March 28, 2024

No Good Options for Iranian Dissidents in Iraq

PolicyWatch #1797

By Patrick Clawson

April 19, 2011 

In an April 8 confrontation at Camp Ashraf, Iraq — home to some 3,400 members of the Iranian dissident organization Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) — Iraqi army forces killed at least thirty-four people, according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. The clash highlighted an ongoing problem: what to do about the presence of several thousand people the Iraqi government badly wants to be rid of, when no other country to which they are willing to go will accept them. Distasteful as the current situation is, the status quo may be best.

The Confrontation

When Iraqi forces entered Camp Ashraf on April 8, Baghdad initially claimed that no shots had been fired. The government later changed its story, however, stating that three people had been killed in clashes between rock-throwing residents and security forces had simply been redeploying. On the day of the attack, the U.S. State Department announced, “Although we do not know what exactly transpired early this morning at Ashraf, this crisis and the loss of life was initiated by the Government of Iraq and the Iraqi military.

Under pressure, Baghdad allowed a UN team into Ashraf after a five-day delay. According to Pillay, “It now seems certain that at least 34 people were killed…including seven or more women…Most were shot, and some appear to have been crushed to death, presumably by vehicles…There is no possible excuse for this number of casualties.” Pillay’s account was consistent with footage released by the MEK showing columns of Iraqi armored personnel carriers entering the camp; vehicles are seen running down residents, and riflemen are seen shooting from close range, including at women. Camp witnesses have stated that 2,500 soldiers from eight battalions of Iraq’s Ninth and Fifth Divisions participated in the attack.

As Iraqi forces remain in position to launch further military action, a recent statement by an Iranian official called for additional assaults. According to a report by the Fars News Agency — often regarded as being close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s advisor for military affairs, Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, “praised the Iraqi army for its recent attack on the strongholds of the anti-Iran terrorist [MEK] and asked Baghdad to continue attacking the terrorist base until its destruction.”

MEK Background

Designated by the State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, the MEK was an underground opposition group in the shah’s Iran during the 1960s and 1970s. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the group fell out with the new regime, which imprisoned, tortured, and killed thousands of its members. The remnants fled to Iraqi sanctuaries, where they formed an armed force against Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War. There also is evidence that Saddam Hussein used the MEK against his domestic opponents, though the group denies this.

Today, Tehran loathes the MEK and continues to arrest, imprison, and execute accused members. The regime tends to blame the group for a great deal of Iranian dissident activity, including in cases where there is little evidence of any such link. In fact, the group disarmed following Saddam’s overthrow in 2003, and no credible evidence exists showing MEK military action since then. The MEK formally renounced violence in 2004, which provided the basis for U.S. acknowledgement of a ‘protected persons’ status. Initially protected by U.S. forces, Camp Ashraf has been under Iraqi control since 2009.

Alternatives

Washington has repeatedly stated its interest in resolving the Ashraf situation. As State Department spokesman Mark Toner put it on April 12, “We’re prepared to consider any assistance that we can — that is requested by the Government of Iraq to develop and execute a negotiated plan to address the future of Camp Ashraf.” Preparing such a plan will not be easy, however, because each available option is deeply flawed.

Repatriation to Iran. Camp residents have announced that their first choice would be to go to Iran, but only if the Islamic Republic agreed not to jail or persecute them for their past opposition efforts. Yet securing a guarantee that satisfied the residents would probably be difficult. And forcing MEK members to return to Iran against their will would violate several international agreements to which Iraq is party.

In 2007, UNHCR cautioned Baghdad to refrain from any action that could endanger the lives or security of camp residents, such as deportation to another country or forced displacement inside Iraq. Similarly, the International Committee of the Red Cross reminded Baghdad of its obligation to act in accordance with the principle of nonrefoulement — that is, refugees should not be dispersed to a place where they would fear persecution. Washington reiterated these concerns on April 12, noting how Iraqi authorities “have provided written assurances that Camp Ashraf residents would be treated humanely” and that none of them would be “forcibly transferred to any other country where they might face persecution.”

Settlement in a third country. If safe return to Iran proves impossible, camp leaders have stated that their second preference is to go to a European Union member country or the United States. But none of these countries is willing to take them. The State Department’s continued designation of the MEK as a terrorist entity makes resettling group members in the United States impossible. It also considerably weakens Washington’s leverage in urging other countries to accept them instead. The issue of whether the MEK actually belongs on the terrorism list was discussed in PolicyWatches 1366 and 1643. Here, it is appropriate to point out that the designation poses an important complication in resolving the diplomatic quandary over Ashraf.

A puzzling development is that UNCHR spokesman Andrej Mahecic recently said that agency is ready to accept applications for refugee status from camp residents if they sign individual statements renouncing violence as a means of achieving their goals. Although he contends that Ashraf residents have been unwilling to do so, the MEK disputes this.

Formal status in Iraq. If resettling in the West proves untenable as well, camp leaders have stated that they wish to remain in Iraq near the Iranian border in order to promote nonviolent resistance and keep hope alive for a return to Iran when the regime collapses. Yet formally accepting the presence of Ashraf residents is politically unacceptable to some of the largest parties in the Iraqi governing coalition, including those closest to Iran. Tehran has made the MEK presence a major issue in bilateral relations, and harassing the group is one way for Baghdad to cultivate better ties with the Islamic Republic.

The MEK and its allies have long held unrealistic expectations about what Washington might do on behalf of Ashraf residents, such as opposing the 2009 handover of security responsibility for the camp perimeter to the Iraqi government. U.S. supporters of the group argue that continued protection of the MEK presence in Ashraf should be an American objective in negotiations regarding post-2011 cooperation with Baghdad. Yet Washington is unlikely to take on a cause so controversial in Iraqi politics on behalf of a group the State Department insists is a terrorist organization.

Status Quo Better than Alternatives

Barring the emergence of another alternative, the most feasible way forward is for the MEK members to remain in Ashraf, provided there are no further attacks against the residents. When acting Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi visited Baghdad in January, Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari announced that Baghdad was “determined to deal with this [MEK] issue,” adding, “There are some humanitarian commitments to which our government is loyal, but fulfilling these undertakings should not harm Iraq’s national sovereignty.” That is a good formulation; now it is up to Washington to work with Baghdad to ensure that practice on the ground meets that standard. Toward that end, the United States should urge the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) to enhance its involvement. For example, the MEK and its friends in the U.S. Congress allege — and Baghdad denies — that the camp residents have been subject to harassment, psychological pressure from hundreds of loudspeakers, and medical restrictions. UNAMI or a similar agency could prove helpful as a neutral third-party arbiter able to report on the situation firsthand.

Patrick Clawson is director of research at The Washington Institute.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=3350

Delisting Iranian Opposition MEK, Measuring Change in US Policy on Iran

OpEdNews.com

A transatlantic rift in policy towards Iran seems to be closing rapidly as a momentum takes shape in different policy making circles in Washington to close the gap due to recent developments in North Africa and Middle East.  The momentum emanates from a call to reposition the West in support of newly forming democracies across the region, rather than the old approach of engaging tyrants for economic reasons and turning a blind eye on actions of governments towards their own people. Simply, the West wants to be on the right side of history as developments continue.

A major shift, pivotal in realizing this policy change is considered to be the approach towards a leading resistance movement from Iran, the National Council of Resistance of Iran and the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq organization or MEK.

Black listed by the United States back in late 90s as a foreign terrorist organization, in order to win favors with the Iranian regime, the MEK has recently been the subject of a tug-of-war in Washington DC as many top ranking personalities including some former officials of past and present administrations continue to call on the State Department to delist them. An action that would be perceived as a sign of extending US support for the Iranian people against Tehran’s theocratic rulers and a major policy change toward democratic movements in Iran and the rest of the region.

President Maryam Rajavi, the leading exiled Iranian opposition figure of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, who has spent the past thirty years trying to replace the Iranian regime with a secular democratic government, addressed a conference in Berlin last Saturday to lay down her plans for the future of Iran, to “establish freedom and democracy at any price.”

Rajavi told the conference that, “The Barbarism that kills people for attending demonstrations must end.” On the type of the future government in Iran she said, “The Iranian people want a pluralistic republic,” and that, “They want to choose all officials by their own direct vote.”

Rajavi also highlighted the importance of separation of religion from government and promised that freedom of religion will be respected in the future Iran and “No religion will have advantage over any other.”

On the subject of the MEK designation Rajavi criticized past American administrations to have helped the survival of the Iranian regime by blacklisting the MEK. “A policy that has continued in the current administration as well,” complained President Rajavi.

Another speaker at the conference was former European Commissioner, Gunter Verheugen. Referring to recent developments in the Arab world, he said, “Democracy and human rights are not demands specific only to the people in the West,” and uprising in Iran proved that, “The quarrel is not between Islam and Western Democracy but it is between freedom loving people and those who oppress them.” In these circumstances, he added, “The best representative of oppressed people is that country’s democratic opposition.” He concluded, “The rulers in Tehran have no right to speak for Iran,” and pointing to president Rajavi, Gunter continued, “As those who resist them, truly represent the Iranian people. ”

Rejecting MEK terrorist allegations, Gunter remembered Nelson Mandela and the ANC in South Africa, “They labeled him a terrorist for many years. ”

At the Conference speakers seemed to agree that a firm policy towards Iran and a serious sanctions regime along with delisting of the MEK from the US FTO list would show a new approach towards these developments.  Some called for official recognition of the MEK and the National Council of Resistance of Iran as a legitimate resistance movement and an alternative to dealing with the Iranian regime.

“We must recognize a democratic provisional government. We do not recognize any governments in Iran right now,” Said Howard Dean, former head of Democratic Party and 2004 US presidential candidate. “I propose that we do recognize a government in Iran.  You have just heard from the president.” He continued refereeing to Mrs. Maryam Rajavi.

Former Congressman, Patrick Kennedy, called for the repeal of the MEK listing as a terrorist organization as it “only serves the current regime.”

General Peter Pace, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Bush administration, noted that from what he knows and can understand, “the MEK should not be titled a terrorist organization.”  He also referred to an obstacle that he did not fully understand that kept the MEK on the FTO list.  He called for an open discussion to resolve the issue.

“The enemy is not the MEK,” said General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Clinton administration, “The enemy is the current regime in Iran,” he continued and stressed that the current regime in Iran has to be dealt with as it “attempts to impost control over the entire region.”  He described the current Iranian regime to be the “largest exporter of terrorism in the world,” which is seeking nuclear capabilities and criticized the listing of the MEK as it “weakened the support of the best organized internal resistance movement to counter a terrorist oriented, anti-Western world, anti-democratic regime in the region.”

Other participants in the conference included, former FBI Director, Louis J. Freeh, State Department’s Policy Planning Director, Mitchell Reiss, and former Attorney General, Michael Mukasey.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Delisting-Iranian-Oppositi-by-Nima-Sharif-110409-542.html

Obama, Iran and a push for policy change

REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

Could the administration of President Barack Obama hasten the downfall of Iran’s government by taking an opposition group off the U.S. list of terrorist organizations? To hear a growing roster of influential former government officials tell it, the answer is yes.

The opposition group in question is the Mujadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) and the growing list of Washington insiders coming out in its support include two former Central Intelligence Agency chiefs (James Woolsey and Michael Hayden), two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Peter Pace and Hugh Shelton), former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge and former FBI head Louis Freeh.

The MEK was placed on the terrorist list in 1997, a move the Clinton administration hoped would help open a dialogue with Iran, and since then has been waging a protracted legal battle to have the designation removed. Britain and the European Union took the group off their terrorist lists in 2008 and 2009 respectively after court rulings that found no evidence of terrorist actions after the MEK renounced violence in 2001.

In Washington, initial support for “de-listing” came largely from the ranks of conservatives and neo-conservatives but it has been spreading across the aisle and the addition of a newcomer of impeccable standing with the Obama administration could herald a policy change not only on the MEK but also on dealing with Tehran.

The newcomer is Lee Hamilton, an informal senior advisor to President Obama, who served as a Democratic congressman for 34 years and was co-chairman of the commission that investigated the events leading to the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York.

“This is a big deal,” Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, two prominent experts on Iran, wrote on their blog. “We believe that Hamilton’s involvement increases the chances that the Obama administration will eventually start supporting the MEK as the cutting edge for a new U.S. regime change strategy towards Iran.” The Leveretts think such a strategy would be counter-productive.

But speakers at the February 19 conference in Washington where Hamilton made his debut as an MEK supporter thought otherwise. Addressing some 400 Iranian-Americans in a Washington hotel, retired General Peter Pace said: “Some folks said to me … if the United States government took the MEK off the terrorist list it would be a signal to the Iranian regime that we changed from a desire to see changes in regime behavior to a desire to see changes in regime. Sounds good to me.”

The Obama administration’s policy is not regime change but the use of sanctions and multi-national negotiations to persuade the government in Tehran to drop its nuclear ambitions. So far, that has been unsuccessful. Two rounds of talks between Iran, the U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany in January ended without progress and did not even yield agreement on a date for more talks.

NO POLICY CHANGE BUT SHARPER RHETORIC
That did not change Washington’s “no regime change” stand. What has changed is the tone of public American statements on Iran since a wave of mass protests swept away the authoritarian rulers of Tunisia and Egypt and forced the governments of Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria and Saudi Arabia to announce reforms. In contrast, Iran responded to mass demonstrations with violent crackdowns.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the U.S.  “very clearly and directly support the aspirations of the people who are in the streets” of Iranian cities agitating for a democratic opening as they did in 2009, when Washington stayed silent.

Like the U.S., Iran labels the MEK a terrorist organization and has dealt particularly harshly with Iranians suspected of membership or sympathies. In the view of many of its American supporters, the U.S. terrorist label has weakened internal support for the MEK. How much support there is for the organization is a matter of dispute among Iran watchers, many of whom consider it insignificant.

At last week’s Washington conference, however, speaker after speaker described it as a major force, feared and hated by the Iranian government. General Shelton called it “the best organized resistance group.” Dell Daley, the State Department’s counter-terrorism chief until he retired in 2009, said the MEK was “the best instrument of power to get inside the Iran mullahs and unseat them.”

The decision to give legitimacy, or not, to the group is up to Hillary Clinton. Last July, a federal appeals court in Washington instructed the Department of State to review the terrorist designation, in language that suggested that it should be revoked. Court procedures gave her until June to decide.

http://blogs.reuters.com/bernddebusmann/tag/cia/

MEK Is Not a Terrorist Group

The National Review Online

The material-support statute is fine; the designation is the problem.

The moral of this story may be that sometimes it’s better not to have friends, especially the sort with easy access to the op-ed page of the New York Times, or “The Newspaper of Record,” as it sometimes bills itself.

About a week ago, in the guise of defending us against an imagined prosecution for materially assisting a foreign terrorist organization based on our comments at a conference where we urged that Mujahadin e Khalq (“MEK”) be removed from the State Department’s list of such organizations, Prof. David Cole of Georgetown Law School took to the op-ed page of the Times with a bit of rhetorical jujitsu designed to enlist us in his campaign to change the federal statute that bars such assistance. The liberal blogosphere salivated at the suggestion that four conservative Republicans were providing material support to a terrorist organization, notwithstanding Professor Cole’s tongue-in-cheek defense.

MEK, which opposes the current regime in Tehran and has provided valuable intelligence to the United States on Iranian nuclear plans, was placed on the State Department list during the Clinton administration as a purported goodwill gesture to the mullahs, in aid of furthering dialogue. Regrettably, it was kept on during the administration of George W. Bush, in part out of fear that Iran would provide IEDs to our enemies in Iraq, which of course the mullahs are doing anyway. Both the European Union and the United Kingdom have removed the organization from their lists, with the result that MEK is now designated a terrorist organization by only the United States and Iran. More than 100 members of Congress have supported a resolution to undo this designation. We appeared at a conference two weeks ago and described why we thought the designation was anomalous and unwarranted.

 

Professor Cole’s arch suggestion that our conduct raises a question under the material-support statute is undone by the text of the law itself. The statute barring material assistance to organizations on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations (“FTO”) says that although “material assistance” includes “personnel,” and although “personnel” may include the person providing the assistance — here, the four of us — the “personnel” have to be working “under that [FTO’s] direction or control.” And then, just to make explicit what is already obvious, the law continues: “Individuals who act entirely independently of the [FTO] to advance its goals or objectives shall not be considered to be working under the [FTO]’s direction and control.” As a result, we felt quite secure, thank you, in relying on the protection Congress placed in the statute, backed up by the First Amendment.

Professor Cole commendably if somewhat unnecessarily insisted in his article that we “had every right to say what [we] did,” but then added — misleadingly — that he “argued just that in the Supreme Court, on behalf of the Los Angeles–based Humanitarian Law Project” in the case he lost in that tribunal last June. Well, no. He argued that the statute should be rewritten to provide that the two activities the self-styled humanitarians wanted to engage in — “training” in negotiation, and “expert advice and assistance” in filing claims,  both quoted activities specifically barred by the law — should be permitted unless they involved directly a terrorist act. The Court refused to do that, or to find that the quoted terms were either so vague as not to provide notice to a person of reasonable intelligence or gave the government unlimited latitude in applying the law. Further, the Court found that insofar as these terms could be imagined to reach activities shielded by the First Amendment, they were not activities these humanitarians were seeking to engage in and therefore need not be considered by the Court. That is, Professor Cole and his client lost.

He then went a bit beyond us, and beyond his unsuccessful lawsuit, and called for revising the statute also to permit provision of food and shelter via terrorist organizations, apparently based on the disclosure in the Times that corporations have been permitted by our government to sell — at profit, no less — chewing gum, popcorn, and cigarettes to state sponsors of terrorism. The reasoning here is apparently that if it’s okay to sell chewing gum to terrorists, it’s okay to give them concrete they can use not only for shelter but also to fashion bunkers, or to give them the spigot controlling the flow of food and medicine so they can enhance their power and prestige. For what it’s worth, we do not believe that Professor Cole has unearthed an insufferable anomaly in the law or in its administration. Notably, neither in his lawsuit nor in his op-ed did Professor Cole challenge the designation FTO as applied to the proposed beneficiaries of his client’s ministrations. We have challenged, emphatically and with reasoned argument, that designation as applied to MEK.

The material-support statute doesn’t need revision to accommodate non-existent defects. What it does need — and does not often enough get for fear of offending some Muslim organizations — is rigorous enforcement against accurately designated organizations, of which MEK is not one. 

Why, you may ask, did this critique not appear in the pages of The Newspaper of Record (TNOR)? Good question. The editors of TNOR deemed a much shorter version of this article too long for their letters column, and declined to publish it as an op-ed article because, they claim, TNOR has a policy of not publishing op-ed articles in response to other op-ed articles. We are grateful to the editors of National Review for the privilege of this space, and of course to Professor Cole for his unsolicited support, even though we decline to enlist in his crusade.

— Michael B. Mukasey was attorney general of the United States from 2007 to 2009; Tom Ridge was homeland security adviser to Pres. George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003, and homeland security secretary from 2003 to 2005; Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor of New York City from 1993 to 2001; Frances Fragos Townsend was homeland security adviser to Pres. George W. Bush from 2004 to 2008.

Washington Times, December 1, 2010: US Lawmakers Call on Secretary Clinton to Delist MEK

 

Washington Times, December 1, 2010: US Lawmakers Call on Secretary Clinton to Delist MEK

America, Iran and a terrorist label

 REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

Who says that the United States and Iran can’t agree on anything? The Great Satan, as Iran’s theocratic rulers call the United States, and the Islamic Republic see eye-to-eye on at least one thing, that the Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) are terrorists.

America and Iran arrived at the terrorist designation for the MEK at different times and from different angles but the convergence is bizarre, even by the complicated standards of Middle Eastern politics. The United States designated the MEK a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997, when the Clinton administration hoped the move would help open a dialogue with Iran. Thirteen years later, there is still no dialogue.

But the group is still on the list, despite years of legal wrangling over the designation through the U.S. legal system. Britain and the European Union took the group off their terrorist lists in 2008 and 2009 respectively after court rulings that found no evidence of terrorist actions after the MEK renounced violence in 2001.

On July 16, a federal appeals court in Washington instructed the Department of State to review the terrorist designation, in language that suggested that it should be revoked. But Hillary Clinton’s review mills appear to be grinding very slowly.

A group of lawmakers from both parties reminded Clinton of the court ruling this week and drew attention to a House resolution in June — it has more than 100 co-sponsors and the list is growing — that called for the MEK to be taken off the terrorist list. Doing so would not only be the right thing, the six leading sponsors said in a letter, it would also send the right message to Tehran. Translation: using the terrorist label as a carrot does not work, so it’s time to be tough.

Come January, when a new, Republican-dominated House of Representatives begins its term, Clinton and President Barack Obama are likely to come under pressure from hawkish members of congress to act tough towards Iran, further tighten economic sanctions and ensure that those already existing don’t erode.

The influential House Foreign Affairs Committee will be headed by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, an enthusiastic MEK-backer, who said in a recent interview with Reuters correspondent Pascal Fletcher that the West must make clear it means business about implementing sanctions against Iran. “If…we convey a sense of weakness and a lack of resolve, the centrifuges (in Iran’s uranium enrichment program) keep spinning.”

GROUP BLEW WHISTLE ON NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Ironically, it was the MEK which gave the first detailed public account of Iran’s until-then secret nuclear projects at the cities of Natanz and Arak, in 2002. The disclosure greatly turned up the volume of the international controversy over Iran’s intentions. (Iran’s leaders firmly deny that work on nuclear bombs is underway).

Iran’s nuclear program is likely to rise close to the top of Obama’s foreign policy agenda in the second half of his mandate, particularly if there are no signs of progress in the on-again, off-again attempts to break the present stalemate. The next talks are scheduled for Dec. 5, between the so-called P5+1 (U.N. Security Council members Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States, plus Germany) and Iran.

Other than getting the United States in sync with its Western allies on their assessment of the MEK, what would taking it off the 47-strong American list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations change? In the United States, it would unfreeze frozen funds and allow the group to reopen its office and operate freely as an advocacy group.

In Iran, it would deprive the government of an all-purpose scapegoat to taint all reformists with the MEK brush. In arresting alleged members or sympathizers, Iranian authorities routinely mention that even the United States considers the group terrorist. In their letter to Clinton, the legislators argued that the U.S. designation allowed Iranian officials to “further justify their draconian punishments”.

How much support the MEK, whose leadership is based in Paris, enjoys in Iran is a matter of dispute and many experts rate it as insignificant. But there is no dispute over draconian punishments for Iranians judged to be members or sympathizers. That prompts charges of “waging war against God”, which is punishable by death.

The MEK’s appeal to the Washington court in summer was its fifth petition. It remains to be seen how long the United States. and Iran will stay on the same page on the matter.

Delist MEK Petition

Reality Check: Understanding the Mujahedin-e Khalq

The Huffington Post
April 22, 2010

By Ali Safavi, Member of Iran’s Parliament in Exile; President of Near East Policy Research

Aside from the clearly false allegations against the MEK, which have been addressed in previous posts, some of the MEK’s activities inside Iran prior to 2001 have been cited by the US Department of State and others as providing ostensible justification for the terrorist label against the organization. The MEK’s activities have been painted with an unjustified brush of terrorism, thereby conflating instances of otherwise legitimate resistance against a tyrannical system with horrid acts of blind terrorism. Readers are welcomed to comment or ask questions if they so wish.

MEK: Resistance Against Tyranny

“The Islam we profess does not condone bloodshed. We have never sought, nor do we welcome confrontation and violence… 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.” ~ Massoud Rajavi

Immediately after the anti-monarchic revolution in 1979, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) began a nationwide political campaign to promote its belief in the absolute need to respect hard won freedoms and democratic rights. This principled position starkly contrasted with that of the organization’s main rival, the clerical regime’s founder, Khomeini, who sought to institutionalize his theocratic idea of absolute clerical rule (velayat-e faqih) after hijacking the leadership of the revolution.

The fundamental differences and contrasts between the MEK and Khomeini predated the revolution. In political terms, the MEK had called for the establishment of secular democratic rule while Khomeini had announced his intentions to form an “Islamic” government antagonistic to the modern political notions of popular elections, secularism and the rule of law. Ideologically, while Khomeini’s lectures and texts were characterized by a profoundly backward fundamentalist streak, the MEK was committed to a tolerant and modern interpretation of Islam, with a heavy emphasis on freedom.

In a speech in 1980 on Tehran University campus, the MEK’s historical leader, Massoud Rajavi, said, “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.”[1]

On the other hand, Khomeini unambiguously and consistently rejected all talk of freedoms and fundamental human rights, instead justifying his newly established dictatorship under the cloak of Islam: “Even if they give all freedoms and complete independence to us, but take away the Quran, we would still reject it.”[2] On May 23, 1978, he also said, “Freedom may be provided to you, and so may independence … But did the nation want freedom without the Quran? … Did it sacrifice its blood for freedom or for God? It wanted Islam.”[3]

For the MEK, however, the antimonarchic revolution and sacrifices made by the Iranian people had only one objective: democracy. US historian, and a present-day detractor of the MEK, Ervand Abrahamian, wrote in this respect, “In criticizing the regime’s political record, the Mujahedin 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…'”[4]

In order to fully consolidate his regime’s undemocratic rule and his own position as the “Supreme Leader” in the months after the 1979 revolution, Khomeini gradually eliminated all semblances of peaceful political activity, ordering his extremist and fundamentalist followers (known as “hezbollahis”) to attack and disrupt rallies by opposition groups, ranging from liberals to leftists. Thousands were arrested and imprisoned between 1979 and 1981.[5] While, in response, several political groups chose to engage in a premature armed resistance against the Khomeini regime, the MEK, as Iran’s largest political opposition at the time, did its utmost to prevent the window for peaceful political activity from closing.

More than a quarter century ago, even the Department of State acknowledged these facts. A 1984 unclassified report on the MEK submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives by the Department of State, said in part: “When Khomeini took power, the Mujahedin called for continued revolution, but said they would work for change within the legal framework of the new regime […] The Mujahedin unsuccessfully sought a freely elected constituent assembly to draft a constitution. […] The Mujahedin similarly made an attempt at political participation when Mujahedin leader Masud [Massoud] Rajavi ran for the presidency in January 1980. Rajavi was forced to withdraw when Ayatollah Khomeini ruled that only candidates who had supported the constitution in the December referendum – which the Mujahedin had boycotted – were eligible.”[6]

The report went on to say, “Rajavi’s withdrawal statement emphasized the group’s efforts to conform to election regulations and reiterated the Mujahedin’s intention to advance its political aims within the new legal system. Between the two election rounds, the Mujahedin announced that its members would disarm to prove that they were not initiating the clashes with the fundamentalists that had become endemic during the campaign. The fundamentalists responded by once again banning Mujahedin representatives from the university campuses. […] In the early summer of 1980 the Mujahedin staged several rallies in Tehran drawing up to 150,000 people to hear Rajavi promise to carry on the opposition to fundamentalist domination. On June 25 Khomeini responded by a major statement against the Mujahedin, claiming their activities would derail the revolution and bring back ‘US dominance.'”[7]

An Iran expert, Shaul Bakhash, recounts some of the suppressive measures against the MEK as such: “In February 1980, 60,000 copies of Mojahed [the MEK’s weekly] were seized and burned. In Mashad, Shiraz, Qa’emshahr, Sari, and dozens of small towns, club wielders attacked and looted Mojahedin headquarters, student societies, and meetings. … Some 700 were injured in the attack on the Mojahedin headquarters at Qa’emshahr in April, 400 in Mashad. Ten members of the organization lost their lives in clashes between February and June 1980.”[8]

Even after Khomeini’s public threats, Bakhash writes, “The Mojahedin responded by quietly closing all their branch offices.”[9] Indeed, the MEK refrained from any confrontation and “participated eagerly in the parliamentary elections.”[10]

Similarly, Abrahamian notes that Khomeini’s attacks against the MEK “caused three deaths and over 1000 casualties. The attack on the Tehran rally, which drew 200,000 participants, left twenty-three Mojahedin sympathizers seriously injured.”[11]

In that rally held on June 12, 1980, in Tehran’s Amjadieh soccer stadium, Rajavi had exhorted the crowd to “defend freedoms… freedom of speech, association and gatherings.”[12] Two weeks later, Khomeini drew the line. “Our enemy,” he said, “is neither in the United States, nor the Soviet Union, nor Kurdistan, but right here, under our nose, in Tehran.”[13]

“By early June 1981, the prisons – especially in Tehran, the central cities, and the Caspian towns – contained more than 1,180 Mojaheds.”[14]. Furthermore, “the hezbollahis … began a reign of terror. They shot news stand owners selling Mojahedin publications; beat up suspected sympathizers; bombed homes (including that of the Rezai family); broke into the offices of the Muslim Student Association; disrupted conferences, especially the Congress of Trade Unions; and physically attacked meetings.”[15] Abrahamian adds that “by 20 June 1981” these attacks “had left seventy-one mojaheds dead.”[16].

Despite tolerating these incredible hardships, which had no justification whatsoever, the MEK did not retaliate for two and a half grueling years. As such, the MEK continued to gain the support of a vast majority of Iranians nationwide, which Khomeini could in no way tolerate. Former President and head of the State Exigency Council, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, acknowledged that the MEK had more than half-a-million full-time and part-time activists around the country.[17] Many experts believed that they would have finished first if free elections were to be held.

The MEK refrained from violent retaliation against Khomeini and his forces because it believed that to prolong the political process is in the interest of the organization and the Iranian people, while violence would serve the interests of Khomeini. It sought to use every tangible and intangible legal and peaceful option, no matter how negligible or insignificant, to reform Khomeini’s policies and guarantee the desired freedoms and human rights for the Iranian people without resorting to confrontation.

In the context of the post-revolutionary developments, June 20, 1981 was a historic showdown. The MEK secretly organized a peaceful demonstration that caught the regime completely off guard. Throngs began to march from different parts of Tehran, and converged on Enghelab (Revolution) Street. The crowd was half-a-million strong when it reached Ferdowsi Square in the center of Tehran. They continued to march toward the Majlis (Parliament), and if allowed to continue, the crowd would have swelled to one million and Khomeini would have lost control. So, he personally ordered the Revolutionary Guards to open fire. Hundreds were killed and thousands were arrested.[18]

In this way, Khomeini closed the final chapter on peaceful activities, unleashing a bloody reign of terror, in which tens of thousands were slaughtered and tens of thousands more imprisoned and tortured.[19] The MEK, and indeed every patriotic Iranian, was left with only two choices: either surrender to Khomeini’s tyrannical rule, thereby betraying commitments to fundamental freedoms and human rights, or wage a legitimate resistance against Khomeini’s tyranny. Only after exhausting all possible peaceful options, the MEK chose the latter.

The MEK’s resistance against the onslaught by the reactionary clerics was an understandable defensive posture. Simply stated, were it not for the MEK’s resistance against the mullahs, the millions of Iranians who fled the mullahs’ reign of terror could not have found the opportunity to do so. Some 80 percent of four million Iranian refugees left Iran from 1981 to 1984.

Importantly, there has not been a single credible and independently verifiable finding that the MEK ever targeted any civilians or non-combatants. This is why the Iranian mullahs have been at pains to fabricate plausible cases against the MEK. The US State Department’s 1997 assertion, therefore, that the MEK is essentially a violent organization belies obvious historical facts and its own public records and acknowledgments to the US Congress.

The MEK does not believe in violence as a matter of philosophy. More than 26 years ago, Massoud Rajavi said the following on the subject: “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 Mujahedin 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.”[20]

But, Khomeini clearly rejected any ideas calling for democracy and freedoms. “If instead of him,” Khomeini once said referring to the deposed Shah, “a regime were to be established like those in Europe or France, which have no relation to Islam, a free government which is also independent and guarantees freedoms, we have never wanted and will never condone such a thing because its freedoms are not in tune with Islam.”[21]

To be sure, there is nothing illegitimate about using all options to resist against tyranny when all avenues for peaceful (legal) political activity are, in practice, eliminated. This is supported by the collective historical knowledge of cases where nations were in fact built or liberated by the force of arms. America’s War of Independence was violent in nature. Charles de Gaulle and the French partisans used every means available to them to defeat the Nazi occupation of France. Col. Claus von Stauffenberg and his colleagues tried to bring down the Third Reich by eliminating Hitler and his generals, for which they were honored posthumously years later.[22] In Norway, a museum pays tribute those who fought and died in the resistance against the puppet Vidkun Quisling government. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) resorted to bombings, sabotage and armed attacks against the white minority during the fight against Apartheid. Interestingly, in a sign of how out of synch the US terrorist list is with political realities, Mandela remained on the US terror list 15 years after receiving the Novel Peace Prize.[23]

It is an indisputable fact that every citizen has the undeniable right to the basic freedoms recognized by the international community. In view of that, limits placed on attempts to endeavor for liberty and to resist dictatorship are morally and legally inexcusable. There can be no double standards. America’s Founding Fathers, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and distinguished Western statesmen have underscored this fact:

1.Thomas Jefferson said in his “Declaration on Taking up Arms” in 1775, “Against violence actually offered, in defense of that freedom which is our birthright, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities have ceased on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed have been removed, and not before.”[24]
2.In his inaugural address in 1861, the 16th US President Abraham Lincoln said, “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”[25]
3.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the right “to have recourse as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, and take up arms.”[26]
4.The International Committee of the Red Cross’s commentary on Article 3 of the First Geneva Convention refers to discussions at the Diplomatic Conference of Geneva to ratify the Conventions in 1949: “It sometimes happens in a civil war that those who are regarded as rebels are in actual fact patriots struggling for the independence and dignity of their country… It was not possible to talk of ‘terrorism’, ‘anarchy’, or ‘disorders’ in the case of rebels who complied with humanitarian principles.”[27]
5.The late U.S. President John F. Kennedy said: “Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.”[28]
6.The Catholic Church, which in general opposes the use of violence, has also recognized this right. A document “Christian Liberty and Liberation,” made public by the Vatican in 1986, states: “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 interest of a country.”[29]
7.In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, President Obama talked about the concept of a “juts war,” suggesting that it was justified “if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense…,” adding, “… make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”[30]
Therefore, armed resistance against the clerical regime, and especially its specific application by the MEK (carried out prior to 2001), was completely justifiable and legitimate, at least according to the universally-established international democratic norms and legal criteria.

Aside from all this, although the end does not always justify the means, in this particular case, too much focus and emphasis on the methods of resistance obscures the noble end and takes the spotlight off the regime’s inhumane crimes. The main issue and the reason for the MEK’s activities revolve around democracy and popular sovereignty in their home country since day one. That is why, even prior to voluntarily handing over all its weapons in 2003 to Coalition Forces in Iraq,[31] and in fact since the early 1980s, the MEK has repeatedly declared its readiness to take park in a free and fair election under the auspices of the United Nations and fully accept the results of a genuinely democratic plebiscite in Iran.[32]

This explains why before 2001, when the MEK ceased its military actions in Iran, a majority in the US House of Representatives and 32 Senators as well as majorities in the UK House of Commons and in several European parliaments, including Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium and Norway, voiced support for the MEK as a “legitimate opposition [movement],” that is “working to establish a democratic and pluralistic system in the country,”[33].

Endnotes

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

[2] Sahifey-e Noor [Essays of Light], (A compilation of Khomeini’s lectures, speeches and letters), a publication of the Ministry of Islamic Guidance, Tehran: 1983, Vol. 7, p. 486.

[3] Ibid., p. 461.

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

[5] Ibid., pp. 211-213; 216-217. See also Eric Rouleau, “A report from Tehran”, Le Monde, March 29 and June 14, 1980.

[6] The unclassified background report on the MEK accompanied a letter by Tapely Bennet, Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, to Representative Lee H. Hamilton, December 14, 1984.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs (New York: Basic Books, 1984), p. 123.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Abrahamian, op. cit., pp. 195-196.

[12] Mojahed, MEK’s official organ, no. 87, June 14, 1980.

[13] Khomeini’s speech, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), June 25, 1980.

[14] Abrahamian, op. cit., p. 211.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] See also, Ali Agha Mohammadi, then-Khamenei’s advisor on Iraq: “In the early years of the revolution, the Mojahedin had organized about 500,000 activists across the country,” State-controlled daily, Asr-e Azadegan, January 4, 2000.

[18] Abrahamian, op. cit., pp. 218-219. Abrahamian described June 20, thus:”On 20 June, vast crowds appeared in many cities, especially in Tehran, Tabriz, Rasht, Amol, Qiyamshahr, Gorgan, Babolsar, Zanjan, Karaj, Arak, Isfahan, Birjand, Ahwaz and Kerman. The Tehran demonstration, drew as many as 500,000 determined participants. Warnings against demonstrations were constantly broadcast over the radio-television network. Government supporters advised the public to stay at home: for example, Nabavi’s Organization of the Mojaheds of the Islamic Revolution20 beseeched the youth of Iran not to waste their lives for the sake of “liberalism and capitalism.” Prominent clerics declared that demonstrators, irrespective of their age, would be treated as “enemies of God” and as such would be executed on the spot. Hezbollahis were armed and trucked in to block off the major streets. Pasdars were ordered to shoot. Fifty were killed, 200 injured, and 1,000 arrested in the vicinity of Tehran University alone. This surpassed most of the street clashes of the Islamic Revolution. The warden of Evin Prison announced with much fanfare that firing squads had executed twenty-three demonstrators, including a number of teenage girls. The reign of terror had begun.”[18]

[19] Ibid.

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

[21] Sahifey-e Noor, op. cit., v. 8, p. 42.

[22] “Hitler plot ‘heroes’ commemorated”, BBC News, July 20, 2004. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3908431.stm

[23] Bernd Debusmann, “America, Terrorists and Nelson Mandela,” Reuters, January 15, 2010. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2010/01/15/america-terrorists-and-nelson-mandela

[24] Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Taking Up Arms: Resolutions of The Second Continental Congress, July 24, 1775, Available at: http://www.constitution.org/bcp/takuparm.htm. See also, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, collected and edited by Paul L. Ford (New York), 1892-1899, Vol. I, p. 475.

[25] Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, delivered on March 4, 1861. Available at: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/inaug/lincoln1.htm

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

[27] International Humanitarian Law – Treaties & Documents, Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949, [p.32] 2, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Available at: http://www.icrc.org/IHL.NSF/1a13044f3bbb5b8ec12563fb0066f226/466097d7a301f8c4c12563cd00424e2b!OpenDocument

[28] Historical Quotes. Available at: http://www.muckraker-report.org/id88.html

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

[30] Remarks by President Obama at the Acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, Oslo City Hall, White House Press Release, December 10, 2009. Available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-acceptance-nobel-peace-prize

[31] “Update on the Consolidation of the Mujahedin-E Khalq (MEK),” News Release, Headquarters United States Central Command, May 17, 2003. Available at: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2003/05/iraq-030517-centcom03.htm

[32] In a statement addressed to 2,000 members of parliaments around the world who had signed a joint declaration in support of the MEK in November 1997, Massoud Rajavi stressed: “This Resistance has repeatedly declared its readiness to take part in free and fair presidential elections under the auspices of the United Nations…” Lion and Sun, a publication of the Iranian Resistance, vol. 3, July 1998, p. 34.

[33] The House Magazine, The Parliamentary Weekly, No. 1031, Vol. 28, March 31, 2003.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-safavi/reality-check-understandi_b_548491.html

Reality Check: Mujahedin-e Khalq, Kurds and Shiites in Iraq

The Huffington Post
April 6, 2010

By Ali Safavi, Member of Iran’s Parliament in Exile; President of Near East Policy Research

One of the unsubstantiated allegations against the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) is that it was involved in the suppression of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The source of this allegation, which later found its way into a 1994 Department of State report on the MEK,[1] and subsequently in the Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism, is none other than the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).

The fact is that in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Iranian regime launched an extensive propaganda campaign alleging that the MEK had played a role in putting down the Kurdish uprising in northern Iraq. The propaganda blitz specifically meant to overshadow Tehran’s dispatching of thousands of troops into Iraq in March and April 1991 to destroy MEK bases close to the Iran-Iraq border.

Surprisingly, despite a palpable dearth of factual and evidential basis, this accusation also acted as one of the justifications for the MEK’s terror listing in the United States. Not only is there not the slightest bit of evidence supporting this accusation, in fact, a plethora of documents and evidence exist, at times offered by prominent Iraqi Kurds and Shiites themselves, that definitively dismiss the allegation.

This is the third in the series of Reality Check posts that address the specific allegations against the MEK.

NEXT WEEK: Resistance Against Tyranny 

“(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.”Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari 
There is absolutely no truth to the allegation that the MEK was involved in the crackdown on Iraqi Kurds. The most definitive testament to this fact is a 1999 letter to a court in the Netherlands by Iraq’s present Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, who was at the time the foreign policy spokesman for the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq (KDP). He 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.”[2]

Four years earlier, an official United Nations document had refuted those allegations, noting that they were part of a well-orchestrated misinformation campaign by the Iranian regime to discredit the MEK. “From our independent investigation and discussion with parties involved, we find these allegations false,” wrote International Educational Development, a non-governmental organization with consultative status at with UN.[3]

In 2001, statements by defectors from the Iranian regime’s Intelligence Ministry confirmed that the propaganda campaign concerning “the MEK’s suppression of the Kurds” was one of the Ministry’s top priorities. In an affidavit to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2001, one such defector, Jamshid Tafrishi, wrote: “My mission was to tell international organizations and foreign governments that the PMOI crushes the Kurdish uprising in Iraq. The plot was conducted under the supervision of Nasser Khajenouri, regime’s agent in the USA. He arranged for me and other agents to be interviewed by an Iranian radio broadcast in Los Angeles so we could air our stories on how the PMOI [MEK] had oppressed the Kurdish people alongside Iraqi forces. Khajenouri further prepared a written brief on the subject on my behalf and sent it to the US intelligence and government agencies and the United Nations.”[4]

This corroborated the conclusions of International Educational Development, which again registered another document with the United Nations in 2001, reiterating its earlier findings that Iranian intelligence services were the source of these bogus allegations.[5]

And in its 2007 Country Reports on Terrorism, even the Department of State expressed doubts about the veracity of the charges concerning the MEK’s actions against Iraqi Kurds by grudgingly diluting its earlier definitive statement in this respect. It wrote, “In 1991, the group reportedly assisted the Iraqi Republican Guard’s bloody crackdown on Iraqi Shia and Kurds who rose up against Saddam Hussein’s regime.”[6]

This was hardly surprising especially after an exhaustive 16-month investigation of each and every MEK member in Iraq by seven different agencies of the US Government acknowledged in 2004 that “there was no basis to charge any member of the group [MEK] with the violation of American law.”[7]

Moreover, in a November 2006 letter to then-US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, Mr. Mohammad Mehdi Hachem, a senior official of the Iraqi Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, expressed concern about the allegations and activities against the MEK, and reiterated the amicable relationship that exists between the people of Iraq and the organization.[8] Among other things, for example, he wrote that MEK members have been law-abiding residents in Iraq for over 20 years. In a separate statement on December of that year, Mr. Hachem emphasized that the “PMOI [MEK] has never acted against the Kurdish people in Iraq, and has not been involved in any suppressive action against them. The rumors spread by the Ministry of Intelligence of Iran are all false and a conspiracy.”[9]

Indeed, had there been any evidence of the MEK’s collusion with the former Iraqi government on any issue, let alone suppressing the Kurds or the Shiites, it would have certainly surfaced in the seven years since the invasion of Iraq considering that forces hostile to the MEK, including those in the current government, have had access to all the documents. In response to a question about the involvement of the MEK in the suppression of the Iraqis, the prominent and senior Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Iyad Jamal ad-Din, Deputy Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Iraq’s Council of Representatives, told the Al-Arabiya television, “I have personally followed up and reviewed many of the files in the intelligence services of the previous government and special security agencies to see whether I could find a single page of evidence, or a photograph or a document that would show that this organization had participated in the suppression of Iraqi. We did not find any such document or evidence that the Mujahedin-e Khalq took part in the crack down against the people of Iraq… In my view, these lies are being disseminated by the Iranian intelligence to tarnish the image of the Mujahedin-e Khalq.”[10]

Of course, this is not the only case where Tehran has tried to blame the MEK for the ill-treatment of the Iraqi Kurds. In October 2005, Mr. Emmanuel Ludot, a French jurist and lawyer in the Counsel of the former Iraqi head of state, unveiled a proposal made to him by the then Iranian regime’s ambassador to France, Sadeq Kharrazi, asking him to attribute the gassing of Iraqi Kurds to the MEK. Mr. Ludot said, “The Iranian ambassador told me [to] say Iranians did not gas the Kurds … [that] this was the work of the MEK.”[11] The Iranian regime has never denied this assertion.

Beyond these indisputable facts, from a historical perspective, this allegation is inconsistent with the MEK’s principled position vis-à-vis the Kurdish minorities in Iran and in Iraq. In other words, just as the MEK has always defended the rights of Iranian Kurds for autonomy within the territorial integrity of Iran [12], it has never harbored the slightest bit of hostility toward Iraqi Kurds.

In 1984, even before the MEK relocated to Iraq, then-head of the Patriotic Union of Iraqi Kurdistan (PUK), and now Iraq’s President, Jalal Talabani, wrote a letter to Massoud Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), saying in part: “Honorable and dear brother Massoud Rajavi, on behalf of the Patriotic Union of Iraqi Kurdistan (PUK) politburo, I would like to express my greetings and very best wishes to you and other Mujahedin brothers in your just struggle against the reactionary gang of zealots who rule Iran… We are therefore always ready to strengthen our good relationship with the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran.”[13]

Regrettably, some time later, after bowing to pressure from the clerical regime and in order to buy Tehran’s strategic support to secure his political future, Mr. Talabani changed his stance and the PUK went as far as launching armed attacks against the MEK and Iranian dissidents in Iraq. Dozens of MEK members were killed in those unprovoked attacks. It even boasted of handing over MEK members to the Iranian regime who were later executed.[14] The MEK never retaliated, which makes it certainly bizarre for it to be involved in the suppression of the Iraqi Kurds.

Also, from a practical standpoint, the MEK could not have been involved in cracking down on the Iraqi Kurds. Months before the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War, the MEK evacuated all of its bases in the Kurdish areas in the north and in the Shiite regions in the south of Iraq, relocating instead to the central part of the Iran-Iraq frontier, in Diyala Province, where Camp Ashraf is located. The purpose was to refrain from getting embroiled in internal Iraqi affairs.[15] This was a policy to which the MEK has remained strictly committed ever since it made the decision to establish its bases there in 1986. In exchange, Iraqi officials agreed to refrain from meddling in the MEK’s affairs and decisions. In the Zebari letter cited above, he said, “The Mujahedin-e Khalq has its own political agenda in Iran and does not interfere in Iraqi internal affairs.[16]

Similarly, neither did the MEK have any role in events related to the Shiite uprising in south of Iraq. In a letter to then-European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, the Secretary General of the prominent Iraqi Shiite movement, Intifidiya Movement of Sha’baniya, Sami Ghazi al-Assadi, wrote, “The People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran had no participation in suppressing the Shiite movement against the previous government in 1991 and there is no evidence to that; rather it is the invidious claims and rumors by the Iranian regimes agents against them.”[17]

In 2006, in a joint declaration, more than 12,000 Iraqi jurists and lawyers expressed readiness to defend the MEK in any court of law about its 20-year presence in Iraq. The Iraqi jurists testified, “The MEK had no involvement in Iraqi internal affairs and therefore allegations of its involvement in suppression of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites are absolute lies and have been fabricated by the Iranian regime to tarnish the image of the Iranian Resistance.”[18]

And finally, the extensive support for the MEK by Iraqi Shiites during the past five years belies the allegations of MEK involvement in “suppressing” them. In November 2007, some 300,000 Shiites from southern Iraq voiced their support for the MEK and rejected the claims about MEK’s involvement in suppressing the Shiites in Iraq.[19] That support among Shiites swelled to three million by June 2008.[20]

Such bogus allegations against the MEK also shed light on the motivations and legal poverty of the US State Department terror label against the organization. If the MEK was really a terrorist organization, why would the Department risk its credibility by resorting to dubious accusations that are not only unsubstantiated but clearly contradicted by credible sources and evidence?


Endnotes

[1] US Department of State, “People’s Mojahedin of Iran,” prepared at the request of Congress, Section 523 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1994 and 1995, Public Law No. 103-236., October 28, 1994. p. 10.
[2] Hoshyar Zebari, letter to M.F. Wijingaarden, attorney in the Netherlands, July 14, 1999. See also, “U.S. Says Iraq-based Iran Opposition Aids Iraq Government,” by Jonathan Wright, Reuters, May 22, 2002. Available at:
http://www.neareastpolicy.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=30
[3] Implications of Humanitarian Activities for The Enjoyment of Human Rights, written statement submitted by International Educational Development, United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Forty-seventh session, Agenda item 19, E/CN.4/Sub.2/1995/NGO/55, August 22, 1995. Available at: http://www.globalpolitician.com/25756-ncri-mek-pmoi-iran
[4] Jamshid Tafrishi, affidavit to the United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, submitted in the case PEOPLE’S MOJAHEDIN ORGANIZATION OF IRAN, Petitioner, v. DEPARTMENT OF STATE and Colin L. Powell, Secretary of State, Respondents. No. 01-1465 and No. 01-1476., September 11, 2001. Available at: http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/327/327.F3d.1238.01-1476.01-1465.html
[5] Question of the Violation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Any Part of the World, written statement submitted by International Educational Development, United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, Fifty-seventh session, Agenda item 9, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/51, January 23, 2001. Available at: http://www.globalpolitician.com/25756-ncri-mek-pmoi-iran
[6] 2007 Country Reports on Terrorism, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, US Department of State, Chap. 6, Terrorist Organizations, April 30, 2008. Available at: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/103714.htm
[7] Douglas Jehl, “U.S. Sees No Basis to Prosecute Iranian Opposition ‘Terror’ Group Being Held in Iraq,” The New York Times, July 27, 2004, p. A8. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/27/politics/27iran.html?pagewanted=all
[8] Letter by Mohammad Mehdi Hachem to US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, November 2006.
[9] Statement by Mohammad Mehdi Hachem, December 2, 2006.
[10] Ayatollah Iyad Jamal Ad-Din, interview with Al-Arabiya Television Network, Panorama Program, January 28, 2009.
[11] Emmanuel Ludot, Interview with the French-German Television channel, ARTE, September 27, 2005.
[12] National Council of Resistance of Iran, Plan for the Autonomy of Iranian Kurdistan, adopted November 1983. Available at: http://ncr-iran.org/content/view/32/
[13] Jalal Talabani, letter to NCRI President Massoud Rajavi, March3, 1984, Mojahed Weekly, No. 196, March 29, 1984. Also reprinted in Democracy Betrayed, A Response to the State Department Report on the Mojahedin and the Iranian Resistance, Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Paris: 2005, p. 128. Available at: www.iran-e-azad.org/english/special/chap8.html
[14] Agence France Presse, dispatch from Tehran, April 13, 1991. Hassan Zolfaqari and Beshar Shabibi, were handed over to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Qasr-e Shirin (western Iran). See also the report by Mr. Bacre Waly Ndiaye, Special Representative of the United Nations Human Rights Commission to the 49th Session of the Commission, para. 360, p. 89. E/CN.4/1993/46, December 23, 1992. Available at: http://www.extrajudicialexecutions.org/application/media/49%20Comm%20HR%20SR%20Report%20(E-CN.4-1993-46).pdf
[15] Reuters, dispatch from Damascus, March 27, 1991. The only allegation concerning MEK’s involvement in the crackdown on Iraqi Kurds revolves around a single incident in the Iraqi town of Kelar on March 25 1991. Anticipating that the Iranian regime might take advantage of the turmoil resulting from Iraq’s defeat in Operation Desert Storm to attack its bases, the MEK sent a number of messages through the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran – Revolutionary Leadership, to the leaders of the Iraqi Kurds in early March 1991, explaining Tehran’s nefarious plans. The MEK stressed that it did not seek to engage the Iraqi Kurds unless attacked, explaining that the MEK’s presence in Diyala Province, in the central region of the Iran-Iraq border, was its only passage into Iran. Owing to the geographical distance, at no time and at no place did the MEK come into contact with the forces of Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq. But on March 11, 1991, Talebani’s forces attacked a detachment of MEK units near the city of Tuz, as they were evacuating from one a base further north to Camp Ashraf. The MEK’s unit commander (Reza Karamali) was killed and several others were wounded. On March 25, during large-scale battles between the MEK and the units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which had penetrated well into Iraq to attack MEK’s defensive positions near the town of Jalula, a platoon of 19 combatants, riding in four armored vehicles, lost radio contact with the command center. The group lost its way in the unfamiliar terrain, and mistakenly advanced several kilometers north toward the city of Kelar, where they were captured by members of Talebani’s group and the Kurdish Hezbollah (a proxy group of the Iranian regime). Although the MEK immediately acknowledged the error and issued statements to that effect the same day, the Talebani group executed 17 MEK fighters. The other two, Hassan Zolfaqari and Beshar Shabibi, were handed over to the Iranian regime in Qasr-e Shirin (western Iran).
[16] Zebari letter, op. cit.
[17] Letter by the Political Bureau of Intifadiya Movement of Sha’baniya to the European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief, Javier Solana, November 18, 2006.
[18] In March 2006, Iraqi national dailies Az-Zaman, Al-Watan, Al-Haqa’eq, Al-Iraq Al-Yowm and Assyiada published the declaration by 12,000 prominent Iraqi jurists and lawyers. The declaration was also published in a full-page advertisement in The New York Times on April 21, 2006 (p. A19). See also: “Hitting the Mark on the Wrong Iranian Target Doesn’t Help the Cause,” Daniel M. Zucker, Global Politician, February 22, 2006. Available at: www.globalpolitician.com/21625-iran
[19] Amit R. Paley and Sudarsan Raghav, “Muslim Shiite Sheiks Condemn Tehran for Violence in Iraq”, The Washington Post, November 22, 2007. Also reported by CNN.com, “Tribal leader: Evicting Iranian regime is only solution for Iraq,” November 23, 2007. Available at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/23/iraq.iran/
[20] Arab-language daily, Al-Qabas, Kuwait, June 15, 2008, p. 73.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-safavi/emreality-checkem-mek-sup_b_526627.html

Reality Check: Understanding the Politics Behind the MEK’s Terrorist Designation

The Huffington Post
March 31, 2010

By Ali Safavi, Member of Iran’s Parliament in Exile; President of Near East Policy Research

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) has figured prominently in policy equations between Tehran and Washington since at least 1985. As recently as June 2007, in talks with the United States over Iraq’s security, the Iranian regime’s ambassador to Baghdad pressed the issue of the MEK and the presence of some 3,400 of its members in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, as one of the most sensitive items on the meeting’s agenda.[1]

Aside from the unsubstantiated and bogus allegations against the MEK — essentially fabricated by Iran’s notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and recycled by Tehran’s foreign apologists over the past two decades — the issue of MEK’s resorting to armed action against military targets in Iran until summer of 2001 has been cited by some Western government agencies, including the US Department of State, as evidence to invite the designation of the group as “terrorist.” [2]

There is ample evidence to suggest, however, that the terrorist designation of the MEK by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union had little if anything to do with the nature or conduct of the organization itself, the realm in which the legal criteria of the designation resides. Instead, the label was from the outset politically motivated and a byproduct of the policy of rapprochement with Tehran pursued both by the US and the EU. This suspicion was further confirmed when in 2008 and 2009, the UK[3] and the EU[4], respectively, were forced by their highest courts of law to remove the MEK from their watch lists after wrongly accusing the MEK of terrorism.

At least up until the post-June 2009 election uprisings that swept Iran, many foreign policy circles in the West surmised that the Iranian regime had become a “permanent feature” of the Middle East, and thus rejected the idea of regime change as a palatable policy option, proposing instead rapprochement. That approach, however, exacted a price vehemently demanded by Tehran: labeling the MEK, Tehran’s arch nemesis, as terrorist. Indeed, as British officials involved in the matter acknowledged, “Any decision that… the PMOI should be deproscribed would… undoubtedly be viewed in Iran as a calculated move to interfere in Iranian affairs and destabilise the regime.”[5]

Realpolitik and unsubstantiated claims, however, are not sufficient to justify a terrorist designation. Governments, no doubt, have a right to protect their citizens against the scourge of terrorism, but they are required by law to provide necessary and adequate evidence and factual material to legitimately back a terrorist designation. In the particular case of the MEK, convincing evidence has never been provided. This was clearly demonstrated during the 2006-08 court proceedings in the UK and the EU, where the tribunals, after an exhaustive review of both classified and unclassified materials, not only rejected as “perverse”[6] the terrorist designation of the MEK, but also chastised government agencies for making a mockery of the rule of law in favor of ulterior political motives.[7]

The official legal justificatory grounds for the MEK’s terror label, in addition to its pre-2001 actions inside Iran, include allegations that the organization has an “Islamic-Marxist” ideology (against which I tried to offer convincing evidence in part I of Reality Check posted here on March 2), “supported” the 1979 taking of Americans hostage in Tehran,[8] “killed” several American military and security advisors in Iran in the early 1970s,[9] and was involved in the “suppression” of Iraqi Shi’ites and Kurds in 1991.[10]

Before addressing those specific charges and providing a narrative of the different phases of the MEK’s struggle against the clerical regime since 1979, making an effort to shed light on the provenance of the MEK’s designation in the United States and Europe is critical to understanding whether or not the MEK is in fact a terrorist entity. In the next installment, I will discuss the specific incidents of violence involving the MEK in years past. Readers are welcome to comment on these posts or ask for further clarification.

MEK: Origins of the Terrorist Designation 

“[There] was White House interest in opening up a dialogue with the Iranian government. Top Administration officials saw cracking down on the [MEK], which the Iranians had made clear they saw as a menace, as one way to do so.” ~ Martin Indyk, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs in the Clinton Administration
The allegation of terrorism levied against MEK by the US Department of State has its roots in the Iran-Contra (Irangate) scandal of the mid-1980s, when in exchange for the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by the Iranian regime’s proxies, the Department issued a statement accusing the MEK of “continu[ing] to employ terrorism and violence as standard instruments of their politics.”[11]

If at the time it was unclear as to why the Department of State would so suddenly and strongly lash out at the leading opponents of a regime which the US had been consistently describing as the most active state sponsor of international terrorism, the release of the Tower Commission Report two years later solved the mystery. That report cited a letter by an Iranian go-between, Manouchehr Ghorbanifar, to his US counterpart as saying that one of the nine demands of the Iranian regime from the US was the “(issuance) of an official announcement terming the Mujahedin-e Khalq Marxist and terrorist.”[12]

When the deal with Tehran fell through, the Department of State reversed course and began to formally meet with the MEK, even at the height of the organization’s armed resistance against the clerical regime. [13] In a testimony before the House Europe and the Middle East Subcommittee in April 1987, Assistant Secretary Richard Murphy explained the reasons for that volte face by saying: “I don’t want to overstate our knowledge of the organization… I will very freely admit there were gaps in our knowledge about the organization… We have met with the Mujahedin organization here in Washington… They are a player, and they are hurting in Iran…. We are not boycotting them.”[14]

A decade later, after Mohammad Khatami — wrongly perceived by some in the US as a “moderate” influence within the ruling establishment — became the Iranian regime’s President, the Department under Secretary Madeleine Albright formally designated the MEK as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) on October 8, 1997. Highlighting the political motivations of the move, the very next day, a senior Clinton administration official told the Los Angeles Times, “The inclusion of the People’s Mujahedin was intended as a goodwill gesture to Tehran and its newly elected president, Mohammed Khatami.”[15]

In September 2002, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs during the Clinton Administration, Martin Indyk, told Newsweek, “[There] was White House interest in opening up a dialogue with the Iranian government. Top Administration officials saw cracking down on the [MEK], which the Iranians had made clear they saw as a menace, as one way to do so.”[16]

Four years later, the Wall Street Journal wrote, ” In 1997, the State Department added the MEK to a list of global terrorist organizations as ‘a signal’ of the U.S.’s desire for rapprochement with Tehran’s reformists, says Martin Indyk, who at the time was assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs. President Khatami’s government ‘considered it a pretty big deal,’ Mr. Indyk says.”[17]

The same paper wrote after the MEK’s victory in its legal battle in the UK in 2008, that, “Iranian officials for years have made suppression of the MEK a priority in negotiations with Western governments over Tehran’s nuclear program and other issues, according to several diplomats who were involved in those talks.”[18]

Notwithstanding the fact that MEK supporters were shut out of the political debate about Iran’s future because of a bogus label, what has been most disturbing in these developments has been the successive administrations’ one-sided and unseemly obsession with sending “goodwill gestures” to a regime that has proven itself as a strategic threat to both Washington and the international community. This obsession denigrated into a blatant kowtow when the Department of State acquiesced to Tehran’s main demand of blacklisting the regime’s arch nemesis, the MEK, in a foolhardy attempt to extract concessions from the mullahs. Needless to say, the policy ramifications of the designation went far beyond the MEK, giving free reins to the murderous rulers in Tehran to crackdown on dissidents at home under the pretext of fighting against terrorism.

The windfall gains of the policy of rapprochement appeared to continue for the Iranian regime even through the George. W. Bush years.

In January 2009, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice overruled the recommendation of the Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism and rejected the MEK’s petition to revoke its designation. The New York Times later wrote, “In the Bush administration’s final days, the State Department’s top counterterrorism official, Dell L. Dailey, pushed to have the People’s Mujahedeen removed from the list… Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state at the time, decided to keep the group on the list.”[19] That decision, according to media reports, was prompted by a change of heart in the Bush administration, reflected in a decision to negotiate directly with the Iranian regime over the nuclear issue as well as the desire to establish a US interest section in Tehran.

Across the Atlantic, the MEK’s blacklisting in the UK and the EU was also heavily grounded in similar political (and economic) considerations. In an interview with the BBC radio in 2006, then British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw admitted that the UK designation of MEK was the result of demands made by the Iranian regime. Mr. Straw said, “The very first meeting I ever had with an Iranian Foreign Minister Colonel [Kamal] Kharazi, now over four years ago, I expressed very serious concern about Iran’s continued support for these terrorist organizations at the same time as they were demanding actually successfully of me when I was the Home Secretary that we should ban a terrorist organization MEK that was working against Iran.”[20]

The same year, 35 members of the British Houses of Common and Lords brought a legal challenge against the MEK’s proscription in the UK before the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, POAC, the specialized tribunal tasked exclusively to review terrorist designations in the UK. In the course of the proceedings, a number of classified documents, later unclassified by the Court, revealed the truth about the ulterior political aims behind the MEK’s designation in the UK.

In one such document, a witness statement submitted to POAC, Benjamin James Fender, a senior Foreign Office and Commonwealth official, made reference to “possible adverse foreign policy consequences were the PMOI [MEK] to be deproscribed.”[21] He added, “The present Iranian regime puts a priority on tough legal and political measures against the PMOI.”[22]

Mr. Fender went on to say, “Iranian Ministers and officials have chosen to discuss the PMOI with their counterparts from the UK and other EU Member States on countless occasions. These exchanges have often taken place in the context of discussions on UK/Iran or EU/Iran relations, terrorism in Iraq…. We have therefore been prepared to exchange information with Iran about PMOI activity in the UK, Iran and Iraq, and to discuss our policy towards the group… There was also the belief that reassuring Iran of our intention to apply the law against the PMOI (among other steps in a variety of fields) would help foster the atmosphere of confidence that would be needed for a successful negotiation.”[23]

The Foreign Service official also reiterated that “continued proscription” of the MEK would demonstrate to the Iranian side that “UK’s … efforts are not contrary to Iranian interests but rather something from which Iran benefits.”[24] He also made the startling revelation that, “During the autumn of 2002 and the spring of 2003, the Iranians were keen to understand the Coalition views on Iraq and possible military action, including how that might affect the PMOI. They expressed concern about the possibility of PMOI attacks on Iran during any military campaign. UK officials reassured their Iranian counterparts that we would take the problem of the PMOI in Iraq seriously.”[25]

These very “assurances” to a regime that would later plan and fund the murder of American and British soldiers were part of a quid pro quo with Tehran that prompted the unprovoked bombing of MEK camps by the US and the UK [26] during the invasion of Iraq. The air strikes led to the death of dozens of MEK members, including a number of women, despite MEK’s publicly and officially declared position of neutrality in the 2003 Iraq war.

The MEK’s terrorist designation by the European Union was also the result of pressure by the Iranian regime and the UK. When the EU compiled its own list of terrorist organizations in 2001, Tehran pressured the EU Presidency, held by Belgium at the time, to blacklist the MEK. Belgium, however, refused to do so. In an interview with the Belgian daily La Libre, Foreign Minister Louis Michel warned, “All necessary measures must be taken so that the fight against terrorism is not mistaken with the fight against obtrusive opposition. And this danger really exists….”[27].

However, when Spain took over the EU Presidency in January 2002, it bowed to pressure from Tehran and designated the MEK. In October 2002, in an interview with the state-run daily, Entekhab, Spanish ambassador to Iran boasted, “As you are aware, Spain was the EU rotating President for the first six months of 2002. There were three issues that Iran wanted to address with the EU. When Spain held EU’s Presidency, the two sides were able to resolve these differences. One of the major issues was including the People’s Mujahedin Organization in the list of terrorist groups by the EU.”[28]

Two weeks later, the official Iranian News Agency, IRNA, added, “Analysts point out that this year the EU took several major steps to improve ties with Iran: it put the MKO [MEK] group-let on its terrorist list…”[29]

This “major” issue was even brought up during the sensitive negotiations between the so-called European Troika (France, Germany and Britain) and the Iranian regime on the nuclear dossier. In a document outlining an EU offer to Tehran to persuade it to abide by the September 18, 2004 resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the European Troika pledged that in return for Iran’s compliance with the offer, they “would continue to regard the MEK (Iranian resistance group) as a terrorist organization.”[30]

In this way, the story of the MEK’s designation, fraught with acknowledgments by officials themselves, reveals how Washington, Brussels, and London decided to blatantly trampled upon even their own laws and values in order to comply with Tehran’s “priority on tough legal and political measures against the MEK.” Completely absent from the picture for any unbiased observer is the MEK’s true goals, beliefs and deeds, distorted through a sophisticated misinformation campaign designed to demonize the group in order to justify dancing with the wolves in Tehran.

Meanwhile the Iranian regime reaped the benefits of having the hands of its biggest enemy tied in the West, suppressing its opponents inside Iran, advancing its export of fundamentalism and terrorism and accelerating its nuclear weapons program.

So, in addition to the legal fiasco, concrete developments of recent memory would suffice to convince even the most ardent advocates of pragmatism inside the Beltway that the policy of rapprochement with Tehran has failed. With the MEK having been already delisted in the UK and the EU, this awareness would necessitate that the remnants of that failed policy also be dispensed with in the US. As such, it is high time for the Obama administration to untie the hands of one of the most serious oppositions to the Iranian regime. That is a reality check Washington cannot afford to ignore, if not for the Iranian people, then for its own citizens who are being threatened by a hostile regime eager to get its hands on a nuclear bomb.

Endnotes:
[1] Jay Solomon and Neil King Jr., “Two Agendas: Why Iran, U.S. Stand Far Apart: Tehran Seeks End to Bid to Destabilize Regime; Washington Wants Insurgent Backing in Iraq to Stop,” The Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2007.
[2] US Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, “Country Reports on Terrorism 2008”, Ch. 6, Terrorist Organizations, April 30, 2009, http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2008/122449.htm
[3] The United Kingdom removed the MEK from the Proscribed Organizations List on June 23, 2008. See David Stringer, “Britain Removes Iran Opposition Group From Terror List,” The Associated Press, June 23, 2008. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004479589_apbritainiran.html?syndication=
[4] The European Union followed suit on January 26, 2009. See Philippa Runner, “EU Ministers Drop Iran Group From Terror List,” EUOBSERVER, January, 26, 2009. http://euobserver.com/9/27472
[5] Benjamin James Fender, Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Second Witness Statement to Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, POAC, p. 4, June 25, 2007.
[6] LORD ALTON OF LIVERPOOL & OTHERS (People’s Mojahadeen Organisation of Iran) v. SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT, Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), Judgment, para.360, p. 144, November 30, 2007, http://www.siac.tribunals.gov.uk/poac/Documents/outcomes/PC022006%20PMOI%20FINAL%20JUDGMENT.pdf
[7] Case No: 2007/9516, IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE COURT OF APPEAL APPLICATION FOR PERMISSION TO APPEAL FROM THE PROSCRIBED ORGANISATIONS APPEALS COMMISSION AND IN THE MATTER OF THE PEOPLE’S MOJAHADEEN ORGANISATION OF IRAN, “The Secretary of State for the Home Department v. Lord Alton of Liverpool and Others”, judgment handed down on May, 27, 2008. Para 57, p. 23: “It is a matter for comment and for regret that the decision-making process in this case has signally fallen short of the standards which our public law sets and which those affected by public decisions have come to expect.” http://www.bailii.org/cgibin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2008/443.html&query=The+and+Secretary+and+of+and+State+and+for+and+the+and+Home+and+Department+and+v.+and+Lord+and+Alton+and+of+and+Liverpool+and+Others&method=boolean
[8] US Department of State, “Country Reports on Terrorism 2008”, op. cit.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Hearing at the United States House of Representatives, before the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, July 24, 1985. Assistance Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Richard Murphy, testified before the Subcommittee. At the session’s close, he proceeded to read an unsolicited statement about the MEK into the record. His statement read in part: “They [Mujahedin] are militantly Islamic, anti-democratic, anti-American, and continue to employ terrorism and violence as standard instruments of their politics.” This rather abrupt burst of accusations startled the committee members. The Subcommittee Chairman Lee Hamilton surprisingly asked, “You had a section in there on the People’s Mujahedin Organization in Iran. Why do you do that at this time?” Mr. Murphy, replied, “… In this case, I was presented with an issue which the country director involved felt had been inadequately addressed.”
[12] Tower Commission Report, the Full Text of the Presidential Special Review Board, John Tower, Chairman, Edmund Muskie and Brent Scowcroft, members, Bantam Books, New York 1987, page 360.
[13] David B. Ottaway, “U.S. Meets With Iran Opposition Group,” The Washington Post, April 22, 1987. The Post wrote, “The State Department has been meeting with representatives of an Iranian opposition group the department twice has warned Congress about, saying the group has a terrorist history and is strongly anti-American and Marxist. Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy told the House Foreign Affairs Middle East subcommittee yesterday that ‘we meet, we have met’ with the Mujaheddin-e Khalq or People’s Mujaheddin Organization ‘here in Washington’, and described the group as ‘a player’ in Iran today.”
[14] Hearing at the United States House of Representatives, before the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, April 21, 1987. Assistance Secretary of State Richard Murphy testified before the Subcommittee.
[15] Norman Kempster, “U.S. Designates 30 Groups as Terrorists,” Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1997.
[16] Michael Isikoff, “Ashcroft’s Baghdad Connection” Newsweek, September 26, 2002, http://www.pepeace.org/current_reprints/16/Ashcrofts_Bagdhad_Connection.htm.
[17] Andrew Higgins and Jay Solomon, “Strange Bedfellows- Iranian Imbroglio Gives New Boost To Odd Exile Group,” The Wall Street Journal, November 29, 2006. www.iranpolicy.org/ipcInTheNewsArchive.php?id=1&type=1
[18] Marc Champion, “Iranian Dissidents Win U.K. Ruling,” The Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2008. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121018399158474335.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
[19] Mark Mazzetti and Mark Landler, “Iranian Dissidents’ Fate in Iraq Shows Limits of U.S. Sway”, The New York Times, August 2, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/world/middleeast/02policy.html
[20] British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, interview with BBC Radio 4, Today Program, February 1, 2006.
[21] Benjamin James Fender, op. cit. p. 4.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid., pp. 3-4.
[24] Ibid., p. 3
[25] Ibid., p. 7
[26] David S. Cloud, “U.S. Bombs Iranian Fighters On Iraqi Side of the Border,” The Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2003. Available at: http://www.neareastpolicy.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=30
[27] Louis Michel, Belgian Foreign Minister, interview with La Libre, Brussels, November 10, 2001.
[28] Entekhab daily, October 28, 2002.
[29] Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA, November 11, 2002.
[30] Preparatory text for European proposals on Iranian nuclear program, Agence France Presse, October 21, 2004

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-safavi/reality-check-understandi_b_520592.html