For those who have been involved with the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) or have studied its background from the early days of its foundation, it is clear that the group was founded as an anti-Imperialist movement against the Shah of Iran, in the 1960s.
“Anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-American, MEK fighters killed scores of the Shah’s police in often suicidal street battles during the 1970s”, wrote Arron Merat in the Guardian.
“The group targeted US-owned hotels, airlines and oil companies, and was responsible for the deaths of six Americans in Iran.”Death to America by blood and bonfire on the lips of every Muslim is the cry of the Iranian people,”went one of its most famous songs.”May America be annihilated.”
However, a U Turn in the MEK’s policies took place just after the fall of the group’s main logistical and financial sponsor, Saddam Hussein in 2003. Having found themselves helpless and desperate, the group leaders tried to find new sponsors. The sponsors were naturally supposed to be chosen among the enemies of Iranians. Definitely, the US was the most hostile state against the Iranian government and eventually the most potential sponsor for the MEK.
In order to gain the support of the US government the MEK leaders had to serve it in any way possible. Their services included bribe, spying and operational activities as of a proxy force and any other service that a mercenary force may offer.
The MEK’s evident role in spying on Iranian nuclear facilities, in the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists and other cross boarder operations inside Iran, which were revealed by numerous journalists and analysts, bring them to similar assumptions about any violent act against Iranians.
Max Perry of the Dissident Voice has also the matching analysis about the downing of the Ukranian plane. His theory compares the MEK with a Dominican Republic-based Cuban exile terrorist organization that associated with the US intelligence in the bombing of Cuban Airlines Flight 455 in 1976 which killed all 73 passengers and crew on board. This was part of the Operation Northwood of which”the planners concluded that such deceptive operations would shift U.S. public opinion unanimously against Cuba”.
“It was also entirely plausible that U.S. special operations planners could have consulted the Northwoods playbook replacing Cuba with Iran and the right-wing gusanos who were to assist the staged attacks in Miami with the Iranian opposition group known as Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK/People’s Mujahedin of Iran) to do the same in Tehran.,”writes Max Perry.”In July of last year, Trump’s personal lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani gave a paid speech at the cult-like group’s compound in Albania where he not only referred to the group as Iran’s”government-in-exile”but stated the U.S’s explicit intentions to use them for regime change in Iran. The MEK enjoys high level contacts in the Trump administration and the group was elated at his decision to murder Soleimani in Baghdad.”
“That the U.S. is still cozy with”former”terror groups like MEK seeking to repatriate is good reason to believe its use of militant exiles for covert operations like those from Havana has not been retired. If there were jumps to conclusions that proven serial liars could be looking for an excuse to stage an attack to lay the blame on Iran, it is only because the distinct probability was overwhelming.”Perry concludes.
Whether Perry’s hypothesis is correct or not, warmongers in the US government seems to be insolent enough to themselves to enjoy the services of a formerly terrorist designated group like the MEK. While the State Department ordered employees a few days after the assassination of General Soleimani not to meet with Iranian opposition groups including the MEK, it override the memo a few days later. The overt endorsement of MEK terrorists was covered by the Daily Beast.
“At whiplash speed, the State Department is walking back an order barring American diplomats from meeting with controversial Iranian dissident groups—including one close with Trump World allies and previously designated as a terror group, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK),”reported the Daily Beast.”The initial memo, greenlit by a career State Department employee, angered Congressional Iran hawks. And the Department’s move to change its guidance has drawn cheers from them.”
The new directive of secretary Pompeo seeks to preserve the MEK as its spying and operational tool.”While the new memo did not mention MEK or the other groups, it said diplomats should simply”use good judgement when receiving invitations or meeting with opposition groups”and should raise questions and concerns with senior State officials––an apparent revocation of the order that they only take such meetings with Foggy Bottom’s explicit approval.”
Nevertheless, the covert and overt cooperation between the terrorist cult of the MEK and the US do not seem to be productive in the US policies towards Iran. Alexander B. Downes’s analysis on the options US may choose to topple the Iranian government in the Washington Post, clarifies that”Cooperation with local opposition groups”such as the MEK”is not a feasible option”.
Particularly about the MEK he writes,”The leading dissident organization, the Albania-based Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), has no presence in Iran, not to mention a highly dubious past.”
By Mazda Parsi
