By Jacob Laksin
As Iran’s ruling regime sets about viciously crushing the protests on the streets of Tehran, vowing a “revolutionary confrontation” to silence those who dare to oppose what mounting evidence suggests was a stolen election, it’s tempting to search for an opposition that will respond in kind to the government-sponsored terror. For nearly 30 years that role has been filled by the Mujahedeen-e Khalaq (MEK), also known as the “People’s Mujahedeen,” the Marxist-Islamist militant group that has fought the Mullahs since the 1979 revolution that swept them to power.
In that time, the MEK and its political front, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has cultivated a reputation as the “largest opposition movement against the Iranian regime.” Calling for the overthrow of “the mullahs’ inhuman regime,” the MEK advocates civil liberties, political and religious pluralism, free markets and free elections – in short, everything that the Iran’s theocratic regime stands against. This public relations strategy has borne fruit, and the MEK has been able to convince many in the West – from analysts like Daniel Pipes, to politicians like Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo – that it represents the best option for democratic regime change in Iran. Now, with the regime best by a popular uprising, there are calls once again for the United States to increase its support for the MEK, first of all by removing its name from the State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations – a designation that Daniel Pipes calls “preposterous” in the case of the MEK. Read more ...
As Iran’s ruling regime sets about viciously crushing the protests on the streets of Tehran, vowing a “revolutionary confrontation” to silence those who dare to oppose what mounting evidence suggests was a stolen election, it’s tempting to search for an opposition that will respond in kind to the government-sponsored terror. For nearly 30 years that role has been filled by the Mujahedeen-e Khalaq (MEK), also known as the “People’s Mujahedeen,” the Marxist-Islamist militant group that has fought the Mullahs since the 1979 revolution that swept them to power.
In that time, the MEK and its political front, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has cultivated a reputation as the “largest opposition movement against the Iranian regime.” Calling for the overthrow of “the mullahs’ inhuman regime,” the MEK advocates civil liberties, political and religious pluralism, free markets and free elections – in short, everything that the Iran’s theocratic regime stands against. This public relations strategy has borne fruit, and the MEK has been able to convince many in the West – from analysts like Daniel Pipes, to politicians like Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo – that it represents the best option for democratic regime change in Iran. Now, with the regime best by a popular uprising, there are calls once again for the United States to increase its support for the MEK, first of all by removing its name from the State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations – a designation that Daniel Pipes calls “preposterous” in the case of the MEK. Read more ...
Source: FPM
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