OxBlog

# Posted 7:49 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

I SCREWED UP: Two weeks ago, OxBlog expressed concern about the Bush administration's decision to sign a truce with the terrorist group knows as the Mujahedeen e-Khalq or People's Mujahedeen. However, after reading this story in today's WaPo, I realized that I got everything about the truce wrong.

In my initial post, I described the Mujahedeen as "pro-Iranian", when in fact they are an organization of Iranian exiles devoted to overthrowing the government in Teheran. So how did I manage to get things so precisely wrong? While the primary cause of this fiasco is obviously my own incompetence, I think Kos and Jim Hoagland -- both of whom I cited in my original post -- contributed as well.

Hoagland described the Mujahedeen as

an Iranian exile group with a long record of terrorism, banditry and support and direction by Saddam Hussein's regime. Under the reported terms of the capitulation, the Mujahedeen will stop fighting U.S. forces and be allowed to store much of the artillery and the antiaircraft guns they received from the shattered Iraqi regime.

Sort of makes it seem like they've been fighting the US on Saddam's behalf, huh? Actually, the Mujahedeen pretty much sat out the war and want to work with the US to oust the fundamentalist government in Teheran.

Because of these shared interests, the NYT portrayed the ceasefire as a self-serving and hypocritical willingness to work with terrorists when doing so benefits the United States. But as today's WaPo reports, the President has decided to demand that the Mujahedeen surrender. Why? Because the US officially lists them as terrorists.

According to Kos,

The People's Mujahedeen, an Iranian terrorist organization based in Iraq, is clearly one of the baddies...What should the US do? Eradicate them of course. They are terrorists, after all, and isn't that what we do with terrorists?

Now, I probably should've figured out that an Iranian terrorist organization based in Iraq must be anti-Teheran, not pro-. But I wouldn't've minded a tip from Kos, especially the last section of his post talks about Iranian infiltration of occupied Iraq, which makes it seem like the Mujahedeen are part of the effort.

Finally, it's not even clear that the Mujahedeen are terrorists. According to Patrick Clawson (as cited in the WaPo),

it was "silly to list them as a terrorist group," because they have not attacked U.S. targets since the shah of Iran fell in January 1979. "They are not engaged in terror attacks," he said. "They do armed attacks against Iran."

It seems Clinton put the Mujahedeen on the list in order to show Teheran that the US was not conspiring against. Even so, demanding their surrender is probably a good thing. Anyone who worked that closely with Saddam really can't be trusted.

So, to get the point and sum things up: I goofed. Bad.

UPDATE: Reader AB actually pointed my mistake out to me just after the initial post went up, but I didn't recognize the significance of what he was saying. Bad hair day, huh?

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