Our New Iran Plan Is to Help a Cult Gain Power. What Could Go Wrong?

[zerozero]

Our New Iran Plan Is To Help A Cult Gain Power. What Could Go Wrong? | The New Republic

The MEK says it renounced the use of force in 2003, a claim that Hillary Clinton has now accepted. For its part, the Iraqi government sees the MEK not only as the enemies of its Iranian allies but also as a militia that was paid millions of dollars by Saddam Hussein to repress Kurdish and Shia rebellions. It has also complained that the MEK’s base in Iraq, Camp Ashraf, has become a no-go area: a state within a state.

Many in Iraq, and other dispassionate observers, such as the Rand Corporation, believe that MEK is also a cult. It is led in perpetuity by a married couple, Mariam and Masoud Rajavi, who require their most active members to divorce and get rid of their children. Former residents of Camp Ashraf who have left the MEK say that they were allowed just one phone call a year to talk to their children. The MEK claims the divorces are voluntary and enable members to focus more intensely on regime change. As for the children sent to pro-MEK foster families in Europe and North America, the MEK says it’s for their own good.

Aware of these bizarre practices and not trusting the renunciation of violence, some State Department officials argued against delisting. But the process was driven by a different concern: the fear that Iraq’s hostility to the MEK would result in a massacre and that Clinton would be blamed for having ignored all the warnings from pro-MEK lobbyists that a bloodbath was imminent.

The MEK enjoys remarkable levels of enthusiastic support in the U.S. Congress. There is a real prospect now that it will become the U.S.’s favored Iranian opposition group, attracting significant funding.

It’s an old story. The Afghan Mujahedeen and the Iraq National Congress both enjoyed American largesse. The MEK could well be next in line. Former members of the MEK who have experienced the Rajavis up close find the idea that they want democracy in Iran quite laughable. The Rajavis, they say, want power.

Many of the same U.S. officials, politicians and think tankers who once enthused about Ahmed Chalabi and Hamid Karzai are again confident that they can solve their foreign policy problems by backing a plausible alternative leader or, in this case, leadership team. Which is why the MEK’s ruling couple must feel that after decades of struggle and international isolation, the combination of the unfolding nuclear issue and the delisting takes them considerably closer to their dream of ruling Iran.

 

[Mr. Negative]

business as usual.

15 years from now, we'll be claiming they have Intercontinental Railguns and contraceptive bombs so we can go and take their lithium deposits.

 

[zerozero]

business as usual.

15 years from now, we'll be claiming they have Intercontinental Railguns and contraceptive bombs so we can go and take their lithium deposits.

I can't believe these dudes straight pay Howard Dean and Rudy Giuliani and their image in the US gets spun.
how the f..? "Rudy, take this money and go tell Congress we're okay?"

 

[Mr. Somebody]

Sponsoring demons to demonically upheave a nation for demonic purposes. Its so demonic, friends.