Terrorists blur into freedom
fighters By Brian M Downing
Tensions between Iran on the one hand and
the United States and Israel have eased
substantially since war loomed just a few weeks
ago.
Israeli politicians, generals and
security experts have openly expressed opposition
to attacking Iran. More recently, the hawkish
coalition in power has brought in the Kadima
party, a large moderate bloc whose leaders also
oppose such a strike. The P5+1 talks - which
include Britain, China, France, Russia, and the US
plus Germany - on Iran's nuclear program are
scheduled to begin in Baghdad next week in this
calmer atmosphere.
The Barack Obama
administration has refused to support Israel's
"red line" of continued uranium enrichment, which
would lead to
an Israeli attack. Obama
has presented a less restrictive red line of an
actual weapons program, which would lead to an
American attack.
Foreign powers should act
to nudge Iran into accepting the US red line,
which after all offers Tehran a victory of sorts
over Israeli demands and threats. Unfortunately,
neither the US nor the Sunni Gulf powers are
obliging and this could adversely affect impending
talks and political dynamics in Tehran as well.
The US recently deployed a number of F-22
fighters to an unnamed place in the region,
probably the al-Dafra air base in the United Arab
Emirates. These fighters have the latest stealth
technology but have never seen combat. Iran must
wonder how eager the US is to give their new
planes a proper evaluation.
Elsewhere in
the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are discussing
a political union, which would strengthen
anti-Shi'ite resolve and weaken the traditional
role of smaller Gulf states as balancers between
the Saudi and Iranian powers who threaten to upset
the neighborhood.
Perhaps the most
objectionable act from Tehran's view is the
delisting of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), which
may come soon. At present, the US has designated
the MEK a foreign terrorist organization, owing to
its long career in assassinations and bombings.
Back in the days of the shah in Iran, the
MEK attacked US military officers and defense
contractors in the name of Marxism and
anti-imperialism - prevailing creeds at the time.
Able to adapt to new ideas and circumstances, the
MEK fought the ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini regime
then offered its services to Saddam Hussein in
Iraq, who gave them a home and a steady income. He
also gave them steady work inside Iran during the
murderous 1980-1988 war.
Following
Saddam's ouster (2003), Iran offered the US an
exchange of al-Qaeda figures for MEK counterparts.
It was all part of a wide-ranging diplomatic
overture from Tehran that also put its nuclear
program on the table. The State Department found
the overture promising, but neo-conservatives in
the White House rejected it out of hand - a blunt
rejection that shapes Iran's approach to dealing
with the US to this day.
In recent weeks,
millions of Americans have seen a welter of
advertisements decrying the injustice of branding
the MEK a terrorist organization. The ads are
especially prominent on CNN, which has also
allowed at least one anchor to repeatedly shade
his otherwise reputable reporting in a manner
supportive of attacking Iranian nuclear sites. The
MEK ads present it as a democratic alternative to
the mullahs in Tehran and as the victims of an
unfortunate error in the State Department.
The media effort has been accompanied by
supportive words from various retired generals and
politicians, often made at prestigious social
gatherings. Speakers are paid, often handsomely,
though it isn't clear by whom.
A clue may
lie in the MEK's current work. Its long career has
brought them into the service of the Israel's
Mossad, which uses them to carry out its bombing
and assassination campaigns against Iranian
nuclear scientists. This in turn has jeopardized
the MEK's base camp in Iraq, which is more
sympathetic to Iran than to Israel or the US - a
point made in the ads.
The rehabilitated
view of the MEK is not shared by Human Rights
Watch or by independent Iranian exile groups. The
latter persist in seeing it as a terrorist group
and even as an obstacle to positive change in
Iran. The leadership in Iran makes judgments in
the context of their political culture, which has
been formed by British and Russian occupation, the
Anglo-American coup of 1953 and Iraq's invasion
that killed 800,000 Iranians.
The
MEK-Mossad campaign fits neatly into the contours
of this culture - and strengthens it. Further, it
builds support between the regime and the Iranian
populace. Many of them yearn for reform, but
almost all of them share the regime's view of
abhorrent forces all around them.
The US's
delisting the MEK as a foreign terrorist
organization would weaken popular support for
reform as many Iranians will see reformists as
echoing the sentiments of menacing foreign powers.
Similarly, delisting the MEK would weaken
moderates in the ranks of the mullahs and the
state. Perhaps most significantly, it would
strengthen and embolden Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is eager to
effect its own political changes by replacing
vacillating mullahs with steadfast generals.
Delisting the MEK would call for
synchronization across the sprawling American
bureaucracy. The MEK's woeful designation is found
in the State Department, the Central Intelligence
Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
Justice Department, the Treasury Department,
Homeland Security and a dozen or more bureaus.
If one or more of them failed to delete
the MEK from its terrorism roll, it might give the
appearance of incoherence and even hypocrisy in US
foreign policy.
Brian M Downing
is a political/military analyst and author of
The Military Revolution and Political Change
and The Paths of Glory: War and Social
Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam.
He can be reached at
brianmdowning@gmail.com.
(Copyright
2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact us about sales,
syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
