Eurasia Press & News
Former US Vice President Mike Pence spoke at event held by Mujahedeen-e Khalq, which is widely described as a cult.
Another prominent American politician has come out in support of the controversial Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e Khalq, aka MEK.
Former Vice President Mike Pence spoke at a summit of the National Council of Resistance of Iran Thursday. The council is an umbrella group of which the MEK is the main member. Pence said that the MEK is a viable alternative to the ruling Islamic Republic of Iran, according to an official transcript.
“One of the biggest lies the ruling regime has sold the world is that there is no alternative to the status quo,” Pence told the crowd in Washington, DC. “But there is an alternative – a well-organized, fully prepared, perfectly qualified, and popularly supported alternative called the MEK.”
Audience members chanted “M-E-K” following Pence’s remarks.
Mujahedeen-e Khalq formed in 1965. It was originally a Marxist organization, though it has distanced itself from communism since then. The group seeks the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran and is banned there. Mujahedeen-e Khalq lacks popular support in Iran, in part because they fought with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The MEK is widely described as a cult.
The US government previously designated the MEK as a terrorist organization, but the designation was lifted in 2012 under the Obama administration. Some US politicians who oppose the Iranian government have warmed up to the group since then, including other Trump administration officials. Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also addressed an MEK summit in July. The group has received the support of many Iran hawks in the US, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former US Ambassador to the United Nations and National Security Adviser John Bolton and former governor of Vermont and chair of the Democratic National Committee Howard Dean.
Pence, as the former second-in-command of the US government, is perhaps the most prominent American to praise the MEK. HE also criticized Iran’s nuclear energy program in the speech, and said that political change will soon come to the country.
“So, let it be clear: regime change in Iran, by the Iranian people and their Resistance, is inevitable,” he said.
