Back the Iranian opposition: Stop calling MEK a terrorist group and let Iranians transform their own country
November 15, 2011
Foreign Affairs Analyst and Iran Expert
By Alireza Jafarzadeh
1:03 p.m. EST November 15, 2011
The International Atomic Energy Agency's latest report about
Iran lays bare the true nature of Tehran's nuclear agenda:
an advanced, sophisticated and highly secretive program run
by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to build the bomb.
Overwhelming evidence shows a pattern dating back many years
of covert activities with significant military involvement
that cannot be explained away for any purpose other than
building a nuclear warhead. The report contradicts the
Iranian regime's claim that its nuclear program is for
peaceful purposes. "Iran has carried out activities relevant
to the development of a nuclear explosive device," the IAEA
report underscored.
For years, Tehran has been dribbling out information only
when confronted, conceding the existence of nuclear sites
only after they were exposed by Iran's main opposition
movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and responding to
IAEA inquiries only after the fact.
Speculation over what to do about Iran is the topic of the
day, but the Iran policy conundrum was not ignited by this
or previous IAEA reports, nor is it a matter only for
Washington to decide. The West has been engaged in a policy
debate for years, in the course of which Europe was pretty
much given the lead to deal with Iran, but to no avail.
For three decades, Washington has acted like a pendulum,
oscillating between engagement and threats of military
action. Given the problematic nature of the latter,
engagement has essentially held sway. This has provided the
Iranian regime a golden opportunity to rapidly advance its
quest for the bomb.
When the European Union started nuclear talks with Iran in
2003, Tehran had not even completed the construction of its
only known uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, and it was
not enriching uranium. By the time President Barack Obama
was sworn in, Iran was already enriching uranium at 3.5
percent levels, thousands of centrifuges had been installed
at Natanz, and work was proceeding at a number of nuclear
sites.
When President Obama embarked on his campaign to unclench
the fist of the ayatollahs and persuade Tehran to abandon
its nuclear weapons program, Tehran's apologists were
cheering the anticipated results. Nearly three years later,
Tehran is enriching up to 20 percent, is installing
centrifuge machines in an underground uranium enrichment
facility in Qom, has been experimenting and working on
building nuclear warheads, and has enough enriched uranium
to make four nuclear weapons, if further enriched to weapon
grade.
The moral of the story is that engagement has failed to halt
Tehran's nuclear drive. Sanctions have proven patently
insufficient. So can anything be done? The answer is yes.
The opposition MEK has been the source of much of the
intelligence about the existence of multiple nuclear sites
scattered in different parts of Iran, including the uranium
enrichment facility in Natanz and the heavy water facility
in Arak in 2002; the key nuclear research and development
facility in Lavizan-Shian in 2003; the Qom underground
enrichment facility in 2005; and other significant sites
over the following years directly involved with nuclear
weaponization.
Iran saw major uprisings in 2009 lasting several months
before being brutally suppressed. Many MEK members were
arrested, sentenced to death or hanged for organizing and/or
taking part in the anti-government demonstrations.
Currently, Iran's economy is in shambles, the ruling elite
are increasing fighting among themselves and internal
dissent has spread.
Little can be done to stop Iran from advancing its ambitious
nuclear weapons program without factoring in the Iranian
people and their organized opposition committed to replacing
the regime with a democratic, secular and non-nuclear
republic. This option has the support of a large, bipartisan
group of members of Congress who are calling on the State
Department to remove the terrorist designation of the MEK,
placed on the movement 14 years ago as a goodwill gesture to
Tehran. (Dozens of senior former officials of the Obama,
Bush and Clinton administrations have made similar calls for
delisting the MEK, including a national security adviser, a
Homeland Security secretary, three chairs of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, directors of the CIA and FBI, a U.S.
attorney general, U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations,
and counter-terrorism officials.)
Nothing has been more destructive than engagement packaged
under different names. Iran's nuclear clock is ticking.
However, there is no need for foreign governments to
allocate money, dispatch troops or launch any kind of
military action against Tehran.
This is the era of people power, arguably more deeply rooted
in Iran than what we have seen in the Arab Spring. It is
time for the West, the U.S. in particular, to focus on the
third way: change from within, by relying on the people of
Iran and their organized opposition movement.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is the author of "The Iran Threat:
President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis." He
exposed the nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak in 2002, which
triggered the IAEA inspections of the Iranian nuclear sites.
His email is jafarzadeh@spcwashington.com.
Jafarzadeh has revealed Iran's terrorist network in Iraq and
its terror training camps since 2003. He first disclosed the
existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the
Arak heavy water facility in August 2002.
