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…
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…
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.
“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/MKO/PMOI] … and its place in the current Iranian political life?”
Maryam Rajavi has no experience as a counterterrorism expert, nor does MEK aka MKO/PMOI have any experience fighting (or any reason to fight, let’s be honest) against ISIS…., and this may come as a shock so sit down before you read it, she plans on explaining how the US should fight ISIS….
as Ali Gharib and I documented in February, MEK’s aka MKO/PMOI 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…..
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/MKO/PMOI 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.
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/MEK/PMOI.
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….
The Barack Obama administration believes Rajavi’s group[MKO/MEK/PMOI] 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.