When it comes to Iran, all eyes have been on its nuclear program since April 12 when talks with the Trump administration started. While the focus has been on enrichment or no enrichment, a little noticed trend has been taking place inside Iran. There has been a significant uptick in the mullahs’ libelous and demonizing references to the main resistance movement inside of Iran, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. It is a thinly veiled sign on the Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
For Iran observers, from one aspect there is nothing new. The clerical regime’s disinformation campaign against that group has been virtually incessant since the early days of the Islamic Republic because the PMOI (or MEK) has been the leading proponent of democracy in the face of the theocratic dictatorship. But to the extent that that campaign has accelerated over the past several weeks, it has been a reminder of a more specific function of the organization and its nationwide intelligence network. And that is what has made the mullahs jittery.
On August 14, 2002, based on the information provided to it by the Mujahedin-e Kahlq (MEK) network inside the country, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) revealed the existence of a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz and heavy water plant in Arak, thus exposing a nuclear program which the Iranian regime had managed to keep secret up for more than a decade to that point. Since then, the MEK and the NCRI have made countless additional disclosures about that program, underscoring the persistence of the Islamic Republic’s ambition to become a nuclear armed state. What has aggravated the problem for Tehran is that the resistance’s revelations have been very specific, detailed, which made them verifiable. And guess what? Their record has been quite remarkable in pinpointing Tehran’s most secret activities.
No wonder Tehran has gone of its way to cast doubt on the veracity of the MEK revelations. Just last week, in remarks carried by state media in May, Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, once again sought to cast doubt on those disclosures, accusing the MEK of spreading fake news and falsely labeling innocuous sites in remote areas of Iran as elements of a still-concealed nuclear weapons program. It was quite ironic that the head of the AEOI, presumed to be Tehran’s technical nuclear frontman, pointed to the 2002 revelation as being fake, the very site that has become the hallmark of the regime’s nuclear program.
The organization routinely provides updates on human rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent, and in the wake of nationwide protests in November 2019, it revealed a 1,500-person casualty from mass shootings by security forces, days before Reuters reported the same figure, citing sources from inside Iran’s Interior Ministry.
In fact, the regime’s obsession with halting the MEK’s intelligence-sharing has created a number of threats to the security of Western nations. In 2018, an Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, exploited his position at the regime’s embassy in Vienna to oversee the attempted bombing of a rally in France which had been organized by the NCRI and attended by tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates, plus hundreds of high-profile political supporters.
The pattern of denials and slander continued when NCRI revealed another formerly undisclosed site related to the nuclear project on May 8.
“Like clockwork, more Very Scary Satellite Images are being circulated as Iran-U.S. indirect nuclear talks are set to resume,” wrote Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in a social media post late that night.
While it is very prudent to assume that Tehran continues to conceal aspects and projects of its nuclear program, it is extremely concerned that it would be exposed by the vigilant eyes of the resistance and its vast network. So, it has gone on high gear and offensive mode while striving in vain to discredit the entity likeliest to reveal them.
With the United States now apparently committed to dismantling that program altogether, it seems clear that the regime’s campaign of disinformation is intended to suppress the information revealed by the MEK. That should be an alarming sign.
Denial, deception, and duplicity have been part and parcel of the Iranian regime’s conduct regarding its nuclear activities vis-à-vis the international community. Tehran has never informed the IAEA about its nuclear site and projects, until and after they were exposed by other entities, most notably the NCRI.
Any reliable agreement should not only entail zero enrichment capability for the regime, but also a very stringent verification mechanism, including unrestricted, unhindered snap inspection of all suspicious sites, including military ones.
Chuck Wald is a retired U.S. Air Force general and was Deputy Commander, U.S. European Command.