US terror tactics in Iran
By Hooman Peimani
At the end of its military operation in April, the US military reached a ceasefire agreement with an Iraqi-based Iranian group, the Mujahideen-e Khalq Organization (MKO), a group declared by the US and British members of the "coalition of the willing" as terrorist. While the Americans described the agreement as a step toward the MKO's surrender, the group's backing by many members of the US Congress and its own claim of a rapprochement suggested a deal between the two sides.
Until the April agreement, designating a terrorist status to the MKO was the only common view of Tehran and the United States. In its efforts to normalize estranged US-Iranian ties, the Bill Clinton administration added the MKO to its list of terrorist organizations in the late 1990s. It also conducted an inquiry into the group's fundraising activities in the US. Notwithstanding these developments, the MKO, also operating under the name of the National Council of Resistance, has enjoyed the backing of many members of Congress. Viewing the MKO as an acceptable alternative to the current Iranian regime, on many occasions they have demanded the US government's support of the group to overthrow the Iranian regime.
While the US seems to have changed its policy toward the MKO, the European Union, which declared it a terrorist group last year, insists on its stance despite the MKO-US agreement. The official Iranian News agency, IRNA, reported Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign-policy chief Javier Solana, as stating on April 30, "For the EU, the MKO continues to be a terrorist group. There has been no change in the decision. This consideration continues to be the policy of the EU regardless of what has been going on in Iraq in recent weeks."
The MKO emerged as an underground anti-Shah-regime group in the early 1960s. Subscribing to Islam as its ideology, its political and economic views drew heavily from Marxism. Its advocacy for armed struggle resulted in bombing of government buildings and many assassinations of mainly low-level pro-government civilians and police and military personnel, as well as a few US military personnel stationed in Iran in the 1960s and the 1970s. The Iranian authorities' systematic crackdown of the group resulted in its paralysis. By the time of the 1979 Iranian revolution, most of its cadres had been killed, were imprisoned or lived abroad.
A few months prior to its collapse, the Shah regime's release of political prisoners and a significant relaxation of its authoritarian grip on society helped the MKO revitalize itself. After the 1979 revolution, the politicization of Iranian society and a growing dissatisfaction of Iranians with the Islamic regime helped the MKO mushroom rapidly as an opposition group.
In its effort to ascend to power, the MKO sided with Iranian president Abolhassan Banisadr, who, ironically, became critical of the Iranian regime. His sudden removal by the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1981 and a subsequent government crackdown on all major opposition groups was followed by the MKO's resort to arms to topple the regime. Its launching a campaign of assassination and bombing resulted in the deaths of many pro-government civilian and military/security personnel at different levels, including a president (Mohammad-Ali Rajaei) and a prime minister (Ali-Akbar Bahonar) and many high-ranking figures of the then ruling Islamic Republic Party. However, the MKO failed to destabilize the regime, which instituted a massive crackdown on its members and supporters. By 1983, it practically ceased to exist as a group inside Iran capable of posing a serious threat to the Iranian government.
Many MKO members, including its leaders, fled to Western countries in the early 1980s, only to reorganize their group in Iraq, a neighboring country at war with Iran, which opened its doors to the MKO rank and file. Seeking to weaken the Iranian regime to achieve its expansionist objectives, the Saddam Hussein regime armed the MKO and provided it with bases from where it launched many attacks on the Iranian military at war with Iraq. It also conducted many assassination and bombing operations inside Iran, mainly in neighboring provinces, during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88).
At the end of the war, the MKO became an Iraq-based group with a limited number of sympathizers among Iranians abroad and a small and ineffective underground organization inside Iran. Its cooperation with the Iraqi regime led to its complete loss of popular support inside Iran as the war left about 1.5 million Iranians dead and wounded and caused massive destruction of its oil and other industries, agriculture, and infrastructure estimated at about US$1 trillion. The Saddam regime used the MKO until its collapse to pressure Tehran as well as in the suppression of Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites who rose after the 1991 Gulf War, as confirmed by their respective political groups.
Like many other Iranian high-ranking officials, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned last month's agreement as a clear case of hypocrisy in the US war on terrorism. Citing the US government's declaration of the MKO as terrorist, he stated on April 30, "Now, America supports them. It shows terrorism is bad if terrorists are not America's servants. But if terrorists become America's servants, then they are not bad. It's a test, showing how America ridicules fighting terrorism and democracy."
In response to such remarks, on the same day the US State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, Cofer Black, rejected the characterization of the April agreement as a cooperation pact. "The US government does not negotiate with terrorists. The MKO's opposition to the Iranian government does not change the fact that they are a terrorist organization. We understand the agreement on the ground, in the field, is a prelude to the group's surrender. Commanders make tactical decisions in conflict with enemy combatants."
He added, "This is a pretty special group. They're a foreign terrorist organization. They are not well liked in Iraq. They could not be put with a general prisoner population. They are following the orders of the coalition commanders, and their situation will be addressed in the coming days and weeks."
Despite Black's denial, evidence suggests otherwise. In spite of its status as a terrorist group in the United States, the MKO operates freely in that country and holds an office in Washington. For more than a decade, many US politicians have backed the group. Last November, 150 members of Congress signed a petition urging the administration of President George W Bush to remove the MKO from its terrorist list.
The MKO representatives abroad claim that last month's agreement provides for their group to maintain its bases, fighters and weapons in Iraq and to continue its operation from Iraq to overthrow the Iranian regime. Its claim of fighting with Iranian "infiltrators" suggests its freedom of action in Iraq after reaching agreement. In its April 30 statement, the group claimed two clashes with Iran's Revolutionary Guard units allegedly crossing into Iraq during which two MKO fighters were wounded and three attackers were killed. No evidence has been provided so far to that effect and the Iranian government has denied the claim.
In the post-Saddam era, the US government's fear of Iran's capability to expand its influence in Iraq through pro-Iranian Iraqi Shi'ite groups capitalizing on the Iraq Shi'ites' politicization seems to have convinced it of the utility of the MKO. Although it is too weak and isolated to become an alternative to the Iranian regime, its Iraq-based fighters could be used to dissuade Tehran from backing the Iraqi Shi'ites. Washington's apparent intention of using the MKO to pressure the Iranian government demonstrates an expanding state of hostility toward Iran in the United States that could potentially lead to major conflicts of a political and military nature.
Dr Hooman Peimani works as an independent consultant with international organizations in Geneva and does research in international relations.
(©2003 Asia Times Online
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