The Fortune of MKO Can Fall in Iraq

MKO is afraid of no front but the one wherein the front-line combatants are the ex-members

Presently highlighted in MKO’s media, the group has started an all-out campaign aimed to prolong its stay in Iraq. Now, after a lengthy process of transferring the members in Camp Ashraf to a Temporary Transit Location and since its settlement there, MKO has kept caviling at the camp’s conditions and now presses to be returned to Ashraf complaining that the recent rainfalls have inundated the whole camp. The call is made after the vain attempt to enforce recognition of the transit location as a refugee camp. However, as the possibility of returning to Ashraf is out of question and a transit location fails to be an appropriate location for a refugee camp, MKO is changing expectations for a third location that could guarantee a few years stay in Iraq; “UNHCR has another refugee camp in Iraq and on the UNHCR Web site it is stipulated that its residents have the right to ownership of land and vehicles and to revenue generating activities”.

Everything is actually ready for the residents’ transfer to EU member states and any third country that will offer to receive them as refugees. Reportedly, up to this point, 2600 residents have gone through identity verification process by the UNHCR and close to 1750 have been privately interviewed outside the camp. But the problem is that so far no country has shown a willingness to accept them and the best option for MKO to survive is to prolong its stay through any flimsy excuses and accusations made against people like the head of UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) or Prime Minister Maliki’s government. And of course, all blames as usual are on Iranian regime as behind-the-curtain hand for whom all the mentioned as well as other opponents and the defected members are accused to be working as the agents.

It is a taboo making any allusion to Iranian regime inside MKO and it is an unforgivable sin to defect from the group. MKO tags any defected member an Iranian agent, particularly if the defected engage in counter-MKO activities, in an attempt to besmirch what it highly values as the acquired reputation of a resistance fighter. In fact, in the black and white world of MKO anyone siding with Iran against it is regarded an enemy of the group and nobody is more threatening and harmful than a defected member since the exposed information makes the closed group vulnerable to the adversaries outside.

Unfortunately, the key role these defected members can play to frustrate plots and anti-human activities of MKO go unnoticed. Majority of these defected members volunteer to have an active role to rescue their comrades if the responsible organizations demand their aids as some do. But it is not enough as the activities lack the needed cohesion. If MKO insists to stay in Iraq, no problem, let it be there as it might be the land where it is doomed to crumble by dissociating its enslaved members. And it can be done by the lantern of those who survived after being lost on a dark path that was not straight. Ex-members of a terrorist cult know how to fight fire with fire and MKO is afraid of no front but the one wherein the front-line combatants are the ex-members. The fortune of MKO might decline in Iraq, a land that once fulfilled its wishes can now crush it by refusing them.