The Third View on Mujahedin Khalq

White House Denies Backing of Terror Group in Iran

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 16, 1963

Raw Story is reporting that the White House is denying the use of terrorist organizations to undermine the Iranian regime.

Earlier today at the White House Press Briefing, Scott McClellan, the outgoing press secretary, denied reports that the U.S. is employing terrorist groups for special operations in Iran, RAW STORY has found.

When asked if U.S. policy has been changed with respect to three different terrorist organizations that have reportedly been active recently against Iran “based on the notion that an enemy of our enemy is our friend,” McClellan insisted that it hadn’t.

“Our policies haven’t changed on those organizations,” said McClellan. “They remain the same.”

“And you’re bringing up organizations that we view as terrorist organizations,” McClellan added.

The reporter cited three different terror group activities: “PKK going over the border into Iraq, the MEK southern border of Iraq into Iran, and also certain operations from Balochistan involving also the Pakistanis.”

In April, RAW STORY’s Larisa Alexandrovna reported (link) that “[o]ne of the operational assets being used by the Defense Department is a right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which is being “run” in two southern regional areas of Iran.”

It prompted me to consult the book State of War by James Risen (pages 216-217):

… This time, the Iranians wanted a trade; in return for the al-Qaeda leaders, Tehran wanted the Americans to hand over members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile terrorist organization that had been supported by Saddam Hussein and based in Iraq since 1986. After the fall of Baghdad, the U.S. military had disarmed the MEK’s thousands of fighters and taken custody of the group’s heavy military equipment, more than two thousand tanks, artillery pieces, armored personnel carriers, and other vehicles provided by Saddam Hussein. But the Bush administration was divided over what to do with the group next.

In a principals committee meeting at the White House in May [2003], the Iranian prisoner exchange proposal was discussed by President Bush and his top advisors. According to people who were in the meeting, President Bush said he thought it sounded like a good deal, since the MEK was a terrorist organization. … The MEK was officially listed as a foreign terrorist group by the State Department; back in the 1970s, the group had killed several Americans living in Iran, including CIA officers based there during the shah’s regime. …

But the idea never got that far. Hard-liners at the Pentagon dug in and ultimately torpedoed any takl of an agreement the Iranians. Defense Secertary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz seemed to think the MEK could be useful in a future war with Iran, and so they appeared eager to keep the group in place inside Iraq. CIA and State Department officials were stunned that the Pentagon leadership would so openly flaunt their willingness to cut a deal with the MEK; they were even more surprised that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz paid no price for their actions. At the White House, officials soon learned that the Pentagon was dreaming up excuses to avoid following through on any further actions to rein in the MEK. One argument was that the military was too busy, with too many other responsibilities in Iraq, to devote the manpower to dismantling the MEK. The Pentagon basically told the White Hosue that “we will get around to it when we get around to it,” noted one former Bush administration official. “And they got away with it.” (emphasis mine)

I cannot help but to be reminded of the United States backing Osama bin Laden and other Islamic militants in Afghanistan, only for them to turn against the U.S. years later. In the short-term, it supported our objective in the region – push out the Soviets – but in the long-term, it has created much more headaches. This is why I studied history as a minor (poiltical science major). To avoid making mistakes in the future, it is best to learn from the past.

The Bush administration doesn’t seem to get that.

The Great Society – Wednesday, May 3, 2006

July 22, 2006 0 comments

National Post

Covering Terrorism in the National Post

Page A12 of the April 29th edition of the National Post makes for an interesting read.

Above the fold, the page is dominated by a huge picture of an April 27th ‘Iranian-American rally in New York to denounce Iran’s continued nuclear activities.’ The picture sits above a commanding headline: ‘Bush tears into Iran over "intransigence".’ Two smaller headlines–‘Deadline Passes’ and ‘United Nations nuclear inspectors stonewalled’–precede Steven Edwards’ byline, whence the usual distortions and glaring omissions begin.

What makes this page interesting is not Edwards’ rehearsal of White House spin, but the placement of the prominent photograph of the ‘Iranian-American rally’ (five columns wide out of a possible six) next to another, shorter story running down the single remaining left-hand column entitled ‘Canada a ‘haven’ for terrorists: Washington,’ by Sheldon Alberts.

Alberts’ story is based on the US State Department’s recently released Country Report on Terrorism, but, ironically, the photograph running next to his article (which is obviously meant to reinforce the Edwards’ story’s point about Iran’s alleged nuclear-weapons program) ends up demonstrating that the United States is, itself, a ‘haven for terrorists.’

The demonstrators the National Post has chosen to feature are holding signs and banners bearing the names and pictures of ‘Massoud Rajavi’ and ‘Maryam Rajavi,’ Iranian exiles who have played a variety of leadership roles in the Mojahidin-e-Khalq (MEK) and its associated organizations over many years. The MEK and its various fronts seek the ‘violent overthrow of the Iranian regime.’

How do I know that about the MEK?

Well, since 1997, the MEK has been considered a terrorist organization by–you guessed it–the US State Department, and is, in fact, listed in section 8 of the very report Sheldon Alberts quotes in calling Canada a ‘safe haven’ for terrorists.

Among the activities ascribed to the MEK by the US State Department are the following:

Killing US civilians and supporting the takeover of the US embassy in 1979.

Killing 70 high-ranking Iranian officials in a 1981 bomb attack.

Assisting the government of Saddam Hussein in its war against Iran, and in the crushing of the of the Shi’ite and Kurdish rebellions following the Gulf War.

This one’s worth quoting in full, because of its similarity to the tactics of Al’Qaeda: ‘In April 1992, the MEK conducted near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and installations in 13 countries, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas.’

Other assassinations and attempted assassinations.

Sadly, one learns from the BBC, that the MEK enjoys ‘considerable’ support in the US Congress, despite its history of terrorism.

So, let’s review:

To bolster a story portraying Iran as a global renegade, the National Post runs a huge picture of what can only be called US-based supporters of terrorism (according to the US State Department’s own definition, that is), and, furthermore, it runs this picture next to another article criticizing Canada for being a ‘haven’ for terrorists and their supporters.

The ironies are almost too many to count.

I guess we could laugh this whole thing off, except that we know our governments in the US and Canada (and their friends in the media) repeatedly tell us that we’re engaged in a ‘war on terror,’ and need to do whatever it takes to stop the ‘terrorists’ from destroying democracy, freedom and civilization itself.

In fact, as the supporters of an acknowledged terrorist organization march freely in New York, receiving ‘considerable’ support in the US Congress and benign coverage in the National Post, what we do learn is what the so-called ‘war on terror’ is all about: It’s a war on ‘their’ terror against ‘us.’

As for ‘our’ terror against ‘them’…

rabble.ca – 30 April 2006

July 19, 2006 0 comments

Europe

The West cannot take the Mojahedin seriously

In an article by James Graff, “Are The PMOI Iran’s last Hope For A Peaceful Solution?”, TIME Europe has discussed the position of the MKO in the west. Graff wrote:

“…But there are also reasons why Western governments remain wary: among them are the group’s ideological origins in a mixture of Marxism and Islam, the aid they offered to and received from Saddam Hussein, and charges, which they deny, implicating them in terrorist acts in Iran. Many independent analysts, such as Paris-based sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar, say the group has few supporters inside Iran.

The PMOI’s terrorist listing was first secured nine years ago as a concession to the reformist government of Mohammed Khatami, but it has been consistently renewed since then. A legal challenge to the designation was denied in 2004 by the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, in a judgment written by John Roberts, now the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. At Le Bourget, a number of sympathetic politicians spoke in support of the organization, but none who have the ear of sitting governments.

The widow of President François Mitterrand, Danielle, headlined the French contingent, which also featured Edith Cresson, whose stints as prime minister and European Commissioner brought her little credit. And so the battle continues. The Le Bourget gathering had the harmless character of a political rally-cum-family reunion rather than the menace of a terrorist conclave. But the PMOI represents a Third Way the West is still unlikely to embrace — even if it has no other good options either.

Full article:

http://www.time.com/time/europe/eu/article/0,13716,1211079,00.html

TIME Europe, July 10, 2006

July 12, 2006 0 comments

Ali Reza Jafarzade

Dissidents Seeking Help

Laura Rozen, a senior correspondent, in part of her Washington Post article Iran on the Potomac, described several Iranian dissidents who are pressing Washington, seeking help in fostering regime change back home. The only problem, as she says, is that the exiles can’t agree on a strategy. Among all the opposition, there can be found no equivalent to the Iraqi National Congress, and the exiles have yet to coalesce around a platform or leader.

Mojahedin Khalq Organization, MKO, is one of the exile groups that has advocates in Congress in spite of being blacklisted as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Talking of Alireza Jafarzadeh, Washington spokesman for the MKO, Rozen describes Jafarzadeh as ‘The militant voice’:

"Alireza Jafarzadeh , 49, is the longtime Washington spokesman for the National Council of the Resistance of Iran, the political wing of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, an anti-regime militant group supported for years by Saddam Hussein. MEK has been on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations since 1997. In 2002, Jafarzadeh and the group announced details of Iran’s previously unknown nuclear program. With NCRI’s Washington office shut down since 2003, Jafarzadeh has reinvented himself as an expert commentator on Iran’s nuclear program. The MEK is reviled by Iran but it has support from the Iran Policy Committee, a group of conservative retired U.S. military officers and Reagan-era officials, who say Washington should work with the MEK to overthrow the Tehran regime."

Washington Post, June 25, 2006

June 28, 2006 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Inside a group caught between three powers

Mujahideen-e Khalq, an Iraq-based group founded to fight Iran’s regime, may be expelled from its base this week.

TEHRAN, IRAN The day Masumeh Roshan had been praying for finally came in late September, when the Iranian mother traveled to Iraq to visit her only son – a teenager she says was lured into ties with terrorism.

But the joyful reunion soon dissolved into tears at Ashraf Camp, where US troops are guarding some 3,800 militants of the Mujahideen-e Khalq Organization (MKO) – the only armed opposition to the ruling clerics of Iran.

Ms. Roshan’s militant son, they said, could not leave.

The case of those holed up in Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad, remains a quirky piece of unfinished business left over from the American campaign to oust Saddam Hussein. It continues to leave a trail of broken lives.

Officially, both the US and Iran label the MKO a terrorist group. The US-appointed Iraq Governing Council concurs: Citing the "black history of this terrorist organization" and its years of working closely with Mr. Hussein, it has ordered the expulsion of the MKO from Iraq by the end of this year.

But the MKO’s fate is unclear. While the Iraqis want it disbanded, the politically savvy group still has support among some congressmen and Pentagon officials, who see it as a potential tool against Iran, a country which President Bush calls part of an "axis of evil."

Some MKO tips have led to recent revelations about key aspects of Iran’s clandestine nuclear program, though many others have proven unreliable. Long a diplomatic hot potato – which Tehran has offered to solve, by exchanging MKO militants for Al Qaeda players now in Iran – the MKO continues to complicate US-Iran-Iraq relations.

Lives on the line

But for those rank-and-file members trying to escape MKO control, resolving the status issue is an urgent need. Ms. Roshan says she hardly recognized the gaunt visage of her 17-year-old boy, Majid Amini, at Ashraf Camp.

"He pulled my ear to his lips, and said: ‘Don’t cry; be sure that I will come with you. I can’t stay here; they are not human beings,’ " Roshan recalls, trying to control her trembling voice.

But Mr. Amini – a Karate kid with an orange belt, who his parents say was recruited to join the MKO in Tehran with promises of completing two school grades in one year and gaining a place in college – was forced to remain behind.

"He took his uniform off, stamped on it, and shouted: ‘I can’t go back! My life will be in danger!’ " Roshan recalls during an interview in Tehran. MKO officers and US troops insisted the young man stay, and Roshan climbed alone onto the bus home. "I was like a dead person," she says.

The voices of former MKO militants give a rare glimpse inside a group they say demands a cult-like control over members, practices Mao-style self-denunciations, and requires worship of husband-and-wife leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.

Recruited from the United States and Europe, or even drawn directly from Iranians held in Iraqi prisoner-of-war camps and jails, the former fighters describe a high level of fear, and speak of their own awakening – and freedom from the MKO’s grip – as if it’s an epiphany.

The US State Department lists the MKO as a terrorist group that conducted assassinations against American citizens in the 1970s – and was behind bombings and killings of hundreds of members of the Iranian regime starting in the early 1980s.

By one count, after the recent invasion of Iraq, the MKO surrendered to US troops 300 tanks, 250 armored personnel carriers, 250 artillery pieces, and 10,000 small arms. Still, the group is reported to be able to continue antiregime broadcasts into Iran.

The Pentagon – after bombing MKO camps in Iraq in the first stages of the invasion – quickly worked out a truce with the group some civilian hawks in the Pentagon believe should be supported and turned into a US tool of opposition against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Militants who were once ready to die for the MKO, however, now have some advice for those who may want to apply the Afghan model to Iran by using the Mujahideen in the same way the Northern Alliance was used against the Taliban.

"I don’t think the US can take advantage of this group," says Arash Sametipour, a former MKO militant recruited in the US. He survived his own attempts to kill himself with cyanide capsules and a hand grenade that blew away his right hand after botching an assassination attempt in Tehran in early 2000.

"When we were on clean-up duty [at Ashraf Camp], at 7 a.m. they played songs with words like ‘At the end of the street, the Mujahideen is waiting – Yankee get out!’ " recalls Mr. Sametipour, who speaks rapid-fire English with an American accent. He remains in prison in Iran, where he was made available at the request of the Monitor. "This organization does not like the US. It is a mixture of Mao and Marxism, and [leader Massoud] Rajavi acts like Stalin."

Ostensibly under US guard, the MKO still keeps its small arms. US officials said in November they were being screened for war crimes and terrorism. The Pentagon denies reports that the militants are able to freely roam or conduct attacks.

MKO representatives could not be contacted for further comment. Both office and cellphone lines in Washington have been disconnected. The MKO office in Paris was unable to provide contact details for two senior officials it said were traveling in Europe.

Western diplomats and analysts agree that the MKO has very little support inside Iran itself. Though many Iranians take issue with their clerical rulers, MKO members are widely seen to be traitors, as they fought alongside Iraqi troops against Iran in the 1980s.

Most Iraqis, too, have little time for the MKO, which helped Hussein’s security forces brutally put down the Kurdish uprising after the Gulf War in 1991, and helped Baghdad quell Shiite unrest in 1999. The group, however, said in a Dec. 11 statement that "throughout its 17 years in Iraq," it had "never" interfered in Iraq’s internal affairs.

Last summer, the US State Department outlawed several MKO-affiliated groups in the US. In June, France arrested 150 activists, including self-declared "president-elect" Maryam Rajavi.

The crackdowns sparked some to publicly commit suicide by setting themselves alight – a type of protest that some suggest could be repeated if the MKO is forced out of Iraq.

Within days of the expulsion order, lawyers for the MKO – arguing that expulsion would violate the laws of war – are reported to have sent letters to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others, asking the Pentagon to overrule the move.

A senior Pentagon official told the Monitor Tuesday that the US was exploring the option of sending former MKO members to a country other than Iran.

"They ought to be vetted," he said, "and anyone who is a criminal deserves to be punished somehow. [But] they don’t have to go back [to Iran]. If they are not guilty of crimes there are various places they could go."

"Scott Peterson is the Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor"

June 26, 2006 0 comments

USA

Funding regime change

TEHRAN – Washington’s latest policy of putting more pressure on Iran through securing additional funding for "democracy-promoting" activities inside Iran has been greeted with official and popular rejection, even open derision, in Tehran.

"I think the Americans have no idea of what they’re talking about," said Mamak Nourbaksh, a teacher of English literature. "No one is going to touch them [the funds], no one will work with them."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s request for extra funds marks a nearly eightfold increase in the US government’s current expenditure on Iran and signals the beginning of a new period of concerted diplomatic pressure by the United States against Iran, a country that President George W Bush included in his infamous "axis of evil" speech in 2002.

In seeking an additional US$75 million from the US Congress to fund Iranian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that promote democracy, human rights and trade unionism, Rice is broadening the range of non-military options at Washington’s disposal to weaken from within Tehran’s clerical regime.

Of the new outlay, $50 million will go toward Farsi radio broadcasts; another $15 million is earmarked for increasing participation in the political process, including measures such as expanded Internet access. The Bush administration hopes to spend $5 million to fund scholarships and fellowships for young Iranians, and the State Department said $5 million "would go to public diplomacy efforts aimed at Iran, including its Persian-language website".

"The United States will actively confront the aggressive policies of the Iranian regime," Rice said. "At the same time, we will work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy in their country."

Such pronouncements are greeted with open skepticism by ordinary Iranians who have seen the infrastructure of neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan sustain significant blows by US invasions, after which they have lagged far behind the touted recovery schedules. Iranians also have not forgotten the support offered by Washington to their arch-enemy Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

One of the militantly anti-clerical-regime groups that could stand to benefit from the new windfall is the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a Marxist-Islamist organization that is hated within Iran because it sided with the Iraqi dictator against Iran during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War.

The MEK has been registered by the State Department as a terrorist organization for the past 10 years, but now neo-conservative factions of the Bush administration are lobbying hard to remove it from the list. Should the MEK end up benefiting from US pro-democracy largesse, it would send a clear message to people inside Iran that Washington funds groups that engage in terrorist activity. Some reports quote unidentified US officials as saying that the MEK would not receive any of the new funds.

"Most of the groups which will be suckling from this new taxpayer teat include designated terrorist organizations such as the MEK and ancien regime agonists, all with their own agendas which are not limited to outreach to Iranians, as these groups have little if any traction or credibility in Iran today," said Donald Weadon, an international lawyer specializing in Iran.

As much as $50 million of the planned allocation is directed at media planning, with the stated intention of extending the government-run Voice of America’s Farsi service from a few hours a day to around-the-clock coverage. But the idea that Iranians would turn more pro-US if only they had access to free media belies the reality that, unlike Saddam-era Iraq, in Iran the people already have relatively unrestricted access to satellite stations and news on the Internet.

"If the Danish cartoons and most recent Abu Ghraib pictures are timed to promote another war in the Mideast and inculcate the ‘clash of civilizations’ mindset in the public," said Cyrus Safdari, an independent Iranian analyst, "then Madame Rice has a really bad sense of timing in seeking to ‘reach out to the people of Iran’ – who don’t need $75 million to watch … ‘a few bad apples’ from the US torturing people in Abu Ghraib."

Nevertheless, the announcement comes at a time when an increasing amount of evidence points toward the fact that the Iranian government is cracking down on access to information. The British Broadcasting Corp’s popular Persian-language service has been blocked after the Iranian government accused the British Foreign Ministry-funded medium of being anti-Iranian. And many Farsi dailies have switched to a more nationalistic, less critical coverage of the government after the Danish-cartoon protests and the concomitant polarization.

"If the money goes to improve and expand VOA’s Persian service, this would also be money well spent," said Professor William Beeman, an Iran specialist at Brown University. "However, Sam Brownback’s $3 million [1] appears to have been sucked up by private parties with no possibility of public oversight.

"As a taxpayer, I would certainly object to more money being spent in this way – particularly if it goes to private commercial broadcasters where there is no open accountability as to operational activities or content. This would be a deeply irresponsible use of US public funds," Beeman said.

The US has a history of covert operations aimed at destabilizing the Tehran regime that went awry. In 1980, eight US commandos were killed at the beginning of an operation to rescue American diplomatic hostages held by the new revolutionary regime in the US Embassy in Tehran. After a US airplane and helicopter crashed, it was decided to call off the mission, but not before holding hostage for three hours 44 Iranians whose bus had stumbled on the scene.

More recently, in 1996, an $18 million covert action aimed at unseating the government of then-president Hashemi Rafsanjani had its secret cover blown even before it started. Washington insiders, concerned at the potentially disastrous effects it would have, leaked the story to the mainstream press, prompting a furious backlash from the authorities in Tehran, which authorized a $20 million counteroffensive.

Washington’s new initiative might end up backfiring and contribute to the further stifling of civil society in Iran, if experience can be trusted. NGOs are regarded suspiciously by the Iranian government and are often accused of being agents of foreign influence.

Rice failed to make clear how the funds would be disbursed to groups inside Iran, given that Washington has lacked a direct diplomatic presence in Tehran for the past 26 years.

Some American analysts have also reacted with skepticism at the initiative, pointing out that it may be a case of too little too late. "One suspects there are no shortage of potential Iranian Chalabis [2] ready to set themselves up in a nice apartment in London’s West End with some copiers and fax machines and the requisite bank accounts to reap the windfall," said James Russell, a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School’s department of national security affairs.

Despite other secret efforts the US Central Intelligence Agency has mounted in recent years, including a $2 million campaign in 1995 based largely on radio broadcasts denouncing the clerical regime, the CIA’s analysts see little hope of creating a new generation of pro-Washington leaders for Iran.

Notes

1. Senator Sam Brownback, as chairman of a US Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, successfully campaigned for a $3 million appropriation for 2005, mandated by Congress, to help pro-democracy activists inside Iran. This was in addition to the approximately $10 million annually allocated for such activities.

2. Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi exile, received millions of dollars from the US while being courted as a possible successor to Saddam Hussein.

Iason Athanasiadis is an Iran-based correspondent.

By Iason Athanasiadis – Asia Times – Feb 18, 2006

June 22, 2006 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Terror Ops Underway in Iran

Despite the Bush Administration’s adamant and continual denunciation of terrorism, the Department of Defense—under Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld’s orders—is using a terrorist organization to orchestrate attacks and collect intelligence inside Iran, according to numerous former and current military, intelligence, administration, and United Nations officials.

Government sources—according to reports by Raw Story, UPI, and others—say the militant group is being “run” by the Pentagon in Iran’s oil-rich province of Khuzestan—which has been the subject of numerous attacks and terrorist bombings over the past year—and in the opium-smuggling border province of Sistan-Baluchistan, where suspected US operatives attacked and killed several Iranian officials just this March.

Based in Iraq, the group carrying out the reported operations is an Iranian rebel organization that aims to overthrow and replace Iran’s clerical regime. Known as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK or MKO), the group has been officially designated by the US government as a terrorist organization.

Widely regarded as an extremist cult, the MEK has a long history of violence: they murdered several Americans during the 1970s; they were involved with the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran; they killed 70 high ranking officials by bombing the Premier’s office and the head office of the Islamic Republic Party in 1981; they helped the Iraqi government violently suppress Shia and Kurdish uprisings during the 1990s; they executed near-simultaneous bombings against Iranian interests in 13 separate countries in 1992; and they have carried out several attacks and assassinations inside Iran over the past decade.

During the first stages of the 2003 invasion, US forces destroyed two MEK bases and confiscated a considerable stockpile of the group’s weaponry, by one count: 300 tanks, 250 armored personnel carriers, 250 artillery pieces, and 10,000 small arms.

The MEK was officially expelled from Iraq by the Iraqi Governing Council in 2003, but approximately 3,800 members of the group remained in the country under the watch of US forces. [1]

In 2004, they became the first terrorist organization to be granted “protected” status by the US government.

The MEK captives were supposedly being confined to a US military-run compound northeast of Baghdad, but according to several sources, the Bush Administration and the Department of Defense have been using the group against Tehran. [2]

According to Raw Story, “Although the specifics of what the MEK is being used for remain unclear, a UN official close to the Security Council explained that the newly renamed MEK soldiers are being run instead of military advance teams, committing acts of violence in hopes of staging an insurgency of the Iranian Sunni population.”

Suspected US-sponsored MEK operations include the string of terrorist bombings that killed at least 12 people and injured 90 others in Iran just prior to the country’s elections in 2005.

The vehicle pictured above was destroyed during the pre-election attacks

(Photo: AP / Iran TV)

US-sponsored MEK militants also attacked and killed 22 Iranian officials in the south-eastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan this March, according to US government officials who spoke to Raw Story.

As early as January of 2005 the MEK were “launching raids” from Camp Habib in Basra on behalf of the US, and had also been given permission by Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff to operate from Pakistan’s Baluchi area, according to US officials who spoke to UPI.

“[Undersecretary of Defense Intelligence Stephen] Cambone and those guys made MEK members swear an oath to Democracy and resign from the MEK and then our guys incorporated them into their unit and trained them,” one intelligence official told Raw Story. “These guys are nuts,” he said.

In addition to carrying out attacks, US-trained MEK units are also reportedly being sent into Iran to collect information and targeting data on the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program. [3]

According to former and current intelligence officials interviewed by UPI, the MEK units are entering Iran from the south while Israeli-trained Kurds are carrying out parallel operations from the north.

“Both covert groups are tasked by the Bush administration with planting sensors or ‘sniffers’ close to suspected Iran nuclear weapons development sites that will enable the Bush administration to monitor the progress of the program and develop targeting data, these sources said,” according to UPI.

“There is an urgent need to obtain this information, at least in the minds of administration hawks,” one administration official reportedly said.

While ‘gathering’ intelligence in the past, the MEK has been known to use deception to advance their own agenda—in some cases conspiring with their American supporters.

According to The New York Times, for instance, the MEK “rattled the Iranian government and the arms control community in 2002 when it revealed the existence of two secret Iranian nuclear facilities.” The MEK’s information, however, according to a CIA official interviewed by Iran Press Service (IPS), was actually given to the group by sources within the Pentagon that were seeking to legitimize the MEK.

In October of 2004 the MEK once again falsely took credit for exposing a ‘secret’ Iranian uranium processing plant. Far from being secret, the plant had been disclosed to the IAEA two years earlier.

Current and former senior national-security officials told Newsweek that “all the major revelations MEK publicly claims to have made regarding nuclear advances in Iran were reported in classified form—and from other sources—to U.S. policymakers before MEK made them public.”

“Except the information…given to them by the Americans, all other material the Mojahedeen gave to the media are open secrets,” said a former MEK leader, according to IPS.

“All the information the Mojahedeen provides the western media is pure lies and fabricated to discredit the Iranian regime and help the United States and Israel to put more pressures on Iran,” another former MEK leader reportedly said.

‘Covert infrastructure’

A “long-time CIA operator” interviewed by UPI revealed even more regarding the US-sponsored operations inside Iran:

“The United States is also attempting to erect a covert infrastructure in Iran able to support U.S. efforts, this source said. It consists of Israelis and other U.S. assets, using third country passports, who have created a network of front companies that they own and staff.”

“It’s a covert infrastructure for material support,” one administration official said, according to UPI. This official said the “network would be able to move money, weapons and personnel around inside Iran.”

A former CIA officer interviewed by The Guardian commented, “They are bringing a lot of the old war-horses from the Reagan and Iran-contra days into a sort of kitchen cabinet outside the government to write up policy papers on Iran.” This former officer, who reportedly refused a request to oversee “MEK cross-border operations,” called the plans “delusional”.

Saddam’s ‘crimes’

The Pentagon and the Bush Administration’s use of the MEK is ironically similar to the tactics once used by the regime of Saddam Hussein—tactics the administration actually condemned while attempting to build support for war against Iraq.

In fact, the White House pointed to Saddam Hussein’s support for the MEK as evidence that Iraq was violating UN Security Council Resolutions. Specifically, the background paper for President Bush’s September 2002 speech before the UN General Assembly accused Iraq of “supporting terrorism” and “allowing terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq,” citing the following example:

“Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.”

Legality

The Bush Administration’s reported use of the MEK for special operations—in addition to being hypocritical—may also be illegal.

As the Associated Press reported in February of 2005, “as soon as the State Department created a list of terror organizations in 1997, it named the MEK, putting it in a club that includes al-Qaida and barring anyone in the United States from providing material support [to the group].”

Moreover, in August of 2003, the US Treasury Department officially designated the MEK and its affiliates as “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” entities, “effectively freezing all [of their] assets and properties and prohibiting transactions between U.S. persons and these organizations.”

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s reported plan to “convert” the MEK fighters and make them swear an oath to democracy was apparently implemented in order to give the Pentagon a legal justification for using the group against Tehran.

Even if such a justification were to hold up in court, military and intelligence officials, according to Raw Story, say the operations bypass congressional oversights.

An article by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh from January of last year suggests how the Pentagon may be avoiding such standard legal restrictions:

“The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia. … The President’s decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the book—free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A. Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate and House intelligence committees.” [4]

Military and intelligence sources, as Raw Story reported, “say no Presidential finding exists on MEK ops. Without a presidential finding, the operation circumvents the oversight of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.”

“The Pentagon doesn’t feel obligated to report any of this to Congress,” a former high-level intelligence official said, according to Hersh. “They’re not even going to tell the cincs,” he said, referring to the American military commanders-in-chief.

“They are doing whatever they want, no oversight at all,” another intelligence official told Raw Story.

According to Raw Story, “Congressional aides for the relevant oversight committees would not confirm or deny allegations that no Presidential finding had been done. One Democratic aide, however, wishing to remain anonymous for this article, did say that any use of the MEK would be illegal.”

Speaking with The Asia Times about the reported operations, retired Air Force colonel Sam Gardiner said, “The president hasn’t notified the Congress that American troops are operating inside Iran. … So it’s a very serious question about the constitutional framework under which we are now conducting military operations.”

Pentagon’s priorities

In 2003 the US reportedly rejected a deal with Iran to exchange MEK captives for several top al-Qaeda leaders. According to NBC, among those in Iran’s custody at the time was Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, who is now supposedly leading al-Qaeda in Iraq.

In exchange for the MEK captives, Iran was reportedly willing to hand over Zarqawi, along with al-Qaeda spokesman Suleiman abu Gaith and Osama bin Laden’s third oldest son Saad bin Laden, but according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, “the Bush administration ultimately rejected this exchange, bowing to neoconservatives at the Pentagon who hoped to use the Mujaheddin-e Khalq against Tehran.” [5]

In an article published by antiwar.com in August of 2004, Juan Cole, president of the US Middle East Studies Association (MESA), wrote that “[Larry] Franklin, [Harold] Rhode and [Michael] Ledeen conspired with [Manucher] Ghorbanifar and [the Italian intelligence agency] SISMI to stop that trade.” [6]

Cole commented, “Since high al-Qaeda operatives like Saif al-Adil and possibly even Saad bin Laden might know about future operations, or the whereabouts of bin Laden, for Franklin and Rhode to stop the trade grossly endangered the United States.”

Lobbying

The MEK, in addition to gaining the support of the Bush Administration and the Department of Defense, has conducted a fairly successful lobbying campaign in Washington DC, garnering support from influential foreign policy groups and several members of Congress.

The Iran Policy Committee (IPC), which has been described as a “spin off” of the highly influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), serves as the MEK’s primary support group in Washington. [7]

The MEK’s lobbying ability is actually “very weak and would be completely ineffectual were it not for the support of the pro-Israel lobby,” a former MEK leader recently told The Asia Times. He said “if you need 1,000 lobbying units to influence Iran policy in the US Congress, 999 of these are provided by the pro-Israel lobby or the American administration, and the remainder by the weak and fragmented exiled opposition.”

“We knew which members of Congress were influenced by AIPAC, so when we needed signatures we’d go to these congressmen first,” the former MEK leader revealed.

According to Front Page Magazine, “MEK supporters roam the halls of Congress asking unsuspecting twenty-something aides if their Member will sign a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter calling for freedom and democracy in Iran.” [8]

Coincidently, in 2002 150 members of Congress reportedly signed a letter advocating the group’s removal from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

House Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Co), according to The New York Sun, has compared the MEK to “America’s Founding Fathers,” while Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) told The Hill that the MEK “loves the United States.” “They’re assisting us in the war on terrorism; they’re pro-U.S.,” she said.

“In fairness to those on the Hill, I don’t think they have any idea who these people are,” State Department spokesman Greg Sullivan said, according to The Hill. He said the MEK’s Washington representatives “conceal [the group’s nature] by covering it in an anti-Iranian message.”

“I don’t give a shit if they are undemocratic,” Representative Gary Ackerman (D-NY) told the The Village Voice in December of 2001. He said, “OK, so the [MEK] is a terrorist organization based in Iraq, which is a terrorist state. They are fighting Iran, which is another terrorist state. I say let’s help them fight each other as much as they want. Once they all are destroyed, I can celebrate twice over.”

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

1. This is not the only example of the Pentagon’s support for the MEK undermining the Iraqi government’s attempts at sovereignty. In the summer of 2005, for example, as part of a new cooperative counterterrorism effort between Iraq and Iran, the Iraqi government promised to prevent MEK from attacking Iranian interests. Such attacks, however, reportedly were, and still are, being launched on behalf of the United States.

2. While most reports have placed the Department of Defense in charge of the MEK operations, former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter reported in June 2005 that the MEK units were working for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.

3. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counterterrorism official, has corroborated the reports of the MEK being used for intelligence gathering purposes.

4. This April, Hersh reported that “American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. … If the order were to be given for an attack, the American combat troops now operating in Iran would be in position to mark the critical targets with laser beams, to insure bombing accuracy and to minimize civilian casualties. As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops “are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,” the consultant said. …”

“‘Force protection’ is the new buzzword,” one former senior intelligence official told Hersh. This former official, as Hersh notes, was referring to the fact that these clandestine activities are being broadly classified as “military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight.”

5. Ignatius’ account of the botched MEK/al-Qaeda deal has been corroborated by Flynt Leverett, a former senior CIA official who recently discussed the issue with Time magazine and The American Prospect.

6. Ghorbanifar, a central figure in the Iran-contra affair along with Ledeen, has admitted to having secret discussions with Rhode and Franklin regarding regime change in Iran. Furthermore, an article from the upcoming June 2006 issue of The American Prospect places MEK representatives at one of the meetings.

7. The IPC consists of former military and intelligence officials, most of whom now work in the private sector and four of whom also work as military analysts for Fox News. In addition, the MEK’s former U.S. representative is also working for Fox News as a foreign affairs analyst.

Interestingly, in December of 2004, Sasan Fayazmanesh, a professor of economics at Fresno State University, wrote an article for Counterpunch in which he commented on the MEK’s activities: “Every few weeks these Chalabi-like, men-in-black characters-and also Fox News commentators-come up with some ‘top secret satellite photos’ showing non-existent nuclear weapons sites in Iran (how a US designated terrorist organization gets top secret satellite photos is, of course, beyond one’s imagination).”

8. The MEK’s supporters, operating under a number of fronts, have funneled out more than $204,000 in campaign contributions in an attempt to get their terrorist designation lifted, Front Page Magazine reported.

It should be noted that the article’s author, Kenneth R. Timmerman, is the founder of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI), which shares the goal of “revolution” in Iran with many hawks in Washington. Timmerman, however, disagrees with supporting the MEK. “When making a revolution, it is critical to choose one’s allies well,” he wrote for the conservative magazine.

Devlin Buckley- The American Monitor-June 01, 2006

June 21, 2006 0 comments

USA

America’s Most Dangerous Professors

David Horowitz’s The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America contains two or more pages on each professor describing why each professor should be considered dangerous. However, Horowitz conceded that the 101 profiles represent only a sample of more than ten thousand dangerous professors. As a Marxist student at Columbia University during the Cold War of the 1950’s, David Horowitz was able to do well in courses taught by anti-communist professors. As an undergraduate business school student and capitalist at the University of Michigan during the Vietnam War in the 1960’s, I was able to do well even in a Philosophy of Communism course taught by a communist professor. My communist professor knew well the differences between all forms of communism and attended international conventions of communists. John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr’s In Denial: Historians, Communism, & Espionage documented the extent of the dishonesty of many communist professors today. David Horowitz has noted correctly that many current professors are destroying America’s once great university system by changing classrooms to indoctrination camps where professors attack students who dare to disagree with the idiotic views of the professors. For details of the latest cases involving students, see the Web site of David Horowitz’s Students for Academic Freedom (SAF): http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/ Approximately 30 researchers prepared the profiles of the 101 professors. Other than the names of the researchers who prepared each profile, there is no guidance to the reader about the credentials of the researchers or about the quality control techniques. David’s Blog at Front Page Magazine contains details of disputes raised about some of the profiled professors: http://www.frontpagemag.com/blog/index.asp However, if the profiles had been prepared by professors who know the works of the profiled professors, then the profiles could have been even more critical. Peter Collier wrote the profile of Noam Chomsky, MIT Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics. Peter Collier and David Horowitz were the co-editors of The Anti-Chomsky Reader. While some professors are being placed on trial in Europe for Holocaust denial, Noam Chomsky blundered with Pol Pot’s Cambodian genocide denial. While linguistics professors applaud Noam Chomsky’s contributions to linguistics and many readers would agree with some of his political views, it is difficult to understand why any professor (or anyone else) could deny Pol Pot’s Cambodian genocide. Since 1984, even people who rely only upon movies know about “The Killing Fields”. Among Chomsky’s many books, readers can find these books on the concept of rogue states: Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs and Acts of Aggression: Policing "Rogue" States. Professor Raymond Tanter, not profiled as one of the 101 most dangerous academics in America, published a book on a similar topic, Rogue Regimes: Terrorism and Proliferation. By David Horowitz’s criterion of professors who are dangerous in the classroom, Noam Chomsky probably has a greater following among students than Professor Raymond Tanter does. However, by the criterion of which professor is more dangerous to the world, Professor Raymond Tanter is the clear winner. Professor Raymond Tanter, a Republican, works with the Iran Policy Committee and is a strong supporter of the Iranian Communist MEK (Rajavi Cult) terrorists. For descriptions of honest books about the MEK, see: http://www.iran-interlink.org/ In addition to Professor Raymond Tanter, the Iran Policy Committee includes a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee and retired military officers: http://www.iranpolicy.org/ If there are any honest communist professors, they should be exposing the activities of the Iran Policy Committee and of the neo-conservatives (neo-Trotskyites) who support the communist overthrow of Iran. A Republican professor who promotes support for Iranian communists with a Republican administration is more dangerous than non-Republican professors in classrooms. On January 13, 2006, David Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine published Michael Rubin’s “Monsters of the Left: The Mujahedin al-Khalq”. If the Iranian Communist MEK (Rajavi Cult) terrorists are monsters of the Left, then all professors who support them should be profiled, such as Professor Raymond Tanter and Professor Rabbi Daniel Zucker, founder of Americans for Democracy in the Middle East: http://www.adme.ws/ Unfortunately, David Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine has been publishing articles by supporters of the Iranian Communist MEK (Rajavi Cult) terrorists, including Professor Rabbi Daniel Zucker’s “Iran’s Interference in Iraq” on December 20, 2005. Professor Howard Zinn, one of the 101 professors profiled, is also a signer of the Stop War on Iran Statement: http://www.stopwaroniran.org/statement.shtml Zinn’s name and the names of communist organizations did not stop me, a conservative Republican, from signing this statement, too. The most honest disclosures about the Iranian Communist MEK (Rajavi Cult) terrorists and about Americans who support them have been at Web sites publishing right-wing authors: (1) Traitors USA http://groups.yahoo.com/group/traitorsusa/ (2) Antiwar.com, especially Justin Raimondo http://antiwar.com/justin/ (3) LewRockwell.com, http://www.lewrockwell.com/ David Horowitz is the author also of Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left. The problem with many authors on the left and right is that their simplifications to gain readers can result in dangerous consequences. A far more dangerous unholy alliance has been between the neo-conservatives (neo-Trotskyites) and the Republicans who permitted them to pose as conservatives. In 1959, the lies of Democrats and of Republicans about Fidel Castro being the “George Washington of Cuba” resulted in the communist takeover of Cuba and the Cuban Missile Crisis. On April 15, 2005, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) permitted the Iranian Communist MEK (Rajavi Cult) terrorists to hold a convention at its Constitution Hall. On May 6, 2005, Front Page Magazine published David Johnson’s “A Third Option for Iran” supporting the MEK. As a conservative Republican professor who has been a target of some left-wing professors seeking the removal of all Republican professors from universities and who has supported David Horowitz’s years of work against political correctness in universities, I remain opposed to his editors at Front Page Magazine who have attempted to both support and oppose the Iranian Communist MEK (Rajavi Cult) terrorists.

Professors Paul Sheldon Foote, California State University, March5,2006

June 18, 2006 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Iranian ‘Left’ in Exile

The Iranian ‘Left’ in Exile: Collaborators with US Imperialism A glance at websites and newspapers of many Iranian "left" groups residing outside the country, gives one little impression that Iran’s neighboring country, Iraq, is in a state of war and occupation by the US Empire.

There seems to be little concern among Iran’s traditional left about the United States’ intentions to take over and control Middle East’s oil resources.

The neoconservative "Project for the New American Century (PNAC)" signifies little (if anything) to many of Iran’s left groups.

Some, even, under the pretext of fighting fundamentalist Islamists, indirectly cheer the American incursion into Afghanistan and Iraq. In reality, however, Iraq is a mirror reflecting the many flaws and shortcomings of the left in the Middle East.

Some in the Iranian left might be evasive on the issue of their silence about the US imperialism’s crimes in the region, but the Iraqi left’s direct collaboration with the Bush administration is undeniable.

As part of the Iraqi Governing Council, the Iraqi Communist Party (with the exception of the breakaway faction) and the Kurdish forces headed by Jalal Talebani and Masoud Barezani, collaborated with the US occupation forces.

Not just in the arrest, torture, and murder of thousands of Iraqi insurgents, but also in the process of building a neo-liberal state that will sell out the future of Iraqis (Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites alike) to the capitalist institutions, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and such transnational corporations as Halliburton, Bechtel, etc.

In their impotent (if not incompetent) quest against Saddam’s regime, they have ended up collaborating with a colonial power to topple a secular government, only to replace it with a fundamentalist, theocratic regime in a landscape leaning towards civil war. Do they really think they will have any following among the people of Iraq when the present puppet government is gone?

The same unfortunate parallels can be drawn with respect to the Iranian left.

Instead of questioning their tactics and strategy as a result of which the Mullahs, not the left were able to take power after the fall of the Shah’s dictatorship, at a moment of ultimate debility, the Western-cultured leftists seem to be waiting for the overthrow of Iran’s Islamic Republic regime in the hands of the US imperialism without the slightest concern over (or understanding of) what will pursue in the aftermath.

Before disputing any of the above assertions, these intellectuals would have to explain their disregard, silence, or cheerleading for a number of issues, some of which are listed below:

1) The US imperialism has frozen (in essence stolen) and is holding millions of dollars of funds belonging to the Iranian people. Why has the left remained silent all these years on this issue?

2) At a time when global sources of fuel and energy are becoming more and more scarce and critical, why are these groups remaining silent or collaborating with colonial powers (propaganda-wise) in their attempts to deny the Iranian people their right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes?

3) Why all the silence with respect to the crimes of the US imperialism in Iraq?

4) Why are they being silent about the fact that their "Mecca for democracy" is about to impose yet another "Islamic Republic" government in the Middle East region (not counting Saudi Arabia and all the other puppet dictatorships) while they are cheering the downfall of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein?

5) How can they claim to be in opposition with the regime of the Islamic Republic when they remain silent to the crimes of another religious state, Israel, that has enslaved the Palestinian population and denies non-Jews (and not just the Muslims) the right to own land in many parts of that country, to marry Jews and to enjoy status equal to Jewish citizens?

Instead of working towards grass roots organizing, most left groups have preferred to take on the role of the "truth-telling Messiah,"

They fill their newspapers and websites with general talk, obvious, trivial, and often impertinent facts, and trite slogans, thus further isolating themselves from the masses of the Iranian people and their circumstances.

Likewise, in place of dealing with the issue of social justice as a whole, which today, unequivocally includes the struggle against neo-liberalism at its heart, many groups focus on and attempt to build around the slogan of "democracy" or "secular republic" in its most nebulous form.

Which yet again exposes their lack of understanding of today’s globalized economy and the role of the United States and international finance capital.

With such tactics, not only will the Iranian left make no headway in its efforts (as has been the case so far), but in the end, its feeble activities will only end up benefiting the US imperialism.

On this issue of collaboration with the United States, we should especially mention and condemn organizations funded and supported by the US Intelligence:

The Organization of People’s Mojahedin Khalq that has mutated into a mercenary force at the service of anti-Iranian propaganda, the various Monarchist factions who, from their websites and twenty-or-so CIA-financed TV Satellite channels (out of Los Angeles, California) spew poison and lies against the Iranian people, and the reactionary leadership of Hezbe Komoniste Kargari (Workers Communist Party) and its offshoot, the Hekmatists.

Iranian American Community (IACUS) – January8,2006

May 31, 2006 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

playing with Mojahedin as the football

‘Alternative World Cup’ playing with Mojahedin as the football

Group tied to terror seeks U.S. inroads — Anti-Tehran exiles have some support despite hostile past

Washington — AS TENSIONS between the U.S. and Iran continue to mount, an Iranian exile group viewed here as a terrorist organization is lobbying to play a greater role in the struggle against Tehran. And it is winning some support in Congress.

The Mojahedin-e Khalq, or People’s Mojahedin of Iran, was formally listed as a terrorist group by the State Department because of its attacks on American military personnel and Iranian officials. It fiercely opposed the Shah and his supporters during the 1970s and allied with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his 1980-88 war against Iran.

But today, the MEK and its supporters say the organization should be supported by the Bush administration as part of a broader effort to promote regime change in Tehran. They say the group has developed among the most-sophisticated intelligence operations covering Iran’s leadership and nuclear operations, and it has networks inside Iran that can spread propaganda on democracy and on the need to remove the Islamic regime. The MEK also has 4,000 fighters that can target Iran from Iraq, though they have been demobilized by U.S. military commanders and held in a kind of house arrest.

As the White House deploys $85 million this year to promote pro-democracy groups in Iran, the MEK says it can support this campaign without receiving a penny. "We seek neither money nor weapons from the U.S. We just want our legitimate right to resist tyranny in our country," says Mohammad Mohaddessin, a Paris-based member of the MEK who serves as foreign-affairs chairman of its affiliated organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. "Let the Iranian people deal with the mullahs."

[Note: Mohaddessin is currently awaiting trial in France on terrorism charges.]

Mr. Mohaddessin and other MEK leaders say they want the U.S. to remove their organization from the terrorism list so that they can more easily raise money and support globally. They also want their fighters released in Iraq.

For more than a decade, the MEK has been employed as a political football in the diplomatic games played between Washington and Tehran, say current and former U.S. officials. The Clinton administration placed the MEK on the State Department’s terrorism list in 1997, as Washington sought to appeal to moderate leaders inside the theocratic government in Tehran. A blacklisting of the MEK was among the actions the Iranians sought in exchange for better relations, these officials say.

The State Department’s 2006 terrorism report says the MEK has been launching attacks on Western and Iranian targets since the 1970s. In the last years of the Shah’s rule, elements of the MEK assassinated U.S. security advisers and military contractors, and assisted in the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran. It subsequently turned on Iran’s new theocratic government due to ideological differences and launched bombing campaigns against senior Iranian officials.

Under pressure inside Iran, MEK fighters shifted their base to Iraq, conducting operations from there against Iran’s Islamic government throughout the 1980s and ’90s. Most of their activities were concentrated on Iranian military installations and commanders. But the U.S. also accuses the MEK of conducting terrorist strikes outside of the Middle East, including simultaneous attacks in 1992 on Iranian embassies and installations in 13 countries.

Some U.S. diplomats say that to delist the MEK now would make Washington appear inconsistent on terrorism and could further incite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They also believe Iran’s leadership could use U.S. support of the MEK to further strengthen Mr. Ahmadinejad’s position, due to what is perceived as widespread antipathy toward the MEK inside Iran. "It could be incredibly provocative in Iran’s eyes," a U.S. official said.

In 2003, the Bush administration also placed the National Council of Resistance of Iran on the terrorist list, as U.S. military planners sought assistance from Iran in stabilizing post-Saddam Iraq. Among the issues the Iranians and Americans discussed that year, said officials involved in the talks, was a plan to swap MEK members it was detaining in Iraq for al Qaeda leaders hiding inside Iran. But the talks ultimately bogged down, as American commanders grew increasingly convinced that Tehran was working to destabilize Iraq.

"Iran wanted the MEK first" before they would hand over al Qaeda leaders, says Michael Rubin, an Iran specialist who served in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans during the first Bush term. "We made it clear to Iran, that if al Qaeda planned an attack, they’d be held responsible."

The MEK, however, has used the Iraq invasion to try to build bridges to the Bush administration. U.S. officials say the MEK has largely cooperated with U.S. military commanders in agreeing to disarm their troops based in Camp Ashraf, which sits about 100 kilometers north of Baghdad. The fighters are being held as protected combatants under a United Nations charter, though some groups in Iraq have sought to try the MEK for atrocities it allegedly committed in league with Mr. Hussein.

Leaders of the MEK and National Council of Resistance, meanwhile, have aggressively moved to highlight the threats posed by Iran’s nuclear programs. In a string of news conferences tracing back more than a decade, first the MEK and then the resistance council have accused Tehran of flouting its international treaty obligations by clandestinely seeking to produce nuclear-weapons fuel.

In an August 2002 news conference, council leaders in Washington specifically charged Iran with running a stable of centrifuges to enrich uranium in the central Iranian city of Natanz. International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors would confirm the accusations a few months later. U.S. officials, including President George W. Bush, have cited the role played by Iranian exile groups in exposing Iran’s nuclear programs.

Still, the MEK remains a deeply divisive issue inside Washington. In 2002, 150 members of Congress signed a letter seeking the MEK’s removal from the terrorism list. Lawmakers also have quizzed the State Department on the MEK’s status in recent weeks, after it was again named to the U.S. list of global terrorist organizations.

"It’s the only group on the terrorist list that’s been more helpful to the U.S. and more harmful to our enemies," said Rep. Brad Sherman (D., California), who is among those representatives questioning the MEK’s designation. "It played a very important role in telling us what happened in Natanz. We should be clear on what we expect of them to get off the list."

Despite this support in Congress, however, many current and former U.S. officials say the Bush administration should stay clear of any dealings with the MEK. They describe the group as operating like a cult under the control of its founder, Massoud Rajavi, and his France-based wife, Maryam. They say the two have very little support in Iran and face deep hostility from the populations of Iran and Iraq, due to the MEK’s alleged complicity in Mr. Hussein’s atrocities.

"An enemy of my enemy is not my friend" in this case, said Mr. Rubin, the former Pentagon official. "From a policy standpoint, the problem with the war on terrorism is the propensity for moral relativism. But we shouldn’t accept certain terrorists and not others."

By Jay Solomon – The Wall Street Journal Europe – 22 May 2006

May 28, 2006 0 comments

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