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The Mujahedin-e-Khalq has become a barometer of Washington corruption

Like flies to honey, each year, a bipartisan array of senior American politicians and former officials flock to France, Albania, or, in the age of COVID-19, Zoom in order to speak to the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s annual conference and rally. It is a lucrative gig, even by the standards of Washington A-listers: Five and six-figure honoraria and speakers’ fees are common for retired officials — not a bad deal for a three- or four-minute speech. Sitting officials expect to receive lucrative campaign contributions.

Former New York City mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani is a repeat speaker, as is former senator and United Against Nuclear Iran Chairman Joe Lieberman. Former national security adviser John Bolton is also a frequent speaker. Earlier this week, Michele Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense and perennial hopeful for the Pentagon’s top spot, made her debut, as did Sen. Cory Booker, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The retired four-star U.S. Army general and Fox News contributor Jack Keane also spoke.

But this isn’t just any summit. The group is the political front for the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, an organization whose roots rest in 1960s-era opposition to the Shah. A short history of the group’s evolution through different from Marxist-infused Islamism to its current rhetorical embrace of democracy is here.

In reality, its leaders Masoud and Maryam Rajavi rule with an iron fist. It runs as a cult with its rank-and-file cut off from their families and the broader society. Its literature reads like a Lyndon LaRouche diatribe. Footnotes may look legitimate but pull readers down a rabbit hole of nonexistent sourcing, irrelevancies that do not substantiate their points, and dead links.

Claims about high support inside Iran are fiction.

Ordinary Iranians despise their regime but see the MKO as worse. Many resent the MKO’s terrorism that as often killed innocent Iranians as the regime officials they targeted. More despise the group for siding with Iraq during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. In effect, ordinary Iranians see the MKO as people in the United States see John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban. While this does not excuse the regime’s torture and its execution of MKO members, it is not clear that those who died in 1988 would recognize the group today.[..]

I have spoken with some Washington luminaries who attend the MKO events. Their approach is cynical. To paraphrase one: If the regime falls, ordinary Iranians will sort it out, so who cares if we get an honorarium for a conference? Certainly, the Rajavis know this, so then, the question is: Why do they persist in arranging such a high honorarium? What is in it for them?

Perhaps, as with many cult leaders, they live in an alternate reality, or perhaps they believe the price of legitimacy that comes from rubbing elbows with top officials is worth it. The tragedy, however, is that the appearance of supporting a group so despised by Iranians actually benefits the existing regime. [..]

As important, it serves as a barometer of corruption in Washington. Iranians put their lives on the line every day. They do not want direct interference, but they want to know they have allies in pursuit of liberty. To cash out their aspirations and side with those opposing liberty and democracy for a $40,000 check represents the worst aspects of Washington culture.

It may not be illegal to participate in a Rajavi rally or to attach one’s name to a ghostwritten Mujahedin-e-Khalq piece in the same way that Gen. Mike Flynn did with Erdoganists, but it does signal an embrace of greed above principle and a willingness to sell out the freedom agenda.

Giuliani’s transformation of himself from America’s mayor to a figure of ridicule is an extreme example, but his embrace of a wacky cult was an early warning sign of his true character. People of both parties should view attendance at future Mujahedin-e-Khalq rallies in the same way — as a barometer of corruption that neither Republicans nor Democrats should accept in their leadership.

By Michael Rubin, Washington Examiner,

July 17, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Families of MEK members are still hopeful to see their loved ones

“Where are you that you have no access to a telephone?” Sedigheh Najafi asked her son, Mohammad Jaafar who has been captive in the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) for 30 years.
The family of Mohammad Jaafar Najafi have been looking forward to seeing their son for almost thirty years. They made efforts to meet him when the MEK was located in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. The family traveled to Iraq to visit their beloved Mohammad Jaafar in front of the gates of Ashraf but they were not allowed to see him by the leaders of the group.

Mohammad Jaafar Najafi Mum in front of Camp Ashraf – Iraq

“I went to Ashraf with my other brothers and sisters to visit Mohammad Jaafar but we were not allowed to enter the camp,” Mahin, a sister of Mohammad Jaafar’s says. “A group of MEK members treated us as their enemy. They insulted us and threw rocks at us.”
Mohammad Jaafar’s family are still hopeful to see him some day, although he is now settled in the group’s camp in Albania and the Albanian authorities do not permit families of MEK members to travel to their country from Iran.

The Najafis still write open letters to their son in the hope that he might be able to read letters somehow. “We are concerned about the life of our son in the MEK”, the Najafis wrote in one of their open letters to the Albanian government. “We ask you to aid us in order to return our beloved son to the family.”

July 17, 2021 0 comments

Iran

Meeting of MKO is disgrace to American politicians: Spox

Hypocritical American Politicians Joined Terrorists In Albania For A Fee

Iran’s government spokesman, Ali Rabiei said that the gathering of the MKO (Mojahedin-e-Khalq) terrorist group was an opportunity to identify and expose hypocritical American politicians who, despite repeated slogans, have not paid little attention to the principles and history of terrorism and human rights abuses in other countries.

Iran Press/ Iran news: In his weekly press conference, Ali Rabiei, in response to the question of Iran Press regarding the participation of some American and European officials in the meeting of the MKO terrorist group, has noted that Iran does not expect those who in recent years have planned and supported sanctions, war, and terrorism against the Iranian people in the name of “maximum pressure policy” to separate themselves from the MKO terrorist group.

Iran’s government spokesman highlighted that it was a shame for the United States and Europe that the infamous former Secretary of State and several other US and European officials are supporting the notorious terrorist group for a handful of dollars.

Pointing out that the meetings of the MKO are a show of malice against the Iranian nation, Rabiei stated that in such a situation, some American and European officials stand by the bankrupt terrorists and perpetrators of the massacre of thousands of innocent Iranians, and are shamelessly proud of these crimes.

He emphasized that those who brazenly stood by the terrorists had no competence to speak of the most basic principles of human rights, and pretend to be peace-loving and benevolent to the Iranian people, and other free people in the world.
Iranpress.com

July 17, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Social media abuzz with reactions to Michele Flournoy’s speech at MEK summit

Social media has been abuzz with words of condemnation from journalists and other users who said it was both “shocking” and “embarrassing” for Michele Flournoy, former US undersecretary of defense for policy, to address the annual summit of the notorious anti-Iran Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group.

Addressing the virtual event on Saturday, Flournoy, once considered a front runner to be President Joe Biden’s defense secretary, accused Iran of posing a threat to the security of the Middle East, the United States, and to its own people.

“Since 1979, every US administration has had to deal with the threat posed by Iran’s revolutionary regime and the Biden administration is no different,” she told the convention. “Iran is one of the most urgent foreign policy issues on the president’s desk.”

Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy

Flournoy called for what she described as an “internal regime change” in the Islamic Republic.
Iran slams the presence of certain Western politicians in a summit organized by the MKO terrorist group, saying they are selling themselves cheap for the circus.

In an attempt to draw attention to the “chaos” allegedly caused by the Islamic Republic, Flournoy readily turned facts on their head and offered a twisted and cut-down view of regional developments to the delight of MEK members.

For instance, she accused Iran of “attacking American forces in Iraq with ballistic missiles.” But she failed to mention that the January 8, 2020 surgical strike against Ain al-Asad, a sprawling airbase housing American troops in western Iraq, was in response to the brazen assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike days earlier.

Flournoy also said, truly, that “Iran has shot down Americana drones.” But, again, she left out the part that the RQ-4A Global Hawk surveillance drone had simply violated Iran’s airspace.

Social media abuzz with reactions to Michele Flournoy’s speech at MKO summit

Journalists and other users took to Twitter to react to Flournoy’s speech.

“Michele Flournoy nearly became Biden’s Defense Secretary and co-founded the WestExec corporate influence peddling firm that sent 15 consultants into Biden’s White House. Now she’s shilling for the MEK cult that carries out assassinations & destabilizes Iran. Pure sleaze,” tweeted Max Blumenthal, editor at The Grayzone News.

Michele Flournoy nearly became Biden’s Defense Secretary and co-founded the WestExec corporate influence peddling firm that sent 15 consultants into Biden’s White House. Now she’s shilling for the MEK cult that carries out assassinations & destabilizes Iran. Pure sleaze. https://t.co/OUvmewVwat
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) July 11, 2021

Others said that politicians like Flournoy were not oblivious to what the MKO represents, but they nevertheless risk their reputation by addressing such events in return for the “fat checks” they receive.

“It’s frankly absurd to imagine that people like Mike Pompeo and Michele Flournoy don’t know what the MEK is or what it represents,” wrote Gregory Brew, a historian at the history department of Georgetown University in Washington DC. “They know what it means to take the money and speak at these events. And they do it anyway.”

This is a good piece, but it’s frankly absurd to imagine that people like Mike Pompeo and Michele Flournoy don’t know what the MEK is or what it represents.

They know what it means to take the money and speak at these events. And they do it anyway. https://t.co/vJZG7nqXIS
— Gregory Brew (@gbrew24) July 11, 2021

“It isn’t that Michele Flournoy is naive enough to get duped by the terrorist cult MEK & speak at their conference for a fat check. She’s the ‘Democratic’ side of the same warmongering coin that wants to regime change Iran & destroy the lives of its 85 million people,” posted Sina Toossi a senior research analyst who writes for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy magazines.

It isn’t that Michele Flournoy is naive enough to get duped by the terrorist cult MEK & speak at their conference for a fat check. She’s the “Democratic” side of the same warmongering coin that wants to regime change Iran & destroy the lives of its 85 million people. pic.twitter.com/NYu2oEd34F
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) July 11, 2021

Jacob Silverman, a journalist with The New Republic, a left-wing American magazine, said that it was embarrassing for a career politician like Flournoy to address a terrorist organization and call its work “important.”

“I watched Michele Flournoy’s MEK speech. Mostly pro-Biden pabulum, but the whole thing is embarrassing, especially for a Serious Person. She called for ‘internal regime change’ and said MEK’s work was ‘important,’” he posted on his Twitter page.

I watched Michele Flournoy’s MEK speech. Mostly pro-Biden pabulum, but the whole thing is embarrassing, especially for a Serious Person. She called for “internal regime change” and said MEK’s work was “important.”https://t.co/n9zzxR6ntF (starts around 1:37)
— Jacob Silverman (@SilvermanJacob) July 11, 2021

Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks over the past four decades, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the MKO’s acts of terror.

During former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s war on Iran, which lasted eight years, MKO members were armed and equipped by the Iraqi regime to fight against Iran.

The MKO was designated a terrorist organization by the United States for 15 years before it was delisted in 2012, following an intense lobbying campaign by pressure groups in Washington and Iranian exiles. The European Union (EU) also removed the MKO from its list of terrorist organizations in 2009.

The anti-Iran terrorists enjoy freedom of activity in the US and Europe and hold meetings with American and EU officials.

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers will address an online gathering of the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO) terrorist organization.

A few years ago, MKO members were relocated from their Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s Diyala Province and later sent to Albania, where they now reside and continue their anti-Iran activities.

The group throws lavish conferences every year in the French capital, Paris, with senior American, Western, and Saudi Arabian officials in attendance as guests of honor.

July 14, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

A Deranged Cult called MEK and Our Warped Foreign Policy

Every year the notorious cult and “former” terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) holds a political conference to promote its propaganda and call for regime change in Iran, and every year many current and former American, Canadian, and European officials and elected representatives line up to pay homage to the group and their leader, Maryam Rajavi. Members of both major parties in the U.S. have either traveled to the group’s compound in Albania or spoken remotely through video messages in exchange for hefty speaking fees for the last ten years. The annual parade of prominent officeholders and policymakers that offer up effusive praise to such a wretched group is an ongoing disgrace for the United States and its allies, and it is a symptom of deeper problems with our foreign policy.

This show of support for the MEK reflects the extent to which our foreign policy debates are distorted and corrupted by the lobbying efforts of foreign groups and governments alike. No one knows for sure where the MEK gets its money, but there is reason to believe that it may be coming from the Saudi government and/or Saudi individuals. In recent years, prominent Saudis have begun participating in MEK events, and that coincided with the kingdom’s intensifying hostility towards Iran in the last decade. Our Iran policy debate is being influenced to an alarming degree by an extremist cult and an increasingly repressive authoritarian client state, and none of that can be good for American interests or democratic accountability in our foreign policy.

American support for the MEK reminds us that bipartisanship in foreign policy usually means rallying behind exceptionally bad causes. This year’s conference was described in one report as a “rare moment of bipartisan unity,” as if this somehow made cheering on a deranged cult better. The pro-MEK boosterism also shows that there are far too many people in and around our government that will make common cause with absolutely anyone if they are in favor of regime change in Iran. That in turn is a measure of just how irrational our government’s fixation on Iran is.

Photo MEK have been the US’ and Israel’s terrorists for some time

The MEK was originally an armed group opposed to the Iranian monarchy before the revolution, and during that period it was also responsible for killing several Americans. The MEK supported taking and keeping US diplomats hostage. After the group fell out with Khomeini and were brutally purged, the group relocated to Iraq where they joined with Saddam Hussein to attack their own country. Their participation in Iraq’s attack on Iran has earned them the enduring loathing of almost all Iranians everywhere, and for that reason and others they have virtually no support in Iran or in the diaspora. While the MEK was officially removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2012 after an extensive lobbying campaign, it remains a totalitarian, cultish organization that abuses its own members. There is good reason to believe that members of the group still act as cat’s paws for Israeli intelligence in carrying out assassinations and acts of sabotage inside Iran. As part of the group’s effort to remake its image, it uses a political front organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), to create the impression that the MEK has changed and committed itself to democracy.

The MEK has not changed. They remain at their core the same militant and extremist organization they have been for decades. Cheering on the MEK is as crazy and irresponsible as endorsing the Lord’s Resistance Army or defending the Khmer Rouge, and it is not an accident that the group has sometimes been likened to the latter. Unfortunately, because they hate the Iranian government and make the right noises about democracy, they are given a free pass and Iran hawks embrace them as allies. In the past, participants in MEK summits have ranged from Newt Gingrich, John Bolton, and Rudy Giuliani to Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, and John McCain. This year it included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, the current Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez, his fellow New Jerseyan Sen. Cory Booker, and many other members of Congress. The speakers routinely declare that the MEK and its allies are the “real” opposition working towards “secular democracy,” they denounce the Iranian government, and they call for some form of regime change.

Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy

Flournoy’s participation in the conference this year proved to be especially controversial since she is a major figure in Democratic national security circles and had frequently been mentioned as a possible Biden nominee for Secretary of Defense earlier in the year. In her remarks, she expressed hope for “internal regime change” in Iran, and congratulated the assembled audience for their work: “we must continue to applaud and support the important work of Diaspora groups like yours that keep alive the vision of a secular, free, and democratic Iran.”

Faced with a swift backlash online, Flournoy now claims that she didn’t know that she was speaking at an MEK event and wouldn’t have participated had she known, but it strains credulity that she was unaware of the nature of the event and its sponsor. A simple web search would have shown the relationship between the NCRI and the MEK, as well as the violent and disturbing history of the cult. Frankly, it is impossible to believe that she didn’t know who she was addressing.

The language that Flournoy used in her speech sounds too much like the standard pro-MEK talking points that other speakers have used for the last decade, and the MEK’s lobbying efforts are too well-known and have been going on too long for her to plead ignorance. It is notable that Flournoy felt the need to concoct a cover story to excuse her participation, since most pro-MEK shills take pride in what they do, but her excuse isn’t credible. Even if her explanation were true, it doesn’t excuse the horrible lack of judgment that she displayed here. If she didn’t understand that she was addressing an MEK event, she shouldn’t be offering advice on Iran policy or holding forth on the political future of Iran.

The MEK is a dangerous and disreputable group. They ought to be so politically radioactive that no one would want to be associated with them, but that has not happened because Iran hawks from both parties and in many other Western countries find the MEK useful to their agenda. Supporting the MEK allows them to mislead ignorant audiences into falsely believing that their hard-line policies enjoy support from the Iranian Diaspora No one who knows anything about Iran thinks that the MEK deserves support or has any support back in Iran, so whenever someone celebrates the group that is all the proof you need that nothing else that person says about Iran and Iran policy should be taken seriously.

Iran hawks and the MEK are both obsessed with regime change in Iran. Since they cannot achieve it from within Iran, it is just a matter of time before the cult’s yes-men in Washington push for military action aimed at toppling the government. Just as they sided with Saddam Hussein to attack their own country over forty years ago, the MEK wants to rope the US into fighting another war against Iran. If we want to prevent that war from happening in the future, the MEK’s cheerleaders need to be exposed to ridicule and criticism over their willingness to support a group that has both American and Iranian blood on its hands.

Daniel Larison is a contributing editor and weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

by Daniel Larison ,

July 14, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Michele Flournoy ‘unaware’ her hosts background calls for regime change!

Biden-linked expert backs regime change at event sponsored by Iranian militant group
Michele Flournoy claims she was ‘unaware’ her hosts are part of a well-known former terrorist organization.

Former defense official Michèle Flournoy called for regime change in Iran at a conference on Saturday sponsored by the Mojahedin-e Khalq — an Iranian militant group once listed as a terrorist organization.

A spokesperson for Flournoy’s consultancy, WestExec Advisors, which she co-founded with President Joe Biden’s now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, attempted to walk back her appearance, telling both The Daily Beast and Responsible Statecraft:

When she agreed to the engagement, Ms. Flournoy was unaware of the affiliation. She would not have participated had she known of it, and she refused payment for the engagement once she learned of it. She has no affiliation with the MEK and will never appear at their conference again.

But at the MEK-sponsored conference, Flournoy referred to her hosts as an “important” diaspora group and called for “internal regime change” in Iran.

Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy

“When there is an internal regime change — when a government comes to power that renounces its revolutionary aims and terrorism — the United States will be the first in line to engage it,” Flournoy told this year’s Free Iran World Summit. “In the meantime, we must continue to applaud and support the important work of diaspora groups like yours that keep alive the vision of a secular, free, and democratic Iran.”

That position isn’t shared by experts at the Center for a New American Security, which Flournoy founded and whose board she continues to chair. A 2020 CNAS paper, “Reengaging Iran: A New Strategy for the United States,” described the MEK as irrelevant and ineffective.

The paper proposed diplomatic measures the next administration should undertake to, among other objectives, “de-escalate regional tensions that perpetuate instability and proxy-fueled competition in the Middle East,” and recommended exploring an “agreement on noninterference in internal affairs” which “may set a useful precedent for how regional actors can deal with one another.”

“The benefit of this agenda item is that the non-state groups involved are relatively ineffective and are not major threats to the governments in question,” said the paper. “However, these groups create deep bitterness and suspicion. For example, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) has little chance of playing a meaningful role in destabilizing or overthrowing the Islamic Republic, but international support for it absolutely infuriates Iran’s leadership.”

CNAS took an even more mocking tone toward the MEK in a 2008 blog post, writing:

Iran hawks in the U.S. can be a funny bunch, especially when they start arguing for terrorist groups opposed to the regime in Tehran to be de-listed as terror groups simply because they’re the enemies of our enemies. Because the rest of the world certainly wouldn’t see that as hypocritical in any way, shape or form. Oh no.

The MEK participated in the Iranian revolution of 1979, assassinating several Americans working in Iran and mocking Iranian leaders as soft for failing to execute their American hostages. But the organization soon fell out with the revolutionary regime and defected to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

The MEK was listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department until 2012. It has been accused of torturing and abusing its own members in exile.

However, the MEK has rehabilitated its image through its Paris-based political branch, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Numerous Democratic and Republican politicians have appeared at NCRI conferences, sometimes in exchange for speaking fees as high as $50,000.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D–N.J.) and former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile also spoke at Saturday’s conference. So did former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said that the MEK should be “blessed and protected.”

In a Twitter statement on Saturday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh accused these politicians of selling “themselves cheap for a Europe-hosted circus arranged by a once Saddam-backed terrorist cult with Iranian blood on its hands.”

Flournoy’s voice was perhaps the most significant, as she had nearly been appointed to President Joe Biden’s cabinet earlier this year. Numerous high-profile Democrats had urged Biden to nominate Flournoy for secretary of defense, and Biden had been widely expected to do so before instead choosing General Lloyd Austin to run the Department of Defense at the last minute.

“Since 1979, every U.S. administration has had to deal with the threat posed by Iran’s revolutionary regime,” Flournoy said at the MEK-sponsored conference. “Iran’s use of terrorism abroad is paired with its systemic torture and oppression at home.”

She warned that the Iranian government “should not expect an easy ride from this administration or Congress.”

Flournoy did not respond to questions about why she chose to speak at the event or how much she was offered as payment for speaking.

Written by Eli Clifton and Matthew Petti ,Responsible Statecraft

July 14, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Biden Fave ‘Unaware’ She Was Talking to Notorious Iran Group; MEK

OH? Michèle Flournoy claims she didn’t realize this weekend’s conference where she was a featured speaker on regime change was put on by the once-terror-listed MEK.

An Obama-era Pentagon official who was at one point under consideration to be President Joe Biden’s secretary of defense called for “internal regime change” in Iran at an event held by a shadowy group designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government until 2012. But she claims she didn’t know anything about the group’s notorious past when she agreed to appear.

Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy, who heads up a consulting firm upon which the Biden administration has drawn heavily to fill top White House positions, appeared virtually on Sunday at the “Free Iran World Summit 2021.” The confab was put on by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the diplomatic wing of the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, or Mojahedin-e Khalq. Known commonly by its Farsi acronym, MEK, the dissident group was put on the U.S. terror list in 1997—only to be removed from the list 15 years later with support from disgraced former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy

“When she agreed to the engagement, Ms. Flournoy was unaware of the affiliation,” a Flournoy spokesperson told The Daily Beast. “She would not have participated had she known of it, and she refused payment for the engagement once she learned of it. She has no affiliation with the MEK and will never appear at their conference again.”

Flournoy is the rare Democratic A-lister who’s publicly linked themselves to the MEK, which has historically enjoyed support from right-wing neoconservative allies such as Giuliani, former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton, former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich, retired Gen. Jack Keane, who is a regular on Fox News, and others. On the other side of the aisle, former Vermont governor, Democratic National Committee chairman, and also-ran presidential candidate Howard Dean has made paid and unpaid speeches for the MEK.

“[W]hen there is an internal regime change, and a government comes to power that renounces its revolutionary aims and terrorism, the United States will be the first in line to engage it,” Flournoy told the summit audience. “In the meantime, we must continue to applaud and support the important work of diaspora groups like yours that keep alive the vision of a secular, free, and democratic Iran.”

Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), tweeted, “I’m tempted to say that this is horrible staff work from Flournoy’s team in letting her do this, these invitations can often be deceptive, but at this point no former nat sec official really has any excuse for not knowing what the MEK is.”

“Social media has been abuzz with words of condemnation from journalists and other users who said it was both ‘shocking’ and ‘embarrassing’ for Michele Flournoy, former U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, to address the annual summit of the notorious anti-Iran [MEK] terrorist group,” Iranian state media crowed.

The speaker’s list at this year’s summit included a mixed bag of names, from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) to Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).

While the MEK began in 1963 as a revolutionary movement agitating for human rights and democracy in Iran, it has more recently been described as “a secretive, cult-like group that resembles a militant, Islamist version of the Church of Scientology.”

In the 1970s, the MEK “staged terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran,” according to the State Department, and supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in the capital city. In the early 1990s, State says the MEK “conducted attacks on Iranian embassies in 13 different countries, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas.” In June 1998, MEK planted bombs in Tehran that killed three people.

The group also fought against the U.S. in the early stages of the Iraq War. According to the U.S. Army’s official history of the conflict, “by 2003 the MEK has become an elite element in the Iraqi Army and had fought against Coalition forces in March and April of that year.” MEK forces later surrendered to American special operations forces and the U.S.-led coalition provided security for the group members detained in Camp Ashraf facing attacks by Iranian-backed militias. MEK members were subsequently evacuated from Iraq to Albania.

Interviews with MEK dissidents conducted by Human Rights Watch in 2005 included testimony from ex-members about “abuses ranging from detention and persecution of ordinary members wishing to leave the organization, to lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings, and torture of dissident members.” A 2009 study by the RAND Corporation alleged that MEK displayed various “cult characteristics,” such as “intense ideological exploitation and isolation,” “sexual control,” “emotional isolation,” and other such tactics.

In April, Facebook exposed a troll farm run by the MEK. However, the illicit initiative “achieved little to no audience visibility,” largely failing to gain significant numbers of new followers, according to Facebook.

By Justin Rohrlich, The Daily Beast

July 13, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Azim has been a hostage in MEK under a dirty deal

Ameneh Khatoon is an elderly mother from Fooman, a town in the North of Iran. She lost two sons in the eight years war imposed by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein against the Iranian nation. The first son was killed but the second one is Azim who has been a hostage for over 35 years now. “My son was taken as a hostage in a dirty, inhuman deal”

Azim MohammadAlizadeh was an Iranian soldier serving in the Iran-Iraq war when he was taken as a war prisoner by Iraq forces. He was captive in the horrible jails run by the regime of Saddam Hussein. And, Saddam was the financial and military sponsor of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi). Eventually. The agents of the MEK were permitted by Saddam Hussein military commanders to show up in the camps of POWs to recruit Iranian soldiers.

Azim Alizade family at Nejat Society office of Gilan Province

MEK agents succeeded to deceive several tortured and labored Iranian soldiers, including Azim, who were fed up with the awful situation of Iraqi camps. However, their arrival in the MEK camps was the start of a long-life physical and mental torture under the Cult of Rajavi.

The mother of Azim in front of Camp Ashraf

Ameneh Khatoon and her family have taken any legal action possible in order to find a way to visit their beloved son. When the MEK was located in Iraq, they traveled to the country and picketed in front of the group’s notorious base, Camp Ashraf, but they were not allowed to visit Azim. They have so far written several letters of complaints against the leaders of Mujahedin Khalq calling for the international community to aid them contact Azim.
“I ask the Albanian authorities to take action to help me contact my son, at least through a video call”, Ameneh Khatoon writes. “I appreciate any action in this way and I hope no family suffer such a separation.”

July 13, 2021 0 comments

Iran

Slovenia’s Envoy to Iran Summoned over PM’s Participation in MKO-Arranged Event

Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassador of Slovenia to Tehran to voice protest at the Slovenian prime minister’s participation in an anti-Iran virtual gathering organized by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran said on Sunday that Slovenian Ambassador Christina Radi has been summoned to the ministry to receive an official letter of protest in response to the Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa’s “unacceptable and undiplomatic” move to take part in a virtual gathering arranged by the MKO terrorist group.

In the meeting with the Slovenian envoy, the Iranian foreign minister’s assistant and director-general of the Foreign Ministry’s department of the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe expressed the Islamic Republic’s “strong protest at the baseless allegations raised against Iran” by handing the letter of protest to the ambassador, it said.

The envoy was notified that the Slovenian premier’s participation in an event organized by a terrorist group that is abhorred by the great Iranian nation as well as his wrong and groundless remarks run counter to the diplomatic norms and to the spirit of the bilateral relations and are totally condemned, the statement added.

The ambassador of Slovenia has been also reminded that supporting a terrorist group is in violation of the UN Charter, the internationally-recognized principles, and the human rights values, and are not acceptable by any means.

The government of Slovenia has been asked to provide an explanation for the anti-Iranian move, the statement added, noting that the envoy has pledged that she would convey Tehran’s protest to Ljubljana.

Slovenian Prime Minister Jansa and former US state secretary Mike Pompeo were among speakers at a gathering of the MKO terrorist group, held in Berlin on Saturday.

The MKO -listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community- fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq and was given a camp by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

They fought on the side of Saddam during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-88). They were also involved in the bloody repression of Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq in 1991 and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.

The notorious group is also responsible for killing thousands of Iranian civilians and officials after the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979.

More than 17,000 Iranians, many of them civilians, have been killed at the hands of the MKO in different acts of terrorism including bombings in public places, and targeted killings.

July 13, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Gathering together with terrorists to advocate freedom?!

In the latest sign of Western double standards in dealing with the issue of terrorism, a slate of former and current Western officials participated in a gathering held by a widely detested Iranian opposition group that is known for its role in carrying out thousands of targeted assassinations inside Iran in the 1980s.

The group, Mojahedin-e-Khalq, also known by its initials MEK or MKO, began its annual three-day conference online on Saturday with several former and current American and European officials delivering paid speeches via videoconference. The officials mostly launched into worn-out tirades about Iran’s internal and foreign policy.

About 30 members of U.S. Congress are expected to participate in this year’s conference of MEK, including Senator Bob Menendez, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Senator Ted Cruz, and Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, as well as former ministers and officials from Europe, the United States and Canada.

Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa also delivered a speech at the conference, drawing harsh criticism from Iran and promoting the Iranian Foreign Ministry to summons the Slovenian ambassador to Tehran.

In a statement on Sunday, the ministry called Jansa’s move “unacceptable and undiplomatic.”

“After the presence of Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa in the virtual meeting of Mojahedin-e-Khalq terrorist grouping, the Iranian foreign minister’s assistant and director general of the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe department of the Foreign Ministry summoned Slovenia’s ambassador to Tehran Ms. Christina Radi and after conveying Iran’s strong protest against this move and the baseless accusations leveled against the Islamic Republic of Iran, gave her Iran’s official notice of protest against the government of Slovenia,” the ministry said in a statement.

“During the meeting, it was emphasized that Iran condemns the virtual presence of Slovenia’s premier in the gathering of a terrorist group, loathed among the great Iranian nation, as well as the official’s false and nonsensical remarks, which run counter to diplomatic norms and the atmosphere of bilateral relations,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said, noting, “This is besides the fact that supporting a terrorist grouping violates the UN charter, recognized international principles and human rights values and is, under no pretext, acceptable.”

The Western officials’ participation in the MKO conference reflects a deeply flawed understanding of Iran on the part of the West. Every year, dozens of these officials flocked to Paris to deliver furious speeches to the cheers of a mostly hired audience. They kept participating, though virtually, in the MEK gatherings even during the coronavirus pandemic. Of course, most of these officials do so for the sake of money. At the end of the day, MEK offers irresistible lump sums for short appearances and thus one can make a quick buck within a few minutes by reading an already prepared text or regurgitating what had been said by others all the time.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh pointed to this issue in a tweet on Saturday, saying, “Bought western politicians (incl #LyingCheatingStealing Pompeo) sell themselves cheap for a Europe-hosted circus arranged by a once Saddam-backed terrorist cult with Iranian blood on its hands. Insatiable thirst for $$ & anti-Iran obsession is driving shameful western hypocrisy.”

But some participants appear in MEK gatherings with different goals. It is difficult to imagine that some influential former and current officials show up at these gatherings simply to make money. For Example, former Saudi spy chief Turki al-Faisal is by no means in need of the money of a group facing growing accusations of being on the Saudi payroll.

This type of officials often sees MEK as their last hope of bringing about fundamental political change in Iran while falsely believing that the group is capable of bringing down the Iranian government. But this is wishful thinking simply because MEK has no constituency in Iran and its propaganda of being “the most organized Iranian opposition group” rests only on its ability to pay off hapless refugees and adventurous college students to fill in for real Iranians.

The lack of popularity among ordinary Iranians begs the question of why MEK has been confined to the dustbin of history in Iran. MEK’s unpopularity among the Iranians stems from two things: First, the group had been implicated in many terrorist attacks and assassinations in Iran in the 1980s. Second, while the group was going on a killing spree in Iran its leaders colluded with Iran’s number one nemesis, Saddam Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq who gave them many military bases near Baghdad. With the military support of Saddam, MEK mounted a devastating military attack on Iran that led to its forever eradication in the country. Iranians have never forgotten, nor have they forgiven, this act of treason by MEK.

This may explain why the Iranian people feel offended when they see Western officials advocate for “freedom” in Iran to be achieved by a group having the blood of thousands of Iranians on its hands. The main reason why Iran usually accuses the West of sponsoring terrorism is their continued, brazen support for MEK, which has been on the blacklist of the U.S. and the European Union until recently.

Iran has always complained that the West supported terrorism. And Western participation in MEK “circus” gives Iran all the more reason to repeat this complaint. For Iran, the Western support of terrorism represented by MEK is not an exception. Instead, it’s a tradition deeply rooted in Western hypocrisy and is a habit the West finds difficult to kick.

July 13, 2021 0 comments

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