The Third View on Mujahedin Khalq

Iraqi MP: The MEK counted on ISIL to help them stay in Iraq

Razak Abdul A’imma al-Haidari, Iraqi MP, from the Badr Parliamentary bloc said that the Mujahedin Khalq Terrorist Organization was counting on the ISIL in Iraq to collude with them to keep its members at Camp Liberty (Temporary Transit Location) and then to take them back to Camp Ashraf.

‘The MEK is ready to cooperate with any terrorist party hostile to Iraqi government and the people’, the MP Al-Haidari told Ashraf News reporter.

He emphasized that since the MKO is considered a threat for the future of the country, the newly established government of Iraq as well as Iraqi people are serious in removing them from Iraqi soil.

The member of Iraqi National Alliance asserted: Navigating the MKO media, one could see the organization hailing the crimes and savagery committed by the ISIL in Iraq.

He also noted that the leadership of the terrorist Organization in France believed that the Prime Minister Maliki’s stepping down would pave the way for their organization’s stay in Iraq. However Mr. Haidar al-Abadi putted an end to their illusions and at his first press conference emphasized on the expulsion of all terrorist groups – including the Mujahedin Khalq Organization – from the Iraqi territory.

Translated by Nejat Society

September 21, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

France strategy to be nice to terrorists

French Case Against Iran Opposition Group Dropped

French judges have thrown out terrorism-linked charges against nine members of an exiled Iranian opposition

group, closing the last part of a case that began 11 years ago with mass arrests that provoked several deaths by protesters setting themselves afire.

The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed Wednesday the case against the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq was closed.

The co-leader of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, Maryam Rajavi said the decision was a "victory of justice and resistance over collaboration" between France and Iran.

Rajavi was among more than 150 detained in a sweep in 2003 around the group’s headquarters in Auvers-Sur-Oise, outside Paris. She and 16 others were charged on suspicion of planning terrorist acts and terror financing. Rajavi was later released, and charges against her dropped.

An investigation for "financial infractions" was then opened against nine group members, but those charges were thrown out due to insufficient evidence, according to a statement by seven top lawyers handling the case.

"The justice (system) was manipulated by political and commercial considerations," said William Bourdon, one of the lawyers. "This case never should have existed."

France’s counterintelligence chief at the time of the arrests, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, said the crackdown was aimed at preventing attacks on Iranian diplomatic missions in Europe and elsewhere. He said the Mujahedeen were transforming their compound in Auvers-Sur-Oise into "an operational center for terrorism," after losing firepower in Iraq when the U.S. disarmed them. The group had mounted attacks from a camp in Iraq against neighboring Iran.

The arrest and jailing of Rajavi led to protests by Mujahedeen supporters around Europe, several of whom set themselves afire. Two died and six others were injured.

The lawyers claimed the French government mounted the charges as part of a "strategy of manipulation led by the mullahs in power in Tehran."

The Mujahedeen have been removed from both European and U.S. terror lists.

By ELAINE GANLEY

September 18, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

America supports terrorism

In 1998, five Cuban counterterrorism agents were arrested in Miami and held in solitary confinement for 17 months. Then — after a dubious seven-month-long trial in which no hard evidence was ever presented — the group was convicted and given the equivalent of more than four life sentences.

The agents were then shipped off to five different maximum-security prisons spread across the United States so as to eliminate any possibility for communication.

What did these five Cubans do to deserve this sentence?

The Cuban Five, as they have become known, were in pursuit of known terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who was responsible for the 1997 hotel bombings in Havana.

But as it turned out, Posada was a CIA operative. In order to protect its valuable asset and cover up the job, the U.S. government arrested the Cuban Five and denounced them as spies.

Exiled Cubans like Posada have a long and bloody history of terrorism against Cuba. Likewise, America has a long and bloody history of actively supporting those terrorist attacks.

After Posada escaped from Cuba, the CIA trained him in explosives and sabotage. He remained a CIA operative for many years, even helping to organize the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

Posada is also widely assumed to be the mastermind behind the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner. Seventy-three civilian passengers died on that plane. Posada was eventually allowed to walk free.

Meanwhile, three of the five Cubans who were trying to catch Posada remain locked in maximum-security prisons.

None of this guarantees that the Cuban Five weren’t spies. It’s possible that their imprisonment was entirely justified, and that the sensitive nature of the case warranted classifying the incriminating evidence.

But the more likely explanation is that since the United States had an economic and political interest in toppling the Castro regime, and since terrorism from Cuban exiles advances that goal, the U.S. government had made it a priority to thwart Cuban counterterrorism agents at any cost.

And so it goes for U.S. foreign policy around the world. America picks and chooses which terrorists to condemn and which to support, often wavering between the two depending on the prevailing incentives.

The case of the Cuban Five was not an isolated incident. The United States supports terrorism wherever and whenever it’s strategic to do so.

Back in 1959, some sources say, the CIA hired a young Iraqi assassin to eliminate Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim. The assassin was a then-unknown thug named Saddam Hussein. When Hussein botched the job, the United States supposedly set him up with money and protection within the Ba’ath Party. Then in 1963, the Ba’ath Party organized a CIA-backed military coup that would eventually place Hussein in power. At the time, America sought to bolster its position in the Cold War by exerting control over Iraq, even if it may have meant forging an alliance with Hussein, a known terrorist and newly established dictator.

America was consistently one of the staunchest supporters of the Hussein regime, even going so far as to provide Iraq with vital military intelligence that was used to administer chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq War. Not only did the U.S. government know Hussein was using lethal chemical weapons like nerve gas and sarin, we actively supported him. With the help of American intelligence, Hussein’s wanton usage of chemical weaponry killed thousands and won the war for Iraq.

The alliance with Hussein ended abruptly once he invaded Kuwait. Hussein became more useful as an enemy than an ally, so the American propaganda machine took Hussein and turned him into the terrorist and dictator we know him as today. Though America’s aim in aiding terrorist activity is often regime change or political upheaval, U.S. politicians are sometimes willing to support terrorism just for the extra campaign money.

Iranian terrorist group Mojahedin-e-Khalq has largely been beyond reproach from American politicians, despite the widely held belief that the group was responsible for the assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists. A host of top-ranking U.S. officials, including the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Frances Townsend and Howard Dean, have all publicly defended MEK. Why? MEK has been funneling tens of thousands of dollars into their pockets in exchange for their support. And following America’s lead on the issue, Israel’s secret service has also provided MEK with extensive financing, training and weapons.

Which leads me to what is perhaps the most well-documented and notorious case of U.S.-sponsored terrorism: funding for Israel’s military.

By America’s own definition, Israel is perpetrating acts of terrorism against Palestine. Israeli airstrikes have purposefully targeted Palestinian hospitals and schools in a crusade to crush the Palestinian people in a barbaric war of expansion. This is “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets,” as the U.S. State Department defines terrorism.

While there is no doubt that Palestine also commits acts of terrorism, as Noam Chomsky has put it, Palestinian terrorism is “very small as compared with the U.S.-backed Israeli terrorism. Quite typically, violence reflects the means of violence. It’s not unusual. State terror is almost always much more extreme than retail terror, and this is no exception.”

To date, Israel’s aggressive invasion of the Gaza Strip has killed more than 2,100 Palestinians — around 75 percent of whom were civilians — while fewer than 80 Israelis have died.

And behind the scenes is America: Israel’s generous benefactor who watches from the sidelines as Palestinian women and children are brutally murdered.

In 2013 alone, the United States gave a whopping $3.1 billion in military aid to Israel. That amounts to nearly a quarter of Israel’s entire defense spending, which includes F-16 fighter jets, smart bombs, Apache helicopters and white phosphorous munitions.

America has no moral justification for this, only a political motivation. Simply put, American politicians support Israeli terrorism because American voters are overwhelmingly pro-Israel.

These examples are by no means the only instances of U.S.-backed terrorism. If the price is right, the United States has shown that it will support any amount of terrorism, anywhere in the world. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In America, it’s not dictators and tyrants that are supporting terrorism. It’s elected officials, and their power is vulnerable every election year. So while they’re the ones bankrolling terrorism, we’re the ones keeping them in office.

But, as of right now, the evidence is undeniable: America supports terrorists. Unless we do something about it, America will continue to support terrorists. And at some point, the lines start to blur, and if you squint just right, it starts to look an awful lot like America itself is the terrorist.

Sam Hillestad, The Brown Daily Herald

September 14, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The War Party never takes a holiday

Hoaxes, Hype, and Hysteria

While Americans were barbecuing over the Labor Day weekend, the Usual Suspects were busy cooking up new wars, from Iraq to Ukraine. While this is nothing new – after all, evil never sleeps – one thing I did notice: the stunning lack of imagination on their part. It was, in effect, the equivalent of a bunch of summer reruns: tired formulaic retreads that weren’t all that convincing in the first place.

Take the latest war propaganda centered on the alleged "threat" to our precious bodily fluids supposedly posed by ISIS, the War Party’s latest bogeyman. As polls showed a stubborn reluctance on the part of the American people to re-invade Iraq, the neocons came up with a not-so-new one: they claim a laptop computer ostensibly captured from ISIS by the "good" jihadists – the so-called Free Syrian Army, which is armed and trained by the US – contains plans for constructing "weapons of mass destruction," i.e. biological weapons. They’re even calling it the "laptop of death" – a phrase that ought to ring a bell for those who follow these sorts of things.

That’s the same phrase used to describe yet another purloined laptop, this one supplied by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, an Iranian terrorist group that, for years, has been feeding the War Party bogus "intelligence" about Tehran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons program. That tall tale was debunked in 2011 – yet another case of MEK cobbling together old outdated data, adding a dash of forgery, and shaking well enough to fool the credulous.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but what if the dog can pass off an old hoax as a new one? And that’s why I’m here: to remind you.

Speaking of America’s Good Jihadists, a.k.a. the Syrian Free Army, I was struck by this nugget from an account of the killing of Douglas McAuthur McCain, an American fighting for ISIS in Syria, in the New York Times:

"The rebels who killed him were fighting for the Free Syrian Army, a rival group backed by the United States, and they went on to behead six ISIS fighters – but not Mr. McCain – and then posted the photographs on Facebook."

Yes, these are the "moderate" Syrian rebels, backed by your tax dollars and the prestige of the United States government. Oh, but don’t worry, kids: they’re our barbarians – so beheading is okay, even praiseworthy, since they’re doing it on behalf of spreading "freedom" and "democracy."

And speaking of hoaxes, here’s a biggie: they’re telling us that the long-awaited Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine has finally arrived! Yay! You can almost hear the sigh of relief all the way from Washington. The War Party’s journalistic camarilla – which has been telling us for the past six months or so that Putin’s move was "imminent" – yelped "we told you so!" in unison. Neocon hysteric Anne Applebaum screeched that this proved that we have to prepare for "total war" with nuclear-armed Russia – which, she claims, is planning to "use nuclear weapons to bomb Poland and the Baltic countries."

There’s just one problem with this alleged "invasion" – there’s zero evidence for it. Normally when one country invades another, troops pour over the border, missiles strike their targets, and the invaders proclaim their victory. So where are the Russian tanks, the missiles raining down death, the tens of thousands of troops marching in to take possession of their newly-conquered territory?

They’re nowhere to be seen. The best NATO could come up with was a series of murky satellite photos showing a column of military vehicles going somewhere from some place else – and that’s it. Apparently the Ukrainian army is so under-equipped that the poor things don’t even have a single cell phone camera to take a quick shot of the invading hordes. (This just proves they need more American aid!) Washington avers that one thousand Russian troops are now in Ukraine – but why would Putin send in such a paltry "army" and risk defeat? Why not just send in the troops, as he did in Crimea, and be done with it?

Oh, but the new cold warriors have a ready answer for the absence of solid evidence: this, we’re told, is no regular old-fashioned conquest. In this case, it’s a "new" kind of invasion – a "stealth invasion." Which just goes to show that words can be twisted to mean their exact opposite.

Yet this "stealth" angle elides an important element of any invasion plan: the political benefits to be had at home. These are, by the way, the only benefits to be had if Putin decided to annex ramshackle east Ukraine, with its profitless Soviet-era industries and desperately poor populace. So why isn’t he up there beating his chest and scoring points by telling the Russian people he’s the kind of strong leader who can stand up to the West?

The War Party has sunk to a new low: they’re stealing from Hollywood! If this isn’t outright plagiarism of the plot of "Wag the Dog," then it’s damned close. If I were the producers of that movie, I’d sue – but that’s just me.

While our war propagandists lack originality, you have to give them credit for persistence: these guys never give up. When one lie is exposed, another quickly takes center stage – and if the War Party does this in the belief that the memory of the American people is lamentably short, then who can fault their logic?

That’s why Antiwar.com is a vitally important resource for those of us who want to put an end to our foreign policy of global intervention. Our online archives are a detailed record of the War Party’s now-debunked fabrications, a charge sheet stretching all the way back to the mid-1990s.

And our readers apparently realize the value of this resource – because, unlike the War Party’s bought-and-paid-for "journalists," we depend on a growing base of grassroots supporters to keep this operation afloat and expanding.

Amid all the navel-gazing discussion by "mainstream" scribes about how to sustain a news operation in the face of a technology that has changed the face of journalism, Antiwar.com’s success in building a new model has gone largely unremarked. As mainline journalists bemoan the decline of their industry, Antiwar.com has pointed the way forward for new media by building a news organization that abandons the old subscriber-advertiser-dependent revenue stream and bases itself, instead, on reader donations.

Of course, bloggers have been doing this, with the by-now-traditional "tip jar," for years, but I believe we were among the first to apply it to a broader-based news-and-opinion site – and make it work.

It has worked for over fifteen years. Every time we pass the goal in our quarterly fundraising drives I feel an immense satisfaction in the fact that our readers have given us yet another vote of confidence.

From where I sit, it looks as though our late summer fundraising drive is very close to the goalpost. My thanks to all who gave: I can’t even begin to express the depth of my gratitude. And I want to point out that none of us here at Antiwar.com take your support for granted: we work overtime to earn your support by reporting the facts as we understand them and never failing to question the "conventional wisdom" – no matter where it takes us.

Antiwar

September 11, 2014 0 comments

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,

September 1, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Beware of the MEK

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Based on news reports, a number of U.S. officials and former officials have adopted this motto in recent months. They seem to believe the prospect of the nuclear issue being solved and rapprochement with Tehran so threatening that they have rushed to Iran’s great foe: the People’s Mojahdein Organization (MEK).

The MEK is a cult-like dissident group, based outside of Iran, primarily in Iraq and France for much of the past three decades. It was considered a terrorist group by the United States until 2012 and by the European Union until 2009, when it was removed from the list of terrorist organizations and became increasingly viewed as an alternative to Iran’s current regime. This shows that the MEK’s campaign to galvanize support in the West has been relatively successful.

A more careful examination of the MEK provides evidence of the group’s problematic nature.

First, the MEK has no viable chance of seizing power in Iran. If the current government is not Iranians’ first choice for a government, the MEK is not even their last—and for good reason. The MEK supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. The people’s discontent with the Iranian government at that time did not translate into their supporting an external enemy that was firing Scuds into Tehran, using chemical weapons and killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, including many civilians. Today, the MEK is viewed negatively by most Iranians, who would prefer to maintain the status quo than rush to the arms of what they consider a corrupt, criminal cult.

Second, what Iranians understand, but the American MEK supporters choose to ignore, is the MEK’s track record of human-rights abuses. The MEK controls every aspect of its members’ lives and tortures them. Some of these human-rights abuses include: mass, compulsory divorces, beatings and torture, costing some members their lives, and solitary confinements so extreme that some members preferred to take their lives than be subjected to them.

Third, to understand the origins of anti-Americanism in pre-revolutionary Iran, look no further. The MEK was responsible for the assassination and failed attempts to kidnap and assassinate Americans in Iran in the 1970s. It was also the MEK that pressured the Islamic revolutionaries to take a stronger stance against the United States. The MEK further supported the 1979 U.S. embassy hostage crisis in Tehran.

Fourth, on the surface, the MEK has evolved since the ‘70s into a democratic alternative to the Islamic Republic and a potential ally for the West and Israel. However, the organization is merely manipulating the West, hoping it will rush to it for fear of the greater enemy: the Islamic Republic. To do so, the MEK has teamed up with Israel, while it is as anti-Israeli as the Iranian regime, criticizing the Shah’s support for Jerusalem as much as the Islamic revolutionaries. This is not a real ideological shift, but rather a smart, tactical move by the MEK.

Fifth, the MEK may appear as a modern organization on the surface, but it is, in fact, a crypto-Shiite Communist group. In effect, it is the product of the Leninist-style party and the eleventh-century Ismaili order, the Assassins: a religious, Communist cult based around the myth of an invisible leader, Massoud Rajavi, who has not been seen for years (and who is said to be dead or hiding).

Sixth, the MEK claims that it would dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, which has led some in the United States to believe its empowerment to be a viable solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis. Even if the MEK had a real chance of coming to power in Iran, which it does not, it would most likely not dismantle the nuclear program. In fact, it would have even more incentive to pursue nuclear weapons and would be less likely to engage with the international community. The MEK is a far less accountable organization than the Islamic Republic is, as, unlike the latter, it is a cult-like organization, rather than an established government that has certain checks and balances. As such, sanctions and deterrence would be less effective on the MEK than on the current government.

The voices supporting the MEK are ignoring the lessons of some of the most catastrophic U.S. foreign-policy mistakes in the past few decades, urging Washington to repeat history. Overhyping the threat of an adversary and blindly supporting groups opposing it led to the creation of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Supporting the MEK is neither in accordance with American values, nor beneficial to U.S. interests. Instead, the United States should pursue the diplomatic track, which is what most Americans favor. Diplomacy will not only promote U.S. interests in the Middle East, but also help empower Iranians to improve their lives by normalizing the Iranian political climate.

Ariane Tabatabai, The National Interest

Ariane Tabatabai is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Follow her on Twitter @ArianeTabatabai.

August 25, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK Muck-up

It may seem a bit late, but ex-San Diego mayor Bob Filner, who quit office following revelations of sexual harassment last summer, has just received a warning from California’s Fair Political Practices Commission. In a letter dated July 23, commission senior counsel Neal Bucknell calls out Filner for accepting what it calls an “unlawful gift” of travel from an Iranian-American group that provided an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe beginning on June 21 of last year.

“As Mayor of the City of San Diego, you accepted a gift from the Organization of Iranian-American Communities in the approximate amount of $9,839 in the form of a paid trip to Paris, France,” Bucknell notes. “In a letter to the FPPC dated January 20, 2014, you acknowledged that this was an over-the-limit gift, claiming that you ‘immediately wrote a personal check to [the Organization of Iranian-American Communities] for the total cost of the trip…’ However, it appears from your bank records that you did not make your payment until August 2013.” If the ex-mayor ever finds himself again in a position to be offered a similar deal, Bucknell warns he should be mindful that “the information in this case will be retained and may be used against you should an enforcement action become necessary due to newly discovered information and/or failure to comply with the Act in the future. Failure to comply with the provisions of the Act in the future may result in monetary penalties of up to $5,000 per violation.”

As first reported here back in November 2007, Filner, then a congressman, had long been accepting Parisian freebies from backers of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, or MEK for short. That June, Filner and GOP congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado co-authored an op-ed piece in the editorial pages of the conservative Washington Times demanding that the Bush Administration stop labeling the group as a terrorist organization. Though Filner never returned calls seeking an explanation of his fervid MEK support, wealthy Iranian expatriates were often fingered as cash underwriters of the effort, which included the lobbying services of Republican ex-House majority leader Dick Armey. The Obama administration’s then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton finally took the group off the government’s terrorist list in September 2012.

By Matt Potter, Sandiego Reader

August 21, 2014 0 comments

USA

ISIS a pretext for US-sponsored regime change in Iraq

The ousting of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is part of a broader US plan for Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.

Against the backdrop of the war against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Washington has managed to kill two birds with one stone, as the saying goes. Not only has the US removed a political leader who had proven to be problematic due to his opposition to US military presence in Iraq, as well as his staunch support for Syria and President Assad, they have also created the conditions for the dismemberment of the Iraqi state.

The US and its allies are supporting de facto ‘independence’ for the Kurdish region in the north of the country, using the IS as a convenient pretext for openly arming and supporting Kurdish forces. Naturally, one should not look for altruism in Washington’s motives. Rather, this strategy is to benefit western oil companies with dollar signs in their eyes, licking their lips in anticipation of being able to deal directly with Kurdish President Barzani.

Additionally, Maliki’s ouster deprives Syrian President Assad of a key ally, thereby emboldening the IS and the other militants waging war against Syria. It provides further evidence, as if more were needed, that the political future is bleak for any Iraqi leader who dares to break from the script written for him by Washington. Perhaps most importantly, it allows the US and its allies to be the leading force politically in the war against the IS, an organization created by US policy and covert operations in the region.

In the sales and marketing industry, there is a term known as ‘solution selling’ whereby the salesperson either creates or exaggerates a problem, then presents his or her product as the invaluable solution. Indeed, this sort of sales strategy is precisely the approach Washington has taken in the region, and specifically in Iraq.

The IS disease

The IS has only very recently become an internationally recognized epidemic of militant Islamist extremism that must be eradicated at all costs. That international recognition came only when the organization began taking control of territory in Iraq, threatening Western oil and gas interests. While the IS was waging its brutal and vicious war against the Syrian people and government however, the IS was merely an afterthought, simply a group of extremists fighting the ‘brutal dictator’ Assad.

It seems then that the danger of ISIS and the necessity to eradicate it is directly correlative to US interests. Put another way, the IS is a useful tool in Syria and southern Lebanon where it creates chaos to the detriment of Assad and Hezbollah respectively, while in Iraq, the IS is dangerous where it threatens the US client regime in Kurdistan and Western oil interests. But of course, the detail consistently left out of most analysis of the IS problem is the simple fact that it is a creation of US intelligence and its covert war on Syria.

As early as 2011, the US CIA was involved in an elaborate and widespread program to covertly arm militant extremists in Syria in order to overthrow the government of President Assad. As the New York Times and other media outlets reported in 2012, the CIA was working with the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups along the Turkish-Syrian border to funnel weapons, communications equipment, and other military materiel to terrorist groups at war with Damascus. Despite vehement claims by Washington that only ‘moderate rebels’ were receiving such support, it is an open secret that much of those supplies ended up in the hands of then-ISIS, which already by 2012 was beginning to establish itself as a dominant fighting force in the Syrian war.

Perhaps it should then begin to make sense why, when ISIS launched its allegedly ‘surprise’ attack on the critical Iraqi city of Mosul in June, they were so well armed and equipped with everything from matching pickup trucks to anti-tank weapons, RPGs, and a host of other US-made equipment. Naturally, in the days and weeks following the attack, ISIS armed itself even further with confiscated Iraqi military equipment, also provided by the US. So it would be fair to say that, consciously or unconsciously, the United States helped to create and unleash the IS we know today.

No longer simply another militant organization among many, the IS has grown, thanks to US sponsorship, into the premier terrorist fighting force in the region, capable of engaging national militaries (Iraq, Syria) and other well-organized armed groups such as Hezbollah. In effect, the IS has become the enforcer of US foreign policy, a proxy force that furthers the US agenda without any significant US military presence needed. And yet, the IS is presented in the mainstream media as the greatest threat in the Middle East. Why so? Why were they no threat at all in Syria, but have become the great menace in Iraq?

Iraq, Maliki & Western interests

The US waged an aggressive war and occupation of Iraq for nearly a decade for the purposes of establishing a puppet government that would be amenable to Western economic and geopolitical interests. In many ways, that project failed as PM Maliki emerged as a strong, nationalistic leader who was unwilling to accede to the demands of the occupiers.

Washington wanted to permanently base US troops in the country, and Maliki rejected this proposal, demanding the permanent withdrawal of all US forces by the end of 2011. Maliki purged Iraq of the US-sponsored terrorist organization the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) which had waged a decades-long campaign of terrorism against Iran by closing down Camp Ashraf, the base from which the organization operated. Maliki also sacked two key figures in Iraq’s banking establishment, both of whom were close associates of neocon darling, and failed Iraqi presidential candidate, Ahmed Chalabi, thereby earning him the ire of Washington, which sought to maintain its grip on the purse-strings of Iraqi wealth.

But of course, these were by no means Maliki’s only ‘crimes’ in the eyes of the US. He also challenged Western oil companies looking to make massive profits off of Iraq’s vast energy deposits. Perhaps the best-known instance occurred in 2012 when ExxonMobil signed an oil exploration deal with the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq. Maliki rejected the validity of the deal, noting that any oil contracts must be negotiated with the central government in Baghdad, rather than Barzani’s US-aligned government in Arbil. Maliki’s spokesman noted at the time that:

“Maliki views these deals as representing a very dangerous initiative that may lead to the outbreak of wars… [and] breaking up the unity of Iraq…Maliki is prepared to go to the highest levels for the sake of preserving the national wealth and the necessary transparency in investing the wealth of the Iraqis, especially oil… [He] sent a message to American President Barak [sic] Obama last week urging him to intervene to prevent ExxonMobil from going in this direction.”

It is no secret that Maliki’s strong-willed resistance to this deal, in addition to his refusal to pay ExxonMobil upwards of $50 million to improve production at one major southern oilfield led directly to the oil company pulling out of the lucrative West Qurna-1 project. Essentially then, Maliki took on the very powerful oil corporations (BP is no friend of Maliki either), seeking to get a better deal for Iraq. It would be safe to assume that the endemic corruption in Iraq would have made it easier for Maliki and his associates to enrich themselves by skimming off the top and/or receiving payouts from other oil interests. However, this is secondary to the primary ‘crime’ of challenging the hegemony of oil companies in Iraq.

And it is here that we see quite clearly why the US has been so keen on protecting their Kurdish puppet government, which really should be understood as a ruling clique centered on President Barzani and ex-President of Iraq Talabani, their families, and cronies. Since as early as 2011, Western oil companies sought to bypass Maliki and the legal government in Baghdad by making independent deals with the Kurds. Not only did they not want to pay the taxes that would be used to fund the recovery of Iraq from more than a decade of war, they attempted to play the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities off one another in a cynical ploy to more effectively and efficiently exploit the corruption and competition that exists in both.

Of course, it should be noted that the US, Israel, and other Western powers have long maintained very close ties with Barzani and the Kurds. A valid argument could be made that Kurdistan represents a forward base for US military power projection in Iraq and, particularly against Iran. Additionally, Israel has long maintained close ties with Kurdish authorities, both in terms of political support as well as covert intelligence and espionage-related activities. As Israeli scholar Ofra Bengio recently wrote in the pro-US, pro-Israeli publication the Middle East Quarterly:

“From the 1990s on, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) maintained relations with Kurdish officials since ‘pro-Israel Jewish activists viewed support for the Kurds, a small nation struggling for self-determination in a hostile Arab neighborhood, as helping Israel reach out to a natural ally.’ According to Morris Amitay, AIPAC’s executive director from 1974 to 1980, ‘Our Israeli friends always appreciated our friendship with the Kurds.’ Amitay’s son, Mike Amitay, also served as executive director of the Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI) from 1996 to 2005.”

Naturally, the Israeli connection is not strictly a benevolent one. Rather, Israeli intelligence and special forces have been deeply intertwined with their Kurdish counterparts as far back as 2003 and the commencement of the second US war in Iraq (though likely decades before that). As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh noted in 2004:

“The Israelis have had long standing ties to the Talibani and Barzani clans [in] Kurdistan and there are many Kurdish Jews that emigrated to Israel and there are still a lot of connection. But at some time before the end of the year, and I’m not clear exactly when, certainly I would say a good six, eight months ago, Israel began to work with some trained Kurdish commandoes, ostensibly the idea was the Israelis — some of the Israeli elite commander units, counter-terror or terror units, depending on your point of view, began training — getting the Kurds up to speed.”

So, as should be self-evident, Washington’s decision to use military force against ISIS is a cynical ploy to protect intelligence assets, economic interests, and create a nominally independent Kurdish state which will become integrated into the US-Israeli sphere of influence in the region. In order to achieve these strategic objectives, first and foremost, Maliki had to be gotten rid of.

And so, regime change has once again come to Iraq, this time through the backdoor. By arming ISIS in Syria, the US unleashed a monster in Iraq, which it now uses as the pretext for fulfilling the long-standing goal of de facto partition of Iraq. With Kurdish independence robbing Iraq of vital oil resources, it is unlikely that any ruling coalition consisting of Sunnis and Shia will effectively govern the country, regardless of the individuals at its helm. And this is precisely the point. Sadly, in the interests of the West, Iraq will now endure yet another civil war and period of misery and despair. There will be no economic development, no political progress, no peace. Exactly what Washington wanted.

Eric Draitser, RT

(Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City and the founder of StopImperialism.com.)

August 19, 2014 0 comments

Camp Liberty

Conflict in Iraq continues to affect residents of the Hurriya

Update No. 11

Conflict in Iraq continues to affect residents of the Hurriya Temporary Transit Location

The surge in conflict since June 2014 has continued across significant areas in Iraq. Violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, who have either moved internally or across borders to become refugees in the region. UNHCR and its partners have scaled up operations to respond to their urgent needs for protection and assistance.

The dramatic deterioration of the security situation in Iraq as a result of the fighting is equally worrying in the context of the efforts – on-going since 2011 – of UNHCR and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) to find relocation opportunities outside Iraq for former residents of Camp New Iraq (formerly Ashraf). Approximately 2,700 people reside in the Hurriya Temporary Transit Location (TTL) near the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP).

The residents suffered three separate rocket attacks in 2013, each of which resulted in deaths and injuries. In addition, an attack against Camp New Iraq in September 2013 left 52 dead and seven persons missing. The escalation in conflict across Iraq leaves residents of the Hurriya TTL open to significantly heightened security risks.

In light of the current situation, UNHCR urgently renews its calls upon governments of other countries to admit residents and to find ways to offer long term solutions to all. If long term solutions cannot be made available immediately, the urgent need to relocate the residents would justify an extraordinary evacuation to a temporary platform from where they could be permanently relocated to a third country. UNHCR stands ready to assist states in achieving this.

UNHCR deeply appreciates the measures taken by some countries already to relocate residents to situations of safety and security. These measures contribute greatly to international efforts to find solutions for this group of people.

UNHCR recalls that all residents of the Hurriya TTL registered with UNHCR are persons of concern to UNHCR. They are thus entitled to protection against expulsion or forced movement to any place where their lives or freedom would be threatened. The Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Iraq and the United Nations explicitly recognizes that residents benefit from the principle of non-refoulement.

UNHCR continues to call upon the Government of Iraq to take all possible measures to ensure the safety and well-being of residents, including ensuring access to life saving medical treatment.

UNHCR,Geneva

August 16, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Disgraceful Shilling for the MEK Continues

The de-listing fight may be over, but that hasn’t stopped the Mujahedin-e Khalq‘s American cheerleaders from uncritically repeating its propaganda. Here is Hugh Shelton, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs:

The main Iranian opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), is a viable alternative to the Islamist regime, and we owe it a chance to build a secular, democratic, non-nuclear Iran. If anyone doubted the NCRI’s support base, a groundswell of more than 100,000 Iranians turned up in Paris last month for its annual rally, joined by top politicians, dignitaries and former national security figures, myself included. It was an enormous display of support.

Shelton is opposed to diplomacy with the Iranian government, because he insists that Tehran can’t be trusted to honor its agreements and shouldn’t be “rewarded” for previous deceptive behavior. Leaving aside how crazy it is to spurn diplomacy because governments sometimes lie and break their promises, there is something especially weird about an argument that simultaneously promotes the cause of the MEK while complaining about Iranian deceit. (The NCRI is the umbrella organization that the MEK dominates.) As it has sought to rehabilitate itself in the West, the MEK has claimed all sorts of spurious, self-serving things about what it represents. Despite being a bizarre authoritarian cult with Marxist and quasi-Islamist views, it now pretends to be exactly what Westerners want an Iranian exile group to be. It doesn’t matter to the MEK’s American fans that it is lying about its political views, and they are obviously not worried about reciting those lies for Western audiences. Indeed, it has so completely hoodwinked them that they think it should be rewarded with American support.

It’s important to remember that the MEK and its umbrella group are not “the main Iranian opposition” or anything like it. For one thing, the real “main” Iranian opposition is still in Iran, and unlike the MEK it is not widely loathed by Iranians. Naturally, any exile group would like foreign governments to believe that it is the “main opposition” to the regime in its home country, but in order for this deception to work the foreigners have to be thoroughly oblivious and/or indifferent to the internal political realities of the country in question. If there is ever to be a “viable alternative” to the current Iranian regime, it will come from inside Iran and won’t have anything to do with a group that is best-known for its service to one of Iran’s worst enemies during the Iran-Iraq war. The shilling for this group by many prominent American former officials and politicians is one of the more disgraceful displays of the last decade, and as long as it continues it should be held up for derision.

By Daniel Larison

August 10, 2014 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts