Washington falls under the spell of an Iranian terrorist cult

Iran presents a serious challenge to American foreign policy, with only bad options (sanctions and containment) and worse options (use of military force) on the table. The worst of all options is to follow the lead of a growing circle in Washington who think the magic bullet to the Iran issue is a “reformed” terrorist-insurgent cult known as Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MeK. They have skillfully managed Washington’s elite into pressing their case for U.S. government support — for instance, paying former congressman Patrick Kennedy $25,000 to rally on their behalf.

Secretary of State Clinton is due to decide quite soon whether the State Department will de-list MeK as a foreign terrorist organization. Doing so would pave the way for the U.S. to fund the group as an Iranian opposition force, which would be a horrible idea.

In September of last year, I took note of an FP item which explained why MeK is not a viable policy option for the U.S. Of note:

According to former members, though, the MEK is a cult-like organization where members are required to divorce their spouses and hand over their children to be raised by others — a powerful disincentive to potential defectors. Its ideology blends elements of Islamism with Marxism, though its public face has evolved over time to become much more appealing to Western backers. The group now places a strong emphasis on its vision for a secular, democratic, and nuclear-free Iran. According to the group’s supporters, the MEK abandoned terrorism in 2003.

The designation of the MEK as a terrorist organization stems from its activities inside Iran aimed at overthrowing both the Shah’s government and, later, the Islamic Republic. According to the State Department’s description included in the FTO listing, “[d]uring the 1970s the MEK staged terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed several US military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran,” and their activities continued through the 1990’s and after.

For Americans, perhaps nothing about the group is more offensive than its support of the takeover of the US Embassy in 1979, during which its members strongly denounced the hostages’ ultimate release in January 1981. But for Iranians, the MEK’s betrayal came during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980’s, when the group sided with Saddam Hussein in the fight against their home country. The group bombed Iran’s parliament in 1981, killing both the president and the Prime Minister, and regularly assassinated and bombed Iranian governmental officials up until the 2000’s. 

Thus, the MEK organization has literally zero support among the Iranian people. The closest thing to how Iranians feel about the MEK is how Americans feel about al-Qaeda. It’s not even a subject of debate.

The same case was made recently by the esteemed Abbas Milani, who pointed out that for essentially the entire time it has existed (i.e., for 46 years), MeK has been ruled by the same couple. This is emblematic not of a legitimate democratic movement, but of a cult. So are the numerous observations made in the WikiLeaks cables, including their use of mass suicide as a protest against arrests of movement members. (In fact, they have already done this before.)

Basically, MeK is a more extreme version of Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, and there’s no reason to believe they’ll be any more successful at governing democratically than Chalabi was.