George Arnold

The saber rattling aimed at Iran seems to be in one of its lulls right now. But lots of us remain concerned that the Bush-Cheney administration still wants to go out with one more bang-an attack on the nuclear facilities in Iran. Which would, of course, be an act of war, and a war of aggression at that. Once upon another time, a war of aggression was considered a war crime.

These worrisome days seem eerily familiar. We’re being told that a country in the Middle East is a threat to us and its neighbors, that its government is fruitcake nutty, and that it has diabolical plans to use weapons of mass destruction against us or our friends at the first opportunity. Where have we run into this script before? Oh, yes. It’s the same flawed set of arguments used to justify our invasion and occupation of Iraq. Now we’re being told similar things about Iran.

We’ve routinely been assured that Iran is smuggling weapons into Iraq to support the insurgency there, and that the weapons are being used to kill Americans. Nobody’s been able to provide any evidence beyond the allegations themselves. A couple of months ago, reporters in Iraq were alerted to a news conference where Iranian weapons captured in Iraq were to be displayed. The news conference was abruptly called off when the military admitted it could not positively identify the weapons as coming from Iran. Despite the lack of evidence, we’re still being told that Iran is helping kill Americans in Iraq.

Meanwhile, it appears we ourselves are guilty of meddling inside Iran.

Readers may recall the name of Scott Ritter. He’s an ex-Marine who was a weapons inspector for the United Nations. In the days before the 2003 invasion, he warned that American assumptions about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were wrong. For that, he was ridiculed and all but called a traitor. But it turned out that he was right.

He’s still around. And he’s done a lot of reporting on Iran and the administration’s inclination to start a fight with Teheran. Last week, Scott Ritter published a long article for an online magazine in which he claimed that the CIA has been actively involved in supporting an Iranian resistance group that’s responsible for repeated acts of sabotage-with all too deadly consequences-inside Iran. Oddly enough, the group, the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, is listed as a terrorist organization by our own State Department. The MEK worked with Saddam Hussein and even fought as his ally in the war against their own countrymen. But the MEK shares the same goal as the Bush-Cheney administration: regime change in Teheran. So they’re useful for American purposes. When’s a terrorist not a terrorist? When he’s on your side.

Scott Ritter goes further than accusing the MEK of being our surrogate in a secret war inside Iran. He claims the group was involved in the discovery of a laptop computer that’s supposed to contain evidence of a nuclear weapons program inside Iran. The computer’s innards have been the backbone of the allegations that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon. But the acquisition of the computer through the MEK raises serious questions about the information supposedly contained in the computer. The way the computer fell into American hands through the MEK is reminiscent of the way false intelligence was fed to the United States in the runup to the invasion of Iraq by an Iraqi opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress.

Despite the seeming lull in the saber-rattling toward Iran, events are moving on their own timetable. Iran has consistently said its nuclear program is not aimed at developing weapons, a claim supported by our own intelligence agencies. But a deadline for Iran to suspend its nuclear program has just passed. And we’ve warned that if Iran doesn’t comply with our demands we will impose further economic sanctions and perhaps other, unspecified measures. Right now, Congress is considering legislation that might lead to an air, land and sea blockade of Iran. Such a blockade would be considered an act of war.

Scott Ritter concluded his article with these words:”One day, in the not-so-distant future, Americans will awake to the reality that American military forces are engaged in a shooting war with Iran. Many will scratch their heads and wonder, `How did that happen?’ The answer is simple: We all let it happen. We are at war with Iran right now. We just don’t have the moral courage to admit it.”In the ancient myths about the Trojan War, Cassandra was a Trojan princess who had the ability to foretell the future. But she was also cursed with the inability to make anybody believe her. Scott Ritter has already played the role of a modern Cassandra in the invasion of Iraq. The next few months will tell if he’s reprising that role with Iran.

George Arnold is opinion editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s northwest edition.

The Arkansans Democrat Gazette,

Editorial
COLUMNISTS American Cassandra
George Arnold
5 August 2008
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Mojahedin Khalq terrorist organisation (Rajavi cult) predicts imminent overthrow in Iran after being backed by London

In Iran, it’s more important that the MEK was allied with Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran back in the 1980s. Such history isn’t likely to be approved of by patriotic Iranians, no matter how much they dislike their own government. Meanwhile, many consider the umbrella group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, to be little more than a cult, with loyalty to its leader, Maryam Rajavi, more important than its political positions…

You might have overlooked a story in last Thursday’s edition of this newspaper. The New York Times article related how a court of appeals in London had decided the British government was wrong to have included an Iranian resistance group on a list of banned terrorist organizations. It was a victory for the group, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalk, also known as the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran. The MEK has been fighting the terrorist designation in Britain for seven years. The ruling could lead the British government to remove the MEK from its terrorist list.

While many readers might have skimmed past the story, the news made one resident of Northwest Arkansas especially happy. Hooshang Nazarali, the Iranian American who owns a store in the small town of Crosses southeast of Fayetteville, found the court’s ruling encouraging.

He’s been a supporter of the MEK’s parent organization for years. Mr. Nazarali came to the United States from his native Iran just before the Islamic revolution of 1979. He’s stayed in touch with what’s going on there. One day, he hopes to be able to return to Iran-once it’s been freed from the rule of the theocrats who have held power since the revolution.

He’s pinned his hopes on regime change from within. That’s where the MEK fits into the picture. Its parent organization is based in Paris, with other significant support in London and Iraq. About 3,800 MEK members have lived-disarmed and under guard-in a camp outside Baghdad since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Before that, the MEK had carried out a series of attacks against Iranian targets. Despite the British court ruling, the U.S. government continues to list the MEK as a terrorist organization.

On the surface, the disconnect seems odd. The U.S. is bitterly opposed to the Iranian government, which the MEK also wants to see removed. The U.S. and the MEK would appear to be natural allies. Hooshang Nazarali says the U.S. designation of the MEK as a terrorist organization in 1997 was an effort to appease Iran. He’s hoping that the court ruling in Britain might lead to a reconsideration of the MEK’s standing in the U.S., too. But, so far, the Bush administration says it has no plans to lift its ban.

American appeasement of Iran? Iran’s been a focus of American threats and hostility for some time now. The U.S. accuses Iran of trying to acquire nuclear weapons and of supplying insurgents in Iraq who continue to kill American troops. The accusations have grown so shrill that many of us worry that we’re heading toward outright war with Iran.

That’s not Hooshang Nazarali’s desire. For years, he’s backed a third way to deal with Iran’s admittedly difficult government. Not war. Not negotiations. But working with resistance inside and outside of Iran to overthrow the current leadership. That’s why he was so pleased with the ruling by the British court. He thinks the ruling was an important step toward strengthening the internal resistance. From his contacts inside Iran, he believes the government is widely disliked. He goes so far as to predict its imminent overthrow.

For all of Hooshang’s Nazarali’s enthusiasm, the MEK probably won’t play much of a role in any possible change of government in Iran. Despite the court ruling in Britain, the MEK is still considered a terrorist group, not only by the U.S. but also by the European Union, even though the MEK officially renounced violence in 2000.

The U.S. has a long, unhappy history with Iran. We meddled in the Iranians’ internal affairs for decades before their 1979 revolution. They’ve got reasons for calling us the Great Satan. And we’ve got reasons to be wary of them, although this administration’s loose talk of war borders on insanity. Another American war in that part of the world would be another disaster-for everybody.

No war. No American interference in Iran’s domestic affairs. What’s left? Contrary to Hooshang Nazarali’s wishes, both sides are eventually going to have to do the only sensible thing: Start talking to each other again. To the extent that negotiations might lessen the risk of war, they would be cause for relief, if not celebration.

George Arnold is opinion editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s northwest edition.

George Arnold, The Arkansas Democrat Gazette,

CIA actively supporting Mojahedin Khalq Terrorists

MKO terrorist organisation predicts …