Patrick Disney writes about US support for the MEK in FP :
Thus, the MEK organization has literally zero support among the Iranian people. The closest thing to how Iranians feel about the MEK is how Americans feel about al-Qaeda. It's not even a subject of debate.
Which is why it's bizarre that members of Congress would want to lend US credibility to such an organization.
There's nothing particularly bizarre about it. It doesn't matter what the people of Iran actually think. The people in Washington who push "Don't Engage Iran, the Regime is About to Fall, Just Trust Us on This" agenda need to be able to point to SOMETHING to support their views, and the MEK is therefore useful as representing a potential real opposition movement -- which we all know it ain't but hey, that's showbiz: Truth doesn't matter, spin does.
I have posted some US government reference material on the MEK here, which clearly shows that it was considered a terrorist organization long before it was placed on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list in 1997, unlike the spin by MEK supporters that the organization only lists as a terrorist organization as a form of outreach to Iranian president Khatami.
If you want to know what these MEK supporters in Washington actually think of the people in Iran or elsewhere, let me remind you of of New York City Democratic congressman Gary Ackerman's views:
"I don't give a shit if they are undemocratic...OK, so the [MEK] is a terrorist organization based in Iraq, which is a terrorist state. They are fighting Iran, which is another terrorist state. I say let's help them fight each other as much as they want. Once they all are destroyed, I can celebrate twice over.
I once told a former Iranian official that the MEK is the best opposition the regime could hope for.
Another irony: of the various bullshit reasons given for the US invasion of Iraq, the US accused Saddam of aiding foreign terrorist organizations. But the only organization they could tie him to was...wait for it...the MEK!
"Like the Bush White House, the Clinton administration was eager to highlight Iraqi ties to terrorism and had collected extensive evidence of Saddam providing logistical support to the MKO in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War. (The MKO's headquarters are located on a heavily guarded street in central Baghdad.) But the United States could find no other hard evidence linking Saddam to terror groups, Indyk said. 'That was about all we had on [Saddam] when it came to terrorism,' Indyk told NEWSWEEK."
(SOURCE: Ashcroft's Baghdad Connection - Why the attorney general and others in Washington have backed a terror group with ties to Iraq, By Michael Isikoff, NEWSWEEK Thursday, 26 September, 2002)