THE NEW YORK TIMES

It is a valid observation that a majority of Iraqis, including Shiites, hate the Iranian regime (“Vacuum Is Feared as U.S. Quits Iraq, but Iran’s Deep Influence May Not Fill It,” news article, Oct. 9). Yet Tehran, worried about the consequences of the Arab Spring and faced with a growing domestic crisis and isolation, still seeks to manipulate Iraq by controlling its security apparatus and supporting paramilitary groups.

Under the circumstances, the regime and the pro-engagement crowd are paranoid over the likelihood of the removal of the principal Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or MEK, from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

In July 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that there was no legal basis for the designation. And a bipartisan Congressional initiative and a growing roster of former senior political, military, and national security officials have urged delisting of the MEK. In a demonstration in August in front of the State Department, thousands of Iranians echoed the Iranian people’s disdain for the designation. The European Union and Britain delisted MEK in 2009 and 2008.

“An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends,” by Elizabeth Rubin (Sunday Review, Aug. 14), repeated discredited allegations against the MEK in urging maintenance of the designation, which senior American officials acknowledged had been a good-will gesture to Tehran in 1997.

Scores of independent reports, including those by several delegations of the European Parliament, the Iran Policy Committee in Washington and Dick Armey, the former majority leader of the House of Representatives, clearly show that these allegations, particularly those implicating MEK in suppressing Iraqi Kurds in 1991, are unfounded.

Despite repeated denials by the Iranian resistance, the Op-Ed writer claimed that the Iranian resistance’s president-elect, Maryam Rajavi, ordered crushing the Kurds under tanks. This is another desperate attempt to discredit the person who is a point of hope for Iranians seeking freedom, and a major part of Tehran’s demonizing campaign against the MEK.

Hoshyar Zebari, foreign minister of Iraq, stipulated in an affidavit in 1999, when he was the head of international affairs for Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party, that MEK had no role in suppressing Iraqi Kurds.

SHAHIN GOBADI
Paris, Oct. 10, 2011

The writer is spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which includes the MEK.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/opinion/taking-iranian-opposition-group-off-us-terrorist-list.html

 OfficialWire.com

Iran has posed the most serious nuclear challenge to the international community, and experts believe that it is only steps away from getting the nuclear weapons capability. Yet, international efforts have to date failed to stop the mullahs and evidence shows that they are carrying out secret work to further enrich uranium.

It is also too clear that Tehran does not need nuclear energy. Iran is the second-largest crude producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after Saudi Arabia. The country’s Deputy Oil Minister Ahmad Qalebani said that Iran’s oil reserves has reached 155 billion barrels following the recent discovery of new onshore oil and gas fields in southern and western Iran with reserves of 500,000 million oil barrels and five trillion cubic feet gas respectively.

Sounding worried about Iran’s nuclear activities, this is what the former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Olli Heinonen, said in an interview with Spiegel on October 6th, explaining how he felt they were tricked and misled:

“It’s undeniable that Iran’s nuclear program is far more advanced than it was in 2003, when the discovery of the Natanz facility brought it to the IAEA’s attention. At the time, uranium enrichment tests were being carried out in secret on a small scale. But at the end of 2003, the Iranians admitted they were also planning to set up a heavy-water reactor in Arak to generate plutonium.

Today the facts are as follows: The conversion plant in Isfahan has produced 371 tons of uranium hexafluoride. Some 8,000 centrifuges in Natanz are being used to enrich this raw material. In February 2010, Iran began increasing enrichment to 20 percent. That’s a significant step closer to making an atomic bomb because it takes only a few months to turn that into weapons-grade material.”

 In september, the  head of the United Nations nuclear agency announced plans to publish new information backing up his belief that Iran may be working on a nuclear warhead—developments that leaves his organization “increasingly concerned.” 

There are two important questions that need to be answered:

One. Why does Tehran not accept to stop nuclear enrichment?

Two. Does Iran have an Achilles’ heel to force it stop its drive to become a nuclear power?          

To answer the above questions, we need to look inside Iran.

First: The mullahs are facing a very young population (more than 70% below 30 years of age), who are almost entirely against the regime. The protests in the Iranian streets two years ago, showed the threat facing Tehran. The demonstrations have to date been stopped by brutal crackdown and wide spread torture of those arrested in the prisons, but the wind of changes in the Arab world is certainly not blowing against the regime in Iran.

The mullahs utterly need a way out. Capability to produce nuclear weapons is being seen as a solution to create crisis and survive. Tehran is too weak and is surrounded by too many problems to be able to negotiate stopping nuclear enrichment, no matter how many carrots it is offered.

Second: Tehran has a very hurt able Achilles’ heel that it has to be attentive of. The weakness, which is well recognized by the mullahs themselves, is their main opposition group, the MEK.

Shackling the MEK is a must for the mullahs as they feel the threat facing them inside country and they experienced it two years ago on the streets of the capital. The opposition must be kept under maximum pressure no matter what and that is the reason why the mullahs lobbies in Europe and the US, have clear-cut outlines to work with. The MEK was put in the FTO list in 1997 when the Clinton administration, keen on placating Tehran’s regime through various “goodwill gestures,” designated the group as a terrorist organization. Since then, the MEK has won every legal challenge it filed, whether in the United States, the United Kingdom, France or the European Union. Eight European courts have reviewed thousands of pages of classified and unclassified materials and have concluded that the MEK is simply not involved in terrorism.

The correct policy towards the mullahs in Iran is to recognize their Achilles’ heel. Tehran’s threat is too real but it does not need to be stopped by a war. The impasse can be opened by unshackling the mullahs’ opposition and delisting the MEK before it is too late.

Kambiz Assai is a scholar of Iranian politics living in exile in Britain and a former political prisoner of the religious dictatorship in Iran. He writes about Iranian current events and human rights issues extensively and dreams of returning to a free and democratic Iran.

INTELLECTUAL CONSERVATIVE

Barbara Slavin, who has been highly critical of the Iranian opposition organization MEK, has an awfully cozy relationship with the Iranian government.

Barbara Slavin is proud to have maintained a close relationship with Iranian officials. In fact, one reason she has a claim on being an Iran expert is her “access” to such officials. Anyone with remote familiarity with the ruling theocracy in Iran knows that the high-ranking officials in national security and foreign affairs have previously held positions in the intelligence services and the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Barbara Slavin, as an “Iran expert,” knows well that the transition from the intelligence units and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) to government positions intensified during Ahmadinejad’s tenure and many of the key governmental positions are now run by former IRGC commanders.

Slavin herself has underscored the Iranian regime’s expediency in recognizing and maintaining their interests. Given the above background, one wonders what interest the Iranian regime has in allowing Slavin to visit Iran, not once or twice, but seven times? It is imperative that if Slavin’s visits would not serve its interests, the Iranian regime would not allow a repeat.

So far as it pertains to developments in Iran and Western policy on Iran, Ms. Slavin was for a while nostalgic about the Khatami and Rafsanjani eras (the regime’s former presidents) as though there was some moderation at work and the opportunity has been missed.

More intriguing is Slavin’s claim that the West and in particular the US are to blame for not offering the Iranian regime more concessions, and had they offered more, the Iranian regime would be more reasonable and logical to deal with and would show better cooperation with the rest of the world and treating its people.

When drawing such a rosy picture of Iran (which is far from the reality), Slavin intentionally ignores the fact that Iran is a theocracy and that its supreme leader always has the last word. What about the IRGC domination of all key governmental positions as well as Iran’s economy? What about the medieval court rulings, e.g., stoning to death? And what about the regime’s persecution of its opposition as mohareb (God’s enemies)?

The truth is that Khatami had an essential role in playing the “bad cop, good cop” game with the West, in order to acquire certain concessions and, in particular, having the main Iranian opposition, the MEK, put on the list of terrorists. He neither could facilitate a change in Iran nor was he really interested in doing so, as his best interests were in securing the very regime.

A few years later, when Ahmadinejad was appointed (elected?), it became very clear that the Iranian regime had planned to confront the international community and that the so-called moderation was only a myth, but Slavin encouraged the U.S. to be more “realistic.” She also has been very active in protecting the Tehran regime by participating in the campaign to defend Iran from economic sanctions and diplomatic isolations. Indeed, Slavin not only promoted the Iranian regime as a strong regional power but taunted the U.S. for not recognizing and respecting its hegemony in the region. Less than a year later, internal uprisings in Iran shook the regime’s foundations to the verge of collapse.

Slavin’s super-friendly relationship with the Iranian regime is best reflected in her rants against the main Iranian opposition, which often echo the regime’s itself.

During Rafsanjani’s and Khatami’s era, when Slavin made most of her high-level visits to Iran, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry devised its 80–20 percent formula.

According to this scheme, the Iranian regime’s contacts were encouraged to rant about non-serious allegations against the Iranian government 80% of the time and spend 20% making very serious accusations against the principal Iranian opposition, The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The rationale was: tell the truth 80% of the time and lie 20%, thus avoiding detection and giving a false image of opposing both while keeping the best interests of the regime in mind.

When reviewing Slavin’s writings against the MEK (e.g., her September 28 Inter Press Service [IPS] piece), one can see many similarities between her claims and the Iranian regime’s official propaganda.

Slavin’s biggest criticism of the MEK is that it is a sect. She complemented her claim with the mullahs’ favorite rhetoric – that the MEK does not have a popular support in Iran.
 
The essence of this message is very simple: the Iranian people are not interested in an organized opposition, and they’d be happy with some reforms within the existing theocracy. That is precisely a key 20% claim that makes Slavin and those like her very profitable for the Iranian regime.
 
The sectarianism label first was leveled against the MEK by the Iranian regime. In a Le Figaro interview in December 2008, an Iranian diplomat revealed that the label was invented during Khatami era and was repeated in diplomatic circles to characterize the MEK as a dangerous sect, not a political party.
 
In fact, last June, multiple high-ranking Iranian regime intelligence officials reiterated in TV interviews that they invented and widely propagated the sectarianism characterization as a means of reducing the MEK’s impact on the society.
 
The fact is that the Iranian regime has used every resource and lobbying campaign at its disposal to throw dirt at its main opposition and has spent millions on “research” and “think tank” firms during the past 30 years to draw an evil image of the MEK. The sect label against the Iranian resistance is one result of such campaigns.
 
With respect to the popular base of the MEK in Iran, suffice it to say that it is the oldest and most popular political organization in contemporary Iran that has fought two dictatorships in more than 46 years. Some 120,000 of its members and supporters have been executed throughout Iran, attesting to its widespread base. After the 2009 uprising in Iran, 11 were condemned to death and all were accused of MEK connections. Those condemned to death were executed precisely because of their MEK affiliations. Many are currently imprisoned in Iran because of their MEK sympathies or family connections in Camp Ashraf.
 
The MEK’s social network in Iran is by far the biggest nongovernmental network through which the MEK has been able to reveal more than 80 of Tehran’s nuclear programs, confidential sites, and secret projects.
 
Outside Iran, MEK gatherings have attracted tens of thousands of Iranians in the diaspora. In a gathering in Paris last June, some 100,000 participated, an unprecedented event in modern history. MEK has offices in most European countries and has sympathizers throughout the world. Its supporters are among the best educated and intellectual of the Iranians abroad, who have an extensive communication network.

Those have a deep understanding of the term sect know that it does not fit the MEK and is used against it to justify repression, killings, and restrictions of Camp Ashraf residents.
 
The above said, let me ask Slavin a few questions about the popularity or lack thereof the MEK:

• On what poll or survey is your opinion based? Is it possible under the Iranian regime for the people to freely express their opinion about the opposition? Don’t the Iranian constitution and its supreme leader make it a crime (“mohareb”) punishable by death to have any connection or affiliation with the MEK? Have you conducted a free survey on the campuses during her seven trips to Iran? Or do you expecting your contacts in the Iranian regime to offer a fair assessment of the MEK and its popular support? The main issue in Iran has been and continues to be freedom of expression. That’s is precisely why the Iranian regime resorts to widespread imprisonment, torture, rape, executions, has established so many oppressive units, and spends millions of dollars because it cannot tolerate freedom of expression.

• If the MEK does not have a popular base in Iran, why do high level Iranian regime officials continually warn about the MEK’s threats and its impact on the youth? According to the Wall Street Journal of May 7, 2008, the Western diplomats dealing with Iran have stated that Iran’s number one demand during the meetings has been restricting the MEK.

• If the MEK does not have a popular base in Iran, why are mullahs so concerned about Camp Ashraf and constantly conspiring against it? Didn’t Slavin characterize the Iranian regime as logical? Is it logical to campaign so hysterically against camp Ashraf? How does she explain the contradictions here?

The personality cult charge leveled against Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian resistance President-elect, has been one of the anchors of Tehran’s propaganda against the Iranian resistance, one that Slavin repeats.
 
Doesn’t Slavin recognize the right of resistance against the mullahs? If she you do agree that resistance against a tyranny is a right, then an organized resistance will have leader to represent it. Mrs. Rajavi represents the Iranian people’s hope for a regime change and symbolizes a democratic Iran, just as de Gaulle symbolized the French resistance against Nazism.
Another propaganda charge that Slavin levels against the Iranian resistance is that the Ashraf residents are kept in camp against their will. This is an absolute lie propagated by the Iranian regime and its agents in Iraq.
 
How could these individuals be forcefully kept under most horrible and inhuman conditions imposed on Camp Ashraf by Tehran’s Iraqi agents and under a 24/7 emotional torture via 300 loudspeakers deployed around the camp? The truth is that these individuals have made a decisive personal choice to live in a most democratic and modern environment that Ashraf has provided for them, despite all external risks.

All Camp Ashraf residents have been interviewed multiple times by various U.S. officials and government units and were given an opportunity, with U.S. and Iraqi officials present, to exit Ashraf; each and every individual in the camp chose to – indeed insisted – to stay.
 
At the official hearing of the U.S. Congress on July 7,2011, retired Army Colonel Wesley Martin, former base commander, Camp Ashraf for 2005 t0 2006, testified: “One perpetual rumor worthy of specific address concerns members of the MEK being held against their will. I was able to validate through specific occurrences anyone wishing to leave has that choice.”
 
Colonel (now General) David Philips wrote on May 27, 2005: “I am the commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade and in that role was responsible for the safety and security of Camp Ashraf from January-December 2004. Over the year long period I was apprized of numerous reports of torture, concealed weapons and people being held against their will by the leadership of the Mujahedin-e-khalq. I directed my subordinate units to investigate each allegation.  In many cases I personally led inspection teams on unannounced visits to the MEK/PMOI facilities where the alleged abuses were reported to occur. At no time over the 12 month period did we ever discover any credible evidence supporting the allegations raised” … I would not have sanctioned any acts on the part of the MeK/PMOI to hold people against their will. The MEK/PMOI in fact notified us on a routine basis of people who desired to leave the organization and then transported them to our gate … I’ve visited male and female units on a routine basis. Sometimes these visits were announced, but most frequently they were unannounced inspections … Not one time did they (my subordinate units) discover any improper conduct on the part of the MeK/PMOI.” At the end of his letter he stated: “I would like my own daughters to someday visit these units for the cultural exchange.”
 
Col. Julie Norman, the U.S. Commander responsible for protection of Ashraf in 2006, in a Memorandum For Record on August 24, 2006, wrote: “There exists no prison or any obligation to stay in Ashraf; everyone is free to leave PMOI anytime he/she wishes to.” She added: “Normally, PMOI members invite their families, friends, and colleagues who live in Iran or foreign countries to Ashraf for visits.”
 
The above three official statements by three US commanders in charge of Camp Ashraf during 2004–2006 are very telling and contradict that of Slavin.
 
While Camp Ashraf was accessible to outsiders, six Europeans parliamentarian delegations visited Ashraf and documented their observations and talks with the individual camp residents, and all of them contradict Slavin’s baseless claims.

Slavin further blames the MEK for a lack of access by the camp residents to the UNHCR. But the truth is the opposite. The Red Cross did visit the camp and interviewed hundreds of its residents. Lastly, while the camp has been under the Iraqi blockade during the past three years, it has been the camp officials who repeatedly have called for a visit by international organizations, news media, parliamentarian delegations, and camps residents’ families.

As an Iran “expert,” Slavin knows that her reporting on the Iranian resistance best fits the 80–20 formula.

Antonio Stango, a political scientist, lecturer in International Law and Human Rights, is the founder and the Secretary General of the Italian Helsinki Committee, member of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. In 2003 he served also as an expert for the EU / TACIS Project “The Legal Protection of Human Rights in the Russian Federation.”

INTELLECTUAL CONSERVATIVE

Iranian political prisoner Sadegh Sistani from the Iranian opposition organization MEK recently escaped. His report? “Hundreds waiting in the gallows while the UN-US welcomes their butcher.”
 
As the motorcade of the Iranian President, Ahmadinejad moved towards the UN General Assembly for a predicted venomous speech and a mockery of World conscience, Iranian state-controlled media announced a new toll of death sentences for a group of 54 activists.

The ruling Iranian regime is an oppressive one that mixes theocracy with autocracy and extreme expansionist ideology that continues to defy the international community. It has proven that it absolutely denies the people and even members of its elite any form of Freedom.
 
I took the opportunity to ask a prominent veteran Iranian political prisoner who escaped torture only last April about the situation of his fellow prisoners back in Iran.

Sadegh Sistani, escaped Iran after enduring years of imprisonment under the present regime.

“There are thousands of political prisoners packed in hundreds of prisons in Iran. Tens of families which include whole families at times affiliated to the MEK, are in deploring inhuman conditions. Women are volatile, and suffer the most. Sexual harassment and misuse have been routine for woman political prisoners. During the 1980 executions of hundreds of MEK affiliates, a Fatwa by Khomeini allowed rape of young girls in order to make sure their spirits would not go to heaven. (They believed that sinned girls would not be allowed to heaven).

Others had their blood drained before death according to a separate Fatwa. The present regime president, Ahmadinejad, was one of the tens of torturers in the notorious Evin prison at the time. He is now shaking hands with his official counterparts. It is the same hand who pulled the trigger that killed tens in executions according to living witnesses.”

Sadegh Sistani, continued explaining the present situation; “The brutality of this regime towards families of MEK in Iran has not limits. A young mother of three toddlers is still paying the price of the “terror tag.” Her name I will disclose for her protection. She was abducted from her house as her little ones were screaming out of fear. The mother was dragged away for no apparent reason and has been in prison since. Her interrogator, a notorious torturer of the 1980s ‘Salavati’ told her: “You are paying the price of your sister and brother (supporters of the MEK and executed earlier) *1. The interrogator had asked for her children’s presence so that they would “cry their hearts out” to give him relief!

Sistani said: “In a letter smuggled out, she has bravely disclosed her ordeal and appealed to ‘World Conscience’:

“This is a FREE country, and its President Ahmadinejad claims there is total FREEDOM, where Human Rights is respected and where people have no fear of persecution. Indeed, a country in which “Breathing and being ALIVE” is a CRIME.

A place in which, a mourning mother in black has no right to cry for the loss of her darlings. Indeed, it is a role model for Freedom and Democracy!

I know very well that by writing this letter, I am accepting the worst to come, but all I want to be to voice of the many innocent in these prisons, who are suffering the cost of appeasement with the mullahs.”

“There is always hope in the dark dungeons, where your voice is not heard, and all you have desired for seems remote. That hope builds on your perseverance and resolve to stand firm on all you ever lived for: Freedom.”
Mr. Sistani said: “As this mother of three, MEK supporter has written “HOPE’” is still there, but is this still a value for the US Administration and President Obama?”

The voice for change has been resonating in comments and speeches by US senior officials supporting the movement and its struggle to establish democracy in Iran.

Dr. Sarah Sewall from Harvard Kennedy School of Government elaborated the conflict of foreign policy interests and true American values during a symposium in Washington DC and said:

“What is interesting for me concerning the issue of Democracy and Human Rights in Iran is that often, for the United States we see a significant conflict in our foreign policy between the values that America has held dear and, indeed, was founded upon and the interests of the United States of America as it plots its foreign policy and manages the affairs of state. The extraordinary issue is values, and interests are joined in a common framework for approaching the questions of Iran and democracy and human rights. Such clash in the conduct of foreign policy; so often leading to inconsistency; reversals of fortune, charges of hypocrisy; has now actually an opportunity to be reconciled.”She referred to a “third way’” in the approach towards Iran.

Published in the New York Post, a recent appeal, by dozens of senior US officials to UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon to “Save Ashraf Now,” Human Rights has been the prior concern amidst all other pragmatic and long-term interests.

We in America may have very different views about the relative success and the cost-benefit trade-off of that kind of an approach, bearing in mind Iraq-Afghanistan experience and its unintended consequences. The “third Option” argued for the past years by the MEK is the inevitable remedy.

The “Third Option” was offered by the Opposition movement years ago as an anti-thesis to “War” or “appeasement” mostly propagated by counter and pro Iranian Lobbyists in Capitol Hill. It simply leaves the complex and expensive challenge of resolving the clerical extremism, to the Iranian resistance movement and the Iranian people.

Gen.Shelton in a symposium in Washington said: “The MEK is the most formidable opposition to the regime in Tehran. It has challenged the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism for the past 32 years and provides hope for the current Iranian people. It provides a degree of hope that far exceeds anything else that we or our allies can offer short of direct intervention.”

So what more is left and why is there no change in the country while others in the region will follow the Gale of democratic change?

The Reuters reported, “’The opposition (green movement) is leaderless and lacks any strategy.. is following the Arab uprisings with a mixture of envies and regret for its own failure.” The spirited youths who marched the streets during the 2009 uprisings were betrayed by Moussavi as he cowed to the Supreme Leader. They are pinning hope on yet a more reliable handle to grab.

However, there is a barrier that has blocked their path.

The US Foreign List of Terrorist Organization has for long favored the Ayatollahs in Tehran by enchaining the only remaining organized and capable movement.

“The List is a direct handshake with our butchers in Iran. The Mullahs managed to massacre 120,000 of MEK supporters through a fatwa. The organization was the exact anti-thesis to the clerical fascists in Iran. They believed in a tolerant Islam that based “Democracy and Peace” as its corner stone for progress and social change. It promoted complete Gender Equality, which is the landmark for any progressive society. Women from the leadership Council in the movement and recently in a democratic election, a new Secretary General was polled by members.” Said Sistani.

Ironically, as much as the clerical regime is misogynous in nature, it is an organization with “Women Leadership” which is the fear of its life and is an existential threat.

As Sistani takes a deep breath, he insisted on fatal repercussions of the enlisting:

“Keeping the 45-year-old movement in the US list, has provided a good excuse for both the Mullahs and Maliki to kill, hang and massacre us anywhere and when possible. It has enchained our ability to be used to reveal and prevent ongoing vile Human Right violations by the mullahs. It has simply put the US on the side of our butchers.”