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Jason Rezaian, Washington Post, September 11 2019:… His absence also means that the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a reviled Iranian opposition group that long lived on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist groups, no longer has a powerful ally in the White House… The MEK can claim no popular support, and among Iranians of nearly all political orientations, inside the country and in the diaspora, it was Bolton’s paid alliance with the cultlike group that made him such an odious character. With the MEK suddenly nowhere in the conversation, ordinary Iranians who would prefer to see their government negotiate its way out of the sanctions that currently have a stranglehold on the country’s economy will be more inclined than ever to support such a process with U.S. leaders. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK
MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Bolton’s departure will fundamentally alter Trump’s Iran policy
Whether national security adviser John Bolton was fired by President Trump or he quit is irrelevant. The change in foreign policy leadership will have a profound impact on how this administration’s Iran policy is shaped and implemented.
While it’s fair to call both Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hawkish on Iran, their posturing on best practices for dealing with Tehran have always differed.
Bolton favored the ever-present threat of military action against the Islamic republic and has often openly advocated for it, including the episode in June when Trump approved military strikes in response to the downing of a U.S. drone, which he abruptly aborted when he learned the projected casualties.
Bolton, though, thought the attacks should proceed as planned. For decades he has been consistent in his contempt for the leaders in Iran — and other longtime adversaries — and not shy about the need to spill innocent blood sometimes to reach what he perceived to be U.S. strategic goals.
His absence also means that the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a reviled Iranian opposition group that long lived on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist groups, no longer has a powerful ally in the White House.
His absence also means that the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a reviled Iranian opposition group that long lived on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist groups, no longer has a powerful ally in the White House.
The now former national security adviser and U.S. to the United Nations was one of dozens of U.S. politicians, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, to accept large speaking fees in exchange for publicly advocating the organization as a viable replacement for the Islamic republic.
The MEK can claim no popular support, and among Iranians of nearly all political orientations, inside the country and in the diaspora, it was Bolton’s paid alliance with the cultlike group that made him such an odious character.
With the MEK suddenly nowhere in the conversation, ordinary Iranians who would prefer to see their government negotiate its way out of the sanctions that currently have a stranglehold on the country’s economy will be more inclined than ever to support such a process with U.S. leaders.
And those millions of Iranians who prefer a regime change can be more confident now that the United States has no serious plans to install the hated group if the Islamic republic were ever toppled.
Bolton’s Plans For A False Flag Op Involving MEK Are Already Underway
Either way, when it comes to Iran, the Trump administration’s hands are no longer tied by Bolton, an ideologue who views diplomacy as a weakness rather than a tool.
The shake-up creates the first real opportunity for Trump to pursue a policy of engaging Iran, which both he and Pompeo have publicly advocated for since this administration’s decision to exit the 2015 nuclear accord with the Islamic republic.
Bolton assumed duties as the national security adviser in April 2018, a month before Trump pulled out of the deal. Although Trump threatened to do so long before he took office, the timing probably pleased Bolton, as he loved to be seen as tough on Iran.
It was yet another reason Bolton’s mere presence in the administration — and at such a high level — made talks between the Trump administration and Tehran all but impossible.
Trump and Pompeo must now make a clear choice and stick with it: actively pursue a new deal with Iran’s leadership as Trump has promised to do since he was a candidate, or continue with the disingenuous charade that is their “maximum pressure” campaign, a policy that has only had the discernible effect of making the lives of average Iranians more miserable.
Trump and Pompeo have time and again put the possibility of new talks, without preconditions, on the table. Now they can prove it. Bolton’s departure, two weeks before the annual United Nations General Assembly session, puts the ball squarely in Tehran’s court.
If President Hassan Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, refuse the offer to meet with their U.S. counterparts while in New York, it is they who will suddenly appear to be the unreasonable party.
The only thing that can be said for Bolton’s position on Iran was that it was clear, but he was a liability from the moment he joined this administration. The ways in which his ouster might change the direction of Trump’s Iran policy will prove it.
End
MEK advocate John Bolton fired
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sponsors MKO terrorists
Also read:
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/nobody-can-be-comfortable-with-regime-change-involving-mek/
Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK
Massoud Khodabandeh, Lobe Log, August 23 2019:… So, when Giuliani says we should be “comfortable” with this group, right-minded people the world over can honestly and unequivocally answer, “No, we are not comfortable ignoring this harsh reality just because the MEK amplifies an anti-Iran message to the world, and no, we don’t believe the MEK have any kind of future in Iran”. Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK
The MEK’s man inside the White House (Maryam Rajavi cult, Mojahedin Khalq)
Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK
By: Massoud and Anne Khodabandeh (Middle East Strategy Conslultants)
Leaked photo of MEK’s Albanian headquarters
In 2017, John Bolton promised the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK)—wrongly, it turned out—that they would be celebrating in Tehran before the Iranian Revolution’s 40th anniversary in February 2019. This July, at the MEK’s five-day conference in Albania, keynote speaker Rudy Giuliani still insisted the MEK is a “government in exile” and claimed the MEK is “a group that should make us comfortable having regime change”.
For context, promoting a group which is universally despised by Iranians inside and outside the country as traitors already stretches credulity. There is no evidence that Iranians are calling for severe sanctions against themselves. Nor are they calling for regime change. The MEK’s only audience in this respect are a warmongering cabal of Americans, Saudis, Israelis, and British, who like to hear what they want to hear. The rest of the world just isn’t that comfortable with this bizarre, terrorist cult.
Lately, even Europe has distanced itself from lending succour to the group. The MEK no longer has free access to the European Parliament where its activists would harass the MEPs and their staff. This year the MEK was barred from holding its annual Villepinte rally in France and was also banned from rallying by Germany. As a result of this, MEK leader Maryam Rajavi has decamped from Paris to Albania and the MEK announced that Albania is the group’s new headquarters.
The move from Iraq to Albania ought to have allowed unprecedented access to Western journalists keen to investigate the honey pot around which the anti-Iran cabal buzz with excitement. They were soon disappointed, as the MEK built a de facto extra-territorial enclave in Manëz and posted armed guards to keep out unwanted attention. But although the group were physically hidden from view, they were very exposed through their cyber activities.
Although it had been known for some time that the MEK operates a click farm from Albania, it was Murteza Hussain in The Intercept who revealed how the MEK uses fake social media accounts to curate a false narrative about Iran to influence US policy. The Heshmat Alavi scandal focused media attention on what is really happening inside the MEK behind the slickly marketed brand image that Giuliani so admires. This endeavour to scrutinise the MEK has been aided by a series of photographs which were leaked from inside the MEK’s camp in Albania and published in Iran. The photos are very revealing, but in ways that the MEK probably didn’t intend or realise when they were taken. Since the MEK so zealously hides its inner world from public scrutiny, these photos offer us an unguarded glimpse into the operational and organisational life of the cult.
The fact that the photos were taken at all is significant. At first glance they could be showing a session for seniors at the local library or community centre. But we see the women are wearing military uniforms and the men are all wearing similar shirts. Some are wearing ties. This is something the MEK don’t ever do unless in a public facing role. This indicates the images have been deliberately staged for a particular external audience. Certainly they were not meant for internal consumption, but neither is this for the wider public or else they would be on the MEK’s own websites. Based on information about the MEK already in the public domain, we can assume these photos were commissioned by Maryam Rajavi as a marketing ploy to ‘sell’ the MEK brand to financiers and backers.
Leaked photos showing MEK members at work
There is clearly a deliberate effort to show that the MEK are “professional” workers in this computer room. Everyone is posed looking intently at a screen. Nobody is “off duty” in the pictures; yawning, stretching, drinking coffee, the normal activities of any workers. There is no evidence of relaxed, friendly chat between co-workers, everyone looks very serious. There are no cups of coffee or snacks on the desks. No pictures of family, husbands, wives, children, pets even. No plants or flowers. In spite of the rows of desks being squashed together closely, everyone looks very isolated.
There might be nothing wrong with that. After all, employers want to see their workers busy. But organisational photographs are also about marketing a brand, which includes marketing the core values of an entity. A group which claims, as the MEK does, that it is funded by public donations to struggle for democracy and human rights would surely want to create an image in the mind of the public about transparency, effectiveness, and positivity. By way of contrast, see how Human Rights Watch advertises its work culture. Even a quick Google image search on ‘call center worker’ reveals pictures of relaxed and smiling workers rather than people who look like battery hens. This is not the image any normal company or government office would use to promote their workplace.
In the MEK’s advertising photos the workers are gender segregated. Men sit in one room, women in another. The women all wear hijab. There is no pluralism here. The use of garden chairs and workers using glasses unsuited to screen work reveals that this management doesn’t care at all about the safety, comfort or wellbeing of the workers. They are using a mixture of outdated monitors and laptops. The cables are frayed and tangled.
There is no indication that the workers are happy at their workstations or enjoying their work. Why would they be with the picture of their leader bearing down on them, as in all dictatorships, lest they forget why they are there and who is in charge? (The picture of a solitary Maryam Rajavi is a clear acknowledgement that her husband Massoud Rajavi is dead.)
The MEK’s cultic system means that decisions are imposed from the top down. This means that those decisions are only as intelligent as the leadership. What Rajavi doesn’t understand is that these photos show beyond any words that the MEK doesn’t share our values. The leader is selling unthinking, unquestioning, obedient slaves, people who won’t act or speak unless ordered to do so. And that would only be ordered if it were productive for the MEK, regardless of the needs or desires of the worker.
What these images portray are conditions of modern slavery. These are elderly people who are unable to escape this cult and are coerced into performing work for which they receive no recompense. They exist on cruelly basic accommodation and sustenance, whereby even asking for new underwear puts the petitioner under question about their loyalty to the leader and the cause. They cannot leave because in Albania they have nowhere to go, no identity documents or work permits, no money, and they do not speak the local language. And also because the Trump administration wants the MEK to be there.
So, when Giuliani says we should be “comfortable” with this group, right-minded people the world over can honestly and unequivocally answer, “No, we are not comfortable ignoring this harsh reality just because the MEK amplifies an anti-Iran message to the world, and no, we don’t believe the MEK have any kind of future in Iran”.
(End)
Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK
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The Many Faces of the MEK, Explained By Its Former Top Spy Massoud Khodabandeh
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Also read:
Professor Tim Anderson, Balkans Post, August 19 2019:… Yes it is quite possible that Albania will de destabilized by U.S. proxies the MEK, and also by DAESH members. Between 2013 and 2016 Washington moved the 2,900 Camp Ashraf MEK members to Albania, where they had also moved some former DAESH/ISIS fighters (Spahiu 2018; Khodabandeh and Khodabandeh 2018). The U.S. and… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Jonathan Harounoff, Haaretz, August 11 2019:… Massoud Khodabandeh, tells Haaretz in an email interview that the group was no longer the highly organized and influential student-led movement of the ’70s that opposed the shah. By the ’80s, Khodabandeh says, the MEK had evolved almost unrecognizably into a violent, anti-ayatollah and pro-Saddam guerrilla organization that had no clear objectives other than… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Giorgio Cafiero, Inside Arabia, August 05 2019:… The People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or Mujahedin-e Khalq ( MEK ), has a dark history of violence and acts of terrorism against American interests. Established in the 1960s, the Marxist-Islamist group killed members of the Shah’s security apparatus on the streets of Iranian cities. Anti-American to its core, the MEK quickly earned a… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Catherine Shakdam, Citizen truth, August 03 2019:… In an interview for Al Bawaba in 2018 Masoud Khodabandeh, a former high-ranking MKO/MEK official, shed light on Saudi Arabia’s financial support for the group, explaining how Riyadh regime has funneled, gold bars, cash and other valuables worth hundreds of millions of dollars through various third parties. Among other revelations, Khodabandeh described how after the… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Massoud Khodabandeh, Lobe Log, June 18 2019:… This is the tip of the iceberg. MEK interference in the internal affairs of America goes well beyond online attacks on Iran. In 2016, the Organization of Iranian American Communities in the US—a front for the MEK—announced a “General Elections Mobilization Effort,” publicly urging its members to “fulfill their civic duty through active… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept, June 10 2019:… Alavi’s articles also mixed criticisms of Iran and U.S. policy with overt advocacy for the MEK. His pieces in the Daily Caller, The Hill, and other outlets — though less numerous than his contributions to Forbes — employed a similar mix of advocacy against the Iranian regime and praise for the MEK. Though… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Dan Spinelli, Mother Jones, May 17 2019:… The MEK terrorists supported the Iranian Revolution and were cheerleaders for the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran, which led to the kidnapping of more than 50 American citizens for over a year, but ultimately broke with the ruling clerics and went into exile. The group is considered by some Iran experts to be a cult and, for more than… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Massoud Khodabandeh, Iranian.com, May 14 2019:… MEK operatives, brought from Albania, will be deployed to carry out false flag ops that can be blamed on Iran – such as a suicide attack. Albania is now home to the Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist cult (MEK) and John Bolton has long believed he can use the MEK to facilitate regime change in Iran. One of those ways is… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Massoud Khodabandeh, Lobe Log, May 03 2019:… Hillary Clinton did not take money from the MEK while it was listed as a terrorist entity. And taking the group off the U.S. terrorist list, though controversial at the time due to the MEK’s own well-funded pressure campaign, was not wrong, as it enabled the UNHCR to relocate the members to the safety of… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Massoud Khodabandeh, Iranian.com, April 19 2019:… Activities aimed at silencing these Iranian Canadians indicates that the above achievements have rattled the house of Saud and their paid MEK agents. It looks like the failure to drive a wedge between the Iranians and Europeans who insist on saving the nuclear deal against the will of Trump has angered Netanyahu and Mohammad Bin… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Massoud Khodabandeh, Middle East Strategy Consultants, April 14 2019:… In July 2018 I wrote an article for the Balkans Post titled ‘MEK rebrands by assassinating unwanted members’ in which I brought up the case of Mohammad Reza Kolahi Samadi as one of many examples in which the Mojahedin Khalq have got rid of an affiliated disaffected operative to 1- Cleanse themselves… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh, Lobe log, March 09 2019:… Hommerich reported that inside the camp in Albania, MEK militants were still practicing the deadly techniques for combat taught them by Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard—“cutting throats with a knife,” “breaking hands,” “removing eyes with fingers,” and “tearing the mouth open.” In 2017, the Trump administration reversed a 2013 plan by former Secretary… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Massoud Khodabandeh, Middle East Strategy Consultants, February 25 2019:… As the following articles show, the complex issue of ‘dealing’ with Iran cannot be solved by the Trump administration or the European Union using the defunct Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) to shake a stick at the country. Iran’s government and ruling system is proving far too sophisticated for this stupid ‘regime change’ narrative.… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Hamid Debashi, Aljazeera, February 11 2019:… The atrocities of the Islamic Republic over the past 40 years have created an expatriate opposition equally atrocious in its treacherous powermongering. The People’s Mojahedin Organisation (MEK), the monarchists, and their various incarnations have come together collectively to form and discredit the Iranian political opposition. These organisations are now actively collaborating with the US, Israel,… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Press TV, Interface, January 28 2019:… Terror and instability caused in the region by Israel and supporters of Daesh. Is Iran a victim of terrorism as it claims or are the US ruling party and Israel right to say Iran uses terror to achieve its goals? The guests in this episode of Interface are Mr. Massoud khodabandeh a former Peoples Mojahedin… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Ty Joplin, Albawaba, November 18 2018:… Khodabandeh admits that he had a difficult time reintegrating into society, as he struggled to rid himself of the constraints the MEK forces upon its members. He forbade himself from watching television, and did not know the extent of Iraq’s crimes against Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War. But Khodabandeh considers himself lucky; he was able… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Albawaba, Gateway – A podcast from the Middle East, November 15 2018:… I remember when I was a student in London, I used to send books to Iran with translation form English to Farsi. They were all books about psychology and books relevant to cults. After two and a half decades I realised that this is what he was doing. He… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh, Balkans Post, November 06 2018:… Please, make sure that the MEK leadership does not lose its mind and commit horrific acts in your country. Enforce the law and impose the authority of your government over the MEK cult and reassure the European public that Albania is a responsible country. Your reply to this letter will be that… Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK Trump wants to meet Iran s Rouhani. MEK advocate John Bolton fired
