News about the Humanitarian Crisis for Camp Ashraf Residents

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Iraqi oil in the diplomatic war between Tehran and Washington
AsiaNews
December 21, 2009
The occupation of an oil well by Iranian soldiers in southeastern Iraq lasts two days. The border crossing is a move by Iran’s clerical regime to increase tensions with the international community and a response to Baghdad’s failure to shut down a camp that hosts members of the Iranian resistance.
Baghdad (AsiaNews) – In a tug-of-war with the international community, Iran is upping the ante as its policy sways between blackmail and provocation. Last week’s takeover of an Iraqi oil well, which Iranian soldiers occupied for 48 hours of high tensions, is part of that strategy.

The incident began on Thursday (17 December) when about ten Iranian technicians and soldiers entered Iraqi territory, took over an oil well in the al-Fakkah oil field (in the southeastern Iraqi province of Maysan) and raised the Iranian flag...

The occupation of the Fakkah oil well is Tehran’s reaction to Iraq’s failure to shut down Camp Ashraf, a place that houses 3,400 members of the Iranian resistance. The Maliki government had promised Tehran it would close it by 15 December but it did not do so because of international protests and mobilisation.

For some Iranian analysts, Iran reacted to this diplomatic defeat by flexing its muscles to remind the Iraqi government that Tehran still has the military means to act if its orders are not followed.

The Fakkah incident is also a high mark in an escalation of tensions started by the clerical regime, which is increasingly nervous about daily domestic protests and threats of sanctions by the international community,

Bent on not giving in, the regime has opted in fact to provoke and challenge its adversaries. This includes testing long-range rockets, anti-Twitter attacks by the Iranian Cyber Army, the introduction of the latest generation of centrifuges to enrich uranium and a statement by Ahmadinejad (on Friday) blaming US military presence in the Middle East for the region’s crisis...  Read More

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Anti-Iranian demonstrations spread across Iraq in oil well dispute
The Times of London
December 24, 2009
A row over an oil well on the Iran-Iraq border has triggered anti-Iranian demonstrations across Iraq, angry statements by politicians accusing the Government of supporting Iran and the announcement of a new cross-tribal armed force to combat Iranian incursions.

The controversy began on Friday when armed Iranians moved on to the al-Fakka oilfield, in Missan province, south Iraq, and erected their flag on oil well No 4, which has been disputed by the two countries since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988.

Last night the Iranian troops were “still inside Iraqi territory” said a Government spokesman. An anonymous source working at al-Fakka said that around 100 Iranian troops and two tanks were still present.

Tribal leader Abdelkareem Muhammadawi, from Missan, claimed that armed Iranians had also moved onto wells 11 and 13 on the oilfield. This was denied by the Government and by a source at the Iranian Embassy, who said that “no Iranian forces have entered Iraqi territories.”

Many Iraqis, among whom suspicion has been growing of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s strong relationship with Tehran, have reacted angrily at the lack of firm response from his Government.

A tribal council in the south of the country announced that they had formed a combat brigade to stand against the Iranian forces on the oil field.

The Construction and Liberation Council’s secretary-general, Sheikh Muhammad al-Zidawi, announced that the force was drawn from 126 tribes from all over the country. “The brigade is not a militia or terrorist group, but a national tribal force,” he was reported as saying by al-Sumaria news agency, adding: “It will liberate oil well No 4 and expel Iranian forces inside Iraqi borders.”...  Read More

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Iran: Abdicating US Moral Responsibility
The Huffington Post

By Allan Gerson, Lawyer and former counsel to the US Delegation to the United Nations
December 14, 2009
President Obama, as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has a special responsibility: to avoid unnecessary war and at the same time, as he put it in his acceptance speech, to not shrink away from just war. Beyond that he has a responsibility for the protection of innocent lives at jeopardy in armed conflicts in which the United States has played a role…

Today, we are witnessing the face of ambiguity--intentional or not-- when it comes to a looming humanitarian crisis. More than 3,000 Iranian dissidents stand to either be deported from their 20-year old base at Camp Ashraf in Iraq to a vile prison camp in Iraq's harshest desert, or to be forcibly returned to Iran where they face execution.

On July 28th and 29th Iraqi forces stormed Camp Ashraf killing eleven and wounding scores of other defenseless residents of the dissident community known as the PMOI. US forces which had pledged to protect the residents of Camp Ashraf, pursuant to protected persons status under the Geneva Convention, stood idly by.

… In any event, regardless of the label attached to them, relocation to Neqrat as-Salman is not an acceptable option by any humanitarian standard. Neqrat as-Salman is Iraq's most feared prison after Abu Ghraib. It is a desolate military prison that has been used since 1921 for detaining mostly political prisoners. According to the Wikipedia, it is a "desert prison camp built in the style of a fortress where thousands have perished over the decades there."…

Coupled with ambiguity surrounding President Obama's intentions in Afghanistan- the announcement of a "surge" of 30,000 troops while indicating that they would begin to be withdrawn by 18 months--the US posture on Camp Ashraf is bound to be interpreted by Iran as evidence of a general lack of US will to stay the course. This is true whether we are talking of compelling Iran to abandon its march for nuclear weapons, or its determination to destroy the Iranian opposition and make an example of the PMOI/MEK by having them hang in Iran or perish in the Iraqi desert.

Should such an outcome occur at a time when we should be supporting Iran's dissidents, we will have no one to blame but ourselves and our lack of clarity towards Iran. If we are forced by Iran's realization of its nuclear ambitions to take military action against Iran at a time not of our choosing, we will also have no one to blame but ourselves. One thing is certain: clarity and moral courage go together. More often than not, when there is little of one, there is little of the other... Read More

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There is Smoke to Mask Iran’s Woes
Human Events

by James Zumwalt
December 18, 2009
A long established military tactic in warfare is using smoke to mask the movement/location of friendly forces from the enemy. One of the earliest such uses was “Greek Fire” -- a combination of an offensive incendiary flamethrower and defensive smoke screen. Its use became a key factor in the Byzantine Empire’s successful defeat of the attempted 7th century conquest of Constantinople by Muslim fleets. Ironically, today the tactic is being employed very effectively against us in the conduct of one Muslim country’s foreign policy.

Over the past several years, Iran has developed a Persian version of Greek Fire, repeatedly using a tactic to spark an incident creating “smoke” to screen what Tehran wishes us not to see. Thus, whenever the heat from the international spotlight focusing on its nuclear program or domestic unrest gets too hot, Iran artfully employs “Persian Fire” to shift that focus elsewhere.

But the group suffering the most from Iran’s use of Persian Fire is an Iranian opposition group known as MEK. The group has a long bloody history with Iran’s mullahs. Formed initially in opposition to the Shah and US influence in Iran, MEK took on Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini soon after the cleric hijacked the 1979 revolution for democracy to install an extremist theocracy in Tehran. Khomeini’s feud with MEK led to the deaths of thousands of MEK protestors in 1981, driving the group out of Iran to France. Iranian pressure forced France to evict MEK in 1987. Lacking a home, MEK was invited by Saddam Hussein to settle in Iraq -- viewing the enemy of his enemy as his friend. MEK established itself at Camp Ashraf, in northeastern Iraq along the Iranian border, from where it conducted periodic attacks into Iran…

With domestic unrest over the election in Iran recently gaining headlines again, Tehran again seeks to create a smoke screen by pressing Baghdad to cause problems for MEK. If was for this reason Bagdad suddenly announced last week MEK would be moved to a former detention camp, Nuqrat al-Salman, in the middle of the Iraqi desert…

Ironically, what emboldens Iraq to act in Tehran’s interests is the US terrorist designation for MEK. Interestingly, both the EU and UK have now de-listed MEK as a terrorist organization because it no longer meets the legal designation, having reformed itself. The same is true of the US designation, which immediately needs to de-list it if we are to save MEK from Iranian persecution.

Meeting with Kurdish officials in Iraq recently, Defense Secretary Robert Gates sought to allay their anxiety over the eventual drawdown of US forces there. He said, “We will preserve your security, prosperity and autonomy within a unified Iraq. We will not abandon you.” A very similar promise by the US was made to another minority in Iraq -- the MEK. It is a promise now broken as the Persian Fire of Iran’s mullahs targets an MEK the US seems to have abandoned... Read More
 

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Modern Maccabees: The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran
Global Politician
Prof. Daniel M. Zucker

December 21, 2009
It was almost twenty-two centuries ago that a small band of Jewish patriots rose up in rebellion in 167 B.C.E. to throw off the oppressive yoke of imperial rule and religious intolerance that marked the reign of Seleucid Syrian Emperor Antiochus IV. Against almost insurmountable odds and at great personal cost, the leaders of this independence movement—the Hasmonean family of Mattityahu HaKohen and his sons, led by Judah the Maccabee (“the Hammer”)—succeeded after three years in foiling their enemies’ attempts to eradicate them and their beliefs, and re-established an independent, free Jewish state. Their trials, travails, triumphs and tragedies are recorded in the apocryphal books I and II Maccabees. The Maccabees are the heroes of the ancient and modern Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. These brave individuals, as well as their supporters and fellow freedom fighters, have served as role models and heroes for those oppressed by intolerant regimes down through the millennia to this very day.

There exists today another small band of freedom fighters, individuals who have sacrificed their personal pleasures and concerns to fight the tyranny of an oppressive, religiously intolerant regime. I refer to the members of the Iranian resistance movement known in Farsi as the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), or in English as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI. They are fighting the brutal, oppressive, intolerant, and corrupt regime of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their forward base is located in Ashraf City in Diyala Province in Iraq, northeast of Baghdad, near the Iran-Iraq border, where they have resided for over two decades.

The Iranian clerical mullah regime of Ali Khamenei and his personally selected figurehead president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, regards the PMOI as its number one enemy, ahead of its declared enemies the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel. The Islamic Republic has spared no expense in its attempts to eradicate this organization and over the past three decades has executed over 120,000 of its members and supporters. It has sent “hit” teams around the world to assassinate its leaders and used every dirty trick in the book to discredit the PMOI... Read More

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