By Professor Daniel M. Zucker
Dr. Kenneth R. Timmerman of the Foundation for a Democratic Iran has been an implacable foe of the mullah regime in Teheran. He has proven to be an excellent source on the Iranian buildup of its military forces, especially as regards its missile program and its nuclear arms program. He has been in the forefront of those who have looked over the horizon, and he has been one of only a handful of western scholars to warn of the threats coming out of Teheran. No careful student of Persian Gulf politics and military history can afford to ignore his work. His research on both Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and on the Islamic Republic of Iran is required reading for those who would study the region today, as well as for anyone concerned with the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
It therefore is a shame that Timmerman, who seems to be so careful in his other research, has been so remiss when it comes to his studies of the Iranian resistance movement. Timmerman seems to have been "taken in" by the propaganda and disinformation of both the current Islamofascist regime, which he so strongly opposes, and the regime of the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, which strangely he considers to be worthy of resurrection. His recent FrontPageMagazine.com article, "When Making a Revolution, Allies Matter" (January 20, 2006) abounds in mistakes and disinformation. The article is basically an attack on the principal Iranian resistance organizations, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK), and the National Council of Resistance of Iran, of which the MeK is a member.
Regrettably, Timmerman has repeated a lot of disinformation. The MeK did initially support Khomeini while the Shah was still in power, but they broke with him in 1980 when he called for a constitution based on the principle of the velayat-e faqih (absolute Islamic clerical rule) for Iran. The MeK took up arms to defend itself and the Iranian people against Khomeini’s onslaught on their lives and and rights only after the peaceful demonstration of half a million people in Teheran was turned into a bloodbath by the unprovoked attack committed by the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on June 20, 1981.
Timmerman repeats the old charges that it was the MeK that was responsible for the murders of American military personnel in the early-1970’s and that its members participated in the radical Moslem student takeover of the U.S. embassy in Teheran in 1979. Careful research will show that the assassinations of the American officers was carried out by a dissident Marxist splinter group called Peykar, and that the MeK leadership (imprisoned by the Shah at the time of the assassinations), condemned them when they learned of the attacks. So too, far from participating in the embassy takeover, the MeK condemned such actions. The Islamist leaders of the embassy takeover themselves have written that the MeK was not a part of their group, and would not have been allowed to participate because of doctrinal differences. (See the account of the takeover by hostage-takers’ spokeswoman, Ms. Masoomeh Ebtekar) Had Timmerman bothered to consult the careful research done by the Iran Policy Committee, and read its White Paper # 3 carefully, he would not have repeated these old lies. Unfortunately our own government has not bothered to update its files, but a knowledgeable senatorial staffer involved with intelligence already suggested six months ago that the U.S. intelligence community knows quite well that these old charges are "bogus".
Timmerman’s understanding of the MeK and NCRI leaves something to be desired. He states that Iranian-Americans "refer to MeK leader Massoud Rajavi as the ‘Pol Pot’ of Iran because they believe he would conduct wholesale massacres of his political opponents should the current regime implode and the MEK seize power through organized street violence." I don’t know with which Iranians Timmerman talks, but I have conversed literally with thousands of Iranians in this country and in Europe during the last year, and not one ever said anything like what Timmerman suggests. So too, on June 18, 2005, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the NCRI, declared publicly that if the NCRI/MeK does become the government in a reformed Iran, all the current regime leadership would be turned over to the International Court at the Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity.
Mrs. Rajavi also announced that the NCRI supports the abolishment of the death penalty. I don’t believe Pol Pot ever acted that way with his enemies.
The decision, arrived at by consensus, of MeK members to terminate their marriages came from their conviction that those who were engaged in battling the Iranian regime had to be completely dedicated to their task, without the distraction of concerns for spouses or children. If Timmerman considers this unacceptable, he better be prepared to battle the Catholic Church which makes similar demands on its priests and nuns. MeK members in Camp Ashraf live together in barracks, true; but so do all our service personnel in Camp Lejune and other U.S. military instillations. Does that make them communists? According to Timmerman’s criteria, yes, which is patently absurd!
Rajavi and the MeK leadership left France in 1986, not because they wanted but rather because then Prime Minister Jacque Chirac cut a deal with the Iranian regime to free French nationals in Lebanon in exchange for making Rajavi and the MeK persona non grata in France. Iraq was the only nation to offer haven to the MeK. The MeK made it very clear to Saddam Hussein that they would not involve themselves in any way in Iraqi politics, and expected no further aid from Saddam. Any equipment that the MeK received from Iraq was paid for in cold, hard cash, raised from supporters abroad.
Timmerman repeats the Teheran regime’s accusations that the MeK assisted Saddam Hussein to suppress the Kurds in 1991. He quotes a Kurdish leader, whose ties to the Teheran regime are all too obvious. No creditable source would vouch for the veracity of this charge. Were there any truth to the charge, one would expect that after three years of American administration of the region, someone would have provided a single piece of evidence to confirm the MeK’s alleged involvement. The opposite is the case; those who have addressed the issue have stated that the MeK bore no hostility to the Iraqi Kurds. A statement signed by over 12,000 Iraqi jurists in support of the MeK issued earlier this month refutes these false allegations. The jurists’ statement parallels the petition signed by 2.8 million Iraqis, including thousands of Kurds, last year, in support of the MeK.
Timmerman continues with disinformation from the late Shah’s secret police, SAVAK, as well as Khomeini’s VEVAK (the regime’s equivalent of the Soviet KGB), accusing the MeK of assassinating American military personnel during the reign of the Shah and then acting as executioners of senior Iranian military officers for the Islamic regime. The Iran Policy Committee, headed by anti-terrorism expert Professor Raymond Tanter, formerly a member of the NSC during the Reagan presidency, and including on its board a former ambassador, a major general, two lieutenant generals, a lieutenant colonel and a captain (all retired) representing the Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy, with an executive director whose background is in the intelligence community-the IPC conducted a four month study of the allegations and found them to be totally false (see IPC White Paper # 3). The assassinations were carried out by a Marxist splinter group called Peykar while the leadership of the MeK was imprisoned by the Shah; they denounced the actions of Peykar when they learned of them. At no time did the MeK ever act as agents for the mullah regime.
In fact the MeK did not take up arms against anyone until after the regime-instigated Teheran University massacre on June 20, 1981.
Citing Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s letter to Congress is disingenuous. The letter was authored by Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Wendy Sherman and is full of allegations that have been subsequently disproved. Ms. Sherman’s 1994 report completely violated the specific request of Congress for a report that included discussions with the MeK and NCRI so that Congress could get an accurate view of the entire picture concerning the Iranian regime and the complete range of those in resistance to it. Ms. Sherman’s letter repeats the old SAVAK-VEVAK charges of MeK involvement in terrorism. The truth is that the MeK has attacked only the leadership of the theocratic regime and its agents of repression. It has never attacked outside of Iran, and it has been extremely careful not to cause civilian casualties. These are the characteristics of a legitimate resistance movement, and not of a terrorist group. The same discipline cannot be claimed by its enemy, the Teheran regime. Instead of referring to Sherman’s letter, Timmerman should have taken note of the December 1984 State Department letter and eleven page report to Congressman Lee Hamilton, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which painted a completely different (and much more positive) picture of the MeK. He also neglects to mention that after the Irangate fiasco, it became evident that the State Department’s hostile attitude towards the MeK was part of a deal quid pro quo with Teheran which included a key-shaped cake, gun, and Bible, in return for the release of the US hostages in Lebanon.
Mr. Timmerman: The IPC doesn’t seek "endorsements from well-known former policy makers, including respected FoxNews commentators Maj. General Paul Vallely and Lt. General Tom McInerney" as you intimate; they already have their endorsement because these two respected policy makers are members of the IPC team! You accuse the MeK of bending the truth; be careful not to be guilty of that sin yourself!
Mr. Timmerman sounds like a broken record, repeating the Shah’s old allegations and outright lies. Mr. Timmerman: if you would take the time to travel to Camp Ashraf to interview the members of the MeK, you would realize that they aren’t members of a cult, but rather a group of very dedicated and idealistic Iranian patriots who have sacrificed their personal lives to fight the mullah regime that we both despise.
Now I would pose a question to you, Mr. Timmerman. Why do you support the Monarchists and Reza Pahlavi? Other than running radio broadcasts from Los Angeles, they have done nothing to fight the regime since they left Iran twenty-seven years ago. The Monarchists don’t even register on the regime’s list of enemies; they are that ineffectual. Iran held a revolution twenty-seven years ago to get rid of the Shah; the vast majority of Iranians have no desire to return to anything even remotely associated with the Shah. His family left Iran with billions of dollars of the people’s money. The Pahlavis are hardly what President Bush means "establishing democracy". Why do you support them? Give Iran back to the Iranian people by allowing the people to make a choice in an internationally monitored free election; that is, and always has been, the platform of the MeK and the NCRI.
Professor Daniel M. Zucker is a Chairman of Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East.
