A common misconception is that the Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization (MEK), led by Maryam Rajavi, can bring about an ideal transformation in Iran’s political landscape. However, this is deeply flawed, as it is neither compatible with Iran’s social fabric nor does the group fundamentally possess the requisite intellectual foundation and popularity to achieve this. This mistake stems from the false assumption that this group can be labeled liberal-democratic, which is simply not the case.
Iranian society is highly modern, and the social foundation required for the country to become an ally to the West is already in place. Iran merely needs a fundamental change in its political system to realize this.
The Iranian people are highly educated and place great value on university education, to the extent that the ratio of female to male university students is roughly 50/50. They lead modern lifestyles and cherish modern values. Iranian women maintain an active presence across the workforce, arts, and culture. Major cities like Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Shiraz have thriving cafe cultures, indie theaters, art galleries, and underground music communities that reflect contemporary global youth culture. In this society, values such as individual freedom and equal rights for all are deeply cherished. The political structure, however, remains completely disconnected and alienated from society.
However, all of this, namely the set of modern values that have permeated Iranian society, stands in stark contrast to the MEK. The MEK is a leftist-Islamist group founded on Sept. 6, 1965, to pursue communist ideals. In 1975, the group assassinated Colonel Paul R. Shaffer and Lieutenant Colonel Jack H. Turner, two U.S. Air Force officers serving with the American military mission in Iran.
Following the 1979 revolution in Iran, MEK clashed with the Islamic Republic, and the regime’s rulers cracked down. However, that does not mean they can serve as an alternative to it, as communist ideology and political Islam are deeply ingrained within them. The Iranian people do not view them as a political group with pro-freedom ideals or an affection for Iran.
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After being sidelined from power by the Islamic Republic, the group allied itself with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the war Iraq launched against the Iranian people and their territorial integrity. Furthermore, they carried out numerous terrorist operations inside Iran. In fact, their actions were not merely aimed at the regime but at the Iranian nation itself, leading to ever-growing hatred toward them among the Iranian public. They are trapped in their dogmatic mindset, so they have never even had a place in the protests of the Iranian people in recent years, and there has never been a major movement in their support.
Consequently, while Iranian society is ready to move toward becoming a genuine liberal democracy and, through a structural political change, foster extensive, positive economic, cultural, and diplomatic ties with the West, this vital step can never be achieved by a group that possesses neither a favorable track record in this domain nor the support of the Iranian people. They do not seek the development of Iran, but rather its plunder, and would prove to be far worse than the current political regime. Ruhollah Khomeini, too, made seemingly freedom-oriented promises before coming to power; yet upon closer examination, it became clear that he, too, was intent on establishing a system whose ultimate outcome was the decline of Iran.
Ehsan Mousavi is an Iranian graduate student in Economics and Data Analysis at the University of Bergamo, Italy. His academic focus is political economy and monetary economics. He is a member of the Entangled Political Economy Research Network at the Mercatus Center and the Hume Society. His research was selected for the Mont Pelerin Society conference 2024, and he has been published in FEE, the Washington Times, and YSI INET. Also, he writes on his personal Substack, The Implex.