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In
recent months, the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) and its attempts to prove that
the Islamic Republic of Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons garnered
widespread media coverage and speculation. While bringing forth a modicum of
new information, the attention fails to illuminate just how dangerous the
MEK could be to the United States.
Grappling in Iraq, the Bush administration now faces an analogous yet graver
situation in the Islamic Republic. In the years leading up to the Iraq war,
Ahmad Chalabi led the exiled Iraqi National Congress. In courting Bush
officials like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz to stoke the war flames in
Iraq, Chalabi materialized defectors who affirmed suspicions about Saddam
Hussein's ethereal weapons of mass destruction. Chalabi then secured
administration support by seducing it with visions of Iraqis showering
American liberators with flowers and a quick handover of a well-ordered Iraq
from US troops to his Free Iraqi Fighters.
Today, Maryam Rajavi, the so-called president-elect of the MEK's National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), conjures up the same desert visions
for Iran.
Like the case of Chalabi, who offered information on the seemingly
impenetrable Iraq, reliance on Rajavi and her supporters superficially makes
sense. Given the US's lack of human intelligence inside the Islamic
Republic's government, supporting the MEK would naturally appeal to the US
administration as a means to quickly develop and install agents who can
provide reliable information regarding the Islamic Republic's nuclear
advancements.
The MEK even appears to fit the bill better than Chalabi in many respects.
As an Iranian opposition group with members inside and outside the country,
the MEK can utilize its nativist connection to seamlessly merge with
countrymen without fear of being detected by foreign accents, mannerisms or
characteristics.
Moreover, the MEK is the largest and the best-organized Iranian opposition
group, with realistic estimates between 6,000 to 10,000 fighters, members
and supporters combined. More importantly, the MEK demonstrated its ability
to deliver reliable information when it revealed, on August 14, 2002, that
the Islamic Republic possessed an advanced nuclear program that included
facilities at Natanz and Arak.
The MEK now finds support within parts of the American government as a
"third option". Such support is built on the fallacy that the MEK can not
only provide information, but also enjoys enough popular support so that
diplomacy and direct military action can be skirted. By lobbying to remove
the MEK from the US's list of foreign terrorist organizations and
considering the group as leverage to destabilize, overthrow, and/or replace
Tehran's clerical government, supporters ignore the unsavory history of the
MEK.
And that puts the United States, its citizens and its interests in grave
danger.
Under the Bill Clinton administration, the State Department placed the MEK
on its terrorist organization list in 1997 as a conciliatory gesture to the
then newly elected Mohammed Khatami moderates. In justifying its decision,
the State Department used several acts of violence committed against
Americans to justify its actions.
These acts included the November 1971 attempt to kidnap the American
ambassador, as well as the 1972 bombings of the offices belonging to
Pepsi-Cola, General Motors, the Hotel International, the Marin Oil Company,
the Iranian-American Society and the US Information Office. Over the next
three years, the MEK robbed six banks, assassinated the deputy chief of the
US Military Mission (Colonel Lewis Hawkins), killed the chief of the Tehran
police, killed five American civilians and/or military advisers, attempted
to assassinate the chief of the US Military Mission in Iran (General Harold
Price), and bombed the offices of Pan-American Airlines, Shell Oil Company,
British Petroleum, El Al and British Airways. [1]
In a military tribunal in 1972, MEK leader Massoud Rajavi explained such
acts of violence by premising that the future of Iran depended on armed
resistance.
Blaming most of the world's problems on imperialism, Rajavi insisted that
"American imperialism" was the main enemy of Iran because the United States
conducted the 1953 coup d'etat that overthrew the then prime minister,
Mohammad Mossadeq. [2] In retaliation, the Shah attempted to discredit the
group by labeling the mujahideen as "Islamic Marxists" and by claiming that
Islam merely served as a cover to hide the group's Marxist ideology.
In response, the MEK declared its respect for Marxism "as a progressive
social philosophy" but stated that "their true culture, inspiration,
attachment and ideology was Islam". [3] Attempting to clarify its position,
the MEK later published an article declaring that
[T]he regime is trying to place a wedge
between Muslims and Marxists ... Of course, Marxism and Islam are not
identical. Nevertheless, Islam is definitely closer to Marxism than to
Pahlavism. Islam and Marxism contain the same message for they inspire
martyrdom, struggle, and self-sacrifice. Who is closer to Islam: the
Vietnamese who fight against American imperialism or the Shah who helps
Zionism? Since Islam fights oppression it will work together with Marxism
which also fights oppression. They have the same enemy: reactionary
imperialism. [4]
With this history, news that the MEK
engaged coalition forces during Operation Enduring Freedom should not be
surprising. [5] With their obvious ideological differences, the US and MEK
have been separately battling the Islamic Republic of Iran for about the
past 25 years. Now, however, the MEK and its supporters within the American
government want to temporarily put aside such differences to bring about
regime change.
Intelligence sources, though, are quick to note that the information the MEK/NCRI
provides is only sometimes correct.
For example, on September 16, the group's "spokesman", Alireza Jafarzadeh of
Strategic Policy Consulting, a corporation viewed as established to
circumvent US laws prohibiting the MEK/NCRI's existence on American soil,
proffered that the Islamic Republic had secretly built an underground
tunnel-like facility deep in the mountains of the Parchin military complex,
in order to transfer secret nuclear components and conduct other activities
related to a supposedly vibrant nuclear weapons program.
The tunnels allegedly house secret "military-nuclear factories" and serve as
storage space. Diagrams that were produced appear to show that the tunnels
are supplied with water, electricity and ventilation, providing a suitable
and seemingly extensive working space deep underground. Jafarzadeh claims
that Iranian officials decided to construct the tunnels in response to
continuing leaks regarding the country's nuclear activities, and that they
serve to prevent the easy destruction of essential facilities by US
"bunker-busting" munitions.
Yet neither a direct inquiry into the credibility of the statement nor
confirmation from reliable sources seems to exist. Given that American
satellites would be able to detect the mass movement and transit required to
perform the alleged tunneling activities, and with access given again to
international nuclear inspectors, additional skepticism is in order.
In much the same manner that the American intelligence community questioned
the credibility of Chalabi over his allegations regarding Iraq, it is
rightfully wary of the MEK.
Unlike Chalabi, though, the MEK's disdain for democracy is clear. In the
years following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, when the MEK arguably
reached its height both in popular domestic support and sheer strength, the
mujahideen avoided legitimate elections for its top leadership positions and
any democratic formulation for an official strategy.
Instead, Massoud Rajavi assumed the chairmanship of the NCRI, with the
result that as other Iranian dissident groups joined the MEK in the 1980s,
most quickly left the national council because the MEK insisted on full
control over all important decisions, including who could join the NCRI, who
would receive full voting rights within the NCRI and who could represent the
NCRI at international meetings.
Although in recent years the MEK has recast itself as a pro-democratic,
pro-capitalist organization that provides equal opportunities to minorities
and women, the group continues to exert authoritarian control over its
members.
Having essentially declared himself the leader for life of the Iranian
people, Massoud Rajavi appointed his wife, Maryam, as so-called
president-elect. Saddled with one appointed leader for life in Ayatollah Ali
Khameini, the Iranian people are unlikely to want another. Like Tehran's
regime, the MEK has its own interpretation of Islam that includes mandatory
Islamic dress for women. On the verge of potentially re-embracing
secularism, Iranians do not want another government-mandated and imposed
interpretation of Islam.
Moreover, supporting the MEK will irrevocably alienate all classes because
Iranians do not consider the group a legitimate source of resistance. Now
alienated from the Islamic government, Iranians remember that the MEK
significantly aided Khomeini in bringing about the revolution and the
current government. Multiplying their grievances against the group, Iranians
say that when Khomeini pushed out the former icons of the Islamist movement,
the MEK used assassinations and terrorism in an attempt to destabilize the
regime.
Once beloved by the masses, "the hypocrites" turned and fought for Saddam
Hussein during the grizzly Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s - an act that
continues to outrage Iranians. At the war's end, Saddam attempted to use the
MEK as a fifth column, but the Islamic Republic set a trap and massacred
thousands of MEK paramilitary fighters and prisoners. No Iranian publicly
objected at the time. Thus, despite arguments that empowering the MEK would
"support President [George W] Bush's assertion that America stands with the
people of Iran in their struggle to liberate themselves", Iranians with
their long and collective history will neither forgive nor forget the
"traitors" who attacked their own country and people.
As such, the MEK cannot be an asset to the US because the group carries a
deadly legacy from the Iran-Iraq War that only stokes the embers of Iranian
nationalism. Such nationalism brought about much in the last century: from
the 1905 constitutional revolution to the nationalization of oil and the
Mossadeq movement; from a vital role in the 1979 revolution to surviving a
deadly war with Iraq. Any foreign military action can expect a similar
reaction.
The MEK and its supporters, however, will encounter a rare ferociousness
because the group presents the kind of common enemy against whom the
reformists, the conservatives, the students and common people will all rally
against - something that has not happened since the conclusion of the
Iran-Iraq War.
But now the Islamic Republic is dangerously better armed, holds a network of
relations throughout the Middle East, and is bolstered by proxies operating
widely and freely from Russia to Bosnia and from Lebanon to Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Although the Iranian people are clearly the most pro-American populace in
the Middle East, does the United States really want to turn that advantage
on its head and be on the receiving end of such an Iranian nationalist
movement?
While the Persian puzzle continues to perplex, Chalabi-style fantasies are
not an answer. The lessons from Iraq have been too many, at too high a
price, for that mistake to be made again.
Notes
[1] In defending the current Rajavi leadership, supporters cite that Massoud
Rajavi was in jail at the time of the American murders. However, in the
critical early months preceding the Revolution, the MEK (under the
leadership of the freed Rajavi) not only moved towards clerical power bases
but cooperated with radical clerics to weaken and eliminate the moderate
leadership of prime minister Bazargan, whom they viewed as bourgeois and
pro-American. See Ervand Abrahamian, Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin
184-85 (1989).
[2] Viewing the Pahlavi regime as having little social support outside the
middle class, the MEK asserted that the monarchy had to rule through terror,
intimidation, and propaganda. In aiming to shatter the "atmosphere of
terror" through heroic acts of violence that would bring the collapse of the
regime, the Mujahideen ultimately intended to could out carry out "radical
reforms" that included ending Iranian dependence on the West, building an
independent society, and redistributing wealth while giving a free voice to
the masses. See Ervand Abrahamian, The Guerrilla Movement in Iran,
1963-77, 86 Merip Reports 9 (1980)
[3] See The Mujahideen Organization, Dafa'at-i Naser Sadeq (The
Defense Speech of Naser Sadeq) 24 (1972).
[4] See The Mujahideen Organization, Pasokh Beh Etemat-i Akher-I Rezhin
(An Answer to the Regime's Latest Slanders) 10-13 (1973).
According to Abrahamian, note 1, 92-93, original members of the MEK's
"Ideological Team", Hosayn Ruhani and Torab Haqshenas, explained that their
"original aim was to synthesize the religious values of Islam with the
scientific thought of Marxism ... for [the two] were convinced that true
Islam was compatible with the theories of social evolution, historical
determinism, and the class struggle." The fusion of Islam and Marxism made
sense because the Mujahideen believed that the Prophet Mohammed sought to
establish not just a new religion but a new ummat(progressive
society) that sought social justice by delivering the message of nezam-e
tawhidi (a classless society free of poverty, corruption, war,
inequality, and oppression).
In contrast, at least one author asserts that the MEK, as a group of
Marxists, realized they lacked grass roots support and tried to legitimize
their movement by utilizing Islam and following Ali Shariati's
interpretation. In opposing the view of Frantz Fanon, who believed that
people from non-Western countries must give up their religion to bring about
revolutions in their countries, Shariati argued that without rooting
identity within religion and culture, non-Western peoples could not fight
Western imperialism See Asaf Hussain, Islamic Iran: Revolution and
counter-revolution 85 (1985).
[5] See Sam Dealey, Iran "Terrorist" Group Find Support on the Hill, The
Hill, April 2, 2003.
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