Romney should support MKO to gain vote: Israeli daily

TEHRAN,June 24(MNA) – In an article published on Thursday, the Haaretz daily called on Mitt Romney to express stronger support for the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) in order to make a clearer distinction between his foreign policy positions and those of President Barack Obama. After a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found that more than half of American respondents trust U.S. President Barack Obama to manage international issues better than his Republican rival Romney, the Israeli daily has been trying to persuade both candidates to adopt an aggressive stance toward the Islamic Republic. In the article, Haaretz is seeking to prompt Romney to express support for the MKO group, saying, “With the U.S. presidential election in full swing and just a third of respondents voicing confidence in his leadership on global matters, Mr. Romney’s failure to draw sharp distinctions on foreign policy may cost him needed votes in November.” “President Obama’s carefully cultivated reputation for not flinching on matters of national security isn’t borne out by his ongoing diplomacy with Tehran. The U.S. president’s reluctance to support the Iranian opposition and his willingness to allow nuclear talks to drag on without tangible results leaves him open to criticism from the American right. It also leaves him vulnerable to claims that the White House is in over its head on the nuclear issue,” Haaretz wrote. “Romney can capitalize on Obama’s mismanagement of the Iran problem, but his message to the American electorate must be clear: Only a conservative is equipped to manage the Iran threat,” the daily added. “The Romney camp’s recent expressions of support for the organized resistance challenging Syrian President Bashar Assad should now be followed with a similar approach to the Iranian opposition’s Mujahideen-e-Khalq or MEK,” Haaretz said. The daily also advises Romney to go to Paris to show his support for the terrorist MKO. The members of the terrorist group will meet in Paris this weekend, on June 23. The MKO started its activities as a terrorist group based in Iraq in the early 1980s. In addition to the assassination of hundreds of Iranian officials and citizens, the group cooperated with Saddam Hussein’s regime in its repression of the Iraqi people. The MKO had fought as a mechanized division in alliance with Saddam Hussein during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. But it was disarmed and left stranded after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 that toppled the brutal dictator. The U.S. government characterized the MKO as a cult and designated it a terrorist group in 1997, holding it responsible for the assassinations of three U.S. Army officers and three civilian contractors before the Islamic Revolution (in 1979). With funding from the Iranian diaspora, the MKO has mounted a major campaign in the U.S. and Europe and enlisted many top national security figures from mostly Republican administrations as well as a number of prominent Democratic politicians to get its terrorist designation lifted.