A senior American analyst underlined the Zionist regime’s all-out support for the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, and said the Israeli lobby is an octopus with many tentacles, of which MKO is merely one.

Justin Raimondo made the comments in an article in the Antiwar website, where he reminds MKO’s terrorist nature, and says that the group has even assassinated many US diplomats and agents throughout the region before the Iranian revolution.

After losing out in the post-revolutionary struggle for power in Tehran, the group fled to Iraq, where they were succored for years by Saddam Hussein, who allowed them to set up military camps from which they conducted terrorist raids on Iran. MKO troops fought alongside the Iraqis in their war with Iran, and were used to ruthlessly suppress the Shiites uprising in Southern Iraq. After the US invasion, they were confined to their camp, where they remained a military "asset" in Washington’s ongoing campaign to destabilize Iran.

A 2004 FBI report on the group concludes, "The MKO practices daily "cult-like" activity to include daily confessions in front of their peers…dissolution of marriages, and removal of children from parents… fighters are separated from their children who are sent to Europe and brought up by the MKO Support Network. Investigation has learned that these children are then further indoctrinated into the organization and are often used for various social benefit fraud such as was revealed during joint FBI/Cologne Police Department investigation in Germany."

Shipped off to the welfare states of Europe, the unfortunate children of these fanatics are used as cogs in the MKO money machine, producing a steady flow of welfare checks flowing into the group’s coffers.

As the FBI reported, "In one case one of the children was chained to a bed and only after her escape and report to local police was the fraud scheme discovered. Interviews of some of these MKO children found children fully indoctrinated into a "cult-like" organization with no regard to the welfare of the child. These children are then returned to the NLA to be used as fighters upon coming of age. Interviews also revealed that some of these children were told that their parents would be harmed if the children did not cooperate with the MKO. Open source reporting from defecting MKO members has revealed that MKO fighters are often told the same story about their children should they take issue with MKO leadership and desire to leave the organization."

MKO claims it has foresworn terrorism, but a 2004 FBI report states that a "Los Angeles investigation has determined that the MKO is currently actively involved in planning and executing acts of terrorism." US diplomatic and intelligence officials maintain the MKO "trained females at Camp Ashraf in Iraq to perform suicide attacks in Karbala."

For these reasons, and more, the MKO and its numerous front organizations have remained on the US list of terrorist organizations, whose activities are proscribed in the United States. US presidential candidate Romney aide Reiss is part of a campaign to get MKO delisted – an effort that is so lavishly funded one wonders where all the money is coming from. There’s no doubt where it’s going to, however: a long list of leading "experts" and prominent politicians in both parties and on both sides of the political spectrum have pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in "speaking fees" handed out by an organization apparently flush with cash.

A 2002 FBI report notes what the agency found when it raided the Falls Church, Virginia headquarters of the group, "The indoor swimming pool had been drained and a floor placed over the drained pool. The area above the pool was divided into offices. In each of these offices, a hatch in the floor led into the drained swimming pool. This area was used for storage of materials…"

Among the materials discovered were "signed, blank checks," and the report states, "Confidential sources have reported to the FBI and that the NCRI (National Council of Resistance, another name for MKO) and the PMOI (People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, another name for MKO) use the signed, blank checks to pay their expenses and fund their activities."

From its Paris headquarters, where technical legal maneuvers have allowed the MKO to operate openly, and its base at Camp Ashraf, in Iraq, where the "military wing," called the "National Liberation Army," is based, the cult’s very well-funded tentacles reach into the very halls of Congress, where a bipartisan caucus loudly calls for delisting the group. Those signed blank checks sure come in handy.

As one US diplomat told the Christian Science Monitor, "Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes. They will send a private jet, you get $25,000 more when you are done, and they will send a team to brief you on what to say."

The Monitor reports, "The contracts can range up to $100,000 and include several appearances…. The speaking events have created some extraordinary spectacles, including that of US heavyweights sharing the stage with the MKO’s self-declared president-elect Maryam Rajavi. At a mid-June MKO rally in Paris, for example, Rajavi was flanked by five rows of former top US and European officials."

Dozens of prominent figures have been paid huge sums to shill for these former hostage-taking anti-American terrorists, including:

• Michael Mukasey
• Ed Rendell
• Andrew Card (another Romney adviser)
• Gen. James Conway
• Tom Ridge
• Gen. Hugh Shelton
• James Woolsey
• Howard Dean
• Rudy Giuliani
• Porter Goss
• Lee Hamilton
• Michael Hayden
• Bill Richardson
• Louis Freeh
• Gen. Peter Pace
• Gen. Wesley Clark
• Gen. Anthony Zinni

And, of course, John Bolton. Even P.J. Crowley, who opposed the delisting campaign while at State – and who claims his speaking fee didn’t influence his speech – was lured by the smell of cold hard cash.

Where is this largesse coming from – and why is it being allowed to influence the American political process if it comes from overseas?

The major coup claimed by the MKO is the revelation of a previously unknown nuclear facility in Iran but it is widely known that this information was passed on to them by Israel’s intelligence agency (the facility was, of course, later reported to the UN by Iran): the Mossad and the MKO have a longstanding history of cooperation. The Iranians charge the mysterious "terrorist" plot targeting the Saudi ambassador in Washington was actually set up by the Rajavi cultists, and not by Tehran.

The Israel lobby is an octopus with many tentacles, of which MKO is merely one: they are all attached to the same body, however, and that is the government of Israel, and its intelligence services. If, in some alternative universe where Congress isn’t "Israeli-occupied territory" American lawmakers followed the money, I have no doubt the cash flow could be traced back to its source.