Time article useful, unbalanced
Antonia Felix - Emporia
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama faces the most challenging foreign policy issues of any new president in U.S. history.
At the top of the list are an all-out war between Israel and Hamas, entering year six of the war in Iraq, and dealing with the regime in Iran, which refuses to give up its nuclear ambitions and is committed to creating a sister Islamic republic in Iran.
In the United States, the most publicized options for an Iran policy have been limited to two approaches, continuing a track of negotiations and sanctions or taking military action. In Europe, however, much attention is being paid to what is called the “third option,” supporting the Iranian pro-democracy movement in its attempts to replace the regime with a secular, democratic government.
This movement, known as the MEK or PMOI, is headquartered in Paris and led by an Iranian woman named Maryam Rajavi. The Iranian government has long considered the MEK a serious threat — in its 1988 campaign to wipe out the group, 30,000 members were killed and buried in mass graves in suburban Tehran. Over the years, Iran has used the organization as a bargaining chip, promising cooperation with various nations in exchange for the MEK being listed as a terrorist organization.
Recently, courts in the United Kingdom and European Union have ruled that the terrorist listings are illegal, and millions of Iraqis have acknowledged the MEK as an important means of ridding their country of Iranian influence. But news of the MEK has been slow in coming in the U.S. press.
An exception came on Monday with Time magazine’s story about the latest conflict involving the group’s camp in Ashraf, Iraq. Since 2003, MEK members at Camp Ashraf have been protected under the Geneva Convention and guarded by U.S. soldiers in an attempt to avoid attacks by Iranian-supported forces. But on Jan. 1, control of the base was turned over to the Iraqi government and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced that the MEK could no longer have a base in Iraq.
Iran wants the MEK members handed over to Tehran to be prosecuted, and Western observers fear that Maliki may grant their wish. With four official visits made to Tehran thus far, Maliki’s alliance with Iran is a point of concern to many. The United States wants to ensure that the MEK continues to be protected by international law, but the future of the 3,500 Iranian opposition members in Iraq largely depends on Maliki.
Some anticipate the worst, like the International Committee of Jurists in Defense of Ashraf, made up of lawyers in the United States, Canada and Europe. They recently stated that they are “gravely concerned about a wholesale slaughter of the residents of Ashraf.”
I commend Time for bringing this important story to light; however, I am disappointed by the article’s unbalanced portrayal of the MEK. The reporter fails to adequately depict the broad scope of international support for the MEK, which misleads readers about the viability of the MEK as a third option toward Iran.
The reporter’s remark that “even some Iraqis” (italics mine) support the existence of the MEK camp at Ashraf, for example, is a gross understatement. Last summer, 3 million Iraqis from a wide array of political factions signed a declaration of support for the MEK that was presented at the fourth annual session of the Solidarity Congress of the Iraqi People. They join Mrs. Rajavi’s supporters in the U.S. Congress, EU Parliament and elsewhere in acknowledging the MEK as a rational “third option.”
The two recent European court rulings that lay the first steps to delisting the MEK from the terrorist list reveals the strides that the MEK has made in affirming its legitimacy. Those familiar with the MEK’s history are aware that the decisions to attach the terrorist label to the group — including that of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 1997 — were attempts to reach out to the clerical leaders in Iran. When Albright put the MEK on the terrorist list, the LA Times reported that the move was, according to a senior Clinton official, “a goodwill gesture to Tehran and its newly elected moderate president, Mohammad Khatami.”
By not mentioning the recent judicial rulings in the United Kingdom and European Union about what one judge called the “perverse” terrorist listing of the MEK or the strong showing of Iraqi support at the Solidarity Congress, the Time article is misleading about the current recognition of the MEK.
Another example of the Time piece’s less-than-objective coverage is its use of a single source, Gary Sick, to describe the MEK. Sick is a scholar at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute and was a member of the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. His use of the words “clever” and “propaganda” to describe Maryam Rajavi’s efforts to gather support for the Iranian opposition create a clear bias in the piece. Would he attach the same negative connotation to Solidarity’s push to advance its anti-Communist movement in Poland and beyond in the early 1980s, an effort that motivated Pope John Paul II and the international community to take up the cause?
By narrowing its point of view and glossing over the formidable international support for the MEK, the Time article leaves out a crucial segment of the MEK’s story at this critical time in developing foreign policy approaches toward Iran. American readers deserve a balanced presentation of the facts about a controversial yet important piece of the Iran puzzle. Hopefully, the critical situation facing the residents of Camp Ashraf will continue to bring the third option into the spotlight on this side of the Atlantic.
Emporian Antonia Felix is the author of “Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story” (Newmarket Press) and served as the moderator of a U.S. Senate briefing on foreign policy options toward Iran in 2008. E-mail: felixauthor@yahoo.com.
Babak (anonymous) says...
Well difined article. the sooner the world recongizes the "third option" the faster they can get rid of Iranian regime.
January 8, 2009 at 12:34 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Mitra42 (anonymous) says...
Thank you Antonia for this informative article.
It is time to act quickly and responsibly about this matter.
As you mention there is no media coverage of the truth and if there is, it is simply biased!
The only way to save Irannian people and actually the Middle East from this bloodshed that is happening right now is to support the "Third Option".
January 8, 2009 at 1:17 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
seriouslyfolks (anonymous) says...
How exactly does one "replace" one government with another without some sort of military action? If the current government is willing to just be replaced you'd think it would have already happened.
January 8, 2009 at 1:31 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Noushin (anonymous) says...
An excellent analysis by Ms. Felix. The MEK and the coalition they belong to, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, represent the most plausible solution for a democratic Iran. War is not an answer. But appeasement is not the solution either. For many years, the US and some of its European allies tried to "reform" and appease the Iranian regime, The appeasement policy only emboldened the Iranian regime. The blacklisting of the MEK was a part of that bankrupted policy. It is time to recognize the most effective potential fora free Iran and a more peaceful middle east.
January 8, 2009 at 8:41 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
How is a regime replaced without significant bloodshed?
January 9, 2009 at 8:15 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
felixauthor (anonymous) says...
From the article's author, Antonia Felix:
In response to "How does one 'replace' one government without military action?" and "How is a regime replaced without significant bloodshed?" Ask the citizens of the former communist Soviet bloc, including Czechoslovakia, which broke away from the Soviet Union in a period of 10 days. What started as a student demonstration in Prague escalated into more than a half million people pouring into Wenceslas Square to peacefully express their protest of the regime. The result: the imprisoned political activist and playwright Vaclav Havel became the first president in the newly formed Czech Republic in December 1989. That's just one example of the "velvet revolutions" that spread from Poland to East Germany to other nations in the 1980s.
That's recent history, folks. Yes, students and protestors got beat up by the police in Prague (before the crowds became overwhelming), but there was no military action. I have a Czech friend who was among the protesters in Prague, and his stories about watching the Soviet tanks LEAVE the country are really something to hear.
There was a lot of leadup in the Eastern bloc that led to that 10-day revolution, of course. It didn't happen in a vacuum. And the opposition in Iran has a long history, too. Even people not affiliated with the MEK (to claim that affiliation would be suicide, in any case) have been protesting by the thousands and, in some cases, hundreds of thousands in recent years over the regime's social oppression and failed economic policies. There has already been a lot of bloodshed in the crackdowns on these demonstrations, but it hasn't slowed down Iran's teachers, bus drivers, businessmen or students from protesting.
Many see the increase in demonstrations since Ahmadinejad's election to the presidency as a clear sign of a second revolution in the making. God knows the Iranian people have already paid enough of a price for it.
January 11, 2009 at 2:13 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
seriouslyfolks (anonymous) says...
Iran is an Islamic theocracy whose current leader said on 60 minutes something like he'd like to see all the Jews on the planet dead. I honestly feel they will put up a stronger resistance to democracy than did the failing communists of the Soviet Union. I hope I am wrong.
January 11, 2009 at 3:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )