Paid advocacy for MKO

Israel funds MKO; MKO funds US politicians

One of the most under-reported political stories of the last year is the devoted advocacy of numerous prominent American political figures on behalf of an Iranian group long formally designated as a Terrorist organization under US law,”

Award-winning investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald

A senior political analyst says numerous prominent US political figures are receiving “substantial Israel funds MKO; MKO funds US politicians fees” from the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) that is in turn funded by Israel.

“One of the most under-reported political stories of the last year is the devoted advocacy of numerous prominent American political figures on behalf of an Iranian group long formally designated as a Terrorist organization under US law,” Glenn Greenwald wrote on salon.com on Friday.

Greenwald went on to highlight US hypocrisy in prosecuting numerous Muslims inside the US for providing “material support for terrorism” and for doing “far less than” these American politicians are publicly doing on behalf of a designated terrorist group.

The United States has prosecuted and passed heavy sentences on its citizens for crimes such as selling satellite packages including a Hezbollah TV channel, posting pro-jihadist material on the Internet, uploading a five-minute video to YouTube that was highly critical of US actions in the Muslim world, among many others.

Greenwald added that the US “bipartisan cast” has been receiving “substantial fees” from MKO terrorists to become their “passionate defenders.”

The Christian Science Monitor reported last August that former US four-star generals, intelligence chiefs, governors, and political heavyweights had been paid “tens of thousands of dollars” to call for the US government to take the MKO off the terror list.

Another report by NBC News last Thursday, shed light on the financial status of the MKO by citing two “senior US officials” as saying that the group “is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service,” confirming that it was this terrorist cell which was involved in the string of the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.

The senior officials also admitted that “the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign” but claims it “has no direct involvement.”

Iran has long insisted the Israel and the US are using the MKO to carry out terrorist attacks on its soil, including the murder of its scientists.

Greenwald concluded by asking, “If this report (NBC) is true, is this not definitive proof that Israel is, by definition, a so-called state sponsor of terrorism?”
Presstv

February 14, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Israel, MEK and state sponsor of Terror groups

One of the most under-reported political stories of the last year is the devoted advocacy of numerous prominent American political figures on behalf of an Iranian group long formally designated as a Terrorist organization under U.S. law. A large bipartisan cast has received substantial fees from that group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and has then become their passionate defenders. The group of MEK shills includes former top Bush officials and other Republicans (Michael Mukasey, Fran Townsend, Andy Card, Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani) as well as prominent Democrats (Howard Dean, Ed Rendell, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark). As The Christian Science Monitor reported last August, those individuals “have been paid tens of Israel, MEK and state sponsor of Terror groups thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK.” No matter what one thinks of this group – here is a summary of its activities – it is formally designated as a Terrorist group and it is thus a felony under U.S. law to provide it with any “material support.”

There are several remarkable aspects to this story. The first is that there are numerous Muslims inside the U.S. who have been prosecuted for providing “material support for Terrorism” for doing far less than these American politicians are publicly doing on behalf of a designated Terrorist group. A Staten Island satellite TV salesman in 2009 was sentenced to five years in federal prison merely for including a Hezbollah TV channel as part of the satellite package he sold to customers; a Massachusetts resident, Tarek Mehanna, is being prosecuted now ”for posting pro-jihadist material on the internet”; a 24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, Jubair Ahmad, was indicted last September for uploading a 5-minute video to YouTube that was highly critical of U.S. actions in the Muslim world, an allegedly criminal act simply because prosecutors claim he discussed the video in advance with the son of a leader of a designated Terrorist organization (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba); a Saudi Arabian graduate student, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, was prosecuted simply for maintaining a website with links “to groups that praised suicide bombings in Chechnya and in Israel” and “jihadist” sites that solicited donations for extremist groups (he was ultimately acquitted); and last July, a 22-year-old former Penn State student and son of an instructor at the school, Emerson Winfield Begolly, was indicted for — in the FBI’s words — “repeatedly using the Internet to promote violent jihad against Americans” by posting comments on a “jihadist” Internet forum including “a comment online that praised the shootings” at a Marine Corps base, action which former Obama lawyer Marty Lederman said “does not at first glance appear to be different from the sort of advocacy of unlawful conduct that is entitled to substantial First Amendment protection.”

Yet here we have numerous American political figures receiving substantial fees from a group which is legally designated under American law as a Terrorist organization. Beyond that, they are meeting with the Terrorist leaders of that group repeatedly (Howard Dean told NPR last year about the group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi: “I have actually had dinner with Mrs. Rajavi on numerous occasions. I do not find her very terrorist-like” and has even insisted that she should be recognized as Iran’s President, while Rudy Giuliani publicly told her at a Paris conference in December: “These are the most important yearnings of the human soul that you support, and for your organization to be described as a terrorist organization is just simply a disgrace”). And, after receiving fees from the Terrorist group and meeting with its Terror leaders, these American political figures are going forth and disseminating pro-MEK messages on its behalf and working to have it removed from the Terrorist list.

Given all the prosecutions of politically powerless Muslims for far fewer connections to Terrorist groups than the actions of these powerful (paid) political figures, what conceivable argument is there for not prosecuting Dean, Giuliani, and the rest of them for providing “material support for Terrorism”? What they are providing to MEK is the definitive “material support.” Although these activities (along with those of the above-listed prosecuted Muslims) should be protected free speech, the U.S. Government has repeatedly imprisoned people for it. Indeed, as Georgetown Law Professor David Cole noted, these activities on behalf of MEK are clearly prosecutable as “material support for Terrorism” under the standard advocated by the Bush and Obama DOJs and accepted by the Supreme Court in the Holder v. Humanitarian Law case of 2009, which held that even peaceful advocacy on behalf of a Terrorist group can be prosecuted if done in coordination with the group (ironically, many of these paid MEK supporters have long been advocates of broad application of “material support” statutes (when applied to Muslims, that is) and have even praised the Humanitarian Law case). If we had anything even remotely approaching equal application of the law, Dean, Giuliani, Townsend and the others would be facing prosecution as Terrorist-helpers.

Then there’s long been the baffling question of where MEK was getting all of this money to pay these American officials. Indeed, the pro-MEK campaign has been lavishly funded. As the CSM noted: ”Besides the string of well-attended events at prestigious American hotels and locations, and in Paris, Brussels, and Berlin, the campaign has included full-page advertisements in The New York Times and Washington Post — which can cost $175,000 apiece.” MEK is basically little more than a nomadic cult: after they sided with Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran, they were widely loathed in Iran and their 3,400 members long lived in camps in Iraq, but the Malaki government no longer wants them there. How has this rag-tag Terrorist cult of Iranian dissidents, who are largely despised in Iran, able to fund such expensive campaigns and to keep U.S. officials on its dole?

All of these mysteries received substantial clarity from an NBC News report by Richard Engel and Robert Windrem yesterday. Citing two anonymous “senior U.S. officials,” that report makes two amazing claims: (1) that it was MEK which perpetrated the string of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and (2) the Terrorist group “is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service.” These senior officials also admitted that “the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign” but claims it “has no direct involvement.” Iran has long insisted the Israel and the U.S. are using MEK to carry out Terrorist attacks on its soil, including the murder of its scientists, and NBC notes that these acknowledgments “confirm charges leveled by Iran’s leaders” (MEK issued a statement denying the report).

If these senior U.S. officials are telling the truth, there are a number of vital questions and conclusions raised by this. First, it would mean that the assurances by MEK’s paid American shills such as Howard Dean that “they are unarmed” are totally false: whoever murdered these scientists is obviously well-armed. Second, this should completely gut the effort to remove MEK from the list of designated Terrorist groups; after all, murdering Iran’s scientists through the use of bombs and guns is a defining act of a Terror group, at least as U.S. law attempts to define the term. Third, this should forever resolve the debate in which I was involved last month about whether the attack on these Iranian scientists constitutes Terrorism; as Daniel Larison put it yesterday: “If true, the murders of Iranian nuclear scientists with bombs have been committed by a recognized terrorist group. Can everyone acknowledge at this point that these attacks were acts of terrorism?”

Fourth, and most important: if this report is true, is this not definitive proof that Israel is, by definition, a so-called state sponsor of Terrorism? Leaving everything else aside, if Israel, as NBC reports, has “financed, trained and armed” a group officially designated by the U.S. Government as a Terrorist organization, isn’t that the definitive act of how one becomes an official “state sponsor of Terrorism”? Amazingly, as Daniel Larison notes, one of the people who most vocally attacked me for labeling the murder of Iranian scientists as “Terrorism” and for generally arguing that Terrorism is a meaningless, cynically applied term — Commentary‘s Jonathan Tobin — yesterday issued a justification for why Israel should be working with Terrorist groups like MEK. As Larison wrote about Tobin’s article:

In other words, Israeli state sponsorship of a terrorist group is acceptable because it’s in a good cause. . . . Because Israel is overreacting to a perceived threat from Iran, Tobin believes it is entirely defensible for Israel to partner with a recognized terrorist group. In other words, Tobin believes that terrorism is “entirely defensible” so long as it is committed by the right people and directed at the right targets. It’s as if he is going out of his way to vindicate Glenn Greenwald.

Of course, as I documented in my last book, those who are politically and financially well-connected are free to commit even the most egregious crimes; for that reason, the very idea of prosecuting Giuliani, Rendell, Ridge, Townsend, Dean and friends for their paid labor on behalf of a Terrorist group is unthinkable, a suggestion not fit for decent company, even though powerless Muslims have been viciously prosecuted for far less egregious connections to such groups. But this incident also underscores the specific point that the term Terrorism is so completely meaningless, manipulated and mischievous: it’s just a cynical term designed to delegitimize violence and even political acts undertaken by America’s enemies while shielding from criticism the actual Terrorism undertaken by itself and its allies. The spectacle whereby a designated Terrorist group can pay top American politicians to advocate for them even as they engage in violent Terrorist acts, all while being trained, funded and aided by America’s top client state, should forever end the controversy over that glaringly obvious proposition.

* * * * *

Four notes: (1) The book event I did with Noam Chomsky last November in Boston will be broadcast several times this weekend on C-SPAN; the schedule is here; (2) The New Zealand political journal Listener has an interview and profile of me and With Liberty and Justice for Some; (3) the video for two of the civil liberties events I did this week are now online: this one at Indiana University/Purdue and this one from Columbia University; and (4) I’ll be the keynote speaker at the annual dinner of the ACLU in Idaho tomorrow night; ticket information is here.

* * * * *

According to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a NATO airstrike yesterday in Afghanistan killed 8 children. Meanwhile, the Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar yesterday patiently explained that drone strikes — which Americans widely support, including American liberals — are “completely illegal and unlawful” and “counterproductive” because they “fuel terrorism,” since people tend to become quite angry at the foreign power which slaughters their children, their spouses, their parents, their neighbors, etc., i.e., for every Terrorist the U.S. allegedly kills, it creates five more people wanting to attack the U.S. (see her answers to the two questions beginning at 4:30):

By Glenn Greenwald,

February 13, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Controversial west advocacy for Camp Ashraf

Peoples Mujahedin of Iran (MEK)

The People’s Muhajedin of Iran (Mojahedin-e Khalq-e Iran, or MEK) is an Islamic and Marxist-inspired militant organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The group was founded in 1963 as an armed guerrilla group after the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi violently suppressed opposition to his regime. Although as of early 2012 it remained on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, its delisting is the focus of an aggressive and well-funded lobbying campaign supported by a host of high-profile former public officials from across the U.S. political spectrum, including a crop of prominent neoconservatives.

According to the U.S. State Department:“The group participated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution that replaced the Shah with a Shiite Islamist regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini. However, the MEK’s ideology—a blend of Marxism, feminism, and Islamism—was at odds with the post-revolutionary government, and its original leadership was soon executed. In 1981, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran. In 1986, after France recognized the Iranian regime, the MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq, which facilitated its terrorist activities in Iran. Since 2003, roughly 3,400 MEK members have been encamped at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.”[1]

Due to the group’s cult-like organization under leader Maryam Rajavi, its support for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, and its participation in Saddam Hussein’s crackdowns on Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, the group has been described by the New York Times as “a repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis.”[2]

Nonetheless, by dint of a well-funded lobbying campaign organized by its supporters, MEK has presented itself to western backers as a popular and democratic Iranian opposition group that could lead the Islamic Republic to democracy—often even referring to Rajavi, who lives in exile in Paris and has never run for office in Iran, as the country’s “president-elect.”[3]

Organizations sympathetic to MEK have garnered an impressive array of establishment supporters inside Washington to speak in favor of delisting the group. The effort, according to the New York Times, “has won the support of two former C.I.A. directors, R. James Woolsey and Porter J. Goss; a former F.B.I. director, Louis J. Freeh; a former attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey; President George W. Bush’s first homeland security chief, Tom Ridge; President Obama’s first national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones; big-name Republicans like the former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Democrats like the former Vermont governor Howard Dean; and even the former top counterterrorism official of the State Department, Dell L. Dailey, who argued unsuccessfully for ending the terrorist label while in office.”[4]

Front groups for MEK have become notorious for offering large speaking fees to recently retired officials and politicians who may or may not be familiar with the group’s history. “Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes,” said a State Department official quoted by the Christian Science Monitor. “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.”[5]

Underlying MEK’s more mainstream backing is bedrock of support from neoconservatives who view the group as a useful tool for challenging the Iranian regime. In addition to Woolsey and other former Bush administration officials, the group has enjoyed the avid backing of Iran hawks like former ambassador John Bolton and Clare Lopez of the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), a hawkish U.S.-based outfit whose putative goal is “empowering Iranians for regime change.”

In a 2005 Iran policy paper, IPC placed the delisting of MEK at the forefront of its proposals for U.S. policy toward Iran. The”continued designation since 1997 of the main Iranian opposition group, Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department assures Tehran that regime change is off the table,” wrote the report’s authors. “Removing the MEK’s terrorist designation would be a tangible signal to Tehran and to the Iranian people that a new option is implicitly on the table—regime change.”[6]

Mitchell Reiss, a top foreign policy advisor to Mitt Romney, has also spoken on behalf of the group.[7]

MEK’s critics have likened the organization’s advocacy campaign to that of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an Iraqi exile group led by Ahmed Chalabi that worked to drum up U.S. support for an invasion of Iraq in the 1990s and early 2000s. By presenting itself to Western supporters as an Iraqi government-in-waiting, INC enabled Iraq hawks in the United States to claim that there was Iraqi support for the U.S. action. For Iran hawks, write Ali Fatemi and Karim Pakravan of the National Iranian American Council, “Maryam Rajavi, the MEK leader and self-proclaimed president of Iran, is their new Chalabi.”[8]

IPC in particular has embodied the link between pro-MEK groups and pro-INC groups. A 2010 investigation by the U.S. foreign policy blog LobeLog found that “through 2006, IPC shared an address, accountants, and some staff with multiple organizations that either fronted for or had direct ties to the INC, even sharing staff members with those groups. Some of those ties have continued through today.”[9]

History

Founded in 1963, MEK was one of the many Iranian factions that supported the overthrow of the shah in 1979.[10] However, according to a report by the Christian Science Monitor, it was the only one that used violence against Americans in the run-up to the revolution, launching a string of assassinations and attacks against American military and diplomatic officers in Iran in the 1970s.

The group was expelled from Iran in 1981 when it fell out of favor with Ayatollah Khomeini in a post-revolutionary power struggle.[11] Since then, it has launched thousands of attacks against Iranians it has deemed “agents of the regime,” peaking at a rate of three assassinations per day in the 1980s, and staged high-profile raids on Iranian diplomatic offices all over the world—including an orchestrated set of attacks on 12 diplomatic facilities in 10 countries on a single day in 1992.[12]

In the mid-1980s, MEK settled in Iraq as a guest of Saddam Hussein, who offered the group use of Camp Ashraf, an encampment and army base north of Baghdad. There, not only did MEK fight on the Iraqi side of the Iran-Iraq war, but it also helped Saddam crush the CIA-instigated Iraqi Kurdish and Shiite uprisings that came on the tail of the 1991 Gulf War, leading to the precipitous erosion of its support in Iran and Iraq alike.[13]

MEK’s fighters at Ashraf were disarmed by the United States following the fall of Saddam’s government in 2003. In the ensuing years, the camp was subject to occasionally violent raids by the new Iraqi government, which sparked concerns about further violence or a humanitarian crisis when it ordered the camp closed by the end of 2011. Although the Ashraf issue is separate from the issue of MEK’s status as a terrorist organization, MEK’s backers in the West have often used the conditions at the camp to garner sympathy for the group’s broader agenda in Washington and to argue that its continued listing as a terrorist group is the cause of its mistreatment.[14]

In late 2011, the United Nations and the Iraqi government agreed on a plan to relocate the Ashraf encampment to a new location in northeastern Iraq—possibly Camp Liberty near the Baghdad international airport—but as of January 2012 the relocation had yet to take place.[15]

MEK’s current lobbying efforts were foreshadowed in a 1994 report by the U.S. State Department, which concluded that the group was unlikely to be serious about its democratic overtures. According to the Christian Science Monitor:

“Noting the MEK’s ‘dedication to armed struggle’; the ‘fact that they deny or distort sections of their history, such as the use of violence’; the ‘dictatorial methods’ of their leadership; and the ‘cult-like behavior of its members,’ the State Dept. concluded that the MEK’s ‘29-year record of behavior does not substantiate its capability or intention to be democratic.’

“That report describes tactics that foreshadow the MEK’s lobbying campaign today, 16 years later. It notes a ‘formidable Mojahidin outreach program,’ which ‘solicits the support of prominent public figures,’ and the ‘common practice … to collect statements issued by prominent individuals.’”[16]

The group formally renounced the use of violence in 2001, but an FBI investigation found MEK members to be “actively involved in planning and executing acts of terrorism” as recently as 2004.

Institute for Policy Studies/Right Web
[Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.]

Sources
[1] U.S. State Department, “Country Reports on Terrorsm 2010: Chapter Six: Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” August 2011,
[2] Scott Shane, “For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S.,” New York Times, November 26, 2011,
[3] See Matt Duss, “The MEK Are Not Iran’s ‘Democratic Opposition,” Middle East Progress, July 19, 2011,
[4] Scott Shane, “For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S.,” New York Times, November 26, 2011,
[5] Scott Peterson, “Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list,” Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 3,
[6] Iran Policy Committee, “U.S. Policy Options for Iran,” February 10, 2005,
[7] Eli Clifton, “Romney Adviser Advocating For Controversial Iranian Terrorist Group,” ThinkProgress, August 23, 2011,
[8] Fatemi and Karim Pakravan, “War With Iran? US Neocons Aim to Repeat Chalabi-Style Swindle Ali,” Truthout, July 15, 2011.
[9] Ali Gharib and Eli Clifton, “Neocon Iran Policy Committee tied to disgraced Iraqi National Congress,” LobeLog, September 10, 2010,
[10] U.S. State Department, “Country Reports on Terrorism 2010: Chapter Six: Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” August 2011,
[11] U.S. State Department, “Country Reports on Terrorism 2010: Chapter Six: Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” August 2011,
[12] Scott Peterson, “Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list,” Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 7,
[13] Scott Peterson, “Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list,” Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 8,
[14] See, for example, Eli Clifton, “Defending MEK, Mukasey, Ridge & Freeh Attack Obama For Hastily Exiting Iraq, While Admitting He’s Trying To Stay,” ThinkProgress, August 15, 2011,
[15] AP, “UN, Iraq agree on Camp Ashraf resettlement plan,” December 26, 2011,
[16] Scott Peterson, “Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list,” Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 8,

February 1, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

PA’s top UN envoy: MKO supporters looking for money

Palestine’s top envoy to the UN Ibrahim Khraishi said the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) never has a place in Palestine and those supporting them are only "looking for the money" they are promised to receive from the terror cell.

"He has a bad reputation among people, and furthermore, he has had no place in any government position for several years," Khraishi told Habilian when asked about the reason behind Former PA Chief Justice of the Religious Court Sheikh Tayseer Al-Tamimi’s support for the terrorist group.

"Al-Tamimi left a detestable face among Palestinians by receiving big bucks and taking part in their various meetings," added Khraishi.

Ibrahim Khraishi expressed surprise at the large number of terror victims in Iran, and said, "I was shocked to know that your country has more than 17000 terror martyrs."

"I’ve never thought that such a (great) number of terror victims would be in Iran."

"I believe a strong and powerful Iran is not a threat to the countries in the region," said Khraishi.

"Owing to the presence of countries such as the United States, friendship and unity among all the countries in the region is needed for sustaining power."

The Palestinian envoy underlined his country’s opposition to the targeting of citizens and ordinary people, and added, "Accordingly, we and our receptive government stand opposed to any terrorist act against people, because we are fighting for peace and freedom."

January 30, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US presidential candidates, MKO terrorists; any link

In his article on Antiwar.com on Monday, Justin Raimondo wrote about the MKO’s advocates among the US presidential candidates and their being motivated to take part in the MKO campaign for taking out of the US list of foreign terrorist groups mostly for private gain.

This American author says "Bolton has long championed the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (Peoples’ Mujahideen, or MEK), an Islamo-Marxist cult widely hated in Iran."

Earlier last month Newt Gingrich promised to appoint the controversial former ambassador to the United Nations for President George W. Bush, John Bolton, to be secretary of state if elected president.

The analyst also warned that under a Gingrich administration we would witness the spectacle of the US Army "installing in power a group currently on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations".

Some months earlier Republican figures including John Bolton, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey also took part in the campaign to remove MKO from US blacklist.

He made reference to another Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, and stated that "Romney, too, has his MEK connection," alluding to Romney’s especial advisor, Mitchell Reiss, who is a leading supporter for Mujahedin-e Khalq terrorist group.

The editorial director of Antiwar.com also pointed out that Mujahedin-e Khalq enjoys "widespread support on Capitol Hill" and stated that "this is the only terrorist group I know of that is allowed to maintain an unofficial embassy in Washington through various front groups".

He raised a question that "could it have something to do with the large amounts of cash the MEK front groups in Washington are throwing around?" concluding that some of these supporters are somehow motivated to take part in the campaign in Washington to remove the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, MKO, PMOI, Rajavi cult) from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations mostly by the desire for private gain and, in fact, are charged by MKO’s front groups.

January 12, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Mujahedin: Holy Warriors or Dirty Traitors?

*Mujahedin-e-Khalq-e-Iran* is the Arabic term used to refer to a group called the People’s Mujahedin of Iran. The term *mujahedin* actually means holy warrior, and to take the definition a Mujahedin: Holy Warriors or Dirty Traitors? step further, it is this term which metaphorically submits to *jihad*, God’s struggle. For Muslims this is a righteous word, but since the attack of 9/11, it has become a rather notorious and widely misunderstood word to non-Muslims. The*Mujahedin-e-Khalq-e-Iran * (MKO/MEK) seemed to have passionate and noble intentions thirty years ago and they called themselves holy warriors with fervor. But now, they have transformed into a cult of personality and their holy warrior image no longer exists in the minds of the Iranian people. The MKO has inflicted so much damage on the Iranian people that instead of being known as holy warriors, their name, *The Mujahedin,* is synonymous with *traitor*.
Treason has always been part of the group’s strategy for struggle, and therefore remain a threat to the Iranian people. Now the MKO is supported by some United States politicians who know very well that their own United States government lists the MKO as a designated terrorist group—a group nonetheless who once despised and described the United States as imperialists, capitalists and Zionists. Dirty facts exist in the glossed over history of the MKO—one includes the murdering of American people, but that was thirty years ago.
Scott Shane of the *New York Times* describes the support for the MKO by US politicians as an “obscure cause” and notes it is a “stellar list of supporters from both parties and the last two administrations, including a dozen former top national security officials.” [1]

Shane furthers that “the M.E.K. advocacy campaign has included full-page newspaper advertisements identifying the group as ‘Iran’s Main Opposition’ — an absurd distortion in the view of most Iran specialists; leaders of Iran’s broad opposition, known as the Green Movement, have denounced the group.” [2]

The very group of Mujahedin-e-Khalq, the enemy of America’s enemy—definitely his friend—is an “anti-American, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist” group, according to Professor Paul Sheldon Foote. He calls Massoud Rajavi, who is the disappeared leader of the group, the Pol Pot of Iran. [3]

Why is it that the very US government who had despised the MEK in its early years is now coming around to shake hands with them and become an ally?

According to Justin Raimondo of *antiwar.com* “the War Party is bound and determined to drag us, kicking and screaming, into a military conflict with Iran.” Raimondo asserts 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.”[4]

The true face of MKO is revealed in Israel’s recent acts of hostility against the Islamic Republic. In fact, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) aggressively lobbies US politicians to stand against Iran, and has announced that the MEK has potential as a proxy force against Iran. Raimondo warns that ”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.” He further quips that the US is just another “Israeli occupied territory”. [5]

If there is a goal to destabilize Tehran, the MEK has become a potential tool for both the CIA and the Mossad. As the MEK feeds them misinformation the MEK gains ground in the intelligence arena, and likewise, as the CIA and Mossad continue to use the misinformation, the MEK becomes more of an ideal proxy. Paul Joseph Watson of *PrisonPlanet.com* writes that “it’s an admitted fact that the CIA uses terrorist proxies,” and “it is widely suspected that the well-known right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedin-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.”[6]

Following the explosion at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s missile base, west of Tehran, Israel’s Mossad was immediately accused and the Israeli government didn’t deny the accusations. Richard Silverstein, a correspondent of *Haaretz* suggests that it could have been the work of the MEK in a Mossad-led operation. Silverstein notes that it is “widely known within intelligence circles that the Israelis use the MEK for varied acts of espionage and terror ranging from fraudulent Iranian memos alleging work on nuclear trigger devices to assassinations of nuclear scientists and bombings of sensitive military installations.” [7]

The allegations about the MKO’s collaboration with western intelligence agencies were confirmed recently by an arrested Israeli spy, Mohammad Ali Lobnani who was arrested earlier this year in Lebanon. In a court hearing session, Lobnani said that he had phone contacts with Mohammad Alizadeh, an MKO ringleader, but claimed he didn’t know the number was a Mossad contact number, according to Fars News Agency. [9] Responding to a judge’s question about the link between the MKO and the Mossad, he noted, “as far as I know, the group [MKO] has been collaborating with Israel for several years and has massive interactions with the Mossad.”[8]

Western advocates of the MKO need to be aware of the group’s chameleon-like tendencies, because at some point the MKO will turn against the very ones who help them. Ultimately the MKO is a cult and the inner workings of the cult are kept secret from the various politicians they contract with to pursue their objective. Michael Rubin, an American scholar describes the MKO as a group who “sort of combined Islamism with Marxism, but it kind of just evolved into a freaky personality cult," and even warned that secretary of State, Hillary Clinton “should ignore their PR campaign.” Rubin cautions that the “Mujahedin Khalq is not only irrelevant to the cause of Iran’s democratic activities, but a totalitarian cult that will come back to haunt us.”[9]

Richard Silverstein also warns about consequences of lobbying for and working with a terror group like the MKO cult, pointing out that “It is, of course, ironic that the same MEK [which is trusted by Israel for its covert operations against Iran] is paying key political players in U.S. life hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby on behalf of removing it from the Treasury Department terror list. I suppose when a terror group is harming your enemy then it’s no longer a terror group, eh? Certainly if there was another power than the Mossad willing to pay more for them to attack Israel and the U.S., guess who they’d be wreaking havoc on?” [10]

By Mazda Parsi

References:

[1]Shane, Scott, For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in US, New
York Times,November27,2011
[2]ibid
[3]Sheldon Fooote, Paul, American Demons,Nejatngo.org,November14,2011
[4]Raimondo, Justin, The Armageddon Network,Antiwar.com,November13,2011
[5]ibid
[6]Watson, Paul Joseph, The US Is Already Attacking Iran Through Terrorist
Proxies,Prison Palnet.com,November11,2011
[7]Silverstein, Richard, Mossad – MEK May Have bombed Iranian Missile Base
,40 dead and Wounded, Richard Silverstein.com , Novemebr14,2011
[8]Fars News Agency, Arrested spy in Lebanon Confesses MKO’s Collaboration
with Mossad, Novemebr29, 2011
[9]Rahn, Will, Strange bedfellows: Romney and the militias who hate the
mullahs, the Daily Caller, November15, 2011
[10]Silverstein, Richard, Mossad-MEK May Have Bombed Iranian Missile Base,40 Dead and Wounded,Richardsilverstein.com, November14,2011

January 2, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US Troops Guarded Terrorist MEK Camp in Iraq

In a move that almost defies belief, is so brazen and hypocritical many will not believe it no matter how many State Department officials confirm it, the US has been guarding a terrorist training camp inside Iraq with US troops and is planning to relocated them, possibly in a freshly US Troops Guarded Terrorist MEK Camp in Iraq abandoned US military base in Iraq while D.C. lobbyists work feverishly to have them de-listed, armed, and sent to conduct terrorist operations in Iran.

MEK. Admittedly a terrorist organization, listed by the US State Department as being such, it is fully funded, armed, and backed by the United States, based in France and US-occupied Iraq, and allowed to conduct terrorist operations against the Iranian people. The “War on Terror” is a fraud.

….
Foreign Policy Magazine has reported in their article, “State Department scrambling to move the MEK — to a former U.S. military base?” fully admits that Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK) is a terrorist organization used by Saddam Hussein to attack Iran in the 80′s and was responsible for the death of US military personnel and civilians. Foreign Policy reports that efforts by the Iraqi Army to evict MEK has resulted in armed clashes.

Foreign Policy then reports the United Nations “Assistance Mission in Iraq” (UNAMI) is working with the US State Department to relocate the terrorists within Iraq and possibly at a US military base near Baghdad’s airport.

Despite being listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department (#28 listed as “Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization”) its leadership is harbored in Paris, its rank and file harbored by US troops in Iraq, and the US State Department itself overseeing their continued existence and the continuation of their armed terrorist campaign. Foreign Policy also notes a huge lobbying movement in Washington working to de-list MEK as a terrorist organization, including:

Congressman John Lewis (D-GA),
former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell,
former FBI Director Louis Freeh,
former Sen. Robert Torricelli,
Rep. Patrick Kennedy,
former CIA Deputy Director of Clandestine Operations John Sano,
former National Security Advisor James Jones,
former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean,
former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers,
former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card,
Gen. Wesley Clark,
former Rep. Lee Hamilton,
former CIA Director Porter Goss,
senior advisor to the Romney campaign Mitchell Reiss,
Gen. Anthony Zinni,
former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge,
former Sen. Evan Bayh

Indeed, warmongering Islamophobist cheerleader Rudolph Giuliani is taking money from a genuine terrorist organization and lobbying the US government to have it removed from the US State Department list. Tom Ridge is also listed as coddling MEK terrorists, ironically after being named the first “Homeland Security Secretary” from 2003-2005. Lee Hamilton, the vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, is perhaps the most alarming name listed, as it casts serious doubts over the objectivity, integrity, and veracity with which he conducted his “investigation” of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Though it isn’t money alone that motivates this eager throng of traitors to remove MEK from the US State Department Foreign Terrorist Organization list, it is their desire to see MEK worked with more closely, armed, trained, and sent into Iran, with open, rather than covert American support, just as Saddam had done decades ago to conduct a campaign of terror against the Iranian people.

MEK has been considered by the Fortune 500-funded Brookings Institution as a prime candidate for US-backing in an effort to undermine and remove the Iranian government. In Brookings’ 2009 report, “Which Path to Perisa?” it is stated:

“Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential U.S. proxy is the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), the political movement established by the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American.

In contrast, the group’s champions contend that the movement’s long-standing opposition to the Iranian regime and record of successful attacks on and intelligence-gathering operations against the regime make it worthy of U.S. support. They also argue that the group is no longer anti-American and question the merit of earlier accusations. Raymond Tanter, one of the group’s supporters in the United States, contends that the MEK and the NCRI are allies for regime change in Tehran and also act as a useful proxy for gathering intelligence. The MEK’s greatest intelligence coup was the provision of intelligence in 2002 that led to the discovery of a secret site in Iran for enriching uranium.

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.” page 117-118 of “Which Path to Persia?” Brookings Institution, 2009

Readers may also be shocked to find out that not only has this been proposed, but long ago approved. This was revealed in Seymour Hersh’s 2008 New Yorker article “Preparing the Battlefield,” which stated:

“The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States. Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers. “The new task force will work with the M.E.K. The Administration is desperate for results.” He added, “The M.E.K. has no C.P.A. auditing the books, and its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years. If people only knew what the M.E.K. is getting, and how much is going to its bank accounts—and yet it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.”

And as moves are being made to get MEK de-listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department so that even more aid can be rendered to this admitted terrorist organization, Seymore Hersh in an NPR interview, also claims that select MEK members have already received training in the US.

Quite clearly this reveals that not only is the “War on Terror” an absolute fraud, but so are the politicians, policy wonks, and military “leaders” who have promoted it, pinned medals on their own chests for “fighting” it, and have made immense fortunes and power grabs while burying the American people in unprecedented debt, tyranny, and economic catastrophe in the process. Let’s not forget the thousands of dead US troops duped into fighting this war and the hundreds of thousands maimed and broken, both physically and mentally, for what was essentially a gimmick to justify ravaging and looting the Middle East – a campaign that is still ongoing.

And while the new gimmick is utilizing terrorist groups like MEK or Libya’s LIFG to sow violence within a target country and then send NATO to “rescue” them from the nation’s attempt to defend itself, the “terrorist” card is still in play regarding Iran. It is clear then, that America’s greatest threat is its own “leadership,” bought and paid for by Wall Street and London’s corporate-financier interests and pursuing their agenda at the cost of the rest of humanity. We must identify these interests, boycott them out of business, and replace them entirely with local, pragmatic solutions.

December 26, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Why Is Rudy Giuliani Lobbying for a Designated Terrorist Group?

Thanks to a loophole intended for human rights activists, political leaders are making big bucks advocating for Iran’s Mujahedeen Khalq.

What do the tax dodges of billionaires and the advocacy efforts of former high-ranking officials on behalf of a designated terrorist group have in common (aside from their exposure on the front page of the Sunday New York Times)? They exemplify the extraordinary legal privileges enjoyed by economic and political elites.

Ronald Lauder, a legacy member of the upper reaches of the top 1 percent, legally avoids paying millions of dollars in taxes through extravagant use of loopholes available only to the super-rich, according to the Times. Prominent politicos, from former Bush Administration officials to Howard Dean, engage in the lucrative business of lobbying for the Mujahedeen Khalqa (M.E.K.), a "fringe Iranian opposition group, long an ally of Saddam Hussein, that is designated as a terrorist organization under United States law," the Times reports.

In doing so they run no apparent risk of being prosecuted under material support provisions of federal anti-terrorism law, enjoying an extra-legal privilege the Times does not report: Last year the Supreme Court rejected a First Amendment challenge to material support bans, ruling that they may be used against human rights advocates who counsel designated terrorist groups in peaceful conflict resolution.

The gross inequities of federal taxation are frequently critiqued by mainstream pundits and politicians; the discriminatory use of vague and far-reaching federal anti-terror laws is targeted mostly by civil libertarians who exert tragically little influence on policy. David Cole exposed the arbitrary, inconsistent enforcement of material support laws in a January 2011 New York Times op-ed that highlighted the illegal but effectively immunized M.E.K. lobbying efforts of Michael Mukasey, Rudy Giuiliani, and other prominent, right wing anti-terror warriors.

Mukasey and Giuliani, et al, responded in the National Review, claiming un-persuasively that laws prohibiting peaceful human rights work by David’s Cole’s client (the Humanitarian Law Project) on behalf of one designated terrorist group simply did not apply to their work on behalf of another. They claimed additionally that the designation of M.E.K. as a terrorist group is inaccurate, but as they must know, the arguable inaccuracy of a designation is legally irrelevant: The law does not allow for lobbyists and other citizens to substitute their judgments for the judgments of State Department officials. That the State Department is sometimes wrong, that terrorist watch lists are arbitrary and inaccurate, is not a defense for violating the law; it’s a strong argument for amending it, which Mukasey and company oppose. Why should they support amending a law criminalizing political speech that their status allows them to evade, and perhaps apply to their political enemies?

It’s not fair to attribute this self-entered vision of justice to political and economic elites exclusively. Millions of middle class taxpayers as well as the very rich naturally tend to support tax laws that work to their advantage. Millions of politically unconnected voters offer general support for expansive anti-terror laws, partly out of ignorance about their contents and partly in the risky belief that the most repressive or intrusive provisions will not be applied to them. "How does the law serve me" is an understandable and useful question, but it’s a treacherous one for people concerned with redressing inequality. While we understand laws most viscerally by experiencing their effects on us, justice requires attending, as well, to their effects on others.

By Wendy Kaminer – the Atlantic

November 30, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK exile terrorist has bipartisan support in Washington

The New York Times reports: At a time of partisan gridlock in the capital, one obscure cause has drawn a stellar list of supporters from both parties and the last two administrations, including a dozen former top national security officials.
MEK exile terrorist group has bipartisan support in Washington
That alone would be unusual. What makes it astonishing is the object of their attention: a fringe Iranian opposition group, long an ally of Saddam Hussein, that is designated as a terrorist organization under United States law and described by State Department officials as a repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis.

The extraordinary lobbying effort to reverse the terrorist designation of the group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen, has won the support of two former C.I.A. directors, R. James Woolsey and Porter J. Goss; a former F.B.I. director, Louis J. Freeh; a former attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey; President George W. Bush’s first homeland security chief, Tom Ridge; President Obama’s first national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones; big-name Republicans like the former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Democrats like the former Vermont governor Howard Dean; and even the former top counterterrorism official of the State Department, Dell L. Dailey, who argued unsuccessfully for ending the terrorist label while in office.

The American advocates have been well paid, hired through their speaking agencies and collecting fees of $10,000 to $50,000 for speeches on behalf of the Iranian group. Some have been flown to Paris, Berlin and Brussels for appearances.

Tom Ridge expresses the sentiment and rationale shared by most of the MEK’s Washington supporters: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. No doubt the MEK itself used the same reasoning when aligning itself with Saddam Hussein (as did the U.S.). For the MEK’s current allies in Washington it apparently matters little that the organization actually has a long history of befriending America’s enemies and opposing America’s friends — but maybe that says more about the capricious nature of American friendship than it says about the MEK.

Maybe the solution is not the removal of the MEK from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Instead, the U.S. government can simply start designating countries and organizations as “Enemies” and “Friends” and then at the beginning of the springtime awards season, before the Oscars, there can be a televised event where the president hands out awards and opprobrium to this year’s winners in each category.

As far as what might be the implications for Iran (apart from continuation of the current campaign of terrorism targeting Iranian scientists), there is one curious dimension to the support the MEK now enjoys in Washington: the defining event in modern US-Iranian relations — the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran — turns out not to have been so unforgivable as it is generally portrayed.

“MEK members participated in and supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and … the MEK later argued against the early release the American hostages,” says the State Department. But let’s not dwell on the past, says Woolsey, Ridge et al.

On the other hand, for those who retain an interest in the past and the State Department’s description of the MEK’s activities, here it is:

The group’s worldwide campaign against the Iranian government uses propaganda and terrorism to achieve its objectives. During the 1970s, the MEK staged terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. In 1972, the MEK set off bombs in Tehran at the U.S. Information Service office (part of the U.S. Embassy), the Iran-American Society, and the offices of several U.S. companies to protest the visit of President Nixon to Iran. In 1973, the MEK assassinated the deputy chief of the U.S. Military Mission in Tehran and bombed several businesses, including Shell Oil. In 1974, the MEK set off bombs in Tehran at the offices of U.S. companies to protest the visit of then U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger. In 1975, the MEK assassinated two U.S. military officers who were members of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group in Tehran. In 1976, the MEK assassinated two U.S. citizens who were employees of Rockwell International in Tehran. In 1979, the group claimed responsibility for the murder of an American Texaco executive. Though denied by the MEK, analysis based on eyewitness accounts and MEK documents demonstrates that MEK members participated in and supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and that the MEK later argued against the early release the American hostages. The MEK also provided personnel to guard and defend the site of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, following the takeover of the Embassy.

In 1981, MEK leadership attempted to overthrow the newly installed Islamic regime; Iranian security forces subsequently initiated a crackdown on the group. The MEK instigated a bombing campaign, including an attack against the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Prime Minister’s office, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. These attacks resulted in an expanded Iranian government crackdown that forced MEK leaders to flee to France. For five years, the MEK continued to wage its terrorist campaign from its Paris headquarters. Expelled by France in 1986, MEK leaders turned to Saddam Hussein’s regime for basing, financial support, and training. Near the end of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, Baghdad armed the MEK with heavy military equipment and deployed thousands of MEK fighters in suicidal, mass wave attacks against Iranian forces.

The MEK’s relationship with the former Iraqi regime continued through the 1990s. In 1991, the group reportedly assisted the Iraqi Republican Guard’s bloody crackdown on Iraqi Shia and Kurds who rose up against Saddam Hussein’s regime. In April 1992, the MEK conducted near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and consular missions in 13 countries, including against the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas. In June 1998, the MEK was implicated in a series of bombing and mortar attacks in Iran that killed at least 15 and injured several others. The MEK also assassinated the former Iranian Minister of Prisons in 1998. In April 1999, the MEK targeted key Iranian military officers and assassinated the deputy chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff, Brigadier General Ali Sayyaad Shirazi.

In April 2000, the MEK attempted to assassinate the commander of the Nasr Headquarters, Tehran’s interagency board responsible for coordinating policies on Iraq. The pace of anti-Iranian operations increased during “Operation Great Bahman” in February 2000, when the group launched a dozen attacks against Iran. One attack included a mortar attack against a major Iranian leadership complex in Tehran that housed the offices of the Supreme Leader and the President. The attack killed one person and injured six other individuals. In March 2000, the MEK launched mortars into a residential district in Tehran, injuring four people and damaging property. In 2000 and 2001, the MEK was involved in regular mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids against Iranian military and law enforcement personnel, as well as government buildings near the Iran-Iraq border. Following an initial Coalition bombardment of the MEK’s facilities in Iraq at the outset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, MEK leadership negotiated a cease-fire with Coalition Forces and surrendered their heavy-arms to Coalition control. Since 2003, roughly 3,400 MEK members have been encamped at Ashraf in Iraq.

In 2003, French authorities arrested 160 MEK members at operational bases they believed the MEK was using to coordinate financing and planning for terrorist attacks. Upon the arrest of MEK leader Maryam Rajavi, MEK members took to Paris’ streets and engaged in self-immolation. French authorities eventually released Rajavi.

By Paul Woodward

November 30, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S.

At a time of partisan gridlock in the capital, one obscure cause has drawn a stellar list of supporters from both parties and the last two administrations, including a dozen former top national security officials. For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S.

That alone would be unusual. What makes it astonishing is the object of their attention: a fringe Iranian opposition group, long an ally of Saddam Hussein, that is designated as a terrorist organization under United States law and described by State Department officials as a repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis.

But they insist that their motive is humanitarian — to protect and resettle about 3,400 members of the group, known as the M.E.K., now confined in a camp in Iraq. They say the terrorist label, which dates to 1997 and then reflected decades of violence that included the killing of some Americans in the 1970s, is now outdated, unjustified and dangerous.

Emotions are running high as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton completes a review of the terrorist designation. The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq has said it plans to close the camp, Camp Ashraf, by Dec. 31 and move the people elsewhere in Iraq in order to reassert Iraqi sovereignty over the land where it is located, 40 miles north of Baghdad.

Two earlier incursions by Iraqi troops into Camp Ashraf led to bloody confrontations, with 11 residents killed in July 2009 and at least 34 in April of this year. The M.E.K. and its American supporters say that they believe the Maliki government, with close ties to Iran, may soon carry out a mass slaughter on the pretext of regaining control of the camp.

If that happens, the supporters say, the United States — which disarmed the M.E.K. and guaranteed the security of the camp after the invasion of Iraq — will bear responsibility.

“We made a promise,” said Mr. Ridge, a former congressman and governor of Pennsylvania. “Our credibility is on the line. They’ve been attacked twice. How can we possibly accept assurances from the Maliki government?”

Mr. Ridge suggested that the M.E.K.’s implacable hostility to the rulers of Iran should be a point in their favor.

“In my view, if you’re a threat to Ahmadinejad,” — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president — “well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Mr. Ridge said. He noted that the M.E.K. had provided information on Iran’s nuclear program during the Bush administration.

The M.E.K. advocacy campaign has included full-page newspaper advertisements identifying the group as “Iran’s Main Opposition” — an absurd distortion in the view of most Iran specialists. The M.E.K. has hired high-priced lobbyists like the Washington firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Its lawyers in Europe won a long fight to persuade the European Union to drop its own listing of the M.E.K. as a terrorist group in 2009.

The group’s spending, certainly in the millions of dollars, has inevitably raised questions about funding sources.

Ali Safavi, who runs a pro-M.E.K. group in Washington called Near East Policy Research, says the money comes from wealthy Iranian expatriates in the United States and Europe. Because “material support” to a designated terrorist group is a crime, advocates insist that the money goes only to sympathizers and not to the M.E.K. itself.

Congress has taken note of the campaign. A House resolution for dropping the terrorist listing has 97 co-sponsors, including the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan. At a hearing this month, senators pressed the defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, about the threat to Camp Ashraf.

A State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, said officials there were “working as quickly as possible” to complete a review of the M.E.K.’s terrorist designation. American officials are supporting an effort by the United Nations to resettle Camp Ashraf residents voluntarily to other countries, a process that is making slow progress.

Other State Department officials, addressing the issue on the condition of anonymity because it is still under deliberation, said that they did believe the 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf were in danger as the Dec. 31 deadline approaches.

“We’re in constant talks with the Iraqis and the Ashraf leadership to show maximum flexibility on the closure of the camp,” one official said.

But the officials expressed frustration at what they described as the American supporters’ credulous acceptance of the M.E.K.’s claims of representing the Iranian opposition and of embracing democratic values.

In years of observation, the official said, Americans have seen that the camp’s leaders “exert total control over the lives of Ashraf’s residents, much like we would see in a totalitarian cult,” requiring fawning devotion to the M.E.K.’s leaders, Maryam Rajavi, who lives in France, and her husband, Massoud, whose whereabouts are unknown.

Moreover, the official said, the group is “hated almost universally by the Iranian population,” in part for siding with Mr. Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. A State Department cable this year concluded that any indication of United States support for the M.E.K. “would fuel anti-American sentiment” in Iran and would “likely empower Iranian hardliners.”

In Iraq, the M.E.K. is also widely despised, especially by the country’s Shiite majority, because it is accused of helping the Iraqi dictator crush a Shiite revolt in 1991 — a charge the group denies. Because of deep Iraqi hostility, American officials argue that merely dropping the terrorist designation would not end the danger of attacks on the group.

While the M.E.K. carried out a campaign of attacks from the 1970s to the 1990s, mostly targeting Iranian officials, supporters say it has renounced violence and has not engaged in terrorist acts for a decade. The designation law, however, allows Mrs. Clinton to keep the label for a group that “retains the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism.”

Such a decision would outrage the American advocates of reversing the terrorist label.

Mr. Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009, said the administration’s failure to act decisively threatened a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Mr. Mukasey said he did not believe the claim that the M.E.K. was a cult, but even if true, it was no reason to keep the terrorist listing. “These people are sitting in the camp, completely harmless,” he said.

Like other advocates, Mr. Mukasey said he had been paid his standard speaking fee — $15,000 to $20,000, according to the Web site of his speakers’ agency — to talk at M.E.K.-related events. But he insisted that the money was not a factor for him or other former officials who had taken up the cause. “There’s no way I would compromise my standing by expressing views I don’t believe in,” he said.

Artin Afkhami contributed reporting from Boston.

By SCOTT SHANE

November 27, 2011 0 comments

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