Taking the MeK Off the Terror List
An interesting piece of reporting is, I think, being overlooked by virtue of bad timing. It's obvious why people are focusing on other things right now, but I want to do what I can to call attention to Scott Peterson's piece on the push to take the MeK off the terrorist list:
A high-powered array of former top American officials is advocating removal from the US terrorist list of a controversial Iranian opposition group with a long anti-American history.
With a decision due within weeks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former US four-star generals, intelligence chiefs, governors, and political heavyweights are calling for the US government to take the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK/MKO) off the terror list it shares with Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.
Many of these former high-ranking US officials–who represent the full political spectrum–have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK.
Here's a 2009 RAND study of the MeK. Worth reading in full. It has been dismissed by the MeK as "Iranian propaganda." What do you think--how likely is that?
From its earliest days, the MeK had had tight social bonds, but these began to be transformed into something more sinister during the mid-1980s after the group’s leaders and many of its members had relocated to Paris. There, Masoud Rajavi began to undertake what he called an “ideological revolution,” requiring a new regimen of activities—at first demanding increased study and devotion to the cause but soon expanding into near-religious devotion to the Rajavis (Masoud and his wife, Maryam), public self-deprecation sessions, mandatory divorce, celibacy, enforced separation from family and friends, and gender segregation. ...
One of the MeK’s cultic characteristics is a focus on suicide. Although it had not used suicide as a tactical weapon in terrorist attacks since 1981, the MeK has frequently used the threat of suicide as a negotiating tactic or to frustrate investigations. This proved particularly effective after 10 members immolated themselves in Paris as a protest action following the arrest of Maryam Rajavi, the MeK’s co-leader, in 2003. Concerned that the Paris immolations might be repeated on a larger scale at Camp Ashraf if MNF-I tried to break up the MeK, the JIATF rejected proposals to forcibly dismantle the organization. ...
Here is Zahra Sadeqpour's rejoinder in the Washington Times:
The idea that the views of three joint chiefs of staff of the U.S. armed forces, a former commander of NATO, a former national security adviser to the president, a former attorney general, two former directors of the CIA, two former U.S. ambassadors to the U.N., a former Homeland Security secretary, a former White House chief of staff, a former commandant of the Marine Corps, a former policy planning director of the State Department, a former FBI director, and even a director of Counterterrorism at the State Department could be bought off collectively is simply outrageous.
Read all three pieces. Reading between the lines, I think what we're saying to Iran is pretty clear: Two can play the Hezbollah game. Except that entirely beyond the moral issue, I have a lot more confidence in Hezbollah's allegiance to Iran than in the MeK's to the United States.
Does it sound to you like a good idea to get in bed with these guys?
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Comments :
Sep '10
Re: Taking the MeK Off the Terror List
Um, NO.
Jun '10
Re: Taking the MeK Off the Terror List
Hmmm...this story seems oddly familiar...
Re: Taking the MeK Off the Terror List
Sorry, Brian, I missed that when you posted it. You asked a very good question.
Jun '10
Re: Taking the MeK Off the Terror List
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Sorry, Brian, I missed that when you posted it. You asked a very good question. · Aug 9 at 7:41pm
No worries. I lot is happening in the world. Difficult to keep track of it all. But I think we may be on the verge of another Carteresque blunder by seemingly backing the MeK. They obviously have good lobbyists and propagandists but is anyone doing due diligence with Iranians in the Green Movement and those expatriate Persians in America to see what we are really stepping into?
Jun '10
Re: Taking the MeK Off the Terror List
...I mean it's not as though we haven't had any intelligence gathering and assessment issues before that have become thorny issues for successive administrations or anything. By the way who are our allies in Libya? Egypt?
Jan '11
Re: Taking the MeK Off the Terror List
Surely we can trust a group which uses an olive branch as their symbol; just ignore the sickle and rifle complete with bayonet…
Oct '10
Re: Taking the MeK Off the Terror List
Using the folks who allowed themselves to be used by Saddam to put down the Kurdish uprising seems at the least tacky.
On the other hand, perhaps this is a master-stroke in implementing the Rob Long strategy of plunging the region into generations of internecine strife...
Re: Taking the MeK Off the Terror List
The enemies of our enemies are our friends. That is the principle driving this maneuver, and it has some weight, but ...
Re: Taking the MeK Off the Terror List
I could see a utilitarian justification for it if it were apt to work, but surely we should know better than to place our faith in a cult called the "People's Muhajedeen" with a taste for re-education camps.
May '10
Re: Taking the MeK Off the Terror List
To take a Machiavellian attitude:
Is the MEK actual able to take the fight to the Iranian Dictatorship?
Can it launch effective, aggressive damaging actions against Government Officials, and symbols of the Iranian regime, and its satellites in Hamas and Hezbollah?
Can it provide more than words, and a few fanatical actions? Self-immolation is not going to stop Basijii thugs, or security police.
Can the MEK connect with anti-regime forces in the Iranian sphere of influence?
How do we make the MEK self-destruct if they refuse to fall to heel to our wishes and policy objectives?
In reading the cited references I think there are mainly responses to the above of No, or not likely.
Pity the Whitehouse did not actively support the anti-government forces that arose, and were then crushed after the last election there.
Rabid dogs have few uses other than spreading infection, I doubt once the MEK suicide bombing starts, it will stop at the gates of our enemies in the Iranian regime.
Edited on Aug 10, 2011 at 11:05am