U.S. Using Covert Organization And Support For Terrorists To Bring Down Iranian Government

For about a year, a secret U.S. government organization known as the ISOG, the Iran Syria Policy And Operations Group have been involved in efforts to provide covert support to antiIranian government dissidents and help to build an international effort, especially among MidEast states to oppose Iran both politically and militarily. In February, there is expected to be a new funding mandate in Congress to provide antimissile defenses and other defensive systems to some MidEast states to repel any Iranian missiles should the U.S. go to war with Iran.

One organization that is officially listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, but has received a great deal of support among many in Congress, including some in the Bush Administration is the Marxist Islamist antiIranian terrorist organization, the MEK(Mujahedin-e-khalq). While the Bush Administration publicly opposes terrorism, there is strong evidence that with the support of as many as 200 members of Congress, as well as influencial persons such as former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Richard Perle, that this terrorist organization is receiving either unofficial or official covert support in the U.S. Front organizations for this terrorist organization that comprises around 10,000 members, largely operate from bases in Iraq.

In 2003, after the beginning of the second Iraq war, bases of this terrorist organization that were long protected by Saddam Hussein were under military attack by the U.S. forces. But then the relationship quickly changed as the MEK reached an apparent ceasefire treaty with the U.S. government in exchange for intelligence transfers and spy activity on behalf of the U.S. government about the Iranian government. The MEK remains perhaps the strongest source of intelligence data on Iran's nuclear program and other military activites.

Under the guise of humanitarian fundraisers, the MEK is able to raise million in funds in the U.S. and elsewhere. Richard Perle once even acted as a keynote speaker at a MEK front organization fundraising event. But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wanted to go even farther by arming the MEK fighters as a frontline covert military force to clear the path for any American military efforts in Iran. Dick Cheney was able to satisfy the concerns of Condoleeza Rice where the Marxist Islamist fighters of the MEK supposedly were asked to quit their official organization, but then incorporated into a new organization comprised of the very same terrorists who were then trained and supplied with arms by either the U.S. military or by CIA operatives.

MEK leader, Maryam Rajavi operates out of Paris with a website and fundraising activity to secure funds out of Europe and the U.S. But so far the Iranian government has described the bombing and other terrorist attacks by MEK related forces as merely "pinpricks" in their security and has no doubt resulted in the covert war of Iranian support for radical proIranian Shiite militia group attacks on American forces in Iraq. Perhaps as many as 600 Americans have lost their lives as a result of the low level Iranian support for militia groups in Iraq to counter the support for the low level terrorist war supported officialy and unofficially by the U.S. in Iran. With both American and Iranian lives lost in this low level covert war waged by both Iran and the U.S., better relations between the two states seem difficult to nearly impossible.

It is not clear whether members of the James Baker Iraq Study Group were aware of this covert war waged by both Iran or the U.S. against one another. But it certainly makes inclusion of Iran very difficult in any MidEast peace talks.