A Contemporary Sha'baan Ja'fari
11/26/04
By
Rostam
Pourzal
"The general effect of Cold War
extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the
Soviet
Union."
--- Cold War pioneer George Kennan, International Herald Tribune,
10/29/92
One
image from the 1953 coup that ended Iran's
experiment with democracy is burned in the national conciousness of Iranians
like no other. Dozens of books and conferences have been devoted to the
US role in that
event, and in every one of them Sha'baan Ja'fari (known commonly as "Sha'baan
the Brainless") has occupied a special place. He was the vigilante whose
followers made downtown Tehran safe
for the coup makers. Hundreds of Iranian patriots were tortured and executed in
the months that followed. That
US intervention
lies at the root of Middle Eastern terrorism now, argues Stephen Kinzer, author
of All the Shah's Men.
I
was painfully reminded of Sha'baan and his activists last Friday when supporters
of another US
protégé, Massoud Rajavi, took to the streets. In
Washington. They were lending
their support to another generation of US planners of regime change in
Iran. Rajavi and
his National Liberation Army are now under US protection in eastern
Iraq, near the
Iranian border. Conditions have never looked so good for the coup they have
dreamed of for twenty years.

Photo: Carol Moore
Back in 1953, the Iranian people were deemed unworthy of
self-determination with regard to their oil industry. Today, the West similarly
argues that it should be in charge of another Iranian source of energy
and self reliance. Nuclear technology is the pretext this time, but the real
issue is still
Iran's
independence. Once again, all factions within Iran predict that foreign
intervention will again postpone any chance of democracy for decades. And once
again, it is deemed beneficial to put an Iranian face on the coup. Enter
Rajavi's Mojahedin, known also as MEK, MKO, and PMOI, who operate as a dozen
front organizations with names built around "freedom" and "democracy".
Let the street show
begin.
Mojahedin's November 19
Washington rally and march from
the White House to the US Congress was well organized and disciplined, even
though the promised American entertainers were absent. The target audience were,
of course, the
US politicians
and opinion makers who favor what Mojahedin call "appeasement" with regard to
Iran. Hence the
event posters and props that focused on
Iran's "nuclear
terrorism." Hence also the need to impress the wimps with inflated
strength.
No sane
eyewitness would agree with Mojahedin's PR about 15,000 participants. As someone
who believes it is a mistake to underrate your opponent, I esimate 1,500 to
1,800. Mojahedin's own photos of the event on their websites and TV broadcasts,
showing the entire procession, make this abundantly clear.
For
further evidence, I refer you to a file photo of
Freedom
Plaza, where the march started.
On http://images.google.com
type in "freedom plaza", then go to the third screen, second row, then
click on the third picture from the left. Mojahedin suporters filled LESS THAN
HALF of the right side of the Plaza (raised one meter above the surrounding
sidewalks) on November 19. No "feeder marches" or individuals joined their
procession later on its way to Congress. You can judge the scale of the Plaza by
the dimensions of the windows and the cars.
On the map,
Freedom
Plaza is the area bounded by 13th and
14th Streets, E Street, and Pennsylvania
Avenue ( the White House is on the left). Judging by
the map scale, the entire Freedom
Plaza -- including the four
sidewalks, the thick waist-high walls, the raised grass platform on the right
end, and the raised pond on the left end -- cannot be more than 10 thousand
square meters. Usable space on the right half could not possibly be more than
2,500 square meters. If Mojahedin supporters stood tightly one per square meter
of that space with their paraphernalia, that would be 2,500 demonstrators. But
they were instead moving with their hundreds of flags and banners in a circular
pattern while they chanted, leaving the center of the circle nearly empty.
So there
could not have been more than 1,800 participants at most (a veteran of
Washington antiwar demonstrations
estimated the crowd at 900). Is the Mojahedin leadership lying when it claims
15,000 demonstrators? Can we now trust their strength estimations at their
other rallies in the recent past? If they lie on purpose, is that meant to help
them milk their supporters for the "campaign contributions" (we used to call
that bribery in
Iran) that flow
abundantly to their "friends" in Congress according to official records? More
importantly, was it similar exaggerations of their strength that convinced
hundreds, if not thousands, of their impressionable volunteers to rush to their
tragic deaths in Operation Forough Javidan in Iranian Kurdistan in1988?
Mojahedin's claim of 15,000 was also refuted by the Capitol Police
Chief, in an otherwise favorable report in Saturday's Washington Post. But
Mojahedin's Farsi translation of that report fails to mention the chief's
comment. The translation also left out the US State department's explanation to
the reporter of the reason Mojahedin were designated a "terrorist organization."
(see the translation at http://www.hambastegimeli.com/node/view/12235
).
As a seasoned observer, I have no doubt that many tens of thousands of
dollars were spent to stage the November 19 event. To that you must add the cost
of airfare and hotel (not cheap in this city) for hundreds of "warm bodies" to
attend. A dozen participants who I talked to had all traveled from faraway
places, including three from Europe. Several said they
came for the free weekend in
Washington. Although presumably
several hundred must have been locals, my friends and I did not encounter any.
Ten of us were there to waive oversize "Freedom Yes; Mercenaries No" and
"US Hands Off Iran" placards and be generously photographed and videotaped
by the rally organizers. Three of us gave interviews to reporters, but the
Washington Post reporter refused to talk to us. See the Post's glowing account
of the event at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64120-2004Nov19?language=printer.
It was
sloppy journalism when the Post reporter named the "Council for Freedom and
Democracy in
Iran" and the
"Global Coalition Against Fundamentalism" as sponsors of the event, because no
such organizations exist anywhere. All the reporter had to do was search the
internet for one minute or ask the organizers for the names and addresses of the
principals and the size of the membership of these "organizations", and their
tax status. By law, the organizers would have to be registered with Justice
Department in order to lobby the government as they did. The reporter could also
have inquired how a group designated as a "terrorist organization" (officially
in the same league as al-Qaeda) could obtain a permit to march in an area where
the country's most important leaders are at work.
A high
school newspaper editor would have wanted to obtain this information before
publishing a report that helps demonize an entire nation, especially if
Americans may soon be paying with their dollars and their lives to "civilize"
that nation. The Post sent a "general assignment" reporter, according to his
bio. This is incredible when Washington Post's own Iran specialist, Robin
Wright, wrote two articles just last month to argue that Iran is at the top of
the US foreign policy agenda (see for example http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7434-2004Oct28?language=printer ).
Couldn't America's second most influential newspaper send a reporter who knows
more about US-Iran tensions than his readers do to cover this event ?
The event organizers were careful not to allow their
participants to challenge our small group, as this would have attracted more
attention to us. We also remained calm and friendly, even though every one of
them who approached us initially suspected us of working for
Iran's
government. One of them followed us for a little while during the march,
stopping to tie his shoelaces every time we stopped. But I was so friendly to
him that he gave up and left. My attitude was that many, if not most, in their
crowd were well-meaning Iranians and I would do anything not to alienate them
more than I had to.

One Rajavi fanatic was so incensed at my "Rajavi =
Chalabi" placard (a reference to the Iraqi traitor who brought war on his own
country last year) that he ranted at me nonstop for 10 minutes to say that my
comparison was worse than calling his mother and sister something or other! No
less brainwashed were others who insisted they were there not to encourage
US aggression on
Iran, but to
persuade the Bush Administration to stop helping
Iran's
government! Bush HELPING
Iran??
We must be living on different planets. None could explain to me how
their quest for improved "human rights" in
Iran explained
the 25 foot model missile that accompanied them in downtown
Washington. I understood then why
Ervand Abrahamian, author of the most authoritative history of Mojahedin said to
a New York Times reporter last year, "If Massoud Rajavi got up tomorrow and said
the world is flat, his members would accept it."
Something else that was new to me was that every
marcher to whom I talked believed that Mojahedin should ally themselves with
whoever they can grab to overthrow
Iran's
government, no questions asked. US warmongers, Likudniks,
Israel, whoever.
If this is what Mojahedin's supporters believe, I am not surprised the Rajavi
mafia became Saddam's mercenary army. I shudder to think how my country will go
from bad to worse if these delusional fanatics take over in
Iran.
Lastly, it is interesting that Mojahedin's multiple
Farsi websites immediately posted details of what their bought politicians and
other allies said at the podium on Friday and what the
US media
reported. Proclamations and coverage glorifying Mojahedin, but all in Farsi. You
think possibly that the text of the same are left out on their English-language
websites for a reason?