Major figures assail ‘cult-like’ Mojahedin

list of foreign terrorist organizations.

A total of 37 people—most of them household names within the Iranian-American community—signed the letter assailing the Mojahedin-e Khalq. The letter appeared in the Financial Times of London last Wednesday and was distributed across the United States with the list of signatories by the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC).

Ten of the signers were Americans, including John Limbert, the former hostage and Foreign Service officer who once headed US policy at the State Department, and Gary Sick, who handled Iran policy in the Carter White House during the revolution and hostage crisis.

The other 27 are Iranians and Iranian-Americans, including such names as Ervand Abrahamian, author of the definitive book on the Mojahedin-e Khalq, Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a reformist deputy in the Majlis a decade ago, Mohsen Kadivar, a cleric and leading theorist of the revolution, and Ruhollah Ramazani, a retired university professor who has written on Iranian foreign policy for more than half a century.

The coming together of this group is clearly a response to the Mojahedin’s efforts to recruit former American officials to endorse it and to plead publicly for the organization to be removed from the terrorist list. Over the past year, the Mojahedin-e Khalq has recruited more than a dozen such figures, including former cabinet members, retired four-star generals, and Lee Hamilton, who chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee for several years while he was in Congress.

The 37 signers made three points about the Mojahedin. First, they said the group is not a player in Iranian politics and thus does not warrant support as an alterative to the current regime.

Second, they said, it is cult-like and, contrary to its claims to support democracy, does not operate internally in a democratic manner.

Third, they said, taking the Mojahedin-e Khalq off the terrorist list would harm the real opposition forces inside Iran, although the letter failed to explain the reasoning behind that.

The State Department was ordered a year ago by a federal court to review its listing of the Mojahedin-e Khalq as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. That decision is still pending.

To be listed, the State Department must determine that the group is terrorist. Britain and the EU dropped their terrorist designations after court reviews determined that, while the Mojahedin may have been terrorist in the past, it had not carried out any terrorist actions since at least May 2003, when its forces inside Iraq were taken captive and disarmed by the US Army.

Sources say the State Department’s diplomats and political officers almost unanimously wish to keep the Mojahedin on the list, considering that there are many political negatives from taking it off and few if any political positives for doing so. Delisting, many analysts say, would just give the Islamic Republic more grounds for refusing to talk with the United States when the US policy is to encourage talks. At the same time, however, many State Department lawyers reportedly say they would have trouble defending the continued listing of the group a decade after its last confirmed terrorist action.

Some speculate that the long delay in making a decision may be to postpone any need to defend the decision as long as possible.

Following is the full text of the group’s statement along with the list of signers and the identifications they used in the published letter.

“We the undersigned would like to convey our concern regarding the potential delisting of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) from the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization list, and its false claims to be ‘Iran’s main opposition’ with a base of popular support in Iran.

“The MEK has no political base inside Iran and no genuine support among the Iranian population. The MEK, an organization based in Iraq that enjoyed the support of Saddam Hussein, lost any following it had in Iran when it fought on Iraq’s behalf during the 1980-1988 war. Widespread Iranian distaste for the MEK has been cemented by its numerous terrorist attacks against innocent Iranian civilians. Since Saddam Hussein’s ouster, the MEK’s ability to maneuver in Washington and Iraq now depends almost entirely on the uneven enforcement of existing US laws concerning Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

“Prominent human rights organizations—including Human Rights Watch—have determined the MEK to be a cult-like organization with a structure and modus operandi that belies its claim to be a vehicle for democratic change. When Iran’s post-election turbulence commenced in 2009, the MEK quickly sought to associate itself with the wave of popular opposition inside Iran. “By attempting to claim credit for Iran’s democracy movement, the MEK has aided the Iranian government’s attempts to discredit the Green Movement and justify its crackdown on peaceful protesters by associating them with this widely detested group.

“When the MEK began its efforts to claim the mantle of being ‘Iran’s main opposition,’ genuine Iranian opposition leaders such as Mehdi Karrubi and Zahra Rahnavard immediately pushed back. Karrubi pointedly said, ‘The Iranian Government is trying to connect those who truly love their country (the Green Movement) with the MEK to revive this hypocritical dead organization.’

“Removing the MEK from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list and misconstruing its lack of democratic bona fides and support inside Iran will have harmful consequences on the legitimate, indigenous Iranian opposition. We urge the US government to avoid conflating a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization with Iran’s Green Movement as the Iranian people continue their struggle for democracy and human rights.”

1. Prof. Ervand Abrahamian, Author of The Iranian Mojahedin

2. Prof. Ali Ansari, University of St Andrews

3. Reza Aslan, Author of No God but God

4. Prof. Shaul Bakhash, George Mason University, author of Reign of the Ayatollahs

5. Prof. Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Syracuse University

6. Prof. Juan Cole, University of Michigan

7. James Dobbins, former Assistant Secretary of State

8. Prof. Farideh Farhi, University of Hawaii at Manoa

9. Dokhi Fassihian, human rights defender

10. Hadi Ghaemi, human rights defender

11. Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, former reformist deputy in the Majlis

12. Kevan Harris, Johns Hopkins University

13. Prof. Nader Hashemi, University of Denver

14. Prof. Ramin Jahanbegloo, former political prisoner in Iran

15. Prof. Mohsen Kadivar, Duke University

16. Prof. Mehran Kamrava, Georgetown University

17. Prof. Stephen Kinzer, Author of All the Shah’s Men

18. Amb. John Limbert, former deputy assistant secretary of state and hostage in Iran

19. Prof. Scott Lucas, University of Birmingham

20. Firuzeh Mahmoudi, United4Iran

21. Reza Marashi, Former Iran desk officer, US Department of State, NIAC research director

22. Azadeh Moaveni, Author of Lipstick Jihad

23. Prof. Rasool Nafisi, Strayer University

24. Sahar Namazikhah, journalist

25. Dr. Trita Parsi, author of Treacherous Alliance—The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the US

26. Prof. Paul Pillar, Georgetown University

27. Prof. Nasrin Rahimieh, University of California, Irvine

28. Prof. R. K. Ramazani, University of Virginia

29. Jason Rezaian, Iran-based journalist

30. Prof. Ahmad Sadri, Lake Forest College

31. Prof. Mahmoud Sadri, Texas Woman’s University

32. Prof. Muhammad Sahimi, University of Southern California

33. Elaheh Sharifpour-Hicks, human rights expert

34. Sasan Shoamanesh, managing editor of Global Brief, Canada’s leading international affairs magazine

35. Prof. Gary Sick, Columbia University

36. John Tirman, executive director, MIT Center for International Studies

37. Wayne White, Middle East Institute, former deputy director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence