Tuesday marks the second day of talks between Iran and the IAEA regarding Iran’s nuclear
program. Media coverage on the region this week has also centered on the hanging of a member of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad by Iran. Majid Jamali Fash, was executed for killing one of Iran’s nuclear scientists in 2010. While this news is in deed pertinent, another story from Iran has received less media attention and could have long-term implications for the State Department’s handling of terror groups moving forward.
A heavy hitting, bi-partisan lobbying effort has petitioned Secretary of State Hilary Clinton for the past two years to remove the organization called Mujahideen e-Khalq (or MeK) from the State Department’s terrorism list, presumably as part of a house cleaning of a military base in Baghdad. The Wall Street Journal reports that officials say Secretary Clinton has yet to make any final decision on the MeK’s status, but allege that the State Department was looking favorably at delisting MeK if it continued cooperating by vacating a former paramilitary base inside Iraq, called Camp Ashraf, which the group had used to stage cross-border strikes into Iran.
MeK was originally named as a terrorist entity 15 years ago for its alleged role in assassinating U.S. citizens in the years before the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and for allying with Saddam Hussein against Tehran.
“Real News” opened Tuesday setting the table on where the Iran talks are now, and discussed MeK and whether “one country’s terror group, another’s useful tool?” Journalist and Middle East affairs expert Lisa Daftari joined the panel.
by Christopher Santarelli , The Blaze
obsessive ideological infrastructure allows it to dehumanize its opponents and to engage in a war that eventually leads to tragedies that await the opponents, itself and the world in general. The insistence of Massoud Rajavi, the ideological leader of MKO terrorist cult, on clearly defining his animus struggle against the Iranian regime as an ideological war is an indication of strongly moving on the path of an obsessive ideological cult. In fact, MKO’s alleged terrorist operations and plots against Iranian people and interests can be viewed as the beginning of an ideological war through the manipulation of terrorism in order to first achieve certain ideological and then strategic goals.
designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. Yet prominent U.S. officials from Howard Dean to Rudy Giuliani have come out in support of the MEK, arguing that the group has turned its back on violence and should have its terrorist designation revoked. For this vocal body of American supporters, the MEK’s commitment to secular, democratic government could help turn the tide against Islamic rule in Iran.
The issue, however, is muddied by MEK’s decidedly violent and even anti-American past. Originally an Islamic group, in the 1970s the MEK evolved into a Marxist organization dedicated to violent struggle against the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran. Responsible for at least six assassinations of American diplomats, the MEK enthusiastically supported the Iran Revolution in 1979, yet afterwards resisted the new Islamic rule and began a campaign of bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations targeting Iranian officials. The group fled to Iraq in 1986, allying with Saddam Hussein until the 2003 American invasion, after which it sought accommodation with U.S. forces.


Columbia, Mr. Loeb stipulated that a decision on MKO’s status could be made within 60 days after the group’s main base, Camp Ashraf, is completely evacuated. He said that said the lack of total unfettered access to the MKO’s base inside Iraq demands more deliberation and time be given to the decision. Loeb argued questions still remain whether “hard core” elements of the group harbor weapons inside the base and thus retain the “capacity” to launch attacks.
outside the organization‘s bases and members didn’t know about them and some of them were inside the group bases, they were used as Rajavi’s private place or his office. A number of Rajavi’s mansions in Baghdad included: 
