shared hostility to Iran. It is significant that Trump’s first two destinations abroad as president were to Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Trump seems to have entirely bought the false line that Iran is the world’s foremost supporter of terrorism. Really? How many Shiite, Iranian-supported terrorist attacks have taken place in Europe or North America? No, the dubious honor of top sponsor of jihad terror belongs far and away to Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabist ideology that inspires Daesh, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, and many other groups. In an inversion of reality, the U.S. administration blames global terrorism explicitly on Iran (including the IRGC), Syria, and by extension Russia, all of which are fighting against al-Qaeda and Daesh, as Trump himself acknowledged during the 2016 campaign to the chagrin of GOP “experts.”

Now Trump has decertified the Iran nuclear deal as expected but has not withdrawn the U.S. from it. The next move is up to Congress, whether to re-impose sanctions lifted under the agreement. If they do so, that would effectively mean the U.S. is withdrawing from the JCPOA, whether or not there is a formal repudiation by the U.S. – a step Trump could have taken but didn’t. Based on my conversations on Capitol Hill this week, immediately restoring sanctions is improbable. Keep in mind that Democrats, even those deeply hostile to Iran, will wish to preserve what may be Obama’s only significant foreign policy achievement from his time in office and will be loath to endorse the action of a president they despise. Many Republicans, much as they railed against Obamacare for seven years but then fumbled when they had an opportunity to repeal it, will find it easier to sound belligerent than to take a real action that might have consequences.

If Congress does not re-impose sanctions within the 60-day window, that effectively means that for now the U.S. will formally remain within the JCPOA despite the decertification, which even bellicose Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has conceded. (Giving some hope for Raimondo’s thesis, this could be what Trump intended – a way to look strong and hairy-chested, and to appease the partisans of Israel and Saudi Arabia, while leaving responsibility for staying in the agreement with Congress.) It’s likely, though, that eventually we will see some sort of measure from Congress condemning Iran for the usual laundry list of “bad behavior” – mostly untrue, and mostly not related to nuclear weapons development – with a sanctions trigger at some point in the future, perhaps in one year. Meanwhile, the U.S. will demand that Tehran agree to “improving” the deal with respect to ceasing development of missile technology, stopping aid to Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, desisting from bad-mouthing Israel, pulling the IGRC out of Syria and Iraq, and swallowing pretty much anything else anyone can think of that would be fundamentally unacceptable to Iran.

If U.S. does at some point pull out of the JCPOA, or re-impose sanctions (which amounts to the same thing), it would be to the horror of the other signatories, who are anxious to preserve it. It would then be up to Iran to decide if pulling out of the agreement to which all the other parties except the U.S. remained committed were in her national interest. In my opinion that would be a foolish move and Iran would gain nothing from it. First, Iran has repeatedly said she does not wish to develop nuclear weapons and that doing so would contrary to her principles. Second, even if the U.S. were to re-impose sanctions, their effectiveness would be limited by the non-participation of even America’s closest allies and trading partners, not to mention rejection by Russia and China. Third, Iran’s remaining in the agreement with the other parties would create an advantageous circumstance for Tehran on one side with London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Moscow, and Beijing, while Washington is isolated on the other. (Or maybe this is part of Trump’s clever plan to disengage us from the Middle East! We go so far out on the limb that no one’s with us.) Finally and most dangerously, if Iran did denounce the JCPOA because the U.S. had, the hawks would claim it signaled a premeditated “breakout” toward acquisition of nuclear weapons, leaving Trump with “no choice” but to preempt it militarily.

While Patrick Buchanan writes that we are already on the road to war with Iran, there are many more relevant variables than is the case with North Korea. Moreover, while the fate of the JCPOA remains in limbo, it would take several months, perhaps a year, for the U.S. to assemble the forces necessary in the region to launch an attack on Iran. At this point I’d assess the odds of war with Iran holding at about 15%, but they could increase substantially and quickly depending on what happens next.

By contrast, assets for an attack on North Korea are already mostly in place on a hair trigger, awaiting only the order to engage. About a month ago, former NATO commander Admiral James Stavridis estimated a 10% chance of a nuclear war between the U.S. and North Korea, and a 20% to 30% chance of a conventional one. I think that assessment was optimistic then and things are getting worse. With regard to any attempt at “limited” conventional strike targeting specific missile and nuclear facilities, plus a decapitation of the North Korea leadership, it’s not a realistic option – at that point Kim would have nothing to lose. I suggest that the odds of war have passed 30% and are increasing almost weekly but with strong possibility that any conflict could turn nuclear.

“Whatever happened to ‘America First’?”, asks Paul Mulshine. One can’t help but suspect that Trump doesn’t fully appreciate the box in which he now finds himself. If he does decide on war against North Korea or Iran, or God forbid both, with the anticipated horrible consequences, he will be blamed, not his newfound neoconservative fans. In that case, the Never-Trumpers won’t have to wait for impeachment, they can activate the 25th Amendment to remove him for what they will claim is proof of his mental illness.

James George JATRAS , Strategic-culture

October 23, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

What ever happened to ‘America First?’ The neocons duped the Donald on Iran deal

It can be difficult for the average citizen to understand the intricacies of an issue such as the nuclear-weapons treaty with Iran.

Donald Trump Inauguration

Few people understand terms like”breakout time”and how it relates to enhanced uranium versus plutonium.

But there is one simple barometer that works for this and all other issues concerning the Mideast: Whatever position John Bolton takes, just take the opposite.

The man with the Captain Kangaroo mustache has gotten everything wrong about the Mideast for as long as he has been on the national scene, which is too long.

Back in 1998, for example, he was already calling for”regime change”in Iraq. That worked so well that by 2007 he was predicting that Israel was on the verge of launching a devastating first strike against Iran. In an interview that year Bolton said this about the Iranians’ development of nuclear weapons:

“If the choice is them continuing or the use of force, I think you’re at a Hitler-marching- into-the-Rhineland point.”

Everything that went wrong in the Mideast for the U.S. was entirely predictable; I know because I quoted the hard-nosed realists who predicted it.

For Bolton and the rest of the so-called”neo”conservatives in Washington, it’s always 1936 and there’s always a Hitler on the horizon. But they never seem to pin the mustache on the right guy. (These guys are serial violators of Godwin’s Law.)

In 2003, Bolton, who was then in the Bush administration, confidently told us that removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq would be so easy we could then”turn right”and impose regime change on Iran.

You’d think he and the rest of that crowd would have the decency to shut up after realizing the Iraq War actually strengthened Iran. Instead they pushed for deposing Bashar Assad in Syria. That also strengthened Iran.

None of that stopped Bolton from offering his latest prediction. It came in a Monday Wall Street Journal column on President Trump’s decision to refuse to certify the Iran nuclear deal. The headline was”A Slow Death for the Iran Deal.”

In it, Bolton advises that Congress should pull out of the”this intrinsically misconceived agreement,”an action that would have the Congress restoring economic sanctions.

The actual physicists with whom I have discussed this deal say that it is infinitely preferable to the alternative put forth by Bolton, who is a lawyer by trade.

Frank von Hippel of Princeton University is one of the world’s leading experts on nuclear arms. When I phoned him, he said this deal is a huge improvement on what went before.

Back then the”breakout time”- the time between when the Iranians started to enrich uranium and the construction of a bomb – was a month or two.

Now,”They don’t have the capacity to break out in less than a year,”von Hippel said.

And as long as we have monitors in place, he said, we’ll know when any such breakout begins and have a year to react, said von Hippel.

Contrast this to Bolton’s views.

“Iran is already within days of having nuclear weapons, given that it can buy them from North Korea,”he writes.

No, it can’t. The treaty bars Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons. But if we abandon the treaty, we abandon the right to put monitors inside Iran to check up on their actions.

We could still reimpose those sanctions to stop Iran from developing nukes, right? Wrong, writes Bolton.

“The unanswerable reality is that economic sanctions have never stopped a relentless regime from getting the bomb,”he writes – right after he proposes that Congress drop out of the deal and thereby restore these sanctions.

None of this makes any sense from the perspective of America’s security, said von Hippel.

If Iran were to try to build a bomb,”The question is would we know it fast enough?”he said.

The treaty accomplishes that, von Hippel. But what Bolton and the rest of the neocons want done has nothing to do with nuclear weapons and everything to do with regime change in Iran.

The real question in this debate is why Trump would listen to such characters.

During the campaign, he outraged the establishment by rejecting the call for deposing dictators supported by the mainstream Republicans. And he’s found some success in Syria by rejecting the neocon insistence on deposing the dictator there.

Recently the Syrian regime has been making great progress in routing ISIS – with the backing of the Iranians.

Virtually everything Bolton and the neocons have suggested for the Mideast has increased Iranian influence.

To listen to them you’d think the Iranians will soon be crossing the Rhine.

But why would anyone listen to them?

I suspect the president will soon be asking himself that question.

ALSO: If there’s anyone out there who thinks Bolton is a conservative, please explain why he is on the same side as our embattled liberal Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, and our disgraced liberal Democratic ex-Senator Bob Torricelli, in supporting the Iranian terrorist cult called Mojahedin-e-Khalq.

Here’s what I wrote about the liberals support for that cult:

“Do you think Iran is a greater threat, with a tenth of the world’s Muslims, is a greater threat to the U.S. than the Saudis, who present the nine-tenths of Muslims who are Sunni?

“If so, you have been taken for a ride. Doing the driving are neocons like John Bolton, the Captain Kangaroo clone who has been pushing the neocon line harder than anyone else inside the Beltway.”

And then of course there is Menendez’s”Talking points out of Tehran”speech. Does the Donald really want to be on the same side as this guy?

BELOW: It took Tucker Carlson a while to come around to the conservative point of view, but watch here as he demolishes clueless neocons Ralph Peters and Max Boot, both of whom have gotten everything wrong about Mideast policy. I particularly like the part where he asked Boot why he doesn’t find something he’s good at, like house-painting or selling insurance.

By Paul Mulshine, Columnist, The Star-Ledger, NJ.com

October 23, 2017 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 208

++ Among the reactions to Maryam Rajavi’s support for Donald Trump’s speech, many referred to the MEK as mercenaries and claim ‘this, as other issues, will go away’. But many others remarked on what happened after the speech and that nothing came out of what Trump said. As we know, they say, this means that the Iranians don’t take them seriously. But even those who regard the MEK as a tool are distancing themselves from the group. The MEK is becoming more and more irrelevant, as much as they like to shout about themselves.

++ In Albania there is a constant stream of people leaving the MEK and they are consolidating around Sahar Family Foundation so that a community of formers is taking shape. On the other side, the MEK are digging in and establishing further connections with the underworld of Albania; drug smugglers, arms dealers, traffickers etc. New MEK bases are being established between Tirana and the port of Durrës for smuggling purposes, along with smuggling people and drugs from other routes. The MEK has established its presence in the country in this way and is now involved in the task of corrupting politicians.

In English:

++ In a blog which concludes, “The vast majority of terrorism that is shaking the world today is conceived and nutured [sic] by radical Sunnis bent on destroying Iran. That is a fact that is largely ignored in the United States” Colonel Pat Lang’s analysis of Donald Trump’s Iran policy encompasses the lies and misinformation which illustrate Trump’s delusion. Lang says, “Author Sean Naylor, Relentless Strike, which details the history of operations and missions carried out by U.S. Joint Special Operations Command aka JSOC over the last 30 years, sheds light on an uncomfortable truth regarding our support to terrorists. To quote an old cartoon, ‘We have met the enemy and he is us.’

“JSOC personnel also worked with the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a militant Iranian exile group that had based itself in Iraq after falling afoul of the ayatollahs’ regime in Tehran. The State Department had placed the MEK on its list of designated terrorist organizations, but that didn’t stop JSOC from taking an attitude of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ toward the group. ‘They were a group of folks that could transit the border, and they were willing to help us out on what we wanted to do with Iran,’ said a special operations officer. The MEK were classified as a terrorist group until the United States decided that as long as the MEK would help kill Iranians rather than Americans that they were no longer terrorists.”

++ Jason Ditz’s post in Anti-War attacks President Trump’s “increasingly fantastical and absurd accounting of Iran’s history”, in his “long-anticipated anti-Iran speech”. Referring to Trump’s claims about Iran’s military and nuclear activity Ditz reminds us: “The IAEA has in recent days clarified multiple times that they don’t need or want to visit any military sites right now. The only allegations about the sites are from the Mujahedin-e Khalq, which has been the source of repeated false accusations in the past.”

++ A lawyer acting for former MEK members in Albania visited the office of the UNHCR in Tirana this week with one of them. They asked the UNHCR to clarify the status of individuals who have been left destitute after they separated from the MEK. The report of the meeting reveals that the MEK do not have refugee status and were brought on ‘humanitarian grounds’ under an agreement struck between America, the Albanian government and the MEK. Under this agreement, which has not been made public, the MEK is responsible for paying the upkeep of all its members and former members. The MEK however does not pay anyone who does not continue to obey its dictates. The UNHCR suggested that a court case could clarify the status of these dissidents.

++ Mazda Parsi of Nejat Society ridicules Maryam Rajavi’s dream of ruling the Iranian nation. While she insists “it is imperative that the NCRI be recognised as the sole democratic alternative” to Iran’s government, the people of Iran hold the opposite view of the JCPOA to that of Trump and Rajavi. Parsi compares Rajavi’s rule inside the MEK to that of the absolute monarchy of Saudi Arabia, pointing out that she “has been a president for over three decades with no alternative”.

++ Jason Rhode in Poste Magazine has no problem denouncing Howard Dean by examining “a pair of Dean’s positions: one in foreign policy, one domestic. Then we can examine why Dean has ended up on the short end of the progressive stick.” With regard to foreign policy, when Dean described Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group, many Twitter replies pointed to his support for the notorious MEK. Rhode says “Within the District, MEK is famous for its aggressive lobbying efforts. They spent with wild abandon to get their names stricken from the terrorist list. Nobody’s sure how much. Who received those funds? Among others, Howard Dean. Dean is a Democrat, and the MEK are equal-opportunity spenders.”

October 20, 2017

October 22, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Only two countries accused of war crimes back Trump Iran policy

plus A terrorist group called MEK or Rajavi cult

Only Israel and Saudi Arabia, which have both been accused of committing war crimes, have welcomed Donald Trump’s decertification of the nuclear deal and his insulting language against Iran.

Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), a cult and violent group which is responsible for the death of large numbers of Iranians and joined the Saddam Hussein army in its invasion of Iran, also backed Trump’s in his new Iran strategy announced on Friday.

According to the official Saudi Press Agency, in a telephone conversation, King Salman “affirmed the kingdom’s support and welcomed the firm strategy announced by Trump towards Iran and its aggressive activities and support for terrorism in the region and the world.”

Saudi Arabia, which unreasonably feels humiliated and cornered by the nuclear deal, has been ridiculously seeking to blame Iran for its ideologically driven policy in the form of Wahabism which its ramifications have spread almost all around the world in the form of extremism and terrorism.

The al-Saud family, whether like it or not, the name of their country is synonymous with terrorism and extremism. By leveling charges against Iran they will not succeed to whitewash their name for inflaming religious fanaticism. It is just enough to know that their country is the birthplace of al-Qaeda; the Taliban of Pakistan and Afghanistan were trained in the Saudi-funded madrassas in Pakistan; and also 15 of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 attacks were Saudi citizens.

Also, support for Trump by the Israeli prime minister, whose regime has been repeatedly accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in reports given by the United Nations, is one of the great wonders of our time.

The supports by these two countries show the extreme degree of imprudence that President Trump and some of his loyalists have taken toward Iran, particularly their approach toward the 2015 international nuclear agreement which has also been endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution.

However like himself, Trump’s inner circle are extremely biased and stupid. For example, the State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauret wrote a tweet on Oct. 15 surprisingly saying support by Israel and Saudi Arabia showed that “we are doing something right”.

It is shameful that Trump is being praised by a regime who has taken the Palestinians’ lands in contravention of international law and a Medieval-run kingdom who is both the ideological mother and logistical supporter of terrorism through its abundant oil money. This shows how much Trump is hotheaded.

October 22, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Buyer’s Remorse: Why Is Howard Dean Selling Out Single-Payer?

The doctor is now in private practice

Buyer’s Remorse: Why Is Howard Dean Selling Out Single-Payer?

Howard Dean was never one of us. Dean, a former governor, first became famous as a progressive hero in 2004, before serving as the Democratic National Committee Chair from 2005 to 2009. What has he done since then? Why, turned lobbyist. The last several years have been kind to Dean’s bottom line, but not his followers. The former Governor and DNC honcho opposes single-payer and called the Iranian Revolution Guard a terrorist organization. What can we make of such a decreased paragon?

We could discuss the failure of Dean the Progressive endlessly. I think two examples will suffice.

Let’s take a pair of Dean’s positions: one in foreign policy, one domestic. Then we can examine why Dean has ended up on the short end of the progressive stick.

DEAN AND IRAN

On October 13, Dean tweeted:

A rare agreement with Trump. The IRGC is in fact a terrorist group. https://t.co/H016MKGd05

— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) October 13, 2017

The replies to this thread are a joy to read.

Dean is cool with taking money from MEK which was considered a terrorist group, and he once said LibDems were the only sane UK party LMAO

— extremely scary kai (@lonelykai15) October 13, 2017

Many of the Twitter snapbacks mentioned that Dean had been in the pay of MEK. That’s short for Mojahedin-e Khalq, or the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, an organization which calls for the violent overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The organization is also known as PMOI or MKO.

Salon, in an article titled “Dem is paid shill for Iranian regime change group,” noted that Dean had been critical of Obama’s negotiations with Iran back in 2015: ” Dean, appearing on Morning Joe, urged the administration to back out of the negotiations still underway in Lausanne, Switzerland.”

How does the hand-me-down oracle of the Internet, Wikipedia, refer to Dean’s backers? Surely, they will share the former governor’s enthusiasm for MEK?

Or perhaps not.

It is designated as a terrorist organization by Iran and Iraq, and was considered a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom and the European Union until 2008 and 2009 respectively, and by Canada and the United States until 2012. Various scholarly works, media outlets, and the governments of the United States and France have described it as a cult. The organization has built a cult of personality around its leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. … In 2002 the MEK revealed the existence of Iran’s nuclear program. They have since made various claims about the programme, not all of which have been accurate.

Human Rights Watch documented prison camps run by the MEK. This was in 2005:

Within the District, MEK is famous for its aggressive lobbying efforts. They spent with wild abandon to get their names stricken from the terrorist list. Nobody’s sure how much. Who received those funds? Among others, Howard Dean. Dean is a Democrat, and the MEK are equal-opportunity spenders.

The claim that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is a wholly terrorist organization, that they are a unique threat, is so laughable that only Dean and the National Review could believe it. The IRGC are pretty much the same as any military-industrial state complex: they play political games and try to expand their own power. Iran funds various militant groups and militias, but they’re far from the dominant state funder of terrorism. That would be us, and our good friends, Saudi Arabia.

The Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland has recorded terrorist incidents since 1970 onwards. A significant majority of deaths—over 94% of them—are the work of the Islamic State’s Sunni jihadists and al-Qaeda.

Of course, factual documentation of Iran is hardly the point. Since the Seventies, the American national security apparatus has wanted to fight Iran. Labeling the IRGC a terrorist group is one step closer to war with Tehran, since the IRGC is almost as powerful as the clergy. Once you have labeled the government as a hive of terror, it is easy to paint the entire population as murderers-in-waiting, and if you have done that, there is little to prevent the rain of missiles. Now, did Dean buy into the Iranian menace because he was paid to, or because he actually believes Tehran is gunning for Vermont? Does it matter?

DEAN AND SINGLE-PAYER

The question of belief leads into the weirdest skit in the hip-hop concept album that is Howard Dean. In November, the former Governor will give a talk about how great Big Medicine is, at a private get-together for medical industry professionals. The Geisinger Healthcare Symposium is next month. Hillary will be there, giving the keynote, “From Crisis to Cure.” According to Geisinger’s site:

The invitation-only event will be held Nov. 8, 9 and 10 on the Danville, Pennsylvania, campus of Geisinger Medical Center and will bring together a panel of the nation’s leading healthcare experts on policy, patient experience, wellness and technology.

What will Dean be speaking about?

Positive Impact of the Private Sector in Healthcare: Howard Dean, M.D., former Vermont governor and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee who ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2004

Private sector? Positive impact? But this is Dean, who made his national name arguing for single-payer! You scoffers can scoff all you want. I can only speak for myself. I, for one, regret that I will not be there to see Dr. Dean’s magnificent defense of the large-hearted medical industry. For example, on September 20, 2015, the Times reported that

In August, Impax sold Daraprim to Turing for $55 million, a deal announced the same day Turing said it had raised $90 million from Mr. Shkreli and other investors in its first round of financing. Daraprim cost only about $1 a tablet several years ago, but the drug’s price rose sharply after CorePharma acquired it.

The private sector has made leaps and strides in degeneracy, and we do not give it enough credit for its glorious vision of a world where only Martin Shkreli can listen to Wu-Tang. It’s truly beautiful and calming that the U.S. Health Care industry spends five hundred billion dollars a year on administration alone, and thank sweet Christ our man Dean is there to praise the industry that bankrupts millions of Americans. What a brave minister of the healing gospel.

As Lee Fang wrote for The Intercept back in 2016, Dean has been in the pay of the health care lobby for some time.

Dean, though he rarely discloses the title during his media appearances, now serves as senior advisor to the law firm Dentons, where he works with the firm’s Public Policy and Regulation practice, a euphemism for Dentons’ lobbying team. … The Dentons Public Policy and Regulation practice lobbies on behalf of a variety of corporate health care interests, including the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a powerful trade group for drugmakers like Pfizer and Merck.

In 2009, as Fang notes, Dean praised single-payer. That changed as soon as he moved full-time into lobbying. Fang again:

After Dean began working in the lobbying industry, he gave a talk about how to navigate the post-Citizens United campaign finance world. “I’ve advised a lot of clients in the industries that I usually end up working with, which are mostly health care industries, not to give any money to either side, or if you do, give it to both sides because politicians really don’t know much about the issues,” Dean said. “But they remember the ads, and they remember who was on whose side and who wasn’t, and it makes a big difference.”

What can account for Dean’s move to the profitable center? Why, his nature.

HE DOESN’T EVEN GO HERE

Dean is the last gasp of the Clinton Presidency, the moment right before Twitter swallowed up politics. Dean is the kind of progressive the Democrats used to follow; he symbolizes the final instant in American politics where grownups under forty took left-centrism with a straight face.

Dean is McCain, but less lucky. McCain scored his party’s nomination. Dean didn’t get that far. However, he definitely had McCain’s gifts for spinning a gullible press. The media painted him as a radical, but that was only in comparison to the times. In 2003 and 2004, Bush and the GOP were riding so high, they invaded Iraq on a rumor. Dean had the sand to say that Iraq was a mistake, and that set him apart from every other boneless Donkey in Washington.

That’s all it took to be a hero in 2004. No wonder the Governor of Vermont became famous. After failing in Wisconsin and his famous scream (which wasn’t much of a scream at all), he sank below the waves. Kerry was eventually nominated, met his destiny, and disintegrated into multiple windsurfing homunculi, never to be heard from again.

Dean, not President but very much alive, rose along an alternative path. In 2005, he became the DNC chair and instituted a fifty-state strategy which was incredibly useful and, frankly, blindingly obvious—make a national party a national party. Then, after Obama was lifted to the Executive. Dean and his followers promptly forgot everything that had got them there. The Republicans stayed a national party. Trump’s the result.

In his job as the chair, Dean traded on his image as the rebel leader of 2004. But any close reading of Dean’s record puts the lie to that assessment. Even during his supposedly courageous campaign, Dean argued for the War in Afghanistan; he advocated for the balanced-budget as if he’d just given birth to it onstage. He used the words “tax credit” with a straight face. His proposals were timid. In those days, with most of the Democratic party curled up around the radiator of the Iraq War, that counted as brave. Let me repeat that 2003 was deep in the Bush years, when Olbermann was considered a sage and Lance Armstrong could be a hero. During Dean’s run, the world cloned the horse and Arnold became governor of California, neither which should have been allowed by physics or good taste. Howard Dean was the great hope of progressives, but that counts more against Dean than progressives. Dean is selling out because he didn’t have much to sell to begin with.

Unless you’re one of those few political mutates who can see through tangled ship-rigging of time, you make use of what you have when you have it. In the Nineties hangover of Bush America, Dean was far enough out of the power structure to shock us all; he was honey to the bones, lithium to cranium. He was the only visible water in a vast desert. The rains have come since then. Why has Dean declined so? Because he was never high to begin with. He’s always been far from right, but this hardly makes him left.

Jason Rhode, Poste Magazine,

October 22, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Who else pays MKO lobbyists!

“In Washington, D.C., money talks. Whether you’re a Democrat like Dean or a Republican like Bolton, a former head of the CIA like Porter Goss or an ex-head of the FBI like Louis Freeh, what seems to matter most is that the MEK can cut fat checks,” Mehdi Hassan of the Intercept asserts.

Reports say that the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) is not the only source of funds for the paid advocates of the group in the Unites States. Money and its potentially corrupting influence in the US politics is so crucial that the journalists Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton have authored an investigated detailed report on the influence of the Jewish Republican lobby on Trump’s words included in his Friday night speech against the Iran deal:

Money talks in teh USA politics

Trump Ignores Advisers on Iran Deal, Follows Money

by Eli Clifton and Jim Lobe

Although much of the Washington commentariat has depicted Trump’s extraordinarily bellicose speech Friday against Iran and the nuclear deal as the latest example of his determination to undo the legacy of his predecessor, meeting the demands of his most important campaign donors may well have served as a major motivation as well. Indeed, his biggest campaign donor, casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, may have influenced the specific language Trump used in his remarks.

Trump rejected the reported views of his own national security adviser and secretaries of defense and state by refusing to certify Iran’s compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). But he also echoed talking points developed by organizations, notably the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), that are generously supported by a number of those same donors.

With Watergate back in the public consciousness, in part due to Hollywood’s depiction of Mark “Deep Throat” Felt, it seems fitting to test the relevance of his advice to Woodward and Bernstein to “follow the money” in this case, as in many others.

A hint that this approach may indeed shed some light on Trump’s motivation was offered in a profile of UN ambassador Nikki Haley – the least experienced but most neoconservative of Trump’s foreign-policy team and the beneficiary of $250,000 of Adelson’s political contributions last year – that appeared in Politico Friday. It reported that the most threatening line in Trump’s address – that he would cancel Washington’s participation in the JCPOA if Congress and U.S. allies did not bend to his efforts to effectively renegotiate it – was suggested by none other than John Bolton.

The line was added to Trump’s speech after Bolton, despite Kelly’s recent edict [restricting Bolton’s access to Trump], reached the president by phone on Thursday afternoon from Las Vegas, where Bolton was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson. Bolton urged Trump to include a line in his remarks noting that he reserved the right to scrap the agreement entirely, according to two sources familiar with the conversation.[Emphasis added.]

Bolton’s access to Trump may indeed be restricted, but, if he’s speaking on Adelson’s behalf, that probably makes a difference. Even before his visit to Las Vegas after the mass shooting there last week, Trump took time out to meet with the billionaire casino owner at the White House. The meeting’s purpose was not confined to the expression of condolences, according to Adelson’s spokesman.

Adelson’s Influence

Adelson is the former chairman and almost certainly the biggest funder of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), an ultra-hawkish group that includes on its board of directors Trump’s second-biggest campaign donor (after Adelson and his wife, Miriam), Bernard Marcus, as well as other wealthy donors whose worldview largely corresponds to that of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party.

And it bears repeating that Trump himself warned specifically about the RJC and Adelson’s desire to control politicians using campaign contributions.

Trump told an RJC audience in December 2015:

You’re not gonna support me because I don’t want your money. You want to control your politicians; that’s fine. …I do want your support, but I don’t want your money.

And Trump mocked his primary opponent, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for seeking Adelson’s financial support, saying:

Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!

After Trump won the nomination, Adelson emerged as Trump’s biggest campaign supporter. And Adelson reportedly has a narrow set of policies (aside from restricting internet gambling) he seeks to influence through his political contributions.

Newt Gingrich, himself a huge recipient of Adelson’s financial largesse during his failed 2012 presidential campaign, said that Adelson’s “central value” is Israel.

Among his policy priorities are tacit if not explicit U.S. approval of Jewish settlement expansion on the West Bank and Jerusalem; moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; and undoing the JCPOA (or, in Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s words, “fix it or nix it.”)

Adelson must be disappointed by Trump’s failure so far to move the embassy; just last week, he signed a temporary order keeping it in Tel Aviv. Indeed, he may have felt obliged to personally explain that decision to Adelson in their White House meeting. “I want to give [peace talks between the Israeli and Palestinians] a shot before I even think about moving the embassy to Jerusalem,” he said. On the other hand, the casino magnate must be very pleased with the relative silence by the Trump administration over the question of settlement expansion which has proceeded at record rates since he became president.

On Friday, however, Trump really came through for his benefactor. Bucking the advice of his secretary of defense and secretary of state to decertify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement, the president effectively gave Adelson (who contributed $35 million to pro-Trump Super PAC Future 45), alongside fellow Republican anti-Iran deal donors Marcus (who contributed $7 million to pro-Trump Super PACs) and Paul Singer (who contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee), their first real shot at sabotaging the JCPOA.

The Role of Cotton

Trump’s announcement effectively punted the decision to Congress whether to reimpose sanctions or take other actions that would almost certainly put Washington in violation of the agreement negotiated by the Obama administration, European allies, China, Russia and Iran.

Senate hawks, led by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Bob Corker (R-TN), have proposed legislation that would institute automatic reinstatement of sanctions if Iran comes within a year of a nuclear weapons capability and eliminates the JCPOA’s sunset clauses, effectively rewriting of the agreement and potentially putting the U.S. in violation of the accord.

Coincidentally or not, Cotton, who reportedly advised the White House on its Iran policy, is deeply indebted to Singer. Singer was Cotton’s second largest source of funds supporting his campaign. The New York based-hedge fund billionaire contributed $250,000 to Arkansas Horizon, an independent expenditure group supporting Cotton’s 2014 Senate .

(Cotton also received $960,250 in supportive campaign advertising in the last month of his campaign from the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), a right-wing group headed by the neoconservative pundit, Bill Kristol, who infamously predicted that the Iraq war would last two months. At its inception, the ECI was based out of the same Washington office as the Committee of the Liberation of Iraq, a pressure group that lobbied for the 2003 invasion.)

Singer, alongside Marcus and Adelson, also funded anti-Iran deal groups such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which played a leading role in opposing any nuclear deal or serious diplomatic engagement with Iran for more than a decade.

Cotton has himself made no secret of his desire to sabotage nuclear diplomacy with Iran. In March 2015, Cotton organized a controversial letter warning “the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” that the U.S. government might not abide by an agreement made with the Obama administration. At the time, he argued that Congress should work to undermine U.S. negotiators and scuttle talks between the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) that resulted in the JCPOA.

That opposition to diplomacy was still evident this June when Cotton told Politico, “The policy of the United States should be regime change in Iran,” a position that puts into question his sincerity about wanting to “fix” the deal.

Indeed, Trump’s decision to decertify and punt the question about reimposition of sanctions, potentially in violation of the JCPOA, to Congress was welcomed by Iran hawks like Cotton and, presumably, by Adelson, Singer and Marcus.

Unsurprisingly, the RJC applauded the White House’s announcement in an email immediately after Friday’s speech. It said:

With today’s decision, President Trump is delivering on a major campaign promise, bolstering security for the United States, Israel, and our allies, as well as creating an opportunity to truly curb Iran’s nuclear ambition and find lasting peace in the Middle East.

Adelson and Marcus rarely speak directly about the Iran deal but when they do, they reveal hawkish and apocalyptic views about how the U.S. should handle relations with Iran and the nature of the Iranian people. Adelson proposed exploding a nuclear bomb “in the Iranian desert” in 2013 as warning of what would happen to Tehran itself if it didn’t abandon its nuclear program. As for Marcus, “I think that Iran is the devil,” he said in a 2015 Fox Business interview.

It seems Trump may be more inclined to listen to them on Iran policy than to his most experienced national security officials.

October 21, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Maryam Rajavi cheered up by Trump

Or more isolation for the MKO and its masters?

Apparently pleased by Trump’s hateful speech against Iran, Maryam Rajavi is dreaming of ruling Iranian nation. “Mrs. Rajavi underscored, it is imperative that the National Council of Resistance of Iran be recognized as the sole democratic alternative to the terrorist, religious dictatorship ruling Iran to rectify the past disastrous policy”, according to the group’s propaganda media.

While Maryam Rajavi considers the JCPOA as “disastrous”, the majority of the Iranian nation have a very opposite idea about the deal. Many of them poured into the streets of Tehran to celebrate the historic nuclear deal agreed with world powers in Vienna in July 2015. [1]However, there are a number of Iranians who protest the deal but not for the same reasons that the MKO brings up. Both spectrums of the Iranian nation –pros or cons of JCPOA—share the same idea: they neither accept MKO nor its leader.

Thus, Rajavi should learn that counting on Trump will not bear any fruit for her. “Trump’s decision to decertify the deal and his outreach effort to Iranians was met with anger”, reported Radio Free Europe. RFE published some of a large number of tweets made by Iranians following Donald Trump’s speech. [2]

“The danger of this kind of lofty rhetoric is that it has been selectively applied, so it is seen cynically by the rest of the world as a way to dress up American self-interest,” Farid Zakaria, the prominent CNN journalist writes about the arrogance and hypocrisy of US president. “Trump took this hypocrisy to a new level. He denounced Iran for its lack of freedoms and, almost in the same breath, made favorable mention of Saudi Arabia. By any yard stick — political rights, religious tolerance, free speech — Iran is a much more open society than Saudi Arabia, which is an absolute monarchy allied to the world’s most fanatical religious establishment, where churches and synagogues are prohibited.” [3]

As a matter of fact, the absolute monarchy ruling Saudi Arabia is very similar to the world inside the MKO of which Maryam Rajavi has been a president for over three decades without any alternative. Another similarity is the animosity against the Iranian government. “Many Iranians on social media were up in arms over Trump’s use of the term”Arabian Gulf”to refer to the body of water known historically as the Persian Gulf.” Iranians insist that it be referred to as the Persian Gulf, taking Arabian Gulf as an insult,” RFE reported. It seems that Maryam Rajavi belongs to a very small minority who welcome any aggressive stance against Iranian nation –no matter how dangerous to world would it be. Regarding her warm relationship with the Saudi Prince Turki Feisal, she has no problem with the term Arabian Gulf which is intentionally used by Trump. [4]

On the other side, the EU foreign policy chief Federika Mogherini was clear about the EU’s position.”As Europeans, we will make sure that the agreement stays,”she said. [5]

Therefore, seemingly a decision to decertify would damage America’s reputation and its capacity to pilot other major geopolitical moves. By ditching the JCPOA the US places itself on the sidelines and no nation will trust America`s word anymore. Besides, Trump’s failure to provide details on what an alternative approach to Iran’s deal would look like will make the case more bogus for the MKO leaders who are not playing the least role in the geopolitical scene of the region.

If America withdrawals from the JCPOA, Iran’s isolation will ease and America’s will grow and the MKO’s decline will accelerate.

By Mazda Parsi

References:

[1]RFE/ RL, Iranians Criticize U.S. President’s Iran Speech, October 16th, 2017

[2] ibid

[3] Zakaria, Fareed, Trump embraces a post-American world, FareedZakaria.com, September 22, 2017

[4] RFE/ RL, Iranians Criticize U.S. President’s Iran Speech, October 16th, 2017

[5] Kamali Dehghan, Saeed, Europe’s business heads aim to keep Iran nuclear deal despite US threat, the Guardian, October 6, 2017

October 18, 2017 0 comments

Albania

Legal Representative meets with UNHCR in Tirana to clarify the status of MEK defectors

On October 9, 2017 an Albanian lawyer and a representative of some defectors from the Mojahedin Khalq organization (MEK) met with officials of the UNHCR in Tirana, Albania. The meeting had been requested on 27 September by the lawyer acting on behalf of two defectors from the MEK who want to know what their future relation with their UNHCR will be.

The lawyer and one MEK defector were received at the offices of the UNHCR in Tirana by H. Balla from the Office of Legal Protection, and H. Khan who is responsible for the MEK members in Albania.

The lawyer acting on behalf of her clients demanded explanations from UNHCR officials regarding the status of her clients in Albania, their economic difficulties and their legal status.

During the discussions H. Khan, who was responsible for the re-settlement of MEK members from Iraq in Albania, clarified a number of items for the lawyer. He explained that the UNHCR had helped the MEK to relocate to Albania to save them from the threats they were receiving in Iraq. The UNHCR had been paying MEK members in Iraq but now that they had settled in Albania they were no longer the responsibility of the UNHCR. Contrary to the claims of MEK defectors that the UNHCR pays 500 EUROs monthly to MEK members, the UNHCR representative explained that the UNHCR no longer pays any money to the MEK for its members. He said that the MEK has its own budget. It has an agreement with the Albanian state and it is responsible for paying its members and defectors alike, since this was one of the points of the understanding that the MEK, the Americans and the Albanian state had agreed once they were transferred to Albania.

The UNHCR for its part was trying to help MEK members to integrate into Albanian society by providing training for them and through an agreement that it had with an Albanian NGO, the Refugee and Migrant Services (RMSA), which was helping MEK members with their social needs.

During the discussions, the MEK defector complained to the UNHCR about the way the MEK was blackmailing its members in Albania, enslaving them, using psychological threats and blackmail and threatening them with slander. The defector described the spying network that the MEK has created against its own members who are deserting the organization en-mass. He complained that the MEK was keeping its members totally isolated, prohibiting them from talking to their families in Iran and throughout the world, and if one member is caught talking to his family or to another defector he is immediately expelled from the organization and is accused of being an agent of Iran.

The defector revealed how the MEK had enslaved many of its members for the past 30 years, and now that they were living in a democratic country like Albania, this organization was still blackmailing them, keeping them isolated and not allowing them to enjoy the freedoms of democracy and civic life.

The lawyer told the UNHCR officials that these claims have been presented to her by many other defectors who live in a state of fear and intimidation from this organization, which claims that it will bring democracy to Iran. She asked the UNHCR representatives if they were aware that the MEK was intimidating and threatening even the families of MEK members who have come to Albania to meet their loved ones. She disclosed to UNHCR representatives that in a number of cases, family members of MEK members had been detained and threatened even by the Albanian police whenever they had come to Albania and tried to contact their relatives.

The lawyer asked how can this organization speak of democracy when it treats its members in such an inhumane way, which is a criminal offense according to Albanian laws? She asked the UNHCR about its stance towards these criminal allegations that defectors are making against this totalitarian organization which claims to fight for democracy and human rights? How could the UNHCR work with and support such a totalitarian and enslaving organization? They asked UNHCR staff if they were aware that this organization is acting against human rights conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Albania has signed, and was denying its members freedom of thought, freedom to create a family, freedom of movement, freedom of association and was treating many of its members as slaves.

Furthermore, the lawyer asked why the UNHCR does not support the MEK defectors, who after leaving the organization end up in the street and without any support? By not supporting these people who want to enjoy their personal freedoms that democracy guarantees, the UNHCR was not helping these people who deserve to live in freedom in a democracy.

The UNHCR representatives responded that the behavior of the MEK towards its members has to be judged by the Albanian government and within the framework of the agreement it has with the MEK. The lawyer pointed out that this agreement has not been made public or submitted to scrutiny and so nobody knows what has actually been agreed. What was clear is that as the situation stands at present this agreement is in contravention of UNHCR rules and human rights legislation because clearly neither the MEK members nor the defectors and nor their families are not being accorded their proper civil or human rights.

When the lawyer asked about their legal status and what the UNHCR is contributing towards this issue – since many of them have no work permits and their legal status is described as humanitarian refugees – the UNHCR responded that they are working with the Albanian government to clarify their status.

They suggested that the lawyer acting on their behalf must contact the Interior Ministry of Albania since this body is responsible for their residence in the country.

The lawyer asked the UNHCR representatives whether they do pay some MEK members. The UNHCR representatives said that yes, they do pay some members, on a case by case basis, but not everyone. They were paying the accommodation of M. A. a defector who was in a desperate situation.

The MEK defector who was in the meeting said that the help M. A. was receiving was minimal. He was able only to buy just few kilograms of oil, flour and sugar to eat for a whole month.

The legal representative of the UNHCR admitted that support for the MEK members in Albania was a big problem. He said that even the Albanian government will not support the refugees for more than six months. The government gives them accommodation, food and after six months they are on their own.

But the difficult case of MEK members was exacerbated since they were taken to Albania on a humanitarian basis and not as asylum seekers. They have no work permits and cannot integrate into the society.

The defector claimed that the UNHCR had in the past paid MEK members 500 EUROs per month in their accounts. However, H. Khan explained that this was no longer the case. The UNHCR had given financial support to MEK members in 2016 but now it has run out of money. He said that the support of MEK members and defectors was the duty of the MEK which brought them into the country and the Albanian government who agreed to host the Mojahedin.

The defector said that the Albanian office of asylum had told MEK members that in 2018 some humanitarian organization might take over the financial care of MEK members in Albania. But the situation of the defectors remains unclear and this means that many MEK defectors will continue to suffer and struggle for their economic survival in Albania.

The defector explained that many families of MEK members want to contact their loved ones in the MEK so that they can provide them with support and assistance. But the MEK’s refusal to allow this contact and the Albanian government’s compliance with this ban means they are forced to remain with the MEK or become destitute. This was not an acceptable situation when many people could be helped by their own families and not depend on handouts from any organization.

The conclusion of this meeting was that many MEK members who want to defect from this ex-terrorist organization, who do not want to be considered as combatants and want instead to live in freedom and liberty have no option but to stay with the organization. If they choose to leave the MEK and enjoy the freedoms and democracy of Albania, to marry, have children and create families like all other free human beings, they will suffer economic hardship and blackmail from the MEK whose spies monitor and intimidate the defectors. They will be accused by the MEK of being Iran’s agents and no one will help them. They do not speak Albanian, have no skills, the vast majority has no work permits and cannot find jobs in impoverished Albania. They have no passports and no possibility to settle in other richer countries in Europe. The only option that many MEK members have is to stick it out with the MEK in its camps in Albania. They must live an isolated life in which they are also thereby forced to agree to call for waging a terrorist war against Iran.

At the end of the meeting the UNHCR advised the lawyer and her clients to contact the Albanian office for asylum to clarify their status and situation. It was also suggested that the MEK should be taken to court and asked to pay for the defectors since the MEK had undertaken responsibility for their financial support after their transfer to Albania.

By Av. M.B., Lawyer

October 17, 2017 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Who is Massoud Rajavi?

Massoud Rajavi born on August 18, 1948 in Tabas in the Northwest of Iran. He became the leader of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) in the late years of the Pahlavi dynasty after the early leaders of the group had been executed and Massoud survived the death sentence that all his comrades received. Due to his “cooperation” with the Shah’s Intelligence, SAVAK, his death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment.

By the time of the Iranian revolution, Rajavi was released and supported the newly-established government founded by Ayatollah Khomeini. Soon, the gap widened between the organization and the new government due to the former’s adoption of mixed ideologies of Islam and Marxism. The tension reached its peak in 1981 when Massoud Rajavi called his young followers to launch an armed struggle against the Islamic Republic. A large number of innocent civilians were killed during the MKO’s acts of violence. The government arrested a number of the group members and this led Rajavi to flee to Paris together with the Iranian deposed president Abolhassan Banisadr. His wife Ashraf Rabii was killed in the clash between the MKO armed forces and the Iranian security forces.

In Paris, he married Firouzeh Banisadr the daughter of Abolhassan Banisadr. He founded the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). He then joined the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein who was at war with Iran. The Banisadrs opposed Rajavi’s anti-nationalistic act and broke out with him. In Iraq, Rajavi formed the National Liberation Army (NLI) that was logistically and financially sponsored by Saddam Hussein’s Baath Regime. NLA was actually Saddam’s Private Army.

Sheltered in Iraq, near Iranian border, Massoud Rajavi led numerous cross border operations and terrorist attacks inside Iran. NLA was also an arm of Iraqi military in the suppression of Shiite and Kurdish uprisings inside Iraq in the early 1990s.

Rajavi married to Maryam Qajar Azodanlu (later known as Maryam Rajavi) in 1985, who was already married to one of his close associates Mehdi Abrishamchi and divorced her husband in order to marry Rajavi. The marriage that was called as ideological by Massoud, resulted in the transformation of Rajavi as a normal political leader to the leader of a cult of personality.

The Cult of Rajavi required members to obey cult-like regulations that Massoud indoctrinated in the hierarchy of the group. The regulations included forced divorce, forced celibacy, absolute obedience ….

He disappeared in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and it is not known whether he is alive or dead. Rajavi has been wanted by Iraq since 2010 for crimes against humanity.

October 16, 2017 0 comments

Ali Reza Jafarzade

Who is Fox News Analyst; Alireza Jafarzadeh

Jafarzadeh, front man for the MKO and the NCRI in the United States is introduced by fox news as an “independent person who runs Strategic Policy Consulting, a Washington-based think tank focusing on Iran and Iraq”

To quote from Answers.com:

Jafarzadeh’s name first appears in the media in a Houston Chronicle article dated December 24, 1986, where he is described as a spokesman for the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). In the article he denied US State Department claims the MEK was a terrorist organization responsible for the assassination of at least six Americans in Iran. Jafarzadeh was the public spokesperson for the National Council of Resistance of Iran until its office in Washington was closed by the US State Department in 2002 on the grounds that it was a front group for the MEK, by then listed as a terrorist organistion.

Alireza Jafarzadeh was born in Mashad (Iran) and moved to the USA before the 1979 revolution in Iran. He began there as a student of Civil Engineering. But he soon became engaged with the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) in the US. The MKO is designated by the US, UK, EU and many other countries as a terrorist entity in part because of the MKO’s affiliation with the regime of Saddam Hussein. MKO activities include the massacre of Iraqi Kurds and Marsh Arabs in March 1991 after Gulf War I, and co-operation with Iraqi Intelligence in hiding WMDs from UN weapons inspectors. Jafarzadeh worked for the MKO in several countries including Iraq. He was promoted to the position of spokesman for the MKO in the US which then gave him a position as member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the MKO’s political wing, which is also designated in the US as a terrorist entity.

Jafarzadeh quickly became a devoted member of the MKO and on the order of the organization’s Ideological (or cult) Leader, Massoud Rajavi, married Robabeh Sadeghi of Babol, Iran, after she fled her country in 1986. In 1990, Massoud Rajavi ordered all MKO members to divorce for ideological reasons. Jafarzadeh and Sadeghi, were divorced on his command.

Jafarzadeh was such a committed member that he repeatedly volunteered for suicide operations. In the MKO publication No. 127, he is quoted as saying that he is ready to burn himself in front of the UN’s New York office whenever it is needed for the MKO’s cause.

In 1988, together with 15 other MKO members in the US, Jafarzadeh left for Iraq to participate in the Eternal Light military operation. He served in Hossein Abrishamchi’s military unit in Iraq and undertook terrorist training in an Iraqi camp called Zaboli Camp. After the MKO’s disastrous defeat in this operation, he was sent back to the US.

In a press conference on 24 March 1991, Jafarzadeh explained the details of one particular MKO operation in Iraqi Kurdistan (Operation Morvarid). This was soon exposed, by Human Rights Watch among others, as the deliberate massacre of Kurdish civilians by the MKO on the direct orders of Saddam Hussein.

Some months later, MKO radio announced Jafarzadeh had been made a Deputy Executive member of the MKO. His name along with his paramilitary rank was also published in MKO newspapers.

In 1992, with the help of Saddam Hussein’s Intelligence Service, Jafarzadeh traveled to Pakistan to negotiate and establish new relations between the MKO and one of the war lords of Baluchestan (on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border). The relation was established in order to facilitate sending terrorist teams into Iran for paramilitary terrorist operations. Jafarzadeh was the broker for this deal and in person paid some of the tribal chiefs on behalf of Iraqi Intelligence.

From 1998 Jafarzadeh has been introduced as a member of the NCRI (MKO) Foreign Affairs Committee. In 1992 he took part in interviews (including an interview with Voice of America Radio) as the NCRI representative.

Jafarzadeh also attended a meeting in Washington in 2001. The meeting was organized by the MKO to protest inclusion of their name in the US administration’s list of terrorist organizations. Jafarzadeh was the MKO’s speaker at this meeting to explain their position.

There are serious allegations that Jafarzadeh has been involved in illegal deals in the USA, including deals involving chemicals which can be used to produce WMDs. There are also allegations that the MKO, with him as its representative, have been involved in serious money laundering and drug trafficking in the USA. These allegations, as well as his and Fox News’ dodgy connections in Washington, are currently under investigation.

Source: Iraninterlink

October 16, 2017 0 comments

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