MEK\u2019s history is of violent confrontations, exile, and robust international public relations and lobbying. Its front organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), seeks to pasteurize its terrorist origins and position it as a legitimate player in the broader Iranian landscape.<\/p>\n
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The flag of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) is pictured at a demonstration at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, near the UN headquarters during the visit of Iran’s then-president Ebrahim Raisi in New York City, US, September 19, 2023. (credit: BING GUAN\/REUTERS)<\/p>\n
MEK and NCRI are one and the same. It\u2019s a hand-in-glove relationship. Rather than a legitimate opposition, they represent a disgruntled and isolated \u2013 and very well-funded \u2013 terrorist group. They are nothing more than wolves in different wolves\u2019 clothes. Sadly, there are many Western leaders who are in their pockets, literally, and others like their \u201cagent\u201d who are on the payroll.<\/p>\n
When one speaks of the red-green alliance, the MEK\/NCRI is the embodiment of that. They blend radical Islam with Marxist revolutionary ideology. MEK always emphasized armed struggle against oppression to achieve its goals. Massoud Rajavi joined in the late 1960s and rose to the leadership after the Shah\u2019s regime executed the founders and other leaders.<\/p>\n
The MEK participated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, supporting Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.<\/a> It gained popularity for its anti-monarchy stance and organizational strength, but it had a fallout with supreme leader Khomeini and, after being violently put down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard<\/a>, it turned to terror inside Iran, leading to a brutal crackdown against its members and supporters. Its leaders fled Iran to protect themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rajavi fled to Paris, establishing NCRI as part of its underground network. It relocated to Iraq in 1986, allying with Iraqi president Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. This, and participating in the killing of Iranians in order to carry out its terrorist goals, alienated many Iranians and fueled accusations of collaboration with arch-enemy Hussein. Still today, MEK is widely unpopular and viewed with hatred, as treasonous, by many Iranians.<\/p>\n Through the 1990s and early 2000s, MEK was designated as a terrorist organization by the US, the UK, the EU, and Canada. But after purportedly renouncing violence in the early 2000s, with no confirmed terrorist acts for which it took credit for over a decade, the West delisted it as a terror group.<\/p>\n Rebranding terror: Same ideology, new packaging<\/p>\n These decisions were driven largely by geopolitical considerations and challenges in relocating MEK members from Iraq to Albania. After all, nobody wants a terrorist group in their backyard, so a thick coat of whitewash, a slick PR campaign, and international declarations of \u201creform\u201d made it suddenly palatable. Today, MEK\/NCRI supporters worship Maryam Rajavi, Massoud\u2019s wife. Massoud has been missing for two decades and is presumed dead. They view her words as gospel, her 10-point plan for Iran as coming from Mount Sinai.<\/p>\n On the surface, they claim to support a plan for Iran rooted in secular democracy, gender equality, and non-nuclear policy. But follow Iranians in Iran and in the diaspora, and you\u2019ll more often than not find them deriding and delegitimizing MEK\/NCRI and Rajavi.<\/p>\n Further accusations of MEK\/NCRI being cultlike are echoed in the absolute uniformity of \u201cthought\u201d that they present, minimally as if they are reading from the same script, or in fact being brainwashed.<\/p>\n After a personal encounter that became a heated on-air debate with one of their speakers placed by the \u201cagent,\u201d I confronted their \u201cagent\u201d when I heard about him promoting them. \u201cI heard you\u2019re promoting NCRI. Is that correct?\u201d Usually, a publicist helps clients formulate the talking points. In this case, the \u201cagent\u201d has been indoctrinated by the client.<\/p>\n After he admitted it, he peddled that they are \u201cformer\u201d terrorists, as if singing a John Lennon anti-war song, insisting \u201cpeople change.\u201d<\/p>\n I had a prior relationship with the \u201cagent\u201d and challenged him, \u201cI remember exactly where I was when you called me to ask about them. Your take on who they are and what they represent is mistaken. They are misleading you and the world. You\u2019re being used. Shame that you are placing booking terrorists over integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n
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But more than actually renouncing terror, the reversal was the product of well-funded, intense lobbying, and a media smoke and mirrors scheme, such as that which their \u201cagent\u201d is involved in. It bears repeating that there are no known instances of Islamic terrorist groups truly renouncing their ideology or use of terror to achieve their goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n