Seeking war and paralyzing sanctions against the Iranian people, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO\/ MEK\/PMOI\/ Cult of Rajavi) should be considered as part of the B-team.
\nIranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused a ‘B-Team’ of pushing the US towards”disaster”by clashing with Iran.”President Trump believes putting pressure, bullying, will bring us to the negotiating table so he can make this ideal deal he has in mind. I don’t know what that deal is,”Zarif told the Asia Society in New York.
\nThe so-called ‘B-Team’ Zarif named consisted of US National Security Advisor John Bolton, United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
\n“The B-Team is pushing US policy toward a disaster,”Zarif said, decrying what he called Trump’s”obsession”with”bullying”Iran. Zarif added that the B-team has a \u201cplot\u201d to push for the disaster.<\/p>\n
How is the MEK involved with the B-team?<\/strong> According to FP. \u201cThe NCRI was set up in the 1980s by Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) and a number of other Iranian dissidents and opposition groups. The MEK\u2019s allies later abandoned the NCRI, making the organization functionally an alias for the MEK.\u201d [2]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The FP correspondents who view the Vox as a racist, homophobic, Islamophobic and sexist party, interviewed some sources to investigate the motives of the MEK and its financial resources that make it capable of funding a right wing European group. \u201cMojahedin [MEK] are the tool, not the funders. They aren\u2019t that big. They facilitate,\u201d said Massoud Khodabandeh, former member of the group and the Director of Middle East Strategy Consultants told FP. \u201cYou look at it and say, \u2018Oh, Mojahedin are funding [Vox].\u2019 No, they are not. The ones that are funding that party are funding Mojahedin as well.\u201d [4]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Khodabandeh said he himself was involved in moving money for the MEK and its funders during the reign of Saddam Hussein. \u201cI went to Riyadh and recovered three trucks of gold bars from agents of [the] Saudi intelligence agency [at that time] led by Prince Turki bin Faisal. We transferred them to Baghdad and then to Jordan. We sold the bars in Jordan,\u201d he claimed. [5] References:<\/strong><\/p>\n [1] Jannessari, Sohail & Loucaides, Darren, Spain\u2019s Vox Party Hates Muslims\u2014Except the Ones Who Fund It, Foreign Policy, April 27, 2019. Seeking war and paralyzing sanctions against the Iranian people, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO\/ MEK\/PMOI\/ Cult of Rajavi) should be considered as part of the B-team. Iranian Foreign Minister…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[112,85,178],"module":[81],"ctype":[17],"blog":[3],"class_list":["post-9715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mujahedin-khalq-proxy-force","tag-hot-topics","tag-mujahedin-khalq-terrorism","tag-pmoi-iran-people","module-article","ctype-story","blog-nejat-bloggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9715","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=9715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9715"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=9715"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=9715"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=9715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe MEK is the link between its financial sources and the right wing western politicians. The most recent revelations on the MEK\u2019s money laundering activities was made by Foreign Policy last week. \u201cThe upstart far-right party is unapologetically Islamophobic, but without donations from Iranian exiles, it may have never gotten off the ground,\u201d reported Sohail Jannessari and Darren Loucaides of FP. [1]
\n\u201cDocuments leaked to the Spanish newspaper El Pa\u00eds show that almost 1 million euros donated to Vox between its founding in December 2013 and the European Parliament elections in May 2014 came via supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exiled Iranian group,\u201d<\/p>\n
\nAlejo Vidal-Quadras, a now-retired Spanish politician, who previously served as one of the 14 vice presidents in the EU Parliament, has been a longtime paid supporter of the MEK and one of those lobbyists who helped the group get removed from the EU\u2019s list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2009. \u201cSpain\u2019s Vidal-Quadras went on to help found Vox in late 2013. And supporters of the NCRI provided the funding needed to launch the right-wing party and contest the 2014 European elections,\u201d according to El Pa\u00eds. [3]
\n\u201cThe MEK may have just been returning the favor to a long ally, Vidal-Quadras, who has been supportive of the MEK for years,\u201d FP authors suggest. \u201cBut as one former member of the MEK executive committee told Foreign Policy, the financial resources the group gained under Saddam Hussein have likely run out\u2014which suggests that it may have another source of funding today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nKhodabandeh\u2019s account raises the question of where the MEK\u2019s money is coming from today. Heyrani, the recent MEK defector, also handled parts of the organization\u2019s finances in Iraq and was blunt when asked about the current financial backing of the MEK: \u201cSaudi Arabia. Without a doubt,\u201d he told FP. [6]
\nThe flow of the money laundered by the MEK finds its way in the pockets of the far right politicians of the United States, too. President Trump\u2019s national security adviser John Bolton is the most prominent figure to receive MEK\u2019s hefty sums. \u201cBolton is estimated to have received upwards of $180,000 to speak at multiple events for MeK,\u201d the Guardian reported in July 2018. \u201cHis recent financial disclosure shows that he was paid $40,000 for one speech at an MeK event last year.\u201d [7]
\nZarif also brought up Bolton\u2019s past associations with the MEK in his interview with Bolton\u2019s favorite news media, Fox News. Zarif said Bolton had told the group at a rally \u201cthat he would celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, in Tehran with that terrorist organization.\u201d [8]
\nTom Rogan of Washington Examiner correctly suggests, \u201cFor Bolton, the priority is not a democratic Iran, but a pro-American Iran. Bolton has been flexible in pursuit of this end.\u201d [9] He confirms that Bolton \u2013as one of the Bs of the B team\u2014has been the most frequent paid speaker of the MEK.
\n\u201cWhile Bolton refused to comment when asked if he was paid for his speeches, the Wall Street Journal\u2019s Farnaz Fassihi and Seymour Hersh have accused Bolton of receiving payments,\u201d Tom Ragan states. \u201dAnother source, speaking to the Washington Examiner, supported these claims.\u201d [10]
\nMoreover, MEK\u2019s connections with Israel have been denounced several times in the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientists. MEK connections with Bolton, Bin Salman\u2019s agents, Benjamin Netanyahou\u2019s Intelligence Mossad simply indicates its substance as a tool in the hands of the enemies of Iranian nation.
\nBy Mazda Parsi<\/p>\n
\n[2] ibid
\n[3] ibid
\n[4] ibid
\n[5] ibid
\n[6] ibid
\n[7] Merat, Aron, Terrorists, cultists \u2013 or champions of Iranian democracy? The wild wild story of the MEK, the Guardian, November 9, 2018.
\n[8] CNS News, Bolton haunted by MEK association, April 30, 2019.
\n[9] Rogan, Tom, John Bolton: A complex worldview that just might work for Trump, Washington Examiner, April 30 2019.
\n[10] ibid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"