The media of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) has launched a huge Saudi-oriented propaganda against the Iranian Government following the recent conflicts between the two countries. Unsurprisingly, the MKO is on the side of any country that happens to be hostile to Tehran, as the time of the nuclear negotiations the MKO made efforts to obstruct talks by repeating the same old misinformation about the Iranian nuclear activities.
Although the MKO’s propaganda usually does not succeed to run its anti-Iranian agenda in the international community –because of its very insignificant role in the region—there are some groups who indulge it. The American Iran hawks as well as Saudi authorities try to coddle the MKO in response to material and spiritual services the group offers them.
Daniel Larison of the American Conservative magazine explains what motivates the US supporters of the MKO to get in bed with a violent cult-like exiled group that they know it is detested by the Iranians. “The views and preferences of the people in the other country are of no concern for the hawks except insofar as they can be misrepresented to support their preferred policy,” writes Daniel Larison. “The exiles pretend to speak for their country, and their patrons here pretend to believe them.”
Larison describes the MKO as “a totalitarian cult” and “a horrible organization” which is cynically indulged by US policy makers for their own reasons. He suggests that MKO sponsors in the US will cite the opposition’s imaginary preferences in the government’s policy debates to insist that the U.S. ought to be doing what they claim the opposition wants.
This policy is effective for the MKO to fuel its propaganda machine and especially to feed its brainwashed members inside the cult. However, this policy of hypocrisy does not work for the group either in the US or in the region.
The same thing is applicable about Saudi Arabia. Saudis are seeking any ally to strengthen their hostile unity against their powerful rival in the region, the Islamic Republic. As a neighboring country, they know better than Americans that the MKO does not represent the aspirations of the Iranian people but they also prefer to ignore the fact and to harbor terrorist cult-like groups such as ISIS and the MKO to stabilize their state in the region and to help their warmonger friends in the West.
Daniel Larison believes that “the ambitions of exiles and the delusions of hawks” harm the interests of both the US and Iran but he fails to mention that the support of Iran opponents for the MKO also deteriorates the group’s situation among the Iranian people.
While the group’s propaganda about death penalty in Iran is endless and the group’s leader promises a future Iran without death penalty, its large-scale support for Saudi Arabia after the execution of 47 people in one day explains its deceitful tactics in its anti-Iran attitude.
By the way, the MKO’s fraudulence to gain the support of Iran’s enemies has only made it a tool in the hands of its supporters. Ultimately the support does not result in prosperity for the group. The expiration date of the MKO will pass someday just like what happened to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
Mazda Parsi
*Larison, Daniel, Beware of Exiles and Their Promises, American conservative Magazine, January 2nd, 2016
