April 19, 2019
The Trump Administration appears to have softened the US approach to the Mojahedin-e Khalq and is now neutral rather than hostile to the organization, Al-Monitor has reported.
The State Department has been hostile toward the group for half a century, in large measure for its murder of US government employees in the 1960s.
But some people close to the Trump Administration—chiefly National Security Adviser John Bolton, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich—have made paid speeches to the group and spoken up on its behalf numerous times over the years.
They have not yet been able to convince the State Department to endorse the Mojahedin-e Khalq, but they may have been able to force the State Department to end its open hostility.
In the past, State Department talking points have said that the United States believes the Mojahedin-e Khalq is not a viable political alternative for Iran. But that line was changed just before the Warsaw conference a few weeks ago.
As recently as last September, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Stickney told the Persian channel of Deutsche Welle, the German state broadcaster: “We have said in the past, and say it now, that the Mojahedin Organization has no place among the people of Iran.”
Asked this week if the group is now on a list of acceptable alternatives to the current government in Iran, a State Department spokesperson hedged.
“We support the Iranian people. We have had many opportunities to engage the large and vibrant Iranian diaspora to hear many diverse views about the future of Iran,” the spokesperson told Al-Monitor. “As President Trump has clearly stated, the United States wants to see a free and prosperous future for the people of Iran. We do not back any specific Iranian opposition group; rather we back the Iranian people as they struggle to secure the freedoms and dignity they deserve.”
This did not say that the State Department was now endorsing the Mojahedin-e Khalq for the first time ever. But it did convey that the State Department was no longer condemning the group as it has for more than half a century.
The US State Department had long kept the Mojahedin-e Khalq on its list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” The group was removed from that list in 2012. News reports frequently say that it was delisted after heavy lobbying by supporters of the group. However, that is not correct. A US district court judge said the State Department could not keep the group on the list if it could not provide proof of any terrorist actions in the previous dozen years. With the court’s deadline for providing such proof nearing and no proof available, the State Department caved in and removed the group from the terrorist list.