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The Rise and Fall of the Mojahedin Khalq, 1987–1997
Their Survival after the Islamic Revolution and Resistance to the Islamic Republic of Iran

Ronen A. Cohen
Dr. Ronen A. Cohen is a lecturer at the Ariel University center of Samaria, Israel. His specialties include modern Iranian history and culture, Islamic terrorism, and clandestine international affairs. He is a book reviewer and commentator for Israeli newspapers, and a member of The Menachem Begin Institute for the Study of Underground and Resistance Movements at Bar-Ilan University.

The Mojahedin Khalq Organization is an Iranian political party that helped Khomeini’s religious sect in Iran bring about the Islamic revolution of 1979, after being at the forefront of opposition to the rule of the Shah. However, as the revolution got underway the Mojahedin, which used some elements of Mao Tse Tung’s political and warfare philosophy, were sidelined by the religious clerics and were expelled from the political arena. They responded by attacking the dominant polity through democratic means (such as political demonstrations, increasing the role of women), and later through armed resistance via Iraq, to become the most significant opposition powerbase to the current regime of Iran.

The author details the Organization’s relations with Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, European host nations, and most particularly with Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi military, and the end of war (1980–1988) negotiations between Iran and Iraq. Towards the end of its major activities, the Organization acted as little more than a cult, demanding total reverence to its leader Massoud Rajavi. Since 1997 the Organization has dissolved and depleted, and now functions at little more than a rhetoric level.

This book provides a detailed history of the Organization and its members, and addresses its complex relationship with western and international powers, most specifically the United States, in its endeavours to harness agreement to topple the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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