The clash between the members of MKO settled in Camp Ashraf and the Iraqi police on July 28-29 that left remarkable casualties is a proven indication of Rajavi’s earlier serious forewarnings to convert Ashraf residents to human shields to resist any threat. His never ceasing insistence on the possible occurrence of a human tragedy in Ashraf following the Iraqi government determination to expel the group and close the camp was considered to be a token of concerns about forced repatriation of members to Iran. In contrast, he really meant what he said about human tragedy by lining members before Iraqi forces as human shields and to resist against the lawful execution of a government’s decision. Once, when surrendering arms to the coalition forces, Rajavi had said he preferred ‘arms carriers to the arms themselves’. He knew well how his forces were potential, trained under his ideological instructions, to become formidable barriers to pass over even when disarmed.
The strategy of preferring ‘arms carriers to the arms’ is the continuation of a theory adopted from the very beginning of the organization’s formation known as the theory of crossing the death, a strategy enabling the organization to have the upper hand in its struggle with the Pahlavi’s notorious security forces. Of course, the theory has since undergone a fundamental change in the course of Rajavi’s egocentric authority over the organization but the impressive consequences of such a theory can never be overlooked. In fact, when Rajavi consented to surrender arms to American forces, he was anticipating a future when the arms carriers needed no arms to be more effective than any arms. And he did his well to educate them as well as he could to take the leading role in a propaganda and psychological war to attract all international attention the organization needed. Having such an ideal in prospect, Rajavi’s ideological apparatus inaugurated a new fashion of training armless combatants to be exploited as walking weapons who instead of targeting the enemy stood as targets themselves to show another side of an innate brutality.
It makes no difference for Rajavi to sacrifice from any side; the emphasis is on the applied brutality to lead on. What he needs is some victims; by provoking the forces of the challenging side, he is sure that the outcome would be nothing less than some bodies from the both sides rolling in their blood. To what degree the other side can take self-control and tolerate the provocation is of no significance since he knows how he can easily break their tolerance and incite them to engage in an inevitably harsh react. What has happened in Camp Ashraf is in fact some aspect of the long adopted theory of crossing the death, an inspired, invisible strategy that takes advantage of vulnerabilities of armed forces when coming to confront armless forces.
Rajavi’s adversaries have been regarded remarkably helpful themselves and forthcoming in the scene of potential emerging threats that happen to threaten the organization. For him, political struggle and survival are two sides of a coin; when prevailing over adversaries, the highest possible amount of lives fall victim to its brutality and, again, when it feels entrapped and overcome by the antagonist side, it is victims of the suicide and self-immolation operations that piles bodies on bodies. The novel form of the latter is formation of human shield that sends members to their death under the pretention of defending Ashraf. The objective in all these is death and well plotted scenarios to send individuals to their death.
In all past years what has helped Rajavi to maintain his organization and the stability and effectiveness of his leadership as well as propelling his failed tactics is the blood of victims from the within and without. He has recurrently reiterated that his antagonists have to either stay for or against him. His exploited approach against the opposite front is use of lethal arms to take victims or turning those staying with him to lethal arms themselves to be sacrificed to the last one. And Ashraf is a depot of such lethal weapons.
Unlike the past that the innocent people were coerced by their captors into lining as the human walls and human shields against the opposite forces, here in Rajavi’s cult it is through ideological instillations and brainwashing that the insiders volunteer to stand vulnerable to any threat as human shields. Even beyond that, they can turn into aggressive beings that capitalize on the opposite front’s humane manner and incite them to react in a harsh manner. Now it is blood that is shed and spilled with the consequent cries that insiders have been tyrannized, the human rights violated and a tragedy taken place. And behind this entire bloodbath, regardless of all those leading rankings having the control of Ashraf in their hands, stands Rajavi who enjoys the smell of blood and death.