After American forces leave Iraq at the end of 2011, Tehran will try to turn its neighbor into a satrapy (i.e., a province, a satellite state), to the great detriment of Western, moderate-Arab, and Israeli interests.
Intense Iranian efforts are already underway, with Tehran sponsoring militias in Iraq and sending its own forces into Iraqi border areas. Baghdad responds with weakness — with its chief of staff proposing a regional pact with Iran and top politicians ordering attacks on the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian dissident organization with 3,400 members resident in Camp Ashraf, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. The MEK issue reveals Iraqi subservience to Iran with special clarity. Note some recent developments:
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On April 7, the MEK released intelligence exposing Iran’s growing capacity to enrich uranium, a revelation the Iranian foreign minister quickly confirmed.
On April 8, even as U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates was visiting Iraq, the country’s armed forces attacked Ashraf. Fox News and CNN footage shows Iraqis in U.S.-supplied armored personnel carriers, Humvees, and bulldozers running down unarmed residents as sharpshooters shot at them, killing 34 people and injuring 325. The top-secret plan-to-attack order of the Iraqi military, “Iraqi Security Forces Operation Order No. 21, Year 2011,” reveals that Baghdad sees the Ashraf residents as “the enemy,” suggesting collusion between Baghdad and Tehran.
This incident took place despite fresh pledges by Baghdad to treat the Iranian dissidents humanely and to protect them. John Kerry, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, rightly described the attack as a “massacre,” while former governor of Vermont Howard Dean called the Iraqi prime minister a “mass murderer.” The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights “condemned” the attack, and the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) expressed “deep concern.”
On April 11, the adviser for military affairs to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “praised the Iraqi Army for its recent attack on the strongholds of [the MEK] and asked Baghdad to continue attacking the terrorist base until its destruction,” according to a news report.
On April 24, despite the United Nations’ insistence that “Camp Ashraf residents be protected from forcible deportation, expulsion or repatriation,” Baghdad and Tehran signed an extradition agreement that the state-controlled Iranian media interpret as a mechanism to transfer MEK members forcibly to Iran, where they anticipate a horrific fate.
Iraqi maltreatment of Iranian dissidents both raises humanitarian concerns and points to the MEK’s larger importance as a mechanism to thwart the U.S. goal of minimizing Tehran’s influence in Iraq.
That said, Washington — which granted “protected persons” status to the Ashraf residents in 2004 in exchange for their surrendering arms — bears partial responsibility for the attacks on Ashraf; in 1997, it threw a sop to Tehran and, contrary to both fact and law, wrongly listed (and continues to list) the MEK as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
I agree that Iraq is heavily influenced by Iran. Thanks, Chalabi.
The MEK is rightly designated a terrorist organization, though. They killed U.S. military advisors in Iran in the 1970s, and have planted bombs in Tehran more recently. Just because you do not like the government does not make a terrorist tactic less terrorist. The MEK have a weird Maoist/Islamic ideology and a cult of personality around the leaders, the husband and wife team of the Rajavis, which includes imposing celibacy on members. The MEK were allied with Saddam Hussein before 2003 and used in the suppression of the rebellion after the Gulf War in 1991, so the Iraqis hate them and want them out.
The problem is that because they are a fanatical cult with a history of violence, no country wants to take them. The best solution would be to send them to a place like Paraguay. In fact, the site of the "People's Temple" in Guyana is probably free, maybe the Rajavis could take Jim Jones's place there.
This is a superb commentary by an author with whom I usually don't agree; but he is so on the mark that I have to concede he got me this time. I just cannot imagine how in the world we are designating as terrorists the main Iranian opposition group that Tehran fears the most and has exposed most of the major nuclear sites of Iran? And do we expect results? A-Nejad and Khameini are now thanking the great Satan for hurting their opposition. I don't know what Hillary would do, but at times, she has surprised me with good decisions. I hope this would be one of them.
Please respectfully allow me to express my deepest appreciation and gratitude for your very timely, just and correct support for the freedom fighters heroes of Camp Ashraf reflecting in your factual, correct and effective article here. Much obliged Sir. I agree with all of your researched, checked by reality, and truthful recommendations. The 31 years tested, failed, unjustified, and wrong policy of appeasement towards the incapable, hypocrite, criminal, terrorist, illegal and atomic regime of dictator mullahs must stop NOW. The most practical, proven, and real way is to immediately support MEK, Ashraf, and the Iranian Resistance.
May God Bless You
Best Regards
Carlos Azad
San Diego
"The MEK has no political base inside Iran and no genuine support on the Iranian street because it was long based in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's patronage. It lost any semblance of credibility it might have had inside Iran due to its opposition to the Shah's regime when its troops fought on behalf of Iraq toward the end of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war."
They fought for Saddam Hussein against their own country? Sounds like a great group of guys!
Also, there are clearly no examples of US support of 'mujahedin' backfiring so we should probably start giving them money and weapons.
Up until about six weeks ago I was actually in Iraq, deployed at a location I'd rather not mention in this forum. I can tell you though this article is spot on. Iran for a very long time (going back well before OIF) has been working to influence events in Iraq for a variety of reasons. While there are a number of key differences between Iranian Shia and Iraqi Shia it will be interesting to see how both populations will influence one another and whether Iran's strategic goals will be realized - or whether they'll back fire in ways Tehran doesn't anticipate.
@Mark Adomanis: You're making the typical western mistake of presuming a) the alphabet soup of insurgent groups is neatly defined into organizational boxes that don't ebb, flow, and blur into one another and b) that the agendas of these groups are one dimensional.
This is clearly not a group that our government should allign themselves with. They are a terrorist organization with very radical views. Members of the MEK or also known as the Peoples Mujahideen of Iran, practice things such as self immolation, which is lighting themselves on fire. I have been to Camp Ashraf. On the outside it seems that they are a peaceful organization, however they are far from it. I feel that if they are given the opportunity, they will do most anything to get their radical views spread. Just because they are the enemy of our enemy does not make them our friend.
Daniel Pipes is one of the most distinguished Middle Eastern authorities, and in this seminal column replete with citations of statements facts on the ground, he has supplied us all with invaluable information regarding the Machiavellian designs of the Savages of Tehran in every corner of the region and beyond, detrimental to the strategic interests of the US for years to come.
Mr. Pipes' observations should be a good reading for the US policy-makers in general and the Department of State in particular, and his recommendation invaluable to be acted upon without delay, for our Faustian bargain with the barbaric regime in Tehran since 1997, has backfired and will most probably explode in our face, should we not make major adjustments to our policies toward the regime in Tehran.
The Savages of Tehran are no better, and perhaps much more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden and his outfit of nutcases who have wreaked havoc for the American way of life, economy, world commerce and two devastating wars, costing more than one hundred thousand lives and greater than a trillion or so dollars in treasure, that could have gone to the depression prone economy of the United States and the very unstable economies of Europe and Asia.
Now just imagine what could happen if the ideological progenitors of the deceased OBL and his backers are let loose to do what they please, by shackling their most intrepid opponents, the People’s Mujahidin Organization (PMOI) of Iran and the government in-exile of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), having offered more than 120,000 fallen to the cause of liberty for their people and for the entire region to co-exist in peace and prosperity?
So, very simply put, the US government must, without delay, respect the wishes of the three-judge panel of the DC Appeals Court, and after more than 8 months elapse of that ruling, take out the name of the PMOI from the infamous terrorist list, an action, that as MR. Pipes states, should not have been done in the first policy, were it not for the appeasement of the so-called reformist faction of the savage regime in 1997, and hope of some sort rapprochement with Iran.
The role of the EU with respect to Iraq is imperative to make an attempt to bring the Iraqi government to the fold of the civilized nations, and out of the fangs of the mullahs of the Middle Ages. The barbaric massacre of the PMOI members at Camp Ashraf will forever be black stain in the dark pages of the rule of al-Maliki government, and all those responsible for this Crime against Humanity should be brought to justice in a Nuremberg-style tribunal.
The role of the UN, as the author has indicated, is to utilize the UNAMI forces in conjunction with support from a contingent of US forces to protect the unarmed, innocent and “Protected Persons” of Camp Ashraf, so that this country may regain some of the credibility it has lost for her violations of its commitment to each and every one of the residents, and under international law, i.e. the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 45.
