Reza Shah Pahlavi, Maryam Rajavi (Mujahideen-e Khalq), and María Corina Machado have sold “regime change” to their U.S. and Israeli patrons, but their sales pitches of troops being “greeted as liberators,” with freedom to plunder the victim’s oil & gas, will prove bogus and deadly. Ahmad Chalabi, the darling of Iraq War neocons, is the example.
1. Ahmad Chalabi
Chalabi died in 2015 (obituaries here, here, here). Kenneth Pollack, a former Director of NSC for Persian Gulf Affairs, said of Chalabi: “He was so unctuous, so obviously duplicitous and self-serving, I could not understand why anyone would buy what he was trying to sell.” But Pollack, a Jewish Zionist who advocated for the Iraq War, is attempting to re-write history. Pollack and his Zionist ilk bought everything that Chalabi was selling.
Chalabi was despised inside the CIA; the Directorate of Operations had history with him. But he was loved by the Zionists running the Pentagon, viz., Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Richard Perle. Ahmad Chalabi’s influence—his ability to shape Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) policies in post-war Iraq—came from patrons at the Pentagon.
Chalabi and “Curveball”
“Curveball” is the codename for Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, an Iraqi who claimed solid knowledge of WMD locations (chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons). His story is told in book and movie. Colin Powell went before the UNSC on 5 February 2003 and threw away his reputation by regurgitating Curveball’s fabrications.
Curveball was cunning. He remained in Germany, refusing to meet with CIA on the basis that he was “afraid of Americans.” He insisted on BND acting as shield and conduit. BND submitted his reports on WMD locations, but noted that he was a “questionable” source.
Months after the Iraq War was launched, CIA learned that Curveball “was the brother of one of Chalabi’s top aides, and [CIA began] to suspect that he might have been coached to provide false information.” Chalabi denied involvement, but elements inside CIA believe Curveball was directed by Chalabi and/or his Iraqi National Congress.
Apart from suckering the U.S. into the war, Curveball was indirectly responsible for fueling the Sunni/Baathist insurgency that followed. Saddam’s Baathist supporters hiding in Syria and Iraq were preparing an insurgency, and had access to weapons caches dispersed and hidden by Saddam before the U.S. invasion. But Baathist and Sunni insurgents received a bonus: close to one million metric tons of weapons in Iraqi Army bunkers. Due to fears of (non-existent) chemical and biological weapons, U.S. commanders were afraid to detonate the bunkers lest poisonous clouds harm American soldiers. Furthermore, since Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had insisted on a small invasion force (<140k for 438,317 sq. km), there were no soldiers available to secure sites. The Iraqi Army that was supposed to secure storage facilities never did so following the dissolution of the Army. Once the insurgency exploded in August 2003, Saddam’s hidden caches and Army bunkers were stripped clean—often by disenfranchised Iraqi soldiers.
Chalabi and De-Baathification
Ahmad Chalabi inflicted immense harm through his insistence on de-Baathification, i.e., the firing of high ranking officials at ministries, universities, hospitals, electricity, gas, and water works, industries, etc.; and disbanding the Iraqi Army. Official U.S. de-Baathification policy did not mean purges, but Chalabi demanded purges. This was logical (from his POV): he wanted to install his people at every institution; and to create an army loyal to him.
U.S. military officials advocated maintenance of the Iraqi Army. CENTCOM Commander General John Abizaid “strongly recommended” the maintenance of an Iraqi Army of three divisions to, inter alia, maintain internal security (the U.S. then had ten divisions spread globally). Bremer is blamed (rightly) for his arrogant refusal to heed advice of soldiers and CIA officers, and issuing the “De-Baathification of Iraq Society” decree (CPA General Order No. 1, 16 May 2003). Chalabi had outmaneuvered opponents by co-opting Paul Bremer.
GO No. 1 instantly made unemployed thousands of professors, doctors, administrators, managers, etc. Dissolution of the armed forces followed. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were unemployed, humiliated, and disenfranchised. Families that depended on them for incomes and social statuses were humiliated and angry. Services (gasoline and cooking gas distribution, electricity, etc.), floundered without administrators.
Support for the U.S., which was lukewarm, collapsed. Thomas Ricks noted in Fiasco, “every insurgency faces three challenges as it begins: arming, financing, and recruiting.” Arms were plentiful (as noted above); funding came from Baathist sources in Syria and Iraq; and U.S. supplied the recruits: CPA/Chalabi created a large pool of angry Iraqis—many of whom had military training.
2. Maryam Rajavi and MeK
Mujahideen-e Khalq, led by Maryam Rajavi, is a terrorist organization. MeK emerged in 1965 to fight the Shah. MeK killed U.S. military personnel and CIA officers during their anti-Shah campaign; and thousands of Iranians (1965–Present). MeK was banned by the Islamic Republic in 1981; it setup shop in Paris but was expelled in 1986. MeK settled in Iraq. MeK fought on the Iraqi side in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88)—and is hated by Iranians for doing so. MeK was listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997, but de-listed in 2012 by Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama. He offered MeK safe harbor in Albania (NATO member). MeK launches attacks on Iranians from the safety of NATO-land.
MeK conducted extensive terror campaigns inside Iran (1965–1990s); against Iranian diplomatic missions in thirteen countries, and against Iran’s UN mission in New York (1992). MeK functioned as Saddam’s “private army.” In 1991, MeK assisted Saddam Hussein in slaughtering Iraqi Kurds.
The words of Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, et al., w.r.t. Menachem Begin (head of the Zionist terrorist group, Irgun Zvai Leumi) and his party, Herut, apply to Rajavi and MeK:
3. Reza Shah Pahlavi
He was Israel’s “vassal-in-waiting.” Tel Aviv failed to judge the man and the level of support he commanded in Iran. Tel Aviv assumed that with the decapitation strikes of 13 June 2025, the Islamic Republic of Iran would collapse, and they would install him as their vassal. The government did not collapse, Iranians united, and not even one flea-bitten mongrel in the alleys of Tehran barked in support of the puppet shah.
Reza Shah is “Shah of Iran” only on social media. On 3 October 2025, Haaretz reported on “The Israeli Influence Operation Aiming to Install Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran”: thousands of bots boosting his online presence on X (Twitter), TikTok, IG, Facebook, etc. His support is probably 99% Astroturf.
CIA Assessment of Reza Shah
CIA Director Bill Casey (1981–87) said of Reza Shah: “He’s a lightweight.” He reportedly said to Dep. DCI John McMahon, that Reza Shah is “unimpressive,” and had “no following, no plan. It would be a waste of time to support him.” Casey was an adventurer who took risks. If the old boy thought Reza Shah was useless, then Reza Shah is utterly useless.
An account than I cannot verify or date is a report from CIA officers who met Reza Shah in Wiesbaden. They concluded that he had no significant support in Iran; and support for him by the United States would be pointless. I give this report credence because Bob Woodward writes in Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981–1987 (New York, 1987, Chap. 5, e-book):
Khomeini was a frequent topic of conversation in White House meetings. There was sentiment to remove him if possible. After some discussion with the President [Reagan]…[Bill] Casey was asked to see if some covert plan might be undertaken to oust Khomeini and replace him with Reza Pahlavi, the young son of the late Shah. When Casey presented this idea at Langley, all the faces turned ashen. Iran was a tar baby.* The Pahlavi family was even worse. No one in the DO [Directorate of Operations] wanted anything to do with this. The State Department also resisted.
Closing
The Agency has extensive dossiers on Maryam Rajavi, MeK, and the Pahlavi family. Yet, despite mountains of negative information, they persist in supporting Pahlavi and MeK. Why? Ideology and obsession with Iran. Ideology and obsession with Iraq led the Agency and U.S. astray. Lessons have not been learned because ideology, and total domination by Tel Aviv of U.S. foreign policy, continue to override facts and logic.
Tel Aviv has possibly learned its lesson vis-à-vis Reza Shah: Reza Shah is derided by both pro-government and opposition figures and ordinary Iranian citizens as a “country-seller” (watan-furush), i.e., traitor; a laughing stock on social media; and shown to be politically tone deaf. DCI Casey was right about Reza Shah: “a lightweight.”
Mossad Director David Barnea was fired for intelligence failures leading up to and during the Twelve-Day War. I expect Israel to favor MeK in future operations. MeK has operatives inside Iran and conducted successful attacks during the Twelve-Day War. MeK also lacks popular support in Iran—probably less than Reza Shah has given their history of terrorism and support for Saddam Hussein. However, MeK can be expected to brutally impose its will on the Iranian nation—if given the opportunity by U.S. and Israel.
* Tar baby: “difficult, abstract problem that worsens as one attempts to handle it”; “a sticky situation, especially one where attempts to make it better only make it worse”; “problem that worsens with involvement”; “something from which it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself.”
Perspectives 