Empowering Iran’s Opposition for Regime Change from within

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL POST FROM HAARETZ, AN ISRAELI NEWSPAPER

8 June 2012

To facilitate regime change from within Iran, it is critical to remove the terrorist designation from the MEK, and to protect and resettle its members.

To bring about regime change from within Iran requires a dissident organization with the kind of leadership skills that helped create a coalition to overthrow the shah of Iran. Only one viable group that rejects clerical rule in Iran remains from the days of the Islamic Revolution – the Iraq-based Mujahideen-e-Khalq, the largest group within the National Council of Resistance of Iran (the Paris-based parliament-in-exile ). Although primarily based in Iraq and France, both groups exercise considerable influence within Iran.

In a study of several formal Iranian opposition organizations during 2005, the Iran Policy Committee concluded that the MEK and the NCRI have the expertise and means to join and lead a coalition for political change in Iran; and in a follow-up study, the IPC found that despite the law and facts, these two dissident groups were hampered from doing so because of being tagged as terrorist organizations by the U.S. Government. In addition, the terrorist tag harmed the ability of the MEK and NCRI to collect intelligence on the Iranian regime, information that had been instrumental in bringing about international inspections and sanctions.

Regarding the origins of the inspections-sanctions link, The New York Times reported that upon coming to office in 2009, President Obama gave the order to speed up a wave of cyberattacks against Iran. The article states, “Tehran sensed his vulnerability, resumed enriching uranium at an underground site at Natanz, one whose existence had been exposed just three years before.” But, in fact, The Washington Post correctly credited, “An exiled opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, [which] first publicly revealed the existence of Iran’s much larger uranium facility at Natanz in 2002.”

Indeed, during August 2002, the NCRI reported the existence of a secret nuclear facility near Natanz. An independent think tank, the Institute for Science and International Security, confirmed the revelation, identified the site as a uranium enrichment facility, and that December, released imagery of Natanz.

In a 2006 study, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, (CSIS), a Washington, D.C. think tank, found that “The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) revelations about Iran’s secret nuclear program did prove to be the trigger point in inviting the IAEA into Tehran for inspections…”

Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to examine US strategic objectives towards Iran. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

On 3-4 June 2012, David Cohen, the U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, was in Israel, where he discussed additional sanctions against Iran with the heads of both the Mossad and IDF Intelligence. On 8 June, UN nuclear watchdog agency chief Yukiya Amano met in Vienna with Iranian representatives to negotiate access for inspectors to a suspect nuclear site, but such talks failed to reach agreement and reinforced the need for sanctions to coerce Tehran to negotiate seriously. The Cohen and Amano visits highlight the nexus of inspections and sanctions.

Considering the continued blacklisting of the MEK (and NCRI), it’s worthwhile to examine essential aspects of the organization: its ideology, support within Iran, and how the group relates to Israel.

In IPC research, we have interviewed most of the MEK leaders in both Iraq and France, as well as analyzed their foundational statements and documents. We determined their positions to be consistent with democratic principles. Tehran seeks to delegitimize and link Israel and the MEK, partly because both are committed to the rule of law rather than reign by unelected clerics. We found that leaders and rank-and-file of the MEK support a two-state solution to the Palestinian problem and Israel’s right to exist. In contrast, other dissidents have called for the annihilation of Israel, as well as preservation of the nuclear program.

Abroad, no other dissident organization can mobilize similar numbers of expatriates at its rallies. (See two references to the work of Daniel Pipes below this post.) On June 23, MEK supporters will hold their 9th annual rally in Villepinte, France. The event regularly draws upward of 80,000 supporters, including many Arabs, Christians, and Jews.

Back in Iran, the disproportionate number of summer 2009 protesters arrested, sentenced to death, and hanged because of their association with the MEK also indicates the organization’s significant presence on the Iranian street. And the vast majority of an estimated 30,000 political prisoners massacred in summer 1988 belonged to the MEK. Risking one’s life to divulge highly classified intelligence is a clear indication that even in the most sensitive field of national security, there are MEK supporters.

The IPC conducted a content analysis of references to all formal Iranian opposition groups in regime media during 2005, in both Farsi and English. The team found that state-run media paid 350 percent more attention to the MEK than all other organizations combined.

And yet, since 1997, the MEK has been on the list of foreign terror organizations compiled by the State Department. The designation almost paralyzes a group that operates openly, and makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to provide it with material support. The more recent roots of this ongoing aberration go back to the summer of 1997, when a “moderate” cleric, Mohammad Khatami, was elected as Iran’s new president. The Clinton administration saw inclusion of the MEK on the terrorist list as a goodwill gesture to the new regime, with which it was hoping to open a dialogue.

On June 1, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington informed the State Department that it had until October 1 to make a decision on the status of the MEK; otherwise the court would order its revocation from the list. The Department can be expected to allow that full period to pass to delay delisting out of a desire to keep alive the moribund nuclear talks with Iran, which threatens to end talks if the MEK were delisted.

To facilitate regime change from within Iran, it is critical to remove the terrorist designation from the MEK, and to protect and resettle its members who are under constant attacks and threats from Iran and its proxies in Iraq. The Iranian people, as well as Jerusalem and Washington, all have an interest in empowering the Iranian opposition. The current policy does just the opposite; it empowers the regime in Iran.

Prof. Raymond Tanter served on the senior staff of the National Security Council in the Reagan administration, and has been a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His most recent book is “Terror Tagging of an Iranian Dissident Organization” (Amazon Kindle).

Daniel Pipes: Unleash the Iranian Opposition[, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq] and A Call for American Boldness in Iran

As the 23 June rally in Villepinte, France draws closer, one is reminded of Daniel Pipes’ 2007 and 2009 articles on similar events. See following post and 2009 article post that follows later on the page.

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Unleash the Iranian Opposition[, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq]

by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
July 10, 2007

CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL POST

[With slight differences from the NY Sun version]

Navigating the fractious currents of émigré politics is never easy, and especially for the Iranian opposition group known as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq or the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran. Simply put, the rogue oil state regime it opposes terrifies one half the West and tempts the other, and the MEK is itself accused of being a superannuated Marxist-Islamist terrorist cult.

These obstacles have not, however, prevented the MEK from trumpeting Islamism as the new global threat, providing important intelligence to the West – for example, about Iran’s nuclear program – terrifying the regime in Tehran, and putting on major displays of anti-regime solidarity.

Participants at a Mujahedeen-e Khalq rally outside Paris on June 30 boisterously welcomed Maryam Rajavi.

I witnessed one such display at a vast exposition hall outside Paris last week, where some 20,000 Iranians from around the world met to hear music from the old country, wave flags and banners, and listen to brief speeches by non-Iranian well-wishers – notably U.S. Congressman Bob Filner, Democrat of California, and former Algerian prime minister Sid Ahmad Ghozali. The crowd then settled in for an 85-minute tour d’horizon by the MEK leader, Maryam Rajavi.

The meeting inspired several observations. First, the slick production, with hints of an American political convention – balloons and chaff falling from the rafters, a televised sequence of the leader arriving in cavalcade – was aimed mostly at an audience outside the hall, especially in Iran.

Second, the event had two apparent goals: reminding Iranians that an alternative does exist to today’s theocracy, plus pressuring the European Union to remove the MEK from its terror list. For Iranians, the music portion included pretty girls in (for them, daring) Western clothing. For Europeans, it pointedly included “Le chant des partisans,” the anthem of the French Resistance during World War II.

Third, Rajavi’s in-depth analysis mentioned neither the United States nor Israel, something extremely rare for a major speech about Middle Eastern politics. Nor did she even hint at conspiratorial thinking, a deeply welcome change for Iranian politics.
Finally, no other opposition group in the world can mount so impressive a display of muscle as does the MEK, with its thousands of supporters, many young, and a slate of dignitaries.

Young singers at the Mujahedeen-e Khalq rally outside Paris on June 30. Many participants wore vests inscribed with the slogan, “Notre choix, Maryam Rajavi,” an allusion to the MEK leader.

These factors, combined with the mullah’s near-phobic reaction toward the MEK, suggest that the organization presents a formidable tool for intimidating Tehran.

Alas, Westerners presently cannot work with the MEK, due to a 1997 decision by the Clinton administration, followed five years later by the European Union, to offer a sop to the mullahs and declare it a terrorist group, putting it officially on a par with the likes of Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hizbullah. A Portuguese member of the European parliament, Paulo Casaca, notes that “Officials on both sides of the Atlantic are on the record as saying that the only reason why the group was put on the U.S. terrorism list in the first place was to send a ‘goodwill gesture’ to the Iranian regime.”

But the MEK poses no danger to Americans or Europeans, and has not for decades. It does pose a danger to the malign, bellicose theocratic regime in Tehran. The MEK’s utility to Western states is reflected in the inconsistent, even contradictory, U.S. government attitude toward it over the past decade. One amusing instance came in October 2003, when Colin Powell, the secretary of state, tartly wrote Donald Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense, to remind him that the 3,800 MEK forces at Camp Ashraf in Iraq were supposed to be treated as captives, not as allies.

But there will be nothing amusing as the American presence in Iraq winds down and thousands of unarmed MEK members are left to the tender mercies of the pro-Tehran regime in Baghdad. Belatedly, the Bush administration needs to take three steps. First, let the MEK members leave Camp Ashraf in a humane and secure manner. Second, delist the organization from the terror rolls, unleashing it to challenge the Islamic Republic of Iran. Third, exploit that regime’s inordinate fear of the MEK.

As Patrick Clawson and I suggested over four years ago, “To deter the mullahs from taking hostile steps (supporting terrorism against coalition troops in Iraq, building nuclear weapons), it could prove highly effective to threaten U.S. meetings with the MEK or providing help for its anti-regime publicity campaign.”

That remains good advice, but there’s not another four years to wait.

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A Call for American Boldness in Iran

by Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
June 24, 2009

CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL POST

In a striking coincidence, two very different expressions of Iranian dissent took place exactly simultaneously on two continents on Saturday, June 20. Between them, the Islamic Republic of Iran faces an unprecedented challenge.

In a vast exhibition hall just north of Paris on June 20, about 20,000 people attended anevent organized by the largest and best organized Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (or the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran).

One protest took place on the streets of Iran, where thousands of Iranians fed up with living under a religious tyranny defied Supreme Leader Ali Khamene’i’s diktat that they accept the results of the June 12 presidential election, whereby President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad supposedly defeated his main challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi by a lopsided margin.

The protestors and Mousavi have both shown bravery but the former seem more radical than the latter. Mousavi’s website announces that he does not seek confrontation with the “brothers” in Iran’s security forces nor does he wish to challenge the “sacred system” instituted by Ayatollah Khomeini. Rather, the website declares, “We are confronting deviations and lies. We seek to bring reform that returns us to the pure principals of the Islamic Republic.”

This timidity stands in contrast to the bold stance of the street protestors who shout “Death to the dictator” and even “Death to Khamene’i,” an echo of the regime’s perpetual slogans “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” implying a wish not just to correct Khomeini’s “sacred system” but an aspiration to terminate the regime dominated by mullahs (Iran’s clerics).

The other protest took place in a vast exhibition hall just north of Paris, where the largest and best organized Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq or the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (MeK or PMOI) joined with smaller groups to hold their annual meeting. Tens of thousands attended it, including me.

The assembly’s most emotional moment came when the anxious crowd learned that their peaceful counterparts marching in Iran had been killed or wounded. At that moment, freedom of assembly in France contrasted most starkly with its denial in Iran. Later that day came confirmation of the regime’s obsessive fears of the MeK, when deputy police chief, Ahmad Reza Radan, blamed MeK “thugs” for his own government’s violence against the peaceful demonstrators.

The MEK mounted an impressive display in France, as it did at the last meeting I attended, in 2007, with dignitaries, made-for-television pageantry, and a powerful speech by its leader, Maryam Rajavi. Like the street protestors, she also called for the demise of the Khomeinist regime. In a 4,000-word speech, she steered blessedly clear of attacks on the United States or Israel and excluded the conspiracy-theory mongering so common to Iranian political life. Instead, she:

• Ridiculed the regime for portraying the demonstrators as Western agents.
• Bitterly complained that corpses of demonstrators were “wrapped in American flags” and then trampled upon.
• Condemned the regime’s “crimes” in Iraq and its “export of terrorism” to Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Afghanistan.
• Predicted that “the beginning of the end” of the Islamic Republic of Iran is underway.
• Critiqued the Obama administration for giving yet another chance to the regime, noting that the Bush administration had met its representatives 28 times to no avail.

Rajavi has rightly called for a stronger U.S. policy toward Tehran, explaining in a recent interview that “The West can stop the nuclear program if it stands up to the mullahs.”

Sadly, standing up to the mullahs has never been American policy. Jimmy Carter meekly accepted their rule. Ronald Reagan sent them arms. To win their favor, Bill Clinton put the MEK on the terrorism list. George W. Bush did not foil their nuclear weapons project. And Barack Obama hopes to gain concessions from Tehran on the nuclear weapons issue by distancing himself from the dissidents.

Instead, flux in Iran should invite boldness and innovation. It is time, finally, for a robust U.S. policy that encourages those yelling “Death to Khamene’i” and that takes advantage of the hyperbolic fear the MeK arouses in Iran’s ruling circles (first step: end the MeK’s preposterous listing as a terrorist organization).

As Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Republican of Michigan) notes, regime change in Iran becomes the more urgent if the mullahs will soon deploy nuclear weapons. The vital and potentially victorious movement building both on the streets of Iran and in the halls of Europe better represents not only Western values but also Western interests.