Albert Einstein reportedly once quipped, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Alas, too many in Washington’s political class keep falling into this trap. The latest example? American activists believing they can manufacture an Iranian opposition movement instead of letting Iranians decide their own future.
To support the Iranian opposition, do not prop up the groups that make the opposition look illegitimate.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI) Chief Executive Officer Marc Wallace announced an Iranian opposition gathering. Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) members and separatists attended CPAC. Such an invitation, combined with Wallace’s and UANI’s past acceptance of these groups, contravenes the beliefs of most Iranians and reinforces the Islamic Republic’s propaganda, giving Tehran the perfect excuse to dismiss the real opposition. As the Islamic Republic faces renewed “maximum pressure” and looming succession, now is not the time to reinvent the wheel or insert American officials into an Iranian opposition whose most mainstream and popular strands already work and plan in pursuit of a peaceful landing for Iranians after the Islamic Republic’s inevitable fall.
It is not complicated. To support the Iranian opposition, do not prop up the groups that make the opposition look illegitimate. The Mujahedin-e Khalq has spent years sabotaging unity, infiltrating movements, and allowing the regime to discredit those fighting for real change.
Iranian grievances against the Mujahedin-e Khalq are real:
- The group participated in the Islamic Revolution on behalf of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, seeking to infuse Marxism with Khomeini’s Islamism.
- After Khomeini purged the group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq defected to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime and conducted horrendous human rights violations on his behalf.
- The Mujahedin-e Khalq engaged in terrorism. While its assassinations of U.S. servicemen and businessmen may upset Washington, the group’s Iranian victims were orders of magnitude more numerous.
- MEK leader Maryam Rajavi operates the group like a cult, even telling members whom they can marry and whom they must divorce. There is a reason why Mujahedin-e Khalq children are often missing, not attending public or even private schools in Europe or the United States.
While Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late shah, regularly polls as Iran’s most popular official, Rajavi comes in dead last, attracting just 0.6 percent support.
And then there are the separatists—people who have no interest in a united Iran. No serious opposition movement that wants to win would align with them. After all, Iran coalesced as a united multi-ethnic nation centuries before the age of ethnic nationalism. While some think tank analysts, diaspora activists, and those working on behalf of Iran’s neighbors argue that Iran is a new Yugoslavia, facts belie this. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is an Azeri, for example. So, too, are the most brutal units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So much for Azerbaijani separatism.
But that is exactly what happened at CPAC, which gives the regime in Tehran another excuse to paint all opposition figures as Western puppets.
There is a reason Iranians inside the country do not chant for Rajavi and set fire to images of Mujahedin-e Khalq figures, even as they defy regime security forces to chant Reza Pahlavi’s name in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Mashhad. This is not because of nostalgia or monarchist sentiment within Iran; rather, Iranians see Pahlavi as the only figure with the credibility, name recognition, and unifying power to bring opposition together.
Iranians do not want foreign organizations like UANI to act as gatekeepers in a “CPAC for Iranians in Exile.”
For years, Pahlavi has consistently called for a national referendum—not to bring back the monarchy, but to let Iranians determine their political future. Here, there is precedent. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ushered in the Islamic Republic with a referendum. Decades later, Iranian oppositionists proposed a new referendum to end the Islamic Republic; the effort gained momentum, until the Mujahedin-e Khalq scuttled it. More recently, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei proposed a referendum to determine the fate of Israel. This raises the question: Why not Iran? After all, both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs celebrate Israel’s legitimacy. Most Iranians, on the other hand, are ambivalent at best and dismissive at worst to clerical rule.
The only opposition movements that matter are those that enjoy support inside Iran. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States ignored unifying figures like Mohammad Zahir Shah and Prince Hassan bin Talal, the former crown prince of Jordan who spent much of his boyhood in Iraq. Ignoring natural unifying figures creates instability and wastes resources. Iranians do not want foreign organizations like UANI to act as gatekeepers in a “CPAC for Iranians in Exile.”
The Iranian regime is struggling. Protests keep erupting. Its legitimacy is crumbling. It survives only through repression. By bringing the MEK and separatists into the conversation, UANI and CPAC gave the regime an easy talking point to dismiss and delegitimize opposition as foreign-backed traitors and terrorists.
Wallace and UANI may be well-meaning, but if Washington wants to see real change in Iran—and avoid another Iraq- or Afghanistan-style failure—it must stop empowering weak, discredited groups no matter how much honoraria they offer former American officials and instead start listening to the Iranian people. Iran’s opposition cannot be built in Washington. It cannot be decided by think tanks, lobbyists, or political consultants who do not understand Iran’s reality.
