The Mojahedin Khalq’s exclusively Western backers and admirers like to present themselves as totally unaware that the terrorist cult and its leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi are held in absolute contempt and
Perhaps it is this astounding – or practiced – ignorance which allows the Council of Europe to allow use of their buildings as a platform to introduce Maryam Rajavi as an ‘Iranian opposition leader’ who speaks as some kind of expert on the danger of only one specific source of terrorism while at the same time, without any sense of irony, she demands that the Americans re-arm her own illegal terrorist group in Iraq. Clearly she says what the Europeans want to hear or they wouldn’t invite her to speak. (In English she claims that the reason Daesh (ISIS) exists at all is because the Islamic Republic of Iran managed to repress the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime – Saddamists – and deny them power in Iraq. In Farsi she blames America for killing Saddam Hussein and praises Daesh (ISIS) as ‘tribal revolutionaries’.)
Still it cannot be established whether all her eager hosts are aware of Maryam Rajavi’s long dark history of terrorism – cunningly masked apparently by a skirt and a grin. Nor whether they know, or care, that even last month she not only spoke out in support of Daesh (ISIS), but threatened to assassinate her critics in Europe as well.
(Interestingly, the only outlets which covered this meeting are some far right newspapers in Iran which cited it as further evidence to dismiss Western claims to be fighting terrorism.)
For the rest of us, it is no longer necessary to listen to Rajavi speak to know what she is saying because her basic repeated message is identical to that of Israel’s PM, Netanyahu. That is: ‘Iran is the West’s number one enemy; don’t talk with Iran; only bomb Iran’.
Meanwhile in Washington, Rajavi’s henchman Ali Safavi – who is also culpable for terrorist crimes – has also been wheeled out for the same purpose: to say to a Western audience that ‘in order to show support for Israel you have to bomb Iran’. Safavi sets the scene with a bit of scaremongering to get the word nuclear in: Iran’s long-range missiles are super threatening “whether they are nuclear or not”! Before dismissing Iran’s missile capacity as irrelevant because Iran is just very, very threatening.
Unfortunately he doesn’t go on to explain how, as Rajavi demands, giving small arms to the sick and needy former MEK combatants – currently being held incommunicado by their own leadership in the MEK’s camp in Iraq – will help stave off this dire threat. Even Israel with all its weaponry now finds Iran too strong to bomb and must be satisfied with attempts to slow down rather than prevent Iran from becoming the next major regional power.
Parading this deeply unpopular and defunct terrorist group to convey a defunct message demonstrates that Israel is scraping around the bottom of an empty tool box. Instead of a screwdriver Netanyahu found a hairbrush, and is wielding that in the hopes somebody somewhere will take the MEK and their flaky representatives seriously.
When none of the protagonists have any principles or morals, there will inevitably be negative repercussions. Europe and America have yet to see how damaging these kinds of shows are for their national interests.