The new US administration under Donald Trump seem to be the ideal “Imperialism” for the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ Cult of Rajavi). The recent belligerent steps of President Trump and his republican colleagues have been warmly welcome by the group. This “confrontation” cheers up the MKO propaganda websites because it is replaced by what they call “The Obama era policy of appeasing Tehran”. The group is hopeful to see its multi-million dollar lobbying campaign finally works.
However, one of the negative points of Trump administration criticized in the mainstream media is what the MKO is boastful of. “An official in U.S. President Donald Trump’s Cabinet and at least one of his advisers gave paid speeches to organizations linked to an Iranian exile group that killed Americans before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, ran donation scams and saw its members set themselves on fire over the arrest of their leader,” reported the Associated Press. [1]
The thoroughly investigated article written by Jon Gambrell of the Associated Press tends to stay unbiased and documented on the issue. The journalist has tried his best to quote all parts involved in the case. However, the audience can conclude that the MKO’s opportunists are seeking to take the attention of the US government by the cost of denying the fundamental values of their organization.
“A potential alliance with the MEK would link the U.S. to a group with a controversial history that has gone against American interests in the past by supporting Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran”, Jon Gambrell suggests. “After fleeing Iran, the MEK joined forces with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.”
“The Mujahedeen have backed the winning horse. They are going to have some at least entree into the administration,” Ervand Abrahamian, the prominent historian and the professor at the City University of New York who wrote a book on the MEK, told gambrel. “I think it weakens the U.S. because the more they have access to the administration, the more people in Iran are going to be scared of anything the U.S. does.”
What professor Abrahamian says about the opportunistic nature of the MKO was clearly seen during the 1979 revolution in Iran. They supported Ayatollah Khomeini, then they got more enthusiastic than the newly established Islamic Republic. They supported the takeover of the US embassy and eventually they opposed the release of the American Hostages by the Iranian government after 444 days.
By the way, professor Abrahamian’s assertion on the MKO is approved by Saeed Kamali Dehghan of the Guardian. He describes the MKO as “extremely unpopular in Iran” because “they fought alongside Saddam Hussain against Iran in the eight-year war in the 1980s.”
“The threat to Iran is not just from Trump but rather the combination of a reckless, ignorant leader, surrounded by hawks blind to nuances on the ground and bent on regime change,” Kamali writes about the MKO’s paid sponsors in the new administration.
Besides the extreme unpopularity of the Cult of Rajavi among Iranian public opinion, it definitely has to deal with much bigger troubles in its way to buy attention of the US government. The insincerity of the group and its dark history is undeniable. Gambrell explains about the assassination of the US military personals and civilians by the MKO during the 1970s. However, he asserts that the group blames “a Marxist splinter faction of the group for killing the Americans.”
On the other hand, the associated Press correspondent quotes a once-secret 1981 CIA assessment on the group said “The Mujahedeen are xenophobic, Anti-Americanism and anti-imperialism provide cornerstones for the policies.”
Duplicity of the MKO is also indicated in its claim of having renounced violence. ”The MEK says it renounced violence in 2001,” writes Gambrell. “But the U.S. Army’s official history of the Iraq invasion in 2003 says MEK forces “fought against coalition forces” for the first weeks of the war, something the MEK denies.”
The article bases certain facts about the MKO on the RAND Corp. report prepared for the office of the U.S. defense secretary. According to the report, fourteen U.S. soldiers were killed and at least another 60 wounded escorting MEK members on supply missions. While the group propaganda denies all these true facts and blames the Iranian government for spreading “misinformation” against it, Gambrell replicates the famous sentence of the RAND report to describe the MKO propaganda: “SKILLED MANIPULATORS OF PUBLIC OPINION”.
By Mazda Parsi
Sources:
* Gambrell, Jon, Trump Cabinet pick paid by controversial Iranian exile group, The Associated Press, Feb 5, 2017
*Kamali Dehghan, Saeed, Trump’s belligerence towards Iran plays into the hands of Tehran’s hardliners,
The Guardian, Feb. 3 .2017