Tasnim � An American political commentator said the anti-Iran Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO also known as MEK) is in league with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), noting that the terror group has been an agent for Washington since the late 1970s.





�The MEK has been an agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and represents the single most expensive US covert foreign operation since the inception of the CIA at the close of World War II. From 1979 to 1989, the US, UK, and Saudi Arabia provided at least $3 billion dollars in funding to the MEK for the purpose of destabilizing Afghanistan subsequent to the Russian invasion. It is from this history that observers today should consider claims made by the MEK as lacking in credibility,� Mark Mason told the Tasnim news agency.

Dr. Mason offers analyses of United States domestic and foreign policies for the international news media. He was trained as a biological anthropologist educated at the University of California, Berkeley. Mason has appeared on Al-Etejah TV, Russia Today, Voice of Russia radio, as well as on Life News Russia, AcTVism Munich News, Nuestra Tele Noticias NTN24 Colombia, The Real News Network, and Radio 786 Capetown, South Africa, and KQED Forum in San Francisco, California.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Tasnim: The terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) recently claimed that the Islamic Republic is violating the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers by secretly conducting research on nuclear weapons components at the Parchin military site in Iran. The spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) strongly dismissed the allegations by the terrorist group against Tehran�s nuclear program, saying the claims are of no value for the Islamic Republic. What is your take on this? What is behind such bogus claims?

Mason: Examining what the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is, and is not, will assist in understanding claims made by the MEK. Some observers have characterized the MEK as a Leftist political organization, even a Marxist revolutionary group. Much could be written about how Leftist political ideology, and particularly Marxism, has come to have almost no meaning in modern usage. As Leftist politics applies to the MEK, such labeling is a diversion from facts. The MEK has been an agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and represents the single most expensive US covert foreign operation since the inception of the CIA at the close of World War II. From 1979 to 1989, the US, UK, and Saudi Arabia provided at least $3 billion dollars in funding to the MEK for the purpose of destabilizing Afghanistan subsequent to the Russian invasion. It is from this history that observers today should consider claims made by the MEK as lacking in credibility.

As for the question regarding Iranian nuclear technology programs, world peace and security would best be facilitated by all nations in the Middle East and South Asia convening under the auspices of the UN for the purpose of creating a regional nuclear-free zone. Focusing on the activities of one nation is not means to develop regional cooperation. Regional efforts to reduce tensions through diplomacy is the rational and effective approach to conflict resolution. Keep in mind that the USA thrives on creating conflicts and chaos, and thus the USA should not be expected to promote regional peace. Regional and global cooperation and security would be fostered by a regional agreement to remove all nuclear weapons and for all nations to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). To question Iranian nuclear programs while it is known that Israel, Pakistan, India, and the USA have nuclear weapons is not a means to produce regional cooperation. Respect for decentralized, popular, community direct democracy will enhance regional cooperation. An arms embargo will enhance regional cooperation. Unfortunately, regional and global peace and security cannot be achieved as long as the US military and US money dominate the region. An effective strategy for reducing regional violence perpetrated and funded by the USA though such organizations as the MEK would be to revive the formal Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The NAM is comprised of nations committed to diplomatic conflict resolution while avoiding efforts by the USA to drag the Middle East into a revived Cold War between the US-NATO and Russia-China.

Tasnim: It seems that the new US administration has breathed new life into the terrorist group. Republican US Senator John McCain praised the head of the MKO, in a recent meeting in the Albanian capital, Tirana. What do you think? What is terror group looking for under Trump?

Mason: US Senator John McCain should be in prison for war crimes committed in Vietnam. Through his actions in the US Senate, Senator McCain has lent monetary support for ISIS in Syria, and additional support for other US foreign criminal operations since the illegal invasion of Vietnam. Senator McCain supports US military violence and proxy terrorists throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East. The US government, with or without President Trump, is the successor to the British Empire since the collapse of British colonialism following World War II. The British Empire was bad. The American Empire is bad. Human suffering created by Euro-American colonialism achieves planetary proportions. Release from imperialism is promoted by examining what it is about Euro-American culture that drives their brutality and denial of human rights. The problem of empire goes far deeper than the frightening, open belligerence of President Trump. To resolve the problems presented by the MEK and other violent organizations, let us examine the social and economic factors that drive modern violence. We have a problem that goes deep beyond the MEK, and McCain, and Trump, and the CIA. If we want a decent planet for our children, we would be wise to examine our acceptance of the fictitious global money system: paper money, computer money, chasing dollars, funding the MEK with dollars, the Petrodollar, and our belief in money, profits, and private wealth, instead of people. The MEK would have no money, and the US would have no power to terrorize the Middle East without this fictitious thing called money. Money does not exist in the real world. It is a product of the human imagination that destroys human social relations. The problem is not the MEK, nor even the USA. The problem is the belief in the power of concentrated wealth, and the denial of human social relations outside of money. Without money, we are left with diplomacy, and diplomacy is a fancy word for mutual aid and mutual respect.

Tasnim: As you know, more than 17,000 Iranians, many of them civilians, have been killed at the hands of the MKO in different acts of terrorism including bombings in public places, and targeted killings. Why do Saudi Arabia, US, and certain European countries continue to support the anti-Iran terror group despite its heinous crimes?

Mason: One answer: money. The US, Western Europe, and the criminal client operation in Arabia called �Saudi Arabia� are chasing dollars. Dollars means wealth. Wealth means power. Power means more chasing dollars. To chase dollars begins with state violence used to steal natural resources and to steal human labor. All wealth arises out of human labor as applied toward converting the Earth biosphere and lithosphere into raw materials, and to convert raw materials into commodities that can be converted into dollars. Dollars is domination. The dollar is the means by which the US and all centralized powers dominate and control others. Continued worship of the Almighty Dollar, and the dollar chasers and dollar collectors, the USA, the MEK, Saudi Arabia, and Western Europe will continue their colonial theft of natural resources and their subjugation of other human populations to enslavement. We are enslaved by a fiction: the money system.

If these ideas seem unknown or impractical, I think it is true that the Middle East can be a more humane and cooperative region. To move towards peace and cooperation will require thinking and acting outside of conventional thinking and conventional action. New ideas�not new military weapons, new border fences, or new presidents�are needed.