The anti-Iran Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, considered by many as a dangerous terrorist organization, will hold its annual meeting in Paris on Saturday.
By Chris Den Hond
The horrific atrocities of a notorious anti-Iran terrorist group MKO have come under the spotlight as it prepares to hold its annual summit. In the following report, we will see how the Wests stance on the group has revealed its double standards.
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An American scholar who is a harsh critic of the Iranian government investigates the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) as a fraudulent source on Iran. Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and a correspondent of the National Interest warns about what he calls “The MKO’s tendency to cry wolf” about the Iranian nuclear program.
Presenting a summary on the MEK’s background and the current Iranian society, he notifies that “the hatred ordinary rank-and-file Iranians feel for the MKO is the group’s Achilles’ heel”. Rubin confirms the fact that “the MKO activists counter both by accusing anyone who criticizes them as being a regime agent and arguing that their record of success exposing Iranian secrets shows the depth to which they have infiltrated the Iranian regime”.
Eventually he asks and answers a crucial question: “If the MKO is able to so deeply implant themselves in Iran’s most sensitive and security-conscious organs, the logic goes, it demonstrates that they both have support and are far better positioned as an opposition group than anyone else. The former is betrays crass amateurishness, and the latter is simply false.”
To Prove that the MKO has no support in Iran and as the result it cannot simply infiltrate in the sensitive and security organs, Rubin studies “just how many exposés and supposed intelligence coups the MKO have bungled or gotten wrong”. Referring to his own work experience between 2002 and 2004, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as an aide on both the Iran and Iraq desks, he writes: “It was not uncommon for Iranian American activists from a range of organizations with very little presence or history to request such meetings. They would present us with documents purporting to be smoking guns of one sort or another.”
Therefore, for Rubin and his colleagues, “provenance was always a concern”. “How did the person in front of me or my colleagues acquire such a document?” he states. “Without exception, when we investigated, the documents turned out to be fraudulent, and often had figurative MKO fingerprints on them.” Rubin suggests that investigating such documents was “a time waste”.
He believes that the so-called National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the cover organization of the MKO cult-like group, “often gives bombshell announcements about new discoveries in Iran”. As one of the several examples that Rubin offers, he recalls that on February 24, 2015, Alireza Jafarzadeh, NCRI deputy director, gave a presentation at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, in which he purported to expose a new secret uranium enrichment facility. “It turns out, however, there was less there than met the eye.,” Rubin reveals. “An image the NCRI provided of an “underground hall” was actually a screenshot from a company making safes. Nor did the facility have the electrical infrastructure necessary to run an operation Jafarzadeh described.”
Rubin accurately suggests that the MKO is actually a proxy force of other powers in the region, particularly, Israel. “The MKO relies less on secret access and more that the organization recycles Israeli, American, and Iranian media reports,” he writes. “While the MKO says its exposés are proof of the degree of its infiltration, a more plausible explanation is that the intelligence services of other countries use the group to launder information.”
Almost a week has elapsed since Janez Jansha, the Slovenian Prime Minister chairing the EU rotating presidency, addressed an online gathering organized by the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) terrorist group.
In his speech on July 10, Jansha broke all diplomatic rules and attended a terrorist group conference disregarding his official position. In addition to making statements against the Iranian government and intervening in its internal affairs, he supported the MEK which used to be on multiple terror group lists for a long time.
Hours later, the Slovenian ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry of Iran. Next, in a talk with Joseph Borell, Mohammad Javad Zarif voiced his objection to Slovenia’s act. Borell told Zarif that Slovenia’s action did not reflect the EU’s official position.
The MEK took advantage of all these reactions and called Jansha a brave Prime Minister. However, in Slovenia, Prime Minister faced harsh criticism in the media where he was warned of the consequences of his action, especially regarding Iran-Slovenia relations.
Delo berates Janša over Iran comments
According to the Slovenian newspaper Delo, the Prime Minister’s participation in the MEK gathering was without the knowledge of the president and the foreign minister calling it an arbitrary decision. This newspaper also expressed its concerns regarding how this act might jeopardize the economic transactions and relations of the two countries. It also added, “severity of Europe’s reactions to this incident shows how dangerous this matter could be. Slovenia has turned into a disruptive factor in EU’s policies.”
It seems highly likely that the Slovenian PM received a large sum of money for his several-minute speech. According to international reports published by American investigative journalists, the MEK pays its foreign guests, depending on their ranks, an average of thirty thousand dollars for a short speech. Of course, this amount is much more for A-listers. If we take into account the PM’s financial corruption and his two-year sentenced to prison in 2013, it should not be surprising that Jansha received an exorbitant amount to speak at the gathering.
This tactless act i.e., supporting a terrorist cult, damaged Slovenia’s reputation severely both at the international level and in the eyes of Iranian citizens because more than sixty percent of Iranian terror victims have been murdered by the MEK terrorist cult. Unless this mistake is fixed, it appears that future interactions between the two countries will be challenging.
The MEK held the conference before the eyes of the European officials in Albania showing how a terrorist cult could incur heavy costs to relations of the countries. Slovenia is an example of a country that got involved in the game of a terrorist group and acted irrationally and unconventionally just like their Albanian counterparts who entered this game long before by lining up their former officials to deliver speeches and support this terrorist group.
The new president will take office in Iran in the beginning of August and it is important that there be good relations between Iran and the European Union away from and not affected by disruptive factors. The MEK proved that its actions aim to break off such bilateral relations. They are costly terrorists for Europe.
By Reza Alqurabi
The newspaper Delo criticizes Prime Minister Janez Janša over his participation in the Iranian opposition group; MEK , writing in Tuesday’s front-page commentary that the timing and the manner were ill-chosen, and suggesting Janša lacks the credibility to defend human rights elsewhere, Slovenia Times reported.
Delo berates Janša over Iran comments
The European Union moves to distance itself from the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization after the prime minister of Slovenia participated in the terrorist organization’s annual conference. Rights activists say any support given to the MKO by EU officials must be condemned.
S&Ds call for clarification on PM Janez Janša’s participation in a meeting sponsored by the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran
The Socialists and Democrats are shocked to learn that the prime minister of Slovenia, Janez Janša, whose country is now chairing the EU rotating presidency, addressed an online gathering on Saturday, which was organised by the so-called National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), also known as the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI or MEK). This anti-democratic, cult-like organisation, which was on the EU terrorist list until 2009, has a long history of human rights abuses documented by organisations such as Human Rights Watch.
Tonino Picula S&D spokesperson on foreign affairs and Jytte Guteland, S&D shadow rapporteur on Iran, made the following statement:
“Support for a group with such a violent, anti-democratic record, at the level of the prime minister of a country holding the rotating presidency of the EU, is extremely irresponsible and grave. It undermines the ongoing efforts of the EU and its High Representative Josep Borrell to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran, a key foreign-policy priority for the EU.
“We call on the EPP Group to immediately and clearly distance themselves from such destructive behaviour from one of its members, and clarify whether it supports such a key EU foreign policy objective as the restoration of the nuclear agreement with Iran, or not.”
Socialistsanddemocrats.eu
Like flies to honey, each year, a bipartisan array of senior American politicians and former officials flock to France, Albania, or, in the age of COVID-19, Zoom in order to speak to the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s annual conference and rally. It is a lucrative gig, even by the standards of Washington A-listers: Five and six-figure honoraria and speakers’ fees are common for retired officials — not a bad deal for a three- or four-minute speech. Sitting officials expect to receive lucrative campaign contributions.
Former New York City mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani is a repeat speaker, as is former senator and United Against Nuclear Iran Chairman Joe Lieberman. Former national security adviser John Bolton is also a frequent speaker. Earlier this week, Michele Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense and perennial hopeful for the Pentagon’s top spot, made her debut, as did Sen. Cory Booker, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The retired four-star U.S. Army general and Fox News contributor Jack Keane also spoke.
But this isn’t just any summit. The group is the political front for the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, an organization whose roots rest in 1960s-era opposition to the Shah. A short history of the group’s evolution through different from Marxist-infused Islamism to its current rhetorical embrace of democracy is here.
In reality, its leaders Masoud and Maryam Rajavi rule with an iron fist. It runs as a cult with its rank-and-file cut off from their families and the broader society. Its literature reads like a Lyndon LaRouche diatribe. Footnotes may look legitimate but pull readers down a rabbit hole of nonexistent sourcing, irrelevancies that do not substantiate their points, and dead links.
Claims about high support inside Iran are fiction.
Ordinary Iranians despise their regime but see the MKO as worse. Many resent the MKO’s terrorism that as often killed innocent Iranians as the regime officials they targeted. More despise the group for siding with Iraq during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. In effect, ordinary Iranians see the MKO as people in the United States see John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban. While this does not excuse the regime’s torture and its execution of MKO members, it is not clear that those who died in 1988 would recognize the group today.[..]
I have spoken with some Washington luminaries who attend the MKO events. Their approach is cynical. To paraphrase one: If the regime falls, ordinary Iranians will sort it out, so who cares if we get an honorarium for a conference? Certainly, the Rajavis know this, so then, the question is: Why do they persist in arranging such a high honorarium? What is in it for them?
Perhaps, as with many cult leaders, they live in an alternate reality, or perhaps they believe the price of legitimacy that comes from rubbing elbows with top officials is worth it. The tragedy, however, is that the appearance of supporting a group so despised by Iranians actually benefits the existing regime. [..]
As important, it serves as a barometer of corruption in Washington. Iranians put their lives on the line every day. They do not want direct interference, but they want to know they have allies in pursuit of liberty. To cash out their aspirations and side with those opposing liberty and democracy for a $40,000 check represents the worst aspects of Washington culture.
It may not be illegal to participate in a Rajavi rally or to attach one’s name to a ghostwritten Mujahedin-e-Khalq piece in the same way that Gen. Mike Flynn did with Erdoganists, but it does signal an embrace of greed above principle and a willingness to sell out the freedom agenda.
Giuliani’s transformation of himself from America’s mayor to a figure of ridicule is an extreme example, but his embrace of a wacky cult was an early warning sign of his true character. People of both parties should view attendance at future Mujahedin-e-Khalq rallies in the same way — as a barometer of corruption that neither Republicans nor Democrats should accept in their leadership.
By Michael Rubin, Washington Examiner,
Social media has been abuzz with words of condemnation from journalists and other users who said it was both “shocking” and “embarrassing” for Michele Flournoy, former US undersecretary of defense for policy, to address the annual summit of the notorious anti-Iran Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group.
Addressing the virtual event on Saturday, Flournoy, once considered a front runner to be President Joe Biden’s defense secretary, accused Iran of posing a threat to the security of the Middle East, the United States, and to its own people.
“Since 1979, every US administration has had to deal with the threat posed by Iran’s revolutionary regime and the Biden administration is no different,” she told the convention. “Iran is one of the most urgent foreign policy issues on the president’s desk.”
Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy
Flournoy called for what she described as an “internal regime change” in the Islamic Republic.
Iran slams the presence of certain Western politicians in a summit organized by the MKO terrorist group, saying they are selling themselves cheap for the circus.
In an attempt to draw attention to the “chaos” allegedly caused by the Islamic Republic, Flournoy readily turned facts on their head and offered a twisted and cut-down view of regional developments to the delight of MEK members.
For instance, she accused Iran of “attacking American forces in Iraq with ballistic missiles.” But she failed to mention that the January 8, 2020 surgical strike against Ain al-Asad, a sprawling airbase housing American troops in western Iraq, was in response to the brazen assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike days earlier.
Flournoy also said, truly, that “Iran has shot down Americana drones.” But, again, she left out the part that the RQ-4A Global Hawk surveillance drone had simply violated Iran’s airspace.
Social media abuzz with reactions to Michele Flournoy’s speech at MKO summit
Journalists and other users took to Twitter to react to Flournoy’s speech.
“Michele Flournoy nearly became Biden’s Defense Secretary and co-founded the WestExec corporate influence peddling firm that sent 15 consultants into Biden’s White House. Now she’s shilling for the MEK cult that carries out assassinations & destabilizes Iran. Pure sleaze,” tweeted Max Blumenthal, editor at The Grayzone News.
Michele Flournoy nearly became Biden’s Defense Secretary and co-founded the WestExec corporate influence peddling firm that sent 15 consultants into Biden’s White House. Now she’s shilling for the MEK cult that carries out assassinations & destabilizes Iran. Pure sleaze. https://t.co/OUvmewVwat
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) July 11, 2021
Others said that politicians like Flournoy were not oblivious to what the MKO represents, but they nevertheless risk their reputation by addressing such events in return for the “fat checks” they receive.
“It’s frankly absurd to imagine that people like Mike Pompeo and Michele Flournoy don’t know what the MEK is or what it represents,” wrote Gregory Brew, a historian at the history department of Georgetown University in Washington DC. “They know what it means to take the money and speak at these events. And they do it anyway.”
This is a good piece, but it’s frankly absurd to imagine that people like Mike Pompeo and Michele Flournoy don’t know what the MEK is or what it represents.
They know what it means to take the money and speak at these events. And they do it anyway. https://t.co/vJZG7nqXIS
— Gregory Brew (@gbrew24) July 11, 2021
“It isn’t that Michele Flournoy is naive enough to get duped by the terrorist cult MEK & speak at their conference for a fat check. She’s the ‘Democratic’ side of the same warmongering coin that wants to regime change Iran & destroy the lives of its 85 million people,” posted Sina Toossi a senior research analyst who writes for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy magazines.
It isn’t that Michele Flournoy is naive enough to get duped by the terrorist cult MEK & speak at their conference for a fat check. She’s the “Democratic” side of the same warmongering coin that wants to regime change Iran & destroy the lives of its 85 million people. pic.twitter.com/NYu2oEd34F
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) July 11, 2021
Jacob Silverman, a journalist with The New Republic, a left-wing American magazine, said that it was embarrassing for a career politician like Flournoy to address a terrorist organization and call its work “important.”
“I watched Michele Flournoy’s MEK speech. Mostly pro-Biden pabulum, but the whole thing is embarrassing, especially for a Serious Person. She called for ‘internal regime change’ and said MEK’s work was ‘important,’” he posted on his Twitter page.
I watched Michele Flournoy’s MEK speech. Mostly pro-Biden pabulum, but the whole thing is embarrassing, especially for a Serious Person. She called for “internal regime change” and said MEK’s work was “important.”https://t.co/n9zzxR6ntF (starts around 1:37)
— Jacob Silverman (@SilvermanJacob) July 11, 2021
Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks over the past four decades, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the MKO’s acts of terror.
During former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s war on Iran, which lasted eight years, MKO members were armed and equipped by the Iraqi regime to fight against Iran.
The MKO was designated a terrorist organization by the United States for 15 years before it was delisted in 2012, following an intense lobbying campaign by pressure groups in Washington and Iranian exiles. The European Union (EU) also removed the MKO from its list of terrorist organizations in 2009.
The anti-Iran terrorists enjoy freedom of activity in the US and Europe and hold meetings with American and EU officials.
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers will address an online gathering of the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO) terrorist organization.
A few years ago, MKO members were relocated from their Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s Diyala Province and later sent to Albania, where they now reside and continue their anti-Iran activities.
The group throws lavish conferences every year in the French capital, Paris, with senior American, Western, and Saudi Arabian officials in attendance as guests of honor.
Every year the notorious cult and “former” terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) holds a political conference to promote its propaganda and call for regime change in Iran, and every year many current and former American, Canadian, and European officials and elected representatives line up to pay homage to the group and their leader, Maryam Rajavi. Members of both major parties in the U.S. have either traveled to the group’s compound in Albania or spoken remotely through video messages in exchange for hefty speaking fees for the last ten years. The annual parade of prominent officeholders and policymakers that offer up effusive praise to such a wretched group is an ongoing disgrace for the United States and its allies, and it is a symptom of deeper problems with our foreign policy.
This show of support for the MEK reflects the extent to which our foreign policy debates are distorted and corrupted by the lobbying efforts of foreign groups and governments alike. No one knows for sure where the MEK gets its money, but there is reason to believe that it may be coming from the Saudi government and/or Saudi individuals. In recent years, prominent Saudis have begun participating in MEK events, and that coincided with the kingdom’s intensifying hostility towards Iran in the last decade. Our Iran policy debate is being influenced to an alarming degree by an extremist cult and an increasingly repressive authoritarian client state, and none of that can be good for American interests or democratic accountability in our foreign policy.
American support for the MEK reminds us that bipartisanship in foreign policy usually means rallying behind exceptionally bad causes. This year’s conference was described in one report as a “rare moment of bipartisan unity,” as if this somehow made cheering on a deranged cult better. The pro-MEK boosterism also shows that there are far too many people in and around our government that will make common cause with absolutely anyone if they are in favor of regime change in Iran. That in turn is a measure of just how irrational our government’s fixation on Iran is.
Photo MEK have been the US’ and Israel’s terrorists for some time
The MEK was originally an armed group opposed to the Iranian monarchy before the revolution, and during that period it was also responsible for killing several Americans. The MEK supported taking and keeping US diplomats hostage. After the group fell out with Khomeini and were brutally purged, the group relocated to Iraq where they joined with Saddam Hussein to attack their own country. Their participation in Iraq’s attack on Iran has earned them the enduring loathing of almost all Iranians everywhere, and for that reason and others they have virtually no support in Iran or in the diaspora. While the MEK was officially removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2012 after an extensive lobbying campaign, it remains a totalitarian, cultish organization that abuses its own members. There is good reason to believe that members of the group still act as cat’s paws for Israeli intelligence in carrying out assassinations and acts of sabotage inside Iran. As part of the group’s effort to remake its image, it uses a political front organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), to create the impression that the MEK has changed and committed itself to democracy.
The MEK has not changed. They remain at their core the same militant and extremist organization they have been for decades. Cheering on the MEK is as crazy and irresponsible as endorsing the Lord’s Resistance Army or defending the Khmer Rouge, and it is not an accident that the group has sometimes been likened to the latter. Unfortunately, because they hate the Iranian government and make the right noises about democracy, they are given a free pass and Iran hawks embrace them as allies. In the past, participants in MEK summits have ranged from Newt Gingrich, John Bolton, and Rudy Giuliani to Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, and John McCain. This year it included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, the current Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez, his fellow New Jerseyan Sen. Cory Booker, and many other members of Congress. The speakers routinely declare that the MEK and its allies are the “real” opposition working towards “secular democracy,” they denounce the Iranian government, and they call for some form of regime change.
Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy
Flournoy’s participation in the conference this year proved to be especially controversial since she is a major figure in Democratic national security circles and had frequently been mentioned as a possible Biden nominee for Secretary of Defense earlier in the year. In her remarks, she expressed hope for “internal regime change” in Iran, and congratulated the assembled audience for their work: “we must continue to applaud and support the important work of Diaspora groups like yours that keep alive the vision of a secular, free, and democratic Iran.”
Faced with a swift backlash online, Flournoy now claims that she didn’t know that she was speaking at an MEK event and wouldn’t have participated had she known, but it strains credulity that she was unaware of the nature of the event and its sponsor. A simple web search would have shown the relationship between the NCRI and the MEK, as well as the violent and disturbing history of the cult. Frankly, it is impossible to believe that she didn’t know who she was addressing.
The language that Flournoy used in her speech sounds too much like the standard pro-MEK talking points that other speakers have used for the last decade, and the MEK’s lobbying efforts are too well-known and have been going on too long for her to plead ignorance. It is notable that Flournoy felt the need to concoct a cover story to excuse her participation, since most pro-MEK shills take pride in what they do, but her excuse isn’t credible. Even if her explanation were true, it doesn’t excuse the horrible lack of judgment that she displayed here. If she didn’t understand that she was addressing an MEK event, she shouldn’t be offering advice on Iran policy or holding forth on the political future of Iran.
The MEK is a dangerous and disreputable group. They ought to be so politically radioactive that no one would want to be associated with them, but that has not happened because Iran hawks from both parties and in many other Western countries find the MEK useful to their agenda. Supporting the MEK allows them to mislead ignorant audiences into falsely believing that their hard-line policies enjoy support from the Iranian Diaspora No one who knows anything about Iran thinks that the MEK deserves support or has any support back in Iran, so whenever someone celebrates the group that is all the proof you need that nothing else that person says about Iran and Iran policy should be taken seriously.
Iran hawks and the MEK are both obsessed with regime change in Iran. Since they cannot achieve it from within Iran, it is just a matter of time before the cult’s yes-men in Washington push for military action aimed at toppling the government. Just as they sided with Saddam Hussein to attack their own country over forty years ago, the MEK wants to rope the US into fighting another war against Iran. If we want to prevent that war from happening in the future, the MEK’s cheerleaders need to be exposed to ridicule and criticism over their willingness to support a group that has both American and Iranian blood on its hands.
Daniel Larison is a contributing editor and weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
by Daniel Larison ,