A great victory -- but at what terrible price?

hass

Oh PLEASE! This article sounds like one of the standard MKO propaganda pieces. Iranians HATE the MKO with a burning passion. The MKO sided with Iraq and Saddam against Iran , they were responsible for the worst atrocities of the 1979 revolution, they are a cult and I could go on. If you think that the MKO can topple the regime, then the mullahs are sleeping soundly. As for "never" harming Western interests, the MKO was responsible for the assassination of American military officials in Iran.

Stop interfering in Iranian affairs. You don't know what you're doing, and you're certainly not helping anyone in Iran. Shoo!

Raymond

Thank you very much Melanie. As always your article is excellent and very thorough indeed. I admire you Melanie for this very fine article about the main Iranian opposition movement PMOI.

Mehrdad

Dear hass(or Hassan),
I feel sorry for you. Don't you get it? you'd better get yourself a real job!
The era of misinformation campaigns and mullah lobbying in the UK is over. Iranians living in UK, know your kind well.
I recommend you read this:
SPYING FOR THE MULLAHS: IRAN’S AGENTS IN UK
Link:
http://iran-freedom.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=122&Itemid=29

Jimmy

This is a great day for the Iranian people.

The PMOI offer the world a hope for a peaceful solution to the crisis surrounding the despicable regime that rules Iran.

Let us hope that this day and this judgment will make Gordon Brown's government see sense, finally ending this shameful policy of appeasement which has been disastrous for the world.

The PMOI's removal from the terror list offers the West an opportunity to support the Iranian people in their democratic struggle.

Let us hope they realise this opportunity before it is too late.

Once again I congratulate the Iranian people on a great victory and hope that they can soon rid the world of Ahmadinejad and his cronies.

Naomi varga

Great piece!
I am delighted that our judiciary have shown their independence from the sorry appeasers that are this Labour government by confirming that the government's actions in proscribing the main Iranian opposition group was unlawful.
How despicable of the likes of Jack Straw to appease those who hang children in public, stone women to death and rape women before execution in the sick belief that the women will then go to hell.
The monsters in Tehran have no place in the 21st century. The people of Iran and the Iranian opposition have their hands firmly around the necks of the mullahs and after this Court judgment they will no doubt squeeze even harder.
As for Hass, your nonsense has no buyers. The Courts have heard your misinformation and recognised it for what it is.
Is the writer of this piece interfering in Iranian affairs or the FCO, which is rotten to the core, and has blacklisted the Iranian opposition as a means of prolonging the life of the mullahs?

Majid

Melanie, you are absolutely right when you say that many Iranians have paid a very heavy price for the government’s policy of appeasement and its proscription of the PMOI. Therefore, although this day fills Iranians with great joy, it is also a time for reflection on the cost that has been paid.
Iran will soon be free, because the Iranian people and their resistance are determined to rid the world of the threats posed by the Iranian regime. Rather than proscribing the Iranian Resistance, the west should have embraced it. Instead, this government has braced the medieval regime in Iran. How shameful! Thank god for the PMOI and the Iranian resistance, because we certainly cannot rely on this government or the appeasers in the EU.

liz

THe MKO supported the taking of US embassy hostages, summarily executed members of the Shah's regime, and espouse a cultish mixture of Marxism and Islamism (when they're not faking their "democratic" facade.) They also acted as Saddam's henchmen in the killing of Kurds. They abuse and brainwash their own members too, as Human Rights Watch reported.

The MKO may have given up terrorism as a tactic for now (so as to be removed from the terrorist list) but they have zero credibility. The photo of Rajavi shaking hands with Saddam will never go away for Iranians, nor will their backing by Israel and the NeoCons in Washington.

YA

..one problem Melanie, the word "mujahedin" has very suspicious root.

steve

Well put Hass. She doesn't have a clue what she's talking about. And I find it amazing that she is justifying terrorism because it occurred again Iranians and not against the west.

David Lindsay

If you were so against Saddam Hussein, then why are so in favour of his old allies and proteges?

Iran may have its faults, and I am no fan of Islam generally (unlike the neocon friends of Turkey, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, the overthrow of the current bulwark in Syria...), but Iran as it is strikes even me as preferable to Iran either as Iraq has become since 2003, or as Iraq was prior to that.

This article puts me in mind of Hillary Clinton's recent pledge to nuke Iran if it threatens Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates, which first alone has given the Clintons eighteen million dollars and counting.

Not only are these the countries that are holding the West to ransom by means of oil prices, but Clinton is, like Phillips, both a woman and an intellectual.

Yet they both want to destroy a society with more women than men at university, with an emerging democracy, with a very high culture including the most acclaimed cinema in the world today, and so forth.

Clinton wants to do this for the sake of the extremely repressive, backward and misogynistic Gulf monarchies. And Phillips apparently wants to do it in order to replace that society with an enlarged version of Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

How very, very sad.

Elena

Thank you, Melanie, for an excelent article.

Alex

So....we should back one group of Islamists to overthrow another group of Islamists?

No, I see absolutely nothing going wrong with this idea whatsoever...

Mystikiel

Looks like you've found a new Ahmed Chalabi. I wonder how long it will take you this time to realise they are hopeless losers without any support in Iran?

They aligned themselves as Marxists to pimp themselves to the Soviets, then to Saddam Hussein, and now they're pimping themselves to you. Certainly flexible in their principles, arent they?

Kevyn Bodman

Articles like this are why I visit Melanie's column before all others.
Superb.

Terry

Well put, Melanie. I believe that there is a window of opportunity for the iranian islamonazi regime to be rolled by Iranians. If we don't assist Iranian dissidents to overthrow this unseakable nazi regime, then war will be the only option. Those who criticise are merely mouths for modern nazism wrapped in religious bigotry. It is they who should shut up, not you.

Mike (the original)

So when was the last time Melanie Phillips visited Tehran, or indeed anywhere else in Iran? When was the last time she walked around Isfahan or Mashad.......or in Arabia....when was the last time she went to Marrakech, Dubai/Abu Dhabi, Beirut, or even Petra?

If she got out of her office a bit more and breathed some fresh air for a change, she might end up with some credibility. Meanwhile, she's simply meddling once again or some would say...'lazy journalist'.

John

David Lindsay,

If you think sSaudi and the emirates are holding the West to ransom over the price of oil, heaven knows how you will describe the situation when Iran takes control of those oil fields through its growing belligerence.

I venture to suggest it will make current oil prices look like a tea party. Still, "it's all about the oil" carries so much street cred, doesn't it? Haven't any of these useless liberal idiots yet worked out how the world will function with oil under Iran's control?

Terry

Mike the original fool......Melanie is Jewish. If she went to iran or saudi arabia (or most arab fascist states) and they knew she was Jewish, or if she had an Israeli stamp in her passport, they wouldn't let her into the country. If they did, she wouldn't be safe there. But I wouldn't expect the average leftofascist to even care about arab antsemitism and racism. And you, mike, are VERY average.

www.jeremyhavardi.com

Appeasement has been the default mode of the West for so long now in regard to radical Islam. It takes a long time to shake people from their bad habits...
www.jeremyhavardi.com

Azadeh

I am an Iranian, who like most Iranians (excluding the mullahs and their agents), am angered by armchair leftists interfering in the affairs of my nation.

If you want to take on America or imperialism, have the courage to pay the price from your own pocket and not the pocket of the Iranian people. If western warplanes bomb Iran, will you travel to Iran to help all those who will be killed and injured? Will you join the Iranian people under the bombs that come reigning down? I don't think so.

The world will not accept a situation in which the fundamentalist regime in Iran acquires nuclear weapons. That means there is a point in time, in the not too distant future, when the west will assess that the regime is so close to acquiring nuclear weapons that it has to take military action. Like it or loathe it that is how things are. Therefore, our only chance of averting the devastating consequences of military action for the Iranian people is by overthrowing the vile regime in Iran before then. The only people who can achieve that are the Iranian people. However, they desperately need the support of their organised resistance, the PMOI. The west has for a decade prevented the Iranian people from enjoying the maximum support of their resistance movement, because they wanted to preserve the regime (i) for short term trade gains, and (ii) because they are appeasers. Now the Courts are beginning to change things by removing the shackles unjustifiably placed on the PMOI. As Melanie says, let us hope it is not too late.

I hope that one day soon the people of Britain and Europe will bring the likes of Ayatollah Straw and Ayatollah Solana to account for pursuing policies that have threatened peace and stability around the Middle East and the world.

Full steam ahead PMOI – the Iranian people are right behind you! Moreover, the world is counting on you.

Melanie – great article! The Iranian people need, now more than ever, for courageous and savvy journalists to tell things like they are.

steve

Terry: Iranians are not Arabs and Iran has a Jewish community

Moses

Misinformation from apologists of the Iranian regime, all of which was put before the British courts has been and remains worthless.

The PMOI offer a democratic form of Islam which can and must be supported. This group can bring democracy to the long suffering people of Iran and ending the rule of these despicable Mullahs.

Keep up the great work Melanie and let's hope Gordon Brown and the likes of David Miliband wake up before it is too late.

This Labour government's shameful appeasement of Iran must now end.

Congratulations Melanie for siding with the Iranian people's democratic ambitions.

Abu Muayt's mate

The appeasement of the Iranian tyranny by the UK is truly disgusting. Who could fail to be ashamed by the recent transformation of the Royal Navy from a fighting force into a p.c. apology unit when subjected to piracy by the mullahs. How heartening to hear Hilary Clinton state unconditionally that if Iran attacks Israel the US will obliterate them. This is the only sort of language islamic fascists understand.

peter watkins

Actually, the Brave Iranian people DID vote in their own government back in 1953. A socialist called Mossadeq.

Great name.

But he wanted to nationalise the oil industry.

So Churchill and the CIA deposed him.

An oily practise, because at the time they tried to make it look like a popular uprising against him by the Iranian people.

Who had just voted him in.

Funny how Melanie's ludicrous blog promotes a similar interference.

But better than her JC article saying we should BOMB IRAN NOW!

You see, I hate the Israeli administration, backed by those loatsome ultra Orthodox parties.

So do most normal Jews.

But I don't advocate overthrowing it. I don't advocate bombing Israel, even though it has been more agressive against its neithbours than Iran ever was.

And I don't interfere in its affairs.

peter

Terry -

So there are no jewish bankers, engineers, fund managers, architects, IT types, ops directors etc in Saudi?

Or any other Arab countries?

Saudi imprisons and locks away Jews does it?

Really?

patricia

Terry.

You advocate overthrowing the Iranian regime. It is 'nazi' and 'loathsome'.

What about those who feel the same way about the Israeli regime? Which has sanctioned more killings of innocent civilians of late than any other so called civilised democracy?

Should I advocate overthrowing that regime ?

Hassan

Many thanks Melanie for another very well written and extremely well researched piece regarding Iran's opposition group, the PMOI.

It is wonderful to see individuals such as yourself siding with the democratic ambitions of the Iranian people.

The PMOI has been shamefully targeted by the West under some vain belief that Iran can be appeased.

We must now see the PMOI as friends and see the Iranian people as the only viable solution to ending this crisis.

Thank you Melanie for your article and congratulations to all Iranians on this day. Iran will soon be free.

EZT

Well done Melanie for such a marvellous article.

Iranians the world over support the PMOI, because they are the only opposition group willing and able to help the Iranian people bring about democratic change.

The Iranian people don't want war nor do they want appeasement, they want democracy. Appeasement is what is leading us down a path where war becomes more likely and it has to end now.

There is still time for the PMOI and the Iranian people to succeed, but we must all get behind them not hinder them.

Great day for Iran, great day for democracy and the start of what we all hope are the tides of change in Tehran as well in policy towards Tehran.

Mike (the original)

Terry: Seems you've got yourself into a bit of a hole on this thread. Anyway, I neither respond to nor do invective. It's unnecessary and a waste of space. If you want to let of steam suggest you go and swing a golf-club, hit some tennis balls.....or if its raining...go to bed with a good woman!

Bob Latchford

good point Steve, that is the very thing I thought when I read the article....how is terrorism justified on the basis that "they never attacked the West"? Hamas and Hizbollah have never attacked the West either, would Ms Phillips be so quick to justify their attacks?

Mehr

WONDERFULL ARTICLE!! You have put it very nicely in words. It felt as you were saying the words in my heart! Thank you for that! Finally justice prevails!! You pointed out a very important fact. With the terror listing of PMOI they killed Iranians! The mullahs had also an excuse of people being hanged/tortured/executed the members of PMOI in prison, without ANY goverment saying anything about it. NOT EVEN the UN! Well done Melanie! With this article YOU have become the speaker the victims of human rights violations in Iran. I loved to bring you to Iran to show you how beautiful it can be BUT when it's free of course!

ps: All of those commentors that write bad about PMOI/MEK/MKO, pull your head out of the sand. PMOI has always been independent and we are proud of it!

Nigel

Great article as usual, Melanie. As well as dissidents, Christian are also being persecuted, tortured and killed for their faith in Iran - but little is heard of these appalling crimes in the Western media.

Naomi Varga

Bob - do your homework! The PMOI has never targeted civilians and that is accepted even by the appeasers in the British government.

One thing that troubles me though is: it's legal for the west to bomb Iran, but it is not legal for Iranians to take up arms against their oppressors (including the Revolutionary Guards), who are recognised as the most active state sponsor of terrorism. How can that be right?

Lynne T

Peter:

Saudi Arabia drove its Jewish population out a few centuries ago, probably in the early 17th century when the Sauds cut a deal with Mohammed abd al-Wahhab and the Sauds took control over what is now known as Saudia Arabia, displacing the Jews of those lands mostly into Yemen, where only a very tiny number remain and are subjected to attacks by Muslim fundamentalists. There are certainly Arabs from many of the Gulf States and presumably SA as well who do business with Jews, but that doesn't mean that Jews are permitted to enter Saudia Arabia, whether they are Israeli Jews or from other countries. Iran, as Peter points out, does still have a Jewish population, but only a fraction of the numbers that were there since the Shah was deposed and they are not free to leave the country. A few dozen recently escaped and went to Israel, where most of the world's Persian Jews now live. Generally, the twenty-two Arab countries surrounding Israel don't allow a great deal of freedom to their own journalists, let alone foreigners who are Jewish and not inclined toward kissing up to the likes of Basher al-Assad the way Norm Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky have done recently in Lebanon and Syria. Finky and Chomsky were allowed in because Hezbollah and the Syrian government wanted to use them for PR purposes.

shamir

norman finkelstein is not what you try to portray him as.
some of his assertions can be challenged but he did a great job for instance debunking
joan peters lies.

Lynne T

Shamir:

I've seen and read enough of Norman Finkelstein to know that he isn't cable of debunking his way out of a paper bag let alone pick his way through Joan Peters' book and all the footnotes to the original sources. But what would you expect from an acolyte of Noam Chomsky (who cites himself, if he does bother footnoting anything) and, if memory serves, a brother-in-arms to "Israel Shamir" the alias of a notorious Swedish antisemite?

Shamir - is this where you usually post: http://www.israelshamir.net/Reviews/Review9.htm

George Steiner

Most of you good people are missing the point. I say good people, because some of you are mostly concerned with absolute moral rectitude. This is hard to do in the real world.

Ms. Phillips is correct in her assesment. If the Mudjahedin Kalq or whatever is the name now can help a regime change in Iran, they deserve support.

When Jimmy the peanut congratulated Khomeiny, we did not know who they realy were. We do now.

And why would you good people want to condem the Iranians to povery? There are over 70 million of them but the GDP per head is just over $2,000. You good people on the other hand have a GDP per head of about $35,000. To misquote the sage Michelle Obama, "you are downright mean".

jordan

Patricia, I don't mean to sound rude but I'm still laughing at your argument. Are you honestly appeasing the Iranian Regime? Are you honestly trying to undermine Israel? Try making an educated response next time.

Andrea

Great article.
I have many Iranian friends and they all adore the PMOI. This is the best news they have heard in a long time and I share in their joy. You should see how pumped up Iranians are after the Court of Appeal judgment.
I am not surprised the Iranian regime is so terrified.
I have no doubt the Iranian people and the PMOI will soon uproot the Islamic fundamentalists in Tehran and rid the world of their menace.
Go PMOI Go!!

Adam B.

Mike the Unoriginal,
When was the last time you walked the streets of Israel? You seem to always have a lot to say about it. If you haven't been there, then using your logic against Melanie, you have no right to talk about it!

Mike Smith

This is another great article by a great writer. Thank you very much Melanie to highlight this very important issue.

Raymond

What a wonderful article. I think our government must bow its head in shame for obstructing the path to democracy in Iran. It is great that justice has prevailed and Iran's main opposition movement has been freed. It seems to have been a long suffering for them and unnecessary fight against the injustice by the labour government but thanks to our judiciary which has taken this brave decision.

Fereydoun

Brilliant piece by Melanie Phillips, thank you very much for your clear and bright analysis on Iran.

The 7th of May has been a wonderful day and will be a true page of justice in the history books. Even after all the negative propaganda that even people on this website try to post doesn't stop the Iranian opposition. They started their battle against the regime more than 40 years ago and they won't give up until there will be free elections in Iran under the supervision of the United Nations. Then we will see what the Iranian people really want.

London Calling

Bravo Melanie!!

Bravo Britain!!

Justice never felt so good...

:)