Maryam Rajavi’s testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade went exactly as expected:
Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Iranian dissidents organization Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), a group that until 2012 was list on the State Department’s terror list, insisted Tehran was the root of the Islamic State’s power. In prepared testimony, she mentioned Iran 135 times. By comparison, the Islamic State, or ISIS, got 19 mentions; Iraq was mentioned 48 times. Nuclear, as in Iran’s nuclear program, got 31 mentions.
But lawmakers tolerated Rajavi’s notion that “terrorism and fundamentalism came from the mullahs’ regime in Iran. When that is overthrown [the Islamic State] will be destroyed.”
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who previously defended to FP his decision to invite Rajavi to testify, used his opening statement to admit she wasn’t an expert on the Islamic State — but could provide insight into the group because of her knowledge on Iran.
I have no idea if Rep. Sherman bothered to explain how that makes any sense, but I’m betting he didn’t. In fact, he apparently compared Rajavi’s appearance before the subcommittee to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s address to Congress yesterday, a comparison so offensive to Abe that it’s a wonder it hasn’t caused a diplomatic crisis.
The Foreign Exchanges Companion 