The U.S. and Iran avoid the rational
(Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK,Rajavi cult in Camp Ashraf)
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... Except for the MEK’s hired mouthpieces, everyone can see this obvious solution that removes a major irritant to all parties. Once again, however, the two sides’ historic inability to “get to yes” at the same time has played havoc with rational policy. The crux of the problem is this: Any deal one side accepts or proposes is, by definition, seen as bad for the other. Each is convinced that the other’s purpose in life is to annoy and mislead “our side.” Therefore – in this curious universe – both sides assume that anything the other proposes or accepts contains a hidden motive to deceive. The Iraq impasse is ...
John Limbert, The Daily Star, Lebanon, August 23 2011
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/
2011/Aug-23/The-US-and-Iran-avoid-the-rational.
ashx#axzz1VqoYVrrL
In a reasonable world, the United States and Iran would long ago have discovered that, as the wise walrus said, “The time has come … to talk of many things.” Among those many things is Iraq, where both sides’ common interests far outnumber their differences. Although both Tehran and Washington recognize the obvious, they have so far been unable to take the next step. The unanswerable question remains: “Even if we (reluctantly) admit that common interests exist, what do we do about them?”
Although experts often refer to Iranian policy as “opaque” and inconsistent, Tehran’s aims in Iraq are not secret: to prevent the emergence of a new Saddam Hussein, who might be tempted to break the stalemate that ended the long Iran-Iraq war; to stop activity of violent, extremist Sunni groups on Iraqi territory; to prevent the break-up of Iraq and the emergence of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan on Iran’s borders; to prevent Iraq from descending into civil war that would threaten Iraqi Shiite and Iranian pilgrims’ access to the country’s holy sites; to prevent Iraq from supporting separatist movements among Iran’s ethnic Arabs and Kurds; to ensure that no foreign country (in other words the United States) uses Iraqi territory as a base to attack Iran; and to remove the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, which opposes the regime in Tehran, from its base in Iraq.
Most of these policy goals are close to what the United States says it wants in Iraq: a unified state at peace with itself and its neighbors.
The U.S. has one other goal that Iran publicly says it shares: the withdrawal of American and other coalition forces. If those forces are going to leave Iraq safely, they will need at least Tehran’s tacit agreement to do so. The road back to Kuwait for coalition forces is long and potentially vulnerable. Tehran, by design or miscalculation, could make that withdrawal a difficult one.
Yet efforts to start a dialogue on these shared goals have gone nowhere. In May and July of 2007, for example, meetings in Baghdad between the U.S. ambassador, Ryan Crocker, and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Kazemi-Qomi achieved little. The two sides, micro-managed by their respective capitals, offered little beyond a mutual recitation of grievances and a diplomatically stated accusation of bad faith.
According to press accounts after the May event, Crocker noted common stated interests, saying, “At the level of policy and principle, the Iranian position as articulated by the Iranian ambassador was very close to our own.” He added, however, “What we would obviously like to see, and the Iraqis would clearly like to see, is an action by Iran on the ground to bring what it’s actually doing in line with its stated policy.”
The public format and the attitudes in the two capitals guaranteed that the two sides would continue their dysfunctional ways and that the result of this encounter, like most others, would confirm each side’s most negative preconception: that the “other” is by nature deceitful and hypocritical. According to this view, each side believes the other comes to the table not to discuss issues or reach fair agreements, but to cheat and to score points with a hard-line domestic audience.
The fate of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq members remaining at Camp Ashraf in Iraq is another issue where residue of past grievances, real or imagined, prevents the two sides from acting in their mutual interests. The resolution to this issue is clear. Perhaps 90-95 percent of Camp Ashraf residents could return to Iran under International Red Cross supervision, abandon MEK activity, and benefit from an amnesty that, by all accounts, the Tehran authorities have respected for earlier returnees. Once that group has left Iraq, those hard-core members remaining – perhaps fewer than 50 – would be a very different and much more manageable problem.
Except for the MEK’s hired mouthpieces, everyone can see this obvious solution that removes a major irritant to all parties. Once again, however, the two sides’ historic inability to “get to yes” at the same time has played havoc with rational policy. The crux of the problem is this: Any deal one side accepts or proposes is, by definition, seen as bad for the other. Each is convinced that the other’s purpose in life is to annoy and mislead “our side.” Therefore – in this curious universe – both sides assume that anything the other proposes or accepts contains a hidden motive to deceive.
The Iraq impasse is just a symptom of the disease that has come to infect U.S.-Iranian relations after 30 years of futility, featuring exchanges of insults, accusations, threats, and sometimes worse. In these exchanges, neither side can do anything right. The United States is “global arrogance” and the “great Satan.” Iran is a member of the “axis of evil.” Efforts to break this cycle – this downward spiral – have foundered on mistrust and on the fact that 30 years of estrangement have made officials comfortable with the negative status quo. Bashing the other is something all have learned well; working together, even when obvious common ground exists, has proved much more difficult.
John Limbert is a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer and professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on August 23, 2011, on page 7
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Also read:
http://www.iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=7543
The West must cut its terror ties
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... People in this region mentally note that the West, in some way or form, enables the efforts and activities of the Mojahedin-e Khalq while demanding action on terror. Today, Hillary Clinton is warning us about Yemen; can we be absolutely sure that such shadowy foreign policy tools aren’t being used there too?...
The Daily Star, Editorial, January 06, 2010
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=17&article_id=110351
The world has been put on notice that Yemen is a worrying center of activities by terrorists. The question is, how many other countries can be added to that list? The Daily Star is publishing an open letter to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, by Massoud Khodabandeh , a UK-based consultant who demands that the Mojahedin-e Khalq organization be brought under control. The group, which is termed “terrorist” by the United States, is allowed to operate freely in Germany, France and the United Kingdom, and its satellite programs are inciting violence on the streets of Iran.
Meanwhile, the Iranian authorities are claiming that some of those arrested in the demonstrations and clashes are Mojahedin-e Khalq members, purportedly acting with the connivance of Western intelligence agencies.
Whatever the exact degree of Western involvement with the Mojahedin-e Khalq, the group remains a candidate for partnership with Western governments, who preach about fighting terror.
The Mojahedin-e Khalq might be a footnote in the wider struggle, but it’s the nail that punctures the great powers’ approach to Iran. Why harbor the group if it’s terrorist? If the West can’t agree on who’s a terrorist, how do they expect an agreement with the Muslim world?
The partisans of the Mojahedin-e Khalq aren’t just reporting the news from London; they’re inciting and agitating, and acting as a fifth column (whatever their actual size). They help ensure that the dispute between factions in Iran takes a course that leaves behind any possibility of reasonable settlement.
People in this region mentally note that the West, in some way or form, enables the efforts and activities of the Mojahedin-e Khalq while demanding action on terror. Today, Hillary Clinton is warning us about Yemen; can we be absolutely sure that such shadowy foreign policy tools aren’t being used there too?
Similar credibility damage has come from Blackwater in Iraq, and the larger Private Military Contractor phenomenon. Many Iraqis have suffered the exactions of these mercenaries; last week, a group of Blackwater employees found out that they wouldn’t have to stand trial for murder. People hear the stories of Blackwater, and the Mojahedin-e Khalq, and all of the Obama administration’s rhetoric of fighting extremists and violence goes out the window.
Even worse, people assume that the West actually seeks a clash with the Muslim world, by allowing these harmful elements to survive or flourish.
If the West wants to go forward with new sanctions on Iran, and seeks regional and international support, it simply must clean up its act. It can’t allow these terrorists and non-state actors to wreck the chances for making a real fight against the economic underdevelopment and political illegitimacy that plagues us, and that incubates the terror that Washington is so worried about.
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Daniel Zucker, Maryam Rajavi and ALi Safavi
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also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=10235
Camp Ashraf and the Mojahedin Khalq
Iran Interlink Third Report from Baghdad
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... Iran-Interlink representative Anne Singleton travelled to Iraq mid April at the invitation of the Baghdad based human rights NGO Baladiyeh Foundation, officials of the Government of Iraq and other NGOs involved in the Camp Ashraf problem. The Baladiyeh Foundation, headed by Mrs Ahlam al-Maliki, provides humanitarian assistance to a wide range of deprived sectors of Iraqi society arising directly from the invasion and occupation of Iraq by allied forces in 2003. Baladiyeh Foundation is concerned by the humanitarian crisis at Camp Ashraf caused by the group’s leaders who are refusing to allow access to human rights organisations to verify the wellbeing of all of the camp’s residents ...
Iran Interlink, April 2011
www.iran-interlink.org
Further information can be found at www.camp-ashraf.com .
First Report (February 2008) - (PDF version)
Second Report (September 2009) - (PDF version)
Third Report (April 2011) - (PDF version)
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=10558
Growing International support for Palestinians prompts desperate measures from Israeli lobby
Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) mercenaries used to counter pro-Palestinian rally in America
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... The Mojahedin Khalq started its terror campaign with the assassination of 6 Americans in Tehran and have, since then over 16000 Iranians, 25000 Iraqis and scores of individuals of American, European, Pakistani, African and even Chinese descent. While we do not expect or even find the American government capable of intervening and halt the influx of Mojahedin Khalq operatives into their capital city, we warn the countries officials against any failure to prevent harm the critics of the terrorist group in the US, particularly the genuine Iranian opposition groups (under the umbrella of the green movement) who have been vocal against the neoconservative and Zionist use of terrorist groups ...
Iran Interlink, August 18 2011
http://iran-interlink.org
An NCRI insider (National Council of Resistance of Iran is also on the US terrorism list as an alias of the MEK) has revealed that the Israeli lobby has employed the Mojahedin Khalq (aka; MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) terror group to bring thousands of rented crowd fillers to Washington in order to counter the day of Qods annual rally on Friday 26th August. Qods day is an annual day of protest against the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the city of Qods (Jerusalem, the second most important city for Muslims after Mecca) by Israel.
Leaders of the Washington-backed terrorist cult have been allocated a budget to bring over 5,000 people to the counter rally, but so far the MEK has only been able to gather around a thousand participants (too much money not enough brains?) The group has already organised the travel arrangements (plane tickets, visas, hotels etc) to fly around 1,000 people from Europe and elsewhere. The travellers are promised a free two week holiday with pocket money in return for participating for a couple of hours in the counter demonstration. Organisers and agencies that will be in charge of the shipments are offered considerably more.
The MEK operatives have promised guarantees that participants in the rally will not be under any pressure or scrutiny from law enforcement agencies - which have already given written permission for the terrorist group to gather under the flag of the Mojahedin Khalq (an FTO according to the USG), and they will not face prosecution for any reason, under any circumstances. The leaders of the terror cult openly tell their forces that the group has secured extrajudicial protection from the highest authorities in the American political, judicial and law enforcement circles. (Presumably through affiliation with AIPAC and other Israeli connected organisations.)
Of course, it is clear that they cannot do this without some kind of official support. MEK backers in the US House of Representative are providing lawyers for legal advice to facilitate ways to circumvent the ban on entry to the US of anyone who has links, past or present, to a designated FTO. The MEK supporters will fly via various airports in the US and Canada over several days before arriving in Washington for the rally.
(At the same time, genuine refugees who have escaped the MEK are harassed by the US and its embassies across the world when they try to secure help and succour.)
According to the NCRI insider, some operatives have already arrived in Washington D.C. to prepare the ground for the arrival of the other thousand. Mojahedin Khalq have increased their safe house capacity in Washington by two more blocks of apartments and their US representatives (including former Saddam Hussein’s private army commanders Alireza Jafarzadeh and Ali Safavi) are currently heading a few teams of operatives while liaising with their backers in the corridors of the House of Representative and the Senate. According to a high ranking politician in Washington, the American government, the FBI and other so called security agencies are no match for the Israeli lobby and would not even attempt to stop the influx of these mercenaries to the city.
The Mojahedin Khalq (aka Saddam’s private army) started its terror campaign with the assassination of 6 Americans in Tehran and have, since then by its own admission assassinated over 16000 Iranians, 25000 Iraqis and scores of individuals of American, European, Pakistani, African and even Chinese descent.
While we do not expect or even find the American government capable of intervening and halt the influx of Mojahedin Khalq operatives into their capital city, we warn the countries officials against any failure to prevent harm the critics of the terrorist group in the US, particularly the genuine Iranian opposition groups (under the umbrella of the green movement) who have been vocal against the neoconservative and Zionist use of terrorist groups under the guise of supporting opposition groups.
Iran Interlink,
August 18, 2011
Daniel Zucker, Maryam Rajavi and ALi Safavi
Jafarzadeh representing terrorist organisation NCRI
(Picture form MKO/ NCRI clandestine television)
(Jafarzadeh's suicide note published in Mojahedin Khalq paper)
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=10352
RT: Lobbyist in Capital Hill with pockets stuffed with MEK’s money
(aka; Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, Rajavi cult)
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... The Alyona Show on RT – Russian English –Language news Channel suggests the US media focus on the “Lobbyist in Capital Hill with pockets stuffed with MEK’s money”, on July 9th. The show criticizes US officials’ hypocrisy and double-standard sell the cause of terrorists. Comparing MEK with Al-Qaida the show poses the question that how a terrorist designated organization can be debated in a hearing held in the US congress ...
Alyona show, Russia Today, July 16 2011
http://rt.com/programs/alyona-show/
us-jobs-pentagon-paychecks/
Link to the full program on RT
http://rt.com/programs/alyona-show
/us-jobs-pentagon-paychecks/
same video on you tube (Alyona Show)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7DqMK4Ehjs
Royals V. MEK
The Alyona Show on RT – Russian English –Language news Channel suggests the US media focus on the “Lobbyist in Capital Hill with pockets stuffed with MEK’s money”, on July 9th. The show criticizes US officials’ hypocrisy and double-standard sell the cause of terrorists. Comparing MEK with Al-Qaida the show poses the question that how a terrorist designated organization can be debated in a hearing held in the US congress.
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=9216
Wondering at those Americans who stand under the flag of Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, NCRI, Rajavi cult) only to LOBBY for the murderers of their servicemen
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... Massoud Rajavi was on the stage and while he had his hands on his waist he began a war cry against the USA, and in his admiration for Osama Ben Laden and his organization, Al Qaeda, he said, ”This was fanatical Islam which trembled and shacked the basis of US Imperialism and they destroyed the twin towers which were the symbol of their power, and successfully reduced it to rubble through their successful mission”. Then he (Massoud Rajavi) with a smile on his face continued his war cry and said, ”What will happen to the USA if revolutionary Islam with our Ideology and Maryam’s leadership comes to power, then this paper tiger (the USA) will be destroyed as a whole.” ...
(Alejo Vidal-Quadras , Mojahedin Khalq logo, Struan stevenson )
Iran Interlink, January 03, 2011
http://www.iran-interlink.org
A documentary about Washington backed Mojahedin Khalq terrorists
Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK, NCRI, Rajavi cult terrorism in Iran and Iraq
link to download the video file
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Also read:
http://www.iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=7264
Silent Cry
Press TV, November 23, 2009
www.presstv.com
This documentary takes us beneath the surface of acts of terror against Iran and shows how Iranians have been targeted by various terrorist groups, some of which enjoying the support of human right organizations.
(part one)
(part two)
Lets create another Vietnam for America(pdf). Letter to Imam (Khomeini) (pdf). Some questions unanswered regarding the US military invasion of Iran (pdf).
Captain Lewis Lee Hawkins
(Photograph courtesy Annette Hawkins)
(Mojahedin English language paper April 1980)
(Mojahedin English Language paper April 1980)
(Mojahedin English Language paper June 1980)
(Alejo Vidal-Quadras , Mojahedin Khalq logo, Struan stevenson )
(Izzat Ebrahim and Massoud Rajavi still at large)
(Washington backed Maryam Rajavi in terrorist cult's HQ in Paris)
(British Lord!! Corbett promoting terrorism under the Logo of MKO for the past 25 years)
(In the streets of London with Lord Corbett!!)
(MKO members in European Countries 2003)
(massacre of Kurdish people) 
(Abdolmalek Rigi on Voice of America, presented as a democratic alternative)
(Mojahedin's Maryam Rajavi and Jondollah's Abdolmalek Rigi)
Jafarzadeh representing terrorist organisation NCRI
(Picture form MKO/ NCRI clandestine television)
(Daniel Zucker, Maryam Rajavi and ALi Safavi)
(Ali Safavi as the commander of Saddam's Private Army in Iraq)