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Auvers sur Oise: flowers stolen from the cemetery found in Mojahedin Khalq base

Tired of having the plant pots decorating the grave of her husband stolen, a widow placed a spy chip on one of them, and caught up with her plants on the premises of the Iranian opposition in exile.

The Resistance of Iran in exile in France counts among its supporters passionate flower kleptomaniacs? This was a strange case for the police at Auvers-sur-Oise on Monday reveals Le Parisien . It all started when a resident, exasperated at losing several pots of flowers she had placed on her husband’s grave, equipped one with a GPS tracker.

The bugged pot was soon to vanish as had a dozen of its predecessors. Except this time, the 59 year old widow followed the path of the plant on her computer. Imagine her surprise to find that the floating plant came to rest in the premises of the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran, aka MEK, MKO, PMOI), based in Auvers since 1980.

Accompanied by the police, the widow approached the NCRI. She recognized two hydrangeas, including the one under which she had pasted the chip. When asked, an NCRI member said he had been responsible for purchasing the plants in the morning at the supermarket … but he took back his words when shown the chip.

The widow refused the proposal of compensation which was offered and made a formal complaint instead. Besides the hydrangeas other plants were found that might have been stolen from other graves in the cemetery, where such disappearances have intensified over the past year despite the precautions taken by the municipality.

According to Le Parisien , the police interviewed a suspect on Tuesday. The spokesman of the NCRI has remained silent. In 34 years in Auvers, this is the first time a case like this has come to light. The NCRI has not explained the origin of the pots but says it recalls receiving many flowers as gifts from supporters.

Translated by Iran Interlink

October 4, 2014 0 comments

Albania

210 Liberty residents to be relocated in Albania

Albania is ready to take in some 210 TTL residents in Tirana.

Nejat Society, Tehran – High Commissioner for Refugees in Albania has provided the necessary measures for the transfer of 210 Camp Liberty residents to Albania.

Several apartments are ready to accommodate the newly arrived individuals, reports say.

Rajavis should understand that changes in the government of Iraq has nothing to do with their futile hope in prolonging their agenda and the group has no way but to leave the Iraqi territory.

September 30, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The March to War: Fighting ISIL is a Smokescreen for US Mobilization against Syria, Iran

The ISIL or IS threat is a smokescreen. The strength of the ISIL has deliberately been inflated to get public support for the Pentagon and to justify the illegal bombing of Syria. It has also been used to justify the mobilization of what is looking more and more like a large-scale US-led military buildup in the Middle East. The firepower and military assets being committed go beyond what is needed for merely fighting the ISIL death squads.

While the US has assured its citizens and the world that troops will not be sent on the ground, this is very unlikely. In the first instance, it is unlikely because boots on the ground are needed to monitor and select targets. Moreover, Washington sees the campaign against the ISIL fighters as something that will take years. This is doublespeak. What is being described is a permanent military deployment or, in the case of Iraq, redeployment. This force could eventually morph into a broader assault force threatening Syria, Iran, and Lebanon.

US-Syrian and US-Iranian Security Dialogue?

Before the US-led bombings in Syria started there were unverified reports being circulated that Washington had started a dialogue with Damascus through Russian and Iraqi channels to discuss military coordination and the Pentagon bombing campaign in Syria. There was something very off though. Agents of confusion were at work in an attempt to legitimize the bombardment of the Syrian Arab Republic.

The claims of US-Syrian cooperation via Russian and Iraqi channels are part of a sinister series of misinformation and disinformation. Before the claims about US cooperation with Syria, similar claims were being made about US-Iranian cooperation in Iraq.

Earlier, Washington and the US media tried to give the impression that an agreement on military cooperation was made between itself and Tehran to fight ISIL and to cooperate inside Iraq. This was widely refuted in the harshest of words by numerous members of the Iranian political establishment and high-ranking Iranian military commanders as disinformation.

After the Iranians clearly indicated that Washington’s claims were fiction, the US claimed that it would not be appropriate for Iran to join its anti-ISIL coalition. Iran rebutted. Washington was dishonestly misrepresenting the facts, because US officials had asked Tehran to join the anti-ISIL coalition several times.

Before he was discharged from the hospital after a prostate surgery, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest ranking official in Iran, told Iranian television on September 9, 2014, that the US had requested that Tehran and Washington cooperate together inside Iraq on three different occasions. He explained that the US ambassador to Iraq had relayed a message to the Iranian ambassador to Iraq to join the US, then, in his own words, «the same [John Kerry] — who had said in front of the camera and in front of the eyes of all the world that they do not want Iran to cooperate with them — requested [from] Dr. Zarif that Iran cooperate with them on this issue, but Dr. Zarif turned this [request] down.» The third request was made by US Undersecretary Wendy Sherman to Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Khamenei additionally made it clear that he categorically ruled out any cooperation with Washington on the issue. «On this issue, we will not cooperate with America particularly because their hands are dirty,» he publicly confirmed while explaining that Washington had ill intentions and nefarious designs in Iraq and Syria.

Like Russia, Iran has been supporting Syria and Iraq against ISIL. Also like Moscow, Tehran is committed to fighting it, but will not join Washington’s anti-ISIL coalition.

New Invasion(s) and Regime Change Project(s) in the Pipeline?

As was pointed out on June 20, 2014, in Washington’s eyes Nouri Al-Malaki’s federal government in Baghdad had to be removed for refusing to join the US siege against the Syrians, being aligned to Iran, selling oil to the Chinese, and buying weapons from the Russian Federation. Iraq’s decision to be part of an Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline also undermined the objectives of the US and its allies to control the flow of energy in the Middle East and to obstruct Eurasian integration. [1]

There were also two other unforgivable cardinal sins that Al-Malaki’s government in Baghdad committed in Washington’s eye. These offenses, however, should be put into geopolitical context first.

Remember the post-September 11, 2001 (post-9/11) catchphrase of the Bush II Administration during the start of its serial wars? It went like this: «Anyone can go to Baghdad, but real men go to Tehran!» The point of this warmongering catchphrase is that Baghdad and Damascus have been viewed as pathways for the Pentagon towards Tehran. [2]

Like Syria, Al-Malaki government’s cardinal sins were tied to blocking the pathway to Tehran. Firstly, the Iraqi government evicted the Pentagon from Iraq at the end of 2011, which removed US troops stationed directly on Iran’s western border. Secondly, the Iraqi federal government was working to expel anti-government Iranian militants from Iraq and to close Camp Ashraf, which could be used in a war or regime change operations against Iran.

Ashraf was a base for the military wing of the Iraqi-based Mujahidin-e-Khalq (MEK/MOK/MKO). The MEK is an anti-government Iranian organization that is bent on regime change in Tehran. It has even openly endorsed US-led attacks on Iran and Syria.

Although the US government itself considers the MEK a terrorist organization, Washington began to deepen its ties with the MEK when it and its staunch British allies invaded Iraq. Disingenuously and ironically, the US and Britain used Saddam Hussein’s support for the MEK to justify labeling Iraq as a state-sponsor of terrorism and to also justify the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Since then the US has been has been nurturing the MEK.

Since 2003, the US has been has been funding the MEK. Washington has been protecting the MEK, because it wants to keep them on a leash as either leverage against Tehran or to have the option of one day installing the MEK into power in Tehran as part of a regime change operation against Iran. The MEK has literally become incorporated into the Pentagon and CIA toolboxes against Tehran. Even when the US transferred control of Camp Ashraf to Baghdad, the Pentagon kept forces inside the MEK camp.

Eventually the MEK forces would mostly be relocated in 2012 to the former US base known as Camp Liberty. Camp Liberty is now called by an Arabic name, Camp Hurriya.

The Istanbul bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor, Scott Peterson described how US officials began to really put their weight behind the MEK during the start of the Arab Spring in 2011. This is tied to Washington’s regime change dreams. Peterson wrote that US officials «rarely mention the MEK’s violent and anti-American past, and portray the group not as terrorists but as freedom fighters with ‘values just like us,’ as democrats-in-waiting ready to serve as a vanguard of regime change in Iran.» [3]

Washington Has Not Abandoned Dreams of Regime Change in Tehran

Washington has not abandoned its dreams for regime change in Tehran. Is it a coincidence that the US and EU support for the MEK is increasing, especially when the ISIL threat in Iraq began to be noticed publicly?

Six hundred parliamentarians and politicians from mostly NATO countries were flown in for a large MEK gathering in the Parisian northeastern suburb of Villepinte that called for regime change in Iran on June 27, 2014. Warmongers and morally bankrupt figures like former US senator Joseph Lieberman, Israeli mouthpiece and apologist Alan Dershowhitz, former Bush II official and Fox News pundit John Bolton, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, and French former minister and United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNIMIK) chief Bernard Kouchner all met the MEK to promote regime change and war. According to the MEK, over 80, 000 people attended the regime change rally. Supporters of the insurgencies in Iraq and Syria were also present at the Villepinte gathering calling for regime change in Iraq, Syria, and Iran.

The irony is that the money for the event most probably came from the US government itself. US allies probably contributed too. This money has gone to the MEK’s lobbying initiatives with the US Congress and US Department of State, which in effect is recycling US funding. People like Rudy Giuliani — probably one of the most hated mayors in the history of New York City until he took advantage of the tragic events of 9/11 — are now effectively lobbyists for the MEK. «Many of these former high-ranking US officials — who represent the full political spectrum — have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK,» according to the Christian Science Monitor. [4]

Giuliani has been speaking at MEK events at least as far back as 2010. In 2011, he publicly pushed for regime change in Tehran and Damascus at a MEK gathering. «How about we follow an Arab Spring with a Persian Summer?» he rhetorically declared. [5] Giuliani’s next sentence revealed just how much of a scion of US foreign policy the initiative to support the MEK truly is: «We need regime change in Iran, more than we do in Egypt or Libya, and just as we need it in Syria.» [6]

Joseph Lieberman’s friend and fellow war advocate Senator John McCain was unable to make the trip to the Parisian suburb in Seine-Saint-Denis, but addressed the regime change gathering via video. Congressman Edward Royce, the chair of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, also showed his support for regime change in Iran through a video message. So did Senator Carl Levin and Senator Robert Menendez.

Large delegations from the US, France, Spain, Canada, and Albania were present. Aside from the aforementioned individuals, other notable American attendees to the June 27, 2014 event included the following:

1. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the lower chamber (House of Representatives) in the bicameral US Congress;

2. John Dennis Hastert; another former speaker of the House of Representatives;

3. George William Casey Jr., who commanded the multinational military force that invaded and occupied Iraq;

4. Hugh Shelton, a computer software executive and former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff;

5. James Conway, the former chief of the US Marine Corps

6. Louis Freeh, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI);

7. Lloyd Poe, the US Representative who sits on (1) the US House Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats and chairs (2) the US House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non‐proliferation and Trade;

8. Daniel Davis, a US Representative from Illinois;

9. Loretta Sánchez, a US Representative from California;

10. Michael B. Mukasey, a former attorney-general of the US;

11. Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont;

12. William Richardson, the former secretary of the US Department of Energy;

13. Robert Torricelli, a former legislator in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate senator who is the legally representative of the MEK in Iraq;

14. Francis Townsend, former Homeland Security advisor to George W. Bush Jr.;

15. Linda Chavez, a former chief White House director;

16. Robert Joseph, the former US undersecretary that ran the (1) Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, (2) the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, and the (3) Bureau of Political-Military Affairs;

17. Philip Crowley, the former assistant-secretary of state responsible for public affairs;

18. David Phillips, the military police commander who restructured the Iraqi police and was responsible for guarding Camp Ashraf and Saddam Hussein as a prisoner;

19. Marc Ginsberg, the senior vice-president of the public relations firm APCO Worldwide and former US ambassador and US presidential adviser for Middle East policy.

Like the US presence, the French presence included officials. Aside from Bernard Kouchner, from France some of the notable attendees were the following individuals:

1. Michèle Alliot-Marie, a French politician who among her cabinet portfolios was responsible for the military and foreign affairs at different times;

2. Rama Yade, vice president of the conservative Radical Party of France;

3. Gilbert Mitterrand, the president of the human rights foundation France Libertés, which has focused on ethnic groups such as Kurds, Chechens, and Tibetans;

4. Martin Vallton, the mayor of Villepinte.

From Spain the notable attendees were the following:

1. Pedro Agramunt Font de Mora, the Spanish chair of the European People’s Party (EPP) and its allies in the Council of Europe;

2. Jordi Xucla, the Spanish chair of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group in the Council of Europe;

3. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a Spanish politician and one of the fourteen vice-presidents of the European Union’s European Parliament;

4. José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the former prime minister of Spain (who was also visibly accompanied by his wife Sonsoles Espinosa Díaz).

Other notable attendees from other Euro-Atlantic countries included:

1. Pandli Majko, the former prime minster of Albania;

2. Kim Campbell, the former prime minister of Canada

3. Geir Haarde, the former prime minister of Iceland;

4. Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian senator;

5. Alexander Carile, a member of the British House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament

6. Giulio Maria Terzi, the former foreign minister of Italy;

7. Adrianus Melkert, a former Dutch cabinet minister, a former World Bank executive, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s former special envoy to Iraq.

Not only regime change was talked about, but the cross-border crisis in Iraq and Syria was a major subject. Fox News gave the event special coverage. Just in July, the MEK’s leadership had condemned Iranian support to the Iraqi federal government in its fight against the ISIL, yet since the US had began to nominally fight the ISIL the MEK has begun to hold its tongue.

Before the regime change gathering, the MEK’s leader Maryam Rajavi — who the MEK has designated as the president of Iran since 1993 — even meet with the puppet Syrian National Council’s leader Ahmed Jarba in Paris to discuss cooperation on May 23, 2014.

MEK leader Maryam Rajavi and SNC leader Ahmed Jarba meet to discuss cooperating for regime change in Tehran and Damascus.

Regime Change in Damascus through Mission Creep in Syria

The bombing campaign that the US has started in Syria is illegal and a violation of the UN Charter. This is why the Pentagon took the step of claiming that the US-led bombing campaign was prompted by the threat of an «imminent» attack that was being planned against the territory of the US. This allegation was made to give legal cover to the bombardment of Syrian territory through a warped argument under Article 51 of the UN Charter that allows a UN member to legally attack another country if an imminent attack by the said country is about to take place on the UN member.

Barack Obama and the US government have done their best to confuse and blur reality through a series of different steps they have taken to claim legitimacy for violating international law by bombing Syria without the authorization of Damascus. Although US Ambassador Samantha Powers informed Syria’s permanent representative to the UN that US-led attacks would be launched on Al-Raqqa Governate, informing Bashar Al-Jaafari through a formal unilateral notification does not amount to being given the legal consent of Syria.

The US-led attacks on Syria do not have the backing of the UN Security Council either. The US government, however, has tried to spin the September 19, 2014, meeting of the UN Security Council that John Kerry chaired as a sign that the UN Security Council and international community are backing its bombing campaign.

Nor is it a coincidence that just when the US assembled its multinational coalition to fight the ISIL and its pseudo-caliphate, that John Kerry conveniently mentions that Syria has violated the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). While admitting that Syria did not use any material prohibited by the CWC, Kerry told US legislators that Damascus had breached its commitments to the CWC on September 18, 2014. In other words, Washington intends to go after Syria and pursue regime change in Damascus. If this does not make it clear, then the fact that the US will use Saudi Arabia to train more anti-government forces should. [7]

A US brinkmanship strategy to justify a US-led bombing campaign against Syria has been put into action with the intent of creating a pretext for expanding the illegal US-led airstrikes in Syria that started on September 22, 2014.

What the US envisions is a long-term bombing campaign, which also threatens Lebanon and Iran. According to Ali Khamenei, the US wants to bomb both Iraq and Syria using ISIL as a smokescreen on the basis of the model in Pakistan. More correctly, the situation should be compared to the AfPak (Af-Pak) model. The US has used the spillover of instability from Afghanistan into Pakistan and the spread of the Taliban as a pretext for bombing Pakistan. Iraq and Syria have been merged as one conflict zone, which Ibrahim Al-Marashi, using a neologism, has described as the rise of «Syraq.»

The Broader Objective: Disrupting Eurasian Integration

While the US has been pretending to fight the same terrorist and death squads that it has created, the Chinese and their partners have been busy working to integrate Eurasia. America’s «Global War on Terror» has been paralleled with the rebuilding of the Silk Road. This is the real story and motivation for Washington’s insistence to fight and remobilize in the Middle East. It is also the reason why the US has been pushing Ukraine to confront Russia and the EU to sanction the Russian Federation.

America wants to disrupt the reemerging Silk Road and its expanding trade network. While Kerry has been busy frightening audiences about the ISIL and its atrocities, the Chinese have been busy sweeping the map by making deals across Asia and the Indian Ocean. This is part of the westward march of the Chinese dragon.

Parallel to Kerry’s travels, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Sri Lanka and went to the Maldives. Sri Lanka is already part of China’s Maritime Silk Road project. The Maldivians are newer entries; agreements have been reached to include the island-nation into the Maritime Silk Road network and infrastructure that China is busy constructing to expand maritime trade between East Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Nor is it a coincidence that two Chinese destroyers docked at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf to conduct joint drills with Iranian warships in the Persian Gulf.

Parallel to east-west trade, a north-south trade and transport network is being developed. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was in Kazakhstan recently where he and his Kazakhstani counterpart, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, confirmed that trade was due to see manifold increases. The completion of the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway, which will create a north-south transit route, is being awaited. Cooperation between Tehran and the Eurasian Union was also discussed by the two presidents. On the other western side of the Caspian Sea, a parallel north-south corridor running from Russia to Iran through the Republic of Azerbaijan has been in the works.

The anti-Russia sanctions are beginning to cause uneasiness in the European Union. The real losers in the sanctions in Russia are the members of the European Union. Russia has demonstrated that it has options. Moscow has already launched the construction of its mega natural gas Yakutia–Khabarovsk–Vladivostok pipeline (also known as the Power of Siberia pipeline) to deliver gas to China while BRICS partner South Africa has signed a historic deal on nuclear energy with Rosatom.

Moscow’s influence on the world stage is very clear. Its influence has been on the rise in the Middle East and Latin America. Even in NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, Russian influence is on the rise. The Russian government has recently compiled a list of over one hundred old Soviet construction projects that it would like to recuperate.

An alternative to US and EU sanctions is beginning to emerge in Eurasia. Aside from the oil-for-goods deal that Tehran and Moscow signed, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak announced that Iran and Russia had made several new agreements worth seventy billion euro. Sanctions will soon merely isolate the US and the EU. The Iranians have also announced that they are working with their Chinese and Russian partners to overcome the US and EU sanctions regime.

America is being rolled back. It cannot pivot to the Asia-Pacific until matters are settled in the Middle East and Eastern Europe against the Russian, Iranians, Syrians, and their allies. That is why Washington is doing its best to disrupt, divide, redraw, bargain and co-opt. When it comes down to it, the US is not concerned about fighting the ISIL, which has been serving Washington’s interests in the Middle East. America’s main concern is about preserving its crumbling empire and preventing Eurasian integration.

Notes

[1] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, «America pursuing regime change in Iraq again,» RT, June 20, 2014.

[2] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, «The Syria Endgame: Strategic Stage in the Pentagon’s Covert War on Iran,» Global Research, January 07, 2013.

[3] Scott Peterson, «Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list,» Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Matt Spetalnick, Jeff Mason and Julia Edwards, «Saudi Arabia agrees to host training of moderate Syria rebels», Caren Bohan, Grant McCool, and Eric Walsh eds. Reuters, September 10, 2014.

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya,

September 27, 2014 0 comments

USA

Open Letter of 57 victims of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Terrorist Cult to Obama

To Barak Obama, President of the United States of America

Dear President Obama,

We are a group of ex members of the People’s Mojahedin Khalq Organization (PMOI aka MEK, MKO, NCRI), who have been victims of this terrorist cult. We read your far reaching speech in the State Department Web site on September 10, 2014. We would like to express our highest appreciation and admiration for the deep understanding of the issue of terrorism and cults in the Middle East region shown in your speech.

You have precisely addressed the real roots of the formation of al-Qaida and ISIS, and expressed your deep sorrow for the barbaric crimes committed against innocent women and children by the terrorist ISIS in Iraq. You also mentioned their barbaric collective summary executions of soldiers.

Mr President,

The unfortunate existence of terrorist cults in the Middle East region and their anti-human behavior is a deep wound that its healing is only possible by preventing them from recruiting and from gaining financial, military and political power.

The al-Qaida and ISIS experience proves that the free world should be proactive rather than reactive, and such terrorist cults should be degraded and ultimately destroyed before the people of the world and the region especially women and children start paying the heavy price with their lives.

Therefore as you have mentioned, “these terrorists are unique in their brutality. They execute captured prisoners. They kill children. They enslave, rape, and force women into marriage.” There should be a unique and united policy towards all the terrorist cults. There should not be good and bad terrorists as some with the intention of opening room for future terrorist groups to form imply.

We believe there are a tremendous amount of similarities between the ISIS that was described in your speech, and the Iranian terrorist Mujahidin-e Khalq. Indeed, many experts on Iraq and Iran share the view that the Mujahidin in Iraq provide media and logistics support for ISIS.

Some of the common characteristics of the Mujahidin and ISIS are as follows:

1. The Mujahidin hide their anti-western and anti-democratic thinking from the general public. While they believe in religious lifelong leadership and Islamic Caliphate and have been practicing it within their cult for years, they pretend publicly to believe in democracy and free elections.

2. Whilst they deeply and strongly believe in armed struggle and the use of violence to achieve their goals, to win their case in a court in Europe, the leaders pretended to be against any violence and armed struggle. Even so, there is still a weapon in their emblem which is a sign that armed struggle is in their ideology.

3. The Mujahidin-e Khalq severely violate human rights. The dissident members were arrested, tortured, jailed in solitary confinement inside their barrack named Ashraf in Iraq and later transferred to Abu-Ghraib prison in Iraq. The Human Rights Watch report published in 2005, about the Mujahidin-e Khalq’s violations of human rights based on the victims’ direct evidence, clearly and strongly condemned their abuse of human rights. The victims are ready to testify to your administration or US Government officials in person. Also the reports of defecting and escaping members in recent years confirms still more the Human Rights Watch report.

4. The Mujahidin, in cooperation with Saddam Hussein’s army participated in the imprisonment and brainwashing and execution of the Iranian POWs in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war.

5. Massoud Rajavi, the leader of the Mujahidin, ordered compulsory marriages inside their cult after the disastrous military attack on Iran from Iraq in 1988 which resulted in the deaths of 1400 of its members. During these forced marriages hundreds of women who had lost their husbands, had to marry male members not of their choosing.

6. Massoud Rajavi who considers himself as a caliph, a supreme religious and political leader of the people of the world, one year later ordered forced divorce of the Mujahidin families, and he later married himself to all these divorced women.

7. To pave the way toward marrying the divorced women members, he completely destroyed their families by separating even the children from their parents and sent them outside Iraq so there would be no common grounds for the divorced couple to meet or interact. Some of those children, who numbered about 800, aged 7 months to 8 years, were kept in Mujahidin bases in Europe and the USA where they were brainwashed so they would remain obedient and loyal to the cult. Later, clearly against the Geneva Conventions, some of those children aged 15-16 were sent back to Iraq to take part in military operations in which some were killed, and some are still in imprisoned inside camp Liberty. Some of these children have been seriously mentally and socially disordered due to separation from their families.

8. The defected women members of the Mujahidin who have successfully escaped from the Camp in Iraq and been able to reach the west, say that they have been systematically sexually abused by Massoud Rajavi. On the order of Massoud Rajavi and through the administration of Maryam Rajavi women members were forced to undergo needless hysterectomies as a means of destroying any hope they might have of returning to a normal and natural life. Many of such defected women members are ready to talk to any fact-finding body in person.

Dear President,

The Mujahedin was established with the strategy of destroying US led Imperialism. This is our knowledge after some 30 years inside the Mujahidin. Its pretence to be liberal and democratic is a tactic to help them reach power, after which their main strategy can be applied.

As we mentioned earlier in our letter there are no good terrorists, or safe terrorists. All are waiting for their own right time to spread as a cancer in the region or elsewhere.

Apparently the Mujahidin are considered good or safe terrorists so that their high ranking officials such as Mr Alireza Jafarzadeh and Ms Sona Samsami, who used to wear military uniform and commanded military operations, have an office in Washington DC and officially represent the Mujahidin (as their front organization the National Council of Resistance). For your information, Mr Alireza Jafarzadeh had requested in writing (see attached), to commit a suicide attack in order to prove his loyalty to Rajavi.

We wish you success in your fight against all forms of terrorism. We also greatly appreciate and thank you for reading our letter.

Most Respectfully,

1. Rabeae Shahrokhi

2.Nasrin Ebrahimi

3. Khodabakhsh Roodgar

4.Roohola Tajbakhsh

5.parvin Haji

6.Mohammad Hossein Sobhani

7. Alireza Nasrolahi

8.Ali Akbar Rastgou

9.Seyyed Amir Movaseghi

10. Edward Termado

11. Alireza Mirasgari

12: Ebrahim Khodabandeh

13.Ehsan Roshanzamir

14.Majid Roohi

15.Jafar Ebrahimi

16. Saeed Hazrati

17.Ghorban Ali Hosseinnejad

18.Ghafour Ftahiyan

19. Batoul Maleki

20.Homayoun Kohzadi

21.Mitra Yoosefi

22.Zahra Mirbagheri

23. Anne Singelton (Khodabandeh)

24.Ayoub Kordrostami

25.Karim Haghi

26.Masoud Khodabandeh

27. Mehdi Nikbakht

28. Mehdi Ahmadi

29. Ali Ghashghavi

30. Arash Sametipour

31.Mehdi Khoshal

32. Alireza Bashiri

33. Ali Hatami

34. Hamed Sarafpour

35. Naser Rezwani

36.Behzad Alishahi

37. Hamidreza Salmani

38. Shirzad Jalili

39.Milad Ariyaee

40. Karim Gholami

41. Mehrdad Sagharchie

42. Abbas Sadeghi

43.Farzad Frazinfar

44.Mehdi Sojoudi

45. Hamid Dehdar

46. Abdolkarim Ebrahimi

47. Ali Bidi

48.Mahboobe Hamze

49. Hassan Azizi

50. Ali Jahani

51. Mirbaghe Sedaghi

52. Nader Naderi

53.Mohammad Razaghi

54. Saeed Naseri

55. Mahmoud Sepahi

56.Mostafa Mohammadi

57. Mohammad Karami

September 25, 2014 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

A Former MEK Member Speaks About the ‘Cult’ of Extremism

Interview with Massoud Banisadr

In 1979, Masoud Banisadr was a young postgraduate maths student at Newcastle University, watching political upheaval in his homeland of Iran on the nightly news. After the fall of the Western-backed Shah, wanting to play his part in a new society he joined Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an Islamic Marxist revolutionary organisation.

But a couple of years after the revolution, the MEK began to clash with Ayatollah Khomeini’s theocratic regime and were soon deemed an enemy of the new Iran. MEK suicide bombings and assassinations followed. In 1981, thousands of MEK members went into exile, and by 1986 had established a tight-knit paramilitary organisation in Iraq led by husband-and-wife team Masoud and Maryam Rajavi.

Banisadr became the MEK’s PR man, moving between Camp Ashraf, their headquarters in Iraq, Geneva and Washington DC, trying to win over Western politicians. He finally left the group in 1996, went into hiding and now lives back in England.

The United States removed MEK from its list of terrorist organisations in 2012, but Banisadr still considers it a fanatical cult acting under the warped leadership of the Rajavis. He argues that any terrorist organisation is either a cult or “has no option but to become one in order to survive”.

I spoke to Banisadr about the power of cults, and how this might help us understand why young men in the UK are vulnerable to joining the Islamic State and other extremist groups.

An MEK oath ceremony at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, taken around 2002 by a member who has since left and does not wish to be named.

VICE: You were once a high-ranking member of MEK. Why do you now see the organisation as a cult?

Masoud Banisadr: There was a charismatic leader, Rajavi. There was a black-and-white world view imposed; followers cutting themselves off from family; followers losing their personality. There was mind manipulation. At Camp Ashraf in Iraq there were talks lasting for days on end. I remember one task where we had to write down our old personality in one column on a board, and the new personality in a different column. I remember a guy who said, “My brother works in the Iranian embassy in London. Before I loved him as my brother, now I hate him as my enemy. I am ready to kill him tomorrow, if necessary.” And everyone applauded.

How did you justify violence?

I was fortunate not to be involved in any violence. But all group members accepted MEK suicide bombings and killings in Iran to be revolutionary acts. This was the brainwashing. And later, in my role as official representative, I would justify and explain these acts as the only means we had to defend ourselves. I was a nice person, well-mannered, and could argue very rationally with politicians. So I was a good salesman.

Why did MEK members divorce their wives?

In 1990, Rajavi said all members must divorce their spouses. My own wife had already left the group by then. All members accepted these terms, and it [applied to] everyone except the leader and his wife Maryam. In a single day, everyone became celibate. Someone asked, “What about sex in the afterlife?” He replied, “I know your trick – you want to fantasise about the afterlife. But no – you must be prepared to forget about sex, about spouses, about love.”

No sex?

No sexual thoughts. The idea was that we were in a war to take back Iran, so you cannot have a family until the war is won. This was the excuse the outside world would hear, but inside we were told your spouses are a barrier between you and the leadership. We were ordered to surrender our soul, heart and mind to Rajavi and his wife.

Masoud meeting trade union leaders at an International Labour Conference in Geneva in 1987 (published in an MEK newspaper).

How did you manage to leave the organisation?

What saved me was seeing my daughter. In 1996 I came to London to arrange some meetings. I saw my daughter, after many years of not seeing her. I had totally forgotten about the guy who was the father, the old Masoud. I only knew Masoud, the MEK member. The old Masoud wanted to hug her, but the group member – living under strict rules where men and women never interacted – knew he should not. I was fortunate that I had a bad back problem, so I was allowed to go and recuperate in hospital. And in those two weeks, being around ordinary people, seeing ordinary families, I allowed feelings for my own family to come back. And so, finally, I decided to leave the group.

Where did you go?

I had to go on the run for a time. I learned how to hide myself around the UK until they gave up looking for me.

What do you think it is that makes young people vulnerable to extremist causes?

Well, terrorism is like a virus. It attacks us through our weaknesses. It kills our personality, our individuality, like a cult. I think there are three stages. The first stage is the injustice of the world. Young Muslims see injustice, become angry and want to react. Then comes along a powerful ideology, and the Wahabi ideology offers a very simple, black-and-white world view, and a very narrow-minded interpretation of jihad, offered as a solution to young Muslims. But both these stages are not enough to make someone a terrorist, a human bomb or a fighter for a caliphate. A third stage is required: the mind manipulation, which robs someone of their personality, makes them identify entirely with the group and cuts them off from their parents and society.

So radical ideas alone aren’t enough to go off and fight for, say, the Islamic State?

If you’re a young Muslim and you feel like a nobody, it’s appealing to hear that we can return to the time of Prophet Mohammed – [that] we will be powerful again and feel proud of ourselves. This can make you radical – even prepared to be violent – but you will not stay a fighter or become a martyr without being entirely cut-off from family and the values of the society you were brought up in. That requires the mind-manipulation that goes on in a destructive cult.

Where does the Islamic State fit in? Do you consider it a cult as well as a terrorist organisation?

The signs are there. The leader – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – is charismatic and has unlimited ambition. He has been introduced as the leader of all Muslims, the Caliph. Normal leaders want political power. Cult leaders want something more than governing a city or country – they want to govern history. They want to change the structure of humanity. For a while they were calling themselves ISIL – Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.

They wanted control of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel. Now they call themselves the Islamic State. They want whatever they think was once part of the Islamic empire, so they claim Spain, Portugal, North Africa, India and part of China and Russia. They want the whole world, to make everyone Muslim. This is not normal leadership; this is heading towards cult. There is no limitation you can deal with, politically.

What would you say to British parents who have children fighting in Syria or Iraq?

It’s very difficult, very delicate. If a parent says anything critical against a radical preacher, or about an organisation like Islamic State, that’s when a person’s mind becomes defensive. It is difficult to argue rationally. So if a parent has contact, they should not try to talk about politics or religion. They should show only kindness and love. This is the member’s weakness. Feelings do not die away, even if personality has changed. So the parent has to let them know they will be there, waiting. There has to be a pathway back to a life where family love is there, something that has nothing do with ideological thinking. Unconditional love unlocks the mind manipulation that has taken place.

Thanks, Masoud.

Adam Forrest, Vice.com

September 6, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Behind the scene of Al Arabiya interview with Maryam Rajavi

The MKO propaganda is boasting of Al Arabiya’s recent interview with Maryam Rajavi. The alleged interview with Maryam Rajavi; the leader of the destructive cult of MKO or the self-claimed president of the so-called National Council of Resistance demonstrates dreams of the Cult leaders for “the future of Iran”

Regarding that the group hardly ever enjoys public support among Iranians – and this is not unknown to the world mass media, journalists and politicians – why Al Arabiya gives credit to the cult leader to consider her “to discuss the situation in the Middle East”?!

Batoul Soltani, former member of the MKO – whose revelations about Rajavi’s sexual deviations have been widely focused by the group critics – seems to know the reason. When she was a member of the MKO’s elite Council, she used to work in the computer unit of Camp Ashraf.

“This TV Channel was funded by the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Its authorities and staff regularly used to come to camp Ashraf so as the logo and website of Al Arabiya was designated and programmed by the computer unit of the MKO in Camp Ashraf. It was a gift to Al Arabiya News Network”,Soltani explained.

As the defector of the MKO states, the MKO formed “Iraqi Militia” immediately after the collapse of Iraqi Baath regime in order to infiltrate in the Iraqi society to prolong the survival of its cult, the group propaganda made efforts to absorb Iraqi political figures.

The cult of Rajavi spends huge amounts to fund Iraqi tribes or to run campaign for candidates of certain parties including Al Araqia.

“They forge fake signatories who allegedly support the MKO in return they pay millions of dollars”,Batoul writes.” They recruit employees and lawyers to lobby for the group in Iraqi politics.”

About the so-called interview with Al Arabiya, Batoul Soltani notes,” considering that today the cult of Rajavi is more hated and disgraced for its alliance with the ISIS, the cult has resorted to Al Arabiya TV in order to gloss over its scandalized situation among Iraqi nation.”

In her opinion the interview was just a masquerade show for Maryam Rajavi to deny their cooperation with the ISIS.

September 3, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Pro-Israeli American Billionaires Helped by the White House “Make War on Iran”

Pro-Israeli American Billionaires Helped by the White House “Make War on Iran”, Law Suit Reveals

There is a group of Jewish American billionaires who are apparently doing their best to make sure than negotiations with Iran go nowhere in the mistaken belief that they are doing what is best for Israel. And they would also appear to be assisted in their efforts by the White House, which is at the same time claiming that it wants the talks to be successful. The odd relationship is currently playing out in a Manhattan courtroom where the Justice Department is seeking to squash a lawsuit that it fears might expose the extent to which the government has hypocritically played fast and loose with classified information while simultaneously sending journalists and whistleblowers to jail over allegations that they have done the same.

The power and wealth of the anti-Iran groups as well as their unrivalled access to the United States government means that a policy of détente with Iran, which would be a no brainer based on both American and Iranian interests, only proceeds by fits and starts with the US Congress and much of the media lined up solidly to stop the effort. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliated educational foundation, which have focused on the “Iranian threat” over the past three years, have a combined budget of more than $90 million while AIPAC’s spin-off the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) has $8.7 million.

The American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) efforts are more diversified but uniformly hawkish when it comes to the Middle East. It has a budget of $45 million. Identified multi-million dollar donor/supporters of AIPAC, AEI, and WINEP include Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands, Paul Singer of Elliot Management hedge fund and Bernard Marcus of Home Depot.

Other right wing think tanks including Heritage and Hudson in Washington also support unrelenting pressure directed against Iran. Even the more centrist Brookings Institute is hard core when it comes to Middle Eastern politics by virtue of its Saban Institute funded by Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban. And then there are the mainstream Jewish organizations to include the Anti Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and the American Jewish Congress, all of which have vast resources and unparalleled access to the White House, Congress and the media.

All the pro-Israel anti-Iran groups engage in pressure tactics on Capitol Hill and have been effective in dominating the political debate. Of thirty-six outside witnesses brought in to testify at seven Senate hearings on Iran since 2012 only one might be characterized as sensitive to Iranian concerns. The enormous lobbying effort enables the anti-Iran groups to define the actual policies, move their drafts of legislation through congress, and eventually see their bills pass with overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate. It is democracy in action if one accepts that popular rule ought to be guided by money and pressure groups rather than by national interests.

Less well known is United Against Nuclear Iran, which has a budget just shy of $2 million. UANI is involved in the New York lawsuit. The group, which has somehow obtained a 501[c]3 “educational” tax status that inter alia allows it to conceal its donors, has offices in Rockefeller Center in New York City. It is active on Capitol Hill providing “expert testimony” on Iran for congressional committees, to include “help” in drafting legislation. At a July Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iran all three outside witnesses were from UANI. It is also active in the media but is perhaps best known for its “name and shame” initiatives in which it exposes companies that it claims are doing business with Tehran in violation of US sanctions.

UANI is being sued by a Greek billionaire Victor Restis whom it had outed in 2013. Restis, claiming the exposure was fraudulent and carried out to damage his business, has filed suit demanding that UANI and billionaire Thomas Kaplan turn over documents and details of relationships regarding UANI donors who it is claimed are linked to the case. Kaplan, a New York City resident, made his initial fortune on energy exploration and development. More recently he has been involved in commodities trading in precious metals. His wife Daphne is Israeli and his involvement in various Jewish philanthropies both in the US and in Israel have invited comparison with controversial deceased commodities trader Marc Rich, who reportedly worked closely with the Israeli government on a number of projects.

The Justice department would like to the see the UANI lawsuit go away as it is aware that what is being described as “law enforcement” documents would include both privileged and classified Treasury Department work product relating to individuals and companies that it has investigated for sanctions busting. Passing either intelligence related or law enforcement documents to a private organization is illegal but the Justice Department’s only apparent concern is that the activity might be exposed. There is no indication that it would go after UANI for having acquired the information and it perhaps should be presumed that the source of the leak is the Treasury Department itself.

Who or what provided the documents to a private advocacy group that is also a tax exempt foundation supported by prominent businessmen with interests in the Middle East is consequently not completely clear but Restis is assuming that the truth will out if he can get hold of the evidence. The lawsuit claims that UANI intimidates its targets by defaming their business practices as well as by demanding both examination of their books and an audit carried out by one of its own accountants followed by review from an “independent counsel.”

Kaplan is named in the suit as he appears to be the gray eminence behind UANI. He once boasted “we’ve (UANI) done more to bring Iran to heel than any other private sector initiative.” Kaplan also employs as a director or officer in six of his companies the Executive Director of UANI Mark Wallace and reportedly arranged the awarding of the Executive Director position at Harvard’s Belfer Center to its President Gary Samore.

Kaplan is a business competitor to Restis, whose lawyers are apparently seeking to demonstrate two things: first, that the US government has been feeding sometimes only partially vetted information to UANI to help in its “name and shame” program and second, that UANI is itself supported by partisan business interests like Kaplan as well as by foreign sources, which apparently is meant to imply Israel. Or even the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Meir Dagan, former head of Mossad, is on the UANI advisory board, which also includes ex-Senator Joseph Lieberman and former Senior Diplomat Dennis Ross, both of whom have frequently been accused of favoring Israeli interests and both of whom might well have easy access to US government generated information.

And then there is the Muhadedin-e-Khalq, the Iranian terrorist group that has assassinated at least six Americans and is now assisting the Israeli government in killing Iranian scientists, a prima facie definition of what constitutes terrorism. The group was on the State Department terrorist list from 1997 until 2012, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton de-listed it in response to demands coming from friends of Israel in Congress as well as from a large group of ex government officials, many of whom were paid large honoraria by the group to serve as advocates. The paid American shills included former CIA Directors James Woolsey and Porter Goss, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Louis Freeh and former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton. The promoters of MEK in congress and elsewhere claimed to be primarily motivated by MEK’s being an enemy of the current regime in Tehran, though its virulent anti-Americanism and terrorist history make it a somewhat unlikely poster child for the “Iranian resistance.”

Supporters of MEK also ignore the fact that the group is run like a cult, routinely executes internal dissidents, and has virtually no political support within Iran. But such are the ways of the corrupt Washington punditocracy, lionizing an organization that it should be shunning. MEK’s political arm is located in Paris and it has long been assumed that it is funded by the Israeli government and by at least some of the same gaggle of billionaires, possibly including their Israeli counterparts, who support the anti-Iranian agenda in the United States.

Iranian negotiators have accepted that their country should have only limited uranium enrichment capabilities coupled with a rigorous inspection regime but the talks in Geneva drag on and on as the United States continues to hesitate, raising new objections regularly in spite of claims that it operates in good faith and seeks a settlement. That an agreement is within reach is undoubtedly true and it would even be good for Israel as it would remove the regional nuclear option while making much less likely another pointless and devastating war. But the men who write the checks do not see it that way and, unfortunately, they are the ones who all too often both pay the piper and call the tune.

Philip Giraldi,

September 1, 2014 0 comments

Iraq

Iraqi Foreign Ministry: 850 MKO members will be expelled from Iraq

Baghdad –Politics – Informed sources in Iraqi Foreign Ministry stated that 850 pindividuals of the terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization residing in Camp Liberty, Baghdad, will be relocated in the US, Canada, Albania and Romania.

The sources notified that the relocation will be implemented until the end of 2014 based on the agreement signed between Iraq and those countries.

The Iraqi Government, its Foreign Ministry in particular, is negotiating with third countries on the expulsion of the MKO terrorist despite all issues the country is encountered with. Baghdad is awaiting the end of presence of the criminal group, according to the sources.

The leader of the terrorist, Maryam Rajavi MKO tries to maintain her organization in Iraq and obstructs the efforts to relocate them out of Iraqi territory.

3800 members of the MKO terrorist group are residing in Camp liberty in order to get prepared for relocation in third countries according to an agreement signed between Iraqi state and the UN.

Nejat Society reporting from Al Raie International News Agency

August 30, 2014 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Democracy , true justice, and dignity do not accept the superiority of anyone

Open letter to MR. JOSE LUIS RODRIGUES ZAPATERO

The Most Honorable Jose Louis Rodriguez Zapatero

“…We know that freedom’s cause is our fair cause. We know that the fight for freedom is often painful, but it is worthwhile. Democracy, true justice, and dignity do not accept the superiority of anyone. No faith, no interpretation of God, no culture is superior to human kind free will to live together.”

The above golden words are from your speech this year in a Paris gathering on the occasion of Mujahidin celebrating start of their so called armed struggle.

I do believe that these are the words of a Major Political Figure that deeply believes in every word he says. I believe this from your deeds: Among them the withdrawal of Spanish troops from the Iraq war, when you found it unjust to continue. On the other hand, the increase of Spanish troops in Afghanistan; when there was a true cause for supporting and fighting for freedom of human kind. Or your Sponsorship of Alliance of Civilizations, even reform of abortion law; your attempts for peace negotiation with ETA in your country, also the reform of various autonomous statutes, particularly the Statute of Catalonia and so on.

Your Honor,

It is unfortunate that as a senior member of the Mojahedin e Khalq for nearly 30 years and a member of National Council of Resistance of the Mojahedin, when it comes to Mrs. Maryam Rajavi and Mr. Masoud Rajavi, I have experienced quite the opposite.

How can a human being be called free when he or she cannot express his or her ideals, or practice her or his free will, cannot chose his or her cloth, her or his marital status, her or his source of information, her or his political status or party when there is an Imam (Masoud Rajavi) which does that for her or him?

Masoud and Maryam Rajavi talk about the democracy in the West, but dramatically deny the democracy inside and outside their cult and even in the national council of resistance.

Rajavies teach their members that, they are superior to every human being on the Earth. Although for the time being can only apply it within their cult, Rajavi thinks himself as Profit (Imam) sent by the God and represents the God on the whole Universe. To give Your Honor an example, Rajavi ordered all their members to divorce their wives, because Rajavi thought all the wives belong to him rather than their husbands. After the divorce, all the women had to marry Rajavi to be purified and freed from all impurities!

If anyone objected were met with harshest measures one could imagine. Some members who objected were jailed for years, some tortured and even killed. In the past, members were systematically handed over to the dictator of Iraq. The rest are systematically brainwashed in daily devastating general gatherings by senior members who collectively and brutally attack the subject in bitter words to make them convince or keep them silence.

Your Honor

Masoud and Maryam Rajavi do not tolerate any criticism. Criticism is taken as an act against the God. They do not tolerate freedom of individual, no one in the Mujahidin is allowed to any free literature, news or understandings of the free world. They are not allowed to communicate with anybody even their first degree relatives outside the Rajavies will.

They brand all the western political parties as corrupt that must be wiped from the face of the earth. This is hidden in the recent years that Masoud and Maryam Rajavi have escaped from Iran and then from Iraq to the West where can be reached by the Law.

Masoud Rajavi praised the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack as a revolutionary act against imperialism while watching the brutality live on the TV in a general gathering in Iraq.

Your Honor,

Masoud and Maryam Rajavi are hiding their real face. They are more dangerous and more brutal than ISIS.

Sincerely yours

Ehsan Roshanzamir

25.08.2014

August 26, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Beware of the MEK

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Based on news reports, a number of U.S. officials and former officials have adopted this motto in recent months. They seem to believe the prospect of the nuclear issue being solved and rapprochement with Tehran so threatening that they have rushed to Iran’s great foe: the People’s Mojahdein Organization (MEK).

The MEK is a cult-like dissident group, based outside of Iran, primarily in Iraq and France for much of the past three decades. It was considered a terrorist group by the United States until 2012 and by the European Union until 2009, when it was removed from the list of terrorist organizations and became increasingly viewed as an alternative to Iran’s current regime. This shows that the MEK’s campaign to galvanize support in the West has been relatively successful.

A more careful examination of the MEK provides evidence of the group’s problematic nature.

First, the MEK has no viable chance of seizing power in Iran. If the current government is not Iranians’ first choice for a government, the MEK is not even their last—and for good reason. The MEK supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. The people’s discontent with the Iranian government at that time did not translate into their supporting an external enemy that was firing Scuds into Tehran, using chemical weapons and killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, including many civilians. Today, the MEK is viewed negatively by most Iranians, who would prefer to maintain the status quo than rush to the arms of what they consider a corrupt, criminal cult.

Second, what Iranians understand, but the American MEK supporters choose to ignore, is the MEK’s track record of human-rights abuses. The MEK controls every aspect of its members’ lives and tortures them. Some of these human-rights abuses include: mass, compulsory divorces, beatings and torture, costing some members their lives, and solitary confinements so extreme that some members preferred to take their lives than be subjected to them.

Third, to understand the origins of anti-Americanism in pre-revolutionary Iran, look no further. The MEK was responsible for the assassination and failed attempts to kidnap and assassinate Americans in Iran in the 1970s. It was also the MEK that pressured the Islamic revolutionaries to take a stronger stance against the United States. The MEK further supported the 1979 U.S. embassy hostage crisis in Tehran.

Fourth, on the surface, the MEK has evolved since the ‘70s into a democratic alternative to the Islamic Republic and a potential ally for the West and Israel. However, the organization is merely manipulating the West, hoping it will rush to it for fear of the greater enemy: the Islamic Republic. To do so, the MEK has teamed up with Israel, while it is as anti-Israeli as the Iranian regime, criticizing the Shah’s support for Jerusalem as much as the Islamic revolutionaries. This is not a real ideological shift, but rather a smart, tactical move by the MEK.

Fifth, the MEK may appear as a modern organization on the surface, but it is, in fact, a crypto-Shiite Communist group. In effect, it is the product of the Leninist-style party and the eleventh-century Ismaili order, the Assassins: a religious, Communist cult based around the myth of an invisible leader, Massoud Rajavi, who has not been seen for years (and who is said to be dead or hiding).

Sixth, the MEK claims that it would dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, which has led some in the United States to believe its empowerment to be a viable solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis. Even if the MEK had a real chance of coming to power in Iran, which it does not, it would most likely not dismantle the nuclear program. In fact, it would have even more incentive to pursue nuclear weapons and would be less likely to engage with the international community. The MEK is a far less accountable organization than the Islamic Republic is, as, unlike the latter, it is a cult-like organization, rather than an established government that has certain checks and balances. As such, sanctions and deterrence would be less effective on the MEK than on the current government.

The voices supporting the MEK are ignoring the lessons of some of the most catastrophic U.S. foreign-policy mistakes in the past few decades, urging Washington to repeat history. Overhyping the threat of an adversary and blindly supporting groups opposing it led to the creation of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Supporting the MEK is neither in accordance with American values, nor beneficial to U.S. interests. Instead, the United States should pursue the diplomatic track, which is what most Americans favor. Diplomacy will not only promote U.S. interests in the Middle East, but also help empower Iranians to improve their lives by normalizing the Iranian political climate.

Ariane Tabatabai, The National Interest

Ariane Tabatabai is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Follow her on Twitter @ArianeTabatabai.

August 25, 2014 0 comments

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