Tom Tancredo—Christian Crusader, Cultural Nationalist, and Iran Freedom Fighter
By Tom Barry
(The following is an excerpt from a new Right Web analysis, which is posted at: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/3281.)
Rep. Tom Tancredo, the leading voice of the immigration restrictionist movement, believes that the United States should wall in our borders, launch a massive deportation of immigrant workers, and fully engage in what he regards as an intensifying clash of civilizations.
Founder of the House Immigration Reform Caucus in 1999, Tancredo has succeeded in his mission of reframing the immigration policy debate as an issue of national security and U.S. cultural preservation. Tancredo, a social conservative and Christian Right activist from a district with a mainly white middle-class and affluent population in Colorado, situates the immigration issue in the broader context of a global culture war.
A cultural warrior on the international front, Tancredo is an enthusiastic supporter of the Bush administration's war on terror, including the war in Iraq. Tancredo, who is a consistent supporter of the Pentagon and U.S. defense industries, has become a leading spokesperson in the House for an Iran regime change strategy in which the People's Freedom Fighters (MEK) would be the vanguard organization supported by the United States.
Describing himself as a “devotee” of Samuel Huntington and the thesis of his Clash of Civilizations treatise, Tancredo, like many on the right—from social conservatives to neoconservatives—bases his restrictionism less on economic reasons than on cultural and racial ones. “The threat to the United States comes from two things: the act of immigration combined with the cult of multiculturalism,” argues Tancredo. “We will never be able to win in the clash of civilizations if we don't know who we are. If Western civilization succumbs to the siren song of multiculturalism, I believe we are finished.”
“This combination, massive immigration and radical multiculturalism,” warned Tancredo, “is a prescription for our own demise.”
Tancredo advocates U.S. support for the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a cult-like group that is cultivating a broad base of support among Iranian expatriates around the world. Mujahedin e-Khalq means “people's freedom fighters.” MEK affiliates are the Iraq-based National Liberation Army of Iran and the National Council of Resistance in Iran. MEK calls itself the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). The public face of the MEK is Maryam Rajavi, who has been designated by the MEK as the president-elect of Iran's government in exile.
Although identified as a terrorist organization by the State Department and accused of a pattern of human rights abuses, Tancredo says “We should be aiding them, instead of restricting their activities. We can use the MEK, they are in fact warriors. Where we need to use that kind of force, we can use them.”
By publicly supporting the MEK and the Iran Policy Committee, Tancredo has positioned himself with the most radical wing in the intensifying debate about how the U.S. government should pursue an Iran “regime change” strategy. All sides that favor such a strategy agree that the U.S. government should be working more closely with Iranian dissidents both inside and outside Iran.
Tom Barry is policy director of the International Relations Center, online at www.irc-online.org, and author or editor of several books on U.S. foreign policy.
Right Web Profiles
“Empowering Iranians for Regime Change”
The Iran Policy Committee (IPC) is a policy institute that has taken the lead in pressuring the Bush administration and Congress to support a regime change strategy in Iran involving the People's Freedom Fighters (MEK).
See Right Web Profile: Iran Policy Committee
Immigration Activist is Clash of Civilization Crusader
Rep. Tom Tancredo, a social conservative from Colorado with close ties to the Christian Right and nativist groups, is co-chair of the House Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus and a strong advocate of a regime change strategy in Iran that involves aiding the MEK, a cult-like opposition group that is on the State Department's list of international terrorist organizations and is criticized for its human rights abuses.
See Right Web Profile: Tom Tancredo
Also see other related Right Web Profiles:
Immigration
Center for Immigration Studies
Federation for American Immigration Reform
Immigration Debate: Politics, Ideologies of Anti-Immigration Forces
Immigration Reform Caucus
Reframing the Immigration Debate: The Actors and the Issues
Iran
Thomas Donnelly
Reuel Gerecht
Michael Ledeen
Danielle Pletka
Michael Rubin
Raymond Tanter
Kenneth Timmerman
Coalition for Democracy in Iran
Foundation for Democracy in Iran
