In the 10 years that I have lived in Washington, I have never seen lobbyists for al-Qaeda parade through the halls of Congress. I have not seen any events on Capitol Hill organized by Hamas. And I have not seen any American politicians take campaign contributions from the Islamic Jihad.
But the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an organization with the blood of Americans and Iranians alike on its hands, freely does all of these things, despite being a designated foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
And in a matter of weeks, this terrorist group may succeed in getting removed from the terrorist list -- not as a result of any change of heart -- but as a result of an unprecedented multi-million dollar media and lobbying blitz.
If al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization were holding fundraisers in DC, lobbying Congress, or holding press conferences at the National Press Club, the FBI, Homeland Security, and local law enforcement would be all over it.
Not so with the MEK. There, law enforcement seems nowhere to be found. In fact, a prominent spokesperson for the MEK terrorist group was hired by Fox News in the mid-2000s to serve as their on-air terrorist analyst. Go figure.
Since early January 2011, the MEK has spent millions of dollars on lobbyists, PR agents and communications firms to build up pressure on Secretary Hillary Clinton to take the group off of the terrorist list. Their argument is that the MEK rejected violence and terrorism in 2001 and as a result should be de-listed.
But this is not true, according to the FBI. A recently disclosed FBI report from 2004 reveals that the group continued to plan terrorist acts at least three years after they claimed to renounce terrorism.
No one should be surprised -- not even DC's "unwitting members of Congress" -- as the FBI calls the group's supporters on Capitol Hill. The State Department has documented the MEK's disturbing record: killing Americans and Iranians in terrorist attacks; fighting for Saddam Hussein against Iran and assisting Saddam's brutal campaign against Iraq's Kurds and Shia; its "cult-like" behavior; the abuses and even torture it commits against its own members; and its support for the U.S. embassy takeover and calls for executing the hostages.
And let's not forget, the MEK suppresses and holds captive its own members - more than 70 percent of the MEK members in Camp Ashraf in Iraq are held there against their own wishes, according to a RAND Corporation study.
But even if the MEK could be believed, the reality is that they are currently on the terrorist list and, as a result, they must be subject to U.S. terrorism laws. Simply put, the laws must be enforced -- without exception.
The State Department's review of their terrorism status, which is due to be completed by August of this year, must be conducted without the essentially illegal pressure tactics the MEK currently is employing through lobbyists, lawmakers and hired former officials.
If the group is taken off the list, not as a result of an objective review, but by virtue of their lobbying prowess, several repercussions can be envisioned.
First, the desire to de-list them in Washington seems partially driven by gravitation towards covert military action against Iran. Neither sanctions nor diplomacy have yielded the desired results on the nuclear issue, and some in Washington are advocating using the MEK to conduct assassination and sabotage campaigns inside Iran.
As one former State Department official put it, the "paradox is that we may take them off the terror list in order for them to do more terror."
Much like Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, the permanent leader of the MEK, Maryam Rajavi, seeks to return from decades of exile as the anointed President of Iran. And freed of the terrorist designation, there is little reason to believe the MEK won't turn its lobbying apparatus -- which puts Chalabi's to shame -- to obtain U.S. funding and to promote war with Iran. In fact, some members of Congress already refer to the MEK as the "real Green movement." Even more shocking is that top former U.S. officials have called on the U.S. to recognize Rajavi as the rightful President of Iran.
Second, de-listing the MEK would spell disaster for the Iranian pro-democracy movement. According to prominent Green movement figures Mohsen Kadivar and Ahmad Sadri:
Removing the MEK from the FTO at this juncture would embolden Iran's hardliners to intensify their repression and discredit the Green Movement by implying that it is somehow connected to the widely detested MEK terror group. Furthermore, supporting the MEK would provide the Iranian government with the specter of a foreign-based threat that could be exploited to heal key fractures within the system, increase the number of Iranians who would rally around the flag, and facilitate the suppression of the indigenous political opposition.
If you recognize the necessity of a non-violent campaign against the Iranian regime, the last thing you want is to have the U.S. government support and fund one of the most violent and undemocratic Iranian organizations -- and, to make matters worse, to do so in the name of the Iranian Green movement.
Third, de-listing will put the rising Iranian-American community in a state of shock. In the last decade, an impressive civic awakening has occurred in this successful but previously politically silent community, with dozens of new groups being formed with the aim of contributing to the American democracy and providing the Iranian Americans in the U.S. with a voice. A U.S. funded and supported MEK will ensure a return to the pre-1997 era. Back then, in the eyes of most U.S. lawmakers, the voice of Maryam Rajavi was the voice of the entire Iranian-American community.
Now, by buying off officials to pry open the floodgates of U.S. financial and political support, Rajavi and her small but vocal minority threaten to simultaneously drown out the voices of the rest of the Iranian-American community, co-opt the voice of Iran's true opposition, and carry the U.S. down the path of war yet again.
Follow Trita Parsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tparsi
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saCV1IwAwIU
Also here is a link about how Mr. Pasi's friend Reza Tekiyeh got smashed in a hearing about Ashraf in congress:
http://www.hambastegimeli.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25400:2011-07-11-06-24-29&catid=21:2010-01-17-21-49-36
1- only free people can generate such beautiful works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwaFXNnPH64
Here is another great work by citizens of Ashraf:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsEJh7iOeBI
And you think they are not free and you are Mr. Parsi? You would not write a book praising Khomeini and Mullahs if you were free and not a poppet of Mullahs. Some of those young men and women whom you saw in this video were killed on April 8 2011 and the rest were injured majority of them (more than 300 people) were shot directly by Iraqi snipers who were directly supported by Kahmeneie.
2- only free people fight bear-handedly with tanks, Humvees and still ask them bravely to fight more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCNmllDCdoQ
During the years I have been living in US, I also have never seen any lobbyists trying to wash the hands of dictators and murderers like Mladic. You , however, have been actively trying to change the focus of the Iranian-Am¬erican residents from the main and most important conflict, which is the conflict between democracy and dictatorsh¬ip of Mullahs (the conflict between people and a true heartless dictatorsh¬ip in Iran). In this process you were not even shy enough to stop lobbying for Kahmenie and Ahmadineja¬d while Neda and 66 other kids were killed in the streets of Iran, most of them shot by the Basij snipers. Here is link that shows some of your extensive lobbying activities¬:
http://eng¬lish.irani¬anlobby.co¬m/page1.ph¬p?id=15&ba¬khsh=INTER¬VIEWS
http://eng¬lish.irani¬anlobby.co¬m/page1.ph¬p?id=37&ba¬khsh=ARTIC¬LES
http://eng¬lish.irani¬anlobby.co¬m/page1.ph¬p?id=69&ba¬khsh=ARTIC¬LES
http://www¬.iranianlo¬bby.com/pa¬ge1.php?id¬=118
http://www¬.iranianlo¬bby.com/pa¬ge1.php?id¬=126
http://www¬.youtube.c¬om/watch?v¬=E68F5J-Wc¬lQ
http://www¬.youtube.c¬om/watch?v¬=UrKHCObFg¬Fc&feature¬=related
If the MEK have no following in Iran, why does Khamenei spend so much time, energy and money, using his influence with Nouri Al-Maliki, still Iraqi Prime Minister despite losing the last election, trying to eliminate Ashraf, the last two lethal attacks, in both July 2009 and April 2011, coming just weeks after massive uprisings in Iran protesting against the regime.
The siege conditions in place since 2009 have resulted in medical treatment being denied to the 350 injured on 8th April. In addition, death threats and insults continue to blare into Ashraf now from some 300 loudspeakers.
1,000 Iraqi government forces remain in Ashraf territory, having already caused the deaths of 36 brave men and women, and could attack again at any moment.
Let the ballot box decide in the future who does, or does not, have support in Iran, but this FTO designation must be removed, protection given to the people of Ashraf and the MEK/PMOI recognised in the United States as a legitimate opposition to what is universally accepted as an oppressive and inhumane regime with the worst human rights record in the region.
I totaly agree with your reasoning and the information provided.
Thank you.
The highest appeal court in the UK called the British Government perverse for continuing to maintain the PMOI on their terrorist list when every court in the land had said that there was no credible evidence that they should ever have been put on the list, let alone kept on it. They were removed from the UK list in 2008 and from the European List in 2009.
The French courts have this June thrown out the case brought against members of the PMOI/MEK, in the wake of the 2003 raid on the Paris premises of the NCRI, and vindicated their (the PMOI/MEK) actions as those of legitimate freedom fighters.
The court of D. C. ruled in 2010 that there was no evidence to support the listing of the MEK as an FTO in the United States and urged the Secretary of State to review the designation.
Are all the justice systems in the world corrupt, or is it not clearly evident that the listing of the PMOI/MEK in all these countries was politically motivated and any evidence of terrorist activities grossly misrepresented to suit the prevailing policy of appeasement in the hope of achieving a meaningful dialogue with the Iranian regime. Any attempts at such meaningful dialogue are now desperately past their sell by date.
You also write: "... the last thing you want is to have the U.S. government support and fund one of the most violent and undemocratic Iranian organizations ..."
But that is what we do, we began in Iran in 1953 by overthrowing Mohammad Mosaddegh and installing the corrupt and brutal Pahlevi regime to protect western oil interests.
Our stock in trade for more than a century has been to fund, arm, train, and support "violent and undemocratic" organizations all over the world to prepare the playing field for American corporations.
We have no fear of terrorism as long as we are the actor, director, and producer.
I am bewildered as well as astounded as to why the world has to care or pay any attention to whom the Washington designate terrorists or anything else for that matter since Washington and the Apartheid community in state of Palestine literally write the book on terrorisms with no one else coming close.
Further, while I am an admirer of this writer here I fail to understand why he opted this publication for this article since it is infested with pro MEK followers. A mis-guided group who practically write the book on treachery. No other dissidents group in the history of mankind has gone to the extent the MEK has, to betray the Motherland. No Iranian with the least sense of identity would ever ally themselves with such warmongers and Iran haters like John Bolton or anyone else for that matter, to bash and lash at motherland in order to promote and advance their treacherous ideologies.
True Iranians are those inside Iran who take a path on front line for the changes they desire and like to see taking place at home despite a lethal fate might await them. The rest are irrelevant.
Blessed be the greatest piece of real estate in the world.
Faramarz Fathi
note: by deal - i mean debunk/refute, boycott, expose, and campaign against
By this statement, you're implying that top politicians in the US are corrupt and they do not know any better. Sort of like being more catholic than the Pope.
Also, Mr. Trita Parsi reminds me of the three Iranian brothers (Rashidian) who were paid to go against Dr. Mossadegh and gather crowds of people in Tehran and chant marg bar (death to) Mossadegh.