On Election Day in 2016, Gen. Michael Flynn penned an opinion article in the Hill. It represented a complete about-face for a man who made his career fighting radical Islamism as he uncritically voiced and amplified Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s positions. To anyone who knew Flynn, it was clear he did not write the piece himself and was essentially acting as an unregistered foreign agent, a charge he denied.
It did not matter. Quickly, it emerged that Flynn had accepted a large honorarium from the Turks to represent their interests. He then registered retroactively as a foreign agent. Flynn’s dishonesty did not directly end his career as national security adviser, but it did put him on the radar for numerous investigations into leveraging his former positions and possible future influence into cash.
He lasted less than a month in the White House, resigning in disgrace on Feb. 13, 2021, with the shortest tenure by far of any non-acting official in his position. The damage Flynn did was not only to himself but also to the image of the military and the Trump administration more broadly by fueling a narrative about corruption that the media exaggerated but nevertheless distracted from the president’s ability to implement his agenda.
Alas, what Flynn was to Trump 1.0, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg may be for Trump 2.0. On Jan. 11, President Donald Trump’s incoming special envoy for Russia and Ukraine appeared in France to speak at a rally for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political wing of the Mujahedin al Khalq. Kellogg’s decision to speak at an Iranian event is curious, considering his military career never focused upon the Iran challenge, nor is he part of Trump’s Iran team.
For the Washington elite, the MEK and its various Paris conferences are a barometer of corruption. The MEK regularly provides honoraria of $40,000 or $50,000 for five-minute speeches, though it is unclear from where its money comes. That former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani began accepting MEK honoraria was perhaps the first sign of his tragic descent. That the MEK cannot point to a single member who has subjected himself to the U.S. security clearance process highlights the cult’s resistance to transparency.
Trump may want to focus on China, but Iran remains a major portion of the global problem set he will face. Here, the damage Kellogg does to Trump’s ability to succeed is huge. Iranians hate the Islamic Republic, but they despise the MEK as much if not more. After all, the MEK worked together with Ayatollah Khomeini to oust the shah, only to fall victim to his purges. The group then allied with Saddam Hussein, an enemy not only to Khomeini but to all Iranians.
MEK terrorism was often indiscriminate as its leader, Maryam Rajavi, believed killing enough Iranian civilians would delegitimize the regime. The narrative that the MEK has proven itself with intelligence exposés is also false. The MEK’s track record is mixed. Rather, it appears the group receives and repackages intelligence from Saudi Arabia and Israel to disguise its origins. The point is that Iranians want to free themselves from Islamist dictatorship, not replace one regime with another as odious.
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What doubles Kellogg’s shame is that the MEK killed U.S. servicemen and, to this day, remains unapologetic for its actions. There is little difference between Kellogg attending an MEK gathering and a retired U.S. general attending a rally for the Baader-Meinhof Gang in Germany beyond the fact that the MEK killed more U.S. servicemen.
At best, Kellogg shows poor judgment. At worst, he does not care. Maybe he pocketed the MEK cash, figuring he was still a private citizen for another week. If he cares about Iranian freedom and U.S. national security more than his own wallet, though, he will donate the honorarium to the Iranians laying their lives on the line.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.