‘SELF-SACRIFICE – Life with the Iranian Mojahedin is the title of new book published by Struan Stevenson, the President of the European Iraqi Friendship Association (EIFA) who was also the president of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq at the European Parliament until 2013.
The book details his fight to expose and confront brutality, human rights abuse and corruption in Iran and Iraq and he provides disturbing evidence of how mistakes, duplicities and blunders by the West led directly to the rise of ISIS and the catastrophic events that now engulf the Middle East.
Patrick J. Kennedy Former Member of the US Congress writes in foreword of the book:
Struan Stevenson’s remarkable book details the horrors of repression, torture and execution in Iran and the strange acquiescence of the West in the face of irrefutable evidence of the mullahs’ desire to deploy nuclear weapons and to sponsor terror across the Middle East and worldwide.
In Self-Sacrifice: Life with the Iranian Mojahedin, the author outlines his own role as an elected member of the European Parliament, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the main Iranian opposition movement at a time when they were listed as a foreign terrorist organization.
More than three decades ago, my father -the late Senator Ted Kennedy -stood alongside Nelson Mandela and the ANC when they were listed as terrorists. Like Stevenson, he was prepared to put his reputation on the line in his fight for freedom, democracy and human rights.
Self-Sacrifice: Life with the Iranian Mojahedin is perhaps the first such book in which the author takes the reader through his personal experiences to show how, as a British Conservative MEP, he ended up getting to know, engaging with, trusting and supporting the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), despite all the allegations levelled against the organization.
In the course of an interesting and sometimes difficult journey, he even heard the allegations repeated by government officials who sought to discourage him from supporting the movement. He had to conduct his own research and investigations, studying the merits of each allegation and concluding that they were false and originated from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, to be distributed by Tehran’s lobby and unintentionally repeated by others. Stevenson further demonstrates how these allegations have been used by governments to justify their policy of appeasing the Iranian regime.
Struan Stevenson faced threats and smears from the Iranian mullahs and even from countries closer to home. His vivid chronicle berates Western countries that were prepared to follow a policy of appeasement so that they could continue to do business with one of the world’s most evil regimes. His harrowing account of the abject betrayal by the West of 3,400 Iranian refugees trapped in Iraq should stand as a shocking indictment of US, EU and UN policy in that country. In his role as President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq he courageously exposed the corruption and brutal sectarianism of the Iraqi Government, encouraged and endorsed by the Iranian Mullahs, and warned that it would lead to civil war. In repeated visits to Iraq he met with political leaders and warned that the Iranian regime was exploiting the insurgency to extend its toxic influence across the region.
Stevenson intersperses each chapter in his book with harrowing interviews conducted with survivors of Iran’s medieval prisons, detailing the cruelty, torture and executions that continue to this day. His brilliant narrative and in-depth research have laid bare the stark choice we face between the past and the future. He demonstrates clearly that the theocratic dictatorship in Iran is the key problem in the Middle East and should never be regarded as part of any solution. He argues forcibly that Iran’s future as a just and stable democracy can only be achieved through support for the main opposition movement, the PMOI.
Stevenson’s expose of Western ineptitude will leave readers horrified. This is a book that should be read carefully by opinion-formers and decision-makers around the world and by students of foreign policy. There is much we can learn from Stevenson’s disturbing account of mistakes, duplicities and blunders that have led directly to the rise of ISIS (Islamic State) and the catastrophic events that now engulf the Middle East.
Mr Stevenson’s book is available from AMAZON and all good bookshops.
