{"id":372,"date":"2007-07-18T21:23:28","date_gmt":"2007-07-18T20:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/ijwp\/mt.php\/2007\/07\/18\/pipes_supports_terrorists"},"modified":"2025-10-10T10:52:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T09:52:19","slug":"pipes_supports_terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/mt.php\/2007\/07\/18\/pipes_supports_terrorists","title":{"rendered":"Pipes supports terrorists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpost.com\/servlet\/Satellite?apage=1&#038;cid=1184168541928&#038;pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull\">Daniel Pipes: Unleash the Iranian Opposition<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is an article by Daniel Pipes in the Jerusalem Post, plugging the so-called People&#39;s Mujahideen (or Mujahideen-e-Khalq), an organisation banned as a terrorist group in the US and the UK, but apparently not in France where its leader was able to rub shoulders with a US congressman (Bob Filner, D-CA) and the former Algerian PM Sid Ahmed Ghozali.  Pipes&#39;s write-up mentions a few of the things that pleased him:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nSimply put, the rogue oil state regime it opposes terrifies one half the West and tempts the other; and the MEK is itself accused of being a superannuated Marxist-Islamist terrorist cult.<br \/>\nThese obstacles have not, however, prevented the MEK from trumpeting that Islamism is the new global threat, providing important intelligence to the West (for example, about Iran&#39;s nuclear program), terrifying the regime in Teheran, and putting on major displays of anti-regime solidarity. &#8230;<br \/>\n[MeK leader Maryam] Rajavi&#39;s in-depth analysis mentioned neither the United States nor Israel, something extremely rare for a major speech about Middle Eastern politics. Nor did she even hint at conspiratorial thinking, a deeply welcome change for Iranian politics.<br \/>\nFinally, no other opposition group in the world can mount so impressive a display of muscle as does the MEK, with its thousands of supporters, many young, and a slate of dignitaries.<br \/>\nThese factors, combined with the mullah&#39;s near-phobic reaction toward the MEK, suggest that the organization presents a formidable tool for intimidating Teheran.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I was put onto Pipes&#39;s article by a <a href=\"http:\/\/hurryupharry.bloghouse.net\/archives\/2007\/07\/17\/daniel_pipes_finds_a_cult.php\">guest post at Harry&#39;s Place<\/a>, a blog I don&#39;t link to or agree with often, but in this case they provide a number of references for why the MeK can&#39;t be trusted to deliver a &quot;secular, democratic Iran&quot;, including one from the New York Times (not online, it seems) which describes how they force their members to divorce, deny them friendship and shield them from &quot;corrupting&quot; outside influences.<\/p>\n<p>I find it amusing that the guest poster asks if Pipes has &quot;lost his marbles&quot;.  I think it&#39;s part of his usual agenda.  After all, the MeK have not fought western forces for decades, and as long as they are only terrorising Muslim Iranians, that&#39;s OK by him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daniel Pipes: Unleash the Iranian Opposition This is an article by Daniel Pipes in the Jerusalem Post, plugging the so-called People&#39;s Mujahideen (or Mujahideen-e-Khalq), an organisation banned as a terrorist group in the US&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[76,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iran","category-war_in_iraq_afghanistan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p17bgV-60","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42018,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/42018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}