Mujahedin Khalq Terror group

Iran nips terrorist attack in the bud

Iran has laid flat a terrorist attack by what the country’s Ministry of Intelligence has called “an anti-revolution group… whose hand is stained with the blood of thousands of people,” a possible reference to the People’s Mujahedin group, known as MKO.

Through painstaking planning and operations, the intelligence forces managed to preclude the attack and confiscate explosives of various types and other equipment, IRNA news agency reported May 13.

The news comes only six days before Iran holds a round of presidential elections on May 19.

By Mehdi Sepahvand,

May 18, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Deadly rhetoric: Saudi Arabia opens war of words with Iran

For years the Saudis have waged proxy battles against Iran, with little success. Now, despite this history of losses, Riyadh appears to be mobilizing for an ill-conceived confrontation with the Islamic Republic.

“We know we are a main target of Iran,” speculated Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) in an interview early this month.

Then came the threat. “We are not waiting until there becomes a battle in Saudi Arabia, so we will work so that it becomes a battle for them in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia.“

These are fighting words indeed. The Iranians certainly thought so, Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan responding with unusual ferocity: “We warn them (Saudis) against doing anything ignorant, but if they do something ignorant, we will leave nowhere untouched apart from Mecca and Medina.”

In other words, if the Saudis launch direct aggression against Iran, this will be Riyadh’s last war anywhere, ever.

It’s an important line to draw. The Saudis, after all, have been in meltdown since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran saw popular protests dethroning a King (gasp).

And so, for the past 38 years, we have witnessed an increasingly aggressive Saudi Arabia in the region, chasing down Iranian/Shia enemies where there were none. Just look at Yemen, where the two-year Saudi bombing blitz has killed over 10,000 civilians, or Bahrain, where Saudi troops and tanks snuffed out dissent in the Shia-majority state, or Syria, where Saudis send weapons, cash and support to ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other head-chopping extremists. This Saudi hysteria has now touched every corner of the world, and by the $100+ billion Riyadh has invested in radical schools, mosques, and propaganda to indoctrinate an entire generation of Muslims in Wahhabi-style intolerance.

But while the Saudis are hell-bent on thwarting Iranian influence – real or imagined – Riyadh has never dared to take on the Islamic Republic directly.

As former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates famously noted in a 2010 WikiLeaks cable, the Saudis always want to “fight the Iranians to the last American.” To which he then added, “it is time for them to get in the game.”

Now perhaps, under the direction of a 31-year old princeling, the Saudis are planning to do just that.

Saudi Arabia vs. Iran

Some perspective first on these two Persian Gulf “rivals,” in which I borrow heavily from an earlier interview of mine:

Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are rich in energy resources and have used this rentier wealth to advance their national goals, albeit with vastly differing results. Iran’s economy is focused on diversification away from the energy sector, developing self-sufficiency and becoming a net exporter. Saudi Arabia is import-focused. Iran spends $15 billion per annum on its military – compared to Saudi’s $80 billion – yet has one of the most competent military forces in the region and builds its own hardware. The Iranian political system is Constitution-based, diverse, and representative, with loudly competing political blocs that come with their own media and constituencies. The Saudi monarchy is based entirely on the rule of one family, with no meaningful elections or contesting political bodies, and little freedom of expression in the media. Regarding power projection, Iran favors the soft power tools of diplomacy, trade, and alliance-building based on common worldviews/objectives, whereas the Saudis have expanded their influence far and wide by spreading Wahhabi doctrine through schools, mosques, media and other institutions globally – and by blatantly buying the loyalty of allies.

In the past few years, we have clearly observed how Iran and Saudi Arabia’s nation-building approaches have affected the success of their geopolitical strategies. Both states have experienced existential fears and threats, and their respective alliances have now confronted each other on a few battlefields. Iran has approached the matter of its strategic depth carefully and built alliances with partners that genuinely share the common values of independence, self-determination, and resistance against imperialism. The Saudis, on the other hand, have forged their external alliances with hegemony or dominance as the primary objective – irrespective of the divergent interests and values of allies. There is little contest – one side is a nation- and region-building, while the other flails about with unreliable alliances, propped up by petrodollars and all the strategic brilliance of a sledgehammer.

How can this relationship be classed as a rivalry, when the two don’t even operate on the same playing field? Would Tehran even notice Riyadh outside of OPEC meetings if it weren’t so belligerent at every turn, on every border?

But MbS’s promise to bring “the battle” to Iran must be taken seriously because it will not be launched alone. The Saudi prince’s chest thumping comes courtesy of an upgrade in relations with Washington. US President Donald Trump is enthusiastically pushing billions of dollars in weapons sales to the Saudis, and has chosen Riyadh as the destination for his first official foreign visit, championing the establishment of an “Arab NATO” that partners with Israel to confront Iran.

Don’t expect a conventional military confrontation as the opening gambit, however. The US, Israel and Saudi Arabia are experienced in subversion and sabotage activities against the Islamic Republic, and this is where they are likely to focus their initial efforts.

Last week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned of foreign interference in the lead-up to Friday’s presidential poll: “the security of the country should be fully protected during the elections. Anyone who violates this should know he will certainly be punished.“

Calling for public vigilance, Khamenei outlined short, medium and long-term “enemy” goals in Iran: “to distort the country’s security and trigger chaos and sedition… targeting issues like that of the economy and living conditions of the people…(and) an effort to change the system.”

So how will the Saudis play a role? Riyadh’s hand in this “battle” will likely be seen on and inside Iran’s borders, in the same form we have witnessed in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other theaters flooded with Saudi-backed militants.

Stirring up minority populations

Demographically, Iran is around 60 percent ethnically Persian, followed by a mix of Azeris, Kurds, Lurs, Turkmens, Arabs, and others. Some 99 percent of Iranians are Muslim, more than 90 percent of these Shia, the rest Sunni, and the remaining one percent a mix of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and others.

The main pockets of Kurds are in the northwest on the Iraqi/Turkish borders and in the north-east bordering Turkmenistan – Iranian Kurds are both Sunni and Shia. The second largest ethnicity, Azeris, who are mainly Shia, are also in the northwest on Iran’s border with Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Iranian Arabs who are concentrated in the south near the Iraqi border and the Persian Gulf – as well as around the Strait of Hormuz – are also mostly Shia. Iranian Sunni populations consist mainly of Kurds, Turkmens, and Balochis, and this is the demographic where signs of foreign interference are most notable today.

In recent years, thousands of Iranian security forces have been killed on the border of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province with Pakistan – most recently in April when ten Iranian border guards died in a cross-border terrorist raid.

Reportedly, the operation was conducted by Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), a sectarian terrorist group the Iranians say is being directed by the US and Saudi Arabia. The US has traceable ties to some of these groups, notably Jundallah which received Bush-era funds from Washington before being listed as a terrorist organization. That “terrorist” designation, Iran knows, means little. The Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) was listed by the State Department for decades, but then de-listed in 2012 and is today being actively courted by US officials.

Jaish al-Adl is an offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba, an anti-Shia extremist group banned in Pakistan, but which appears to continue to enjoy both Saudi and Pakistani support. Sipah leaders are ferried around the border areas with Pakistani guards, and fill their ranks with young graduates of Saudi-funded Deobandi madrassahs rife inside the Pakistani border.

US hands are all over the minority map in Iran too. Media, think tanks and politicians highlight and encourage aspirations of Iranian minorities at every opportunity, and will undoubtedly take a more active role in stirring divisions as tensions escalate.

Cue the Kurds. Both US and Saudi fingerprints are all over this project of inciting a Kurdish rebellion inside Iran. Last June and July, for the first time in 20 years, Kurds in Iran’s northwest clashed with Revolutionary Guards, killing several on both sides.

The Kurdish group involved was the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), a longtime Iranian-designated terrorist organization that announced in 2015 it would take up arms against the state. Not surprisingly, that declaration came shortly after PDKI leader Mustafa Hijri visited congressional leaders in Washington.

A vigilant Iran

American dirty tricks are certainly not new in Iran. Former Kennedy-era State Department official Richard J. Barnet wrote in 1968: “The (US) intervention in Iran in 1953 to unseat Premier Mohammed Mossadeq was America’s first successful attempt in the postwar period to subvert a nationalist government.”

According to Barnet, “Five US agents and seven Iranian intelligence operatives” led by CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt “plotted the coup from a Tehran basement.” They were responsible for “recruiting street mobs to oppose the Mossadeq supporters… With the help of substantial sums, which Roosevelt used for hired demonstrators to whip up the growing anti-Mossadeq mobs, and the support of the Iranian army, heavily dependent on US equipment, the insurgents were able to turn the tide against the intractable premier and to drive him from office.”

Iran is intimately familiar with these foreign machinations and has been vigilantly countering them in the decades since the Islamic Revolution.

This is not the compliant Shah’s Iran – this Iran, today, is an independent, sovereign nation-state that came through an 8-year foreign-imposed war with Iraq and built with its own hands a formidable military deterrent.

As we have seen with Iran’s activities in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, the country’s ‘strategic depth’ is a red line – its national borders even more so. After warning the Iraqi government in 2014 that it would take decisive action if ISIS came within 40 kilometers of its border, the Iranian air force – for the first time since the Iran-Iraq war – used F-4 Phantom fighter jets to conduct airstrikes in Diyala province on its western border.

Iran’s armed forces chief Mohammad Hossein Bagheri has also now threatened military action on Pakistani territory unless Islamabad takes control of its borders, saying: “Unfortunately, the Pakistani border area has turned into a refuge and training ground for terrorists hired by Saudi Arabia, with the approval of the United States.”

In a letter this month to the UN Security Council, Iran’s UN Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo addressed the Saudi threats: “We have no desire, nor any interest, in an escalation of tension in our neighborhood…We continue to stand ready for dialogue and accommodation to promote regional stability, combat destabilizing extremist violence and reject sectarian hatred…We hope Saudi Arabia will be persuaded to heed the call of reason.”

The Saudi princeling Mohammad bin Salman made a novice’s mistake by threatening to bring war to Iran – he put the world on notice. Any Iranian reaction now bears the full legitimacy of international law for a measured retaliation. The Saudi borders are long, its populations restive, and its soldiers have not seen this kind of war. We may yet live to see a Saudi royal eat his words.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics. She is a former senior associate at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and has a master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University. Sharmine has written commentary for a wide array of publications, including Al Akhbar English, the New York Times, the Guardian, Asia Times Online, Salon.com, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, BRICS Post and others. You can follow her on Twitter at @snarwani

May 17, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

McCain is using terrorist group MEK as his proxy war ally in the US covert war against Iran

In an interview with Balkans Post, former US Army officer Joachim Hagopian said US Senator John McCain is using MEK, a terrorist cult, as his proxy war ally in the US covert war against the current Islamic Republic of Iran government.

Here’s the full transcript of the interview:

What’s your take on the recent meeting between Senator McCain and the head of the MEK, an anti-Iran terrorist group?

Joachim Hagopian: John McCain has been caught regularly meeting with various terrorist groups for a number of years now. So this is really nothing new. The warmongering US traitor represents the military industrial complex and central bankers that both manufacture and profit most from war. McCain has proven to be a compromised politician owned and controlled by Israel through both bribery and threat of blackmail. According to former CIA officer Robert David Steele, an FBI insider as well as a Homeland Security insider, McCain is among current high profile politicians on an FBI pedophile list. This helps explain why McCain so vociferously promotes war against Russia, Syria and Iran and protects and supports terrorist groups like ISIS that he helped create.

Regarding McCain’s shady history with the MEK, despite the MEK being a Marxist jihadist terrorist cult that for decades was listed by the US State Department as a terrorist group, having assassinated US military officers and other American personnel in the pre-Islamic Revolution 1970’s, McCain was bribed by MEK into lobbying Hillary Clinton’s State Department in 2012 to remove MEK from the terrorist list. In the same way that McCain has met with leaders of ISIS as the secret US proxy war mercenary ally fighting against Assad, Putin and Iran in Syria, McCain’s mid-April visit to Albania to tout MEK as heroic freedom fighters, McCain is using MEK as his proxy war ally in the US covert war against the current Islamic Republic of Iran government. MacCain is nothing more than a controlled tool for the Greater Israel Project.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said the meeting came of no surprise to him “since the US has supported various terrorist groups in recent decades.” Why does Washington support such groups?

Joachim Hagopian: The foreign ministry spokesman is absolutely correct. For nearly four decades the CIA led by the likes of such NWO globalists as George H.W. Bush and Zbigniew Brzezinski has been creating, training, arming, financing and supplying terrorists throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, beginning with the mujahidin in the late 1970’s fighting against the Soviet Army in the “graveyard of empires” Afghanistan. This operation morphed into the creation of Osama bin Laden’s rise to power and his so called al Qaeda terrorists. Bush senior and Bill Clinton redeployed al Qaeda as covert US proxy war allies to help balkanize Yugoslavia into a half dozen broken pieces for US imperialism, exploitation and control. And then of course “redeployed” them (in name and blame game only) in the Cheney-Bush Jr’s neocon-Israeli-Saudi false flag operation 9/11. Once again al Qaeda resurfaced as the war on terror enemy in Iraq and then with another name change as ISIS mercenary allies in both Syria and Iraq. Terrorist-R-US with support from Israel, Saudi Arabia (where the Wahhabi brand of terrorism originates), the smaller Gulf State monarchies, Turkey, and NATO-EU.

You can’t have the neocons’ “endless war on terror” without terrorists. That’s why Washington has both manufactured and continued decade after decade supporting the terrorists, all part of doing the dirty bidding of the Greater Israel Project to kill Muslims, steal Arab land (especially the Palestinians to this day), keep Arabs divided, conquered and fighting amongst each other (i.e., exploiting the Sunni-Shia conflict) in order to maintain Jewish State hegemony in the Middle East and its genocidal apartheid policy against the Palestinians, and of course continue stealing Middle Eastern oil. The US-Israel criminal enterprise could never get away with all this exploitation, violence and destruction without a so called designated enemy. So for the US and Israel to continue pretending that their longtime mercenary savages are their supposed enemy and not their proxy war allies is a hideously shameful joke. And since the neocons’ pre-9/11 “seven nations in 5 years” regime change list has Syria and Iran still marked as unfinished business. The very nations that are actually successfully opposing and beating the terrorists – Russia, Syria and Iran – are the actual biggest US enemies, regardless of the presidential figurehead puppet sitting in the White House, and regardless of whatever false campaign promises were made to the contrary.Trump’s recent missile bombing of the Syrian airfield after blaming Assad for another chemical false flag attack confirms this fact. The US will never join Russia and Syria to rid the world of ISIS and various other terrorist groups like al Nusra, al Qaeda and MEK because their “great game” of hegemonic violence and forever war absolutely depends on the terrorists. Finally, the globalist agenda is to utilize terrorists to destabilize the entire world, blame the Eastern powers Russia, China and Iran in order to trigger World War III, co-timed with the global economy collapse as its grand strategy to bring about one world government tyranny.

Trump’s recent missile bombing of the Syrian airfield after blaming Assad for another chemical false flag attack confirms this fact. The US will never join Russia and Syria to rid the world of ISIS and various other terrorist groups like al Nusra, al Qaeda and MEK because their “great game” of hegemonic violence and forever war absolutely depends on the terrorists. Finally, the globalist agenda is to utilize terrorists to destabilize the entire world, blame the Eastern powers Russia, China and Iran in order to trigger World War III, co-timed with the global economy collapse as its grand strategy to bring about one world government tyranny.

The US and EU had listed the MEK as a terrorist group, but later, it was removed from the lists. What does that tell us?

Joachim Hagopian: It tells us that MEK is being used as an Israel-US Empire pawn in the global chessboard game of hegemonic dominance and control, like ISIS and al Qaeda as a proxy war ally in the not-so-covert war against Iran and its allies Russia and Syria. Again, Terrorism-R-US.

Many US politicians have received money from the MEK in exchange for publicly expressing their support for the terrorist group. How would this impact Washington’s policies towards Tehran?

Joachim Hagopian: Aside from McCain, the list of bribed fellow US politicians is long, including Elaine Chao, Trump’s current Transportation Secretary (and wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) who was paid $50,000 for a 5-minute speech, Trump advisor-ally former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, neocon warmonger and unofficial Trump advisor John Bolton, former House Speaker and Trump advisor Newt Gingrich, former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, and former US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. All this tell us is that way too many US politicians are up for sale to the highest bidder.

The impact is clear, it reinforces the ammo that’s been used against Iran ever since the 1979 Revolution. Be it through economic sanctions, warmongering threats, jingoistic rhetoric or weaponized propaganda, the crime cabal in Washington has been at war with Iran for nearly four decades, and as a strong ally of Russia and China as well as Syria, Tehran will only continue to be targeted in the Empire crosshairs.

Maryam Rajavi, with Rudi Giuliani, Elaine Chao, Robert Pittenger, Mrs Rohrabacher, Dana Rohrabacher, Ingrid Betancourt and Maria Tereza Fernandez at the grand annual gathering in Paris

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, MEK members were trained in the United States from 2005 to 2009 under former President George W. Bush. Do you regard this as a serious threat to Iran?

Joachim Hagopian: Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, out of the 17,000 Iranians that have died from terrorist assaults, 12,000 are believed to have been committed by the MEK. And with the longtime support of US Empire and its brutal slaughter of 4 million Muslims and 30 million more humans around the globe since World War II, yes I would say that MEK poses a serious threat to Iran. Any independent nation not under US direct control is deemed an enemy inside the warped unipolar world of the neocons in charge of US foreign policy for over two decades.

—

Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled “Don’t Let The Bastards Getcha Down.” It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In recent years he has focused on his writing, becoming an alternative media journalist. His blog site is at empireexposed.blogspot

Balkan Sport,

May 17, 2017 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Iranian anti-terror activists slam US support for MKO

A group of Iranian anti-terrorism activists have slammed some US officials’ support for the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

A group of representatives of the Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism (ADVT) meet Swiss Ambassador to Iran Giulio Haas (C) in Tehran, on May 8, 2017 (Photo via ADVT)

At a meeting with Swiss Ambassador to Tehran Giulio Haas, who represents the US interests in Tehran, a group of representatives of the Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism (ADVT) presented an account of how their loved ones had been killed in different terror incidents in Iran, particularly the terror operations conducted by the MKO.

“All the families of the victims of terrorism are shocked by how [US] senators and officials are linked with and support the MKO leaders and consider it as a blatant support for terrorism in the international arena,” an ADVT member said at the meeting.

Another activist underlined the important role of international organizations in alleviating the problems of the victims of terror and stressed that the issue should turn into a matter of grave concern for the global community.

The Swiss envoy, for his part, expressed sympathy with the victims of terrorism and noted that he will convey their message to the US officials.

The MKO, the most hated terrorist group among the Iranians, has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials over the past three decades.

Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the victory of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, about 12,000 have fallen victim to MKO’s acts of terror.

The terrorist group also sided with the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, during Iraq’s eight-year imposed war against Iran in the 1980s. The group also helped Saddam in his brutal crackdown on his opponents.

May 10, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

McCain palling around with MKO terrorists

Weeks after Senator John McCains’s visit to the newly established base of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) in Albania, the ripple effects still continue. McCain’s support for a cult-like group with a dark history of violence and terror causes a wave of reactions that do not seem to end soon. The most recent has been by the side of an opposition figure against the Islamic Republic, Mehrdad Khonsari. He writes an open letter to the Senator criticizing his act of sponsoring the terrorist cult of Rajavi. He asserts, “It was quite a shock noting that a personality of your background and status had emulated the feat carried out by others much less informed about Iran and generally motivated by greed.” [1]

Following Senator John McCains’s trip to the Balkans (courtesy to US taxpayers), he was received by Maryam Rajavi in the newly established base of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) in Tirana, Albania. Rajavi offered McCain bouquet with a wide smile on her face in a luxurious hall full of so called cheerful audience – perhaps McCain did not expect such a warm reception.

The leader of the MKO cult who was so enthusiastically motivated by the presence of an American hawkish figure could not conceal her happiness. She seemed to have found the savior of her declining organization. “The Iranian people and the resistance are more determined and prepared than ever to overthrow the ruling theocracy and to establish democracy and national sovereignty in Iran”, she claimed.

As a matter of fact the leaders of the MKO cult put their anti-American, anti-imperialism past behind and eagerly count on the United States new administration to change the Iranian government. However, the issues are not as simple as the naïve MKO leaders have always supposed. Their alliance with the enemies of the Iranian nation has not been so productive for them that they can prevent the collapse of their organization.

Besides, the MKO cult is notoriously known among the majority of American scholars, journalists and politicians, even those who are known as anti-Iran figures. Michael Rubin who is a critic of the Islamic Republic’s policies wonders: “what is John McCain thinking?” Reviewing the violent and cult-like background of the MKO, he affirms that the American advocates of the MKO are not supporting the enemy of the Iranian government but they are assisting the enemy of the Iranian people. [2]

Dr. Munr Kazmir of the Huffington Post states, “The enemy of my enemy is NOT always my friend”. He explains that the act of John Mccain and his hawkish colleagues to sponsor the MKO is the exact definition of “insanity”. He refers to other similar experiences of the US: “There was a group in Afghanistan led by a fellow named Osama Bin Laden whom we armed during the cold war. There are rebels in Syria to whom we have given arms. These are just two examples of many instances where the strategy of backing the “enemy of my enemy” blew up in our faces.” [3]

Dr. Kazmir challenges Rajavi-Republican agenda for regime change in Iran: “Regime change. Just like Nicaragua. Or Afghanistan. Or Iraq. Or Libya. Or countless other nations we made unquestionably worse with our involvement.” [4]

Furthermore, as Kazmir and Rubin warn about the destructive consequences of supporting the MKO cult for both the United States and the Iranian people, former member of the MKO, Arash Sametipour believes that both McCain and the MKO are not favorable entities in the world so their alliance does not work for them. Moreover, the MKO is hated in Iran. “It can be argued that MKO gains nothing by organizing meetings with warlords, right-wing activists, and Saudis,” He concludes. “A group which is unpopular in Iran has proven that will not be accepted as a player in Iran.”

By Mazda Parsi

Sources:

[1] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/6903

[2]Rubin, Michael, What is John McCain thinking? , IAE.org, April 17, 2017

[3] Kazmir, Munr, The Enemy of My Enemy is NOT Always My Friend….., The Huffington Post, April 18, 2017

May 6, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO Terrorists Working in Collusion with CIA: US Commentator

An American political commentator said the anti-Iran Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO also known as MEK) is in league with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), noting that the terror group has been an agent for Washington since the late 1970s.

“The MEK has been an agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and represents the single most expensive US covert foreign operation since the inception of the CIA at the close of World War II. From 1979 to 1989, the US, UK, and Saudi Arabia provided at least $3 billion dollars in funding to the MEK for the purpose of destabilizing Afghanistan subsequent to the Russian invasion. It is from this history that observers today should consider claims made by the MEK as lacking in credibility,” Mark Mason told the Tasnim news agency.

Dr. Mason offers analyses of United States domestic and foreign policies for the international news media. He was trained as a biological anthropologist educated at the University of California, Berkeley. Mason has appeared on Al-Etejah TV, Russia Today, Voice of Russia radio, as well as on Life News Russia, AcTVism Munich News, Nuestra Tele Noticias NTN24 Colombia, The Real News Network, and Radio 786 Capetown, South Africa, and KQED Forum in San Francisco, California.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Tasnim: The terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) recently claimed that the Islamic Republic is violating the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers by secretly conducting research on nuclear weapons components at the Parchin military site in Iran. The spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) strongly dismissed the allegations by the terrorist group against Tehran’s nuclear program, saying the claims are of no value for the Islamic Republic. What is your take on this? What is behind such bogus claims?

Mason: Examining what the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is, and is not, will assist in understanding claims made by the MEK. Some observers have characterized the MEK as a Leftist political organization, even a Marxist revolutionary group. Much could be written about how Leftist political ideology, and particularly Marxism, has come to have almost no meaning in modern usage. As Leftist politics applies to the MEK, such labeling is a diversion from facts. The MEK has been an agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and represents the single most expensive US covert foreign operation since the inception of the CIA at the close of World War II. From 1979 to 1989, the US, UK, and Saudi Arabia provided at least $3 billion dollars in funding to the MEK for the purpose of destabilizing Afghanistan subsequent to the Russian invasion. It is from this history that observers today should consider claims made by the MEK as lacking in credibility.

As for the question regarding Iranian nuclear technology programs, world peace and security would best be facilitated by all nations in the Middle East and South Asia convening under the auspices of the UN for the purpose of creating a regional nuclear-free zone. Focusing on the activities of one nation is not means to develop regional cooperation. Regional efforts to reduce tensions through diplomacy is the rational and effective approach to conflict resolution. Keep in mind that the USA thrives on creating conflicts and chaos, and thus the USA should not be expected to promote regional peace. Regional and global cooperation and security would be fostered by a regional agreement to remove all nuclear weapons and for all nations to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). To question Iranian nuclear programs while it is known that Israel, Pakistan, India, and the USA have nuclear weapons is not a means to produce regional cooperation. Respect for decentralized, popular, community direct democracy will enhance regional cooperation. An arms embargo will enhance regional cooperation. Unfortunately, regional and global peace and security cannot be achieved as long as the US military and US money dominate the region. An effective strategy for reducing regional violence perpetrated and funded by the USA though such organizations as the MEK would be to revive the formal Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The NAM is comprised of nations committed to diplomatic conflict resolution while avoiding efforts by the USA to drag the Middle East into a revived Cold War between the US-NATO and Russia-China.

Tasnim: It seems that the new US administration has breathed new life into the terrorist group. Republican US Senator John McCain praised the head of the MKO, in a recent meeting in the Albanian capital, Tirana. What do you think? What is terror group looking for under Trump?

Mason: US Senator John McCain should be in prison for war crimes committed in Vietnam. Through his actions in the US Senate, Senator McCain has lent monetary support for ISIS in Syria, and additional support for other US foreign criminal operations since the illegal invasion of Vietnam. Senator McCain supports US military violence and proxy terrorists throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East. The US government, with or without President Trump, is the successor to the British Empire since the collapse of British colonialism following World War II. The British Empire was bad. The American Empire is bad. Human suffering created by Euro-American colonialism achieves planetary proportions. Release from imperialism is promoted by examining what it is about Euro-American culture that drives their brutality and denial of human rights. The problem of empire goes far deeper than the frightening, open belligerence of President Trump. To resolve the problems presented by the MEK and other violent organizations, let us examine the social and economic factors that drive modern violence. We have a problem that goes deep beyond the MEK, and McCain, and Trump, and the CIA. If we want a decent planet for our children, we would be wise to examine our acceptance of the fictitious global money system: paper money, computer money, chasing dollars, funding the MEK with dollars, the Petrodollar, and our belief in money, profits, and private wealth, instead of people. The MEK would have no money, and the US would have no power to terrorize the Middle East without this fictitious thing called money. Money does not exist in the real world. It is a product of the human imagination that destroys human social relations. The problem is not the MEK, nor even the USA. The problem is the belief in the power of concentrated wealth, and the denial of human social relations outside of money. Without money, we are left with diplomacy, and diplomacy is a fancy word for mutual aid and mutual respect.

Tasnim: As you know, more than 17,000 Iranians, many of them civilians, have been killed at the hands of the MKO in different acts of terrorism including bombings in public places, and targeted killings. Why do Saudi Arabia, US, and certain European countries continue to support the anti-Iran terror group despite its heinous crimes?

Mason: One answer: money. The US, Western Europe, and the criminal client operation in Arabia called “Saudi Arabia” are chasing dollars. Dollars means wealth. Wealth means power. Power means more chasing dollars. To chase dollars begins with state violence used to steal natural resources and to steal human labor. All wealth arises out of human labor as applied toward converting the Earth biosphere and lithosphere into raw materials, and to convert raw materials into commodities that can be converted into dollars. Dollars is domination. The dollar is the means by which the US and all centralized powers dominate and control others. Continued worship of the Almighty Dollar, and the dollar chasers and dollar collectors, the USA, the MEK, Saudi Arabia, and Western Europe will continue their colonial theft of natural resources and their subjugation of other human populations to enslavement. We are enslaved by a fiction: the money system.

If these ideas seem unknown or impractical, I think it is true that the Middle East can be a more humane and cooperative region. To move towards peace and cooperation will require thinking and acting outside of conventional thinking and conventional action. New ideas—not new military weapons, new border fences, or new presidents—are needed.

April 30, 2017 0 comments

Iran

Iran’s people care about elections. Pahlavi/Rajavi doesn’t

Iran’s people care about elections. The so-called democratic fringe doesn’t

Trump’s hard talk has buoyed Iran’s exiled opposition, like the son of the late Shah and the shadowy MEK. But these intemperate voices are not to be trusted

In Donald Trump, opponents of the Iranian establishment bent on regime change have identified a new hope. The US administration, which often talks tough on Iran, has rejuvenated fringe exiled Iranian opposition groups who are irrelevant to modern Iran, yet appeal to gullible Americans.

One such group is led by Reza Pahlavi, who gets attention mainly because he is the son of the late Shah, who was exiled during the revolution in 1979. An “advocate of secularism, human rights, and parliamentary democracy in Iran” as he puts it on his Twitter profile, he reached out to Trump to congratulate him when he won the election, asking him to to engage “with the ‎secular and democratic forces” to defeat “political Islam”.

In his letter, he wrote that the Islamic Republic was promoting a “regressive ideology [that] has spread like a ‎cancer across the globe: from the Middle East to Asia and Africa, and even to Europe and the ‎Americas”. With such overblown rhetoric, Pahlavi sounds like war-mongering Republicans and Israeli hardliners who seek to portray Iran as a bigger threat than Isis.

“Iran’s exiled crown prince wants a revolution,” is how AP began its interview with Pahlavi in April, in which he says “this regime is simply irreformable because the nature of it, its DNA, is such that it cannot”.

“My focus right now is on liberating Iran, and I will find any means that I can, without compromising the national interests and independence, with anyone who is willing to give us a hand, whether it is the US or the Saudis or the Israelis or whomever it is,” he told AP.

In February, Pahlavi told Deutsche Welle that “the Iranian regime from the very beginning has been the root cause of practically every problem we see emanating from that region … The majority of the Iranian people, I would say easily 90% of Iran’s society, is against this regime and wants this regime to go.”

The other group calling for a revolution is the MEK (the People’s Mujahedin of Iran), a shadowy group characterised by many observers – including former members – as cult-like. Earlier this month, Senator John McCain travelled to a conference in Albania to meet with the group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi. Speaking in a packed room of MEK supporters, many wearing identical clothes, McCain praised the group and said: “This is an example of the support you are able to get in the United States of America, in the world, to get you to get to freedom.”

Rajavi, who has led the group for almost as long as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been the supreme leader of Iran, said during the conference that “experience has shown that this regime is incapable of changing its behaviour. Thus, regime change in Iran is necessary for peace and stability in the region and for global peace and security.”

Contrary to what you might expect, these two opposition forces do not get along. “It’s pretty much a cult-type structure,” Pahlavi said of MEK in his AP interview. He’s absolutely right.

It’s not long ago that the MEK, described by US thinktank Rand as a “skilled manipulators of public opinion”, was listed by the US and the EU as a terrorist organisation. (When it was delisted by the US in 2012, the US government acknowledged that the organisation had renounced violence and had committed no terrorist acts for more than a decade. It was also delisted by the EU in 2009). The group fought alongside Saddam Hussein against Iran in the eight-year war in the 1980s. That itself should explain its immense unpopularity inside Iran. According to state department and FBI assessments, the MEK was behind the killing of Americans in Iran in the 1970s, though the current MEK leadership disavows those killings. Rajavi has also been barred from entering the UK.

In recent years, the MEK has paid many senior American officials to speak at their events, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Elaine Chao, Trump’s secretary of transportation, who received a $50,000 honorarium to speak at an MEK event.

A strong supporter of the MEK is Saudi Arabia. In July 2016, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, spoke at MEK’s rally in Paris.

In a not-so-subtle reference to Saudi Arabia, the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad-Javad Zarif, said: “In most countries in our region election is a dream … You are talking about a region where people don’t have a constitution for God’s sake.”

Zarif has a point. In a few week’s time, Iranians yet again go to the polls to choose their next government. Groups such as MEK have portrayed Iranian elections as futile. In reality, elections do matter in Iran. While they are far from being fair, given the extent of the vetting of candidates, they are still competitive and are taken seriously by the electorate.

There’s a constant battle in Iran between the elected faction of the establishment, and the unelected faction. In 2013, Iran’s majority pro-reform population threw its weight behind Hassan Rouhani. Iran has indeed drastically changed under the moderate cleric.

[…]

Nevertheless, the Iranian people by and large still believe in gradual change, however slow the pace of reform might be. Huge turnouts for elections represent a rejection of the sort of things that Pahlavi and Rajavi have to offer.

In their constant mission to demonise Iran, the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia have heavily relied on groups such as MEK. The fact of the matter is that they remain out of touch with the realities on the ground. Both groups have used human rights as a casus belli, and have simplified the complexities of politics on the ground to suit the foreign audience. So long as reform-minded Iranians are working hard to generate change from within, the intemperate voices of Pahlavi and Rajavi, and their attempts to build political capital in the west, should be dismissed.

By Saeed Kamali Dehghan

April 29, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The Enemy of My Enemy is NOT Always My Friend

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I’m starting to think John McCain may fit that definition.

All due respect to the Senator from Arizona, whose military service during Vietnam was both brave and heroic, but it completely escapes me why he continues to support “rebel” organizations who many times end up being just as dangerous as the despotic regimes.

There was a group in Afghanistan led by a fellow named Osama Bin Laden whom we armed during the cold war. There are rebels in Syria to whom we have given arms. These are just two examples of many instances where the strategy of backing the “enemy of my enemy” blew up in our faces.

McCain recently held a meeting with the head of MKO – a rebel faction opposed to the current Iranian regime – where he sang the group’s praises.

While I understand McCain’s dislike and distrust of the Iranian regime and Assad, MKO may not be quite so innocent, either, as they stand accused of thousands of deaths.

In fact, as recently as 2012, MKO was listed as a terrorist organization by both the United States and the European Union. There are many questions about what they may or may not have done, but there is no question about what they want.

“Today, there is a consensus in the Middle East about the clerical regime’s destructive role and that the religious fascism ruling Iran is the primary source of war, terrorism and crisis in the region,” said Maryam Rajavi, MKO’s leader.

“Regime change is not only indispensable to ending the egregious violations of human rights in Iran but also to establishing peace and tranquility in the region. As long as the clerical regime is in power, it will not abandon the export of terrorism and fundamentalism.”

Regime change. Just like Nicaragua. Or Afghanistan. Or Iraq. Or Libya. Or countless other nations we made unquestionably worse with our involvement.

Of course, McCain is by no means alone in his insanity.

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, U.S. intelligence has been working with MKO for quite some time. Bin Laden had worked with U.S. intelligence for quite a while as well, when we were fighting the Soviets and saw him and his group as an asset.

If you aren’t sure how that turned out, go ahead and read about what happened on 9/11.

And that’s really the point here: The “enemy of my enemy is my friend” philosophy simply does not work. We have been slapped in the face with this fact over and over again, but like a battered wife who keeps returning to her abusive husband, we keep thinking that next time will be different.

But as we know all too well by now, this always plays out the same in the end. Today’s ally is tomorrow enemy. Today’s freedom fighters are tomorrow’s terrorists. And vice versa.

You would think we would have learned our lesson by now, but apparently, we still haven’t. I don’t know what it is going to take, but through their constant repeating of the same mistake, I’m pretty sure that if the government were a person, they would be wearing a strait jacket at this point.

Dr. Munr Kazmir, Contributor Doctor, businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist

April 22, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

McCain hails head of anti-Iran terrorist group, MKO

US Senator John McCain met the head of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), Maryam Rajavi, in the Albanian capital of Tirana on April 14, 2017.

Republican US Senator John McCain has praised the head of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), Maryam Rajavi, in a meeting in the Albanian capital, Tirana.

McCain, who is on an official visit to Balkan states, met Rajavi and some other members of the notorious MKO group in Tirana on Friday.

He congratulated the terrorist group’s “successful transfer” from Iraq and praised its members for what he described as “sacrifice.”

“There is no doubt that people in this room have suffered not only themselves, but in the loss of their loved ones,” he said.

“You have stood up, fought, and sacrificed for freedom, for the right to live free, for the right to determine your future,” he added.

The MKO has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials over the past three decades.

Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the victory of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, about 12,000 have fallen victim to MKO’s acts of terror.

Massoud Rajavi (L), Maryam Rajavi’s husband and the former ringleader of the anti-Iran terrorist group, Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), meeting with the executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. (File photo)

In 1986, the terrorist group’s members fled Iran for Iraq, where they received support from the then Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, and set up Camp Ashraf, now known as Camp New Iraq, in Diyala Province near the Iranian border.

The terrorist group also sided with the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, during Iraq’s eight-year imposed war against Iran in the 1980s. The terrorist group also helped Saddam in his brutal crackdown on his opponents.

A file photo of, Massoud Rajavi (L), Maryam Rajavi’s husband and the former ringleader of the anti-Iran terrorist group, Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), shaking hands with the executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. (File photo)

In December 2011, the UN and Baghdad agreed to relocate some 3,000 MKO members from Camp Ashraf to Camp Hurriyet. The last group of the MKO terrorists was evicted in September 2013 and relocated to Camp Hurriyet to await transfer to third countries.

April 17, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

If Terrorists Targeted Russia, Who’s Behind the Terrorists?

Eleven have been killed and dozens more injured in what is an apparent terrorist attack on St. Petersburg’s metro system. Western analysts are assigning possible blame for the attack on either terrorists operating from Russia’s Chechnya region, or possibly terrorist groups affiliated with fronts fighting in Syria.

Western analysts are also attempting to cement a narrative that downplays the significance of the attacks and instead attempts to leverage them politically against Moscow. A piece in the Sydney Morning Herald titled, “Fears of a Putin crackdown after terror attack on St Petersburg metro,” would attempt to claim:

So who is to blame? No one has said officially. The BBC’s Frank Gardner says suspicions will centre around Chechen nationalists or an Islamic State inspired group wanting payback for Putin’s airstrikes in Syria. Or it could be a combination of both.

Putin has in the past justified crackdowns on civilian protests by citing the terror threat. But will he this time, and will it work?

At least one pro-Kremlin commentator has linked the attack to the recent mass demonstrations organised by Putin’s political opponent.

Yet, in reality, the demonstrations and the terrorist groups being implicated both share a significant common denominator – both are openly long-term recipients of US-European aid, with the latter group also receiving significant material support from US-European allies in the Persian Gulf, primarily Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

US-European support for foreign-funded organizations posing as “nongovernmental organizations” (NGOs) running parallel efforts with terrorist organizations undermining Moscow’s control over Chechnya have been ongoing for decades.

Beyond Chechnya, the United States’ own Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) would admit in a 2012 memo (PDF) that:

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).

The DIA memo then explains exactly who this “Salafist principality’s” supporters are (and who its true enemies are):

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

In essence, the “Salafist” (Islamic) “principality” (State) was a creation of the US in pursuit of its attempted regime change agenda in Syria. The current, self-proclaimed “Islamic State” is situated precisely in eastern Syria where the DIA memo claimed its state sponsors sought to place it. Its role in undermining Damascus and its allies’ attempts to restore peace and order to the Syrian state is obvious.

The fact that NATO-member Turkey served as a logistical, training, and financial hub for not only the Islamic State’s activities, but also other terrorist groups including Al Qaeda’s regional franchise – Al Nusra – also further implicates not only possible Al Qaeda and Islamic State involvement in the recent St. Petersburg blast, but also these organizations’ state sponsors – those who “support the opposition” in Syria.

Whether the United States played a direct role in the St. Petersburg blast or not is inconsequential. Without the massive state sponsorship both Washington and its European and Persian Gulf allies have provided these groups, such global-spanning mayhem would be impossible. The fact that the US seeks to undermine Russia politically, economically, and in many ways, militarily, and has recently fielded US-European-funded mobs in Russia’s streets – means that it is likely not a coincidence violence is now also being employed against Russia within Russian territory.

As per US policymakers’ own documented machinations – such as the 2009 Brookings Institution report, “Which Path to Persia?: Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran” (PDF) – a militant component is prescribed as absolutely essential for the success of any street movement Washington manages to stir up against targeted states.

In the Brookings Institution document, it stated unequivocally in regards to toppling the government of Iran, that (emphasis added):

Consequently, if the United States ever succeeds in sparking a revolt against the clerical regime, Washington may have to consider whether to provide it with some form of military support to prevent Tehran from crushing it. This requirement means that a popular revolution in Iran does not seem to fit the model of the “velvet revolutions” that occurred elsewhere. The point is that the Iranian regime may not be willing to go gently into that good night; instead, and unlike so many Eastern European regimes, it may choose to fight to the death. In those circumstances, if there is not external military assistance to the revolutionaries, they might not just fail but be massacred. Consequently, if the United States is to pursue this policy, Washington must take this possibility into consideration. It adds some very important requirements to the list: either the policy must include ways to weaken the Iranian military or weaken the willingness of the regime’s leaders to call on the military, or else the United States must be ready to intervene to defeat it.”

The policy document would also openly conspire to fund and arm listed terrorist organizations including the notorious Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). The document would state:

The United States could work with groups like the Iraq-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its military wing, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), helping the thousands of its members who, under Saddam Husayn’s regime, were armed and had conducted guerrilla and terrorist operations against the clerical regime. Although the NCRI is supposedly disarmed today, that could quickly be changed.

It would also admit that (emphasis added):

Despite its defenders’ claims, the MEK remains on the U.S. government list of foreign terrorist organizations. In the 1970s, the group killed three U.S. officers and three civilian contractors in Iran. During the 1979-1980 hostage crisis, the group praised the decision to take America hostages and Elaine Sciolino reported that while group leaders publicly condemned the 9/11 attacks, within the group celebrations were widespread.

Undeniably, the group has conducted terrorist attacks—often excused by the MEK’s advocates because they are directed against the Iranian government. For example, in 1981, the group bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, which was then the clerical leadership’s main political organization, killing an estimated 70 senior officials. More recently, the group has claimed credit for over a dozen mortar attacks, assassinations, and other assaults on Iranian civilian and military targets between 1998 and 2001. At the very least, to work more closely with the group (at least in an overt manner), Washington would need to remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.

If US policymakers have openly conspired to arm and fund known terrorist organizations guilty of murdering not only civilians in nations like Iran but also citizens of the United States itself, why would they hesitate to do likewise in Russia?

While the US poses as engaged in a battle against the so-called “Islamic State” in Syria, it has left its obvious, overt state sponsors unscathed both politically and financially. If the bombing in St. Petersburg is linked to US-European-Persian Gulf state sponsored terrorism, it will be only the latest in a long and bloody tradition of using terrorism as a geopolitical tool.

The US, having been frustrated in Syria and having little to no leverage at the negotiation table, is likely trying to “show” Moscow that it can still create chaos both beyond Russia’s borders amongst its allies, and within Russia’s borders – regardless of how well Russians have weathered such tactics in the past.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

By Tony Cartalucci , Journal-neo

April 8, 2017 0 comments

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