The appointment of John Bolton as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser has stirred many reactions in Tehran, not only because of the former UN ambassador’s hawkish policies on the Middle East, but also his links to an Iranian opposition group responsible for thousands of deaths.

Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said March 25, “It is a matter of shame for a country that is apparently a superpower that a national intelligence official took money from a terrorist cult that has a history of murdering 17,000 civilians.” Shamkhani’s reference is to the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq organization, more commonly known as the MEK, which waged a bloody campaign against the Islamic Republic shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Another notorious act in the group's history was to side with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War.

Bolton has been a MEK supporter. A video from eight months ago shows him telling a crowd of MEK supporters in Paris that “before 2019,” they will be celebrating in Tehran. The MEK, which was on the State Department’s terrorist list until being removed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton under the Barack Obama administration, often pays speaking fees to former American officials to attend their rallies. With little domestic support, they have cultivated media savvy allies in the United States and Europe who share their aggressive positions against Tehran.

Iranian officials are well-aware what Bolton’s appointment means for them. Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, the spokesman for parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said on March 25 that Bolton’s appointment signals that regime change is the current US policy for Iran.