Strange Bedfellows: Called a Terror Cult by Many, MEK Wins Friends in U.S. Because It Opposes Tehran »
By Iranpeyvand on Dec 1, 2006 in Articles, Wall Street Journal | 0 Comments
By ANDREW HIGGINS and JAY SOLOMON, The Wall Street Journal
November 29, 2006
Early this summer, as Washington fretted about Iran’s nuclear program, supporters of Mujahedin-e Khalq, an Iranian opposition group, held a rally in an auditorium two blocks from the White House. Prominent members of Congress addressed the crowd, as did the State Department’s recently retired ambassador-at-large for war crimes.
Maryam Rajavi, the dissident outfit’s leader, beamed in a stirring speech via satellite from France. Denouncing Iran’s clerical rulers and their nuclear ambitions, she proclaimed democracy “the answer to Islamic fundamentalism.”
Mujahedin-e Khalq, known as MEK, is Iran’s largest exile opposition group and, say its supporters, the best hope of bringing democracy to Iran. It reaches into Iran through its own satellite TV channel and claims an underground network of activists inside the Islamic republic. It also has a big presence in neighboring Iraq, where U.S. soldiers watch over more than 3,000 MEK members gathered in a sprawling camp north of Baghdad.
The MEK, however, has a big handicap: The U.S. government says it’s a terrorist organization. Officials cite its role in the murder of Americans in the 1970s and subsequent terror attacks that killed hundreds of Iranians. Another big blemish is the group’s long collaboration with Saddam Hussein. On top of all that, former members describe the MEK as a personality cult obsessed with celibacy and martyrdom.
So how does an outlaw organization with a bloodstained past, a history of intimacy with Iraq’s toppled despot and a reputation for oddness generate thunderous applause almost within earshot of the Oval Office?
Part of the answer lies in subterfuge: Mujahedin-e Khalq, which means People’s Holy Warriors, has a raft of support groups with innocuous names, such as the National Convention for a Democratic, Secular Republic in Iran, the host of the Washington event. These haven’t been banned and disavow violence.
