{"id":21724,"date":"2012-09-24T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T11:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=21724"},"modified":"2012-09-22T17:11:53","modified_gmt":"2012-09-22T16:11:53","slug":"mek-delisting-is-a-gift-to-the-regime-a-disaster-for-the-iranian-people-and-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/09\/mek-delisting-is-a-gift-to-the-regime-a-disaster-for-the-iranian-people-and-the-u-s\/","title":{"rendered":"MEK Delisting is a Gift to the Regime, a Disaster for the Iranian People and the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) deplores the decision to remove the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations.\u00a0 The decision<\/a> opens the door to Congressional funding of the MEK to conduct terrorist attacks in Iran, makes war with Iran far more likely, and will seriously damage Iran\u2019s peaceful pro-democracy movement as well as America\u2019s standing among ordinary Iranians.<\/p>\n

“The biggest winner today is the Iranian regime, which has claimed for a long time that the U.S. is out to destroy Iran and is the enemy of the Iranian people. This decision will be portrayed as proof that the U.S.\u00a0is cozying up with a reviled terrorist group and will create greater receptivity for that false argument,\u201d said NIAC Policy Director Jamal Abdi.<\/p>\n

Members of Iran\u2019s democratic opposition, Iran experts, human rights defenders, and former U.S. officials have warned<\/a>\u00a0that delisting the MEK \u201cwill have harmful consequences on the legitimate, indigenous Iranian opposition.\u201d\u00a0 Kaleme<\/a><\/em>, a leading pro-democracy newspaper in Iran run by supporters of the opposition Green Movement, has warned<\/a>\u00a0that support for the MEK strengthens the Iranian regime. According to the opposition paper, \u201cthere is no organization, no party and no cult more infamous than the MEK amongst the Iranian nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, a recent NBC News report<\/a>\u00a0raises serious questions about whether the MEK has truly given up terrorism.\u00a0 Citing senior U.S. officials, NBC reported that the Mujahedin is behind the assassinations of Iranian scientists and that it has previously worked with the mastermind of the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.<\/p>\n

“Given that U.S. officials have recently acknowledged that the MEK is still conducting terrorism in Iran, where is the evidence MEK has abandoned terrorism?\u201d asked Abdi.\u00a0 “The multi-million dollar lobbying campaign undertaken by the MEK and its supporters seems to have paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prominent former U.S. officials have been\u00a0paid up to $100,000<\/a>\u00a0to speak on behalf of the MEK, as part of the lobbying campaign aimed at pressuring the Obama administration to delist the group.\u00a0The activities, organized through a network of MEK-associated organizations in the U.S. with no oversight of the funding sources, also raise serious questions about the selective enforcement of anti-terror laws by the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

Supporters of the MEK have\u00a0called for<\/a>\u00a0using the group to conduct attacks in Iran and\u00a0have praised<\/a>\u00a0its use of violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though they have no support in Iran, the MEK will now follow the playbook of Iraqi exiles like Ahmad Chalabi who pushed the U.S. into war in an attempt to gain power,\u201d said Abdi. \u201cCongressional backers may also try to fund and re-arm this group to carry out terrorist attacks in Iran, which could also quickly escalate into war.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the administration should be commended for successfully relocating the residents of the MEK\u2019s paramilitary base to Camp Liberty and thus avoiding a humanitarian disaster. The Iraqi military had threatened to forcibly close the camp, and the MEK leadership had hinted that it might order a mass-suicide.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, a majority of the residents at Ashraf were prisoners, held against their own wishes, according to RAND<\/a>. Measures must be taken now to ensure that this decision does not lead to continued entrapment of the residents by the MEK cult and its leaders. This is a critical humanitarian aspect of this issue that should not be neglected.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 niacouncil.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) deplores the decision to remove the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations. The decision opens the door to Congressional funding of the MEK to conduct terrorist attacks in Iran, makes war with Iran far more likely, and will seriously damage Iran\u2019s peaceful pro-democracy movement as well as America\u2019s standing among ordinary Iranians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}