Articles

Advocacy for MEK, complicate Albania’s EU integration process

Why Did Saudis Decide to Expand Their Relations with Albania?

Although the presence of Islam in the Balkans dates back about eight hundred years ago to the 12th century, Takfiris’ existence in this region is rather a new phenomenon. It relates to the early 90s and the midst of the Bosnian War with the presence of the so-called Afghan Arabs. By the end of the Bosnian War, these Afghan Arabs gained Bosnian citizenship, and Wahhabism, as the central ideology of Takfirism, was promoted in the region by Saudi Arabia.

In recent days, the Saudi and Albanian media have announced the signing of a trade agreement between Saudi Arabia and Albania to develop economic relations. Head of the Saudi delegation, Ahmed al-Khumashi, said about good relations and shared interests between the two countries had and called for the development of economic and investment relations.

In February, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama had traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with Saudi King and sign two agreements and a memorandum of cooperation in the fields of tourism and aviation.

Looking at the history of Riyadh-Tirana relations, one can find that association between the two countries is not a matter of history and dates back to recent years. As there is no significant book nor article on the relations between the two countries and the “Albanian-Saudi relation,” entry is only in Arabic. Interestingly, the content of the mentioned entry is just about the statistical comparison between the two countries is in terms of population, economics, and international organizations in which both countries are members, and there is not the slightest mention of the history of relationships.

There is a serious question that must be asked: why and how the Saudis decided to expand their relations with Albania? Especially with regard that the first and last period which Saudis seriously appeared in the region dates back to the immigration of Saudi and Arab citizens after the end of the Afghanistan war. At the same time, Saudis began a movement to build mosques and Islamic centers in the Balkans in different parts of the Balkans, especially Bosnia and Herzegovina, and many of these immigrants married Muslim and indigenous girls in the region.

In addition, trained Arab Salafi troops, who were bin Laden’s loyalists, gathered in the Balkans in 1993 under cover of the Bosnian War to establish a terrorist network inside European territory based in the Balkans.

By the end of the Bosnian War, major cities in the Balkans had become the center of Salafist extremists; for example, the Novi Pazar town in Sanjak area in Southern Serbia has become a core for Islamic fundamentalism, linked with Al-Qaeda cells. Novi Pazar was the focus of the Islamist attempt to build a land bridge from Albania and Kosovo to Bosnia.

Two decades after the presence of Arab extremists and the Saudi mosque-building movement in the region, which has been associated with the promotion of extremist Wahhabi thoughts, its effects became clear; when thousands of violent militias were deployed to Iraq and Syria to fight alongside the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

Along with ISIS’s seizing power in Iraq and Syria, Albanian citizens were surprised by the large volume of travel by some citizens of this country to the Middle East. Former Albanian Foreign Minister Detmir Bushati had initially said that about 300 Albanian citizens had left this country to join ISIS. In addition, some Imams in Albania used to support ISIS in their speeches.

Interestingly, the ISIS recruitment among Albanians was not limited to Albanian citizens, but it also included Albanians living in Western Europe, especially Germany and Switzerland. An issue that demonstrates to what extent is Albania influenced by imported ideas and how much is it capable of attracting such violent militia.

Furthermore, Albania’s poor economic conditions and its strategic position in Southeast Europe and the Balkans, as well as the corruption between its officials, have attracted the attention of some international actors to this country.

Under pressure from the Iraqi government and the country’s civil activists who demanded the expulsion of the MEK from Iraq, the U.S. government was forced to choose Albania, which was suffering from extremely weak economic conditions, as the final destination of the terrorist group. MEK’s history is so dark that no country was willing to take the group in as a whole. The Americans lured the Albanian officials into hosting the MEK by donating a $25 million package which was offered to Albania under the pretext of promoting reforms in the country. Furthermore, another $20 million was donated to the UN refugee agency by the U.S. to help resettle the MEK in Albania.

The MEK which had pledged to refrain from conducting any political activities against Iran in exchange for the group’s resettlement in Albania soon forgot its pledge and started massive constructions in its headquarters near Tirana where the group’s meetings with Albanian and European political figures were held later with an aim to hurt Tehran’s interests.

Albania has now turned from a fringe country to an important one for many actors. To the MEK, Albania is home to the majority of its members, to Iran, Albania is the host of its most significant opposition group, and to the U.S., it is an obedient state which has done something no other country would do; accepting a terrorist group on its soil at the request of the United States. Israel too, has fixed an eye on Albania since it would not be wise to turn a blind eye on an Iran opposition group with 2500 members enjoying notable military and security skills.

Saudi Arabia is another country with interests in Albania. Saudi relationships with the MEK became public when Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former chief of Saudi Arabai’s intelligence agency, praised the group after participating in MEK’s annual gatherings in 2016 and 2017 in Paris.

It could be argued now that after MEK’s relocation to Albania, the tiny Balkan country has turned into a playground for the confrontation of Iran and its rivals. But Iran could not endure much in this game as Tirana expelled its Ambassador and another one of Iran’s diplomats in December 2018 following a seemingly covert meddling from some rival countries or even the MEK itself.

The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman later announced the U.S., Israel and some anti-Iran terrorist groups were behind Albania’s expulsion of the Iranian Ambassador.

Edi Rama’s UN speech on December 27, 2019 in which he denounced Iran and praised the MEK, has raised speculations that the terrorist group influences Albanian officials. In addition, Ilir Meta, another member of Albania’s socialist party and the Albanian president, had also visited MEK’s headquarters in Manze earlier and met with the group’s leader Maryam Rajavi.

Obviously, the relatively peaceful Albania has now become a scene in which the Americans, Israelis and Saudis are acting. What they all share is their hostility with Iran and their tool in Albania is the MEK.

What the Albanian authorities do not consider in expanding their relations with Saudi Arabia, is that the Saudis do not hesitate to promote and spread their extremist ideology of Wahhabism among their new friends. Reports published by the Muslim World League, Riyadh’s principal tool in promoting fundamentalism globally, about its promotional activities in various regions around the world, distribution of religious books, and construction of Islamic centers and mosques, must be considered as a warning to the Albanians regarding promotion of Wahhabi extremism in their country.

Furthermore, the advocacy of Albanian authorities for the MEK, a group listed by the U.S. and the European Union for years as a terrorist group, could complicate Albania’s EU integration process.

Concerned about becoming accused of having ties with a terrorist group that has committed various crimes, including money laundering and fraud in the past, top Western officials still refuse to attend MEK events. But the Albanian officials have yet to understand how their ties with a terrorist group could hurt their public figure.

Finally, Tirana must be very alert in its dealings with the Saudis if it does not want to become a focal point for extremist ideas in the Balkans and Europe and a corridor for extremists to cross the continent. Perhaps the best option for this country is not being involved in the actors’ game.

BY Reza Alghurabi, ahtribune

October 7, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Who funded MEK-UANI Conference?

Email series suggests UAE and Saudi Arabia funded anti-Iran US lobby
October 03, 2019

A report by The Tehran Times states evidence has emerged suggesting that the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are involved in financing an anti-Iranian US lobby.
READ MORE: Thousands of JKLF marchers head towards LoC

Speaking last week at United Against Nuclear Iran’s (UANI) annual conference, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the administration was expanding its pressure campaign, targeting Chinese entities believed to be transporting Iranian oil. “[W]e’re telling China and all nations, know that we will sanction every violation of sanctionable activity,” said Pompeo.

Although it was previously unclear who was behind UANI, LobeLog, a website operating out of ETH Zurich in Switzerland, has leaked a series of emails that suggest the”non-governmental”anti-Iran group may not be as non-governmental at all.

In the conference where Pompeo made his tirade against Iran, in attendance included Bahraini Ambassador to the U.S. Sheikh Abdullah bin Rashed bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, Saudi Minister of State for Arabian Gulf Affairs Thamer al-Sahban, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, and U.S. Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker. UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba was also visible in the audience. Billionaire Thomas Kaplan, who was shown to be a major funder of UANI in 2013, was also in attendance.

The emails show the anti-Iran group members attempting to connect US foreign policymakers with members of the royal families of both the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia . According to documents, 35$ million were channeled into projects that sought to increase anti-Iran and anti-Qatar advocacy pressures. The hefty capital available for the group suggests that it is an influential lobby in determining US foreign policy.

UANI has also hosted conferences involving an Iranian opposition listed as”terrorist”by both Iran and the United States, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK). The Tehran Times highlights that this fact was barely pursued by US authorities, which otherwise would have harsh consequences for non-governmental organisations affiliated with terrorist organisations. This is said to be indicative of both the power of the UANI, and the dangerous nature of it as a lobbying force.
Nation.com.pk

October 7, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Advocating on behalf of MEK terrorists, Idiocy or Perfidy?

Idiocy or Perfidy? How We Get Hooked on Foreign Democracy Crusades

Ted Carpenter’s new book raises important questions about who is wagging who.

Gullible Superpower: U.S. Support For Bogus Foreign Democratic Movements by Ted Galen Carpenter, 2019, Cato Institute, 300 pages
For the past 20 years, U.S. foreign policy has been marked by constant lies and unjustified killings, from the 1999 bombing of Serbia and the 2003 invasion of Iraq to Libyan regime change in 2011 and our role in the bloody Syrian war since 2012. What explains this unbroken record of deadly folly?
According to Ted Carpenter, author of the new book Gullible Superpower, Washington policymakers have been deceived by foreign con men who claim to adore freedom and democracy. Carpenter has a far more sagacious foreign policy record over the past 30 years than either the White House or the Washington Post editorial page. His latest work captures, in his own words, “the lengthy, depressing record of U.S. support for bogus freedom fighters and democratic activists.”
Gullible Superpower walks readers through almost 40 years of pro-democracy shams. From Jonas Savimbi’s ludicrous authoritarian pro-freedom movement in Angola to the murderous Kosovo Liberation Army to the boundless rascality of Ahmed Chalabi, Carpenter recounts how the U.S. government bankrolled and supported one fraud after another. He also details how it intervened in Ukraine’s internal affairs, choosing to back the side with neo-Nazi elements in order to topple an elected pro-Russian government. (At least it worked out well for Joe Biden’s son.)
Gullible Superpower swats at some of the biggest connivers of our times. For example, Senator Joe Lieberman claimed that “fighting for the Kosovo Liberation Army is fighting for human rights and American values.” Lieberman did not rescind his endorsement after the former KLA leaders were linked to a scandal involving body snatching and selling human organs. John McCain was canonized as a saint after he died last year, despite or perhaps because of his endless mania for bombing foreign nations. In 2013, Mother Jones tabulated 13 different countries that McCain wanted to bomb, invade, or destabilize.
Carpenter’s book is a blunt call for realism in U.S. foreign policy. But the deck is increasingly stacked against clear assessments of American interests abroad in part because of deluges of foreign funding for Washington advocacy. Oppressive regimes are buying better reputations as think tanks become “a muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington,” the New York Times reported in 2014. The Brookings Institution received a windfall from the government of Qatar to set up a research institute that would devote itself to “reflecting the bright image of Qatar in the international media, especially the American ones”—at least according to the Qatari government. The Atlantic Council, another prominent D.C. think tank, has pocketed cash from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and NATO. Facebook hired the Atlantic Council to help them decide which “extremist” or “hate” speech it should suppress (though it has thus far eschewed attaching an “Arab Dictator-Approved Censorship” label to such deletions).

Considering the perennial foreign debacles, the question arises: are U.S. policymakers fools, liars, or both? Carpenter’s tone in this book and in his articles over the decades has always been civil. Politeness is a virtue when dealing with reasonable people. However, politeness is only a mixed blessing when chronicling the perfidy of scoundrels.

Gullible Superpowers has an excellent chapter on the Iranian group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK). That organization sprang up in the 1960s and proceeded to kill Americans in the 1970s and large numbers of Iranians in subsequent decades. NBC News reported in early 2012 that MEK had carried out killings of Iranian nuclear scientists and that it was “financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service.”

That was the same period during which a stampede of Washington hustlers took huge payoffs to publicly champion de-listing the MEK as a terrorist organization. As Trita Parsi noted in the New York Review of Books, MEK “rented office space in Washington, held fundraisers with lawmakers, or offered US officials speaking fees to appear at their gatherings. But the MEK did this openly for years, despite being on the US government’s terrorist list.”

Federal law prohibited taking money from or advocating on behalf of any designated terrorist group. Yet a 2011 Huffington Post headline reported, “Former U.S. Officials Make Millions Advocating For Terrorist Organization.” That didn’t seem to matter much to former FBI boss Louis Freeh, former CIA boss Porter Goss, co-chair of the 9/11 Commission Lee Hamilton, former attorney general Michael B. Mukasey, and former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge, who were pocketing $30,000 or more for brief speeches to pro-MEK events.

https://dlb.nejatngo.org/Media/Documentary/Populist_Marxist_Cult.mp4

Glenn Greenwald rightly scoffed that the advocacy “reveals the impunity with which political elites commit the most egregious crimes, as well as the special privileges to which they explicitly believe they—and they alone—are entitled.”
The Obama administration was swayed to cancel the MEK’s terrorist designation in 2012 and Trump administration officials are babbling about MEK’s possible role in ruling Iran after the current government is toppled. MEK apologists continue to portray the group as idealistic freedom fighters devoted to democracy. A simple online search shows that the Farsi translation of the group’s name is “holy warriors of the people.” But as long as the MEK serves the purposes of the Saudi and Israeli governments and their American string-pullers, there will be plenty of Washingtonians who pretend that the Iranian people do not loathe MEK.
Foreign policy experts have become Washington’s preeminent con men. This is a playing field that will likely always be slanted against opponents of foolhardy interventions like Ted Carpenter. Vigorous criticism of foreign policy follies will always be needed. But don’t forget the ridicule.

By James Bovard
James Bovard is the author of Lost Rights, Attention Deficit Democracy, and Public Policy Hooligan. He is also a USA Today columnist. Follow him on Twitter @JimBovard.

October 6, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Advocate on behalf of two cults

Reports on China ‘organ harvesting’ derive from front groups of far-right cult Falun Gong
A wave of corporate media reports on Chinese organ harvesting rely without acknowledgement on front groups connected to the far-right Falun Gong cult, whose followers believe “Trump was sent by heaven to destroy the Communist Party.”
Western corporate media outlets have gone wild with claims that the Chinese state is “harvesting” the organs of ethnic minorities and political opposition figures. But an investigation by The Grayzone has found that these allegations originate from front groups run by the far-right opposition cult Falun Gong.
Falun Gong, whose devotees can often be seen clad in yellow and performing coordinated qi gong routines in crowded city centers, runs an ultra-conservative, staunchly pro-Donald Trump media network that has been compared to Alex Jones’ Infowars.

According to a former member of the fringe religious group, Falun Gong believes that an apocalyptic judgement day is soon approaching and “that Trump was sent by heaven to destroy the [Chinese] Communist Party.”
In order to understand, then, how heavily politicized rumors from an obscure far-right cult found their way into the headlines, it is essential to trace the roots of the story through an elaborate network of front groups.
In June 2019, a London-based organization called the China Tribunal published a report claiming that the Chinese government has been systematically executing and harvesting the organs of members of Falun Gong, a leading force of opposition to Beijing in the diaspora.
The China Tribunal describes itself as an “independent tribunal into forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China.” Most Western journalists took the organization at its word.
Up to and after it published the report, the China Tribunal received scattered coverage from various mainstream media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and The Guardian. In September, the coverage ramped up considerably after the China Tribunal presented its case to the UN Human Rights Council, with major outlets like The Independent and Reuters joining in.
One thing all this reporting has in common is that it assumes the China Tribunal is truly “independent.” On its website, the China Tribunal says that it was “initiated by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC), an international not for profit organisation, with headquarters in Australia and National Committees in the UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.”

So what is ETAC, really?
On ETAC’s website, one finds a “management” page with a list of people, devoid of any information except their names, photographs, and positions in the organization. The executive director and co-founder is Susie Hughes; Margo MacVicar is named as the New Zealand national manager; Rebecca James is the UK national manager for outreach, and so on.
Where do these figures come from, and what brought them together? The website has no bios. But follow the names, and it soon becomes apparent that there is another connection apart from ETAC — the Epoch Times.
A far-right anti-China propaganda network run by a cult
The Epoch Times, which uses the slogan “Truth and Tradition,” has marketed itself as just another conservative, pro-Trump media outlet.
But NBC News published a major exposé in August revealing it to be the media arm of the opposition cult Falun Gong. The report details the bizarre workings of the Falun Gong organization, showing how the Epoch Times is carving a place for itself in American right-wing media.
NBC News found that the Falun Gong website spent more than $1.5 million on roughly 11,000 pro-Trump advertisements on Facebook in just six months, “more than any organization outside of the Trump campaign itself, and more than most Democratic presidential candidates have spent on their own campaigns.”
And while the NBC reporters, Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins, cautiously refer to Falun Gong as a “spiritual community,” the behavior they document very easily fits into the popular definition of “cult.” (It’s okay, Zadrozny and Collins, you can say it — say it with me: “Falun Gong is a cult.” Now doesn’t that feel better?)
A quick look at Falun Gong’s official emblem, posted on its website, should raise some eyebrows: it features an ancient swastika symbol. Falun Gong reassures skeptics on the web page, “Some people say: ‘This symbol looks like Hitler’s stuff.’ Let me tell you that this symbol itself does not connote any concepts of class.”
So where do the ETAC managers fit in with Falun Gong? Susie Hughes has photographer credits on several Epoch Times articles (her name seems to have been scrubbed, the photos merely credited to “The Epoch Times,” but the credit still shows up on Google searches at the time of writing). Margo MacVicar has numerous articles gushing about Shen Yun, Falun Gong’s traveling dance show. Rebecca “Becky” James shows up organizing a Falun Gong art exhibition in Bristol and sharing vegan drink recipes.
ETAC’s UK national manager for initiatives, Andy Moody, is credited by Epoch Times as a reporter for its sibling NTD, or New Tang Dynasty Television, Falun Gong’s TV arm. (Concerned Canadians have noted that the cult’s propaganda network has received millions of their tax dollars worth of disproportionate funding.)
ETAC’s UK communications coordinator Victoria Ledwidge appears in another Epoch Times article, coming to greet Shen Yun performers in London and, of course, acclaiming the “amazing” performance.
As one goes down the list of ETAC management, these Falun Gong connections spring up for almost everyone. ETAC is very clearly a Falun Gong front group.
Neither ETAC nor China Tribunal discloses these connections, but it hardly takes an intrepid investigative journalist to find them. So why was this level of basic research a step too far for, say, Owen Bowcott at the Guardian, who does little more than transmit ETAC’s talking points?

In fact, Falun Gong itself is actively spreading this “organ harvesting” rumor in major North American cities. The Grayzone’s Ben Norton saw some of the cult’s activists standing in central Toronto next to a giant banner titled “Stop Forced Live Organ Harvesting in China.”
They handed out pamphlets to passers-by declaring that the “Chinese Communist Regime Is Slaughtering Innocents” (using a painting as supposed evidence), while preaching about the “great health benefits” of Falun Gong.
The far-right cult is clearly using these rumors to proselytize and recruit new supporters.

‘Research’ overseen by a cult that sidelines real doctors
Turning to the China Tribunal’s report itself, it is apparent that, despite the authors’ claim to “have maintained distance and separation from ETAC in order to ensure their independence,” they rely heavily on information curated for them by ETAC.
The introduction, after describing ETAC as “a not-for-profit coalition of lawyers, medical professionals and others”, goes on to state that “ETAC’s main interest has been the alleged suffering of practitioners of ‘Falun Gong’, a group performing meditative exercises and pursuing Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, but regarded by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1999 as an ‘anti-humanitarian, anti-society and anti-science cult’.”
It is understandable that critics might hesitate to take the PRC’s characterization of Falun Gong at face value. But it is easy to make a fair evaluation of the group’s true character simply by perusing their own publications, where one will learn, for instance, that modern science was invented by aliens as part of a scheme to take over human bodies; or that feminism, environmentalism, and homosexuality are part of Satan’s plan to make us into communists; or that race-mixing severs our connection to the gods.
What Falun Gong means exactly when it preaches the timeless values of “truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance” is beyond this article’s scope. I leave it to the reader to judge how the above doctrines correspond to them.
The report summary goes on to state: “Evidence was submitted by ETAC for the first hearing, amplified by further evidence following the first and second evidence hearings.” So despite framing their investigation as separate and independent of ETAC, the authors admit that they began with evidence fed to them by ETAC.
Their reliance on ETAC is further highlighted later when several doctors are named who expressed skepticism about the Falun Gong organ harvesting narrative. These doctors are listed as “doctors speaking favourably of the PRC.”
The report then states:
“All of these doctors were invited by the Tribunal to participate in the Tribunal’s proceedings. Their participation would have greatly assisted the Tribunal in its work; they all declined the invitations. Further, although each did contribute in person to a recent report by an Australian Government Committee their contributions have been subject to review by ETAC that reveals that they produced no hard evidence to support what they said and could be criticised for their methodology or their experience in transplant surgery.”

In other words, the China Tribunal didn’t see any need to consider their testimony, because ETAC had already looked at it and declared it to be bogus.
One of these doctors, Francis Delmonico, was contacted by the science journal Nature for its article on the China Tribunal’s report — a rare case of a dissenting opinion being registered, however grudgingly.
Delmonico was asked specifically for his opinion on a research paper cited by the China Tribunal, which was published on the scientific archive, SocArXiv, by Matthew Robinson – a research fellow of the famously impartial Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation:
“But Francis Delmonico, a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, says that although there is evidence that organs were taken from prisoners in the past — which he condemns — he is not convinced by the SocArXiv evidence because it is not direct. Delmonico is chair of the World Health Organization’s Task Force on Donation and Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues and has been supporting organ-donation reform in China for more than a decade, although he made his comments to Nature in a personal capacity.”
Lobbyists for an anti-Iran cult go to bat for an anti-China one
The China Tribunal’s report is not the first alleging that the Chinese government is murdering Falun Gong prisoners en masse to harvest their organs. It relies heavily on an earlier document, known as the Kilgour-Matas report, which was initially released in 2006 and updated several times since then, with the title “Bloody Harvest.”
This previous report was commissioned by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China. Unlike ETAC, CIPFG plainly states that it is a Falun Gong organization.
More interesting connections arise when probing the backgrounds of the co-authors of the report, David Kilgour and David Matas.
David Matas is the senior legal counsel for B’nai Brith Canada, a right-wing pro-Israel lobby that works hard to tar any critique of the occupation of Palestine as anti-semitism. He was also a member of the Canadian government’s now-defunct Rights and Democracy board, in which capacity he lobbied on behalf of the Iranian opposition cult Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), as part of an effort to remove the MEK from the Canadian and US lists of terrorist organizations — an effort that was eventually successful.
The Rights and Democracy board’s chairman, Aurel Braun, was also a strident MEK advocate, who promoted the cult as a replacement for Iran’s present government. Rights and Democracy eventually dissolved due in part to Braun’s and Matas’ relentless attacks on another board member for supposed contacts with Hezbollah and Hamas.

The MEK emerged in 1960s Iran, promoting a strange mixture of Marxism and Shia Islam, and supported the 1979 Revolution until the Mullahs turned against it. MeK leadership then fled to Europe, from which they launched a series of terrorist bombings. They simultaneously maintained a presence in Iraq, where they enjoyed Saddam Hussein’s patronage, massacred Kurds on his behalf, and even fought with his troops against their own country.

The MEK promote themselves, to anyone who will listen, as the Iranian opposition and the best democratic alternative to the present government — and politicians and think tanks seeking regime change in Iran readily indulge them, despite wide reports of their cult-like behavior.
In August 2019 Canada’s National Observer published a report about Canadian politicians who love the MEK. Prominently featured in the article is the other co-author of “Bloody Harvest,” David Kilgour, a former MP who is co-chair for “Canadian Friends of a Democratic Iran” and has been doing PR for the MEK for years.

So both authors of “Bloody Harvest” advocate on behalf of, not one, but two cults that also happen to be darlings of regime-change enthusiasts in and around Western governments. (The latest edition of “Bloody Harvest” includes a third co-author, Ethan Gutmann, who, notably, has been affiliated with the Gulf monarchy-funded Brookings Institution and the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies.)
How does one unwind from all this hard shill work? David Kilgour makes a point of seeing Shen Yun’s dance performances year after year and effusing about it again and again and again to the Epoch Times.
A few reporters notice Falun Gong’s seamy side
In March, Jia Tolentino published her impressions of Shen Yun in the New Yorker. Like the aforementioned NBC piece on the Epoch Times, Tolentino ‘s article shows that more and more people are noticing that there is something very odd about Falun Gong.
From the “baroque and surreal” Shen Yun dance-propaganda show, which bills itself as a last bastion of genuine Chinese culture, she moves to consider some other very troubling aspects of the Falun Gong organization, such as their penchant for resisting journalistic inquiry and harassing critics.
Tolentino also mentions a 2017 Washington Post investigation by Simon Denyer, which, while hardly a pro-PRC puff piece, casts serious doubt on the claims of the Kilgour-Matas report on organ harvesting.
Denyer may be the only journalist in the mainstream US press who conducted an independent investigation on organ harvesting in China and seriously questions Falun Gong’s organ harvesting narrative. Naturally, Ethan Gutmann felt compelled to run a rebuttal to Denyer’s report on ETAC’s website — and one can only imagine the kinds of emails and phone calls Denyer has been getting since he dared to publish that piece.
For most of the Western corporate media, the “Bloody Harvest” horror story is too ghoulishly titillating to subject to serious scrutiny, especially when the “Yellow Peril”-style villain is an increasingly powerful state threatening the old hegemonies.
Additional reporting by The Grayzone’s Ben Norton
Ryan McCarthy, thegrayzone.com
Ryan McCarthy is a US-based writer and activist

October 5, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Former AG set to lobby for Terrorist group

As U.S.-Iran tensions escalate, Iran’s domestic opposition group is courting allies in the U.S in hope to replace the current authoritarian Iranian regime.

Last week, another former high-ranking official joined the camp.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who served under President George W. Bush, registered last week as a foreign agent lobbying pro bono for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a major Iranian dissident group pushing to topple the country’s current administration. Mukasey’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this week, Mukasey received attention for defending President Donald Trump in an op-ed, pointing to the Justice Department’s statement that declined investigations into the president’s July call with Ukraine.

The council is the political arm of Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK. Responsible for killing Iranian and American citizens in the past, the group was a U.S.-designated terrorist group before its delisting in 2012 following a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign.

The group also had close ties with Iraq President Saddam Hussein, who in 1986 sponsored MEK with weapons, funding and a military base in hope for help against the Iranian government.

Although Mukasey officially registered his ties to the group just last week, he had previously met with the group several times between 2015 and 2018, Foreign Agents Registration Act records in OpenSecrets’ Foreign Lobby Watch database show.

Mukasey is among a list of high-ranking former officials who gave paid speeches at conferences in support of the MEK, and was investigated, but never sanctioned, by the Treasury Department for potential violations of law for accepting speaking fees.

Mukasey spoke last year in Paris at the “Free Iran” conference — a gathering of Iranian opposition groups — in favor of a regime change in Iran, promising that he would never rest while supporting the effort. “We hope that the mullahs will topple,” Mukasey said, “but it’s gonna take more effort.”

The former attorney general joined lobbying firm Debevoise & Plimpton after he stepped down as attorney general in 2009. Since 2011, Mukasey and his family members have given more than $50,000 to mostly Republicans and their affiliated PACs, records show. Much of the money went to hawkish lawmakers including Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and former Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

All three senators spoke vocally against the Iranian government in the past. In 2017, Tillis was part of a U.S. delegation led by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) to Albania to meet with MEK’s leader Maryam Rajavi. She later thanked the Blunt-led delegation for the Senate’s effort to protect MEK members in Iraq.

Cotton, a longtime critic of the Iranian government, pushed the Trump administration in June to launch a “retaliatory strike” against Iran after the U.S. blamed the country for a series of attacks. McCain backed Trump’s decision to shelve the Iran nuclear deal long before the president withdrew from the agreement, arguing that Iran has “literally been getting away with murder.”

Mukasey’s registration comes at a time when the U.S.-Iran tensions continue to build since Trump’s withdrawal in 2018 from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal.The already-strained relationship took a downturn after multiple attacks and U.S. military movements near the Persian Gulf.

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As the bilateral disagreement intensifies, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif recently warned that the Middle Eastern country will defend itself with an “all-out war” if the U.S. launches a strike against it. Last Saturday, the U.S. Air Force pulled its longtime Qatar-based Middle East command center back to South Carolina for the first time, the Washington Post reported, saying Iran-related incidents sped up the decision.

Amid rising distrust, the National Council of Resistance of Iran claimed last week that it has evidence proving the Iranian government dictated the attack on Saudi oil facilities, further fueling the conflicts.

Raising its profile in Washington, D.C., over the past few years, the group often participates in congressional briefings, receptions and other events, FARA filings show. They also frequently run opinion pieces in conservative media outlets such as The Washington Times, the Washington Free Beacon and Fox News.

The council has paid American lobbying firm Rosemont Associates $1.4 million since 2013 to lobby the government. Senator-turned-MEK-lawyer Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) — lobbying on behalf of the group — received backlash in 2002 for his support for Iranian opposition groups. While senator, Torricelli met with the council twice in 2001 discussing human rights issues and Iranian missile attacks, records show.

Mukasey’s registration is only the most recent revelation in a network of current and former government officials and ambassadors with ties to the high-profile opposition group.

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, well-known for his aggressive foreign policy views on Iran and other countries, is a longtime critic of the Iranian regime. He advocated for the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, and proposed to bomb Iran to stop nuclear proliferation in an op-ed.

For over a decade, Bolton publicly backed the MEK as a replacement for the current Iranian administration. His personal financial disclosures revealed that he was paid $40,000 in 2016 to conduct a speech to the group.

Between 2015 and 2018, the group met multiple times with Rudy Giuliani, former New York City Mayor and now Trump’s attorney, records show. Representing foreign clients while offering legal services to the president, Giuliani has invited scrutiny. The attorney, with rich connections with Ukraine, pushed the foreign government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden in the most recent Trump-Ukraine controversy.

Giuliani spoke publicly on several occasions in support of overturning the Iranian regime. “The mullahs must go, the ayatollah must go,” said Giuliani at last year’s “Free Iran” conference, “and they must be replaced by a democratic government which Madam Rajavi represents.”

Torricelli, who has long lobbied on behalf of the council, published a Politico op-ed in 2016 arguing that Giuliani’s ties to the group should not be concerning.

Officials of the council met Giuliani in July 2015 to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, days after Iran reached an agreement with six other countries in Vienna to scale back its nuclear commitments in exchange for sanctions relief. Since Trump pulled from the deal, Iran has ramped up uranium production, potentially setting the country on a path to breaching the agreement as the U.S.-Iran tensions worsen.

By Yue Stella Yu, OpenSecrets

October 3, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

New revelations on the US- based UANI

Emails Suggest UAE and Saudi Arabia Funded U.S.-Based Anti-Iran Pressure Group

For the second year in a row, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo chose an unusual venue in which to present new escalations in the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran during the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Speaking last week at United Against Nuclear Iran’s (UANI) annual conference, Pompeo announced the administration was expanding its pressure campaign, targeting Chinese entities believed to be transporting Iranian oil. “[W]e’re telling China and all nations, know that we will sanction every violation of sanctionable activity,” said Pompeo.
Pompeo’s choice of venues was a curious one. What UANI is and who is behind it appears to be a closely held secret but documents reviewed by LobeLog show a funding apparatus funneling over $35 million over two years into anti-Iran and anti-Qatar advocacy work. LobeLog was provided emails that appear to show UANI principals soliciting diplomats and government advisers from regional rivals of Iran for funding, raising questions about UANI’s funding sources and whether the group is acting as an undeclared foreign agent.
The “non-governmental” anti-Iran pressure group’s summit included Bahraini Ambassador to the U.S. Sheikh Abdullah bin Rashed bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, Saudi Minister of State for Arabian Gulf Affairs Thamer al-Sahban, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, and U.S. Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker. UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba was also visible in the audience. Billionaire Thomas Kaplan, who was shown to be the majority funder of UANI in 2013, was also in attendance.
Earlier in the week, UANI drew notice from both U.S. media outlets and Iran’s foreign ministry. Last Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi announced the addition of UANI to Iran’s list of terrorist groups due its “close ties and cooperation with terrorist groups,” according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. The reference to “cooperation with terrorist groups” is presumably regarding a conference of Iranian opposition groups held last week in New York. The event had murky ties to UANI and was primarily attended by supporters of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an opposition group that the U.S. listed as a terrorist organization until 2012. Iran still considers the MEK a terrorist group.
Al-Monitor reported:

UANI denied any involvement with Tuesday’s event and said Wallace convened it in his “personal capacity.” The program for the event at the Roosevelt Hotel, however, listed UANI as the organizer. UANI said that was an error.

UANI’s support for Iranian opposition groups, including those who have engaged in terrorism according to the State Department, makes a lot more sense when clues to the organization’s financial backers are examined.

In 2017, UANI received $5 million of its $5,084,533 in contributions from is umbrella group, the Counter Extremism Project United Inc (CEPU), according to publicly available tax documents. UANI’s sister group, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), which receives State Department funding and echoes Saudi and UAE accusations about Qatar’s ties to terrorism, received $7 million of its $7.8 million in contributions from CEPU.
CEPU received over $22 million in 2017 and nearly $15 million in 2016. UANI and CEP are the primary recipients of CEPU’s largesse, but former National Security Adviser John Bolton received $240,000 between 2016 and 2017 from CEPU, according to CEPU tax filings, before he entered the Trump White House, an amount that differs from the $165,000 he declared in his financial disclosure.
The source of those funds is unknown but a previously unreported email, allegedly originating from the email account of UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba, offers a clue.
In September 2014, CEP president and former U.S. Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend emailed Otaiba:

By the way can we chat about UAE support for the Counter Extremism Project? I had this whole idea about an Abu Dhabi Sheik Zaid conference. I know you have spoken with Mark Wallace and the (sic) Richard Mintz was briefed. I don’t want to see this get caught in the The (sic) bureaucracy and I think it is exactly something both you and MBZ would support.

Mark Wallace is the CEO of UANI and CEP, Richard Mintz is the managing director of the Harbour Group which advises the UAE government, and “MBZ” is the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
Townsend did not respond to a request for comment about the email.
Other emails previously published by LobeLog add to the evidence of Emirati and/or Saudi funding behind CEP and UANI.
Earlier that same September, Wallace appeared to email Otaiba regarding a “cost estimate” for an upcoming “forum.” Wallace wrote:
Forum concept. Was asked for an [sic] included very aggressive meaning high cost estimates and we included that. Believe that this will be self-funding in short order with donors and attendees that we would attract.. Thanks and look forward to actually meeting.
Mark
An email allegedly sent in January, 2015, appears to show Townsend soliciting Otaiba’s assistance in arranging a meeting in Abu Dhabi with Mohammed bin Zayed. Townsend concluded her email writing:

And many thanks for your and Richard Mintz’ ongoing support of the CEP effort! Given the tragedy in Paris this effort becomes more urgent everyday!

Many thanks,

Fran
Republican Party mega-fundraiser and Saudi lobbyist Norm Coleman also appears in the tranche of Otaiba’s emails, specifying the tax status of CEP on behalf of then-Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir. He wrote:

Ambassador,
Foreign Minister Al Jubeir recommended that I follow up with you on the attached matter. The Counter Extremism Project is a 501c4. Let me know if you have any questions.
Regards,
Norm

Mark Wallace, France Townsend, and the embassies of the UAE and Saudi Arabia did not respond to requests for comment about the possible role of Emirati and Saudi funding in fueling UANI, CEP, and Bolton’s advocacy work.
Other efforts to identify the funders behind UANI and CEP have met little success.
In 2015, the plaintiff in a lawsuit against UANI sought to review the group’s donor rolls as part of the discovery process. The Justice Department quashed the suit with an invocation of state secrets, a surprising occurrence since the U.S. government wasn’t a defendant in the suit.
Also in 2015, CEP faced scrutiny for its funding after Twitter refused to participate in one of the group’s conferences.
Buzzfeed reported:

A Twitter spokesman told BuzzFeed News that Twitter declined to work with the group when it reached out to the company last year because of concerns over its “undisclosed funding.” Twitter was invited by the State Department to the event on Monday and declined to participate, again due to questions about the CEP’s funding, the spokesman said.

[…]
Asked about Twitter’s reasoning in an interview with BuzzFeed News, Wallace said it was “irresponsible” for Twitter to suggest that CEP should disclose its donors. Their being public, he argued, could put them at risk of being threatened. Fran Townsend, for example, has received death threats from ISIS-boosting Twitter accounts, he said. “We keep our donors confidential for security reasons.”
If UAE and Saudi funding are underwriting CEP and UANI’s advocacy work, it raises serious questions about whose interests the groups are representing and whether they are acting as agents of foreign principals, a status requiring disclosure under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).

The fact that the Secretary of State has twice chosen UANI as a venue for high profile speeches outlining new sanctions against Iran and its trading partners, and that the former National Security Advisor received $240,000 in compensation from CEPU before entering the Trump administration—$75,000 of which appears to have gone unreported—suggests that UANI is an influential force in shaping U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf and has access to the highest levels of the U.S. government.
While UANI’s presence during the UN General Assembly last week was unmissable, whoever funneled $35 million over two years into CEPU prefers to remain in the shadows.
Eli Clifton

October 2, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Pompeo embraces the Cult killed Americans

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will attend a meeting linked to a terror cult that has murdered 6 Americans

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to the media before departing from al-Bateen Air Base in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2019, as U.S. special representative on Iran Brian Hook, left, listens. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP)
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Associated Press

• US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to attend a meeting at the UN General Assembly that is linked to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (the People’s Mujahedin of Iran).
• MEK is a notorious Iranian cult which has murdered at least six American civilians and thousands of Iranians.
• It was once a designated terrorist organisation.
• MEK has given enormous speaking fees to American politicians willing to

speak at its events, including Rudolph Giuliani, John Bolton, Joe Lieberman, and Howard Dean.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to attend an event at the UN General Assembly tomorrow that is linked to a notorious Iranian cult which has murdered at least six American civilians and spent over 20 years protected by Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The Mujahedin-e-Khalq (or People’s Mujahedin of Iran)”is an organisation that fancies itself as the official Iranian opposition in exile,”said David Patrikarakos, an analyst and author of Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State.

“In truth, it’s a cult-like group that was for years on the State Department’s list of terror organisations and has little support in Iran due to the fact that it fought with [Iraqi leader] Saddam’s forces during the Iran-Iraq War.”

The meeting, dubbed the”2019 Iran Summit,”will feature Pompeo and Mark Wallace, a longtime US advocate of MEK. Former US senator Joseph I. Lieberman, who has previously spoken at MEK events, will also attend the Pompeo-Wallace event.

Officially, MEK will hold a separate event, according to the Washington Post, putting a small degree of separation between Pompeo and MEK itself.

When asked about the meeting’s links to MEK, a State Department official”dismissed the concerns about the MEK’s participation in Wallace’s event, [telling the Washington Post],”Have you looked at the people attending the U.N.?”

MEK is currently based in an Albanian compound and does not report the sources of its funding. It has a long history of violence against civilians, hostility towards Israel in rhetoric that borders on anti-Semitic, and sponsorship of attacks against the West.

Despite this, the group has managed to purchase its way to credibility in some US political circles by offering huge speaking fees to US lawmakers willing to share a stage with violent militants. A MEK front group called the National Council of Resistance of Iran is already using Pompeo’s name in its propaganda.

The MEK supported the overthrow of the US-backed regime of the Shah in the 1970s conducting scores of terror attacks against US military and commercial targets inside Iran, as well as supporting the 1979 takeover of the US embassy.

It later broke with its revolutionary comrades and defected to Iraq, and the patronage of its president, Saddam Hussein.

A US State Department analysis concluded that the group had killed six Americans, including military officers and civilians doing business in pre-revolutionary Iran, as well as thousands of Iranian civilians in terror attacks.

This history of aligning with two of America’s most hated enemies in the Middle East — Iraq and Iran — along with its pursuit of a terror campaign inside Iran that killed thousands of civilians, a conclusion reached by the US State Department, led to the group being designated a terror organization by the US government until 2012.

How did a group widely considered among the most bizarre and violent in the region became acceptable company for current US government officials? Money.

After the US invasion of Iraq and defeat of Saddam in 2003, the group immediately began throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars at anti-Iran politicians in Washington, usually in the form of speaking fees to address the group’s rallies and events.

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, former NYC mayor and current lawyer to the president Rudy Giuliani, former senator Joseph I. Lieberman, and former Vermont governor Howard Dean as well as a slew of lesser-known figures have all addressed the group and publicly taken up their cause. MEK is known for paying very large speaking fees.

This attention — and American desperation for a dissident group to support against the current Iranian regime — led to the group being delisted as a terrorist organization in 2012.

Even if you set aside its history of murdering Americans and supporting despotic regimes, it is unlikely that the group will ever become a credible political partner of the US.

That’s because in Iran, MEK is regarded as a bunch of traitors who fought alongside Saddam Hussein and have a history of murdering Iranian civilians in terror attacks.

“The fact that the Secretary of State is openly meeting with them will only serve to provoke the Iranians with little gain for the US or its interests,”said Patrikarakos. He pointed out that the group is widely hated even by Iranians who otherwise oppose the current regime.

“Indeed, working with them discredits the West in the eyes of normal Iranians who otherwise aren’t crazy about the Islamic Republic,”he added.
Mitch Prothero, Businessinsider.com

September 26, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Cement ties to MEK Terrorists!

Iran hawks cement ties to former US-designated terrorist group

United Against Nuclear Iran’s CEO embraces the MEK as his group prepared to host Pompeo.

Demonstrators rally to support a leadership change in Iran outside the UN headquarters in New York City, New York, US, Sept. 24, 2019.

NEW YORK — Leading Iran hawks are increasingly open about their ties to a controversial opposition group, triggering Iranian retaliation and posing a quandary for the Donald Trump administration.

On the eve of the hawkish United Against Nuclear Iran’s annual summit featuring Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, UANI CEO Mark Wallace Tuesday convened a gathering of Iranian opposition groups. The event was billed as an unprecedented gathering of diverse opposition groups, including Kurds, Balochs and Azerbaijanis.

“This is the first time in history, since the Iranian revolution in 1978 and 1979, that such a broad cross-section of the leaders and delegates from Iranian dissident … groups have gathered in a convention for Iran’s future,” Wallace said. “This gathering demonstrates the willingness of many here today to set aside many of the disagreements of the past.”

But attendance was dominated by the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq (MEK) and its allies. Iran considers the MEK a terrorist group, as the United States did until 2012.
Also read

UNGA 2019US and world powers continue to talk past each other on Iran at UN

UANI denied any involvement with Tuesday’s event and said Wallace convened it in his “personal capacity.” The program for the event at the Roosevelt Hotel, however, listed UANI as the organizer. UANI said that was an error.
The program for the event listed UANI as the organizer. UANI says that was an error.

The group may be reluctant to be seen as openly rooting for the MEK, which advocates for overthrowing the ruling clerics in Tehran and has critics even among Iranians who oppose Tehran. A Los Angeles-based Iranian American pro-democracy activist told Al-Monitor that people in that community had advised UANI against being involved in an event including the MEK and controversial ethnic separatist groups.

“Terrible choices,” the activist said. “Many separatist groups [were invited] … They [UANI] did not listen.”

Several days ago, an umbrella group of several Iranian Kurdish political parties — including the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran (PDK-I), Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and two branches of the left-wing Komala party — announced it would skip the event but did not offer a reason. The event had signs for several of the groups, but their seats were empty.

Openly embracing the MEK could also put the Trump administration in an uncomfortable spot. The administration does not officially support regime change, but recently stopped ruling out the MEK as a political alternative.

Regardless of UANI’s denials, Al-Monitor spoke with several participants at the event who believed the group was involved. Tehran seems to think so as well, and announced Tuesday that it would be designating UANI a terrorist group following similar action against the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).

“On the one hand, the United States deceitfully speaks of compromise and negotiation,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi said Tuesday. “And on the other hand, it organizes, finances and arms criminal and terrorist groups … and provides them with intelligence.”

Jason Brodsky, UANI’s policy director, denounced the remarks in a tweet from inside the Future of Iran conference: “First FDD is declared as a terrorist organization. Now, Iran’s regime follows by declaring UANI a terrorist organization. The regime’s war on research continues.” He later wrote on Twitter that, like Wallace, he was attending in his personal capacity.

Minutes later, UANI’s CEO invited to the stage Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer and a longtime MEK advocate.

“I call them the regime of terror,” Giuliani said to thunderous applause. “We’re here today, and we’re going to support a regime of freedom.”

Laura Rozen contributed to this report.
Julian Pecquet , Al-monitor.com

September 26, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Never knowingly engage with the Mujahideen-e Khalq

Trump, Iran’s Rouhani descend on same corner of New York but remain far apart

After months of lobbing threats and vowing military reprisals, President Trump will find himself on the same block of midtown Manhattan as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani this week at the annual U.N. General Assembly.
At times, Trump has flirted with the idea of meeting with Rouhani for a historic tete-a-tete, only to retreat to a position of imposing tougher economic sanctions.
Trump’s top advisers privately opposed such a meeting and appeared to win that debate after an attack on Saudi oil facilities Sept. 14 prompted the United States to impose more sanctions on Tehran. But Trump has not ruled anything out.
“Nothing is ever off the table completely, but I have no intention of meeting with Iran, and that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen,” the president told reporters Sunday on the South Lawn of the White House. “I’m a very flexible person.”
Even if Trump changed his mind and extended an invitation, however, it is far from clear that Rouhani would accept, something critics attribute to the Trump administration’s mixed messages.
Trump has tried to appeal to Tehran in various statements, ruling out regime change and entertaining a French plan to extend a line of credit to Iran to return to the 2015 nuclear deal the United States withdrew from last year. But the president’s hawkish advisers have taken a tougher posture: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that Iran is “bloodthirsty and looking for war,” and his diplomats did little to help facilitate a meeting in the run-up to the General Assembly, said U.S. officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal operations.
On Wednesday, Pompeo is scheduled to speak at an event hosted by Iran hawk and former diplomat Mark Wallace, who has drawn criticism for including a fringe Iranian diaspora group, Mujahideen-e Khalq, or MEK, in his programming surrounding the U.N. gathering.

Until 2012, the MEK was listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States for allegedly killing U.S. personnel in Iran in the 1970s and for its links to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. It is largely reviled inside Iran because of its alliance with Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war. It is participating in a dissident convention hosted by Wallace a day before Pompeo’s speech at the Iran summit.

Analysts said Pompeo’s involvement in Wallace’s event risks confusing Trump’s declaration last month that “we’re not looking for leadership change.”
“This is an extremely unwise and dangerous decision,” said Dalia Dassa Kaye, director of the center for Middle East public policy at the Rand Corp.

“The message this will send is that regime change is still in the mix despite the president’s statements to the contrary,” she said. “There’s already confusion about U.S. aims on Iran, so this will only raise more questions about what the U.S. has been trying to achieve since its withdrawal from the nuclear agreement.”

An Iran scholar scheduled to speak at the same event as Pompeo has dropped out because of the MEK’s involvement in the event Wallace is hosting Tuesday.

Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution said in a statement to The Washington Post that she “would never knowingly engage with the Mujahideen-e Khalq, a cultlike terrorist organization that is despised by many Iranians.”
“Although the summit and the diaspora event will be held on separate days, the overlap in the sponsorship of the two events was too close for my comfort,” she said.
Pompeo has previously distanced himself from the group when asked about the attendance of Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and then-national security adviser John Bolton at MEK events. The group offers generous speaking fees and has cultivated close connections in Washington among Democrats and Republicans, including to former senator Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and former Vermont governor Howard Dean (D).
“Let’s not beat around the bush,” Pompeo reportedly said during a meeting with Iranian American leaders in April. “Ambassador Bolton spoke at an MEK rally. President Trump and I have not.”
A senior State Department official dismissed the concerns about the MEK’s participation in Wallace’s event, saying, “Have you looked at the people attending the U.N.?”

When asked about his decision to include the MEK, a spokesman for Wallace said he “decided early on that the convention will not discriminate or make value judgments on participation.”

His spokesman, Joshua Silberberg, added that Wallace’s organization, United Against Nuclear Iran, “admires Suzanne Maloney and respects her decision about participating in the Iran summit on Wednesday, which is an unrelated event.”
Ali Safavi, an official with the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which speaks for the MEK, said Maloney “has no credibility whatsoever to comment on the MEK.”
As diplomats from around the world streamed into New York for the United Nations’ 74th annual General Assembly, Pompeo and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif continued to trade barbs.
Pompeo, going further than Trump in assigning blame for the attack on Saudi Arabia, said, “This was an attack by Iran on the world.”
“We’re looking for a diplomatic resolution to this, unlike the Iranians,” he told CBS.
Unlike Pompeo, Trump has not directly blamed the country for the assault, saying last week that “as soon as we find out definitively, we’ll let you know.”

Trump did, however, approve new sanctions on Iran’s state bank Friday and signed off on a new deployment of U.S. troops to the Middle East to enhance Saudi Arabia’s air defenses.
With those moves, Iran’s foreign minister told reporters that Trump “knowingly or unknowingly on Friday closed the door to negotiations.”
“I think it’s all going the wrong direction in addressing this issue,” Zarif told CBS on Sunday. “I don’t think this type of posturing helps.”
U.S. officials said the Trump administration would try to build a coalition to denounce Iran’s activities in the Middle East this week. Rebels in Yemen, known as Houthis, took responsibility for the strike on Saudi oil facilities, but Pompeo and Saudi Arabia have said the militants do not possess the type of drone and cruise missile weaponry used in the attack. Even some Democrats reluctant to embrace Trump’s messaging have rejected Iran’s denial of involvement, including former secretary of state John F. Kerry, who said Iran was responsible “one way or the other.”
In an acknowledgment of the worsening tensions, France’s top diplomat, who has tried to broker a meeting between Rouhani and Trump, said it was now more important to de-escalate the “dangerous” situation rather than set up a meeting between the two governments.
“What is at stake during this week is whether or not we can carry on with this de-escalation process,” Jean-Yves Le Drian said.
Carol Morello contributed to this report.
John Hudson,

September 25, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK’s paid speakers,”to be or not to be”

The latest news on US politics included a bad one for the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi). President Trump fired one of the most vocal supporters of the MEK, his national security advisor John Bolton because he”disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration”.

Bolton is notoriously known for his warmongering attitudes, especially, against Iran. He is well known for his op-ed in the New York Times in 2015, headlined:”To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.”[1]
This extremely anti-Iran stance makes him sexy enough to get in bed with the MEK. That’s why after his departure from the White House all reports and analysis point out to his many appearances in the MEK’s events as a paid speaker.
“One group that is no doubt devastated by Bolton’s departure is the MEK — the Iranian exile group that wants regime change in Tehran, by force if necessary, and has paid Bolton & Rudy Giuliani to make speeches”, tweeted Edward Wong of the New York Times. [2]
Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, welcomed Bolton’s departure from the administration.”Bolton is an absolutist; it’s all or nothing, black and white. He’s not very good at step-by-step or incremental agreements, and those are the only kinds of agreements that are realistic with adversaries,”Slavin told the Middle East Eye.”So I think he’s been a major impediment to diplomacy. He is a war-monger. He’s somebody who’s advocated for bombing Iran, as recently as this past summer, and he has ties with the Mujahideen-e Khalq, an Islamo-fascist cult. So I’m glad he’s out.”[3]
Jason Rezaian of the Washington Post states,”His absence also means that the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a reviled Iranian opposition group that long lived on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist groups, no longer has a powerful ally in the White House.”[4]
Rezaian truly suggests that the MEK’s money does mean more to Bolton compared with its almost no support among Iranians.”The MEK can claim no popular support, and among Iranians of nearly all political orientations, inside the country and in the diaspora, it was Bolton’s paid alliance with the cult-like group that made him such an odious character,”he writes. [5]
Daniel Larison of the American Conservative who had previously warned about Bolton’s paid sponsorship for the MEK, a few months earlier, in June, denounced Bolton’s policy towards Iran due to his notorious links with the Cult of Rajavi.”Bolton’s long relationship with the MEK discredits everything he has to say about Iran,”he wrote.”No one that has praised this cult as a potential replacement for the Iranian government should have anything to do with U.S. policymaking at any level, much less at the White House. No one foolish or fanatical enough to side with this cult should be entrusted with any government position.”[6]
Larison strictly warned about the MEK-Bolton dirty connections.”Bolton’s ties to the MEK should be mentioned in every story that reports on him and the administration’s Iran policy, but unfortunately they are only rarely included in media coverage,”he stated. [7]
“It is unacceptable for a top government official responsible for shaping U.S. foreign policy to have been the paid shill of this awful organization that previously killed Americans,”Larison continued.”It is wrong for an official with ties to the MEK to be influencing decisions on Iran policy. There are many reasons why Bolton should be fired, and this is right at the top of the list.”[8]
On September 10th, after Bolton’s departure, Daniel Larison published an article on The American Conservative, titled”Good Riddance, Bolton”in which he expresses his pleasure to the”good news”. According to the senior editor of TAC, as far as Bolton is not a member of the administration his ardent support for the MEK is not dangerous for the region.”He should never have been hired, but at least he is out of government. Now he can go shill for the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) full-time,”Larison suggests. [9]
Definitely, the Saudi funded establishment of the Mujahedin Khalq is able to buy the support of any warmonger figure in the US political scene but as far as the group is despised by the Iranian nation, its paid sponsors are not capable of running their agenda. To be or not to be in the US administration team will not make Bolton a proper person to run the MEK’s agenda. The MEK can keep on expending dollars to buy the support of American high profiles. However the will and determination of the Iranian nation is certainly against the will of the longtime traitors who fought alongside Saddam Hussein against their country fellow men and opened fire against innocent civilians in the Iranian cities.
By Mazda Parsi

References:
[1] Bolton, John, To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran, The New York Times, March 25, 2019.
[2] Abshenass, Emad, ‘I Rule the White House’: Will Bolton’s ouster help Trump facilitate US-Iran negotiations?, United World Data, September 15th, 2019.
[3] Middle East Eye, Trump sacks national security adviser John Bolton, September 10, 2019.
[4] Rezaian, Jason, Bolton’s departure will fundamentally alter Trump’s Iran policy, The Washington Post, September 10, 2019.
[5] ibid
[6] Larison, Daniel, Bolton’s Relationship with the MEK Is a Scandal, The American Conservative, June 6th, 2019.
[7] ibid
[9] Larison, Daniel, Good Riddance, Bolton, The American Conservative, September 10th, 2019.

September 24, 2019 0 comments

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