Global Times: Honorable Senator, considering the presence of the terrorist group of the MEK in the list of foreign terrorist organizations of the US State Department (FTO) and the killing of 6 American advisers by them in Iran, but the United States removed this group from the list of FTO in 2012 and has cooperated with them against the Islamic Republic of Iran. How do you evaluate this relationship? Why does the United States want to cooperate with this terrorist group?
Senator Richard Black: Yes. The central intelligence agency feels like the greatest victory that they ever had in their history was driving the Soviet Union from Afghanistan by operation Cyclone which the US worked together with Saudi Arabia. We fielded an army of a third of a million terrorists, trained them in Wahhabism the very violent version of Islam, and we drove the Soviet Union from Afghanistan using this vast army that gave rise to many bad things including al-Qaeda, which eventually flew the planes into the twin towers and the pentagon on 9/11.
But I think, because of this victory within the CIA, I think that they became rather addicted to employing terrorist groups as an instrument of foreign policy and you can see that quite clearly within Syria where we have been unwavering supporters of al Qaeda in Syria even though al Qaeda were the ones who struck America on 9/11. And yet, we have unwaveringly supported them because our objective is to overthrow the government of Syria. We really don’t care how despicable the group is.
Now with the MEK, you know I have no doubt that the CIA works with the MEK in establishing this small town where they have three, some say now it’s four, thousand people whose sole purpose really is to train and to carry out actions against Iran. I don’t like the idea of using terrorism as an instrument of American foreign policy, and yet I see it being done in a number of places.
You know that the MEK were on the terrorist list and did a tremendous lobbying campaign. Some people got paid considerable amounts of money to come out publicly in favor of them and eventually they were taken off the list of terrorist states. But if you look at the time, I think it was 2012, that they were de-listed as terrorists and the time frame is very important because we invaded Libya in 2011. We sent the CIA into Syria to commence the Syrian civil war several months later. So we’re still into 2011.
If you look at 2012, you can see we have this succession and we know from general Wesley Clark who made this quite amazing statement that the pentagon had been given orders to overthrow seven middle eastern countries within the next five years. I mean there’s excellent video and it’s easily accessible. It was overly ambitious because it assumed that there would not be any great resistance from people. But Iran was on that list and you can see that it was during the Obama administration, and Hillary Clinton was very involved in it. They were putting in place all of these measures to basically begin a general overthrow of a number of countries in the middle east. They got stuck in Syria. They discovered that the people there were very resistant, and that created a barrier to their plans for Iran. Delisting MEK in 2012 is all happening as part of this greater plan to overthrow these seven countries.
Global Times: In your opinion, what is the benefit of the USA supporting groups like the MEK and how do you evaluate the future of this group?
Senator Richard Black: I think that perhaps the United States had limited options with Iran. The MEK had a sort of a tainted reputation with the Iranian people, because you know, it had fought against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war and people didn’t appreciate that. And I think the problem for the MEK is that it was an issue that united all Iranians where they said they are not going to speak in favor of a group that turned against their country when it was invaded by Iraq. So the MEK is a very tarnished organization. I don’t think they would be very effective but I think the reason that it’s favored is, partly because American politicians don’t have a depth of understanding about anything in the middle east. They really don’t.
They hear through the grapevine, that the MEK are the opposition in Iran. Besides, they’re going to pay them fifty thousand dollars to give a speech. Hey they can use the money. So they give a speech and say the MEK is great. But I don’t see the MEK as being the future movers and shakers of political events that will be positive for Iran.