Every opposition group has to mull over two bases to gain face, credibility and legality.
The first and the most important base is the support among its own nation and the second is reliability within the international community.
Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) as an allegedly opposition group has always had hard time seeking these two bases.
Mujahedin Khalq abandoned the front in the country and fled to Paris and later to Iraq where Saddam Hussein, desperate for allies in the war with Iran, provided them with funding, weapons as well as land to accommodate.
Allying with one of Iran’s most hated enemies and direct fighting against their countrymen ended any popular support the MKO had inside Iran.
After the fall of Saddam, the MKO changed its anti-imperialist face and hence became a tool in the hands of the US following its order inside Iran and wherever the US deemed necessary. At the same time Mujahedin was trained, financed and armed by Israel to be used as its proxy.
MKO has been at the service of the US and Israel in their waging terror war against the Iranian nation in hope to be considered as a viable alternative to the Islamic Republic.
Nonetheless, the west is neither after regime change nor war against Iran. According to the Iranian American Islamic scholar Reza Aslan:
” Nobody is going to war with Iran, neither the United States nor Israel. I can tell you for a fact that Israel is not going to war with Iran because Israel keeps talking about it. If anybody who has studied Israeli politics at all can tell you anything is if Israel talks about bombing Iran then that means it has no intentions of doing it.”[1]
Incompetent in favoring the US more, that would lead to its putting them aside as an expired tool of sometime, the MKO makes efforts in vain seeking to gain the favor of the West.
It victimized members in Camp Ashraf, ordered members to hold hunger strike now for about 87 days, stages rallies spreading fear of Iran. Every time, ahead of the scheduled time of Iran-world Powers negotiations on the nuclear issue it creates new fabricated accusations and so called revelations in order to derail diplomacy.
Mujahedin indeed has put its entire attempt to keep itself on the scene. Conversely, all its endeavors have been futile and counterproductive.
“Senior diplomats in the US administration say the MEK figured prominently as a bargaining chip in a bridge-building effort with Tehran”, according to Wall Street Journal.[2]
The disclosures did little to earn the group and the group leader’s repetitive call urging the west to “step up the pressure on Tehran” and asserting the “futility of the negotiations with Iran” didn’t work. Iran nuclear talks agreed at Geneva talks. Iran and the six world powers hailed the agreement.
The MKO will never have the necessary popular grassroots to gain legitimacy and credibility among Iranian people. It is also unlikely that it can effectively rebuild its image and gain the favor of the west the way they wish. In fact the MKO has no role and place in the future of Iran
By: A. Sepinoud
[1] Garibaldi , US Officials Confirm: Israel Financing, Training and Arming MEK Terrorists to Murder Iranian Scientists, Loonwatch, February 10,2012
[2] Higgins, Andrew & Solomon, Jay, Iranian Imbroglio Gives New Boost To Odd Exile Group,Wall Street Journal, November29, 2006