On Friday, the so-called National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) held its annual conference — online because of spreading COVID-19 outbreaks.
NCRI has nothing to do with democratic values, everything to do with wanting Iran transformed into a US controlled fascist police state as it was from 1953 to 1979 under US installed Mohammad Reza Palavi.
The NCRI coalition of extremist elements is led by the so-called People’s Mujahedin of Iran (the MEK).
Until 2012, the group was a State Department terrorist organization.
It operates the same way now, violence and vandalism its specialties, supported by bipartisan US Iranophobes, using the group as a dagger against sovereign Islamic Republic independence, free from US control.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh earlier called the MEK a Western intelligence-linked group, covertly funded for anti-Iranian terrorist activities, supplying their operatives with “arms and intelligence.”
The CIA and Pentagon likely continue to arm, fund, and train its operatives, using them as an instrument of US war OF terror, not on it.
Targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists were carried out by MEK members — financed and trained by Israel’s Mossad.
It’s unclear if they may have been responsible for explosions and fires that occurred this year in Iran, including at the country’s Natanz nuclear site, its main uranium processing facility.
According to Hersh earlier, (t)he first units of the MEK…show(ed) up in Nevada in late 04, early 05, and it was (for) months and months of (special forces) training” by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
Hersh explained that their training included high-tech communications tactics, use of spy drones, explosives, and enhanced interrogation techniques.
The US and Israel are waging war on Iran by other means, including use of state-terror, part of their aim to topple Tehran’s legitimate government.
On Saturday, Press TV reported that Tehran’s UK envoy Hamid Baeidinejad slammed a Saudi-funded London television network, specializing in anti-Iran propaganda, for promoting and televising NCRI’s Friday conference.
“By broadcasting the gathering of the terrorist Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) that is the murderer of tens of thousands of innocent Iranians, the Saudi Iran International network displayed its full-scale obscenity and shamelessness,” he tweeted, adding that Riyadh helps fund the group.
Press TV explained that the MEK (aka the MKO) sided with US-supported Saddam Hussein during what’s known as the 1980s Iran-Iraq War.
MEK terrorism is responsible for killing “about 12,000” Iranians.
The US and other Western countries removed the group from their “terrorist blacklists.”
It holds annual US/Western/Saudi supported conferences, hardliners from these countries featured as speakers.
According to Reuters, participants at Friday’s conference included Trump regime lawyer Rudy Giuliani and 18 US senators.
John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Joe Lieberman, Newt Gingrich, Howard Dean, and other well-known US officials appeared at earlier MEK gatherings in a show of support — receiving thousands of dollars for their participation.
During Friday’s conference, MEK leader Maryam Rajavi said its “mission…is to overthrow the mullahs.”
The NCRI is an MEK front group. During Friday’s online session, Giuliani promoted regime change in Iran, saying the following:
“(T)he mullahs are like the people who ran the mafia, the people I prosecuted who ran the mafia and extorted their people,” adding:
“Regime change in Iran is within reach. That’s the goal of NCRI and (MEK head) Maryam Rajavi.”
She delivered red meat remarks that included saying “(o)ur first commitment is…overthrow(ing) (Iran’s ruling authorities and) reclaim(ing)” the country.
For all its huffing, puffing, US training, and monetary support from Washington and the Saudis, the MEK has scant backing in Iran at most.
A Final Comment
An earlier RAND Corporation “study” said after the US delisted the MEK as a terrorist organization, designating its members as “protected persons,” it left itself “open to charges of hypocrisy in the war on terrorism,” adding:
Practices of the cult-like group include “physical abuse (and) limited…options” for members to escape from its control.
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)