By Mohammad Sadat Khansari
US Ambassador Lincoln J. Bloomfield Jr., a former defence and foreign policy official who served three presidents in the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department, has published a new scholarly paper on the Iranian regime and its treatment of the main Iranian opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK). The paper, entitled ‘The Ayatollahs and the MEK–Iran’s Crumbling Influence Operation’, tells the shocking true story of the mullahs’ decision to attack the MEK’s peaceful political rallies in June 1981.
In his paper, Bloomfield states that the regime’s attack on the MEK on June 20, 1981, was the moment in Iran’s modern history most “fraught with lasting implications”, more so than even the 1979 hostage crisis. He said that on that day Iran’s political space was “extinguished” as the regime turned to bloodshed.
But why would the mullahs seek to destroy their opposition? Because the regime was threatened by the democratic rights that the MEK was advocating for and the mass public support they were receiving.
Bloomfield wrote: “The truth is that the mullahs and their supporters, having ridden the Iranian revolution to power, ended up betraying it. They shot their way to power, and since that fateful day in June of 1981, they have relied on lethal force and coercion, not popular will, to maintain it.”
Ivan Sascha Sheehan, associate professor and executive director of the School of Public and International Affairs in the University of Baltimore’s College of Public Affairs, wrote in the foreword: “[Bloomfield] presents breaking revelations and documents compelling evidence that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s organized opposition, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), and its parliament-in-exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), have been falsely portrayed in Washington for years. A careful examination of the facts supports this conclusion and tells a very different story than the one authored by Tehran and too often echoed in Washington.”
And he is far from the only senior leader offering praise for the paper.
Michael B. Mukasey, former US Attorney General, wrote: “[Bloomfield] kills at least six lies about the MEK…These accusations range from the bizarre—that the MEK promotes extremism rooted improbably in both communism and Islam—to claims of violence against Americans and the Iranian people.”
General James L. Jones, USMC (Ret.), former US National Security Advisor, wrote: “Our ‘non-action’ policy was one which inflicted great damage to our national moral authority on human rights issues, tacitly enabling the overt (but under-reported) massacre of hundreds of innocent men and women on the orders of both the Iraqi and Iranian governments, all in the misguided and false hope that the persecution of the MEK would curry favour with the regime in Iran… For our diplomats and elected leaders, it should be required reading.”
Louis J, Freeh, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, wrote: “There was no credible factual or legal basis for putting the MEK on the FTO list in 1997… the MEK saved countless US military lives in Iraq, and has been thanked and praised by America’s senior military leaders.”
Bloomfield also wrote ‘The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK)–Shackled by a Twisted History’ in 2013, which told the history of the group formed to oppose the Shah in the 1960s.
The paper is available through the University of Baltimore College of Public Affairs. A Farsi copy will soon be available.
