JOHN BOLTON MEK TERRORISTS CAUSED TRUMP’S IRAN POLICY FAILURE

BY TRT World

Massoumeh Torfeh, TRT World, July 05 2019:… Bolton’s alleged favourite team, the former US-terrorist-listed organisation, MEK, has disappeared off the radar after its controversial gathering last June in Paris attended by Trump’s inner circle. Meanwhile, the regime-change idea uttered by the US National Security Advisor John Bolton, and the lavish communications plans funded by the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have all flopped.  Demonstrations inside Iran have died down, and a few small anti-Iran groups operating mainly from the US (or Albania) have fizzled out. John Bolton MEK Terrorists Caused Trump’s Iran Policy Failure 

MEK Impunity Undermining Democracy

John Bolton MEK Terrorists Caused Trump’s Iran Policy Failure

Trump has overplayed his hand with Iran

US President Donald Trump has taken several aggressive actions that Iran has all but absorbed. Now, he’s left with few options aside from a military strike, which he says he doesn’t want. So what now?

With three US warships operating in the Persian Gulf and a “maximum pressure” campaign in full force against the Iranian ruling elite,  including 1000 sanctions, US President Donald Trump has given Iran reasonable justification for returning to its uncooperative pre-2015 position.

It was President Trump, who in May 2018, violated the landmark nuclear deal –  by withdrawing from it — known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani warned the international community on Wednesday that Tehran would boost its uranium enrichment to “any amount that we want” after July 7.

Rouhani said Tehran would return to full compliance if all parties, including the United States, also complied. More steps are likely to follow.

President Trump has clearly overplayed his hand, leaving himself little room for exerting further pressure on Iran other than a military strike, which he has said he does not favour.

Rouhani, ridiculing Trump on Wednesday asked if there were any more sanctions or threats he’d like to impose or any more statements he wants to issue.

“Go ahead issue them now, why wait for later,” he said.

Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif claimed in a Tweet that Iran had acted entirely within the terms of JCPOA which specifies a party could “cease performing its commitments” in the event of “significant non-performance” by any of the other parties.

Trump, who has never offered a clear policy line on Iran — aside from his cabinet’s hawkish rhetoric of regime change — made a mistake ignoring Iran’s relative leniency in April when Zarif, spoke to Fox News tacitly asking the US president to drop his pressure campaign.

For months President Trump has been going on about talks but acting ever more aggressively and humiliating Iran with pressure and accusations, the latest being on the recent tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf. His American adversaries saw these as an excuse to attack Iran.

Take the nonsensical White House statement on July 2 blaming Iran for violating the terms of JCPOA “even before” it was agreed: “There is little doubt that even before the deal’s existence, Iran was violating its terms.”

It’s clear that Trump is trying to use the same strategy that brought him success as a real estate developer in the 90s.

“I will demand anything I can get,” said the younger Donald Trump in an interview with the Playboy Magazine describing how he used to win multi-billion dollar deals.

“When you’re doing business, you take people to the brink of breaking them without having them break, to the maximum point their heads can handle–without breaking them. That’s the sign of a good businessman,” he said.

He admits in that interview that the aim is to get a good deal and if he pushed too far that would’ve been a mistake. That seems to be the case with his handling of relations with Iran.

While sanctions are devastating the economy, Iran seems to have gradually adjusted to the pressure and found some accommodation with other JCPOA signatories over trade.

INSTEX is now available to all European Union member-states and will soon be open to economic operators in third countries. European signatories of the JCPOA have so far refrained from calling for the re-imposition of sanctions, which is now possible because of Iran’s non-compliance.

Meanwhile, the regime-change idea uttered by the US National Security Advisor John Bolton, and the lavish communications plans funded by the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have all flopped. 

Demonstrations inside Iran have died down, and a few small anti-Iran groups operating mainly from the US (or Albania) have fizzled out.

The former Shah’s son, Prince Reza Pahlavi who called for Iranians in the diaspora to unite around him and support regime change inside does not seem to have gained many supporters.

Bolton’s alleged favourite team, the former US-terrorist-listed organisation, MEK, has disappeared off the radar after its controversial gathering last June in Paris attended by Trump’s inner circle.

The event was broadcast live from an allegedly Saudi-funded Persian language television called Iran International and reported in full by the American funded Radio Farda.

Another group called “Fereshgard” mainly famous for its abusive language on social media has been vastly discredited.

While those groups never had a significant following inside Iran, the internal calls for reform have continued to pose the biggest concern for the Iranian regime.

Those calls were there before Trump came to power and will continue after his presidency too.

The damaging impact of President Trump’s miscalculation is that Iran now poses an even greater threat both at home and internationally. It may also opt out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Iran will probably never hold talks with the US, and we can expect a protracted stalemate.

Perhaps the EU and the UN as the guarantors of the JCPOA must shoulder some of the responsibility for failing to either deter President Trump from his aggressive approach or acting sooner to find mediators for talks between Iran and the US.

Dr. Massoumeh Torfeh is a Research Associate at the London School of Economics and Political Science specialising in Iran and Afghanistan. Formerly she was a BBC journalist and UN spokesperson and director of communication.

US-Iran: Inverted Reality, Real War. America’s Al Qaeda Mercenaries. Iran Is Fighting the Largest State Sponsor of Terror

BY TONY CARTALUCCI

In its march toward yet another war, the United States accuses Iran of using military force to establish itself as a “regional hegemon.” It accuses Iran of being the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. It accuses Iran of aiding rebels in Yemen, the government in Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

But what the United States leaves out about Iran is just as important as what it accuses Iran of.

Familiar Lies

For one, the Middle East already has a regional hegemon – the United States. Even the wildest accusations against Iran regarding state sponsored terrorism pale in comparison to Al Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) whose terrorism spans the globe, including standing armies operating in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan – several of which Iran itself is specifically fighting.

The US also supports terrorist organizations within Iran including the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). MEK enjoys the support of National Security Adviser John Bolton – who lobbied for them for years while they were listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department itself.

Thus, Iran finds itself involved in Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon precisely to stave off openly declared intentions by the US to include Iran next under its already expansive hegemony over the Middle East.

During Washington’s slow-motion blitzkrieg across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, now decades of lies have continued generating excuses, pretexts, and artificial threats to justify America’s unending wars and Washington’s march toward its next target – Iran.

Iran is Resisting Regional Hegemony 

The US invasion of Afghanistan along Iran’s eastern borders in 2001, then the US invasion of Iraq along Iran’s western borders in 2003 left the nation surrounded by US military forces. The invasions, followed by extended occupations were only two of the most extreme examples of Washington’s aggressive military encirclement of Iran itself.

US proxy wars against Libya, Syria, and Yemen also sought to eliminate political and military blocs allied to Tehran. Coupled with deliberate, crippling economic sanctions and a campaign of admitted and concerted political subversion aimed at Iran itself – the US has all but declared war against Iran.Iran finds itself on the US regime change “hit list,” dubbed the “Axis of Evil” by US President George Bush who presided over the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. On the list alongside Iran was Libya – now a divided and destroyed failed state after US military intervention there in 2011 – as well as Syria which still faces US-backed militants and a still-ongoing US military occupation of its territory.

Iran has been surrounded by an openly hostile United States and its allies for now nearly two decades. What the US characterizes as “Iranian aggression” is merely the rational steps any government surrounded by hostile forces would take to defend itself, its territory, and its people.

 

The Middle East is already subject to a regional hegemon – the United States – presided over by a government thousands of miles away. And if the US would be bold enough to presume dominion over an entire region of the planet so far from its own shores, it should come as no surprise that it would also shift responsibility for the disruptive consequences of its hegemony onto the nations still resisting it from within the region.

Iran is Fighting the Largest State Sponsor of Terror 

In a recent interview with The Epoch Times, US Congressman Van Taylor of Texas called Iran “the largest state sponsor of terror in the world.” He cites Iranian support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah as examples. It is a claim being repeated throughout America’s pro-war establishment.

However – it is not entirely true, and it omits mention of state sponsored terrorism that eclipses it even if it were.Groups like Hamas actually fought against Damascus and its Iranian allies during the recent conflict in Syria – calling into question claims of “Iranian state sponsorship” of Hamas.

Hezbollah – on the other hand – does enjoy close ties with Iran. But it also dedicated large amounts of resources and manpower – not creating terrorism across the Middle East – but fighting it – specifically in taking on ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.

It was Iran and Hezbollah who aided Syrian forces on the ground while Russia provided air support that began rolling back ISIS and Al Qaeda from 2015 onward.

ISIS and Al Qaeda – ironically – persist in Syria only in areas under the protection of US-NATO forces. This includes in Al Qaeda-held Idlib where the US has repeatedly warned Damascus and its allies not to retake under threat of military retaliation.

While US accusations against Iran regarding “state sponsorship of terror” remain nebulous, US intelligence agencies themselves have admitted the US and its allies’ role in the creation of terrorist organizations like ISIS.The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) – for example – as early as 2012 had noted (PDF) a Western and Persian Gulf-led conspiracy to create what it called at the time a “Salafist” [Islamic] “principality” [State] precisely in eastern Syria where ISIS would eventually find itself based.

The DIA document would explain (emphasis added):

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran). 

On clarifying who these supporting powers were, the DIA memo would state:

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

The US and its allies have also been shipping weapons and supplies to Al Qaeda’s other affiliates in Syria. Along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the US has provided thousands of tons of weapons to militants in Syria – while also conceding that Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra is the best armed, most well equipped militant front in the conflict.

Attempts to claim “moderate rebels” defected over to al-Nusra along with their US arms to explain the terrorist organization’s prominence doesn’t explain who was giving al-Nusra more arms and cash to attract such large-scale defections in the first place.The US has also been caught using Al Qaeda in Yemen to wage proxy war there. The Associated Press in an article titled, “AP Investigation: US allies, al-Qaida battle rebels in Yemen,” would report (emphasis added):

Again and again over the past two years, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States has claimed it won decisive victories that drove al-Qaida militants from their strongholds across Yemen and shattered their ability to attack the West. 

Here’s what the victors did not disclose: many of their conquests came without firing a shot.

That’s because the coalition cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself.

The US has also since been caught transferring weapons systems to Al Qaeda in Yemen.  CNN in its article, “Sold to an ally, lost to an enemy,” would admit (emphasis added):

Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have transferred American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the United States, a CNN investigation has found.

It is clear – by the US government’s and the US media’s own admissions – that the US is the “largest state sponsor of terror,” literally arming Al Qaeda across the region – then calling forces raised by nations like Iran “terrorists” for arraying themselves against them.

Then there is MEK – a US-backed terrorist organization previously listed as such by the US State Department itself – now openly hosted in Washington and spoken for by current US National Security Adviser John Bolton – who by no coincidence is also the leading voice advocating war with Iran. 

MEK was listed as a terrorist organization for a reason. It has carried out decades of brutal terrorist attacks, assassinations, and espionage against the Iranian government and its people, as well as targeting Americans including the attempted kidnapping of US Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II, the attempted assassination of USAF Brigadier General Harold Price, the successful assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Louis Lee Hawkins, the double assassinations of Colonel Paul Shaffer and Lieutenant Colonel Jack Turner, and the successful ambush and killing of American Rockwell International employees William Cottrell, Donald Smith, and Robert Krongard.

Admissions to the deaths of the Rockwell International employees can be found within a report written by former US State Department and Department of Defense official Lincoln Bloomfield Jr. on behalf of the lobbying firm Akin Gump in an attempt to dismiss concerns over MEK’s violent past and how it connects to its current campaign of armed terror. A similar narrative has now been predictably adopted by the Western media.To this day MEK terrorists have been carrying out attacks inside of Iran killing political opponents, attacking civilian targets, as well as carrying out the US-Israeli program of targeting and assassinating Iranian scientists.MEK is described by Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Ray Takeyh as a “cult-like organization” with “totalitarian tendencies.” While Takeyh fails to expand on what he meant by “cult-like” and “totalitarian,” an interview with US State Department-run Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty reported that a MEK Camp Ashraf escapee claimed the terrorist organization bans marriage, using radios, the Internet, and holds many members against their will with the threat of death if ever they are caught attempting to escape.

MEK was delisted by the US State Department as a foreign terrorist organization after extensive lobbying efforts – not because evidence indicated they no longer belonged on the list. They were delisted specifically to allow the US to more openly support MEK’s efforts to undermine and overthrow the Iranian government including through the use of continued violence. 

If Al Qaeda and MEK are the sort of “allies” the US has enlisted to confront “Iranian aggression” in the Middle East, how is Iran rather than Washington the true threat to regional or even global peace and stability?

Inverted Reality, Real March to War 

It is upon these feet of clay that the US builds its case against Iran – with catastrophes from Washington’s many other wars of aggression in the region still burning in the background.

Iran lacks the economic and military might to pose a real threat to the world even if it wanted to. It only poses a threat to distant nations closing in around it, seeking conflict with Iran, and domination over a region Iran itself is geographically located in.
Conversely, the United States still possesses the largest economy and military on Earth and has a demonstrated track record of falsely accusing nations of various provocations to initiate devastating wars of aggression.

The US – even if it does not resort to war – is imposing economic damage not only on Iran but on nations the world over who – without coincidence – do not perceive Tehran as a threat and do a considerable amount of trade with Iran.

US aggression toward Iran and its allies – even if total war does not break out – have demonstrably destroyed the region – from Syria to Yemen – miring even America’s own allies in protracted, costly wars and setting the entire region back decades in terms of economic and social development.

Were peace to break out in the Middle East tomorrow – nations like the US and its NATO allies would have the least to do with developing the region. That role would go instead to China who is already attempting to foster stability as a condition to extend its global infrastructure building spree into the Middle East.

Even in terms of selling weapons to Middle Eastern nations – Russia and China have competitive systems US allies are even now considering.

Thus chaos is the only environment in which US primacy over the region can continue to thrive – justifying military bases and the billions of dollars needed to build, occupy, supply, and expand them, justifying military interventions – direct and by proxy – pressuring governments to either join or defend against them, and justifying immense weapon sales to allies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to keep those interventions going.It is a multi-trillion dollar industry, and one only Washington is shameless enough to openly and continuously promote. There is no lie too big or disgraceful to keep America’s last major export of chaos profitable.

TONY CARTALUCCI

Tony Cartalucci is a geopolitical researcher and writer based in Bangkok, Thailand. His work aims at covering world events from a Southeast Asian perspective as well as promoting self-sufficiency as one of the keys to true freedom.

Are The MEK And Regime Change Finally Running Out Of Road?

MEK

by Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh

The “regime change in Iran” bandwagon—driven by warmongers, fueled by false prophesy, and hurtling pell-mell down the road to Iran—contains various characters, some new and some old.

The bandwagon itself is an ideological construct created 40 years ago in response to the Iranian Revolution. It has taken on various incarnations over the years, but its central purpose has always been to destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran and replace it with a compliant pro-American government. What that is hardly matters of course, as was the case with Iraq in 2003.

The drivers of this bandwagon are paid large sums to pursue this agenda at any cost. Others are mere passengers, hoping for a role after the vehicle reaches the destination. Among these passengers is the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), formerly a terrorist group and currently “democratic opposition.” The MEK has been a passenger for all 40 years of the journey, hanging on by paying the drivers. These drivers are public persons such as National Security Advisor John Bolton and Trump lawyer Rudi Giuliani, along with a host of other “influential” persons who steer the bandwagon inexorably toward conflict.

But just as the bandwagon appears to be gathering speed and momentum—enough to scare the Trump administration’s opponents—the MEK appears to be running out of road. And that could signal a halt to the whole enterprise.

The first sign of this came in a piece by Eli Clifton, which discussed the provenance of a large payment ($165,000) received by John Bolton in relation to a tweet to “defend a non-governmental anti-Iran pressure group, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI)…”. Clifton’s own tweet was met by a couple of feeble MEK slave troll posts on his thread spouting the usual “no appeasement” and “terrorist Iran” themes. This indicates that the MEK has been outbid by a new bandwagon passenger UANI, since the MEK only managed $40,000 for one of Bolton’s speeches. Also, the MEK trolls are running out of steam back in their closed camp in Albania.

Even while Bolton and the Trump administration, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are pushing for a war with Iran, they are beginning to realize that the MEK is not the stick needed to strike fear into the enemy. Indeed, a look at the recent behaviour of the MEK in Albania reveals a failing group beset by internal crisis.

After a series of critical investigative articles by reporters from Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The Independent, Channel 4 News, NBC, and others, the recent report in Der Spiegel by Luisa Hommerich was apparently the last straw. The MEK issued a Farsi language statement (written and published in Europe) threatening to assassinate her—for just doing her job.

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 of State Hillary Clinton to establish a De-Radicalisation Institute to disband and rehabilitate the MEK, allowing the dangerous cult to regroup behind closed doors in a de facto extra-territorial enclave and continue its violent practices.

In spite of this boost, the MEK, beset by exposures and defections, is trying to prevent the total collapse of the group. Around a thousand members have left the group since it relocated to Albania. The front line over which the MEK peers at its enemy, the Islamic Republic, is no longer Iraq but is now represented by a group of 40 former members protesting in Tirana. The MEK claim that these are all “agents of the Iranian regime” who want to kill the remaining cult members. So, instead of orchestrating regime change in Iran, the MEK can’t even deal with 40 destitute former members.

The MEK is engaged in a form of modern slavery by not paying thousands of activists for 30 years or more. Members who leave the group are left destitute because they have nothing but the clothes on their back even after decades of loyal service. The MEK claims that members offer their services as “volunteers.” But the preamble to the UN Declaration of Human Rights states in its opening sentence that human rights are inalienable—that is, they cannot be disowned by anyone for any reason. MEK leader Maryam Rajavi is responsible for such decisions and treatment.

Not only are the defectors that Hommerich profiles impoverished because they have not had financial recompense for their years of devotion, they are also deliberately left stateless. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees brought the MEK to Albania from Iraq on “humanitarian grounds.” But on arrival they were not granted UN refugee status, nor have they been issued Albanian identity documents that would allow them to work or travel. Lack of residency rights also means that they cannot register for a bank account. They have no identity papers whatsoever, except the flimsy piece of paper used to fly them through international airspace from Baghdad to Tirana.

In her pursuit of fame and glory, Maryam Rajavi treats her members as, essentially, cannon fodder. In the idealized future she paints for the members, they will one day march on Tehran, the vanguard of a spontaneous uprising of the Iranian people against their Islamic oppressors, the mullahs. Why would they need money or identity papers?

In the meantime, it suits Rajavi to have her “followers” incarcerated in a closed camp unable to live independent lives, subject to the whims and demands of the struggle that she purports to lead. But that struggle has almost evaporated. Sure, the MEK is still performing propaganda tasks for various Saudis, Israelis, and Americans to advance the anti-Iran push. But even that is becoming more and more irrelevant as the MEK itself begins to fail.

Massoud Khodabandeh is the director of Middle East Strategy Consultants and has worked long-term with the authorities in Iraq to bring about a peaceful solution to the impasse at Camp Liberty and help rescue other victims of the Mojahedin-e Khalq cult. Among other publications, he co-authored the book “The Life of Camp Ashraf: Victims of Many Masters” with his wife Anne Singleton. They also published an academic paper on the MEK’s use of the Internet. Anne Khodabandeh is a UK expert in anti-terrorist activities and a long-standing activist in the field of deradicalization of extremists. She has written several articles and books on this subject, along with her husband, who is of Iranian origin.