By Theodore Shoebat
As we have been saying for years now: In America, parties change but policy does not. Trump campaigned under the persona of a leader who was going to no longer allow American policy to impose itself in Syria. Well, now John Bolton is saying that the US still has an interest in working policy in Syria. A report from Algemeiner states:
Russia is “stuck” in Syria and looking for others to fund post-war reconstruction there, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said, describing this as an opportunity for Washington to press for Iranian forces to quit the country.
Bolton, speaking to Reuters while on a visit to Israel, said US contacts with Russia did not include any understanding over a push by Damascus’s forces against the rebels in Idlib. But he warned against any use of chemical or biological weapons there.
Under President Donald Trump, the United States has sought to disengage from Syria, where the previous administration deployed some troops and gave limited support to rebel Kurdish forces over the objections of NATO partner Turkey.
Bolton sidestepped a question on whether these measures would continue, saying the US was staying in Syria to carry out some specific objectives.
“Our interests in Syria are to finish the destruction of the ISIS (Islamic State) territorial caliphate and deal with the continuing threat of ISIS terrorism and to worry about the presence of Iranian militias and regular forces,” he said in an interview.
At a news conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Bolton voiced support for Israeli strikes in recent months on sites in Syria where he said Iranian-supplied missiles and other “threatening weapons” had been deployed.
Why is Bolton pushing US military presence in Syria? He claims its about ISIS. But the reality is that for many years Bolton has been pushing for military intervention in the Middle East in order to oust out the established governments there. John Mearsheimer, a prominent scholar on political study has made some very educated observations on the Israel Lobby and how it has influenced the US to do very destructive policies. I will present some quotes here:
“Prominent neoconservatives include former and present policy makers like Elliot Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, William Bennet, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, the late Jean Kirkpatrick, I. Lewi Scooter Libby, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, and David Wurmser; journalists like Robert Bartley, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Bret Stephens, and Norman Podhoretz, academics like Fouad Ajami, Eliot Cohen, Aaron Friedberg, Bernard Lewis, and Ruth Wedgwood; and think-tank pundits like Max Boot, David Frum, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Robert Kagan, Michael Ledeen, Joshua Muravchik, Daniel Pipes, Danielle Pletka, Michael Rubin, and Meyrav Wurmser.” (P. 129)
…
“In addition to [Elliot] Abrams, [Richard] Perle, and [Paul] Wolfowitz, the other key insider pushing for regime change in Syria was Assistance Secretary of State (and later UN Ambassador) John Bolton. He had told Israeli leaders a month before the Iraq war that President Bush would deal with Syria, as well as Iran and North Korea, right after Saddam fell from power. Toward that end, Bolton reportedly prepared to tell Congress in mid-July that Syria’s WMD programs had reached the point where they were a serious threat to stability in the Middle East and had to be dealt with sooner rather than later. The CIA and other government agencies objected, however, and claimed that Bolton was inflating the danger.” (p. 275)
Bolton does not want the US to stay in Syria just to ‘defeat ISIS.’ ISIS is a pretext for continuing the policy that he and his ilk have been lobbying for for years. It does not matter who the president is; if the lobby for war and militarism wants to see the destruction of the Middle East, they will put in endless effort to see that happen. Bolton and his kind say that they want to ‘fight terrorism.’ But their policies only advance jihadist terrorism, be it in Iraq, Libya or Syria. And if you argue, ‘Well, the US didn’t know that backing rebels would cause this much chaos.’ The US did regime change in Iraq, and it brought horrific havoc; the US has been working to overthrow Assad and it has brought horrific havoc, violence and genocide; the US overthrew Gaddafi, and it brought about horrific violence against Christians and black Africans. The pattern is the same; America knows what hell it is unleashing and does not care because money is to be made from the production of weaponry. Bolton says he wants to do regime change in Iran. But what is his alternative to replace the current regime in Iran? The Iranian Mujahideen.
John Bolton blabbers about Syria being in the “axis of evil,” all the while Bolton and his ilk will lobby for the MEK, that is, the Islamist Mujahideen-e Khalq, or the People’s Muhahideen of Iran, a terrorist group and cult which has done attacks that led to the deaths of both Iranians and American citizens. So while these lobbyists for destruction will sit there and talk about the dangers of Hezbollah and Iran, they will lobby not only for the Iranian mujahideen, but for the Syrian Muslim jihadists as well. This should lead us to question their motives. Are these lobbyists really against terrorism, or do they use the reality of terrorism to advocate for a pernicious agenda? The reality is the latter of the two.
Daniel Pipes has also lobbied for the MEK, stating that they are not terrorists and they can be useful to the US government. In a 2003 article, Daniel Pipes wrote:
Is the MeK a terrorist group? No. It used terrorism decades ago, when its members attacked Americans. For the last 15 years, however, the MeK has been organized as an army, and its only violent actions have been directed against the Iranian regime.”
So, according to Pipes, a terrorist is only defined as such when they only kill Americans or Israelis. To Pipes, a terrorist group that has killed Americans in the past is okay, just as long as it uses terrorism against the Iranian government. So all of this talk about Iran from these lobbyists is full of hypocrisy because these very people are backing the Iranian mujahideen. And now they are in favor for destroying a whole country (Syria) in the name of a hypocritical outcry against Iran. This goes back years in the activities of American lobbyists for war. In September of 2003, John Bolton appeared before Congress and declared that Syria was a growing threat to American interest in the Middle East. After Saddam was executed, lobbyists were stating that what happened to Saddam could happen to Assad next. In early April of 2003, WINEP (Washington Institute for Near East Policy), produced a report stating that Syria “should not miss the message that countries that pursue Saddam’s reckless, irresponsible and defiant behavior could end up sharing his fate.”
The Syrian government, while being berated as an evil regime, was at one point a major source of intelligence for the United Stated against Al-Qaeda. This continued until the second Iraq War (when neoconservative lobbyists began pushing for regime change in Syria). As Seymour Hersh wrote back in 2003:
American intelligence and State Department officials have told me that by early 2002 Syria had emerged as one of the C.I.A.’s most effective intelligence allies in the fight against Al Qaeda, providing an outpouring of information that came to an end only with the invasion of Iraq. … [A]fter September 11th the Syrian leader, Bashar Assad, initiated the delivery of Syrian intelligence to the United States. The Syrians had compiled hundreds of files on Al Qaeda, including dossiers on the men who participated—and others who wanted to participate—in the September 11th attacks. Syria also penetrated Al Qaeda cells throughout the Middle East and in Arab exile communities throughout Europe. That data began flowing to C.I.A. and F.B.I. operatives.
Syria had accumulated much of its information because of Al Qaeda’s ties to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic terrorists who have been at war with the secular Syrian government for more than two decades.
Hersh also pointed to something quite fascinating: Mohammad Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, wrote an entire essay on Aleppo as part of his study on “urban planning”. He did such a study as part of the conspiracy of the Muslim Brotherhood to topple the Assad regime. As Hersh writes:
Aleppo was the subject of Mohammed Atta’s dissertation on urban planning, and he travelled there twice in the mid-nineties. “At every stage in Atta’s journey is the Muslim Brotherhood,” a former C.I.A. officer who served undercover in Damascus told me.
So, what we find here, is that the US’ plans for Syria, is no different from those of Al-Qaeda and Muhammad Atta himself. So now the US is doing what Muhammad Atta wanted.
In a CIA document written in 1985, entitled, Syria: Sunni Opposition to the Minority Alawite Regime, it talks about how the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood could destabilize Syria after the death of Hafez al-Assad:
“When Assad dies, concern among the Alawite elite about Sunni discontent probably will serve to dampen rivalries within the regime and contribute to an orderly succession. The longevity of such a successor regime, however, will depend in part on its ability to replicate Assad’s successful combination of repression and co-optation of the Sunni community. A broad-based popular movement or Islamic revolution appears unlikely, but in the context of a succession crises or in the early stages of a new regime, Sunni officers might seek to take advantage of regime weaknesses to attempt a coup. The Muslim Brotherhood almost certainly would attempt to instigate civil disorders to test the staying power of Assad’s successor as president.”
The US government knew very well that the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to topple the Syrian government, and this is why the CIA backed the Muslim Brotherhood to support the policy of destabilization in Syria. In the beginning of the Syrian civil war, the CIA was working in Turkey to use the Turkish government and the Muslim Brotherhood as a conduit to send weapons to the rebels. As the AP reported back in 2012:
The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some anti-tank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries, including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.
Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich were in Paris speaking before thousands of Iranians at the “Free Iran” conference where they called for regime change in Iran. The event was organized by the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), which is the umbrella organization for the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), or the People’s Muhahideen of Iran, a terrorist group and cult which has done attacks that led to the deaths of both Iranians and American citizens. Gingrich, in his speech, said:
“The only way to safety in the region is to replace the dictatorship with a democracy and that has to be our goal”
“This government is about to collapse, and this is the time to turn on the pressure,” Giuliani told a crowd of thousands of flag-waving MEK followers. “Thank God my president turned his back on that very dangerous nuclear deal with Iran. We are not going to do business with the world’s top sponsor of terrorism.”
Here is a video from March of 2018 of a speech by Giuliani in which he screams for regime change:
Rudy Giuliani also praised the revolutionaries in Iran, affirming that soon they will topple the Iranian government:
“We’ve lived through this before in other oppressed countries when the people take to the streets, and they protest day after day, like they’ve done in over 142 cities in Iran, like they did the other day Tehran. When they do that, and no matter how much they’re oppressed, no matter how much they are beaten, no matter how much they are arrested, or no matter how many of them are killed, they continue to grow and grow with numbers that now threaten to topple the regime. When that happens, then freedom is right around the corner!”
Giuliani talked about how the economy in Iran is collapsing and that this was a good thing because it would push the populace to violent revolution. What makes his statement interesting is that Giuliani references both the Bolshevik Revolution and the French Revolutions — both anti-Christian revolts that led to the deaths of hundreds and thousands, even millions, of lives — as models for facilitating revolution in Iran:
“freedom from oppression always comes through economic want, through human want. Thats what happened in the French Revolution, thats what happened in the Russian Revolution — the original one, and the second one —, and thats whats happening right now in your homeland.”
That Giuliani actually references the French and Bolshevik Revolutions as inspirations for what he wants to happen in Iran, indicates that the motive behind all the nice language of ‘democracy’ cannot be anything good.
Giuliani brags about how he and his American colleagues lobbied to have MEK no longer labeled as a terrorist organization:
“Since I’ve been working with you, and all of my colleagues from the United States, we fought a world wide battle to shed the unfair label of terrorism in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union — that label is now gone, and you’re seen defenders of human rights, because thats what you are. And we won that battle!”
Giuliani declared that it is democracy that the “NCRI stands for, thats what Madame Rajavi stands for, and thats what your martyrs died for!” Who is this Madame Rajavi and these “martyrs” that Guiliani is praising? He is speaking of Maryam Rajavi, the current head of the MEK cult and the wife of Massoud Rajavi, who is considered to be the leader of the cult but has been declared missing since 2003. The “martyrs” that Giuliani reveres are those insurgents of the MEK cult who led an armed struggle against the Iranian governments of both the Shah Pahlavi and of the Islamic Republic.
Members of the NCRI have argued that their organization is separate from the MEK, but a 2004 FBI investigation concluded that the NCRI is “not a separate organization, but is instead, and has been, an integral part of the MEK.” And on the official website for Iran Freedom it admits that “Five organizations are also members of the NCRI, including the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI, MEK), the largest and most popular resistance group inside Iran.”
Guliani, John Bolton and Newt Gingrich are praising the MEK as the political group that needs to replace the Iranian regime in order to bring democracy. Bolton made it clear that the US government should use the MEK to facilitate regime range in Iran, stating in an MEK conference in 2016:
“There is only one answer here, to support legitimate opposition groups that favor overthrowing the military theocratic dictatorship in Tehran.”
However, there have been American officials who have warned about the dangers of the MEK. One US official in 2011 stated:
“We do not view the MEK as a viable opposition movement for Iran … Its own structure is not democratic, so how can the Iranian people expect it to enact democratic change within the country?”
While the group is elevated by neo-cons and other politicians as a force for democracy, the reality is that the MEK is a cult that is closer in nature to the Warren Jeffs cult. This is especially clear when you read about the cult’s past actions in its compound, Camp Ashraf, in Iraq. A RAND Corporation describes the MEK has having “a near-religious devotion to the Rajavis … public self-deprecation sessions, mandatory divorce, celibacy, enforced separation from family and friends and gender segregation.”
In the 1970s, the MEK was responsible for the murder of six Americans, and in 1979 MEK members were in glee as they watched 52 Americans taken hostage in the US embassy in Tehran. It is quite telling as to the hypocrisy of these politicians: they will say that they are against ‘the jihad,’ then they will unite with jihadists, but with the more conniving jihadists. Mix Islam with marxism, give a face of modernity and sprinkle some compound cultism, and you have the MEK. In a New York Times Magazine story Elizabeth Rubin documented the group’s cult-like behavior: “Every morning and night, the kids, beginning as young as 1 and 2, had to stand before a poster of Massoud and Maryam, salute them and shout praises to them”. “Mujahedeen members have no access to newspapers or radio or television,” Rubin wrote, “other than what is fed them.”
Giuliani, in the same speech, talks about how he helped bring in members of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (People’s People’s Mujahedin of Iran of Iran), an Iranian nationalist cult that wants to overthrow the Iranian regime, into Albania. These MEK members were, according to Giuliani, stuck in Iraq, but then brought to Albania where they now operate in an MEK cult enclave:
“Our people that were stranded in Iraq, yes, we lost hundreds of them. But, we finally delivered them to freedom in Albania, and I thank the government of Albania, I was there this year, its a wonderful place to see, its a great hope for the future of Iran, and believe me, those people are doing great work for us every single day. God bless them!”
When Giuliani says that these MEK members in Albania are “doing great for us,” by “us” does he mean the MEK or the US government, or both? The answer may lie in one part of Giuliani’s speech, in which he talks about how all the protests occurring in Iran are being coordinated by MEK operatives in Albania and in Iran:
“You’ve been able to form resistance units all over Iran. Those protests are not happening accidentally, those protests are happening because they’re being coordinated now — unlike in 2009 — they’re being coordinated by many of our people in Albania and many of our people here, and all throughout the world.”
There is cooperation between MEK agents and the US government. One report from Balkan Analysis states that the Obama administration worked in tandem with the Albanian government to bring MEK operatives from Iraq to Albania:
“In 2013, the Obama Administration struck a deal with the government of Albania to offer asylum to about 250 members of Mohajedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian “dissident group” exiled from Iran to Iraq during the early years of Khomeini’s regime. The group was once labeled a terrorist organization by the international community due to its track record of orchestrating bombing campaigns in Iran – often targeting American offices, businesses and citizens – as well as other military operations in an attempt to oust the newly established Iranian Islamic regime in the 1970s.
Since 2013, the Obama Administration and Albanian government have extended the agreement, consequently increasing the number of asylum seekers to somewhere in the range of 500-2,000 MEK members.”
There are currently three thousand MEK members residing in Albania, where numerous American politicians and officials have visited to lobby for the Iranian cult. Last year John Mccain made a speech in Albania for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) of the MEK. Moreover, in August of 2017, a number of Republican senators visited the MEK in Albania and met with Maryam Rajavi. One report states that “US Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), Roy Blunt (R-MO), and John Cornyn (R-TX), who is majority whip in the Senate, met with Rajavi [in Albania] to discuss US policies toward Iran and the possibility of regime change.”
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi (center), the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran meeting a senior delegation from the United States Senate. From right: Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), Roy Blunt (R-MO), and John Cornyn (R-TX). (From the Huffington Post)
Whats very interesting is how Albania is being used as a center for geopolitical policies.
According to a statement on the meeting from the National Council of Resistance of Iran: “Maryam Rajavi underscored the need for imposing comprehensive sanctions on the Iranian regime’s banking and oil sector”. The United States is definitely taking actions that are fitting to the demands of the MEK, with Trump stating in May: “We will be instituting the highest level of economic sanction” on Iran.
But while Trump acts like he is combating Iranian jihadism, his people are backing a group that calls itself “the people’s Mohajedeen,” which is really just another mujahideen organization with a very long history of terrorism. As one report states, “MEK instigated a bombing campaign, including an attack against the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Prime Minister’s office, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. In addition, MEK assassinations range in date and targets from U.S. military personnel and civilians in the 1970s (hence the original terrorist listing) to, almost certainly, the killing of at least five leading Iranian nuclear scientists in recent months.”
While the MEK was initially categorized as a terrorist organization, the US government rescinded this, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton writing in 2012: “I hereby revoke the designation of the Mujahadin-e Khalq, and its aliases, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization”.
So, all of the republicans who want to praise the MEK as a group for freedom, should also thank Hillary Clinton for backing the freeing of the MEK from the label of terrorist. Officials in the administration are acting like they are ‘fighting the jihad,’ all the while they are whoring with another Iranian mujahideen group that is very wealthy and very organized — the MEK. If the US is turning to groups like MEK for regime change, then the US’ policy of regime change towards Iran, it appears, will lead to a similar consequence as has been seen in Iraq or Syria.
People like Bolton are only helping the advancement of Islam.