by Eldar Mamedov

While the world watched in horror as jihadist extremists from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seized the Iraqi city of Mosul, some members of the European Parliament (MEPs) claimed that these actions were not carried out by ISIS, but were “part of a popular [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Eldar Mamedov

While the world watched in horror as jihadist extremists from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seized the Iraqi city of Mosul, some members of the European Parliament (MEPs) claimed that these actions were not carried out by ISIS, but were “part of a popular uprising” against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The comments were made at a June 11 press conference in Brussels, according to a press release for the event.

At the same time that ISIS was reportedly committing mass executions in Mosul, these MEPs “disputed” that Mosul and Tikrit had been taken by ISIS, and announced the creation of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA), a “new NGO with the mission of improving the political and human rights situation in Iraq.”

The ousting of Maliki and the “complete eviction of the Iranian regime from Iraq” are the group’s primary goals, according to the press release of the EIFA, which has no website other than a Facebook page that was created on May 6.

There is no shortage of people arguing that Iran holds excessive influence over Iraq, and that Maliki has aggravated many of Iraq’s problems, so why did these MEPs resort to downplaying the horrors of ISIS’ actions in calling for an end to Tehran’s hold on Baghdad?

A clue appears in the EIFA’s emphasis on the security situations of Camps Ashraf and Liberty.

Camp Ashraf became the Iraqi base of the exiled Iranian dissident organization, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, (aka MEK, MKO, PMOI and NCRI), in the 1980s after its exodus from the Islamic Republic following a power struggle and violent regime-orchestrated persecution.

The MEK, frequently described as a “cult”, was classified as a terrorist organization by the EU until 2009 and by the US until 2012, and has been accused of human rights abuses.

Despite its expensive claims to the contrary (MEK op-eds and advertisements regularly appear in Western media outlets), the NCRI, the MEK’s “parliament-in-exile” and political wing, has no popular support in Iran. In fact, the MEK sided with Saddam Hussein during the 1981-88 Iran-Iraq war and even attempted to take Iranian territory. The vast majority of Iranians inside Iran either consider the group insignificant or harmful to reformist efforts. The MEK is also despised by many Iraqis for its role in crushing Shia and Kurdish uprisings against Saddam’s dictatorial rule. Yet thanks to well-funded lobbying and advocacy efforts, the MEK has still been endorsed by some Western politicians in the US and Europe as a legitimate Iranian opposition movement.

Before setting its sights on the United States, the MEK, through the NCRI, embarked on a well-organized campaign to bring European politicians to its side. After years of unchecked lobbying efforts, the MEK has convinced some MEPs to advocate in its favor. In addition to the leftist groups who uncritically support the MEK because it claims to have Marxist beliefs (along with Islamic ones!), right-wing MEPs seem taken in by its fervent anti-Iranian government stance. It is therefore not surprising that the individuals endorsing the EIFA have also endorsed the MEK.

The foremost MEK-EIFA endorser is Struan Stevenson, a British conservative who chaired the European Parliament (EP) delegation for relations with Iraq in 2009-2014. Under his watch, the delegation has devoted disproportionate attention to the security of Camp Ashraf while almost completely neglecting the more relevant economic, social, security and human rights challenges facing Iraq. When the EP negotiated a 2014 resolution addressing the surge of violence in Iraq in February, Stevenson made every effort to downplay the involvement of ISIS, while directing all blame towards Maliki and Iran.

Another notable promoter of the EIFA is Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a Spanish conservative. During his tenure as Vice President of the EP (2009-14), he functioned as one of the NCRI’s chief supporters. The EIFA has also been endorsed by former Portuguese socialist MEP Paulo Casaca (2004-09), a self-styled “expert on Iraq” who reportedly employed a MEK member as one of his personal assistants during his parliamentary stint.

Seen in the light of their MEK connections, it’s clear why these MEPs are trying to downplay the role of ISIS as a serious threat to the stability of Iraq and the broader region. The MEK and its supporters view Maliki as an Iranian pawn and believe that if Maliki goes, the Iranian government (which the MEK detests) will suffer. So in following the proverb, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, the MEK’s supporters and ISIS have found a common cause in pushing for Maliki’s ouster.

Even though Vidal-Quadras, Stevenson and Casaca will not be serving in the incoming European Parliament as of July 1, the MEK will surely try to recruit more MEPs for its cause, including with new tools like the EIFA. Of course, whoever is approached by the MEK — and most MEPs will be approached if they haven’t already — would be wise to think twice about associating with an organization that attempts to minimize the acts of a group so murderous and fanatical that even al-Qaeda has declared it too extreme.

This article was first published by LobeLog and was reprinted here with permission.

Photo: The European Iraqi Freedom Association’s (EIFA) June 11 press conference in Brussels featuring European members of parliament Stephen Hughes, Struan Stevenson, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, and Paulo Casaca.

via IPS News

Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman based his 2006 warrant for the arrest of top Iranian officials in the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994 on the claims of representatives of the armed Iranian opposition Mujahedin E Khalq (MEK), the full text [...]]]> by Gareth Porter

via IPS News

Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman based his 2006 warrant for the arrest of top Iranian officials in the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994 on the claims of representatives of the armed Iranian opposition Mujahedin E Khalq (MEK), the full text of the document reveals.

The central piece of evidence cited in Nisman’s original 900-page arrest warrant against seven senior Iranian leaders is an alleged Aug. 14, 1993 meeting of top Iranian leaders, including both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and then president Hashemi Rafsanjani, at which Nisman claims the official decision was made to go ahead with the planning of the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA).

But the document, recently available in English for the first time, shows that his only sources for the claim were representatives of the MEK or People’s Mujahideen of Iran. The MEK has an unsavoury history of terrorist bombings against civilian targets in Iran, as well as of serving as an Iraq-based mercenary army for Saddam Hussein’s forces during the Iran-Iraq War.

The organisation was removed from the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist groups last year after a campaign by prominent former U.S. officials who had gotten large payments from pro-MEK groups and individuals to call for its “delisting”.

Nisman’s rambling and repetitious report cites statements by four members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is the political arm of the MEK, as the sources for the charge that Iran decided on the AMIA bombing in August 1993.

The primary source is Reza Zakeri Kouchaksaraee, president of the Security and Intelligence Committee of the NCRI. The report quotes Kouchaksaraee as testifying to an Argentine Oral Court in 2003, “The decision was made by the Supreme National Security Council at a meeting that was held on 14 August, 1993. This meeting lasted only two hours from 4:30 to 6:30 pm.”

Nisman also quotes Hadi Roshanravani, a member of the International Affairs Committee of the NCRI, who claimed to know the same exact starting time of the meeting – 4:30 pm – but gave the date as Aug. 12, 1993 rather than Aug. 14.

Roshanravani also claimed to know the precise agenda of the meeting. The NCRI official said that three subjects were discussed: “The progress and assessment of the Palestinian Council; the strategy of exporting fundamentalism throughout the world; and the future of Iraq.” Roshanravani said “the idea for an attack in Argentina” had been discussed “during the dialogue on the second point”.

The NCRI/MEK was claiming that the Rafsanjani government had decided on a terrorist bombing of a Jewish community centre in Argentina as part of a policy of “exporting fundamentalism throughout the world”.

But that MEK propaganda line about the Ira nian regime was contradicted by the U.S. intelligence assessment at the time. In its National Intelligence Estimate 34-91 on Iranian foreign policy, completed on Oct. 17, 1991, U.S. intelligence concluded that Rafsanjani had been “gradually turning away from the revolutionary excesses of the past decade…toward more conventional behavior” since taking over as president in 1989.

Ali Reza Ahmadi and Hamid Reza Eshagi, identified as “defectors” who were affiliated with NCRI, offered further corroboration of the testimony by the leading NCRI officials. Ahmadi was said by Nisman to have worked as an Iranian foreign service officer from 1981 to 1985. Eshagi is not otherwise identified.

Nisman quotes Ahmadi and Eshagi, who made only joint statements, as saying, “It was during a meeting held at 4:30 pm in August 1993 that the Supreme National Security Council decided to carry out activities in Argentina.”

Nisman does not cite any non-MEK source as claiming such a meeting took place. He cites court testimony by Abolghassem Mesbahi, a “defector” who had not worked for the Iranian intelligence agency since 1985, according to his own account, but only to the effect that the Iranian government made the decision on AMIA sometime in 1993. Mesbahi offered no evidence to support the claim.

Nisman repeatedly cites the same four NCRI members to document the alleged participation of each of the seven senior Iranians for whom he requested arrest warrants. A review of the entire document shows that Kouchaksaraee is cited by Nisman 29 times, Roshanravani 16 times and Ahmadi and Eshagi 16 times, always together making the same statement for a total of 61 references to their testimony.

Nisman cited no evidence or reason to believe that any of the MEK members were in a position to have known about such a high-level Iranian meeting. Although MEK propaganda has long claimed access to secrets, their information has been at best from low-level functionaries in the regime.

In using the testimony of the most violent opponents of the Iranian regime to accuse the most senior Iranian officials of having decided on the AMIA terrorist bombing, Nisman sought to deny the obvious political aim of all MEK information output of building support in the United States and Europe for the overthrow of the Iranian regime.

“The fact that the individuals are opponents of the Iranian regime does not detract in the least from the significance of their statements,” Nisman declared.

In an effort to lend the group’s testimony credibility, Nisman described their statements as being made “with honesty and rigor in a manner that respects nuances and details while still maintaining a sense of the larger picture”.

The MEK witnesses, Nisman wrote, could be trusted as “completely truthful”.

The record of MEK officials over the years, however, has been one of putting out one communiqué after another that contained information about alleged covert Iranian work on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, nearly all of which turned out to be false when they were investigated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The only significant exception to the MEK’s overall record of false information on the Iranian nuclear programme was its discovery of Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility and its Arak heavy water facility in August 2002.

But even in that case, the MEK official who announced the Natanz discovery, U.S. representative Alireza Jafarzadeh, incorrectly identified it as a “fuel fabrication facility” rather than as an enrichment facility. He also said it was near completion, although it was actually several months from having the equipment necessary to begin enrichment.

Contrary to the MEK claims that it got the information on Natanz from sources in the Iranian government, moreover, the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh reported, a “senior IAEA official” told him in 2004 that Israeli intelligence had passed their satellite intelligence on Natanz to the MEK.

An adviser to Reza Pahlavi, the heir to the Shah, later told journalist Connie Bruck that the information about Natanz had come from “a friendly government”, which had provided it to both the Pahlavi organisation and the MEK.

Nisman has long been treated in pro-Israel, anti-Iran political circles as the authoritative source on the AMIA bombing case and the broader subject of Iran and terrorism. Last May, Nisman issued a new 500-page report accusing Iran of creating terrorist networks in the Western hemisphere that builds on his indictment of Iran for the 1994 bombing.

But Nisman’s readiness to base the crucial accusation against Iran in the AMIA case solely on MEK sources and his denial of their obvious unreliability highlights the fact that he has been playing a political role on behalf of certain powerful interests rather than uncovering the facts.

Photo: Former UN Ambassador John Bolton speaking at a MEK rally in New York on Sept. 26, 2012. The MEK was taken off the US Foreign Terrorist Organizations list after lobbying that included endorsements by former officials including Bolton. Credit: asterix611/Flickr 

by Mohammad Ali Shabani

Most headlines on Iran’s launch of uranium-related sites on April 9th — its National Day of Nuclear Technology — linked it to the diplomatic deadlock in Kazakhstan. Tehran was regarded as pursuing escalation, perhaps in frustration with the situation. But was this really the case?

To answer [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Mohammad Ali Shabani

Most headlines on Iran’s launch of uranium-related sites on April 9^th — its National Day of Nuclear Technology — linked it to the diplomatic deadlock in Kazakhstan. Tehran was regarded as pursuing escalation, perhaps in frustration with the situation. But was this really the case?

To answer this question, one needs to consider what Iran has previously done on this anniversary, the significance of the Islamic Republic’s new sites and its escalatory options.

The government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched the National Day of Nuclear Technology in 2006. This was part of the push for a harder stance on the nuclear issue after the breakdown of talks with European powers, during which Iran voluntarily agreed to freeze enrichment-related activities.

As part of the first festivities in 2006, Iran announced that it would — in defiance of a UN Security Council warning — enrich uranium on an industrial scale. A total of 164 centrifuges at Natanz started to spin, churning out uranium enriched below 5%.

During the past seven years, the Islamic Republic has largely used its Nuclear Technology day to unveil new achievements, both for domestic and foreign audiences. As the occasion has repeatedly coincided with nuclear diplomatic developments, it has often been used to signal Iranian attitudes.

In 2007, Iran used the anniversary to announce that it had crossed the Western red line of 3,000 operational centrifuges. Back then, David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, asserted that “Ahmadinejad is trying to demonstrate facts on the ground and negotiate from a stronger position.”

The year after, Iran used the occasion to announce that it would begin installing 6,000 centrifuges and alluded to the testing of a new generation of centrifuges. Then in 2009, Ahmadinejad inaugurated the country’s first Fuel Manufacturing Plant in the central city of Isfahan. The Islamic Republic also said its number of centrifuges had increased to 7,000.

In 2010, as the UN Security Council convened to discuss fresh sanctions, Iran unveiled new “third-generation” centrifuges, said to have separation power six times that of first-generation centrifuges. Iran also declared that “considerable” uranium reserves had been found in Yazd province. That year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran had 8,610 centrifuges installed, of which 3,772 were operating.

In 2011, after dialogue over Iran’s production of 19.75%-enriched uranium had broken down, it opted to simply praise past achievements. Apart from this, it announced the resumption of fuel reloading at the Bushehr power plant. And last year, after the escalation of Western sanctions, Iran announced that local scientists had produced fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor containing uranium enriched to 19.75%.

This year, Iran announced on the anniversary that it had opened two uranium mines and a yellowcake processing plant named after an assassinated nuclear scientist. What’s the significance of these sites?

In terms of capacity, the yellowcake facility is insignificant. Its stated output of 60 tons a year is less than one third of what’s needed to fuel the Bushehr atomic power plant. Moreover, the discovery of the uranium deposits, which are now being extracted, was first announced years ago. Along the same line, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran had announced in February 2012 that the mines would be operational in about a year, that is, right around this time.

The most important fact to keep in mind, however, is that Iran has for a long time been projected to be close to exhausting its limited supply of yellowcake. Without feedstock to inject into its centrifuges at Natanz (in gaseous form), Iran’s uranium enrichment — at least to 3.5% — would grind to a halt.

In short, the new sites unveiled on April 9th are designed to ensure the status quo.

There are other factors which also signify Iran’s pursuit of the status quo rather than escalation. For example, considering the many powerful escalatory options in its possession — wider use of new-generation centrifuges, expansion of operations at Fordow, increases in enrichment levels and construction of long-promised, new enrichment sites — the announcements this year seem geared towards signaling  restraint to a foreign audience without appearing empty-handed in front of a domestic public facing unprecedented sanctions.

Indeed, the Islamic Republic has little interest in escalating the situation at this point, especially as it faces its first presidential election since the disputed vote in 2009. The idea that Iran prefers to quietly kick the can down the road until it gets its house in order was also recently expressed by former top US non-proliferation official, Gary Samore.

Meanwhile, it could also be argued that the United States – or at least its Congress — is pursuing escalation.

Following the deadlock in Kazakhstan, US lawmakers have been pushing for fresh sanctions that would constitute something akin to an Oil-for-Food Program 2.0. The draft Senate bill states that the proposed embargo won’t be lifted until Iran releases political prisoners, respects the rights of women and minorities and moves toward “a free and democratically elected government.”

Moreover, last week, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) — a front for the until recently terror-listed Mujahideen-e-Khalq Organization (MEK) — opened an official office one block away from the White House. The group was put on the State Department’s terror list by the Clinton Administration. In the past, the MEK was behind a series of killings and bombings in Iran — one of which led to the permanent paralysis of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s right arm. The MEK, which sided with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, was also reportedly involved in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Among these men is Darioush Rezaeinejad, whom the new yellowcake facility is named after.

The signal that’s being sent to decision-makers in Tehran, regardless of whether the Obama Administration approves of the MEK’s new office, is that the sanctions have little to do with their nuclear program. Combined with the wording of the proposed embargo, the situation ominously fits into Ayatollah Khamenei’s narrative that even a nuclear deal won’t be enough to roll back American pressure.

All things considered, one should be careful about linking Iran’s latest announcements about its nuclear achievements to the continued deadlock in talks with the 6 world powers, or viewing Iran’s actions as deserving of the escalation pursued by at least one of these powers.

It is becoming ever clearer that both Iran and the United States need to get their houses in order before they can move in the right direction. More than ever, cool heads need to prevail.

I don’t know the answer to the question I’ve posted above, but today’s news may offer an indication:

The EU imposes new sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program and reaffirms its said commitment to reaching a peaceful, diplomatic solution:

…the objective of the EU remains to achieve a comprehensive, negotiated, long-term settlement, [...]]]> via Lobe Log

I don’t know the answer to the question I’ve posted above, but today’s news may offer an indication:

The EU imposes new sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program and reaffirms its said commitment to reaching a peaceful, diplomatic solution:

…the objective of the EU remains to achieve a comprehensive, negotiated, long-term settlement, which would build international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear programme, while respecting Iran’s legitimate rights to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in conformity with the NPT, and fully taking into account UN Security Council and IAEA Board of Governors’ Resolutions.

Israel nods approvingly but doesn’t rejoice:

[Benjamin] Netanyahu, speaking Tuesday at the start of a meeting in Jerusalem with European Union member state ambassadors, called the sanctions “tough” and said Iran was “the greatest threat to peace in our time.”

“These sanctions are hitting the Iranian economy hard, (but) they haven’t yet rolled back the Iranian program. We’ll know that they’re achieving their goal when the centrifuges stop spinning and when the Iranian nuclear program is rolled back,” he said.

As does the former EU and US terrorist-designated organization the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (aka MEK, NCRI, PMOI) while reaffirming its commitment to regime change in Iran:

Therefore, although comprehensive sanctions are an essential and indispensible element to stop the clerical regime’s nuclear weapons project, the ultimate and definitive solution for the world community to rid itself of the terrorist mullahs’ attempt to acquire nuclear weapons is a regime change by the Iranian people and Resistance. Thus, recognizing the Iranian people’s efforts to overthrow religious fascism and to establish democracy in Iran is more essential than ever.

Iran complains loudly while tooting its resistance regime horn and allegdly hitting back against cyber attacks waged against its nuclear program.

And all the while average Iranians (and terminally ill ones) continue to carry the brunt of the weight:

The measures come as Iran’s economy continues to reel in the wake of previous Western sanctions targeting the country’s crucial oil exports and access to international banking networks. Iranians are suffering economically amid inflation and the sharp devaluation of the Iranian currency against the dollar.

Shop owners in downtown Tehran said that prices had risen 50% since last month and that they were expecting things to only get worse.

Amir Mosayan, who sells watch batteries wholesale, said that immediately following the sanctions the price of his goods went up 70%.

 

While you would expect the State Department’s decision to de-list the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) would elicit cheers from anti-Iran neo-conservatives, the MEK has, in fact, been one of a number of issue — including former Israeli Prime Minister Sharon’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza and [...]]]> via Lobe Log

While you would expect the State Department’s decision to de-list the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) would elicit cheers from anti-Iran neo-conservatives, the MEK has, in fact, been one of a number of issue — including former Israeli Prime Minister Sharon’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza and Washington’s engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood — that has been the source of considerable division among the neo-cons.

Strong opposition to de-listing the MEK, let alone providing it with U.S. (or even Israeli) support has been based mostly among those most ardent Iraq hawks closely associated with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), particularly Michael Rubin; Danielle Pletka, and Michael Ledeen, who moved over to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) a couple of years ago and, of all people, should know a con when he sees one. Their opposition is based on the conviction (shared by many critics on the left and among realists or anyone who has ever actually been to Iran) that the MEK is largely hated in Iran itself and thus that any perceived U.S. support for — or complicity with — it will prove entirely counter-productive to their goal of regime change.

Or, as Rubin put it last March:

The problem with those who would embrace the MEK is that it would undercut the chance for regime collapse.

…Iranians living under the regime’s yoke hate the MEK. That is not regime propaganda; it is fact, one to which any honest analyst who has ever visited Iran testify. Ordinary Iranians deeply resent the MEK’s terrorism, which has targeted not only regime officials, but also led to the deaths of scores of civilians. During the Iran-Iraq War — a conflict that decimated cities and led to tens of thousands of civilian deaths — the MEK sided with Saddam Hussein.

…If the MEK is delisted, let the MEK celebrate. But whether listed as a terrorist group or not, it would be wrong and counterproductive to embrace the group unless, of course, the goal of those for officials on the group’s payroll is simply to aid the current regime in its efforts to rally its subjugated masses around the flag.

The last reference, of course, was to the legion of high-profile former Republican and Democratic administration officials and military officers (useful idiots and/or mercenaries, so far as MEK foes are concerned) who have been speaking out in favor of the MEK, most, if not all of them, in return for tens of thousands of dollars paid out by the MEK’s multitudinous front groups and p.r. consultants. (The Washington Post covered a good lot of them last July when the FBI started looking into their lobbying activities.

Pletka, whose blog post this week about Obama “hat[ing] Israel” can only be described as truly bizarre, nonetheless raised some good questions last year about the morality of those who support the MEK and the application of double standards regarding Washington’s enforcement of its terrorism laws:

If this is an enemy/enemy/friend thing, let’s consider whether we wish to replace the creepy, Islamist, dictatorial mullahs with the creepy, Islamist, dictatorial cult. Seems a bad trade to me. The United States should be supporting democracy in Iran, not a one-for-one swap among murderers and thugs.

And here’s another question: Where’s the FBI and the Justice Department? A terrorist group is lobbying in the United States. It’s paying top political fixers to make its case. It’s paying speaking fees to former government officials. Where’s the money from? How’s it being transferred? And would it be okay for Hezbollah to do this? Al Qaeda?

Unfortunately, these arguments didn’t get very far with more prominent associates and colleagues at AEI, although Richard Perle, such as Newt Gingrich, who spoke at a MEK rally in Paris last July (Bowing before a recognized cult leader in a foreign country must be particularly humiliating for someone like Gingrich, but I guess Sheldon Adelson’s $10m didn’t cover all his campaign debts); John Bolton, Allan Gerson, who was one of the MEK’s attorneys; and the former (and mercifully briefly) CIA director under Bill Clinton, James Woolsey. Richard Perle, who appeared at an Iranian-American “charity event” in Virginia in 2004 but then claimed he had no idea that it was a fund-raiser for the MEK has since wisely kept his silence.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the neo-con critics of the MEK sceptics (besides the big-name endorsers noted above) have been, of course, the Iran Policy Committee (IPC) headed by Raymond Tanter, as well as a number of writers and think tankers, including contributors to the Weekly Standard, the National Review, and Commentary (notably Jonathan Tobin), and Daniel Pipes, the director of the Middle East Forum. Unlike the IPC, which has always insisted that the MEK got a bad rap and is truly a deeply pro-American group dedicated to all the principles and values that have made this country great, the latter have basically propounded “the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend” argument disdained by Pletka.

Rubin and Tobin grappled last February on Commentary’s Contentions blog on the practicality of backing the MEK in the wake of reports that Israel had used the MEK to assassinate an Iranian scientist the previous month — reports that, in Tobin’s view, were “difficult to doubt.” Tobin:

The MEK are allies of convenience and, just like many wartime allies in other conflicts, share only a common enemy with Israel. But however nasty they may be, Israel need not blush about using them. For a democracy at war, the only truly immoral thing to do would be to let totalitarian Islamists like those in Tehran triumph.

To which Rubin responded:

Jonathan is correct that Israel cannot ignore the Iranian regime’s genocidal intent, and he is also correct that there is no moral equivalence between alleged Israeli targeting of Iranian nuclear scientists and Iranian assassination attempts upon Israeli diplomats.

…By utilizing the MEK—a group which Iranians view in the same way Americans see John Walker Lindh, the American convicted of aiding the Taliban—the Israelis risk winning some short-term gain at the tremendous expense of rallying Iranians around the regime’s flag. A far better strategy would be to facilitate regime change. Not only would the MEK be incapable of that mission, but involving them even cursorily would set the goal back years.

The Weekly Standard has generally avoided the controversy, but last May, Lee Smith, who is also associated with FDD, penned a generally sympathetic article entitled “Terrorists or Fall Guys” in which he quoted, among others, his FDD colleague and AEI alum, Reuel Marc Gerecht, as asserting, “If the PLO can be rehabilitated, so can the MEK.” The article featured at some length statements by Brig. Gen. David Phillips, the retired commandant of the U.S. Army Military Police, whose job was to disarm the MEK after the 2003 invasion and who opposed transferring the MEK from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty on the grounds that the Iraqi government would probably hand its members over to Tehran. The final sentence of the piece:

American credibility and prestige are on the line, says Phillips, not only in how we treat people under our protection but also in how we deal with Iran. “We’re afraid of sending the Iranians a strong message and getting them mad. But that’s exactly the message we want to send them.”

That’s apparently Smith’s bottom line on the question.

Pipes, who, unlike almost all other neo-cons, opposes U.S. intervention in Syria, has come out in clear support of the MEK, which, in a 2011 article entitled “Empower Iranians Vs. Tehran,” he called “the most prominent Iranian opposition group.”

He apparently disagrees with Rubin, a long-time senior editor of MEF’s Middle East Quarterly — and someone who has actually spent some time in Iran — about the MEK’s popularity inside Iran, arguing that:

…([J]ust as the MeK’s organizational and leadership skills helped bring down the shah in 1979, these skills can again facilitate regime change. The number of street protestors arrested for association with the MeK points to its role in demonstrations, as do slogans echoing MeK chants, e.g., calling Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei a “henchman,” Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a “dictator,” and shouting “down with the principle of Velayat-e Faqih” (that a religious figure heads the government).

From which we might fairly conclude that Pipes thinks that the MEK organized the Green Movement, or, better yet, that he takes Tehran’s for word it.

In any event, this is where Pipes comes out:

“Following a court-mandated review of the MeK’s terrorist designation, the secretary of tate must soon decide whether to maintain this listing. With one simple signature, the Obama administration can help empower Iranians to seize control over their destiny — and perhaps end the mullahs’ mad nuclear dash.”

Just last week, it came out that The Legal Project, yet another arm in Pipes’ empire, had “coordinated and financed the defense” of Seid Hassan Daioleslam in a defamation lawsuit filed in 2008 by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and its president, Trita Parsi. The lawsuit was dismissed earlier this month by Federal District Court Judge John Bates on a summary judgment motion by the defense that the plaintiffs had failed to provide sufficient evidence that Daioleslam’s allegations that NIAC and Parsi were agents of the Iranian regime were malicious; that is, that the defendant knew at the time that he made those accusations that they were untrue. (The judge made no finding as to whether the accusations were in fact true, and you can read NIAC’s reaction here.)

While Diaoleslam has long denied charges by Parsi and others that he is himself associated with the MEK, our own Daniel Luban wrote a series of posts back in 2009 that provided evidence of such a link and of the rather nefarious purposes that Diaoleslam and his editor at the time, Kenneth Timmerman, were entertaining when the article that was the subject of the lawsuit was published. (See here and here for additional background and information.) In the course of his own inquiry, Daniel asked how it was that Diaoleslam, “whose professional activities are mostly limited to writing occasional pieces for obscure right-wing websites, is getting the money to devote himself full-time to research — not to mention how he can afford the likes of Sidley Austin LLP, the white-shoe law firm that is defending him in his lawsuit with NIAC.” So now we have at least a partial answer to that question; Pipes was helping him out. (Incidentally, for those of you who are interested in Obama-hatred and Islamophobia, don’t miss Pipes’ <a href=", whose professional activities are mostly limited to writing occasional pieces for obscure right-wing websites, is getting the money to devote himself full-time to research — not to mention how he can afford the likes of Sidley Austin LLP, the white-shoe law firm that is defending him in his lawsuit with NIAC." So now we have at least a partial answer to that question — Pipes, who believes that the MEK can lead the Iranian masses to overthrow the regime. It may be worth noting that Timmerman, who published Daioleslam's original report on NIAC, appears to believe that the MEK is indeed a terrorist group, as noted in an article he wrote for his Foundation for Democracy in Iran last year.

(Incidentally, for those of you interested in Pipes’ Islamophobia, don’t miss his <a href=”>recent five-part series in the Washington Times on Obama’s alleged early Muslim identity. It amasses an enormous amount of material to prove that Obama “has specifically and repeatedly lied about his Muslim identity” — except that the evidence marshaled by Pipes in support of that conclusion proves no such thing. Indeed, if there were a motion for summary judgment based on Pipes’ evidence, I would imagine that Judge Bates would throw the case out.)

By Richard Sale

I believe that delisting the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (MEK) from the US foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list is in every way reprehensible. I realize that all US public officials, especially the president, are involved in systems of necessity and that without satisfying those necessities, their hold on power wouldn’t [...]]]> via Lobe Log

By Richard Sale

I believe that delisting the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (MEK) from the US foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list is in every way reprehensible. I realize that all US public officials, especially the president, are involved in systems of necessity and that without satisfying those necessities, their hold on power wouldn’t last very long. Everyone agrees that the president is a pawn of political speculations and maneuvers, and that he is at once the citizen, the voter, the candidate, the taxpayer, as well as the ordinary, common man. But this results in a curious split of judgment, and the result is that we look on the same individual as responsible and irresponsible, depending which of these fictions we adopt, and whether we are in a juridical or an objective frame of mind.

But one has to remember certain historical facts, the first being that at the beginning of his administration, President Obama wanted to relax tensions with Iran and engage with it diplomatically while Israel continued to carry out killings of Iranian nuclear scientists using its proxies, including an armed group of Iranian dissidents, the MEK, a group that has high-level political backers in the US despite being a terrorist organization.

I have said publicly, quoting former US officials, that a number of Israeli terrorists were members of the MEK, who are paid by Israel to do targeted killings of Iranian nationals. “The MEK is being used as the assassination arm of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service,” said Vince Cannistraro, former CIA chief of counterterrorism. He also said that the MEK is in charge of executing “the motor attacks on Iranian targets chosen by Israel. They go to Israel for training, and Israel pays them.”

According to one former senior CIA official, the MEK is particularly violent. Back in the 1970s, in France, they did killings of Americans in Paris, including six or seven US Army sergeants. He added that the French “were terrified of them.”

As part of Israel’s continuing battle to hold off the Iranian nuclear program, the MEK, paid by Israel, have not only assassinated Iran’s nuclear scientists, but US officials have said they believe that a saboteur at the Natanz nuclear facility, probably an MEK member, used a memory stick to infect the machines there.

These officials said using a person on the ground would greatly increase the probability of computer infection, as opposed to passively waiting for the software to spread through the system. “Iranian double agents” would have helped to target the most vulnerable spots in the system,” said a high ranking source. In October 2010, Iran’s intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, said an unspecified number of “nuclear spies” were arrested in connection with the Stuxnet.33 virus.

It is a dismal history, but, alas, as I said, we are all slaves of necessity.

- Richard Sale was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and his entry was given a National Press Club Award for “excellence in diplomatic reporting” in 1989. He has been reporting on intelligence since 1977, most recently as UPI’s Intelligence Correspondent. Sale’s book, “Clinton’s Secret Wars,” was selected by the History and Military Book Clubs and Book of the Month 2. 

By Wayne White

It is probably inaccurate to take the State Department to task in isolation as having made the decision to delist the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (MEK) from the US foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list. State is the cabinet department that must officially announce (or take formal action related to the [...]]]> via Lobe Log

By Wayne White

It is probably inaccurate to take the State Department to task in isolation as having made the decision to delist the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (MEK) from the US foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list. State is the cabinet department that must officially announce (or take formal action related to the US court challenge), but that does not mean the State Department did in fact make this decision on its own. In fact, with a history of being a sort of weak sister in foreign policy decisions with some consistency since the Kennedy Administration (and at least two administrations prior to that in the 20th Century), most foreign policy decisions of any importance have been made by the White House, with other key players like the National Security Council, in some instances the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, as well as influential members of Congress often carrying more weight than — or at least as much as — State when all is said and done.

Under Hillary Clinton, the State Department surely has become a more important player than it was, say, when Colin Powell was so consistently bypassed or ignored under the first George W. Bush Administration. Still, the Administration (comprising a foreign policy team on which State frequently is but one voice) makes the final call on most important decisions, regardless of what bureaucratic mouthpiece must pronounce the result. So, it is often the White House where the proverbial buck stops. Indeed, burnt into my memory are plenty of times when I was in State/INR and the Department was being hammered by the media and various informed observers for making an unfortunate decision, when all around me — often all the way up to the Secretary’s suite on the 7th Floor — officials at State were seething over how their opinion to the contrary had been ignored by this or that Administration.

Second, this decision comes in the context of an especially hotly contested US presidential election campaign (often called by insiders — and for good reason in many instances — the foreign policy “silly season” because of statements and decisions that might have gone differently had campaign pressures been absent). Making decisions that appear in any way favorable to the Iranian regime are a hard sell in a political Washington flush with various powerful constituencies favorable to Israel or hostile to a regime perceived widely as aligned against the US and various US interests. But entering the last & most critical 6-7 weeks of the presidential election campaign (and the ongoing & controversial Iran/Nuclear standoff), there doubtless were some within the Administration worried about the potential adverse political blowback of sustaining the MEK listing. This blowback could include accusations from the Romney camp that the US was being “soft on Iran”, that the White House was allegedly “weak” in standing up to “terrorist threats” overall (in this case, the regime in Iran), and that it was blocking efforts by an anti-regime Iranian group.

I opposed this decision because of what I know about the MEK.  Nonetheless, I also can imagine how campaign-focused Administration officials might have imagined something like this being raised by Gov. Mitt Romney in next week’s presidential debate, knowing that in a time-compressed debate the President would have been hard put to argue the merits of the case once he had been accused of holding back what could be characterized by his opponents as a group opposed to Iran’s clerical regime — one that had supposedly gathered “valuable” intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program. Most American voters haven’t a clue as to what the MEK is, let alone its many unsavory and violent activities (as well as its bizarre internal dynamics), and all they would pick up on are loaded phrases like “anti-regime Iranian group,” “soft on Iran” and so on.

Mind you, I am not making excuses for the Obama Administration concerning this decision, but let us also not neglect the pressures from other quarters — many of them hostile to the Administration politically — that might well have figured into a decision that almost certainly was to some degree “political” and not determined solely on the merits of the case.

- Wayne White is a Policy Expert with Washington’s Middle East Policy Council. He was formerly the Deputy Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia (INR/NESA) and senior regional analyst. Access Mr. White’s Lobe Log article archive here. 

Jim Lobe and I wrote a report yesterday for IPS News about the expected US decision to delist the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (aka MEK, PMOI and NCRI) from its foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list. Most analysts we interviewed predicted that the removal would only worsen already abysmal relations with Iran and possibly make [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Jim Lobe and I wrote a report yesterday for IPS News about the expected US decision to delist the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (aka MEK, PMOI and NCRI) from its foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list. Most analysts we interviewed predicted that the removal would only worsen already abysmal relations with Iran and possibly make any effort to defuse the gathering crisis over its nuclear programme yet more difficult. Here’s a round-up of what they had to say beginning with statements that came in following the article’s publication: