Mujahedin Khalq Declining

A group of 15 Liberty residents fly to Albania

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

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

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

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

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

June 9, 2015 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Corrupt Leadership led to MKO decline

Half a century after the foundation of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization ( the MKO/MEK), as an armed militant group against the Shah of Iran, the group’s critics including its defectors analyze the path that ended in the decline of the group and its transformation from an armed political organization to a cult of personality.

Mr. Sirous Ghazanfari, an ex- member of the MKO describes how Massoud Rajavi’s leadership brought about the collapse of the group. Ghazanfari was interviewed by Nejat Society, Eastern Azarbayjan office.

Mr. Ghazanfari divides the MKO’s history in to three parts. The first includes the foundation of the organization as an enormous step that was very crucial in the struggle to overthrow the Shah. The main founders were honest and devoted, according to Ghazanfari.

The second part of the group’s history was a turning point. First founders were executed by the regime of Shah. The absence of great leaders opened the way for deviated members and violent elimination of critics inside the organization.

Lack of noble leaders left the organization in the hands of Massoud Rajavi who according to Ghazanfari did not succeed to manage the group because of his ambitions and narcissist personality.

Ghazanfari suggests that Rajavi’s absolute power over the organization was a terrible coup against members; it was impossible to run such an organization under the dictatorship of Rajavi.

Rajavi’s despotic approach led him to declaration of armed struggle against Islamic Republic, even though his group was among the first who congratulated Ayatollah Khomeini after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. So third phase of the MKO history began.

Ghazanfari stresses that Rajavi‘s statement to declare armed struggle against the newly established Iranian government was an axe to the root of the group. “The decision imposed heavy expenses on the group”, he says. It caused a separation between the group members and the average Iranian society and the collapse of the organization.

In 1981, Massoud Rajavi was sheltered by the enemy in war with Iran, Saddam Hussein. ”Rajavi who was not able to respond criticism,” says Ghazanfari,” proposed the ridiculous idea of “Maryam “as “Symbol of Salvation”! Since then the primarily Mujahedin Khalq Organization turned into a cult.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, members of the Cult of Rajavi began questioning the leader’s strategy and attitude towards US forces who had disarmed the group and had signed an agreement with group leaders. Members who had once joined an anti-US organization based on armed struggle doubted the cult leaders.

“After the fall of Saddam”, Ghazanfari explained,”Rajavi was no more able to force members to stay in the cult but he was able to deceive them and he deceived them.”

He admitted that the organization was no more the one its founders founded. “It is Maryam’s organization and you should admit Maryam’s ideology,” Ghazanfari cites from Rajavi.

According to the Ghazanfari, in order to maintain his cult in Iraq instead of relocating it outside Iraq, Massoud Rajavi resorted to various means including hostility against families of cult members – who have been suffering a lot in their unsuccessful efforts to visit or contact with their beloved ones taken as hostages in the Cult or Rajavi.

Ghazanfari accurately suggests,” in my opinion, the MKO leader could not lead the group toward a stable secured situation. He was not skillful enough to save his organization in the political currents of Iraq.”

“The cult of Rajavi is drowning”, he says. “The crisis in the MKO is so deep that its leaders cannot find a way out. They always claim that they won but they never explain how!”

June 8, 2015 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Maryam Rajavi ready to commit any atrocities for the survival of the Cult

Frustrated by the newly established relations between the West and the Iranian Government, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization is seeking new tactics to run its hostile policies against the Islamic Republic or in better words to prolong its survival.

While 14 years of launching disinformation campaign by the MKO against the Iranian nuclear program, failed to win the world’s attention, this time the group crisis makers are endeavoring to trigger the tensions between Tehran and Riyadh.

MKO Leader Maryam Rajavi in a meeting with Saudi Ambassador to Paris, Mohammad Al Sheikh, said that the group is willing to cooperate with Riyadh to carry out its attacks against the Yemen, reported FNA. [1]

Rajavi and Al Sheikh have met several times in Paris so far and Rajavi has thanked the Al Saud regime for its support and financial assistance over the past years, according to the report. [2]

Saudi-led coalition began air strikes in Yemen in March in a campaign to restore Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power. He was forced to flee in March and consequently the Shiite Houthis took control over Sanaa in September and then thrust into central and south Yemen. A large number of civilians have been killed and wounded in the conflict since March 19.

The leader of the MKO offers help to Saudi Arabia despite the fact that Human Rights Watch said in a report on Sunday that three bombings it had investigated in the northern province of Saada used cluster bombs, which are banned by most countries, adding that it suspected the munitions were fired by Saudi-led forces. [3]

"These weapons can’t distinguish military targets from civilians, and their unexploded submunitions threaten civilians, especially children, even long after the fighting," said Ole Solvang, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. [4]

Furthermore, mutual cooperation between the Cult of Rajavi and Saudis have been reported several times over the past decades. However, such cooperation become more visible since the downfall of the cult’s former sponsor, Saddam Hussein.

According to the Middle East Press, “Rajavi further added to Saudi ambassador in France that they appreciate Saudi kingdom for its financial support to this organization in recent years and announced their readiness to do missionaries for Saudi Arabia for getting rid of financial problems that have been caught in 4 past years and also to release of Iraqi government’s pressure to leave the country and asked Saudis to provide them a suitable base, anywhere in Saudi Arabia, to settle there.” [5]

The news had been somehow confirmed by the MKO’s propaganda websites too. According to them,” Maryam Rajavi on Thursday described the joint action by Arab countries against the Iranian regime’s occupation and aggression in Yemen as an extremely essential and inevitable united action.”

The MKO’s alleged statement ends with expressing pleasure over “several airstrikes on Houthi positions in Yemen, destroying most of an airbase used by the militia in Sanaa “, although the airstrikes used cluster bombs that targeted innocent civilians including Children.

Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Fars News Agency, MKO Voices Readiness to Help Saudi Arabia in Yemen, May 30 2015

[2] ibid

[3] Aboudi, Sami & Browning, Noah, Arab war planes bomb Yemen; exiles report U.S.-Houthi talks, Rueters, May 31, 2015, Reuters

[4] ibid

[5] Middle East Press, MKO Ready to help for all Sorts of Assistance to KSA, May 30 2015

June 2, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

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

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

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

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

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

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

engage in diplomacy with Islamic Republic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mazda Parsi

Sources:

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

[2] ibid

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

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

May 19 2015

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] ibid

May 26, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

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

Iranian Parliamentarians Discover Brussels

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

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

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

Regional Concerns

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

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

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

The Problem with the Gulf States

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eldar Mamedov

May 19, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Maryam Rajavi and her cult brand prove too toxic for The Hill

Struan Stevenson has written an article for The Hill titled ‘Iraqi pipe dreams’ which attacks both the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Iraqi government led by Al Abadi. But in spite of the usual hyperbolic tone, driven by his support for the remnants of the former Saddam regime, the article has not a single mention of the Mojahedin Khalq or Maryam Rajavi.

For those who know his background, this absence is significant. It indicates very strongly that the Rajavi brand has become so toxic that it is better to omit it completely. It’s not as though Stevenson has dropped the MEK though. His biography admits he is currently President of the Mojahedin Khalq’s lobby group ‘European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA)’. Before this he spent a decade in his former position as an MEP advocating for the MEK and its destructive role in Iraq as chairman of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq. Here he misused the parliamentary system to recruit other MEPs to his side by using the MEK’s deceptive blend of fact and fiction, aided by the MEK’s financial incentives and its neoslave labour. Several times he hosted Maryam Rajavi in parliament to pass the message of ‘violent regime change’ against both Iran and Iraq.

Now, although the MEK has publicised Stevenson’s article and other writings in its websites, he has not been able to reciprocate by giving them desperately needed publicity in one of America’s top political publications. Apparently The Hill has drawn the line at that kind of propaganda stunt.

May 9, 2015 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

US Envoy Becomes Next to Refuse Attending House Hearing Due to MKO Leader’s Attendance

Former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford joined former State Department counter-terror official Daniel Benjamin as a second witness that refused to testify at a House hearing because of the presence of the leader of the anti-Iran Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO also known as MEK, PMOI and NCRI) in the meeting.

“I didn’t want to be on a panel with the MEK. I was shocked they invited the MEK. What the MEK has to do with the ISIL, I don’t have a clue,” Ford told FP.

“I told the committee to put me on a panel without the MEK or I wouldn’t appear,” the former envoy stressed.

The April 29 hearing, in front of a House subcommittee on terrorism and nonproliferation, will focus on the threat from the ISIL, which has overrun much of Syria and Iraq. Among the invited speakers is Maryam Rajavi, president of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is the umbrella organization for groups that include Mojahedeen-e-Khalq (MKO), the foreign policy reported.

Earlier, former State Department counterterror official Daniel Benjamin balked at sharing the spotlight with terrorist group’s leader.

Daniel Benjamin, formerly the State Department’s counterterror coordinator, also was slated to testify at the House hearing. But on Monday, Benjamin declared that “I will not appear at a hearing” about the ISIL with the MKO’s leader, because “I know of no substantive expertise that the MKO has developed on the ISIL.” News of Benjamin’s cancellation was first mentioned on Twitter by ALM Congress Pulse.

In an email to Foreign Policy, Benjamin noted that the MKO’s “exclusive focus” of concern has for decades been Iran. “So one has to wonder what the purpose of Rajavi’s presence on this panel is,” said Benjamin, who is now director of an international studies program at Dartmouth University.

“Being delisted as a Foreign Terrorist Organization — a decision I took part in — doesn’t mean that this group … has suddenly … become trustworthy or worthy of engagement,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a follow-up interview with Foreign Policy, Benjamin — who had a role in the State Department’s decision to delist the MEK — criticized the House panel for agreeing to let Rajavi testify by video. He said that is not a perk that is offered to US witnesses.

“Why won’t she travel here to testify?” Benjamin asked.

"MEK offered me tens of thousands of dollars to speak on its behalf, but i turned down the request," he underlined.

“This is still a group that has American blood from killings in the 1970s on its hands and killed many other innocents as well. That has never been apologized for,” the former senior American official stressed.

The Obama administration believed the MKO was providing misinformation in an effort to derail recent nuclear talks with Iran. During negotiations the MKO insisted Tehran was building underground nuclear facilities, an assertion dismissed by the State Department.

The MKO, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and western targets.

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly-established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by the MKO members in 1981.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.

The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who argued for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

The US formally removed the MKO from its list of terror organizations in early September, one week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent the US Congress a classified communication about the move. The decision made by Clinton enabled the group to have its assets under the US jurisdiction unfrozen and do business with the American entities, the State Department said in a statement at the time.

In September 2012, the last groups of the MKO terrorists left Camp Ashraf, their main training center in Iraq’s Diyala province. They have been transferred to Camp Liberty. Hundreds of the MKO terrorists have now been sent to Europe.

Earlier this month, the managing editor of Veterans Today from Atlanta said the number of Iranian terror victims is “in effect almost six 9/11’s,” but these attacks never got enough coverage in international media.

Jim W. Dean said even now, very few people know the scale of the Iranians who were killed in terrorist acts. “I would imagine your maimed casualties would also be high, and those statistics should be publicized as well.”

He went on to say that despite this great number of terror victims, “Iran did not crank up a huge War on Terror that slaughtered countless thousands of innocents, as happened with the Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld gangsters and their army of helpers.”

The US political analyst underscored that the story of Iranian victims of terror, “with all of its gory details,” still has to be brought to the international audience. “The Western media blackout shows they fear their audiences wanting to know more about why this was being covered up and eventually figuring out that these were offensive Western Intel operations during peacetime.”

"You have been maligned in Western media as a longtime supporter of international terrorism, but we know that hiding the history of Iran having been the top victim of terrorism was part of the false propaganda," he continued.

“Suppressing publicity of your being the major victim of terrorism at the time played a key role in falsely casting Iran as a major terror threat to everyone else,” Dean continued. “This is what people remember as it was an organized campaign in the Jewish controlled media for years and years.”

Regarding the presence of Iranian terrorist groups such as MKO in the US and their role in anti-Iran policies, Jim Dean said, “They have no negative profile here whatsoever. They are presented as oppressed freedom fighters and that is all the public ever hears.”

He pointed out that American people would be shocked, if Iranian terror victim groups and families were constantly touring the American college campuses and the church networks on speaking tours. “But the Zionist Lobby, the NeoCons and Christian Zionists would fight any attempt to do this, but that would be good as it would show they fear exposure.”

The US veteran went on to say that Iran should not act alone in exposing the state sponsors of terrorism, “as the victims of terror are now manufactured on an industrial scale, most of it state-sponsored terrorism, and the guilty parties naturally dread having this exposed.” “This is why I feel Iran is in a unique position to be the tip of the spear for efforts to uncover the long sordid history of state-sponsored terrorism and to publicize it on a continual basis to challenge the various nations involved to hold their leaders and operational organs responsible.”

“Their goal to destabilize target countries to protect their own nations will not be believable once the truth is out that these were purely offensive operations straight out of the Cold War operations manual, where anything could be done to hurt ‘the other side’ and be done with immunity, despite there being no state of war existing.”

He also made a reference to the Zionists’ killing of Iranian nuclear scientists and said, “Unfortunately, we see old tactics being reused, the ones with a track record of being successful and low risk.” “The killing of a few scientists would not have much effect on a major program. Personnel losses get replaced. And with 20/20 hindsight, we see from the 18 months of nuclear talks with Iran that neither Israel nor Britain ever disclosed any hard evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.”

He finally said that he saw Iran nuclear deal as “an offering of good will from Obama,” and that “he wants to turn the corner on the sordid past of US diplomacy and start a new era.” “The average American is not aware of how our CIA and British intelligence basically hijacked your country and terrorized it under the Shah for a long time. No reparations for that flagrantly offensive act have ever been discussed here.”

May 6, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Backlash Against the MEK’s Fans in Congress

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Daniel Larison

May 5, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Benjamin Helped Delist Mojahedin Khalq. That Doesn’t Mean He Wants to Testify With Them

Former State Official Helped Delist the MEK As a Terror Threat. That Doesn’t Mean He Wants to Testify With Them.

Controversial Iranian dissidents group may no longer be considered by the U.S. as a terror threat. But it has spooked a former State Department counterterror official who is refusing to testify at a House hearing where the group’s leader will also speak.

The April 29 hearing, in front of a House subcommittee on terrorism and nonproliferation, will focus on the threat from the Islamic State, which has overrun much of Syria and Iraq. Among the invited speakers is Maryam Rajavi, president of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is the umbrella organization for groups that include Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK).

Until 2012, the MEK was on the State Department’s terrorism list for killing six Americans in the 1970s. For years, the MEK — which has been likened to a cult — filled campaign coffers of numerous lawmakers while paying steep speaking fees to officials like former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who were paid up to $30,000 for speeches supporting the MEK — which is dedicated to overthrowing Iran’s clerical regime.

Daniel Benjamin, formerly the State Department’s counterterror coordinator, also was slated to testify at the House hearing. But on Monday, Benjamin declared that “I will not appear at a hearing” about the Islamic State with the MEK’s defacto leader, because “I know of no substantive expertise that the MEK has developed on ISIS.” News of Benjamin’s cancellation was first mentioned on Twitter by ALM Congress Pulse.

In an email to Foreign Policy, Benjamin noted that the MEK’s “exclusive focus” of concern has for decades been Iran. “So one has to wonder what the purpose of Rajavi’s presence on this panel is,” said Benjamin, who is now director of an international studies program at Dartmouth University.

“Being delisted as a Foreign Terrorist Organization — a decision I took part in — doesn’t mean that this group … has suddenly … become trustworthy or worthy of engagement,” he said.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who sits on the House panel, disputed that, and said the group should no longer be vilified since it is no longer on the U.S. list of foreign terror threats.

“Former is former,” Sherman told FP Monday afternoon, referring to the State Department list. He said the group helped uncover Iran’s secretive nuclear facility at Natanz.

However, other claims by the group have been less reliable. The Obama administration believed the MEK was providing misinformation in an effort to derail recent nuclear talks with Iran. During negotiations MEK insisted Tehran was building underground nuclear facilities, an assertion dismissed by the State Department.

The MEK did not return multiple requests for comment. It last drew widespread attention in Washington in 2013, when members of the group were trapped at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. American supporters of the group sent a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to help the MEK members escape “premeditated mass murder planned at the highest level and executed by Iraqi forces and agents, using equipment and training provided by U.S. forces.”

Sherman also dismissed Benjamin’s rationale for pulling out of his appearance — that MEK had nothing to offer on the Islamic State threat.

“If people pulled out of hearings just because they thought the witnesses’ expertise was on a related issue but not on the official title of the hearing, we’d have a lot of empty chairs,” he said.

David Francis, Foreign Policy,

April 29, 2015 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Renowned U.S. Arabist Is Second Witness to Refuse to Appear With MEK Leader

House counterterrorism panel is pushing ahead with a hearing on the Islamic State — even though two of its top witnesses are refusing to testify alongside the leader of a controversial Iranian dissidents group that was itself regarded as a terrorist organization as recently as 2012.

Arabist Robert Ford, who served as U.S. ambassador to Syria and also was posted in Baghdad, in Cairo, and across the Mideast, told Foreign Policy on Tuesday that he would not appear on the panel with Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK).

He is the second witness to balk at sharing the spotlight with Rajavi. On Monday, former State Department counterterrorism director Daniel Benjamin pulled out of the hearing, which is scheduled for Wednesday.

Rajavi will not be at the hearing: She is set to testify via videoconference, presumably from Paris, where her National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is based. The NCRI is an umbrella organization of groups that include the MEK.

Until September 2012, the MEK was designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization for the alleged 1970s killing of six Americans in Iran. The group is led by Iranian exiles who bitterly oppose Tehran’s clerical regime and is widely believed to have allied with Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq during the 1980s war between those two nations.

It has bankrolled numerous high-profile U.S. officials and other worldwide dignitaries who appear on the MEK’s behalf, a roster that includes former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Representatives for the MEK have not returned repeated requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for House Foreign Affairs subcommittee chairman Ted Poe (R-Texas) defended the panel’s decision to call Rajavi as a witness. In a Tuesday email to FP, spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said Rajavi’s background as a Muslim woman gives her insight into “prejudices inherent in radical Islamist ideology.”

“As the leader of an Iranian opposition group, she can speak to how ISIS’ ideology is both similar to and different from the mullahs leading Iran,” Hynes said. “Finally, as an exiled leader of a group that has had members living in Iraq for decades, including most recently in a refugee camp in Baghdad, she has firsthand and on the ground knowledge of ISIS.”

Additionally, Hynes said, Rajavi has already been approved as a witness by the full House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Meanwhile, in a follow-up interview Tuesday with Foreign Policy, Benjamin — who had a role in the State Department’s decision to delist the MEK — criticized the House panel for agreeing to let Rajavi testify by video. He said that is not a perk that is offered to U.S. witnesses.

“Why won’t she travel here to testify?” Benjamin asked. He said he was offered — and turned down — tens of thousands of dollars by the group to speak on its behalf.

“This is still a group that has American blood from killings in the 1970s on its hands and killed many other innocents as well,” he said. “That has never been apologized for.”

David Francis, Foreign Policy,

April 29, 2015 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts