The Iranian government is now accusing Gholam Shakuri – the supposed Quds Force member who assisted US citizens Mansour Arbabsiar in carrying out an assassination of a Saudi ambassador in DC – of being a member of the Iranian terror group Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MeK), a State Department listed terrorist organization hostile to the Iranian government. The state-backed Iran Times alleges that Interpol has evidence which they can corroborate that Shakuri was in the MeK’s compound in Camp Ashraf.
The obvious corollary here is that, if true, this would absolve the Iranian government of culpability in the attack. The MeK seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government, and the fact that they’re on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations further detaches them from the Iranian government. This means that the US’s belligerent response to the alleged plot was based on false evidence and entirely misdirected at an uninvolved third party (the Iranian government).
It should also be noted that the extensive doubts and suspicions that almost every sober person had about the accuracy of the DoJ’s and the Obama administration’s official narrative – like, no evidence of Iranian government complicity, totally out of character for the Quds Force, why choose a bumbling idiot like Arbabsiar, no motive whatsoever, etc. – practically dissolve if the narrative is changed to the plot being an MeK operation. Again, we have to wait for the evidence because all we have now are allegations from the Iranian government, but if the evidence is put forth that Shakuri is an MeK, then it is much more in MeK’s character to carry out an amateur, dangerous plot like this. And its obvious they chose a bumbling idiot like Arbabsiar because they needed someone gullible enough to believe they were actually Quds Force. And of course the motive would be to influence the US towards war with Iran, so that they get their long-sought regime change and a chance at a power grab in the transition.
But what’s perhaps more pressing than all of this is the fact that if the MeK actually is responsible, it will make it very awkward for many prominent US leaders. Why? Because many US leaders support the MeK. Such hawkish supporters include former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, former New York governor Rudy Giuliani, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former US Rep. Lee Hamilton, former US ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson, the campaign advisors of former Masschusetts governor and top Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and many others. These people and more are have actively lobbied for the MeK. Read more about these efforts here, here, and here. If the MeK is now found to have come close to not only carrying out a terrorist attack on American soil but to influencing the US towards war with Iran…will these people be held responsible in some way?
