{"id":7855,"date":"2018-01-08T12:29:52","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T08:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=7855"},"modified":"2024-04-20T12:05:23","modified_gmt":"2024-04-20T08:35:23","slug":"trump-not-embrace-mek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/7855","title":{"rendered":"Trump should not embrace the MEK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since unprecedented protests erupted across major Iranian cities last month, the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, or the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), has sought to capitalise on such complicated developments to push Donald Trump\u2019s administration more in favor of the group\u2019s regime change agenda. Whereas Republicans were quick to criticize former US President Barack Obama\u2019s diplomatic overtures to Iran and decision to avoid overtly supporting any factions in Iran pushing for the Islamic Republic\u2019s overthrow during the 2009 protests, voices on both sides of Washington\u2019s partisan divide have urged Trump to embrace a new approach towards Tehran.<\/p>\n

A host of pundits are calling on Trump to support the MEK as a viable, democratic, pro-Western, and secular alternative to the Islamic Republic, despite the fact that the State Department designated the faction a terrorist organization from 1997 to 2012 for its \u201cpast acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the killing of US citizens in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on US soil in 1992.\u201d Nonetheless, since Trump won the 2016 presidential election, scores of former US officials have sought to convince him to open up discussions between his administration and the MEK.<\/p>\n

\"Dr

Dr Khalid Al-Jaber & Giorgio Cafiero<\/p><\/div>\n

Although, thus far, Trump\u2019s administration has been quick to distinguish itself from Obama\u2019s by assertively condemning the Iranian regime and expressing solidarity with Iranian protesters, it is not clear if the administration will heed advice in favour of supporting the MEK. Andrew Peek, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran, stated that the administration will not pursue regime change in Tehran, but instead seek to pressure the Islamic Republic into changing its conduct.<\/p>\n

The administration, however, is still issuing thinly veiled threats suggesting that regime change might be in the cards. At Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders\u2019 first brief of 2018, she said that the Trump administration is \u201ckeeping a lot of options on the table at this time\u201d. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert asserted that sanctions are only one part of Washington\u2019s \u201ctool kit\u201d and that \u201cthere are a range of options that we have going forward.\u201d In June, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson affirmed at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that Washington\u2019s Iran policy is based on supporting \u201celements inside of Iran\u201d in pursuit of a \u201cpeaceful transition of that government\u201d.<\/p>\n

Unquestionably, Washington turning to the MEK to promote the overthrow of Iran\u2019s regime would signal even more of a departure from Obama\u2019s strategy towards Tehran. But doing so entails high levels of risk. To be sure, the White House backing the MEK would emboldened the Iranian regime\u2019s narrative that the unrest in the country\u2019s major cities is orchestrated by Tehran\u2019s \u201cenemies\u201d including the MEK, as well as the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Regardless of how unrealistic it is to imagine the MEK having the means to topple Iran\u2019s regime, any effort to trigger the Islamic Republic\u2019s collapse could fuel a major escalation of violence throughout the Middle East. In light of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman\u2019s assertion in May 2017 that any military confrontation between Riyadh and Tehran would take place \u201cinside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia\u201d, coupled with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud\u2019s endorsement of the MEK two months later, tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran have reached a dangerously high level that would likely impact Tehran\u2019s response to any foreign-sponsored efforts to topple the regime.<\/p>\n

Of course, Iran\u2019s ability to retaliate against any of Washington\u2019s efforts to decisively back the MEK could create major dilemmas for the US military\u2019s various bases around the region. Having spent years expanding its influence throughout the Levant and Arabian Peninsula, Iran is in a position to order Tehran-backed militias to carry out violent attacks against US installations in numerous countries near Iran. In Iraq and Syria, where various actors are seeking to make themselves shareholders in the future of both countries, Iran has extensive clout that can be directed against Washington in the aftermath of the Islamic State\u2019s defeats last year. Put simply, as the majority of Americans favour diplomacy towards Iran, such actions against the regime could drag the Trump administration into new conflicts and quagmires in the Middle East that would likely be highly unpopular among the US public.<\/p>\n

It is important for the Trump administration to react to protests in Iran carefully, without taking actions that could further undermine US interests in the country and elsewhere in the region. Given that there is widespread opposition to Trump across Iran\u2019s political spectrum\u2014largely due to his opposition to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and his administration\u2019s inclusion of Iran on last year\u2019s travel ban, it remains to be seen how Trump\u2019s expression of solidarity with Iranian protestors will pan out on the ground in Iran.<\/p>\n

In any event, support for the MEK, a group that carries much baggage in Iran for its history of collaborating with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, would almost inevitably fuel greater opposition and anger towards Trump and the US on the part of both Iranians who are supportive of their regime and those calling for Iran to transition away from the Islamic Republic nearly four decades after its establishment.<\/p>\n

The peninsula qatar.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since unprecedented protests erupted across major Iranian cities last month, the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, or the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), has sought to capitalise on such complicated developments to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[64,20],"module":[],"ctype":[],"blog":[109],"class_list":["post-7855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nejat-missions","tag-mkos-terrorist-activities","tag-third-view-mek","blog-western-bloggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7855"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=7855"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=7855"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=7855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}