Four-minute read
Iran’s ruling clerics can’t stop circling one adversary: the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). Across fresh on-the-record remarks by Ali Shamkhani, attacks from IRGC-aligned media on the Foreign Ministry, and regime outlets’ old grievances against France and Europe, a throughline emerges: Tehran’s leaders continue to treat the PMOI as a central threat—and that fixation continues to shape diplomacy, internal infighting, and the narrative around past crises from the Iran-Iraq War to Flight PS752.
Shamkhani’s nuclear regret
In an interview published on Sunday, October 12, 2025, Ali Shamkhani—now billed as the Supreme Leader’s political adviser and formerly defense minister—said he wishes he had pursued a nuclear weapon in the late 1990s and, asked if he would do so were he back in that role, answered: “Yes, I certainly would.” He framed the Khatami era as inhospitable to such plans, quipping that someone advocating a “dialogue of civilizations” wouldn’t chase the bomb. These on-camera lines sit uneasily beside years of official rhetoric denying military intent; they also spotlight the regime’s two-language strategy—conciliatory abroad, coercive at home.
The same interview carries another explosive admission. On the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 (January 8, 2020), Shamkhani says: “I knew, and the president knew.” He recounts learning “within those three days” and says he phoned President Hassan Rouhani immediately to inform him that “our own forces” had fired the missile. That version collides with Rouhani’s later account in February 2020, when he insisted on state TV that “the first moment I was officially told was 4:30 p.m. on Friday”—January 10, 2020—after which he pressed for an announcement.
It also aligns with the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) Secretariat statement on February 4, 2020, which—citing a Ukrainian TV leak—said the tower and the Civil Aviation Organization knew immediately, and that “by chain of command, Rouhani knew the same day,” with authorities engaging in a sweeping cover-up until the reluctant admission 72 hours later. The episode remains a touchstone of public distrust—and a case study in how the regime manages truth when its security apparatus is implicated.
Chain of lies and cover-up by Khamenei, Rouhani, and the IRGC about shooting down Ukrainian airliner. Qatar airways pilot saw the firing of the missiles-Regime parliament was also informed #UkrainianPlane #Iranhttps://t.co/OGNPdZRowD pic.twitter.com/6qxs8WYsw9
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) February 4, 2020
1988 scars: “Today Kermanshah, tomorrow Tehran”
Shamkhani also revisits the war’s final phase, rejecting the trope that “Americans ended the war.” Instead, he cites battlefield momentum against Tehran in 1988, echoing Javier Pérez de Cuéllar’s memoir note that “in April 1988 the domino of our defeats began.” Crucially, Shamkhani highlights the PMOI’s advance “to the heights of Mersad”, recalling he was present and heard the chant: “Today Kermanshah, tomorrow Tehran.” The choice to foreground this episode—rather than Iraqi divisions or superpower dynamics—underscores how deeply the PMOI’s 1988 offensive still animates the regime’s threat perceptions.
The fear of the PMOI also colors today’s factional warfare. On October 6, 2025, the IRGC-aligned outlet Bulletin News attacked the Foreign Ministry’s economic team (including deputy Hamid Qanbari) for “engineering a psychological crisis at the heart of decision-making.” It accuses them of practicing “the very same” information tactics the PMOI pursues—namely, publishing “disheartening details from inside government.” One passage zeroes in on Qanbari’s bleak description of sanctions’ effects—“financial transfers are impossible, trade insurance is banned, and the key to Iran’s economy has been thrown away”—and brands such candor the work of a “hidden enemy” pushing society into despair to force policy concessions. The message is unmistakable: acknowledge the cost of sanctions, and you will be painted in PMOI colors.
A lawmaker, Mohammad-Hassan Asafari, adds to the drumbeat by railing against FATF-related legislation (CFT), casting it as “legalizing more pressure,” and asserting that “today it’s proven the Mojahedin are a terrorist current,” while complaining foreign capitals won’t list them. The reflex is to securitize economic debate and smother technocratic disclosure by tying it to the PMOI—again, treating the organization as the system’s supreme domestic antagonist.
Khamenei’s Friday Leaders Reveal Deepening Fear of the @Mojahedineng https://t.co/AbATaTeBED
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) July 20, 2025
France fixation and long grievances
The regime’s student-Basij media revisits a familiar grievance on October 8, 2025: France as “first supporter” of the PMOI since the early 1980s, linking Paris to the group’s Paris gatherings during the war, and—tellingly—complaining about European court decisions and EU foreign ministers (2009) that removed the PMOI from terror lists. It even reframes the June 17, 2003, French police raids and mass arrests as a mere prelude to eventual “approval” of releases—evidence, in their telling, of European duplicity. The fixation is less about legal history than about politics: for Tehran, Europe’s judicial rulings are a historic blow to the regime’s mirage of chaining its principal opposition movement.
Finally, September 29, 2025, MP Alireza Nabavian claimed, “Our case went to the IAEA and the Board of Governors in 2002 with the help of the Mojahedin,” before asserting there was “certainly” infiltration. The significance is not evidentiary; it is psychological. Even as officials boast of nuclear prowess, they attribute the internationalization of Iran’s file to the PMOI—again, placing the group at the center of the regime’s longest running grievance narrative.
#IranRevolution's perseverance, reflected in the uniformity of slogans, creative tactics, and impressive defiance, owes much to the methodical work of the #ResistanceUnits affiliated with the main organized opposition, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (#MEK).https://t.co/XWTyKb52hA
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) May 20, 2023
Why it matters
Taken together, these materials expose a regime haunted by the PMOI—from the way it remembers 1988 to how it polices speech about sanctions in 2025. Shamkhani’s nuclear “I wish we had” and “Yes, I certainly would” lines puncture years of denial and showcase the two-language strategy. His PS752 timeline intensifies the credibility gap with Rouhani’s February 16, 2020, broadcast—and bolsters the February 4, 2020, NCRI account that Tehran knew immediately and chose cover-up.
Meanwhile, IRGC-aligned media’s attempt to badge Foreign Ministry technocrats as PMOI-adjacent illustrates the political cost of acknowledging sanctions’ real bite—FX strangulation, insurance blackouts, trade paralysis—and reflects a leadership bracing against unrest by labeling transparency as treachery. The France grievance file and Nabavian’s IAEA claim serve the same function: externalize accountability and keep the PMOI at the heart of the regime’s explanatory universe.
The net effect is a portrait of a political system still defined by fear of an organized opposition, demoralization within its own ranks, and chronic contradictions between what it tells the world and what its senior insiders now say out loud.