We've written a few times in this space about the strange bedfellows one sometimes encounters with the current breed of international investigative and risk management firms. From time to time their clients appear to be, well, slightly more controversial than even the most reviled or disgraced corporation, hedge fund or ambulance chasing law firm.

Take for example the recent National Journal article, Lobbying & Law - Touting 'Terrorists (subscription - unfortunately - required) which highlights connections between risk management firm, GlobalOptions (who we already mentioned once this week) and the Iranian "MEK," a group the State Department calls a "foreign terrorist organization." Specifically, they describe the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization as follows:

The MEK, a largely Iranian group, mixes Marxism, nationalism, and Islam. The MEK was formed in the 1960s and was expelled from Iran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Since the late 1980s, its primary support came from the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. The MEK conducted anti-Western attacks prior to the Islamic Revolution. Since then, it has conducted terrorist attacks against the interests of the clerical regime in Iran and abroad.

Nice guys. Right? But in truth the MEK has been working hard to shake the terrorist mantle and has in pursuit of that goal, enlisted a few notable beltway personalities including former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Raymond Tanter, a former senior staff member at the National Security Council during the Reagan administration.

This is where GlobalOptions comes in.

Along with DLA Piper the firm produced a report in 2006, with an introduction co-written by Armey and former GlobalOptions honcho Neil Livingstone. Livingstone has also been a member of the Iran Policy Committee, a group co-founded by the aforementioned Raymond Tanter, which also argues in favor of changing the diplomatic status of the MEK who, again, our State Department views as terrorists.

Quite the tangled web... Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is your friend. But sometimes they're really just bad dudes. Kudos to the National Journal - great article if you have the means to check it out.

-- MDT

Labels: DLA Piper, GlobalOptions, MEK, Neil C. Livingstone, Raymond Tanter