Perle in firing line

As If One Chalabi Weren't Enough – Perle's New Partners for the Iran Takeover

A recent New York Times op-ed, penned by one Ali Safavi, cites another vintage Perle peroration. It dates from an appearance Perle made before "a gathering of some 5,000 Iranian-Americans last month," and the fact that a conscious effort is being made to remind the people of it shows that Perle has indeed lost all contact with reality, and his own best interests.

On 24 January Perle spoke at an innocuous enough fund-raiser at the Washington Convention Center, apparently dedicated to helping victims of the Bam earthquake. Perle denied any activist purpose of the event: "all of the proceeds will go to the Red Cross," he promised.

Actually, the Red Cross didn't accept any money, knowing (as Perle must have) that the event was organized by diaspora groups linked to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a blacklisted terrorist organization that killed Americans in the 1970's and fought for Saddam Hussein thereafter.

The MEK's goal is to overthrow the Iranian government. Incidentally enough, Perle just happened to have such a speech in his back pocket. Funny that.

In his commentary, Safavi grumpily refers to the terrorist designation: "…the [State] department has even classified the Iranian National Council of Resistance, an exile group of which I am a former official, as a 'terrorist organization.'"

The Council, headed by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi and her husband Massoud, is the MEK's political wing. A long-time Washington lobbyist, it is also known as the People's Mojehedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). Safavi, in a 1992 overture to the Clinton Administration, deemed the Council "the antipode to the current Iranian government." Simultaneously, future INCR foreign affairs committee Chair Mohammed Mohaddessin is recorded as having "ambushed" Vice President Gore with his revolutionary requests. Mohaddessin's 2001 book, Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat harmonizes perfectly with Perle's recent masterpiece. And Perle is on the board of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which is apparently (the Times is a bit vague) Safavi's gig, too.

The Council has regularly patronized the American mass media, for example in a full-page ad backed by friendly congressmen in the Times a year ago. Mrs. Rajavi indeed has plenty of backers in the Iranian Diaspora and US congress. And several websites set up in the past few months indicate the neocons intend to step up the battle for invading Iran – at the behest of an opportunistic terrorist organization that makes Chalabi look like a kitten in comparison.