Requiem for the People's Mujaheddin?

By Richard H. Curtiss

The Mujaheddin-e Khalq, known as the People's Mujaheddin, and its political command, known as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is in a very tight spot. The organization, which was funded in recent years largely by Saddam Hussain, now has literally no place left to go.

Upon the collapse of Saddam Hussain's army, the Mujaheddin, for years based in Iraq, was left stranded in Baquba, east of Baghdad. U.S. troops at first kept a wide berth of the Iranian opposition group, although a few Mujaheddin fighters were killed by American forces in one, perhaps misdirected, air raid.

Following a high-level Bush administration decision, however, it was announced that the group would have to be disarmed, except for weapons for their own defense, given the lawlessness that had descended upon Iraq. The Mujaheddin remained in place while Washington debated whether to use the Iranian opposition group for its own benefit. It appears, however, that the U.S. decided that the People's Mujaheddin had outlived its usefulness—leaving thousands of highly skilled troops without a war to fight.

Upper-ranking Mujaheddin soldiers had been filtering out of Iraq headed for duties in France, until the French blew the whistle on the organization, which they had tolerated, if not actively encouraged. In a wide-ranging security sweep, 150 Mujaheddin activists were arrested in their headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise, outside Paris. All but 10 were released almost immediately. Maryam Rajavi, considered the first lady of the Mujaheddin, was jailed on June 17 for 10 days, until a French judge ruled that she and her remaining entourage be freed pending judicial proceedings, if any.

Following the surprise raid, there were demonstrations in Paris, Rome, London, Bern and other cities protesting Rajavi's arrest. At least two activists immolated themselves, but Rajavi asked that the suicides stop. According to Paris police, Rajavi and her followers were found with between $3 million to $8 million in one hundred dollar bills. They also had sophisticated transmission equipment for broadcasting into Iran, which they had been doing for years.

When it first emerged in Iran in the 1960s, the Mujaheddin's first target was Mohamed Reza Shah Pahlavi. In 1971 the group was blamed for the killing of seven American military advisers in Iran. Eight years later the Mujaheddin joined with other enemies of the shah to sweep away the Pahlavi monarchy.

The enemies of the shah worked uneasily together for a time, but their cooperation was short-lived. Very soon the victorious Ayatollah Khomeini was jailing members of the Islamic revolution. Savagely repressive, the Khomeinists killed whole families. Among those destroyed were hundreds of Iranians who were looking for some semblance of democracy, rather than simply gettingrid of the shah and replacing him with an Islamist dictatorship.

Ordinary Iranians began to believe the Mujaheddin were working against the national interests of their country.

Ultimately, nearly all the people who fought against the shah were killed or exiled. In the early 1980s the survivors regrouped in Paris and began setting up a government-in-exile under the one surviving leader, Massoud Rajavi.

In the mid-1980s Iran and Iraq fought a bloody war of attrition, during which both countries bled themselves white without achieving significant territorial changes. Some exiled Iranians joined the Iraqi side, using captured weapons turned over by Baghdad.

The dissident Iranians hoped to start a movement that would throw out the Khomeinists. The fighting stalled far short of their goal, however, and they soon were thrown back into Iraq.

Meanwhile, Mujaheddin sources were providing extraordinarily useful intelligence on what was happening inside Iran. The Mujaheddin became increasingly confident that the Khomeini regime eventually would collapse. For his own purposes, Saddam Hussain continued to subsidize the Mujaheddin, with perhaps somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 soldiers constantly training within Iraq.

It is clear in retrospect that, because the Mujaheddin were fighting the Iranian army, ordinary Iranians began to believe that they were working against the national interests of their country. At this point the group was making political headway in the United States, but losing the war in Iran.

Over the years, in Washington, DC, New York and Los Angeles, there were major demonstrations of a thousand and more participants, all apparently funded by overseas Iranians and, of course, by Baghdad. As time went on the number of demonstrators thinned, Mujaheddin activists began moving quickly from one city to another to thicken their visible ranks.

For the Mujaheddin activists the U.S. and British war on Iraq happened suddenly. Within three weeks the war was over, leaving the People's Mujaheddin high and dry.

Left High and Dry

In Washington, it appears that the State Department wants to disband the Mujaheddin. Some Pentagon hard-liners hope to use the Mujaheddin forces as part of a possible U.S. war against Iran. For the time being, however, President George W. Bush seems to have decided against this. Not only are American armed forces badly overextended, but who will pay for a standing army that no one is able to use?

It is a sad dilemma, but not an unparalleled one. This writer recalls when Gen. Francisco Franco's forces defeated the Republicans in Spain in 1939, ending the country's bloody civil war. Many members of the international brigades, American, British, French and other European soldiers, returned home if they could. Others, like the anti-fascist German soldiers, and French fighters who had to flee their country when the Nazis took over, could not, and scattered into the New World from Mexico to Argentina. Many of the Americans, such as members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, who had already become seasoned warriors by battling Spanish fascists, ended up fighting for the United States in World War II.

The same fate may await the followers of young Reza Pahlavi who cannot return to Iran. They have many supporters, particularly in Los Angeles, and even in Washington, DC, including Iranian royals who would like to see the Pahlavi dynasty return to power. It is not at all certain, however, that the Iranian people want to return to what they still consider a discredited monarchy.

There are smaller exile groups as well, but the two basic strains are the Mujaheddin and the shah's supporters. They both have more than their share of doctors, lawyers, artists and other professional people. Most have found new lives in the U.S., Canada, Britain, France and other countries.

My personal experiences with the Mujaheddin have been unremittingly positive. When you call their office at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, they provide an answer for every question, and do so with amazing punctuality and aplomb. I have often joked that if any other country, of any nationality, were as efficient as the Mujaheddin, they would have won their war many times over. It also has been striking to see the camaraderie and efficiency of the men and women of the Mujaheddin.

I met a Pakistani man who lived as a youth in Iran with his diplomat parents. He had become very interested in the Mujaheddin. He commented with awe on their spirit of self-sacrifice, and said he often wished he, too, could be an Iranian.

There may be many dark sides to the Mujaheddin. For example, it is clear that Mrs. Maryam Rajavi's name once was Abrishamchi. Her first husband was a colleague of Massoud Rajavi, who announced that Maryam would divorce her husband and marry him. It is this sort of thing that makes it appear that the Rajavis are subjects of a less than ideal personality cult.

The U.S. State Department has listed the Mujaheddin as a terrorist group, and the European community has made a similar finding. By contrast, National Council spokesman Alireza Jafarzadeh staunchly declares that the Mujaheddin are "the biggest defenders of democracy, human rights and religious tolerance in Iran."

This writer's guess is that the Mujaheddin and the young Reza Pahlavi may have missed their chance to take over Iran, and that new leaders may emerge from within Iran itself. Most Iranians probably hope for moderate leaders and, most of all, that there will be no more wars in Iran's turbulent modern history.

Richard H. Curtiss is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.