US National Security, Military, and Policy Figures Call for Prompt De-Listing of the MEK
US National Security, Military, and Policy Figures Call for Prompt De-Listing of the MEK
August 19, 2011 by
The Strong Case for Removal of the MEK of the FTO List
August 18, 2011 by
By now, it should no longer be necessary to rehearse the evidence as to the danger Iran represents to Western interests. Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, its violence in Iraq and elsewhere, and its sponsorship of terrorism (even conspiring with al-Qaeda) are all well-documented, not least by the US government.
While Libya and Syria are rightly condemned for profound abuses of their citizens, there seems to be silence from Western governments on Iran, with the main opposition group remaining on the State Department’s terrorist list and denied US protection in Iraq. While it is important for democratic politics and the human rights of those who must live under such regimes that there is honesty about the foreign policy choices that the West is making, let us stick with realpolitikand focus firmly upon US foreign policy interests.
For thirty years, US administrations have clung to the wishful thought that there is within the Iranian regime a man or faction with whom it can do business. This policy has failed, not least because the Iranian government is wise to the search and is able to bargain and stonewall with US administrations and continue on as before. Witness former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Louis Freeh, recent anecdote about his having taken to the then US National Security Adviser the “strong evidence” of Iranian governmental responsibility in the deaths of 19 US airmen at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia on 25 June 1996. The response was, ‘”Who knows about this?” The FBI were told to keep open the investigation as the President had declared that the guilty would be found, but the Administration wanted to hear no more of Iranian responsibility. There was, Freeh said, “confusion” in US policy-making towards Iran.[i]
At such a critical time for Middle Eastern politics, it is timely that US policy towards Iran is fundamentally reviewed. The choices the US has made in its designated enemies in the region has had profound ramifications for global security. The failure to hold Iran to account for its international actions, as noted by Freeh in the case of the Khobar Towers, and the West’s choice of enemies in the past, has allowed Iran, whatever internal contradictions might be undermining it, to increase its regional power. Given the current mix of circumstances in the Middle East and South Asia, it has never been more important that the West gets its policy towards Iran right.
We can leave on one side the overwhelming evidence of Iran’s violence towards its own citizens, and the arguments as to the moral imperative that imposes upon the free, and simply ask, what is in the US interest? The test of the effectiveness of the 30 year old effort to find a modus vivendi with the Iranian regime is the extent to which Iran has moderated its international behaviour. The evidence from the US Treasury Department of Iranian co-operation with al-Qaeda, the violence in Iraq and the continued pursuit of nuclear weapons all point to failure. It is time to ask, does the US Administration really believe in its stated foreign policy preference for stable democracies with which to engage?
In any case, since the search for engagement with the Iranian theocracy has failed, then, if the US desires changed Iranian behaviour, it really has only two choices for the future: engage Iran militarily and impose a different regime, or remove the obstacles to democratic politics in Iran, beginning with the removal of People’s
Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) from the State Department’s terrorist list. The latter path is altogether less costly and more likely to produce a stable government, its democracy indigenously built and this sustainable.
The test for a new policy towards Iran, one that serves the US interest, is how the US government chooses to construct and treat the main Iranian opposition group, the MEK. That this group is central to the future democratic (and secular) politics of Iran can be evidenced in a number of ways. First, it was the MEK that first provided the intelligence revealing Iran’s nuclear programme. If an opposition group can access the most secret of state secrets, it is well and truly embedded in society at all levels. Second, the fact that the Iranian regime is spending resources in Washington to try to maintain the MEK on the terrorist list is symptomatic of the centrality of the MEK in Iran’s negotiations with the US. As such, this tells us something about the importance of the MEK in the Iran’s calculations about regime security and thus, again, it tells us something about the embeddness of the MEK in Iranian society.
Recognising the failure of US policy towards Iran, a growing number of the great and the good in US political and cultural circles have begun to speak openly about the centrality of the MEK to a more useful approach to the region by the US. Their evidence-based approach (see Freeh above) has also led them to see the MEK as it is – as a powerful and legitimate resistance movement, not a terrorist organization. This emerging consensus around an alternative approach to Iran has caused alarm to the theocracy. Since this consensus is built upon evidence, Iran’s approach to the debate has been to try to discredit, among others: former Joint Chiefs of Staff, a National Security Adviser, an Attorney General, CIA Directors, US ambassadors to the UN, a Secretary of Homeland Security, a White House Chief of Staff, a Marine Corps Commander, an FBI Director, and a State Department Director of Counterterrorism. Iran defines them as ‘words-for-hire’ rather than as the experienced, responsible and patriotic individuals that they are in reality.
Finally, removing the MEK from the State Department’s terrorist list would give the 3,400 unarmed Iranian exiles at Camp Ashraf in Iraq some chance of safety from Iraqi forces that have besieged and murdered at the behest of Iran. This group handed over its weapons to US forces in the early days of the Iraq War. They were accorded the status of “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Removing the MEK from the list would remove any excuses the Iraqi government has for its outrageous abuses there. Protecting these people is of central importance not only to the US’ moral authority in the world but to a more effective policy towards Iran. The centrality of the MEK in Iranian society means that, the future foreign policy consequences of a further outrage at Camp Ashraf will be as significant a barrier to future relations with the new Iran as the American Embassy hostage-taking was to US relations with the old.
An evidence-based approach to US policy-making towards Iran means de-listing the MEK and protecting Ashraf’s residents as vital first steps. Such an approach leads away from the ‘confusion’ which Freeh noted towards effectiveness in dealing with a most dangerous state.
Dr Sharam Taromsari, formerly lecturer in International Relations and Middle Eastern Security, Consultant on Middle Eastern affairs
One That is Easily Deceived
August 18, 2011 by
THE HUFFIGNTON POST
In recent weeks, The New York Times has run a couple of articles hinting, if not stating outright, that those who have been speaking in support of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the leading organisation of Iranian dissidents, are dupes of the organisation. They label the MEK a “cult” and seek to persuade the State Department not to remove it from its list of terrorist organisations, a designation imposed in 1997.
That’s a pretty serious charge, considering that these are distinguished officials, including three former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the former commander of NATO, President Obama’s former national security adviser, a former FBI director, a former Attorney General, several former governors, two Directors of CIA, and U.S. ambassador to the UN, the former co-chairman of the 9/11 commission … it’s a long and impressive list.
All dupes of a cult? Hard to believe, isn’t it?
I have a strong feeling that they aren’t the dupes, but perhaps the editors at The New York Times who seem to have bought the mullahs propaganda are.
On Sunday, August 14, the New York Times featured an opinion piece by Elizabeth Rubin headlined“An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends” which was clearly designed to dismiss those who support internal change in Iran.
And in July, the New York Times carried another story about the plight of 3,400 PMOI members at a place called Camp Ashraf, between Baghdad and the Iran border. When the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq, these people voluntarily surrendered their weapons in exchange for protection under terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
But with U.S. forces scheduled to leave at the end of the year, they face a dismal future. Already, Iraqi forces doing the Iranian mullahs’ dirty work have attacked twice, the latest one being on April 8, killing dozens and wounding hundreds.
They’re desperately seeking to be relocated to another place. The State Department agrees but U.S. Ambassador Lawrence Butler, who the New York Times says has been meeting with the group, thinks that place should be somewhere else in Iraq. Some safety that would provide!
He also contends that those Americans speaking on behalf of the MEK are dupes; they’ve been paid for their appearances, he contends.
Again, who’s the dupe and who’s doing the duping?
Consider the individuals: Howard Dean, Bill Richardson, Gen. Wesley Clark, Lee Hamilton, Michael Mukasey, Louis Freeh, Tom Ridge …
All dupes?
As well as 4,000 parliamentarians (including a large number of the members of the House of Commons and their peers in the UK) and more than 100 U.S. Congressmen both Democrats and Republicans who have called for the delisting of the MEK.
Also consider the judges across Europe and in the U.S. They have heard the PMOI’s arguments for delisting – and all have agreed.
Can they really be described as dupes?
In the EU and UK, the courts ordered these Iranian patriots to be removed from the list of terrorist organisations. In the UK the ruling was made by the Lord Chief Justice Philips.
In the U.S., the DC Circuit Court of Appeals agreed but did not have the power to act; only the State Department can do that. But the court urged Hillary Clinton to review the case, and suggested that she render a favorable ruling.
At meetings across Europe, tens of thousands of Iranian exiles and their supporters have rallied on behalf of the beleaguered Ashraf residents and in support of delisting the MEK. Speakers have included not only of the aforementioned officials but dozens of European parliamentarians and such human rights activist as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel.
All dupes?
Who knows why Elizabeth Rubin has such animosity toward the MEK? She hasn’t been to Ashraf since 2003, cites incidents in the ’90s and has no current information about the organization. Yet, she has taken it upon herself to crusade against a group whose only interest is to create a democratic Iran free from the mullahs.
I cannot probe the inner recesses of her mind; I can only surmise what drives her. I don’t know if she herself is the dupe of a greater power.
But I do know that those of us who support the MEK, pray for a solution to the Ashraf situation, and urge the State Department to loosen the fetters that bind, are not dupes.
We simply work for freedom, justice and democracy – in Iran and beyond.
Could the leaders of the Iranian regime and their supporters make the same claim? By their actions shall you know them?
Howard Dean Again Calls for MEK Delisting
August 17, 2011 by
In an interview with the National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation, Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont, debunked the allegations recently leveled by Elizabeth Rubin, a contributor to The New York Times Sunday Review, against Iranian opposition, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).
More significant, however, were Governor Dean’s remarks about the two core issues in the ongoing debate in Washington concerning the removal of the group from the State Department’s terrorism blacklist as well as the moral and legal responsibility of the United States for protection of 3,400 unarmed and defenseless members of the group in Camp Ashraf, Iraq.
Mr. Dean, who also served as the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009, told the program’s host, Neil Conan, that:
“I don’t believe innocent people who we promised, the United States government, has promised protection should be murdered in cold blood, which they were by the [Iraqi Prime Minster Nouri al-] Maliki administration in April of this year, when he sent American-trained troops with American weapons in to shoot in cold blood unarmed civilians who we promised in writing to protect. That is what happened. This is not an issue of whether these people are a cult or any of this other stuff. This is an issue about whether America is going to keep its word and whether we value human rights. We risk being like the Dutch at Srebrenica, when they pulled their troops back and allowed 8,000 Bosnian Muslims to be murdered in cold blood, unarmed. And we’re – I don’t want to do that again.
“We have video of sniper attacks on these people. The snipers just going into – the Iraqi snipers with our weapons, going into these camps and just shooting these people like it was for sport – women, eight women, then they cut off medical care and two or three more people died who were injured. This is not something the American government ought to put up with.”
As for the need to remove the MEK from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and allegations of involvement in terrorism leveled against the group by Washington and Tehran, Howard Dean reminded the program’s host that:
“We brought, the American government brought, some of the counterterrorism specialists and the FBI in who interviewed every single one of those 3,400 disarmed people and found that not one of them had ties to terrorism or to terrorists. So they are unarmed. They are not terrorists. Furthermore, this has been litigated in European and American courts. And the MEK has prevailed in every single judicial enterprise. They’re off the terrorist list by court order in Britain, in France, in the European Union. And the Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., has said they did not have due process in 1997 when they were put on the terrorist list. So, you know, you can say whatever you want about these people being in a cult or any of that kind of stuff, or my getting paid as a speaker or whatever you want. That has nothing to do with the issue. The issue is does the United States stand by and allow 3,400 unarmed people, who we disarmed in good faith, to be massacred by the Maliki regime. And 34 of those – 35 of those people have already been killed in cold blood.”
When asked about Elizabeth Rubin’s unfounded and Tehran-friendly description of the group as a “cult” and mistreatment of its members in Camp Ashraf, Governor Dean answered:
“I do know this, there have been two commanders of the American forces who were in Ashraf when we controlled all of Iraq who are supporting the position that they ought to be taken off the terrorist list. One of them testified under oath before Dana Rohrabacher’s committee, which had a hearing on July 7th, that he saw no evidence of this whatsoever. Another one who is not taking speaker’s fees, and certainly isn’t wealthy on his colonel’s pension, is also testifying and making speeches on their behalf. These people were on the ground after Mrs. Rubin was in Ashraf, and they saw no evidence of all this cult business and all that kind of stuff either.”
In her Sunday op-ed piece in the New York Times, Rubin, who told Neil Conan she has never interviewed Maryam Rajavi or even met her, embarked on a malicious mischaracterization of Rajavi, the MEK’s leadership and rank-and-file by merely quoting individuals affiliated with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Howard Dean, however, set the record straight by describing his own personal encounter with Rajavi. He told Neil Conan that:
“I have actually had dinner with Mrs. Rajavi on numerous occasions. I do not find her very terrorist-like. She is an observant Muslim woman who’s very well-educated, as most of these people are, who speak many foreign languages because most of them have lived in Europe or the United States, including at least one who worked for the Defense Department for 20 years. This is not a scary group of people. And in the past, who knows what they did. But the fact of the matter is they’re not a terrorist group. That’s been ascertained by the FBI. We disarmed them. We promised to defend them. They are unarmed. And 47 of them over a two-year period were mowed down by Maliki’s people. And I don’t think the United States should be permitting those kinds of human rights abuses.”
Howard Dean’s August 15 interview is a great example of how a little truth evaporates a whole bunch of lies.
The Truth about MEK and Terrorism Tag
August 16, 2011 by
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is reportedly close to announcing her decision to whether remove the Iranian major opposition, Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the Department’s list of terrorist organizations or not. The law says this decision must be based on the anti-Terrorism Statute not politics or policy considerations. The US Congress and field experts agree and call for ending the designation.
Her predecessor’s 1997 decision to blacklist the group was definitely a political one and a total disregard of relevant laws. The move by Madeline Albright, the then Secretary of State, was carefully crafted to send a definitive and meaningful welcome-to-office present to the newly-elected president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, the darling of the phantom “reform” movement crowd in Western capitals.
The other component of this welcome package was the White House intervention to prevent the release of the FBI’s investigations which showed Iran was the main culprit in the 1996 Khobar tower bombing in Saudi Arabia which killed 19 American servicemen. Not a bad package for the first day in office.
In 2006, the Wall Street Journal removed any ambiguity about the nature of Madeline Albright’s decision, noting that “In 1997, the State Department added the MEK to a list of global terrorist organizations as ‘a signal’ of the U.S.’s desire for rapprochement with Tehran’s reformists, says Martin Indyk, who at the time was assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs. President Khatami’s government ‘considered it a pretty big deal,’ Mr. Indyk says.”
Few days later after the 1997 designation, the New York Times columnist Thomas Freidman, re-emphasized the importance of the MEK blacklisting gesture for Tehran. “The U.S. press missed it, but the Iranians won’t…The Iranians will get the point: We’ve just made it illegal for Americans to support the [MEK] — a group dedicated to overthrowing the Iranian Government.”
Fast Forward to 2011.
The debate about the de-designation of the group has again flared with US Congress, field experts, national security figures, and legal experts calling on the Secretary Clinton to de-list the MEK on one side, and the Washington-based Tehran lobby and their network of reporters and bloggers on the other. A potentially healthy debate about war on terrorism and the Rule of law has, regrettably, turned into an anti-delisting campaign to demonize the MEK.
Glancing over commentaries by this desperate anti-MEK crowd – popping up like mushrooms on a rainy day as “MEK experts” – shows they clearly suffer from acute case of ignorance about America’s terrorism laws, requirements, and definitions. They are masters of copy-pasting and regurgitation, but they lack basic skill in unbiased and objective research into the case laws and court record and experts’ views. Maybe they do but “can’t handle the truth.”
So, what is the truth about the MEK? Is this group concerned in terrorism? Does it qualify the statuary requirements to be designated as one? Renowned subject matter experts say: No. Let’s see what they say:
Rudi Giuliani, Former Mayor of New York, New York: “I have investigated terrorism and I have seen first hand, in my city the devastation that terrorism can bring about. [MEK] is not a terrorist organization. This is an organization dedicated to achieving freedom and dignity for its people.”
Louis Freeh, Former Director of the FBI, U.S. District Judge: “With respect to the designation of the MEK… I was not consulted in 1997, when the Department of State had listed the MEK… In 1997, the government of Iran duped the U.S. government by inducing it to list the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization, without consulting the FBI… The delisting has to immediately take place.”
Michael Mukasey, Former Attorney General of the United States: “There was simply no basis in law or in fact for continuing MEK on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist.”
Ambassador Dell Dailey, State Department’s Coordinator For Counterterrorism in 2008, Congressional Hearing: “If you take a snapshot [of MEK’s record] back five years, it appears to be somewhat clean. So we are doing a professional effort to review them.”
Ambassador Dell Dailey, Former Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Department of State, 2011: “It is essential that Secretary Clinton . . . revoke the designation and delist the MEK. It is within her ability to do that right now… Delist the MEK from the foreign terror organization list and let the Iranian citizens decide their own form of government.”
Richard R. Schoeberl, former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executive with leadership responsibilities at FBI Headquarters and the National Counterterrorism Center: “Based on my experience as a Unit Chief in the Counterterrorism Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, there are ample grounds to conclude that the MEK should be removed from the FTO list.”
Terry Arnold, Former Deputy Director of the State Department’s Office of Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Planning: “Under the law, the group no longer qualifies as an FTO, because the circumstances that led to its previous listing have sufficiently changed as to merit removal.”
Oliver “Buck” Revell, Former Associate Deputy Director of FBI: “There is no evidence that the group is engaging in terrorism, and having been under the watchful eye of the U.S. military for over five years, there is no evidence that the group retains the capability or intent to commit terrorist acts.”
Prof. Yonah Alexander, Director of Int’l. Center for Terrorism: “[MEK] repudiated violence, ceased all military operations, and voluntarily surrendered its weapons. These actions were substantiated by U.S. intelligence and military bodies…It is amply clear that there is no factual basis for retaining the current FTO status of the [MEK].
Dr. Patrick Clawson, Deputy Director for Research of Washington Institute for Near East Policy: “The State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism contain numerous non-terrorist allegations against [MEK] without offering any indication that the group continues to engage in terrorism.”
Dr. Walid Phares, Director of Future Terrorism at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies: “Tehran’s regime, designated as Terrorist by Washington, considers the MEK as terrorist. This puzzling situation is due to the fact that pro-Iranian pressure groups consider the Mujahidin Khalq [MEK] as a real threat to the regime and thus put significant pressures internationally to keep the designation of the MEK as is.”
There you have it; the views of experts, the real terrorism and national security experts, not of those who just jumped on the anti-MEK band wagon of Tehran lobby, driven by the notorious mullah Heydar Moslehi, head of Iran’s feared Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
In 1997, Madeline Albright disgraced herself by giving in to pressure coming from Tehran’s tyrant rulers and their US-based advocates, and designated the MEK as a terrorist group. Fourteen years later, Secretary Clinton must refrain from yielding to similar pressure from the same bunch. She must de-list. It would be a huge disgrace if she ignores the massive volume of experts’ views, Congressional resolutions, and the court findings and maintain the stigma of terrorism on the MEK.
Navid Dara is a Washington-based analyst of US policy towards Iran.
Tehran’s ‘Butler’ in Iraq
August 16, 2011 by
Uinted Press International
LONDON, Aug. 16 (UPI) — Unimaginable to say the least; recent remarks made by Ambassador Lawrence E. Butler, a top U.S. State Department official, about the status of 3,400 members of an Iranian opposition group taking refuge in Iraq has left him being labeled mockingly as “Tehran’s Butler.”
Outrage quickly spread in political circles, with many quite rightly appalled and in fact bemused that Butler, tasked with ensuring 3,400 members of the Mujahedin e Khalq are kept safe from an Iraqi government loyal to Tehran, took the opportunity in speaking to The New York Times to make disparaging comments about the group.
Not only do Butler’s comments play directly into the hands of the Iranian regime and, in fact, spout the misinformation that Tehran’s leadership spends millions to achieve, it unfortunately reiterates the belief of many that U.S. President Barack Obama remains clueless in ensuring Iraq makes its way to full democracy.
The culmination of what is being called the MEK saga in Iraq will tell us much about whether a future Iraq is gobbled up by Tehran quicksand, falling into the hands of an Iranian regime intent on setting up a satellite state or an Iraq which moves forward both in terms of democracy and economic development which has fallen foul of Iraq’s current corrupt leadership.
Based in Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, the MEK is Iran’s principle organized opposition group. At Iran’s behest, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered an armed attack on the camp in April leaving 36 residents dead and hundreds wounded.
To further cozy of the mullahs in Iran, Maliki has ordered the camp be shut down and the residents transferred to a prison camp entirely under his control elsewhere in Iraq.
To the residents, going there would be suicide. Butler has supported the plan.
To justify this humanitarian catastrophe-in-the-making, Butler spoke of attacks against U.S. personnel allegedly carried out by the MEK in the 1970s, the exact misinformation and falsities which the Iranian regime espouses to taint the image of the MEK.
His open attack on Iran’s brave democrats came even as evidence was being revealed by U.S. military commanders in Iraq of Tehran’s direct involvement in the recent deaths of a large number of U.S. soldiers. Iran-backed militias were behind the deaths of 12 U.S. soldiers while explosively formed projectiles and improvised rocket-assisted mortars supplied by Tehran were the cause of 14 U.S. deaths.
Butler, however, appeared more interested in regurgitating misinformation about the MEK than understanding the Iranian takeover in his backyard in Iraq, which is leading to numerous U.S. casualties each and every month.
Unfortunately this appears to be the clueless reality of foreign policy under President Obama, the shutting of one’s eyes to the realities in Iraq, hailing the mission as a success and using the plan to withdraw U.S. fighting battalions as a propaganda tool. If President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton do not comprehend the realities taking place in Iraq, what is left behind in Iraq could be considerably worse than that found on arrival in 2003.
Now in a strange turn of events, the status of the 3,400 members of the MEK will be the test of President Obama’s morality upon which he ran his presidential campaign.
The members of the MEK have been resident in Camp Ashraf in Iraq for more than 20 years. Having provided the residents with personal guarantees to protect them from threats posed by the Iranian regime, the U.S. authorities handed over control of Camp Ashraf to an Iraqi government whose loyalty to the Iranian regime was undoubted. In the two years that have followed some 50 residents have been killed, having been attacked in two separate military assaults on their homes by Iraqi forces, and more than 1,000 wounded.
Now the man tasked with ensuring more residents are not massacred by an Iraqi government, which has vowed to close the camp by the end of 2011 by any means, has spoken in defense of a proposal to move the residents to a new home inside Iraq under Maliki’s full control.
Once again senior U.S. and European parliamentarians have reacted with shock that Butler is forwarding a plan supported by the Iranian regime. This proposal has done little to shed the Tehran’s Butler image or the clueless nature of Obama’s leadership in Iraq.
It is high time President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton took note of the U.S. responsibilities in relation to Camp Ashraf while waking up to understand the realities in Iraq.
The United States has a clear legal, moral and humanitarian responsibility to protect the Camp Ashraf residents. This can easily be achieved with direct intervention in assisting the facilitation of the United Nations taking over control over the safety and security of the camp.
Once this is achieved and the residents are safe from further attack by an Iraqi regime loyal to Tehran, a European Parliament plan to voluntarily transfer the residents to third-party states where their safety can be guaranteed in the long term can be achieved.
Ambassador Butler and President Obama must see this as the only solution to the MEK saga and rid themselves of what is an embarrassing image.
(David Amess, a Conservative Member of the British Parliament, is a leading member of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.)
(United Press International’s “Outside View” commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
New Push For Resistance
August 16, 2011 by
The Washington Times (Embassy Row)
U.S. supporters of unarmed Iranian dissidents in Iraq are mounting a campaign to persuade the State Department to remove the exiles from its terrorist list and protect them from retaliation by pro-Iranian officials in Baghdad.
Prominent Iranian-American professors, doctors, scientists and scholars from Los Angeles to Miami last week appealed to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. They asked Mrs. Clinton to order her subordinates to comply with a year-old federal court ruling that ordered the State Department to justify keeping the Iranian resistance on the terrorist list.
On Monday, two top officials appointed by former President George W. Bush and one named by former President Bill Clinton accused the White House of “turning its back on the Iranian exile group whose network supplies key operational intelligence on the [Iranian] Mullahs’ Islamic nuclear bomb project.”
Allen Gerson, a former counsel to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations and now an attorney for the exiles defended his clients in an article on the Huffington Post, which carried an earlier article calling the resistance a terrorist group.
Members of Congress also are urging President Obama to appoint retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, a Democrat and former NATO commander, to serve as an envoy to the Iraqi government to negotiate the fate of 3,400 Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf, a compound about 40 miles from Baghdad.
Gen. Clark is among the former U.S. officials who support removing the resistance from the terrorist list.
The State Department has accused the resistance of terrorist acts for killing U.S. officials in the 1970s. The department also says it is preparing a response to the court order. President Clinton added the resistance to the terrorist list in 1997, when he was trying to open talks with the Iranian regime.
U.S. forces disarmed the resistance in 2003 after toppling the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who had given the dissidents safe haven to undermine the Iranian regime.
The new campaign is the latest development in a growing effort to take the Iranian resistance off the list. Britain removed the dissidents from its terrorist list in 2008, and the European Union dropped the resistance from its list a year later. In April, French courts dismissed terrorism-related charges against resistance supporters, many of whom live in Paris.
Fifty-eight Iranian-Americans professionals last week appealed in a letter to Mrs. Clinton to remove the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) from the terrorist list.
“The continued designation of the PMOI is unfounded, unjust, inhumane and to the detriment of the Iranian-American community,” they said.
They noted that any U.S. citizen who aided the resistance in any way could face charges of supporting terrorism, and that the Iranian regime uses the U.S. terrorist designation as an excuse to arrest and execute domestic opponents.
They also warned that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is determined to shut the camp this year and move the residents to another location. They fear Mr. Maliki, in his efforts to build relations with Iran, could deport them to Tehran, where they would be executed. Iraqi forces repeatedly have attacked the residents of Camp Ashraf, killing dozens and injuring hundreds.
Former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge – both Bush appointees – and former FBI Director Louis Freeh – a Clinton appointee – defended the resistance in an article Monday on FoxNews.com.
They complained that the State Department has “slow-rolled” the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by taking more than a year to meet the court order and “infuriated the Congress.”
Writing in the Huffington Post last week, Mr. Gerson called the charge of terrorism “spurious.” He criticized an earlier article as a “mind-boggling attempt” to defame Mr. Mukasey, Mr. Ridge and Mr. Freeh for defending the resistance.
He said the earlier article “makes the sensational charge that the [resistance] is, indeed, a terrorist organization and that former top U.S. national security officials are willing to prostitute themselves by saying the opposite.”
• Call Embassy Row at 202/636-3297 or email jmorrison@washington times.com. The column is published on Monday, Wednesday and Friday