U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently spoke in Germany about Iran’s insinuation into Arab state uprisings. Unfortunately, she didn’t offer a meaningful remedy.
One of the main goals of Iran’s theocratic rulers is to export and/or solidify their Shiite Islamic Revolution in Arab states currently confronted with political turbulence and violence. One sure way to mitigate Iranian trouble-making capabilities is for Secretary Clinton to remove U.S.-imposed legal restrictions on the one Iranian resistance group the regime fears most.
Much to the dismay of Iran’s rulers and some U.S. policy-makers, the movement to remove the Iranian Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK) from the U.S. foreign terrorist organization (FTO) list gained strength in past months when more influential Americans joined the effort urging Secretary Clinton to do it.
The State Department has for 13 plus years branded the MeK as an FTO. The resistance group’s principal crime: trying to remove Iran’s terrorist rulers from power. The designation is used by Iran and others as an excuse to torture and execute MeK members.
The Immigration and Nationality Act applies to foreign groups and nations that engage in terrorist activity and threaten U.S. security and citizens. The law requires the secretary of state to inform Congress of those meeting this stated terrorist criteria. The designation freezes assets, bars foreign nationals with terror ties from entering the United States, and criminalizes providing terrorists with material assistance.
Secretary of State Madelyn Albright designated the MeK an FTO in 1997, and Great Britain and the European Union followed suit. It’s widely believed Albright and others thought it would facilitate better relations with hostile Iranian rulers waging a one-sided “Death to America” war against the U.S. since 1979, earning the regime a richly deserved label as a U.S.-designated state sponsor of terror. Although rapprochement with Iran hasn’t succeeded during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations or modified the regime’s terrorist, hegemonic and nuclear weapons development activities, it has succeeded in disabling the MeK.
However, that situation is changing. The EU and Britain removed the MeK from their terror listings and a U.S. appeals court in July 2010 ordered the State Department to reevaluate the group’s designation. Court members and other Americans have raised serious doubts about the accuracy and completeness of information the Department used label the MeK a terrorist group.
Among other things, the secretary of state’s most recent terrorism report to Congress fails to mention that the MEK (1) ceased its military campaign against the Iranian government in 2001; (2) voluntarily handed over its arms to U.S. forces in Iraq in 2003; (3) provides valuable information to U.S. intelligence about Iran’s illegal nuclear program and activities; (4) advocates a secular, democratic, gender equality, non-nuclear, and non-death penalty state for Iran; (5) hasn’t had a credible allegation of terrorism recorded in the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, RAND, and the Global Database on Terrorism databases in many years.
The State Department’s former Counterterrorism Coordinator (2007-2009), Ambassador Dell Dailey, whose former office is the main source for determining whether allegations of terrorist activities are true, casts light on the State Department’s dubious FTO-designation process. He said, “It brings great discredit to the United States for the MeK, which isn’t killing Americans, to be on the FTO list while Afghanistan’s Taliban, which is killing Americans in great numbers, is not. The MeK listing gives protection to the Iranian leadership which has sworn to kill us. It’s appropriate that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fix this gross embarrassment and obvious painful error by delisting the MeK as soon as possible.”
Other Americans calling for MeK delisting include former and current House Foreign Affairs Committee chairs, Reps. Lee Hamilton (D-IN) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL); President Bill Clinton’s UN envoy Bill Richardson, CIA Director James Woolsey, and FBI Director Louis Freeh; President George W. Bush’s Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and UN envoy John Bolton; President Barack Obama’s former National Security Advisor General James Jones; former Joint Chiefs Chairs Generals Hugh Shelton and Peter Pace; former DNC Chair Howard Dean; and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Additionally, a bi-partisan coalition of 113 House members invited Secretary Clinton to delist the MeK (H.Res.1431, sponsored by Rep. Bob Filner D-CA) in June 2010.
It isn’t good policy to politicize State Department terror designations. These designations should be reserved for those nations or groups who threaten U.S. security and citizens. The current Iranian regime does, and the MeK doesn’t. U.S. security is better served by treating the MeK as a legitimate resistance group like the EU and Britain are now doing – enabling it to more easily join other Iranians in peaceably attempting to transform their native country from a religious totalitarian dictatorship to a free state.
Secretary Clinton should heed the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King as quoted by legendary civil rights and peace champion Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) while addressing the MeK matter, “The time is always right to do right. Not next week, not next month, not next year, but now. ”
Family Security Matters Contributor Fred Gedrich is a foreign policy and national security analyst and served in the U.S. Departments of State and Defense. He visited Lebanon on official assignment shortly after the end of the country’s civil war.