Mujahedin Warmongers

MKO leader incites war on Iraq

According to a report published by Habilian Association database (families of terror victims in Iran), Rajavi has ordered the commanders of Camp Ashraf to be ready to resist against the Iraqi forces, saying that it is not important if all the members of the group are killed in the Camp.

The main leader of the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), Rajavi, in remarks interpreted as informally declaring war on Iraq cautioned that he would not allow Baghdad to expel the group from Iraq, and stressed that he will keep the MKO in the country even if it costs the lives of all the group members.

According to a report published by Habilian Association database (families of terror victims in Iran), Rajavi has ordered the commanders of Camp Ashraf – the MKO’s main training center located in Iraq’s Northern Diyala province – to be ready to resist against the Iraqi forces, saying that it is not important if all the members of the group are killed in the Camp.

Latest news from Iraq indicate that they are making lots of catapults, arbalests, slings, bows and arrows to resist against Iraq and sets the stage for clash with Iraqi government. He also ordered his commanders to strengthen the military positions at the camp and in the surrounding areas by erecting numerous bulwarks and hurdles around the Camp and be ready for a war with the Iraqi government.

The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States. It is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

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 Hussein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

December 18, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO, part of US-Israeli warmonger campaign

Iran and Iraq are close neighbors whose socio-religious-cultural ties are inextricably bound. Two issues that affect Iran and Iraq right now are the fate of the Mujahidin Khalq Organization (MKO), a group hanging in limbo in Iraq, and the US-Israeli plans to topple Iran’s government. The US-Israel relationship is tight, and it is likely that they share their illusion to overthrow Iran’s Islamic Republic. It is likely that they are planning conspiracy projects to start another war in the Middle East—all while US troops are still occupying both Iraq and Afghanistan.

What is the MKO’s part in the war mongers’ scenario for Iran? The Brookings Institution report, titled “Which Path to Persia?” published in 2009 speculates a role for the MKO. The report states that “clearly the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action,
the better off the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be a ratcheted up covert regime change effort in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could be portrayed as a provoked act of Iranian aggression).”[1]

The recent allegations on the so-called Iranian terror plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador announced by the US Attorney General implied that besides funding, arming and sheltering the terrorist group the MKO, the US is determined to entirely fabricate “such provocations.”

A few days after the attorney’s claim was broadcast, the Mehr News Agency speculated that the Iranian government revealed that Gholam Shakouri, who US officials claimed was a member of Quds Force and was linked to Mansour Arbabsiar in the terror plot – is actually a key member of the MKO.[2]

Mehr News Agency said that Interpol “has found new evidence that suggests Shakuri is associated with the MKO and was last seen in Washington and Camp Ashraf.”[3]
As expected, the MKO exploited the “terror plot” news. On October 22, the group held one of their regularly scheduled propaganda rallies in Washington, once again, calling on president Obama to remove them from the US list of terrorist organizations. The American advocates of the group include former Pennsylvania governor, Tom Ridge who spoke on behalf of the MKO. He also accused the Iranian government of being a terrorist government.[4]

The MKO’s extensive background on fabricating intelligence about the Islamic Republic and then exploiting the so-called intelligence in their propaganda is nothing new. Most journalists and experts know about the true nature of the MKO, but a lot of what the MKO does goes unreported. What is reported, however, in main stream media is mostly done by the group itself and the fancy right wing organizations they belong to. This time, however, the MKO’s link is too prickly to be ignored by serious journalists. The so-called terrorist plot on the Saudi ambassador is presented as follows:

Richard Silverstein a journalist and blogger whose articles appear in Haaretz, The LA Times and Al Jazeera, writes “I’ve been able to confirm with enough certainty to feel comfortable publishing the report from Iranian media that Gholam Shakuri, the alleged Iranian revolutionary Guard co-conspirator in the Iran terror plot, is a member of the Mujahedin al-Khalq (MEK/MKO). This is the group which engages in acts of terror within Iran in order to overthrow the regime. It also collaborates with the Mossad in spreading disinformation about the Iranian nuclear program.”[5]
Silverstein finds that according to the MKO’s history, it seems only natural that the group would fabricate evidence against the Islamic Republic. He points out that, “the MEK has a history of planting fraudulent evidence designed to support the claim that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon. It therefore is entirely possible that it cooked up this scheme to further tarnish Iran’s reputation and relations with Western countries. My only question is wouldn’t they care if they hatched such a slipshod plot that it made Barack Obama end up looking like an utter fool?”[6]
Moreover, Saeed Kamali Dehghan’s (The Guardian) comments on the plot summarize the predicament the US faces. He suggests that, “if the MEK alleged link turns out to be true, it would be a big embarrassment for Washington, which has already met widespread skepticism over its version of events of Iran’s’ involvement in the assassination plot.”[7] Dehghan adds, “little evidence has been provided by the US in support of its claim and the amateurish and sloppy nature of it have led to many analysts speculating that the alleged plot might have been the work of rogue elements.”[8]

Michael Rubin, the prominent journalist who criticized both the Islamic Republic and the MKO, shares the idea that US intelligence lacks enough information on the MKO. He writes, “certainly we can add a lack of information about Iranian MKO members to the list of our intelligence failure regarding Iran.” [9] Furthermore, he submits, “it will be interesting to see how this plays out. It would not be the first time the Mujahedin Khalq has forced intelligence agencies and the press to scramble with an elaborate hoax. And even if the evidence against the Islamic Republic is overwhelming, the fact that Iranian leaders can seize on past Mujahedin al-Khalq fabrications is ample reason not to trust anything the MKO says today either, no matter how many Americans and European officials are willing to embrace them.”[10]

Hillary Mann Leverett, a former American diplomat, and an advisor on Iran in George W. Bush’s administration, told CNN on October 12 that Iranian government involvement in the suspected plot “makes no sense.” She also mentions that “there is no benefit; there is no payoff from them pursuing this kind of hit against Al-Jubeiri.”[11] The only subjects who might benefit from a confrontation with Iran is the US itself, Israel, and of course the dissident cult, the Mujahedin Khalq. The cult, since 1978—since the early years of the Iranian Revolution—has always tried to find a pretext to engage in a war against those in charge of Iran. The group is notorious for its deadly stance against Islam and the Islamic Republic. In fact, they are the most hostile terrorist group against the Republic.

Simply put, they have little or no respect inside Iran; outside Iran, they have managed to fool masses of people under a loudmouth human rights disguise. Given this scenario, it’s entirely possible that the MKO, the CIA, and the Mossad managed to recruit someone assassinate the Saudi ambassador.

The warmongers in the US government and Israel are preoccupied with operations which would bring them closer to a military strike and topple the government of Iran. The Mujahedin Organization has a huge interest in cooperating with anyone who is against Iran because their sole interest is to step in to replace the current regime with their own government.

Previous acts of the group indicate that they never hesitate to cooperate with Iran’s enemies—as they formerly did by siding with Saddam Hussein during the 80’s and 90’s. It is clearly documented that the MKO will do anything to achieve power, even turn against their own countrymen.

Philip Giraldi, former CIA official, who wrote “How To Kill an Ambassador,” an article on Anti.War.com, analyzed the alleged plot as “not only completely implausible but also possibly the contrivance of an intelligence or security service other than that of Iran.” [12] Giraldi also suggests
that "another possibility is that it might have been an operation planned by Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MEK.” He believes that “the MEK would not have the resources or technical expertise to carry out such a deception, unless it were working in cooperation with the CIA or the Mossad, which raises the possibility that this has been from the work of an intelligence agency rather than law enforcement.” [13]

By Mazda Pa

References:

[1] M.Pollack,Kenneth/L.Byman,Daniel/Indyk,Martin/Maloney, Suzanne
E.O’Hanlon Michael/Riede, Bruce. Which Path to Persia? Options for a New
American Strategy toward Iran, The Saban Center for Middle East policy at
the Brookings Institution, November 20, June 2009
[2]Mehr News Agency, Number Two Suspect in Plot Case is MKO Member, Oct.17,
2011
[3]ibid
[4]Associated press, Hundreds rally in support of Iranian opposition, Oct.
2011
[5]Silverstein, Richard, Iran: Alleged Terror Conspirator MEK leader,
Eurasia Preview, Oct. 22, 2011
[6]ibid
[7]Kamali Dehghan, Saeed, Iran Blames CIA’s Favorite pets, Mujahedin
e-Khalq (MEK),for Saudi Ambassador plot, Guardian.co.uk, Oct. 21,2011
[8]ibid
[9]Rubin Michael, Iran says plot was Mujahedin put-up job, commentary
Magazine, Oct.18, 2011
[10]ibid
[ 11]Ottens, Nick, Former Diplomat: Iran Plot ”Makes No Sense",
atlanticsentinel.com, Oct. 13, 2011
[12]Giraldi, Philip, How to Kill an Ambasador?,Antiwar.com, Oct.20, 2011

December 3, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Israeli Backed MEK terrorists and Washington War Party

The Armageddon Network, How the war party is ginning up war with Iran

The War Party is bound and determined to drag us, kicking and screaming, into a military conflict with Iran – and they have constructed a vast network of agents inside both parties, and inside the government, to accomplish exactly that.

The nexus of this network is the government of Israel and its intelligence services, which is coordinating an increasingly frantic campaign to bring the Iran issue to a head. From all indications, it appears as if the goal is to ignite the conflict before the 2012 presidential elections.

This is not a covert conspiracy, but rather an open one: the Israelis have threatened, time and again, to take military action against Iran. They claim the Jewish state faces “another Holocaust,” and that Iran poses an “existential threat” to Israel’s very existence. The latest wrinkle is that officials in Tel Aviv reportedly told Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, on a recent visit to Israel, that they wouldn’t necessarily be informing the White House until after the Israelis had launched their fighter jets and missiles.

Perfectly understandable: After all, why should the Israelis – who drain us of $3.5 billion a year in “foreign aid” – give us a few minutes warning of Armageddon? Why should they care that the price of oil would immediately skyrocket to $200 a barrel, and make driving to work an economic impossibility? Such considerations are irrelevant, since every single major politician in America is pledged to maintain the one-sided “special relationship” at all costs. Yes, even at the cost of America’s economic demise, for the oil shock would send our already reeling economy into a tailspin – and it would be a long time before we hit bottom.

Of course, the Israelis may not want to pursue this course to the end: a parasite that kills its host is essentially committing suicide. So while this may be a subject of debate within the Israeli national security establishment, with senior military and intelligence officials disdaining Netanyahu’s attack plans as “the stupidest idea I ever heard,” in America no such discussion is allowed. Listening to the Republican frontrunner last Saturday night, at a “debate” devoted to foreign policy, Mitt Romney sounded as if he were running for President of Israel rather than US commander-in-chief:

“Well, let’s– let’s start back from there and let’s talk about where we are. This is, of course, President Obama’s greatest failing, from a foreign policy standpoint, which is he recognized the gravest threat that America and the world faces – and faced was a nuclear Iran and he did not do what was necessary to get Iran to be dissuaded from their nuclear folly. What he should have done is speak out when dissidents took the streets and say, ‘America is with you.’ And work on a covert basis to encourage the dissidents.”

What “dissidents” is Mitt Romney talking about? Surely not the Green movement, led by figures who have praised Iran’s pursuit of nuclear energy and oppose attempts by the West to stop it. Does Romney even know what he’s talking about? Probably not, but his advisers surely do, and indeed one in particular seems to have a very specific idea of which “dissidents” the Romney administration will be funding and otherwise encouraging.

Mitchell Reiss, president of Washington College in Maryland, and one of Romney’s top foreign policy advisers, has emerged as a spokesman for the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq (MEK), the so-called People’s Mujaheddin of Iran, a weird cult-like group [.pdf] of Iranian exiles generally despised by ordinary Iranians. MEK originated in the early days of the revolution that overthrew the Shah, and its cadres not only participated in the taking of the US embassy, which led to the hostage crisis of 1979, but also carried out assassinations against US diplomats and agents throughout the region. After losing out in the post-revolutionary struggle for power in Tehran, the group fled to Iraq, where they were succored for years by Saddam Hussein, who allowed them to set up military camps from which they conducted terrorist raids on Iran. MEK troops fought alongside the Iraqis in their war with Iran, and were used to ruthlessly suppress rebellions by Shi’ites in southern Iraq. After the US invasion, they were confined to their camp, where they remained a military “asset” in Washington’s ongoing campaign to destabilize Iran.

The group is led by Maryam Rajavi, who has already proclaimed herself “president” of Iran, and is worshiped by her followers. Although her husband, Massoud Rajavi, is the titular commander-in-chief of the “National Liberation Army,” a large percentage of the officers in their Camp Ashraf compound are women, and females constitute a majority of the fighters. A 2004 FBI report [.pdf] concludes:

“The MEK practices daily ‘cult-like’ activity to include daily confessions in front of their peers…dissolution of marriages, and removal of children from parents… fighters are separated from their children who are sent to Europe and brought up by the MEK Support Network. Investigation has learned that these children are then further indoctrinated into the organization and are often used for various social benefit fraud such as was revealed during joint FBI/Cologne Police Department investigation in Germany.”

Shipped off to the welfare states of Europe, the unfortunate children of these fanatics are used as cogs in the MEK money machine, producing a steady flow of welfare checks flowing into the group’s coffers. Members are indoctrinated from birth to worship Maryam, who claims her edicts come from God, and are kept in conditions that included, in one case in Germany, of a child being chained to her bed. As the FBI reported:

“In one case one of the children was chained to a bed and only after her escape and report to local police was the fraud scheme discovered. Interviews of some of these MEK children found children fully indoctrinated into a ‘cult-like’ organization with no regard to the welfare of the child. These children are then returned to the NLA to be used as fighters upon coming of age. Interviews also revealed that some of these children were told that their parents would be harmed if the children did not cooperate with the MEK. Open source reporting from defecting MEK members has revealed that MEK fighters are often told the same story about their children should they take issue with MEK leadership and desire to leave the organization.”

MEK claims it has foresworn terrorism, but a 2004 FBI report states that a “Los Angeles investigation has determined that the MEK is currently actively involved in planning and executing acts of terrorism.” US diplomatic and intelligence officials maintain the MEK “trained females at Camp Ashraf in Iraq to perform suicide attacks in Karbala.”

For these reasons, and more, the MEK and its numerous front organizations have remained on the US list of terrorist organizations, whose activities are proscribed in the United States. Romney aide Reiss is part of a campaign to get MEK delisted – an effort that is so lavishly funded one wonders where all the money is coming from. There’s no doubt where it’s going to, however: a long list of leading “experts” and prominent politicians in both parties and on both sides of the political spectrum have pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in “speaking fees” handed out by an organization apparently flush with cash. A 2002 FBI report notes what the agency found when it raided the Falls Church, Virginia headquarters of the group:

“The indoor swimming pool had been drained and a floor placed over the drained pool. The area above the pool was divided into offices. In each of these offices, a hatch in the floor led into the drained swimming pool. This area was used for storage of materials…”

Among the materials discovered were “signed, blank checks,” and the report states, “Confidential sources have reported to the FBI and that the NCRI and the PMOI use the signed, blank checks to pay their expenses and fund their activities.”

From its Paris headquarters, where technical legal maneuvers have allowed the MEK to operate openly, and its base at Camp Ashraf, in Iraq, where the “military wing,” called the “National Liberation Army,” is based, the cult’s very well-funded tentacles reach into the very halls of Congress, where a bipartisan caucus loudly calls for delisting the group. Those signed blank checks sure come in handy. As one US diplomat told the Christian Science Monitor:

“Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes. They will send a private jet, you get $25,000 more when you are done, and they will send a team to brief you on what to say.”

The Monitor reports:

“The contracts can range up to $100,000 and include several appearances…. The speaking events have created some extraordinary spectacles, including that of US heavyweights sharing the stage with the MEK’s self-declared ‘president-elect’ Maryam Rajavi. At a mid-June MEK rally in Paris, for example, Mrs. Rajavi was flanked by five rows of former top US and European officials.”

Dozens of prominent figures have been paid huge sums to shill for these former hostage-taking anti-American terrorists, including:

•Michael Mukasey
•Ed Rendell
•Andrew Card (another Romney adviser)
•Gen. James Conway
•Tom Ridge
•Gen. Hugh Shelton
•James Woolsey
•Howard Dean
•Rudy Giuliani
•Porter Goss
•Lee Hamilton
•Michael Hayden
•Bill Richardson
•Louis Freeh
•Gen. Peter Pace
•Gen. Wesley Clark
•Gen. Anthony Zinni
And, of course, John Bolton. Even P.J. Crowley, who opposed the delisting campaign while at State – and who claims his speaking fee didn’t influence his speech – was lured by the smell of cold hard cash. “We’ve never seen this kind of money,” says Trita Parsi, of the National Iranian American Council. “At one conference with 10 speakers, if they average $50k a pop, that is half a million dollars just in speaker fees.”

Where is this largesse coming from – and why is it being allowed to influence the American political process if it comes from overseas?

The major coup claimed by the MEK is the revelation of Iran’s previously unknown nuclear facilities at Natanz, but it is widely known that this information was passed on to them by Israel’s intelligence agency: the Mossad and the MEK have a longstanding history of cooperation. The recent bombing at an Iranian missile base, which killed 21 Iranian soldiers, is being attributed to the MEK, and the Iranians charge the mysterious “terrorist” plot targeting the Saudi ambassador in Washington and supposedly planned by Iran was actually set up by the Rajavi cultists.

The Israel lobby is an octopus with many tentacles, of which MEK is merely one: they are all attached to the same body, however, and that is the government of Israel, and its intelligence services. If, in some alternative universe where Congress isn’t “Israeli-occupied territory” our lawmakers followed the money, I have no doubt the cash flow could be traced back to its source.

The results of such an investigation would hardly be shocking. Israel is waging an intense campaign to drag us into war on their behalf, and they aren’t trying to hide it. What they are intent on hiding, however, is the way in which our Congress, our public officials, and our political culture are being bought off by their proxies. We ship billions to Tel Aviv, and they ship it back to us in the form of propaganda and relentless pressure to bend the White House and Congress to their will.

That’s what’s so “special” about the “special relationship” – the same relationship a tapeworm has to a stomach.

The Israelis have a trump card, one they’ll only play if they have a reasonable expectation of success, and that is to launch an attack on their own that would inevitably bring in the US. This would happen because Israeli fighter jets on their way to bomb Iranian targets would have to pass over Iraqi territory: however, what assurances do they have the Americans won’t interfere? As Zbigniew Brzezinski put it in an interview:

“We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? … We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a ‘Liberty’ in reverse.”

However, it looks like we just may be “impotent little babies,” at least if we take Joint Chiefs chairman Mike Mullen’s comments as indicative. Wired.com reports:

“In a town hall on the campus of the University of West Virginia, a young Air Force ROTC cadet asked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen to respond to a “rumor.” If Israel decided to attack Iran, the speculation went, those jet would need to fly through Iraqi airspace to reach their targets. That airspace is considered a ‘no-fly’ zone by the American military. So might U.S. troops shoot down the Israeli jets, the airmen asked the chairman, if they breached that airspace?

“Mullen tried to sidestep the question. ‘We have an exceptionally strong relationship with Israel. I’ve spent a lot of time with my counterpart in Israel. So we also have a very clear understanding of where we are. And beyond that, I just wouldn’t get into the speculation of what might happen and who might do what. I don’t think it serves a purpose, frankly,’ he said. ‘I am hopeful that this will be resolved in a way where we never have to answer a question like that.’

“The cadet followed-up: ‘Would an airmen like me ever be ordered to fire on an Israeli – aircraft or personnel?’

“Mullen’s second answer was much the same as his first. ‘Again, I wouldn’t move out into the future very far from here. They’re an extraordinarily close ally, have been for a long time, and will be in the future,’ the admiral said.”

An Israeli attack on Iran would almost certainly provoke assaults on US positions in Iraq, including the huge US embassy and the thousands of mercenaries left in place after the phony US “withdrawal.” Indeed, avoiding such a scenario as described above may very well be a major motivating factor behind the US decision to pull our so-called “combat troops” from Iraq. That’s one way of ensuring that Mullen will never have to answer “a question like that.”

Millions of dollars – a great portion of them your tax dollars coming back to haunt you – are being pumped into the effort. Emboldened by greed, enabled by our avaricious political class, a network of organizations and highly-placed individuals is pushing us down the road to Armageddon. The Armageddon Network is working overtime to drag us into war with Iran, and they don’t lack the funds to do so.

They need all the cash they can get, because the War Party faces a difficult task: they must convince a war-weary American public, disheartened by economic bad news on every front, to sit passively while the elites take us to war. The overwhelming majority oppose another war, and they certainly would be more vehement in their opposition if they knew the economic consequences of such a foolhardy move. They may never know, however, until it hits them – and by then it will be too late.

That’s why we here at Antiwar.com are pushing back – hard. No, we don’t have the tremendous financial resources available to the War Party. We don’t have millions to fund a full-time staff, and sponsor lavish conferences where the bribed and the deluded appear to sing our praises. We don’t have overseas allies with bottomless budgets. We don’t have any of that – all we have is you.

We are fighting, day and night, to bring the truth to the American people, and avoid the catastrophic results of war with Iran, but the Armageddon Network has us outspent by a factor of at least 10,000-to-1. We need you, our readers and supporters, to even up the odds just a little bit.

You may have noticed that this is the first day of our seasonal fundraising drive: it’s just a coincidence that it falls at the very moment when the War Party’s efforts are reaching a frenzied crescendo and their war cries are drowning out the voices for peace. It’s time for the antiwar majority to step up and be heard – now more than ever. Your tax-deductible donation will give us the resources we need to continue debunking the War Party’s lies, and countering the all-pervasive influence of foreign lobbyists.

In short, we need your help and we need it now – because your contribution could very well make the difference between war and peace. Unlike the MEK and its front organizations, we don’t have a cache of signed blank checks hidden in the basement that we can pull out to pay the bills. We just have you. So please – give what you can as soon as you can. Stop the Armageddon network – give today.

Anti War

November 16, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

American Demons

In 2003, at the start of the Iraq War, Anne Singleton published Saddam’s Private Army, a book warning the world about the Iranian MEK (MKO, PMOI, NCRI, Rajavi Cult, or Pol Pot of Iran) terrorists at Camp Ashraf, Iraq. In 2011, as the deadline for the departure of American military forces approaches, Anne Singleton and her husband, Massoud Khodabandeh, have published The Life of Camp Ashraf, a book warning that there could be a tragic ending, similar to the Jonestown, Guyana mass suicides in 1978 or the Waco, Texas massacre in 1993, for thousands of cult members who want to leave the cult.

As former MEK members, the authors have spent years attempting to rescue the thousands of members trying to escape from Camp Ashraf, Iraq. They have visited Iraq and have helped the Nejat Society, the Sahar Family Foundation, and individuals who have escaped from Camp Ashraf.

Founded in 1965, the original purpose of the MEK was to use Marxist liberation theology to overthrow the Shah of Iran. After the Shah killed the founders, Massoud Rajavi took control of the terrorist organization. Shortly before the Shah fled from Iran, Massoud Khodabandeh met Ayatollah Khomeini in France to pledge the MEK’s support for the Iranian Revolution. During the American hostage crisis, the MEK participated and called for the executions of the Americans. Rajavi is anti-American, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist. His aim is to become the Pol Pot of Iran, even if the MEK must become a tool of the American government to achieve his aim. After Rajavi failed in a counter-revolution attempt against Ayatollah Khomeini, Rajavi fled to France. Massoud Khodabandeh attended a meeting between the CIA and Rajavi in France. The French government provided land, buildings, equipment, and approximately 200 free telephone lines for the terrorists. The MEK continues to operate a headquarters in France.

In 1983, Donald Rumsfeld, President Ronald Reagan’s envoy to Saddam Hussein arranged to move the MEK to Iraq. In the isolation of Camp Ashraf, Iraq, Rajavi turned the group into a cult. Some American feminists have promoted the MEK because Rajavi placed women in the leadership positions. The feminists fail to mention that candidates for the Leadership Council danced naked in front of Rajavi at “Freedom Dance” events and slept with Rajavi in the audition process. Feminists fail to mention also Rajavi’s cult practices of mandatory divorces, sending away children, prohibited contact with relatives, and arranged marriages.

After the Iran-Iraq War, the MEK hid more than 1,000 Iranian prisoners of war from the International Committee of the Red Cross to prevent the exchange of the Iranian prisoners.

In return for providing military camps and arms in Iraq, Saddam Hussein required the MEK to kill Iraqis. While Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard forces trained by killing and eating innocent Iraqis, the MEK trained by killing and eating wild dogs. The MEK killed large numbers of unarmed Iraqi Kurd and Shiite civilians after the 1991 Gulf War. America did not attack MEK bases in Iraq. The West offered to move the MEK to Azerbaijan or to Pakistan.

In 2001, Massoud Rajavi rejoiced at the destruction of the World Trade Center.

At the start of the Iraq War, American and coalition forces killed some of the MEK. However, neo-conservatives (neo-Trotskyites) protected the MEK claiming falsely that the Fourth Geneva Convention applied to a terrorist group. The American military has been hiding and protecting Massoud Rajavi. The American government has prevented the inspection of a mass grave at Camp Ashraf (containing perhaps large numbers of Kuwaitis).

Contrary to lies of American military officers and to the American government’s claim of a war on terrorism, the American government has been using the MEK in terrorist activities in Iraq, Iran, and in Pakistan. The Iraqi government has proof in the form of MEK identifications issued by the American government found on the bodies of killed terrorists. The MEK has worked with other terrorist organizations in the region, including PJAK (or PEJAK) and Jundallah (or Jondolla).

In June 2003, after the French government arrested Maryam Rajavi, some MEK members burned themselves to death.

The mainstream American media has promoted the MEK even though the MEK has been on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations since the administration of former President Bill Clinton. A surprising exception was Elizabeth Rubin’s “The Cult of Rajavi” in the New York Times Magazine, June 2003.

After the American government closed the office of the terrorist organization in Washington, DC, the Fox News Channel retained the head of the office as a foreign affairs analyst.

In 2005, Human Rights Watch published “No Exit”, a report warning that MEK members could not leave the cult. MEK leaders have tortured and have killed MEK members who attempted to leave Camp Ashraf, Iraq.

As of August 2009, at least 14 American soldiers have died and 60 have been wounded providing security for MEK shopping convoys to Baghdad.

The American government has funded the MEK via Saudi Arabia. The MEK has raised funds also by creating fake charities (Iran Aid and Muslim Iranian Students’ Society) by collecting donations at airports, and by telling their families that they need tens of thousands of dollars for life-saving surgeries. For example, the American Red Cross withdrew from a fake MEK charity fund raising event after the December 26, 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran after learning the truth about the MEK. The Iran Policy Committee employs former CIA and military officers to promote the MEK. Hundreds of members of Congress (Democrats and Republicans) have signed statements supporting the MEK terrorists.

The MEK terrorists could not exist without the support of the American government and the ignorance of American voters.

November 14, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK only one of many CIA proxies to attack Iran

The U.S is already attacking Iran through terrorist proxies such as MKO

CIA admittedly finances groups blamed for bloody attacks aimed at destabilizing Tehran

"Iran has irrefutable evidence that exposes the official involvement of the United States government in anti-Iran planning and the dispatching of elements to conduct acts of sabotage and terror in Iran and other regional countries," secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili said last week, promising to send evidence of "US state-sponsored terrorism" to the United Nations
The U.S is already attacking Iran through terrorist proxies such as MKO
"We possess one hundred pieces of irrefutable evidence that reveal the US role in directing terrorists for conducting acts of terror in Iran and the region," Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei added.

Because the story was reported by Iranian state media, the western press received it with a collective shrug of the shoulders. The new IEAE report claiming Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon was afforded about a thousand times more coverage.

However, the fact that the United States is training and bankrolling terrorist groups to destabilize Iran through violence and other acts of subversion is admitted.

As former CIA veteran Robert Baer explained in the documentary Vanguard: America’s Secret War With Iran, the U.S. has been at war with Iran through its terrorist proxies for years, notably the Kurdish militant nationalist group PJAK, which has been blamed for numerous attacks in Iran.

As the London Telegraph, ABC News and numerous other mainstream outlets reported back in 2007, the U.S. is also using the Al-Qaeda affiliated Sunni terrorist group Jundullah to carry out suicide bombings and other destabilization attacks in Iran, a policy crafted by the Bush administration which has been continued under Obama.
"President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert "black" operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed. Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs," reported Telegraph.

Part of that destabilization campaign involved the CIA "Giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan," stated the report.

Jundullah is a Sunni Al-Qaeda offshoot organization that was formerly headed by alleged 9/11 masterminds Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In October 2009, Jundullah attacked the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at their headquarters in Pishin, near the border with Pakistan, killing 40 people.

The group has been blamed for a number of bombings inside Iran aimed at destabilizing Ahmadinejad’s government and is also active in Pakistan, having been fingered for its involvement in attacks on police stations and car bombings at the Pakistan-US Cultural Center in 2004.

In May 2008, ABC News reported on how Pakistan was threatening to turn over six members of Jundullah to Iran after they were taken into custody by Pakistani authorities.

"U.S. officials tell ABC News U.S. intelligence officers frequently meet and advise Jundullah leaders, and current and former intelligence officers are working to prevent the men from being sent to Iran," reported ABC news, highlighting again the close relationship between the terror group and the CIA.

In July 2009, a Jundullah member admitted before a court in Zahedan Iran that the group was a proxy for the U.S. and Israel.

Abdolhamid Rigi, a senior member of the group and the brother of the group’s leader Abdolmalek Rigi, who was one of the six members of the organization extradited by Pakistan, told the court that Jundullah was being trained and financed by "the US and Zionists". He also said that the group had been ordered by America and Israel to step up their attacks in Iran.
Jundullah is not the only anti-Iranian terror group that US government has been accused of funding in an attempt to pressure the Iranian government.

Multiple credible individuals including US intelligence whistleblowers and former military personnel have asserted that the U.S. is conducting covert military operations inside Iran using guerilla groups to carry out attacks on Iranian Revolution Guard units.

It is widely suspected that the well known right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), once run by Saddam Hussein’s dreaded intelligence services, is now working exclusively for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and carrying out remote bombings in Iran.

After a bombing inside Iran in March 2007, the London Telegraph also reported on how a high ranking CIA official blew the whistle on the fact that America is secretly funding terrorist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program.

A story entitled, US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran, reveals how funding for the attacks carried out by the terrorist groups "comes directly from the CIA’s classified budget," a fact that is now "no great secret", according to a former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.

Tehran’s contention that the United States is carrying out terror attacks inside Iran in an effort to destabilize the Ahmadinejad regime in preparation for a military assault was largely ignored by the establishment media, but it’s an admitted fact that the CIA uses terrorist proxies to do precisely that.

"We possess one hundred pieces of irrefutable evidence that reveal the US role in directing terrorists for conducting acts of terror in Iran and the region," Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei added.

However, the fact that the United States is training and bankrolling terrorist groups to destabilize Iran through violence and other acts of subversion is admitted.

"President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert "black" operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed. Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs," reported Telegraph.

Part of that destabilization campaign involved the the CIA "Giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan," stated the report.

Jundullah is a Sunni Al-Qaeda offshoot organization that was formerly headed by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In October 2009, Jundullah attacked the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at their headquarters in Pishin, near the border with Pakistan, killing 40 people.

In May 2008, ABC News reported on how Pakistan was threatening to turn over six members of Jundullah to Iran after they were taken into custody by Pakistani authorities.
"U.S. officials tell ABC News U.S. intelligence officers frequently meet and advise Jundullah leaders, and current and former intelligence officers are working to prevent the men from being sent to Iran," reported ABC news, highlighting again the close relationship between the terror group and the CIA.

In July 2009, a Jundullah member admitted before a court in Zahedan Iran that the group was a proxy for the U.S. and Israel.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com

November 13, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Mek efforts to Make Anti-Iranian scenario Believable

Since the story of American accusing Iran of planning to assassinate the Saudi envoy in Washington, we can find more clues about the involvement of MeK lobbies which are connected with Israel in this scenario, and as the time passes, this alleged plot becomes more unbelievable and it is faced with more questions.
One of the reasons that reveal the role of terrorist group MeK in this story is their great efforts to make it believable.

Yesterday, Alireza Jafarzadeh, MeK spokesman in Washington, attended among supporters of this terrorist group in National Press Club in Washington to make a journalistic scenario about arrangement of the Qods Force. But the main purpose of this meeting was trying to make believable the so-called "Iranian terror plot".

Obviously, Rajavi remnants are extremely nervous and cluttered of rational questions of scholars, writers, journalists and intellectuals in America and around the world about accuracy of this scenario.

Flattering for belligerents and Zionists, Sena Bargh Zahedi, a MeK member in Paris addressed those who consider anti-Iran scenario a joke:

"If you were told before 9/11 that such an event would happen, you would find it unbelievable, too!"

As if someone one has believed the 9/11 fiction! But we can infer from this statement that the recent scenario designers have intended to assassinate Saudi envoy, which for some reasons was failed; so they have decided to broadcast it and take it to the Security Council, just for backtracking.

Disclosure of relationship between Gholam-Hossein Shakouri, the second suspect in the alleged plot, and MeK reveals another aspect of in this scenario that should be dealt carefully.

October 23, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Delist Terrorists as ‘Provocative’ Action Against Iran

Retired US General: Delist Terrorists as ‘Provocative’ Action Against Iran
Praises MEK as ‘Overt Military Counterforce to the Iranian Regime’

In comments that further underscore the depth of the support the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) has generated with its massive pay-for-speech campaign, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney praised the MEK and called for their delisting as part of a campaign of “provocative actions” against the Iranian government.

“We need a very active tit for tat policy, so every time they kill Americans they have an accident in Iran,” declared McInerney at the pro-MEK conference in Washington DC. It wasn’t too long before he made it clear that the MEK would be arranging these “accidents,” declaring the group a “credible overt political-military counterforce to the Iranian regime.”

Such comments would seemingly go against the MEK’s repeated claims to have transitioned from Islamo-Marxist cult into the non-violent champion of the free market it now styles itself as, but didn’t seem to phase anyone, including the conference’s organizer Ray Tanter, who insisted the attacks the MEK has conducted inside Iran were simply “military activities” and didn’t count as terrorism.

The MEK was a founding member of the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and conducted numerous attacks against US targets before the Iranian revolution, transitioning into a key Saddam Hussein ally afterwards and eventually into a darling of US hawks who are keen to use them as a proxy force to attack Iran.

by Jason Ditz

August 28, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Why Are Prominent Americans Lobbying for MKO Terrorists ?

It is not hard to imagine how Americans would react if they learned that Al Qaeda had hired top lobbyists to help promote its agenda in Congress. Or if they heard that influential active and retired government officials were being paid to attest to Hezbollah’s good character. They would be appalled.

But, amazingly, a group similar to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah is doing just that. It is the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile group that is on the Department of State’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations alongside other more prominent groups such Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Shabaab.

The MEK wants to be removed from the terrorist list because, by law, its presence there prevents it from directly promoting its agenda in Washington, and most importantly, from fundraising. So it has recruited some of officialdom’s biggest names to convince Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to "delist" MEK and free it from the current limitations on its activities. News reports predict that Clinton is seriously considering the move and will make a decision by month’s end.

According to the New York Times, among the "luminaries" promoting "delisting" are former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani; former Vermont governor Howard Dean; former NATO commander Wesley K. Clark, President Obama’s former national security adviser Gen. James Jones; former F.B.I. director, Louis Freeh; former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson; former attorney general Michael B. Mukasey; and Lee H. Hamilton, the former congressman who was co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission. The Times report notes that the MEK endorsers are paid handsome sums (up to $100,000) for speaking out in its behalf.

The MEK’s hired guns say that it does not belong on the list because it long ago abandoned its violent ways. But its record is so long and so bloody that only the very credulous can believe that it turned a new leaf. And there is doubt whether the MEK is even a peaceful movement today. An FBI report from 2004 noted that the agency had reason to believe that the group was still "planning and executing acts of terrorism."

It is hard to keep up with the MEK, which changes its positions and alliances as often as a teenager changes baseball caps. That is, in part, because it is more like a cult than a political organization. (Even its supporters agree with that.) Its members are required to lay aside all personal desires and devote themselves completely to the MEK leader in a manner eerily similar to the Jim Jones Jonestown cult.

The Mujahedin-e Khalq started out supporting the Iranian revolution that drove out the Shah and replaced him with the Islamic Republic of Ayatollah Khomeini. That was in the 1970’s, a decade during which the MEK assassinated six U.S. military advisers and civilians in Iran and then participated in the seizure and hostage taking at the American embassy in 1979. It was among Ayatollah Khomeini’s most militant supporters and opposed any compromises with the United States which it called "the satanic force threatening the world…."

But it soon broke violently with the Ayatollah Khomeini regime and dedicated itself to overthrowing it. It relocated to, of all places, Iraq and allied itself with Iran’s then arch enemy, Saddam Hussein. Saddam gave the MEK a military base inside the country, from which to conduct its war against Iran and Saddam’s other enemies.
During the Iran-Iraq war, the Times notes, MEK "served as Mr. Hussein’s own private militia….For two decades he gave the group money, weapons, jeeps and military bases along the border with Iran." In 1991, the MEK helped Saddam crush the Shiite uprising in the south and eradicate the Kurds in the north. Reports of Iranian dead at the hands of the MEK range from several hundred to thousands.

Following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, American forces disarmed the MEK camp, although some 3,400 MEK members remain there today despite the natural determination of the current government to get a pro-Saddam encampment out of the country. (Most observers believe that a large percentage of the people at the camp are being held against their will, with no means to escape or place to escape to.)

And that brings us back to the current effort to "delist" the MEK. One of the ostensible reasons MEK’s advocates use is that "delisting" would allow innocent people in the camp to get out and seek refuge in other countries. But freeing the captives can be accomplished through the combined efforts of the U.S. military, the International Red Cross and the United Nations who can go in and separate out the hostages from the terrorists, who should be prosecuted. Delisting is irrelevant in that context.

So why the effort to delist? The MEK wants to be free to ensconce itself in Washington and other world capitals and play the role of a legitimate Iranian opposition, similar to what Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress did prior to the Iraq war. Also like the Chalabi group, the MEK seeks to align itself with American neoconservatives (many of whom already support it) and agitate for a U.S. invasion of their home country.

That analogy is an especially telling one because the MEK is despised in the nation it would like to "liberate." According to Ray Tayekh, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, the MEK has absolutely no standing whatsoever to play a role in Iran, and not just because Iranians hate the organization for having joined Saddam’s war against the country.

At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last month, he testified that the group’s "alliance with Saddam and its cult-like dispositions have alienated even the radical segments of intelligentsia that once found its ideological template attractive. … The Iranian populace is seeking ways of liberalizing its society and not embracing yet another ideological movement with totalitarian tendencies."

Given all this, it is amazing that any American would ally himself with the MEK. After all, what end does delisting serve other than to liberate a former terrorist group so that it might more effectively promote U.S. involvement in another Middle East war. That is, in fact, precisely why prominent neocons support delisting, just as they supported Chalabi.

"If the group is taken off the list, not as a result of an objective review, but by virtue of their lobbying prowess, several repercussions can be envisioned," Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, a pro-democracy group, wrote earlier this year.

Some of these serious repercussions would be felt by the Iranian people. Because the group is despised by Iranians across the ideological, political and social spectrum, legitimizing it here might delegitimize the democracy movement there. [..]

It is likely that most of the people who lend their names to the MEK’s campaign have no idea what the group is and simply accepts money from it as an honorarium for making a speech, as if the MEK was like any other group that opposes the Iranian regime and supports U.S. policy goals. It isn’t. The MEK is indeed an enemy of the Iranian regime. But it is also our enemy. In other words, sometimes the enemy of our enemy is not our friend.

By MJ Rosenberg

August 25, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Mujahedin Supporters Envision”Tit for Tat”Campaign Against Iran

Washington, DC – The Iran Policy Committee, an organization dedicated to gaining U.S. support for the Mujahedin-e Khalq, organized an event on Thursday with former U.S. officials calling for the MEK to be removed from the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

While the panelists argued that the MEK is not a terrorist organization, they said the group’s “hands were tied” by the terrorist designation and suggested that delisting the group would enable it to commit attacks within Iran.

Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney said an MEK delisting should be part of a campaign of “proactive actions” against Tehran. The MEK, he said, is the only “credible overt political-military counterforce to the Iranian regime.”

“We need a very active tit for tat policy,” said McInerney. “So every time they kill Americans, they have an accident in Iran.”

John Sano, formerly of the Central Intelligence Agency, echoed those sentiments.

“I agree one hundred percent with what the General just said, it’s got to be tit for tat. We have known that the Iranians have been in Iraq talking to our enemies. We know that the MOIS has been in Iraq causing harm to U.S. personnel. And the only thing that can counter that is force,” Sano said. “I know that may sound too militaristic, but you have to go with what your enemy understands.”

McInerney accused former Defense Secretary Robert Gates of direct complicity in deaths that occurred in Camp Ashraf, the MEK compound in Iraq, last April. “As far as I’m concerned, Secretary Gates personally approved Prime Minister Maliki’s direction of that attack,” McInerney said.

The panelists also repeated the refrain that the MEK is Iran’s “main opposition,” but did not acknowledge the well-documented popular antipathy among Iranians towards the group, which fought alongside Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war. [..]

The Iran Policy Committee’s President, Ray Tanter, said his organization uses the color green for its materials because the color should not be reserved for the Green Movement and Mir Hossein Mousavi, whom Tanter said is a “sell out.”

Tanter emphasized what he said was his own extensive research regarding the MEK and Iran’s opposition, and stated that those opposing the MEK’s delisting “are running in circles” because they do not have their facts straight.

However, Tanter’s presentation included several inconsistencies. When he invoked the death of Neda Agha Soltan and pulled up a photo of the wrong person.

Tanter stated that there was no publicly available evidence that the MEK has carried out terrorist attacks since 2001, but when asked whether this was an acknowledgement that MEK had committed terror attacks before this period, he demurred.

Tanter reasoned that attacks carried out by MEK against government officials and military installations are not terrorist acts. “I do not grant that the MEK committed terrorist attacks before 2001,” he said, “I do grant that there were military activities targeting military installations.”

But when asked if his logic meant that a 2009 attack at a Fort Hood, Texas, military base that killed fifteen U.S. servicemembers was terrorism, he avoided the question.

The panel was asked if sanctions could be an effective strategy towards Iran, to which all the panelists responded no-sanctions would not work. McInerney even said that sanctions alone would make war with Iran inevitable. But moments later, Tanter recanted. Sanctions would not work, he said, but they should still be leveled against Iran’s Central Bank-a step some legal experts have called “the nuclear option” that would constitute an act of war.

By Staff, National Iranian American Council (NIAC)

August 23, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Mujahedin Khalq Machine vs. The Iranian-American Community

In the past few weeks, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) has been launching relentless attacks against the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). The immediate reason is the Iranian-American campaign spearheaded by NIAC to keep the MEK on the U.S.’s terrorist list. NIAC and others have launched this campaign because delisting the MEK would unleash a major force for a U.S.-Iran war, undermine the peaceful pro-democracy movement in Iran while empowering anti-democratic hardliners, and put the free voices of the Iranian-American community under threat.

The MEK’s attacks are not new. The MEK and neo-conservative elements supporting them have for years been orchestrating attacks against prominent Iranian American individuals and institutions who do not subscribe to their views. The targets have included not just me and NIAC, but also individuals like Ramin Jahanbeglou, Vali Nasr, and Shirin Ebadi. Indeed, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has detailed how the MEK accuses any and all of its detractors of being agents of the Islamic Republic.
NIAC poses a threat to the MEK in many ways – because we give the Iranian-American community a voice in Washington that opposes war, opposes indiscriminate sanctions and supports human rights and indigenous democratization in Iran.

The MEK has a radically different agenda, and like some of its neoconservative counterparts, wants to silence independent voices opposing their pro-war agenda.
The MEK and these neo-conservatives sought hard to hide the true source and reasons for the attacks against prominent Iranian Americans and NIAC. The MEK knows very well how despised they are in the Iranian-American community. More often than not, their attack dogs pretend to be Monarchists or of some other denomination. Few, if any, admit their ties to the MEK. And these neo-conservatives know that the attacks will appear more credible if they have an Iranian face.

But recently, the MEK’s desperation has shone through. Now, they no longer pretend to be disconnected from their campaigns against other Iranian Americans. Their attacks are posted on their own websites, and the attackers openly declare their dedication and loyalty to the MEK.

In this new desperation, they have also revealed their larger agenda. In a recent article, the MEK juxtaposed NIAC’s current campaign to educate the public about the ramifications of delisting the MEK from terror list against an analysis I wrote in 2007 describing the likely consequences of the Bush administration’s plan to include the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) on that same list.

The purpose of this comparison is to support the baseless claims by the MEK and its network of supporters that NIAC supports the regime in Iran.
The comparison falls flat. The designation would have had no economic impact on the IRGC, which was already exhaustively sanctioned by the United States. Instead, the designation was intended to advance a cause for war before the Bush administration’s term ended. Indeed, the entire issue seemed ripped straight out of the Iraq war playbook. This is why several leading U.S. policymakers opposed the measure, including the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (led by now Vice-President Joseph Biden and Republican Senator Richard Lugar).

Senator Joe Lieberman, one of the strongest advocates for an Iran war in the Senate, later introduced the idea in legislative form and added language that explicitly gave a green light to conducting military action against Iran. The Kyl-Lieberman amendment stated the following:

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

The call for the "use of all instruments" including military instruments is what constituted a green light for war. In reality, the amendment had less to do with listing the IRGC as a terrorist organization than supporting military action against Iran before Bush’s term came to an end.

The amendment caused a storm in the Senate – and even the Democratic primary debates – because it was rightly seen as an effort to start a war with Iran. Opposition from anti-war groups and Lieberman’s colleagues in the eventually saw the above paragraph deleted from the amendment.

To suggest that my analysis, or Senator Biden and others’ opposition to this move, was favorable to the IRGC is preposterous. Indeed, NIAC has been a key supporter of precision sanctions targeting the IRGC and leaders of the Islamic Republic.

And herein lies the difference between NIAC’s approach and the tactics of the MEK and these neo-conservatives. Though they pretend to target the IRGC, their policies in reality pave the way for a war that would see hundreds of thousands dead. NIAC and the Iranian-American community as a whole, on the other hand, puts the well being of the peoples of the America and Iran at the center. We have consistently opposed war, and instead pursued policies that would target the IRGC and the leaders of the Islamic Republic without hurting the Iranian people or risking a war that would be disastrous for both countries.

The questions people should ask themselves is why the MEK and these neo-conservatives consistently support policies that on the surface appear to target the clerical regime, but in reality drive the US and Iran towards a military confrontation.

Our ability to give the Iranian-American community an opportunity to be heard in Washington DC is a threat both to the agenda of the MEK and that of these neo-conservatives. Therefore, the attacks against independent voices in the Iranian-American community and NIAC will continue. But as the community comes to understand the agenda of the MEK, it will no longer buy their conspiracy theories.

Trita Parsi

August 18, 2011 0 comments

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