During the tumultuous days of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, one absence was glaring—the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an organization that otherwise seizes every opportunity to wave its banners and flood European streets with hollow slogans. In Vienna and other European cities, where protests erupted daily, the MEK was nowhere to be found. This was no coincidence.
A product of an outdated ideological lineage—Islamist in its origins, opportunist in its methods—the MEK was utterly incapable of formulating a coherent position on a movement in which women were setting fire to the hijab, an instrument of Islamic oppression, and knocking turbans off the heads of clerics who claim divine authority. The uprising was a direct challenge to historical discrimination, to the very structures of power that have subjugated the Iranian people for generations. Faced with this, the MEK stood disoriented, anxious, and politically bankrupt.
Yet, the moment the Islamic Republic crushed the uprising with brute force, the MEK, much like the Monarchists—both factions officially tolerated by Western governments—re-emerged from obscurity. With a fresh injection of capital from undisclosed sources, they expanded their lobbying networks, showering American and European politicians with money in a desperate bid to present themselves as a viable alternative. Today, they stand at the height of their political activity, not because they hold any legitimacy among Iranians, but because their Western patrons see them as a useful tool.
The truth is unambiguous: in Iran, the MEK is despised. Its history of collaboration with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, its cult-like internal structure, and its complete detachment from the material realities of Iranian society render it an organization without a base, without credibility, without purpose. But the tragedy does not end there. Its political irrelevance inside Iran does not prevent it from being a factor in the broader game of imperialist strategy.
The MEK remains a threat, not because of any intrinsic strength, but because of the relentless insistence of U.S. policymakers on manufacturing opposition movements that are neither democratic nor secular. Washington has long sought to cultivate alternatives to the Islamic Republic that are not rooted in the struggles of Iranian workers, women, or students, but in the calculations of power brokers in Washington and Brussels. And when a moment of crisis arises—when the U.S. finds itself needing a controlled alternative to the Islamic Republic—the MEK remains the only organized Iranian Islamist entity outside the regime itself, ready to serve.
Despite Iran’s seismic social and ideological shifts, the MEK leadership clings to outdated rituals—headscarves, group prayers, Ramadan spectacles—all while operating from their Western headquarters. This is not an opposition force; it is a relic of a bygone era, desperately seeking a role in a future that has no room for it. But as long as the U.S. insists on molding Iranian politics to fit its strategic interests, these ghosts of the past will continue to haunt the periphery, ready to be deployed at the next opportunity to subvert the genuine struggle for freedom in Iran.
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