US war hawk promotes former terrorist group for regime change in Iran

Bolton may be the only person left in the world who still insists that the US invasion of Iraq was a success in order to sell a failed policy: overthrowing an elected government of a sovereign state.

US failures in the Middle East have raised doubts about the extent to which changed regimes will answer to US policy guidelines or any guidelines for that matter. The most dubious key premise of regime change is that the will of a new government will eventually align with Bolton’s wishes.

He has claimed that Iran remains a nuclear threat, lambasting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). At the event last year, Bolton concluded his speech with the following statement:

“There is a viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs, and that opposition is centered in this room today.

I had said for over 10 years since coming to these events, that the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran. The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change, and therefore the only solution is to change the regime itself.

And that’s why, before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran!”

Who was actually “in this room” to drive the “viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs”?

The steering organisation is the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq or MEK, a group previously listed as a terrorist organisation by the US government because it has killed Americans and has an extensive history of committing acts of terrorism.

Strangely, in 2012 the MEK was taken off the State Department’s terrorist list by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

As noted in 2012 by the New York Times, intensive lobbying resulted in the MEK being taken off the terror list, also with the help of a former CIA director James Woolsey.

The MEK reportedly has extremely deep pockets with which it rehabilitated its tattered image in recent years. The buildups in support for such groups also preceded the staged coups on Syria, Libya and Ukraine.

The MEK generally pays enormous speaking fees to panelists who argue in favor of its regime change agenda. Rudy Giuliani, one of President Trump’s attorneys, advocated regime change at a MEK event in March.

The regime change option was initially favoured by former US administrations because American voters have been reluctant to consent to boots on the ground. After the disaster of Iraq, it defies belief  that Bolton would again promote an armed regional militant group, the MEK, with a chilling history of terror.