March 19, 2024

Washington Times, January 14, 2009: 10 Point Plan for Future of Iran

 

Washington Times, January 14, 2009: 10 Point Plan for Future of Iran

Washington Times, January 7, 2009: EP Group Calls on US to Delist MEK

Washington Times, January 7, 2009: EP Group Calls on US to Delist MEK

Increasing Pressure on Iranian Opposition in Iraq

PolicyWatch #1394
By Raymond Tanter
August 4, 2008

Throughout summer 2008, Iraqi politicians tied to Tehran have put increasing political pressure on the U.S. government to allow Baghdad to control Camp Ashraf, the base housing Iran’s main opposition — the Mujahedin e Khalq (MEK). Options regarding Iraqi-based MEK members are limited, but include the following: sending them to the United States; allowing them to stay in Iraq under Iraqi control; dispersing them to surrounding countries, including Iran; or maintaining the status quo with the continued protection of the U.S. military. Since each option is problematic, finding a solution is neither easy nor simple.

Escalating Pressure

On July 4, 2008, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, called for MEK’s expulsion from Iraq, adding that the group “instigates tribal conflicts, interferes in the internal affairs of Iraq, and creates hostility between the parliament and government of Iraq and the Iraqi electorate.” On July 8, Iraqi government spokesman Abbas Bayati told al-Zaman: “The presence of the Mujahedin Organization in Iraq is illegal. We will ask the United States to put Camp Ashraf, the [MEK’s] bastion, under the control of the Iraqi government.”

On July 9, an English language agency of the Iranian regime, Press TV, reported, “Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari has declared the imminent expulsion of members of Mujahedin-e Khalq from Iraq.” And on July 10, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kezemi-Qomi, told Press TVthat “an Iraqi committee has been formed to expel the . . . [MEK] from the country.”

International Law

International humanitarian law is vital to the MEK issue, especially if the group’s adversaries succeed in their efforts. Coalition forces recognize the residents of Ashraf as “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention, as does the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). In 2004, the ICRC reiterated its position in a letter stating: “Those persons who are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention remain protected by the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

And in March 2007, the ICRC reminded relevant authorities “of their obligations to act in accordance with the principle of non-refoulement [a term in international law that concerns the protection of refugees dispersed to countries where they would face persecution] when transferring persons to another state or authority.” This statement is an acknowledgment of the nontransferable status of the protection of Ashraf under the present circumstances.

During the same year, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reiterated its position that “bodies of international law, particularly international humanitarian law and human rights law, have positive relevance to the Ashraf situation and could confer protections on individuals who fear serious risks if returned to their country of origin.” As such, UNHCR cautioned Iraqi authorities and the coalition “to refrain from any action that could endanger the life or security of these individuals, such as their forcible deportation from Iraq or their forced displacement inside Iraq.”

In February 2006, Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner, the coalition’s deputy commanding general, reiterated the protected-persons status of the people of Ashraf. He acknowledged coalition responsibilities regarding the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of civilians, stating, “The coalition remains deeply committed to the security and rights of the protected people of Ashraf and the principle of non-refoulement.”

Problematic Options

Assuming a transfer of MEK members were possible, many questions remain regarding their destination. There are many reasons why it would be difficult for the European and U.S. governments, or Iraq’s Kurdish regional bloc, to accept the MEK en masse to their territories.

Moving the group’s members to the United States, for instance, is currently impossible because of MEK’s status as a foreign terrorist organization. This status could change, however, if the designation is lifted in October 2008 when the Department of State performs a regular review process. This appears to be a viable possibility given recent developments in the United Kingdom, where the British government was forced to remove the group from its terrorist list after an independent judicial commission — one ratified by a British appeals court — determined that such a designation was no longer appropriate.

If Ashraf’s security responsibilities were transferred to Iraqi security forces, as demanded by the Iranian regime, it would be a flagrant violation of international laws and conventions. Since it is widely reported that the Iranian regime has infiltrated Iraqi military and security forces, and wields significant influence within the government, such a move would certainly invite a humanitarian catastrophe. No U.S. president would want to leave such a legacy.

Moreover, dispersing the MEK, in addition to being illegal, is likely to decrease the international community’s leverage over the Iranian regime. Because the regime pays more attention to the opposition in Iraq than all other opposition groups combined, a case could be made to rely on the MEK as leverage to encourage Tehran to give up its quest for nuclear weapons capability.

Conclusion

If MEK members remain in Iraq under the protection of U.S. forces, such an arrangement should be explicit in agreements negotiated between Iraq and the United States. Given that military components of the Iraqi government cannot be trusted to provide security for Ashraf and guarantee protected persons status conferred under the Fourth Geneva Convention, transfer to Iraqi control would risk a humanitarian disaster.

The argument for protecting the human rights of MEK members need not be based on a favorable view of the organization. One need not accept or reject the claim by some that the group provides useful intelligence, or that it is an important means to unsettle Tehran.

It would be especially unfortunate if the treatment of the MEK was harsher because of a desire to secure concessions from Tehran on the nuclear impasse. Not only is it inappropriate to abandon the principles of human rights for concessionary purposes, but such an approach would be counterproductive on the nuclear front. This strategy would show Iran that its nuclear program has won it leverage on unconnected issues — thus reducing Iran’s incentive to abandon its program — and it would destroy what is arguably Tehran’s main opposition.

Raymond Tanter, a visiting professor of government at Georgetown University, is an adjunct scholar at The Washington Institute, researching U.S. policy options toward Iran.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2919

A Roadmap for the Foreign Terrorist Organizations List

PolicyWatch #1366

By Patrick Clawson
April 25, 2008

Although the Foreign Terrorist Organizationslist has a set of criteria for designating groups, there is little clarity in practice about the process for revocation. Even after organizations have renounced terrorism for many years, their designations persist without a clear explanation, and are based on the assumption that historical violence indicates future potential.

A November 2007 court ruling by the UK’s Proscribed Organizations Appeals Commission (POAC) ordered the British government to remove the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran — known to the U.S. government as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) — from its terrorist organizations list. This decision, along with a similar decision by the European Court of First Instance (a level below the European Court of Justice), and the mandatory review of the group’s designation by the U.S. State Department in October 2008, provides an opportunity to evaluate how terrorist designation is assessed. According to the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Protection Act, if no designation review is conducted during a five-year period, the U.S. secretary of state must determine whether a revocation is appropriate.

The Role of Non-Terrorist Criteria

Any designation review should be based only on terrorism issues, not on the general U.S. government view of the organization in question. If the decision to designate a group is made on foreign policy considerations rather than evidence, then the list will be branded as a political instrument, thus reducing its utility as a means for encouraging other governments to take action against certain terrorist organizations. This is what happened to the list of terrorism-sponsoring states, which simply looks like a set of countries the U.S. government does not like.

In the MEK’s case, its designation should not be based on the group’s political stance or worries about U.S.-Iranian relations, nor should it be a reward for its reports on Iran’s nuclear activities. Over the past three years, the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism have cited no alleged MEK terrorist activity since 2001, yet have increased allegations pertaining the group’s non-terrorist activities. The 2007 edition of the Reports, due out by the end of April 2008, is bound to continue this trend.

These allegations — support for the U.S. embassy takeover in Tehran in 1979, allegiance to Islamic Marxism, suppression of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites, participation in the oil for food scandal, and the self-immolation of its supporters during protests — are not related to the legal criteria for terrorist designation and are probably meant to discredit the MEK. These allegations are irrelevant, and some are also based on contestable evidence. This example of irrelevant information reinforces the need for the State Department to create explicit guidelines by which it moves a group from designation to revocation.

Dealing with History

History plays an important part in terrorist designation, especially when considering groups that no longer participate in violent activity. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is one such example. The PLO clearly used to be a terrorist group, but now enjoys good relations with the United States. Since the PLO complied with the 1993 Declaration of Principles and renounced terrorism, the organization was not listed on the State Department’s first edition of its Foreign Terrorist Organizations list in 1997 or in President Clinton’s 1995 Executive Order 12947 on Middle East terrorism. Since the reevaluation of the PLO designation preceded the creation of the State Department list and the subsequent legislation regulating the process of review, the PLO case provides little insight into how revocation would occur under the current system.

In contrast, the November 2007 POAC ruling is a more recent and relevant example of terrorist designation review. In fact, the 144-page POAC ruling addresses the historical actions of the MEK in detail. Regarding the past seven years, the POAC finds,

Whatever the accurate characterization of the organization’s activities between 1980 and 2001, the position in 2006-2007 is radically different, and has been so since 2001…The [MEK] has conducted no military activity of any kind since about August 2001, whether in Iran or elsewhere in the world…This is attributable to a deliberate decision of the [MEK] made at an extraordinary congress held in Iraq in June 2001, namely, to abandon all military action (or activities) in Iran…There is no evidence that the [MEK] has at any time since 2003 sought to re-create any form of structure that was capable of carrying out or supporting terrorist acts. There is no evidence of any attempt to “prepare” for terrorism. There is no evidence of any encouragement to others to commit acts of terrorism…. The above factors, combined with the 5 years that had since passed since the summer of 2001, demanded the conclusion that continued proscription could not be lawfully justified.

Inherent in the POAC order to revoke MEK’s designation — an order the UK government is appealing — are three principles: the organization’s formal decision to renounce violence, the cessation of terrorist activity, and the five year period of peace. Perhaps the Department of State does not want to use these particular principles when re-evaluating a group’s terrorist designation, but it should adopt a set of guidelines and explain them to the public. It should also explain how it applies those principles in each case; if the MEK is designated, some specific reasons should be given. Preferably, the State Department should provide a road map for what a designated group must do to be removed from the list. For the MEK, what, if anything, must it do to show it has renounced terrorism in practice as well as in theory.

Conclusion

While the State Department routinely reinstated MEK’s designation as a terrorist group on April 8, it must do a more formal and in-depth review by October 2008. That review’s decision should be based on two factors. First, the State Department should only decide if the group is or is not a terrorist group, and not bring in irrelevant information. The criteria should be used in an unbiased, professional manner, relying on evidence rather than prejudice or rumor.

Second, the decision should be based on clear set of rules regarding how the U.S. government revokes this kind of designation. At present, it seems that past terrorist activities — no matter how old or far removed — are susceptible to being interpreted as evidence of future potential, consequently justifying a group’s continued designation. In contrast, the POAC has set forward several useful principles for evaluating an organization’s violent past and peaceful present; the U.S. government should do the same.

Patrick Clawson is deputy director for research at The Washington Institute.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2808

Mojahedin of Iran are “not concerned with terrorism”

Friday, 25 January 2008
Source: Le Soir, Belgium daily

By maintaining the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) on the European list of terrorist organizations, the 27 EU countries are “no longer following the rule of law… PMOI’s fundamental rights continue to be violated,” says a report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted on Wednesday by an overwhelming majority.

And what about a case of an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland, found innocent in the courts of Italy and Switzerland, but fails to remove his name from the list of terrorists drawn up by the U.N. Security Council? Neither Bern nor Rome do have the requisite powers to counter the injustice in New York. Worse still, the two capitals may not know why the individual was placed on blacklist.

The report that has been prepared by a Swiss parliamentarian, the chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights was ratified by the almost unanimous vote on Wednesday after a long debate. Dick Marty is the same person who had investigated the CIA flights.

Mr. Marty explained that the development of such lists had “nothing to do with the law”, was the result of a “political deal”, and that this was a “totally unacceptable system”, “perverse” (the word was used by a London court to describe proscription used against the Iranian opposition movement, PMOI).

“We cannot fight Terrorism with injustice. These blacklists are our Guantanamo, “said Marty. The vote on the report by 101 in favor, 3 against and 4 abstentions, is revealing: the rare opposition came from British, Polish and Romanian parliamentarians.

In political terms, the report confirms the injustice done to the main Iranian opposition movement, PMOI, despite favorable judgments handed down in 2006 and 2007 by the courts in Luxembourg and London. As a reminder, PMOI is a previously armed movement – its latest military operations dates back to June 2001 – which Britain has placed in March 2001 on its national list of banned organizations. London then put pressure on the EU to add this organization to its list.

Since then, the Mojahedin are fighting in two fronts – Luxembourg and London – to get them off the lists. Their argument, recently confirmed in law: Only it is London that alleges them based on single report secret evidence that is empty and fueled by the Tehran regime and broadcasted by London and Brussels.

The game in London is more astonishing, as stated yesterday by the British socialist Rudi Vis, if we finally recognize that PMOI had “not been concerned with terrorism” this would enable the Mojahedin to present itself as the “main opposition” to the mullahs, which would mean “taking a big step in the establishment of democracy in Iran.”

The first court victory by PMOI goes back to December 2006 when the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, found that the evidence that Europe gathered were insufficient. Brussels has responded by adopting a “new policy”, a trick that obsoletes the judgment. The latest European list of terrorist organizations, released in December, continues to consider PMOI as “terrorist”. But according to the report which has just voted on Wednesday by the Council of Europe, the new EU regulation suffers the same deficiencies as the previous legislation: “In all cases, the ‘new’ procedures are also as failing as that previous” Marty noted in the report.

And already PMOI has taken the new procedures, as a matter of urgency, to the European Court. The victory of PMOI is clear on this front and one can expect that Brussels will be more readily condemned. Since it was the London which has nourished a pseudo-intelligence dossier against the Mojahedin, they have attacked the British list. Since the list is prepared on the basis of secret documents; it should take a special administrative court – Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission (POAC) – whose magistrates have security clearances required to consult the secret documents.

On 30 November, POAC delivered a judgment which is a slap in the face of London: the British government was forced to propose to parliament the withdrawal of PMOI form the list of banned organizations. Arguments: the Home Office has misinterpreted the law, has ignored important facts, and ultimately took a “perverse” decision against the PMOI. This is good news for the Iranian opposition. But as recalled Dick Marty, it is still 370 people in the world (including one Italian-Swiss) whose assets are frozen when they were merely “suspected” of terrorism.

The report was translated from French by NCRI-FAC

MEK sense: Lift ‘Terror’ Designation on Iranian Group

The Washington Times

Since the theocratic regime of Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in 1979, and under Khomeini’s successors, Iran has consistently out-maneuvered the United States and our allies through a crafty combination of diplomatic manipulation; exploitation of commercial considerations; support for terrorists and kidnappers; the use of proxy agents in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere; and, in recent years, playing the nuclear card. 

Earlier this year, we were relieved to see the 15 British sailors and marines return home from their captivity in Iran unharmed. But it is shocking and galling that Iran managed to win a propaganda victory over the West through a brazen act of piracy on the high seas and clear violations of the Geneva Conventions’ rules on the treatment of prisoners. 

Also this month, U.S. military commanders have reported that Iran is supplying weapons to both Sunni and Shi’ite militias in Iraq — directly putting our troops at risk of death or serious injury, while causing a terrible toll for thousands of Iraqis on both sides of the Sunni-Shi’ite divide. 

And just in the past few days, in utter defiance of the world community, Iranian officials have confirmed that 3,000 centrifuges used to enrich uranium are in place at the illicit nuclear facility at Natanz and that the goal is to eventually install 50,000 centrifuges. 

These recent developments, on top of Iran’s ongoing efforts to spread its extremist jihadist ideology, have brought us to a crisis point in dealing with the Iranian threat. We need to develop a better strategy to protect our national interests and the security of our friends and allies in the region. 

As members of Congress from opposite sides of the aisle, we have been working for years to inject new policy ideas into the U.S. framework for dealing with Iran. It is clear that the United States and the international community must make better use of all the tools at our disposal for dealing with the multiple threats emanating from Iran. 

These tools include a range of financial and economic sanctions. Bipartisan legislation is currently pending in Congress to strengthen existing sanctions regimes by preventing new investment in Iran’s oil and gas sector and requiring the divestiture of existing investments. We strongly support our colleagues’ initiatives in these areas. But, to be truly effective, sanctions must be multilateral. Tehran has been able to count on China and Russia to push for the weakening of measures proposed by the United States. 

The official U.S. line regarding our policy toward Iran is that “all options are on the table.” Yet there is one vitally important option that is not “on the table,” but should be: empowering the Iranian democratic opposition, in general, and, specifically, recognizing one of the most effective and best organized Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK). 

The Iranian government has gone to tremendous lengths, both directly and indirectly, to discredit and weaken the MEK, largely through disinformation programs. Why is the regime so obsessively focused on a relatively small opposition group based largely in the Iranian diaspora? The MEK is a moderate, democratic, secular organization that has consistently opposed the regime’s extremist policies with a message of democratic reform and individual freedom — a message that Iran’s ruling mullahs don’t want their people to hear. 

Furthermore, the MEK has been a remarkably reliable source of intelligence on Iran’s clandestine nuclear program and on Iranian meddling in Iraq. 

But, in a bizarre twist of U.S. policy, the MEK has been labeled by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization, originally placed on the blacklist in 1997 as a concession to “moderates” in Tehran who were then believed to be ascendant — one of the regime’s key strategic victories over America and the West during the past three decades of fruitless negotiations. 

Listing the MEK as “terrorists” is both an injustice and manifestly contrary to U.S. interests. To remedy this situation, there is growing bipartisan support in Congress to urge Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to remove the MEK from the terrorist list, using procedures enacted into law in 2004 to de-designate listed organizations that no longer qualify for such treatment. 

The MEK has voluntarily disarmed and renounced violence. Despite inaccurate information to the contrary, the MEK has never targeted U.S. citizens or interests. 

The MEK, and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition of which MEK is a member, have tremendous reach inside of Iran and a capacity to help build a successful grassroots movement to bring about democratic reform. 

From its base in Iraq, where 3,800 MEK members live under the protection of coalition forces, the organization has provided intelligence on Iran’s support for terrorism in Iraq. Lt. Gen. David Odierno, commander of the Multinational Corps-Iraq, has described the MEK as “extremely cooperative” in ensuring security.

An Iran committed to a belligerent, revolutionary agenda will continue to threaten its neighbors and global security. Long-term stability in the Middle East depends upon a stable, secular, democratic Iran that does not export terror, violent upheaval and a radical ideology. Our efforts should be directed at fostering democratic change within Iran by empowering the very opposition organizations that share our goals and values.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican, represents Colorado’s 6th Congressional District. Rep. Bob Filner, a Democrat, represents California’s 51st Congressional District.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jun/14/20070614-085518-9253r/

Missing the Mark on Iran

FrontPageMagazine.com
By Ali Safavi
Friday, January 27, 2006

[Below is Ali Safavi’s response to Michael Rubin’s article on the Mujahedeen-e Khalq in our Leftwing Monsters series. Michael Rubin’s response to Mr. Safavi is also in this issue. You can read it by clicking here — The Editors]

As a sociologist who has known, closely studied the history and followed the activities of the main Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), in the past 34 years, I read with amazement and somewhat dismay Michael Rubin’s “Monsters of the Left,” (FrontPageMagazine, January 13, 2006)[i]. His article purports to be a scholarly survey of the assistance provided by “the Left” to the MEK.

I was amazed because the author claimed that “the Left [had] subsequently bolster[ed] [Massoud] Rajavi and empower[ed] the MKO [MEK].” Had he visited the voluminous literature[ii] on the MEK especially after the invasion of Iraq, he could have easily discovered that his anti-Mujahedeen tirade does nothing more than repeat what those who claim to champion the left have been uttering against the MEK on websites or in tabloid publications.

And I was dismayed because Rubin’s superficial and erroneous recounting of the history of the MEK degenerates into nothing more than a thinly-veiled effort to give his MEK-bashing the veneer of a well-researched paper. The effort, of course, fails miserably. The author attempts to denigrate the support that the MEK has enjoyed for more than two decades in the U.S. Congress and in Parliaments in Europe. He explains this away by suggesting that the MEK has enticed members by sending “pretty young women” to cultivate “friendly lawmakers and commentators” by offering them “Christmas baskets full of nuts and sweets.” Not only is this insulting to lawmakers, but it is also too shallow and silly to merit a response. (Jack Abramoff could have saved millions of dollars and career-destroying scandal if he had only known that Members of Congress have a weakness for pretty girls bearing dried apricots!) In some sense, Rubin’s snideness is perhaps a reaction to the unrivaled role women[iii] have been playing in the leadership of the Mujahedeen, particularly in the past 20 years. The MEK’s leadership council consists entirely of women and its Secretary General, elected every two years, is also a woman.

Recognizing that the attack on the MEK from the left flank got nowhere despite the discredited May 2005 Human Rights Watch report, Rubin claims now to be charging from the “right flank” toward the same objective: to thwart the growing consensus on both sides of the Atlantic that the last vestige of appeasement of the mullahs, the terrorist listing of the MEK as a terrorist organization, should be discarded. It is sadly ironic that when discussing the regime in Tehran and its main opponent, Mr. Rubin dances to the same tune as Tehran’s “leftist” apologists do.

As for the specific stale and discredited allegations wheeled out in Rubin’s piece, the following should be noted:

1.      The Mujahedeen have never denied they opposed the unconditional support given by the U.S. to the Shah’s corrupt dictatorship beginning with the August 1953 coup that overthrew Iran’s only nationalist and democratically elected government of Dr. Mossadeq, whom Rubin accuses of “flirting with mob violence.” After all, in recent months, both President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have boldly criticized the policy that justified backing dictatorships in the name of stability. “Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe — because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty,” President Bush told the National Endowment for Democracy last November.[iv]

2.      The three founders of the MEK were executed on the eve of President Nixon’s visit to Tehran in 1972. Those facts are not lost on the Iranian people who suffered under the Shah’s brutality for nearly a quarter century. The distorted assertion that the Shah’s “reforms catalyzed their [oppositionists’] growth” and the wishful contention that “ordinary Iranians… ask about Reza Pahlavi,” provide a glimpse into the author’s nostalgia about the return of the Pahlavi dynasty. There’s no dispute that Reza Pahlavi does not even have a number on the bench in any game plan for Iran’s political future.

3.      The familiar slur that the MEK is an “Islamic-Marxist” movement is an attempt to undercut its legitimacy. The Iranian scholar, Afshin Matin-Asgari describes the term “Islamic Marxism” as “an ingenious polemical label” used by the Shah’s regime in the 1970s to describe its enemies.[v] In fact, the history of the MEK shows a pronounced rejection of the premise and theory of Marxism. Massoud Rajavi’s philosophical discourse, delivered in a series of lectures in Tehran University in late 1979, clearly demonstrates this. Syracuse University professor Mehrzad Boroujerdi, points to Rajavi’s work as “perhaps the best example of the Mujahedeen’s ideological contemporaniety” which can be found in the pages of a 15-volume book Tabiyn-e Jahan (“Comprehending the World”), the organization’s foremost work on ideology. In it, Rajavi presents the Mujahedeen’s critique of the limitations of the positivism of August Comte, Max Planck, and Kant; the pragmatism of William James; Freudian psychoanalysis; Darwinian evolution; and a host of other Western “isms” such as scholasticism, scientism, empiricism, and rationalism. Rajavi saves his most extensive critical commentary for Marxist materialistic epistemology. The book’s chief target is the Russian biochemist Aleksander Ivanovich Oparin (1894-1980), whose theory on the origin of life was first formulated in 1922. By subjecting the materialistic doctrines of Oparin and a host of other orthodox Marxist thinkers to a philosophical critique, the Mujahedeen hoped to challenge the vigorous presence of Marxism within Iranian intellectual circles. The group remained skeptical of Marxism’s philosophical postulates and rejected the latter’s cardinal doctrine of historical materialism. It held firm to the beliefs in the existence of God, revelation, the afterlife, the spirit, salvation, destiny, and the people’s commitment to these intangible principles.[vi]

4.      Rubin absurdly tasks Rajavi with the belief that “death during armed struggle, was consistent with traditional Shi‘i glorification of martyrdom.” Suffice it to quote Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”[vii] No one likes to see their loved ones killed, but many around the world who find themselves in that situation derive solace from the notion that their deaths promoted the cause of freedom. The Mujahedeen does not believe in violence as a matter of philosophy. Here’s what Rajavi said on the subject 22 years ago: “The Islam we profess does not condone bloodshed. We have never sought, nor do we welcome confrontation and violence. To explain, allow me to send a message to Khomeini through you… My message is this: If Khomeini is prepared to hold truly free elections, I will return to my homeland immediately. The Mujahedeen will lay down their arms to participate in such elections. We do not fear election results, whatever they may be… If Khomeini had allowed half or even a quarter of the freedoms presently enjoyed in France, we would have certainly achieved a democratic victory.”[viii]

5.      The author cites Ervand Abrahamian to substantiate the claim that the Mujahedeen “opposed the Islamic Republic only after Khomeini purged them from power.” Ironically, in a 1984 report to Lee Hamilton, then chairman of the House International Relations Committee, the Department of State wrote the opposite: “The Mujahedeen have never accepted the Khomeini regime as an adequate Islamic government. When Khomeini took power, the Mujahedeen called for continued revolution, but said they work for change within the legal framework of the new regime. The Mujahedeen also entered avidly into the national debate on the structure of the new Islamic regime. The Mujahedeen unsuccessfully sought a freely elected constituent assembly to draft a constitution.”[ix] It is rather baffling that Rubin has chosen to ignore the fact, obvious even to laymen in Iran, that the MEK’s dispute with Khomeini began in the mid-1970s, before he came to power, when Massoud Rajavi, then serving a life sentence in prison, wrote that Khomeini was a reactionary cleric. Rajavi’s principled position on the absolute need to respect hard fought freedoms also highlighted the differences between the Mujahedeen and Khomeini immediately after the anti-monarchic revolution. In one of many speeches, entitled “The Future of the Revolution,” in 1980 in Tehran University, Rajavi said, “How fitting that today we are again speaking on freedom at the university, the bastion of freedom. No progress and mobilization for the revolution would be conceivable without guaranteeing freedom for all parties, opinions and writings. If by freedom we specifically have in mind free and just relationships domestically, independence speaks to the same meaning in our foreign and international relations. We do not accept anything less in the name of Islam. Anything to the contrary would be deviation and regression and nothing more.”[x]  

6.      Similarly, the assertion that “the group sought to replace Khomeini’s dictatorship with its own,” flies in the face of what Rubin’s claimed “scholarly source,” Abrahamian, actually wrote about the MEK’s views in the days after the fall of the Shah: “In criticizing the regime’s political record, the Mujahedeen moved the issue of democracy to center stage. They argued that the regime had broken all the democratic promises made during the revolution; that an attack on any group was an attack on all groups; that the issue of democracy was of ‘fundamental importance…”[xi] This was entirely consistent with what Rajavi said in 1982 about the MEK’s profound belief in the electoral process: “The Mujahedeen profoundly believe that to avoid the deviations that beset contemporary revolutions throughout the world, they must remain wholeheartedly committed to the will of the public and democracy. If they are to act as a leading organization, before all else, the populace must give them a mandate in a free and fair election. It is not enough to have gone through the trials of repression, imprisonment, torture, and execution under the Shah and the mullahs. The Mujahedeen must also pass the test of general elections. If the Mujahedeen were to choose to compensate for the lack of popular mandate by relying on their past sacrifices or organizational prowess, or arms, their resilient, lively, and democratic organization would soon become a hollow, rotten bureaucracy… If the people don’t vote for us (after we have overthrown the mullahs’ regime), we shall remain in opposition, holding firmly to our principles.”[xii]

7.      “Terrorism, the deliberate targeting of civilians for political gain, should never be acceptable. Mitigating factors do not exist,” Rubin writes. I agree completely. But nothing that the Mujahedeen has done in waging a struggle against the turbaned tyrants of Iran can be described as terrorism. To his credit, Rubin acknowledges that the ruling regime has denied the democratic opposition the chance to express itself peacefully and has slaughtered thousands of Mujahedeen. But accusing the Mujahedeen of terrorism is rather like accusing the movement for American independence, or the French resistance against the Nazi occupation, of terrorism. The Mujahedeen has never targeted civilians, period.  The fact is that in the face of Khomeini’s bloody onslaught, the Mujahedeen exercised its inalienable right, stated in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression.”[xiii] This right has also been recognized by the Catholic Church.  In a press conference in 1986, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then the President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and now Pope Benedict XVI, unveiled a document, “Christian Liberty and Liberation,” according to which “Armed struggle is the last resort to end blatant and prolonged oppression which has seriously violated the fundamental rights of individuals and has dangerously damaged the general interests of the country.”[xiv] America’s Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1775, “In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.”[xv] And the late John F. Kennedy added, “Those who make peaceful change (reform) impossible, make violent change (revolution) inevitable.”[xvi] So, yes, there has been armed struggle, but no, that is not the same as saying that there has been terrorism, practiced, sponsored, or supported.

8.      With reference to the allegations of Mujahedeen’s involvement in the suppression of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites after the 1991 Iraq war, Rubin has quoted a convenient source, whose group’s ties with the mullahs, especially before the fall of Saddam Hussein, are too well known. There is simply no truth to such allegations. In a 1999 letter to a court in the Netherlands, Iraq’s current Foreign Minister, another Kurd, wrote, “(We) can confirm that the Mujahedeen (sic) were not involved in suppressing the Kurdish people neither during the uprising nor in its aftermath. We have not come across any evidence to suggest that the Mujahedeen have exercised any hostility towards the people of Iraqi Kurdistan.”[xvii] More recently, after an exhaustive 16-month investigation of each and every member of the Mujahedeen by seven different agencies of the U.S. Government acknowledged that “there was no basis to charge any member of the group [MEK] with the violation of American law”[xviii] The Multi-National Force-Iraq in 2004 recognized the rights of the Mujahedeen as “protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention.”[xix] Had there been any evidence of Mujahedeen collusion with the former Iraqi government on any issue, let alone suppressing the Kurdish uprising, it would have surfaced by now. The recommendation by U.S. Lt. General Raymond Odierno that the terrorist designation of the MEK should be reviewed was not an isolated remark by an unsuspecting commander. Indeed, many U.S. officers and soldiers who have been dealing with the MEK in Camp Ashraf in the past three years, where a mutually cooperative and friendly spirit governs the MEK-U.S. relationship, readily acknowledge that the MEK is not a terrorist group, but a legitimate resistance.

9.      Rubin’s hostile invective belies his academic posturing. Here are some examples (there are others): “Rajavi’s life-long megalomaniacal quest for power and his backward blend of Marxism and Islamism;” “in the West, the group forbids its members from reading anything but MKO newspapers and publications;” and “in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, where many members sit in limbo following Saddam’s fall, MKO [MEK] minders enforce celibacy, employ cult methods to break down individual will, and shield members from unsupervised exposure to outsiders.” I seriously doubt that anyone can believe that in the Information Age, an organization can prevent its members from reading publications of outsiders. A 2005 report published by a group of European Parliamentarians, who visited Camp Ashraf last fall, refutes Rubin’s claims.[xx] One can only wonder how much such absurd mind-control could go on, while a couple of U.S. Military Police battalions are on guard around Camp Ashraf 24/7. Maybe this too can be explained through the offering of “baskets of nuts and sweets” by “pretty young women,” this time in military uniforms!

10.  The Mujahedeen has made it clear that it had nothing to do with the killing of U.S. military advisors and contractors in Iran 30-plus years ago, in the early 1970s. Absent again is any reference in Rubin’s “academic” work to the MEK’s repeated and unequivocal denials of involvement in those incidents. Even Rubin admits that the Shah’s CIA-trained secret police, the SAVAK, arrested the entire leadership and 90 percent of the MEK members by August-September 1971. All of the leaders, including the three founders, were executed by May 1972, before the attacks on the U.S. advisors. The assassins of the Americans were Marxists who took control after the sweeping raids in 1971 decimated the organization. The same Marxists also murdered those Mujahedeen who refused to espouse Marxism.[xxi] While in prison, Rajavi wrote that the killing of the Americans was an attempt to bolster the coup plotters’ credibility and to overshadow the bloody purge they had carried out in the MEK.[xxii] The Council of Foreign Relations wrote in summer 2002, “Some experts say the attack may have been the work of a Maoist splinter faction operating beyond the Rajavi leadership’s control.”[xxiii] Rubin does not tarry to consider such a possibility.

11.  As for the MEK’s supposed lack of support within Iran and abroad, Rubin’s article actually demonstrates the opposite. How in the world could an organization survive without any popular support, after it was dealt a “mighty blow” by the Shah, had tens of thousands of its members massacred by Khomeini, had its bases heavily bombed by U.S. and British warplanes, despite its neutrality in the Iraq war, and had its name included in the terrorist watch list with dire and ongoing consequences? Mr. Rubin and like-minded pundits used to claim that the MEK got millions from Saddam. Could they please explain who bankrolls the MEK now?

12.  At a rally in Brussels last November, some 35,000 Iranians of all walks of life turned out to voice support for the MEK. Earlier, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to address the United Nations in September, some 20,000 were on hand at a pro-MEK rally across the street. (By the way, there were a grand total of 200 monarchists also present).  And this past Thursday, thousands turned out at a rally outside the White House, voicing support for the group. As for the extent of support for the MEK in “the power centers of Washington,” the Mujahedeen has enjoyed the support of a majority in the House of Representatives and of 30 senators on a number of occasions. The lawmakers have rejected the “terrorist” label assigned to the MEK, which they consider a legitimate opposition group. And they have voiced that support while fully aware of all the tired allegations rehashed by Rubin.

13.  Rubin’s rationale in dismissing the MEK’s effectiveness in revealing Tehran’s nuclear secrets is also bizarre. He concedes the point, but then writes that “is more a result of corruption and the Islamic Republic’s crumbling control over its periphery. The MKO–and any other group–can bribe officials and penetrate defenses,” he wrote. Earlier, those on the “left,” were claiming that it was actually Israeli intelligence services that had obtained the information, but passed it on to the MEK to reveal![xxiv] If that is all it takes, one wonders why have western intelligence services, as resourceful as they are, not succeeded in “brib[ing] officials and penetrate[ing] defenses?”

14.  The source of Rajavi’s power lies not in Washington, Paris, London, Berlin or Rome; it lies in the hearts and minds of millions of Iranians, many of whom continue to join the ranks of the MEK even after the war in Iraq. I happened to see a photograph of graffiti on a Tehran wall after the MEK voluntarily handed over its weapons to the U.S. military in May 2003. It said, “Disarmed Mujahedeen, our hearts are your weapons.” Ironically, the venomous campaign of character assassination by the “left,” Rubin and, of course, the Iranian regime, have put Rajavi in the company of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mohammad Mossadeq, Charles de Gaulle and Martin Luther King, Jr., as a champion of liberty. Frankly, that’s not bad company.

15.  The fact remains that neither the U.S. nor the Europeans have succeeded in formulating an effective policy to contain the growing nuclear and fundamentalist threats posed by the Tehran regime. The MEK’s warnings about Islamic fundamentalism emerging as the new global threat, beginning in 1993, have gone unheeded.[xxv] Attempts at striking a deal with the cunning mullahs of Iran failed in 1985, when the U.S. sent them a cake, a pistol and the Bible, and, of course Hawk missiles and was willing to declare that the MEK was terrorist.[xxvi] The same thing happened when the Clinton administration eased the sanctions on Tehran and designated the MEK as terrorists in 1997,[xxvii] when the Bush administration bombed MEK camps in 2003[xxviii] and when the European Union blacklisted the group in return for Iran’s compliance with its nuclear obligations in 2004.[xxix] The efforts to appease Tehran led not to moderation but to the ascension of Ahmadinejad who is dubbed the “terminator” in Iran, not for his likeness to the California governor in his acting days, but for personally delivering coup de grace shots to more than 1,000 political opponents.

16.  The West is now faced with the prospect of the world’s most dangerous regime arming itself with the world’s most dangerous weapon. How does one thwart this threat? Rubin’s lashing out at the MEK, albeit cloaked under a facade of anti-Tehran rhetoric, would have the opposite effect. His implausible proposal to support nameless and faceless Iranians is more a pie in the sky than a practical and concrete solution to prevent the proliferation of fundamentalism sponsored by a nuclear power, headed by unaccountable and increasingly unpredictable leaders. Because, regardless of one’s opinion about the Mujahedeen, the litmus test of crafting any effective policy on Iran is how one deals with the MEK as Tehran’s greatest and most feared nemesis. The solution, as the Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi articulated during an address at the European Parliament in December 2004, lies neither in appeasement, nor in a shooting war. It is democratic change by the Iranian people and their organized resistance.[xxx] Labeling the main component of the resistance, the MEK, as “terrorist,” however, has hamstrung its potentials and posed as a serious barrier to realizing that change. The terrorist designation must be removed. As an anti-fundamentalist Muslim movement, the MEK is an ally and an asset in the fight for democracy in Iran and as the world is trying to grapple with the specter of Islamic fundamentalism threatening not just the Middle East, but Europe and America as well. A quarter century ago, former Undersecretary of State George Ball wrote, “The sloppy press habit of dismissing the Mujahedeen as ‘leftists’ badly confuses the problem. Masud [Massoud] Rajavi… is the leader of the movement. Its intention is to replace the current backward Islamic regime with a modernized Shiite Islam drawing its egalitarian principles from Koranic sources rather then Marx.”[xxxi] Had his advice been heeded, the history of Iran and the Middle East would have taken a very different course. We should not let the opportunity get by this time. The choice is ours.  

      Ali Safavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is President of Near East Policy Research, a foreign policy analysis firm in Washington, DC. You can visit his website at www.nepr.us.

Notes:

[i] Michael Rubin, “Monsters of the Left: The Mujahedeen al-Khalq,” http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20780

[ii] Justin Raimondo The Lying Game Revisited, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com. http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4031.    

[iii] Douglas Jehl, Camp Ashraf Journal, “Mullahs, Look! Women Armed and Dangerous,” The New York Times, December 30, 1996.

[iv] Remarks by President Bush at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, United States Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C., November 6, 2005, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031106-2.html. See also Condoleezza Rice, The Promise of Democratic Peace, Op-Ed, The Washington Post, December 11, 2005.

[v] Afshin Matin-Asgari, 2004. From social democracy to social democracy: the twentieth-century odyssey of the Iranian Left. In:  Cronin, Stephanie, editor. Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left: London and New York: Routledge Curzon. pp. 37-64 (cited originally in Iran Policy Committee, White Paper, Sept. 13, 2005, p. 42. http://www.iranpolicycommittee.org).

[vi] Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism. Syracuse (cited originally in Iran Policy Committee, White Paper, Sept. 13, 2005, p. 42. http://www.iranpolicycommittee.org).

[vii] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasjeff109180.html.

[viii] Massoud Rajavi, interview in L’Unité, Paris, January 1, 1984.

[ix] U.S. Department of State, unclassified report on the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, December 1984 (originally cited in Democracy Betrayed, a publication of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, March 1995, p. 100).

[x] Massoud Rajavi, “Future of the Revolution,” speech in Tehran University, January 10, 1980, text published in Mojahed, Vol. 2, no. 19.  January 15, 1980.

[xi] Ervand Abrahamian, Radical Islam: The Iranian Mujahedeen, (New Haven: Yale University, Press, 1989), p. 215.

[xii] Massoud Rajavi interview, in Nashriye Ettehadiye Anjomanhaye Daneshjuyane Mosalman Khareje Keshvar (Journal of the Union of Muslim Iranian Students Societies outside Iran), Paris, January 9, 1982, p. 3.

[xiii]  Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved by the General Assembly, December 10, 1948.

[xiv]  Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican, publication, April 5, 1986.

[xv]  Thomas Jefferson: Declaration on Taking Up Arms, 1775.(*) Papers 1:203, Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government, http://famguardian.org/Subjects/Politics/ThomasJefferson/jeff1478.htm 

[xvi]  Historical Quotes, http://www.muckraker-report.org/id88.html.

[xvii]  Jonathan Wright, US says Iraq-based Iran opposition aids Iraq government, , Reuters news agency, May 22, 2002

[xviii] Douglas Jehl, U.S. Sees No Basis to Prosecute Iranian Opposition ‘Terror’ Group Being Held in Iraq, The New York Times, July 27, 2004.

[xix] Official Statement by the Multi-National Force-Iraq, Maj. General Jeffrey Miller, Deputy Commanding General, July 2, 2004.

[xx] “The People’s Mujahedeen of Iran,” Mission Report, by Friends of A Free Iran, André Brie, Paulo Casaca (members of the European Parliament), Azadeh Zabeti, Esq., L’Harmattan, Paris:2005

[xxi] Sazman-e Paykar dar Rah-e Azadi-e Tabaqeh Kargar (Organization of Struggle in the Path of Emancipation of the Working Class),  The Middle East Journal, Vol. 41, No. 2, Spring 1987.

[xxii] Massoud Rajavi, writings in prison in 1976, first published as “Tahlil-e Amouzeshi-ye Bayaniye Apportunist-haye Chapnama,” (Educational Analysis of the Statement of the pseudo-Leftist Opportunists), (People’s Mujahedeen of Iran: spring 1979), pp. 237-239.

[xxiii] Council on Foreign Relations, summer 2002.

[xxiv] Seymour M. Hersh, The Coming Wars, What the Pentagon can now do in secret, New Yorker Magazine, January 24, 2005, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content?050124fa_fact.

[xxv] Mohammad Mohaddessin,  Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat, (Seven Locks Press: 2002, 2d Ed.).

[xxvi] John G Tower, Edmund S Muskie, Brent Scowcroft ,The Tower Commission Report, Introduction by R.W. Apple Jr., New York: Bantam Books: Times Books, c1987. pp. 359-361.

[xxvii] Norman Kempster, U.S. Designates 30 Groups as Terrorists, The Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1997. 

[xxviii] David S. Cloud, U.S. Bombs Iranian Fighters On Iraqi Side of the Border, The Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2003.

[xxix] Preparatory text for European proposals on Iranian nuclear program, Agence France Presse, October 21, 2004.

[xxx] Future of Iran: Oppression or Democracy, Friends of A Free Iran, European Parliament, December 15, 2004.

[xxxi] George W. Ball, Op-Ed, “Iran’s Bleak Future,” The Washington Post, August 19, 1981.