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MEK women
Iran

Iran condemns MEK rally in France as support for ‘terrorism’

Tehran blasts Paris for allowing meeting and protest by dissident group and thanks Albania after raid on what Iran considers a ‘terrorist’ organisation.

Tehran, Iran – Iran has lashed out against France for allowing a meeting and rally by the blacklisted Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), or People’s Mujahidin Organization, which Tehran says amounts to support for “terrorism”.

French officials need to “make up for their past mistakes” in backing the “murderers of Iranian people” and focus on the country’s “deep internal crisis” and discriminatory behaviour against its own citizens, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement late on Sunday.

Kanani was referring to nearly a week of violence and unrest in the European nation since the killing of a teenager by a French police officer.

“Instead, they create the grounds for a rally of terrorists whose drumbeat of ignominy in Albania was recently heard by the whole world,” he said, warning Paris of “political and legal” ramifications if it continues to accommodate the dissident group.

The MEK’s main camp in Albania, which is home to several thousand members, was raided by security police last month after a court order was issued to investigate unsanctioned political activities that went against a 2014 United States-brokered agreement that allowed its members to reside in the West Balkans nation.

The group said one of its members died, which Albanian police denied was a result of the raid, and electronics were confiscated. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said the group cannot use the country to fight the establishment in Iran, which the MEK has said it aims to overthrow.

The organisation, based on Islamic and socialist ideology, used to be on the US and European Union “terrorist” list before being delisted more than a decade ago. Experts have said it operates like a “cult”.

At the weekend, it held a meeting on the outskirts of Paris as a group of its supporters rallied inside the city.

Former US Vice President Mike Pence, who is running in the 2024 presidential election, and short-time former United Kingdom Prime Minister Liz Truss addressed the MEK gathering outside Paris.

Pence said the “Iranian regime has never been weaker than it is today” after protests that erupted in September and presented the MEK as an alternative, according to media reports.

Pence, one of many senior US politicians who have supported the dissident group over the years, also met MEK leader Maryam Rajavi in Albania last year.

To download the video file click here

Tehran, which has blacklisted the group, has also sanctioned a number of US officials for their support of the MEK.

Truss was quoted as saying: “Now is the time to turn our backs on accommodation and appeasement” as “authoritarian” governments rise across the world, including in Iran.

France had briefly drawn the ire of the MEK last month when it banned the group’s rally due to potential tensions with other Iranian factions and the risk of an armed attack.

But a Paris court overturned the ban last week, allowing members to congregate in Place Vauban in the French capital.

Relations between Iran and Albania remain strained after Tirana cut diplomatic ties with Tehran with US and EU support after accusing it of a major cyberattack. Iran denies the allegation.

But in a statement on Sunday, the Iranian intelligence ministry thanked the Albanian government for “confronting terrorists” with its raid on the MEK camp, something it called a “step forward”. The ministry said it continues to be in contact with European intelligence services to warn them of MEK operations.

The intelligence ministry also announced that several MEK members were recently arrested inside Iran over alleged plans to attack state and public property using homemade grenades and explosives.

On Sunday, a report by Iranian state television reiterated Tehran’s claim that Paris supported “riots” in Iran that began in September. It accused the French government of gathering information through its embassy in Tehran, sending in “spies” who were arrested, conducting high-level meetings with Iranian dissidents and hosting gatherings and members of the MEK.

By Maziar Motamedi – Aljazeera.com

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Maryam Rajavi
Albania

Why was this Iran dissident group raided in Europe?

After the raid, Iran said the MEK must be expelled while the US sought to distance itself from the troubled group.

A camp inhabited by several thousand members of Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a group opposed to the theocratic government in Iran, has been raided by police in Albania.

One person died and dozens were injured, while claims and theories on what exactly happened at the Ashraf-3 camp abound.

So who are the MEK? What are they doing in the Western Balkan nation? How does the United States fit in? And why does this matter?

Who are the MEK?

The Mojahedin-e Khalq started as a leftist revolutionary-minded group that opposed the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran who was overthrown by the 1979 Islamic revolution that birthed the current establishment in Iran.

They were initially allied with other revolutionaries,but had a falling out with the country’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and started an armed uprising against his fledgling government that included bombings and high-level assassinations.

They eventually had to leave Iran and allied themselves with Saddam Hussein, the then-authoritarian leader in neighbouring Iraq. Members of the group launched armed offensives on Iranian soil during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.

The Iranian government considers them a “terrorist” group and claims they are responsible for the deaths of about 17,000 Iranians.

MEK members were for years based in a camp in Iraq, but eventually had to secure an agreement to move to Albania in the mid-2010s after Iraqi officials turned increasingly hostile to them.

Accounts by former members and numerous reports by international outlets over the years detailed how the organisation “operates like a cult”, imposing harsh restrictions on its members and subjecting them to physical and mental abuse.

Lacking legitimacy and support among Iranians, the group has also been documented to operate online troll farms, repeatedly boasting of hacking or penetrating state-linked institutions in Iran. Some of their accounts went dark on Tuesday after the Albanian police raid.

To download the video file click here

Why the raid?

Scores of Albanian police raided the Ashraf-3 camp near Manze, a small hill town some 30km (18.6 miles) west of Albania’s capital Tirana.

Police said the raid was in accordance with a court order, which was issued after an investigation by the SPAK, or the Special Anti-Corruption Structure, into what it said were unsanctioned political activities by the MEK that went against the 2014 agreement that allowed members to reside in Albania.

The Albanian interior ministry supported the raid, and national police Chief Muhamet Rrumbullaku said he was “indignant and offended” that MEK members tried to block police officers from seizing electronic devices and that their leaders did not cooperate.

Videos and reports from the raid showed chaotic scenes, with MEK members shouting and angrily confronting police and media.

“I want to know if Albanian police are protector or terrorist,” one member told an Albanian television reporter on the scene after inserting himself into the camera frame.

The MEK said one of its members, identified as 65-year-old Ali Mostashari, died on Tuesday and more than 100 camp residents were injured by pepper spray. Police said the man’s death had nothing to do with police action and officers took care not to use forceful action.

What’s everybody saying?

The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanani, greeted the news by saying that the MEK will always be a danger to the security of its host country due to its “terrorist nature”.

“This is why the Iraqi government expelled them and other governments refused to accept them. We hope the Albanian government makes up for its mistake in hosting this terrorist cult,” he tweeted on Wednesday.

Interestingly, the US government responded by distancing itself from the MEK, a group that has been vociferously backed by a number of senior US officials over the years, including former Vice President Mike Pence.

Washington said it has been assured by Albania that the raid was conducted in accordance with the law and that it has serious concerns about the MEK, including in relation to allegations of abuses committed against its own members.

A street at Ashraf-3 camp with hills in the backgroundMEK members walk in a street at the Ashraf-3 camp on March 4, 2020 [Gent Shkullaku/AFP]

MEK members walk in a street at the Ashraf-3 camp on March 4, 2020 [Gent Shkullaku/AFP]

It also said it does not consider the MEK “a viable democratic opposition movement that is representative of the Iranian people” and sought to ensure that the US government does not provide support, training or funding to the group.

The US and the European Union delisted the MEK as a “terrorist” organisation more than a decade ago after the group promised to renounce its violent practices. Iran last year blacklisted dozens of US officials over their support of the MEK.

Last September, Tirana cut diplomatic ties with Tehran after accusing it of a major cyberattack, something Iran denied. The US and the European Union supported Albania in the incident.

Tuesday’s raid prompted MEK-affiliated accounts online to accuse Albania of engaging in practices favouring the Iranian government.

Since the raid came one day after France blocked the MEK from holding a July 1 rally in Paris – where they had gathered many times before – some users online linked the two incidents, while the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the umbrella group of the MEK, accused France of bowing to “pressure” from the Iranian government.

The online theories were only compounded by the fact that last week, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi had a lengthy phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron. Neither side officially mentioned the MEK.

By Maziar Motamedi – Al Jazeera

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Olsi
Albania

Aljazeera interview Olsi Jazexhi on the MEK terror group in Albania

Following the Albanian government’s decision to sever diplomatic ties with Tehran, Aljazeera TV channel interviewed Dr. OLsi Jazexhi, the Albanian historian and university professor on the MEk’s presence in Albania.

Dr. Jazexhi confirmed that the decision of the Albanian prime minister is not actually related to the alleged cyberattack. Based on his evidences, since the Albanian government hosted the Mujahedin Kahlq terrorist organization in 2013, the group has carried out cyber-attacks and even terrorist attacks against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

According to Dr. Jazexhi, as a paramilitary organization the MEK should be treated as a Daesh or other terrorist extremist groups but the Albanian government has not did so. Instead, the terrorist of the MEK have been hosted by the Albanian government under the support of the US government.

As he explains, the Albanian government have no access to inside the MEK camp which keeps its members behind its bar.

to download the video file click here.

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EU
Iran

Iran slams EU sheltering terrorists

After the blacklisting of army commanders, Iran urges action over ‘violations’ of its citizens’ rights by EU states.

In a strongly worded letter to the Council of the European Union, Iran formally protested against the blacklisting of several individuals and entities and what it says are European double standards on human rights in Iran.

The letter was written by the High Council of Human Rights of Iran – an entity under the country’s Supreme National Security Council currently headed by judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi and comprised of several ministers – and handed to Portugal’s ambassador to Tehran Carlos Costa Neves as the country currently holds the presidency of the Council of the EU.

It comes in response to a move on April 12 by the EU to sanction eight military commanders and police chiefs, in addition to three prisons, for their role in a deadly crackdown of public protests in November 2019 that Amnesty International said led to at least 304 deaths.

The EU has now blacklisted 89 individuals and four entities as part of its decade-long human rights sanctions regime against those who it says are violating human rights in Iran.

In response, Iran’s foreign ministry said it will immediately suspend talks with the EU on human rights and all resulting cooperation, including that on “terrorism”, illicit drugs, and refugees. It also traced “political intentions” behind the move and said is considering reciprocal sanctions.

In its letter, the Iranian human rights council condemns the EU for its policies that it says are “enforcing the illegal and oppressive sanctions” unilaterally imposed by the United States after it withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in May 2018.

The sanctions, which intensified only after the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, have hampered imports of food and medicine, in addition to creating money transfer issues in buying coronavirus vaccines.

The letter says a number of EU member states have imposed “intentional damage on the health and wellbeing of the Iranian people, particularly children, women, the elderly, and persons with disability”.

For instance, it lists the names of more than a dozen children who died because of a lack of access to vital medicine to treat epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a rare medical condition that results in blistering of the skin and mucous membranes.

It also describes how several European countries refused to work or deal with Iranian firms on medicine, medical equipment, and vaccines, and says several airports have failed to provide services to Iranian passenger planes because of US sanctions.

The human rights council also condemns the fact that Iranian migrants and students have faced difficulties in opening bank accounts in European countries based on their nationality, and says several Iranian citizens are held in European prisons on “arbitrary” charges and have been mistreated in prison.

Moreover, it says the EU should have unequivocally condemned the January 2020 assassination of Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani by the United States as a “clear example of state terrorism” that Iran believes was assisted by elements within the German government.

Among other things, the council also holds that a number of European countries continue to shelter members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, which Iran recognises as a “terrorist organisation”, and provided Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

‘Double standards’
The letter is aimed at holding the EU accountable for its double standards on human rights in Iran, according to the deputy for international affairs at the Iranian council.

The letter is focused on two things: the violation of Iranians’ human rights by the EU inside Iran, and in European countries, Seyyed Majid Tafreshi told Al Jazeera.

“The Europeans who have so many claims on human rights are themselves the perpetrators of many human rights violations of Iranian citizens,” he said.

Tafreshi also said it is unfair that the EU directs the majority of its attention towards “following illegal sanctions imposed by the US” while ignoring the plight of Iranians inside and outside the country.

According to Tafreshi, the human rights council expects an “actionable response” to its letter, which called on the EU to “bring the violators of the fundamental rights of the Iranian nation into trial without any politicisation”.
It would only “strengthen Iran’s position” if the EU fails to adequately respond, he said.

‘Utter lack of knowledge’
An EU source told Al Jazeera the Council of the EU has yet to receive the letter, so it cannot comment on its contents.

Peter Stano, an EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, said it would be wrong to claim the EU has supported US sanctions on Iran.

“Quite to the contrary, the EU repeatedly rejected the unilateral imposition of the US sanctions and prevented US efforts under the Trump administration to reintroduce UN sanctions on Iran,” he said.

“And it was the EU that was always looking for ways to enable food and medicine supplies to Iran, especially in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. To claim otherwise is utter lack of knowledge and ignorance.”

Stano said the new European sanctions listings are completely unrelated to continuing efforts to restore the Iran nuclear deal.
“The EU supports a balanced, comprehensive approach with Iran through dialogue, with a view to addressing all issues of concern including human rights,” he said. “We are critical when there are divergences and cooperative when there is mutual interest.”

Talks on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna have been continuing for several weeks, with all sides saying progress is being made on lifting US sanctions and reversing Iran’s nuclear steps despite lingering challenges.

By Maziar Motamedi

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Aljazeera on Heshamt Alavi
Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iran disinformation & the curious case of Heshmat Alavi

US-Iran debates: Fake writers and state-funded trolling | The Listening Post

On The Listening Post this week: Taxpayer-funded smears and a well-published but fake activist – worrying twists in the US-Iran online battle. Plus, the YouTube influencers of the Algerian protests.

As the Trump administration continues with its hawkish talk on Iran, we need to look at how that story is being crafted and by whom: Heshmat Alavi was once cited by the White House as a credible commentator on Iran. Shame he doesn’t exist.
It turns out he is a fictional persona reportedly created by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a shadowy group opposed to the Iranian government and supported by Washington.
Then there is the Iran Disinformation Project funded entirely by the American taxpayer, ostensibly to counter Iranian propaganda, it trolls and sometimes smears Iranian-American commentators and journalists online.

Contributors
Negar Mortazavi – consultant editor, The Independent
Maral Karimi – author, The Iranian Green Movement of 2009
Trita Parsi – founder, National Iranian American Council
Tara Sepehri Far – Iran researcher, Human Rights Watch

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Mojahedin Khalq keyboard warriors target journalists, Academics, activists

For a country that has been on the wrong end of United States foreign policy for nearly four decades, it is no surprise the debate over Iran has been polarising. The US’s decision to withdrawal from the nuclear deal this year has boosted those calling for the hardest stance against the Islamic Republic.

Those pushing back against what many say is an agenda for regime change in Iran are reporting an online backlash the likes of which they have not seen before. However, the Twitter accounts doing the trolling may not be the organic opposition voices they are made out to be.

For all the accusations of disinformation and fake news from both sides, it is rare that we can point to facts, a location, and actual personnel explaining the modus operandi of an organised troll factory.

The Listening Post’s Will Yong investigated this story and the trail has led him, surprisingly, to Tirana, Albania.

Faking the online debate on Iran

How keyboard warriors target journalists, academics and activists who favour dialogue instead of war with Iran.

Last month, Google, Facebook and Twitter announced the shutdown of pages and accounts they say were linked to Iran. While the effectiveness of Iran’s online disinformation networks is far from established, the Islamic Republic has now joined Russia in the popular consciousness as another government using the internet to destabilise its adversaries.

Meanwhile, a widespread campaign of social media manipulation by actors who are opposed to the government in Tehran has had many analysts eyeing Iran’s enemies for clues to who might be behind the project.

“The turning point was really [Donald] Trump’s election,” says journalist and New America fellow Azadeh Moaveni. “Once it became clear that there would be heightened hostility with Iran, there was a profusion of new accounts, anonymous accounts who were single-mindedly and purposefully going after people who wrote about, talked about Iran with nuance.”

While Twitter did not respond directly to questions about the methodology it used to detect organised manipulation of its platform, lecturer in Middle East history at Exeter University, Marc Owen Jones, shared with us how he uses freely available Twitter metadata to detect the presence of bots.

“If you want to use bots to be effective you need a lot of accounts, which means you might create a lot of accounts on a specific day or week or month,” explains Jones. “The majority of the accounts tweeting on the #FreeIran and #Iran_Regime_Change hashtag from late December up to May, were created within about a four-month window. What that would suggest is that a lot of the activity on those hashtags came from bots.”

Most of the accounts identified had only a few dozen or a few hundred followers and used generic profile pictures. The vast majority tweet almost exclusively in opposition to the Islamic Republic with many exhibiting sympathies with an exiled Iranian dissident group, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK).

The MEK was instrumental in Iran’s 1979 revolution but turned to violent attacks on civilian targets after being sidelined by Ayatollah Khomeini. A violent backlash forced the group into Iraqwhere they allied with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war.

In 2013, the MEK moved to Albania at the behest of the United States. The group has long lobbied for policies to overthrow Iran’s government.

The MEK declined our request for an interview citing, “terrorist threats of Iranian regime and mobilising the agents of Iranian Ministry of Intelligence under the guise of journalist”.

However, former MEK members still stranded in the Albanian capital, Tirana, having left the group, described how the MEK uses thousands of fake Twitter accounts to both promote their organisation and to boost online calls for regime change.

“Overall I would say that several thousand accounts are managed by about 1,000-1,500 MEK members,” former MEK member, Hassan Heyrani, told The Listening Post. “It was all very well organised and there were clear instructions about what needed to be done.”

The MEK online unit was especially active during several weeks of protests beginning in December 2017. Members were ordered to emphasise the anti-regime character of the demonstrations.

“Our orders would tell us the hashtags to use in our tweets in order to make them more active,” says Hassan Shahbaz, another former MEK member. “It was our job to provide coverage of these protests by seeking out, tweeting and re-tweeting videos while adding our own comments.”

MEK keyboard warriors would also target journalists, academics and activists who favour dialogue rather than confrontation with Iran.

“Because of my platform, I have received a significant amount of Twitter attacks of this kind, but I am nowhere near being alone,” Trita Parsi, author of, Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy, said. “This is actually a very pervasive phenomena, the big victim of this is that we don’t have a rational conversation about policy towards Iran.”

Since access to Iran for journalists is restricted, social media can become a proxy for where the debate is going, leaving open the possibility that both state and non-state actors can use platforms like Twitter to create and manipulate trends in ways that suit their agenda.

“It’s not like what happens on social media stays there any more,” Marc Owen Jones said. “It filters its way into mainstream media. There is so much propaganda, so much fake news that it would take very little to create a wave of what looks like popular Iranian opinion against the government that’s not necessarily real.”

Contributors

Trita Parsi – Author, Losing an Enemy – Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy’

Azadeh Moaveni – Fellow, New America

Marc Owen Jones – Lecturer in Middle East History, Exeter University

Hassan Heyrani – Former MEK member

Hassan Shahbaz – Former MEK member

The Listening Post, Aljazeera

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Gareth Porter, the investigative journalist
Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Is Iran really a nuclear threat?

“Iran is moving ‘very quickly’ towards production of a nuclear bomb and could have a weapon within two years,”the United Press International reported.

The quote was published in a 1984 article headlined”‘Ayatollah’ bomb in production for Iran”but it might as well have been published today.

Gareth Porter, the investigative journalist

For more than three decades Western politicians and the press have been claiming that Iran is a nuclear threat.

Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres echoed this claim numerous times in the 1990s, warning that Iran would build an atomic bomb by the next decade.

In the fall of 2012, Netanyahu declared at the United Nations General Assembly meeting – with his infamous bomb cartoon – that Iran would be able to build a nuclear weapon by June 2013.

The following October, former US President Barack Obama followed with a new deadline – that Iran is a year away from making a nuclear bomb.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu points to a cartoon bomb representing Iran’s nuclear programme at the UN General Assembly in September 2012 [Lucas Jackson/Reuters]

Most recently, the press reported earlier this month that Yossi Cohen, head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, stated he is”100 percent certain”that Iran is seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

And yet, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has released eight statements over the years confirming that Tehran has been meeting its nuclear commitments fully.

In July 2015, a landmark nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was reached between Iran and the P5+1 countries: China, France, Russia, the UK, the US plus Germany, in which Iran agreed to reduce its enrichment of uranium, curbing its nuclear programme and ending decades of sanctions on the country.

While Iran has proved to be following its commitments, US President Donald Trump has found a new threat – Iran’s ballistic missile programme – and has threatened to scrap the nuclear agreement, which he has called the”worst deal ever”.

So how much of a nuclear threat is Iran?

Al Jazeera spoke with Gareth Porter, a historian, investigative journalist and author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, with more than a decade of research into the topic, to learn more.

Al Jazeera: We heard yet another claim earlier this month, this time from the chief of Mossad, that Iran is planning to build a nuclear bomb. You’ve uncovered a wealth of evidence that proves Iran is not a threat. What are some of the most important pieces of evidence?

Gareth Porter: I think the most important set of documentary evidence is the so-called”laptop”documents. Those were documents that were supposedly [smuggled out] from a covert Iranian nuclear weapons research programme in the early 2000s, but I was able to show in my book that these documents were in fact passed on to Western intelligence by the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), who of course were sworn enemies of the regime.

They were considered a terrorist organisation for many years, and most importantly the MEK was working hand in glove with Israel’s Mossad during the period when these documents surfaced.

The Israelis had both the motive and the opportunity to manufacture these documents that Mossad had created, a special programme to circulate”information”about the Iranian nuclear programme to other governments and the news media of the world in 2003. That was just when these documents would have been produced.

There are multiple indications that these documents are forgeries – the most important of which are the drawings of what is alleged to be in the documents, a series of efforts to make a nuclear weapon with the Iranian Shahab 3 missile.

These drawings actually show the wrong missile warhead. It’s a missile warhead that the Iranians are known now to have abandoned by the time these drawings were supposedly brought into existence. It is the most important giveaway that these documents were not genuine; they were fake.

Al Jazeera: You have previously said that to understand Iranian policy towards nuclear weapons, one should refer to the historical episode of its war with Iraq from 1980-1988. What can you tell us about that?

Porter: If you go back to the Iran-Iraq war, what was happening for eight years was that Iraq’s armed forces were hitting both military and civilian targets in Iran with chemical weapons, which caused as many as – if I remember the figure – 110,000 serious injuries and tens of thousands of deaths to Iranians because of the chemicals dropped on them by the Iraqis.

The IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) – in charge of Iran’s defences against the Iraqi attack – wanted Ayatollah Khomeini to agree to go ahead with not just chemical and biological weapons but nuclear weapons, to have programmes to prepare the capability at least to retaliate, in order to try to deter at the very least the attacks of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq.

There were those early in the war and late in the war… who hoped that Khomeini would change his mind; and the reason that he gave in both cases is quite simple – he said Iran cannot possess or use any weapons of mass destruction because it is illegal, illicit under Islam.

He was the person in charge of the interpretation of what Islam meant for policies and laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is an extremely important and supremely convincing argument for the seriousness of the Iranian refusal to have a nuclear weapons programme… There’s no real evidence to the contrary that suggests that Iran ever had a real nuclear weapons research programme.

Al Jazeera: We’ve seen over the years that Iran has acted cooperatively regarding its nuclear programme. However, in the end, there’s always a new accusation that comes up.

This time the US and allies are concerned with Iran’s ballistic missile programme. Why are they focused on Iran’s programme when other countries have ballistic missile programmes as well? Have we seen any credible evidence that proves that Iran is a threat that should be carefully watched?

Porter: It’s absolutely clear that Iran has simply used ballistic missiles as a deterrent far more than any other state in the Middle East because they do not have an air force. They do not have fighter jets or fighter-bombers that could deliver any conventional weapons as a retaliation for an attack on Iran. And that has been the case since the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in 1979.

The other major players in the Middle East, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, both have ballistic missiles that are capable of hitting Iran. This is very clearly a matter of self-defence in terms of deterrence for Iran. And I think the reason for the United States taking a position that it has, has nothing to do with the reality of the situation; this is pure politics – both international and domestic that have governed the position of US government – not just under Trump but under George W Bush and Obama as well.

Al Jazeera: Some say Iran is a threat because its leaders have allegedly stated their aim is to destroy Israel. How credible are these claims?

Porter: The Iranians have never threatened an aggressive attack on Israel. What they have said is that Israel should cease to exist as a state in which only Jews have full rights, just as South Africa had to cease to exist as a state for whites. It is the same position taken by supporters of Palestinian rights around the world.

This interview has been edited for length.

by Mersiha Gadzo,

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Iran rally
Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

There are no viable alternatives that Trump could bring to power in Iran

By choosing Mike Pompeo as his new Secretary of State and John Bolton as National Security Adviser, US President Donald Trump has formed a hawkish anti-Iran team, indicating that he is planning to bypass diplomacy, scrap the Iran nuclear deal and possibly resort to regime change or military action.

Iran rally

Trump’s anti-Iran team is backed by its regional allies. He held meetings at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 5 and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on March 20 to seal the cooperation. Additionally, on March 23, American, Saudi and UAE national security advisers got together in the White House to discuss how “to counter the Iranian regime’s malign influence and provocative behaviour”.

President Trump may have his teams in place, but it still won’t be easy for him to take decisive action on Iran. Trump is expected to scrap the nuclear deal in May as a first step, however, even this won’t be an easy decision for him to make. In the same month, he is planning to hold a crucial first meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who would likely be disinclined to trust a president who has just opted out of an international accord.

He may decide to face all possible repercussions and scrap the deal anyway, but then he would be left with an even harder question: what to do with Iran after breaking the deal? His most likely option would be to try and create some form of chaos to destabilise Iran and push the Iranian establishment out of its comfort zone so the US can dictate terms and get the upper hand.This could be through sending logistic and financial support to the opposition inside Iran, funding proxy “terror” attacks, meddling in elections or supporting internal protests and demonstrations.

Even though there is widespread anger in the country about lack of economic progress; the leaderless and unorganised opposition forces in Iran are unlikely to knowingly cooperate with the US to topple the Iranian establishment. They know that any such move would be brutally dealt with by Iran’s security forces. Also, the memory of the 1953 coup instigated by the US is still fresh in Iranians’ minds so it is unlikely that the opposition would support another US-backed coup or regime change.

Moreover, the strongest opposition force in Iran is already in power. Moderate President Hassan Rouhani has formed an alliance with the reformist camps, and together they are pushing for creating openings within the system through the very limited means available to them. Their mode of cooperation with the West was through the Iran nuclear deal and scrapping it would be the last straw for them.

John Bolton has in the past advocated a joint attack by Israel and the US on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with “vigorous American support for Iran’s opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran”. This is a futile and dangerous solution.

Attacking Iran’s nuclear installations would provoke a fierce response from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), engulfing the entire region and possibly leading to confrontation with Israel.

The idea of regime change without a viable alternative has also proved problematic in the most recent cases of Iraq and Libya. The seven-year US attempt at replacing Bashar al-Assad of Syria has also failed.

Moreover, Bolton advocates bringing to power in Iran a former “terrorist” group, Mujahedin-E Khalq Organisation (MEK), which he regards as a “viable” alternative to the Islamic Republic.

Bolton’s belief in the MEK is ill-founded. The group with a catalogue of human rights abuses has an ideology that blends Islam and Marxism and is referred to as “a cult” by some experts. Although it claims to have adopted moderate policies since 2012 when it was removed from the US “terror” list, most Iranians continue to take a strong exception to its decision to fight in support of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.

Research at Boston College shows that the US tried to change other countries’ governments 72 times during the Cold War and in 66 cases this was done by covert action. According to the data, most of these attempts failed, demonstrating that attempts at regime change “rarely work out as the intervening states expect”.

Moreover, 40 percent of the states that have had foreign-imposed governments have experienced civil wars within the next 10 years.

These results prove that when a regime is dictatorial or corrupt, there are complex underlying reasons that cannot simply be resolved through “regime change”.

“Americans are pushing for harder policies towards Iran, and we need to strengthen our view towards the East, especially China and Russia,” Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of Iranian parliament‘s National Security Commission told ISNA news agency.

President Trump’s trade war with China, his unprecedented diplomatic war with Russia, combined with the hardening of his stance towards Iran can only further strengthen Iran’s military and economic ties with the two eastern powers to the detriment of the West.

With Russia and Iran both isolated, they would cooperate more on covert action in areas of particular US interest such as Afghanistan and consolidate their victories in Syria. Iran would pour far more funds in support of Hezbollah, Palestinians, the Assad regime, and the Houthis in Yemen.

As of March 2018, the Trump administration has moved away from diplomacy towards increasing the deployment of special operations forces to 149 countries – up from 138 in 2016.

Trump certainly appears to have all but lost the chance to create some kind of platform for direct talks with Iran. But his options for an alternative, hawkish approach also seems to be extremely limited.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

by Massoumeh Torfeh

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MEK’s violent past looms over US lobby for regime change in Iran

On June 28, 1981, a huge explosion ripped through the headquarters of Iran’s ruling Islamic Republic Party, killing at least 74 government officials, including the country’s chief justice, Ayatollah Mohammed Beheshti and more than 20 parliament members, gathered that Sunday evening in southern Tehran.

Iran blamed the attack on the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), a left-wing political group, which also killed Americans before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The suspect reportedly placed the bomb in a rubbish bin near where party leader Beheshti, 52, was addressing the group.

The incident, one of the deadliest political killings in Iran’s history, is still remembered as the Haft-e-Tir bombing, so named after the date when it took place on the Persian calendar.

HAS THE MEK CHANGEDHAS THE MEK CHANGED

A busy square and a subway station in central Tehran were similarly named in honour of the victims.

Two months later, President Mohammad Ali Rajaei, Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar, and three other people were also killed when an explosive hidden in a briefcase detonated inside the prime minister’s office.

The new president had barely escaped the June bombing.

The effect of the explosion reverberated through the parliament building nearby, and it took more than two hours to put out the fire that followed the blast, according to witness accounts.

A Harvard International Review article described the device as”very sophisticated”.

Bahonar’s secretary turned out to be an undercover MEK operative, and was identified by investigators as the person who planted the bomb. He and the Haft-e-Tir bombing suspect were never arrested.

‘No love lost for MEK’

The MEK’s history of violence has resurfaced in recent days, after US President Donald Trump appointed John Bolton as his national security adviser. The former US ambassador to the UN is a lobbyist for the group and its”government-in-exile”, the Iran National Council of Resistance.

Bolton and the MEK support Trump’s threat to undo the Iran nuclear deal and advocate for”regime change”in Iran. But critics warned the group’s proximity to the levers of American power and the policy they espouse could be a recipe for more bloodshed in the Middle East.

The MEK said it has long renounced violence to advance its goals in Iran. It said it supports”a democratic Iran based on the popular vote”, and the separation of church and state. In September 2012, it was removed from the US”terror list”.

But when Bolton spoke before the group in July 2017 in Paris, members cheered loudly as he said it should be a US policy goal that the Iranian regime”will not last until its 40th birthday”on April 1, 2019.

MEK in Iraq

“I have said for over 10 years since coming to these events, that the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the mullah’s regime in Tehran.”

A year before that, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, a former intelligence chief of Saudi Arabia, also spoke before the group, denouncing the”Khomeini cancer”, in reference to the Islamic Republic’s founder and first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Declarations such as those, however, only make the MEK more unpopular in Tehran, diminishing the likelihood that it could play a role in the country’s political future, observers said.

“There is no sympathy towards the group in Iran,”said Marzieh Javadi, a Tehran-based foreign policy expert who closely follows Iran and US relations.

Among the Iranian public, there is a negative view towards the MEK not only because of its policy of regime change, but more so because of its role in the post-revolution political assassinations and the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, she said.

At the height of the war between Iran and Iraq, the MEK sided with Baghdad, sending as many as 7,000 of its members to Iraq’s Camp Ashraf near the border with Iran.

According to the RAND Corporation think-tank, the MEK launched numerous raids across the border into Iran.

In exchange for its support of Saddam Hussein, MEK received”protection, funding, weapons, ammunition, vehicles, tanks, military training, and the use of land”.

That decision by the MEK to collaborate with Saddam only magnified Iranian public opinion against the group, Javadi said.

“That was a very dark point in the history of Iran, and that is why there is hostility towards these people,”Javadi said.

‘Socialist ideology’

Saeed Jalili, a Tehran-based journalist and expert on the Iranian economy, said with the group’s chequered past, it is doubtful the MEK has any significant following inside Iran now.

“I have not heard anyone asking them [MEK] to make a comeback [in Iran] or anything like that,”he said.

Majority of Iranians”can’t stand the idea of having a socialist regime”, Jalili said referring to”cruel”single-party ruling system in communist countries.

“The fact that they are believed to be promoting a strict communist ideology makes them less likable here,”he told Al Jazeera.

“Iranians believe it’s no different than the one we already have.”

Al Jazeera contacted former US senator Robert Torricelli, a lawyer of MEK, for comment. He did not reply as of the publishing of this story.

But in an article published in Politico in 2016, Torricelli said he has seen”no evidence”that the MEK”took part in terrorist activities against Iranians or Americans”.

Torricelli said the group saved American lives following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, by identifying locations of improvised explosive devices.

Founded in 1965 by a group of students from Tehran University, the MEK embraced a combination of Marxist philosophy and Islamic values, and supported an armed revolt against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last royal ruler of the country.

Before the revolution, the MEK carried out attacks on the Shah’s government and his American allies, including the killing of the Tehran police chief in 1972, and two US air force officers in 1975.

Right after the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, MEK members were also believed to have participated in the hostage-taking at the US embassy in Tehran, which lasted for 444 days, according to the United States Institute of Peace and The National Interest foreign policy magazine.

But they later split with the dominant sectarian ruling party, and began targeting Muslim leaders and government officials. In retaliation, the government executed socialist figures and MEK members.

MEK’s rift with Iran worsened when its leader, Masoud Rajavi, aligned with Saddam in the eight-year Iran-Iraq War.

‘Cult-like’

The organisation is now based in Paris and is led by Rajavi’s wife, Maryam Rajavi, an engineer and native of Tehran. It is unknown whether Masoud is still alive.

In her speeches as head of the MEK, Maryman has repeatedly highlighted her policy on gender equality, saying the rights of women are”linked to the struggle against … fundamentalism”.

Her organisation has also vowed to abolish the death penalty and promote freedom of assembly in a”free Iran”.

Torricelli praised MEK as”the most organised and disciplined of the Iranian opposition groups”.

Al Jazeera also requested comment, but received no response, from the office of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who spoke at the Persian New Year event of MEK in Albania on March 20.

At the celebration, Giuliani told thousands of cheering MEK members that the appointment of Bolton as President Trump’s national security adviser is”very exciting”, while reminding them of Bolton’s 2017 promise of regime change in Iran by 2019.

“You remember John Bolton? You think he changed his mind? No. In fact, if anything, John Bolton has become more determined that there needs to be regime change in Iran, that the nuclear agreement needs to be burned, and that you need to be in charge of that country.”

Iranians, however,”fundamentally don’t trust MEK’s narrative of history and their actions”, said Amir Havasi, an independent journalist in Iran.

Not counting its history of violence, the MEK’s link to the Trump administration”makes them a total pariah in Iran”now, Havasi said, adding the organisation is even more unpopular than the monarchists – those who supported Iran’s overthrown royal ruler.

How the Rajavis run the MEK is also a mystery, according to Kayvan Hosseini, editor of Radio Farda, the Persian-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

He said former members accused the MEK of acting”like a cult”, and no one is allowed to criticise the Rajavis. There have also been reports of”forced divorces”and”group confessions”of members.

Hosseini said Maryam Rajavi has refused to speak to journalists and answer questions about her organisation.

“As long as they keep their door closed to independent journalists and their leaders refuse to answer to the media, it is not possible to know the truth about MEK.”

Meanwhile, Hosseini said it is not only the MEK but also other opposition groups who”actively seek”regime change in Iran.

But he said it is not up to any particular individual or organisation to decide who should be the”alternative”to the current government in Iran.

“That is a question for the Iranian nation. They should decide whether to keep their current government, or change it to any other form of government they desire.”

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Iran

Ten things Iranians can do to preempt a Trump war

Donald Trump wants the US to go to war with Iran, but Iranians can still stop or at least delegitimise his efforts.

Are nations entirely helpless in the face of blatant warmongering targeting their homeland? What can ordinary people do, independent of the state that is ruling them, to prevent, or at least make it difficult, for US militarism, now under the command of a mentally unstable “commander-in-chief”, first to demonise before starting to bomb them?

For those of us who still actively remember the preparatory stage of the United States-led invasion, destruction, and occupation of first Afghanistan in 2001 and then Iraq in 2003, we know how demonising entire nations was and remains the indispensable first step before starting to bomb a country.

That history has now assumed an added urgency. Donald Trump needs a war and all the indications point to Iran as what seems like the easiest target in his crosshairs. He will never pick a fight with China, or Russia, or even North Korea. Like all bullies, he picks a fight he thinks (falsely) he can easily win.

A war with Iran will “justify” his Muslim ban, drum up his xenophobic base, distract people from his terrifying domestic atrocities, create a state of emergency in which no resistance is tolerated, critical thinking and civic opposition will be equated with treason, Muslim registry and even internment will not be too off their marks.

In what follows, I enumerate 10 things Iranians, as a people, can do to preempt a war on their country. Although I will be specific to Iran – for I think it is the most obvious target of Trump’s warmongering – the same ideas can be extended to any other potential target of US militarism, which predates and will outlast Trump.

Reclaim the nation

First and foremost reclaim the term “Iran” for the nation and away from “the state” that rules over it.

In the current diplomatic and journalistic parlance, “Iran” summons both the “nation” and the “state” that claims it together. This is a false coupling.

As a signifier, “Iran” belongs to the Iranian people. The state, the current or any other, is an appendix to it.

Like all other states around it, “the Islamic Republic” is today integral to a geopolitics of the region with almost all their soft and hard powers active in each other’s territories.

From Turkey to Iran to Saudi Arabia – at the head of an eleven Arab nation coalition – are militarily engaged outside their own borders.

Turkish, Iranian, and Arab nations are trapped inside their states and have little to no control over their diplomatic and military operations.

States seek to survive their hostilities, while nations pay the unfathomable price of suffering their leaders’ decisions. Reclaim the name of the country and do not allow it abused as the first political move towards a military attack.

Second, denounce those treacherous forces among the expat opposition – now led by the cultic People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), and Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah – that demand “regime change” in Iran.

Neither of these characters has the slightest legitimacy inside Iran. A blind hatred of the Islamic Republic is definitive to these expat forces, no matter what the consequences for Iranians as a people. That hatred is categorically different from any legitimate critical stand vis-a-vis Iran.

There must remain no false claim that any one of these discredited expat oppositions represents the Iranian people. They do not.

Third, give voice to the legitimate internal dissidents who oppose foreign intervention and domestic tyranny at one and the same time.

These forces must be mobilised to denounce war and demand civil liberties in one breath. Their active opposition to a possible US war on Iran will have domestic, regional, and global echoes.

Fourth, the more democratic, a nation the lower the possibility of a military invasion by the US and its allies.

If the ruling regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq had any semblance of democratic legitimacy, they would not have been so easily demonised, invaded, and destroyed.

Iranians do not live in a democratic country. They cannot freely mobilise a demonstration denouncing Trump’s warmongering and Ali Khamenei’s tyranny at the same time.

Nevertheless, they habitually turn their periodic presidential and parliamentary elections into a major force to register their democratic will within the tight limits of the ruling theocracy.

The forthcoming presidential election in May 2017 must be turned into a full spectrum of staging their antiwar and democratic will, whether they opt to participate in this election or boycott it, they must use it as a stage to show the world their opposition to “regime change” by nefarious forces cooked up in the US, Europe, and their own region.

Fifth, the globally celebrated Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi and the lead actress Taraneh Alidoosti have publicly denounced Trump’s Muslim ban and declined to come to the US to attend the Academy Awards for which their new film, Salesman, has been nominated.

In a bold and brilliant move, Sadiq Khan, the Muslim mayor of London, has just announced on that designated night – February 26 – he will have a public screening of Farhadi’s film at Trafalgar Square, in which around 10,000 people are expected to attend, and leading British filmmaker Mike Leigh is scheduled to speak.

On this, and other international public scenes, Iranian artists and intellectuals and their non-Iranian colleagues must use their forum to denounce war on their homeland.

Iran without borders

Sixth, the expat intellectuals must clearly and unequivocally denounce economic sanctions and war on their homeland.

They must remember how expat Iraqi intellectuals were used and abused by the US propaganda to pave the way for the invasion of Iraq.

Whatever qualms they may have with the ruling regime – and they are plenty – is secondary to the territorial integrity of their homeland and the physical wellbeing of their people.

Seventh, prominent Iranians in the US in various industries must start employing their social capital and call their senators and representatives, opposing more sanctions and warmongering against their homeland.

They need to find out more about the so-called “Authorization of Use of Force Against Iran Resolution, H J Res 10”, introduced by Representative Alcee Hastings days before Trump’s inauguration.

They need to find out who inspired this man to pave the way for the US military action against Iran, and how to counter it.

Eighth, Iranians outside their homeland must join antiwar mobilisations in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, and make their voices integral to all other antiwar voices. They must exit their habitual nativism and learn a far more global antiwar culture.

Ninth, the Iranian community in the US has an even more critical role to play. They must join the massive protests against Trump’s domestic and foreign policies. If their concerns against war on Iran is to be taken seriously, they must equally care about Trump’s war on the environment, on Native American rights to their lands, voter suppression, the immigrant communities, deregulation of Wall Street, assault on public education and healthcare.

Tenth, none of these may, in fact, prevent the war, but they can strip American militarism of any claim to legitimacy.

Our task is not to side with either of the two ruling regimes in Iran or the US. Our task is to unite Iranians, Americans, and other nations against any and all acts of violence and warmongering in any country.

By Professor Hamid Dabashi at Columbia University, New York

 Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

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