Robert Torricelli Calls for MEK Delisting
US National Security, Military, and Policy Figures Call for MEK Delisting
August 1, 2011 by
General James Jones, U.S.M.C. (ret.), Former National Security Advisor to President Obama and Supreme Allied Commander Europe:
“I propose three [New Year] gifts. The first one is successfully delisting the MEK, the second one which has been mentioned but is equally important is ensuring the security of the people of Camp Ashraf and the third is to support the popular movement for freedom as expressed by Iranians both inside and outside ofIran.” Washington, DC, March 17, 2011
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Governor Howard Dean, Former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Governor of Vermont:
“… We must change our position on the MEK and stop calling them a terrorist organization. They are not a terrorist organization, they have their own bill of rights, which is an extraordinary thing under the leadership of Madame Rajavi, and we appreciate what she has done greatly.” Paris, February 26, 2011
“The MEK is not a terrorist group and we need to de-list them immediately. Immediately.” Washington, DC, March 17, 2011.
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Rudi Giuliani, Former Mayor of New York, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York:
“It is about time that we change the listing of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran on the terror list. I have studied terrorism for over 35 years. I have investigated terrorism and I have seen first hand, in my city the devastation that terrorism can bring about. This is not a terrorist organization. This is an organization dedicated to achieving freedom and dignity for its people.” New York, September 24, 2010
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Tom Ridge, Former Secretary of Homeland Security, Governor of Pennsylvania, and U.S. Representative:
“It’s a very important and a very visible statement that these Republicans and these Democrats, having worked for Republican and Democrat administrations, feel unanimously that the designation of MEK should be lifted and should be lifted now… The Resistance and the MEK are not looking for money, they are not looking for arms. They just want the freedom to speak. They want to be delisted and take action into their own hands. We need to do that for them because time is running out.” Washington, DC, January 20, 2011
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Andrew Card, Former White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of Transportation:
“The MEK was our ally in the war on terror… But the State Department was left behind, left behind with a document that is irrelevant today. And the courts have said, check its relevance. My prayerful hope is that the State Department is checking what is relevant today, and they will see today for what it is rather than a yesterday that they didn’t understand or know… I hope that the United States will say the MEK is that ally that we need on the war on terror…” Washington, DC, April 26, 2011
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General Wesley Clark, U.S. Army (ret.), Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe:
“The State Department is reconsidering the foreign terrorist organization listing. Why wouldn’t they take an organization like this off the list? I think they will. I think they must.” Paris, April 27, 2011.
“I’ve seen no evidence that this is a terrorist organization. I’ve asked for this, none has been presented. I can see no reason why they should remain on the foreign terrorist organization list. None…” Brussels, May 25, 2011
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Louis Freeh, Former Director of the F.B.I., U.S. District Judge:
“With respect to the designation of the MEK… I was not consulted in 1997, that the Department of State had listed the MEK . . . . In 1997, the government of Iranduped the U.S.government by inducing it to list the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization, without consulting the FBI… We now have in this new administration the opportunity to do the right thing, but it should be now . . . . The delisting has to immediately take place.” London, February 14, 2011
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Lee Hamilton, Former Vice-Chair of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon theUnited States, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee:
“[F]rom where I stand now I’m really puzzled. I do not understand why the United Stateshas kept the MEK on the terrorist list for all of these years. I have had access to classified information. I know some things may have happened in the past. This is a factual question with regard to the conduct of the MEK and why the United Stateshas not resolved it and spoken out on it. I am not aware of any facts that require the MEK to be on the terrorist list.” Washington, DC, February 19, 2011
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Michael Mukasey, Former Attorney General of the United States and Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York:
“It is important not only that the [MEK] designation be removed but also that it be removed quickly before Iran and those acting in its behalf can wear down the residents of Ashraf and force them to leave or impose an even worse fate on them.” Washington, DC, January 20, 2011.
“Many people in this room, including me, have had occasion in the past to make the case many times over that there was simply no basis in law or in fact for continuing MEK on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations and that there are many reasons, including MEK’s close cooperation with the United States in exposing Iran’s nuclear program for removing MEK from that list.” Washington, DC, March 17, 2011
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Gen. Hugh Shelton,U.S. Army (ret.), Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
“[B]y placing the MEK on the FTO list we have weakened the support of the best organized internal resistance group to the most terrorist-oriented anti-western world antidemocratic regime in the region. That’s a disgrace. Iran’s current regime is clearly a government that needs to change. The MEK is the organization that they fear and that should tell us something right off the bat. When you look at what the MEK stands for, when they are antinuclear, separation of church and state, individual rights, MEK is obviously the way that Iran needs to go.” Washington, DC, February 19, 2011
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Ambassador John Bolton, Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations:
“We have seen in recent years that opinion within the U.S. government has tended towards delisting the MEK, but at the end of the Bush administration Secretary Rice decided not to do that for essentially the same reason that the Clinton administration put the group on the list to begin with: to open channels of communication with Iran.” New York, September 24, 2010
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Porter Goss, Former Director of the CIA:
“We can’t kick down the situation on the MEK any more. We’ve got a deadline coming up…The FTO designation is an impediment to the final solution of relocation and I think, therefore, the sooner we get a judgment on that, that is what I think where common sense will lead us….There’s not any justification based on what I’ve seen… I think the first thing to do is get the FTO question resolved and the second thing to do is say these folks [Camp Ashraf residents] deserve a future.” Washington, DC, June 2, 2011
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Ambassador Bill Richardson, Former Governor of New Mexico, Secretary of Energy, Ambassador to the United Nations, and U.S. Representative:
“[W]ith the MEK . . . I think it makes sense to take them off the terrorism list. North Korea was taken off the list, I don’t know if you know this, some time ago. This is something I’m not going to say—this is bureaucracies. Bureaucracies move slow. To move them you’ve got to do sometimes gigantic leaps. I’m not making any excuses but I do think this is something we need to reassess right away.” Washington, DC, January 20, 2011
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Ambassador Dell Dailey, Former Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Department of State:
“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.” Washington, DC, March 17, 2011
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James Woolsey, Former Director of Central Intelligence:
“One thing we should no longer do, and on this I join the others on this panel, is keep the MEK listed as a terrorist organization. In 22 years of practicing law I read a lot of legal decisions and I recently read the Circuit Court’s decision in the case involving the MEK… This eloquently and well written decision of last July by the D.C. Circuit effectively says, quite bluntly, although it doesn’t use this particular analogy, that what the Department of State has done is what the red queen does in Alice in Wonderland when she is asked if first we’re going to have the trial and the verdict and then the execution she says no, execution first, then trial.” Washington, DC, January 20, 2011
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General Richard Myers, U.S.A.F. (ret.), Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
“Delisting the MEK is surely the right thing to do and it’s way past time to do that.” Washington, DC, April 14, 2011
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Patrick Kennedy, Former United States Representative, Chairman of the DCCC:
“I personally believe the reason MEK is still listed as a terrorist organization is that our policy in the past has been one of appeasement [of Iran]. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. MEK is the biggest threat to the Iranian mullahs.” Washington, DC, May 19, 2011
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General Peter Pace,U.S.M.C. (ret.), Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
“Some folks said to me this week if the United States government took the MEK off the terrorist list it would be a signal to the Iranian regime that we had changed from a desire to see changes in regime behavior to a desire to see changes in regime. My response to that is: sounds good to me.” Washington, DC, February 19, 2011
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General James T. Conway, Commandant of the Marine Corps (2006-2010):
As I dispatched some of my commanders to sit down and talk with these folks [MEK members at Camp Ashraf], as I visited myself, these people are not terrorists. They’re no more terrorists than the people here on the panel… We asked those people to disarm. They’re the only people in Iraq who are disarmed. And yet, these people complied willingly and have done what we asked them to do.”
“Now, it seems to me the oppressive events [at Camp Ashraf] are such today that we have got to reconsider our national posture towards the people at Camp Ashraf and the MEK in general… And I’ve got to tell you what happened recently should be a national outrage and, unfortunately, I don’t see it.” Washington, DC, July 26, 2011
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Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, Former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union:
I hope as [State Department] do so they will expedite their decision and that they will reflect on the fact that the UK and the EU to which I was an Ambassador, have both lifted their restrictions with respect to the MEK but the State Department I hope will make their decision based on the merits and to do so quickly and promptly, again recognizing the precedents that others have created.” Washington, DC, June 2, 2011
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Robert Torricelli, Former U.S. Senator from New Jersey:
“[T]he listing of the MEK as a terrorist organization by the United States government is wrong. It is wrong as a matter of law, it is contrary to the facts, it is interfering with the rights of American citizens to be heard and it is contrary to American foreign policy… I call upon Secretary Clinton who I consider a dear friend and one of the finest leaders in the history of our country to do what she knows is right: End the policy and end it now.” Washington, DC, January 20, 2011
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Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, Former Director of Policy and Planning, U.S. Dept. of State and Member of the National Security Council:
“Whether or not you believe that we have one year, two years, three years or more before Iranwill be in a position to acquire nuclear weapons, there is still no reason to be shy about doing more to support the Iranian opposition. A good first step would be delisting the MEK.” Washington, DC, January 20, 2011
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Frances Townsend, Former Homeland Security Advisor to President Bush:
“[T]he tyrannical regime in Iran believed that failure to delist the PMOI was weakness not strength… The greatest single step right now today that I believe the United States government can take to really put pressure on the Iranian regime and really insist and enable change is to delist the MEK. We should do that because the listing is not warranted by the evidence that is public or anything that is classified…” Paris, December 22, 2010
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Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania (2003-2011):
“I will send a letter to President Obama and to Secretary Clinton telling them, one, that the United States is morally bound to do everything we can to ensure the safety of the residents of Camp Ashraf and, two, if, Director Freeh and General Shelton and General Conway and Governor Dean and the rest of these great panelists say that MEK is a force for good and the best hope we have for a third option in Iran, then, good Lord, take them off the terrorist list. Take them off the terrorist list.” Washington, DC, July 26, 2011
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John Sano, former Deputy Director of CIA for National Clandestine Service:
“[Iran’s] Disinformation campaigns basically are feeble attempt to convince the United States and its organizations, the State Department, even Congress, as well as the international observers, that the residents of Ashraf should be displaced and further that the MEK should remain on the foreign terrorist organization list.
“The MEK promotes a peaceful, non-violent, and democratic Iran; is committed to the universal declaration of human rights as well as international conventions and covenants; and promotes a domestic and foreign policy based on peaceful coexistence. The time is long past for the MEK to be delisted from the foreign terrorist organizations list.” Washington, DC, July 28, 2011
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General Anthony Zinni, U.S.M.C. (ret.), Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Central Command:
“I know you all realize you are seeing not only the bi-partisanship that was mentioned. You are seeing leadership from our Congress, administrations past and present, from our military and from our intelligence agencies and law enforcement. You have an entire spectrum here that feels the same way. I think what you are going to hear up here is a continuous set of comments much like you’ve heard already: the need to remove the MEK from this list of terrorists, the need to support the opposition groups and understand who they are.” Washington, DC, January 20, 2011
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Dr. Philip Zelikow, Former Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, Counselor of the States Department:
“So what then would I recommend to the Secretary were I in my old job today? I would say, here is a four-part proposal of what you could do: Part one. Delist the MEK as an FTO. Washington, DC, April 26 2010
Washington Post, June 22, 2011: What is the State Department Waiting for?
June 22, 2011 by
Washington Post, June 22, 2011: What is the State Department Waiting for?
Washington Times, June 15, 2011: 800 Faith Community Leaders Call on Secretary Clinton to Delist MEK
June 15, 2011 by
Washington Times, June 15, 2011: 800 Faith Community Leaders Call on Secretary Clinton to Delist MEK
Avert a humanitarian catastrophe Mr President
May 24, 2011 by
The Independent
By Lord Corbett
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
US President Barack Obama, who is visiting the UK at the moment, will be aware of the urgent humanitarian situation facing 3,400 Iranian pro-democracy supporters in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, who came under deadly attack by Iraqi armed forces last month at the behest of Iran.
At least 34 unarmed and defenceless refugees, members of the main Iranian opposition PMOI, were killed and 350 others injured when Iraqi armed forces raided the camp and indiscriminately opened fire on them; however US officials who visited the camp following the massacre have not published their findings.
The attack was condemned by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the European Union and the US State Department. But Iraqi armed forces continue to occupy parts of the camp and there is a real risk of further attacks. The entry of medical supplies to the residents is restricted, and Parliamentary delegations and lawyers have been banned from visiting the camp. At least 42 seriously-injured residents have been denied access to the urgent medical care they need.
Without immediate international intervention there is real threat of a humanitarian catastrophe. Until an accord can be reached by all parties, it is imperative that the United Nations takes over protection of the residents and stations a permanent monitoring team at the camp.
The European Parliament’s proposed solution for the transfer of the residents to third countries and the preconditions attached to it are realistic and practical. However any forcible displacement of the residents within Iraq, as has been suggested by some US officials, would be unlawful and illogical and could quite possibly lead to a bloodbath.
EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton said 27 EU foreign ministers discussed the Ashraf crisis at the European Council in Brussels on Monday, emphasising the need for Iraq to respect the residents’ human rights and agreeing on the importance of working with the UN and US in particular to seek a lasting resolution to the issue.
Here in the UK, more than 500 Parliamentarians of all political parties have declared their support for a leading UN protective role, and we hope that President Obama will lend his support to the proposed European option.
Furthermore, President Obama needs to urgently take action on the continued proscription of the Iranian opposition PMOI by the US State Department. Following the Washington DC court order of July 2010 as well as the de-listing of the PMOI as a terrorist organisation by the UK and EU in 2008 and 2009, the designation of the group in Washington is legally unjustifiably, and we have seen the damage it has done as Iraq uses it to justify its deadly attacks on Ashraf residents.
There exists overwhelming bipartisan support in the US for the group’s designation to be promptly revoked, and I ask and hope that President Obama pays personal attention to this matter to ensure that this happens.
Robin Corbett is Chairman of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom. He is a former Chairman of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/05/24/avert-a-humanitarian-catastrophe-mr-president/
Washington Post, May 12, 2011: Senior US Officials Call on Secretary Clinton to Delist MEK
May 12, 2011 by
Washington Post, May 12, 2011: Senior US Officials Call on Secretary Clinton to Delist MEK
Iranian dissidents and a U.S. dilemma
April 29, 2011 by
REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
WASHINGTON — Call it the coalition of the baffled — a diverse group of prominent public figures who challenge the U.S. government’s logic of keeping on its terrorist blacklist an Iranian exile organization that publicly renounced violence a decade ago and has fed details on Iran’s nuclear programme to American intelligence.
On the U.S. Department of State’s list of 47 foreign terrorist organizations, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq is the only group that has been taken off similar lists by the European Union and Britain, after court decisions that found no evidence of terrorist activity in recent years. In the U.S., a court last July ordered the State Department to review the designation. Nine months later, that review is still in progress and supporters of the MEK wonder why it is taking so long.
The organization has been on the list since 1997, placed there by the Clinton administration at a time it hoped to open a dialogue with Iran, whose leaders hate the MEK for having sided with Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war.
Calls to hasten the delisting process rose in volume after Iraqi troops raided the base of the MEK northeast of Baghdad, near the Iranian border, in an operation on April 8 that left at least 34 dead, according to the United Nations Human Rights chief, Navi Pillay. In Washington, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry, called the raid a “massacre.” Video uploaded by the MEK showed gut-wrenchingly graphic images of dead and wounded, some after being run over by armoured personnel carriers.
The raid drew cheers from officials in Iran, where the group is also classified as terrorist, one of the few things on which Washington and Tehran agree. The word schizophrenia comes to mind here. Iran is one of four countries the U.S. has declared state sponsors of terrorism. The MEK’s stated aim is the peaceful ouster of the Iranian theocracy. Isn’t there something wrong with this picture?
In response to the April 8 violence, MEK supporters organized a seminar in Washington whose panelists highlighted the bipartisan nature of those critical of the terrorist label. It’s not often that you see the former chairman of the Democratic National Committe, Howard Dean, a liberals’ liberal, sitting next to Rudolf Giuliani, the arch-conservative former mayor of New York.
At a similar event in Paris on the same day, the podium was shared by Nobel peace prize winner Elie Wiesel, Gen. James Jones, U.S. President Barack Obama’s former national security adviser, former NATO commander Wesley Clark and MEK leader Maryam Rajavi. The theme at both events – take the MEK off the list and protect the around 3,400 Iranians in Iraq, who live in Ashraf, a small town surrounded by barriers and security fences.
To hear Dean tell it in Washington, the April 8 raid was evidence that the Iraqi government is becoming “a satellite government for Iran,” with the terrorist designation used to justify “mass murder.” Dean is not alone in ascribing this and a previous attack that killed 11 in Ashraf in July 2009 to the growing influence of Iran as the U.S. prepares to withdraw most of its troops from Iraq by the end of the year.
WHAT NEXT?
What then? You don’t have to be a pessimist to anticipate more raids, more bloodshed and a humanitarian crisis. Until the end of 2008, the U.S. was responsible for the security of Ashraf and its residents enjoyed the status of “protected persons” under the Geneva Convention. That changed when the U.S. transferred control of Ashraf to the Iraqi government which provided written assurances of humane treatment of its residents.
They don’t seem to be worth the paper they are written on. The Iraqi raid on April 8 came a day after U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was in Baghdad for talks with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. One of the topics Gates raised — Iran’s influence in the region.
That Ashraf and the terrorist label for its inhabitants would put the United States in an awkward position after the transfer of responsibility was spelt out with remarkable clarity in February 2009 in a cable from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Marked secret and released through Wikileaks, the cable said harsh Iraqi action would place the U.S. in “a challenging dilemma.”
“We either protect members of a Foreign Terrorist Organization against actions of the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces) and risk violating the U.S.-Iraqi Security Agreement or we decline to protect the MEK in the face of a humanitarian crisis, thus leading to international condemnation of both the USG (U.S. government) and the GOI (government of Iraq).”
Which raises a question. How could the U.S. fail to protect unarmed Iranian dissidents opposed to a dictatorship but go to war to protect Libyans in a conflict between armed rebels and a dictatorship? Unlike the Libyan rebels, of whom little is known, the Iranians in Ashraf were all subject to background checks by the American military in the six years it was in control of the camp.
If there’s logic in protecting one but not the other, it’s not easy to see.
http://blogs.reuters.com/bernddebusmann/2011/04/29/iranian-dissidents-and-a-u-s-dilemma/
No Good Options for Iranian Dissidents in Iraq
April 19, 2011 by
PolicyWatch #1797
By Patrick Clawson
April 19, 2011
In an April 8 confrontation at Camp Ashraf, Iraq — home to some 3,400 members of the Iranian dissident organization Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) — Iraqi army forces killed at least thirty-four people, according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. The clash highlighted an ongoing problem: what to do about the presence of several thousand people the Iraqi government badly wants to be rid of, when no other country to which they are willing to go will accept them. Distasteful as the current situation is, the status quo may be best.
The Confrontation
When Iraqi forces entered Camp Ashraf on April 8, Baghdad initially claimed that no shots had been fired. The government later changed its story, however, stating that three people had been killed in clashes between rock-throwing residents and security forces had simply been redeploying. On the day of the attack, the U.S. State Department announced, “Although we do not know what exactly transpired early this morning at Ashraf, this crisis and the loss of life was initiated by the Government of Iraq and the Iraqi military.
Under pressure, Baghdad allowed a UN team into Ashraf after a five-day delay. According to Pillay, “It now seems certain that at least 34 people were killed…including seven or more women…Most were shot, and some appear to have been crushed to death, presumably by vehicles…There is no possible excuse for this number of casualties.” Pillay’s account was consistent with footage released by the MEK showing columns of Iraqi armored personnel carriers entering the camp; vehicles are seen running down residents, and riflemen are seen shooting from close range, including at women. Camp witnesses have stated that 2,500 soldiers from eight battalions of Iraq’s Ninth and Fifth Divisions participated in the attack.
As Iraqi forces remain in position to launch further military action, a recent statement by an Iranian official called for additional assaults. According to a report by the Fars News Agency — often regarded as being close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s advisor for military affairs, Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, “praised the Iraqi army for its recent attack on the strongholds of the anti-Iran terrorist [MEK] and asked Baghdad to continue attacking the terrorist base until its destruction.”
MEK Background
Designated by the State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, the MEK was an underground opposition group in the shah’s Iran during the 1960s and 1970s. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the group fell out with the new regime, which imprisoned, tortured, and killed thousands of its members. The remnants fled to Iraqi sanctuaries, where they formed an armed force against Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War. There also is evidence that Saddam Hussein used the MEK against his domestic opponents, though the group denies this.
Today, Tehran loathes the MEK and continues to arrest, imprison, and execute accused members. The regime tends to blame the group for a great deal of Iranian dissident activity, including in cases where there is little evidence of any such link. In fact, the group disarmed following Saddam’s overthrow in 2003, and no credible evidence exists showing MEK military action since then. The MEK formally renounced violence in 2004, which provided the basis for U.S. acknowledgement of a ‘protected persons’ status. Initially protected by U.S. forces, Camp Ashraf has been under Iraqi control since 2009.
Alternatives
Washington has repeatedly stated its interest in resolving the Ashraf situation. As State Department spokesman Mark Toner put it on April 12, “We’re prepared to consider any assistance that we can — that is requested by the Government of Iraq to develop and execute a negotiated plan to address the future of Camp Ashraf.” Preparing such a plan will not be easy, however, because each available option is deeply flawed.
Repatriation to Iran. Camp residents have announced that their first choice would be to go to Iran, but only if the Islamic Republic agreed not to jail or persecute them for their past opposition efforts. Yet securing a guarantee that satisfied the residents would probably be difficult. And forcing MEK members to return to Iran against their will would violate several international agreements to which Iraq is party.
In 2007, UNHCR cautioned Baghdad to refrain from any action that could endanger the lives or security of camp residents, such as deportation to another country or forced displacement inside Iraq. Similarly, the International Committee of the Red Cross reminded Baghdad of its obligation to act in accordance with the principle of nonrefoulement — that is, refugees should not be dispersed to a place where they would fear persecution. Washington reiterated these concerns on April 12, noting how Iraqi authorities “have provided written assurances that Camp Ashraf residents would be treated humanely” and that none of them would be “forcibly transferred to any other country where they might face persecution.”
Settlement in a third country. If safe return to Iran proves impossible, camp leaders have stated that their second preference is to go to a European Union member country or the United States. But none of these countries is willing to take them. The State Department’s continued designation of the MEK as a terrorist entity makes resettling group members in the United States impossible. It also considerably weakens Washington’s leverage in urging other countries to accept them instead. The issue of whether the MEK actually belongs on the terrorism list was discussed in PolicyWatches 1366 and 1643. Here, it is appropriate to point out that the designation poses an important complication in resolving the diplomatic quandary over Ashraf.
A puzzling development is that UNCHR spokesman Andrej Mahecic recently said that agency is ready to accept applications for refugee status from camp residents if they sign individual statements renouncing violence as a means of achieving their goals. Although he contends that Ashraf residents have been unwilling to do so, the MEK disputes this.
Formal status in Iraq. If resettling in the West proves untenable as well, camp leaders have stated that they wish to remain in Iraq near the Iranian border in order to promote nonviolent resistance and keep hope alive for a return to Iran when the regime collapses. Yet formally accepting the presence of Ashraf residents is politically unacceptable to some of the largest parties in the Iraqi governing coalition, including those closest to Iran. Tehran has made the MEK presence a major issue in bilateral relations, and harassing the group is one way for Baghdad to cultivate better ties with the Islamic Republic.
The MEK and its allies have long held unrealistic expectations about what Washington might do on behalf of Ashraf residents, such as opposing the 2009 handover of security responsibility for the camp perimeter to the Iraqi government. U.S. supporters of the group argue that continued protection of the MEK presence in Ashraf should be an American objective in negotiations regarding post-2011 cooperation with Baghdad. Yet Washington is unlikely to take on a cause so controversial in Iraqi politics on behalf of a group the State Department insists is a terrorist organization.
Status Quo Better than Alternatives
Barring the emergence of another alternative, the most feasible way forward is for the MEK members to remain in Ashraf, provided there are no further attacks against the residents. When acting Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi visited Baghdad in January, Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari announced that Baghdad was “determined to deal with this [MEK] issue,” adding, “There are some humanitarian commitments to which our government is loyal, but fulfilling these undertakings should not harm Iraq’s national sovereignty.” That is a good formulation; now it is up to Washington to work with Baghdad to ensure that practice on the ground meets that standard. Toward that end, the United States should urge the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) to enhance its involvement. For example, the MEK and its friends in the U.S. Congress allege — and Baghdad denies — that the camp residents have been subject to harassment, psychological pressure from hundreds of loudspeakers, and medical restrictions. UNAMI or a similar agency could prove helpful as a neutral third-party arbiter able to report on the situation firsthand.
Patrick Clawson is director of research at The Washington Institute.
Obama, Iran and a push for policy change
February 25, 2011 by
REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
Could the administration of President Barack Obama hasten the downfall of Iran’s government by taking an opposition group off the U.S. list of terrorist organizations? To hear a growing roster of influential former government officials tell it, the answer is yes.
The opposition group in question is the Mujadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) and the growing list of Washington insiders coming out in its support include two former Central Intelligence Agency chiefs (James Woolsey and Michael Hayden), two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Peter Pace and Hugh Shelton), former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge and former FBI head Louis Freeh.
The MEK was placed on the terrorist list in 1997, a move the Clinton administration hoped would help open a dialogue with Iran, and since then has been waging a protracted legal battle to have the designation removed. Britain and the European Union took the group off their terrorist lists in 2008 and 2009 respectively after court rulings that found no evidence of terrorist actions after the MEK renounced violence in 2001.
In Washington, initial support for “de-listing” came largely from the ranks of conservatives and neo-conservatives but it has been spreading across the aisle and the addition of a newcomer of impeccable standing with the Obama administration could herald a policy change not only on the MEK but also on dealing with Tehran.
The newcomer is Lee Hamilton, an informal senior advisor to President Obama, who served as a Democratic congressman for 34 years and was co-chairman of the commission that investigated the events leading to the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York.
“This is a big deal,” Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, two prominent experts on Iran, wrote on their blog. “We believe that Hamilton’s involvement increases the chances that the Obama administration will eventually start supporting the MEK as the cutting edge for a new U.S. regime change strategy towards Iran.” The Leveretts think such a strategy would be counter-productive.
But speakers at the February 19 conference in Washington where Hamilton made his debut as an MEK supporter thought otherwise. Addressing some 400 Iranian-Americans in a Washington hotel, retired General Peter Pace said: “Some folks said to me if the United States government took the MEK off the terrorist list it would be a signal to the Iranian regime that we changed from a desire to see changes in regime behavior to a desire to see changes in regime. Sounds good to me.”
The Obama administration’s policy is not regime change but the use of sanctions and multi-national negotiations to persuade the government in Tehran to drop its nuclear ambitions. So far, that has been unsuccessful. Two rounds of talks between Iran, the U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany in January ended without progress and did not even yield agreement on a date for more talks.
NO POLICY CHANGE BUT SHARPER RHETORIC
That did not change Washington’s “no regime change” stand. What has changed is the tone of public American statements on Iran since a wave of mass protests swept away the authoritarian rulers of Tunisia and Egypt and forced the governments of Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria and Saudi Arabia to announce reforms. In contrast, Iran responded to mass demonstrations with violent crackdowns.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the U.S. “very clearly and directly support the aspirations of the people who are in the streets” of Iranian cities agitating for a democratic opening as they did in 2009, when Washington stayed silent.
Like the U.S., Iran labels the MEK a terrorist organization and has dealt particularly harshly with Iranians suspected of membership or sympathies. In the view of many of its American supporters, the U.S. terrorist label has weakened internal support for the MEK. How much support there is for the organization is a matter of dispute among Iran watchers, many of whom consider it insignificant.
At last week’s Washington conference, however, speaker after speaker described it as a major force, feared and hated by the Iranian government. General Shelton called it “the best organized resistance group.” Dell Daley, the State Department’s counter-terrorism chief until he retired in 2009, said the MEK was “the best instrument of power to get inside the Iran mullahs and unseat them.”
The decision to give legitimacy, or not, to the group is up to Hillary Clinton. Last July, a federal appeals court in Washington instructed the Department of State to review the terrorist designation, in language that suggested that it should be revoked. Court procedures gave her until June to decide.
MEK Is Not a Terrorist Group
January 10, 2011 by
The National Review Online
The material-support statute is fine; the designation is the problem.
The moral of this story may be that sometimes it’s better not to have friends, especially the sort with easy access to the op-ed page of the New York Times, or “The Newspaper of Record,” as it sometimes bills itself.
About a week ago, in the guise of defending us against an imagined prosecution for materially assisting a foreign terrorist organization based on our comments at a conference where we urged that Mujahadin e Khalq (“MEK”) be removed from the State Department’s list of such organizations, Prof. David Cole of Georgetown Law School took to the op-ed page of the Times with a bit of rhetorical jujitsu designed to enlist us in his campaign to change the federal statute that bars such assistance. The liberal blogosphere salivated at the suggestion that four conservative Republicans were providing material support to a terrorist organization, notwithstanding Professor Cole’s tongue-in-cheek defense.
MEK, which opposes the current regime in Tehran and has provided valuable intelligence to the United States on Iranian nuclear plans, was placed on the State Department list during the Clinton administration as a purported goodwill gesture to the mullahs, in aid of furthering dialogue. Regrettably, it was kept on during the administration of George W. Bush, in part out of fear that Iran would provide IEDs to our enemies in Iraq, which of course the mullahs are doing anyway. Both the European Union and the United Kingdom have removed the organization from their lists, with the result that MEK is now designated a terrorist organization by only the United States and Iran. More than 100 members of Congress have supported a resolution to undo this designation. We appeared at a conference two weeks ago and described why we thought the designation was anomalous and unwarranted.
Professor Cole’s arch suggestion that our conduct raises a question under the material-support statute is undone by the text of the law itself. The statute barring material assistance to organizations on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations (“FTO”) says that although “material assistance” includes “personnel,” and although “personnel” may include the person providing the assistance — here, the four of us — the “personnel” have to be working “under that [FTO’s] direction or control.” And then, just to make explicit what is already obvious, the law continues: “Individuals who act entirely independently of the [FTO] to advance its goals or objectives shall not be considered to be working under the [FTO]’s direction and control.” As a result, we felt quite secure, thank you, in relying on the protection Congress placed in the statute, backed up by the First Amendment.
Professor Cole commendably if somewhat unnecessarily insisted in his article that we “had every right to say what [we] did,” but then added — misleadingly — that he “argued just that in the Supreme Court, on behalf of the Los Angeles–based Humanitarian Law Project” in the case he lost in that tribunal last June. Well, no. He argued that the statute should be rewritten to provide that the two activities the self-styled humanitarians wanted to engage in — “training” in negotiation, and “expert advice and assistance” in filing claims, both quoted activities specifically barred by the law — should be permitted unless they involved directly a terrorist act. The Court refused to do that, or to find that the quoted terms were either so vague as not to provide notice to a person of reasonable intelligence or gave the government unlimited latitude in applying the law. Further, the Court found that insofar as these terms could be imagined to reach activities shielded by the First Amendment, they were not activities these humanitarians were seeking to engage in and therefore need not be considered by the Court. That is, Professor Cole and his client lost.
He then went a bit beyond us, and beyond his unsuccessful lawsuit, and called for revising the statute also to permit provision of food and shelter via terrorist organizations, apparently based on the disclosure in the Times that corporations have been permitted by our government to sell — at profit, no less — chewing gum, popcorn, and cigarettes to state sponsors of terrorism. The reasoning here is apparently that if it’s okay to sell chewing gum to terrorists, it’s okay to give them concrete they can use not only for shelter but also to fashion bunkers, or to give them the spigot controlling the flow of food and medicine so they can enhance their power and prestige. For what it’s worth, we do not believe that Professor Cole has unearthed an insufferable anomaly in the law or in its administration. Notably, neither in his lawsuit nor in his op-ed did Professor Cole challenge the designation FTO as applied to the proposed beneficiaries of his client’s ministrations. We have challenged, emphatically and with reasoned argument, that designation as applied to MEK.
The material-support statute doesn’t need revision to accommodate non-existent defects. What it does need — and does not often enough get for fear of offending some Muslim organizations — is rigorous enforcement against accurately designated organizations, of which MEK is not one.
Why, you may ask, did this critique not appear in the pages of The Newspaper of Record (TNOR)? Good question. The editors of TNOR deemed a much shorter version of this article too long for their letters column, and declined to publish it as an op-ed article because, they claim, TNOR has a policy of not publishing op-ed articles in response to other op-ed articles. We are grateful to the editors of National Review for the privilege of this space, and of course to Professor Cole for his unsolicited support, even though we decline to enlist in his crusade.
— Michael B. Mukasey was attorney general of the United States from 2007 to 2009; Tom Ridge was homeland security adviser to Pres. George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003, and homeland security secretary from 2003 to 2005; Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor of New York City from 1993 to 2001; Frances Fragos Townsend was homeland security adviser to Pres. George W. Bush from 2004 to 2008.