The decision of the US State Department to remove the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) aka MEK/PMOI from its list of foreign terrorist organizations created an atmosphere of ambivalence particularly in the West. Public opinion in the West may face contradictory ideas regarding the decision. On the one hand well-paid supporters…
“The US government’s decision to take Mujahedin-e Khalq, the exiled Iranian organization, off its list of terrorist groups is a vivid example of the influence of money and lobbying in Washington. At worst it highlights the analytical fog that clouds many US policy heavyweights’ view of Iran.”
why has this obviously irrational delisting of the MKO taken place? Just as the Afghan mujahedin were used in a covert U.S. war to overthrow the Soviet-aligned government in Afghanistan, the MKO/MEK/PMOI is being used in conjunction with Mossad to fight a covert war against the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The opposition has lost much of its aura in Iran.”The People’s Mojahedin are opponents in exile and have lost all legitimacy in Iran since the episode of the war with Iraq, where they conducted operations against the Iranian army,”explains Thierry Coville. The”Iranian public opinion far from considering them as opponents see them as traitors.
The six people the MEK/MKO/PMOI killed in the 1970s are still dead. They were dead when the State Department designated the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization and they have been dead all the years since and they won’t get any less dead when the State Department removes the MEK from its FTO list. The MEK is the organization that once allied with Saddam Hussein; that historical fact hasn’t changed…
Perhaps, removing the MeK/MKO/PMOI from the US DOS list will make it possible for its members to interact more freely with the ICRC, or return to their families in Iran with more ease… if the MeK actually decided to stop its overt activities as well as covert terrorist operations against Iran and accept a more democratic structure in order not to be listed as a terrorist organization again, it would perhaps die in a few years.
it is not clear whether Washington actually sees the MEK/MKO/PMOI as a possible asset and a viable ally in the event of direct confrontation with Iran as the window for a diplomatic compromise rapidly narrows. The delisting was perhaps just an effort to annoy Tehran or, more important, to appease the anti-Iran establishment amid the current US presidential election campaign.
Hillary Clinton announces anti-Tehran group People’s Mujahedeen of Iran aka MEK/MKO/PMOI is no longer on State Department’s list of terror organizations.In Washington, it seems, the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign.
This would not be the first time the United States has made a mistake in the name of national security. .. Helping the MEK/MKO/PMOI is small stuff by comparison. The group has almost no support inside Iran, and not much outside.That’s a good thing. God only knows what kind of Iran they would create if they could actually take over the country.
The reinvention of the MEK/MKO/PMOI as a “democratic” political organization just demonstrates how meaningless that label can be. It’s a reminder of how willing some Iran hawks are to work with any group, no matter how disreputable, if it shares their hostility to the Iranian gov., Anyone who supports aligning the U.S. with this group is admitting that he isn’t interested in a more democratic Iran ..