UP TO DATE NO.

47 SEPTEMBER 2012

PUBLICATION OF AAWA-ASSOCIATION

https://prospect.org/article/mek-still-isnt-ok

MEK Still Isn't OK

The group is set to be taken off the foreign terrorist organization list, but it remains an unwelcome bedfellow on the Iran issue.
Jeremiah Goulka, The American Prospect, September 25 2012 This past Friday, the State Department announced that it will remove theMujahedin-e Khalq (MEK)a fringe Iranian dissident group that has been criticized for its cultish practicesfrom its list of terrorist groups. The State Department may have satisfied a court-imposed deadline and could help the groups members escape their current stateless limbo, but the decision will enable the MEK to put more effort into pushing the United States toward war with Iran in its campaign to become the new government in Tehran. The courts deadline comes from a lawsuit brought by the MEK arguing that its designation as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO)which it has held since 1997is no longer appropriate because it claims to have abandoned violence in 2002; in 2003, when its members in Iraq were disarmed by the U.S. military, the group signed documents promising to use only peaceful means of protest to advocate for its goals. In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuitgave Secretary of State Hillary Clinton until October 1 to decide whether the group still belonged on the list or the court would delist the group. Whether the MEK still belongs on the FTO list presents a legal question. If it has abandoned violence including the capability and intent to commit terrorismthen perhaps its earned removal. The groups many critics point to rumors that the MEK has been collaborating with the American and Israeli militaries and intelligence services (for example, here). But the FTO statute counts only terrorism or terrorist activity that threatens the security of United States nationals or the national security of the United States; even if unsubstantiated rumors about MEKs collaboration with the U.S. military are true, they would not qualify the MEK for FTO status under the statute. This highlights the problem: The law as written gives a pass to groups whose activities are viewed as useful to the United States, just as it could fail to apply to unsavory groups that do not pose a danger to the country. Aside from highlighting problems with the way U.S. law classifies terrorist organizations, the MEK decision creates a few practical problems. First, though, let's look at two potential benefits. The Iraqi government wants the MEK out of the countryin part because it is close to the Tehran regime and in part because Iraqi Kurds and Shias despise the MEK for helping Saddam Hussein suppress their uprisings after the 1991 Gulf War. Iraq has demonstrated an unwillingness to respect its responsibility under international law to protect people who are essentially refugees; Iraqi security forces killed some 49 members during clashes with the group after the United States turned

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http://www.salon.com/2012/09/24/once_a_terrorist_not_always_a_terrorist/singleton/

Once a terrorist, not always a terrorist

The State Department's removal of Iranian dissident group MEK from terrorist list draws wide criticism
BY NATASHA LENNARD , SEP 24, 2012 On Friday, the State Department removed Iranian exile group MEK (Mujahedin-e-Khalq) from its list of foreign terrorist organizations. Over the weekend, commentators responded to the news with skepticism over the motives, procedures, political maneuvers and payoffs that seem to determine which groups do or do not count as terrorists. MEK, Iranian dissidents who lost a power struggle with Ayatollah Khomenei supporters in the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, relocated to Iraq and established allegiances with Saddam Hussein. For 15 years the group has been listed among foreign terrorist organizations by the State Department. Although considered cultish by many, MEK has preserved and fostered strong U.S. ties, especially among a handful of conservatives, who share the groups desire to overthrow Irans government. Both Republicans and Democrats have received substantial fees to talk at MEK events, while advocating in Washington on the groups behalf. As Joshua Keating at Foreign Policy noted Monday, there is reason for cynicism about the declassification after the group [MEK] waged a years-long PR, lobbying, and advertising campaign, paying political VIPs including Rudy Giuliani, Howard Dean, Tom Ridge, and Ed Rendell tens of thousands of dollars to endorse their cause. Keating adds, however, that MEK have indeed not carried out a terrorist attack in years, but, going by the language of the Patriot Act alone, many more groups aside from MEK should then be removed from the terrorist list too. Salons old friend Glenn Greenwald was less generous than Keating in a Guardian comment piece Sunday. He calls U.S. dealings with MEK a scam, which more vividly illustrates the rot and corruption at the heart of Americas D.C.-based political culture than almost any episode [he] can recall. In an extensive, important post noting key takeaways from the episode, Greenwald argues: The history of the US list of designated terrorist organizations, and its close cousin list of state sponsors of terrorism, is simple: a country or group goes on the list when they use violence to impede US interests, and they are then taken off the list when they start to use exactly the same violence to advance US interests. The terrorist list is not a list of terrorists; its a list of states and groups which use their power to defy US dictates rather than adhere to them. The NYU scholar Remi Brulin has exhaustively detailed the rank game-playing that has taken place with this list: Saddam was put on it when he allied with the Soviets in the early 1980s, then was taken off when the US wanted to arm and fund him against Iran in the mid-1980s, then he was put back on in the early 1990s when the US wanted to attack him. And now, with the MEK, we have a group that, at least according to some reports, appears to have intensified its terrorism, and yet they are removed from the list. Why? Because now they are aligned against the prime enemy of the US and Israel and working closely with those two nations and are therefore, magically, no longer terrorists.

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http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/12970-obama-decision-on-islamo-marxist-terror-cult-will-lead-to-usfunding-experts-say

Anti-American Mojahedin Khalq To Get U.S. Taxpayer Money

Obama Decision on Islamo-Marxist Terror Cult Will Lead to U.S. Funding, Experts Say
..The controversial decision to formally "delist" the organization came in the wake of reports charging that the federal government was already arming and training the cult-like Iranian MeK in violation of U.S. terror laws. The purpose of the alleged support, according to multiple sources, was to help wage a proxy war against Iran. Criticism of the administrations recent decision, however, erupted quickly and forcefully... The New American, 25 September 2012, Written by Alex Newman

After a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign that unlawfully enlisted top members of the bipartisan U.S. political class, the Obama administration decided that the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), an IslamoMarxist terror cult notorious for murdering Americans, should no longer be on the State Departments list of designated terrorist organizations. Experts say the decision paves the way to begin openly ashowering U.S. taxpayer money on the anti-American outfit in its bid to overthrow the Iranian regime. The controversial decision to formally "delist" the organization came in the wake of reports charging that the federal government was already arming and training the cult-like Iranian MeK in violation of U.S. terror laws. The purpose of the alleged support, according to multiple sources, was to help wage a proxy war against Iran. Criticism of the administrations recent decision, however, erupted quickly and forcefully. Also known as the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran, the MeK was founded in an effort to advance a hybrid system incorporating communism and Islam. It officially landed on the U.S. governments terror list some 15 years ago for perpetrating numerous terror attacks against civilians and more than a few senior American military

personnel. The group was also allied with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, helping him to wage a brutal war against Iran while suppressing dissidents within Iraq. The U.S. Department of State took the moral and strategic bankruptcy of Americas Iran policy to a new low, observed Iran expert Flynt Leverett, a professor at Pennsylvania State Universitys School of International Affairs. Since when did murdering unarmed civilians (and, in some instances, members of their families as well) on public streets in the middle of a heavily populated urban area (Tehran) not meet even the U.S. governments own professed standard for terrorism? Despite federal statutes defining as a felony the provision of any material support to designated terrorist organizations, the MeK managed Continued to page 4 to buy die-hard support from

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numerous senior U.S. politicians and former officials on both sides of the aisle. Advocates for the terror cult range from neo-conservative terror-war cheerleaders like Rudy Giuliani and Michael Mukasey to liberals like Howard Dean and Gen. James Jones. Former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, ex-CIA and FBI bosses, and many others jumped on the pro-MeK bandwagon, too. The paid lobbyists for the terror cult unlawfully earned massive sums of money often tens of thousands of dollars or more. But the administrations decision, supposedly based on humanitarian concerns to get the groups members out of Iraq, sets a troubling precedent, according to analysts. The delisting of the MEK, following a well-funded political lobby campaign, creates the dangerous impression that it is possible for terrorist organizations to buy their way off the [terrorism] list, Mila Johns of the University of Marylands National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism was quoted as saying by Wired magazine. But there is undoubtedly more to the decision to delist the group than the fact that it showered money on former U.S. officials funds that were probably extracted from American taxpayers at some point. While well-paid shills for the group claim that the MeK has not been engaged in much terrorism recently at least not against American targets numerous reports indicate that the cult has been as busy as ever. As recently as 2009, for example, the U.S. State Department warned that MEK leadership and members across the world maintain the capacity and will to commit terrorist acts in Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada and beyond. More recently, U.S. officials have even admitted that the murders of Iranian scientists over the past several years were being conducted by the MeK apparently with support and training from the Obama administration and the Israeli government. Journalist Seymour Hersh with the New Yorker reported that members of the cult were actually receiving training from the U.S. government on American soil, a severe violation of federal law. However, for now at least, the groups terror campaign appears to be largely directed at Iran, which is ruled by a regime that both the Western establishment and the MeK hope to depose. So, because the Iranian regime is now the terror cults primary target for terrorism it used to be capitalism, America, and the West, and probably will be

again at some point war-mongering U.S. officials have apparently found an ally. When these criminal politicians start speaking about the war against terrorism, spit on your television screen, as they are the terrorists, fumed liberty-minded analyst Daniel McAdams after the decision was made public. They are wealthy terrorists who steal your tax dollars to send overseas and recoup to lobby in favor of bloody killers of civilians in Iran. Experts predict with relative certainty that U.S. taxpayer money will soon begin openly flowing to the Marxist terror cult, too. However, observers argue that collaborating with the dangerous group at all would be a terrible plan let alone openly arming and funding it to wage a war against a foreign government. To limit the damage from its decision, the State Department needs to make it powerfully clear that the United States does not support the MEK, wrote analyst Jeremiah Goulka, who studied the MeK in Iraq for the RAND Corporation. The White House should consider making it policy for the government not to fund, employ, or otherwise collaborate with the group. The MEK is not our ally. Its interests are its own, not ours. Analysts also said the delisting of the terror cult would be counterproductive on multiple fronts even for goals the Obama administration purports to support. For one, it reinforces Tehrans narrative that the lawless U.S. government intends to destroy Iran and the Iranian people no matter what and that it has nothing to do with nonexistent nuclear weapons. It also makes war more likely. Meanwhile, the MeK, unsurprisingly, is widely despised within Iran, partly because it worked with Saddam Hussein to massacre Iranians with American support before the Iraqi tyrant found himself on the U.S. governments enemy list. The fact that the Obama administration is now seen as openly supportive of the terror cult and may even begin openly funding it soon will decimate the genuine movement for political reform inside Iran as well. The decision will also allow the Islamo-Marxist group to have an even larger say in U.S. government policy toward Iran as it seeks to overthrow the government and seize the reins of power. Former DNC boss Howard Dean even called for recognizing the massContinued to page 7 murdering cult, which, again, has

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responsibility of Camp Ashraf over to the Iraqi government in 2009. The MEK cant just be sent home to Iran because it is a crime to be a member of the group there. They need to go somewhere else, but no country was willing to welcome MEK members so long as the group was on the U.S.'s FTO list, and the MEK wouldnt cooperate in the resettlement process until the State Department held out the carrot of delisting. This decision brings some hope, however limited and tenuous, that they may be able to find new, permanent homes, bringing an end to their stateless limbo. Should members be resettled, another possible humanitarian benefit of the decision could be that they might then be able to engage with the wider world, and some might even consider leaving the cult. This is particularly relevant to the 70 percent or so of the group's membership who joined after the MEK allied itself with Saddam Hussein, lost its support in Iran, transformed into a highly insular organization, and took up deceptive recruitment practices. Those are the potential benefits. Now we turn to the problems with the decision. In light of the unprecedented lobbying effort made to get the MEK delisted, in which prominent former officials received tens of thousands of dollars to speak on the groups behalf, it looks highly politicized. The MEK will make it look like delisting was a symbol of U.S. approbation. With regards to our complicated relationship with Iran, Tehran will see the decision asin the words of CIA veteran and Georgetown University professor Paul Pillarone more indication that the United States is interested only in hostility and pressure toward the Islamic Republic, rather than coming to terms with it. Some fear that it will undermine American credibility as a force for democracy in Iran (to the extent that the U.S. has such credibility). The most significant concern is how it will unleash the MEK to further ratchet up the probability of violent conflict with Iran. As I have written here andhere, the MEK has had two major goals: an immediate one of getting off the FTO list and a longterm one of taking power in Tehran (it already has a parliament in exile and a president-elect in its National Council of Resistance of Iran). Now that it has accomplished its short-term goal of getting off the list, it can focus on its core objective. If the MEK were really what it claims to bethe largest peaceful, secular, pro-democratic Iranian dissident group and it didnt need our helpwe wouldnt need to worry much. But its not. The MEK has almost no support among the Iranian

people, who vilify the group for signing up with Saddam Hussein, killing Iranians, and then becoming a cultor see it as a joke. There are only two ways that the MEK could achieve its goal: money or arms. Both options would likely involve the United States, and it is hard to imagine the MEK getting into power by money alone. The MEK has been pumping up fears of Iran for years. I dont want to discount the risks of Iran building a nuclear weapon someday, but the MEK plays up the issue for its own uses. The MEK will continue to encourage fear of Iran on Capitol Hill, maintain its ongoing public-relations campaign that promotes wildly exaggerated fears of Iran among the American public, and likely offer its services as a proxy-force ally against Iran, as it has for years. We should worry that removing the MEK from the FTO list will open the door to a repeat in Iran of what we experienced in Iraq thanks to the embrace ofAhmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. It started with us funding the Iraqi migr banker-turned-politician, and it ended with us invading Iraq and putting him in charge of the interim governing council. Even if it was just a relatively small bunch of neocons in the Bush administration and Congress who bought Chalabis rosy picture of having huge support in Iraq and a ready-made government, it wasnt as if the rest of Congress or the media put a stop to their push for war. It was more like full speed ahead. To limit the damage from its decision, the State Department needs to make it powerfully clear that the United States does not support the MEK. That will take a lot of work, because the MEK will flaunt the delisting. More important, the U.S. government should not engage with the MEK going forward. Congress should ignore the group. Some officials will inevitably think that working with the MEK makes sense or is convenient. They will be wrong. The White House should consider making it policy for the government not to fund, employ, or otherwise collaborate with the group. The MEK is not our ally. Its interests are its own, not ours. The State Departments decision may be legally sound, and its good to help MEK members find a new home, but when it comes to American policy, the group is not to be trusted. To quote Ambassador John Limbert, former embassy hostage and the first deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran, the MEK has a very dubious history and a similarly dubious present. Lets have nothing to do with its dubious future.

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http://www.lobelog.com/mek-delisting-slap-in-the-face-for-average-iranians/

MEK DELISTING SLAP IN THE FACE FOR AVERAGE IRANIANS

... Those who lived through the early years of the Iranian revolution remember the MEKs violence, which was justified somehow by their curious mix of Islam and Marxism. But the real animosity for the movement arose when they went into exile, settling and supporting Saddam Hussein in the 8-year Iran-Iraq war. As a British-educated former Iranian senior civil servant once said to me: During World War II siding with the enemy was treason and punishable by death. The MEK committed treason, and the Iranian public will never forgive them. ... By Leila Kashefi , September 24 2012 As everyone knows, since the revolution of 1979, the United States and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) have been BEFs best enemies forever. While the US occasionally offers its solidarity to the people of Iran and criticizes the regimes human rights record, its policy of sanctions and isolation actually strengthens regime hardliners. So its not surprising that on some days Iranians think: with an enemy like the US, why would the IRI need any friends? Last Friday, September 21st, was one of those days. The State Department, under pressure from powerful but unknown powers, leaked the news that the Mujahedeen-eKhalq (MEK), a shady quasi-cultish group with a history of violence and intimidation, would be delisted from the US foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list. Iranians inside and outside the country rarely agree about anything. They find common ground in their love of pomegranates, pride for Iranian athletes competing internationally, respect for Mohammad Mossadeq, the 1950s prime minister who nationalized Iranian oil before being ousted in a US-backed coup, and deep contempt if not hatred for the MEK. Those who lived through the early years of the Iranian revolution remember the MEKs violence, which was justified somehow by their curious mix of Islam and Marxism. But the real animosity for the movement arose when they went into exile, settling and supporting Saddam Hussein in the 8-year Iran-Iraq war. As a British-educated former Iranian senior civil servant once said to me: During World War II siding

with the enemy was treason and punishable by death. The MEK committed treason, and the Iranian public will never forgive them. The movement was never transparent. During the past 30 years it has spun out a myriad of different organizations across Europe, with headquarters in Paris. Its leader Maryam Rajavi proclaims herself as the democratic leader of Iran, with hardly any support from Iranians inside Iran. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the MEK slid into obscurity. But as the war drums against Iran started to beat more loudly in Washington, DC, the MEK took on a new lease of life. It has been incredible to watch members of a designated terror group walk the halls of Congressional office buildings, mingling with Hill staffers and representatives. The only Iranians we see are the MEK, said one staffer not long ago. Given how notoriously apolitical the IranianAmerican community is, the fact that the MEK is bankrolled to such an extent should have prompted questions long ago but somehow those who know prefer not to talk. Anyone claiming that the MEK has broad-based support

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was proven wrong in 2009 in the aftermath of the Iranian presidential elections. I remember standing among the thousands of American-Iranians who had traveled to New York to protest Mahmoud Ahmadinejads visit to the UN General Assembly amidst the Green movements postelection protests in Iran. We were a literal sea of green spilling across the streets and avenues of New York; thousands of Iranians, young and old from across North America, joined together in our outrage towards the regimes election theft. The MEK and the Monarchists were also there, but their numbers were puny and their presence pathetic. The MEK was nothing and nobody either inside or outside Iran. In New York that day they packed up and left rather quickly. But in Washington their political influence continued to grow. Indeed, soon after the 2009 events, the MEK was hobnobbing with former generals and senior diplomats, buying their endorsements with money that clearly had not come from the pockets of Iranians. Pundits and policymakers in Washington may try to minimize the significance of the State Departments move, suggesting that the MEK is too weak to be effective and that its organization will be dismantled. But thats not the point. In Tehran, the State Departments deal feeds directly into the regimes narrative: that the US is backing the MEK to launch attacks against Iran and undermine the territorial integrity of the country. MEK affiliation will likely become even more of an excuse for the persecution of students and activists. Its ironic that after thirty years, just as the regimes narrative of the US as the evil empire bent on destroying Iran was heading into the dustbin, it is the US itself that has given the narrative a new lease on life. As for the people of Iran, many are beginning to wonder why the US despises them so much. Already suffering under the regimes boot, they are also subjected to US-led economic sanctions that are destroying the middle class while strengthening the hands of the systems loyalists. Now comes the news that the despised MEK is free to operate outside the country and steal their voice. For the Iranian people it seems like President Obamas inauguration promise of an outstretched hand has turned out to be a rude slap in the face. - Leila Kashefi is a pseudo-name for the author of this article, a Washington-based Iranian-American civil rights activist.

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virtually no support outside of Washington, D.C., as the legitimate government of Iran. Iranians opposed to the Islamist regime, however, say that would be a terrible idea. The MEK does not represent the Iranian-American community or the prodemocracy movement in Iran, noted the National Iranian American Council. We do not support the use of violence and war to replace Irans undemocratic regime that abuses human rights with the MEKs undemocratic cult that tortures its own members. According to analysts, the controversial decision to delist the MeK has also exposed once again the lawless and hypocritical nature of U.S. government policy makers. In recent decades, no matter which political party has been in power, the U.S. government has routinely backed dictators and terrorist groups before turning against them. Critics of the latest example of such outrageous behavior say the MeKs victory fits into that pattern perfectly. This MEK scam more vividly illustrates the rot and corruption at the heart of America's DC-based political culture than almost any episode I can recall, observed popular analyst Glenn Greenwald in the U.K. Guardian, adding that the U.S. government often favors terrorism despite purporting to oppose it. The history of the U.S. list of designated terrorist organizations, and its close cousin list of state sponsors of terrorism, is simple: a country or group goes on the list when they use violence to impede U.S. interests, and they are then taken off the list when they start to use exactly the same violence to advance U.S. interests. Activists are still hoping that federal terror laws will be applied consistently so former U.S. officials and politicians bought by the MeK can be held accountable for providing material support to a designated terrorist organization. Even more important, however, are the consequences of having the U.S. government work with yet another terror group, in this case an anti-American Islamo-Communist cult. The blowback will undoubtedly come back to haunt the world probably sooner rather than later.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/26/the-mek-and-1979-comparisons.html

The MEK And 1979 Comparisons

by Ali Gharib, The Daily Beast, September 26 2012 The Republican ticket has taken to comparing the current crisisor series of mini-crises, reallyto the Iran's Islamic Revolution. "I mean, turn on the TV and it reminds me of 1979 in Tehran," Paul Ryan said recently on the stump. "Theyre burning our flags in capitals all around the world. Theyre storming our e mbassies." While comparisons are obvious, Ryan's use of the discomfiting capital-T "they" got me thinking: who exactly were "they"? In just one of the subtle differences, the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran had the very direct and immediate endorsement of the party rising to power: Ayatollah Khomeini. But other players were involved, too, and one of them just popped into the headlines again recently. The Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), the exile opposition group that just came off the official U.S. terrorist list, foughtwith guns and bombs at the vanguard of the revolution against the Shah. That included involvement in taking American hostages. In it's report on foreign terror organizations, the State Department alleges that the MEK "supported the takeover in 1979 of the US Embassy in Tehran." As with just about any criticism, historical or not, the MEK denies having anything to do with the takeover (the group broke with the clerics atop the Islamic Revolution soon thereafter). But attacking embassies was kind of the MEK's thing: they launched coordinated attacks against Islamic Republic embassies in 13 countries in 1992. Massoud Radjavi and his wife Maryam, leaders of the Iranian opposition movement the People's Mujahedeen (MEK), review militants celebrating their wedding 19 June 1985. (Dominique Faget / AFP / Getty Images)
Massoud Radjavi and his wife Maryam, leaders of the Iranian opposition movement the People's Mujahedeen (MEK), review militants celebrating their wedding 19 June 1985. (Dominique Faget / AFP / Getty

on opposition, rights and democracy activists. "The White House believes this is just another twist of the noose on the sanctions/diplomatic track, a way to get the MEK out of Iraq and settled and off our hands... and all-in-all a nice tidy decision," Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.) a longtime aide to General and later Secretary of State Colin Powell, said in an e-mail. He recalled David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger's push to convince Zbigniew Brzezinski and Carter that allowing the Shah in was harmless, and compared that to the MEK decision. 'We thought the same way with the Shah's admission; only the Iranians felt very, very differently about it. More sadly, today the situation we are exacerbating with our dull stupidity, is far more serious." What's more serious than a year-plus long hostage crisis, and more than three decades of a cold war against the Islamic Republic of Iran with its requisite flare-ups? Well: open war against Iran and the regional conflagration that could follow.

That's not, however, where this particular 1979 comparison ends. For that we need to examine the roots of the embassy takeover and what drove the MEK (which held Marxist-inspired anti-imperial views), students and clerics leading the revolt to take the U.S. embassy in the first place. The spark was U.S. acceptance of the then-recentlydeposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi onto American soil. The revolutionaries, in their somewhat paranoid Iranian way, thought the U.S. was on the verge of using the embassy as a staging ground to . launch another counter-coup to re-instate the Shah (not unjustified: it happened in 1953). It never occurred to Jimmy Carter, who was only letting the Shah in for medical care, just how badly the Iranians would react. Sound familiar? By taking the MEK off the list, the U.S. opened the door to overt MEK activities in the U.S. That certainly means (even more) robust interactions with Congress and, I think, probably funding or some other deeper ties. While the Iranians, obviously, aren't about to seize the U.S. embassy in Tehran (since there isn't one), just how this plays out Iran might yet surpriseand dissapoint. We can already expect the regime to use alleged or real MEK-U.S. ties to justify their crackdown

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