Expelling the MKO is a test for Iraqi sovereignty
By Mahan Abedin

December 23, 2003 The Daily Star, Lebanon
 
The Iraqi Governing Council’s unanimous decision on Dec. 9 to expel the Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO) from Iraq by the end of the year was long awaited. The fate of the MKO has been a bone of contention between Iraqi political forces and the US occupation authorities since the downfall of Saddam Hussein. The Governing Council has for months been applying pressure on the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to eject the MKO from the Ashraf camp in the Diyala province.
The Governing Council’s wishes have been ignored, however, and it remains to be seen whether the US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, and his superiors in Washington will heed its explicit pronouncements this time around.
The MKO has mocked the Governing Council as an impotent tool of the Iranian regime. The group has branded the current president of the Governing Council and a leading figure in the previously Tehran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Abdulaziz Hakim, an agent of the “mullah regime” (the euphemism the MKO uses to refer to Iran). The MKO seems to believe that the US occupation authorities will shield them from Iraqi wrath. However, the organization has failed to address the question of what will happen to it once full sovereignty is restored to Iraq next summer.
What the MKO has to say about this is largely irrelevant, since others will decide its fate in Iraq. More significantly is why the Governing Council unanimously called for the MKO’s ouster and more importantly, how Washington’s reaction will affect Iraq’s transition?
By calling for the MKO’s expulsion the Governing Council certainly reflected the will of the Iraqi people. The organization’s complicity in Baathist repression is well documented and the only Iraqis who ever welcomed it were the followers of Saddam Hussein. It is not surprising that once the Governing Council issued its expulsion order, several pro-Baath tribes in Diyala expressed support for the MKO. The same tribesmen had assembled at the Ashraf camp in early May in a show of solidarity, before the US military deployed around the camp.
The strategic rationale behind the Governing Council’s decision was both clear and compelling. There is simply no overriding reason for Iraq to continue sheltering the controversial MKO. The Baathist regime backed the organization for some 20 years because it was a tool against Iran, even as Tehran hosted several Iraqi opposition groups. However, the dramatic transformations in Iraq during the past nine months have altered Iranian-Iraqi relations. Iran, unlike many Arab states, welcomed the formation of the Governing Council in July and nearly all the latter’s constituent groups ­ from Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress to Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan ­ have historically enjoyed excellent relations with Tehran.
It is likely that Iran played a part in pushing the Governing Council to issue the MKO expulsion order, but even without Iranian influence, the council was bound to take the decision it did.
The MKO’s claim that its presence in Iraq was a source of stability typified the delusions of grandeur of an organization that was doomed once the coalition armies invaded Iraq. In fact the opposite is true: The continued presence of the MKO on Iraqi soil is likely to complicate Iranian-Iraqi relations, and in recent visits to Iran both Chalabi and Talabani privately thanked the Iranian government for showing patience on the MKO issue. Plainly, the Governing Council now feels Iranian patience is wearing thin.
The real struggle is, of course, between the Governing Council and the US occupation authorities. The US military has disarmed and quarantined the 3,800 MKO fighters in the Ashraf camp. However, the fact that it has made no decisive moves against the organization since May raises disturbing questions. One of those asking such questions is, ironically, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who told the Senate Foreign Relations committee last October that the US should not have agreed to a cease-fire with the MKO. US defense officials have never adequately explained the strategic and tactical basis upon which an accord was reached with such an insignificant force.
American officials in Iraq have alluded to the legal and logistical problems associated with ejecting 3,800 foreign fighters from Iraq. But US authorities have had more than seven months to find the right solutions to these problems. It is obvious that the Pentagon has been dragging its feet on the matter.
The Governing Council does not exercise sovereignty, but it operates on the assumption that its wishes and decisions have some impact on the CPA. The surreptitious dispute over the fate of the MKO is a real test for Iraq’s emerging political institutions to determine whether they will be in a position to exercise full sovereignty by next summer. Failure by the Governing Council to decisively influence the US and successfully expel the MKO will indicate that restoration of full sovereignty is still a long way away.
In the final analysis the Governing Council will only show real strength and independence when it can positively influence the country’s real masters on contentious issues. Banning Arab television stations that displease the Americans was easy, but moving against an organization that enjoys some support within the Pentagon is not. If the Governing Council fails in this endeavor, the MKO, by claiming that the Iraqi governing body is merely an impotent talking-shop, may for once be right.