Mark Dankof: "The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq: The Intersection of the CIA-Mossad-Saudi Nexus Against Iran"

The Habilian Association of Iran talks to American conservative and Taft-Buchanan Republican Mark Dankof about Israel, American foreign policy in the Middle East and Asia, and the role of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK/MKO/PMOI) in both. A past Republican Party District Chairman in Seattle, Washington; U. S. Senate candidate in Delaware in 2000 for Howard Phillips’s Constitution Party; and radio voice in recent years with Lebanese-American Mark Glenn of The Ugly Truth, Dankof also serves as a Lutheran clergyman in San Antonio, Texas and theological graduate student. His last academic degree’s thesis will deal with the subject of Christian Zionism and the latter’s role in shaping a pro-Israel American foreign policy. Mr. Dankof’s recent appearances on Iran’s Press TV are augmented by his opinion-editorials, which include, “The Red Ladies: Sara Flounders and Debra Sweet,” “Mark Dankof’s Final Word on Michael Collins Piper’s ‘Final Judgment’ on Israel and the Assassination of JFK,” “The Bank Markazi Blacklist Proposal: Straight out of the McCollum Memorandum and the FDR Playbook for War,” “2012 Options for The Real Right: But is it Too Late? ,” and “Rapture Rick Perry of Texas: Israel’s Stealth GOP Presidential Candidate? “

Habilian Association: Tell us about Intelligence collaboration between the MKO and the Israeli Mossad over Iran’s nuclear case.

Mark Dankof: Information from non-classified sources is circumstantial but overwhelmingly strong. Dr. Paul Sheldon Foote of Cal-State Fullerton, probably the leading authoritative source in the United States on the MEK, and its presently functional relationship with the Israeli Mossad and elements in the American intelligence community, has publicly stated via his own sources that the MEK is the leading tool of Israeli intelligence and American Neo-Conservatives in the latter’s espionage agencies in launching acts of destablization and violence directed at Iran’s current government and conducted illegally within Iranian borders. Foote identifies the PJAK, the offshoot of the Kurdish separatist PKK, and the Jundallah, as the other elements in this dangerous game. The MEK’s fingerprints in Tehran are joined by what seems to be a cooperative relationship with PJAK directed against the Iranian government in efforts launched from northeast Iraq and the Qandil Mountains and directed against Iranian Azerbaijan. And suspicious terror activities in Khuzestan and Diyala Provinces in recent years seem to be augmented by bomb blasts and terror killings in Balochistan Province in Iran where it appears that the MEK’s partner-in-crime is the Jundallah based in Pakistan. But again, the Hidden Hand is comprised of the obvious, bigger ultimate players and assets. The increase in PKK attacks on Turkey since May 2009 coincides exactly with the corresponding time frames of the Turkish government’s public beefs with Israel over the Mavi Marmara shoot-up and other formal Erdogan government protests against the actions of the Netanyahu regime in Gaza and elsewhere. What does this tell any of us? But for the Israeli Mossad, the American CIA, the British MI6, and their respective Commanders-in-Chief, the operative concept is “plausible deniability.”

Mainstream American governmental and media sources confirm publicly that the MEK is the source of the information being used by pro-Israeli American Neo-Conservatives to argue for a military attack on Iran to preemptively strike the latter’s alleged weaponized nuclear program and its supposed desire to use it against Israel. It is noteworthy that this “information” contradicts the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report prepared by the 16 intelligence agencies of the American national security establishment regarding Iran and its nuclear program. Worse yet, there have been repeated allegations in the international press corroborated by Israel’s critics in the American intelligence community that these MEK-generated reports and the lies in them being repeated incessantly by every War Party news agency from CNN to Fox News, World Net Daily, The Weekly Standard, NewsMax, and National Review, are in fact nothing more than the Israeli government’s brokering of deliberate agitation-propaganda to the voluminously gullible and ignorant consumers of these well-packaged charades which employ the MEK as the broker. I believe Philip Giraldi of the Council for the National Interest and Buchanan’s The American Conservative, and former CIA station chief in a couple of different places over the years, is among those making this charge. In essence, it would appear to be the case beyond a shadow of a doubt that the MEK is playing the same Judas Goat role for the American and Israeli intelligence establishments that the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and Ahmad Chalabi did with their brokered nonsense before the last American invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein possessed “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” This is a critical angle to this present story involving the MEK. Why should the people of the United States and honest policy makers in Washington (all 10 of them?) now believe sources on Iran in 2011 with every motive for lying and a past record of doing so, especially in the last ten years?

After the last assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran, Newsweek magazine all but confirmed the role of the Mossad and the MEK in that murder (and the previous episodes as well). The coverage was preposterously positive regarding these killings. To put into perspective just how this ruthless game is played, your readers may find it interesting that when the late Sidney Harman owned Newsweek, his wife was California Democratic Congressman Jane Harman, a member of the House Intelligence Committee. According to Pat Buchanan, Mrs. Harman was overheard on an American National Security Agency (NSA) wiretap assuring some Israelis at the other end of the conversation that she would use her considerable and covert influence on Capitol Hill to have American prosecutors drop their espionage case against Weissman and Rosen of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for illegally obtaining classified National Security Council (NSC) documents on Iran from one Larry Franklin, so-called NSC expert on Iran. This is just one example of how American financial, political, and media power always seems to intersect when it comes to the subject of Israel. And since Israel and the MEK are now full business partners in directing their animus at Iran, the MEK will draw an increasingly free pass in the American media and government, as long as they are doing the Mossad and Israeli Lobby’s bidding.

All of this of course, increases the moral bankruptcy of this policy mix exponentially, when considered in conjunction with the clearly established fact that Israel is the weaponized nuclear monolith of the Middle East; has never and presumably will never submit to any form of international inspection of its nuclear program, not to mention its known stockpile of every biological and chemical warfare agent known to humanity; while the Zionist State’s policies in Occupied Territories and Gaza, as evidenced by its military assault on the civilian Mavi Marmara humanitarian flotilla in international waters in May of 2009, and the earlier Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, are the acts of an increasingly desperate entity led by a criminal cabal of sociopaths. If the United States is worrying about nuclear weapons in the hands of the wrong people, it should start with taking a hard look at our leading “ally” in the region. But the money trail will keep that from ever happening. . . .

Habilian Association: What do you know about further Israeli support for Mujahedin-e Khalq, I mean financially, logistically…?

Mark Dankof: One presumes that the Israeli and American money trails going to and from the MEK are closely guarded black-operational intelligence secrets not necessarily even known in details and numbers by the denizens of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Or shall we say, at least not known to anyone on those Committees of Alleged Oversight not in the back political and financial pocket of the Israeli Lobby. That in and of itself, raises a related issue—the amount of PAC money going into American elections from approximately 30 PACS known to have direct or disguised links to the Israeli monolith in this country, as chronicled by Janet McMahon and Hugh Galford of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA).
One recent news article is most suggestive, however. That is Elizabeth Rubin’s New York Times op-ed of August 13th, “An Iranian Cult and its American Friends.”

This article, in the most Corporate Establishment, pro-Zionist newspaper in America (along with The Washington Post), underscores that the MEK is exactly what the Habilian Association, Mark Dankof, Ed Blanche of The Middle East desk in Beirut, and the RAND Corporation say it is: a totalitarian cult which not only possesses a warped ”Islamic-Marxist” ideology that is inherently contradictory, but is led by Miryam and Masoud Rajavi in a fashion reminiscent of that which governed the Reverend Jim Jones’ leadership of his demonic religious cult at Jonestown a generation ago in Guyana. Even more significantly, the Elizabeth Rubin expose provides a laundry list of people in the American military, intelligence, and political establishments who are fraudulently working to have the MEK removed from the State Department terrorist organization list and subsequently legitimized. This would be bad enough, but they are doing it for money—plenty of it, to the tune of $25,000 to $50,000 a speaking engagement on the MEK’s behalf. (see the excellent RAND Corporation report on the MEK at RAND_MG871 MEK PAPER )

Most critically, Rubin’s essay is potent for what it doesn’t say, and is patently obvious to anyone familiar with the subject: These paid American denizens of pro-MEK activities and plans have Israel’s fingerprints all over them. The names in her article overlap with the Israeli oriented think tanks Inside the Beltway, and the Israeli money on Capitol Hill documented by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA). One does not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what is going on here. This is ultimately the Israeli Lobby and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman at work for apocalyptically nefarious purposes.

The Elizabeth Rubin New York Times expose also mentions the “millions” at the disposal of the MEK for its current public relations campaign in the United States, using these bought-and-paid for players in the American establishment. It begs the question: Where do Miryam and Masoud Rajivi and the MEK get this kind of money? On what basis does Elizabeth Rubin cite the ambiguous but potent term “millions” to describe their financial power? How many “millions” are we talking about specifically? And what rag-tag “Islamic-Marxist” cult presently camped out in Paris and Camp Ashraf can have “millions” to dispense on political hired guns in America without major outside sources of funding? And who are these outside sources of this kind of cash? Oil and banking come to mind as possible places to look. Beyond that, one doesn’t have to look too much further to find Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Israel Lobby in the United States, and international oil consortiums, as the chief targets of suspicions as to who and what really constitutes the force behind the attempted renovation of the MEK’s image and fortunes in the West.

Rubin’s New York Times piece of August 13th is also noteworthy for what it doesn’t mention or explain: The MEK’s most well-heeled and connected American power broker is the Iran Policy Committee of Dr. Raymond Tanter of Georgetown University, his colleague Clair Lopez of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the assortment of Israeli oriented think tanks and individuals who shadow the Iran Policy Committee, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) strongly linked to Dr. Tanter. This picture is abundantly clear, despite the reticence of The New York Times, at least to this point, to cover the real players and angles in the story.

Perhaps the most spicy and inflammable aspect of the story of Dr. Raymond Tanter, Clair Lopez, and the Iran Policy Committee involves the explosive divorce of Raymond Tanter from his ex-wife, Constance Tanter. Mrs. Tanter alleges a most incredible tale of international intrigue that resulted in the targeted demise of her marriage, career, and personal life, up to and including the specific charge that at the direction of her ex-husband, the MEK and Clair Lopez forcibly held Constance Tanter captive; transported her against her will to Paris, France; and subjected the Georgetown University professor’s wife to a coercive interrogation in the French capital designed to extort a signed capitulation to a divorce settlement characterized by Mrs. Tanter as literal robbery at gunpoint. If Constance Tanter is telling the truth, Madam Rajavi was personally present for her interrogation and forced capitulation to a dictated divorce decree introduced into the American court system after the fact.

Constance Tanter: Targeted by Raymond Tanter, Israeli Intelligence, and the MEK/MKO/PMOI in divorce settlement proceedings?

Are the charges true? Outsiders who have heard the allegations are at one level incredulous, yet uncommitted because of the cultic history of the Rajavis chronicled by Ed Blanche of The Middle East and other internationally credible sources.

One thing is crystal clear: Mrs. Tanter is taking her allegations to The New York Times and other outlets who have already covered the MEK’s activities up to this point. Her allegations are buttressed by a thick file of papers, diary notes, photostatically reproduced copies of Iran Policy Committee documents, and a complete list of the Iran Policy Committee’s e-mail contacts by name and accompanying e-mail addresses. That list represents a virtual Who’s Who of the American Neo-Conservative, pro-Zionist Right; major figures in the Israeli government and intelligence community; MEK assets around the globe; and major players in a number of world governments and media outlets who seem to have more than a passing involvement with what Elizabeth Rubin terms, “An Iranian Cult.” This story continues to unfold.

Habilian Association: What’s the role of Israel in the Iranophobia project and the creation of a false dichotomy between Iran and its neighboring countries? What would Israel find beneficial in playing a role in this ?

Mark Dankof: This one is easy. Any Internet search on the Iranophobia and Islamophobia projects internationally leads straight to Israel and its assets in the American Neo-Conservative Right. The Center for American Progress report is among those that lead straight to the key players in the creation, funding, and dissemination of the Iranophobia and Islamophobia seeping out of Daniel Pipes, Pamela Geller, Frank Gaffney, Kenneth R. Timmerman, Stephen Emerson, and the Israeli foundations, PACS, and media outlets. This is a no-brainer. The way these jokers spun the Breivik murders in Norway is a primer for the way they do business in virtually everything else. I keep waiting for these kosher Ken and Barbie Dolls to explain Zionism’s history with the United States going back to the relationship of the Meyer Lansky Crime Syndicate to the Jewish Haganah’s blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the Lavon Affair, the Kennedy Assassination, the USS Liberty attack, the PROMIS affair, the Pollard spy case, and the recent AIPAC spy cases. Frankly the Pipes, Geller, Gaffney, Emerson crowd reminds me of the old Colt 45 malt liquor TV commercials in the United States, where the guy sitting at the cafe table by himself in the middle of the bullfighter ring is oblivious to the real wars taking place all around him that constantly get closer to enveloping him while he quietly sips his drink. The pro-Zionist American Right and Left are just like this: focusing on an exaggerated and falsified threat, while ignoring the major player in the destruction of their national security, culture, political integrity, and economy. It is pathetic.

This is a $42 million dollar industry, the production and dissemination of the constant stream of anti-Iranian, anti-Islamic propaganda in the United States and Europe. Someone is paying for it, and finds it profitable to continue paying for it.
By the way, the classic example for our discussion is this: Who produced and paid for the anti-Iranian propaganda film, Iranium, being promoted by Eric Cantor, Sam Brownback, Joseph Lieberman, and the usual suspects on Capitol Hill? I don’t yet have the facts, but the promotional film available on the Internet is connected to Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy. The television spokesperson for the film is none other than Clair Lopez of the Iran Policy Committee and the Central Intelligence Agency. Get the picture?

Habilian Association: What is your estimation of the recent American accusation of Iran’s attempt to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to US?

Mark Dankof: I believe the accusation is absurd on its very face. As I told Press TV the other night, the nature of this alleged plot presupposes that the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Guardians Council, President Ahmadinejad, and the leadership of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps are all idiots. They clearly are not. There is no way that anyone acquainted with the intelligence and shrewdness of these Iranian leaders would buy for one minute the notion that they would commission a plot as reckless as this one, with two Iranian individuals representing the unstable profiles of the accused, and in conjunction with an unproven asset in a Mexican drug cartel (who proved to be an American DEA informant). This is straight out of the Keystone Cops.

And when we ask who might have benefited by a false-flag operation of this type pinned on Iran, the clear answer is Israel and its Neo-Conservative agents of influence in the American government angling for a wider war in the Middle East. Israel does not want any regional power in the Middle East threatening its absolute hegemony in the region, especially Iran. Simultaneously, they need an international PR diversion from their illegal activities in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and elsewhere, where the Zionist State is clearly losing catastrophically in international opinion in every known venue outside that of the United States. Even in the case of the latter, there are evidences of cracks in the canvas where the Netanyahu government is concerned. And between the ominous downturn in the American national economy, and the upcoming Presidential election in 2012 where Obama and his GOP opponents are tripping over each other to demonstrate which has the most absolute fealty to American Jewry and the Israeli Lobby’s entrenched position on the Hill, the aggregate picture suggests the identity of the leading candidates for using this so-called Saudi Envoy Assassination Plot for their own non-publicly-advertised purposes and agendas.

And now that there is a published allegation that Interpol in France has established an MEK-link and affiliation for the second terror suspect now in custody, the odor becomes even more pungent. Yesterday’s New York Times made reference to this allegation, but only in a small strip column on page A8. Where is Elizabeth Rubin on this one? Or is the Israeli scent to the trail one her bosses have told her not to follow? We shall see. Mrs. Rubin’s July 13th, 2003 essay, “The Cult of Rajavi,” taken in tandem with her story of August 13th this year on the MEK, fills in many blanks. Will she fill in the rest of them, and connect the rest of the dots for the composite portrait on the canvas? If she should do so, some sordid people will run pell mell for the exits. If she doesn’t, American Corporate/Zionist media will have failed the acid test one more time.

Habilian Association: After all these many years, you should visit in Iran again.

Mark Dankof: Time and political developments will determine whether or not God will grant me that special privilege. If I do get the chance to come, it is my intention to also visit Yerevan and some of the Christian monsteries in Armenia, maybe in conjunction with another pilgrimage to the Armenian Christian Festival of St. Thaddeus at the Church of St. Stephanos in Azerbaijan Iran. My own feelings about your country are best expressed by your 10th century poet, Ferdowsi. I understand that chiseled on his stone tomb at Tus is an inscription of his immortal words which state, “Let not this body live if there is no Iran.”

Mark Dankof’s America