Jim Carey — The MEK: From Revolutionary Group to Imperialist Asset

While audiences of Western media may be seeing the group, they aren’t actually being provided the proper context of who the MEK and NCRI are. Instead, MEK protests are being shown across Western media as “anti-regime” protests representative of the general mood of Iranians. The problem with these protests — which have been highlighted by outlets like Fox, Salon, and Vox — is that they aren’t actually taking place in Iran.

Instead of highlighting the concerns of the legitimate protests in Iran, multiple news outlets instead showed protests in cities like Paris, where the NCRI is based. MEK protests were highlighted due to their demand for the fall of the revolutionary government in Tehran, an agenda very different from that of the protesters in Iran.

But who exactly are the MEK and NCRI? How did this group — which claims to be based on a strange, malleable blend of Shia Islam and Marxism, and was listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. until 2012 — become a close ally of the U.S. foreign policy establishment as a tool for applying pressure to Iran? To better understand how the MEK, which is almost universally rejected by the Iranian people, found itself in bed with nations like Israel and the U.S., it is worth examining MEK’s full history.…

Backgrounder on "our guys." The US just can't seem to stay out of bed with terrorists while accusing the other guy of terrorism.

Geopolitics Alert

The MEK: From Revolutionary Group to Imperialist Asset

Jim Carey

See also

RT
US ‘needs to stop supporting terrorists’ to avoid possible clash with Turkey in Syria – Deputy PM

Related

Moon of Alabama
Why Europe Must Reject U.S. Blackmail Over Iran's Nuclear Agreement - An Update

Adam Johnson — Coverage of Iran Protests Illustrated With Protests Not in Iran––Organized by Fringe Cultists

When it comes to covering protests in other countries, it seems any vague picture of brown people protesting can stand in for those actually on the streets expressing their grievances. Since the outbreak of protests across Iran three weeks ago, several major outlets have used pictures of demonstrations in the United States, France, or United Kingdom—organized by a fringe, cult-like group, Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK)—in place of images of the entirely unaffiliated protesters, 6,000 miles away, who are the topic of discussion.

Fox News, Scientific American, Vox, Salon, National Interest and Axios were among the outlets that used unidentified photos of protests not in Iran to illustrate stories about protests in Iran.

These are all images of rallies by the MEK (sometimes known as the People’s Mujahedin, or its benign-sounding front-group name, National Council of Resistance) being presented as protesters in Iran. Several other outlets used their images, but noted they were simply “solidarity” marches in the US or Europe. While this is technically accurate, it’s still wildly misleading, given that it’s safe to assume most people won’t know that the organizers of these rallies are part of a US- and Israeli-aligned fringe group, and not allies of the workers and young people taking to the streets in Iran.

In other words, this was fake news.

Characterizing MEK as a "fringe group" is overly generous. MEK had been designated a terrorist organization until the US reversed its position in 2012 under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Some now consider MEK a representative and spokesperson for "the Iranian government in exile," similar to the US treatment of Ahmed Chabali and his pretensions in the lead up to the Iraq War.  To be fair, FAIR does mention this later in the post.

No intellectually honest person takes MEK seriously as a viable alternative to the current government in Iran. The idea that it is an actual “Iranian opposition” is a Western media fiction. But the group’s rallies outside Iranian embassies provide great visual fodder for indifferent or dishonest editors in need of high-quality “Iran protest” images—without the mess of actually paying Iranian photographers, or dissecting the on-the-ground political reality in Iran.

FAIR

Coverage of Iran Protests Illustrated With Protests Not in Iran––Organized by Fringe Cultists
Adam Johnson

Jay Tharappel — Iran: internal grievances, external agendas

US and Israel back another terrorist group (in addition to Al Qaeda and ISIS) when it is useful.

Fort Russ
Iran: internal grievances, external agendas

Jay Tharappel | Guest Contributor

See also

Wikipedia

People's Mujahedin of Iran (Mojahedin-e Khalq, acronyms MEK, MKO)

See also 

The Guardian (23 Sep 2012)
Five lessons from the de-listing of MEK as a terrorist group

Glenn Greenwald

What could go wrong with getting in bed a bit with the devil as long you don't worship him? Using AQ and ISIS has worked out so well.