When it comes to the alleged US government’s efforts to bring democracy to the world and particularly the Middle East, journalists, analysts and scholars across the world never hesitate to cover the love affairs of prominent US politicians with the insurgents, extremists and terrorist groups including the Mujahedin Khalq (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi). In case of the MEK, the relationship is more controversial because of the group’s past anti-American, Anti-Imperialism background.
“The Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which was once a sworn enemy of the United States, has over the past few years reinvented itself as a tactical ally to several Western governments in view of its desire to see Iran’s government collapse,” Catherine Shakdam of citizentruth.org writes. The old saying “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is the root of these notorious affairs. [1]
Indeed, the US sponsorship for the cult-like MEK group –although it was once listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department— together with Saudi dollars has led the group to organize its new headquarters in Albania to launch its propaganda campaign against the Iranian Government.
“With the support of the United States and a few other governments, the MEK has assembled a group of mainly elderly people who create social media accounts under fictitious names, and ‘tweet’ and post anti-Iranian information,” Robert Fantina writes in the CounterPunch. “They write articles and submit them, often successfully (one must give them credit for deceiving some major U.S. news outlets) under the name of a non-existent journalist. Like all those social media accounts, said journalist is a figment of MEK’s creative imagination. They take their instructions from a woman who sees herself as Iran’s new savior. They see themselves as being able, with the assistance of the U.S., of course, to defeat the 40-year-old people’s revolution.” [2]
As a recent article by Murtaza Hussain in The Intercept states, MEK has become a reference point to for the US government to formulate its Iranian agenda. The Intercept article reads:
“In 2018, President Donald Trump was seeking to jettison the landmark nuclear deal that his predecessor had signed with Iran in 2015, and he was looking for ways to win over a skeptical press. The White House claimed that the nuclear deal had allowed Iran to increase its military budget, and Washington Post reporters Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly asked for a source. In response, the White House passed along an article published in Forbes by a writer named Heshmat Alavi.” [3]
However, “Heshmat Alavi appears not to exist. Alavi’s persona is a propaganda operation run by the Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which is known by the initials MEK, two sources told The Intercept.” Alavi, the Intercepts suggests, is the outcome of the US-MEK-Saudi effort for war against Iranian nation. [4]
The notorious relation also includes the Albanian politicians. As the Canadian-Albanian historian Olsi Jazexhi tells the Balkan Post, “The MEK has created a state within a state in Albania like Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda created in Afghanistan in the era of Mullah Omar.”
“Albanian police, courts, prosecutors etc. have no power over the MEK,” Dr. Jazexhi asserts. “If any state body will ever dare to challenge what the MEK is doing – they will face the wrath of the Americans. By hosting the MEK and supporting its illegal activities the Americans have turned Albania into a kind of a European Guantanamo Bay.”
He warns about the influence of the US policy over Albanian politicians.
“If you ask in private any Albanian politicians – including those who attend the MEK meetings with Maryam Rajavi – as to how much democratic MEK is, they will laugh,” he reveals. “The most enthusiastic supporters of the MEK will tell you in private “we know that they are terrorists. But America has told us to support them and we do it.” [5]
Dr. Jazexhi believes that many Albanians have now understood that the democratic system that the Americans would like to install in Iran will look like the regime of Edi Rama in Albania or the cult of Maryam Rajavi. “A “democracy” like the democracy of the time of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi when the U.S. Embassy was determining the fate of the Iranian nation,” he says. [6]
But, is it a rational argument by warmongers to invest on the terrorist cultist like the MEK?
“To disavow Iran politically should not translate into an alliance of convenience with groups we know to have promoted and perpetrated heinous acts of terrorism,” Catherine Shakdam suggests. “Recent attempts at regime change in Libya and Syria, through the weaponization of less than desirable factions, on the basis that the end justified the means should serve as cautionary tales.” [7]
“To offer more than an ear to a group, which not too long ago, rejoiced at the misfortune of U.S. diplomats certainly flies in the face of the America President Trump has been not only so keen on but vocal on defending and promoting,” she writes.
Georgio Cafiero of Inside Arabia sees Shakdam’s hypothesis for a US-MEK led regime change in Iran as impossible. He properly concludes:
“Realistically, the MEK lacks any means to mobilize support in Iran for an overthrow of the regime. Furthermore, if there is one thing that unites all Iranians of different affiliations, it is the loathing for a cult that sided with Iraq during its war against their homeland… it is difficult to imagine a group, which still castigates its defecting members, successfully orchestrating a regime change in Iran, let alone one that is coordinated from southeastern Europe…Yet none of the actors that want to see the Iranian regime fall should have any reason to believe that the MEK is a reliable actor capable of bringing about the desired outcome.” [8]
Ultimately, Robert Fantina provides the best answer:
“The MEK and its criminal members and leaders will not prevail; the Iranian people are proud of what they have accomplished, and will not allow a few disillusioned people, even those who have the support of the United States, to defeat them.” [9]
By Mazda Parsi
References:
[1] Shakdam, Catherine, Is the Trump Administration Allowing a Terrorist Group to Shape Its Iran Policy?, citizentruth.org, August 2nd , 2019.
[2] Fantina, Robert,The MEK: Illusion vs. Reality, Counter Punch, August 2nd , 2019.
[3] Hussain, Murtaza, An Iranian Activist Wrote Dozens of Articles for Right-Wing Outlets. But Is He a Real Person?, The Intercept, June 9th, 2019.
[4] ibid
[5] Balkan Post, The American ‘democratic alternative against Iran’ is helping Albania slide toward authoritarianism, August 6th, 2019.
[6] ibid
[7] Shakdam, Catherine, Is the Trump Administration Allowing a Terrorist Group to Shape Its Iran Policy?, citizentruth.org, August 2nd , 2019.
[8] Cafiero, Giorgio, MEK: Totalitarian Cult, or Iran’s Brightest Hope for “Democracy”?, Inside Arabia, Aug 5th, 2019.
[9] Fantina, Robert,The MEK: Illusion vs. Reality, Counter Punch, August 2nd , 2019.
