Iran’s Majlis Speaker, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, cancelled a planned speech in Strasbourg to the Council of Europe Parliament as rotating chairman of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA). Haddad-Adel accused the EU of double standards on terrorism after some MEPs invited MKO cult leader, Maryam Rajavi, to Strasbourg to coincide with his address.
Listed by all major western governments, including the EU, as a terrorist entity, the Mojahedin Khalq organisation is known to be a dangerous, destructive cult. It recruits and maintains its followers through the use of deception and mind control. Because of this, it has no popular support either inside Iran or in the exiled Iranian community. Because of this, it plays no part in Iranian opposition politics. The IRI does not regard the MKO as a threat – the group’s main presence and activities take place in the heart of Europe not Iran.
So, why does the group keep appearing in western parliamentary circles?
Who benefits from the exploitation of this group?
In the game of winner-takes-all, whose mantra is ‘regime change’ (be that the Zionist regime or the Islamic Republic regime), then the MKO is a useful tool. Indeed many analysts conclude that the MKO itself has abandoned its ‘aim’ of actual regime change and has created a niche for itself exactly as this tool for both western and Iranian politicians.
The hardliners of Iran regularly exploit the group to attack the west for double standards and justify their own actions. In this way, no other group has helped the IRI more than the MKO – which the IRI insists on as its only alternative throughout the world.
Given the choice, no wonder the people of Iran prefer the devil they already know to the one offered by some western circles.
Iran Interlink, October 05, 2007
