And now, with the MEK aka MKO/PMOI, we have a group that, at least according to some reports, appears to have intensified its terrorism, and yet they are removed from the list. Why? Because now they are aligned against the prime enemy of the US and Israel – and working closely with those two nations – and are therefore, magically, no longer “terrorists.”
What may make this decision even more damaging over the long term for U.S.-Iranian relations is that most Iranians loathe the MEK aka MKO/PMOI. De-listing the group is a mistake in its own right, but it is especially foolish because it does nothing but generate ill will from Iranians regardless of their views of the regime…
..As tensions with Iran over its nuclear program remain high, the Obama administration is wiping away the stigma from a cultish group[MKO/MEK/PMOI] that wants to overthrow the Iranian regime so badly it has attacked Iranian and other civilians to advance its agenda. And it comes after a long and deep-pocketed lobbying effort attracted a host of Washington politicos to advocate for the group
A separate justice system for American Muslims, the US embrace of terrorism, and other key political facts are highlighted..MEK achieved its goal by doing more than merely changing the beneficiaries of its actions from Saddam to the US and Israel. It also found a way – how it did so remains a mystery – to funnel millions of dollars into the bank accounts of key ex-officials from both parties..
This is a line up that is hard to rent, much less buy, but M.E.K and its well connected lobbyists have shown how money makes things happen in Washington.It shows how porous is the terrorism issue too. It is subject to changes in political fashions, and how little the media knows or remembers and how open it is to being influenced by insiders, especially when there’s money to be paid for a few hours work.
The delisting of MEK is merely a technicality to make more overt arming and funding for the group possible. In reality, and despite being long recognized as a dangerous, extremist organization with both innocent Iranian and American blood on their hands, the US has been arming, training, and funding MEK for years, beginning under the Bush administration and continuing unabated under Obama.
former leaders and members of the MEK have noted the ruthlessness and duplicity of the group. They believe that the Iran it envisions would be a dictatorship rather than a democracy. These dissident former members decry the MEK’s slavish worship of its leader Maryam Rajavi in a cult of personality not unlike that of North Korea and other Communist regimes.
In a move certain to ratchet up already-high tensions with Iran, the administration of President Barack Obama will remove a militant anti-regime group[MKO/MEK/PMOI terror group] from the State Department’s terrorism list, U.S. officials told reporters here Friday.The decision, which is expected to be formally announced before Oct. 1….
“The entire atmosphere around the MEK’s campaign to be removed from the FTO list – the fact that (former) American government officials were allowed to actively and openly receive financial incentives to speak in support of an organisation that was legally designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, without consequence – created the impression that the list is essentially a meaningless political tool,”…
The statement is horrible even if one wants to believe that FTO designations have some kind of procedural and evidentiary integrity about them.Just this year, U.S. intelligence officials told high-profile media outlets that the MEK is actively collaborating with Israeli intelligence to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists, Iranian officials have made the same charge. ..