Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Backlash Against the MEK’s Fans in Congress

The enthusiasm of some hawks in Congress for the Mujaideen-e Khalq (MEK) has started to create a bit of a backlash. The Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee invited the cult’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, to testify remotely as part of a panel on ISIS. That prompted one former State Department official to withdraw from the meeting entirely. Robert Ford, the former ambassador to Syria, has also said he won’t take part in a panel that includes Rajavi:

“I didn’t want to be on a panel with the MEK. I was shocked they invited the MEK. What the MEK has to do with the Islamic State, I don’t have a clue,” Ford told FP. “I told the committee to put me on a panel without the MEK or I wouldn’t appear.”

The refusal of these former officials to play along with some hawks’ disturbing admiration for the MEK is appropriate, but it is unfortunate that it should be necessary. The attention and praise lavished on the MEK in recent years by former officials, retired military officers, and politicians has been an embarrassing spectacle. Now the strange infatuation that many hawks have with the “former” terrorist group is spilling over into the regular business of Congress. As if to underscore how misguided inviting Rajavi was, a copy of the cult leader’s testimony shows that she intends to use her time to argue for regime change in Iran. Ali Gharib comments:

But more to the point, the MEK has always had only one goal: the overthrow of the Iranian regime. For decades, it has tried to shoehorn regional and geopolitical dynamics into its aim, irrespective of any salient connections.

The plan to bring down ISIS by toppling Iran’s government, then, is little more than the latest chapter of group’s 50-year history of monomaniacally trying to install itself atop the Iranian government.

This obviously has nothing to do with combating or understanding ISIS, and allowing her to speak at such a meeting just lends a totalitarian cult a platform from which it can promote its own warped agenda. Inviting Rajavi demonstrates exceptionally poor judgment, and her testimony will make a farce of the proceedings tomorrow. It would be one thing to invite a representative of this awful group if it had anything useful to contribute to the subject being discussed, but of course it doesn’t. The invitation to Rajavi is simply a way for hawks on this subcommittee to flaunt hostility to Iran and to indulge the fantasy that the MEK speaks for the Iranian opposition.

By Daniel Larison

May 5, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Why Is Congress Listening to an Ex-Terrorist Iranian Cult Leader?

In what one member of Congress called a “historic hearing” yesterday, Maryam Rajavi, leader of the controversial Iranian dissident group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, testified via satellite before a congressional subcommittee on the threats posed by ISIS and Iran, which she sees as one and the same. The MEK is considered a dangerous cult by many, and until three years ago was labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. But after years of concerted lobbying, it enjoys a surprising amount of support on Capitol Hill. And yesterday the MEK displayed its growing influence in U.S. foreign policy debates.

It’s been a long and winding road for the MEK. Ideologically, the MEK originally sought to fuse revolutionary Marxism with Islam, but it has largely abandoned that rhetoric today for something more palatable to Western supporters. The group was formed in the 1960s by leftist Iranian students opposed to the Shah’s regime. During the 1970s it carried out attacks that killed several Americans working on defense projects in Iraq, and supported the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979. After the Iranian Revolution, the group fell out with the new Islamic state and went underground, carrying out a series of high-profile attacks against the Iranian government while its leaders fled to Paris. During the 1980s and 1990s, the MEK fought as a private militia on behalf of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

But things changed after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, when the MEK renounced violence (after being disarmed by the American military) and cast itself as supporters of the democratic opposition in Iran. Not everyone bought the group’s transformation into defenders of liberty, secularism, and women’s equality. Critics say the group began to transform into a cult centered around its leaders, the married couple Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, after the Iran-Iraq War, when thousands of its fighters were killed.

In 2003, New York Times reporter Elizabeth Rubin visited the group’s Iraqi compound at Camp Ashraf and described it as resembling a “fictional world of female worker bees … dressed exactly alike, in khaki uniforms and mud-colored head scarves, driving back and forth in white pickup trucks, staring ahead in a daze as if they were working at a factory in Maoist China.” Followers at Ashraf were reportedly cut off from the outside media, required to attend regular self-criticism sessions, and barred from personal friendships and emotional relationships.

But the group played its cards well as Western concerns grew over Iran’s nuclear program, reportedly passing information from its supporters within the Islamic Republic on nuclear facilities to the U.S. and, according to some reports, cooperating with Mossad to assassinate Iranian scientists. It also began a multiyear, multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign to remove itself from the terrorist list, including paying American figures like Rudy Giuliani and Howard Dean to give speeches on its behalf. It worked, and in 2012, Hillary Clinton took the MEK off the list.

Since then, the group’s influence has been growing. Its supporters regularly crowd hearings on Capitol Hill dealing with Iran and its increasing influence in Iraq. The Iraqi government has long viewed the MEK with hostility and has carried out several brutal attacks on its compound. U.S. officials also believe Iranian troops participated in a 2013 attack that killed at least 50 MEK members in 2013. One of its staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, held up a planned arms sale to former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government in part over concerns about the treatment of the MEK.

Ted Poe, R-Texas, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, which held Wednesday’s hearing, is another prominent MEK backer. Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for Poe, told me by email that Rajavi has a “long history of speaking against what she calls ‘Islamic fundamentalism,’” and “can speak to how ISIS’ ideology is both similar to and different from the mullahs leading Iran.” Asked if there were any concerns given the MEK’s history, Hynes replied, “the administration does not consider them a terrorist group and neither do we.”

Rajavi was certainly feeling the love from Congress on Wednesday, testifying before an overflow crowd at the hearing, which was titled “ISIS: Defining the Enemy.” Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, compared her appearance to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s address to Congress that day, noting that Japan had also once been an enemy of the United States. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, is not a member of the subcommittee but dropped in to refer to Rajavi as a “great leader.”

Still, not everyone was as welcoming. Former State Department counterterrorism director Daniel Benjamin, who had been scheduled to testify, dropped out of the hearing rather than appear with Rajavi. Another, former ambassador to Syria and prominent administration critic Robert Ford, told Foreign Policy he was “shocked” to learn she was on the panel and demanded that the subcommittee “put me on a panel without the MEK or I wouldn’t appear.” He wound up speaking earlier in the day.

Suspect groups playing on American naiveté by telling gullible politicians exactly what they want to hear. Anybody remember that great band Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi Expatriates? They sure were reliable sources, weren’t they… More…

In her appearance, via satellite from Paris, Rajavi made a case familiar to anyone who listened to Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in March: that ISIS and Iran are two sides of the same coin, despite the fact that Iranian-backed militias are fighting the group in Iraq. “The Mullahs regime is not part of any solution to the current crisis. Instead, it is the heart of the problem,” she said, referring to the Iranian government as the “Godfather of ISIS.” She referred to the current fight between ISIS and Iran as merely an “internal power struggle” within Islamic fundamentalism and warned that “fundamentalism of the Shiite kind is more dangerous than the Sunni one” because Shiites already have a state, Iran, which is projecting its power in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere.

While the support for Rajavi was a bipartisan affair, her message seemed to resonate in particular with critics of the Obama administration’s Iran policy. Hynes denied to me that the timing of the hearing had anything to do with the ongoing debate over nuclear diplomacy and Iran sanctions, saying “There is no relation. Ms. Rajavi is an expert on radical Islamist extremism and is being called to testify in that capacity.” Still, Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-New York,, who praised Rajavi and the MEK as the legitimate democratic opposition of Iran, said during the hearing that when he listens to the administration’s rhetoric on the Iranian regime, “I honestly do not know if my president is on the same team as I am.”

By Joshua Keating, Slate.com

May 4, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Seeking to understand Islamic State, Congress hears from foe of Iran

A controversial foe of the Iranian government sought to tie the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group to the regime in Iran before Congress on Wednesday — a link that President Obama and many foreign policy experts have rejected but one that has gained traction on Capitol Hill as Obama continues nuclear talks with Iran.

A House foreign affairs subcommittee’s decision to invite Maryam Rajavi, a longtime leader of Mujaheddin-e Khalq, had generated objections before the hearing. The exile group, also known as MEK, was listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department as recently as 2012 and had been known to ally itself with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein against Tehran.

But since the group formally renounced violence, the most aggressive U.S. foes of the Iranian regime have embraced MEK as an ally. With Wednesday’s hearing on the Islamic State, that alliance has been extended to discussions of the Sunni extremist group now attracting the attention of lawmakers as it wreaks havoc in the Middle East.

“The mullahs’ regime is not part of the solution to the current crisis,” Rajavi said, referring to the Iranian government. “It is indeed the heart of the problem.”The regime in Tehran is the “godfather” of the Islamic State, she said, adding that “the ultimate solution to this problem is regime change by the Iranian people and resistance.”

At a Senate hearing last month, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said it was a grave mistake to link the Shiite regime in Iran with the Sunni-led Islamic State. In fact, he said, the group has given the United States reason to make common cause with Iran.

“They want us to destroy ISIS; they want to destroy ISIS,” Kerry said, using an alternative name for the group. “ISIS is a threat to [Iran]; it’s a threat to the region.”

Rajavi testified as president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, MEK’s political affiliate. She appeared before the subcommittee on terrorism, nonproliferation and trade via video link from Paris.

Her appearance prompted another scheduled witness, former State Department counterterrorism official Daniel Benjamin, to withdraw.

“Congress can invite anyone it wants to testify, but I don’t understand why a group with a history like this should be accorded this treatment,” Benjamin, now a Dartmouth College scholar, said in an e-mail, citing MEK’s role in Iran’s 1979 revolution, and international terror attacks to which the group has been linked.

He asserted that MEK is chiefly interested in overthrowing the Iranian regime. “The notion that it has any particular insights into ISIS is absurd,” he said.

Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for the subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.), said Rajavi was invited to testify on the basis of her “personal knowledge of the prejudices inherent in radical Islamist ideology” as well as her knowledge of the plight of MEK members living as refugees at a Baghdad camp.

Greg Miller contributed to this report.

May 3, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK Uses Congressional Spotlight to Push Regime Change in Iran

WASHINGTON — MEK leader Maryam Rajavi told lawmakers on April 29 that the path to defeating the Islamic State (IS) runs through regime change in Tehran.

Testifying by teleconference from the exiled group’s headquarters in Paris, Rajavi urged the United States to stand up to Iran throughout the region. Her appearance has sparked controversy because the MEK was listed as a terrorist group until 2012, but several lawmakers defended her right to testify and held up her organization as a viable democratic alternative to the mullahs.

"Since [1979], the regime in Tehran has acted as the driving force for, and the epicenter of, this ominous phenomenon regionally and worldwide," Rajavi testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s panel on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade. "The ultimate solution to this problem is regime change by the Iranian people and resistance."

The hearing drew a crowd of MEK supporters, including a who’s who of lawmakers who have long supported — and taken money from — the MEK and its Iranian-American affiliates. They include Reps. Judy Chu, D-Calif., and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, who aren’t on the committee but stopped by to praise Rajavi.

"This is a very historic hearing," said Jackson Lee, who along with panel Chairman Ted Poe, R-Texas, actively pressed the State Department to take the MEK off its terrorism list. "This is one of the few times that the voice of the opposition [to] the government of Iran has been part of an official discussion. And that’s very important for the American people."

Other lawmakers, including ranking member William Keating, D-Mass., ignored Rajavi and directed their questions only at the other witnesses. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., who also isn’t a committee member, was the only one to challenge her to explain why the United States should put its trust in a group that was kicked out of Iran in the early 1980s and fought alongside Saddam Hussein against Tehran.

"Over the past 30 years, the United States has been drawn into some serious diplomatic and military dead-ends in the Mideast by mistakenly backing individuals and organizations claiming popular support, which turned out to be exaggerated and somewhat manufactured," Davis told Rajavi. "Would you please tell us about the role of the [MEK] … and its place in the current Iranian political life?"

Rajavi said it was impossible to gauge support for the MEK because the mullahs would never allow free and fair elections. But she said the regime’s "fear" of the group and its efforts at "demonizing" was a strong indication of the MEK’s "strength."

Freshman Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., left little doubt that he believed in her.

"I honestly do not know if my president is on the same exact team that I am," he told Rajavi. "Because there are individuals like you, who are willing to rise up and take control of your country’s future."

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., said the MEK’s terrorism designation belonged in the past and compared Rajavi’s appearance to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s address to Congress earlier in the day. He said the media had "attacked" the MEK’s inclusion in the hearing because she was advocating for a certain policy — namely, regime change — but argued that most if not all other witnesses do the same.

"I’ve never heard a witness that wasn’t providing information to further their public policy interests," Sherman said.

Other witnesses, however, took a much different view, arguing that Rajavi’s testimony detracted from the fight against IS. Former State Department counterterrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin pulled out of the panel after finding out that Rajavi was testifying, and former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford demanded to be seated on a separate panel.

"I wanted to have an in-depth discussion of the Islamic State in great detail, because, precisely, we have American servicemen and women in harm’s way," Ford told reporters after leaving the hearing before Rajavi’s appearance. "It’s really important to get the strategy right. And that requires a detailed discussion."

By: Julian Pecquet, Congressional Correspondent for Al-Monitor

May 3, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Buying your way to respectability

Maybe you’ve heard the saying “money talks, bullshit walks”? Well on Capitol Hill, money and bullshit are often the same thing, and they both get to talk as long as they want or until the cash runs out, whichever comes first. Take the People’s Mujahedin, or Mujahedin-i Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile group that I’ve written about in the past. MEK used to reside on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups until 2012, when a massive PR campaign led by the most prominent collection of lobbyists that money could buy, bolstered by some strategic donations to the right politicians, convinced Hillary Clinton to remove them from the list. To be fair, the EU had already delisted MEK as a terror group in 2009, and Canada delisted them right after the US did, and obviously there’s no corruption in either Europe or Canada, so I’m sure this was all on the up and up. All MEK did to get listed as a terror group in the first place was little stuff like assassinating a half-dozen or so Americans and blowing up a few US-owned buildings in Iran in the 1970s, before the revolution. Totally innocent stuff, you know.

MEK, known for its opposition to Iran’s current clerical government, was actually founded in the 1960s as a Marxist group opposed to the Shah and his decadent, Western, corrupt, yadda yadda, you know the drill. After the Iranian Revolution, which MEK fully supported, its leader, Massoud Rajavi, found himself getting the short end of the stick in the new Iranian order, so he fled the country before Ayatollah Khomeini could throw him in prison. He set up in Iraq and struck up a friendship with an amiable fellow named Saddam Hussein, and also started dropping MEK’s previous anti-Western and Marxist rhetoric in an effort to get on America’s good side. Also, where MEK had criticized the Shah for having cordial relations with Israel, after the Revolution it started working with the Israelis to carry out covert attacks inside Iran, particularly assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. In 2002, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which claims to be Iran’s “government-in-exile” but is really MEK’s cuddlier political front group, claimed to have revealed information about the existence of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility to the US, which is true inasmuch as you’re willing to ignore the fact that the US already knew about Natanz before NCRI/MEK said anything.

Since he took firm control of the group after the 1979 revolution, MEK has essentially existed as Massoud Rajavi’s personal entourage/fan club. It’s got a creepy cult of personality vibe about it even when you get past the fact that it has demonstrably engaged in numerous real-deal terror attacks over the course of its existence (it supposedly “renounced violence” in 2001, but it kept right on assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, so…). It’s even mirrored that not-at-all creepy US cult, Scientology, in that, not unlike David Miscavige’s missing-since-2007 wife, Shelly, nobody has seen or heard from Massoud Rajavi in over a decade, since the Iraq War, when the US actually targeted MEK camps (they were, after all, still on the terror list) and upended things for Massoud’s bro Saddam. MEK insists that Massoud is alive and well and in hiding, but control over the organization appears to have gone to his wife, Maryam Rajavi.

All of this is prelude to the news that Maryam Rajavi will testify tomorrow by videoconference to the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade about…the fight against ISIS. Maryam Rajavi has no experience as a counterterrorism expert, nor does MEK have any experience fighting (or any reason to fight, let’s be honest) against ISIS. Subcommittee chair Ted Poe (R-TX) claims that he invited her to testify “about the threats the Islamic State (IS) poses to MEK members who remain at Camp Liberty in Baghdad,” but, and this may come as a shock so sit down before you read it, she plans on explaining how the US should fight ISIS by overthrowing the clerical government in Iran. That makes no logical sense, but MEK has never been about “making sense.”

Rajavi’s invitation to testify has caused a bit of a kerfuffle around tomorrow’s hearing, as both former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and former State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism Daniel Benjamin have flatly refused to appear alongside Rajavi (Ford has said he would be willing to testify on a different panel, which the subcommittee apparently has decided to do, but Benjamin seems to have pulled out of the hearing altogether). Benjamin cited MEK’s past terrorist activity, including its participation in the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis, as the reason for his unwillingness to testify alongside Rajavi, while Ford was a little blunter:

“The committee handled this abysmally,” Ford told Al-Monitor in a phone call late Monday. “What the fuck do the MEK know about the Islamic State?”

Poe has been defending his decision to include Rajavi in the hearing (at the cost, mind you, of getting testimony from an actual counter-terrorism expert) because she can testify about how threatened the MEK members in Baghdad are by ISIS (which, if they’re in Baghdad, is “hardly at all”). The problem with that is a) she’s planning on testifying about regime change in Tehran instead and b) why doesn’t Poe invite someone from, say, Iraq’s Yazidi community, which is actually directly threatened by ISIS, to testify before his subcommittee? Maybe (SPOILER ALERT: here’s where the money comes in) it has something to do with the fact that nobody from the Yazidi community has managed to put a cool $38K in cash and prizes in Ted Poe’s pockets the way MEK has:

Poe received $17,900 in campaign contributions from supporters of the MEK between 2009 and 2014, according to an analysis I conducted of campaign finance data. Surprisingly, nearly half—or $8,600—of the total flowed into his campaign while the group was still on the State Department’s terrorism list between 2009 and its delisting in 2012.

In 2013 and 2014, the group also paid for $19,671 in travel expenses (including business-class plane fare) for Poe’s travel to MEK events in France.

So, hey, if you’ve ever wanted to testify before Congress but there’s no discernible reason why they should invite you to do so, plus maybe you’ve got some unsavory things in your past that could complicate matters, don’t worry! Just fork over a few tens of thousands to your favorite congressperson and you could soon find yourself offering your “expertise” (or irrelevant ranting, but whatever, you bought your time fair and square) to our nation’s top legislators! Good luck!

ATTWIW.com

May 3, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Poe’s Financial Ties To MEK May Explain Maryam’s House Testimony

Wednesday’s scheduled congressional hearing on “ISIS: Defining the Enemy” is rapidly shrinking in size. Two key witnesses are refusing to attend due to the invitation to testify that Ted Poe (R-TX), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, extended to Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK).

Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and former State Department counterterrorism director Daniel Benjamin have both said that they won’t appear for the hearing after learning that Rajavi would also be a witness on the same panel. She is scheduled to participate via videoconference from Paris, the headquarters the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a MEK front.

MEK, which the State Department removed from terrorism list in 2012 following a lengthy and expensive lobbying campaign, is believed to have been responsible for the killing of six Americans in Iran between 1973 and 1976.

The group, which went into exile after losing a violent power struggle in the early years of the Islamic Republic, aligned itself with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and, despite claims to being Iran’s viable democratic government in exile, is widely believed to have little or no grassroots support in Iran. The group has long faced criticism from Iran specialists and rights groups such as Human Rights Watch that it has devolved into a cult based on devotion to Maryam and her long-missing husband, Massoud Rajavi. According to numerous accounts, the group exerts a high degree of control over its followers, going so far as to mandate divorces and celibacy for their soldiers.

But, as Ali Gharib and I documented in February, MEK’s influence in Washington, particularly with Iran hawks, has coincided with a flow of money from the group to American politicians, in particular, to embattled Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) who is currently under indictment on unrelated federal corruption charges.

So why did Poe and the Republican majority on the terrorism subcommittee decide to invite Rajavi (a copy of whose testimony was obtained by Ali who previewed it Tuesday on The Nation’s website) Campaign finances may offer at least part of the answer.

In 2013 and 2014, the group also paid for $19,671 in travel expenses (including business-class plane fare) for Poe’s travel to MEK events in France.

In contrast, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), returned a $2,600 campaign contribution from a MEK supporter in Virginia in 2013. “During routine due diligence by campaign staff, it was discovered that a few donors had associations the campaign was uncomfortable with,” a spokesman for Graham’s campaign told Politico. “In an abundance of caution, the contributions were refunded.”

Poe seems less concerned about the association. His insistence on inviting Rajavi adds to the irony of his chairmanship of the terrorism subcommittee (shades of Sen. James Inhofe’s chairmanship of the Senate Environment Committee).

With Ford and Benjamin out, Rajavi will be joined on Wednesday by only one other witness: Walid Phares, a pro-Israel Lebanese-American Maronite Christian with a long association with hard-line neo-conservatives and a terrorism “expert” for Fox News. During Lebanon’s civil war that raged from 1975 through the 1980’s, Phares served as an ideologue for the Lebanese Forces, an umbrella group of various Christian militias. Some of these militias carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacres in September, 1982, in which at many as 3,000 Palestinians—mostly women, children and the elderly—were killed following Israel’s conquest of Beirut. Among other positions, he served as co-chairman of the Middle East working group of Mitt Romney’s foreign policy advisory team.

by Eli Clifton,

April 30, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Former Iranian Terrorist Group, MEK, To Testify Before Congress

Why is a Texas Congressman inviting the political leader of a former Iranian terrorist group to testify about ISIS and Islamic Extremism before a House subcommittee on terrorism?

WASHINGTON — Maryam Rajavi, acting president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), will address the House Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade about the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ( Islamic State of Iraq and Syria).

The NCRI is the political wing of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, also known as the MEK in its Persian acronym. The group is a former terrorist organization, which, according to the FBI, killed American citizens in Iran in the 1970s, was involved in the 1979 hostage crisis, and attempted to overthrow the Iranian revolutionary government with the help of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War.

Al Monitor reports Rajavi was invited by Texas Rep. Ted Poe, the chair of the subcommittee, to testify about the dangers ISIS poses to MEK members at Camp Liberty in Iraq. Poe is quoted as saying about the hearing: “This hearing will explore what drives ISIS and how we can use ISIS’ ideology against it.”

The MEK rose to fame in Washington in 2002, when it publically revealed that Iran was enriching uranium at a secret location called Natanz. However, it has since been revealed that the U.S. was already aware of the site and had even provided details about it to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The group’s most recent foray into the international spotlight came in February, when they claimed to have revealed another secret nuclear site near Tehran called Lavizan-3. Yet this revelation has garnered little attention, as nuclear nonproliferation experts do not believe the NCRI’s claims are credible. Further, there is a stronger understanding now that the MEK intends to upset the nuclear negotiations between the P5+1 countries and Iran by any means necessary.

Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, wrote last month in Foreign Policy: “[T]here is every reason to think the latest allegations by NCRI represent a politically motivated effort to derail the engagement of Iran over its nuclear program.”

Likewise, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a Februar press briefing: “We don’t have any information at this point in time to suggest the [NCRI’s] conclusions are accurate.”

The MEK was removed from the State Department’s terrorism list three years ago after a concerted lobbying campaign, which featured some of the most prominent politicians and officials in the U.S., including John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Tom Ridge, former director of Homeland Security; and Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City.

A MintPress News investigation into this campaign revealed that claims made by the MEK and their supporters in the U.S. government are not grounded in truth and are laden with legalistic terms to confuse basic historical facts.

Despite this, Raymond Tanter, a former member of the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan, recently wrote an article in Townhall praising the subcommittee for selecting Rajavi as a witness for the hearing. He wrote: “As a prodemocracy woman with a moderate view of Islam, Rajavi represents the opposite of the misogynous Iranian regime’s rulers.”

Tanter added that Rajavi is a good candidate to testify because the subcommittee members will be able to ask how her how she’s dealt with Islamic extremists in the past and how to counter radical Islam.

The problem with this reasoning is that the MEK is a kind of cult, according to the FBI, Human Rights Watch, the Rand Corporation, and just about every other organization which has investigated the group. It is precisely the kind of organization that should not testify about Islamic extremism.

Jeremiah Goulka, author of “The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum,” a report published by the Rand Corporation in 2009, told MintPress, “At the MEK camps, there’s a whole set of practices that are all textbook out of cult theory – sleep deprivation, make-work projects… forced celibacy, forced divorce, [and] gender segregation.”

Masoud Banisadr, a former member of the MEK, who had served as the group’s representative to the United Nations and the U.S., confirmed that forced divorces were common in the group. Banisadr told MintPress: “All members were forced to divorce their spouses, and later they have to send their children abroad to Europe and United States to be adopted by supporters and other members.”

The group currently has an office on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, where they launch campaigns related to Iran, attend congressional legislative hearings about the country, and attempt to influence public perception of the current regime.

Former Iranian Terrorist Group, MEK, To Testify Before Congress

By Sean Nevins , Mint Press News

April 30, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Israeli court sentenced MKO – Mossad agent to 7 years in prison

Long serving Agent victimized for MKO- Mossad mutual scenario

An Israeli court sentenced an Iranian-born Belgian to seven years in prison on Tuesday April 21, 2015 after convicting him of spying for Tehran.

In September 2013 Israeli security forces announced for the first time the arrest of Ali Mansouri who was accused of spying.

Ali Mansouri was arrested on charges of having photographs of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and other sites. However, pretty soon he was found to be a veteran member of the terrorist Mujahedin Khalq group.

The Belgium Newspaper Le Soir reported that the alleged Iranian spy had identified himself as a supporter of the MKO.

Besides, Mohammad Razzaghi , a former member of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) identified him as a long serving member of the MKO.

Mr. Razzaghi said Mansouri was a close member of the MKO for at least 30 years and had been working as a mediator for the Mujahedin Khalq and Mossad. He added that Mansouri, who lived in Turkey between 1980 and 1998, travelled to Iran regularly posing as a businessman to gather information for Mossad and the MKO leaders.

Razzaghi indicated:” Many ordinary members of the Intelligence Section of the MKO remember him because every now and then they were tasked to do things for him”.

Razzaghi recalled:” I remember clearly a few times that I was tasked to go to see him to collect some pictures and documents about Mehrabad Airport and Jamaran H.Q. and to bring them to our safe house and hand them over to my commanders.”

MKO’s propaganda system desperately tried to whitewash the Organization of the accusations. The NCR published a statement and identified the arrestee to be a once infiltrator to the group. However, the statement itself was a proof of Mansouri’s link to the MKO.

The arrest seemed to be politically motivated since it was coincided with Netanyahu’s effort to convince Obama not to engage in diplomacy with Iran.

Actually it was one of the Mossad-MKO mutual scenarios. By arresting and accusing Mansouri as an Iran spy they tried to get rid of an expired agent and to derail diplomacy between Iran and the West in order to encourage a war with Iran on the other hand.

The MKO – Israel collusion is now known to everyone since it has been corroborated many times by different sources and individuals in the past. According to NBC, Israel provides funding, training, and weapons for the MEK to assassinate Iranian scientists. The award-winning, independent investigative journalist and writer of the Book : Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of The Iran Nuclear Scare” ,Gareth Porter has several times put The MEK as a client of the Mossad, serving to launder Israeli intelligence’ claims that the Israelis did not want to attribute to themselves.

A. Sepinoud

April 28, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Dancing with Devil, Misled politicians and the MKO

Although the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) and the United States have fundamentally different interests in Iran, the group makes efforts to get in line with the anti-diplomacy party of the United States. The MEK’s ideas of Iran’s nuclear programs — illusionary and absolutely fabricated — in order to build support for regime change in Tehran. Reaching a deal with Iran through diplomacy eradicates one of the MEK’s most effective tools for bombing Iran. However, Manipulated US politicians who are in bed with this formerly designated terrorist group may be able to derail the US diplomatic efforts.

The case seems a little complicated. On one hand, there are reports on covert support of the US government for the MKO. In 2008, Seymour Hersh revealed it in his “Preparing the Battlefield,” in the New Yorker. “The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States’’, Hersh wrote. “Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers.” [1]

On the other hand, following the recently published framework of nuclear deal, the US administration’s engagement in diplomacy with Islamic Republic seems constructive and effective.

Meanwhile, the MKO’ propaganda and lobbies are active. They continue to take advantage of partisan division in the Congress. They actively advocate for Congressmen such as Bob Corker, Chairman of Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez who co-sponsored a bill to obstruct a nuclear deal with Iran.

The MKO cannot conceal its joy over such oppositions against the nuclear deal. The group’s propaganda favors any kind of opposition from any ordinary official all over the world, let alone the powerful Republicans of the US.

But the MKO’s joy may not last so long. The Huffington Post reported that Nancy Pelosi the leader of the Minority of the US House of Representatives may save negotiations for Obama:

“Senate Republicans on Tuesday reached a deal with the White House to require an Iran agreement to go through Congress for final approval. But even if they can come up with the two-thirds vote they would need to make a potential rejection of that agreement veto-proof, opponents would still need the same fraction in the House. Finding those votes will be difficult, given the ability of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to hold her caucus together. To stop naysayers’ efforts to override a possible veto by President Barack Obama, Pelosi would need to hold only 145 of her 188 Democrats. “ [2]

To our surprise, It is interesting to notice that Nancy Pelosi has once been misled by the MKO despite her pro-diplomacy stance. This is a part of an open letter to Mrs. Pelosi written by Ann Singleton, former Member of the MKO, member of Middle East Strategy Consultants and the author of the book “Saddam’s Private Army”:

“It will come as some surprise to you therefore, that a group of Iranian war-mongering regime change proponents, the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq (MEK), claim to have your support.

“In an astounding act of hubris, the MEK has not only appropriated your good name and attached it to a stance which is in contradiction to what you have always stated, but the group has also apparently fooled many of your opponents in Congress whose presence in this event has also been misrepresented as specific support for the MEK.

“The MEK’s website Iran News Online reported as a news item a celebration held in Congress on March 17 to mark the Iranian New Year or Norouz. According to this news item, the event was attended by several advocates and lobbyists of the MEK – those named include Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ted Poe and Jackson Lee, all of whom advocate the MEK’s regime change stance. As well as around 300 Congressional staff, many, but not all, of the attendees have been Neoconservatives whose anti-diplomacy stance is overtly expressed by people like John Bolton who so recently exhorted America to ‘bomb Iran’.” [3]

As a person who has experienced living in the cult-like MKO, Mrs. Singleton correctly warns the US official to beware of the MKO’s deceitful tactics to mislead, manipulate and misuse politicians so as to reach their violent ambitions:

“I write to you as an expert on the MEK who has been campaigning for over a decade to help free the residents of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty, and to expose the lies and deceit of the MEK’s leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. I would urge you to investigate the matter of your name and reputation being hijacked by this group. But further, I would urge you also to alert your colleagues in Congress – including those who are your political opponents – to the duplicitous methods of this group. The MEK’s unchallenged interference in the political process of America is not only very much against your country’s national interests, it is a slap in the face of those peaceful Iranians and Americans who, like yourself and President Obama have invested so much time and energy into allowing diplomacy to work.” [4]

By Mazda Parsi

References:

[1]Hersh, Seymour, Preparing the Battlefield The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran, The NewYorker , July 7th, 2008

[2] Grim, Ryan & Barron-Lopez, Laura, Nancy Pelosi May Save The Iran Negotiations For Obama, The Huffington Post, April14, 2015

[3] Singleton, Ann, Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi: Don’t allow the MEK to hijack your name, Iran Interlink, April 14, 2014

[4] ibid

April 27, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK leader to testify before Congress

The leader of a controversial group devoted to regime change in Iran is set to testify before Congress next week.

Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), will testify MEK leader to testify before Congress via videoconference April 29 at a House Foreign Affairs terrorism panel on "ISIS: Defining the Enemy." The council is an umbrella group of Iranian dissident groups that includes the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which was removed from the State Department’s terrorism list in 2012 after an intense lobbying campaign and has since spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to raise its profile on Capitol Hill.

"They’re not on the foreign terrorist list now, and they should be treated as if they’re not on the foreign terrorist list," said panel chairman Ted Poe, R-Texas, an Iran hawk and one of the top recipients of MEK-linked donations in recent years.

Other panel members backed the controversial decision to invite a group that has been tied to attacks against US business and diplomatic interests in Iran under the Shah. The MEK renounced violence in 2001.

"I’d be very surprised if leaders of [Ireland’s] IRA or Sinn Fein haven’t been involved in official congressional business over the past two decades," said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif. "It’s clear that the MEK has revealed things about the Iranian government and its nuclear program that no one revealed. I would say the MEK is a very valuable source of information, whether it’s Fordow, whether it’s the original nuclear program, etc. And so since they’ve been a good source of information about important matters, those are the kinds of people you listen to at a hearing."

Others expressed reservations.

"I think it raises a lot of eyebrows and also raises a lot of questions about propriety," said Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., a former Hill aide who sits on the full committee but not Poe’s panel.

"You’re talking to somebody who staffed a committee for 10 years," Connolly said. "I know this: I took great care about vetting who came before the committee as witnessses. You’ve got to take care so that you’re not embarrassing anybody, and you’re not unintentionally bringing people who may or may not bring credit to the process and to the institution. I would hope that all of those factors were weighed."

The Barack Obama administration believes Rajavi’s group is trying to derail its negotiations with Iran and has raised doubts about its recent purported revelations about illicit nuclear activity. The group’s claim to fame came in 2002 when it publicly revealed the location of an undisclosed nuclear facility at Natanz, but questions about how much the United States and Israel already knew at the time have swirled ever since.

"They’ve shown time and time again that they’re not the most credible voice," an administration official told Al-Monitor.

The official went on to urge lawmakers to be wary of any claims that the NCRI — a group that fought alongside Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War and has alleged ties to the CIA and Israel’s Mossad — represents a viable Iranian opposition.

"In the absence of anyone else who can be defined in this town as an Iranian opposition, you get people wanting to point to her and her group as the opposition," the official said. "That’s, I think, the very dangerous part."

The NCRI did not respond to a request for comment.

Poe said he had invited Rajavi to testify about the threats the Islamic State (IS) poses to MEK members who remain at Camp Liberty in Baghdad. The NCRI has accused Iranian-backed militias of ramping up rocket attacks against the refugee camp in recent weeks.

"I’ve heard reports from many sources of the threat to this camp because these folks cannot leave," Poe told Al-Monitor. "They’re just one group that’s being threatened by [IS], and we want to show all of the intricacies of [IS] and what they’re doing."

Although committees usually avoid asking non-US citizens to testify, Poe said it made sense to get Rajavi’s perspective in this case.

"She knows more about what’s taking place at Camp Liberty than any person, anywhere," he said. "And that’s why she’s testifying."

A senior committee aide called the invitation to invite Rajavi "surprising," however, since the group has, to the source’s knowledge, never mentioned IS in its communications with staffers before.

Rajavi isn’t the only controversial witness for a hearing that promises a few fireworks. Also invited: Walid Phares, a foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign with controversial ties to Lebanese Christian militias; and Robert Ford, President Obama’s ambassador to Syria who quit last year after losing patience with the administration’s lack of commitment to the Free Syrian Army.

By Julian Pecquet – Al-monitor

April 25, 2015 0 comments

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