by Mark Dankof

One thing is abundantly clear about American policy in the Middle East–it is based on a series of paradoxical, internally contradictory goals and alliances which typically end in tragic results for friend and foe alike.
Nowhere is this conundrum clearer than in the present U. S. quandary over the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), or People’s Holy Warriors, as chronicled by Ed Blanche, Beirut correspondent for The Middle East, in that publication’s June 2009 issue.
As Blanche capably summarizes what is known of the MEK, the organization was formed in Iran in 1965 by leftist students, subsequently adopting a “bizarre ideology that embraced by Islam and Marxism.” The ideology soon became linked to urban revolutionary guerrilla violence. In the final years of Pahlavi Iran, the MEK conducted a series of attacks and assassinations on American military and diplomatic personnel, as it sought the overthrow of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
The MEK joined forces with Khomeini’s revolutionaries in this ultimately successful effort, only to be expelled by the IRI regime itself in Tehran once its usefulness had expired after the Shah’s departure. The MEK began to conduct guerrilla operations against the Mullahs as they had against the monarchy previously, with considerable success. But the Mullahs applied a level of retaliatory force the “Islamic-Marxists” could not endure. They fled to France, and later joined forces with Saddam Hussein against Iran in the 1980-1988 war between the Gulf rivals. More