All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton, and now we're joined on the phone by Daniel Larrison.
He writes the blog, You Know-mia, at the American conservative magazine.
That's amconmag.com.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing, Daniel?
I'm doing just fine, Scott.
Thanks.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
Appreciate you joining us today.
And now, everybody, get a load of this.
You're not going to believe it, I don't think, unless you heard the show all week last week.
What is the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, and who in America supports it?
Well, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or what's also called the People's Mujahedin of Iran, is an anti-regime movement, a terrorist group, as listed on the State Department's Foreign Terrorist Organization list, that is intent on, or would at least like to try to overthrow the Iranian government, and has been trying to do so for some time.
It allied itself with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, and continued to be a reliable supporter of the Hussein regime during the 90s, and all the way up until the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
It's a strange sort of mixture of Marxist and Islamist beliefs focused around hostility towards both the Shah prior to 1979, and towards the Khomeinist regime in Tehran today.
It's a group that has been trying to rehabilitate itself and organize significant lobbying efforts in the United States, as well as in Europe, to get itself removed from various terrorist lists.
And it's had a remarkable amount of success in the last few years.
It's gathered tremendous bipartisan support from many prominent former national security officials and politicians, including but not limited to Rudy Giuliani, Howard Dean, as well as former Attorney General Michael McCasey, a former Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, and many others.
And all of them have been essentially conned, or they've been willing to believe this new line that the MEK is rehabilitating itself and turning itself into a democratic opposition movement.
Whereas in recent years, the State Department continued to list them as a terrorist group because they believe that they had the capacity and the intent to carry out terror attacks.
All right.
Now, there's a bunch of things to go over there, but I guess I want to start with, since you list so many powerful people, these generals, the former Attorney General, former Mayor Giuliani, Howard Dean, et cetera, who are supporting these guys, I'm going to go ahead and fall back on the conservative position as of 2002, early 2003, and the liberal position as of now, which is that they must know secret information that we don't know that justifies they're taking this impossible stand that we otherwise can't understand.
I suppose it's possible, although one of the excuses I've seen made in defense of this advocacy for the MEK is that top-level national security officials supposedly don't know very much about the group and have simply approached by it in more recent years to be won over by their new makeover as a democratic movement, or so-called democratic movement.
My guess is that they don't know anything that we don't know.
They simply are taking the opportunity of the MEK's current state of disarmament in Iraq and the situation surrounding Cap Ashraf in Iraq to make hay out of this issue as a way of trying to build support for a group that they see as a useful proxy or a useful weapon against the Iranian government.
So I don't think this is a question of having different sets of information, they simply choose not to consider the MEK's past, and they want to use it in the future, or they're at least interested in helping the MEK become a more viable organization so that it will be an instrument to be used against the Iranian government.
Well, now I actually had this earlier on the show, I was ranting about General Peter Pace, but now I'm looking at your blog again, it was General Jones, Jim Jones, Obama's former Marine Corps General and then Obama's National Security Advisor, who, as you point out on your blog, when asked by the New York Times reporter Elizabeth Rubin about dissenting views of the Mujahideen cult, seeing them as a totalitarian cult, he said, this is the first time I've heard anything about this.
And for some reason that rang really true to me.
You too, huh?
It did.
I mean, unfortunately it did, because it's not very reassuring that someone who was a National Security Advisor doesn't know that much about a group that was under U.S. supervision in Iraq since the invasion, and which continues to actively seek removal from the terrorist list.
But yes, it did strike me as a true explanation of why he was willing to lend his support to such a group, because I think especially for a lot of the professional National Security officials who have been involved in this advocacy effort, if they fully understood what the group was that they were supporting, they would run away from it immediately.
But because it's been presented to them as a viable, popular, democratic movement that could aid in facilitating internal regime change within Iran through a sort of popular uprising, this is something that seems to combine the best of both worlds to them.
And I guess they're not too concerned to investigate further.
Right.
Yeah, in the Christian Science Monitor piece last week, Rudy Giuliani is quoted as saying, well, we've had an Arab Spring, let's have a Persian Summer.
Like it's that easy.
We'll just send in the MEK and do a regime change and it'll be great, I guess.
It doesn't sound like he's thought very hard about it at all.
Well, no, I don't think he has.
Another thing that complicates this picture is that the vast majority of Iranians loathe the MEK.
They want nothing to do with it.
The legitimate opposition in Iran regards them as traitors to their country, which in view of their support for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, they are, really.
And so the idea that all they would have to do is to show up and that the people would rally behind them is really nonsense.
And in fact, during the final stages of the Iran-Iraq War, the MEK was used to launch attacks into Iran, and the local Iranian response to their incursions was very hostile.
And furthermore, the Iranian people want no part of the sort of strange ideological brew that this group is offering.
While they may be talking about democracy and human rights today, they remain very much a, as you said, a totalitarian cult, or as Elizabeth Rubin said.
And they are effectively organized around a cult of personality in the hopes of installing their group's leader, Mariam Rajavi, as the next ruler of Iran, which is not something that the people combating the Iranian regime within Iran today want any more than they would want Ahmadinejad.
Well, now, I tend to think that John Bolton is pretty much wrong about anything concerning Iran, but I won't sell him short.
I tend to believe, and I guess I could be wrong, Daniel, that he at least knows what he's doing.
And I wonder, you know, forget, you know, know-nothings like Rudy Giuliani.
When it comes to the heart of the war party pushing support for the Mujahideen-i-Khalq like this, do you think it's because they want to marginalize the opposition, they want to make anybody opposed to the Ayatollah's rule seem as though they're just a bunch of CIA agents and no more credible than the MEK?
Because that seems to be the obvious effect here.
Well, it will be the effect.
I don't know that that would be what they're setting out to do, but my impression is that that's not really something that concerns them either.
Whatever happens to the legitimate Iranian opposition shouldn't interfere with policies of confrontation and ultimately trying to overthrow the government to the extent that the Iranian opposition doesn't represent that sort of revolutionary or regime-change movement, but instead represents an internal reform movement or civil rights movement, as some Iranians opposed, then it would be an attempt to the advantage of those who favor policies of confrontation who want to see the legitimate opposition and a more violent movement take its place.
Right.
All right.
Hold it right there.
Everybody, it's Daniel Larrison from the American Conservative Magazine.
The blog is Unomia.
We're talking about the Mujahideen-e-Khalq Commie Terror Cult.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Daniel Larrison about the Mujahideen-e-Khalq Communist Terrorist Cult of Iranian dissidents.
They used to work for the Ayatollah Khomeini, and then they worked for Saddam Hussein, and now apparently they work for the United States.
And this amazing group of extremely powerful people are pushing to have them removed from the State Department's terrorist list.
And I was wondering if you could confront one piece of propaganda I keep seeing in the comments section over at antiwar.com, Daniel, is that, well, the only reason they were ever on the terrorist list is because Bill Clinton was sucking up to the Iranians in the 1990s and was doing them a favor by putting them on the terrorist list when they never really belonged there in the first place.
What information does the State Department have about the MEK, and is it really fair that they're put on that list in the first place?
Well, to address that question first, yes, it's absolutely fair that this is a group that not only during its time of opposition to the Shah killed several Americans working in Iran and targeted the Shah's government with terrorist attacks, but they were also directly responsible for a number of attacks up until 2001 inside Iran, at which point they chose for, I think, their own reasons, for their own strategic reasons, to distance themselves in the wake of the 9-11 attacks from the practice of terrorism in their hopes of eventually rehabilitating themselves in the eyes of the U.S.
But certainly, as recently as 2004, a report by the FBI implicated them in preparations for terrorist attacks, and as recently as 2007 that I'm aware of, and it may be even more recent than that if I'm mistaken about that, that they were identified as still continuing to have the capacity and intent to carry out terrorist attacks.
As Rayta Kay testified before Congress over the summer this year, the movement is heavily steeped in an ideology of violent struggle.
This is an armed revolutionary movement that believes in the legitimacy of terrorist tactics to achieve their goals.
So the fact that they have, for their own political reasons, chosen to distance themselves from that for the moment doesn't fundamentally change what the group is, and it doesn't eliminate the basic threat coming from them, not only to, obviously, the Iranian government, but to anyone that they view as an enemy.
And it's worth adding that when they were part of Saddam Hussein's regime, when they were working for him, they were also instrumental in the brutal suppression of the Shia uprising in the wake of the Gulf War.
So this is a really quite monstrous group in terms of what it's done over the decades.
And really, a better way to understand their presence on the foreign terrorist organization list is that they were finally added after having been incorrectly left off for all that time out of deference to the Iraqi regime, which had been their sponsors for all that time.
It was in deference to Saddam Hussein that they were never added to the list in the first place, rather than it was a favor to the Iranians when they finally were added in the mid-1990s.
I would say that's a lot closer to the truth, yes.
Very interesting.
Now, what in the world could Karl Marx possibly have to do with something called the Mujahedin anything?
Well, I think in the case of the name, they were mainly a left-wing radical group.
Their ideology was much more heavily Marxist and radical left in orientation.
But because they were operating in a context of a very religious society and were themselves members of that society, they were drawing on themes within Shi'ism on the revolution and struggle against tyranny, that they blended some of the elements of violent struggle from Islamic teachings or from the history of Islam, I should say, with the idea of armed struggle coming out of modern communism.
So essentially, they were looking to find those aspects of both Islam and left-wing politics that lent themselves to violent armed conflict against the government at the time, which was, of course, the Shahs.
Hmm.
So sort of a Leninist revolutionary take on, you know, a typical party of God type group.
Yes, and I'd say that they definitely have started to emphasize the secular or left-wing side of their identity more, especially as they've been trying to win support outside of Iran in the last decade.
But it's certainly not wrong to say that these are people influenced by a kind of radical Islamism as well.
Although, you know, I kind of wonder whether Mairam Rajavi has replaced Muhammad as their spiritual deity.
Well, I mean, in terms of their practical lives, Mariam Rajavi or Masoud and Mariam Rajavi together represent the, yes, the center of the organization and the focus of all their devotion.
And so in that way, I suppose most Islamists would regard them as sort of apostates or not being very good Muslims in that they are really idolizing these two cult figures as the center of their organization.
All right.
Now, there was a thing in the Financial Times you blogged about as well here at the American Conservative Magazine website, mconmag.com, about, well, it was a letter urging the State Department and the president to not delist the MEK.
And it was signed by virtually every Iran expert in America who's not a member of the Mujahideen I guess.
And I wonder, though, what are they so upset about?
What's got you so riled up that you've written so many blog entries about the MEK?
What is it that'll happen if they're delisted?
That's so bad.
Well, I think the one thing, the delisting a terrorist group under active political pressure from that terrorist group is generally a bad thing for the government to do and certainly opens the door to other lobbying efforts by other groups that aren't as well known to the American public.
For another thing, it's simply not the case that this group has ceased to be a terrorist threat to Iran and potentially to anyone who gets in their way.
So I think the listing that they have as a terrorist group is an appropriate one.
And it's simply a matter of blind anti-Tehran bias or anti-regime hostility that's driving people to make this very serious mistake in associating themselves with what is still, in every meaningful sense, a terrorist group.
I think in the case of the people who are writing that letter, the letter that was published in the Financial Times, they are also very much concerned about the impact that it will have on U.S.
-Iranian relations, but particularly, obviously, the perception of America in Iran among the general population.
One of the common false claims that advocates for the MEK make is that this group is the main opposition group or the most important or the most organized opposition group to the Iranian government, when in fact their support within Iran is essentially nil.
And so it's this pose of being on the side of the Iranian people when in fact it will deepen antagonism against America within Iran and lend greater support from the population for the Iranian regime that I personally fear will stoke tensions between the U.S. and Iran and could lead to moves on both sides that would lead to some sort of confrontation or conflict.
And so I see it as a mistake in that way, as well for being something that's going to greatly escalate tensions, worsen tensions, and potentially lead to yet another war in that part of the world, which of course the United States doesn't need, shouldn't be seeking, and obviously can't afford.
Well, you know, I have trouble, and I'm sorry to ask you to read people's minds or just speculate here, but I wonder, you know, if you have any opinion about what the war party thinks they're going to do with these guys.
I mean, it's not 2002.
They're not going to be able to just march right in there like it's Iraq and try to put their new Ahmed Chalabi's in or something like that.
As you say, the MEK has less than no support in Iran.
The people of Iran want to throw them in the sea.
What do they think they're doing with these guys?
My guess is, I mean, to the extent that we can figure out what they're trying to do, my guess is that they're hoping to use them as a way of destabilizing the government in the way that the Bush administration fluted with the idea of using ethnic separative groups to destabilize Iran from within during the Bush presidency.
And what I am worried about is that by making the MEK a legal, viable organization in the United States, that will make it easier for those Americans interested in stoking that kind of policy or promoting that kind of policy to cooperate and collude with this group with the goal of engaging in sabotage, terrorism, other efforts within Iran to try to breed instability.
Yeah, the Mad Max approach is what former CIA agent Robert Baer called it.
They don't even know who they're funding.
Just go in there and try to fund anybody that they think can disrupt something.
Cy Hirsch said it would be like if a foreign power came to America and decided that they were going to try to finance and buy up the Southern movement to, you know, a pro-Confederate flag movement or something, as though, you know, those people could be used to overthrow the government of the United States when they're the most patriotic Americans of all.
It would be, we're going in there blind.
We don't even know who we're backing in there other than just trying to cause trouble.
No, I'd say that's right.
I mean, there's this constant search for some sort of weapon inside Iran to direct against the government.
And indeed, once the Green movement ceased to be as strong a movement, or once it appeared to be a non-revolutionary movement, all of the hawkish interest in that movement died away.
We used to hear about the Green movement all the time.
Now there's very little interest in it, I think, because people began to realize that the Green movement wasn't going to play according to the rules that their would-be supporters wanted.
All right, everybody, that's Daniel Larrison.
His blog is called Unomia.
It's at amconmag.com, the American conservative magazine.
Thanks so much for your time on the show.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks very much, Scott.
