Remember Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress??

Remember the days (years, actually) before GWBush launched his unnecessary
war on Iraq?? Remember Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress? In
case you don't, here's the short version.

Chalabi and his family were wealthy, powerful Iraqis until Saddam Hussein
came to power. Chalabi then took everything he could steal and fled to
Jordan -- where he was indicted for bank fraud and forced to flee Jordan --
if he ever returns, he'll be arrested. He ended up living in France,
wearing $2,000 suits and living only in the finest style. He very much
wanted to return to Iraq, not to establish "democracy," but to throw out
Saddam and set himself up as the Chief Thief in Iraq. He organized the INC
and presented himself and the INC to the neo-cons as true, patriotic
representatives of the aspirations of the Iraqi people. He claimed to have
"sources" inside Iraq who were feeding him "inside" information -- it was
all bull***, U.S. intell agencies deemed every one of his sources to be a
fabricator -- but that didn't stop Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz
from kissing Chalabi's ass and beleiving his every "source." The rest is
history.

So, why is this important? Because the same old bull*** is starting again,
this time it's Iran. Here are the details.

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/3280

QUOTE

Iran Policy Committee (IPC) is "comprised of former officials from the White
House, State Department, Pentagon, intelligence agencies, and experts from
think tanks and universities." According to IPC, "Iran is emerging as the
primary threat against the United States and its allies," but says that the
policy debate in Washington is wrongly focused on two alternatives:
engagement and military strikes. "By calling for change in Tehran based on
Iranians instead of Americans," IPC says that it is offering a "third
alternative," namely: "Keep open diplomatic and military options, while
providing a central role for the Iranian opposition to facilitate regime
change." 1

IPC's slogan is "Empowering Iranians for Regime Change."

Members of IPC: James Akins, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia (ret.);
Lt. Col. Bill Cowan, USMC (ret.); R. Bruce McColm; Lt. General Thomas
McInerney; Captain Charles T. "Chuck" Nash, USN (ret.); Lt. General Edward
Rowny, USA (ret.); Professor Raymond Tanter; Major General Paul E. Vallely,
USA (Ret.); Clare M. Lopez.

Other key figures in the launching of IPC in early 2005 were Paul Leventhal,
founder and president emeritus of Nuclear Control Institute; and Neil
Livingstone, the CEO of Global Options Inc.

The two leading figures at IPC are Raymond Tanter, who cofounded the
organization in January 2006, and Clare Lopez, IPC's executive director. IPC
members have close ties with the U.S. military, intelligence community, and
high-tech military contractors.

Lopez, who was an operations officer with the CIA for two decades, went to
work in the private sector as a threat assessment expert for HawkEye Systems
and Chugach Systems Integration. She is also an associate with the
conservative Middle East Institute. Tanter is a member of the Committee on
the Present Danger and an adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy.

Charles Nash is the founder and president of Emerging Technologies
International, Inc. (ETII), while Thomas McInerney owns the consulting firm,
GRTT (Government Reform Through Technology), which he established in 2000.
From 1996-1999, McInerney was chief executive officer and president of
Business Executives for National Security (BENS), and was previously vice
president of command and control for Loral Defense Systems-Eagan. McInervey
and Paul Vallely coauthored the 2004 book Endgame-The Blueprint for Victory
in the War on Terror, which was published by Regnery, a right-wing
publishing house. Vallely is the chairman of the Military Committee of the
neoconservative Center for Security Policy. 2

Bill Cowan is the co-founder and chief executive of wvc3, Inc., a private
contractor that provides security and intelligence services to the U.S.
government and corporations. The company claims that "no other company,
large or small, possesses the in-depth understanding of terrorism or the
many nuances of domestic security." Among accomplishments and past
operations the company lists are the following: "Our team's experiences
range from routing out and targeting terrorists in the Middle East on behalf
of the Pentagon and the CIA, to training and exercising first responders
here in the United States for their state and local governments. We have
been on special assignments in the jungles and mountains of Southeast Asia
during the Vietnam War, and we ran successful operations against the KGB's
and GRU's best in Europe and Africa. Involved continuously in Beirut during
its darkest days, we also ran a highly successful hostage rescue operation
into Kuwait during its occupation by Iraqi forces." 3

Bruce McColm is IPC's inside connection to the Republican Party, the U.S
government's democratization programs, and the neoconservative camp. With
his roots in the Social Democrats USA, like many other neoconservatives who
have had key roles in shaping U.S. democratization strategy, McColm was for
many years a major figure in the neocon-led Freedom House, including serving
as the institute's director. McColm is also the former president of the
International Republican Institute, one of the core institutes through which
U.S. democratization funding is channeled, including recent
democracy-building aid for Iran regime change. He is currently president of
the Institute for Democratic Strategies, "an organization committed to
strengthening democratic processes abroad."

IPC has published the following white papers on Iran: U.S. Policy Options
for Iran and Iranian Political Opposition, September 13 2005; U.S. Policy
Options for Iran: Sham Elections, Disinformation Campaign, Human Rights
Abuses, and Regime Change, June 30 2005; U.S. Policy Options for Iran,
February 10, 2005; and What Makes Iran Tick, May 10, 2006. 4

With the release of each publication, IPC hosts a press conference, often at
the National Press Building. In addition, IPC members work closely with
Congress to advance support for a regime change policy and to channel U.S.
aid through the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK). In addition, IPC sponsors policy
briefings on Capitol Hill, works closely with the newly created Iran Human
Rights and Democracy Caucus in the House, and has a speakers' bureau.

History and Impact

Founded in January 2006, IPC quickly became a major actor in the Iran policy
debate in Washington, DC. The institute calls for the U.S. government to
remove Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK) from the list of international terrorist
groups and advocates that a U.S. regime change strategy include MEK as one
of its main instruments. 5

Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK) means "people's freedom fighters." MEK affiliates
are the Iraq-based National Liberation Army of Iran and the National Council
of Resistance in Iran. MEK also goes by the name People's Mojahedin
Organization of Iran (PMOI). The public face of the MEK is Maryam Rajavi,
who has been designated by the MEK as the president-elect of Iran's
government in exile. She is the wife of MEK's longtime leader, Massoud
Rajavi. The National Liberation Army of Iran has an estimated 3,500 members
in Camp Ashraf to the northeast of Baghdad. Most observers consider MEK to
have cult-like characteristics, such as requiring celibacy of its members
and holding daily self-criticism sessions. Human Rights Watch and other
groups have charged MEK with a pattern of human rights violations, including
torture. 6

IPC's first white paper, U.S. Policy Options for Iran, presented a strategy
of regime change involving Iranian dissidents, primarily the MEK, which the
report describes as "indisputably the largest and most organized Iranian
opposition group." IPC discounts negotiations with the Iranian government as
an effective strategy. "Negotiations will not work," commented Maj. Gen.
Paul Vallely (ret.), one of the IPC principals who helped prepare the
report. Vallely described the Iranian regime as a "house of cards." 7 In
addition to calling for the U.S. government to take the MEK off its list of
international terrorist organizations, the IPC report advocated that the
Bush administration "might encourage the new Iraqi government to extend
formal recognition to the MEK, based in Ashraf, as a legitimate political
organization. Such a recognition would send yet another signal from
neighboring Iraq that the noose is tightening around Iran's unelected
rulers." 8

IPC states: "The designation of the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization
by the State Department has served, since 1997, as an assurance to the
Iranian regime that the United States has removed the regime change option
from the table. Removing the terrorist designation from the MEK could serve
as the most tangible signal to the Iranian regime, as well as to the Iranian
people, that a new option is now on the table. Removal might also have the
effect of supporting President Bush's assertion that America stands with the
people of Iran in their struggle to liberate themselves."

IPC has succeeded in raising support for the MEK in the U.S. Congress
through its Capitol Hill briefings. Although functioning as a MEK booster
group in Washington, IPC apparently is not institutionally tied to the MEK.
Rather it sees the MEK, with its political and military affiliates, as the
only organization with the potential for destabilizing the current regime
and opening the door for regime change. At the organization's first news
conference, Neil Livingstone, an IPC founder, explained the relationship:
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

The Iran Policy Committee demonstrated its strong ties on Capitol Hill in
April 2005 when it convened a briefing at the invitation of the Iran Human
Rights and Democracy Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives. Co-chairs
of this caucus are Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and Congressman Bob
Filner (D-CA). 9

Tancredo raised the issue of the terrorist designation of Iran's main
opposition group, the Mujahedeen e-Khalq organization, and IPC panelists
concurred on the need to remove it from the U.S. Foreign Terrorist
Organizations List. Rep. Tancredo noted that the MEK was designated not
because it was involved in terrorist activities, but because the Clinton
administration sought to curry favor with the Iranian regime.

IPC's Raymond Tanter told Tancredo and other caucus members: "While Iran's
nuclear clock is ticking very fast, the clock for a regime change is much
too slow. And if Iran were to acquire the bomb before the people are able to
change the regime, it might obtain a new lease on life, act to extend the
Iranian Revolution throughout the region, and threaten U.S. interests in
countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and
Israel."

Tanter also presented his radical prescriptions for U.S. policy in Iran at a
press briefing at the National Press Club on November 21, 2005. 10 Excerpts
from Tanter's speech follow:

"One military option is the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, which may have
the capability to destroy hardened, deeply-buried targets. That is,
bunker-busting bombs could destroy tunnels and other underground facilities.
But the Pentagon's 2001 Nuclear Posture Review states that over 70 countries
employ underground facilities for military purposes, while the United States
lacks sufficient means to destroy these facilities. In addition, the
Non-Proliferation Treaty bans use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear
states, such as Iran. Such a prohibition might not apply as much to Israel.
In this respect, the United States has sold Israel bunker-busting bombs,
which keeps the military option on the table."

"Empowerment requires working with Iranian opposition groups in general and
with the main opposition in particular. The National Council of Resistance
of Iran (NCRI) and the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) are not only the best
sources for intelligence on Iran's potential violations of the
nonproliferation regime. The NCRI and MEK are also possible allies of the
West in bringing about regime change in Tehran."

"The international community should realize that there is only one group to
which the regime pays attention and fears: the Mujahedeen-e Khalq and the
political coalition of which the MEK is a part, the National Council of
Resistance of Iran. By delisting the NCRI and MEK from the Foreign Terrorist
Organizations listing maintained by the Department of State, it would allow
regime change to be on the table in Tehran. With regime change in the open,
Tehran would have to face a choice about whether to slow down in its drive
to acquire nuclear weapons or not."

Prior to a large MEK-organized rally held in Washington, DC on January 19,
2006, Michael Rubin, an Iran expert at the neoconservative American
Enterprise Institute, wrote an article in the right-wing online journal,
FrontPageMagazine.com, which was titled "Monsters of the Left: The Mujahedin
al-Khalq." Rubin wrote that the MEK "in public, says the right things about
freedom and democracy but, in reality is dedicated to the opposite. Maryam
Rajavi and her husband Masud are adept at public relations and adroit at
reinvention, but the organization over which they preside eschews democracy
and embraces terrorism, autocracy, and Marxism." 11

In her rebuttal to Rubin, IPC's Clare Lopez said that Rubin "vilified the
one organization that actually has the wherewithal to challenge the
terrorist theocrats in Tehran." According to Lopez, "While the MEK's wartime
actions [attacking Iran during the Iran-Iraq war] undeniably alienated some
Iranians, the group's survival and ability to organize itself, and collect
and disseminate key intelligence about Iran's top-secret nuclear weapons and
other Weapons of Mass Destruction programs clearly attest to an extensive
base of support inside the country today. The MEK's broad level of support
among the Iranian Diaspora is obvious in regular and large-scale
demonstrations, for instance, in New York City to protest the September 2005
appearance of Iran's terrorist president Ahmadinejad at the United Nations
(UN) and on January 19 in Washington, DC to urge referral of Iran to the UN
Security Council, where seas of hundreds of waving placards with photos of
Massoud and Maryam Rajavi are always prominent features." 12

The January 19 rally was organized by the Council for Democratic Change in
Iran, which is a front group for the MEK. The keynote speaker, by video
conference, was Maryam Rajavi. Raymond Tanter was one of the featured
speakers. In his speech, Tanter said that the revolution in Iran will not be
one of the nonviolent "color revolutions" likes those in central Europe. "To
say that the only route in Iran is the non-violent route of Gandhi and King
is to misunderstand the nature of the theocratic regime in Tehran."

The pro-MEK rally was endorsed by two U.S. Senators: Tom Coburn (R-OK) and
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), as well as by the House's Iran Human Rights and
Democracy Caucus and by four individual congressional representatives:
Christopher Shays (R-CT), Ed Towns (D-NY), Bob Filner (D-CA), and Sheila
Jackson Lee (D-TX). 13

In a letter to the rally organizers, the Council for Democratic Change in
Iran, the co-chairs of the House caucus, said: "We believe a possible
alternative to the current government can be achieved through supporting the
people of Iran and the Iranian resistance . We extend our solidarity to you
and to the Iranian people and their defiance against tyranny."

According to the Financial Times, Rep. Jackson "spoke warmly" of "Sister
Maryam," during a congressional briefing on October 20, 2005 after the MEK
leader addressed the congressional members and staff by video from France.
14

Another vocal supporter of the MEK has been Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL),
who said that there is "wide support" in Congress for the MEK and that it
will be "one of the leading groups in establishing secular government in
Iran." In 2003 Rep. Ros-Lehtinen released a letter of support for the MEK
that she said had the backing of 150 colleagues, whom she repeatedly refused
to identify. "Because of the [Iranian President Mohammed] Khatami
well-funded campaign on propaganda, lies, and misinformation, I have decided
not to release the names of these signers." 15

On May 11, 2006 IPC released a policy paper, What Makes Tehran Tick, which
concludes that Iran's hostility toward Israel and the United States is less
a result of feeling threatened or living in a "tough neighborhood" than of
"the nature of the regime's revolutionary ideology." Explaining the new IPC
white paper, Tanter stated: "The Islamist nature of the regime takes on
enhanced importance because Iran is on the road to acquiring nuclear
weapons, and there are few exit ramps along the way." Tanter said that,
"Given the Islamist character of the Iranian regime and its nuclear
potential, only regime change ends the threat of a nuclear-armed Islamist
Iran. Diplomacy and military strikes would only delay the onset of the
Iranian regime acquisition of nuclear arms."

The Iran Policy Committee believes that the Bush administration is
increasingly willing to consider taking MEK off the list of terrorists and
to back the organization as an agent of regime change. Several press
accounts, including by the New Yorker, Newsweek, and the American
Conservative, have reported that the Pentagon is already working with the
MEK in intelligence operations inside Iran. President Bush has alluded to
MEK's intelligence work on Iran's nuclear development program, noting in a
March 16, 2005 press conference that the U.S. government had received
important information by a "dissident" group. 16

After Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced administration support
for an additional $75 million in aid for Iranian dissidents and anti-regime
media operations, IPC's Tanter said that he saw "the door opening" in the
administration to recognition of the MEK as a possible partner. But he
cautioned that any support should be covert.

"If the administration follows the path of putting money into opposition
groups in a public way, that will only reinforce Iran's supreme leader
[Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] and his selected president, Mr. Ahmadinejad," he
warned. "They will be tarred by association" with the United States.

"Other opposition groups really don't exist," Tanter said, claiming that he
had spent four months studying Iran's opposition before reaching that
conclusion. "If we are serious about working with groups from within, it
will have to be with the MEK, because there's no other opposition force the
regime cares about." 17

There are at least three main factions of Iranian dissidents who would
accept U.S. funding: the pro-monarchists who support Rezi Pahlavi, the
former shah's son; the anti-monarchists and pro-democracy dissidents who,
like the monarchists, oppose the MEK; and the MEK adherents, who appear to
be the largest organized faction in the United States and Europe and to be
also the best financed. MEK supporters currently stand to the right of the
Bush administration, which has thus far declined to take the MEK off the
list of terrorists. There have also been reports, notably in the American
Conservative in an item written by former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, which
say that the U.S. Special Forces have been working with the MEK in carrying
out reconnaissance and intelligence collection operations in Iran.

Many Iranians oppose U.S. government support to Iranian groups either in the
United States or in Iraq because they say such aid would help the Iranian
government in its efforts to discredit all dissidents and reformers. 18

Although IPC has links to some neoconservative groups like the Center for
Security Policy, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the
now-defunct Coalition for Democracy in Iran, many neoconservatives like
Michael Rubin are critical of the MEK and believe that the U.S. government
should support a regime change strategy that involves other dissident
groups.

END QUOTE


.