Hot Topics

A group of 15 Liberty residents fly to Albania

The first group of the new series of Camp Liberty residents to be relocated in Tirana.

The United Nations office in Baghdad is pursuing the transfer of the new series of Liberty residents whom the Albanian government has accepted.

Today, the first group is to be transferred to Tirana, Iran Interlink reported.

The group consists of 15 Liberty residents. The Cult leaders have assigned Ms. Habibeh Thavali as their commandant who is supposed to monitor them in order not to defect the Cult.

The government of Albania that had received 210 MKO members in 2013, accepted to receive another 210 individuals under the request of the US government. In November 2014, 115 Camp Liberty residents relocated to Tirana.

June 9, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Mrs. Rajavi! Your Propaganda Just doesn’t work well!

The Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) has apparently had only one goal since the Islamic revolution in Iran, in 1979: the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Regardless of its real capacity to achieve such an aim or Mrs. Rajavi! Your Propaganda Just doesn’t work well! not, for decades, the group has strained to take opportunities of regional and political ups and downs into its aim, even though in most cases there is no true relation between what is going on in the region and what the group is trying benefit from. It seems the group is confused.

An instance of the group’s opportunistic nature was recently seen in the so-called testimony given by Maryam Rajavi in the US Congress where she presents the overthrow of the Iranian government as the main solution to fight ISIS!

Daniel Larison of the American conservative Magazine writes about Rajavi’s weird recommendation to the West: “The plan to bring down ISIS by toppling Iran’s government, then, is little more than the latest chapter of group’s 50-year history of monomaniacally trying to install itself atop the Iranian government.” [1]

He adds, ”This obviously has nothing to do with combating or understanding ISIS, and allowing her to speak at such a meeting just lends a totalitarian cult a platform from which it can promote its own warped agenda. Inviting Rajavi demonstrates exceptionally poor judgment, and her testimony will make a farce of the proceedings tomorrow.’’ [2]

“It sounds counter-intuitive—Iran’s aid to the Iraqi government and various Iraqi militias, after all, is widely credited with stopping ISIS’s advances there—but not when you know about the MEK’s tortuous past,’ suggests Ali Gharib of the Nation. “Over the years, the MEK has been nothing if not opportunistic; animated by the twisted logic that the enemy of its enemy is its friend, the group seizes whatever political angle is fashionable at the moment to bring them relevance (Congress is happy to oblige).” [3]

engage in diplomacy with Islamic Republic.

Eldar Mamedov who has served as a political adviser for the social-democrats in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP) and is in charge of the delegation for inter-parliamentary relations between the EP and Iran, analyzes the MKO’s part to obstruct diplomacy with Iran. He refers to the Cult’s large-scale efforts to demonize the Iranian Government and to derail any relation between the EP and Iran. Nonetheless, he asserts the group’s lobbying efforts to accomplish its aim has so far failed. On the contrary to the group wishes, Islamic Republic has become an important ally for the Europe in fighting ISIS.

“A growing realization of the converging interests between the EU and Iran accounts for this dramatic change,’’ Eldar Mamedov submits.” This time, the discussions in Brussels were not so much focused on traditional European concerns, such as Iran´s nuclear program and human rights, as on the situation in the Middle East.” [4]

Mamedov concludes, “In a scenario of rapidly disintegrating states and spreading terrorist threats, European officials are discovering that Iran is among the most stable and predictable state actors in the region.” [5]

In his opinion, the EU´s foreign policy supremo Federica Mogherini mentions the advantages of engaging with Iran because she “definitely doesn´t share the Saudi narrative of Iran being the root of all tumult in the Middle East. In fact, she sees the nuclear deal with Iran as a gate opener for engaging Iran on the regional issues, including in Syria and Yemen, which is an anathema to Saudis."

The MKO leaders, namely Maryam Rajavi would be disappointed to know that “officials from the Mogherini-led European External Action Service (EEAS) now discuss the possibility of a regional dialogue with Iran, which is a sharp departure from her predecessor Catherine Ashton, who approached Iran as an exclusively nuclear problem.” [6]

Despite the MKO’s harsh opposition against the visits of the Iranian Parliamentary delegation to EP, the visits took place anyway. The visit of the Iranian MPs to Brussels is considered by Mamedov as “another sign of changing times in the Middle East.”

Mamedov notifies, “Although a wholesale rapprochement between the EU and Iran may still be some way off, inter-parliamentary diplomacy has the potential to build trust, bridge differences, and eventually make a re-alignment possible,” inviting US Congressmen to join such peaceful policy.[7]

It seems that Maryam Rajavi and her supporters should work harder to survive the new geopolitical and regional undercurrents.

Mazda Parsi

Sources:

[1] Larison, Daniel, The Backlash Against the MEK’s Fans in Congress, The American conservative Magazine, May 05 2015

[2] ibid

[3] Gharib, Ali, Cult Leader Will Tell Congress: Fight ISIS by Regime Change in Iran, The Nation, April 28, 2015

[4] Mamedov, Eldar, Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) Lobby in European Parliament fails to deliver, Lobelog,

May 19 2015

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] ibid

May 26, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) Lobby in European Parliament fails to deliver

Iranian Parliamentarians Discover Brussels

In 2010, when Iran´s then-minister of foreign affairs Manouchehr Mottaki visited the European Parliament in Brussels, he was greeted by protests from MPs. Some of them, known for their close links with the exiled Iranian dissident group Mojaheddeen-e Khalk (MEK), carried the picture of Neda Soltan, a young Iranian woman killed during the protests following the fraudulent presidential elections of 2009. They also tried to block the minister from entering the meeting room and even briefly scuffled with security guards.

The contrast with a visit of a delegation from the Iranian Majles to Brussels on May 6-7 could not be greater. Sure enough, the MEK tried to derail the visit by lobbying the MPs to adopt a resolution on capital punishment in Iran, which would have almost certainly led to the cancellation of the visit. When that plan failed, they called on Euro MPs to boycott the delegation.

In the end, however, the five member-strong delegation led by the leader of the “principlist” faction of the Majles Kazem Jalali did make it to Brussels, in the first such parliamentary visit in seven years. Apart from holding sessions with their counterparts from the EP delegation for relations with Iran, Majles members were received by the President of the EP Martin Schultz (a German Social Democrat) and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Elmar Brok (a German Christian Democrat).

Regional Concerns

A growing realization of the converging interests between the EU and Iran accounts for this dramatic change. This time, the discussions in Brussels were not so much focused on traditional European concerns, such as Iran´s nuclear program and human rights, as on the situation in the Middle East. In a scenario of rapidly disintegrating states and spreading terrorist threats, European officials are discovering that Iran is among the most stable and predictable state actors in the region.

In fact, privately many of them are uneasy, to say the least, with Saudi Arabia’s newfound regional efforts to consolidate a Sunni front against the “Iranian threat.” In a curious twist, it is Saudi Arabia, and not Iran, that is increasingly emerging as a revolutionary Middle Eastern power. Its refusal to take up a seat in the UN Security Council in 2013, alleging the structure´s inability to take action against Syria´s president Bashar Assad and confront Iran, was already a harbinger. Now, many in Brussels view with apprehension the departure of the cautious King Abdullah and a newly assertive policy of rolling back ” Iranian influence” in Yemen and Syria.

The EU´s foreign policy supremo Federica Mogherini definitely doesn´t share the Saudi narrative of Iran being the root of all tumult in the Middle East. In fact, she sees the nuclear deal with Iran as a gate opener for engaging Iran on the regional issues, including in Syria and Yemen, which is an anathema to Saudis. Officials from the Mogherini-led European External Action Service (EEAS) now discuss the possibility of a regional dialogue with Iran, which is a sharp departure from her predecessor Catherine Ashton, who approached Iran as an exclusively nuclear problem.

The Problem with the Gulf States

A major obstacle to this re-alignment is, of course, the position of some EU member states. Shortly before the group of Iranian MPs arrived in Brussels, French President Francois Hollande visited Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two major buyers of the French arms. As the French-Saudi joint declaration makes it clear, both countries are looking to consolidate their cooperation, notably in the defence sphere. This explains why France is also the toughest of the P5+1 group of powers in nuclear negotiations with Iran, its positions closest to the Saudis and Israelis. The French government, of course, is looking for ways to boost the country´s struggling economy. But massive arms sales to the Gulf monarchies may carry a considerable strategic cost, namely in the fight against the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS) and al-Qaeda.

Iranian MPs are upset that no major steps have been taken to combat IS and al-Qaeda terrorism. There is some truth to these claims.

Although Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are formally part of the anti-ISIS coalition, their real actions seem to go in an opposite direction. Operation “Decisive Storm” in Yemen contrasts sharply with Saudi Arabia´s and its allies´ notorious lack of enthusiasm in the fight against IS. Bombing Yemen (including with cluster munitions, which are prohibited by international law) not only leads to numerous civilian deaths but also takes the heat off al-Qaeda, enabling it to regroup and liberate dangerous terrorists from prisons. And the anti-Shiite, anti-Christian, and anti-Jewish hate campaigns emanating from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates show no sign of abating. These countries are providing pulpits for firebrand clerics and hosting “debates” on the convenience of committing genocide against Alawites (a heterodox offshoot of Shia Islam), like the one organised by al-Jazeera Arabic in Doha.

Iranian MPs also rejected the interpretation of the current strife in the Middle East as a Sunni-Shiite conflict. They pointed out that Sunnis and Shiites have co-existed peacefully for centuries and blamed Saudi Arabia for stoking the sectarian conflict in the region through its aggressive promotion and financing of Wahhabism. Supporting Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies is, in this reading, a recipe for a strategic disaster in the region.

Overall, this narrative lacks self-criticism as regards Iran´s own role in region´s woes—from its staunch support of Bashar Assad´s regime in Syria to the failure to rein in more effectively Shiite militias in Iraq, some of which have been accused of war crimes. But that does not mean that the Iranian narrative should be rejected out of hand. If the West is serious about the security of the Middle East, and its own security as well, it would be wise to use its close ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf regimes to confront them over their destabilizing activities, even at the cost of some lucrative arms deals.

The visit of the Iranian MPs to Brussels is another sign of changing times in the Middle East. Although a wholesale rapprochement between the EU and Iran may still be some way off, inter-parliamentary diplomacy has the potential to build trust, bridge differences, and eventually make a re-alignment possible. There is a need for more, not less, of such contacts. US Congress members would do well to join their European counterparts in a direct dialogue with Iran. The West, after all, does not have the luxury of choice in picking its interlocutors in the Middle East these days.
***
About the Author
Eldar Mamedov has degrees from the University of Latvia and the Diplomatic School in Madrid, Spain. He has worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia and as a diplomat in Latvian embassies in Washington D.C. and Madrid. Since 2007, Mamedov has served as a political adviser for the social-democrats in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP) and is in charge of the delegation for inter-parliamentary relations between the EP and Iran.

Eldar Mamedov

May 19, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Three Decades Of MEK Lies About Iran—–Meet The Neocon’s Favorite Terrorist Group

Follow the Money

Why Argentina is in the War Party’s sights

The brouhaha over an alleged 1994 Iranian plot to bomb a Jewish community center in Argentina, of all places, has been in and out of the news for years. Hysterical headlines, fantastic allegations, simmering intrigue, a mysterious suicide that some are claiming was a murder – it all sounds like a fourth-rate made-for-television thriller. That may be because its source – the weird neo-Marxist cult known as the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), which seems to have bought half the Congress and any number of well-known political figures and pundits – is prone to melodrama of the crudest sort.

An Iranian exile group headed up by a woman who calls herself the “President” of Iran, the MEK has an extensive international network, with its fanatic members running a bewildering array of frontgroups – the Iranian American Community of North Texas, the National Council of Resistance, Iran Zamin Cultural Association, the Organizing Committee for Convention for Democracy in Iran, the Human Rights Center in Wisconsin, Association of Iranian Women in America, to name a few. These groups ceaselessly lobby for two main causes: 1) Getting the group delisted as a terrorist organization, and 2) Moving the West to attack Iran.

They succeeded in their first goal, at least here in the US, with Hillary Clinton’s decision to take the MEK off the list of terror groups after a very well-financed and persistent campaign. MEK was listed in the first place because they had launched attacks on US assets and personnel in the late 1970s, murdering six Americans. MEK supported the Iranian revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power, only breaking with the regime when Tehran decided to release the US embassy hostages – and after being decisively defeated in subsequent elections.

MEK launched terrorist attacks on the Islamist regime, killing scores of civilians in bombings, and establishing a base in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, whose regime sheltered and supported them. They played a key role in suppressing revolts against Saddam’s rule, brutally suppressing a Shi’ite rising in the south and a Kurdish rebellion that resulted in the death of thousands.

After Saddam’s fall, they began their rebirth into a “pro-democracy” exile group, reportedly with aid from the Israelis. When a number of neoconservative organizations in the US took up their cause, MEK became the Iranian analogue of the Iraqi National Congress, the group headed up by international intriguer Ahmed Chalabi who provided the Bush administration – and New York Times reporter Judith Miller – with much of the erroneous “intelligence” that led the US to invade Iraq.

Over the years, MEK has carried out a persistent campaign to foment a similar US invasion of Iran, their mainstay being various attempts to document Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. Virtually all of these attempts have been debunked as either outright forgeries or else half-truths based on outdated and dubiously sourced information. Their only success has been the revelation of the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz, and even there they didn’t garner the intelligence on their own: it was reportedly given to them by the Israelis.

Now they have tried a different tack: accusing Tehran of sponsoring an international terrorist conspiracy, one tentacle of which is the alleged 1994 plot to bomb a Jewish community center in Argentina. And their neoconservative cheerleaders have taken up the cry, with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Israel Project, and the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, all promoting MEK’s indictment.

That indictment was summarized and published by Argentina’s chief prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, who relied exclusively on MEK “experts” to justify his charges against top Iranian officials supposedly involved in the attack on the Jewish center. The head of the National Council of Resistance “intelligence” division, Reza Zakeri Kouchaksaraee, testified that a 1993 two-hour meeting resulted in a decision to bomb the center: he gave the meeting date as August 14. Another National Council of Resistance official, Hadi Roshanravani, gives the date as August 12.

How did MEK know about this alleged meeting, and even the precise agenda, when none of these “experts” were in Iran at the time, nor did they work for or have any contact with the Iranian government when the alleged plot was hatched? Nisman does not say in his report: he only cites MEK-affiliated “defectors” who defected well before the bombing took place. MEK has long traded on its supposed secret connections to mysterious sources inside Iran, but this claim has worn rather thin over the years as their “revelations” turn out to be utter junk. Nisman, however, swallowed them whole in this case, citing no evidence for his charges other than MEK’s bare assertions.

Nisman cites yet another Iranian defector, Aboghasem Mesbahi, who repeats MEK’s claims. Mesbahi’s credibility may be measured by his statements to the 9/11 Commission averring that Iran was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: he knew this because he read secret messages in newspapers.

So what’s really behind the international campaign trying to link Iran to the bombing, which killed 85 people and injured 300?

The evidence points to hedge fund chief Paul Singer, one of the richest men in the world, whose financial interests and devotion to Israel combine to produce what can only be characterized as a singular obsession.

In 2001, Argentina defaulted on its debt payments, the inevitable result of years of big government programs, incompetence, and outright corruption. But that didn’t deter Singer from buying up Argentina’s bonds on the cheap. His plan: to pursue Argentina in court and demand full payment. A court victory – which he achieved in the summer of last year, when the Supreme Court ruled in Singer’s favor – would reward him with over $2 billion in pure profit. The “vulture,” as financial publications like Forbes describe Singer and other investors who buy up bonds of desperately poor countries in hopes of making a killing, is now free to seize Argentine’s assets around the world. Argentina is also forbidden to settle with other bondholders who may be willing to accept partial payment until Singer and his fellow vultures are paid in full.

Singer helped found the American Task Force Argentina (ATFA), which has been running newspaper ads in support of Singer’s legal efforts as well as demonizing Argentina as part of a vast Iranian terrorist network operating throughout South America. Singer gave half a million dollars to The Israel Project, which has been frenetically promoting this conspiracy theory. FDD, which has signed on to the anti-Argentina campaign in a big way, received over $3 million from Singer. A whole panoply of Republican members of Congress in the forefront of the anti-Argentina jihad – including presidential candidate Marco Rubio,who introduced a resolution in the Senate demanding an investigation into Argentina’s alleged ties to Iran — have been beneficiaries of Singer’s largesse. AIPAC, which has been more circumspect in is promotion of the Jewish center bombing “connection” to Iran, has been similarly rewarded: its fundraising arm was given over $1 million by Singer and his associates.

A $2 billion payoff – and the smiting of Israel’s principal enemy: that’s the double-barreled motive behind Singer’s anti-Argentina holy war.

Ideology and moolah have always coincided in the world of the neoconservatives: remember Richard Perle’s Trireme Partners, a “security” firm set up to profit off the Iraq war? And of course, as Rand Paul pointed out, Dick Cheney’s connection to Halliburton – and the windfall profits they made off the invasion of Iraq – are emblematic of the neocons’ ability to make mucho dineros off their penchant for conquest. The links of key neoconservative activists with big military contractors like Lockheed-Martin are a matter of longstanding public record.

Not that these people aren’t sincere in their belief that war is indeed the answer: they just aren’t averse to making a few billion in profit along the way.

When prosecutor Nisman committed suicide a day before he was supposed to formally present his charges of a “cover up” by Argentina of Iran’s alleged culpability in the bombing plot, the hysterics in neoconservative circles reached fever pitch. The same people who denounce any arguments that they are trying to push us into war as a kooky “conspiracy theory” were quick to evoke a conspiracy by the Argentine government to commit murder. Yet Nisman’s death was clearly self-inflicted: a gun he had borrowed from an associate was found next to his body, and there were no signs of a struggle or forced entry. No evidence has emerged to show that he was killed by something other than his own hand: but evidence, or the lack of it, has never stopped the neocons from constructing elaborate arguments touting their own “theories.”

And they have no lack of means to publicize these theories: the campaign to tar Iran with the “terrorist” brush is fueled by the multi-millions of billionaires like Singer, Sheldon Adelson, and Norman Braman, whose insistence on 100 percent loyalty to Israel in the candidates and causes they support is remaking the political discourse in the US when it comes to foreign policy.

The forces driving us to war with Iran have billions of dollars to spend. They represent a minority of the population – but that doesn’t deter them. Their strategy is to present both sides of the same coin to the American people, come election time, and then ask them to make a “choice” – a Republican who will take us to war against Iran, or a Democrat who will take the same road.

So what can stop them? If the deck is stacked, how can we prevent the next war in the Middle East – which promises to make the Iraq war look like a mere skirmish?

The answer is a mass mobilization by the American people against the drive to war – and, no, that’s not a pipedream. We did it when President Obama decided he wanted to bomb Syria and then gave Congress the last word. Congressional switchboards were soon inundated with calls opposing a new war one-hundred-to-one. Members of Congress who said they would vote yes for war backed down, and those on the fence came over to our side – until it was clear the administration wouldn’t have the votes. Obama backed off in the face of massive opposition: and, yes, Antiwar.com was a big part of that memorable mobilization.

We did it before – and we can and will do it again.

But we can’t do it without your help.

You can see, from the above, how outgunned we are when it comes to financial resources. The War Party has billions, and money is no object. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: they need those billions, and more, because they represent nothing and no one but themselves. Their support is almost exclusively in Washington, D.C., and New York City, the political and media centers that profit from perpetual war. We, on the other hand, have the overwhelming majority of the American people on our side – if only we can rally them to the banner of peace in time.

Paul Singer’s billions are feeding America a diet of lies. Our answer to him and his confreres is the unalloyed truth – and we don’t need billions, or even millions, to educate the American people about the forces pushing us into war. We just need a basic minimum to keep this web site going.

We’ve been fighting the War Party’s lies since 1995, with the invaluable help of our readers and supporters – and we’ve been doing it on a shoestring budget! What we spend in an entire year is what groups like the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the American Enterprise Institute spend in less than a week.

We need your help to counter the well-financed lies that are poisoning the national discourse around foreign policy issues. Your tax-deductible donation goes to counter the Paul Singers, the Sheldon Adelsons, and their friends in what Dwight Eisenhower called “the military-industrial-congressional” complex – and every penny counts.

Today is the first day of our Spring fundraising campaign, and I’m on pins-and-needles, as I am every time we have to go through this process. We’re asking for your vote of confidence – your vote for a more peaceful world. And I believe we deserve that vote of affirmation – because this is the one and only self-sustaining and relatively successful institution the peace movement has. Please help us continue our work on behalf of the cause of peace and liberty. Please make your tax-deductible donation today.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).

You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.

by Justin Raimondo,

May 11, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Well-Funded Exile Group’s Desperate Attempts to Sabotage Diplomacy on Iran

A month ago, intense negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland, resulted in a framework for a final nuclear deal between six world powers and Iran. As negotiators from Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United States and United Kingdom, plus Germany) continue nuclear talks to reach a comprehensive deal before the end of June, opponents of diplomacy and potential détente have intensified their efforts to derail any accord.

Prominent in this effort is exiled Iranian dissident organization, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK or MKO, also known as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or PMOI) which was classified as a terrorist organization by the EU until 2009 and by the United States until 2012. MEK is bitterly opposed to the current Iranian government and seeks its overthrow.

The cult-like organization has spent vast sums of money to lobby political elites on both sides of the Atlantic for recognition as an alternative to the current Iranian government. Since a negotiated, multilateral deal with Iran would effectively bury prospects of Western-led regime change in Iran, the MEK is attempting to leverage its extraordinary influence to sink talks.

Regime change in Iran, by any means, is the only item on the MEK agenda. Like experienced salesmen, its members employ different tactics to “sell” this approach to various audiences.

In testimony before the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-proliferation and Trade last month (delivered via videoconference from Paris), Maryam Rajavi, the self-proclaimed “president-elect” of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which serves as the MEK’s front office, suggested the best way for Western nations to combat the threat posed by ISIS is to oust the regime in Iran. Of course, no reference was made of the fact that Iran was one of the first countries to commit blood and treasure to the fight against ISIS. Nor did Rajavi mention that, when ISIS first overtook Mosul in the summer of 2014, the MEK hailed the militant group and its supporters as “part of a popular revolution against the Maliki regime” in Iraq, which the MEK views as an Iranian pawn. Once the U.S. military joined the fight against ISIS, however, it became politically untenable to defend or minimize its crimes. So, the MEK quickly changed its tune, suddenly portraying ISIS as Iran’s creation.

Exploiting local political sensitivities in Europe, the MEK has chosen a different tactic to advocate for government overthrow. To European audiences, the MEK has emphasized Iran’s human rights issues, such as the high number of executions in the country, as well as issues to do with women rights and infringements on religious liberty. In mid-April, MEK operative Firouz Mahvi, a member of NCRI’s so-called “Foreign Affairs Committee” and a fixture at the Brussels-based European Parliament (EP), sent an e-mail to parliamentarians (MEPs) calling on them to adopt an urgent resolution on capital punishment in Iran. The proposed resolution would have almost certainly led to the cancellation of a scheduled visit by members of the Majles, the Iranian parliament, to Brussels. In fact, this very thing happened last year: following the adoption of a different resolution on Iran critical of its human rights record, the Majles delegation cancelled a planned trip in protest.

Inter-parliamentary dialogue is one of the only institutionalized platforms for interaction between officials from the EU and Iran. For progress in EU-Iranian relations to occur, whether on the nuclear issue or otherwise, it is essential to keep Iranian conservatives at the table.

Realizing the issues at stake and familiar with the MEK’s modus operandi, the parliamentary majority read the situation correctly: The MEK’s push for a resolution on capital punishment had little to do with genuine concern for the human rights of Iranians, and everything to do with ongoing attempts to sabotage the nascent EU-Iran dialogue.

When their plan failed, MEK associates, this time under the guise of the dubious “Iranian Refugee Association in Belgium” (it has neither an e-mail address nor a website) launched a call for MEPs to boycott the May visit from the Iranian delegation. While the call was not heeded by Polish conservative Janusz Lewandowski , chair of the EP delegation for relations with Iran, other MEPs fell into the MEK’s trap. For example, Beatriz Becerra, a Spanish MEP from the centrist Alliance of Liberals and Democrats of Europe (ALDE) challenged her colleagues to raise new legislation in the Iranian parliament, which is said to limit the sexual and reproductive health rights of Iranian women, with delegation members. She also tabled a written question on the issue to the Council of the EU and the European Commission. Becerra may be a well-intentioned defender of women rights, but her aggressive advocacy on behalf of the MEK and Maryam Rajavi certainly does more harm than good.

Another common MEK strategy is to hold public hearings in the EP, like the one organized last month on religious freedom in Iran by the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. ECR is a strange mix of seemingly respectable mainstream parties such as British Conservatives and fringe right-wing outfits, such as the Dutch Calvinist party (which until recently forbade women from becoming members) and the Islamophobic, anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party. When it comes to foreign policy, what binds these disparate forces together is their fervent support for Israel, extreme hostility to Palestinians and hardline hawkishness on Iran. In the recent past, even after the election of Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, the ECR tried to block the first official visit of European parliamentarians to Tehran. The bid failed and the delegation visited Iran in mid-December 2013.

In light of this, it is unsurprising the ECR yielded the floor to Sanabargh Zahedi, chair of NCRI’s so-called “Judicial Committee.” Presenting himself as an “Islamic scholar,” even though there was no evidence of his scholarship on Islam or any other field for that matter, Zahedi asserted that, “unless all countries put improvement of human rights as a pre-condition to doing business and trade with this regime, we will not see any real progress in any area, including the nuclear issue.”

None of this is to say that human rights in Iran should not be a matter of grave concern. [..]

Still, there are more effective ways to address these crucial issues than calling for regime change, undermining nuclear negotiations, or following the agendas of those with obvious ulterior motives. Ultimately, the nuclear deal and the possibility of engagement with Iran hold a better promise for achieving real progress in the human rights sphere than any delusions about “regime change.” This is certainly how respectable human rights organizations and activists see it.

Hadi Ghaemi, director of the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran welcomed last month’s Lausanne agreement as an important step toward creating better conditions for discussing human rights with Iran. Those in the West who genuinely care about the human rights of Iranians would do well to listen to these voices rather than let themselves become puppets in the MEK’s destructive schemes.

Eldar Mamedov, Muftah.org

May 10, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Not The Onion: Tom Cotton Befriends Radical Marxist Muslim Cult

How badly does Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) want to squander a deal with Iran over its civilian nuclear program? Bad enough to become the fastest rising star of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, yes, but this week the freshman senator went even further than sending a letter to the Iranian government.

On Wednesday, Cotton participated in a panel called “After Iran Nuclear Framework Agreement, Now What?” organized by the Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC) in a Senate meeting room. The OIAC, through spending millions of dollars lobbying, is responsible for getting an Iranian dissident terrorist group removed from the State Department’s official list of terrorist organizations in 2012 by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

That would be the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a group that assassinated half a dozen Americans in Iran and targeted many others in the run up to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The MEK was founded with Marxist, feminist, and Islamic tenets and incorporated cultish tendencies including personality worship of its husband-wife founders, forced divorces for elderly women, and a forbiddance to marry for young women.

The revolutionary group considers itself a government-in-exile, ready to return to Iran once the current regime is overthrown. The MEK has no measure of support from the Iranian people.

Its possible Tom Cotton is (willfully?) ignorant to the leftist, tyrannical values and aspirations of the MEK. But like Howard Dean, Rick Perry, Rudy Giuliani, and many other politicians, there are big opportunities to work together for mutual political growth and enrichment.

Here’s a tweet heralding the alliance between Cotton and the MEK-fronting OIAC:

For Cotton and the MEK, prospects of their shared enemy in Iran reaching a nuclear deal inspires outrageous rhetoric. The female co-founder of the MEK, Maryam Rajavi, has said that toppling the government in Iran is the best shot the US has at defeating the Islamic State. Cotton has said bombing Iran would last no longer than how long proponents of the 2003 Iraq War promised.

A little more on the MEK: Prior to giving themselves up to Americans in the immediate aftermath of the 2003 US invasion in Iraq, the group was financed by Saddam Hussein (remember the reason for invading, his support for terrorists?). Since then their anti-imperialist leanings have given way to promoting “human rights,” and they’ve dropped their anti-Israel schtick for a partnership with the Mossad, Israel’s secret intelligence service. Through American intelligence officers, NBC News and Seymour Hersh have each concluded that the MEK carried out assassinations on five Iranian nuclear scientists after training with Mossad.

Neocons and Marxist-Islamist terrorist cultists joining together to undermine US-led international negotiations to prevent war with Iran. Politics makes strange bedfellows.

by Nick Hankoff, VoicesofLiberty.com

May 9, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Backlash Against the MEK’s Fans in Congress

The enthusiasm of some hawks in Congress for the Mujaideen-e Khalq (MEK) has started to create a bit of a backlash. The Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee invited the cult’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, to testify remotely as part of a panel on ISIS. That prompted one former State Department official to withdraw from the meeting entirely. Robert Ford, the former ambassador to Syria, has also said he won’t take part in a panel that includes Rajavi:

“I didn’t want to be on a panel with the MEK. I was shocked they invited the MEK. What the MEK has to do with the Islamic State, I don’t have a clue,” Ford told FP. “I told the committee to put me on a panel without the MEK or I wouldn’t appear.”

The refusal of these former officials to play along with some hawks’ disturbing admiration for the MEK is appropriate, but it is unfortunate that it should be necessary. The attention and praise lavished on the MEK in recent years by former officials, retired military officers, and politicians has been an embarrassing spectacle. Now the strange infatuation that many hawks have with the “former” terrorist group is spilling over into the regular business of Congress. As if to underscore how misguided inviting Rajavi was, a copy of the cult leader’s testimony shows that she intends to use her time to argue for regime change in Iran. Ali Gharib comments:

But more to the point, the MEK has always had only one goal: the overthrow of the Iranian regime. For decades, it has tried to shoehorn regional and geopolitical dynamics into its aim, irrespective of any salient connections.

The plan to bring down ISIS by toppling Iran’s government, then, is little more than the latest chapter of group’s 50-year history of monomaniacally trying to install itself atop the Iranian government.

This obviously has nothing to do with combating or understanding ISIS, and allowing her to speak at such a meeting just lends a totalitarian cult a platform from which it can promote its own warped agenda. Inviting Rajavi demonstrates exceptionally poor judgment, and her testimony will make a farce of the proceedings tomorrow. It would be one thing to invite a representative of this awful group if it had anything useful to contribute to the subject being discussed, but of course it doesn’t. The invitation to Rajavi is simply a way for hawks on this subcommittee to flaunt hostility to Iran and to indulge the fantasy that the MEK speaks for the Iranian opposition.

By Daniel Larison

May 5, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Why Is Congress Listening to an Ex-Terrorist Iranian Cult Leader?

In what one member of Congress called a “historic hearing” yesterday, Maryam Rajavi, leader of the controversial Iranian dissident group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, testified via satellite before a congressional subcommittee on the threats posed by ISIS and Iran, which she sees as one and the same. The MEK is considered a dangerous cult by many, and until three years ago was labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. But after years of concerted lobbying, it enjoys a surprising amount of support on Capitol Hill. And yesterday the MEK displayed its growing influence in U.S. foreign policy debates.

It’s been a long and winding road for the MEK. Ideologically, the MEK originally sought to fuse revolutionary Marxism with Islam, but it has largely abandoned that rhetoric today for something more palatable to Western supporters. The group was formed in the 1960s by leftist Iranian students opposed to the Shah’s regime. During the 1970s it carried out attacks that killed several Americans working on defense projects in Iraq, and supported the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979. After the Iranian Revolution, the group fell out with the new Islamic state and went underground, carrying out a series of high-profile attacks against the Iranian government while its leaders fled to Paris. During the 1980s and 1990s, the MEK fought as a private militia on behalf of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

But things changed after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, when the MEK renounced violence (after being disarmed by the American military) and cast itself as supporters of the democratic opposition in Iran. Not everyone bought the group’s transformation into defenders of liberty, secularism, and women’s equality. Critics say the group began to transform into a cult centered around its leaders, the married couple Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, after the Iran-Iraq War, when thousands of its fighters were killed.

In 2003, New York Times reporter Elizabeth Rubin visited the group’s Iraqi compound at Camp Ashraf and described it as resembling a “fictional world of female worker bees … dressed exactly alike, in khaki uniforms and mud-colored head scarves, driving back and forth in white pickup trucks, staring ahead in a daze as if they were working at a factory in Maoist China.” Followers at Ashraf were reportedly cut off from the outside media, required to attend regular self-criticism sessions, and barred from personal friendships and emotional relationships.

But the group played its cards well as Western concerns grew over Iran’s nuclear program, reportedly passing information from its supporters within the Islamic Republic on nuclear facilities to the U.S. and, according to some reports, cooperating with Mossad to assassinate Iranian scientists. It also began a multiyear, multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign to remove itself from the terrorist list, including paying American figures like Rudy Giuliani and Howard Dean to give speeches on its behalf. It worked, and in 2012, Hillary Clinton took the MEK off the list.

Since then, the group’s influence has been growing. Its supporters regularly crowd hearings on Capitol Hill dealing with Iran and its increasing influence in Iraq. The Iraqi government has long viewed the MEK with hostility and has carried out several brutal attacks on its compound. U.S. officials also believe Iranian troops participated in a 2013 attack that killed at least 50 MEK members in 2013. One of its staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, held up a planned arms sale to former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government in part over concerns about the treatment of the MEK.

Ted Poe, R-Texas, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, which held Wednesday’s hearing, is another prominent MEK backer. Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for Poe, told me by email that Rajavi has a “long history of speaking against what she calls ‘Islamic fundamentalism,’” and “can speak to how ISIS’ ideology is both similar to and different from the mullahs leading Iran.” Asked if there were any concerns given the MEK’s history, Hynes replied, “the administration does not consider them a terrorist group and neither do we.”

Rajavi was certainly feeling the love from Congress on Wednesday, testifying before an overflow crowd at the hearing, which was titled “ISIS: Defining the Enemy.” Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, compared her appearance to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s address to Congress that day, noting that Japan had also once been an enemy of the United States. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, is not a member of the subcommittee but dropped in to refer to Rajavi as a “great leader.”

Still, not everyone was as welcoming. Former State Department counterterrorism director Daniel Benjamin, who had been scheduled to testify, dropped out of the hearing rather than appear with Rajavi. Another, former ambassador to Syria and prominent administration critic Robert Ford, told Foreign Policy he was “shocked” to learn she was on the panel and demanded that the subcommittee “put me on a panel without the MEK or I wouldn’t appear.” He wound up speaking earlier in the day.

Suspect groups playing on American naiveté by telling gullible politicians exactly what they want to hear. Anybody remember that great band Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi Expatriates? They sure were reliable sources, weren’t they… More…

In her appearance, via satellite from Paris, Rajavi made a case familiar to anyone who listened to Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in March: that ISIS and Iran are two sides of the same coin, despite the fact that Iranian-backed militias are fighting the group in Iraq. “The Mullahs regime is not part of any solution to the current crisis. Instead, it is the heart of the problem,” she said, referring to the Iranian government as the “Godfather of ISIS.” She referred to the current fight between ISIS and Iran as merely an “internal power struggle” within Islamic fundamentalism and warned that “fundamentalism of the Shiite kind is more dangerous than the Sunni one” because Shiites already have a state, Iran, which is projecting its power in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere.

While the support for Rajavi was a bipartisan affair, her message seemed to resonate in particular with critics of the Obama administration’s Iran policy. Hynes denied to me that the timing of the hearing had anything to do with the ongoing debate over nuclear diplomacy and Iran sanctions, saying “There is no relation. Ms. Rajavi is an expert on radical Islamist extremism and is being called to testify in that capacity.” Still, Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-New York,, who praised Rajavi and the MEK as the legitimate democratic opposition of Iran, said during the hearing that when he listens to the administration’s rhetoric on the Iranian regime, “I honestly do not know if my president is on the same team as I am.”

By Joshua Keating, Slate.com

May 4, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Seeking to understand Islamic State, Congress hears from foe of Iran

A controversial foe of the Iranian government sought to tie the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group to the regime in Iran before Congress on Wednesday — a link that President Obama and many foreign policy experts have rejected but one that has gained traction on Capitol Hill as Obama continues nuclear talks with Iran.

A House foreign affairs subcommittee’s decision to invite Maryam Rajavi, a longtime leader of Mujaheddin-e Khalq, had generated objections before the hearing. The exile group, also known as MEK, was listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department as recently as 2012 and had been known to ally itself with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein against Tehran.

But since the group formally renounced violence, the most aggressive U.S. foes of the Iranian regime have embraced MEK as an ally. With Wednesday’s hearing on the Islamic State, that alliance has been extended to discussions of the Sunni extremist group now attracting the attention of lawmakers as it wreaks havoc in the Middle East.

“The mullahs’ regime is not part of the solution to the current crisis,” Rajavi said, referring to the Iranian government. “It is indeed the heart of the problem.”The regime in Tehran is the “godfather” of the Islamic State, she said, adding that “the ultimate solution to this problem is regime change by the Iranian people and resistance.”

At a Senate hearing last month, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said it was a grave mistake to link the Shiite regime in Iran with the Sunni-led Islamic State. In fact, he said, the group has given the United States reason to make common cause with Iran.

“They want us to destroy ISIS; they want to destroy ISIS,” Kerry said, using an alternative name for the group. “ISIS is a threat to [Iran]; it’s a threat to the region.”

Rajavi testified as president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, MEK’s political affiliate. She appeared before the subcommittee on terrorism, nonproliferation and trade via video link from Paris.

Her appearance prompted another scheduled witness, former State Department counterterrorism official Daniel Benjamin, to withdraw.

“Congress can invite anyone it wants to testify, but I don’t understand why a group with a history like this should be accorded this treatment,” Benjamin, now a Dartmouth College scholar, said in an e-mail, citing MEK’s role in Iran’s 1979 revolution, and international terror attacks to which the group has been linked.

He asserted that MEK is chiefly interested in overthrowing the Iranian regime. “The notion that it has any particular insights into ISIS is absurd,” he said.

Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for the subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.), said Rajavi was invited to testify on the basis of her “personal knowledge of the prejudices inherent in radical Islamist ideology” as well as her knowledge of the plight of MEK members living as refugees at a Baghdad camp.

Greg Miller contributed to this report.

May 3, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Buying your way to respectability

Maybe you’ve heard the saying “money talks, bullshit walks”? Well on Capitol Hill, money and bullshit are often the same thing, and they both get to talk as long as they want or until the cash runs out, whichever comes first. Take the People’s Mujahedin, or Mujahedin-i Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile group that I’ve written about in the past. MEK used to reside on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups until 2012, when a massive PR campaign led by the most prominent collection of lobbyists that money could buy, bolstered by some strategic donations to the right politicians, convinced Hillary Clinton to remove them from the list. To be fair, the EU had already delisted MEK as a terror group in 2009, and Canada delisted them right after the US did, and obviously there’s no corruption in either Europe or Canada, so I’m sure this was all on the up and up. All MEK did to get listed as a terror group in the first place was little stuff like assassinating a half-dozen or so Americans and blowing up a few US-owned buildings in Iran in the 1970s, before the revolution. Totally innocent stuff, you know.

MEK, known for its opposition to Iran’s current clerical government, was actually founded in the 1960s as a Marxist group opposed to the Shah and his decadent, Western, corrupt, yadda yadda, you know the drill. After the Iranian Revolution, which MEK fully supported, its leader, Massoud Rajavi, found himself getting the short end of the stick in the new Iranian order, so he fled the country before Ayatollah Khomeini could throw him in prison. He set up in Iraq and struck up a friendship with an amiable fellow named Saddam Hussein, and also started dropping MEK’s previous anti-Western and Marxist rhetoric in an effort to get on America’s good side. Also, where MEK had criticized the Shah for having cordial relations with Israel, after the Revolution it started working with the Israelis to carry out covert attacks inside Iran, particularly assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. In 2002, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which claims to be Iran’s “government-in-exile” but is really MEK’s cuddlier political front group, claimed to have revealed information about the existence of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility to the US, which is true inasmuch as you’re willing to ignore the fact that the US already knew about Natanz before NCRI/MEK said anything.

Since he took firm control of the group after the 1979 revolution, MEK has essentially existed as Massoud Rajavi’s personal entourage/fan club. It’s got a creepy cult of personality vibe about it even when you get past the fact that it has demonstrably engaged in numerous real-deal terror attacks over the course of its existence (it supposedly “renounced violence” in 2001, but it kept right on assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, so…). It’s even mirrored that not-at-all creepy US cult, Scientology, in that, not unlike David Miscavige’s missing-since-2007 wife, Shelly, nobody has seen or heard from Massoud Rajavi in over a decade, since the Iraq War, when the US actually targeted MEK camps (they were, after all, still on the terror list) and upended things for Massoud’s bro Saddam. MEK insists that Massoud is alive and well and in hiding, but control over the organization appears to have gone to his wife, Maryam Rajavi.

All of this is prelude to the news that Maryam Rajavi will testify tomorrow by videoconference to the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade about…the fight against ISIS. Maryam Rajavi has no experience as a counterterrorism expert, nor does MEK have any experience fighting (or any reason to fight, let’s be honest) against ISIS. Subcommittee chair Ted Poe (R-TX) claims that he invited her to testify “about the threats the Islamic State (IS) poses to MEK members who remain at Camp Liberty in Baghdad,” but, and this may come as a shock so sit down before you read it, she plans on explaining how the US should fight ISIS by overthrowing the clerical government in Iran. That makes no logical sense, but MEK has never been about “making sense.”

Rajavi’s invitation to testify has caused a bit of a kerfuffle around tomorrow’s hearing, as both former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and former State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism Daniel Benjamin have flatly refused to appear alongside Rajavi (Ford has said he would be willing to testify on a different panel, which the subcommittee apparently has decided to do, but Benjamin seems to have pulled out of the hearing altogether). Benjamin cited MEK’s past terrorist activity, including its participation in the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis, as the reason for his unwillingness to testify alongside Rajavi, while Ford was a little blunter:

“The committee handled this abysmally,” Ford told Al-Monitor in a phone call late Monday. “What the fuck do the MEK know about the Islamic State?”

Poe has been defending his decision to include Rajavi in the hearing (at the cost, mind you, of getting testimony from an actual counter-terrorism expert) because she can testify about how threatened the MEK members in Baghdad are by ISIS (which, if they’re in Baghdad, is “hardly at all”). The problem with that is a) she’s planning on testifying about regime change in Tehran instead and b) why doesn’t Poe invite someone from, say, Iraq’s Yazidi community, which is actually directly threatened by ISIS, to testify before his subcommittee? Maybe (SPOILER ALERT: here’s where the money comes in) it has something to do with the fact that nobody from the Yazidi community has managed to put a cool $38K in cash and prizes in Ted Poe’s pockets the way MEK has:

Poe received $17,900 in campaign contributions from supporters of the MEK between 2009 and 2014, according to an analysis I conducted of campaign finance data. Surprisingly, nearly half—or $8,600—of the total flowed into his campaign while the group was still on the State Department’s terrorism list between 2009 and its delisting in 2012.

In 2013 and 2014, the group also paid for $19,671 in travel expenses (including business-class plane fare) for Poe’s travel to MEK events in France.

So, hey, if you’ve ever wanted to testify before Congress but there’s no discernible reason why they should invite you to do so, plus maybe you’ve got some unsavory things in your past that could complicate matters, don’t worry! Just fork over a few tens of thousands to your favorite congressperson and you could soon find yourself offering your “expertise” (or irrelevant ranting, but whatever, you bought your time fair and square) to our nation’s top legislators! Good luck!

ATTWIW.com

May 3, 2015 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts