# Mujahedin-e Khalq The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, also MKO) is an Iranian opposition organization with one of the strangest trajectories in modern Middle Eastern politics — from anti-Shah guerrillas, to purged revolutionaries, to Saddam Hussein's clients, to a delisted exile group with bipartisan American political patrons. It is widely described by former members and analysts as cult-like in its internal structure. ## Origins and Rupture Founded in the 1960s on an idiosyncratic fusion of Marxism and Islamism, the MEK waged armed struggle against [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]] and participated in the [[Iranian Revolution]]. But it quickly fell out with [[Ruhollah Khomeini]], who moved to crush it along with the rest of the non-clerical left. The MEK responded with a bombing and assassination campaign against the new regime; the state answered with mass executions of MEK members and sympathizers — among the bloodiest repressions of the early Islamic Republic, including the 1988 prison massacres. ## Exile, Iraq, and the Treason Charge Driven out of Iran, the MEK relocated to Iraq, where it accepted sanctuary and support from [[Saddam Hussein]] and fought *against* Iran during the [[Iran-Iraq War]] — an act the vast majority of Iranians, across the political spectrum, regard as outright treason. This collaboration permanently destroyed its credibility as a domestic opposition force, however much it cultivates a Western audience. ## Reinvention and American Patrons In the 2000s and 2010s the MEK reinvented itself as a Washington lobbying operation under its political front, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. It was listed as a terrorist organization by the United States until being delisted in 2012 after an intensive, well-funded campaign, and it has paid prominent American politicians — including figures associated with [[John Bolton]] — to speak at its events and promote it as a government-in-waiting. Critics note the contradiction of a group with no meaningful support inside Iran and a documented record of cultic abuse being marketed as the democratic alternative to the clerical regime. ## Why It Matters For the vault, the MEK is a cautionary case in the politics of regime change: a tale of how a fringe exile organization with a toxic history can purchase respectability in Washington and be elevated by hawks as a convenient instrument against Iran. It illustrates the gap between the [[International Democratic Opposition Hub]] that actually commands Iranian loyalty (figures like the dissidents of [[Woman Life Freedom]]) and the externally sponsored "opposition" that serves foreign agendas. *See also: [[Iranian History Hub]], [[Iranian Revolution]], [[Saddam Hussein]], [[International Democratic Opposition Hub]]*