Iran, a victim of state-sponsored terrorism

Those who mischievously called Iran a part of the so-called "Axis of Evil" and put its name in their fabricated list of the state sponsors of terrorism - the list from which the name of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime was removed in 1982 so that the United States and its European stooges could rationalize their unjustified, immoral and insane war against Iran - have blatantly forgotten that Iran has been long one of the guiltless victims of terrorism, sponsored by the United States, Israel, UK and their puppets in the Middle East.

Following the victory of Islamic Revolution in 1979 as a consequence of which the government of the US-backed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was toppled and the charismatic religious leader Imam Khomeini became the Supreme Leader, several efforts were made by the United States and its cronies to destabilize the newly-born Iran and sow the seeds of insecurity, fear and terror all over the country; a country which had released itself from the tyranny of the US-installed Shah and embraced a new era of prosperity and success.

At the early years of Islamic Revolution which promoted the establishment of a government ruled by the teachings of Islam and the law of God, the United States and its European cronies -- the so-called 'pioneers of human rights' -- unconditionally supported MKO, a terrorist organization which had explicitly expressed that it would take arms against the Islamic Republic and will fight until the subversion of Iran's government.

Under the leadership of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, MKO carried out several terrorist attacks all over the country and killed hundreds of innocent civilians including the Shiites of Western Iran and the Iraqi Kurdish people.

In 1970s, the terrorist group targeted the American citizens living in Iran and killed William C. Cottrell, Colonel Lewis L. Hawkins, Donald G. Smith, and Colonel Jack Turner.

On 28 June, 1981, a powerful bomb was detonated at the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party of Iran in which 72 governmental officials, the members of parliament and the then Judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti were killed. Mohammadreza Kolahi, one of the low-ranking members of the MKO carried out the explosion project and immediately escaped to France without being extradited to Iran to be tried.

In 1986, MKO transferred its headquarters to Iraq and remained under the auspices of Saddam Hussein until he was removed from power by the multinational forces that invaded Iraq in 2003. According to the US State Department, MKO received all of its military support and most of its financial assistance from Saddam's government until the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The disreputable terrorist group of Jundallah which has carried out several terrorist attacks in Iran is another representation of the United States' sponsorship of terrorism against a country with which it is at odds.

According to the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, former Jundallah's leader Abdolmalek Rigi had received great amounts of money and military training from the United States. In his confessions which were aired on several TV channels around the world, Rigi revealed upon being arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that he has been under the patronage of the United States for a long time and received weaponry, military training and money from the US-linked sources in Pakistan and Afghanistan on a regular basis. In a New Yorker article dated July 7, 2008, Hersh wrote that " The CIA and Special Operations communities also have long-standing ties to two other dissident groups in Iran: the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, known in the West as the MEK, and a Kurdish separatist group, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK."

Hersh revealed that supporting Rigi, MKO and PJAK was only a single part of United States' anti-Iranian agenda which was initiated during the Bush administration: "Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership."

With the sponsorship of the United States, Jundallah had previously carried out a series of atrocious, bloody massacres in Iran which claimed the lives of 165 Iranians, including several police forces and IRGC commanders. The December 14, 2010 bombing in Chabahar in which 39 Iranian citizens were martyred while attending a mourning ceremony for Imam Hussein (PBUH) was the latest felony carried out by this terrorist gang.

The European Parliament last year removed the name of MKO from its designated list of terrorist organizations. From the 27 members of the European Union, only a few condemned the last terrorist attacks in Chabahar. The world is witness to the exercise of double standards by the United States and its European allies with regards to human rights and terrorism.

Let's be frank and answer this question by referring to our conscience. Aren't the United States and its European allies the implicit state sponsors of terrorism? Isn't Iran an innocent victim of state-sponsored terrorism?