Paid advocacy for MKO

The former speaker of the house traveled to Paris last week to speak to an Iranian exile group led by Maryam Rajavi, who also heads an officially designated terrorist group called MEK.

When Newt Gingrich arrived in Paris last week to speak to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an Iranian exile umbrella group that’s been based there since shortly after the 1979 revolution, he seemed to know exactly who Maryam Rajavi is. He praised Rajavi and her work several times in his speech, which he delivered as the prominent exile stood at his side. Before the speech, as he neared the end of a long line of attendees who stood in the rain to shake his hand, he turned to face Rajavi, smiled, and at approximately 1:02 minutes into the above video, folded at the waist and bowed solemnly. Rajavi, clothed head-to-toe in green, handed him a bouquet of flowers as the crowd cheered.

Maryam Rajavi, the woman who so warmly received Newt Gingrich’s bow, is the president-elect of the NCRI. But she’s better known as the "principal leader" of Mujahadeen-e-Khalq or MEK, which is officially designated by the United States as a terrorist group. (The MEK, designated a terrorist group by the European Union until 2009, is also the largest group within the NCRI.) The MEK participated in the 1979 Iranian revolution, but later turned against the new government, which it has opposed in part with terrorist attacks against Iranian officials, embassies, and civilians. For years, it was sponsored by Saddam Hussein. Rajavi’s husband, Massoud, is thought to lead the MEK’s armed wing.

Who, exactly, was Gingrich so happy to see in Paris last week? Here’s a helpful 2008 backgrounder on Rajavi from the Council on Foreign Relations:

Maryam Rajavi was born in 1953 to an upper-middle class Iranian family, and she joined MEK as a student in Tehran in the early 1970s. After relocating with the group to Paris in 1981, she was elected its joint leader and later became deputy commander-in-chief of its armed wing. Experts say that MEK has increasingly come to resemble a cult that is devoted to Massoud Rajavi’s secular interpretation of the Koran and is prone to sudden, dramatic ideological shifts. In June 2003, French authorities raided a MEK compound outside Paris and arrested 160 people, including Maryam Rajavi. She was released in 2006 but resides in Paris where she bases her campaign to remove the Iranian regime. Massoud Rajavi was last known to be living in Iraq, but authorities aren’t certain of his whereabouts or whether he is alive.

Gingrich is not the only U.S. politician to openly support the MEK, which a number of Congressmen and retired officials from both parties are lobbying to have de-listed as a terrorist organization. In March, the Treasury Department launched an investigation into whether some of these Americans had accepted lavish — and illegal — speaking fees from the group. Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a democrat, said he’d earned $150,000 speaking on behalf of the group.

Assuming that money is not a factor, why would such prominent Americans support an officially designated Iranian terrorist group? It’s a straightforward, enemy-of-my-enemy proposition: the MEK opposes the government in Tehran, and so do we. This is the logic that, according to a recent report by the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh, that led the U.S. to arm, fund, and train some MEK fighters in 2005. In his speech, Gingrich argued, "The pressing issue regarding Iran is neither confronting the regime’s nuclear program issue nor its terrorism. The main issue is to change this regime. So long as this regime is in power, none of those issues will be resolved."

Still, even if you agree with his logic, it’s a bit jarring to see a recent front-runner for the GOP nomination for the presidency literally bowing to the leader of a terrorist organization. The bow was an odd choice, given that Iranians don’t really practice it. (When I pointed this out on Twitter, Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari joked that maybe he’d confused Iran for Japan; CFR’s Micah Zenko suggested a "terrorist fist jab" might have been more appropriate.) To be fair, I’ve been in situations where I’m not sure whether or not a handshake would be culturally or religiously inappropriate, and it’s awkward. So, it’s hard to see his choice to bow as anything more pernicious than a bit of social clumsiness.

Other than this one uncomfortable moment, Gingrich’s visit seemed to go well. He did, however, open his speech by citing the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis, in which Iran held American embassy officials hostage for over a year, as the first strike against the U.S. and as proof of the "intolerable" and "anti-human rights" nature of the regime. "We will never have peace and we will never have justice in the region as long as that dictatorship survives," he concluded. What he didn’t seem to know is that his host, the MEK, had supported and participated in holding the Americans hostage, which is part of how they got the terrorist designation that Gingrich would like to see removed.

Update, 5:20 p.m.: Would you believe that, just three and a half months ago, Gingrich’s presidential campaign ran an ad lambasting President Obama for bowing to a foreign leader? He sure did!

In a 2009 London meeting with Saudi King Abdullah, Obama appeared to bow deeply on shaking the monarch’s hand. Conservatives lambasted Obama for his "shocking display of fealty"; an anonymous White House official countered, "It wasn’t a bow … he’s taller than King Abdullah." Gingrich resurrected the mini-controversy to attack Obama’s energy policy, insisting that America would "never again bow to a Saudi king" under a Gingrich presidency.

Here’s the ad, surfaced by the Christian Science Monitor’s Dan Murphy:

It’s a reminder that the how-dare-he-bow controversies can be a little silly; different greetings carry different meanings in different cultures, after all. Both Gingrich and Obama were probably just doing what they thought was socially appropriate, not secretly declaring "fealty" to a foreign force. Still, one important distinction is that Saudi King Abdullah is the leader of an important American ally, whereas Maryam Rajavi heads up an officially designated terrorist group.

By Max Fisher , The Atlantic

OK, my title is a little inflammatory. But it is the kind of thing that Newt Gingrich has been wont to say in the past about President Obama and anyone else he deems as lily-livered in the war against terrorism. Now, according to TalkingPointsMemo, the Atlantic, and other outlets, it appears that the former Speaker has himself been lauding an organization that the State Department continues to view as a terrorist one, namely, the Iranian MEK. He’s calling it a "massive, world-wide movement for liberation in Iran."

Strong words. But then again, conservatives always have been prone to proclaim that the State Department consists of a bunch of appeasement-minded wussbags who don’t understand America’s true national interests. But in this case, the State Department more than likely has it right.

Paul Pillar, who blogs regularly for TNI, knows a lot more about the MEK than I do or probably ever will. As near as I can tell, he thinks it is very bad news indeed, an organization that America would do well to keep at a distance–an organization that the BBC says some western officials regard as nothing less than a coercive cult. But what is common knowledge is enough to given any sensible observer pause. So I confess to finding it more than a little disturbing that Gingrich would embrace this dubious organization made up of Iranian exiles with such zeal. He attended a rally for it last Sunday in Paris, which is located in France (a country that conservatives in the Gingrich mold usually denounce as consisting of a bunch of craven appeasers). But Gingrich’s neocon zeal for the would-be liberators of Iran knows no bounds. The MEK may have had a close relationship with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and even supported it during the Iran-Iraq war. None of this, however, seems to faze Gingrich.

There are, however, several problems with Gingrich’s bluster. One is that America is already taking an extremely hawkish stance toward Iran. President Obama has launched a war in all but name against Iran. Whether it will turn into a shooting one is something that probably won’t be apparent until his second term. Another problem with Ginrich’s bloviation is that we don’t really know enough about the MEK to hail it as a bunch of freedom fighters. Conservatives did that with regularity during the cold war–Jonas Savimbi in Angola or the contras in Nicaragua. And, by the way, what about Ahmed Chalabi, who was hailed as the next liberator of Iraq? The results, to put it politely, were somewhat dubious. America has a history of getting into bed with characters who profess dedication to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But their own records, particularly when it comes to human rights and democracy, tend to be unhappy ones.

Another problem is that Gingrich is essentially freelancing. He is spouting off about something that he does not know much about. Now there isn’t much new about that. This is, by and large, what Gingrich does. He expectorates like a gushing fire hydrant in the middle of the summer about any and all sundry topics. Even during the primary season, it was almost impossible to get him to shut up, no matter how woeful his electoral numbers might have been. He lives to talk and talks to live. A silent Gingrich is almost as inconceivable as a spontaneous Mitt Romney.

Gingrich’s remarks in Paris won’t dent his image as it has already been dented. How influential Gingrich is at this point may also be questioned. But his remarks are symptomatic of a broader problem among his adherents, which is to say that they are not particularly choosy about whom they choose to support or ally themselves with in the fight against dictators and terror. Perhaps Gingrich might respond that you can’t always be persnickety about your allies when battling the likes of the Iranian mullahs. But he seems to be hailing them as the George Washington’s of the Middle East. That’s ludicrous. It’s also a development that you might even be justified in labeling terrifying if the MEK really were to become the new pet cause of crusading conservatives. What Gingrich is courting is not the liberation of Iran but a replay of the Iraq War. That is a path that no American administration should follow.

Jacob Heilbrunn , National Interest