The Ayatollahs and the MEK: Iran’s Crumbling Influence Operation

In the 1960s, a group of student intellectuals formed to oppose the Shah of Iran and became an enemy of the clerical regime of Ayatollah Khomeini following the 1979 Revolution. U.S. officials twisted the students’ story in a misguided attempt to appease the Iranian government. In The Ayatollahs and the MEK: Iran’s Crumbling Influence Operation, Ambassador, Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr. - a former senior defense and foreign policy official who served three presidents over five administrations in the Pentagon, the White House and the U.S. State Department - presents breaking revelations and documents compelling evidence that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s organized opposition, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), and its parliament-in-exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), have been falsely portrayed in Washington and around the world for years. Professor Ivan Sascha Sheehan, Executive Director of the School of Public and International Affairs, at the University of Baltimore writes in the book’s Foreword: A careful examination of the facts supports this conclusion and tells a very different story than the one authored by Tehran and too often echoed in Washington. Ambassador Bloomfield’s pathbreaking book has received widespread praise from former senior leaders in the national security, counter-terrorism and law enforcement communities, including a former Director of the F.B.I., a former U.S. National Security Advisor, and a former U.S. Attorney General. The Ayatollahs and the MEK unravels the regime’s disinformation campaign and brings a fresh perspective to the Iran policy conversation.