Many from among the Americans believe that it would be irrational and the height of irresponsibility to go to war against a country based on the claims of an opposition group that is securely leashed by the State Department as a dangerous terrorist group. Barton Kunstler’s article, Why We Cannot – and Will Not – Attack Iran contributed for opednews, well explains illogicality of such a plan and irrationality of relying on disinformation by a terrorist group that through parlaying its baseless exposure on various mainstream media outlets in world tries to escalate the already existing tensions.
Flames of war notwithstanding many lives it might claim, rises the troubled water for the terrorist MKO to fish as it did during Iran-Iraq war. Besides, it is a proven fact that only trough a chaotic atmosphere the group survives and assumes the power to accomplish its inhuman ambitions. Although not any more a weighty threat for Iranian inside, MKO might, if it can gain the ears of politicians with bellicose nature, get others into some deep, inextricable mire. Excerpts from Kunstler’s article expound the role of MKO in the war scenario.
As in the run-up to the Iraq War, a favored dissident has caught the attention of the D.C. neo-cons and has found a platform from which to harangue the American public into bombing Iran. In this case, the job of driving America into another war belongs to Alireza Jafarzadeh. Wikipedia.com’s extensive entry on Jafarzadeh reads like a brochure for his consulting firm. Before establishing the firm, Jafarzadeh belonged to a dissident group called The National Council of Resistance on Iran (NCRI), which is the political wing of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK). The MeK was a leftist anti-shah organization until the 1979 Revolution brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. MeK opposed the Ayatollah and went into exile, but its politics shifted as well. MeK organized a military force based over the border in Iraq that raided Iranian targets in the 1980s. Eventually, MeK was placed on several lists of terrorist organizations.
Despite this – or as a result – MeK and the NCRI have put together a high-powered lobbying group in Washington D.C. that includes the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), headed by a former Reagan administration official, Professor Raymond Tanter, and comprising a group of Beltway military, intelligence, and right-wing political figures, which works closely with Jafarzadeh who, incidentally, is also a Foreign Affairs Analyst for Fox News.
Jafarzadeh takes credit for revealing the existence of several underground uranium enrichment plants and other WMD projects and for triggering an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigation of Iran’s nuclear program. However, the IAEA contradicted the claims of Jafarzadeh, and now the Bush administration, that Iran is pursuing a policy of nuclear armament. And it is not just the IAEA that disagrees with Jafarzadeh’s and Bush’s assessments. Many members of the U.S. intelligence community have publicly questioned Bush’s view of Iran’s nuclear intentions, and even within Bush’s closest circle Condoleeza Rice has apparently emerged as the voice of reason against Dick Cheney who, predictably, is all set to bomb Iran.
Remember Ahmed Chalabi? He was the Iraqi dissident who claimed Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. By parlaying his exposure on various mainstream media outlets in the U.S., and gaining the ear of the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration, Chalabi managed to turn his unfounded claims into a gospel truth to which the Washington Post and New York Times, among others, offered a devout chorus of “amens”. In short, Chalabi played an important role in winning acceptance for the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq. Chalabi also claimed his goal was a democratic government in his homeland.
Jafarzadeh is currently playing the Chalabi-role. MeK and the NCRI are claiming they too favor a secular, democratic Iraq. However, as described in interviews on a Dateline show directed by Bronwyn Adcock (see http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/index.php?page=archive&daysum=2006-10-04# and click on the link, “Gunning for Iran” for the transcript) aired on October 4, 2006, former MeK members describe the organization as focused strictly on its own ambitions and those of its money-hungry leaders, with cult-like indoctrination techniques.
(link to "Gunnig for Iran" -Video file: Gunning for Iran. SBS television )
It would be the height of irresponsibility to go to war based on the claims of a man tied to groups so invested in attacking Iran. It is bad enough that a Jafarzadeh can manipulate his way into a position of influence over national policy. It is truly insane that we might actually go to war due to his influence. Lest this seems to overstate the case, the Iran Policy Committee’s web page features an article by Lt. General (Ret.) Tom McInerney and Fred Gedrich arguing for a “series of measures designed to modify Iranian behavior including (1) selective air-strikes in the face of continued Iranian support for terrorism, WMD development, and the Iraqi insurgency;(2) support for Iranian political opposition; and (3) delisting the main Iranian opposition groups – the NCRI and MEK – from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.” This is based on “Tehran’s past intransigence and continuing hostility.” In their view, Iran has “waged a one-sided war with the U.S. for 28 years”. Their evidence is selective and devoid of political context: they cite the seizure of our embassy in 1979 (a political act that engendered negotiations, including Ronald Reagan’s aides working with the Iranians to postpone the hostages’ release till after the November presidential elections) and Iranian support for Iraqi insurgents in the current war as the real clincher.
Sent by Sattar Orangi, Mojahedin.ws, Sep. 7, 2007
(Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, cult leaders)
(Maryam Rajavi directly ordered the massacar of Kurdish people)
(A Cult session in Ashraf camp Iraq – under protection of Saddam)
(Chemical attack on Halabche, Kurdistan, Iraq)
(MKO mebers in European Countries 2003)