NCRI, 02 February 2011 – Judge Michael Mukasey, U.S. Attorney General until 2009, was among distinguished guests at the Brussels’ international conference entitled “Camp Ashraf and Policy on Iran” on January 25. While recognizing that the PMOI is the only viable opposition he said: “PMOI is a moderate Islamic organization committed to create a secular, democratic, nuclear-free Iran.”
Excerpts from his speech follow:
Thank you for that kind introduction. Thank you to the committees that organized this conference. Thank you to the brave and gracious Mrs. Rajavi and for the privilege of this microphone at this time. Back in December I pointed out that we are at one of those moments in history when we know that future generations will ask what we did to advance what is good and what we did to resist what is evil. If anything in the brief span of a month the conditions that we are here to address has become more urgent. As before, militant Islamism threatens to destroy civilization as we know it and at the very center of that threat is the regime in control of Iran which represses its own people and threatens its neighbors and the world at large by pursuing a program to develop nuclear weapons that it has said repeatedly it will not hesitate to use.
Just days ago, the regime in Iran gave the world additional proof of what it is all about to go with the mountain of proof we already had. They executed Jafar Kazemi, a 47 year old father of two, and Mohammad Ali Haj-Aghaii, simply for visiting Camp Ashraf, where MEK residents are holding out despite the efforts of Iran and its collaborators among the Iraqi authorities to drive the residents back to Iran or to destroy them all together. These men were not accused of taking any affirmative actions against the Iranian regime. They had gone there to visit their children and photograph what had happened there. A pious lawyer was not even given a copy of the file against them before this death sentence was passed.
We also saw on Saturday the completely unsurprising collapse of the P5+1 talks in Istanbul held for the purpose of trying to get the Iranian regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program rather than incur additional sanctions. The Iranian foreign minister actually started to walk out on Friday. But Catherine Ashton of the EU begged him to stay. So he came back for another day and then walked out.
As you know, There are about 3,500 members of MEK who now live at a place on the border of iran, in Iraq, that is known as camp Ashraf. Although it is referred to as a camp; city would be a better description. These people fled iran and set themselves up near the border so that they can live and support efforts to free their country. In 2003, when the united states invaded Iraq, the residents of camp Ashraf surrendered the weapons they had available to defend themselves, and accepted a written confirmation from the then deputy commander of Multi National Forces in Iraq, general Geoffrey miller, on behalf of the United States, that they were protected persons under the fourth Geneva convention.
From 2003 until 2009, the United States protected the residents of Ashraf and fulfilled the solemn obligation we had undertaken in 2003. But in January 2009, as some of you may be aware, the United States turned over the responsibility for security to Iraqi security forces. Before that transfer took place, general David Petraeus said the United States had been assured by the government of Iraq that the residents of Ashraf would be protected, and that he was proceeding with the transfer of security responsibility based on that assurance.
Obviously, the residents of Ashraf have been a great source of anxiety to Iran, which would like nothing better than to see them forcibly repatriated to Iran, or at least crippled so that they cannot pose a threat to the regime. Iran has brought increasing pressure on the Iraqi government. Within the past month, the situation of the residents of camp Ashraf has grown even more perilous.
On January 7, two days after a visit to Baghdad by the Iranian foreign minister, the residents of camp Ashraf were attacked by people acting at the direction of the Iranian Guds force stationed at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, in cooperation with officials of the Iraqi government, and several were injured seriously. The Iraqi security forces either turned a blind eye or actually helped the attackers, even though the government of Iraq promised the United States that it would protect the residents of Ashraf.
Those Iranian forces, supported by Iraqi forces, have placed at the gates of Ashraf some 180 loud speakers that are used to threaten and harass the residents day and night, and to prevent them from sleeping. This psychological pressure has been ongoing for almost a year. Medical care continues to be denied to residents of Ashraf and at least one patient died in December due to lack of care.
This is history repeating itself. In June 2009, Nouri al Maliki, head of the Iraqi government, visited Tehran, supposedly for private reasons. The next month –in July 2009– Iraqi security forces attacked the residents of Ashraf. To add insult to the United States to the injury suffered by the citizens of Ashraf, that attack took place during a visit to Iraq by defense secretary Robert Gates.
In spite of this obvious slap in the face to the us government, and in spite of the solemn assurances given by the American military when the residents of Ashraf surrendered their weapons in 2003, our secretary of state, when she was questioned about it at that time, said the attack was an internal matter for the government of Iraq – not a concern of the United States.
You know sometimes I think that people in government and in the academy value subtlety for its own sake. After all it is easy to understand simple and direct things, but subtle things seem to provide a great attraction because it takes a subtle mind to understand them. Well there comes a time when we have to stop looking for subtle solutions like engagement and inducement and start to be aware of what is obvious. One thing that is obvious is that mullahs are not about to be sweet-talked into behaving. The second obvious thing is that we have at hand, if only we would recognize it, the means to help end the mullahs grip on the Iranian people. The MEK is that means.
We speak of and recognize the dangers of Islamism but real change is nearly impossible from outside the Islamic world.
So ever, MEK is a moderate Islamic organization committed to create a secular, democratic, nuclear-free Iran. And yet instead of help and encouragement for MEK, the United States instead lists MEK as a foreign terrorist organization and in doing that provides help and cover to the Iranian regime in carrying out executions like those I spoke of a moment ago, which Iran can then turn around and say we are executing terrorists even in the view of the United States.
This is not a partisan issue in the United States between Republicans and Democrats. The history goes back to the 1990s during the Clinton Administration when the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, known as the MEK, was designated by the Secretary of State under US law as a foreign terrorist organization. That designation continues to this day. It continues to be, as it was at the outset, unjustified. The rationale at first was that this designation of the MEK would help engage the regime in Iran. Sadly, the designation continued even during the administration that I served; in part, because it was feared that if the MEK were delisted Iran would provide IEDs and other assistance to insurgents in Iraq, which of course it is doing anyway. There is an opportunity to change that dynamic immediately and dramatically: by removing designation of the MEK immediately.
This would have two effects. First, it would the current regime that we mean business and that we are prepared to take all necessary steps to bring pressure on the regime. This should be by accompanied by making available communications equipment that can be used by those seeking regime change. It would make up in part for our weak response in June when young Iranians were putting their lives on the line while all we did was to wring our hands.
As many of you know, MEK has petitioned the U.S. state department to be removed from the list of foreign terrorist organizations. It is clear that the Iranian regime believes that time is short, and it would like nothing better than to have the residents of camp Ashraf driven out before MEK succeeds in being removed from a list that it should not have been on in the first place.
Why is this timing so crucial? Because if the residents of camp Ashraf are still there when the designation is removed, then the United States and the Iraqi government will have no choice but to protect them. The designation gives those in the Iraqi government who want to curry favor with the Iranians their only excuse for not protecting the residents of Ashraf.
It is important not only that the designation be removed, but also that it be removed quickly, before Iran and those acting in its behalf can wear down the residents of Ashraf and force them to leave, or impose an even worse fate on them.
It is certainly helpful for the MEK to remain a bone in the throat of Iran, and a diversion to the regime, because of its potential to undermine the regime, but the MEK has been much more than that. It has helped the United States affirmatively by providing enormously valuable inteligence from its own sources within Iran on the Iranian nuclear program. It is fair to say that the United States would not have known a great deal of what it does know about the Iranian nuclear program, without information furnished by MEK, including but certainly not limited to the nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak, the disclosure of which led to the beginning of pressure on Iran that arises from what is obviously a nuclear weapons program.
Here of course it bears mention also that the MEK has been removed from any list of terrorist organizations in the United Kingdom and in the European Union.
There are certainly no good reasons to brand as terrorists a group of people who, so far as anyone can tell, are interested only in bringing to their country the blessing of the kind of liberty we enjoy in this country. But it is pretty obvious also that it doesn’t work. The Iranian regime is now in the enviable position of having the United States designate as a terrorist organization a group of Iranians who are a threat to that regime, and of limiting that group’s activities. In other words, the Iranians now have the great satan working for them.
What is the practical effect under the law of an organization being on that list? An organization on that list is subject to having its assets in the United States seized; it is nearly impossible for the organization to raise money in the United States because anyone who contributes to the organization could be prosecuted and convicted for providing material support to a terrorist organization.
Beyond that, and particularly in the united states, people are concerned about even appearing at a rally sponsored by something known as a foreign terrorist organization, or giving it any help at all. People who are not aware of the details of the case, including many diaspora Iranians, may feel reluctant to support the organization.
And of course, the continued designation of MEK as a terrorist organization gives great comfort to the Iranian regime, by putting on the sidelines an organization that is potentially a grave threat to the regime. It also provides an added justification for the regime to execute MEK members in iran, and to insist that in doing so it is fighting terrorists.
What is to be done?
Well as I mentioned, there is an ongoing case in which MEK has challenged the designation. In July of 2010 as you heard, the court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit issued an opinion essentially sending the matter back to the state department and the Secretary of State and asking her to re-evaluate whether MEK should be on that list. But the court did something more than that. Did something unusual. It expressed a good deal of skepticism about at least the non-classified information that was submitted to the court and shared with MEK, which MEK therefore could rebut.
Without getting into too much detail, the secretary of state may choose to base her determination entirely on classified information, but she did not do that in this case. She said she based her decision on both the classified information and the non-classified information. The court discussed the non-classified information, and revealed that a lot of it consisted of unsubstantiated and anonymous rumor, whose reliability was unknown and could not be tested. If the classified information part of the record which the MEK has not been able to see and which therefore cannot respond to correctly, consists of the same sort of information, then the secretary of state’s decision has no basis whatsoever.
Recently the State Departement has admitted theat there is no furthur unclassified informationto rely onto make this case and promised to scheduale a meeting to discuss further steps. The secretary has acknowledged that this is the first occasion the new administration has had to evaluate the designation of MEK; this is an excellent opportunity for her to learn from the mistakes of the past and not to repeat them.
As you are aware, there is a growing consensus inside the United States and outside it to delist MEK; an ever-increasing number of members of congress supporting a resolution favoring that result shows the degree of consensus in the united states. It is a bipartisan consensus.
That is all well and good, but time is not our friend. As I pointed out, the Iranian regime has made clear that it wants the residents of camp Ashraf driven out before the designation is removed.
But in a sense this is about more than the case in the District of Columbia and more than MEK. This is about the posture of the United States toward the Iranian regime.
When Ronald Reagan took office as President, he was asked what his strategic approach would be to the cold war, to dealing with what was then the Soviet Union. He said his strategic approach would be, we win, they lose. At the time there were people who dismissed that as empty rhetoric, even dangerous rhetoric. But in the end, that vision wound up prevailing, because it was supported by a sound understanding of American interests, and that those interests are at their strongest when our policies are aligned with our ideals.
I think the case has been made that when Iranians go into the street and put their lives on the line for freedom, as they are doing now and as they did after the fraudulent election in June 2009, our response through those in our government who speak for us must be more than to remind the mullahs, as we did then, that the world is watching.
The world is watching? The world has watched frequently while horrors were committed, and done nothing about it. The world was watching when the Germans committed genocide and murdered 6 million of my co-religionists during world war ii; the world watched revolutions suppressed by the soviets in Eastern Europe in 1956; the world watched genocide in Rwanda and Darfur.
The world is watching isn’t enough. As Americans, we owe the Iranian people and the freedom that we stand for, a great deal more.
What is necessary for the United States is to make it clear in word and deed that we offer more than condolences when things go wrong to people who are willing to put their lives on the line for freedom. We must offer support and encouragement, and we must make it clear in word and deed to the Iranian regime that we stand with those who stand for freedom and who demand regime change.
It has been said that that is not a favor to organizations like MEK because they can then be accused by the Iranian government of acting as tools of the united states. There are two answers to that. The first is that whoever opposes the Iranian regime will be attacked as a tool of the United States, whether or not they get assistance from the United States, so they might as well get it. Second, I think we ought to let organizations like MEK decide what is best for them and not try to decide it for them.
In the middle of the 19th century Abraham Lincoln referred to the United States as the last best hope of earth. I think those words are even truer in the 21st century than they were when Lincoln first spoke them in the middle of the 19th century. I think also that it is time we started talking and behaving as if we believe them, so that when succeeding generations consider the question I presented at the beginning of these remarks, of what we did to advance what is good and resist what is evil, they will find an answer that we and they can live with.
Thank you again for the honor of speaking to you.
