PMOI should be protected, scholar says

United Press International
August 5, 2008

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Protection for the opposition People's Mujahedin of Iran should be included in the broader U.S.-Iraqi military arrangement, a U.S. scholar on Iran says.

The presence in Iraq of the group, which seeks to overthrow the current Iranian government, has provoked widespread controversy, leaving a mutually agreed upon solution a diplomatic challenge for the United States in Iraq, notes Raymond Tanter for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Tanter observes the criticism faced by the U.S. military for protecting the PMOI in its eastern Iraqi bastion of Ashraf. The PMOI is listed on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations, though that status will be reviewed in October.

A British court earlier this year removed the PMOI from its list of terrorist organizations, and the group has lobbied Europe recently for similar consideration.

With the PMOI in Ashraf considered “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention, however, Tanter says any provision for the PMOI to remain in Iraq should be considered as part of the broader security arrangement set to replace the expiring U.N. mandate for Iraq.

“If (PMOI) members remain in Iraq under the protection of U.S. forces, such an arrangement should be explicit in agreements negotiated between Iraq and the United States,” he says.