Some MKO defectors recall a common amazing memory: After the US disarmed the MKO and realized that most of MKO members want to leave the Organization, they established a camp near Camp Ashraf and settled defectors-whether those who had escaped MKO or had left it with the assistance of Americans- in that camp. MKO, entangled in a crisis, resorted to dirty tricks to stop members from leaving. For instance, Americans’ interpreter in interviews was a woman called “Paria”. MKO bribed her with gold and jewelry and asked her to change the translation of defectors’ words (that is, to distort the reality) so that Americans open an unreal file for them. Defectors were not aware of this since they didn’t know English. But the time came for a former member who had lived in the US for years and had come to Iraq (MKO) from the US. During the interview, American general (State Department’s interviewer) asked if he was tortured by the MKO. He realized that “Paria” changed his words and said: “MKO treated me very well but I want to go to my own life”! He became angry by this distortion of reality by her and started himself to tell the truth in English. Americans fired her as soon as they found that she was not honest and employed another interpreter called “Fatima” (apparently from Afghanistan). It’s been said that Paria had not even a gold ring when she came but after a while, she wore several bracelets. Even the former members asked her about this. “Ms. Paria! You’re dressed with gold!!!??,” they said to her ironically. Indeed, why the MKO is so much afraid of realities regarding former members, being interpreted? If they have acted according to the criteria of human communities, and if they have observed democratic factors in their organization, why should they bribe an interpreter with gold and jewelry?! Isn’t it that they wanted to prevent the publication of realities?! But, these defectors and former members will finally cry out to the world and Rajavi won’t be able to silence these cries anymore.
LONDON, 20 Aug. (IPS) “All the information the Mojahedeen provides the western media is pure lies and fabricated to discredit the Iranian regime and help the United States and Israel to put more pressures on Iran”, a former senior member of the outlawed, Baghdad-based Mojahedeen Khalq Organisation (MKO) told Iran Press Service.
Referring to recent press conferences held by the MKO spokesmen in various capitals, including Paris, Vienna, London, Berlin and Washington “revealing” secret nuclear sites or the number of centrifuges undeclared to the international nuclear watchdog, the source who asked for anonymity said the MKO has no information about Iran’s sensitive military projects and what they tell the media is what the CIA feeds them.
“Iranian military-oriented installations are kept very secret, with very limited people except the technicians and scientists having access to them
An Iranian Stalinist-Islamist organization financed, equipped, trained and supported by the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his war against Iran and after, the MKO (a.k.a, MEK, National Council of Resistance of Iran, NCRI, People’s Mojaheedin of Iran, PMOI), is now playing the same role at the hands of the American so-called neo-cons at the Pentagon as an instrument of both political and military pressures on the ruling ayatollahs, analysts said.
“Iranian military-oriented installations are kept very secret, with very limited people except the technicians and scientists having access to them, people that are under regular control by experts. Considering the activities of the Mojahedeens as spies and infiltrators, anyone suspected of the smallest and remote links with them is immediately arrested”, the source, a former high-ranking intelligence and security officer with the group added.
The group, now under US protection in their camps in Iraq, is on the American and European lists of terrorist organizations, but its political branch, the Council of Resistance, is active in major capitals of the world and became a darling of the Western press after it revealed the existence of a heavy water reactor in Arak and the uranium enriching installations in Natanz, both situated in central Iran.
However, the satellite images of the sites put on internet by an American specialized firm a day after confirmed that the information was provided to the group by some Pentagon sources keen to get the MKO out of the terrorist list, giving it the image of a group that has reliable sources inside Iran.
This was confirmed latter by the CIA after President George W. Bush personally praised the MKO for the information it provides to the international community about Iranian military-orientated nuclear activities “hidden” by Tehran.
“We had all these information and have reported them to the Administration”, the CIA source had said, frustrated at the leak of sensitive intelligence documents to the terrorist group.
In fact, while Iran had defaulted by not reporting the construction of the installations to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but they were quite visible since the construction in both Arak and Natanz were on the ground and not under ground.
“Except the information on Natanz and Arak the group disclosed, documents that were given to them by the Americans, all other material the Mojahedeen gave to the media are open secret, most of them from the Iranian press, like the name of companies and firms that works for the Defence Ministry and are known to the IAEA”, pointed out Mr. Mas’oud Khodabandeh, a former senior officer of the group.
Actually, Iranian nuclear negotiators, including Hojjatoleslam Hasan Rohani, the former most senior supervisor and coordinator of Iranian nuclear projects explained that under the Iranian safeguards agreement as it then existed, the Iranians were not obligated to tell the IAEA about any of that activity until they began processing "source or special nuclear materials" for introduction into those gas centrifuges.
The other reason Iran started to build some of the sites secretly was of fear of facing sanctions by the IAEA and the international community.
Hence, American, Israeli and some European nations’ accusations that Iran is secretly making atomic weapons by diverting nuclear technologies aimed at peaceful and civilian purposes.
“Every time the IAEA had a meeting of its Board of Governors debating Iranian nuclear issue or Iranian and European negotiators met, some unidentified European diplomats revealed new, hidden Iranian activities and at exactly the same time, MKO spokesmen organized press conferences to repeat the same information”, one senior Iranian negotiator told Iran Press Service.
The Mojaheedin collaborated with Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the former Shah of Iran. As part of that struggle, they assassinated at least six American citizens, supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the release of American hostages.
After being expelled from France in June 1986, the group, assisted by Saddam Hussein, formed the National Liberation Army and launched its most significant incursion in June and July 1988, when they coordinated an advance into Iran with Iraqi forces. During the same offensive, Iraqi units in other sectors of the front used chemical weapons against Iran.
“On 17 June 1992, Mas’oud Rajavi, the egocentric supreme leader of the organisation and a Mojaheedin delegation visited Saddam Hussein. In his statement, Rajavi said, "Iranian national movements and their masses strongly denounce the Iranian regime’s alliance with U.S imperialism, world Zionism, and regional reactionaries to launch aggression against Iraq, participate in the blockade on it, and interfere in the domestic affairs of this safe, steadfast country in the interests of colonial schemes and conspiracies”, according to a State Department report on 1994.
Except the information on Natanz and Arak the group disclosed, all other material the MKO give to the media are open secret.
Not only the group engaged in Iraq’s war against Iran and killed thousands of innocent Iranians, not only the group collaborated actively with Iraq’s secret services in the slaughter of Iraq Kurds and Shi’ites and took part in Iraq’s attack on neighbouring Kuwait, but is also killed many of its own members, as reported by the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
“Human rights abuses carried out by MKO leaders against dissident members ranged from prolonged incommunicado and solitary confinement to beatings, verbal and psychological abuse, coerced confessions, threats of execution, and torture that in two cases led to death”, the HRW said in one report published last year.
Surprisingly, however, the MKO has some supporters in Congress and this is evidently the result of a long lobbying effort. The effect of this lobbying effort is primarily seen in the repeated claims that some large number of members of Congress have signed on to some statement endorsing the MKO.
In 1990, the Council of Resistance, made of several grouplets most of them existing on letter heads, “elected” Mrs Maryam Rajavi, the third wife of Mas’oud as Iran’s president and started a new wave of terrorist operations inside the country.
“If some one in Iran has reliable information about the regime’s secrets on nuclear or military activities and for whatever reason he wants to pass them to outside world, he would certainly not give them to a completely discredited group like the Mojahedeen, but would give, or sell them to Western intelligence agencies”, added Mr. Khodabandeh, who deserted from the MKO some years ago and is now active in exposing the true face and nature of the Organisation on his internet site “Iran-interlink.org”. ENDS MKO LIES 20805
By Safa Haeri
Remember those terrorists Iraq was accused of harboring and training before the war? They’re on Washington’s side now.
One of the terrorist organizations that the U.S. accused Iraq of supporting during the run-up to the war, the Mujahedin Khalq (MEK) or the "People’s Combatants", has been lobbying House Republicans and Democrats.
More than 300 U.S. legislators from both parties have at one time or other signed petitions in support of the MEK since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and MEK spokesmen say they have offered the sect’s services to the United States in case of war with Iran.
According to a Guardian story last week, "Now US ponders attack on Iran (1/18/2005) "the Pentagon was recently contemplating the infiltration of members of the Iranian rebel group, Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) over the Iraq-Iran border, to collect intelligence. The group, based at Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad, was under the protection of Saddam Hussein, and is under US guard while Washington decides on its strategy. The MEK has been declared a terrorist group by the state department, but a former Farsi-speaking CIA officer said he had been asked by neo-conservatives in the Pentagon to travel to Iraq to oversee ‘MEK cross-border operations’.
The MEK started in Iran as an Islamic-Marxist group, and was expelled in 1979 by the Iranian Islamic Fundamentalist Party that took power. They fled to France where the French foreign minister, Claude Cheysson, convinced the MEK leader Massoud Rajavi to work with the Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and the Iraqi government during the Iraq-Iran War during the 1980s.
Special U.S. Middle East Envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, frequently met with Tariq Aziz in the ’80s and sent biological and chemical weapons to Iraq to be used against the Iranians. Later, again with the knowledge and acceptance of the Bush government, these weapons were used by the Iraqi military against the the Iranian Army with logistical support from the CIA.
The MEK helped the revolutionary Khomeini regime to take power in 1979. Part of their assistance consisted in burning down restaurants and cinemas. The MEK initiated the idea of taking over the U.S. embassy and holding Americans hostage. Yet within a year, MEK leaders decided that the Khomeini regime wasn’t behaving in a "revolutionary" fashion and soon they were plotting to overthrow Khomeini and the Islamic Fundamentalist leaders of Iran.
In 1987, Jacques Chirac, then Prime Minister of France, allowed the MEK to operate outside Paris by signing an agreement with them that they would not kill any Iranians on French soil.
France intentionally dismantled the group in 2002 several months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March of 2003.
Linaelin
– You mean relation with Iraq had been started a short time before the divorce.
– Not at all, their relation was much older. Every thing had begun in the early 1983. And this was the reason of our separation in January, I received a call from Edgard Pisani, one of the former and popular ministers of General de Gole. He had asked me :”do you agree with a meeting with Mr Tariq Aziz?” Tariq Aziz was Saddam’s minister. How did you want me accept that. I considered myself as a victim of Iraq. As the former president of Iran, how could I accept to meet a member of the aggressive country?
– Therefore you refused …
– Of course. But, an hour later, Rajavi came to me and told me:”I accepted to meet Tariq Aziz.” I reproached him, since he had made this decision without consulting me.
– What happened during the meeting?
– As, it was expected, the meeting took three hours, rather than an hour. Tariq Aziz bought Rajavi.
– Wasn’t the victim satisfied?
– Maybe. But, unfortunately Rajavi didn’t realize that, one can not go to Tehran via Baqdad and then control Iran. No Iranian could tolerate it .
– On February 8th , 1985, a while after your daughter’s divorce from Rajavi, he married Maryam Rajavi and immediately called her ” the leader” of Mujahedin Khalq too. Now who commands the Mujahedin? Masud or Maryam?
– Masud, definitely. He is the leader and Maryam the commander-in-chief. They’re a political couple just like “Mao Tse-Tang” and “Chou En- Lia”. He told that Ayatollah Khomeini has divested him of a power that was legally his. He considered himself as Imam. Perhaps, that very “Imam Zaman”. According to our religious laws, “Imam Zaman” or our twelfth Imam who became absent in 873, should return before the ending of the world to bring peace to the world.
– How can the MEK members, the Marxists, in spite of all these things, accept his believes?
– They live, separated from the rest of the world. They don’t have the right to say a word except Rajavi’s thoughts. It seems they live in a cult. For me, Mujahedin are nothing but a cult…
– What’s your idea about military activities of MEK?
– In my idea, violence against violence, there’s no other solution in Iran. To oppose this regime, you should neutralize its forces politically. A national awakness has been appeared, regarding to that the violence is useless. Rajavi and I, in “ouver Sur d’Oise , have decided to limit using military forces when defending ourselves and never start violence ourselves, but, he came to me one day, with a new slogan. He affirmed “Armed struggle is the only solution to put an end to regime. He insisted that I also imitate him and support his idea in my journal which was being published in exile, called “Islamic Revolution”. Besides attacking the enemy in his own base was not useful. Since Qoran says:”Qateloo Aemato lkofr”; “attack the chiefs of the infidels”. If you want to achieve victory with armed forces, you should kill some Iranians for they want Khomeini. It’s a vain dream. This very point, was always the disagreement point between me and Rajavi.
– In Iran I got some testimonies which are based on some attacks to civilians. The victims and the witnesses accuse Mujahedin Khalq for this attempt. Is it creditable?
– I doubt about that, since its not profitable for them. I know that some other groups acted in the same way, such as the ones who worked for Iran government including Javadi…
(I understand that BaniSadr means, Javad Mansouri, former chief of Sepah Pasdaran, who I met in Tehran)
– Javadi and his friends in order to justify their pressure on Mujahedin and execute them, committed violent and cruel attacks on Mujahedin’s account. And Rajavi, in his turn, accepted the charge of these attacks to attach importance to himself.
– I also considered testimonies on their motor attacks in the center of cities.
– Yes, they happened in Mr. Khomeini’s era. Rajavi got the responsibility and he might be responsible.
– However, the bombing in Islamic Republic Party in which 72 persons were killed including Ayatollah Behashti and 10 governmental individuals and 20 deputies, also happened.
– Mujahedin had no role in this attempt. The following day, I asked them and they admitted that they’re innocent.
– However, they accepted the responsibility.
– I asked Iran second office (Army Information) about it. They told me:” this attempt was an engineering action. The explosives were placed in an exact way so that the ceiling falls dawn and kills everybody. Nobody is able to operate such attack except the army and if it’s not our faults, it’s the Pasdaran’s …”
(My nerves started to walk , since while that attempt he was deposed from his responsibility and as a fleeing person , I think his Iranian information service got him the information badly. More than any other thing, I could feel his uncomfortable situation.
My attention draw to the former president’s hands which were hitting the hands of the sofa. It was his dinner time.)
– In Iran , with the agreement of the officials, I met some separated MEK. Most of them were free. They had enjoyed the Public Amnesty law. What do you think of the accuracy of their discourses?
– It’s the regime’s regulation. All Mujahedin members are condemned to death. Otherwise, they accepted to cooperate with regime. You shouldn’t trust on such people.
– But, even if I don’t trust, I have to accept that their words was confirmed by the other refugees who live in Germany or other parts of Europe.
– I know some sincere ones among them, however you should investigate.
– I agree. For this reason, I’m looking for the most number of activists and witnesses to compare their words. In this case, Mujahedin members don’t help me so much. They don’t like the journalists who are too curious to know about them.
– No. I know. Once a reporter interviewed them , after the interviews, they understood that one of them has talked too much. So they wanted to get back the reported cassettes of the interviews.
I’ve written several times about my distrust of several news sources by hard-line monarchists or the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organziation (a.k.a MKO, MEK, National Council of Resistance of Iran, NCRI, People’s Mojahedin of Iran, PMOI, etc.) as well as those who rely on these sources as "news". Reading news from one of these agencies isn’t about reflecting on different interpretive accounts of events. This isn’t like choosing between the New York Times and Washington Post where there are different “spins” on the same source of information. Both the Time and the Post believe they are being objective, but in different ways. Relying on news sources by hard line monarchists and the MKO, is about choosing an agency that absolutely lies or exaggerates incidents in order to enhance their own political objective. Let us take Iran Focus as an example. In the past I have noted that Iran Focus is a agency run by the MKO for various reasons:
1) The current executive director of Iran Focus is Mohammad Hanif Jazayeri. Hanif is the son of Hassan Jazayeri. Until three years ago, Hassan Jazayeri was rumored to have died in 1980 as a result of being abandoned by MKO and Iraqi trainers. Later the story was changed to Hassan being executed by the Iranian regime for his membership with the MKO. Given Iran and the MKO’s history of human rights abuses, I won’t argue which is the correct account. Before Iran Focus was ever created, Hanif has time after time advocated his support for the MKO. In fact, earlier this year Hanif was engaged in a campaign to remove the MKO from the UK’s list of terrorist organizations (it is worth noting that the MKO is also included in the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.)
Additionally, in various posts dated in1998 and 1999, Hanif has advocated his support for the MKO as Iran’s only "democratic alternative."
Hanif’s signature also appears on this petition supporting the MKO cause.
2) Iran Focus along with its sister site Iran Terror (look at the website designs and stories as well as the website for the MKO and you can easily see they’re created by the same designer) are registered in London and Paris respectively. In fact both organizations, including the MKO, tried to allege that the Human Rights Watch report illustrating all the human rights abuses committed by the organization was a result of some conspiracy between HRW and agents in the Iranian government. A response to the allegation can be found here. I’d like to add that the "Gulf 2000 list" which Iran Focus and Iran Terror refers to is a listserv with hundreds of academics, politicals, and thinkers on the Persian Gulf with different political viewpoints. Nevertheless, the Iran Terror email refers to emails sent in the listserv as "secret emails" which they had intercepted.
3) The Iran Focus website uses language supporting the MKO cause. There are particular ideological positions and phrases which MKO members and supporters use. By continuously using the MKO as Iran’s "democratic alternative" both the Iran Focus and Iran Terror websites intend to create the misleading image that the group, as well as their political counter-part NCRI, are legitimate proponents of human rights and democracy with a significant backing inside and outside of Iran. Read this article, this article, and this article for an image of the type of propaganda used by the websites.
As I stated before, the purpose of both Iran Focus and Iran Terror is twofold: 1) to disseminate information for political purposes and enhance a movement for external regime change and 2) legitimize the MKO in Western government by removing them from terrorist lists and enhancing their political influence. The sum of these objectives is to persuade Western governments to militarily engage Iran in order to replace with Mullahs with the Mujahedin.
That being said there’s a variety of reasons to view the MKO news agencies and similar modules as instruments of propaganda as opposed to instruments of news.
First, the organization is a terrorist group under both US and European law. The State Department continues to list the MKO as a terrorist group. Although MKO agents have claimed that the inclusion was part of Clinton’s appeal to the reformist government in Iran, the argument is no longer cogent in light of the fact that during Bush’s 5 years in office he has yet to remove the MKO as a terrorist group despite significant political pressure by various neo-conservatives (this includes Daniel Pipes who currently has a chair with the US Institute of Peace) and various Republican Congressmen. (see this article for a summary of US political figures who have been lobbied by MKO representatives and supporters). Not only were the MKO were designated as a terrorist group under executive order on November 2, 2001, but the President used the MKO as an example of Saddam’s support for terrorism during the drive up to the Iraqi war:
Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.
By their very nature as a terrorist organization, information by them should not be trusted. Lets put it that way, would you trust al-Qaeda about news in the US or Lebanon?
Second, the MKO have demonstrated time and time again the extents for which they’ll engage a disinformation campaign for purposes of propaganda. For example, the MKO continuously contend that no Mujahedin member has targeted Americans or Europeans figures during acts of terrorism. These arguments are clearly false in light of the following:
– In 1973, the MKO assassinated Lt. Col. Lewis Hawkins, a U.S. military advisor in Iran.
– In 1975, MKO members shot and killed two U.S. Air force officers in Tehran and attacked a U.S. Embassy van in Tehran resulted in the death of a local employee.
– In 1976, the MKO assassinated three American employees of Rockwell International working in Iran.
– In 1979, the MKO openly supported the holding of US hostages until 1981 when they began directing their attention to Khomeini.
Whether or not the MKO targeted Americans or not is a irrelevant argument anyways. Terrorism anywhere is terrorism everywhere regardless of our relationship with its targets. Evidence of MKO propaganda in Iran Focus is also apparent when we compare their report to a report by the Washington Times concerning a recent MKO event. The Iran Focus report indicates that there were thousands of participants, while the Times only reports 300. See a similar report where Iran Focus reported that over 40,000 participants intended to protest in Berlin. Interesting for an organization that is only reported to have 10,000 members.
Lastly, the MKO are highly disliked and disregarded by Iranians worldwide. During the Iran-Iraq war, the Saddam Hussein financed and utilized the MKO to institute several attacks against Iranians. (Note: the MKO were also responsible for assisting Saddam Hussein suppress Shiite and Kurdish uprisings in 1991.) It is no surprise, therefore, that most Iranians regard the MKO as a cultish organization. There is no statute of limitations against murderers or conspirators to murder, nor is there one for terrorists and those who conspire with terrorists. Similarly, the MKO do not gain immunity for their previous actions simply by refraining from targeting European and American targets for 30 years. Nor have they in the eyes of Iranians.
For all these reasons I note that Iran Focus, Iran Terror, people who rely on the two for information, and all affiliated groups should not be used as a source of "alternative information." There’s nothing alternative about propaganda, regardless of if it addresses the same human rights issues which we are concerned with. "The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted."
I would like to note that often those who do not share the same political sentiments of the MKO or hard-line monarchists are branded as “apologists” as if to place them in the same group as hezbollahis. We are not apologists when we wish freedom Iran based on principles of reconciliation and accountability. To do so would be similar to saying that opponents to the Khmer Rouge were apologists when the Cambodian government was committing human rights abuses in the early 70’s. As Congressman Bob Ney rightfully stated, “Opposition to the Mujahedin is not the same as support for the regime in Iran.”
Engulfed by various crises, and reeling from a Human Rights Watch report that branded it a serious abuser of human rights, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) still insists on touting itself as a credible alternative to the ruling political system in Iran. Its relentless propaganda notwithstanding, there is now every sign that the MEK will disintegrate some time in the next five years.
For the past two decades the MEK had based its strategy on a carefully constructed three-tier approach encompassing a political coalition (in the form of the National Council of Resistance), a disciplined political organization at the heart of this coalition (ie, the MEK) and an armed force in Iraq (the so-called National Liberation Army). But rather than reflecting actual capabilities, this three-tier strategy was essentially propaganda and designed to consolidate the MEK’s position as the leading enemy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This illusion worked well just as long as Saddam Hussein remained in power in Iraq. It is for good reason then that MEK observers identified the March 2003 US invasion as the biggest strategic setback in the organization’s 40-year history.
The contention here is straightforward: deprived of its armed wing and its ideological leader, unable to organize effectively in the West due to its terrorist designation and with events in Iran developing on a trajectory that is least favorable to MEK designs (the big turnout in last Friday’s presidential election is one example of this), the MEK is faced with several fundamental crises that it cannot overcome. The only realistic scenario (and indeed solution as far as some of the more progressive forces in the MEK are concerned) is the dissolution of the organization as presently conceived.
The ‘third’ way
Since the ouster of Saddam, the MEK has discovered "peaceful" politics. Previously insistent that the only roadmap to regime change in Iran was through an invasion of the country by its 3,000-strong force based in Camp Ashraf, in Iraq’s Diyala province, the MEK had to revise this overly ambitious strategy after its forces capitulated to the American military and surrendered their arms.
The MEK’s "third" way is refreshingly simple to the point of bewilderment. The only effective way of forcing change in Iran, according to the organization’s spokesmen, is neither through war and an American invasion, nor compromising with the Islamic republic, but in empowering the Iranian opposition (ie, the MEK).
There are several fundamental problems with this reductive argument, not least because an American "war" against Iran is unlikely, and what the MEK terms "compromise" with the ruling regime is mired in ambiguity. Aside from this basic observation, the whole notion that the MEK can affect anything in Iran (let alone overthrow the Islamic republic) is no longer taken seriously by anyone. MEK spokesmen claim that if the organization was removed from US State Department and European Union terrorism lists, it would be in a position to effectively challenge the ruling regime. The problem with this argument is that before 1997 the MEK was not only not on any terrorist lists, but it also enjoyed the whole-hearted support of Saddam and could use Iraqi territory as it wished, and even in those highly favorable circumstances it could not advance its agenda even by a millimeter.
To advance this latest "third" way approach, the MEK has made some minor and cosmetic changes to its organization and tactics. Most importantly, the organization has resorted to establishing pressure groups and consultancies in North America. These organizations are run by veteran MEK members, and their primary function is to establish and manage relations with neo-conservative organizations and interests in the US.
The heads of these effectively fake organizations also contribute opinion pieces to sympathetic US dailies and publications, promoting the "third" way and the so-called Iranian resistance. Arguably the most well-known consultancy is Near East Policy Research Inc, which, according to a website that investigates MEK lobbying in the US [1], was established in May 2003 by Ali Safavi, a well-known and veteran MEK member. Another well-known MEK member, Ali Reza Jaafarzadeh (who was previously the MEK’s official representative in the US) is currently working for the Fox News network as a Middle East analyst.
This latest MEK initiative has all the trappings of the MEK’s previous ambitious and failed programs and is unlikely to amount to anything in the long term. Its biggest success so far has been to mobilize neo-conservative support for the "third" way. At the forefront of this support is the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), an organization made up mostly of retired military officers with impeccable neo-conservative credentials. The IPC published a white paper, outlining US policy options for Iran, in February. Although mostly a clumsy report written by non-experts, this white paper was remarkable for its whole-hearted support of the MEK.
The best way to understand the MEK’s "third" way is to place it in a continuum of failed strategies in the past. The MEK’s "first" way of gaining power in post-revolutionary Iran was to start a serious terrorist campaign in June 1981. The leaders of the organization had grossly overestimated their strength and conversely underestimated the determination of the Islamic republic to put down armed challenges. The result was the complete elimination of the MEK network inside Iran, to the extent that by late 1983 the MEK had no serious presence in the country. The failure of this "first" way led to desperate measures, which culminated in an alliance with Saddam, the invader of Iran.
The MEK’s entry into Iraq led to the creation of a conventional, albeit very small, armed force along the Iran-Iraq border. The "second" way envisioned capturing power through an invasion of Iran backed by Iraqi air cover. This crazy strategy was taken to its mindless extreme in July 1988, when the MEK army launched operation "eternal light" and invaded Iran from the central border regions. Not surprisingly, the small MEK force was destroyed by Iranian forces after the Iraqis backed off from providing prolonged air cover. The MEK admitted losing more than 1,200 fighters in the operation, but the true figure was nearer to 2,000.
The end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988 might have heralded the end of the "second" way had it not been for Saddam’s wish to keep the MEK both as a strategic trump card against Iran and an internal security tool within Iraq. This ensured that the strategy of toppling the Islamic republic through an armed invasion was not abandoned, until the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 put an end to the MEK’s tried, tested and failed plans. This paved the way for the concoction of a "third" – and most probably final – MEK strategy of overthrowing the post-revolutionary order in Iran.
An organization in crisis
The MEK knows better than anyone else that the "third" way is a non-starter. Firstly, the organization has no presence inside Iran and little credibility with Iranians outside the country. At best, the organization is simply dismissed as decrepit and irrelevant, while a majority of Iranians regard its members as eccentric traitors who fought alongside their enemies in the Iran-Iraq war. The MEK also knows better than anyone else that it cannot gain recognition from the US government. It is not just because the MEK is the only Iranian organization that has murdered Americans and publicly boasted about it, but also because the US government is well aware of the checkered history, authoritarianism, limitations and hopeless future of this quixotic organization.
The MEK’s "third" way is simply a tactic to buy time and prepare the organization psychologically for the inevitable expulsion of its remaining members from Iraq. In the final scheme of things, the "third" way is designed to prevent the organization from disintegrating, but it is unlikely to work.
Essentially, four factors drive the dynamics of organizational disintegration. First and foremost the loss of its armed wing and the effective end of the "armed struggle" is profoundly unsettling for the MEK. The entire organizational ethos and world view of the MEK revolves around "armed struggle" and the romanticism and cult of martyrdom that surrounds it. All its slogans, insignia, flags and imagery are woven around this theme. Indeed, one of the main reasons that the MEK came into conflict with the Islamic republic was the organization’s insistence that it maintain its own armed militia in the country. Moreover, the whole-hearted and obsessive attachment to political violence was a factor in the US State Department’s decision to add and maintain the MEK on its terrorist list.
Secondly, the disappearance of Massoud Rajavi, the ideological and spiritual leader of the MEK, deprives the organization of effective long-term leadership. Rajavi went into hiding the very day that Saddam abandoned Baghdad to American invaders, and not a word has been heard from him since. Whether or not he physically survives in the decisive months and years ahead is beside the point, for the fact is that he is now politically dead and cannot be revived.
As critics of the organization have been quick to point out, any leader who decides to go into hiding at a time when his organization is experiencing its most stressful period since its inception cannot expect to be rehabilitated. Rajavi has gone into hiding for good reasons, since the disasters that have engulfed the MEK in recent years have largely been a result of his decisions and style of leadership. But Rajavi’s incompetent leadership notwithstanding, his loss is a big blow to the organization. Above all else it completely undermines its elaborate and complex ideology. To put it simply, the MEK believes that it is at the forefront of human evolution, and that its ideological leader, Rajavi, stands at the very peak of historical evolution. The fatal damage that the loss of this so-called ideological leader inflicts on the MEK’s eccentric world view is self-evident.
Thirdly, the MEK cannot resettle effectively in the West. The group’s highly centralized and disciplined organization means that it needs a discrete territorial base from which to operate. The vast Ashraf camp in Iraq’s Diyala province was ideal for the MEK and its loss cannot be over-estimated. Following the downfall of Saddam, the MEK tried to relocate most of its people and resources to its European headquarters in the Parisian suburb of Auvers-Sur-Oise, but these plans were foiled on June 17, 2003, when French counterterrorism agents stormed into the sleepy village and detained more than 165 MEK members, including Maryam Rajavi.
Finally, political developments inside Iran have made it increasingly difficult for even the most hardcore of MEK members to believe that regime change is a realistic scenario. The MEK has consistently misread political developments in Iran for the past quarter century, partly because it has not had a presence inside the country. For instance, Rajavi, the disappeared ideological leader, was for three years telling his organization that the Islamic republic would collapse before the end of Mohammad Khatami’s first term as president in June 2001. This wildly optimistic assessment turned out to be yet another example of wishful thinking on the part of the overly pretentious Rajavi.
This month’s closely contested presidential election and the surprises it has thrown up – Mahmud Ahmadinejad – indicates, first and foremost, that the reformist discourse of making major changes to the country’s political institutions has been eclipsed by more parochial and practical concerns with social justice and the nature and scope of economic development. Therefore, if the reformist program (which is inherently loyal to the Islamic republic and seeks to gradually reform it from within) is increasingly dismissed as irrelevant, groups that advocate the overthrow of the Islamic republic in its entirety are clearly beyond the pale as far as the vast majority of Iranians are concerned.
The factors outlined above encompass core features of the MEK and go to the very heart of this organization as a coherent and viable entity. The fact that all these characteristics have not just been undermined, but simply eliminated from the equation, speaks volumes about the existential crisis that has engulfed the MEK. In fact, there are already signs that the organization’s remarkable discipline is breaking down. Sources inside the British, Dutch and Canadian sections of the MEK speak of a sharp decline in the morale of supporters and a tendency by some peripheral elements in the organization to speak to other Iranian organizations. A few years ago, this would have been unthinkable, since the MEK bans any interaction with members of groups and organizations that are not under its influence.
In the event of disintegration, at least two distinct groups will emerge from the carcass of the MEK. Veteran member Mehdi Abrishamchi (long considered Massoud Rajavi’s right-hand man and the former husband of Maryam Rajavi, who divorced her so Massoud could launch his so-called ideological revolution) will most likely emerge as a leader of a breakaway faction. Abrishamchi will likely attract those MEK elements who want to go back to the roots of their organization, before Massoud Rajavi transformed them into an isolated cult. Veteran member Mohsen Rezai (better known as "Habib") might constitute another pole of leadership. Known as a pragmatist and realist, Rezai could attract the more talented members of the organization, especially those who currently perform political and diplomatic tasks. Maryam Rajavi is unlikely to emerge as a leader of any sorts since she derives all her legitimacy from Massoud. One of the arrangements that followed the MEK’s ideological revolution in 1985 was that Massoud would be the "ideology" while Maryam would perform executive tasks.
The above scenario is clearly speculative, but in all likelihood factions motivated by the aforementioned agendas will emerge from the carcass of the MEK. The point to be made is that the MEK – despite all its faults – has 40 years of history behind it and to expect it to disappear entirely is unrealistic. Although the MEK is the oldest Iranian political group of modern times, the disintegration of the organization in its current form has been long overdue. Various factors have converged to ensure its survival to this point, of which the most important was the patronage of Saddam. And in the final analysis, whatever emerges from the carcass of the MEK, the greatest legacy of its demise will be the final and definitive repudiation of terrorism as a legitimate tool in Iranian politics.
Mahan Abedin – June 29, 2005
"Mahan Abedin is the editor of Terrorism Monitor, which is published by the Jamestown Foundation, a non-profit organization specializing in research and analysis on conflict and instability in Eurasia. The views expressed here are his own."
Dear friends in “Nejat society” My name is Sayed Mahmud Hosseini. I was born in Neyshabuor and I live in
Mashhad now. Because of the life difficulties, I was forced to stop my studies up to the first grade of guidance school and go to work instead.
In 2002, when I finished my military service, I went to Turkey legally to find a job. Before leaving Iran. One of my friends named Mojtaba introduced me to an acquaintance of his. He worked at Platon Hotel in Istanboul. Mojtaba gave his address to me and told me that he can find a job for me.
But when I reached Istanboul and looked for him, he had gone to Greece.
After a few days of going about, I couldn’t find any work since I didn’t know the language, on the other hand I didn’t have enough money, so disappointed and helpless I decided to return home.
One morning, at 11 o’clock I went to the bus station. The first bus to Iran was supposed to leave at 2 pm. So during these hours while I was wondering around the station desperately I ran into a man called Saeed. He invited me to walk with him, and glad to see an Iranian, I narrated my adventures for him.
Saeed abused my misery and offered me a job.
He told me:you can work in Mujahedin Khalq Organization, you will learn more English, music, make money and any time you would like to leave the organization you can, on the whole you are your own master. Saeed was an evil in a man’s cover who tried to attract me to do terrorist activities hypocritically and I didn’t know that I was a victim. I was always dreaming of finding a job and sending money to my two sisters and my old mother.
But it is to be regretted that it was just a dream. I and many others were caught in the net that Saeed made.
I accepted his promises, he took me to Ankara and introduced me to Ali Ankara ( he was Turkish), a member of MKO.
We were three, Ashkan who had come from Cypres, Reza who had come from Tehran and me. After being introduced to Ali, he took us to Taaj Hotel and after three hours sent us to Baqdad via Syria by train.
Arrival In Iraq
While arriving Iraq, I was watching the poor houses and the unpleasant condition of life regretfully and my dark fate, waiting for me passed my mind. Therefore we decided to return from the beginning but every time, with their evil propaganda, they tried to convince us to go on.
Having arrived in Baqdad. They took us to a place called Ashraf. At the door of Ashraf we became penitent and decided to come back, even we took some steps backwards and refused to enter Camp Ashraf which was a military camp, since we were not interested in military activities, our motive was finding a work, but the members of the terrorist group prevented us to go and said:†you decided to come yourselves but you can’t go by yourselves and forced us to enter the Camp with their weapons.
Disagreeable and Hypocritical treatment.
On the first day, they kept us behind the entrance of the building of the camp. We were frightened of so many weapons and military devices, so promised to eachother to leave the camp tomorrow morning, but they didn’t let us.
We were thinking of a dark destiny. Night came; they took us to the building and settled us in rooms. What they had told us was very different from what we saw.
I complained, broke the window and the T.V of the room to provide them an excuse to make us free. The same night, they took me near Aydeen and mokhtar, who were the responsibles of the arrivals, to investigate. Aydeen shouted at me violently and called me spy, regimes agent and enemy. He told me :†I keep you here for tow years and force you to labour and send to Iraqi prison to stay there for eight years and it is not obvious how they would deal with you he always threatened me and tortured me mentally so that they could make me obedient.
But their bad treatment led me to make my decision to save myself. They even didn’t permit me to call my old mother for fourteen months.
Brain washing
A month passed and because I continued to show the signs of opposition and my willingness to leave, they arranged meetings for me where they said:” we struggle for the people not for ourselves. We don’t want any thing for ourselves.” With their deceitful slogans and their vain promises and actually by force they could transfer us to the reception. I had stepped in a path that I did not like at all. I was a villager who had been grown up in the villages around Neyshabour and I had had no information about the nature of the organization. I had always dealed with farms, spades and picks not guns and tanks and terror. Having arrived at reception, I began to disobey. They took me to meetings to accomplish their process of brainwashing. They threatened and despised me regularly and kept on frightening me from the Islamic Republic regime, but always I answered:” I want nothing but my freedom. Therefore they shouted at me angrily and asked me:” whose policy do you lead? You are the evil agent of regime. They forced us to attend revolutioal meetings, weekly ablutions and Amaliat-e- Jari (ei: Current Operation in which the members had to confess all their thoughts including sexual dreams, thoughts or relations ) but regularly we tried to get out of the meeting using different excuses.
Forced Meetings
Here I bring you some examples of the meetings that the members were obliged to attend:
One day, while I was on food strike and I didn’t talk to any body, I saw some commanders had lifted a man named Farhad and were taking him to Current Operation by force; I intervened and quarreled with them. So one of them told me that I had to go too and left him go and caught me. I fought them and this battle led me to an injury to my right arm. I broke the window to defend myself with the glass.
Sohrab was an other person who avoided attending the meetings but because of too much pressure he committed suicide. He ate 60 sedative pills and he got toxicity. He was taken to hospital immediately and then they threw him in a room for a long time.
Another one who had become sick psychologically because of too much mental pressure and avoided to attend the meetings, immolated himself, consequently his right hand burned. His name was Mohammad Bandi and he was from Abadan but resided in Isfahan. He also lives in Isfahan now. He fled from the camp when the American forces seized there.
Majeed was from Kermanshah. While the period of dispersion he wanted to flee but the officials killed him. Since this man was the topic of the meetings and always they used bad language against him, he didn’t have a normal mental condition.
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