Non-Subscriber Extract
Iranian oppositionists in Iraq face up to a troubled future
- Article Tools
| 31 March 2005 |
By Mahan Abedin Editor of the Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Monitor
As the new Iraqi government slowly forms and assumes limited power in Baghdad, one issue it will have to address is the fate of more than 3,000 formerly armed Iranians in a camp northeast of Baghdad.
The Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), the main exiled opposition to the Iranian government, was one of the casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent downfall of Saddam Hussein. It is increasingly evident that the organisation does not have a future inside Iraq, and sooner or later it will have to relinquish the substantial chunk of Iraqi real estate (in the form of its Ashraf complex northeast of Baghdad) that it has held for the past two decades. However, given the cohesiveness and determination of this group, it would be wrong to assume that expulsion from Iraq will lead to immediate dissolution.
It is unlikely that the core membership of the MEK would abandon the organisation, even under today's highly unfavourable circumstances. This means that the US will eventually have to resettle the remaining 3,000 MEK members in Western countries. Losing its Iraqi base will undoubtedly undermine the MEK and probably accelerate its 20-year decline. However, the dissolution of the MEK is a process that is likely to take at least 10 years, meaning that the MEK will continue being a minor nuisance to Iran for some time to come.
228 of 1,622 words