Strange Bedfellows

By Cernig They say politics makes for strange bedfellows, but the pairing of the American right and an odious terror outfit who did Saddam's bully work and have killed US citizens must be the very strangest. Murdoch's Wall Street Journal and Murdoch's Jersusalem Post today both report that the political wing of the neocon's favorite terrorist group, the Islamo-Marxist and messianic Mujahedin-e Khalq, is saying that Iran has restarted it's secret nuclear weapons program. "We announce vehemently that the clerical regime is currently continuing its drive to obtain nuclear weapons," said Mohammad Mohaddessin, a spokesman for the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI. ..."The clerical regime leaks false information and intelligence to Western intelligence services, through double agents," he said. ...It was not possible to independently verify the NCRI claims, which Mohaddessin said came from sources within Iran, including some among staff at covert nuclear plants. Four years ago, the group disclosed information about two hidden nuclear sites that helped uncover nearly two decades of covert Iranian atomic activity. But much of the information it has presented since then to back up claims that Iran has a secret weapons program has not been publicly verified. That's an understatement and a half. Not a single one out of over a score of the MeK's lurid claims has proven true since it got it's original one right - and the MeK actually only confirmed what other sources had already said even then. Yet every time this group, which believes it's charismatic leader is the actual 12th Imam, makes a statement, the American Right falls over itself to believe them. The contrast with their distrust of Iran's president because he's a religious fanatic who believes the 12th imam will come eventually is instructive. Recently, the Right's hypocritical sycophancy for a bunch of terrorists has included swooning over a petition that keeps getting smaller every time it's reported, getting outraged over pictures of Iranian rights abuses that turned out not to be what was claimed and happily taking this same bunch of liars' word for it when the US military use them to conduct deniable "enhanced interrogations" of detainees in Iraq. Indeed, the US military, on administration instructions, has cossetted and pampered the MeK - giving them salubrious living accomodation in a protected camp in Iraq and resisting Iraqi attempts to put the whole odious bunch in court for their crimes against the Iraqi people. The message from the Bush White House is clearly read by its cheerleader pundits and by Murdoch's WSJ: The claim, to be made public today by the National Council for Resistance in Iran, joins a broad pushback by conservative hawks who say the U.S. analysis has wrongly given the impression that Iran's nuclear-fuel program doesn't present an urgent threat." The War on Terror be damned, these are our terrorists doing our work for us. Today, when told that the MeK is "not the most reliable of sources" (still a massive understatement), Jules Crittenden speaks for the Right when he posts that: Well, it’s not like the United States intelligence community is the most reliable of sources, either. So what Jules is saying, and getting wide agreement on, is that he'd rather believe some nutcase-terrorist, neocon-sponsored, regime-change outfit who constantly shill for a U.S. war on Iran so they can take over Chalibi-style than he would the CIA. The AIAE has said it will investigate the MeK's latest set of allegations, just as it has every other set. No-one should be holding their breath that this time the MeK are right, though.