Congressional Research Service (CSR) is a nonpartisan public policy research institute under the Library of Congress of the United States Congress that serves the Congress throughout the legislative process by providing comprehensive and reliable legislative research.

The above-mentioned research provides background on the MEK, including its origins, its 1997 designation by the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), its 2012 delisting as an FTO, and the current concerns of the US government about the MEK’s violence.

While the group is still embraced by some American politicians including Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, some keynotes from the report needs to be emphasized.

On the MEK’s terrorist background regarding US citizens and interests the report reads:

The MEK in the 1960s and 1970s sought the overthrow of the then-U.S.-backed Shah through guerilla attacks against the Iranian government and other targets. Some of these attacks killed U.S. military personnel stationed in Iran according to a 1994 congressionally mandated State Department report. The MEK participated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and, after the fall of the Shah, supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the release of American hostages, according to the 1994 State Department report.

On Massoud Rajavi’s undemocratic approach in ruling the MEK and its political vitrine the so-called National Council of Resistance (NCR), Clayton Thomas quotes from the very DOS’s report:

According to the State Department report mentioned above, NCRI “disintegrated in the 1980s” as various partners “left the organization because of their objections to Rajavi’s dictatorial methods and his unilateral decision to ally with Iraq.

On the claims that the black listing of the MEK in 1997 was intended as a goodwill gesture to Tehran and its newly elected moderate president, Mohammad Khatami that has featured prominently in MEK efforts to portray the designation as baseless and politically motivated, the CSR report states:

A 1999 State Department report announcing the redesignation of most of the original designees (including the MEK) featured several frequently asked questions, including, “Why was the MEK designated?” The report answered: We have sufficient grounds for concluding that they are a terrorist organization and continue to engage in terrorist violence. The designation is based on activities much more recent than the takeover of our embassy. Additionally, directing terrorism against a government or entity with whom we have differences does not exclude an organization from designation as an FTO. MEK is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization because of the acts they commit, not who they act against and not who they are. In 1999, the State Department also added “National Council of Resistance” and NCR as aliases of the MEK.

On the MEK’s delisting under the order of the then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in September 2012, the author of the report clarifies that the MEK’s removal from the FTO list did not mean that the DOS ignored the group’s past activities:

On September 28, 2012, the State Department announced the MEK’s delisting as an FTO. In the announcement, the Department said, “With today’s actions, the Department does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the killing of U.S. citizens in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on U.S. soil in 1992. The Department also has serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, particularly with regard to allegations of abuse committed against its own members. The Secretary’s decision today took into account the MEK’s public renunciation of violence, the absence of confirmed acts of terrorism by the MEK for more than a decade, and their cooperation in the peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf, their historic paramilitary base.

On the MEK’s propaganda about their so-called pubic support among Iranians, the report is pretty cautious to prove the opposite:

The MEK claims to be a focal point for broad-based opposition to the Iranian government. To bolster the group’s claims that it has support within Iran, the MEK has argued that it has received information from domestic sources on the government’s nuclear program and crackdowns on public protests. Limited public opinion polling suggests the group may not have broad popular support in Iran or within the Iranian-American diaspora.

And, the report once more emphasizes the concerns of the US government over the MEK’s abusive conduct against its own members:

In a 2022 statement to Foreign Policy, a State Department spokesperson was quoted as saying that “the United States does not see the MEK as a viable democratic opposition movement that is representative of the Iranian people.” The spokesperson also reportedly relayed that the State Department “continues to have serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, including allegations of abuse committed against its own members.” The group has long faced accusations that it holds members against their will and commits torture—allegations the group denies.

Nejat Society

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According to the FBI report, the American victims of the MEK included:


• U.S. Army Colonel Lewis Hawkins


• U.S. Air Force officers Paul Shaffer and Ja Turner


• Three American Rockwell International employees: William Cottrell, Robert Krongard, and Donald Smith


• American executive Paul Grimm

The document also references attacks against U.S. interests, including the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Yet today, the same organization desperately tries to present itself as “pro-American,” democratic, and aligned with Western values.

The irony is unbelievable: a group once investigated by the FBI for murdering Americans now attempts to market itself as a trusted ally of the United States and the West.

Amir Yaghmai

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“The Albanian State Police have assured us that all actions were conducted in accordance with applicable laws, including with regard to the protection of the rights and freedoms of all persons in Albania,” read a statement issued on Tuesday.

Having found itself in quite a precarious predicament after dozens of Iranian dissidents seeking safe haven in Albania were reportedly injured Tuesday and one allegedly died in the raid, the State Department said it has been “assured” the Albanian government did not violate any human rights.

The State Department, which usually does not keep silent about such actions, and especially not against a group known to be active against the Islamic Republic, not only did not condemn the unexpected raid, but also distanced itself from the dissident group, raising concerns about the group’s actions against its own members.

The US State Departement says the Albania’s Police all actions were conducted in accordance with applicable laws

Iranian dissidents clash with Albanian police during a raid on the Ashraf-3 and Ashraf-4 camps on June 20, 2023, in pursuit of suspects tied to cyberattacks.

“The State Department continues to have serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, including allegations of abuse committed against its own members,” noted the statement.

The State Department, however, pointed to the Albanian police accusations that the inhabitants of the camp were involved in cyberattacks against the Albanian government, adding, “We support the Government of Albania’s right to investigate any potential illegal activities within its territory.”

Emphasizing that Washington does not view the MEK as “a viable democratic opposition movement that is representative of the Iranian people,” the State Department said, “The US government does not provide support or training to the MEK, does not contribute funding to the organization, and does not maintain substantive contact beyond issues related to the MEK’s resettlement, which was completed in 2016.”

Earlier on Tuesday, MEK said about a thousand Albanian police officers raided the group’s exile center, Camp Ashraf, using tear gas and pepper spray. The group said that one of their members, identified as Ali Mostashari, was killed and more than a hundred others injured.

Despite initial denials, Albanian Interior Minister Bledi Cuci and the head of the national police, Muhamet Rrumbullaku, said both police officers and Iranian dissidents were injured during the raid at the Ashraf-3 camp near Manze, a small hill-town 30 kilometers (about 20 miles) west of Albania’s capital. However, the authorities disputed that the raid caused the man’s death.

Alleging that the attack was instigated by the Iranian regime, the MEK claimed that the actions by the Albanian police are “reminiscent of the criminal attacks by forces of Nouri al-Maliki (former prime minister of Iraq) on the original Camp Ashraf in Iraq between 2009 and 2015.”

Camp Ashraf 3 compound in Durres, Albania, is MEK’s first home outside the Middle East established a few years after the 2013 massacre in the original Camp in Iraq in which 52 members died and seven went missing, leading to the relocation of the group.

Iran International

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Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. congressman, aide to several Republican presidents, and two-time defense secretary whose torture-laden tenure and ruinous legacy were defined by his lies in service of an unending war that’s killed at least hundreds of thousands of people, died Tuesday at age 88.

By the time he was chosen as then-President George W. Bush’s secretary of defense, Rumsfeld had already been a Navy veteran, four-term Republican U.S. congressman, and adviser to former Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford—for whom he had served as defense secretary.

In the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan repeatedly dispatched Rumsfeld as a special envoy to Iraq, whose brutal dictator Saddam Hussein was at the time an important U.S. ally. An infamous handshake between Rumsfeld and Hussein led to the transfer of deadly chemical and biological materials from the U.S. and allies to Iraq. Hussein subsequently weaponized the components and unleashed weapons of mass destruction on both Iranian troops—with the assistance of the Reagan administration—and Iraqi Kurds during the genocidal (pdf) Anfal campaign.

As Bush’s defense secretary, Rumsfeld—who served as CEO or chairman of companies including General Instrument and Gilead Sciences—recruited an inner circle of former corporate executives to oversee Pentagon operations, including Air Force Secretary James G. Roche (Northrop Grumman), Navy Secretary Gordon England (General Dynamics), and Army Secretary Thomas E. White (Enron). So great was the influence of the arms industry in the department during Rumsfeld’s tenure that one commentator described it as “Department of Defense, Inc.”

Given his passing today, let’s do some of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s greatest hits (add your own below).

Here he is, in 2002, being asked about his 1983 meeting with Saddam Hussain. Rumsfeld’s “isn’t that interesting…there I am” lives in my head rent free. pic.twitter.com/h4PifdOe1r

— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) June 30, 2021

An ardent imperialist, Rumsfeld was a leading luminary of the neoconservative movement and a prominent leader of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), whose other members included Bush administration officials such as Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, and Paul Wolfowitz.

PNAC hawks—who envisioned and strategized regime change in Iraq and elsewhere even before 9/11—lobbied vigorously for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, even though they knew the country had no connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. or weapons of mass destruction. When pressed on this last point, Rumsfeld offered perhaps his most infamous explanation:

As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

In the rushed run-up to invade Iraq, Rumsfeld dutifully disseminated Bush administration lies about Hussein’s nonexistent nuclear program, while laughably asserting that the Iraq invasion had “literally nothing to do with oil.”

This is Donald Rumsfeld’s legacy:

“We know they have weapons of mass destruction. We know they have active programs. There isn’t any debate about it.

6 months later, the US invaded #Iraq. pic.twitter.com/8TRKdlkNd7

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) June 30, 2021

The invasion of Iraq, at first called Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) began in the dark of night with a Navy SEAL raid on two offshore Iraqi oil platforms. The New York Times—which parroted many of the administration’s Iraq lies—hailed this as the first “victory in the battle for Iraq’s vast oil empire.”

Rumsfeld predicted a quick and easy war in Iraq. “Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that,” he declared in November 2002 with cocksure miscalculation. Although former President Barack Obama officially ended the Iraq War in December 2011, U.S. troops are still stationed there today—and President Joe Biden bombed the country earlier this week.

When U.S. forces conquered Baghdad, one of the first sites they secured was the Oil Ministry headquarters. Meanwhile, the Iraqi National Museum, which housed priceless ancient artifacts spanning Mesopotamia’s 5,000-year history, was being looted. Thousands of statues, manuscripts, and countless other treasures, some of them among the oldest objects created by civilized humans, were stolen while nearby U.S. troops did nothing.

“Stuff happens,” Rumsfeld flippantly replied when faced with images of the looting. “The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over and over, and it’s the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, ‘My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?’”

Thousands of U.S. troops would die during the course of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of the country, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The latter were practically ignored by Bush officials. When Rumsfeld was asked why the public only hears about the number of American war dead and not about Iraqi casualties, he cooly replied that “we don’t do body counts on other people.”

Donald Rumsfeld was war criminal. He didn’t merely “oversee” Iraq War. He was an architect, who backed extrajudicial executions and systematic torture at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo Bay and other prisons. He approved torture plans for Mohamedou Slahi and Mohammed al-Qahtani

— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) June 30, 2021

Rumsfeld was also an instrumental figure in the Bush administration’s torture program. He signed off on torture techniques used by U.S. troops at Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere—places where prisoners were sometimes tortured to death. He also issued a directive allowing torturers to withhold medical care to prisoners under interrogation who had injuries as serious as gunshot wounds. Later, Rumsfeld would require doctors to certify that detainees slated for torture were certified “medically and operationally” fit for abuse.

The torture memo signed by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/2/02, authorizing 20-hour interrogations, removal of clothing, the use of phobias, and stress positions for up to 4 hours.

Note his handwriting at bottom: “However, I stand for 8-10 hours A day. Why is Standing limited to 4 hours” pic.twitter.com/F34zbkJ5HQ

— George Zornick (@gzornick) June 30, 2021

When the Abu Ghraib torture photo scandal broke, Rumsfeld—after outing the courageous soldier who exposed the abuse—lied about what he knew.

Gen. Antonio Taguba, author of an Army report (pdf) on U.S. torture at Abu Ghraib, said he met with Rumsfeld and other Pentagon brass just before the defense secretary testified to the Senate about abuse at the notorious prison. Taguba, who had seen thousands of photos of detainee abuse, says Rumsfeld asked him if what was happening in the Iraqi prison was abuse or torture.

“I described a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum and said: ‘That’s not abuse. That’s torture.’ There was quiet,’” the general recalled.

#DonaldRumsfeld is responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths and enriching himself in the process. The least we can do is to forever link his name with “war criminal”.

— Veterans For Peace (@VFPNational) June 30, 2021

Yet Rumsfeld testified before the Senate that nobody in the Pentagon had seen the Abu Ghraib torture photos.

However, a Senate Armed Services Committee investigation concluded that “Rumsfeld’s authorization of interrogation techniques… was a direct cause of detainee abuse.”

The senators additionally asserted that it was “unconscionable and false” for leading Bush officials to blame a “few bad apples” in the military for detainee abuse in order to avoid accountability.

Neocon #WaronTerror, #Iraq war and #torture #architect #DonaldRumsfeld has passed away. His legacy of death, destruction, murder and abuse will be remembered by those who experienced it. But, his appointment with dawn has come. pic.twitter.com/v0egPcpMi4

— Moazzam Begg (@Moazzam_Begg) June 30, 2021

While fighting a war purportedly meant to defeat terrorism in some parts of the world, Rumsfeld supported terror elsewhere. Pursuing allies in the so-called War on Terror, Rumsfeld courted dictators including Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov—who boiled political opponents alive—and the Iranian exile militants Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a State Department-designated terrorist organization.

CIA personnel wait as President George W. Bush visits CIA Headquarters, March 20, 2001, Langley, VA. Photo by Brooks Kraft – Corbis for Time dcfeed

Meanwhile, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report concluded that Rumsfeld let bin Laden escape in December 2001. The report also said Rumsfeld’s failures ultimately left Americans more vulnerable to terrorism.

It wasn’t as if Rumsfeld did not understand the real root causes of anti-U.S. terrorism. In 2004, he commissioned a task force to study the subject. It concluded that “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies.” The task force report cited “American direct intervention in the Muslim world,” U.S. support for dictators in countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and, most of all, “the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Yet Rumsfeld remained an unrepentant cheerleader for war and empire until the end. Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of the women-led peace group CodePink who famously confronted the former defense secretary over his war crimes, tweeted that “his legacy of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan lives on.”

Here’s the day we introduced Donald Rumsfeld as a war criminal at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Of course, he got to eat the nice dinner and we got booted out. Crime pays. https://t.co/6OWFL39MPA

— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) July 1, 2021

“Donald Rumsfeld was a merciless war criminal who presided over systemic torture, massacres of civilians, [and] illegal wars,” tweeted journalist and The Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill. “That’s his legacy and how he should forever be remembered.”

Daily Beast senior national security correspondent Spencer Ackerman wrote, “The only thing tragic about the death of Donald Rumsfeld is that it didn’t occur in an Iraqi prison.”

On the bright side, Donald Rumsfeld gets to shake hands once again with Saddam Hussein AND Nixon.

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) June 30, 2021

“Do not mourn the defense secretary,” said Ackerman. “Mourn his victims. There were nearly too many to tally, but his Pentagon refused to count anyway.

BRETT WILKINS, STAFF WRITER, commondreams

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Mike Pompeo, a man who played an important role in General Soleimani’s assassination directed his diplomats to restrict their connections with forces that support a regime change in Iran. What changed in US policy towards Iran? What deal broke out between two arch-rivals?

An Iran hawk who advocated killing general Qasem Soleimani, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has ordered his diplomats to limit contacts with militant Iranian exile and opposition groups that support either regime change or greater rights for ethnic groups like Kurds and Arabs.
Coming on the back of the Soleimani killing, Mr. Pompeo’s directive appears to put an end to the Trump administration’s hinting that it covertly supports insurgent efforts to at the very least destabilize the Iranian government if not topple it.
A litmus test of the directive by Mr. Pompeo, known to have a close relationship with Donald J. Trump, is likely to be whether the president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, distances himself from the controversial National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an offshoot of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a group that was taken off the US Treasury’s list of designated terrorists several years ago.
Mr. Pompeo said that direct US government engagement with these groups could prove counterproductive to our policy goal of seeking a comprehensive deal with the Iranian regime that addresses its destabilizing behaviour.
Mr. Giuliani is a frequent, well-paid speaker at gatherings of the group that has built a significant network among Western political elites. The council and the Mujahideen openly call for regime change in Iran.
The Mujahideen were moved with US assistance from their exile base in Iraq to a reportedly Saudi-funded secretive facility in Albania.
A New Jersey-based lobbying firm hired by the NCRI, Rosemont Associates, reported last year in its filing as a foreign agent frequent email and telephone contact on behalf of its client with the US embassy in the Albanian capital of Tirana as well as Brian Hook, the US Special Representative for Iran, and Gabriel Noronha, an aide to Mr. Hook.
In his directive, Mr. Pompeo said that “direct US government engagement with these groups could prove counterproductive to our policy goal of seeking a comprehensive deal with the Iranian regime that addresses its destabilizing behavior.”

The secretary went on to say that Iranian opposition groups “try to engage US officials regularly to gain at least the appearance of tacit support and enhance their visibility and clout.”
Mr. Pompeo’s cable, while keeping a potential negotiated deal with Iran on the table, does not stop other US government agencies from covertly supporting the various groups, that also include Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of al-Ahwaz (AMLA), the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, and the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).

Iran, which has long believed that the United States, alongside Saudi Arabia and Israel, supported the Mujahideen as well as ethnic militants that intermittently launch attacks inside Iran, is likely to take a wait-and see-attitude towards Mr. Pompeo’s directive that could be seen as a signal that the Trump administration is not seeking regime change.
The timing of the directive is significant. Iran responded to the killing of Mr. Soleimani with carefully calibrated missile attacks on US facilities in Iraq in a bid to create an environment in which backchanneling potentially could steer the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table.
The appointment was followed by publication by a Riyadh-based think tank believed to be close to crown prince Mohammed bin Salman of a study for Saudi support for a low-level Baloch insurgency in Iran
While it was uncertain that one round of escalated tensions would do the trick, potential efforts were not helped by the death of Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, a key interlocutor who has repeatedly helped resolve US-Iranian problems and initiated contacts that ultimately led to the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program.
In his directive, Mr. Pompeo, referring to Komala, acknowledged that “Iran’s regime appears to assess that the United States and/or Israel support this group of militant Kurds.”
Iranian perceptions were reinforced not only by calls for regime change by senior figures like Mr. Giuliani and Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of the kingdom’s intelligence service and ex-ambassador to Britain and the United States, but also the appointment in 2018 of Steven Fagin as counsel general in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Shortly before moving to Erbil, Mr. Fagin met In Washington as head of the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs, with Mustafa Hijri, leader of the KDPI as it stepped up its attacks in Iranian Kurdistan.
Iranian perceptions were further informed by the appointment of John Bolton, Mr. Trump’s since departed national security advisor and like Mr. Giuliani a frequent speaker at NCRI events, who publicly advocates support of ethnic insurgencies in Iran in a bid to change the regime.
As Mr. Trump’s first director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Pompeo named Michael D’Andrea, a hard-charging, chain-smoking covert operations officer, alternatively nicknamed the Dark Prince or Ayatollah Mike, whose track record includes overseeing the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, as head of the CIA’s Iran operations.
The appointment was followed by publication by a Riyadh-based think tank believed to be close to crown prince Mohammed bin Salman of a study for Saudi support for a low-level Baloch insurgency in Iran. Prince Mohammed vowed around the same time that “we will work so that the battle is for them in Iran, not in Saudi Arabia.”
Pakistani militants have claimed that Saudi Arabia had stepped up funding of militant madrassas or religious seminaries in the Pakistani province of Balochistan that allegedly serve as havens for anti-Iranian fighters.

The New York Times reported this week that aides to Prince Mohammed had in the past discussed with private businessmen the assassination of Mr. Soleimani, an architect of Iran’s regional network of proxies, and other Iranians as well as ways of sabotaging the country’s economy.
Mr. Pompeo’s directive is unlikely to persuade Iran that Washington has had a change of heart. Indeed, it hasn’t. Mr. Trump maintains his campaign of maximum pressure and this week imposed additional sanctions on Iran.
Nonetheless, potentially taking regime change off the table facilitates backchanneling that aims at getting the two nations to talk again.

Dr. James Dorsey –  Global Villagespace
Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Global Village Space’s editorial policy.

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“Many exiled Iranian opposition groups try to engage U.S. officials regularly to gain at least the appearance of tacit support and enhance their visibility and clout,”Pompeo said, according to a copy of the cable obtained by CNN. He noted that many of these groups”have previously or are currently using violent means in support of their political aims.”
“Direct U.S. government engagement with these groups could prove counterproductive to our policy goal of seeking a comprehensive deal with the Iranian regime that addresses its destabilizing behavior,”Pompeo wrote.
The cable’s existence, first reported by Bloomberg, is coming to light in the aftermath of the deadly US drone strike that President Donald Trump ordered last week to kill Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
Pompeo sent the instructions early this week and his indirect reference to attempts at diplomatic outreach to Iran comes as the Trump administration has refused to issue a visa to Iran’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
In recent days, Trump administration officials have not laid out any specific steps they are taking to engage in diplomacy with Iran, though they have said they are willing to do so. Iran, over the last year, has not acted upon any of Trump’s comments that he is willing to meet Iranian leadership, but Zarif said publicly he was willing to discuss prisoner exchanges.
The cable lists a number of Iranian opposition groups, including Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, known as the MEK, and five other Iranian opposition groups that are off limits without specific approval. John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, has previously said the MEK is a”viable opposition”to the current Iranian regime.
Last month Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, met with Iranian opposition groups that are linked to the MEK. Bolton and Giuliani have also given paid speeches on the group’s behalf. During one of those speeches last year, Giuliani called for regime change in Iran.
The MEK, which was previously on a US terrorism list, paid Bolton to give speeches on its behalf and once employed Giulianir.
Pompeo warned in the cable that it would be”counterproductive”to engage these groups. He said some of them have histories of using violence to achieve political objectives and that some of them seek to overthrow the Iranian regime.
Given the escalating tensions with Iran in the wake of the strike on Soleimani, the cable appears to be an attempt to demonstrate that the Trump administration wants to avoid the perception that it is conspiring with opposition groups to push for regime change.
In the cable, Pompeo cited the administration’s willingness to seek a”comprehensive deal”with Iran that covers a range of Iranian activities including”its destabilizing behavior, including its nuclear program, missile program, support for terrorism, and malign regional behavior.”
The State Department has not replied to a request for comment on the cable.
It’s not clear which Iranian officials the US administration would engage. In an NPR interview aired Tuesday, Zarif said he had requested the visa 25 days ago but the US State Department told him it”didn’t have enough time to issue a visa.”
In an interview with CNN’s Fred Pleitgen, Zarif said he wasn’t concerned about the Trump administration barring him entry to the US. When asked about his reaction to being denied the visa, Zarif answered with a laugh,”Well, what are they afraid of?”
Pompeo, speaking at the State Department on Tuesday, said that”we don’t comment on visa matters for those traveling to the United States,”and added that”we will always comply with our obligations”under the UN charter.
US officials are not completely disengaging with groups who oppose the Iranian regime. On Tuesday Brian Hook, the State Department special representative for Iran, met with leadership from the Simon Wiesenthal Center leadership, a Jewish human rights organization.
Members of the center praised the Trump administration for the Soleimani strike and one of them urged additional killings of Iranian leaders.
“The entire leadership of Iran denies the existence of the Holocaust and we have to worry about how we treat them. If they are going to kill American soldiers, we have an obligation to do what President Obama did to Osama bin Laden, what the President of Czechoslovakia did to Reinhard Heydrich, that should be done to the Iranian leaders,”Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder of the center, said on Tuesday.
CNN’s Nicole Gaouette contributed to this report.
By Kylie Atwood,

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In 2015, he penned an editorial in the New York Times entitled”To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.”He was a regular (paid) speaker at the annual meetings of Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile group which for years was hosted by Saddam Hussain, and which until 2012 was on the US State Department’s terrorist list.

At his most recent appearance at a MEK meeting, in 2018, Bolton declared:”The behavior and the objectives of the [Iranian] regime are not going to change and, therefore, the only solution is to change the regime itself.”

He has previously advocated for regime change in Venezuela, Iraq, North Korea, Libya and Syria, to name a few.
Bolton was, mostly via his perch at Fox News, one of the most vocal critics of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He assumed the position of National Security Advisor in April 2018 and, a month later, the US unilaterally pulled out of the agreement.
With Bolton gone, the mantle of Iran hawk now passes to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. But, unlike Bolton, Pompeo seems to have prioritized his relationship with President Trump.
A recent profile of Pompeo in The New Yorker included a quote from a former senior White House official describing the Secretary of State as”among the most sycophantic and obsequious people around Trump.”A former US ambassador told the article’s author that Pompeo is”like a heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass.”
The departure of Bolton may change the style of Trump’s position on Iran, but perhaps not the substance.
Washington’s policy of”maximum pressure”is designed, according to Pompeo, to change Tehran’s behavior. But going by the severity of the sanctions, they appear designed to bring Iran to its knees.
“We’ve now made Iran’s economy a shambles,”Pompeo boasted to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Sunday, describing the effect of US sanctions.”We think their economy could shrink as much as 10 or 12% in the year ahead.”

Just two days later — a few hours after Bolton’s departure — Pompeo said Trump could meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani”with no preconditions.”
With Bolton out of the way, such a meeting can now go ahead without much resistance within the Trump White House.
It’s not clear, however, what might come out of a Trump-Rouhani meeting. If we look at the example of North Korea, while the nature of the relationship between Trump and Kim Jong Un may have changed — the leaders now exchange”love letters”instead of insults — the underlying issues, such as North Korea’s nuclear program, international sanctions, and so on, remain unchanged.
Without sanctions relief, or the promise of it, the Iranians are unlikely to play like Kim.
Also mitigating against a dramatic shift in US-Iran policy is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has lobbied successive American administrations to take a harder stand on Tehran.

Trump has been more than willing to grant Netanyahu almost all his wishes. He has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US embassy there, cold-shouldered and cut funding to the Palestinian Authority and to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, and closed down the Palestinian diplomatic mission to Washington.
After months of bellicose rhetoric on Iran, this summer Trump began to change his tune. Rather than bomb Iran, he began to toy with the idea of talking with it.
So has Trump gone cold on confronting Iran? The 2020 elections loom large and the prospect of war with Iran combined with the real possibility of an economic downtown in the US could spell disaster for the President.
Never big on loyalty, Trump dumped Bolton unceremoniously. The loudest voice for confrontation with Iran has now been banished to the wilderness, or perhaps to Fox News, from whence he came.
While it’s always dangerous to try to predict Trump’s actions, there is now a real prospect of a slight improvement in the long and unhappy relationship between the US and Iran.

Trump is not known for his deep understanding of the complexities of the Middle East, or for a thoughtful approach to the delicate affairs of state.
Nor has he ever expressed much interest or sympathy for those who live here. But perhaps by design or — more likely — by happy coincidence, by dumping Bolton, President Trump may have made war less likely.

Analysis by Ben Wedeman, CNN Senior International Correspondent

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While it’s fair to call both Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hawkish on Iran, their posturing on best practices for dealing with Tehran have always differed.

Bolton favored the ever-present threat of military action against the Islamic republic and has often openly advocated for it, including the episode in June when Trump approved military strikes in response to the downing of a U.S. drone, which he abruptly aborted when he learned the projected casualties.

Bolton, though, thought the attacks should proceed as planned. For decades he has been consistent in his contempt for the leaders in Iran — and other longtime adversaries — and not shy about the need to spill innocent blood sometimes to reach what he perceived to be U.S. strategic goals.
The Iraqi people now have
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The State Department is about to capitulate to the Taliban, al-Qaeda’s longtime ally, in order to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, argues Rep. Liz Cheney. (Video: Joy Sharon Yi, Danielle Kunitz/Photo: Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo and Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

His absence also means that the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a reviled Iranian opposition group that long lived on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist groups, no longer has a powerful ally in the White House.

The now former national security adviser and U.S. to the United Nations was one of dozens of U.S. politicians, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, to accept large speaking fees in exchange for publicly advocating the organization as a viable replacement for the Islamic republic.

The MEK can claim no popular support, and among Iranians of nearly all political orientations, inside the country and in the diaspora, it was Bolton’s paid alliance with the cultlike group that made him such an odious character.

With the MEK suddenly nowhere in the conversation, ordinary Iranians who would prefer to see their government negotiate its way out of the sanctions that currently have a stranglehold on the country’s economy will be more inclined than ever to support such a process with U.S. leaders.

And those millions of Iranians who prefer a regime change can be more confident now that the United States has no serious plans to install the hated group if the Islamic republic were ever toppled.

Either way, when it comes to Iran, the Trump administration’s hands are no longer tied by Bolton, an ideologue who views diplomacy as a weakness rather than a tool.

The shake-up creates the first real opportunity for Trump to pursue a policy of engaging Iran, which both he and Pompeo have publicly advocated for since this administration’s decision to exit the 2015 nuclear accord with the Islamic republic.

Bolton assumed duties as the national security adviser in April 2018, a month before Trump pulled out of the deal. Although Trump threatened to do so long before he took office, the timing probably pleased Bolton, as he loved to be seen as tough on Iran.

It was yet another reason Bolton’s mere presence in the administration — and at such a high level — made talks between the Trump administration and Tehran all but impossible.

Trump and Pompeo must now make a clear choice and stick with it: actively pursue a new deal with Iran’s leadership as Trump has promised to do since he was a candidate, or continue with the disingenuous charade that is their “maximum pressure” campaign, a policy that has only had the discernible effect of making the lives of average Iranians more miserable.

Trump and Pompeo have time and again put the possibility of new talks, without preconditions, on the table. Now they can prove it. Bolton’s departure, two weeks before the annual United Nations General Assembly session, puts the ball squarely in Tehran’s court.

If President Hassan Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, refuse the offer to meet with their U.S. counterparts while in New York, it is they who will suddenly appear to be the unreasonable party.

The only thing that can be said for Bolton’s position on Iran was that it was clear, but he was a liability from the moment he joined this administration. The ways in which his ouster might change the direction of Trump’s Iran policy will prove it.
By Jason Rezaian

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President Donald Trump moves to cut off Iran oil exports; decision could roil markets

WASHINGTON – Seeking to cut off Iran’s top source of income, the Trump administration announced Monday it would sanction any country, including U.S. allies, that imports Iranian oil, a move that quickly roiled global energy markets.

“The goal remains simple: to deprive the outlaw regime of the funds it has used to destabilize the Middle East for decades,”Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday.

Pompeo said the sanctions will take effect May 2 and won’t include exemptions for close American partners, such as Japan and India. The move drew immediate backlash from China and could escalate tensions with Beijing as the United States and China are engaged in delicate trade negotiations.

Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, accused the United States of going beyond its jurisdiction and said all of China’s dealings with Iran are legitimate and transparent. China is one of the largest buyers of Iranian oil.

“China opposes the unilateral sanctions and so-called ‘long-arm jurisdictions’ imposed by the U.S.,”Geng said in Beijing.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu slammed the United States for what he said was meddling in Turkey’s ability to conduct business with its neighbors.

Monday’s decision could fuel perceptions that the Trump administration’s aim is to bring about regime change in Iran.

Sunday, Axios reported that Pompeo privately told a group of Iranian Americans that the United States would not conduct”a military exercise inside Iran”to bring about regime change.

Monday, Pompeo offered an ambiguous response when asked about that.”We’re happy to get the outcome however we can achieve it,”he said.”If Americans are attacked, we will respond in a serious way.”

He said the Trump administration is not directly backing a controversial exiled Iranian opposition group known as MEK, for the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, though prominent Trump allies, including the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, have spoken at the group’s events.

“We’re supporting the Iranian people, not any particular group,”Pompeo said Monday.

Pompeo said the oil sanctions would reduce Iran’s ability to fund terror groups and spread its influence across the Middle East. He said up to 40% of the regime’s revenue comes from oil.

He said the administration worked with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to ensure “market stability” and try to stave off a spike in oil prices. The White House said in a statement that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, other allies and the United States itself would increase oil production and”are committed to ensuring that global oil markets remain adequately supplied.”

“We have agreed to take timely action to assure that global demand is met as all Iranian oil is removed from the market,”the White House statement said.

Oil prices spiked to a six-month high Monday before the administration’s announcement.

Crude oil futures closed at $65.70, according to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, an increase of about 2.7%.

Republicans in Congress welcomed the administration’s decision.

“The Trump Administration pushback against the Iranian regime has been effective and will pay dividends over time,”Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a tweet.”This is the clearest signal yet that if you do business with the Iranian regime you will NOT do business with America.”

Monday’s announcement is part of the administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy to isolate Iran’s regime and strangle its economy. That campaign included withdrawing from an agreement intended to get Iran to give up its nuclear program.

The administration first slapped sanctions on Iran’s oil sector in November and launched an intense campaign to pressure other countries to stop importing Iran’s oil. The State Department granted waivers to eight countries – including U.S. allies such as South Korea, Japan and India – from the sanctions. The waiver list also included China and Turkey.

Officials said that was designed to allow those countries time to reorient their oil industry to new suppliers. Pompeo said that grace period would end May 2.
David Jackson and Deirdre Shesgreen USA TODAY

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Scoop — Pompeo says admin opposes Iran military intervention

In a closed-door meeting with Iranian-American community leaders last Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration is”not going to do a military exercise inside Iran”to expedite a regime change, according to three sources who were in the room, including one who took detailed contemporaneous notes and shared them with me.

Pompeo also sought to distance the Trump administration from a controversial Iranian resistance group that has welcomed John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani as speakers in a private capacity.

Behind the scenes: Pompeo met with around 15 Iranian-American community leaders on Monday morning in a conference room at the Renaissance Dallas Hotel. The secretary gave brief opening remarks and then spent most of the session listening and answering questions.

The most provocative question he fielded, according to the sources, was:”If regime change does not occur internally what is the endgame?”
Pompeo replied,”We’re careful not to use the language of regime change.”He then told the group that the administration would not intervene militarily in Iran.
Another participant asked,”Has the idea of a coup been considered?”Pompeo joked that”Even if we did, would I be telling you guys about it?”and the room broke out in laughter.

Pompeo used euphemisms and diplo-speak to describe the administration’s position on Iran.

“Our mission set is to give them the opportunity … capacity to create opportunity, create that and provide transitional support,”he said, per the notes.
“Our best interest is a non-revolutionary set of leaders leading Iran,”he added, according to the notes.

Between the lines: Pompeo said the Trump administration would have handled the 2009 Green Movement uprising against the regime very differently than the Obama administration did. But he did not say how.

Pompeo also said there is”no such thing as a moderate inside the Iranian regime anywhere today.”
And when asked how he could guarantee that the Trump administration’s tough new sanctions wouldn’t hurt the people of Iran, he replied:”There are no guarantees.”

Pompeo also distanced the administration from the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq), an anti-regime group that the U.S. once designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

Several people in the room told Pompeo they worried about what message it sent for close Trump allies — National Security Adviser John Bolton and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani among them — to appear friendly with the MEK, whom some in the room described as worse than the current regime.
“Let’s not beat around the bush,”Pompeo replied, according to one source’s notes.”Ambassador Bolton spoke at an MEK rally. President Trump and I have not.”

“He acknowledged that John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani had connections or ties, whatever you want to call it … with the MEK, but he did say that he and the president did not,”confirmed another person in the room, Texas attorney Michael Payma.

Why this matters: With Trump as president, Bolton as national security adviser and Pompeo as secretary of state — the American people have never had a government so hostile to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Even though Pompeo made his comments in a relatively private setting — and therefore they cannot be set into stone — it’s significant for the secretary of state to tell members of the Iranian diaspora that the Trump administration won’t be intervening militarily to overthrow the regime in Tehran.
It’s also significant for Pompeo to distance the Trump administration from the MEK organization — given the group’s public association with high-profile Trumpworld figures like Giuliani and Bolton.
(The State Department did not respond to requests for comment when we gave them visibility of this reporting.)
Axios.com

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