MEK Marxist Shia Islamic
Messianic Cult of Rajavi. 1985 photo of Massoud and
Maryam Rajavi, leaders of the Iranian terror group MEK, a bizarre and cult-like
entity embraced by many American policymakers. (AFP photo)
I would really like to
know how a Terrorist Marxist Communist
Shia Messianic Extremist Cult that worships Rajavi (MEK or MKO:
Mujahedin-e-Khalq) is called a "Democratic Secular" organization by
insane politicians in Washington DC?!
The
Mujahedin-e-Khalq ~ sometimes referred to as the MEK, the MKO, the PMOI, the
NCRI or, perhaps more fittingly, "The Cult of Rajavi" ~ is a strange
terrorist group by anyone's reckoning.
They wear identical khaki uniforms and headscarves, singing songs to their cult
leaders, Massoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam. They adhere to an eclectic mix of
ideological influences, having been variously described as Marxists, messianic
Shiites, and even secular democrats.
And they are a US State Department
designated terrorist organization that has been responsible for bombings,
attempted plane hijackings, political assassinations, and indiscriminate
killings of men, women and children.
July 6, 2012
Come October 1,
a federal appeals court decision will force the State Department to decide
whether the exile-Iranian group Mujahadin-e Khalq, or M.E.K., belongs
on the list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.
As recently as
2007, a State Department report warned that the
M.E.K., retains "the capacity and will" to attack "Europe, the
Middle East, the United States, Canada, and beyond."
The M.E.K.,
which calls for an overthrow of the Iranian government and is considered by
many Iranians to be a cult, once fought for Saddam Hussein and in the 1970s was
responsible for bombings, attempted plane hijackings, and political
assassinations. It was listed as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.
If the State
Department does decide to delist M.E.K., whose name means "People's Holy
Warriors of Iran," it will be with the blessing of dozens of congressmen.
A congressional resolution that urges
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to remove M.E.K. from the State Department
list of foreign terrorist groups was signed by 99 politicians, including Rep.
Darrell Issa, a California Republican, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat
from Washington, D.C., and Alabama Republican Sen. Spencer Bachus.
Those signatures
may have been obtained with real money to grease the wheels. A U.S.
News investigation found that three major lobbying firms were
together paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by U.S.-based Iranian-American
community groups with ties to the M.E.K. to drum up support for the resolution.
[See: Latest political cartoons]
Victoria
Toensing of DiGenova & Toensing, a lobbying shop famous for its involvement
in the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, was paid $110,000 in 2011 to lobby
for the resolution. The firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld dedicated
five lobbyists to getting signatures for the resolution, and was paid $100,000
in 2012 and $290,000 in 2011 to do so. Paul Marcone and Association similarly
lobbied for the resolution, and received $5,000 in 2010 and $5,000 in 2011 for
its efforts.
"It's a
worthy cause," said Toensing, who believes the M.E.K. has reformed from
its violent past. "Have you ever seen a more bipartisan disciplined group
as the one that supported this issue?"
(Akin, Gump, et
al. declined to comment to U.S. News. Paul Marcone said despite
its history, the M.E.K. "has every right to petition the government on
resolutions.")
While dozens of
congressmen have signed on to the delist resolution, those no longer holding
office appear to be even more supportive of the group.
Last week, at a
Paris rally for the M.E.K., Newt Gingrich was captured on camera bowing to the
Iranian exile-group's leader, Maryam Rajavi. (The M.E.K.'s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran,
has its headquarters in Paris.)
Also in
attendance were former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former New York City Mayor
Rudy Giuliani, former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, and former Bush
U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton.
Video of the rally in Paris shows what appear to be tens of thousands
of M.E.K. supporters waving flags and holding up pictures of Rajavi, who has
called democracy "the spirit that guides our Resistance." Some assert
the M.E.K. would prefer Iran to become a Marxist state, as it was founded by
Marxist-Islamist Iranian students in the 1960s.
"The MEK
are trying to portray themselves as a popular and democratic opposition to the
current Iranian regime," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The reality is that they're
neither popular nor democratic."
A prominent
Iranian journalist, who did not want to be named for fear of repercussions from
the M.E.K., said that despite the group's attempts to present itself as the
main Iranian dissident group, the majority of the Iranian diaspora "does
not want to get close" to it. A 2011 New York Times
story said most Iranians and Iraqis see the M.E.K. as a
"repressive cult."
The
"cult" descriptor isn't just popular opinion. A 2009 Rand study of the M.E.K. described
the group as having "cultic practices" and "deceptive
recruitment and public relations strategies."
Patrick Clawson,
director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which
has been described as a pro-Israel group, describes the M.E.K. this way:
"It's a cult. There's no other way to put it."
Clawson, who has
spent time with M.E.K. members abroad and their supporters in the U.S., says
politicians have been "misled" by "these charming
individuals."
"They tell
what seems at first glance to be a believable story," he said.
"People in cults are charming sometimes. I mean, Scientologists convince
movie stars."
There's no doubt
the M.E.K. knows how to charm. When reached by U.S. News & World
Report, the spokesman for the National Council of Iran (the
M.E.K.'s Paris-based political arm), Shahin Gobadi, spent an extraordinary
amount of time answering questions, both over the phone and by E-mail.
"I have
sent you a lot," he said, after an E-mail arrived containing 17
attachments. "But I am happy to send much more."
Gobadi
repeatedly said that the M.E.K. was working for a democratic future for Iran,
emphasizing freedom of speech, abolition of the death penalty, equality for
women, and peaceful coexistence with the rest of the world.
"The
designation of the M.E.K. as a foreign terrorist organization was ... a
goodwill gesture to the murderous regime in Iran as part of a policy of
appeasing the mullahs," Gobadi said, skimming over the group's violent
past. "Various senior U.S. officials have acknowledged this reality."
Among these
officials is former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, who once called for Rajavi to be
recognized as Iran's president.
As happened at
the Paris rally last week, a number of politicians also deliver energetic
speeches on behalf of the M.E.K.
Rendell, who has
given at least eight supportive speeches, has made $150,000 for his efforts.
The Treasury
Department is currently investigating Rendell along with several former senior
government officials for giving M.E.K. speeches for money, as transactions with
a terrorist group are against the law. Treasury spokesman John Sullivan said
that the department "takes sanctions enforcements seriously," but
would not give a timeline for when the investigation would be complete.
Rendell says his
support for M.E.K. is humanitarian-based, as thousands of the group's members
currently live in exile in a refugee camp in Iraq.
The humanitarian
situation is undoubtedly real—Camp Ashraf has been attacked several times since
the U.S. transferred control back to the Iraqi government in 2009. In April of
last year, Iraqi security forces reportedly stormed the camp and killed 31, wounding
320 more, though news reports vary widely. The M.E.K.'s various websites are heavily Camp
Ashraf-focused.
M.E.K.
supporters rally at a protest of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit
to the United Nations, Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010, in New York.
.
"I think our
reneging on protecting Camp Ashraf is nothing short of disgraceful,"
Rendell said, calling it "ludicrous" that he was being investigated
for giving aid to a group in need.
Ask any
politician who has supported the M.E.K., though, and they are unlikely to be
able to tell you very much about the group or its history.
Both Rendell and
Giuliani, who has spoken at M.E.K. events in Paris, Geneva, and New York, and
who was in Paris twice last week to advise the group, said they knew little
about the group before their paid speaking gigs began.
Giuliani said he
first learned about the group from former FBI head Louis Freeh, who told him
the M.E.K. were a group of revolutionaries, not terrorists. Then, Giuliani
said, he "did research." "And every time I go to one of these
meetings, I am more convinced," he said.
Former State
Department spokesman Crowley, who has been paid to speak at at least four
M.E.K. events, acknowledged that the exile group has in the past "on more
than occasion been on the wrong side of history." But Crowley said he
became increasingly "intrigued" with the group during his time at the
State Department, whose location on C Street the M.E.K. regularly visits. He
said he believes "their pursuit now is peaceful."
Sadjadpour, the
Carnegie analyst, finds it remarkable that so many politicians have supported a
group with so much baggage. "In some cases it's greed, in some cases it's
cluelessness, in some cases it's remarkably poor judgment, and often it's all
of the above," he said of the political support.
While Gobadi
repeatedly told U.S. News that the group is peaceful, a
number of news reports allege that the M.E.K. may
have been involved in a string of nuclear scientist assassinations over the
last several years, with monetary and other aid from the U.S. and Israeli
governments.
"On the
premise that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, funding, arming or training
M.E.K. is an important strategic tool for Israel and the U.S.," Dilshood
Achilov, assistant professor of Middle East politics at East Tennessee State
University, told the International Business Times of the
nuclear scientist assassinations.
Gobadi called
the allegations "absolutely absurd" and "directly from the
textbook of the mullahs' Intelligence services."
But the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh this April gave
credence to possible ties between the M.E.K. and the U.S. government,
publishing a short piece that said the U.S.'s Joint Special Operations Command
had trained members of the M.E.K starting in 2005. According to Hersh's
sources, the training stopped sometime before President Obama took office. But
"some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran," Hersch
wrote, under the headline, the M.E.K. "Our men in Iran?"
Gobadi insists
they aren't anyone's men. He says the M.E.K has "not received any funding
or weapons from any foreign country and does not seek" it. "The
Iranian crisis has an Iranian solution," he said.
Much of M.E.K.'s
support, Gobadi says, comes from the Iranian diaspora. While he doesn't name
the group's U.S. supporters, the Senate disclosure database reveals the Iranian
American Community of North Texas and Iranian
American Community of Northern California have been most
active. Dozens of similar community groups came into existence after the U.S.
government shut down a partner office of the M.E.K. in D.C. in 2003, but many
have since disappeared. Requests for comments from both community groups were
not returned, but it's clear that they have had enormous fundraising and sway.
IACNT and IANCC
paid the lobbying firms in Washington thousands of dollars to get signatures
for the congressional resolution. They paid the speakers lobby thousands of
dollars to get Rendell, Giuliani and Crowley, participants said.
And they funded
a series of sleek
ads that have aired on channels like Fox calling for a
delisting of the M.E.K.
While it
initially looked as though the M.E.K. would be delisted in October, new
comments from the White House suggest the group won't be.
In June, a
senior administration official told reporters in a conference call that the
M.E.K. may have "over-interpreted" recent events to its favor.
"It appears that MEK leaders believe that the Secretary has no choice now
but to delist them," the official said. "That is, quite plainly, wrong."
Gobadi said he
can't predict the outcome, but can only be hopeful the "unlawful
designation" can come to an end.
Despite hundreds
of thousands of dollars in effort, that may be impossible while doubts over the
group remain.
US News reporter Seth Cline contributed to
this report.
Elizabeth Flock is a staff writer for U.S. News & World Report. You can
contact her at eflock@usnews.com or follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
.
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