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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK’s Fake Intelligence On Aleppo Only Hinders Fact-finding Bodies Finding The Truth

An article published in the Washington Times Security section claims that (yet again) the Mojahedin Khalq (aka MKO, MEK, NCRI, Rajavi cult, Saddam’s Private Army) has provided intelligence to the West on Iranian crimes and atrocities. However, in terms of actual intelligence revelations, the article should more properly have sat in the Opinion section.

In this post-truth era, it almost goes without saying that facts and fiction rub shoulders in most of the articles reporting on Syria and Aleppo from all sides. But if Western journalists had no presence in Aleppo and uncritically reported hearsay and opinion to support their own agendas, think then what the MEK’s reporting is based on.

The MEK pretends it has some kind of insider knowledge which it can apparently tap into whenever it needs to make a point. Iran, however, has made no secret of its involvement in the Syrian conflict. Newspapers and state run media probably tell us in much greater detail than the Washington Times report about the deployment of fighters and how they are funded. The dead from this conflict are mourned very publicly inside Iran. It is disingenuous of the MEK to merely recycle this information as a ‘revelation’

NCRI spokesman deceives gullible U.S. officials and journalists with misinformation

But the MEK is notorious for its role as a misinformation and propaganda outlet. Variously over the years, the MEK has been exposed for false reporting and intelligence in issues such as the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran. After passing one piece of genuine intelligence in 2002 which it was given by Mossad, the MEK continued to pass fake information to the IAEA so as to disrupt the negotiation process, and to enable the US to impose severe sanctions against Iran. In 2015 the MEK ‘shock revelation’ of a secret nuclear facility in Iran – intended to derail ongoing nuclear negotiations – when subjected to just a little bit of investigatory journalism was soon revealed as sheer fabrication. The MEK similarly muddied the waters of truth during investigations into the bombing of a Jewish centre in Argentina in 1994 for which MEK supplied intelligence implicated Iran.

NCRI ‘shock revelation’ turned out to be taken from an advertising brochure

Iran and Russia’s behaviour and agendas have their own place in these issues which should be rigorously investigated and reported. But that can only happen if journalists and investigatory bodies (human rights, nuclear experts, war crimes, etc) are able to base their work on facts and not the fake and fictionalised fantasies of stooges like the MEK, which are clearly designed to misinform on these issues.

The information laundry cycle is not difficult to follow – the Washington Times takes its report from the NCRI site of Maryam Rajavi. The NCRI site then reposts its own report as though it originated in the Washington Times and both, without further verification, get taken up by Fox News.

By Massoud Khodabandeh Director at Middle East Strategy Consultants.

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The cult of Rajavi

How dogmatism stop the production of thought in the MKO

There are certain characteristics such as dogmatism and close-mindedness in the sociological dimension of a cult. Cults believe that they alone have the truth and they are the only ones to interpret the religion or politics correctly.

When the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/the cult of Rajavi) became committed to armed struggle and eventually fell into the trap of dogmatism, replacing tolerance with violence, the violence against enemies was gradually extended to the entire existence of the group, even its own members. Dogmatism of Massoud Rajavi was elevated to absolute truth. His dogma was accompanied with deeply embedded emotions that compelled his followers to unquestionably adopt him as the absolute power. As a demonstration of their loyalty, followers of Rajavi devoted their whole life including their family, personal properties and even their minds to him.

Massoud Rajavi’s deceptive political actions led to ideological dogmatism. This pushed his followers down to a path that has had disastrous results in terms of lost lives, lost personalities, suffering families and a lot more examples of violations of human rights.

Deprived of thinking capacity, MKO members form a bunch of beliefs in their minds; they protect their beliefs, preach them and never question them. From the point of view of a MKO member –a dogmatic thinker– anyone who does not share the same strong convictions is irrational and so an enemy, in other words, an agent of the Islamic Republic. Therefore, anyone in any side of the world with any kind of political view is labeled as the Iranian Intelligence agent if and only if he questions the MKO’s beliefs or acts.

Dogmatism is usually founded on fallacy. The arguments of a dogmatic character   are very narrow-minded and fanatic. He usually refuses to engage in arguments or to participate in talks. That’s why, none of the leaders of the Cult of Rajavi have been seen in TV talk shows or analytic media programs. Even if there are allegations about the group in reports of mainstream media you usually come across with this phrase by the journalist: “our calls to the group were not responded”!

The claims of a dogmatic person usually lacks evidence. For example, the so-called revelations of the MKO’s propaganda about the Iranian nuclear program almost always failed to present enough evidence. Although the MKO made efforts to repeat its fabrications on the so-called secret Iranian nuclear weapon sites, the world ignored it because it failed to support its claims with reliable evidences and often the group’s claims turned to be fake.

In March 2015, Jeffrey Lewis of the Foreign Policy denounced the MKO’s last alleged revelations on the Iranian Nuke as an evident effort to derail the then ongoing negotiations between Iran and the West. “Almost immediately, there were reasons to doubt NCRI’s claim”, Lewis writes. “A review of commercial satellite images reveals no evidence of large-scale excavation or tunneling during the 2004-2008 period identified by NCRI.” The author also quotes the State Department spokesman stating, “Well, we don’t have any information at this time to support the conclusion of the report.”

It definitely is a different world now from three decades ago that people’s access to the sources of information and knowledge was very limited. Today a quick google search and a lot more technical tools link people to a large source of information. However, nothing is absolute. Intellectuals know the truth and they are not naïve to accept dogmatic ideas. Cult of Rajavi is not able to deceive educated people any more. That is why so many members have disassociated themselves from the Cult.

The Rajavis should know that as far as they do not get engaged in true arguments, they will not produce thoughts and without thinking, they are inevitably in decline.

By Mazda Parsi

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Yes, We Do Know the MEK Has a Terrorist Past

In his response to my article on the connections between a number of potential Trump Cabinet nominees and the Iranian organization known as the Mujahidin e-Khalq (MEK), Robert Torricelli does what the group’s supporters always do: He rewrites history, and then smears the group’s critics.

Members of the Mujahedeen Khalq, or MEK, an armed Iranian opposition group in Iraq, guard the road leading to the group’s main training camp near Baqubah, north central Iraq, in May 2003. | AP Photo

With one MEK supporter already tapped to be a Cabinet secretary (Elaine Chao at Transportation); several others, including John Bolton and Fran Townsend, still in discussion for senior jobs in a Trump administration; and a fourth, Newt Gingrich, taking the self-described role of “chief planner,” the character of the MEK and, by extension, its well-paid supporters matters.

Let’s start with the revisionist history. Torricelli, a former congressman and senator and for many years the MEK’s lawyer, denounces my assertions about the group’s violent past as outrageous and contends that he “has seen no evidence to support the assertion Benjamin makes that it took part in terrorist activities against Iranians or Americans.”

But there’s plenty of evidence out there. For decades, and based on U.S. intelligence, the United States government has blamed the MEK for killing three U.S. Army colonels and three U.S. contractors, bombing the facilities of numerous U.S. companies and killing innocent Iranians. Multiple administrations have rejected efforts by the MEK and its surrogates to claim that any bad acts were the result of what Torricelli calls “a Marxist group” that briefly ran the MEK while other leaders, who later rejected this cabal, were in prison.

So much was true when Torricelli himself was in the House of Representatives and served as a member of the Europe and Middle East Affairs Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In a written response to a subcommittee question in 1992 about the MEK, Assistant Secretary of State Robert Pelletreau wrote:

We do not deal with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. This policy arises from our concerns about the organization’s past use of terrorism, its continuing advocacy of violence, and a fundamental contradiction between its policy and our own.

First of all, the Mojahedin murdered several Americans [sic] officials in Iran in the 1970s. This is not history to us, nor do we accept the Mojahedin attempts to excuse such actions on grounds that some of the organization’s leaders were incarcerated at the time of the attacks. The organization took responsibility for the attacks, and must bear the subsequent responsibility. They also supported the occupation of our Embassy in Tehran, in which American diplomats became hostages for over a year.

This is not a solitary reference. The issue came up frequently, and the answer was always the same. A 1992 Congressional Research Servicereport detailed the MEK’s extensive record of murder of Americans and Iranians. Although Torricelli denies that the MEK took part in Saddam Hussein’s repression of the Kurds after Operation Desert Storm, the report, drawing on U.S. government sources, notes, “Iraqi Kurds also claimed the Mojahedin had assisted the Iraqi army in its suppression of the Kurds, ‘a claim-substantiated by refugees who fled near the Iranian border.’” The report goes on to cite the Kurdish leader—and first president of Iraq after the fall of Saddam—Jalal Talabani, as telling reporters at the time that “5,000 Iranian Mojahedin [MEK] joined Saddam’s forces in the battle for Kirkuk” and points to Wall Street Journal reporting as well on the MEK’s part in this bloody campaign.

There is also a rich scholarly literature on the MEK’s misdeeds. Indeed, in 2011, distinguished Iranian-American historian Ervand Abrahamian (author of The Iranian Mojahedin) and three dozen other leading Iran scholars including Shaul Bakhash, Gary Sick and Juan Cole all signed a letter, published in the Financial Times, that opposed removing the MEK from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorism Organization List because of its history of terrorism, cult-like behavior and lack of support among Iranians.

Additionally, the MEK’s lawyer claims that in 1997, at the time of the designation, “The State Department gave as its reasons the MEK’s long record of violence, but I can tell you that as a member of the [Senate] Foreign Relations Committee, I reviewed the State Department file on the MEK and found no evidence, no testimony and no reason for the designation except placating Tehran.” But here, too, former Sen. Torricelli’s statement is incorrect. The State Department never shares the administrative record that underlies the listing of foreign terrorist organizations with anyone outside the Justice Department, the FBI, the Treasury Department and the White House. He would not have seen any State Department “file” or any evidence it contained.

Torricelli dismissed my argument by labeling me, and those who pushed to designate the MEK as a terrorist group back in 1997, appeasers of Tehran. The MEK and its surrogates commonly use this attack against those who criticize the group, but it is nonsense. Those who worked on the designation have repeatedly refuted this claim about doing a favor to Iran, and I certainly carry no brief for Tehran.

Indeed, in my years on the National Security Staff and as coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, I’ve been devoted to combating Iranian terrorism. I pressed our European partners to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, which they eventually did in 2013. I briefed other countries on the Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C., an effort that led to an unprecedented U.N. General Assembly condemnation of Iran in 2011. MEK supporters simply believe that anyone who won’t echo their calls for regime change in Tehran must be on the Islamic Republic’s side. They also claim that the MEK has a future as the “true democratic opposition to the mullahs”—that if and when regime change comes about in Iran, the MEK will be able to fill the void. But this is just pure wishful thinking. With no support in Iran and a gruesome history behind it, the MEK has no serious political prospects.

Lastly, Torricelli implies that because several high-level officials such as Secretary Hillary Clinton and Secretary John Kerry have thanked prominent American MEK supporters for their help in pressing the remaining group members to leave Camp Ashraf and later Camp Liberty, they somehow approve of the MEK.

I can’t speak for any private communications after I left State, but I would be surprised if the sentiment inside the building were any different from what it was when I was there—which is that gratitude was expressed to various American political figures for urging MEK followers, who were being used as pawns by their leadership, to start leaving Iraq. We wanted to avoid them all getting killed—86 were slaughtered in attacks in 2011 and 2013. That’s why I recommended, and Clinton signed off on, delisting the MEK—and doing so specifically as a matter of her discretion and not because of “changed circumstances,” which would have been the reason of record if the State Department felt confident that the MEK had become a genuinely trustworthy, nonviolent and democratic group.

It’s probably too much to ask that Robert Torricelli or any of the renowned political figures supporting the MEK reconsider their views. But others in Congress and the public ought to consult the abundance of evidence of the MEK’s troubling history, including the abuse of its members relayed in reports by such observers as Human Rights Watch and the account of its efforts to buy influence on Capitol Hill contained in the memoir by former Congressman (and onetime Iran-based CIA operative) Robert Ney. A more informed debate about the MEK might start there.

Ambassador Daniel Benjamin is Director of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College and served as Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department 2009-2012.

Daniel Benjamin, Politico Magazine,

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Nuclear Deal Opponents Urge Military Confrontation with Iran

The U.S. should sink Iranian ships, consider targeted killings of Iranian fighters in Syria, and ratchet up new non-nuclear sanctions on Iran under the Trump Administration, according to a panel of lawmakers and policymakers organized on Capitol Hill yesterday by the hawkish United Against Nuclear Iran organization.

Outlining Trump’s options going forward, Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said the U.S. must “restore coercion” and recommended direct military confrontation, saying that sanctions alone are not a silver bullet. “The next time a Revolutionary Guard attack boat harasses the U.S. Navy, we should sink it, put it in the bottom of the Gulf,” Dubowitz said. “That would be a good start.” He also noted the possibility of directly targeting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah proxies that are operating in the Syrian civil war. “Remember, right now Syria is a target-rich environment if you want to go after the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, and that’s not just a hypothetical possibility, the Israelis are doing it today…The Israelis are enforcing their red lines, they’re using military force against the Iranians. I think the United States of America could do the same.”

Former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, echoed Dubowitz’s calls for military action, advising Trump to “make it explicit with the power he has as Commander-in-Chief that if they challenge some of our naval assets, we will fire on them. We’ve got to be that explicit.” Lieberman is chairman of UANI and formerly an advisory board member of an AIPAC organization explicitly established to kill the nuclear deal. In addition to the UANI panel, he appeared at a Capitol Hill event this week organized by the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a shadowy group formerly designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department. They have a long history of using violence and terror both against their own members as well as when they were serving as a military force for Saddam Hussein in Iraq. At the UANI event, Lieberman said the goal of increased “pressure” on Iran would be to elicit concessions from Iran by causing them to “begin to wonder about the survival of the regime.”

Military confrontation was only part of the strategy put forward at the UANI briefing. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) joined others in calling for an escalation of sanctions under the Trump administration. She advocated for expanding non-nuclear related sanctions on Iran – including those targeting entire sectors of the Iranian economy – “and perhaps even rolling back or tightening provisions of the JCPOA.” Dubowitz, meanwhile, called to “use our ability under the deal, particularly in non-nuclear sanctions, which the administration itself has admitted are not inconsistent with the JCPOA, to begin to address Iran’s malign activities outside the deal and inside the deal.” Contrary to his assertions, however, the JCPOA prohibits the U.S. from re-imposing sanctions lifted under the nuclear deal under a separate pretext, and the Obama administration has threatened to veto legislation that does so in order to protect the deal.

Ros-Lehtinen, whose former Chief-of-Staff is leading the Trump Transition Team’s approach to Iran, forecasted “a flurry of Iran-related activities early in the New Year” and looked forward to the “opportunity to undo a lot of the problematic concessions that we have seen over the last few years,” adding an enthusiastic “I can’t wait!”

National Iranian American Council ,

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

No Job in the Trump Administration for Rudolph Giuliani (Lobbyist for MEK)

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani—known to covet the post of secretary of state—will not have a role in President-elect Donald Trump‘s incoming administration, supposedly not because of complications arising from his consulting work for terror-supporting organizations and interests, but due to undefined “reasons for remaining in the private sector.”

Giuliani, Trump and White House chief of staff-to-be Reince Priebus released a joint statement announcing the decision late today, an age-old practice for burying unflattering news. Priebus, the outgoing chairman of the Republican National Committee, stated that America’s mayor “was vetted by our team for any possible conflicts and passed with flying colors”—despite the payments he and his company Giuliani Partners have received from the Islamic State-funding government of Qatar or the registered terrorist group Mujahedin e-Khalq, a banished Iranian political party.

Instead, the president-elect’s press office insisted Giuliani had voluntarily “removed his name from consideration for a position in the new administration” all the way back on November 29.

“Rudy would have been an outstanding member of the Cabinet in several roles, but I fully respect and understand his reasons for remaining in the private sector,” said Trump in the statement, leaving open the possibility of a nomination for Giuliani at an unspecified time in the future. “He is and continues to be a close personal friend, and as appropriate, I will call upon him for advice and can see an important place for him in the administration at a later date.”

Giuliani, who went from demurring over whether to back Trump to becoming one of his most strident surrogates, neglected to elaborate on what those “reasons” for preferring not to get a gig in the federal government were. He did, however, claim it was nothing personal.

“This is not about me; it is about what is best for the country and the new administration,” said Giuliani, who last won an election in 1997. “Before I joined the campaign I was very involved and fulfilled by my work with my law firm and consulting firm, and I will continue that work with even more enthusiasm. From the vantage point of the private sector, I look forward to helping the President-elect in any way he deems necessary and appropriate.”

Trump has also considered former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney—one of his loudest critics in the primary season—and disgraced former Central Intelligence Agency Director and retired General David Petraeus for the helm of the State Department, which sets the country’s foreign policy.

Giuliani will remain a vice chairman of Trump’s transition team.

Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media.

Will Bredderman, Observer,

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

From Mitt Romney to Rudy Giuliani: Who are Donald Trump’s top five picks for secretary of state?

Jon Huntsman, John Bolton and David Petraeus are also in the running.

And the winner is… Donald Trump is yet to reveal who his choice is for secretary of state, the US equivalent to foreign minister (Reuters)

President-elect Donald Trump is taking his time to appoint a secretary of state – arguably one of the most important positions in his cabinet – leaving the world guessing about who will represent the US on the world stage. Whenever it has looked like the decision is made, another candidate has popped up and thrown the race wide-open. Trump, for his part, seems content to let us wonder a bit longer.

The top five – outlined below by IBTimes UK – are a totally mixed bag. On the one hand you have a former general, David Petraeus, with 37 years in the military and – for better and for worse – a well-established public profile. On the other you have Mitt Romney, a former Republican candidate for president who has branded Trump both a “phony” and a “fraud”.

US President-elect Trump sits at a table for dinner with former Massachusetts Governor Romney (Lucas Jackson)

1. Mr Massachusetts: Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney openly opposed Donald Trump’s campaign and was a preferred candidate by many Republicans, but since the election appears to have overcome his differences with the US president-elect. But while many moderates would welcome his appointment, Romney, a Mormon, is hated by the religious right and his appointment to a cabinet position would be extremely controversial.

Despite Romney branding Trump both a “fraud” and a “phony” during 2016, Trump reportedly told aides that the 2012 Republican nominee for president “looks the part”. Last month, the former Massachusetts governor was pictured having dinner with Trump at one of his restaurants in New York, the latter smiling and the former looking decidedly awkward.

Speaking after the meeting, Romney said: “He did something I tried to do and was unsuccessful in accomplishing: he won the general election. He continues with a message of inclusion and bringing people together, and his vision is something which obviously connected with the American people in a very powerful way.”

In terms of what Romney thinks about foreign policy, Trump supporters are concerned that he is far more aligned with George W Bush-era interventionism rather than the president-elect’s more isolationist stance. Romney ran in 2012 on a platform that was wary of Vladimir Putin (the opposite to Trump) and wanted to see a greater US presence in Iraq (again, the opposite to Trump).

John Bolton has an established diplomatic pedigree but some controversial alliances (REUTERS/Mike Segar)

Mr Moustache: John Bolton

Of all the candidates for secretary of state, John Bolton has by the far the best facial hair. Unfortunately he is also known to have some unusual friends, once speaking on behalf of an Iranian rebel group called the People’s Mujahedin (MEK). Until 2012, the MEK was listed as a terrorist organisation and is hated as much by Iran’s democratic opposition as it is by the regime in Tehran.

Bolton has flirted with foreign-orientated office before. In 2005 his nomination as ambassador to the United Nations was blocked by the Democrats and although he was appointed to the position during recess he lasted less than a year, resigning at the end of 2006. He served in George W Bush’s administration as secretary of state for arms control and international security.

His views on both Iran and North Korea will certainly play to Trump’s campaign playbook. He opposed Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and Bill Clinton’s with North Korea. He led the fight to repeal UN resolution 3379, which branded Zionism as racism. Bolton would certainly mark a sea change for US foreign policy. Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake has branded him “the anti-John Kerry”.

Jon Huntsman was US ambassador to China under Barack Obama (Reuters)

Mr China: Jon Huntsman

Jon Huntsman is another candidate for secretary of state that was once tipped as a future Republican presidential candidate. The billionaire former governor of Utah ran in the primaries for the US election in 2012 before losing out to another of Donald Trump’s suitors, Mitt Romney.

Huntsman is perceived as a bit of a political lightweight, but the events of the past few days may actually improve his chances of landing the job. A former US ambassador to China, Huntsman speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and may be able to smooth relations with Beijing over the Trump/ Taiwan furore.

Sadly though, Trump doesn’t think much of Huntsman’s linguistic skills. After the 56-year-old spoke it during the 2012 primaries, the president-elect said: “I didn’t think the Mandarin thing worked at all. I thought it was ridiculous.” Before calling Huntsman “an Obama plant”.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani arrives at Trump Tower in New York City (Eduardo Munoz Albarez/ AFP)

Mr Mayor: Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani was among the first Donald Trump allies to be linked with the top job, and he has been banging the drum pretty hard since, keen to show the world that he has the credentials to take up what is arguably the most important job in the cabinet. He told the US media that secretary of state was the only role he was interested in taking.

But administration insiders have suggested that the former New York mayor’s active public campaigning for the role may have put Trump off. Giuliani has faced searching questions about his international business ties, including revelations that he has earned more than $11m (£8.6m) from lucrative speaking contracts. Trump has heavily criticised Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing.

His firm, Giuliani Partners, has carried out work both with Qatar and the company building the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Giuliani has defended his firm’s Qatari work, pointing out that the Gulf country is a US ally, and said that he “has done no work on the pipeline”. Like John Bolton, he has also given speeches to the Iranian MEK, which he campaigned to have delisted as a terrorist group.

David Petreaus

Mr Military: General David Petraeus

David Petraeus spent 37 years in the military and was once touted as a future president before he was buried in a scandal over his mistress, Paula Broadwell, in 2012. He was later fined $100,000 for sharing classified information with Broadwell, who at the time was his biographer.

Like James “Mad Dog” Mattis, Donald Trump’s new secretary of defence, Petraeus served as General Command of the US military, as well as commander of the US forces in Afghanistan. When he retired he was appointed director of the CIA, until being forced out of the role over his affair.

Critics point out that after hammering Hillary Clinton relentlessly during his campaign over her mishandling of classified information relating to her personal emails, it may be a touch hypocritical to appoint a man who was actually convicted of doing so. But the president-elect may take the view that Petraeus has paid his dues for the breach and that his military record is too good to pass up.

His supporters argue that his military experience coupled with his internationalist approach to foreign affairs – Petraeus chaired a Council on Foreign Relations task force that called for strengthening relations between the US, Mexico and Canada – would make him a good counterweight to Trump’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach to geopolitics and reputation for isolationism.

“He understood that the key terrain of the conflict was in the realms of politics, diplomacy, and communications, not the use of force per se — although he also did not hesitate to use force in a targeted and effective way,” Max Boot wrote in Foreign Policy, while also pointing out that he “has probably been responsible for the deaths of more violent jihadis than any other American”

Petraeus, for his part, seems keen to take the role. Speaking on US TV last week, he spoke out about the scandal that cost him his job. “Five years ago, I made a serious mistake,” he said. “I acknowledged it. I apologised for it. I paid a very heavy price for it, and I’ve learned from it.”

By Orlando Crowcroft, International Business Times,

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Probable Trump Foreign Policy cheer the MKO up!

These days we are hearing that Trump may choose the most hawkish American figures for crucial posts in his administration. The majority of these figures are naturally paid supporters of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO).

Regarding the group’s massive lobbying activities in the US Congress and large amounts of money it has spent to buy supporters, a hawkish warmonger Trump administration is what the MKO has been dreaming of for years. However, the affairs do not look to be as easy as the group supposes.

The MKO propaganda praises certain nominees that Donald Trump has settled for Secretary of State because they are its top paid speakers in its propaganda events. Daniel Benjamin, former coordinator of Counter terrorism Bureau of the State Department was one of the targets of the group before it was removed from the FTO list in September 2012. He writes an op-ed in the Politico Magazine in which he thoroughly discusses the MKO’s huge lobbying campaigns to buy supporters in the US Congress and administration, particularly in the State Department. Based on Benjamin’s experience, he suggests, “No designated terrorist group had ever mounted a campaign like this before. Indeed, as a stampede of hogs to the trough, it was astonishing by any Washington standard.”

As Daniel Benjamin is not sure about the source of the MKO lavishly donated funds, he is sure about five-figure sums that ensure many supporters of the group to ignore its dark background of violence and terror. “Those who embrace the group show an alarming lack of concern about its past and heedlessness about core principles of American counterterrorism policy,” he writes. “Exactly where all the money came from remains unknown. Most of those who hitched their wagon to the MeK appeared to be getting $15,000 to $20,000 or more per appearance at these public events, and they were presumably happy to add their names to whatever open letters demanding better treatment for the group that were put in front of them.”

The former coordinator of counter terrorism office of the State Department warns about the hypocrisy of the MKO leaders and the reality of the undemocratic relations inside the MKO camps. “Even more unsettling was the sheer creepiness of the group,” he asserts. “While Maryam Rajavi was presiding over enormous conferences with American political celebrities and seas of smiling, waving people in Paris, at Camp Ashraf, the MeK leadership treated its people appallingly. Visitors, including from the U.N., painted a picture of relentless intimidation, shaming and coercion of the inhabitants by camp leaders. The MeK, which is often described as a cult, had a long history of requiring that its members divorce and remain celibate.”

 “The love affair with the MeK continues to mystify,” writes Benjamin. “For some, like Bolton, there is clearly an unshakeable certainty that the MeK will play a role in changing the regime in Tehran. Bolton’s reputation for dogmatism is well-earned in this case: Serious scholars of Iran all agree that the MeK is universally loathed in Iran, where no one forgets its service to Saddam or its slaughter of Iranian conscripts and others.”

In case of other MKO advocates such as Giuliani, Benjamin proves that he is mostly motivated by the MKO’s hefty payments rather that its cause. He suggests, “With Giuliani, as perhaps with Gingrich and others, the attraction to the MeK may be more grounded in plain old greed than foreign policy.”

“According to a financial disclosure reported on by The New York Times, Giuliani has been speechifying at hyper speed for years, collecting $11.4 million for 124 appearances in just one year—and that was before signing up for the MeK gravy train around 2011. Perhaps he just didn’t have time to consider the character of his paymaster,” adds Daniel Benjamin.

As a matter of fact,Trump’s White House appointments, with links to the Cult of Rajavi definitely causes concerns over the future foreign policies of the White House but it should be taken into consideration that the MKO lacks any public support among Iranians. So, the US government will be entirely discredited if it follows the illusions of people like John Bolton or Rudy Giuliani. Besides, the US is not independent on its foreign policy towards Iran. As a normal US policy, it might impose secondary sanctions against Iran and on European companies to prevent them from having business with Iran. Obviously, this tactic will not work with Russia, China and India who have taken steps to disconnect their economy from the U.S. economic system. Moreover, the EU states do not seem to be satisfied with the presidency of Trump and evidently they do not seem to agree with his probable aggressive foreign policy. The Cult of Rajavi is betting on the wrong horse again.

By Mazda Parsi

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Will America’s War with Iran Continue?

The United States has been at war with Iran for over thirty five years. Sometimes the war has been hot, sometimes cold, sometimes overt, and sometimes covert. Throughout this time period relations between the two countries have been hostile with very little diplomatic contact between officials of the two governments. In 2008, Barack Obama ran against Hillary Clinton on a platform of diplomatic engagement with Iran in opposition to her statements of being able to “totally obliterate Iran”.

Upon entering office, Obama, continuing America’s penchant for coercive diplomacy, doubled down on sanctions against Iran hoping that by causing economic hardship for ordinary Iranians he could pressure Iran to change its policies, particularly with respect to the development of nuclear capabilities. The strategy failed as Iran not only continued its peaceful nuclear development, but in many ways accelerated it. By his second term Obama, prioritizing addressing the nuclear proliferation issue, began negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue in conjunction Germany, France, United Kingdom, Russia and China. (EU3 + 3) The negotiations resulted in the signing in July 2015 of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which limited Iran’s nuclear program in return for removal of economic sanctions. The agreement was endorsed by the UN Security Council in an action that requires member states to carry out the agreement.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has affirmed on numerous occasions that Iran has largely lived up to its obligations under the JCPOA. Obama has taken some executive action to live up the JCPOA by loosening the impact of the sanctions. The administration has approved the sale of aircraft and aircraft parts to Iran by Boeing and this week the US approved a license for Airbus to sell over 100 aircraft to Iran. However, the basic legal structure of sanctions remains in place. Obama has not moved as aggressively as he did in Cuba to increase U.S. business involvement in Iran, a step which would make the nuclear deal more difficult to reverse by engaging the business lobby in the issue.

Obama has not moved as aggressively as he did in Cuba to increase U.S. business involvement in Iran.

With the current sanctions authorization legislation set to expire on December 31, 2016, House of Representatives and the Senate passed the Iran Sanctions Extension Act by an overwhelming majorities (419 -1 and 99-0). Opponents of the JCPOA in the U.S. have argued in justifying this action, which is a clear violation of the JCPOA, that Iran has engaged in other “nefarious” activities, such as supporting the Assad in Syria, supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi tribe in Yemen, developing ballistic missiles and in general resisting U.S. influence in the Middle East. The Senate has said that it will take up this bill in the rump session of Congress in December. Although Obama has indicated that he will veto the bill, the bipartisan support in Congress for sanctions extension means that a veto override is likely. Obama’s best option for preserving the nuclear deal is to fight a delaying action to “kick the can” down the road to the next administration where a Republican controlled Congress may be reluctant to create a big foreign policy problem for President Trump so early in his administration.

As on many issues, it is unclear what President Trump’s position will be on the JCPOA. During the campaign he condemned the JCPOA as a “horrible contract”, but acknowledging that it was a contract, vowed to renegotiate it. Renegotiating the agreement is probably not possible. The JCPOA is the result of complicated, intertwined negotiations over a long period of time. Reopening talks in an atmosphere of mistrust and recriminations likely means that the whole agreement would collapse. A number of senior Congressmen and potential officials in a Trump led government, having received large speaking fees, are closely tied with the Mujahidin-e-Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group with an odd Islamist/Marxist ideology. The MEK, having allied with Saddam Hussein during Iran-Iraq war, has the distinction of being more unpopular in Iran than the U.S. They will push a hard line approach under a Trump administration.

Passing Iran Sanctions Extension Act is a clear violation of the JCPOA.

The agreement, however, is not totally dependent on the U.S. Even if the U.S. withdraws from the agreement, Iran, under the administration of President Hassan Rouhani, and Russia, China and the EU have indicated that they will continue to abide by it. As it has in the past, the U.S. will likely use secondary sanctions on European companies to deter them from conducting business with Iran. This strategy will probably not be effective with Russia, India and China who have taken steps to disconnect their economy from the U.S. dominated and dollar denominated neo-liberal economic system. It remains to be seen how U.S. allies in Europe will react to being pressured to act against their own national interest.

The political situation in Iran will also have an influence on how U.S./Iran relations play out. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said that if sanctions are extended Iran will “respond”. What the response will look like depends, in large measure, on the outcome of the May 2017 presidential elections. Incumbent President Rouhani has maintained a position that engagement with the West will benefit Iran diplomatically and economically. Because sanctions have, in large measure, remained in place and because Iran has been slow to reform its economic system, the benefits have not met public expectations. Opposions have attacked the policy of engagement with the West. Faced with these political threats, Rouhani may be forced to tack to the right and abandon the JCPOA, kick out the IAEA inspectors and expand the nuclear program. In that case the undeclared war with Iran will continue with all of the uncertainties and potential for disastrous consequences.

BY Donald Liebich, A Herald Tribune,

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Giuliani admitted ties to Mojahedin Khalq, MEK, Rajavi cult Terrorists

Rudy Giuliani belongs in prison

IF CLINTON BELONGS IN PRISON, SO DOES GIULIANI

Rudy Giuliani speaks before Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump at a rally in Cincinnati on October 13. Jacob Sullum writes that there is a strong case to be made that the former New York City mayor, who reportedly is in the running for secretary of state in the Trump administration, committed multiple federal felonies by assisting Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group that the State Department listed as a terrorist organization until September 2012.

MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS

During the presidential campaign, Rudy Giuliani argued (correctly) that Hillary Clinton could be charged with a federal felony for mishandling classified information through her sloppy email practices as secretary of state even if she did not intend to break the law.

But there is also a strong case to be made that the former New York City mayor, who reportedly is in the running for secretary of state in the Trump administration, committed multiple federal felonies by assisting Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group that the State Department listed as a terrorist organization until September 2012.

“My ties to them are very open,” Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney, recently told The New York Times. “We worked very hard to get them delisted.” But under the broad understanding of the federal ban on “material assistance” to terrorist groups that the Supreme Court upheld in 2010, that work was pretty clearly a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The “material support” statute, 18 USC 2339B, prohibits the provision of “training,” defined as “instruction or teaching designed to impart a specific skill”; “expert advice or assistance,” defined as “advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge”; “personnel,” which means any person, including oneself, who works under the organization’s “direction or control”; or any other “service,” which is not defined at all. In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Supreme Court said the law covers volunteer work aimed at helping listed organizations resolve their grievances through nonviolent means.

While such advice and advocacy would ordinarily be protected by the First Amendment, the court said, “the government’s interest in combating terrorism” justifies the speech restrictions imposed by the ban on material support.

Notably, the Supreme Court refused to read the law as requiring an intent to further a terrorist organization’s illegal activities. As long as someone knows he is assisting a “foreign terrorist organization” (FTO), it is no defense to say he only meant to promote its lawful activities. Giuliani, who “worked very hard to get [the MEK] delisted,” obviously knew the group was considered an FTO.

Nor is it necessary that someone providing material support to an FTO receive compensation in return, although Giuliani apparently was paid handsomely for his speeches on behalf of the MEK. According to the court, the difference between protected and prohibited advocacy is not whether money changes hands; it’s whether the advocacy is “performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization.” By announcing that “my ties to [the MEK] are very open,” then, Giuliani is effectively confessing to a crime.

I am not saying Giuliani should go to prison for his efforts to rehabilitate the MEK. The State Department’s list is arbitrary and shaped by political considerations, the MEK had a strong argument that it should no longer be considered an FTO, and in any case peaceful advocacy of lawful activities should never be treated as a crime. Knowingly providing material assistance to an FTO (which Giuliani did) is not necessarily the same as knowingly providing material assistance to terrorism. For the sake of fairness and freedom of speech, the law’s mens rea requirement should be stronger.

The same goes for 18 USC 793, which Clinton arguably broke by allowing classified information to be removed “from its proper place of custody” through “gross negligence,” a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. A conviction under that law should require more than negligence, because it should not be possible to accidentally commit a crime. That is the main reason James Comey gave for declining to recommend charges against Clinton: Although the law does not require criminal intent, justice does.

But Giuliani was not willing to cut Clinton any such slack. As far as he was concerned, she violated the letter of the law, so she should have been prosecuted. It did not matter whether she realized she was breaking the law.

By that same reasoning, Giuliani should be prosecuted for providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. It does that matter that he did not view the MEK as a terrorist group; it’s enough that the State Department did. Nor does it matter that he did not intend to promote terrorism, since the law does not include any such mens rea requirement.

If Hillary Clinton belongs in prison, so does Rudy Giuliani.

Jacob Sullum, Newsweek,

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a nationally syndicated columnist.

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iranophobes on Parade

Will Iran be the target of the Trump regime?

One of the most discouraging aspects of the filling out of the Donald Trump cabinet is the array of Iran haters that seem to be lining up in the foreign policy and national security areas. Trump has been personally advocating sensible policies relating to Russia and Syria but he appears to have gone off the rails regarding Iran, which just might be attributed to those who are giving him advice. A reversion to the relationship that prevailed prior to last year’s signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) between Iran and the so-called P5+1 consisting of the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, and the European Union would be undesirable, to say the least, but that appears to be what is likely to develop. Or it could be even worse, finding bilateral support for “action” as a number of policy advisors in the presidential campaign from both parties were endorsing something like war against the Persians.

The irony is that the argument made then and now for attacking Iran were based on the threat of Tehran deciding to build its own atomic bomb. With the JCPA agreement, however, most would agree that any remaining concerns that Tehran might even be considering the development of a nuclear weapons program were greatly diminished. Iran has since that time been in compliance with the agreement, possible nuclear proliferation has been avoided, and, apart from the fulminations of the inevitable anti-Iranian politicians in the United States, the signatories to the agreement have expressed their satisfaction with the outcome. It has been Washington that has failed to live up to its part of the agreement by easing remaining restrictions that are being imposed against Iranian financial institutions and regarding the purchase of some commercially available dual use technologies.

Candidate Donald Trump did not need much prompting to pick up on the prevailing anti-Iran sentiment. In a number of campaign speeches he denounced the JCPA as a bad deal and vowed to tear it up upon taking office. Some of that sentiment might well have been derived from his desire to distance himself from foreign policy positions promoted by President Barack Obama that were subsequently endorsed by Hillary Clinton so it is no surprise that since being elected he has somewhat modified his stance. He is now veering towards trying to renegotiate the agreement, which would likely be impossible given that it has multiple signatories. He could nevertheless disrupt it by continuing or increasing sanctions on Iran.

The thought of reverting to a state of unrelenting hostility towards Iran is disconcerting. One recalls joint CIA-Mossad operations between 2010 and 2012 that assassinated four civilian scientists connected to the country’s nuclear program as well as the creation of the Stuxnet virus that threatened to spread to other computers worldwide. It is generally accepted that Israel’s Mossad planned and prepared the killing of the scientists with a little help from the U.S., attacks which were almost certainly carried out by associates of the radical Marxist group Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK), which is now being seen favorably by several Trump advisors even though the group is Marxist, cult-like and has killed Americans.

The assassinations were based on the false premise that Iran had a nuclear weapons program that could be disrupted by killing the scientists and technicians involved. Two comprehensive studies by the American government’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted in 2007 and 2011 determined that no such program existed and that Iran had never taken any serious steps to initiate such research. Israel was also aware that there was no program. Nevertheless, the Israeli and American governments took steps to interfere with Iran’s existing and completely legal and open to inspection atomic energy program by identifying then killing its scientists and also introducing viruses into its computer systems. This was in spite of the fact that Iran was fully compliant with international norms on nuclear research and it was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Israel, possessing its own nuclear arsenal, had refused to sign.

The history of the Iran-U.S. relationship is significant because several Trump advisors appear to be locked into a time warp regarding the Mullahs and the threat to Americans that they allegedly constitute. Former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) head Michael Flynn, who will be the Trump National Security Advisor, is the most prominent Iran hater and also the most outspoken.

Flynn, also an unapologetic Islamophobe, has said that Iran represents a danger to U.S. national security and that our friend and ally Israel “lives under the threat of total annihilation from Iran…something the United States must never allow.” He believes that Iran intends to build nuclear weapons as well as the ballistic missiles needed to deliver them on target and thinks that “regime change” is the only solution to the threat posed by the current government. And for Flynn, Iran is not alone, it is part of a “global alliance” that includes China and Russia which seeks to threaten the U.S. and its allies.

Flynn concludes that Iran is unmitigated evil and that Washington should have nothing to do with it, apart from recognizing the reality that it and its government must be destroyed. I personally attended a conference in Moscow last December at which Flynn asserted that Iran is solely responsible for nearly all the instability in the Middle East and is behind at least five wars in the region, an assertion that is just as ridiculous as it sounds.

One might suggest that Flynn is terribly uninformed about a subject regarding which he claims expertise. His comments would suggest that the capabilities of the DIA that he once headed were dangerously overrated, but reports from his former colleagues indicate that he was always guilty of serious overreach in his pronouncements, something they referred to as “Flynn facts”.

If Flynn were just one loud voice braying in the wilderness he would be bad enough since his job is important, particularly with a president who has no foreign policy experience, but the sad fact is that he is not alone. Congressman, West Point grad and former Army officer Mike Pompeo, who will head the CIA, is more-or-less on the same page when it comes to Iran. Her supports new sanctions on the country and, regarding his appointment as Director, he had only one comment to make and it related to the JCPA, “I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.” As in the case with Flynn and DIA one has to wonder what kind of “objective” intelligence CIA will be producing under Pompeo.

Finally, there is retired Marine General James Mattis, who is being considered for a senior position in national security, possibly as Secretary of Defense. He is yet another Iranophobe who opposed the JCPA and calls Iran a rogue state that constitutes the “greatest threat” in the Middle East. As part of the evidence for that assessment he cites Iran’s alliance with Syria, which is at least in part directed against America’s enemy number one ISIS, demonstrating once again how Establishment Washington has difficulty in understanding what constitutes actual national interests. Mattis, in fact, denies that Iran is actually fighting ISIS.

The neoconservative kingpin Bill Kristol is gloating, headlining in his Weekly Standard publication that the “Iran Deal Is Doomed!” He should be pleased. Team Trump’s attitude towards an alleged Iranian threat is delusional, more in sync with Kristol and some Israeli thinking than with any actual American interests. Just as neoconservatives always believe that it is 1938 and we are in Munich, Flynn, Pompeo and Mattis likewise seem to think that it is 1979 and the United States Embassy in Tehran is still occupied.

The three Trumpsmen are not stupid, far from it, but the problem appears to be that they cannot comfortably assess two or more conflicting concepts at the same time, which might be due to the linear thinking derived from their military backgrounds. The Middle East is awash with players, all of whom have separate agendas, few of which coincide with actual American interests. If one is fixated on or obsessed with Iran as the sole disruptive force in the region it becomes difficult to see how Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel are also problems. It is decidedly neoconnish to look at a complex foreign policy issue and only see black and white, but that is what the Trump national security team seems to be prone to do.

Hopefully someone will convince Donald Trump that the real answer to eliminating the “Iranian threat” is not war. It requires building on the relationship established by JCPA to bind Iran more closely to the international community, both economically and culturally. By all accounts, young Iranians, a majority of the population, are dismissive of the rigidity of their own government and are very open to Western ideas and lifestyle. Change will come to Iran if the United States and its European allies encourage more rather than less non-threatening contact. It will not come at the point of a bayonet as Flynn, Pompeo and Mattis appear to be promoting.

Philip Giraldi, The Unz Review,

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