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The MEK and the Iranian People

Maryam Rajavi

Maryam Rajavi – Cheerleader for Israel

The Mojahedin Khalq’s exclusively Western backers and admirers like to present themselves as totally unaware that the terrorist cult and its leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi are held in absolute contempt and

are regularly ridiculed by all Iranians – outside and inside of Iran – except for a few hundred of their brainwashed followers.

Perhaps it is this astounding – or practiced – ignorance which allows the Council of Europe to allow use of their buildings as a platform to introduce Maryam Rajavi as an ‘Iranian opposition leader’ who speaks as some kind of expert on the danger of only one specific source of terrorism while at the same time, without any sense of irony, she demands that the Americans re-arm her own illegal terrorist group in Iraq. Clearly she says what the Europeans want to hear or they wouldn’t invite her to speak. (In English she claims that the reason Daesh (ISIS) exists at all is because the Islamic Republic of Iran managed to repress the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime – Saddamists – and deny them power in Iraq. In Farsi she blames America for killing Saddam Hussein and praises Daesh (ISIS) as ‘tribal revolutionaries’.)

Still it cannot be established whether all her eager hosts are aware of Maryam Rajavi’s long dark history of terrorism – cunningly masked apparently by a skirt and a grin. Nor whether they know, or care, that even last month she not only spoke out in support of Daesh (ISIS), but threatened to assassinate her critics in Europe as well.

(Interestingly, the only outlets which covered this meeting are some far right newspapers in Iran which cited it as further evidence to dismiss Western claims to be fighting terrorism.)

For the rest of us, it is no longer necessary to listen to Rajavi speak to know what she is saying because her basic repeated message is identical to that of Israel’s PM, Netanyahu. That is: ‘Iran is the West’s number one enemy; don’t talk with Iran; only bomb Iran’.

Meanwhile in Washington, Rajavi’s henchman Ali Safavi – who is also culpable for terrorist crimes – has also been wheeled out for the same purpose: to say to a Western audience that ‘in order to show support for Israel you have to bomb Iran’. Safavi sets the scene with a bit of scaremongering to get the word nuclear in: Iran’s long-range missiles are super threatening “whether they are nuclear or not”! Before dismissing Iran’s missile capacity as irrelevant because Iran is just very, very threatening.

Unfortunately he doesn’t go on to explain how, as Rajavi demands, giving small arms to the sick and needy former MEK combatants – currently being held incommunicado by their own leadership in the MEK’s camp in Iraq – will help stave off this dire threat. Even Israel with all its weaponry now finds Iran too strong to bomb and must be satisfied with attempts to slow down rather than prevent Iran from becoming the next major regional power.

Parading this deeply unpopular and defunct terrorist group to convey a defunct message demonstrates that Israel is scraping around the bottom of an empty tool box. Instead of a screwdriver Netanyahu found a hairbrush, and is wielding that in the hopes somebody somewhere will take the MEK and their flaky representatives seriously.

When none of the protagonists have any principles or morals, there will inevitably be negative repercussions. Europe and America have yet to see how damaging these kinds of shows are for their national interests.

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Four ways the West got the Iran nuclear issue wrong

First denying Iran’s nuclear rights and then using suspect intelligence to build a false picture of its programme

For more than three decades, the United States and its European allies have committed one fundamental error after another in the process of creating a commonly held narrative that Iran was secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons programme. The story of how suspicions of the Iranian programme hardened into convictions is a cautionary tale of political and institutional interests systematically distorting the judgments of both policymakers and intelligence analysts.

Too many of these basic errors have been committed along the way to cover them all in a single article. But four major failures of policymaking and intelligence represent the broad outlines of this systematic problem.

1.  Denial of Iranian rights, followed by denial of the truth

The first failure, which set in train all the others, involved the US trying to strangle the nuclear programme of the Islamic Republic in its cradle and then blithely acting as though it bore no responsibility for the resulting shift in Iranian nuclear policy. It all started with a decision by the Reagan administration early in the Iran-Iraq war in 1983 to put diplomatic pressure on its allies to stop all nuclear cooperation with Iran. France was pressed to forbid a French-based multilateral consortium from providing the nuclear fuel that Iran had counted on for its lone nuclear reactor at Bushehr.

 The US State Department acknowledged at the time that it had no evidence that Iran was working on or even wanted nuclear weapons. That US effort to choke off any nuclear assistance to Iran thus represented an extremely serious violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which guaranteed Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear technology.

Not surprisingly Iran responded to that US denial of its nuclear rights by defying US wishes and acquiring the technology to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel itself on the black market and later through negotiations with China and Russia. US aggressiveness toward Iran’s nuclear programme had backfired.

But instead of recognising that it had made a serious error, Washington compounded the original policy blunder by treating the Iranian response as prima facie evidence of nuclear weapons intent. In 1995 Secretary of State Warren Christopher, in the course of explaining an order by President Bill Clinton banning all US trade and investment in Iran, accused Iran of having an “organised structure dedicated to acquiring and developing nuclear weapons.” That was an obvious reference to the Iranian efforts to acquire centrifuge and other enrichment technology. The Clinton administration thus acted as though there was no relationship between Iran’s interest in obtaining gas centrifuge technology and the US denial policy that preceded it.

2.  The intelligence goes wrong

The CIA and other Western intelligence agencies began to drift away from reality on the Iran nuclear issue in the early 1990s, when Western intelligence agencies were gleefully poring over intercepted telexes from Sharif University in Tehran seeking various “dual use” technologies – those that could be used either for a nuclear programme or for non-nuclear applications. They had found that the telex number on many of the messages was that of the Physics Research Centre, which was known to do research for the Iranian defence ministry. That was enough to convince them that Iran was pursuing a covert nuclear weapons programme.

The telexes ultimately turned out to be false positives, however.  In late 2007 and early 2008, Iran turned over detailed documentation showing that every one of the “dual use” procurement items sought in those telexes had been requested by various faculties of Sharif University for faculty and student research. And the Physics Research Centre’s telex number was on the telexes because the former head of the organisation was teaching at the university and had been asked to help in the procurement of the items. The intelligence analysts had wrongly interpreted the inherently ambiguous “dual use” evidence as confirming pre-existing suspicions of Iran’s intentions.

That analytical failure was a template for a series of four intelligence assessments of the Iranian nuclear programme by the CIA’s Nonproliferation Center and later by the US intelligence community as a whole that falsely concluded that Iran had an active nuclear weapons development programme as of the time of the assessment. That string of false positives raises serious questions about the 2007 US national intelligence estimate by a team of analysts that had just repeated the same mistake in a draft estimate only a few months earlier.

3. Ignoring the Fatwa against chemical weapons

The belief of Western governments that Iran must have pursued nuclear weapons has been based on their ignorance of a pivotal historical episode that should have caused them to question that belief. During the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, Saddam’s troops attacked Iran with chemical weapons many times, killing 20,000 Iranians and severely injuring 100,000. Yet Iran never retaliated with its own chemical weapons, as Joost Hiltermann’s A Poisonous Affair, the authoritative source on chemical attacks in that war, has documented.

That fact poses a fundamental challenge to the Western narrative on the Iran nuclear issue, because there is no credible explanation for the Iranian failure to retaliate with chemical weapons other than the fact that supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had forbidden the possession and use of all weapons of mass destruction as illicit in Islam. The Revolutionary Guards acted on their own to acquire the capability to produce mustard gas weapons, as the wartime Iranian Minister for military procurement has confirmed in a recent interview. But his account of his meetings with supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini also confirms that Khomeini pronounced a fatwa against such weapons early in the war and repeated it in 1987.

The implications of that historical episode for an understanding of the politics of WMD policy in Iran are obviously far-reaching.  It lends strong credibility to the Iranian claim that the current supreme leader’s fatwa against nuclear weapons is an absolute bar to Iran possessing such weapons. But the news media has continued to dismiss the problem by clinging to an old narrative, which was based on false information that Iran not only had possessed chemical weapons but also had used them.

4. Refusing to acknowledge the weaponisation evidence is tainted

For nearly a decade, the international politics of the Iran nuclear issue have revolved around intelligence documents and reports of Iran nuclear weapons work. A 1,000-page cache of documents that surfaced in 2004 showed the redesign of Iran’s Shahab-3 missile to accommodate a nuclear weapon and high explosives experiments that could only be used for nuclear weapons. More incriminating intelligence documents followed in 2008-09. The IAEA has now been investigating them for nine years.

But Western governments, abetted by compliant news media coverage, have chosen to ignore the considerable evidence that these documents were of very dubious origins. Contrary to the cover story that the documents were passed on to Western intelligence by a participant in a covert Iranian programme or by a German spy, a former senior German foreign office official has now revealed that the German intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, obtained them from a sometime source who was a member of the Iranian exile terrorist organisation Mujahedeen E-Khalq (MEK). The MEK was then serving Israel’s Mossad as a means of laundering alleged intelligence, so it is safe to assume that the documents came from Israel.

IAEA director general Mohamed El Baradei (1997-2009), who insisted that the documents had not been authenticated, recalled in his memoirs, “No-one knew if any of this was real.” Against the wishes of the Bush administration, he refused to use them as evidence against Iran.

Major contradictions between information in the papers and the independently verifiable timelines of Iran’s missile and nuclear programmes indicated that the authors were not Iranian specialists. The re-entry vehicle depicted in the studies, for example, was not the one that Iran was redesigning at the time and that was revealed to the world only after the documents were handed over.

El Baradei also revealed that a subsequent series of intelligence documents, which included the claim that Iran had installed a large cylinder at Parchin to test atomic weapons designs, had been passed on to the IAEA directly by Israel. That intelligence proved to be equally problematic: former IAEA nuclear weapons expert Robert Kelley found the Parchin cylinder claim technically implausible. 

The US government and its Western allies have all closed their eyes, however, to the evidence that these documents were designed to justify US action by the United States against the Islamic republic. The political convenience of the accepted narrative of the Iran nuclear issue has continued to suppress any active interest in learning the truth.

– Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and historian writing on US national security policy.  His latest book, “Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare,” was published in February 2014.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Middle East Eye

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Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

The MKO Adore Hypocrisy on Human Rights

From time to time, the UN issues a resolution condemning violation of human rights in Iran. This makes the Mujahedin khalq Organization to get some fuel to run its propaganda machine against the Islamic Republic despite its own horrendous human rights record.The MKO Adore Hypocrisy on Human Rights

The self-claimed president of the group, Maryam Rajavi uses this opportunity to describe the 61st resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 2014, “as another decisive document on illegitimacy of having economic and political relationship with the ruling clerical regime in Iran.”

Prior to the recent resolution, in November Dr. Ismail Salami wrote on the Global Research, “The not-very-independent UN body has made a mockery of justice by soldering a resolution on the so-called human rights violations in Iran.” He suggests that the double standard over human rights has led the UN to ignore severe violation of human rights by some countries like Israel. [1]

Dr Salimi considers Canada — one of the main sponsors of Israel—behind the resolution against Iran. In May 2014, Canadian Liberal MP Irwin Cotler who served as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from 2003 until 2006 embarked on a series of programs known as Iran Accountability Weeks in which they heard  “testimonies highlighting Iranian political prisoners and other victims of Iranian human rights abuses.” Among those who testified was the notorious terrorist MKO leader Maryam Rajavi accompanied by a UN rights official and pundits from a hawkish American think tank. [2]

To comprehend the link between the two sides of the Canadian campaign of advocate both the MKO and Israel, it is worth to read Gareth Porter’s piece on the Middle East Eye that once more exposes warm relationship between the MKO and Israel.

Porter explains how the propaganda against the Iranian nuclear program was first fabricated by Israel and then handed over to the MKO. ” We now know that the documents did not come from an Iranian participant in the alleged project, as the media were led to believe for years; they were turned over to German intelligence by the anti-regime Iranian terrorist organization, Mujahedeen E Khalq, (MEK)” , He writes.” I first reported this in 2008 and have now confirmed from an authoritative German source in my book on the Iran nuclear issue. The MEK was well known to have been a client of the Mossad, serving to launder Israeli intelligence claims that the Israelis did not want attributed to themselves.” [3]

The MKO-Israeli cooperation is not restricted to intelligence laundering and spying operations. “Over the past three decades, the MKO has initiated a series of deadly attacks on Iran and the Iranian population and has so far assassinated 12000 Iranians including the nuclear scientists”, writes Dr. Salimi. “It is interesting to note that the assassinations of prominent Iranian characters including the politicians and scientists are basically conducted in cahoots with Israeli Kidon, the assassination unit within Mossad.”[4]

While the UN ignores serious violation of human rights in Gaza, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and particularly in camps of the cult-like MKO, the Australian Government maintains the MKO and its affiliates in its consolidated list updated on December 15th, 2014. This took place a few weeks after the bloody hostage taking in a cafe in the Australian Capital Sydney.

Although the cult leader Mrayam Rajavi vainly tries to wear the mask of humanity by laying flowers at the floral memorial of the victims of the incident in Sydney, the history will never forget the atrocities of the Cult leaders toward its own members, and the victims’ memories will be always alive.

Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Salami, Ismail, Human Rights and Double Standards: UN Resolution on Iran Mockery of Justice

Global Research, November 21, 2014

[2] ibid

[3] Porter, Gareth, Guess who credits the Mossad with producing the ‘laptop documents?’, Middle East Eye, Thursday 18 December

[4] Salami, Ismail, Human Rights and Double Standards: UN Resolution on Iran Mockery of Justice

Global Research, November 21, 2014

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO along the lines of Western hardliners

As the co-leader of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, Maryam Rajavi, calls on the West for more sanctions against Iran, her leading sponsor in the US Congress is demanding new sanctions to pressure Iranian government. The US-MEK campaign is paired with Israeli propaganda against Iran.

Immediately after a seven-month extension in talks between P5+1 was announced, Maryam Rajavi started to blame the West for not being firm on Iran. According to Rajavi “Exercising firmness and tightening the sanctions” is the only option to deal with Islamic Republic that should be followed with supporting the MKO as the alternative for the Iranian regime.

On the other side of the world, Rajavi’s paid advocates also launched their own campaign to obstruct nuclear talks. Even before the ink dried on the extension agreement in Vienna, skeptics in Washington were demanding new sanctions to pressure Iran`s rulers, reported Reuters. [1]

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, long regarded as one of the most effective lobbying groups in Washington, called on Congress to take up sanctions legislation.[] Members of AIPAC are mostly found among advocates of the MKO in the US government. You can find certain names on both lists of recipients of the MKO and AIPAC contributions such as Robert Menendez, Lindsey Graham and Carl Levin. [http://maplight.org/us-congress/interest/J5100/view/all]

Senator Robert Menendez, Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Carl Levin are three of the long list of the MKO supporters who receive large amounts of speaking fees to speak on behalf of the group. They are paid for their luxurious trips to attend the MKO’s rallies around the world.  News and videos of their advocacy for “the cult of Rajavi” are available on the group’s websites.

Reuters reported that Sen. Robert Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from Obama’s Democratic Party stopped short of calling for new sanctions immediately, but said: "The cycle of negotiations, followed by an extension, coupled with sanctions relief for Iran has not succeeded.” [2]

Opponents of the Iranian government including the MKO and American-Israeli warmongers disrespect the fact that the alleged Iranian nuclear program was basically a forged story made by Israeli Intelligence service and published by the MKO propaganda arm. The investigative journalist Gareth Porter studied the case and included that the key “evidence” of an Iranian nuclear weapons program came via the MKO cult and was produced by Israel. [3]

Porter suggests, “The MEK role in transferring the documents indicates that they originated in Israel, because the MEK had been serving as a client of Israel for several years, including the “laundering” of Israeli intelligence reports by presenting them to the IAEA and the press as coming from the MEK itself.” [4]

Moreover, in November 2007, National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of the US reported that Iran had “halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.” [5] However, Iran never had a weapons program—at least not one that has been confirmed by U.S. Thus that the unproven MKO-Israeli, nuclear weapons claim has become the source of all deceptive propaganda of the group.

While the MKO leader makes efforts to show off her cult of personality as a secular democratic alternative for Islamic Republic, critics found out the opposite. Holly Dagres of the Huffington Post  refers to Rand report to prove dishonest of Maryam Rajavi and her supporters,” Despite denials, its [the MKO’s] conduct tells otherwise as cited by a RAND report: deceptive recruitment, emotional isolation, extreme degrading peer pressure, forced labor, imprisonment, lack of exit options, sexual control, sleep deprivation, and physical abuse.” [6]

Dagres remarks that the MKO has no public support inside Iran and despite its claims its slogans never reflect the aspirations of the Iranian nation. He writes,” Not only has the Mojahedin-e Khalq lost its support because of its alliance with Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s–an insult to the Iranian people’s nationalism–but also for its position against Iran’s nuclear program, something the average Iranian sees as their legitimate right.” [7]

Maryam Rajavi and her sponsors must understand that their determination to obstruct nuclear talks and engagement with Iran is not in line with the Iranian people’s longing for independence and security.

Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Reuters, Domestic pressures in U.S., Iran threaten slow-moving nuclear talks, Nov 25, 2014

[2] ibid

[3] Porter, Gareth, How US Policy on Iran Came to Be Based on Fabricated Documents, the Nation, June 9, 2014

[4] ibid

[5] Key Judgments From a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s Nuclear Activity, the New York Times

December 4, 2007

[6] Dagres, Holly, Dear Washington: Kick Out This Iranian Militant Cult, Huffington Post, December 14 2014

[7] ibid

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Iranian People or Iranian Resistance?

The MKO’s claims for solidarity with Iranian people or animosity with them?

The Mujahedin-e-Khalq is a title for followers of Maryam Rajavi. The term “Mujahedin” is an Arabic word meaning “freedom fighters”. The Mujahedin has been allegedly fighting against the late shah of Iran and consequently the Islamic Republic that was established after the 1979 revolution in Iran. They claim that they want to liberate the Iranian “People”; the Arabic term “Khalq” means “people”. But do the leaders of the MKO – the Rajavis – care for the Iranian people?

Maryam Rajavi’s speech in city hall of 2nd district of Paris for her paid supporters is remarkable because whenever she speaks of her cult-like organization as the “Iranian Resistance”, she uses the phrase “the Iranian people” too. She tries to convince her audience that the so-called Iranian Resistance represents the Iranian people but Is this claim true?

As she starts her speech she expresses her anger on the extension of the deadline for the nuclear talks with Iran. She suggest that the extension of talks gives “the regime yet more time to push global and regional peace and security to the edge of catastrophe.”

Maryam Rajavi who is all the time forecasting a regime change in Iran in near future, criticizes the West for not being firm on the Islamic Republic. She asks for full implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions that prohibit export and import of a long list of items from Iran. The economic sanctions eventually increase the suffering of civilians and the level of poverty in Iran.

While Maryam Rajavi and her so-called Resistance call for more sanctions, the majority of Iranians hope that sanctions relief following the nuclear deal will improve their standards of living, and will bring concrete change on the ground.

The majority of the Iranian people do not aspire for escalating tension between the West and Iran. Pushing hard for more sanctions and beating on war drums to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, are far from aiding the Iranian people’s desire for a better life.

Maryam Rajavi claims that a policy of firmness and resolve against the IRI must include the recognition of “the Iranian people’s resistance” for regime change. She claims the Iranian people as the possessors of “the resistance” while the majority of Iranian public may have no idea of who the Mujahedin are!

Moreover, she salutes all the Iranian women who are according to her, “Waging resistance against the Mullah’s barbarity.” I, in my turn, would like to salute all women in the MKO camps who are enduring a modern slavery under the Rajavis.

Not only Rajavi abuses the controversial acid attacks against a few Iranian women to show off her own deceptive opportunist slogans, but also she manipulates her audience minds by misusing Iranian people’s gathering to mourn the death of a popular singer Morteza Pashaei. Fans of Pashaei who were holding candles and singing his songs in the streets of Iranian cities did not know that their love for their deceased favorite singer is used by the MKO leader as the support of the “Iranian People” for the “Iranian Resistance”!

Claiming solidarity with Iranian people shows the hypocrite nature of this cult like organization. The purpose in using the term “people” is to save the organization from collapse after the relocation process from camp liberty to European countries has been on the rise during the past weeks.

Mazda Parsi

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Israeli agents training Mojahedin Khalq terrorists in Jordan

Israel is training members of the anti-Iran terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) in Jordan along the border with Saudi Arabia in order to carry out acts of terror inside Iran and neighboring Iraq, Press TV has learnt.

According to sources, who declined to be named, the MKO terrorists are undergoing training on how to conduct terrorist operations in Iran and Iraq and receiving technical as well as information technology (IT) training from Israeli agents.

This is the first time it is revealed that anti-Iran MKO terrorists are being trained in Jordan along the border with Saudi Arabia.

Earlier reports had revealed that radical extremists are receiving terror training in Jordan before being sent into Syria and Iraq to carry out bomb attacks and join the ranks of the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, ISIL Takfiri militants and other terrorist groups operating inside both violence-plagued Arab countries.

The MKO fled to Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up its camp near the Iranian border.

The group is also known to have cooperated with Saddam Hussein in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and carrying out the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.

The MKO has carried out numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials.

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

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The MKO happy with GOP victory

Less than a week after the US midterm elections– in which Republicans snatched control of the Congress– the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) sounds hopeful for its ambitions for power in Iran. It seems pretty obvious that the MKO is dreaming of failure of nuclear talks between Iran and West and eventually the imposition of more sanctions against Iran and finally military invasion.

The takeover of Republicans over the US Congress may narrow the path for Obama and his foreign policy makers who tend to engagement and diplomacy with the Iranian Government and this is exactly what the MKO wants. The group’s advocates in the Congress mostly belong to the GOP party. However, it has been successful to buy the support of some Democrats too.

The MKO’s multimillion-dollar campaign of lobbying in the corridors of the Capitol Hill ultimately ended in the removal of the group from the List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations of the State Department in September 2012. A few months after its delisting, the MKO reopened its office in Washington a block away from the White House, eating cake with some of its congressional sponsors.

In fact, the MKO has a long list of advocates among republicans. The group has hired the most powerful republican lobbying firms such as Akin Gump to run its agenda in the US government. Rep. Ileana Ros-lehtinen, Rep.  Dana Rohrabacher are two of most vocal supporters of the MKO in the Congress. They often appear in the group’s rallies to speak on behalf of the group and its warmonger belief. Also, former republican figures and hardliners have deep pockets of the MKO dollars.  Tom Ridge, Rudy Guiliani, Fran Townsand, Patrick Kennedy and Micheal Mukasey are other formerly high profiles in the MKO campaign who have been beating on war

drums against Iran for years.

The MKO hopes that the republican majority could be able to stop nuclear talks while the last round of the talks is now taking place in Oman. It means that before next January and the start of republicans’ rule over the Congress the talks will be done. Therefore, it is clear that the result of the midterm elections is not going to affect the negotiations, at least for the time being. However, President Obama has promised that he would try to convince Republicans in case of reaching any agreement with Iran.

Today, the MKO propaganda office has found itself with new supporters of war in the Congress. Thus, the timing to launch the old repeated propaganda against the Iranian nuclear program seems appropriate for the group.

Last Friday, the office of the MKO’s propaganda arm, the so-called National council of Resistance held a press conference show to claim that Iran has installed explosive chambers in Parchin site. Yet, the so-called revelation of the NCR has hardly ever gained attention in the media.

Seemingly the efforts of the MKO’s lobby and huge expenses it paid will not simply bear fruit. By the way, any agreement with Iran that is defendable by Obama and his party can very probably satisfy the Republicans, considering that the US public opinion extensively oppose a new war.

Regarding the current crisis of the Middle East and the threat of terrorists of the Islamic State group, and the Iranian good will to reach an agreement with the West, any agreement between the two sides is considered as a win-win deal, regardless of who won the US congressional elections.

The only loser of the entire story is the MKO and its warmonger opportunist drive that is seeking to overthrow the Iranian government at any cost.

By Mazda Parsi

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The MKO, proxy force against Iran?

The war on terror declared by the United States on September 11 only made international terrorist groups stronger and even made them come to power in some countries. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria became victims of US anti-terror fight.

Today, the United States is seen globally as the main supporter of terrorists. The «Western foreign legion» represented by terrorists allows the United States to achieve a number of objectives, including weakening the chief competitors – Russia and China.

The myth of «fight against terrorism» creates a pretext for United States intervention against any other state having accused it of supporting terrorists. At that, the critical state of US economy makes international terrorism an effective instrument of intimidating Americans and introducing police state.

Like many other terrorist groups the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) has been preserved by the United States and Israel to be used as a proxy force against the Islamic Republic. “Some Western backers believe the group serves as a strategic counterweight to the clerical regime in Iran,” states Jonathan Masters, Deputy Editor of Council on Foreign Relations. However, he mentions that critics of the MKO question the group’s motives and commitment to nonviolence and human rights.

Jonathan Masters asserts that even State Department noted some “reservations” upon delisting the MKO in September 2012. "With today’s actions, the Department does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism…The Department also has serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, particularly with regard to allegations of abuse committed against its own members, " he quotes from the State Department’s statement to announce the removal of the group from the black list in 2012.

Meanwhile Antony Cartalucci, a geopolitical researcher and writer based in Bangkok, Thailand, warns about “color revolutions” engineered by the United States to overthrow governments around the world. He suggests that attempts to escalate chaos and provoke or perpetuate violence is generally the next step after the alleged revolutions. Cartalucci believes that the chaos in Hong Kong is an example of US intervention in the world politics.

 To prove his idea he refers to a “documented fact”.  “It was the 2009 Brookings Institution document titled, “Which Path to Persia?” that stated unequivocally in regards to toppling the government of Iran”, he writes. “The policy document would also openly conspire to fund and arm listed terrorist organizations including the notorious Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK)’’.

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

According to the theory suggested in “Which path to Persia” the MKO does deserve the label of a terrorist group but its capacity to be the US mercenary shouldn’t be ignored! Cartalucci proposes that the Brookings Institution’s report is a “signed confession – a documented conspiracy that was demonstrably executed not only in Iran but also in neighboring Syria”. Notice what the report reads: “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.” And Washington finally removed it from the FTO list two years ago.”

Nevertheless, The US support for the MKO does not seem to be productive for both the MKO and the US because of the group’s lack of popular backing in Iran. Cartalucci asserts that the West’s “mystery gunmen” are found in Iraqi Camp liberty, Libya and Syria, Egypt, Ukraine, Thailand and now Hong Kong. As a matter of fact, he should notice that the same pattern probably cannot be operative in case of the MKO because the majority of Iranian nation do not care about the MKO if they do not detest it.

Mazda Parsi

References:

*Cartalucci, Tony, Hong Kong: Beware of Staged Violence, Land Destroyer Blog, October 6, 2014

* Masters, Jonathan,   Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK), Council on Foreign Relations, July 28, 2014

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The March to War: Fighting ISIL is a Smokescreen for US Mobilization against Syria, Iran

The ISIL or IS threat is a smokescreen. The strength of the ISIL has deliberately been inflated to get public support for the Pentagon and to justify the illegal bombing of Syria. It has also been used to justify the mobilization of what is looking more and more like a large-scale US-led military buildup in the Middle East. The firepower and military assets being committed go beyond what is needed for merely fighting the ISIL death squads.

While the US has assured its citizens and the world that troops will not be sent on the ground, this is very unlikely. In the first instance, it is unlikely because boots on the ground are needed to monitor and select targets. Moreover, Washington sees the campaign against the ISIL fighters as something that will take years. This is doublespeak. What is being described is a permanent military deployment or, in the case of Iraq, redeployment. This force could eventually morph into a broader assault force threatening Syria, Iran, and Lebanon.

US-Syrian and US-Iranian Security Dialogue?

Before the US-led bombings in Syria started there were unverified reports being circulated that Washington had started a dialogue with Damascus through Russian and Iraqi channels to discuss military coordination and the Pentagon bombing campaign in Syria. There was something very off though. Agents of confusion were at work in an attempt to legitimize the bombardment of the Syrian Arab Republic.

The claims of US-Syrian cooperation via Russian and Iraqi channels are part of a sinister series of misinformation and disinformation. Before the claims about US cooperation with Syria, similar claims were being made about US-Iranian cooperation in Iraq.

Earlier, Washington and the US media tried to give the impression that an agreement on military cooperation was made between itself and Tehran to fight ISIL and to cooperate inside Iraq. This was widely refuted in the harshest of words by numerous members of the Iranian political establishment and high-ranking Iranian military commanders as disinformation.

 After the Iranians clearly indicated that Washington’s claims were fiction, the US claimed that it would not be appropriate for Iran to join its anti-ISIL coalition. Iran rebutted. Washington was dishonestly misrepresenting the facts, because US officials had asked Tehran to join the anti-ISIL coalition several times.

Before he was discharged from the hospital after a prostate surgery, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest ranking official in Iran, told Iranian television on September 9, 2014, that the US had requested that Tehran and Washington cooperate together inside Iraq on three different occasions. He explained that the US ambassador to Iraq had relayed a message to the Iranian ambassador to Iraq to join the US, then, in his own words, «the same [John Kerry] — who had said in front of the camera and in front of the eyes of all the world that they do not want Iran to cooperate with them — requested [from] Dr. Zarif that Iran cooperate with them on this issue, but Dr. Zarif turned this [request] down.» The third request was made by US Undersecretary Wendy Sherman to Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Khamenei additionally made it clear that he categorically ruled out any cooperation with Washington on the issue. «On this issue, we will not cooperate with America particularly because their hands are dirty,» he publicly confirmed while explaining that Washington had ill intentions and nefarious designs in Iraq and Syria.

Like Russia, Iran has been supporting Syria and Iraq against ISIL. Also like Moscow, Tehran is committed to fighting it, but will not join Washington’s anti-ISIL coalition.

New Invasion(s) and Regime Change Project(s) in the Pipeline?

As was pointed out on June 20, 2014, in Washington’s eyes Nouri Al-Malaki’s federal government in Baghdad had to be removed for refusing to join the US siege against the Syrians, being aligned to Iran, selling oil to the Chinese, and buying weapons from the Russian Federation. Iraq’s decision to be part of an Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline also undermined the objectives of the US and its allies to control the flow of energy in the Middle East and to obstruct Eurasian integration. [1]

 There were also two other unforgivable cardinal sins that Al-Malaki’s government in Baghdad committed in Washington’s eye. These offenses, however, should be put into geopolitical context first.

Remember the post-September 11, 2001 (post-9/11) catchphrase of the Bush II Administration during the start of its serial wars? It went like this: «Anyone can go to Baghdad, but real men go to Tehran!» The point of this warmongering catchphrase is that Baghdad and Damascus have been viewed as pathways for the Pentagon towards Tehran. [2]

Like Syria, Al-Malaki government’s cardinal sins were tied to blocking the pathway to Tehran. Firstly, the Iraqi government evicted the Pentagon from Iraq at the end of 2011, which removed US troops stationed directly on Iran’s western border. Secondly, the Iraqi federal government was working to expel anti-government Iranian militants from Iraq and to close Camp Ashraf, which could be used in a war or regime change operations against Iran.

Ashraf was a base for the military wing of the Iraqi-based Mujahidin-e-Khalq (MEK/MOK/MKO). The MEK is an anti-government Iranian organization that is bent on regime change in Tehran. It has even openly endorsed US-led attacks on Iran and Syria.

Although the US government itself considers the MEK a terrorist organization, Washington began to deepen its ties with the MEK when it and its staunch British allies invaded Iraq. Disingenuously and ironically, the US and Britain used Saddam Hussein’s support for the MEK to justify labeling Iraq as a state-sponsor of terrorism and to also justify the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Since then the US has been has been nurturing the MEK.

Since 2003, the US has been has been funding the MEK. Washington has been protecting the MEK, because it wants to keep them on a leash as either leverage against Tehran or to have the option of one day installing the MEK into power in Tehran as part of a regime change operation against Iran. The MEK has literally become incorporated into the Pentagon and CIA toolboxes against Tehran. Even when the US transferred control of Camp Ashraf to Baghdad, the Pentagon kept forces inside the MEK camp.

 Eventually the MEK forces would mostly be relocated in 2012 to the former US base known as Camp Liberty. Camp Liberty is now called by an Arabic name, Camp Hurriya.

The Istanbul bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor, Scott Peterson described how US officials began to really put their weight behind the MEK during the start of the Arab Spring in 2011. This is tied to Washington’s regime change dreams. Peterson wrote that US officials «rarely mention the MEK’s violent and anti-American past, and portray the group not as terrorists but as freedom fighters with ‘values just like us,’ as democrats-in-waiting ready to serve as a vanguard of regime change in Iran.» [3]

Washington Has Not Abandoned Dreams of Regime Change in Tehran

Washington has not abandoned its dreams for regime change in Tehran. Is it a coincidence that the US and EU support for the MEK is increasing, especially when the ISIL threat in Iraq began to be noticed publicly?

 Six hundred parliamentarians and politicians from mostly NATO countries were flown in for a large MEK gathering in the Parisian northeastern suburb of Villepinte that called for regime change in Iran on June 27, 2014. Warmongers and morally bankrupt figures like former US senator Joseph Lieberman, Israeli mouthpiece and apologist Alan Dershowhitz, former Bush II official and Fox News pundit John Bolton, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, and French former minister and United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNIMIK) chief Bernard Kouchner all met the MEK to promote regime change and war. According to the MEK, over 80, 000 people attended the regime change rally. Supporters of the insurgencies in Iraq and Syria were also present at the Villepinte gathering calling for regime change in Iraq, Syria, and Iran.

The irony is that the money for the event most probably came from the US government itself. US allies probably contributed too. This money has gone to the MEK’s lobbying initiatives with the US Congress and US Department of State, which in effect is recycling US funding. People like Rudy Giuliani — probably one of the most hated mayors in the history of New York City until he took advantage of the tragic events of 9/11 — are now effectively lobbyists for the MEK. «Many of these former high-ranking US officials — who represent the full political spectrum — have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK,» according to the Christian Science Monitor. [4]

Giuliani has been speaking at MEK events at least as far back as 2010. In 2011, he publicly pushed for regime change in Tehran and Damascus at a MEK gathering. «How about we follow an Arab Spring with a Persian Summer?» he rhetorically declared. [5] Giuliani’s next sentence revealed just how much of a scion of US foreign policy the initiative to support the MEK truly is: «We need regime change in Iran, more than we do in Egypt or Libya, and just as we need it in Syria.» [6]

Joseph Lieberman’s friend and fellow war advocate Senator John McCain was unable to make the trip to the Parisian suburb in Seine-Saint-Denis, but addressed the regime change gathering via video. Congressman Edward Royce, the chair of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, also showed his support for regime change in Iran through a video message. So did Senator Carl Levin and Senator Robert Menendez.

Large delegations from the US, France, Spain, Canada, and Albania were present. Aside from the aforementioned individuals, other notable American attendees to the June 27, 2014 event included the following:

1. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the lower chamber (House of Representatives) in the bicameral US Congress;

2. John Dennis Hastert; another former speaker of the House of Representatives;

3. George William Casey Jr., who commanded the multinational military force that invaded and occupied Iraq;

4. Hugh Shelton, a computer software executive and former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff;

5. James Conway, the former chief of the US Marine Corps

6. Louis Freeh, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI);

7. Lloyd Poe, the US Representative who sits on (1) the US House Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats and chairs (2) the US House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non‐proliferation and Trade;

8. Daniel Davis, a US Representative from Illinois;

9. Loretta Sánchez, a US Representative from California;

10. Michael B. Mukasey, a former attorney-general of the US;

11. Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont;

12. William Richardson, the former secretary of the US Department of Energy;

13. Robert Torricelli, a former legislator in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate senator who is the legally representative of the MEK in Iraq;

14. Francis Townsend, former Homeland Security advisor to George W. Bush Jr.;

15. Linda Chavez, a former chief White House director;

16. Robert Joseph, the former US undersecretary that ran the (1) Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, (2) the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, and the (3) Bureau of Political-Military Affairs;

17. Philip Crowley, the former assistant-secretary of state responsible for public affairs;

18. David Phillips, the military police commander who restructured the Iraqi police and was responsible for guarding Camp Ashraf and Saddam Hussein as a prisoner;

19. Marc Ginsberg, the senior vice-president of the public relations firm APCO Worldwide and former US ambassador and US presidential adviser for Middle East policy.

Like the US presence, the French presence included officials. Aside from Bernard Kouchner, from France some of the notable attendees were the following individuals:

1. Michèle Alliot-Marie, a French politician who among her cabinet portfolios was responsible for the military and foreign affairs at different times;

2. Rama Yade, vice president of the conservative Radical Party of France;

3. Gilbert Mitterrand, the president of the human rights foundation France Libertés, which has focused on ethnic groups such as Kurds, Chechens, and Tibetans;

4. Martin Vallton, the mayor of Villepinte.

From Spain the notable attendees were the following:

1. Pedro Agramunt Font de Mora, the Spanish chair of the European People’s Party (EPP) and its allies in the Council of Europe;

2. Jordi Xucla, the Spanish chair of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group in the Council of Europe;

3. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a Spanish politician and one of the fourteen vice-presidents of the European Union’s European Parliament;

4. José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the former prime minister of Spain (who was also visibly accompanied by his wife Sonsoles Espinosa Díaz).

Other notable attendees from other Euro-Atlantic countries included:

1. Pandli Majko, the former prime minster of Albania;

2. Kim Campbell, the former prime minister of Canada

3. Geir Haarde, the former prime minister of Iceland;

4. Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian senator;

5. Alexander Carile, a member of the British House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament

6. Giulio Maria Terzi, the former foreign minister of Italy;

7. Adrianus Melkert, a former Dutch cabinet minister, a former World Bank executive, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s former special envoy to Iraq.

Not only regime change was talked about, but the cross-border crisis in Iraq and Syria was a major subject. Fox News gave the event special coverage. Just in July, the MEK’s leadership had condemned Iranian support to the Iraqi federal government in its fight against the ISIL, yet since the US had began to nominally fight the ISIL the MEK has begun to hold its tongue.

Before the regime change gathering, the MEK’s leader Maryam Rajavi — who the MEK has designated as the president of Iran since 1993 — even meet with the puppet Syrian National Council’s leader Ahmed Jarba in Paris to discuss cooperation on May 23, 2014.

MEK leader Maryam Rajavi and SNC leader Ahmed Jarba meet to discuss cooperating for regime change in Tehran and Damascus.

Regime Change in Damascus through Mission Creep in Syria

The bombing campaign that the US has started in Syria is illegal and a violation of the UN Charter. This is why the Pentagon took the step of claiming that the US-led bombing campaign was prompted by the threat of an «imminent» attack that was being planned against the territory of the US. This allegation was made to give legal cover to the bombardment of Syrian territory through a warped argument under Article 51 of the UN Charter that allows a UN member to legally attack another country if an imminent attack by the said country is about to take place on the UN member.

 Barack Obama and the US government have done their best to confuse and blur reality through a series of different steps they have taken to claim legitimacy for violating international law by bombing Syria without the authorization of Damascus. Although US Ambassador Samantha Powers informed Syria’s permanent representative to the UN that US-led attacks would be launched on Al-Raqqa Governate, informing Bashar Al-Jaafari through a formal unilateral notification does not amount to being given the legal consent of Syria.

The US-led attacks on Syria do not have the backing of the UN Security Council either. The US government, however, has tried to spin the September 19, 2014, meeting of the UN Security Council that John Kerry chaired as a sign that the UN Security Council and international community are backing its bombing campaign.

Nor is it a coincidence that just when the US assembled its multinational coalition to fight the ISIL and its pseudo-caliphate, that John Kerry conveniently mentions that Syria has violated the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). While admitting that Syria did not use any material prohibited by the CWC, Kerry told US legislators that Damascus had breached its commitments to the CWC on September 18, 2014. In other words, Washington intends to go after Syria and pursue regime change in Damascus. If this does not make it clear, then the fact that the US will use Saudi Arabia to train more anti-government forces should. [7]

A US brinkmanship strategy to justify a US-led bombing campaign against Syria has been put into action with the intent of creating a pretext for expanding the illegal US-led airstrikes in Syria that started on September 22, 2014.

 What the US envisions is a long-term bombing campaign, which also threatens Lebanon and Iran. According to Ali Khamenei, the US wants to bomb both Iraq and Syria using ISIL as a smokescreen on the basis of the model in Pakistan. More correctly, the situation should be compared to the AfPak (Af-Pak) model. The US has used the spillover of instability from Afghanistan into Pakistan and the spread of the Taliban as a pretext for bombing Pakistan. Iraq and Syria have been merged as one conflict zone, which Ibrahim Al-Marashi, using a neologism, has described as the rise of «Syraq.»

The Broader Objective: Disrupting Eurasian Integration

While the US has been pretending to fight the same terrorist and death squads that it has created, the Chinese and their partners have been busy working to integrate Eurasia. America’s «Global War on Terror» has been paralleled with the rebuilding of the Silk Road. This is the real story and motivation for Washington’s insistence to fight and remobilize in the Middle East. It is also the reason why the US has been pushing Ukraine to confront Russia and the EU to sanction the Russian Federation.

America wants to disrupt the reemerging Silk Road and its expanding trade network. While Kerry has been busy frightening audiences about the ISIL and its atrocities, the Chinese have been busy sweeping the map by making deals across Asia and the Indian Ocean. This is part of the westward march of the Chinese dragon.

Parallel to Kerry’s travels, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Sri Lanka and went to the Maldives. Sri Lanka is already part of China’s Maritime Silk Road project. The Maldivians are newer entries; agreements have been reached to include the island-nation into the Maritime Silk Road network and infrastructure that China is busy constructing to expand maritime trade between East Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Nor is it a coincidence that two Chinese destroyers docked at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf to conduct joint drills with Iranian warships in the Persian Gulf.

Parallel to east-west trade, a north-south trade and transport network is being developed. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was in Kazakhstan recently where he and his Kazakhstani counterpart, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, confirmed that trade was due to see manifold increases. The completion of the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway, which will create a north-south transit route, is being awaited. Cooperation between Tehran and the Eurasian Union was also discussed by the two presidents. On the other western side of the Caspian Sea, a parallel north-south corridor running from Russia to Iran through the Republic of Azerbaijan has been in the works.

The anti-Russia sanctions are beginning to cause uneasiness in the European Union. The real losers in the sanctions in Russia are the members of the European Union. Russia has demonstrated that it has options. Moscow has already launched the construction of its mega natural gas Yakutia–Khabarovsk–Vladivostok pipeline (also known as the Power of Siberia pipeline) to deliver gas to China while BRICS partner South Africa has signed a historic deal on nuclear energy with Rosatom.

Moscow’s influence on the world stage is very clear. Its influence has been on the rise in the Middle East and Latin America. Even in NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, Russian influence is on the rise. The Russian government has recently compiled a list of over one hundred old Soviet construction projects that it would like to recuperate.

An alternative to US and EU sanctions is beginning to emerge in Eurasia. Aside from the oil-for-goods deal that Tehran and Moscow signed, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak announced that Iran and Russia had made several new agreements worth seventy billion euro. Sanctions will soon merely isolate the US and the EU. The Iranians have also announced that they are working with their Chinese and Russian partners to overcome the US and EU sanctions regime.

America is being rolled back. It cannot pivot to the Asia-Pacific until matters are settled in the Middle East and Eastern Europe against the Russian, Iranians, Syrians, and their allies. That is why Washington is doing its best to disrupt, divide, redraw, bargain and co-opt. When it comes down to it, the US is not concerned about fighting the ISIL, which has been serving Washington’s interests in the Middle East. America’s main concern is about preserving its crumbling empire and preventing Eurasian integration.

Notes

[1] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, «America pursuing regime change in Iraq again,» RT, June 20, 2014.

[2] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, «The Syria Endgame: Strategic Stage in the Pentagon’s Covert War on Iran,» Global Research, January 07, 2013.

[3] Scott Peterson, «Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list,» Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Matt Spetalnick, Jeff Mason and Julia Edwards, «Saudi Arabia agrees to host training of moderate Syria rebels», Caren Bohan, Grant McCool, and Eric Walsh eds. Reuters, September 10, 2014.

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya,

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Pro-Israeli American Billionaires Helped by the White House “Make War on Iran”

Pro-Israeli American Billionaires Helped by the White House “Make War on Iran”, Law Suit Reveals

There is a group of Jewish American billionaires who are apparently doing their best to make sure than negotiations with Iran go nowhere in the mistaken belief that they are doing what is best for Israel. And they would also appear to be assisted in their efforts by the White House, which is at the same time claiming that it wants the talks to be successful. The odd relationship is currently playing out in a Manhattan courtroom where the Justice Department is seeking to squash a lawsuit that it fears might expose the extent to which the government has hypocritically played fast and loose with classified information while simultaneously sending journalists and whistleblowers to jail over allegations that they have done the same.

The power and wealth of the anti-Iran groups as well as their unrivalled access to the United States government means that a policy of détente with Iran, which would be a no brainer based on both American and Iranian interests, only proceeds by fits and starts with the US Congress and much of the media lined up solidly to stop the effort. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliated educational foundation, which have focused on the “Iranian threat” over the past three years, have a combined budget of more than $90 million while AIPAC’s spin-off the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) has $8.7 million.

The American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) efforts are more diversified but uniformly hawkish when it comes to the Middle East. It has a budget of $45 million. Identified multi-million dollar donor/supporters of AIPAC, AEI, and WINEP include Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands, Paul Singer of Elliot Management hedge fund and Bernard Marcus of Home Depot.

Other right wing think tanks including Heritage and Hudson in Washington also support unrelenting pressure directed against Iran. Even the more centrist Brookings Institute is hard core when it comes to Middle Eastern politics by virtue of its Saban Institute funded by Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban. And then there are the mainstream Jewish organizations to include the Anti Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and the American Jewish Congress, all of which have vast resources and unparalleled access to the White House, Congress and the media.

 All the pro-Israel anti-Iran groups engage in pressure tactics on Capitol Hill and have been effective in dominating the political debate. Of thirty-six outside witnesses brought in to testify at seven Senate hearings on Iran since 2012 only one might be characterized as sensitive to Iranian concerns. The enormous lobbying effort enables the anti-Iran groups to define the actual policies, move their drafts of legislation through congress, and eventually see their bills pass with overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate. It is democracy in action if one accepts that popular rule ought to be guided by money and pressure groups rather than by national interests.

Less well known is United Against Nuclear Iran, which has a budget just shy of $2 million. UANI is involved in the New York lawsuit. The group, which has somehow obtained a 501[c]3 “educational” tax status that inter alia allows it to conceal its donors, has offices in Rockefeller Center in New York City. It is active on Capitol Hill providing “expert testimony” on Iran for congressional committees, to include “help” in drafting legislation. At a July Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iran all three outside witnesses were from UANI. It is also active in the media but is perhaps best known for its “name and shame” initiatives in which it exposes companies that it claims are doing business with Tehran in violation of US sanctions.

UANI is being sued by a Greek billionaire Victor Restis whom it had outed in 2013. Restis, claiming the exposure was fraudulent and carried out to damage his business, has filed suit demanding that UANI and billionaire Thomas Kaplan turn over documents and details of relationships regarding UANI donors who it is claimed are linked to the case. Kaplan, a New York City resident, made his initial fortune on energy exploration and development. More recently he has been involved in commodities trading in precious metals. His wife Daphne is Israeli and his involvement in various Jewish philanthropies both in the US and in Israel have invited comparison with controversial deceased commodities trader Marc Rich, who reportedly worked closely with the Israeli government on a number of projects.

The Justice department would like to the see the UANI lawsuit go away as it is aware that what is being described as “law enforcement” documents would include both privileged and classified Treasury Department work product relating to individuals and companies that it has investigated for sanctions busting. Passing either intelligence related or law enforcement documents to a private organization is illegal but the Justice Department’s only apparent concern is that the activity might be exposed. There is no indication that it would go after UANI for having acquired the information and it perhaps should be presumed that the source of the leak is the Treasury Department itself.

Who or what provided the documents to a private advocacy group that is also a tax exempt foundation supported by prominent businessmen with interests in the Middle East is consequently not completely clear but Restis is assuming that the truth will out if he can get hold of the evidence. The lawsuit claims that UANI intimidates its targets by defaming their business practices as well as by demanding both examination of their books and an audit carried out by one of its own accountants followed by review from an “independent counsel.”

 Kaplan is named in the suit as he appears to be the gray eminence behind UANI. He once boasted “we’ve (UANI) done more to bring Iran to heel than any other private sector initiative.” Kaplan also employs as a director or officer in six of his companies the Executive Director of UANI Mark Wallace and reportedly arranged the awarding of the Executive Director position at Harvard’s Belfer Center to its President Gary Samore.

 Kaplan is a business competitor to Restis, whose lawyers are apparently seeking to demonstrate two things: first, that the US government has been feeding sometimes only partially vetted information to UANI to help in its “name and shame” program and second, that UANI is itself supported by partisan business interests like Kaplan as well as by foreign sources, which apparently is meant to imply Israel. Or even the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Meir Dagan, former head of Mossad, is on the UANI advisory board, which also includes ex-Senator Joseph Lieberman and former Senior Diplomat Dennis Ross, both of whom have frequently been accused of favoring Israeli interests and both of whom might well have easy access to US government generated information.

And then there is the Muhadedin-e-Khalq, the Iranian terrorist group that has assassinated at least six Americans and is now assisting the Israeli government in killing Iranian scientists, a prima facie definition of what constitutes terrorism. The group was on the State Department terrorist list from 1997 until 2012, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton de-listed it in response to demands coming from friends of Israel in Congress as well as from a large group of ex government officials, many of whom were paid large honoraria by the group to serve as advocates. The paid American shills included former CIA Directors James Woolsey and Porter Goss, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Louis Freeh and former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton. The promoters of MEK in congress and elsewhere claimed to be primarily motivated by MEK’s being an enemy of the current regime in Tehran, though its virulent anti-Americanism and terrorist history make it a somewhat unlikely poster child for the “Iranian resistance.”

Supporters of MEK also ignore the fact that the group is run like a cult, routinely executes internal dissidents, and has virtually no political support within Iran. But such are the ways of the corrupt Washington punditocracy, lionizing an organization that it should be shunning. MEK’s political arm is located in Paris and it has long been assumed that it is funded by the Israeli government and by at least some of the same gaggle of billionaires, possibly including their Israeli counterparts, who support the anti-Iranian agenda in the United States.

 Iranian negotiators have accepted that their country should have only limited uranium enrichment capabilities coupled with a rigorous inspection regime but the talks in Geneva drag on and on as the United States continues to hesitate, raising new objections regularly in spite of claims that it operates in good faith and seeks a settlement. That an agreement is within reach is undoubtedly true and it would even be good for Israel as it would remove the regional nuclear option while making much less likely another pointless and devastating war. But the men who write the checks do not see it that way and, unfortunately, they are the ones who all too often both pay the piper and call the tune.

Philip Giraldi,

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