MEK Delisting is a Gift to the Regime, a Disaster for the Iranian People and the U.S.

The delisting decision opens the door to Congressional funding of the MEK to conduct terrorist attacks in Iran, makes war with Iran far more likely, and will seriously damage Iran’s peaceful pro-democracy movement as well as America’s standing among ordinary Iranians.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jamal Abdi
Phone: 202-386-6325
Email: [email protected]

Washington, DC – The National Iranian American Council
(NIAC) deplores the decision to remove the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the
U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations.  The decision opens the door to Congressional funding of the MEK to conduct terrorist
attacks in Iran, makes war with Iran far more likely, and will seriously damage
Iran’s peaceful pro-democracy movement as well as America’s standing among
ordinary Iranians. 

“The biggest winner today is the Iranian regime, which
has claimed for a long time that the U.S. is out to destroy Iran and is the
enemy of the Iranian people. This decision will be portrayed as proof that the
U.S. is cozying up with a reviled terrorist group and will create greater
receptivity for that false argument,” said NIAC Policy Director Jamal Abdi. 

Members of Iran’s democratic opposition, Iran experts, human
rights defenders, and former U.S. officials have
warned that delisting the MEK “will have harmful consequences on the
legitimate, indigenous Iranian opposition.”  Kaleme, a leading
pro-democracy newspaper in Iran run by supporters of the opposition Green Movement,
has
warned that support for the MEK strengthens the Iranian regime. According
to the opposition paper, “there is no organization, no party and no cult more
infamous than the MEK amongst the Iranian nation.”

In addition, a recent
NBC News report raises serious questions about whether the MEK has
truly given up terrorism.  Citing senior U.S. officials, NBC reported that
the Mujahedin is behind the assassinations of Iranian scientists and that it
has previously worked with the mastermind of the first attack on the World
Trade Center in New York City.

“Given that U.S. officials have recently acknowledged
that the MEK is still conducting terrorism in Iran, where is the evidence MEK has
abandoned terrorism?” asked Abdi.  “The multi-million dollar lobbying
campaign undertaken by the MEK and its supporters seems to have paid off.”

Prominent former U.S. officials have been paid
up to $100,000 to speak on behalf of the MEK, as part of the lobbying
campaign aimed at pressuring the Obama administration to delist the
group. The activities, organized through a network of MEK-associated
organizations in the U.S. with no oversight of the funding sources, also
raise serious questions about the selective enforcement of anti-terror laws by
the U.S. government.

Supporters of the MEK have called
for using the group to conduct attacks in Iran and have
praised its use of violence.  

“Even though they have no support in Iran, the MEK will now
follow the playbook of Iraqi exiles like Ahmad Chalabi who pushed the U.S. into
war in an attempt to gain power,” said Abdi. “Congressional backers may also
try to fund and re-arm this group to carry out terrorist attacks in Iran, which
could also quickly escalate into war.”

However, the administration should be commended for successfully
relocating the residents of the MEK’s paramilitary base to Camp Liberty and thus
avoiding a humanitarian disaster. The Iraqi military had threatened to forcibly
close the camp, and the MEK leadership had hinted that it might order a
mass-suicide.

Nevertheless, a majority of the residents at Ashraf were prisoners,
held against their own wishes, according to RAND.
Measures must be taken now to ensure that this decision does not lead to
continued entrapment of the residents by the MEK cult and its leaders. This is
a critical humanitarian aspect of this issue that should not be neglected. 

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