The MEK and Acts of Treason

US intelligence service closely cooperating with MKO terrorists

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations has described the Islamic Republic as a victim of terrorism and extra-national organized crime, stating that the anti-Iran terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), supported by some regional and European countries, is working closely with the US intelligence service in a bid to descend Iran into chaos.
“Even though terrorists and organized criminals differ in their motives and methods, they are similar to one another concerning the repercussions of their acts, which are total disruption and comprehensive destruction,” Majid Takht-e Ravanchi said at a UN Security Council meeting entitled “Threats to international peace and security: Linkage between international terrorism and organized crime” in New York on Tuesday evening.
He added that Iran has been a victim of terrorists and international organized criminals, and has been a pioneer in the fight against them.
Majid Takht-e Ravanchi highlighted that 17,161 Iranian citizens, including late president Mohammad Ali Rajaei, former prime minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar, late Head of Supreme Judicial Council Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, late Deputy Chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff Ali Sayyad Shirazi, 27 legislators as well as four nuclear scientists have been killed by terrorists.
“The MKO terrorist group, which bears responsibility for the death of more than 12,000 Iranian civilians, is currently being sponsored by a number of regional counties and several states in Europe. (The United States of) America has provided its members refuge after removed the group from its list of designated terrorist organizations. The US intelligence service is working closely with them in order to hatch conspiracies of destruction in Iran,” the Iranian diplomat pointed out.
The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community. Its members fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where they received support from then dictator Saddam Hussein.
The notorious outfit has carried out numerous attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials for several decades.
In 2012, the US State Department removed the MKO from its list of designated terrorist organizations under intense lobbying by groups associated to Saudi Arabia and other regimes adversarial to Iran.
A few years ago, MKO members were relocated from their Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s Diyala Province to Camp Hurriyet (Camp Liberty), a former US military base in Baghdad, and were later sent to Albania.
Those members, who have managed to escape, have revealed MKO’s scandalous means of access to money, almost exclusively coming from Saudi Arabia.
Takht-e Ravanchi then pointed to Iran’s cooperation with Iraq and Syria in its fight against Daesh Takfiri terrorists, emphasizing that Iran’s military presence in both countries is based on requests by their legal governments.
The Iranian UN ambassador also made a reference to his country’s leading role in fighting drug trafficking, saying that more than 39 percent of world narcotics in 2017 were discovered by Iran.
“Over the past 40 years, Iran has lost 3,815 members of the law enforcement forces during anti-drug operations. More than 12,000 people have been injured as well,” he said.
Takht-e Ravanchi finally called on the international community to support Iran in the fight against illegal drugs without any preconditions, discrimination and political considerations.

July 10, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

The american investigative journalist on the MEK-Israel fake docs

US Intelligence Has ‘Muffed’ Proof on Iran’s Alleged WMD Programs for Decades
Gareth Porter ; the American historian, investigative journalist, author and policy analyst specializing in U.S. national security policy who was active as a Vietnam specialist and anti-war activist during the Vietnam War whose analysis and reporting including on Mujahedin-e Khalq issue has appeared in academic journals, news publications

told Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear that the US’ claim that Iran had a nuclear weapons program is based on false ideas bolstered by the US intelligence community and that China is unlikely to succumb to the US’ anti-Iran campaign.

“The problem in part is that the US intelligence community completely muffed it – they blew this even more thoroughly than they blew the questions of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” Porter told host John Kiriakou on Wednesday.

“It was based on a series of false ideas that the intelligence communities began with and some maneuvering by high-ranking CIA officials … who interfered with the process of the assessment of Iran’s nuclear program within the CIA,” Porter explained. “It culminated in the approval of this set of documents that came from the Mujahedin-e-Khalq [MEK] that was aligned with and did work with the Israelis” to allegedly prove that Iran had an active nuclear weapons program.

“They were fakes, they were fabricated documents,” Porter said,

referring to a laptop the MEK allegedly supplied Israeli intelligence with in 2005, claiming it belonged to an Iranian nuclear scientist. “And the Israelis were behind it. They were the ones who had the capability and the motivation to produce such fabrication and the CIA did not do their job appropriately and they gave it the go ahead. The reality is that those documents were the central evidence that was offered to the world and accepted by the International Atomic Energy Agency as sufficient evidence to put Iran in the dock.”

“So ever since 2005, the US and its allies have been getting the rest of the world to get along with the idea that Iran was trying to get nuclear weapons,” Porter explained.

“During the Iran-Iraq War, when Iran was subjected to eight years of chemical weapons attack by the Iraqi government which killed upwards of 100,000 Iranians, the Iranians had the capability to produce chemical weapons.

Porter noted that during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, over 100,000 Iranians died – many of them at the hands of Iraqi poison gas attacks – and Tehran had the capability at that time to produce chemical weapons.

“They never did it. They never used a single chemical weapon during the war. Ayatollah Khomeini forbade that … the reason was it was illegal, illcit under Shia Islam,” Porter said about the Iranian revolutionary leader, also adding that there has never been “hard evidence” that Iran has produced nuclear weapons.

“I think that people need to understand that the truth is fundamentally different than the narrative that has been accepted by virtually everybody, by this political system, and in Europe as well,” Porter said.

Tehran is partially discontinuing its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement in a bid to salvage the multilateral nuclear deal, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday, Sputnik reported. The president warned that beginning July 7, Iran’s uranium enrichment would exceed 3.67% purity, and earlier this week, it exceeded the 300 kg maximum allowable mass of enriched uranium stockpiles.

Despite the US’ “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, “the fundamental reality” is that Trump doesn’t want a war with the Middle Eastern country, Porter told Sputnik.

“It is clear he had made a decision. I don’t think he was ever ready to really go to war with Iran. I think he had made up his mind that unless Americans were attacked by Iran directly, he was not going to war with them,” Porter said, noting “the Iranians clearly don’t want to have a war with the US.”

In addition, according to ship-tracking data obtained by Paris-based energy researcher Kpler SAS, at least five supertankers headed to China were loaded with Iranian liquified petroleum gas, suggesting that China isn’t going to abide by the US’ maximum pressure campaign. In recent days, the Chinese-owned ship “Sino Energy 1” was seen approaching Iranian waters before dropping off radar. It then reappeared days later, apparently full and leaving Iranian waters, the New York Times reported.

“I think it’s pretty clear that what this signals is that China is not going to go along with the maximum pressure campaign in any way such as the Trump administration is demanding … I think the bigger question at the moment is whether the Europeans are capable of playing any independent role in regards to this issue. They are poised in this moment to move in the direction of the US despite the fact that they know it’s wrong and the risks are very high. My guess is that they are not ready to openly defy the US on this issue because of the power that the US financial system continues to wield in the world economy,” Porter explained.

According to Porter, there are two likely possibilities regarding the Iran-US situation.

“The most likely two possiblies are that, a) the same cast of characters remains in place over the next few months and the Iranians inevitably take actions take actions that cause [US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton] people to insist we [the US] have to take more decisive action militarily … and we have the beginning of an actual war; or b) Bolton is replaced as national security adviser by someone who is prepared to actually do something diplomatically to end this crisis,” Porter explained.
BEHROUZ MEHRI, sputniknews.com

July 6, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK/Saudis manipulate U.S. policy to sow discord in Iran

Propaganda War to Real War: The MEK’s Treacherous Operation

Under the guise of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and ties to al-Qaeda, the Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003—and the consequences have reverberated across the Middle East to this day. With the specter of war again on the horizon, striking parallels have emerged between the lead-up to the Iraq War and the current discourse on Iran. The media has parroted the Trump administration’s claims regarding Iranian “threats,” and U.S. media outlets continue to provide a pulpit for fringe Iranian opposition groups like the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a formerly designated terrorist organization.

Just as the Bush administration hinged their hopes of Saddam Hussein’s fall on the exiles of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) who duped U.S. officials with the now infamous “Curveball,”

Trump and his regime-change cabinet are now touting the MEK as a viable alternative to the current government in Iran. Despite these parallels, the mainstream media continues to give a platform to radical groups like the MEK, which are weaving together a questionable story to build a case for regime change and war with Iran.

Also similar to the INC, which claimed that it did not seek power in Iraq, the MEK pretends to work for democracy in Iran in the name of the Iranian people. Though both organizations have used fabrications to push their agenda, the tools of disinformation have evolved over time and the MEK has mastered the art of false narratives.

Coordinated efforts by small interest groups to undermine critics of Trump’s Iran policy and stifle pro-peace and pro-diplomacy voices have become increasingly hostile. Revelations have come to light on the role of the MEK in magnifying efforts at misrepresentation through inauthentic social media accounts aimed at manufacturing “Iranian” support for the Trump administration’s pro-war policies. The MEK also utilizes promoted content on news sites. For instance, The Hill is running a 10-week mini-series on Iran sponsored by the Organization of Iranian-American Communities (OIAC), a front group for the MEK.

Even more unsettling is the MEK’s creation of fake personas that publish in major U.S. outlets as a way to promote the pro-regime change narrative, falsely inflate support for war, and secure legitimacy as real “analysts.” Outlets such as Forbes and The Hill continue to host the writings of a person that is not real, a character created by the MEK called Heshmat Alavi.

Evidence of MEK machinations are substantiated by online campaigns intended to influence the narrative on Iran in favor of regime change. Former MEK members have confirmed the operation of MEK troll farms based in Albania, where members create thousands of inauthentic accounts and promote hashtags, propaganda, and tweets targeting anyone that favors diplomacy with Iran. The group also uses front organizations, like the OIAC, to take out paid ads that advance its cause at the expense of U.S. security interests in the region.

Despite its propaganda mission, the MEK is loathed inside Iran and has no support as an opposition force. Support for the fringe group fares no better in the Iranian diaspora. According to a 2018 poll among Iranian-Americans, only 6 percent said that they supported the MEK as a legitimate alternative to the current regime in Iran. The history of this enmity can be traced back to the Iran-Iraq War, when the MEK fought alongside Saddam Hussein.

The United States first placed the MEK on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list when the list was established in the 1990s based on their role in the murders of Iranians as well as Americans in bombings at U.S. companies in Iran in the 1970s. Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the MEK has continued to carry out assassinations and terror attacks inside Iran.

The group’s ideological premise is a subversion of Islam. In his seminal study of the history of the MEK, Ervand Abrahamian argues that it “developed an all-consuming hatred for the clerical regime and, at the same time, the burning conviction that its own radical version of Shiism was the one and only true interpretation of Islam.”

Although the MEK outwardly espouses human rights as a guiding principle, it is itself a cult-like group with a history of abuse and torture against its own members. According to a report by RAND, the group’s disturbing human rights cruelties against its members include physical abuse, seizure of assets, imprisonment, mandatory divorce, emotional isolation, and forced labor—to name but a few. Former MEK members who have escaped the group also report sexual abuse and forced marriages during their captivity. One of their more nefarious practices of authoritarian control over members is removing children from their parents.

The group’s removal from the terror list in 2012 was a result of a well-funded PR campaign led by paid spokespeople, including National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has received at least $40,000 in “speaking fees” from the group. Other members of the Trump team, such as his attorney Rudy Giuliani, have also received money from the MEK to lend their endorsement and speak at rallies calling for the overthrow of the Iranian government. The MEK has never revealed the source of its funding, although evidence suggests that Saudi Arabia may play an integral role in propping up the organization to manipulate U.S. policy and sow discord in Iran.

Ultimately, despite the parallels between the run-up to the Iraq War and today’s escalating tensions with Iran, the MEK and other radical faux-opposition forces with no legitimacy in Iran continue to be given platforms to propagate distorted Iran narratives. Despite the failures of the Iraq War, the experience seems to have done little to impel the mainstream media to produce more accurate, nuanced reporting.
by Assal Rad,

Assal Rad is a research fellow at the National Iranian American Council. She received her PhD in History at the University of California, Irvine

July 3, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US officials and their cozy ties with the MEK cult

Washington’s Infatuation with the MEK
Inarguably, Washington has a long history of supporting terrorists. As General William Odom, President Reagan’s former National Security Agency (NSA) Director wrote in his 2007 article “American Hegemony, How to Use It, How to Lose It”:
“[T]errorism is not an enemy. It is a tactic. Because the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists and using terrorist tactics…”.
Despite this long-standing use of tactic, there is no record of terrorists operating but a stone’s throw away from the White House. Nor has there been such brazen embrace of a terrorist group dubbed an undemocratic cult – until now.
The 1997 Patterns of Global Terrorism report issued by the State Department stated the following about the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO, NCRI and various other acronyms):

“During the 1970s, the MEK staged terrorist attacks inside Iran to destabilize and embarrass the Shah’s regime; the group killed several US military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. The group also supported the takeover in 1979 of the US Embassy in Tehran. In April 1992 the MEK carried out attacks on Iranian embassies in 13 different countries, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas.”

Listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in 1997, the offices of the group’s spokesperson, Alireza Jafarzadeh was located at 1717 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Even after the attacks of September 11 and America’s declared “war on terror”, the spokesperson and representative of the terror group was just down the street from the White House. Later, the organization would move its offices to 1747 Pennsylvania Avenue, remaining close to the residence of the President of the United States of America located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It is said that ‘familiarity breeds contempt’. This is certainly not true of Washington officials and their cozy ties with the MEK cult. It seems that they are inching ever closer and have the audacity to flaunt their ties. Washington’s actions are a long cry from Israel’s who in the 1990’s was secretly aiding the group. (The Israeli-MEK relations continue to be omitted from news headlines while the accusatory finger is pointed to Saudi Arabia for their financial support of the cult).
Connie Brock of The New Yorker writes:

“Israel had a relationship with the M.E.K at least since the late nineties, and had supplied a satellite signal for N.C.R.I. broadcasts from Paris into Iran.

An Israeli diplomat said:

“The M.E.K is useful,”but did not elaborate.”. According to the same report, the Israelis provided the MEK with unsubstantiated ‘intelligence’ on Iran’s nuclear program. Not surprising since the aforementioned 1997 Patterns of Global Terrorism report states, “The MEK directs a worldwide campaign against the Iranian Government that stresses propaganda and occasionally uses terrorist violence .”

The close relationship with Israel may help explain why it was that in spite of being listed as terrorists, the group managed to bribe prominent politicians; even as a provision of the defense authorization bill would grant the military the authority to detain and hold anyone indefinitely, or to assassinate any individual suspected of having ties to terrorists/al Qaeda. Yet, these terrorists were giving speaking fees to American politicians. (The group also has its tentacles around British politicians – see HERE).

What is even more mind-boggling is the fact that Israel was supporting a terrorist cult that had massacred the Kurds in Iraq in 1991, and only a few year later, the Israelis were training the Kurds in Iraq who has survived the massacre (obviously something that has been lost on the Kurds) while their killers, the MEK, were being chauffeured around by American soldiers a short distance away in Iraq – in America’s ‘war on terror’!

Meanwhile, back home, politicians were being bribed by the terrorists! Clearly, FATF (Financial Action Task Force) did not prevent money from being funneled to and from terrorists. Shamelessly, Washington is demanding that Iran become a member of FATF to stop terrorism financing!
Even while the terrorist group was doling out money to corrupt politicians so they could be removed from the FTO list, and Washington politicians accepted money from terrorists, the group continued with its terrorism and carried out cross-border raids inside Iran with the full knowledge and encouragement of the Bush administration (History Commons).
Concurrently, Washington was using other group members to promote propaganda against Iran with emphasis on ‘human rights’. The leader of the terrorist cult, Maryam Rajavi’s live satellite broadcast into Washington was cheered . This certainly gave new meaning to ‘human rights’ promotion by America – as well as its ‘war on terror’.

The hypocrisy reached across the aisle. Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on much, but both parties supported this terrorist cult – all the way to the top.

When Hillary Clinton was running for President in 2008, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D -Texas), co-chair of Hillary’s presidential campaign, not only shared her friendship with America’s then presidential hopeful, but she also promoted America’s pet terrorists – the MEK. Congresswoman Jackson Lee went as far as calling Maryam Rajavi “Sister Maryam,[1]. (Would this make Hillary and Maryam ‘sisters’ too?).
Certainly, Hillary’s push to remove the MEK from the FTO was a very sisterly act.
It is important to bear in mind that the group was removed from the list of FTO after U.S. officials disclosed to NBC that the MEK terrorist group was financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service and responsible for the killing of Iran’s nuclear scientists; and at a time when the United States was negotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Deal.
This year, as the Iranians mark the 38th anniversary of a horrendous attack by the MEK cult, the Trump administration is openly promoting the cult and flaunts Washington’s decades long, bipartisan infatuation with a notorious, anti-democratic cult. What makes the MEK stand out?
Israel’s support aside, they seem to be brought out in the open whenever Washington wants to play tis psychological games with Iran – its ‘stick’, the term [offensive] policy makers like to use. Washington knows full well that the group is hated in Iran. That not a single member of this group will be tolerated in Iran, and there is no future for the group. History also shows that Washington has experienced blow-back every time it has supported an unsavory group or when it has encouraged terror and terrorists. Terrorism, like pollution, does not recognize borders. Why the mad romancing of the MEK?

Perhaps Washington hopes that this cult will simply come to an end. As the Council on Foreign Relations has reported:

“Many analysts, including Rubin, have characterized the MEK as a cult, citing the group’s fealty to the Rajavis. Older women were reportedly required to divorce their husbands in the late 1980s, and younger girls cannot marry or have children.”.

Perhaps Washington’s thinking is that their numbers will dwindle and there will be no future generations of this cult to come back and haunt it. Now there is a wish both Washington and Tehran share!
But wishes don’t make policies. Washington needs to understand that its stick is a boomerang that will come back at it. Washington has become morally and fiscally bankrupt as a result of its wrong policies. Its high time to save itself from the quagmire of its own creation before sinking beyond redemption.

ahtribune.com

July 2, 2019 0 comments

Iran

on Mike Pompeo’s ‘terror remark’

Mike Pompeo’s ‘terror remark’ baseless, says Iran Embassy

In a statement the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in New Delhi categorically rejects baseless allegations of the US secretary of state levelled against Iran.

New Delhi: Tehran on Thursday slammed US secretary of state Mike Pompeo for calling Iran the “largest sponsor of terror” and termed his statement made in Delhi as baseless and fabricated, and aimed at renewed conflict in the region.

“The embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in New Delhi categorically rejects baseless allegations of the US secretary of state levelled against Iran during a joint press conference held in New Delhi on 26 June 2019,”

the embassy said in a statement made available to ET.

Pompeo said he discussed Iran with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar.

“We have a certain perspective on Iran, obviously from where we are based. The US secretary of state shared with me the American concerns on Iran. Both of us certainly came out much better informed of each other’s concerns in that regard,”

Jaishankar said. India is also hoping for launch of US-Iran negotiations to resume oil imports.

“These allegations are nothing other than continuation of forging unfounded accusations and fabrications by the US administration, specially state secretary Pompeo, to push for more hostilities, instability and confrontation in the region.”

the embassy said.

“The miscalculations and wrong understanding of the US administration towards other nations and many international and regional issues have aggravated the situation between the US and the rest of the world which is very clear and undeniable… The US is openly sowing seeds of hostility against the peaceful people of Iran through maximum economic pressure in particular unfair sanctions as a brutal act of terrorism,”

the Iranian mission said.

“During the last decades, US interventions in the region have disturbed the natural harmony, domestic dynamics and ecosystem of communities in the region. The rise of extremist groups like Taliban, al-Qaeda and ISIS are contemporary demonstration of US adventurism. The crises in our region, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Yemen, are rooted in occupation, illegal military interventions, hegemonic and social engineering policies of the United States,”

the statement said.

“In contrast, the Islamic Republic of Iran, as a victim of terrorism which has lost 17,000 of its citizens by US supported terrorist groups (MKO/PMO) and being in the forefront of fighting these groups such as ISIS, has identified its regional interests with good-neighbourliness, and peace and stability in the highly sensitive Persian Gulf region and believes that its national security interests can only be secured through dialogue, confidence building and multilateral cooperation within the region, and Iran is determined to actively contribute to the promotion of an effective regional dialogue for peace and security,” the Iran embassy said.
By The Economic Times India

June 30, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US military secretly trained MEK Terrorists

The Exceptionally American Historical Amnesia Behind Pompeo’s Claim of ‘40 Years of Unprovoked Iranian Aggression’

From a CIA coup and supporting the Shah’s brutality to enabling chemical attacks, shooting down a civilian airliner and training terrorists,‘aggression’ between the US and Iran is overwhelmingly one-sided

Someone attacked two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week. The Trump administration wants the world to believe that Iran is the culprit. Yet there is no serious evidence that Tehran was behind the attacks on the Norwegian and Japanese ships. Not only is there no proof of Iranian involvement, such an attack by Iran makes no sense at all. Japan and Iran are friends. Just last month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — who was visiting Tehran during the tanker incident — affirmed this friendship in the presence of Donald Trump during the US president’s recent state visit to Japan. Most importantly of all, the crew and owner of the Japanese tanker attacked in the gulf vehemently reject the US claim that the vessel was damaged by a mine, asserting instead that a “flying object” struck the ship.

Still, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran for what he called a “blatant assault” on the tankers. Pompeo also said that the attacks “should be understood in the context of 40 years of unprovoked aggression” against the US and other “freedom-loving nations” by Iran. There is no such history. Iran hasn’t started a war since the mid-19th century, when it was still the Persian Empire. The true context which must be understood is one of a century of US and Western exploitation of Iranian people and resources, and decades of US threats and aggression against Iran that once reportedly included a plan to stage a false flag attack very similar to last week’s tanker incident.

Destroying Democracy

Many Americans suffer a collective historical amnesia that renders a true and complete understanding of the causes, conduct and consequences of their nation’s perpetual conflicts all but impossible. This explains why most Americans trace the origins of US-Iran enmity to the 1979 hostage crisis, when Islamists occupied the US Embassy in Tehran for 444 days and Iran was transformed from close ally to arch-enemy practically overnight. US leaders and media portrayed those young revolutionaries as wild-eyed Muslim fanatics consumed by irrational hatred of the United States. Their legitimate grievances, chief among these the repression and brutality of the US-backed regime they dethroned, were ignored.

Pompeo’s preposterous claim that the US wants to “restore democracy” to Iran begs the question of when Iranians ever enjoyed democracy in the first place. The closest they ever came was in the early 1950s, when the reformist prime minister Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh set out to end British and American exploitation of Iranian oil resources by nationalizing the assets of companies including the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which despite its equitable-looking hyphenation was really a British-owned near-monopoly known today as BP. Iran’s monarchy, led by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, had sold out his country to foreign capitalists to the extent that one State Department official wrote in 1942 that the US would “soon be in the position of actually running Iran.”

Emboldened, perhaps, by President Harry S. Truman’s hollow promise to “assist free people to work out their own destinies in their own way,” Iranians rallied behind Mossadegh as he fought to take what was rightfully Iran’s back from foreign predators. In addition to nationalization, he expelled foreign technicians from oil refineries and even broke off diplomatic relations with Britain. Mossadegh’s was the most popular and democratic government Iranians had ever known. Time magazine, in naming him its “Man of the Year” for 1951, called him “the Iranian George Washington.”

The British were nearly as infuriated by Mossadegh as they had been by the original George Washington, and London enlisted its former colony to hatch a plan to depose the Iranian leader. Truman demurred but his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was game. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother, Central Intelligence Agency Director Allen Dulles, had both previously worked as lawyers at a firm that represented Anglo-Iranian Oil. In 1953 the CIA launched a coup, codenamed Operation Ajax, which fomented unrest through violence including false flag attacks on religious leaders that were then blamed on pro-Mossadegh communists. A very reluctant Shah was swiftly restored to his throne and Mossadegh was deposed and imprisoned. US corporations then seized control of 40 percent of Iran’s oil fields.

In order to help the Shah maintain an iron grip on Iranians, the CIA, along with Israel’s Mossad, created SAVAK, the notoriously brutal state security force whose tortures included amputations, electric chairs and anal rape with electric cattle prods. The CIA reportedly taught SAVAK how to torture men and women and filmed these sessions for instructional purposes. Meanwhile, five successive US presidents lavished the Shah with aid and arms. Jimmy Carter, the so-called “human rights president,” feted the dictator at a 1978 White House New Year’s Eve soirée, toasting his “brilliant leadership” as angry protests against his ill-fated regime’s tyranny raged outside.

“Unprovoked Aggression?”

Forty years ago, long-simmering animosity toward the United States inevitably boiled over, culminating in the now-familiar events of those 444 days in 1979-81. Instead of acknowledging its role in stoking the flames of revolt, the Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations partnered with an even worse dictator than the Shah, Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq, as it attempted to thwart Iran’s nascent Islamic Republic. In 1980 the US encouraged Hussein to invade Iran, providing crucial support— including the transfer of deadly chemical and biological materials Iraq weaponized and unleashed upon Iranians and Iraqi Kurds — in an eight-year war of attrition that claimed more than a million lives. Reagan officials knew for years that Iraq was attacking Iran with WMDs but kept up US support while publicly denying knowledge of Iraq’s heinous war crimes.

As the war died down, an accidental US attack on Iran further inflamed Iranians. On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes, which was in Iranian waters, shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 66 children. An indignant Reagan blamed the “barbaric Iranians” for the wholesale aerial slaughter; Vice President George H.W. Bush, who was running for president, infamously spat, “I will never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I don’t care what the facts are.”

Fast-forward to the second Bush presidency, when provocation toward Iran escalated to the brink of all-out war. In addition to senior US officials’ constant threats and even jokes about bombing “Axis of Evil” member Iran, the US secretly deployed Special Forces troops inside Iran on reconnaissance missions and to forge alliances with dissident groups.

Chief among these was the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a State Department-designated terrorist group that had previously assassinated six US officials when it was fighting the Shah’s regime. Despite this, the US military secretly trained MEK fighters while the terror group paid leading US officials to lobby for its cause.

The Bush administration also pressured the World Bank into suspending emergency relief aid after the 2003 Bam earthquake, which killed more than 26,000 Iranians, and imposed harsh new economic sanctions on Iran which continue to cause great suffering for ordinary Iranians even as a well-connected elite grows fantastically wealthy. Bush-era war plans against Iran reportedly even included a false flag plot hatched in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to send Navy SEALs in boats disguised as Iranian naval vessels to attack US warships in the Straits of Hormuz.

The menacing of Iran continued unabated through most of Barack Obama’s administration, when Israeli and/or US assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, cyber attacks and sabotage — actions that would surely be seen as acts of war if they were committed against the United States — occurred along with the usual threats of war. Meanwhile, the administration sold a record amount of weapons to Iran’s adversaries, further inflaming tensions in the world’s most volatile region. Obama ultimately chose cautions cooperation over confrontation with Iran. His wise decision led to the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal, a highly controversial move that faced strong bipartisan opposition from liberal lawmakers as well as from Republicans including neoconservative hawks like John Bolton, who has been itching to bomb Iran for decades — and who is now President Donald Trump’s national security advisor.

The Real Aggressor

US and Israeli intelligence agencies have long asserted that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons, and even President Trump has admitted that Iran was complying with the terms of the nuclear deal. Trump nevertheless withdrew the US from the agreement, with predictably dangerous consequences as Iran’s leaders, like so many before them, realized that a deal with the United States all too often isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. The administration and its allies in Congress and the corporate mainstream media have ratcheted up their warmongering against Iran to a near-fever pitch, all based upon “evidence” every bit as suspect as the lies that led to the disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. It is unclear who attacked the Norwegian and Japanese oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week. What is clear is that a world wary of US lies and endless war isn’t buying the Trump administration’s story.

Actors including Israel, Saudi Arabia and some in the Trump administration seem hell-bent on waging a war against Iran that would ideally end in the overthrow of that country’s Islamist regime. Iran isn’t without its serious faults. However, these pale in comparison to those of the US, which has — and has used— nuclear weapons, staged or supported numerous coups, attacked half a dozen Middle Eastern countries already this century and nearly encircled Iran with military bases. Iran has no nuclear weapons, no bases within 10,000 kilometers of the United States and has never directly attacked the US or, of course, overthrown its government. Who is the real aggressor here?
By Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams

June 30, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

RT Analyst was right on the Gulf of Oman tankers incident

Gulf of Oman tankers incident: Attempt to start a war or invitation to resume US-Iran talks?

Thursday’s Gulf of Oman tanker explosions may be exploited to trigger the war between US and Iran, an analyst told RT, adding that the links of Japan and Oman to the incident were no coincidence.
Two oil tankers were rocked by powerful blasts not far from Oman’s shores on Thursday. Little is known about the incident so far, but some reports insist that one of vessels was hit by a torpedo.
“A torpedo does make sense,” Alessandro Bruno of Gulf State Analytics said. “Some torpedoes can be launched by airplanes at a distance, as well as by submarines. Besides, if the tankers had been attacked from above the sea level –by boats– there would’ve been witnesses,” he suggested, but apparently there aren’t any.
Washington accused Iran of the attack, although it didn’t provide any proof. Bruno believes “a number of people could be interested in it, and for a number of reasons.”

The obvious answer is Saudi Arabia and the US or the Iranian opposition group, Mojahedin-e Khalq, which sabotages Iranian government interests and facilities for the past few years.

The tanker explosions “look like a technique that Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton would exploit to cause trouble in Iran and trigger a conflict,” the analyst said, but Donald Trump “might not be prepared to take a dangerous line” as his hawks are pushing for.
After withdrawing the US from the Iranian nuclear deal last year, Donald Trump has been insisting that a new accord –which would also incorporate Tehran’s ballistic missile developments– must be signed. But Iran bluntly refuses to get involved in any negotiations, despite the Americans pressuring it, by sending warships to the Persian Gulf and by tightening sanctions.
Another significant fact that shouldn’t be downplayed is that the provocation occurred on the same day that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was visiting Iran, on a first such high-level trip since 1979.
“Japan is one of the countries that has suffered the most from Trump’s sanctions against Iran because it was one of the biggest buyers of Iranian oil,” therefore improved relations between Washington and Tehran are among Tokyo’s core interests. Besides “the two tankers were, apparently, connected to Japan,” he added.
The tankers’ blasts occurring off Oman’s shores may not be a coincidence either. “This country is independent of the crisis [in the Persian Gulf]. Oman has maintained very good relations with Qatar and also has good relations with Iran,” which were both made pariahs by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. Bruno suggested that both Oman and Japan are interested in US and Iran making a deal and were ready to mediate it.

June 24, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Saudi Intel Chief Pleads With UK to Attack Iran

Tape Shows MKO-Saudi Plot to Attack Tankers

A Saudi intelligence chief pleaded with British authorities to carry out limited strikes against Iranian military targets, just hours after Donald Trump allegedly aborted planned U.S. attacks against the Islamic Republic, a senior UK official has told Middle East Eye.
The intelligence chief was accompanied by Saudi diplomat Adel al-Jubeir on his trip to London, the source said.
Still, the Saudi lobbying efforts fell on deaf ears, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
“Our people were skeptical,”the source said, adding that the Saudi official was told a plain”no”in response to the request.
The Saudi official also provided additional intelligence allegedly linking Iran to a recent attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, but his British counterparts were”not impressed”with the new evidence.
The British government has already publicly backed the Saudi and American accusation that Tehran is behind the Gulf of Oman attacks.
“I condemn yesterday’s attacks on vessels in the Gulf of Oman. UK’s assessment concludes that responsibility for the attacks almost certainly lies with Iran,”UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt wrote on Twitter on 14 June.
“These latest attacks build on a pattern of destabilizing Iranian behavior and pose a serious danger to the region.”
According to the British source, the Saudi intelligence chief will head to Jerusalem Al-Quds at the weekend, where he will engage in similar lobbying efforts with Zionist officials and U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, an anti-Iran hawk, who will be visiting Occupied Palestine.
On Thursday, Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his support for Washington against Iran.
Tensions started to rise sharply early in May, as Washington deployed military assets to the Persian Gulf.
Since then, the U.S. has blamed Tehran for a series of strikes in the region, including attacks on four ships off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on 12 May.
Riyadh has also pointed the finger at Iran for an increase in attacks by Yemeni fighters against Saudi Arabia. The kingdom has been locked in a four-year destructive war, which has caused an enormous humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia’s Jubeir has denied that Riyadh is trying to draw the U.S. into war with Iran.”That’s ridiculous,”he said in an interview with Sky News on Thursday, when asked about the claim.
“Saudi Arabia has made it very clear that we want to avoid war at all costs, so has the United States, so has the United Arab Emirates.”
But last month, a government-aligned Saudi newspaper called for”surgical strikes”against Iran.
“Our point of view is that they must be hit hard,”an Arab News editorial published on 16 May reads.
“They need to be shown that the circumstances are now different. We call for a decisive, punitive reaction to what happened so that Iran knows that every single move they make will have consequences.”

Collusion With MKO

An unverified audio tape leaked from the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), a terrorist outfit banned in Iran, purportedly shows that the group colluded with Saudi Arabia in handling the aftermaths of explosions earlier this month on oil tankers near the Persian Gulf waters as the two sides sought to blame Iran for the sabotage activity.

The audio tape published on Iran Front Page on Saturday is a record of a short conversation between a senior MKO member and a sympathizer who are heard coordinating their positions on the June 13 explosions on two tankers in the Sea of Oman, which heightened already simmering tensions between Iran and the United States.

The English translation of the conversation, as provided by an online footage containing the tape, shows head of MKO’s cyber operations Shahram Fakhteh telling the sympathizer, identified as Daei-ul-Eslam, that Saudi Arabia was seeking a follow-up on the case from MKO ringleader Maryam Rajavi.
“In the past week we did our best to blame the (Iranian) regime for the blasts. Saudis have called Sister Maryam (Rajavi)’s office to follow up on the results, (to get) a conclusion of what has been done, and the possible consequences,” Fakhteh is heard saying in the tape.
Daei-ul-Eslam then replies by saying that blaming Iran for the explosions can have various types of consequences for Iran and can even lead to a military operation against the country.
Iran has vehemently denied any role in the attacks on the tankers while major international powers have dismissed a video provided by US alleging that Tehran was behind the explosions.
The MKO has been banned in Iran and around the world for its role in numerous terrorist activities targeting Iranian and foreign nationals.
Removing its decade-long ban on the MKO, the United States has used the group as a tool to pressure Iran over the past years.
Reports have also shown that the Saudi intelligence agency has provided the MKO with vast funding, especially since main elements of the group were purged from their old bastion in Iraq more than a decade ago.
The group launched a demonstration outside U.S. States Department in Washington on Friday calling for a military operation against Iran.
kayhan.ir

June 24, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Leaked Audio Shows Saudi-MKO Collusion over Tanker Attacks

A leaked audio of a phone conversation between two members of the anti-Iran terrorist group, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization, reveals Saudi Arabia has colluded with the MKO elements to frame Iran for the recent tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf.

https://dlb.nejatngo.org/Media/Documentary/IFP_Saudi_MEK_Tankers.mp4

In the audio, which is being released by the Iran Front Page for the first time, Shahram Fakhteh, an official member and the person in charge of MKO’s cyber operations, is heard talking with a US-based MKO sympathizer named Daei-ul-Eslam in Persian.
In this conversation, the two elements discuss the MKO’s efforts to introduce Iran as the culprit behind the recent tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf, and how the Saudis contacted them to pursue the issue.

“In the past week we did our best to blame the [Iranian] regime for the [oil tanker] blasts. Saudis have called Sister Maryam [Rajavi]’s office to follow up on the results, [to get] a conclusion of what has been done, and the possible consequences,”

Fakhteh is heard saying.

“I guess this can have different consequences. It can send the case to the UN Security Council or even result in military intervention. It can have any consequence,”

Daei-ul-Eslam says.
Attacks on two commercial oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on June 13, and an earlier attack on four oil tankers off the UAE’s Fujairah port on May 12, have escalated tensions in the Middle East and raised the prospect of a military confrontation between Iran and the United States.
The US, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have rushed to blame Iran for the incidents, with the US military releasing a grainy video it claimed shows Iranian forces in a patrol boat removing an unexploded mine from the side of a Japanese-owned tanker which caught fire earlier this month.
It later released some images of the purported Iranian operation after the video was seriously challenged by experts and Washington’s own allies.
The MKO which has assassinated over 17,000 Iranians receives support from the US and its allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia.
The MKO which is said to be a cult which turns humans into obedient robots, turned against Iran after the 1979 Revolution and has carried out several terrorist attacks killing senior officials in Iran; yet the West which says cultism is wrong and claims to be against terrorism, supports this terrorist group officially.
After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the MKO began its enmity against Iran by killings and terrorist activities.
By IFP Editorial Staff

June 23, 2019 0 comments