Middle East Focus: Rightwing Persian Pipe Dreams: Iranian Chiang Kai-Shek or Tokyo Rose…....

Arabia Deserta

Rightwing Persian Pipe Dreams: Iranian Chiang Kai-Shek or Tokyo Rose…....

Walking on water

“Members of Congress led by Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) have introduced a resolution calling on the Secretary of State and the President to throw the support of the United States behind an exiled Iranian terrorist group seeking to overthrow the Iranian regime and install themselves in power. Calling the exiled organization "Iran's main opposition," Filner is urging the State Department to end the blacklisting of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) -- a group listed by the State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The resolution currently has 83 cosponsors and is gaining significant ground…… The MEK -- a sort of Ahmed Chalabi for Iran -- calls itself a government-in-exile, with a huge public base of support and a powerful megaphone both in the US and Europe to promote its anti-mullah agenda. Counted among the groups supporters are former Ambassador John Bolton, former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ileana Ros-Lehtinen……”

Stop! Stop at the last three names (Bomb ‘em Bolton, Aznar, Ros-Lehtinen) certainly doom the group. John Bolton alone is toxic enough to derail any cause (he couldn’t get a Republican Senate FR committee to approve his nomination as UN ambassador).

The MEK have an extremely low following inside Iran: mainly because they sided with Saddam Hussein during the long Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. There are also reports that they helped Saddam suppress the Iraqi opposition (Global Security and many other sources). They can be as effective in liberating Iran as Chiang Kai-Shek was in liberating China (remember him?). It is almost like nominating Tokyo Rose for office in the United States. The theocratic mullahs in Tehran must be doubling over, laughing over all this simple-mindedness. This is funnier than a Jordanian joke (if there ever was one, which I doubt).
Don't get me wrong, everybody is entitled to a chance, to run for 0ffice (or bomb for it) but I have strong, nay extreme, doubts about this.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com”