WHO is the Marxist, Jihadist Cult That Is Fooling MAGA On Iran Policy?
You are watching a compilation of videos about the MEK, a Marxist,Jihadist cult supported by politicians across the political spectrum , Democrats and Republicans.
Democrats like Jefferey Epstein associate Bill Richardson and Sen. Joe Liberman support the MEK.
Western Bloggers
The People’s Mujahedin of Iran- a ‘controversial’ political-militant organisation have ended up living in a compound just miles from Tirana, Albania. One day I was invited to attend a “human rights conference” there. Not knowing much about them and as a curious journalist, I accepted and set off, not having any idea of what to expect.
Located around 30 minutes drive from Tirana, the MEK compound is on the outskirts of the village of Manza. Rumour has it that the locals are not overly happy about their presence there, but the fact that the compound provides work for a number of them is enough to keep them at bay.
At the entrance to the camp was a carpark where a number of private guards with automatic weapons stood around chainsmoking with their guns slung over their shoulders. Two large gold-coloured lions flanked the gateway where a couple of MEK members sit, stopping anyone that tries to enter.
![](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/Rajavi_Giuliani_1.jpg)
As the minibus pulled into the entrance, the private guards in their brown uniforms approached the vehicle with mirrors on the end of long metal poles. They spoke with the driver before using the mirrors to check the underneath of the vehicle for, what I assume, was bombs or similar devices. After getting the all-clear, we passed through the gate and disembarked in a small car park.
Ahead of us was along a road that disappeared over the top of the hillside. Iranian flags lined the route and a large, stone archway sat in the middle of the road with an even bigger flag hanging from it. To the right of the arch was a small tent where a different private security firm had set up scanners, metal detectors, and a station for searching everyone that wished to enter, Segregated into male and female stations, our bags were searched, we were patted down and scanned, and also made to pass through a scanner.
![MKO members in Albania - Camp Ashraf 3](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/MKO_Albania_47.jpg)
The security guard confiscated my lipstick, face powder, cigarettes, and lighter and put them in a plastic bag, advising me I could collect them afterwards. They tried to confiscate my mobile phone as well, but I argued that having a one-month-old daughter at home, I needed to be contactable. A male MEK member was called over and after pleading my case, I was allowed to take my phone inside on the condition I switched off the internet (I didn’t).
It was at this point that I began to feel nervous. The level of security was incredibly high, the searches were more thorough than at an airport, and I was concerned at the attempt to take my phone, as well as the temporary confiscation of something so seemingly harmless as a lipstick.
![](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/Shekari_Gholamreza_Speigel.jpg)
As I looked around, I also noticed the dress code that applied to everyone except the staff of the two separate private security firms.
I was greeted by a number of smiling, incredibly friendly women that shook my hand, kissed my cheeks and thanked me for attending. The majority of them were dressed in navy blue suits with burgundy hijabs, with no makeup and modest shoes. I noticed a small number of women who appeared to be much older than the others and assuming positions of more responsibility, wearing head to toe olive green- a suit with a matching hijab. The men were dressed in suits with shirts and no tie- they all seemed to have moustaches. Not one person was under 50 years old.
From the security checkpoint, we were herded into minibusses dependent on nationality and who invited us, and we started our descent into the “city”.
As we passed over the top of the hill, rows and rows of white, single-story cabins appeared below us. Each road we took had its own street name and each row of housing was complete with plants and flowers planted outside and even bicycles propped up, ready for use. The place was immaculate- little box houses on pristine streets and a small artificial river running through the centre. On what appears to be the main boulevard, Iranian flags lined the way, with a large memorial to those MEK members who lost their lives at one end, and what appears to be a sort of city centre at the other.
We pulled off the main boulevard and disembarked outside what looked like a large aircraft hangar. Guarding several entrances were more private security guards and more men with moustaches. As we file into the building, I had no idea what was waiting for me inside.
The room was vast- similar to an industrial warehouse in size and dimensions. Inside were perhaps 3000 people in seats stretching as far as the eye coul see. To the left of me was a stage, cordoned off and supervised by security guards. This stage was kitted out with an expensive-looking set including large screens with graphics of video footage of the MEK struggle interspersed with images of their leader Maryam Rajavi and the Iranian flag. A podium stood on the stage, next to a flagpole and flag, and in front of the words “FREE IRAN”.
Upbeat and patriotic sounding music pumped from the speakers and filled the room, drowning out the sound of delegates as they make their way to their seats. In the centre of the room were two columns of seating, male MEK members on one side, female MEK members on the other, completely segregated and each in their strict dress code, including hijabs for women. Again, no one was under the age of 50.
On the far right hand and left hand sides of these seating zones, sat the international delegates, segregated by nationality. Everyone was handed a headset and told to tune in to a particular frequency that would pick up the translations coming live from a line of translation booths on the right hand side of the room.
At the front of the room, the VIPs were sat in rows with tables in front of them, displaying the name and country of each delegate. I noticed the US, UK, France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia were all represented by between one and five individuals. They included politicians, ex-politicians and ex-security and military personnel. I was told that there were representatives from 47 countries present.
Large booms swung over head, each with a camera attached to it filming the crowd from a variety of angles. This was an expensive set up, reminiscent of a large scale TV studio.
The number of people in the room was quite staggering and to see the rows of people seated at the far end, I had to squint. Asides from the thousands that were seated, there were perhaps a hundred uniformed and hijabi wearing women scuttling around, seating people and handing out headsets. They were under the direction of a few men in suits and were amongst over 100 security guards.
As I waited to be seated, the chanting started and thousands of Iranian flags started being waved enthusiastically as the crowd got to their feet. The chanting and flag waving occured for several minutes, before they sat back down again- a pattern that repeated countless times throughout the event.
On my own at this point, I enquired as to where I should sit. Confusion ensues as I explain that I am English yet living in Albania and I was told to wait whilst they discussed what to do with me.
I was then approached by an older male MEK member holding a walkie-talkie who asked me who I was and what I was doing. I explained again and made the mistake of saying I am a journalist whilst flashing my press card. At this point, he became angry and said, “who the hell told you to be here?” I replied that I had been invited and that some of the ladies had told me to wait here whilst they decided where to seat me. He replied angrily “these ladies know nothing, I am in charge here”.
At this point, I became unhappy at being shouted at and I asked him to lower his voice and not to treat a guest in this manner. He walked off and eventually I was seated by a woman in a hijab, in the section for Albanians.
It was then, as I looked around I noticed that there were no other journalists present as I could not see any TV crews, no other people with press cards, no journalists I recognised, and I realised I hadn’t seen any media vans or cars in the car park. There was only the expensive video cameras and a couple of photographers who I believed were MEK members.
Then the show began.
MEK leader, Maryam Rajavi took to the stage amidst triumphant music, glitter cannons spitting out gold confetti into the audience, and the euphoric chants, flag-waving, and fist-pumping in perfect synchronicity of the uniformed, segregated, Iranian audience members.
Dressed in turquoise silk with a matching hijab, Rajavi smiled as she spoke, pausing only to enjoy the chanting and adoration from her followers. She captivated the crowd as she spoke of women’s rights, gender equality, democracy, human rights, and an end to the mullahs and ayatollah. To see the way that the crowd reacted to her was really something fascinating- they hung on every world, and jumped to their feet many times to chant and wave their flags ecstatically.
Following Rajavi’s rousing speech, other speakers took to the floor. They included Trump’s lawyer and ex- Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani (who has attended 11 such conferences, reportedly for a hefty fee) , former Democratic senator Joe Lieberman, Columbian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, former US Marine Corps Commander General James Conway, Lincoln Bloomfield, and British MP Matthew Offord.
They referred to “the regime of terror”, the “murderers in Tehran”, and called for the immediate overthrow of the current Iranian government. MEK were called “freedom fighters” and hailed as the only solution to the current situation in Iran.
Guiliani also said that “European governments must stop supporting regimes that fund terrorism” calling for and end to any trade with Iran, stating that it funds “mass murderers”.
He also commented on the way that the compound had sprung up in just two years adding “if we tried to do this in New York, it would take 15 years and launch 14 corruption investigations.”
Addressing the allegations that MEK is a cult, he stated “maybe [these people] they forgot about honour and decency, human rights. This is a decent organisaton. A group we can support.”
Each speech was broken up by periods of coordinated chanting and flag-waving with each outburst as frenetic and enthusiastic as the one before.
I sat there for around two or three hours, not really sure what was going on or what the purpose of the event was. Feeling a little on edge, I got up from my seat and made my way to the exit. As I walked towards where I had disembarked the minibus, the woman who invited me called my name and came running over to me and presented me with a box of sweets and fruit. She asked me who I worked for and what I wrote (which was odd because I had never told her) and invited me to come back to the compound another time to discuss their work more.
I said my goodbyes and headed back to the entrance, passed the armed guards and moustachioed MEK members, and went back to Tirana.
Over the next few days, my contact and I exchanged a few messages where I said I would be interested in “one day” returning to find out more. She then proceeded to call me around 15 times, even when I told her I was not available ( I didn’t answer) and even from different phone numbers. I then politely but firmly declined any invitations and that was the last I heard from my friend at MEK.
Alice Taylor, The Balkanista,
‘I Rule the White House’: Will Bolton’s ouster help Trump facilitate US-Iran negotiations?
Most analysts agree that Donald Trump’s main motivation for dismissing his National Security Advisor, John Bolton, was that Bolton had been giving off the impression that he was the real decision-maker in the White House, while the president was merely a talking puppet.
Looking at Trump’s career, even before coming into office, it is clear that he is a man who cannot tolerate being subordinated to anyone. Trump sees himself as a leader who gives orders and expects his employees to execute them like soldiers.
The only thing Trump wants to hear from his underlings is “Yes, Sir.”
I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 10 сентября 2019 г.
A few articles published after Bolton’s ouster have suggested that the disagreement centered around the question of easing sanctions against Iran in order to facilitate a meeting between Trump and Hassan Rouhani, the president of the Islamic Republic.
A few weeks earlier, Trump was at the G7 meeting in France when Mr. Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of Iran, suddenly arrived at the request of French President Emmanuelle Macron. He met with both Macron and French Foreign Minister Jean Yves Laudrian in Biarritz while Trump had dinner with the other G7 leaders.
Question: “The allies were saying it was disrespectful for Macron to invite Zarif, disrespectful to the U.S. You don’t feel that way?”
President Trump: “No. No. He asked my approval.” #G7 pic.twitter.com/Yo7tzJwdYu
— The Hill (@thehill) 26 августа 2019 г.
The next day, less than 12 hours after Zarif met with the French leaders, President Rouhani said that he is ready to sit and talk to “anyone” if it is in the interests of the Iranian people and could help solve their ongoing problems.
As someone who has been affiliated with the Iranian policy for decades, I can assure you that President Rouhani is not a person prone to slips of the tongue: he is a veteran politician and carefully chooses every word he says.
Given the current tense political situation in Iran, these words would be political suicide for most politicians, especially if this “anyone” includes Trump, a person who has not been shy about insulting Iran and its leadership, and the main culprit behind the cancellation of the JCPOA. Trump has also implemented heavy sanctions against the Iranian people during his time as commander-in-chief.
We should, therefore, presume that there is something else happening in the background. While only the future can tell us for sure, some analysts believe an agreement was reached wherein Rouhani would announce that he is ready to meet Trump if Trump agreed to allow restore exemptions for the 8 countries buying Iranian oil, and allow the European INSTEX program to kick off with an initial €15 billion investment.
However, as it turned out, Trump wasn’t ready to make any such statement, despite that it was all but expected during the news conference he held alongside Macron. It is likely, however, that the 12 hours which separated Rouhani’s speech and the news conference were packed with calls from Benjamin Netanyahu, John Bolton and the other members of the so-called “B4” (Benjamin Netanyahu, John Bolton, Mohammad Bin Salman and Mohammad Bin Zayed).
Some analysts have suggested that Trump was threatened by someone privy to information that could get him disqualified in the 2020 presidential race.
If we link this to the report published by Politico which claims to have found Israeli spy-instruments around the white house and other places in Washington, it is probable that Trump and his family and/or staff were spied on, perhaps even with Bolton’s permission.
Israel reportedly planted tiny devices around D.C. to spy on Donald Trump’s cellphone, but the White House hasn’t condemned the surveillance https://t.co/jLuT2k9aKV
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) 12 сентября 2019 г.
However, there are also reports that news emerged over the past couple of weeks claiming that Bolton had been hiding information from Trump regarding the peace talks in Afghanistan, and telling others that Trump couldn’t be trusted with it.
Some believe that Mr. Zalmai Khalil Zad, the American envoy to the Afghan peace negotiations, was coordinating the talks with Bolton and keeping a low profile around Trump.
Well, there are dozens of possible reasons for Trump to have dismissed his advisor, Bolton’s removal is a sigh of relief for the majority of the world, and especially the Iranians.
Bolton was a war-hawk who helped drag the US into the Afghan and Iraq wars. Even though he knew that another war could cost Trump the election, he was heavily in favor of initiating conflict with Iran.
Bolton saw himself as protected by powerful lobbies within the US and therefore didn’t care if Trump was re-elected.
Experts doubt Trump’s explanation for canceling the Taliban meeting. I suspect the real reason is a combination of: 1. Pres. Ghani refused to participate; 2. John Bolton exploded; 3. Trump came to see that hobnobbing with the Taliban would be bad politics https://t.co/dywBzrGQdm
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) 8 сентября 2019 г.
Bolton participated in many Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization meetings and received more than $180,000 for a speech where he promised the members of this group (which is considered a terrorist organization in Iran and many other countries around the world) they would celebrate Nowruz (the Iranian New Year) together in Tehran.
While the Iranians don’t expect that Trump will choose someone much better than Bolton as far as enmity against Iran goes, Bolton’s dismissal is nonetheless one major enemy out of the picture.
One group that is no doubt devastated by Bolton’s departure is the MEK — the Iranian exile group that wants regime change in Tehran, by force if necessary, and has paid Bolton & Rudy Giuliani to make speeches. See this NYT video by @ntabrizy. https://t.co/wQkQwqqzOL
— Edward Wong (@ewong) 10 сентября 2019 г.
While the B4 group has now become the B3, the forces who were backing Bolton are still in power, and the American administration is still stuffed by pro-war neocons and enemies of Iran.
WILL BOLTON’S DISMISSAL EFFECT IRANIAN-US RELATIONS?
Some believe that Trump dismissed Bolton because he wanted to negotiate with Iran on his own terms, and knew Bolton would attempt to sabotage his efforts. There have been reports that Trump and Rouhani shook hands in the UN lobby.
Again, it is impossible to say with 100% certainty what motivated Trump’s decision, but this version of events is perhaps the most probable.
It is important to note, however, that Iran cannot be compared to North Korea (or any other country in the world), and that the Iranian president is not Kim Jong Un. He cannot force his will and make top-down decisions for the entire country. There are certain domestic challenges the Iranian president faces which he cannot overcome on his own.
The most important challenge he faces is the strong anti-American sentiment among Iran’s politicians and population.
Any analyst can tell you that the P5+1 talks with Iran were mainly talks between Iran and the US and that the Iranian and American foreign ministers have talked together in private for many hours. It is difficult to believe that Javad Zarif and John Kerry sat for 17 hours behind closed doors just to discuss the politics of 3.67% Uranium enrichment.
This meeting was also very likely the start of the JCPOA and included promises that, if the cooperation was successful, the two countries would be able to move forward.
After all, no-one can deny that the attack against ISIS in the Iraqi city of Mosul was undertaken by Iranian ground troops and the US air force. Ask anyone with military experience whether or not such an attack could have been carried out without direct coordination.
The Iranian foreign minister did not sit with John Kerry merely because he was a representative of ex-president Barack Obama: he sat with the acting foreign minister of the US, and the JCPOA was later signed by the US administration.
The Iranian people believe that their country has already negotiated with the Americans and that a deal has already been reached, and that the issue is that that the Americans won’t abide by their agreement. What guarantee is there that if the Iranians sit down and renegotiate, the Americans won’t simply renege on the agreement yet again?
#Trump removes MEK terrorists’ BFF John Bolton pic.twitter.com/NSPxc7UeHI
— Tasnim News Agency (@Tasnimnews_EN) 11 сентября 2019 г.
Although the administration is promising to get congressional approval, this is little more than a promise: Trump has proven that when it comes to negotiating with Washington, there are no guarantees.
In this situation, no Iranian politician will be ready to endanger his political future by entering into, or even advocating for, public talks with Americans, especially given that we are nearing the next Iranian parliamentary elections. Pushing for talks without any guarantees could lead to the fall of an entire political wing in the country.
The only choice Iranian politicians have is to refuse to accept any such meeting until after some sanctions have already been removed; something concrete to show them that American policy toward Iran is capable of changing.
On the other side, the Americans believe that the only way they can bring Iran to the negotiating table is through pressure and sanctions and that if they ease the pressure, the Iranians will never budge, and Trump’s policy will be seen as a failure.
The debate right now is not even about whether or not talks will take place: it is about how to restore trust between the two countries. The keys to the negotiation-room door were stuck as a result of the administration’s refusal to compromise on sanctions, a position which was unwavering predominantly thanks to John Bolton.
With Bolton finally gone, the question is now whether or not the Europeans will be able to get the keys out.
Emad Abshenass- uwidata.com
With news that three House Committees are investigating the Trump attorney’s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to look for dirt on Joe Biden, it’s a question worth asking.
While serving as President Trump’s personal lawyer, the former New York City mayor has traveled abroad to meet with Ukrainian officials. But he’s also traveled to Europe and the Middle East to carry out unrelated consulting work and attend speaking engagements.
![Rudy Giuliani](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/Giuliani_MEK_1.jpg)
TPM has gathered reporting on Giuliani’s foreign adventures since taking office, consolidating them in one map that reveals the extent of his global peddling.
Armenia
He traveled to the capital of Yerevan in October 2018 for a pro-Russian conference there, telling reporters he was not attending in his “capacity as a private lawyer to President Trump.”
Ukraine
Giuliani has traveled to Ukraine multiple times over the past decade. But it was a November 2017 trip to the city of Kharkiv that raised eyebrows, in part because of the person who invited him: Russian-Ukrainian developer Pavel Fuchs, who negotiated with Trump in the 2000s to build a Trump Tower Moscow. Giuliani has said the trip was for security consulting for the city of Kharkiv.
Giuliani also planned a trip in May 2019 to dig up dirt on presidential candidate Joe Biden, but he canned that effort amid public outcry.
Most recently, his antics — which included an August meeting in Spain with a foreign policy adviser to the Ukrainian President — have caught the attention of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight Committees, which sent letters to the White House and State Department to investigate Giuliani’s work “outside legitimate law enforcement and diplomatic channels.”
Turkey
Giuliani’s 2017 sojourn to Turkey has been largely forgotten amid a torrent of other scandals, but, in some ways, it set the tone for what was to come. The trip centered around a Turkish gold trader charged with conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. Hired as a representative of the trader, Giuliani traveled to Turkey to meet with President Tayyip Recep Erdogan and with U.S. officials “to discuss a possible disposition” of the case, which reportedly would have seen the prosecution ending in a prisoner swap.
The judge in the case told Courthouse News that “had Rudy succeeded, he and [Presidents Trump and Erdogan] would have helped very significantly the country of Iran.”
Bahrain
Giuliani met with the King of Bahrain in the peninsular gulf state in December 2018 where, according to the country’s state news agency, “topics of joint interests” were discussed. In May, Giuliani’s security firm signed a consulting contract with Bahrain.
Qatar
Relatively little is known about Giuliani’s work for Qatar. He has said that he worked for the Qataris on an investigation and, according to Reuters, traveled to Doha in April 2017, weeks before agreeing to work pro bono as President Trump’s personal attorney. Some Giuliani associates, including former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, have been hired by the gulf state to “solicit the help of U.S. government officials” in resolving its dispute with Saudi Arabia.
Israel
Giuliani has traveled to Israel multiple times during the Trump Administration, including a June 2018 voyage that led him to bust some dance moves in Jerusalem. That was part of a trip that saw him speak at a conference where he trashed both the Mueller investigation and Stormy Daniels. Giuliani also rang the opening bell at the Tel Aviv stock exchange during a June 2017 visit that was connected to his former law firm Greenberg Traurig.
![](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/Giuliani_Rydy_3-1.jpg-1.jpg)
Albania
The Balkan republic plays host to the Mujahedin el-Khalq, a bizarre Iranian exile group that has faced accusations of being a cult. Giuliani traveled there in July 2019 with Joe Lieberman to a conference at the socialist-Islamic group’s recently built Ashraf 3 compound. He also traveled there in March 2018 for the Iranian New Year celebration of Nowruz. MEK is reportedly no longer ruled out in Trump Administration planning as a potential successor to the current Iranian regime.
France
At another June 2018 MEK rally in Paris, Giuliani called for the overthrow of Iran’s government. Thought it is known that the Trump attorney accepts speaking fees for his MEK work, the exact amount remains unclear.
Poland
Giuliani’s trip to Poland in February 2019 was another MEK-sponsored appearance, at a Warsaw conference that occurred at the same time that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence were in the country for a summit on the Middle East. Giuliani did not restrict his dealings in Warsaw to MEK: he met on the side with a Ukrainian prosecutor who later offered him dirt on the Biden family.
Author Headshot
Josh Kovensky is an investigative reporter for Talking Points Memo, based in New York. He previously worked for the Kyiv Post in Ukraine, covering politics, business, and corruption there.
By Josh Kovensky, talkingpointsmemo
The MEK was founded in 1965 and it has the unusual distinction of taking action to overthrow both the former government of the shah of Iran and the Islamic Republic of Iran by relying on terrorist actions. In the early 1970s, the MEK embarked on a program of assassinating Iranian officials and U.S. personnel in Iran.
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 saw the MEK’s program of bombings and shootings increase in intensity. The MEK is led by the husband-wife team of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, who opponents and ex-members of the MEK describe as leaders of what has become known as the “Rajavi Cult.” The Rajavis abhor criticism and have been known to silence former MEK members-turned-critics by having them constantly harassed or worse, assassinated. There were nine assassinations between 1970-79).
After the United States ousted Saddam Hussein in the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, the MEK forces were confined to U.S.-protected compounds in Iraq, the most prominent being Camp Ashraf, the former U.S. military’s Camp Liberty. The new Iraqi government demanded the MEK forces leave Iraq. Acceding to Iraqi demands, the United States relocated 3,000 MEK members to the Manez base in Albania, which the MEK calls “Ashraf 3.”
The MEK, which reportedly receives support from Israel’s Mossad, is said to be involved in money laundering and sex trafficking through the intensive use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Not surprisingly, MEK forces joined with ISIL forces in battling against Syrian and Iraqi government forces. The MEK saw ISIL as a natural ally in fighting pro-Iranian governments in Baghdad and Damascus. It was well-known to Western intelligence agencies that the MEK and ISIL had established an alliance, but, nevertheless, the Barack Obama administration removed the MEK from the U.S. State Department’s terrorist list in 2012. From 1997 to 2012, the United States officially designated the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization.
After ISIL forces were routed in Syria and Iraq, the United States pressured Albania to allow the Islamist terrorists to join their MEK allies in Albania. ISIL terrorists and their families have reportedly been housed in buildings in Tirana that were formerly occupied by MEK members prior to their transfer to the Manez base. From their Albanian base, MEK operatives have easily entered Kosovo, the location of another major NATO military base at Camp Bondsteel, near Ferizaj in eastern Kosovo.
MEK terrorists, allied with sympathizers in Albania and Kosovo, have targeted Shi’a and Sufi Islamic institutions. It is also believed by some Albanian journalists, who have been intimidated by the Albanian government and MEK, that Ashraf 3 and Camp Bondsteel are being used to train MEK and other Middle Eastern mercenaries for a war against Iran to effect a NATO-led regime change operation.
The MEK enjoys widespread support in the Trump White House, as well as in the U.S. Congress. One of the MEK’s biggest boosters is Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton. On April 1, 2017, Bolton addressed an MEK Nowruz (Persian New Year) conference in Albania and declared that the MEK would be celebrating taking power in Tehran before 2019.
The MEK is represented in Washington by the law firm of Joseph diGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing. DiGenova almost became Trump’s personal attorney. However, diGenova took his name out of consideration due to conflicts of interest and Giuliani accepted the job.
The Trump administration’s neocons, notably Bolton and Giuliani, are hell-bent on regime change in Iran. They are ramping up their terrorist army in the Balkans for such a future war. Politics makes for strange bedfellows.
By Cyrus Shamloo,wilsontimes.com
Richard Black speaks about Syria (and not only)
Syria is still torn by the conflict that has endangered its very existence since the distant 2011. It is a war that has never been simply internal to the Syrian society but that has involved, on the contrary, numerous players each moved by own interests and own purposes. The official West has always stood firm against the legitimate government of Damascus, endorsing every possible lie against it. But some voices of dissent have also been heard: Richard Black of the Virginia State senate is the only Western politician to have spoken openly in defense of Syria and its people, immediately highlighting the Western absurdity of trusting that international holding of terror headed by Al-Qaeda.
![USA terrorist allies](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/USA_Terrorists.jpg)
For some months now, international diplomacies have been in flux over the possibility of an open war between United States and Iran. It would be a war that would drag the entire Middle East and the Western hemisphere into a conflict with devastating and unpredictable results. There is something tremendously irreconcilable between Washington and Tehran, an antagonism that also sees Israel as co-protagonist: the Jewish State in fact lives the Iranian presence in Syria and Iraq as a clear existential danger and craves to eliminate that danger once and for all.
I asked Senator Black to express once again an opinion on the current Middle Eastern situation, which develops its tragedy having as a background, also and unfortunately above all, the moral decadence of the West. There is indeed a subtle and hidden thread who connect Jeffrey Epstein’s perverse behavior with the stolen children scandal of Bibbiano, Italy, to which I have dedicated a previous column [1].
![John Bolton](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/Bolton_John_4.jpg)
1) Do you feel that Syria is making progress in the war?
A) Yes. In particular, Syria is making excellent progress in recapturing Idlib Province. This month, the SAA, led by the Tiger Forces, skillfully outmaneuvered al Qaeda in Syria near Khan Shaykhun. They attacked from the east and west, creating an untenable salient, which was then choked off, besieging the Khan Shaykhun pocket. Syrian forces are rapidly clearing the pocket, and they are poised to advance more deeply into enemy-held territory.
2) The war in Syria has entered its eighth year and yet there is no end to it despite the successes of government forces and their allies. In your opinion, who still hinders the end of this terrible conflict?
A) The war would end if the United States left Syria. Throughout the war, the U.S. has sent arms and equipment across Turkey’s borders into Syria. We needlessly keep the war alive in order to squeeze Iran, which has lost many men fighting against ISIS and al Qaeda in Syria. General Westley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, described a 2001 meeting with a high-ranking general in the Pentagon War Room. The General said,”I just got this down from upstairs today.”He was referring to the Secretary of Defense’s office.”This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”So U.S. planners sought to overthrow Syria as early as 2001.The U.S. war plans developed quickly afterwards. In 2006 William Roebuck, chargé d’affaires at the US embassy in Damascus, issued a cable outlining strategies for destabilizing and exploiting perceived weaknesses in the Syrian government. His objective was to instigate and uprising and overthrow Syria. Under the bloodthirsty regime of President Obama, the United States relentlessly pursued their war plans. After toppling Libya, we quickly started the Syrian War. We did this by shipping stolen Libyan arms through Turkey and Lebanon immediately after the U.S., U.K. and France destroyed Libya in 2011. The war against Syria began within months of Libya’s fall in 2011, when the CIA established a”Rat Line”to infiltrate stolen Libyan weapons into Syria. This was a top-secret plan code-named Project Timber Sycamore. Tunisian terrorists became the first foreign fighters sent by Turkey and the West to fight the ill-prepared Syrian soldiers. However, the United States is not the only obstacle to peace in Syria. Turkey is a major stumbling block. Turkey provided most of the military hardware to ISIS, and supplies heavy military equipment to al Qaeda in Syria, which now controls most of Syria’s Idlib Province.
3) The Iranian front is being added to the Syrian front, with provocations that seem a prelude to war. Do we see a war between United States and Iran in our future?
A) John Bolton, the National Security Advisor to the President, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would like to trigger a war with Iran. However, President Trump knows the American people are tired of fighting wars in the Middle East. I don’t expect anything dramatic to happen with Iran before the 2020 elections. Predicting what will happen after that is difficult, but I do not think President Trump is anxious for war. However, a number of provocations have already been staged and others are likely. Bolton and Pompeo would like nothing better than to see the President forced into a war with Iran. Of course, going to war with Iran would be disastrous for America.
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4) Is there a risk that MEK, the Mojahedin-e khalq, will openly take in Iran the place that ISIS has had in Syria, giving way to a bloodbath in the Islamic Republic as well?
A) That is a distinct possibility. However, Iran is a cohesive, unified nation. Despite their internal political disagreements, Iranians are patriotic and even its dissidents are generally unwilling to undermine the unity of the nation. For that reason, I do not believe the MEK will find fertile ground to grow like ISIS did in the deserts of Iraq and Syria. Nevertheless, the West has decided to employ MEK-led terrorists to overthrow the duly-elected government of Iran. The Ashraf-3 base has just opened in Albania. Its purpose is to coordinate terrorist training, logistics and military action against Iran. The Ashraf-3 facility will be used to plan the infiltration and destabilization of Iran. It may use both MEK terrorists and battle-hardened ISIS and al Qaeda troops who are moved there from Iraq and Syria. The massive Ashraf-3 base is a complete city. It has parks, shopping centers, conference centers, and a luxury hotel. The heavily-guarded facility will be home to 3,000 MEK terrorists and families. If MEK succeeds in toppling Iran, Maryam Rajavi has already been designated as its first interim president. The United States designated the MEK as a terrorist organization in 1997. However, the push to overthrow seven Middle Eastern countries (including Iran) began to move forward rapidly in 2011 with the invasion of Libya. MEK was removed for the list of terrorist organizations in 2012 in order to bring about a violent regime change in Iran.
5) Has the west had much success working with organizations like MEK or al Qaeda in the past?
A) Employing the terror weapon has not produced good results for Western countries. The CIA fielded a quarter-million-man army of terrorists against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia built a vast system of madrassas to indoctrinate youth in Wahabism, a remarkably murderous version of Islam. Although CIA’s jihadists did defeat the Soviets, they also gave birth to al Qaeda, which attacked the U.S. on 9-11 and went on to spread terror across the globe. Every time the West and its Gulf State allies use terrorists to overthrow governments, the results are disastrous. By recruiting and supplying affiliates of al Qaeda in Libya and Syria, we flooded Europe with a tidal wave of culturally-incompatible refugees. This gravely damaged countries like Germany, whose people were startled when foreign immigrants assaulted and raped German women with wild abandon soon after their arrival. The resulting crime and social disorder shocked Germans and Scandinavians, who may be permanently afflicted by these unpleasant social conditions.
6) Some investigations made by Iranians point to a MEK responsibility in the recent oil tankers attacks. Is Washington still trusting this organization?
A) The MEK is not independent of Washington. The Ashraf-3 base opening was attended by many senior-level U.S. officials. National Security Advisor John Bolton told the MEK at its 2017 conference in Albania,”Before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran”. He was wrong. But John Bolton still intends to overthrow Iran. I am not convinced that Iran was behind the tanker attacks. The attacks seemed staged and implausible. In one case, the State Department insisted the Kokuka Courageous was damaged by Iranian magnetic mines. But tanker crew said that flying ordnance pierced the ship’s hull. The holes pierced the ship above the waterline. That means the magnetic mines had to jump up from the water and cling to the ship’s side. It seems that a covert intelligence action was the more likely source of the damage.
7) Recently, you wrote a letter to President Trump [2]. Why did you feel the need for such a step? Have you got any answer from the White House? Or from the media of your country?
A) I was concerned that covert actions were being undertaken to trigger a war against Iran. I sent the letter to President Trump through certain channels. I also sent copies to every member of congress. I hoped to educate the Members about the actual situation in Iran. My goal was to block Bolton and Pompeo from drawing the nation into a war that would kill thousands of American servicemen and perhaps a million Iranians. It would also destabilize the entire world, and that could lead to a world war involving Russia, China, Europe and the Gulf State dictatorships.
8)”But the CINC does not ‘hope’, he commands”as you wrote about Trump’s hope to avoid a war with Iran. Do you think there is a lack of firmness by the current American President?
A) President Trump has only a tenuous hold on the government’s foreign policy establishment. The House of Representatives is firmly under Democrat control. Large portions of the federal court system are under Democrat control as well. The Senate is narrowly divided 53-49 in favor of Republicans. However, many senators in both parties are quite hawkish and anxious for new wars. Moreover, the State Department and CIA are heavily invested in war. Furthermore, unlike Presidents Nixon and Reagan (who were masters of foreign affairs) this is not Trump’s area of expertise. And since he surrounded himself with hawkish advisors like Bolton and Pompeo, he has little support for peaceful initiatives. Because of this, Trump has very limited maneuvering room in matters of foreign policy. For example, Trump announced a total, immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria on Dec 19, 2018, saying,”Our boys, our young women, our men – they’re all coming back, and they’re coming back now.”Within a week, John Bolton had flown to Tel Aviv and rescinded the President’s order. Today, there is no evidence that any troops ever left Syria. They even remain at the isolated outpost of al-Tanf, which plays no role in fighting ISIS and probably never did. Bolton sometimes exercises powers that are the traditional domain of the Commander-in-Chief. That’s especially ironic, since Bolton was a Vietnam draft-dodger who shirked has duties and avoided the dangers of combat.
9) The case of Bibbiano is similar but not the same as that of Epstein who ran an environment of pedophiles for political blackmail. Don’t you think our Western decline has passed a terrible level of watch?
A) President Obama ordered the rainbow-sodomy flag flown directly beneath the American flag at U.S. embassies across the globe. He even bathed the White House in rainbow colored lights to celebrate sodomy in America. Under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the U.S. State Department was ordered to promote gay sodomy as a human right. Naturally, this offended nations with strong moral values. Fortunately, the situation has improved a bit under President Trump, and the rainbow-sodomy flag is not flown over U.S. embassies today. Nonetheless, Western morality has suffered enormously by elevating immoral sexual behavior and permitting homosexuals to parade in various states of nudity, while committing lascivious acts in the presence of families with children.
Homosexuals seek out youth and children. We now permit homosexuals to serve openly in the military. The practice allows homosexuals to dominate young men and women. Incorporating homosexuals into the military has undermined good order and discipline.
I know a young Marine woman who was mocked for her Christian faith and for refusing to participate in lesbian sex during boot camp. That is a far cry from the high standards maintained when I attended the Marine Corps boot camp as a young man. Integrating homosexuals into the military ranks was designed to force waves of recruits to accept homosexuality in order to spread this acceptance throughout society. Today, homosexuality has been forced into every facet of life. Homosexuals are even allowed to adopt children, despite their well-known inclination toward sexual activities with minors. Public schools in my own county provide children with books that describe a six-year-old transvestite child performing illicit sex acts with older youth. So, the cultural decay is evident everywhere. The U.S. suffered a grave moral collapse in 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court created homosexual marriages. Although such marriages are an illusion, that illusion is a toxic one that has far-reaching, destructive ramifications. There is little evidence that open homosexuality and Christianity can co-exist. And since Christianity is the moral bedrock of Western Civilization, it is unclear whether civilization will survive this reckless social experiment at all.
[1]http://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/142543-italy/
[2]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n9lTd4FBsXJl2nRtCNsPNS6bWrYcRr67/view?usp=sharing
By Costantino Ceoldo – Pravda freelance
Iran’s Opposition Groups are Preparing for the Regime’s Collapse. Is Anyone Ready?
In July 13, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudi Giuliani, addressed an Iranian opposition group called the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK) at the group’s tightly guarded encampment in rural Albania, where some 3,400 members have been preparing for the overthrow of the clerical regime in Tehran.
Calling the MEK Iran’s”government-in-exile,”Giuliani assured MEK members that the Trump administration regards the group as an acceptable replacement for the current regime.”It gives us confidence that if we make those efforts to overthrow that horrible regime, sooner rather than later, we will not only save lives but we will be able to entrust the transition of Iran to a very responsible group of people,”the former New York City mayor told his cheering audience.
Like other former U.S. officials, Giuliani has been a frequent—and highly paid speaker—at MEK events over the past several years. So has John Bolton, Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, who has earned $180,000 from his MEK speeches according to Joanne Stocker, an editor at The Defense Post and an expert on the MEK. Bolton stopped addressing the group last year when he took up his White House post, which precludes such appearances.
But in his last speech to the MEK at a Paris rally in 2017, Bolton enthusiastically endorsed the group’s claim to be the most attractive alternative to the Iranian regime.”There is a viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs and that opposition is centered in this room today,”Bolton said. His financial disclosure showed he earned $40,000 for that speech.
The MEK, whose name means the”People’s Holy Warriors,”is the oldest, best organized and best known of several Iranian opposition movements waiting in the wings. But there are others. One group are the monarchists, led by the son of the deposed shah, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who hopes to coordinate the different opposition groups and create a provisional government until democratic elections can be held. There are also several armed groups representing Iran’s oppressed ethnic and religious minorities, who favor a federal-style government that will give their regions greater autonomy.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration said it would not rule out the MEK as a viable replacement for the current regime. But at the same time, senior officials also stress that Trump is not seeking regime change. Instead, these officials say, the administration is focusing on Trump’s campaign of economic sanctions against Iran aimed at forcing the regime to negotiate what U.S. officials call”behavioral changes.”They include a verifiable end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, a halt to its ballistic missile development and a stop to its support for proxy militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen that have expanded Iran’s influence throughout the Middle East. Iran has rejected the administration’s demands, describing them as tantamount to regime change.
Regime change or no regime change, the opposition groups remain deeply divided, which undermines their chances of ever taking power, Iran experts say. Over the years, several opposition groups have tried repeatedly to form a united front against Tehran, but their attempts have failed because of clashing histories, agendas and personalities.
Opposition to Iran’s clerical regime, in the form of street protests and armed attacks on government officials and installations, has been around since the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution. But something is different now. What distinguishes the most recent protests from those that erupted in 2009, 2017 and 2018 are both the severity of Iran’s economic woes and the regime’s reluctance to crack down hard on the demonstrators for fear of sparking another revolution.”These days, they’re cautious,”Abdullah Mohtadi, the leader of the Iranian Kurdish Komala Party, one of the country’s principal ethnic opposition groups, told Newsweek.”They know how fragile the system is.”
Administration officials say that Iran’s leaders can either negotiate the behavioral changes Trump is demanding or watch their country’s economy crumble. Eventually, they insist, the Iranian regime will bend to the president’s will. So far, Iran continues to defy Trump with a campaign of threats and harassment against shipping in the Persian Gulf that has drawn U.S. and British naval and air reinforcements to the region. Meanwhile, a recent Swiss intelligence assessment reportedly says Iranian leaders will wait out the U.S. elections in November 2020 in the hope Trump is defeated—and a Democratic administration lifts the sanctions under a return to the 2015 nuclear deal.
Still, many analysts say the current tensions could easily escalate into an armed conflict and the collapse of the Tehran regime. That prospect has raised the question of what kind of Iranian government might come next. And that conversation inevitably turns to Iran’s opposition groups.
The Mystery of the MEK
The MEK has been the leading opposition voice against the Islamic Republic for years. For the past decade, MEK leaders and their supporters have presented the group as a secular, democratic and nonviolent organization with widespread popular support inside Iran.
It is also the most controversial group. Many former U.S. officials and Iran experts question the MEK’s democratic credentials, as well as the depth of its support base inside Iran. Indeed, virtually every claim made by the MEK draws denials and counter-narratives.
Founded in 1965 by Iranian students who opposed the U.S.-installed monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the MEK espoused an odd hybrid of Marxism and Islam. It was the first opposition group to take up arms against the shah and his supporters in the west. In the 1970s, according to U.S. intelligence, the MEK assassinated three U.S. Army colonels, murdered another three American contractors and bombed the facilities of numerous U.S. companies, earning it a place on Washington’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.
The MEK also backed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the Islamic revolution that deposed the shah in 1979. The group supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, but it broke with Khomeini over his decision to release the American hostages. In 1981, after launching an abortive uprising against the Khomeini regime, the MEK was forced underground while its top leaders, the husband and wife team of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, fled to Paris to avoid arrest.
But the Iraq-Iran war, which had begun in 1980, provided the MEK with another opportunity to fight the regime. The group aligned with Saddam Hussein and sent some 7,000 MEK members to Iraq for military training. Equipped by Saddam, the MEK fought numerous battles against Iranian forces during the war. In 1988, the group launched an armored invasion to topple the regime but suffered a major defeat, losing more than 3,000 soldiers. The invasion also prompted Iran to execute thousands of MEK political prisoners. Once the war ended later that year, Saddam prevented the group from conducting further cross-border attacks.
Many independent scholars say the MEK’s alliance with Saddam in that long and bloody war turned the group into traitors in the eyes of most Iranians. In the 1990s, the Rajavis instituted a number of cult-like measures to prevent defections. According to a 2005 Human Rights Watch report based on interviews with several defectors, members were required, among other things, to divorce their spouses and send their children abroad for adoption, lest family obligations divert their attention from the struggle against the Islamic Republic.
After U.S. forces toppled Saddam and occupied Iraq in 2003, they disarmed the MEK and placed its remaining 3,400 MEK members under U.S. protection. That same year, Massoud Rajavi mysteriously disappeared, and Maryam assumed sole leadership of the group.
In 2009, she launched a multi-million-dollar campaign from her Paris headquarters to get the MEK removed from Washington’s terrorist list. Despite its official status as a foreign terrorist organization, the MEK operated openly in Washington from offices in the National Press Club, warmly embraced by Iran hawks. The group hosted lavish receptions on Capitol Hill and began paying as much as $50,000 to prominent U.S. political and military figures to deliver speeches that stressed what the group said was its commitment to a secular, democratic Iran.
In addition to Bolton and Giuliani, the list of the MEK’s paid speakers included former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, former national security adviser Gen,. James Jones, former White House terrorism adviser Fran Townsend, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former FBI director Louis Freeh, former CIA Director Porter Goss, former deputy CIA Director John Sano, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, Gen. Wesley Clark, Gen. Anthony Zinni, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former senators Robert Torricelli and Evan Bayh, and Reps. John Lewis and Patrick Kennedy, among others.
“Some people do it just for the money; others do it because they hate the Islamic Republic of Iran,”said Barbara Slavin, who heads the Future of Iran project at the Atlantic Council, a foregn policy think tank in Washington.”They embrace the old adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and they know this is a group that gives Iran heartburn. To top it off, they pay well.”
The question of how the MEK could afford such generous speaking fees was partially answered when Newsweek first reported that the post-war search for Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction uncovered documents showing Saddam Hussein had given the group vouchers for the sale of more than 38 million barrels of oil to overseas middlemen for the four years preceding the U.S. invasion. A report by Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector, estimated the MEK earned as much as $16 million from the sales of the vouchers. (After Saddam’s fall, many experts have speculated that Saudi Arabia, Iran’s arch rival, took over funding for the group.)
Meanwhile, the MEK became known as a valuable intelligence asset. In 2002, the MEK was credited with exposing Iran’s then-secret uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, which led to United Nations inspections. Over a five-year period starting in 2007, MEK assassins—financed, trained and armed by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service—killed a half dozen Iranian nuclear scientists, U.S. officials told NBC News.
In 2011, pro-Iranian militias in Iraq killed some 140 MEK members and deeply embarrassed the U.S. military, which was responsible for their protection. To prevent further slaughter, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the group off the terrorist list in 2012, a move that paved the way for the evacuation of Camp Ashraf’s MEK members to Albania.
But had anything really changed?
Daniel Benjamin, the State Department coordinator for counterterrorism at the time, told Newsweek the delisting was done”at the discretion of the secretary out of humanitarian concern because no country would take them otherwise, and not because of any changed thinking within the MEK. We simply didn’t want any more blood on our hands.”
“The MEK has done a great job in gussing themselves up as democrats,”said Benjamin, now director of The Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.”They talk the talk, but there’s no evidence whatsoever that they’ve changed in any way. And there is zero question about their support inside Iran itself —they have no statistically significant group of supporters in Iran.”
Officials of the MEK and its political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), vehemently deny this version of the group’s history, including any responsibility for the assassination of Americans.
“The Iranian regime has been engaged in this misinformation campaign for four decades,”Ali Safavi, director of the group’s Washington office told Newsweek.”They have invested huge sums of money in it and developed a sophisticated network of talking heads and lobbies in the U.S. and Europe to demonize the Iranian opposition as having no support inside Iran and being undemocratic.”
In the Magazine
Today, he said, the NCRI”brings together several different groups and about 500 well-known opposition personalities who are committed to the establishment of democratic, secular and non-nuclear republic.”Its funding, he says, comes solely from wealthy members of the Iranian diaspora community.
But other opposition groups say the MEK has rebuffed their overtures for coordination.”They’re deaf to any proposals other than their own beliefs,”said the leader of one opposition group, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive opposition politics.
A Royal Figurehead Emerges
As the Trump administration tightens the economic screws on the Islamic Republic, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has been speaking out against the regime in Tehran and calling for opponents to band together under his leadership and vision for a democratic Iran.
Pahlavi, 58, was only 17 when the Iranian revolution drove his family into exile. But over the past four decades, he has kept a close watch on developments in Iran, where he says discontent with government corruption and economic mismanagement has brought the regime to the brink of collapse.”The atmosphere [in Iran] seems to be close to a flash point,”he told Radio Farda, the U.S. government’s Persian-language broadcast service, in February.
But though Pahlavi lives just outside Washington, he’s been an unfamiliar figure in foreign policy circles. Critics have said he lacks charisma and resolve. In 1980, he issued a proclamation declaring himself shah but later retracted it. In the 1980s, U.S. intelligence reportedly approached Pahlavi with a proposal to land a monarchist force on Iran’s Kish island in the Persian Gulf with U.S. naval and air support. Pahlavi’s first question allegedly focused on the exit strategy.
But since late last year, Pahlavi has set out to raise his profile by meeting with think tanks to explain the role he could play as the regime’s disparate opposition groups prepare for its downfall. Pahlavi says he sees himself as a figurehead who can guide those groups in producing a common plan for a political transition. He already has taken a step in that direction with his Phoenix Project, an effort to bring together exiled Iranian scientists, scholars and experts to address the problems any democratic successor government in Iran will face. He has said he had no personal ambition to rule Iran.
Pahlavi’s supporters include several monarchist groups made up of Iranian exiles in the United States and Europe, as well as an unknown number in Iran, some of whom called for a return of the monarchy during anti-government demonstrations in 2017.
Over the past few years, several Europe-based TV stations have been broadcasting pro-monarchy programs into Iran in an effort to create a mood of pre-revolution nostalgia. But Pahlavi remains unpopular among Iran’s ethnic minorities, who haven’t forgotten the monarchy’s Persian chauvinism. And some Iranian Americans have urged the crown prince to distance himself from his late father’s authoritarian rule as a prerequisite for any leadership role.
Patrick Clawson, the Washington Institute’s director of research, suggested Pahlavi would prefer a role as a ceremonial monarch with no responsibility for governing along the lines of Britain’s constitutional monarchary.”He wants to be Queen Elizabeth,”Clawson told the Atlantic Council’s Slavin.
Among all the Iranian opposition groups, the ones that are doing the most actual fighting against the regime are those representing the country’s ethnic and religious minorities—Kurds and Azeris in the northwest, Arabs in the southwest, and Balochis in the southeast, all of whom demand autonomy for their regions.
According to Naysan Rafat, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group, these groups have been conducting frequent but small-scale attacks on government targets since the revolution. The government portrays them as terrorists, supported by regional rivals.
For the past few years, Iranian Kurdistan’s Komala Party has taken the lead in trying to unify these different groups behind the idea of replacing Iran’s clerical regime with a decentralized federal government whose constitution will safeguard the rights of the country’s ethnic minorities.
“What is certain is that this regime will collapse sooner or later,”the Komala Party’s Mohtadi said.”We want to avoid the possibility that a collapse will lead to the break-up of the country into different ethnic regions.”
Mohtadi is urging the Trump administration to establish contact with the opposition groups to plan for what comes next. Without such preparations, he warned, the regime’s collapse could be followed by a seizure of power by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards—or the country’s disintegration into chaos.”The Trump administration has pressured the Iranian regime economically and politically,”Mohtadi allowed,”but in terms of reaching out to the Iranian opposition, I haven’t seen anything serious.”
Waiting For A Spark
In fact, the Trump administration has not met with any Iranian opposition figures, deliberately distancing itself from the groups for now.”The future of Iran will be decided by the Iranian people,”Brian Hook, the administration’s special representative for Iran, told Newsweek in an interview.”We do not pick winners and losers on that issue.”
Of course, that could change overnight. White House aides say Bolton is still trying to convince the president to adopt an explicit policy of regime change in Iran, which would increase the value of opposition groups. Analysts say that is particularly the case for the MEK, given the group’s organization, funding and high visibility in Washington.
Some supporters believe the MEK already has moved to the head of the line with the administration’s decision not to rule out the group as a viable alternative to the regime in Tehran.
But for now, Trump’s economic sanctions remain the principal element of his Iran policy.”If we want to get to a point where Iran’s proxies are weaker and the regime doesn’t have the resources that it needs to destabilize the Middle East, it will require economic pressure,”Hook said.”There is no other way to accomplish that goal.”
For the Iranian opposition groups, this state of no peace—and no war—means that there is no leadership vacuum in Iran to fill. And as the tensions between Tehran and Washington continue to simmer, all these groups can hope for is a spark that will finally put Iran’s political future in play.
Will they—and Washington—be ready?
Newsweek.com
The Trump Administration says it’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran is working, and its leadership is weakening. Part of that campaign – includes abandoning the 2015 nuclear agreement – which president trump called “the worst deal ever.” Since then, the U.S. has reimposed economic sanctions on Iran – and sanctioned its top diplomat, Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.
One veteran U.S. diplomat says sanctions are not the answer.
Asieh Namdar sat down with Ambassador John Limbert – who worked and lived in Iran – and was one of the 52 American Hostages taken captive at the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979.
They discussed everything from the current US policy on Iran, the need for diplomacy, and his memories as a hostage 40 years ago.
More memories from John Limbert
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![](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/Limbert_John_1.jpg)
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@asiehnamdar
America.cgtn.com
For decades the MEK has been a tool the U.S. has tried to use against Iran, even though the U.S. had it listed as a terrorist group until 2012, an Australian expert has said.
In an interview with Balkans Post, Professor Tim Anderson said, “With few other options, Washington has tried to clean up the image of a group which has become little more than a personality cult, with no real support inside Iran.”
The following is the full transcript of the interview:
BP: The Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) terrorist group has ramped up its activities aimed at bringing about a regime change in Iran. What’s your take on this issue?
Tim Anderson: For decades the MEK has been a tool the U.S. has tried to use against Iran, even though the U.S. had it listed as a terrorist group until 2012. With few other options, Washington has tried to clean up the image of a group which has become little more than a personality cult, with no real support inside Iran.
Initially the MEK opposed the Shah’s regime and participated in the 1979 Revolution, but it quickly turned on the new government and its supporters. After the MEK was driven out of the country it was adopted by the Iraq-Saudi-CIA bloc, helping Saddam Hussein in his aggression against Iran. With Saddam’s support the MEK created a ‘National Liberation Army’ (NLA) of Iran, based in Baghdad, and used this to destroy Iranian villages, even during a UN brokered ceasefire. Their role in the slaughter of Iranian patriots destroyed the MEK’s reputation within Iran (Carey 2018). Very quickly the group’s hybrid anti-imperialist, socialist and Islamic philosophy was abandoned as it became an opportunistic cult (Merat 2018).
In the 1990s they continued as mercenaries for Saddam Hussein, helping suppress Iraqi Shi’a and Kurd resistance in Iraq (USDOS 2007; Merat 2018). After the 2003 invasion of Iraq they were protected by U.S. forces at the ‘Camp Ashraf’ base, precisely because they were seen as a tool which could be used against Iran (Cartalucci 2018). The U.S. Brookings Institute admitted that the MEK was “undemocratic and enjoys little popularity in Iran itself”. Nevertheless, the think tank recognized that the MEK might be used as a proxy force. However, to do so openly “Washington would need to remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations” (Pollack et al 2009). The Obama administration did that in 2012 (USDOS 2012).
BP: How effective are they in their anti-Islamic Republic agenda?
Tim Anderson: They are not at all effective inside Iran, but have some appeal to some shallow western politicians and NGOs, many of whom have been paid to visit or praise cult leader Maryam Rajavi. The MEK has been adopted by Washington as a proxy force, like the al Qaeda groups used against Iraq and Syria, but with a distinct ideology. They are a nominal ‘alternative’, like the many other exile bodies set up by Washington for Iraq, Libya and Syria. Their tiny support within Iran is not considered that important. They are useful to denounce, destabilize and attack (Parsi 2018; Carey 2018). They also help confuse gullible people in the organized misinformation campaigns against Iran.
BP: Would the presence of the MEK in Albania threaten the country’s stability?
Tim Anderson: Yes it is quite possible that Albania will de destabilized by U.S. proxies the MEK, and also by DAESH members. Between 2013 and 2016 Washington moved the 2,900 Camp Ashraf MEK members to Albania, where they had also moved some former DAESH/ISIS fighters (Spahiu 2018; Khodabandeh and Khodabandeh 2018). The U.S. and NATO appear to be using Albania as a home for these terrorist ‘assets’; and the Albanian government seems to expect some leverage with the U.S. for performing this hosting service. The MEK in Albania runs social media campaigns, attacking Tehran and promoting its leader, Maryam Rajavi (Merat 2018).
It seems likely the group is still backed by Saudi money and Israeli advisers. In September 2018 the MEK was linked to an attack on a military parade in the southwest Iranian city of Ahvaz (MNA 2018). Saudi sponsorship of the MEK-linked ‘al Ahwazia’ group was strongly suspected by Iranian authorities (Osman 2018). DAESH may also have been involved. With common sponsors and a common safe haven in Albania, the two terrorist groups might be working together.
BP: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani recently told Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” that the MEK represents the democratic alternative to the Islamic Republic. Considering that he is currently working for U.S. President Donald Trump, is it safe to assume that he’s echoing the Trump administration’s true Iran policy?
Tim Anderson: Yes, there is a concerted effort by many within the Trump administration to promote the MEK. NATO has also been ‘normalizing’ the MEK among the European states, as various European figures have endorsed or attended their ‘Free Iran’ rallies in recent years. For example, Trump advisor John Bolton is reported to have been paid large sums of money to advocate for the MEK (Merat 2018), while Trump’s legal advisor Rudy Giuliani has also visited the MEK in Albania, on the invitation of Maryam Rajavi (Jazexhi 2018).
BP: Over the years, many have argued that due the group’s unpopularity within Iran and its undemocratic nature, it cannot be a legitimate alternative to the current government in Iran. What’s your view on this?
Tim Anderson: The MEK has virtually no support within Iran, not even amongst those nationalists who oppose the current form of government. Many remember its traitorous actions during the war with Saddam Hussein. Since the 1980s it became a foreign creation, ready to work for any anti-Iranian sponsor. It is only capable of occasional terrorist acts and funded PR events.
Dr. Tim Anderson is Director of the Sydney-based Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies. He has worked at Australian universities for more than 30 years, teaching, researching and publishing on development, human rights and self-determination in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East. In 2014 he was awarded Cuba’s medal of friendship. He is Australia and Pacific representative for the Latin America based Network in Defence of Humanity. His most recent books are: Land and Livelihoods in Papua New Guinea (2015), The Dirty War on Syria (2016), now published in ten languages; and Countering War Propaganda of the Dirty War on Syria (2017). His next book Axis of Resistance is due out in 2019.
References
Carey, James (2018) ‘The MEK: from revolutionary group to imperialist asset’, Mint Press, 24 January, online: https://www.mintpressnews.com/mekrevolutionary-group-imperialist-asset/236653/
Cartalucci, Tony (2018) ‘The US has delisted anti-Iranian MEK terrorists still openly committed to violence’, Global Research, 2 October, online: https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-us-has-delisted-anti-iranian-mekterrorists-still-openly-committed-to-violence/56558
Jazexhi, Olsi (2018) ‘Is Albania a Partner of the US In Supporting International Terrorism?’, Global Research, 27 March, online: https://www.globalresearch.ca/is-albania-a-partner-of-the-us-in-supportinginternational-terrorism/5633671
Khodabandeh, Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh (2018) ‘US Forces Albania To Take IS Fighters After Hosting MEK’, LobeLog, 8 June, online: https://lobelog.com/trump-forces-albania-to-host-islamic-state/
Merat, Arron (2018) ‘Terrorists, cultists – or champions of democracy?’ The wild story of the MEK’, The Guardian, 9 November, online: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/nov/09/mek-iran-revolution-regimetrump-rajavi
MNA (2018) ‘Iran: US masters responsible for today terror attack in Ahvaz (joint “al-Ahwaz” and “MEK” terror attack)’, Mehr News Agency, 22 September, online: https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/iran-usmasters-responsible-for-today-terror-attack-in-ahvaz-joint-al-ahwazand-mek-terror-attack/
Osman, Marwa (2018) ‘Ahvaz Terrorist Attack Exposes US’s New Chapter of Regime Change Wars’, Al Ahed, September, online: https://english.alahednews.com.lb/44667/269#.W6j0R5NKhbU
Parsi, Trita (2018) ‘Why Trump’s hawks back the MEK terrorist cult’, The New York Review of Books, 20 July, online: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/07/20/why-trumps-hawks-back-the-mek-terrorist-cult/
Pollack, Kenneth, Daniel Byman, Martin Indyk, Suzanne Maloney, Michael O’Hanlon and Bruce Riedel (2009) ‘Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran’, The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute, Analysis paper No 20, June, online: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf
Spahiu, Ebi (2018) ‘MEK in Albania—Potential Implications and Security Concerns for Albania’, Terrorism Monitor, Volume: 16 Issue: 19, The Jamestown Foundation, 12 October, online: https://jamestown.org/program/mek-in-albania-potential-implications-and-securityconcerns-for-albania/
USDOS (2007) ‘Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK)’, Foreign Terrorist Organizations’, US State Department, 30 April, online: https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2006/82738.htm
USDOS (2012) ‘Delisting of the Mujahedin-e Khalq’, US Department of State, Bureau of Counterterrorism and countering violent extremism, 28 September, online: ttps://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/266607.htm
balkanspost.com
How Voice of America Persian Became a Trump Administration PR Machine
AS AN IRANIAN AMERICAN journalist covering the Iran-U.S. relationship, Negar Mortazavi is accustomed to receiving vitriol on social media. Still, she found it unusual when she saw on Twitter that someone had called her a “treasonous criminal” and “a spy and an enemy of the people.” The tweets got darker: “If the U.S. had laws of the Middle Ages like Iran, this mouthpiece of the corrupt regime would have been executed,” one read, in Farsi.
What made the tweets unusual was that the person targeting her was Ali Javanmardi. Javanmardi is a prominent television journalist at the Voice of America Persian, the U.S.-owned network broadcasting to Iranians — which means that he works for the U.S. government. Mortazavi is a former VOA Persian reporter herself and was a colleague of Javanmardi’s, and she was shocked enough by his tweets to complain to VOA editors. An editor told her that he had reminded Javanmardi that personal attacks online were unacceptable to the agency, Mortazavi said in an email to The Intercept. But Javanmardi did not remove his attacks, and they are still available.
![](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/MKO_Albania_44.jpg)
The online tirade directed at Mortazavi is part of a pattern: Journalists at VOA Persian have been lashing out at Americans they deem unsupportive of President Donald Trump’s Iran policy, in apparent violation of VOA’s declared standards.
The public attacks are the most visible manifestation of a transformation that’s been underway since November 2016. VOA Persian and many of its staffers have become rabidly pro-Trump, abandoning their stated mission of providing balanced news to Iranians. So perhaps it’s not surprising that its reporters are now acting on social media like Trump himself.
For years, hawks complained that VOA Persian wasn’t sufficiently hostile enough to the Iranian government. In 2012, a Heritage Foundation report accused VOA Persian of being “pro-Iranian” and “anti-American” for having done such things as “reported only the negative aspects of bombing in Iraq and implied that the war was a mistake.” Writers for theWall Street Journal and Commentary lodged similar complaints.
The irony is that that station, which premiered as a radio station in the 1940s, was widely known for hostility to the Iranian government since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “It was always anti-regime,” said Ali Sajjadi, who was the senior managing editor there before retiring last year. Former executive editor Mohammad Manzarpour told me that he was shocked when he arrived at VOA Persian in 2013, after many years at the BBC, to discover that his new company was filled with monarchists and supporters of the Mojahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group in exile that advocates relentlessly for the Iranian regime’s overthrow.
![Camp Ashraf 3](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/Albania_Ashraf3.jpg)
For all its flaws, however, VOA Persian also upheld some journalistic standards and ran stories critical of the United States. It showcased positive aspects of the Obama administration’s engagement with Iran. Those qualities were, of course, why hawks despised the station: It didn’t act simply as a propaganda network for the right-wing view of Iran. Guests sometimes spoke of Iran as if it could play a constructive role in the region and didn’t always treat the Iranian government as something that needed to be overthrown.
And then Trump was elected.
Since then, the network has become, as Sajjadi puts it, “a mouthpiece of Trump — only Trump and nothing but Trump.” Manzarpour describes the situation as “blatant propaganda.” He said, “There is no objectivity or factuality.”
For example, the MEK is covered heavily and favorably, despite having almost no support inside Iran, a history of terroristic violence, and a well-founded reputation as a cult. A VOA employee, who asked to speak anonymously for fear of reprisal, said, “VOA Persian, for the first time in decades, has been acting as media arm of MEK and is giving wall-to-wall live coverage of their gatherings and events.” And VOA Persian published multiple articles by Heshmat Alavi, a pro-MEK persona exposed by The Intercept this June as having been the product of a multiperson propaganda outfit housed in an MEK compound in Albania. (VOA Persian later said it would remove the articles.)
The VOA has broadcast puff pieces on Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah, whom Iran hawks see as a viable opposition leader. Hard-line Iran hawks are frequent guests on the network, often on the receiving end of friendly interviews. These guests include current Trump administration officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton, Trump’s special envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an inveterate Iran hawk. Pundits like Michael Ledeen have appeared, as have personnel from three heavily neoconservative Washington-based think tanks: the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the Heritage Foundation, and the Hudson Institute.
“It’s pro-Trump in a way that disregards the way Trump’s polices are hurting Iranians, whether through sanctions or anything else.”
A spokesperson for VOA declined to discuss “individual personnel matters” but told The Intercept that “all VOA journalists, be it federal government employees or contractors, are expected to adhere to VOA’s social media policy as delineated clearly in its Best Practices Guide. When potential policy violations are brought to the attention of VOA management, employees are reminded of the policy and expected to ensure that their social media accounts comply.” She added, “VOA pursues its mission by producing accurate, balanced and comprehensive reporting, programming, as well as online and social media content for a global audience, particularly for those who are denied access to open and free media.”
Azadeh Moaveni, an Iran expert at the Crisis Group, says that VOA’s decline worsens the possibilities for engagement between the U.S. and Iran. “It’s pro-Trump in a way that disregards the way Trump’s polices are hurting Iranians, whether through sanctions or anything else,” she told The Intercept. “To the extent that it might have served as a medium through which Iranians learned about the U.S. and better understood its policies, its present condition as a naked propaganda mouthpiece doesn’t help relations.”
SEVERAL PEOPLE INTERVIEWED for this article described VOA Persian’s shift toward becoming a Trump administration PR service as one that was mostly motivated by internal factors. Careerists, anti-regime journalists, and staff members sought to curry favor with the Trump administration. Some saw an opportunity to promote their like-minded views. For others, “the only reason” to push Trump’s policies “is because they want to save their jobs,” said Vafa Azarbahari, a former writer at VOA Persian.
At the same time, soon after Trump was elected, his allies began campaigning to change VOA Persian. Right-wing pundit Kenneth Timmerman penned an op-ed saying the station had “long been a disaster;” he soon wrote another column calling it “The Voice of Tehran.” Other op-eds followed suit, in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Examiner.
In December 2016, Republicans in Congress disbanded the board of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the independent agency that oversees VOA, and concentrated its power in the hands of a politically appointed CEO. It was clear that things would change: In January 2017, VOA’s Twitter account shared then-White House spokesperson Sean Spicer’s infamous claims that Trump’s inauguration crowds were the largest ever. Days later, two aides from Trump’s campaign visited the VOA studios, sending a conspicuous message about who was in charge.
Republicans disbanded the board of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the independent agency that oversaw VOA, and concentrated its power in the hands of a politically appointed CEO.
In 2017, the new BBG chair, Kenneth Weinstein — who is also CEO of the Hudson Institute — asked a different conservative think tank, the hawkish American Foreign Policy Council, to review the BBG’s Iran programs. Unsurprisingly, the resulting reportdetermined that VOA had not been critical enough of the regime or the nuclear deal signed in 2015 by President Barack Obama and Iran — even while acknowledging that the station frequently devoted attention to the plight of minorities inside Iran. “Significant coverage of the state of U.S.-Iranian relations reflected the mistaken notion that the Iranian regime is now friendlier to the United States,” the report read.
The analysis lamented that sometimes the United States and Iran were treated as equals, stating “reportage on bilateral relations between the U.S. government and the Iranian regime conveyed an impression of equivalence between the parties, a position that is both surprising and improper for broadcasting that is funded by the U.S. government.”
Perhaps most consequentially, in 2018, the Senate Committee on Appropriations cleared legislation directing Pompeo to use the BBG to counter Iranian influence. The law directed the BBG to devote its resources to highlighting the Iranian government’s proxies in Syria and Yemen and the damage caused by the Iranians’ foreign policy. In February 2019, Masih Alinejad, who hosts a show on VOA Persian, appeared with Pompeo in Washington to do a photo op purportedly demonstrating the administration’s concern for women’s rights inside Iran. (The BBG, which in 2018 rebranded as the U.S. Agency for Global Media, did not respond to requests for comment.)
VOA Persian journalists and staffers began demonstrating their support for the Trump administration on social media, sometimes urging the administration to be even tougher on Iran. On May 20, a missile believed to have originated in east Baghdad, home to Iranian-backed Shiite militias, struck near the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Trump tweeted in response, “Iran made a very big mistake!” Javanmardi responded to Trump: “Mr. President you have to punish the Iranian regime. They have attacked the site of the American Embassy and should be punished. A simple warning should not be sufficient.”
In time, VOA employees began targeting critics of Trump’s policies. In March, Saman Arbabi, the co-host, creator, and executive director of “Parazit,” a popular satirical program that has been compared to The Daily Show, sent a tweet to Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., comparing her hijab to hoods worn by the Ku Klux Klan. He and fellow VOA host Alinejad have repeatedly targeted the National Iranian American Council, which favors engagement between the U.S. and Iran.
Similar attacks directed at anti-Trump journalists and human rights experts were leveled earlier this year by the Iran Disinformation Project, an organization funded by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. But when the Iran Disinformation Project’s actions were publicized, Congress terminated its government funding. The center’s special envoy and coordinator, Lea Gabrielle, said, “It was never the intent of the Global Engagement Center to have anyone tweeting at U.S. citizens.”
Yet that’s exactly what’s happening at the VOA Persian. It’s not just Trump-style tweets. The changing editorial direction of the site is turning it into a potentially dangerous propaganda channel for hard-line Iran hawks at a time when parts of the U.S. government seem determined to start a war with Iran.
By Jordan Michael Smith, the intercept