NEWSDAY

The death last week of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi means focus will soon shift back to the single most significant threat America is facing: Iran. Officials in the Obama administration are still scratching their heads for an appropriate response to the foiled plot by agents of the Iranian regime to assassinate the ambassador of Saudi Arabia in Washington. All too often with Iranian provocations, U.S. policy options swing ineffectually between the uncreative (economic sanctions) to the unrealistic (military strikes).

One option sure to get the attention of the ruling mullahs in Tehran — and that could help set the stage for a democratic transition there — is to unleash Iran’s main opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), which remains constrained by an ill-advised U.S. policy.

The MEK was put on the U.S. government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations during the Clinton administration as a well-intentioned but naive attempt to gain the confidence of Iran’s new and, it was hoped, reform-minded President Mohammad Khatami. However, Iran continued to be the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism and to develop its nuclear program.

The Bush administration left the group on the list, fearful that delisting it would prompt Tehran to escalate its efforts to murder U.S. soldiers in Iraq. That decision was also ill-advised; the Iranian regime not only sent explosives to Iraq, but has continued to train, arm and finance an assortment of terrorist groups, which have been responsible for the deaths and injuries of hundreds of U.S. service members.

Today, 3,400 members of the MEK sit in Camp Ashraf, their Iraq-based home for the past quarter century, after they fled persecution in Iran. After protecting them for six years, the U.S. military handed over the camp to the Iran-backed Iraqi government, which was responsible for two deadly attacks on the camp. At Camp Ashraf, they are useless to America’s larger strategic objective to contain and neutralize Iran’s radicalism.

A large number of prominent former national security officials, including former directors of the CIA and the FBI, James Woolsey and Louis Freeh, President Barack Obama‘s former National Security Adviser James Jones, and President George W. Bush‘s Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, agree that the MEK is not a threat to the United States. They point out that the group renounced violence against the Iranian regime years ago and has dedicated itself to secular, democratic governance there. It has already proven an able partner by providing critical intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program and the regime’s role in attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq.

So what’s the holdup?

After the MEK appealed a 2009 decision by the State Department to maintain its designation, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled that the government had erred and remanded the case to the State Department for a review. Fifteen months after the ruling, the department has yet to announce its decision. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) has introduced a congressional resolution urging the State Department to delist the MEK, and it has garnered 95 co-sponsors, including the chairmen of the Armed Services and Select Intelligence committees.

A well-organized lobbying effort by proxies of Iran operating in the United States has tried to demonize the MEK as a cult with terrorist intentions. But this runs counter to all of the experience by the top brass of the U.S. military, as well as intelligence officials who’ve worked with and studied the MEK over the years. It also flies in the face of eight different court rulings in the United Kingdom, the European Union and France, which have resulted in the group’s delisting.

This propaganda war has served Iran faithfully by keeping the MEK in shackles. The MEK’s terrorist designation gives Iran a license to kill its members at will. In addition to the dozens who have already died in Camp Ashraf, many more were hanged by Iranian authorities.

The still-unraveling plot against the Saudi ambassador demonstrates the reach of the Iranian regime in its attempts to destabilize the United States and our allies. It’s ironic that while Tehran’s agents are running loose in this country and may be planning terrorist acts, our government has hampered the opposition the mullahs fear most.

It’s time to revisit this policy. Delisting the MEK is not only warranted by law, it’s the strongest signal the United States can send to the mullahs of Tehran. The timing could not be better.

Gen. Hugh Shelton was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1997 to 2001.

http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/shelton-mislabeling-iran-s-enemies-1.3264024

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

General Hugh Shelton, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

The foiled plot by agents of the Iranian regime to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. has officials in the Obama administration furiously scratching their heads for an “appropriate” response. All too often with Iranian provocations, U.S. policy options swing ineffectually between the uncreative (economic sanctions) to the unrealistic (military strikes). One option sure to get the attention of the ruling mullahs in Tehran – and that could help set the stage for a future democratic transition there – is to unleash Iran’s main opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK), which remains constrained by an ill-advised U.S. policy.

The MeK was put on the U.S. list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” during the Clinton administration as a well-intentioned but naïve attempt to gain the confidence of Iran’s new and, it was hoped, reform-minded President Khatami. However, Iran continued to be the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism and continued to develop its nuclear program.

The Bush administration followed suit, fearful that the delisting of the MEK would prompt Tehran to send IEDs to murder U.S. soldiers. That decision was also ill-advised as the Iranian regime not only sent the deadly explosives to Iraq, but has continued to train, arm and finance an assortment of terrorist groups, which have been responsible for hundreds of U.S. service members being killed or wounded.

Today, 3,400 members of the MeK sit in Camp Ashraf, attacked and massacred as recently as this April by Iran’s proxies in the Iraqi military, useless to America’s larger strategic objective to contain and neutralize Iran’s radicalism.

A large number of prominent former national security officials agree that not only is the MeK not a security threat to the U.S. (the group has dedicated itself to secular, democratic governance in Iran), it has already proven an able and willing partner to the U.S. by providing critical intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program, and the regime’s role in attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq.

So what’s the hold up?

While the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. ruled in July 2010 that the U.S. government had erred in not delisting the MEK and remanded the case to the State Department for a thorough review, the department has yet to announce its decision. A well-organized lobbying effort, again by proxies of Iran operating freely in the U.S., has mischaracterized the MeK as a cult with terrorist intentions. But this runs counter to all of the experience by the top brass of the U.S. military as well as intelligence officials who have worked closely with and studied the MeK over the years. It also flies in the face of eight different court rulings in the UK, EU and France, which have resulted in the group’s delisting in those countries.

The still-unraveling plot against the Saudi Ambassador demonstrates the skill and reach of the Iranian regime in attempting to threaten and destabilize the U.S and our allies. It is somewhat ironic that while Tehran’s agents are running loose in this country, hatching terrorist bombings and assassinations of foreign diplomats, our government has shackled the main opposition, which the mullahs fear the most. It is time to revisit this policy. While the administration, obviously caught off guard, is scrambling to find the proper response, delisting the MeK is the strongest signal the U.S. can send to the mullahs of Tehran. The timing could not be better.

Gen. Hugh Shelton is the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/10/20/2706257/for-an-effective-response-to-iran.html#ixzz1bNsBUmBe

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL – Real Time Brussels Blog

Louis Freeh, Former Director of FBI

The Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, has forged a core of support at the heart of Europe by flying in U.S. political heavyweights for lavish conferences. In January, it was former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton (and his body double), former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and former U.S. National Security Advisor director James Jones.

This week, Louis Freeh, FBI boss under Bill Clinton, was in town. Mr. Freeh, now a senior partner at his Washington consulting firm Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan LLP, has positioned himself as an MEK ally and fierce opponent of the regime in Tehran. “We’ve been appeasing these guys since 1979,” he said over coffee, describing his support for a tougher stand on Iran.

The thorny issue of Iran regained prominence last week with the Obama administration’s announcement that it had foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S in Washington. Iran has said that the Iranian defendent in the case, Gholam Shakuri, actually belongs to MEK and recently visited Camp Ashraf, its compound in eastern Iraq. The allegation is nonsense, says Shahin Gobadi, an MEK spokesman. In a statement, he said the mullahs routinely “blame their crimes on their opposition for double gains.”

Instead, the MEK says the recent plot legitimizes its campaign to be taken off the U.S.’s official terrorist list, where it landed in the 1990s following negotiations between the Clinton administration and Iran. It had become, it says, a bargaining chip. The designation was due to MEK’s links to Saddam Hussein’s regime. After much lobbying, it is now off the EU’s list but has yet to be successful in the U.S.

Its other signature issue is the fate of Camp Ashraf, a refugee village of 3,400 MEK sympathizers which the Iraqi government, under pressure from Iran and its Shiite allies in Iraq, has vowed to close by the end of the year.

MEK fears an imminent military crackdown by the Iraqi government, such as one in April that ended with the death of 34 people. “We have received word from inside the Iranian government that another crackdown is planned,” said Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which bills itself as the parliament in exile of Iranian dissidents.

Mrs. Rajavi shows pictures of listening devices near the camp she says have been placed there by Iranian agents. Tehran has heavily lobbied Iraq to put more pressure on Camp Ashraf.

Supported by Mr. Freeh, she is calling for the 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf to receive refugee status. “Right now, many countries, the U.S. included, won’t take these guys in,” he said.

Mr. Freeh, who receives occasional speaker fees and travel expenses from Iranian exile groups, called MEK’s political future unclear. “It’s hard to judge their popularity in Iran,” he said. “I don’t have a position on MEK, except that they’re not a terrorist group.”

Once the MEK is removed from the U.S. terrorist list, said Mr. Freeh, Camp Ashraf residents will be able to obtain refugee status and emigrate outside Iraq.

After that, “the camp should be shut down,” he said.

http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2011/10/19/iranian-opposition-denies-role-in-plot/

FoxNews

Fox News: More than a dozen of countries top security officials wrote an open letter to President Obama last week in the New York Times about a group they say has been falsely designated as terrorist. Former Secretary of Homeland Security,TomRidge, and former Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, were two of the authors of the letter who have joined us now to explain this.

Judge Mukasey and Governor Ridge on Fox News

Gentlemen, this is an interesting group of leaders that came together to write a letter. They were Republican like yourself, along with Rudy Giuliani plus Democrats like Howard Dean and Governor Ed Rendel … What was so important that you all wanted to write to President Obama?

Mukasey: This group was designated as a terrorist group back in 1990s as a kind of strategic device trying to open dialogue with the Iranian regime, and obviously that has not worked.

They were kept on the list afterwards in the belief that if they were taken off the list the Iranian regime would get upset and would do things like support the terrorists inIraqand send IEDs intoIraq, and of course the regime is doing it anyway.

This group has been persecuted inIran. They have a group of 3400 of them who are living in acampIraqand are now in danger of being obliterated by the Iraqi Army.

Fox News: In fact we have seen some evidence that may already be happening. I just want to define for our viewers what this is? This is a group called MEK. They are committed to a secular, democratic and non-nuclearIran. They sound important toIran’s future.

Tom Ridge: They certainly are. This designation has lasted for almost 15 years with the naive hope that keeping them on the terrorist list would encourageIran to negotiate with theUS around many issues. But the real terrorist organization frankly is the State of Iran.

It is the world’s leading exponent and export of terrorism. The regime is responsible for a lot of de-stabilization and death not only in their own country but in theMiddle East.

Frankly, these 3400 man and women atcampAshrafhave been vetted by the FBI and Justice back in 2003 and 2004. They found no evidence of any terrorist connections whatsoever.

We promised them, theUSgovernment promised them, that we would protect them. Yet, in spite of our promise, in 2009 and 2011, Iraqi forces using equipments, vehicles, weapons, and unfortunately training from theUS, have invaded the camp, killed 36 people and wounded 300 others.

They have to be taken off this list. We have to get Blue Helmets from the UN to protect them. We have to live up to our promise. Our creditability is at stake here.

Fox News: Absolutely.  That video that we were just watching, I believe, is from the day in 2009 from the clashes there with Iraqi forces.

What happened? Why we have not kept our promise to the 3400 women, children, and men who we believe in to keep them out of the harms way? 

Mukasey: The Iraqi government is more and more adjusting its policies to please its neighborIran because our presence there is diminishing.

The Iranian regime obviously wants these people stamped up. As the result, the Iraqis have been cracking down on them, and we are not in a position to do anything about it.

Fox News: Have you got a response to your open letter to President Obama yet?

Secretary Ridge: We have not got a response and frankly what we hear from the State Department on a regular basis is that it continues to be under advisement.

We need to understand that the EU looked at the available evidence. TheUKassembled a group of jurists who said that the designation of this group as a terrorist organization is perverse.

Our DC Court of Appeal here in theUSsaid about 15 months ago that we see no evidence of any kind that these individuals should be listed as a terrorist organization.

Frankly, it has been a license to kill these people, because the designation is the rational that the Iraqi government uses to wind on the two assaults in the 2009 and 2011.

We are fearful that there will be an assault within the next couple of weeks, because the Iraqi government has already blocked the main road in, and is denying some of the UN official access to the camp.

We need to delist them. We need to get monitors there. We need to live up to our promise. We promised personally to the 3400 people that theUSwould protect them. It is naive and morally bankrupt for us to think that we can continue to negotiate with 3400 lives at stake.

Fox News:TomRidge and Michael Mukasey. Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming in and bringing this to all of our attention, and we hope you get a response to this soon.

http://video.foxnews.com/#/v/1220813454001/iran-opposition-group-friend-or-foe-to-us/?playlist_id=87485

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Friends are branded as enemies while real enemies are appeased

As two current high-profile cases demonstrate, the U.S. government’s practice of listing “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs) has become an increasingly dangerous and hollow political exercise rather than a sober assessment of the real threats to America.

llustration: Terrorist by Linas Garsys for The Washington Times

Last month, Afghanistan’s ruthless Haqqani Network reportedly staged a brazen attack against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The Haqqanis, who conduct grisly terrorist attacks on hotels, embassies and other targets to advance their agenda to become power brokers in a future political settlement, reportedly are responsible for hundreds of American deaths since 2001. Some American military officers apparently are furious that the Obama administration decided not to designate the Haqqani Network as a terrorist organization because it was feared that listing the group would make it harder for the Afghan government to negotiate with the Haqqanis.

At the same time, the United States continues to list the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), Iran’s main opposition group and a declared democratic ally, as an FTO even though it meets none of the criteria and long ago renounced violence. Importantly, the group was the first to reveal Iran’s 20-year clandestine nuclear program and provided invaluable intelligence to the U.S. military in Iraq, which not only helped identify and neutralize Iran’s proxy terrorist groups operating in that country but undoubtedly saved American lives in the process.

What gives? Listing organizations like the MEK and not listing groups like the Haqqanis sends the wrong message to friends and foes alike.

In the case of the MEK, the group was put on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations in 1997 to appease the Tehran regime. The mullahs, who hate and fear the MEK, demanded that the group be listed as a precondition for potential negotiations with the United States. Those negotiations never materialized, and today, Iran remains the most dangerous player in the region. Ironically, the misguided FTO designation has given Iran and its proxies in Iraq a license to kill thousands of MEK members, including a massacre on April 8 that killed or wounded hundreds of unarmed men and women in their Iraqi base known as Camp Ashraf. The current drawdown of protective U.S troops in Iraq means that almost certain annihilation awaits a group that has dedicated itself to a democratic, non-nuclear Iran.

There is a growing movement to delist the MEK. It includes a bipartisan group of 96 members of Congress, including chairmen of the House Select Intelligence and Armed Services committees and an impressive roster of former high-level intelligence, law enforcement and security officials from the Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations.

As for the Haqqanis, sources indicate that during high-level discussions last year, Obama administration officials debated listing the group as an FTO, which would have allowed for assets to be frozen and could help dry up the pool of financial donors supporting the group. Though some political leaders and military commanders pushed for the designation in response to the group’s escalating attacks on Americans, the administration decided that such a move might alienate the Haqqanis and drive them away from the negotiating table. It also would have been perceived as another “provocation” in the already tenuous U.S.-Pakistani relationship. In late September, Adm. Michael Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a compelling case for Pakistani complicity in the attack against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

What began as a coordinated effort to identify, list, delegitimize and defang terrorist groups has instead become a symbol of appeasement: America put the MEK on the list to appease the Iranians and has kept the Haqqanis off the list to appease Pakistan as well as Afghanistan, which will have to deal with the network long after Americans leave.

Today, there is once again a fierce debate inside the Obama administration on whether to put the Haqqani Network on the terrorist list. At the same time, a debate rages over whether to delist the MEK. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ordered the U.S. State Department to evaluate the designation as pressure mounts within the department for a new strategy for dealing with the Iranian regime, which it acknowledges is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism.

It appears we are dangerously inconsistent when it comes to the FTO list. Potential friends are branded as terrorists, and avowed enemies avoid a stigmatized identity that could help sap their mystique, funding and support. Both decisions should be reversed immediately, and the whole FTO strategy needs to be examined. The FTO list should be an instrument for counterterrorism, not a tool of negotiation in which hundreds of lives – not to mention American prestige – are used as leverage.

Gen. Hugh Shelton is a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/13/ending-hypocrisy-of-terrorist-designation/

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Those who slander the MEK know nothing about its promise.

As the first colonel to command Camp Ashraf in Iraq, where the main Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) is located, I should like to think I can speak with some authority about this deeply misunderstood organization now at the center of a fierce debate in Washington.

The MEK is the largest component of the National Council of the Resistance to Iran (NCRI), Iran’s parliament in exile. They established several bases inside Iraq in 1986, when Iraq was locked in a war with Iran.

Today, as Iraq grows ever closer with Iran, the MEK is being targeted for annihilation in its temporary Iraqi home at Camp Ashraf. 

The marginalization and murder of MEK members defies American values and interests – but far too little has been done about it.

The State Department is about to announce a decision on whether or not to remove the MEK from its terror list. PHOTO BY Muhly/Getty

The group was previously thrown to the wolves by the Clinton administration, which placed the MEK on the State Department‘s terrorist list at Iran’s request in a futile effort at rapprochement in the late 1990s. Not only was a grave injustice done to the democratic opposition to Tehran, but America‘s reward for appeasement has been Iran’s sprint toward nuclear weapons, attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and its crushing of the human rights of its people.

The MEK surrendered to the U.S. military in 2003 without firing a shot, turned over all its weapons, accepted consolidation at Camp Ashraf and fulfilled every requirement placed on it. The MEK has even provided reliable intelligence to the U.S concerning Iran’s nuclear program and interference in Iraq.

What did the MEK get in return? Nothing we should be proud of. As part of its drawdown, the U.S. turned over the protection of Ashraf to the Iraqi government in January 2009. Twice since then, the Iraqi military has attacked the camp, killing or wounding hundreds. Today, the 3,400 remaining people in Camp Ashraf live in constant fear.

These are the facts.

With the State Department about to announce a decision on whether or not to remove the MEK from its terror list, anti-MEK “experts” are popping up everywhere in the American media to discredit the group. These “experts” range from the sister of a Clinton administration State Department official who admitted spending but hours analyzing the group, to Iranian-Americans who have consistently and publicly defended the Iranian regime. Their claims range from the MEK being a Marxist/Leninist Islamic extremist organization to it being a dangerous cult in which women are automatons, marriage is prohibited and members are prevented from leaving. %A0 They claim the group has no support inside Iran or harbors terrorist ambitions.

These “experts” are maligning a group I have come to know up close and personally. Firstly, this is no Marxist cult. The MEK was founded on democratic principles, including equality between government and governed, between men and women and among various religions and races. The MEK also believes the clergy should not have total control over interpretation of the Koran, nor should the clerics have total control over their congregations. Contrary to a recent claim by Elizabeth Rubin, sister of Jamie Rubin, a former spokesman for the State Department, the MEK promotes the empowerment of women.

Concerning the ability of members to depart the organization: At Ashraf I had responsibility for almost 200 people who left for Kurdistan. As for the claim that the group has no support in Iran, I ask the experts, where was I getting the intercepted sensitive intelligence that a State Department officer was releasing to a well-known Iranian sympathizer within the Iraqi government?

My colleagues and I had unfettered access to Ashraf. As a matter of fact, the only time Americans have been denied access to Ashraf was in 2011, when the Iraqi government refused to allow visitation by a congressional delegation. I know for a fact the MEK does not have weapons. Just search for “Ashraf” on YouTube to see horrific videos of attacks on the camp by the Iraqi Army in 2009 and 2011, in which MEK members armed only with courage rescued their fallen comrades.

A decision by the State Department that is based on the facts on the ground will result in the MEK being removed from its terrorist list and added to America’s kit bag in managing its greatest strategic threat: the Iranian regime. Any decision to the contrary is to the benefit only of this repressive theocracy and its allies.

Martin, who retired as a colonel in the U.S. Army, served as the senior antiterrorism/force protection officer for all coalition forces in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/09/18/2011-09-18_free_irans_freedom_fighters.html

THE NATIONAL INTEREST

There is an escalating war for influence over U.S. policy toward Iran: It is a dispute among university scholars, think-tank analysts and former American officials. Reverberations of this war are not confined to the Washington beltway but have profound significance for the Middle East. As Arab republics like Egypt and Tunisia fall from popular protests, internally inspired regime-change scenarios abound. While largely peaceful protests brought down regimes in Cairo and Tunis, state suppression resulted in violent pushback in Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Secretary of State Hillat Clinton. Image by Harald Dettenborn

Although Arab republics are the immediate targets of their populations, Arab kingdoms like Bahrain, and to a much lesser degree Jordan and Saudi Arabia, are feeling the heat of popular unrest. Because there is generally a lack of consensus on how to transfer power in Arab republics, they are less stable than kingdoms. “The king is dead; long live the (new) king,” does not easily translate into “The president of the republic is dead; long live his son.”

Just as conflicts over succession occur among the Arab republics, so a succession crisis is likely to arise in the Islamic Republic of Iran. We should use the lens of such a conflict in Iran when viewing the war in Washington about an Iranian dissident organization—the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MeK). Saddam Hussein’s takedown by foreign militaries highlights the need for a homegrown antidote to Iranian rulers because external regime change is off the table in the aftermath of the Iraq War.

Secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton is poised to announce the MeK designation in fall 2011, a decision long overdue. Nothing is likely to be more decisive in reducing the strategic threat from Tehran than having a vigorous democratic opposition in Iran; it is critical to have a coalition of prodemocracy dissidents working together to weaken the regime from within and replace it; the MeK can play an enhanced role in the prodemocracy movement if it is removed from the State Department terrorist list. But above and beyond the potential international benefit of facilitating internal regime change for Iran, the MeK simply deserves to be delisted on the basis of facts and law alone.

A search of U.S. government and private electronic and media sources by scholars in the Iran Policy Committee reveals an absence of evidence to support the inference that the MeK engages in terrorist activities or terrorism or has the capability and intent to do so. The databases are: the U.S. Worldwide Incident Tracking System; Department of Homeland Security-sponsored Global Terrorism Database; and U.S. government-supported RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents. In these major databases, there are no confirmed associations of the MeK with any military action after 2001.

Given the absence of unclassified evidence of MeK involvement in terrorist activities during the course of nine years (2001-2010), any countervailing evidence in the classified record should be viewed with skepticism and subject to scrutiny for credibility. An assumption here is that terrorist incidents are too public not to appear in databases or in newspapers of record.

On 4 December 2008, the Court of First Instance of the European Communities issued a judgment annulling the MeK designation, and the European Union cleared the MeK of terrorist conduct in January 2009. The United Kingdom removed the group from its list of proscribed organizations in June 2008. In addition, the French judiciary dismissed all terrorism and terrorism-financing charges against the group in May 2011.

Two issues before the American court have been whether the State Department provided due process of law to the MeK and credibility of evidence in support of allegations against it. In a July 2010 ruling regarding a MeK appeal of its continued designation in January 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC circuit faulted the decisionmaking process of the secretary of state.

The court questioned the credibility, sources and legal relevance of evidence in the Secretary’s January 2009 decision to maintain the designation and ordered the State Department to give the MeK an occasion to rebut some of the declassified material used in the re-designation. On 20 May 2011, the department released ten documents. Five were unclassified, mostly wire service reports from the Associated Press, Radio Farda and Azeri Press Agency. They concern allegations, such as MeK’s “cult-like” behavior and supposed lack of popular support within Iran. Such false, nonlegal allegations are no grounds on which to base a terrorist tag.

For the MeK to be re-designated absent any terrorist activity or terrorism, the State Department has to demonstrate that the group has both the capability and the intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism and that it either threatens U.S. national security or the security of American citizens.

In the Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism (CRT) 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, a CRT 2006 accusation that the MeK has “capacity and will” to commit terrorist activities or engage in terrorism does not recur, and there are no terrorist activities or terrorist events cited during the legally relevant period of two years prior to the last re-designation decision of January 2009. In fact, no such actions are listed since 2001.

In view of the convergence of historical circumstances and the law in favor of delisting, consider the political origins of the MeK designation. The roots are in the Iran-Contra affair of the mid-1980s: In exchange for release of American hostages held in Lebanon by one of Tehran’s proxies, Hezbollah, the State Department alleged without evidence that MeK members used terrorism and violence as “standard instruments of their politics.” Thus began the use of that designation primarily as a tool to achieve foreign-policy aims rather than antiterrorism goals.

Martin Indyk, who served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in 1997, said one of the reasons the MeK was put on the terrorism list was part of a “two-pronged” diplomatic strategy. It included increasing pressure on Saddam Hussein by linking him to a “terrorist group,” the MeK. The other “prong” was the Clinton administration’s interest in opening a dialogue with Tehran. On 8 June 1997, Mohammad Khatami was elected president of Iran, and the administration viewed him as a moderate. Clinton officials saw cracking down on the MeK as a way to strengthen Khatami at the expense of so-called hardliners. But this political use of the terrorist designation failed; Tehran pocketed the concession without reciprocity.

Because law and facts converge for removing the designation of the MeK, those who oppose delisting fall back on political grounds buttressed by vague factual allegations for a continuation of the terrorist tag. There is an unfounded claim that the MeK is unpopular within Iran because of “numerous terrorist attacks against innocent Iranian civilians.” Then there is an invalid policy conclusion: “Removing the MeK from the Foreign Terrorist Organization [sic] list and misconstruing its lack of democratic bona fides and support inside Iran will have harmful consequences on the legitimate, indigenous Iranian opposition.” The allegation of MeK unpopularity is false. Support within the expatriate Iranian community suggests popularity in Iran; no other dissident organization can mobilize similar numbers of expat supporters.

Some who believe delisting would limit Washington’s ability to reach out to the Iranian street are wrong; the disproportionate number of protestors arrested and hanged because of association with the MeK indicates the organization’s significant presence on the Iranian street. Those who oppose delisting the MeK and hold a dim view of the effectiveness of Iranian dissidents to bring about regime change weaken their opposition to removal of the tag on the MeK. An argument in support of delisting on foreign-policy grounds is that it would reinforce the democratic opposition in Iran.

In most of the arguments opposed to delisting the MEK, no statutory fact is presented. So opponents of removing the terrorist tag resort to irrelevant non-legal arguments to overshadow lack of evidence of its engagement in terrorist activities or terrorism. In effect, those in favor of maintaining the MeK listing want Secretary Clinton to disregard the facts and the law entirely. With a simple signature delisting the group, Secretary Clinton would not only bring her Department in line with law and facts; she also would help empower the Iranian people to change the regime and open a political option between failed engagement and ineffective sanctions, on one hand, and problematic military action on the other.

Raymond Tanter served on the senior staff of the National Security Council and as personal representative of the Secretary of Defense to arms control talks in Europe in the Reagan-Bush administration. He is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan.

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/meks-war-washington-5889

CNN Opinion

Editor’s note: Louis Freeh served as director of the FBI from 1993-2001; Lord Corbett of Castle Vale heads the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom; and Rt. Hon. Lord Waddington QC is a former British home secretary and leader of the House of Lords. Freeh has received payment for travel expenses and speaking at conferences organized by groups that want People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.

(CNN) — Congressional leaders and former top U.S. officials are pressing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to remove Iran’s main opposition group, the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. So what should Clinton do?

Let’s consider the background. The People’s Mujahedeen, also known as the MEK, is the Iranian mullahs’ worst nightmare. Since 1981 it has waged a costly and deadly battle to unseat the ayatollahs’ regime, but it is a battle for the soul of Iran of which it can be immensely proud.

In 1997, the Clinton administration added the MEK to the State Department’s blacklist in what a senior administration official, according to the Los Angeles Times, described as a good will gesture to Iran — thought at the time to be moving toward a more moderate form of government. The Bush administration maintained the ban, which many saw as an effort to persuade the Iranians to abandon their nuclear weapons program. But Iran is no closer to moderation and its nuclear ambitions get closer and closer to fulfillment.

Former U.S. officials calling for the MEK to be de-listed include former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, three former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, two former directors of the CIA, former commander of NATO Wesley K. Clark, two former U.S. ambassadors to the U.N., former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, a former White House chief of staff, a former commander of the Marine Corps, former U.S. National Security Adviser Fran Townsend, now a CNN contributor; and even President Obama’s recently retired National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones. Their call is backed by 93 members of Congress, who have signed a bipartisan resolution urging the president to revoke the designation, and by prominent Democratic and Republican leaders such as Howard Dean and Rudy Giuliani.

In deciding whether to delist the MEK, Clinton should consider the following:

First, the decision to classify an organization as a terrorist group must be based on fact. Up until now, 10 courts in Britain, France, the European Union and the United States have looked at the evidence and ruled that the group is not involved in terrorism. Britain’s Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission and later the Court of Appeal looked at the U.S. State Department’s reasons for listing the group as a terror organization in great detail and rejected them as irrelevant or found that the allegations’ sources and accuracy could not be established. The courts confirmed that the MEK halted armed activities against Iran in 2001 and voluntarily disarmed in 2003.

Second, the ban has put the lives of 3,400 MEK members at Camp Ashraf, Iraq, at great risk. In April, Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a close ally of Iran, ordered an armed raid on the camp that left 36 residents dead and 350 injured. But when a bipartisan congressional delegation questioned al-Maliki in Baghdad about the incident, he said the United States had no right to complain about such violence when it was directed at a group the State Department itself called terrorist. Lifting the ban would remove any pretext for another military assault against the unarmed and defenseless MEK members at Camp Ashraf.

Finally, there is the broader issue of relations with Iran. Proponents of engagement with Iran claim that lifting the ban on the MEK would all but destroy any chance of future dialogue with Tehran. But what would be the point of such dialogue? Does anyone seriously believe the mullahs could be persuaded to throw away their attempt to obtain a nuclear weapon when the achievement of their ambitions is so close? And what would be the time frame for the talks, when Iran is believed to be less than one year from reaching nuclear breakout capability?

Delisting the MEK would send a strong signal to the millions in Iran who seek democratic change that the United States is on their side and has shunned the regime. It will tell the mullahs that the United States seriously intends to stop their outlawed activities and support democratic change in Iran just when Tehran is trying to use its influence to keep its anti-democratic and anti-Western partners in power in Syria and Iraq.

Delisting the MEK would lift the restrictions on the region’s largest Muslim group with a secular agenda and a democratic platform, whose moderate interpretation of Islam strongly threatens the mullahs’ fundamentalism.

The State Department, which has been unable to offer the courts any sound legal arguments for maintaining the ban on the MEK, now has a legal, moral and political duty to delist the MEK so it is not hampered in its work as the representative of those yearning for democratic change in Iran.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writers.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/12/freeh.corbett.waddington.mek/