Iraq to Shutdown Camp Ashraf

American is lobbying for the transfer of MKO’s elements to five Arab allies

It is not exactly clear why certain MKO-run websites are making sorts of suppositions about an ongoing American lobbying for the transfer of MKO’s terrorist elements to five friendly nations and allies of America in the Middle East, namely Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Qatar and Pakistan. Although not verified, these countries are claimed to have agreed to a series of security and intelligence agreements with America. The remarkable point to refer is that almost all these countries share borders with Iran. Azerbaijan and Pakistan have common land borders with Iran while Saudi Arabia and Qatar share maritime borders. Jordan is also a country that has a common border with Syria.

Regardless of the accuracy of such suppositions, the bare truth is that, for certain reasons and a mutually reached security agreement, the US is doing its best to locate the members of MKO in third countries. The Western countries have already disagreed to accept a quota for these terrorist elements although the group is removed from the EU terrorist list. No other country members of the United Nation have so far have accepted to receive them on their soil. In his briefing to the UN Security Council on 10 April, Martin Kobler, Special Representative of the Secretary-General, said that:

I reiterate my call to Members States to accept the residents of the Camp [Ashraf] in their countries. Now that UNHCR has begun its work, it is high time for the international community to accept eligible candidates and fund the relocation process. The support of the international community is urgently needed. I welcomed the joint UNHCR-UNAMI resettlement conference which took place in Geneva on 23 March. More than 30 Member States participated. However, no country, has committed to accept residents. A donor’s appeal meeting also took place the same day seeking to raise 39 million USD fund for the Ashraf project. Only one Member State made a concrete pledge and this falls far behind what we had hoped. Without international support, the process cannot succeed.

Then the undisputed fact is that no country in the West risks to receive bunches of terrorists on their soil under any humanitarian or other causes. The only choice remained are some middle-Eastern countries over whom the US has a hegemonic influence as his allies. And of course, if any of them might ever welcome such an imposed offer, it would be because of the promises and guarantees that the US will have to fulfill.

However, Rajavi is not unwilling to leave Iraq as well since he has no other choice but to submit to the decisiveness of the Iraqi government to expel the group. But for some reasons he prefers to be settled in one of the countries in the region rather than moving to a Western country. In general, in the West there exists no promising future for the political-organizational survival of the group. Rajavi knows well that his organization is regarded in the West as a group that still carries potential and active threats. He has the previous experience of a short span settlement in France; soon he came to understanding that he could not parry the blows of a capitalist and bourgeois society and found that the sole alternative was to move to Iraq to survive. The settlement in Ashraf was like the injection of a new life into the group.

There in Iraq, Ashraf was turned into a cult bastion with all potentialities of a dangerous cult of personality run by the Rajavi couples. The formation of a Liberation Army added to the threatening might of the group through which a new wave of terrorist operations raged through Iran. In the eyes of a Western country the Ashraf residents are just the same members of the army that carry the very same threatening potentialities and for sure, none of them welcomes these “ready to launch missiles” as Rajavi refers to his forces.

Resettlement in any of the mentioned five countries much pleases Rajavi because proximity to Iranian borders is a precious advantage; still the group remains a military and espionage threat. Besides, it lingers as a ready-to-use tool in the case of any American or Israeli military option against Iran. It should be reminded that despite claims of denouncing terrorism, MKO through the past decade has been trying to win American’s favor by displaying its military and espionage potentiality. But regardless of this willingness, it is the other side of the coin that is of any importance, the Americans themselves. It means that the US under no condition accepts to take the organization to the West since it is aware of the possible consequences of such a transfer. Still it needs MKO and prefers to shelter and watch over it in lands far away but enough close at hand for the day to come.

Both America and MKO have come to realize that the group is actually useless and passive on Iraqi soil. The new Iraq is no more a tool in the hands of America, like Saddam, to be used against Iran. However, the US seems to be still under the illusion that MKO can be a bargaining chip in dealing with Iran and that is because it may have failed to have a proper analysis of a bankrupt group whose main struggle is to survive. The disadvantages of accepting MKO overweighs the advantages and hardly any country accepts the risk of housing it. Will any of the five mentioned countries let a terrorist group on its soil when another neighbor has menaced it with immediate expulsion? It is a question of logic and politics.