August 29 is commemorated in Iran as the National Day of Fight Against Terrorism.

On August 29, 1981 the Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) detonated a bomb at the office of Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar in Pasteur Street in downtown Tehran, martyring senior Iranian officials including the Prime Minister Bahonar, the President Mohammad Ali Rajai as well as some other officials including Tehran Police chief Hooshang Vahiddastjerdi who had a security meeting there.

This terrorist attack came nearly two months after another massive deadly bombing on 28 June 1981 known as Haft-e Tir bombing at the headquarters of Islamic Republic Party in Tehran which martyred more than seventy senior Iranian officials, including the Chief Justice of Iran Mohammad Beheshti. The MKO was blamed for the Haft-e Tir bombing as well.

the MEK bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in 1981

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has suffered a lot from terrorism, while the MKO has been spearheading the terrorism campaign against Iranian civilians and government officials.

According to Iranian government officials, the terrorist organization has so far killed over 17,000 Iranian citizens since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In the early years after victory of revoltion, the newly established Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) managed dismantle the MKO internally by discovering their hideouts and sleeper cells and neutralizing them.

The notorious MKO had to flee from Iran to neighboring Iraq during Saddam Baath regime as well as European countries including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom as well as the United States and Canada.

Meeting between Abbas Davari; Head of the MKO Central Committee and officials from Saddam Hussein’s Secret Intelligence Service

Its members are now freely operating and plotting against their homeland with the backing of governments of the western countries where they are residing in with the United States and France on the top.

While in Iraq in 1980s, the MKO terrorists were armed by the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. They fought alongside Baathist army against their fellow Iranians and their agents carried out lots of assassinations against Iranian civilians and government officials throughout the 8-year Iraqi-imposed war on Iran between 1980 and 1988.

The Baathist regime of Saddam had provided them with a camp called Camp Ashraf in Diyala Province where they were trained and plotted terror attacks against both Iraqis and their fellow Iranians.

After the Saddam regime was toppled after the US invasion in 2003, the remaining MKO members faced massive anger from many Iraqis for their previous cooperation with the former Saddam regime so that their American and European backers had to relocate them to a new camp in Albania to use them as proxies in the future against the Islamic Republic.

Subsequently, the US and the European Union gradually removed the MKO from their lists of foreign terrorist organizations despite the fact the MKO elements were walking freely in Europe and US even when the terror group’s name was still on their terror lists.

Over the recent years, the US and France have publicly shown their support for the MKO. The MKO current head Maryam Rajavi, who had taken the lead over the organization after the suspicious unannounced death of her husband, has held meetings with high-ranking US officials including former National Security Advisor John Bolton and former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. They have also held gatherings in France with high-ranking US officials in attendance.

MKO Terrorist Group Hires Top US Lobbying Firm BGR

Most recently, on Sunday July 11, 2021, the MKO held a gathering at their camp in Albania with the attendance of US senators, British MPs and French lawmakers.

Western officials including Mike Pompeo and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa delivered speeches in the anti-Iranian event organized by the MKO terrorist group in Tirana.

The US and its western allies behavior towards the terrorist group is a clear example of their double standards towards terrorism.

From assassinating the second Iranian president, Mohammad Ali Rajaei, and Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar to Judiciary head Mohammad Beheshti, the MKO terrorists stand out as number one enemy of Iran.

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Violence is violence. One who kills another, can burn oneself too. violence and Terror in any form or cover ,with any motivation, with plenty of sincerity has no result except strengthening violence and dictatorship .You may be able to change a dictator regime by terror and violence weapon but you would definitely replace a more completed and complicated dictatorship. The one who burns himself, will burn his rival doubtlessly, without hesitating.

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Iran Press/ Iran news: In his weekly presser on Tuesday, Ali Rabiei said: “In the last four decades, the enemies of Iran have launched a large-scale offensive to assassinate the three fundamental valuable principles; justice, security, and freedom of our nation.”

Rabiei called the assassination of martyr Beheshti a symbol of the assassination of justice.

His remarks were on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of a deadly attack by the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group, which killed some Iranian officials, including the then-head of Supreme Judicial Council Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti.

On June 28, 1981, a powerful bomb exploded at Iran’s Islamic Republican Party (IRP) headquarters, where the party’s leaders held a meeting.

the MEK bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in 1981

The bombing killed scores of Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Beheshti.

The MKO has admitted to having carried out the attack.

In a meeting with General Taher Haboush (Saddam’s intelligence chief) in 1999, the then-head of MKO Masoud Rajavi said: “As you know, I was in Paris from 1981 to 1986. We were not called terrorists in those years. Although they knew who had blown up the Republican Party in Iran … they knew who and what political process killed the president and prime minister of the regime while we were in contact with both the White House and the Elysee Palace. They knew well, but they did not call us terrorists at all.”

The MKO has made numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks over the past four decades, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the terrorist group’s acts of terror.
Washington and the European Union have removed the MKO from their lists of terrorist organizations. The anti-Iran terrorists enjoy the freedom of activity in the US and Europe and even hold meetings with officials from the US and EU.

Chemical bombing of Sardasht

Commemorating the anniversary of the chemical bombing of Sardasht, the spokesman of Iran’s government called the event a symbol of the assassination of security, saying that it was not limited to it and continued with the support of terrorist groups inside and outside Iran against the security of this nation, and with the cowardly assassination of Martyr Lt. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, they made yet another symbol of it.

The chemical attack took place on June 28, 1987, in the northwestern province of West Azarbaijan. The Iraqi warplanes dropped chemical bombs on four residential areas, which resulted in the killing of over 100 citizens and injury of 8000.

Iran’s top official explained further to call economic sanctions a symbol of the assassination of the third valuable principle: freedom, which means freedom from poverty and freedom from fear of losing the right to an honorable and dignified life.

“Of course, we have never surrendered to these evil forces of terrorism and the malicious intentions behind it, and we have no intention of surrendering,” highlighted Rabiei.

The government spokesman said: “Today, those Western nations who have granted asylum to the perpetrators of the assassination of Martyr Beheshti and other martyrs of that terrorist incident, and by supporting Saddam Hussein and equipping him with chemical weapons, must apologize to the Iranian people and answer for these crimes.”
Furthermore, in recent years, he said that by imposing inhumane sanctions which have endangered the livelihoods of millions of innocent Iranian citizens.

“However, today, we see that not only are they not remorseful, but they still insist on continuing economic sanctions and unjustly harassing our people,” the spokesman added.

He stated: “This dark background is enough to understand the roots of Iran’s distrust of the West, especially the United States.”

Rabiei added: “On the anniversary of the martyrdom of Martyr Beheshti and the chemical attack on Sardasht and the martyrdom of hundreds of other innocent people, we urge all Western governments, especially the US government, to reconsider past wrongdoing and make up for it, which at its starting point is only to end sanctions against our people’s economy. We call on them to take a step in the right direction to end the forty years of fruitless terror of freedom, liberty, and independence of a proud nation.”

Iranpress

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Zohreh Elahian, the chairwoman of the Iranian parliament’s human rights committee, said at the event that despite what was stated in international conventions, including the 1951 Geneva Convention, the MKO terrorist group that has killed many innocent people continues its acts of sabotage against the Iranian nation with the support of Western countries.
“According to international conventions, terrorists must prevent to be the asylum, and granting asylum to MKO is a violation of human rights by the Western countries,” she added.

On June 28, 1981, a powerful bomb exploded at Iran’s Islamic Republican Party (IRP) headquarters, where the party’s leaders held a meeting.
The bombing killed scores of Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Beheshti.
The MKO has admitted to having carried out the attack.

In a meeting with General Taher Haboush (Saddam’s intelligence chief) in 1999, the then-head of MKO Masoud Rajavi said: “As you know, I was in Paris from 1981 to 1986. We were not called terrorists in those years. Although they knew who had blown up the Republican Party in Iran … they knew who and what political process killed the president and prime minister of the regime while we were in contact with both the White House and the Elysee Palace. They knew well, but they did not call us terrorists at all.”

The MKO has made numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks over the past four decades, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the terrorist group’s acts of terror.
Washington and the European Union have removed the MKO from their lists of terrorist organizations. The anti-Iran terrorists enjoy the freedom of activity in the US and Europe and even hold meetings with officials from the US and EU.

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I knew then that he was not a member of MEK or even remotely connected to their ideology when he came to me, and I knew later in Iraq that he could never accept the cultish teachings of Rajavi thereafter (the Ideological Revolution, divorces …), and would remain an outcast with nowhere to go. And this is what happened. Whether he was fooled by MEK to carry out this terrorist act, or whether he was pushed directly by other intelligence agencies which pulled MEK wires in Tehran at that time is a mystery to me. But what is clear is that although he was not a person close to MEK, the task of taking him out of Iran and saving him (and at the same time confining him) was the job assigned to the MEK.
It is inconceivable that Kolahi, with the information that he had, and the danger he could pose to the MEK and their variety of masters if brought in front of a camera, would go to the Netherlands, get married, get a job and start a new life without the help and the blessing of the MEK (Maryam Rajavi). It is also inconceivable that the MEK (or their masters) would have not have a 24/7 control of every aspect of his life (including every telephone conversation) and simply let him go unmonitored.”

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Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has censured certain Western countries for turning into safe havens for terrorists while continuing their claim of championing human rights.

Members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group are walking free in France and other European countries, Ayatollah Khamenei said on Monday, addressing a meeting with the chief and officials of Iran’s Judiciary.

“The French government and others shamelessly preach human rights despite hosting these killers, supporting them, and even giving them the podium in their national parliaments,” the Leader said. “That is to say, the brazenness of these Westerners is really an extraordinary and strange thing.”

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The Leader also commemorated Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, the head of Supreme Judicial Council of the time, who was assassinated in a bombing carried out by the MKO in Tehran on June 28, 1981.

He said the MKO committed a great crime against the Iranian nation by assassinating “this prominent figure” along with 70 other Iranian figures on this day forty years ago.

Ayatollah Khamenei also thanked Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raeisi for bringing about a great change to the Judiciary since he assumed office more than two years ago.

“In these two years and a few months that he was in charge of the Judiciary, he really worked hard, he strove, and good things were achieved in the Judiciary,” the Leader said.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ayatollah Khamenei hailed the June 18 presidential election as “truly an epic”, saying no one can take the magnificence of the election away from the country.

“Where in the world is it common to see that all members of the opposition propaganda apparatus get actively involved to scare people away from voting in the election,” the Leader said.

“Attempts are still made – they (the opposition) write letters and speak via the cyberspace – to deny the greatness of this election, but to no avail,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.

“This effort is in vain. Analysts who had their eyes fixed on this election understand what has happened.”

Anti-Iran groups led a campaign of intimidation and bullying to force potential voters not to participate in the election. Nonetheless, nearly 49% of the eligible voters turned out to cast their ballots in an election that Raeisi won with over 18 million or 72% of the votes.

Drawing a comparison between Iran’s election and the 2020 presidential election in the US, Ayatollah Khamenei said the Americans are not a role model to follow when it comes to political issues.

“One must speak with courtesy and observance of ethical and religious dimensions, without insulting and slandering, rather than using the cursing and insulting methods of the Americans and [former US President Donald] Trump,” he said.

The Leader noted that the US presidential election became a scandal in the eyes of the world people, adding American rulers have ironically begun to criticize Iran’s election only a few months after having a scandalous election themselves.

Ayatollah Khamenei praised the Iranian candidates who lost in the election for their decorum and warm congratulatory messages to the president-elect.

The real winners of the election, the Leader said, are the Iranian people and all those who helped bring excitement to the polls.

“Therefore, the candidates who didn’t secure votes are among the winners as well, and on the contrary, the losers of the election are those who put all their efforts to drive the people away from the ballot box, but the people, with their presence, rejected them and dashed their hopes.”

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the MEK bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in 1981

The MKO – listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community – fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq and was given a camp by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
They fought on the side of Saddam during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-88). They were also involved in the bloody repression of Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq in 1991 and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.
The notorious group is also responsible for killing thousands of Iranian civilians and officials after the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979.
More than 17,000 Iranians, many of them civilians, have been killed at the hands of the MKO in different acts of terrorism including bombings in public places, and targeted killings.
The MKO also had a hand in the massacre of Kurds following the crushing of a 1991 uprising by Shiites in Iraq’s south and Kurds in the north, which was one of the most brutal acts of repression under Saddam Hussein.

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While the revolution had widespread popular support, as does the government to this day, it was not without opposition groups.

The MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq, or the People’s Muhajedin Organization of Iran), is one such opposition organization. It is a violent terrorist group that is currently supported by the U.S. government. Members of the MEK have never accepted the revolution, and on June 28, 1981, three years after the revolution, they bombed the Islamic Republic Party headquarters in Tehran. This horrendous crime was committed during a meeting of party leaders, and killed seventy-three people, including the Chief Justice, Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, who had been a leader in the revolution.

Thirty-nine years have passed, but the memory of these martyrs has not dimmed.

Hujjat al-Islam Seyyed Mehdi Qureshi, Islamic Revolution Leader Representative in Iran’s West Azarbaijan Province, commented that “Iran’s stable position has been achieved thanks to the bravery of the martyrs.” Those martyrs’ names, many in addition to those who died on June 28, 1981, are etched upon the hearts of the Iranian people, and include General Qassem Soleimani, murdered by the U.S. in January of this year.

Any government has people who oppose it: citizens of the nation who disagree with one or more policies, and law-abiding people work within the system to achieve changes they seek. Generally, when a majority of the population wants certain changes, those changes are implemented.

Yet within Iran and outside it, a small terrorist group seeks the violent overthrow of the government, despite having so little support to do so. Why, one could ask, would the mighty United States support such a group, when it decries any terrorist activity?

The hypocrisy of U.S. government officials has been discussed and documented by this writer often. The U.S. is only interested in self-determination when the people of any nation choose a form of government that will follow all U.S. dictates. The leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran will not do so. They form alliances with nations that the United States holds in contempt, and they come to the aid of those nations when required to do so, such as in fighting U.S.-financed terrorists in Syria.

Iran has not invaded another nation in over 200 years, and its leaders have a ‘no first strike’ doctrine. In the U.S.’s 244-year history, it has invaded at least 84 of the 193 countries that are recognized by the United Nations. And its continued hostility towards Iran has only increased with the administration of the unstable president, Donald Trump.

In the United States, lobby groups finance election campaigns, thus making the elected officials beholden to those groups, not their constituents. Prominent among these groups are pro-Israel lobbies, which consider Iran to be their rival for hegemony in the Middle East. Among the global community, only Israel and Saudi Arabia opposed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement signed with Iran and several other countries that regulated Iran’s nuclear development program, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Only Israel and Saudi Arabia praised the U.S. violation of it.

After sanctions were re-imposed following this U.S. violation of international law, this writer contacted a friend in Tehran. He was told that, while the sanctions were unfortunate, the Iranian people are accustomed to living with them, and would continue to do so as long as necessary. There was no talk of defeat; he didn’t suggest that the government should or would accede to U.S. demands. He was not resigned: he simply indicated that the Iranian people would continue to live their lives and make whatever adjustments were necessary due to the sanctions.

This is the attitude that makes Iran great, and that inspires Iranians to sacrifice their lives for their country. When one powerful country is besieged by another, more powerful one, but refuses to surrender, its people’s pride in their nation only increases. And this year, on the anniversary of the Hafte Tir bombing, the memory of those who were working for the people and gave their lives in that mission will again be remembered. Also remembered will be other Iranian martyrs, those who died in the August 30, 1981 bombing of the Prime Minister’s office, General Soleimani and so many others, whose names may not be as well known, but who are remembered and beloved by their countrymen.

The anniversary of the Hafte Tir bombing should be commemorated around the world as a symbol of the destruction and death caused by terrorism, and as a memorial to those innocent servant-leaders who died in it. It should also serve as a reminder to some governments, such as that of the United States, that their unjust plans for world hegemony will not be achieved, and that support for terrorists is an affront to the basic human dignity of mankind. It should remind nations across the globe that the U.S., the most violent nation on the planet, continues its economic and medical terror against a free and peaceful nation.

It has been thirty-nine years since those seventy-three Iranian officials lost their lives in the service of their country. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten in Iran, or by people of decency and compassion around the world.

By Robert Fantina, American Herald Tribune

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Terrorist attacks against civilians

According to the latest estimates, around 14,000 Iraqi and Syrian civilians have been killed by the ISIL terrorist attacks, followed by several thousand people killed by Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram. Precise figures are difficult to determine because all the groups are involved in armed conflicts, and its not easy to distinguish a victim of war crime and a victim of terrorism. Nevertheless, based on the facts and figures, due to the terrorist attacks committed by the Mujahedin-e Khalq more than 16,000 people have been killed in Iran alone, not counting their atrocities against Iranian and Iraqi civilians during the Iran-Iraq war and the 1991 uprisings in Iraq. Their tactics included bomb attacks, targeted assassinations, aircraft hijackings, and so on. Only from 26 August 1981 to December 1982, the MEK conducted 336 terrorist attacks against targets in Iran. The organization initially tried to make their own social and political space inside Iran, and because it failed to bring any success in this work, they changed the orientation to the terrorist acts against Iran’s head of state. The explosion at the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party and death of Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, the head of the Supreme Court with 72 members of the party, including 14 ministers and 27 MPs, the killing of President Mohammad Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar, are some parts of the terrorist activities of the organization.

Terrorism against Western targets

Mujahedin-e Khalq has also conducted attacks against numerous Western targets, both in Europe, North America and elsewhere. In the early 1970s, MEK members killed several US soldiers and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. Such victims included US Army Lt. Col. Lewis L. Hawkins who was assassinated in June 1973, US Army officers Col. Paul Shaffer and Lt. Col. Jack Turner killed in May 1975, an Iranian employee at the US Embassy in Tehran two months later, and US civilian contractors Robert R. Krongrad, William C. Cottrell Jr. and Donald G. Smith assassinated by four gunmen in August 1976. Furthermore, in May 1972 US Air Force General Harold L. Price was seriously wounded in attempted assassination. Several hours later, the MEK had a plan to assassinate US President Richard Nixon and they blasted a bomb at mausoleum where Nixon was scheduled to attend a ceremony just 45 minutes after the explosion. In November 1970, a failed attempt was made to kidnap the US Ambassador to Iran, Douglas MacArthur II. MEK gunmen ambushed MacArthur’s limousine while he and his wife were en route their house. Shots were fired at the vehicle and a hatchet was hurled through the rear window, however, MacArthur remained unharmed. During the same period, MEK operatives also committed bombing of facilities of Pan-Am Airlines, Pan-American Oil, Shell Oil, and of gates of British Embassy.

The MEK has used a car bomb in July 1987 plot against an Iranian diplomat who survived terrorist attack in Madrid, as well as an injured bystander. In April 1992, they invaded Iranian diplomatic missions in thirteen Northern American and Western European countries, seizing hostages and wrecking offices in a wave of coordinated attacks. In New York, five men armed with knives invaded the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, took three hostages, smashed furniture and computers in a two-hour rampage behind chained doors. Two of the hostages escaped when the police broke through a back door, and the third was released unharmed when the intruders surrendered to police negotiators. In Ottawa, Iran’s Embassy was attacked and pillaged by about 35 people armed with sticks and hammers. And in Europe, the MEK members stormed Iranian embassies and consulates in Bonn, Hamburg, The Hague, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bern, Paris and London. Scores of demonstrators were arrested, and many of the Iranian missions were extensively damaged, some by firebombs. There were many injuries in clashes that erupted, but luckily no deaths.

In Germany, several police officers were hurt as the authorities struggled to arrest about 50 members who occupied the seven-story Iranian Embassy in Bonn for two hours. The angry mob hurled official papers and furniture from the windows during the rampage. The Iranian Consulate in Hamburg also was besieged with demonstrators hurling rocks and firebombs. About 20 protesters were arrested, and four people were treated for smoke inhalation and shock. They also broke into Iran’s Embassy in The Hague after a car rammed through the compound’s gate. Protesters armed with metal bars and sticks rushed through, entered the building and caused extensive damage. In Stockholm, 50 MEK members set two Iranian Embassy buildings and six cars on fire. The Ambassador’s wife and two children were treated for shock, and one embassy employee suffered burns. One embassy employee was injured as invaders ransacked the Iranian Embassy in Oslo, and several others in the embassy in Copenhagen where MEK members smashed windows. They also hurled rocks, smashed windows and tore down the Iranian flag at the embassy in London, and a firebomb was later thrown at the London offices of Iran Air, causing damage but no injuries. Later in the 1990s, Iranian diplomats were also attacked in Denmark, Austria, and Italy. Western diplomats were also targeted; in August 2003 MEK bombed the United Nations compound in Iraq, prompting UN withdrawal from the country.

Participation in the genocide

Following the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980, the Mujahedin-e Khalq described Saddam Hussein an aggressor and a dictator, but after he offered them an alliance the MEK transferred its headquarters to Iraq and sided with Saddam against the Iranian Armed Forces in the Iran–Iraq War. Their decision was viewed as treason by the vast majority of Iranians and it destroyed the MEK’s appeal in its homeland. The organization gained a new life in exile, started calling itself the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and continued to conduct violent attacks in Iran. Near the end of war, a military force of 7,000 members of the MEK, armed and equipped by Saddam’s Iraq, went into action. During the war and later in the 1991 uprisings in Iraq, the Mujahedin-e Khalq assisted Iraqi Ba’athist government in a series of systematic attacks against the Kurdish fighters (Iran’s allies) in northern Iraq. The result of their action was a genocide that killed between around 100,000 Kurdish civilians. Former Mujahedin members remember Maryam Rajavi’s infamous command at the time:”Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”Regardless of their share in a committed genocide, it is higher than all the Daesh’s massacres committed against Yazidis, Christians, and Shias combined.

BY Ivan Kesić, ahtribune.com

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The US backed Iranian opposition are neither “revolutionary,” nor even “in” Iran. Yet they have been designated as Washington’s proxies of choice, and an alternative government they seek to place into power in Tehran.

As the US-led proxy war in Syria reaches a relative stalemate and with time on Damascus and its allies’ side, Washington’s wider agenda of using the conflict as a stepping stone toward regime change in Iran is leading into a much larger conflict.

Geopolitical expert F. William Engdahl has pointed out the means through which Western oil corporations have orchestrated global schemes to raise oil prices to make American shale oil production profitable. At the same time, the US has for years now used sanctions against Iran, political subversion in Venezuela, war in Libya, and proxy war in Ukraine to prevent Tehran, Caracas, Libya’s opposition, and Moscow from benefiting long-term from higher oil prices.

For Iran, undermining its oil revenues and reintroducing sanctions and secondary sanctions on nations that refuse to recognize America’s withdrawal from the so-called Iran Nuclear Deal, is done in tandem with direct, covert subversion inside Iran itself.

Together, these efforts seek to cripple Iran as a functional nation state, as well as reduce its influence through the Middle Eastern and Central Asian regions.

US Portrays Terrorist Cult as “Iranian Opposition”

Just as the US has done in Libya and Syria, it is using terrorist organizations to attack and undermine the Iranian state.

With Iranian-backed militias already fighting Al Qaeda and its multitude of affiliates including the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq, the likelihood of these militant forces being exported into Iran itself – should Iranian-backed militias be pushed out of Syria and Iraq and destabilization inside of Iran itself reach that threshold – is high.

But there is another, lesser known group the US is portraying as the voice of Iran’s opposition, a group that is – by its own US sponsors’ admission – undemocratic, terroristic, and cult-like.

It is the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, also known as the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

Until 2012, MEK was listed by the US State Department as a foreign terrorist organization. Only through immense lobbying was MEK delisted. Since being delisted, no evidence suggests the fundamental aspects of MEK that make it a terrorist organization have changed. In fact, US-based corporate-financier policy think tanks that have advocated MEK’s use as a proxy against Iran have admitted as much.

The Brookings Institution in a 2009 policy paper titled, “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran” (PDF), would openly admit (emphasis added):

    Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential U.S.  proxy  is  the  NCRI  (National  Council of Resistance of  Iran),  the  political  movement  established  by  the  MeK  (Mujahedin-e  Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American.

Brookings would elaborate regarding its terrorist background, stating (emphasis added):

    Undeniably, the group has conducted terrorist attacks—often excused by the MeK’s advocates because they are directed against the Iranian government. For example, in 1981, the group bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, which was then the clerical leadership’s main  political organization, killing an estimated 70 senior officials. More recently, the group has claimed  credit for over a dozen mortar attacks, assassinations, and other assaults on  Iranian civilian and  military targets between 1998 and 2001.

    American-Killing Terror Cult: US Delists Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK)

Brookings also mentions MEK’s attacks on US servicemen and American civilian contractors, noting:

    In the 1970s, the group killed three U.S. officers and three civilian contractors in Iran.

Brookings would also emphasize (emphasis added):

    The group itself also appears to be undemocratic and enjoys little popularity in Iran itself. It has no  political base in the country, although it appears to have an operational presence. In particular, its  active participation on Saddam Husayn’s side during the bitter Iran-Iraq War made the group widely  loathed. In addition, many aspects of the group are cultish, and its leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, are revered to the point of obsession.

Brookings would note that despite the obvious reality of MEK, the US could indeed use the terrorist organization as a proxy against Iran, but notes that:

    …at the very least, to work more closely with the  group (at least in an overt manner), Washington would need to remove it from the list of foreign  terrorist organizations.

And in 2012, after years of lobbying, that is precisely what the US did. Regarding that decision, the US State Department’s 2012 statement titled, “Delisting of the Mujahedin-e Khalq” would claim:

    With today’s actions, the Department does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the killing of U.S. citizens in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on U.S. soil in 1992. The Department also has serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, particularly with regard to allegations of abuse committed against its own members.

The Secretary’s decision today took into account the MEK’s public renunciation of violence, the absence of confirmed acts of terrorism by the MEK for more than a decade, and their cooperation in the peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf, their historic paramilitary base.

Nothing in the US State Department’s statement indicates that MEK is no longer a terrorist organization. It simply notes that it has publicly – as a means of political expediency – renounced violence. It should be noted that the Brookings Institution’s 2009 policy paper’s mention of MEK is under a chapter titled, “Inspiring an Insurgency,” inferring armed violence all but guaranteeing MEK militants will indeed be one of several fronts carrying out that violence in their capacity as US proxies.

It would be the “cultish” MEK leader, Maryam Rajavi, whom prominent American politicians and political lobbying groups would work with for years before MEK was removed from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 2012. This includes prominent pro-war advocates – particularly war with Iran – now current National Security Adviser John Bolton, Newt Gingrich, and current legal adviser for US President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani.

This year at the annual “Free Iran” conference held in Paris, US State Department-funded and directed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty would report in its article titled, “Trump Allies Tell Paris Rally ‘End Of Regime’ Near In Iran,” that:

    Close allies of U.S. President Donald Trump have told a “Free Iran” rally in Paris that the end of the Iranian regime is near and that sanctions against the country will be “greater, greater, and greater.”

“We are now realistically being able to see an end to the regime in Iran,” legal adviser Rudy Giuliani said on June 30 at the rally, organized by exiled opponents including the former rebel People’s Mujahedin, which is banned in Iran.

Giuliani pointed to recent protests that have erupted in Iran amid continued financial hardships following Trump’s decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

Thus, virtually every aspect of the 2009 Brookings paper is being openly pursued as a matter of US foreign policy, including US support for MEK – an organization that has previously killed US servicemen and American civilian contractors, and by its own supporters’ admissions, is still involved in terrorism.

The ultimate irony is that these same US MEK supporters claiming the MEK and its political NCRI wing will overthrow the “dictatorial ayatollahs,” admit the MEK itself is “undemocratic” and “cultish,” everything Iran’s government is accused of by US politicians and pundits.

The MEK May Help Destroy Iran, But Will Never Rule It

Just as other “pro-democracy” groups have been promoted by Washington amid previous regime change efforts, “Iranian” MEK terrorists will be used to destabilize, pressure, and possibly even overthrow the Iranian government, but Iran will be left in fractured ruins.

MEK and its NCRI political wing will never rule a functional and unified Iranian nation-state, just as US-backed terrorists in Libya preside – and only tenuously so – over fractions of Libya’s territory and resources.

This further exposes what the US intends to do regarding Iran, and that it has nothing to do with improving the lives or prospects of the Iranian people – especially considering Iran’s collective plight is owed not to Iran’s current leadership, but to America’s decades-long policy to encircle, contain, undermine, and overthrow Iran’s institutions.

America’s foreign policy in regards to Iran must be understood in this context – that it is merely a continuation of Washington’s use of violent, terrorist fronts to divide and destroy targeted nations to eliminate competitors and their influence from regions of the globe US special interests seek to reassert themselves in – and nothing more.

The high costs continued conflict with Iran will represent will be paid by the American taxpayers, and should this conflict be allowed to escalate, by the blood of American service members. The result – should this foreign policy continue forward, will not be in the interests of either Americans or Iranians – who will collectively suffer the consequences of future conflict, just as the American people and nations invaded by the US have suffered in the past.

Tony Cartalucci is Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.

Tony Cartalucci, New Eastern Outlook

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