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Emperor's Clothes
[ www.tenc.net ]

U.S. 'Quietly' Bombs Troops Opposed to the Iranian Regime

Douglas Jehl, International Herald Tribune

Comment by Jared Israel

[Posted 19 April 2003]

====================================================

[ www.tenc.net ]

Comment

As shown in the article, "U.S. & Iran: Enemies in Public, but Secret 
Allies in Terror," it is a mistake to judge U.S. intentions towards 
Iran by the accusations that leaders of the two countries make about 
one another in public. [1]  

And now, despite a recent exchange of public verbal attacks, we see 
that, for at least the second time, the U.S. has bombed an enemy of 
Iran inside Iraq. [2]  

According to the Herald Tribune article posted below, the bombing may 
have been "intended in part as a gesture by the United States to thank 
Iran for its noninterference in the war in Iraq."  

But this is certainly false because Iran has *not* simply remained 
neutral in the war. On two occasions that we know of, Iran has actively 
intervened.  

In one instance Iranian security forces betrayed an armed, pro-Iranian 
group in Northern Iraq in order to side with the U.S.  

In another case the Iranian shore patrol prevented a possibly 
catastrophic suicide attack on the Australian navy by Iraqi 
speedboats loaded with explosives.  

Those are the instances *we know about*. We had to hunt for hours to 
find those two. It is clear that the media is playing down the amazing 
news that Iran has been helping the US. This is discussed in the article, 
Reader Says: "EC is Wrong; Iran is *not* Helping the US in Iraq*" [2]  

The Ayatollahs were the main beneficiary of the Gulf War of 1991, 
which hobbled their deadly enemy, Saddam Hussein. And regarding 
the current invasion, the Ayatollahs have the most to gain from 
the destruction of Hussein's government and the removal of at 
least the leaders of his Baath party.  

That would be true regardless of U.S. intentions towards Iran.

But this bombing is a different matter.

Within Iraq, Iran works partly through the Supreme Council for the 
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which it funds, arms, trains and 
essentially controls. SCIRI has its own armed force, the Badr Corps, 
with thousands of troops in northern Iraq. [3]  

The group the U.S. just bombed, Mujahidin Khalq, fights the Badr 
Corps. So, by bombing Mujahidin Khalq, the U.S. has taken a very clear 
step in strengthening Iran's hand within Iraq. Despite some verbal 
mutual attacks and demonstrations against U.S. presence, this 
bombing speaks volumes about U.S.-Iranian relations.  

Because, though I am not clairvoyant, if all the people saying the U.S. 
is about to attack Iran are right, why would they start by bombing an 
armed group which exists to fight Iran?  

And if, as most certainly appears to be the case, the U.S. and Iran are 
working together on a *military* level, does it not support the hypothesis 
that the U.S.-led Empire is in fact trying to increase, not decrease, the 
power of Muslim fundamentalism in the Persian Gulf, and Central Asia 
beyond? [4]  

Here's the article.

-- Jared Israel.

===================================================

U.S. Bombed Bases of Iranian Rebels in Iraq

Douglas Jehl
International Herald Tribune | New York Times
Thursday 17 April 2003

=================================================== 
WASHINGTON - Without public announcement, American forces have 
bombed the principal bases of the main armed Iranian opposition group 
in Iraq, which has maintained several thousand fighters with tanks and 
artillery along Iraq's border with Iran for more than a decade.  

The group, Mujahidin Khalq, has been labeled a terrorist organization by 
the United States since 1997. But the biggest beneficiary of the strikes 
will be the Iranian government, which has lost scores of soldiers in 
recent years to cross-border attacks by the guerrillas, who have sought 
to overthrow Iran's clerical regime.  

At the same time, the attacks appear bound to anger the scores of 
more than 150 members of the U.S. Congress who have described the 
Iranian opposition group as an organized and effective pressure point 
on Iran's government, and had urged the Bush administration to strike 
the organization from its terrorist list.  

In the months leading up to the war, "We made it very clear that these 
folks are pro-democracy, anti-fundamentalism, anti-terrorism, helpful 
to the U.S. in providing information about the activities of the Iranian 
regime, and advocates of a secular government in Iran," said Yleem 
Poblete, staff director for the House International Relations Committee's 
subcommittee on the Middle East and Asia.  

"They are our friends, not our enemies. And right now, they are the 
most organized alternative to the Iranian regime, and the fact that 
they are the main target of the Iranian regime says a lot about their 
effectiveness."  

Defense Department officials who described the air attacks said they 
have been followed in recent days by efforts on the ground by American 
forces on the ground to pursue and detain members of the group.  

It was unclear whether the attacks, described by Defense Department 
officials, were intended in part as a gesture by the United States 
to thank Iran for its noninterference in the war in Iraq.  

The United States does not maintain diplomatic relations with Iran, 
which is listed on the Bush administration's "axis of evil," but American 
officials are believed to have met secretly with Iranian officials in the 
months before the war to urge Iran's government to maintain its 
neutrality.  

A top military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said the 
United States had "bombed the heck" out of at least two of the group's 
bases, including one about 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of 
Baghdad. The officer said the fact that the group had been listed as a 
terrorist organization by the United States gave the military little 
alternative but to launch the strikes.  

In a telephone interview from Paris, Mohammad Mohaddessin, a top official 
of a coalition of Iranian opposition groups that includes Mujahidin Khalq, 
condemned the bombing as bombing "an astonishing and regrettable act. 
It is a clear kowtowing to the demands of the Iranian regime," said 
Mohaddessin, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the coalition, 
the National Council of Resistance of Iran.  

Mohaddessin said the group had abandoned its bases in southern Iraq 
before the American attack began, and had been assured by "proper 
U.S. authorities" that its other camps, located northeast and east 
of Baghdad, would not be targets of American bombing.  

An expert on Iran, Patrick Clawson, said Wednesday that the American 
attacks almost certainly represented an end to the group as a fighting 
force, after the years in which it operated freely from Iraq with support 
from Saddam Hussein. Clawson, research director at the Washington 
Institute for Near East Policy, said the attack might also weaken the 
group's political arm, the National Council on Resistance in Iran.  

"The reason the regime has been so worried about the MEK has been 
the impression that it could be attractive to those who are rejecting the 
regime," Clawson said, using the group's initials. "It's now less likely 
that the MEK will maintain this image in the eyes of young Iranians as 
being the most radical opponents."  

Mujahidin Khalq was formed in the 1960s and expelled from Iran after 
the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Its primary financial support in recent 
years came from Saddam's government, but it has support from 
lawmakers in Europe as well as the United States.  

In its most recent annual listing of terrorist groups, the State 
Department said of the group that "its history is studded with anti- 
Western attacks as well as terrorist attacks on the interests of the 
clerical regime in Iran and abroad."  

During the 1970s, the report noted, Mujahidin Khalq killed several 
American military personnel and American civilians working on defense 
projects in Tehran, the Iranian capital.  

The decision by the Clinton administration to add the group to its list 
of terrorist organizations was widely interpreted as a goodwill gesture 
to the Iranian government, and its president, Mohammed Khatami, a more 
moderate force than Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  

Group calls for protests

An exiled Iranian opposition group said Wednesday that it would hold 
marches in Washington and across Europe on Saturday to protest 
against attacks on its bases in Iraq that it said killed 28 of its 
members, Reuters reported from Stockholm.  

The Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, political 
wing of the Mujahidin Khalq, plans marches at noon local time in 
London, Washington, Paris, Cologne, Brussels, Stockholm, Copenhagen 
and Oslo.  

Leaders of the group said 28 people had been killed, 43 wounded and 
others captured in the attacks, reported to have occurred last Thursday 
and Friday.  

The group began as leftist-Islamist opposition to the late Shah of Iran 
but fell out with Shiite clerics who took power after the 1979 Islamic 
revolution.  

It uses Iraq as a springboard for attacks in Iran and was accused by 
Washington, which brands it a "terrorist" group, of supporting Saddam 
Hussein before his fall. The group is said by Western analysts to have 
little support in Iran because of its collaboration with Iraq during the 
1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.  

(C) International Herald Tribune - Posted for Fair Use Only

[Footnotes and Further Reading Follows the Appeal]

==================================================

Appeal from the Editors

==================================================

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Cheers, Steve..

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