In Iran, the organization known as the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), is “understood to be widely reviled inside Iran as a leftist Islamist cult that sided with Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war,” writes diplomatic correspondent Barbarba Slavin. The Iran-Iraq war resulted in the deaths of a million Iranians, so the MEK is understandably unpopular.
But, Slavin notes in Al-Monitor, the Trump Administration no longer excludes the MEK as a potential replacement for the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The group, classified as a terrorist group for its involvement in the killing of Americans in 1970s, is being rehabilitated as part of the administration’s not-quite declared policy of “regime change” in Iran.
Trump is not alone. The Atlantic Council is an establishment think tank in Washington. While working for Facebook the Council’s Digital Forensic Lab absurdly described the group as “the largest and most active political opposition group against the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership.”
It is nothing of a sort. As recently as September, a State Department spokesman said, “We have said in the past, and say it now, that the Mujahideen Organization has no place among the people of Iran.”
Asked this week if the MEK is now on a list of acceptable alternatives to the current government in Iran, another spokesperson would not rule it out. “We support the Iranian people. We have had many opportunities to engage the large and vibrant Iranian diaspora.”
Why is the Trump administration supporting a cult of personality founded by a Marxist and run by his widow?
Hatred of Iran is one reason. Money is another.
Slavin observes:
Top officials close to the Donald Trump administration — including national security adviser John Bolton and Rudolph Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer — have taken tens of thousands of dollars in fees from the MEK and its front organizations over the years to speak before rallies that promote Maryam Rajavi’s leadership ambitions. Just last month, Giuliani told a pro-MEK rally in Warsaw, Poland, on the sidelines of a US-organized Middle East conference that Iran’s leaders are “assassins” and “murderers” who should be overthrown and then replaced by Rajavi.
Source: US government no longer excludes MEK as leadership option for Iran
