Despite international sanctions, Iran began fueling its nuclear power plant in Bushehr, a small city on the southwest coast. The sanctions were imposed to prevent Iran from moving forward with its nuclear program, and as this was going on, a slew of propaganda began to emerge in their wake. The MKO (aka MEK, PMOI, NCRI) began a massive letter writing campaign, and also got involved in publishing articles on their website claiming that Iran had nuclear weapons. The
MKO nourished the anti-Iran media, which attempted in vain to underestimate Iran’s success in starting a nuclear facility. Various TV stations have introduced a number of “nuclear experts” on their news programs trivializing Iran’s nuclear success. Insofar as the MKO is concerned, this type of reaction is expected—it is merely a tactic used to boost their promise (to followers) to take over the government of the Islamic Republic within six months. It is also an approach they engage in order to self-adorn their support from various Western Islamaphobic neoconservative politicians and think tanks. For the upper echelon of the MKO, seeing their home country make nuclear achievements is oddly worrisome.
However, for this self-proclaimed “resistance group” a warning to the world about the so-called “dangerous” consequences of delay and postponement towards an Iranian nuclear program is their only hope. The MKO’s reaction is contradictory however to what some the real experts are saying.
British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said, "We have always respected Iran’s right to develop an exclusively civil nuclear power program." [1] Furthermore, the State Department Spokesperson, Darby Holladay said, "We recognize that the Bushehr reactor is designed to provide civilian nuclear power and do not view it as a proliferation risk." [2]
Despite these official comments, there are some Western figures who remain polarized when it comes to Iran. Their mere association with the deviant MKO illustrates their hypocritical views on human rights, civil rights, and terrorism. John Bolton, a long-standing supporter of both Israel and MKO is among those controversial politicians who work for waging a new war against Iran while advocating for MKO terrorists. In an article published in the *Christian Science Monitor*, Bolton suggested “that if Israel was going to bomb the Bushehr power facility, it would need to do so before the fuel rods were added or they would run the risk of ‘creating a radioactive cloud that would harm too many civilians.’” [3]
It’s clear that in Bolton’s offensive stand against Iran, he sees the MKO as a useful instrument and he has no “inhibition about getting information [from MEK] about what’s going in Iran."[4]
Why is John Bolton so interested in a Marxist-Islamist cult? The answer is in his simplistic and radical view that Maryam Rajavi shares. They see society, religion, and other abstract notions as black and white. And the you-are-with-us-or-you-are-against-us rhetoric is embedded in their shared rigid outlook. Maryam Rajavi has convictions that Massoud Rajavi is the absolute Truth and his opponents are the absolute Evil—the MKO remains a cult whose leader’s views feed Bolton’s certainty about his personal vision for Iran. According to Richard H. Curtiss, in his article in the *Washington Report*, “Bolton has maintained friendly relations with ‘the Armageddonists’ and other extreme right-wing Republicans. Although personally a Lutheran, Bolton seems to fit right in with hard-line Bible Belt Christians.” [5]
Bolton attended the MKO gathering together with some other anti-Iran Western politicians in Taverny, Paris. His attendance is not only a moral failure for himself but also a failure for European morality; Europe has long been the vanguard of human rights and as Bolton succumbs to the MEK’s ployish support for the “war on terrorism” he is actually sponsoring MKO terrorists—and by his mere presence at their rally, he bestows them a legitimate voice.
American warmongers and Israeli policy display a positive and friendly attitude toward MKO terrorists because they are "the enemy of our enemy." If European or American authorities were honest in their stand on terrorism, they would block the assets of people like John Bolton, Jose Mari Aznar, and British Lord Corbett because of their obvious and direct support for MKO, a terror cult which is responsible for the violent deaths of hundreds of Iranian and Iraqi civilians throughout the past three decades.
References:
[1] Golubkova, Katya and Ramin Mostafavi, "Iran Starts to Fuel up First
Nuclear Power Plant." *Reuters* Web. 21 Sep 2010. <
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67K0MM20100821>.
[2] Author unknown, "Iran ‘Powers Up’ Nuclear Plant." *ALJAZEERA* 21 AUG
2010: Web. 21 Sep 2010. <
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/08/
201082152655599545.html>.
[3] Peter, Tom. "Iran’s Bushehr Plant to Produce Nuclear Power in Weeks." *Christian
Science Monitor* 22 August 2010.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0822/
Iran-s-Bushehr-plant-to-produce-nuclear-power-in-weeks
See also: Daragahi, Borzou. "Iran’s Nuclear Power Plant a Step Closer to
Operation." *Los Angeles Times *21 August 2010
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/21/world/la-fgw-iran-bushehr-20100822
[4] Ridgeway, James. "Bolton’s Terrorist Tango: Bush Pick for U.N.
Ambassador Makes Smooth with Iran’s MEK." *The Village Voice* 05 April 2005
http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-04-05/news/bolton-s-terrorist-tango/
[5]Curtiss, Richard. "You Don’t Have to be Jewish to Be a Neo-con: John
Bolton and James Woolsey." *Washington Report on Middle East Affairs*October 2003, pages 18-20.
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/October_2003/0310018.html
By Mazda Parsi
