Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO: US-Israel’s Men in Iran

Day after day, dimensions of the MKO’s role as a proxy force of the United States and Israel government gets more and more clear. Seymour Hersh, the venerable American journalist wrote another enlightening story in the New Yorker on April6, 2012. According to Hersh’s inquiry, not only Israel but the US have been training, financing, and harboring the Mujahedin Khalq Organization. Hersh reports that during the Bush administration, the joint Special Operation Command (JSOC) trained, funded and armed MKO operatives at Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site. The training in the far mountainous arid area in South of Nevada began in 2005. [1]

Hersh’s revelations come a few months after NBC News exposed that the Israeli Intelligence Mossad trained the MKO agents to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists.[2]

The US started housing and protecting the MKO in 2003 after the group’s main military and financial sponsor Saddam Hussein, fell off power. "The MEK’s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of Iraqi Regime in 2003,and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations,” according to Seymor Hersh. "funds more covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and ultimately for anti-regime terrorist activities.”[3]

Hersh affirms that US-sponsored operations in Iran continue until today.

It is documentedly clear that the US and Israel are waging a covert war against Iran and the MKO is their stimulating tool to facilitate warmongers’ approach to attack Iran. Hersh quotes a retired US general that the group members got the standard training in communication, cryptography, small –unit tactics, and weaponry that went on for six months. [4]

The advocacy for the MKO-although listed as a foreign terrorist organization – in the US is both logistical and congressional. Several former American political figures, who have intensified their lobbying effort to delist the group, claim that it is fully in line with American foreign-policy and is well positioned to assist the US in the so-called future military confrontation with Iran.

The MKO advocates suggest the group’s role in the alleged revelations about Iranian nuclear program as a good excuse to trust it in the war campaign against IRI. On the alleged intelligence gathering by the MKO, Jeremiah Goulka ,an American lawyer and analyst who also assisted to write the report on the MKO in Rand Corporation, believes: ”Maryam trumpets the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and gives the NCRI credit for discovering Iran’s Natanz facility. That self-serving claim is doubtful, as is the NCRI’s posture as a democratic government-in-waiting. While its propaganda arm espouses Western values to Western audience, the MEK continues to force-feed its doctrine to members who may not criticize the Rajavis and are not free to leave the Ashraf compound.”[5]

Scott Horton of the Harpers Magazine also asserts:” These claims might be true, but they don’t convincingly address the MEK’s historic use of terrorist tactics, its pattern of human rights abuses, and its culture of violence.”[6]

Horton advises US administration to remember the lesson they learned from Iraq war that was waged based on fake intelligence, too. “Moreover, the Iraq war should have left Americans wiser about émigré groups who peddle evidence of weapons programs as a rationale for the invasion of their homeland and for their eventual installation as a new and friendly government,” he writes.[7]The neo-cons are apparently building another case of war just as a repeat of history.

Despite the subpoenas the US Treasury department issued to investigate the speaking fees these US former politicians received for speaking on behalf of the MKO in its conferences and rallies, the Justice Department hasn’t taken legal action against them for crime of material support they offered a terrorist designated group.

“The Obama Administration may be caving into the political pressure brought by the MEK’s well compensated Beltway friend,” Scott Horton writes.[8]
If this happened and the MKO was delisted, it would eventually seek power in Iran. Then an MKO government in Iran would create a terribly dangerous threat for the West. It would create an official al-Qaida style regime that would doubtlessly turn back against the US. Hopefully, this will never happen.

By Treasury Department starting investigations on the MKO advocates, the Obama Administration might want to convince us that their anti-terrorism motto is not just a “laughing matter”. And, warmongers in the US government may realize that there is no convincible reason to embrace a terrorist group. As Jeremiah Goulka suggests: ”ignorance, profit and the dreams of a terrorist –cult group are lousy reasons to start a war.”[9]

By Mazda Parsi

References:
[1]Hersh, Seymour, Our Men in Iran, The NewYorker, April 5, 2012
[2] Engel, Richard& Windrem, Robert, Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, US officials tell NBC News, MSNBS, February 9, 2012
[3] Hersh, Seymour, Our Men in Iran, The NewYorker, April 5, 2012
[4]ibid
[5] Goulka Jeremiah, the Iran War Hawks’ Favorite Cult Group, Salon.com, March 28, 2012
[6]Horton Scott, For Official Washington, Terrorism is a Laughing Matter, Harper’s Magazine, April 9, 2012
[7]ibid
[8]ibid
[9] Goulka Jeremiah, the Iran War Hawks’ Favorite Cult Group, Salon.com, March 28, 2012

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US officials: Israel, MKO behind Stuxnet attack against Iran

American intelligence officials have confirmed that Israel and an anti-Iran terrorist group were behind a cyber attack on an Iranian nuclear facility. US officials: Israel, MKO behind Stuxnet attack against Iran

The Stuxnet virus was planted at the Natanz nuclear facility by “an Israeli proxy” using a corrupt memory stick, former and serving US intelligence officials told the Industrial Safety and Security Source website.

The unnamed sources said a saboteur used a memory stick to infect the machines at Natanz nuclear facility.

In October 2010, Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said an unspecified number of nuclear spies were arrested in connection with the virus.

The Americans said the insider was a member of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

Former head of the CIA Counterterrorism Vince Cannistraro said Israel is using the MKO as the assassination arm of its spy agency, Mossad, for targeted killings of Iranian scientists.

He said the MKO is in charge of executing “the motor attacks on Iranian targets chosen by Israel. They go to Israel for training, and Israel pays them.”

Stuxnet, first indentified by the Iranian officials in June 2010, is a malware designed to infect computers using Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) — a control system favored by industries that manage water supplies, oil rigs, and power plants.

In July 2010, media reports claimed that Stuxnet had targeted industrial computers around the globe, with Iran being the main target of the attack. They said the country’s Bushehr nuclear power plant was at the center of the cyber attack.

However, Iranian experts detected the virus in time, averting any damage to the country’s industrial sites and resources.
http://presstv.com/detail/236556.html

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UN

U.N. Iraq chief: The countries of the world must take MEK refugees

The United Nations and the State Department have been struggling to convince the Iranian exile group the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK) to move to a former U.S. military base in Iraq, but the real U.N. Iraq chief: The countries of the world must take MEK refugeesneed is for third countries to accept MEK "refugees" on a permanent basis, according to the top U.N. representative in Iraq.

The MEK is a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization opposed to the Iranian regime that has been living in a closed compound in Iraq called Camp Ashraf for years. The Iraqi government has pledged to close Camp Ashraf, using force if necessary, so the U.N. and the State Department are slowly but surely cajoling Ashraf’s 3,200 residents to move to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad airport.

But that’s only a temporary solution. ..

"I have the feeling that the Camp Ashraf residents have made peace with the idea to go to Camp Liberty and they’ve made peace with the idea that there is no future in Iraq and they will leave Iraq," Martin Kobler, the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), told The Cable.

But finding homes for the MEK members when they leave Iraq "is the most difficult part of the story," he said. "The whole process only will succeed if all the 3,200 find countries who will take them into their borders."

The U.N. held a resettlement conference on March 27 in Geneva and the response was "not overwhelming, to say the least," Kobler said.

Part of the difficulty of dealing with the MEK group members at Camp Ashraf is that they have been cut off from the world for years and little is known about their individual histories or whether they would qualify for refugee status. Some reports say that MEK members are still conducting violent attacks inside Iran at the behest of the Israeli government.

The United States is legally barred from accepting any refugees from members of a foreign terrorist organization. There is also no plan for what happens to those MEK members who do not qualify for refugee status.

"We will find a solution then," Kobler said. "Everybody has Iranian nationality and on a voluntary basis can go back to Iran… The question is what happens to them then."

Kobler disputed the claims made by the MEK and its long list of American advocates that the Camp Liberty site is not fit for human occupation.

"Camp Liberty is a place where 5,500 American soldiers lived for many, many years… What worked for 5,500 people should also work humanitarian wise for 3,200 Camp Ashraf residents," he said.

Kobler declined to comment on reports that the MEK is involved in ongoing attacks on the Iranian nuclear program and its personnel inside Iran. He also declined to confirm that U.N. reports have stated that MEK members were intentionally sabotaging the facilities in Camp Liberty in order to make the camp look worse than it is, saying only, "There were big initial difficulties and a lack of cooperation. However this has improved over the last weeks."

Some advocates of the MEK, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have called Camp Ashraf a "concentration camp," a reference Kobler said is insulting and offensive.

"I am a German citizen. To compare the situation of Camp Ashraf residents to the systematic extermination of European Jews during Nazi dictatorship, this is not only historically totally absurd but is an insult to the victims," he said.

"My message to these supporters is, spend your energies not so much on attacking the United Nations or others. Spend your energies to convince your governments to take them into your countries," he said.

While in Washington, Kobler met with Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, Assistant Secretary of State for Refugees, Population, and Migration Anne Richards, and Ambassador Daniel Fried, the State Department official in charge of the Camp Ashraf issue.

Foreign Policy

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

“CYBER TERRORISM”: US-supported Terrorist Group MEK Plants Stuxnet Virus

The international community has eased its condemnation of Iran following recent negotiations between Tehran and six other nations in Istanbul,

"CYBER TERRORISM": US-supported Terrorist Group MEK Plants Stuxnet Virus Malware to Disable Iran’s Nuclear Facilities

Turkey. While the participating parties agreed to further discussions on May 23, 2012 in Baghdad, both Israel and the West have given no indication of easing the strict regime of sanctions imposed on Tehran. Following claims of the Iranian leadership that it pursues civil nuclear capabilities to generate electricity and fuel for medical reactors (allowing Tehran to divert its primary oil reserves to export markets) [1], Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a religious prohibition on nuclear weapons in Iran [2]. During recent discussions, Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili emphasized Iran’s right to a civil nuclear program, as guaranteed under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [3]. Although Tel Aviv possess between 75 to 400 nuclear warheads, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak insists that all of Iran’s uranium enriched to 20% be moved to a "trusted" neighboring country [4].

While both CIA chief David H. Petraeus and US National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper Jr. concede that no credible evidence exists to accuse Iran of constructing a nuclear weapon [5], the brazen criminality of intelligence operations against Iran’s civil nuclear program remain deeply troubling. ISSSource has recently confirmed that the individuals responsible for planting the Stuxnet computer worm used to sabotage Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz were members of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) [6], a US State Department-listed terrorist organization (#29) [7]. MEK was founded in 1965 as a Marxist Islamic mass political movement aimed at agitating the monarchy of the US-backed Iranian Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The group initially sided with revolutionary clerics led by Ayatollah Khomeini following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but eventually turned away from the regime during a power struggle that resulted in the group waging urban guerilla warfare against Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1981.

The organization was later given refuge by Saddam Hussein and mounted attacks on Iran from within Iraqi territory, killing an estimated 17,000 Iranian nationals in the process [8]. MEK exists as the main component of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a “coalition of democratic Iranian organizations, groups and personalities,” calling itself a "parliament-in-exile” seeking to “establish a democratic, secular and coalition government” in Iran [9]. Although the group has been credited with the assassination of high profile US military personnel [10] following the Islamic Revolution on multiple occasions [11], The New Yorker reports that members of Mujahideen-e-Khalq were trained in communications, cryptography, small-unit tactics and weaponry by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at a base in Nevada starting in 2005 [12]. JSOC instructed MEK operatives on how to penetrate major Iranian communications systems, allowing the group to intercept telephone calls and text messages inside Iran for the purpose of sharing them with American intelligence.

Following the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Army has twice attempted to enter Camp Ashraf, a “refugee camp” where the militant wing of MEK (consisting of approximately 3,200 personnel) resided under external security protection of the US military up until 2009 [13]. With the full support of the US Embassy in Iraq and the State Department, UN special representative in Iraq Martin Kobler has organized efforts to relocate MEK insurgents to a former US military base near the Baghdad airport, amusingly titled, “Camp Liberty” – to avoid violent clashes between the MEK and the Shiite-led Iraqi government [14]. The group has long received material assistance from Israel, who assisted the organization with broadcasting into Iran from their political base in Paris, while the MEK and NCRI have reportedly provided the United States with intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program, which publicly revealed the existence of the Natanz uranium-enrichment facility in 2002 [15].

While senior figures in the Council on Foreign Relations describe MEK as a "cult-like organization" with "totalitarian tendencies,” [16] a cabal of elder statesmen such as former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley K. Clark, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former 9/11 Commission Chairman Lee Hamilton were paid $20,000 to $30,000 per engagement to endorse the removal of the Mujahideen-e Khalq from the US State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations [17]. NCRI head Maryam Rajavi, now based in Paris and endorsed by statesmen from the United States and European Union, is famously quoted saying, "Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards," during Saddam Hussein’s massacre of Iraqi Kurds in 1991 [18]. Despite the documented cases of atrocities committed by MEK forces, the Council of the European Union removed the group from the EU list of terrorist organizations in 2009; NCRI spokesperson Shahin Gobadi offered, "All we want is democratic elections in Iran," in a press statement to mark the event [19].

Although current and former US officials agree Iran is years away from having a deliverable nuclear warhead and has no secret uranium-enrichment site outside the purview of UN nuclear inspections [20], recent revelations connecting MEK with the Stuxnet computer virus that destroyed several hundred centrifuges in Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility constitutes an act of deliberate and unparalleled sabotage. Stuxnet remains the most sophisticated malware discovered thus far, the virus targets Siemens’ Simatic WinCC Step7 software, which controls industrial systems such as nuclear power plants and electrical grids from a Microsoft Windows-based PC. The virus exploits security gaps referred to as zero-day vulnerabilities, to attack specific targets. Prior to its discovery, Stuxnet was previously undetected and remained unidentified by anti-virus software, as the malware was designed to appear as legitimate software to Microsoft Windows. Upon delivery of the Stuxnet payload, the malware manipulated the operating speed of centrifuges spinning nuclear fuel to create distortions that deliberately damaged the machines, while giving the impression of normal activities to the monitoring operator and disabling their emergency controls.

ISSSource has cited current and former US intelligence officials, who confirm the Stuxnet virus was planted at Natanz nuclear facility by a saboteur believed to be a member of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq [21]. By delivering the malicious payload via USB memory stick, the group was able to damage at least 1,000 centrifuges in the Natanz nuclear facility [22]. MEK has also been accused of assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists [23] and triggering an explosion that destroyed an underground site near the town of Khorramabad in western Iran that housed most of Tehran’s Shehab-3 medium-range missiles [24]. NBC News reports that Israel provided financing, training and arms to members of Mujahideen-e Khalq, who are responsible for killing five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 using motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars [25]. The New York Times reports that former US President George W. Bush authorized covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s Natanz facility, after deflecting an Israeli request to shower specialized bunker-busting bombs on the facility in 2009 [26].

Due to the intricate nature of Stuxnet coding, security experts confirm its creation must the “work of a national government agency” [27]. Ralph Langner, an independent computer security expert who dismantled Stuxnet credited Israel and the United States with writing the malicious software designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program [28]. Considering that Stuxnet targeted Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) used in industrial plants to automate industrial operations, the malware designers required detailed knowledge of the programming language written for PLC components to successively subvert them [29]. It remains significant that the German electrical engineering company Siemens cooperated with one of the United States in 2008 to identify vulnerabilities in the computer controllers identified as key equipment in Iran’s enrichment facilities [30]. Intelligence experts concede that testing of the Stuxnet virus was conducted in the Dimona complex located in Israel’s Negev desert, the site of Israel’s rarely acknowledged nuclear arms program [31].

When asked about the Stuxnet worm in a press conference, current White House WMD Coordinator Gary Samore boasted, “I’m glad to hear they are having troubles with their centrifuge machines, and the U.S. and its allies are doing everything we can to make it more complicated” [32]. While former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Hans Blix challenges the IAEA’s own reports on Iran’s nuclear activities (accusing the agency of relying on unverified intelligence from the US and Israel) [33], former director of US nuclear weapons production programs, Clinton Bastin, has sent an open letter to President Obama regarding the status of Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear weapons [34]. Bastin reiterates in his letter to the President, “The ultimate product of Iran’s gas centrifuge facilities would be highly enriched uranium hexafluoride, a gas that cannot be used to make a weapon. Converting the gas to metal, fabricating components and assembling them with high explosives using dangerous and difficult technology that has never been used in Iran would take many years after a diversion of three tons of low enriched uranium gas from fully safeguarded inventories. The resulting weapon, if intended for delivery by missile, would have a yield equivalent to that of a kiloton of conventional high explosives” [35].

The theatrics of the US and Israel in their condemnation of Iran’s nuclear power program have come at a heavy price for the Iranian people, who have been subjected to sanctions, assassinations, condemnation and sabotage. The United States has produced more than 70,000 nuclear weapons between 1951 and 1998 [36], while Israel possess a nuclear weapons stockpile ranging from 75 to 400 warheads [37]. The current legal international framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty guarantees the right to conduct peaceful nuclear energy programs; the deliberate provocations of the United States and Israel acting through intelligence groups such as Mossad and the CIA constitute the most genuine contempt toward international law, security and the value of a single human life. The mainstream media have worked to indoctrinate the population of the English-speaking world with an exploited and romanticized version of the Iranian theocracy’s ideological ambitions to wage “unprovoked terror,” while figures such as Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi publically renounce nuclear weapons [38].

The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or the People’s Mujahedin of Iran is an organization responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians since its inception. If the US and Israel launched a war against Iran, aggressor nations would likely recognize the touted “parliament-in-exile”, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, as the nation’s legitimate government. The US State Department’s own website (which features Mujahedeen-e-Khalq as Foreign Terrorist Organization #29) indicates that “It is unlawful for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide ‘material support or resources’ to a designated FTO” [39]. As the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq continually seek removal from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations [40], the group’s unpardonable offenses must not be lost to the annuls of history. While NCRI leader Maryam Rajavi would prefer to masquerade as a “pro-democracy” figure, the responsible parties of the international community must rightfully condemn the actions taken by her organization and its affiliates.

The Stuxnet virus was engineered with Iran’s nuclear program in mind, as 60% of global Stuxnet cases appear within Iran [41]. US intelligence sources indicate that American and Israeli officials are working to finalize a new Stuxnet worm, referred to as ‘Duqu’ [42]; Alexander Gostev, chief security expert at Russia’s Kaspersky Lab examined drivers used in Stuxnet and Duqu and concluded a single team most likely designed both worms, based on their interaction with the surrounding malware code [43]. Duqu malware similarly exploits Microsoft Windows systems using a zero-day vulnerability and is partially written in an advanced and previously unknown programming language, comprised of a variety of software components capable of executing information theft capabilities highly related to Iran’s nuclear program. Duqu has the capacity to steal digital certificates to help future viruses appear as secure software [44]. Duqu’s replication methods inside target networks remain unknown, however due to its modular structure, a special payload could theoretically be used in further cyber-physical attacks [45]. As the world begins to wage warfare in currency markets and programming code, the demand has never been greater for a new international legal framework to rightfully penalize covert provocateurs for manipulating economic structures and engaging in acts of sabotage.

by Nile Bowie

Notes
[1] Iran’s Nuclear Program (Nuclear Talks, 2012), The New York Times, April 9, 2012
[2] Six-party talks ‘encouraging’ after 15-month break, Russia Today, April 14, 2012
[3] Iran, world powers agree to further nuclear talks, Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2012
[4] Barak doubts sanctions will halt Iran’s nuke drive, The Jerusalem Post, April 7, 2012
[5] U.S. Agencies See No Move by Iran to Build a Bomb, The New York Times, February 24, 2012
[6] Stuxnet Loaded by Iran Double Agents, ISSSource, April 11, 2012
[7] Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Bureau of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, Janurary 27, 2012
[8] Moqtada Sadr Reiterates Iraqis’ Demand for Expulsion of MKO Terrorists, Fars News Agency, September 19, 2011
[9] About the National Council of Resistance of Iran, The National Council of Resistance of Iran, 2010
[10] Massacre at Camp Ashraf: Implications for U.S. Policy, Committee on Foreign Affairs, July 7, 2011
[11] Iran vows capture of officers’ killers, The Free Lance-Star, May 22, 1975
[12] Our Men in Iran? The New Yorker, April 6, 2012
[13] Former U.S. base opened to Iranian terrorist group, Foreign Policy, February 7, 2012
[14] Are the MEK’s U.S. friends its worst enemies? Foreign Policy, March 8, 2012
[15] Iran nuclear leaks ‘linked to Israel’, Asia Times, June 5, 2009
[16] Massacre at Camp Ashraf: Implications for U.S. Policy, Committee on Foreign Affairs, July 7, 2011
[17] Mujahideen-e Khalq: Former U.S. Officials Make Millions Advocating For Terrorist Organization, Huffington Post, August 8, 2011
[18] The Cult of Rajavi, The New York Times, July 13, 2003
[19] EU ministers drop Iran group from terror list, EUobserver, Janurary 26, 2009
[20] SPECIAL REPORT-Intel shows Iran nuclear threat not imminent, Reuters, March 23, 2012
[21] Stuxnet Loaded by Iran Double Agents, ISSSource, April 11, 2012
[22] Did Stuxnet Take Out 1,000 Centrifuges at the Natanz Enrichment Plant? Institute for Science and International Security, December 22, 2010
[23] Report: U.S. Officials Tie Controversial Iranian Exile Group To Scientist Assassinations, Center for American Progress Action Fund, February 9, 2012
[24] Triple Blast at Secret Iranian Military Installation, Virtual Jerusalem, October 15, 2010
[25] Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News, MSNBC, February 9, 2012
[26] U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site, The New York Times, Janurary 10, 2009
[27] Stuxnet worm is the ‘work of a national government agency’, The Guardian, September 24, 2010
[28] US and Israel were behind Stuxnet claims researcher, BBC, March 4, 2011
[29] Code clues point to Stuxnet maker, BBC, November 19, 2010
[30] Israeli Test on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay, The New York Times, Janurary 15, 2011
[31] Ibid
[32] Ibid
[33] Blix: US, Israel source most of IAEA allegations, PressTV, March 25, 2012
[34] Iran has a Nuclear Power, Not a Weapons Program, 21st Century & Technology, December 2, 2011
[35] Top US Nuclear Expert Tells Obama: There Is No Weapons Threat From Iran, LaRouche Pac, February 25, 2012
[36] 50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons, Brookings Institute, August 1998
[37] Nuclear Weapons – Israel, Federation of American Scientists, January 8, 2007
[38] Iran: We do not want nuclear weapons, The Washington Post, April 13, 2012
[39] Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Bureau of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, Janurary 27, 2012
[40] Iran exile group MEK seeks US terror de-listing, BBC, September 25, 2011
[41] UPDATE 2-Cyber attack appears to target Iran-tech firms, Reuters, September 24, 2010
[42] Stuxnet, Duqu Link Grows Stronger, ISSSource, January 3, 2012
[43] Ibid
[44] The Day of the Golden Jackal – The Next Tale in the Stuxnet Files: Duqu Updated, McAfee, October 18, 2011
[45] W32.Duqu – The precursor to the next Stuxnet (Version 1.4), Symantec, November 23, 2011

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Open letter to judge Michael Mukasey

Sound reasons verify that Mojahedin Khalq (MEK, MKO, Rajavi cult) does qualify as a terrorist group

Mr. Michael Mukasey, former Attorney General
Open letter to judge Michael Mukasey
Your speech on April 6 in Washington, regardless of any political or apolitical urge, contained points open to debate mainly because of your unsound reasoning as one who holds a sensitive professional position. But here is one that suffices to challenge your professional position. In a part of your speech we read:

The FBI went into Camp Ashraf to vet each of the people there, found in each case that none had any terrorist connections.

Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) has been designated a terrorist organization by the US State Department for 15 years. It is not important at all if by these words you mean to conclude MKO does not qualify as a terrorist group, but since you give no further explanation, we assume you mean it and deem it necessary to remark a few self-evident points.

Was the State Department’s designation of MKO, mainly for the group’s involvement in the assassination of six American citizens in 1970s, merely because of the assassins’ organizational or individual identity? None of the evidences in the State Department’s statement in which MKO is found responsible for tens of bombings and assassination of many civilian and official individuals is bond to the name of individual perpetrators. And was the decision to put MKO on the list the result of a merely political calculation or a collection of irrefutable evidences from MKO’s own sources? For sure you should know the answers better than the others.

It is said that White House interest in establishing political relations with Iranian government led to the inclusion of MKO on the terrorist list. If that is the case, does not it question the legitimacy of many American institutional and academic research and investigations all trusted for relying on leading and prominent experts and researchers? Then, will you ever trust any similar study and analysis of the kind for any other alleged group?

Believe it or not, it is odd and unconventional to place a group on the terror list simply for some individual members regardless of its political, ideological and struggle manifesto and infrastructures. According to your logic, then, none of the members of a terrorist group like al-Qaeda or MKO can be arrested and investigated for their membership. You cannot split members from an organization. It is under the influence and teachings of a violent organization that a recruit perpetrates violence and carries out the orders of assassinations, bombings and killings of civilians.

Furthermore, as a judge, you may have access to many filled terrorist charges against at least sixty Ashraf residents whose involvement in terrorist activities has been already verified. It is enough to refer to many published sources and military statements issued by MKO itself to be convinced that it has boldly and proudly accepted the responsibility for more than 12 thousand cases of assassination. Then, what will happen to your professional prestige if the informed people begin to suspect your legal authority when your words sound so naïve in dealing with such irrefutable and evident facts?

It is hard to believe that you, as a man of the law, may err in your judgment about terrorism in general unless we accept that you were reading from ready and pre-dictated passages handed to you by MKO only to act as its mouthpiece with no added personal judgment. And it is a proven fact since the group’s typically used language and unfounded allegations and claims are evident in your speech. For instance, you claim that “In 2003 when coalition forces invaded Iraq and encountered the residents of Ashraf, they willingly surrendered any means of self-defense they had.” Do you really believe in these words or is it a claim dictated by MKO?

There are hard facts to challenge the claim as does the RAND research done in 2009 when it refers to the event as a cease-fire rather than to surrender the arms. As the research remarks: “The April 15 “Local Ceasefire Agreement of Mutual Understanding and Co-Ordination” was simply a truce. Like any truce, it provided the “suspension of military operations to the extent agreed upon by the parties.”

A raised question that is really disappointing is that what are the reasons behind the support of people like you for a terrorist group with no political and social weight and support. The fact is that MKO is a terrorist cult for certain, whether it is on any terrorist list or not, and none of the struggles of people like you can change its notorious reputation and image. An important point to add, not only MKO assassinates people physically but also creeps up on the unenlightened to draw them either into its line or otherwise assassinate their character and prestige. Of course, you have not been an exception.

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The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Iraq sends more MKO members to Temporary Transit Location

A few hours ago, the fourth batch of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, a.k.a. MKO and PMOI) elements were transferred to Temporary Transit Location [Camp Liberty], IRIB News reported.

Iraq sends more MKO members to Temporary Transit Location

According to Habilian Foundation (families of Iranian terror victims), the group of 400 MKO members were transferred by 25 buses to Temporary Transit Location [Camp Liberty ]which lies northeast of Baghdad International Airport.

During the inspection of their equipment, Iraqi police found industrial materials that may be used in the manufacture of explosives.

To date, nearly 1200 members of the cult were transferred to TTL in three groups of 400 each, February 18, 8, and March 20.

Earlier in September 2011, the Iraqi government and the United Nations reached a deal, under which they agreed to relocate 3400 MKO members living in Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad, until their refugee status is determined.

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

USA registers MEK as FTO and then trains them in Nevada State!

According to Seymour Hersh, a dissident Iranian terrorist group (M.E.K.) had been listed in 1997 as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. The Pentagon, in 2005, trained USA registers MEK as FTO and then trains them in Nevada State!members of the group in Nevada. These dissident Iranian terrorist were then returned to Iran and “many have engaged in covert activities”.

These Iranian terrorists (M.E.K.) remain on that list today.

The Iranian operatives were trained in communications, cryptography, weaponry, and small-unit tactics over a six-month period, a retired four-star general familiar with the details told Hersh.

The general said the training was done by Joint Special Operations Command(JSOC) who claim they were neither aware of nor involved in the training of M.E.K. members.

U.S. officials have denied any role in the killings of five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007. However, they have said that the M.E.K. assassins, alleged to have been involved, were trained and financed by Mossad, the Israeli secret service.

A former Iranian M.E.K. official, told Seymour Hersh other M.E.K. defectors trained in Nevada told him their training included communications intercepts.

The U.S. provided M.E.K. operatives with the know-how to intercept telephone calls and text messages inside Iran and the M.E.K. shared the information collected with U.S. officials.

“Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants,” Hersh reported.

M.E.K. stands for Mujahideen-e-Khalq. It began as a student Marxist-Islamist group in the 1970s that was “linked to the assassination of six American citizens,” Hersh noted.

Presently, they are some Jewish USA congressmen, along with a few congressional zio-stooges who are howling for the de-listing of the M.E.K from the USA registry of foreign terrorist organizations. It’s ironic that those who assist a terrorist organization that is on the USA list of such groups are subject to criminal charges.

Some analysts have suggested that delisting such an organization and bringing them to America could be fatal. As this M.E.K terrorist group who were financed by the Mosaad (Israeli Intelligence Agency), could stage a false flag terror attack on American soil which would be blamed on Iran.

Hence, the Zio-controlled White House would be justified in attacking Iran. And, the diabolical criminal Zionist entity (Israel) would have achieved its objective __tricking America into attacking Iran on their behalf.

by ron abbass , ronabbass.wordpress.com

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization

An Iranian mystery: Just who are the MEK?

How do you get a group described by the US government as a cult and an officially designated foreign terrorist organisation to be viewed by many congressmen and parliamentarians as champions of human rights and secular democracy?

It would challenge even the most talented PR executive. 

The starkly differing perceptions of the MEK or People’s Mujahideen of Iran could be a case study in the power of image management – of what can be achieved not with guns but by the way information is disseminated. 

The organisation has a history of ideological and tactical flexibility. 

Since the 1970s, its rhetoric has changed from Islamist to secular; from socialist to capitalist; from pro-Iranian-revolution to anti-Iranian-revolution; from pro-Saddam to pro-American; from violent to peaceful.

Former members consistently describe participating in regular public confessions of their sexual fantasies”

And there is another dichotomy – it has admiring supporters and ardent critics. 

Take, for example, the US military officers who had to deal with the MEK after they invaded Iraq in 2003.


Not only was the MEK heavily armed and designated as terrorist by the US government, it also had some very striking internal social policies.

For example, it required its members in Iraq to divorce. Why? Because love was distracting them from their struggle against the regime in Iran.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former UN ambassador John Bolton and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge have spoken in favour of the MEK

Gen James Jones, President Obama’s first National Security Adviser, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani have called for the MEK to be removed from the list of terrorist organisations

Howard Dean, a former Democratic presidential hopeful, has called on the US government to recognise Maryam Rajavi as the legitimate president of Iran.

And the trouble is that people love their children too. 

So the MEK leadership asked its members to send their children away to foster families in Europe. Europe would be safer, the group explained.

Some parents have not seen their children for 20 years and more.

And just to add to the mix, former members consistently describe participating in regular public confessions of their sexual fantasies. 

You might think that would set alarm bells ringing – and for some US officers it did. 

One colonel I spoke to, who had daily contact with the MEK leadership for six months in 2004, said that the organisation was a cult, and that some of the members who wanted to get out had to run away. 

And yet another officer, who was there at precisely the same time and is now a retired general, has become an active lobbyist on the MEK’s behalf.

With his open smile and earnest friendly manner, he is a good advocate. "Cult? How about admirably focused group?" he says. "And I never heard of anyone being held against their will."

We later emailed him about a former member who claimed to have told the general to his face that people were held against their will. "He’s lying," the general replied.

You just have to decide which side to believe.

Ex-MEK member Eduard Termado is now living in Germany.
His face is scarred to the point of being misshapen. His complexion is grey, his skin blotched and waxy, and his forehead constantly covered in dribbling beads of sweat – but then he spent nine years as a prisoner of war in Iraq. 

He joined the MEK hoping to help Iranian democracy and did not like what he saw. 

He says that after three years he asked to leave, but was told he couldn’t. He stayed for 12 years. 

He now says joining the MEK was the biggest mistake of his life and he has expressed that feeling in an unusual way.

  • Founded in 1965, began armed struggle against the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1971
  • Massoud Rajavi has been leader since 1972 – but has not been seen in public since 2003
  • His wife, Maryam Rajavi, is the public face of the MEK in her role as president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
  • 3,400 members now based at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, but the Iraqi government wants them to leave
  • The MEK killed six US armed officers and civilian contractors in Iran in the 1970s
  • The group remains on the US terrorist list but has been removed from the EU list


He has married and produced three children. "My family is my protest against the MEK," he says. 

There are many other stories. 

Children who never forgave their parents for abandoning them. Children who did forgive and are now joyously reunited. Divorcees who have got out of the organisation saying they still love their former spouses who are still in. 

In over 25 years of reporting, I have been lied to often enough but, as successive former MEK members told what they had been through, their tears seemed real enough to me. 

And yet a significant number of politicians in the US and UK would say I was tricked because the former MEK members who spread these kind of stories are, in fact, Iranian agents. 

Again, who to believe? 

In the US in particular, an impressive array of public figures have spoken in defence of the MEK. 

There are more than 30 big names – people like Rudy Giuliani former mayor of New York, Howard Dean at one time the democratic presidential hopeful, a retired governor, a former head of the FBI. 

Many get paid. Of those who have declared their earnings, the going rate for a pro-MEK speech seems to be $20,000 (£12,500) for 10 minutes. But then many other prominent MEK supporters act without payment. 

Why do people take such strong positions on the MEK? 

After a month talking to people on both sides of the argument, I am left thinking this. Some supporters are paid, others see the MEK through the prism of Iran – they will just support anything that offers hope of change there. Many are well motivated but some are naive. 

And the former members? 

Some are embittered, others just seem broken. 

Which is when it occurred to me – the perception people have of the MEK may say more about them than about the organisation itself. 

It is so difficult to pin down you can see your own reflection in it. 

By Owen Bennett Jones

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Former members of the MEK

5 MKO members turn themselves in to Iraqi authorities

Five members of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization, who were recently based in a transit camp that is located near Baghdad International Airport, escaped from the camp on Friday and turned themselves in to Iraqi security forces, the Habilian Association website reported.

According to the report, 60 MKO members managed to escape from their camp in Iraq in 2009.

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Terrorism; US rhetoric and politics

Former U.S. Officials Investigated for Receiving Payments to Promote a Designated Terror Group

Jeremiah Goulka, former RAND expert on the Mujahedin-e Khalq, says war hawks from Bush admin. and some Democrats were paid by the group to advance its interests in DC and are being investigated by US Treasury

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Washington.

Well, what do the following list of former government officials have in common? People like former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, former Homeland Security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend, former attorney general Michael Mukasey, former UN ambassador John Bolton, as well as former Republican mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, former Democratic governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, and former governor of Vermont Howard Dean, ex-FBI director Louis Freeh, and retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hugh Shelton? What are all these people have in common? Well, they’re all being investigated by the Treasury Department for material aid, receiving money from a terrorist organization, at least an organization that’s on the State Department’s foreign terrorist organization list. What’s the organization? Well, the MEK.

Now joining us to talk about what the MEK is and what this is all about is Jeremiah Goulka. Jeremiah is an independent public policy scholar and writer. From 2007 to 2010 he was an analyst at the RAND Corporation, where he conducted research for the U.S. military and was a lead author of The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum. Before that, he worked as a lawyer in the Justice Department under the Bush administration. And let me add he has now become a critic of much of the policy he used to work for. Thanks for joining us, Jeremiah. 

JEREMIAH GOULKA, PUBLIC POLICY SCHOLAR: Thanks for having me. 

JAY: So give us a quick, first of all, rundown just what the MEK is, for those who haven’t followed the story, and then we’ll get into what the heck are all these officials doing taking their money.

GOULKA: Sure. The MEK is an Iranian dissident group. It was founded in 1965 by several graduate students at the University of Tehran. Their goal was to fight against the regime of the Shah, which they saw, accurately, as a puppet of the U.S. government. Soon the Shah’s regime found out about them, suppressed them pretty brutally. And one leader survived prison, whose name is Massoud Rajavi. In the Iranian Revolution there were lots of different dissident groups, not just Ayatollah Khomeini’s group. 

And as the leader of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, Rajavi tried to participate in the new government. He

wanted to run for president. Several members of the MEK wanted to run for the Majlis, which is the Iranian parliament, but Ayatollah Khomeini’s government pushed the MEK out of the running. And in response to that, the MEK turned against the new government, and it did so violently. The result was that the new government brutally suppressed the MEK, its leaders went into exile in France, and its members went underground in Iran. So this is 1981.

Fast forward to 1986, and you’re in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war. The MEK’s leadership makes a deal with Saddam Hussein, the starter of the Iran-Iraq War, which was an absolutely catastrophe for Iran. The deal was that Saddam would provide weapons, some territory within Iraq, in exchange for the services of the MEK. The services that they would render would be providing some soldiers, particularly providing some intelligence and interrogation of Iranian POWs. In exchange for this, what the MEK was going to get in the bargain was the power of Saddam’s military, in their hope to install themselves as the new government of Iran.

Well, this failed. Historically it was their biggest mistake, because the Iranian people saw the MEK essentially as traitors by signing up with the instigator of that horrible war. The MEK, you know, voluntarily crossed the border into Iran and fought against Iranian soldiers. In fact, they launched an invasion after the ceasefire in that war. So the Iranians basically have no—there’s no support for the MEK, not much support. The MEK claims that there’s a lot, but it’s not true. The government still hates the MEK, but that’s a side matter.

JAY: And why were they put on the terrorist list?

GOULKA: So in 1997, after the creation of the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, MEK was one of the first couple to be put on there. One—well, the factual predicate for them being on there is that they assassinated several Americans in Tehran back during the Shah’s era, specifically three military officers and three civilians who were military contractors. They also did various attacks against American interests and assassination attempts during the time. And the MEK have been violent until just a few years ago, doing lots of attacks against Iranian targets, government targets, mostly in Iran but occasionally in Europe, even in the U.S., with some bystanders as casualties. The MEK also make a point of saying that the MEK was added to the FTO list as a political reason, because the Clinton administration was trying to make nice with the government, at the time, in Iran, which was perceived as being more moderate. And, well, of course, it’s a political list and political actions by governments, so I think that there’s probably some truth to that, but that doesn’t make it not true that the [crosstalk]

JAY: And why did they stay on this list during the whole Bush administration years, when we know that Bush—the Bush administration was actually putting a lot of money into trying to have this sort of terrorist fund subversive types of activity in the border regions of Iran? I mean, there’s lots of stories that the CIA and others were promoting this kind of stuff, so why not take them off the list? 

GOULKA: Well, there’s a bit of having your cake and eating it too. The government could—the Bush administration was able to keep—by keeping the group on the list, they have more of a negotiating point with the group. You know, it’s a carrot to offer the group if they’ll kind of play nicely. That’s part of it. 

But it also was not like there was a monolithic point of view in the Bush administration about the MEK. When I was at the RAND Corporation and did my interviews for the report that you mentioned in the introduction, I spoke to dozens of U.S. officials, and the points of view varied. The people who were of the strongest on to Tehran type attitude, who wanted to invade Iran, they saw the MEK as a potentially useful ally, in the sense of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And there were several people who were sort of fooled by the MEK’s excellent press relations that it’s been doing since leaving Iran in 1981, where they have this thing called the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is the political arm, which has been selling themselves as a liberal, democratic, human rights respecting organization that could go in and be the new—either be the new government or help create a new democracy in Iran. It’s very much like how Ahmed Chalabi sold himself in the Iraqi National Congress. 

JAY: I mean, what evidence is [there] that they’re not liberal, democratic, and so on and wouldn’t play this role?

GOULKA: Well, what we’ve said in the report and has been said by others, such as Human Rights Watch, is that the group actually is a cult. So this is another part of the history. Starting in 1985, Massoud Rajavi, the leader, married Maryam Rajavi, who was the wife of one of his colleagues in the MEK, and the two of them turned the group into something of a cult of personality. This became—started in earnest when they were in the desert in 1986, in the desert of Iraq, fairly isolated, and they had a hard time recruiting any new recruits after their participation with Saddam in the Iran-Iraq War because they had lost their support in Iran.

So the new members who were joining after that time, at least some of them cannot be believed to have been true volunteers. But from a lot of former members I spoke to, it appears that lots of them were actually duped into ending up at MEK camps—promises of jobs, wives, and help of getting asylum or residency rights in other European countries. So you have lots of people who have now been trapped in these Iraqi camps, MEK camps in Iraq, and have been enduring various forms of cult behavior, such as sexual control, thought control, brainwashing, limited access to other media, limited food, limited sleep, make-work projects.

JAY: And there’s supposed to be celibacy and various sorts of things, unless you’re the leading couple, I guess. 

GOULKA: Exactly. That’s one of the big parts of it is the mandatory divorce and celibacy,— 

JAY: Of course, no one—. 

GOULKA: —as well as gender segregation. 

JAY: Now, what evidence is there that they have been, over the years, conducting terrorist actions against Iranians, Iranian officials? Is there evidence of assassinations or such? 

GOULKA: Well, they took credit for it for years. The difference happened after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, that—well, actually, they say that as of 2001 they stopped committing violent attacks, that they’ve decided to basically change course and pursue what they were doing with more of a kind of a democratic approach. Starting in 2003, that became more in earnest, as they were now being—actually taking—. Well, it’s a confusing thing to describe, and I explained it in the RAND Corporation report, that when we invaded Iraq in 2003, the perception of the U.S. government was that the MEK was going to participate with Saddam as, quote,”a wholly owned subsidiary”, end quote, of the Saddam army, when there was a quick ceasefire soon thereafter and the U.S. consolidated the MEK at one of its several camps near the Iranian border. And since then there has been a very focused effort by the MEK to earn U.S. pleasure, approbation. And of course this makes sense, because in 2003 you had the administration saying on to Tehran. And so the MEK quickly realized that Saddam failed to put them into power into Iran—maybe the U.S. could. 

JAY: So, again, just to be—are there specific examples of how this organization qualifies to be on the terrorist list? 

GOULKA: So they’re putting a big push now to get off of the list. And, of course, getting off of the list matters, because that frees up their ability to raise money, and they would certainly use it to make it seem like the U.S. actually supports them. But what they’re using—one of the ways that they say they should not be on the group—on the list is that they say that those assassinations back in the ’70s were done by a splinter group or a different MEK, and that they’re not, you know, responsible for those, and therefore they don’t fall under the requirements of the act. And since Iran has not been an ally of the U.S. in many, many years, therefore attacks done against Iranians don’t count as being against the interests of the United States or its allies. 

JAY: And that—I suppose that is the true definition of how United States looks at terrorism: if it’s against an ally, it’s terrorism; if it’s against an enemy, it’s not terrorism. So within the lines of Washington rhetoric and politics they may not be so wrong. 

GOULKA: Exactly. And, of course, that raises the issue now that since their goal is—. Their immediate goal is to get off the FTO list, but their big goal is to get into power in Iran, and they want to use the United States’s military to get that. So as they’ve been promoting the fears of a nuclear Iran—the MEK in 2005 were the ones to have a press conference announcing to the public the existence of the Natanz nuclear facility. You know, as a side note, then that information came to them, it appears, from the Israeli government, which wanted also to have this be put into the public arena, and the U.S. already knew. But the MEK’s been waving the flag of fear about Iran since then. 

And why do they want this fear promoted? It’s to get the U.S. to invade Iran to put them in power. And I can’t think of anything that would be more against the interests of American national security than for us to actually have an actual invasion of Iran. Considering the tragedy of the Iraq War, to expect anything else other than a protracted occupation and reconstruction would be foolish. 

JAY: The MEK is still on the State Department’s foreign terrorist organization list. And now you’ve got all these government officials taking money and essentially—what is it?—they’re getting paid for speaking engagements and they’re lobbying to get the MEK off the list. But that in theory is illegal, is it not? 

GOULKA: In theory. So the material support law created in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 is something that’s been viewed from the start as having a very low threshold of activity to count as being material support, and that’s a, you know, federal crime. And this law has been sort of broadly interpreted by the Supreme Court since then, and so you’ve seen a number of people who have gone to prison for fairly minor things. 

So here you have these prominent former officials taking money to speak on behalf of the MEK at events organized by the MEK. And are they committing a crime? Well, what’s particularly interesting here is: on one end you have the notion of equal enforcement of a law. If you’re going to enforce it against Muslims in America, why would you not enforce it against prominent public officials? And, you know, we can wonder then about the impunity that prominent powerful officials can enjoy. 

On the flipside, there is a First Amendment question here that, aside from their taking money and doing this in concert with a designated foreign terrorist organization, they are—these officials are making their own political statements, and maybe those should be protected by the First Amendment. 

So I think this does raise questions about how well tailored that statute actually is. 

JAY: But that’s quite a different thing, to take money and have your say, taking money from—or taking money from a terrorist organization or a foreign government. There was just a Pakistani fellow who I think just got sentenced to two years ’cause he was taking ISI Pakistani money to try to lobby in the United States and—but hadn’t declared himself, you know, an agent of a foreign government and such. I mean, similar issues. Once you take money, you’re not in the same category as just free speech, no? 

GOULKA: That’s true. But, of course, money and speech have been heavily linked in the last few years. 

JAY: Yeah. So what—just to final—to sum up or to end with, what do you make of the Treasury Department actually going after these guys, including two prominent Democrats? This doesn’t happen without the White House signing off, one would think, and it’s very hard to believe such serious high-level people get investigated and the White House doesn’t get consulted. What would be their interest in pushing this? 

GOULKA: Well, I think you’re right that no bureaucrat is going to go step on the toes of prominent officials like this without serious approval from above. I mean, I can attest to that from when I used to work at the Justice Department. I think that—just speculating, I think this is probably linked to what Obama said in his AIPAC speech, that there’s a lot of loose talk of war, and I see this as being a statement to these officials that they need to watch their step. They’ve responded by giving public speeches since, so they are saying sort of bring it on, we’re going to keep doing this. But it—you know, we’ll see what actually happens. 

JAY: They’ve responded by making public speeches that they got paid for? Or just public speeches? 

GOULKA: I don’t actually know, but they were at at least one MEK-organized event where these folks have been paid to speak previously. 

JAY: The MEK is able to organize events in the United States even though it’s on that list. How is that? 

GOULKA: Oh, they—everything is done through organizations—they claim that they’re not connected to the MEK, that they just happen to have similar viewpoints, they happen to support the MEK. They’re often involved with people who actually used to be members of the MEK or the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the MEK’s political arm, until those were listed on the FTO list, and then they promptly cut their ties and say that they’re independent or have their own new, you know, little think tanks to promote the interests of the MEK. And there is also a group called the Iran Policy Center that was founded by several ex-Reagan officials that has been promoting the interests of the MEK for the last while, and, you know, they have to pay close attention to not running afoul of the law. How exactly that’s happening, how we’re doing that, I think the Treasury Department’s checking that out. 

JAY: And I guess the next step—if this gets serious, at some point the Justice Department steps in. If there’s going to be any charges, does it come from the Justice Department? Or can the Treasury Department actually lay charges? 

GOULKA: Well, as I understand it, the Treasury Department can take action such as freezing accounts. But if there’s going to be actual criminal charges, that’s in the Justice Department’s field. 

JAY: And then that’s when we’ll find out how serious they’re really pushing this. 

GOULKA: That would be a big step. 

JAY: Thanks very much for joining us, Jeremiah. 

GOULKA: Thanks so much for having me. 

JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

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