++ Meeting with Iran’s delegation at the UN General Assembly was, despite western media disinterest, of great interest to many countries, which did in fact hold meetings with foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Those countries, in particular, which support the restoration of the JCPOA. Even the UK foreign minister Liz Truss met with him. Which kind of left America standing alone in an empty room clinging to its intransigence over its sanctions regime. Years ago, the MEK would have been able to rally a couple of hundred supporters outside the UN to protest against Iran. This year, from their hidey-hole in Albania, desperate to appear relevant, they re-hashed on a website a previous speech by Mike Pompeo (which they had paid for) and pretended that he was supporting them now. The current theme of the MEKs activities is to denigrate president Ebrahim Raisi and create mistrust so as to prevent rapprochement between Iran and the west.

Behind the scenes the MEK is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, whether directly or through intermediaries. But the driving force behind this anti-Iran push are extremist elements of the Israeli right. And as long as there are American politicians, former officials and military personnel and justice systems like Sweden’s willing to be corrupted by MEK dollars, this charade will continue. But Raisi himself spoke to this charade in his videoed speech when he denounced the use of terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy: “you cannot fight terrorism with double standards. You cannot make a terrorist group, such as ISIS and claim to fight it somewhere else”. Equally applicable to western support for the terrorist MEK.

++ Borna News in Iran published a long analytical piece by Middle East expert Jafar Ghannadbashi, outlining 14 actions taken by Saudi Arabia against Iran, each of which could lead to war or weaken western leverage against Iran. One of these actions is “to help the armed terrorist groups, one of which is the MEK. This means that a large part of all the expenses of the hypocrites in Albania and elsewhere is paid by Saudi Arabia. In addition to the seminars and conferences that are being held in Paris, apart from the separatist groups that are in the border areas of our country, Saudi Arabia also pays for them and supports them. Saudis have repeatedly said: ‘We will bring the war to the inside of Iran’.” According to Ghannadbashi, the money spent by Saudi and Israel to stop rapprochement between Iran and the west is a waste of money.

In English:
++ The MEK has entered a new phase which should be called the rise of the ‘Qajar’ Dynasty’ or the Third Ideological Revolution. Maryam Rajavi has consigned Massoud Rajavi and his ‘Rajavi Dynasty’ to obscurity and appointed at leadership level in the MEK her own daughter, her niece, her former husband’s niece’s daughter, along with a small cabal of loyal women, groomed specifically for their roles. For all we know, she might even be contemplating changing her name back to Qajar-Azodanlu to complete the coup. Massoud Khodabandeh wrote a long article outlining how this coup came about over forty years. “Looking back over MEK history after this recent leadership announcement, it is clear that there was a deliberate attempt by Maryam Rajavi to protect and promote her family and friends in the organisation. Whether motivated by jealousy or ambition, she pushed the Rajavi family out. Her control over the MEK became almost inevitable after Massoud disappeared in 2003. The Massoud-Saddam combination became the Maryam-Faisal combination. But when Faisal announced five years ago that Massoud Rajavi was dead, it was clear she was not ready to show her hand. Whether she had not fully groomed her daughter and the other women for this role, or she had not assumed full control over the money, the time has now arrived. In effect, Maryam Rajavi has instigated a third Ideological Revolution – the Qajar Dynasty’s leadership of the MEK.”

++ A short piece by Ali Alavi published by Iran Interlink says that Albania’s agreement to temporarily house nearly 500 Afghan refugees is simply a way for the Americans to vet them before choosing which ones are acceptable over there. “Albania is notorious as the backyard for US dirty work – a hub for financing, recruitment and training and dispatching ‘good’ terrorists. That’s why the terrorist cult Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) is based there.” Alavi pointed out that many of these Afghan refugees speak Dari which is very close to Farsi. “The newly arrived Afghan refugees who speak Farsi are ripe for recruitment by the MEK. They can be used to bulk out the audience at Maryam Rajavi’s fake gatherings. They can be used in the click farm at the MEK camp in Durres. They can be trained over the coming year or so, to replace some of the older MEK members in North America and Europe.”

++ An Iran Interlink editorial highlights the hypocrisy of the MEK celebrating Democracy Day when in its 57-year history it has never held an election among its members to choose its leaders or its policies.

++ Habilian Association published a collection of articles under the title ‘Mojahedin-e Khalq Uncovered: The Terrorist Group in the Eyes of International Media’. This comprises media articles and reports published on the MEK by governments, research institutes and think tanks that help us “to understand how MKO’s terrorism has been viewed by experts, journalists, politicians, governments and international organizations during the past 17 years.”

Sep 24, 2021