A Logic Answer to an Irrational Demand

Just following the tragic mortar attack against the entrapped members of MKO inside the transit camp of Liberty, there came the imperious, short message of Massoud Rajavi, autocratic leader of the group, delivered from his hideout. His belligerent tone condemning the attackers was not something unprecedented but with the difference that this time the victims of his unleashed scathing attack were not the Iranian and Iraqi governments as usual but Martin Kobler, the UN Special Representative for Iraq and the head of UNAMI. In the course of a yearlong campaign, since settlement in Camp Liberty, expressing strong antipathy towards Mr. Kobler, MKO leveled all kinds of unfounded allegations against him and accused him of acting in collusion to displace MKO members. In his message, Mr. Kobler is represented as one among many adversaries whose antagonism is claimed to have paved the ground for the bloody attack:
 
“When Mr. Kobler’s duplicity, malice and his criminal pressures failed to work, and when a flood of disinformation and the spread canard did not work, then as usual, they fired missiles against defenseless refugees.”
 
Rajavi knows better than anybody that none of his putative adversaries gain the least benefit from the plotted attacks against the Liberty. The attacks rather break off the process of MKO’s expulsion from Iraq and its members’ resettlement in any third country. And that is what Rajavi is investing on; he plans to cease the process and to return to his almost closed previous cult bastion, Camp Ashraf.
 
The paid mercenary advocates of the group, majority of whom are vested with some authority of western parliaments and ex-officials of certain posts, have been tasked with the mission of beating the drum for the return of the Liberty residents to Ashraf. Misled by a widespread lobbying campaign of the group, many of these supporters fail to observe that there is no logic in returning people to a former location after it took a lot of painstaking work to get them out. Some of them even transcend to talk on behalf of their governments as Rep. Rohrabacher condemned the US for the irresponsibility that led to the attack:
 
 “We put the MeK in this position, we forced them to go to Camp Liberty from Camp Ashraf, where they are now being murdered and our government isn’t fixing responsibility on the Iraqi government as it should. We took them out of a more secure area and put them in a less secure area. We sent them into harm’s way and we haven’t stepped up to do our duty.”
 
Then again, the former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani demanded that the US keep its promise to protect the residents by moving them back to Camp Ashraf and then to safe countries. However, has the US government promised any of them anything considering the residents’ return to Ashraf or if the US ever sees any logic in reopening a camp that it cooperated to close down?
 
The answer was directly and clearly provided in Victoria Nuland’s daily press briefing in Feb. 12. In answer to the question on the United States position concerning moving the residents in Camp Liberty back to Camp Ashraf, the State Department’s spokesperson  said:
 
“The answer for the individuals at Hurriya is not to relocate back to Ashraf, in our view. The only peaceful and durable solution for these individuals is resettlement outside Iraq, and that should continue to be the focus of everybody involved in this effort. As you know, we are continuing to support the work that the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq and the UNHCR are undertaking to try to work on resettlement of these people.”
 
And she clearly briefed on her government’s recommendation to MKO’s advocates who are insisting and lobbying for residents return to Ashraf: “the point that I made here is the same point that we make in our private meetings with those who advocate for the MEK, that if they want to see them safe, if they want to see them have a better life, the answer is outside of Iraq”.
 
In fact, Mrs. Nuland said the last word, that return to Ashraf was out of question. She has perceived that the insiders are suffering two tragic situations; first, being the helpless victims of a closed cult of personality and second, kept in fetters of their leaders’ illogical and ludicrous decision makings intensified by an outside group of recruited supporters.