October 14, 2011
Asia Times

The Occupy Iran 'Fast and Furious' Plot

by Pepe Escobar

The US government expects an unsuspecting world to believe that a washed-up car salesman in Texas was tasked by a select intelligence arm of the Iranian government to fish for anyone who looked like a Mexican drug gangster and then order them a US$1.5 million hit on the Saudi ambassador in Washington - in the meantime promising them unfettered access to "tons of opium".

Yet in the Sealed Amended Complaint against Arabsiar and Shakuri, signed by FBI special agent Robert Woloszyn, there is absolutely nothing specifically stating the involvement of the Iranian government, at the highest or at any level.

According to the US government narrative, Arabsiar was foolish enough to trust an infiltrated Drug Enforcement Agency agent who posed as a member of the Zetas Mexican drug cartel. He told this agent and his buddies he was the nephew of a Tehran high official - and that he was acting on behalf of the highest echelons.

So we are asked to believe that an Iranian general asks a Dumb and Dumber relative in the US to go contract a drug cartel for a political hit - as if US intelligence would never be able to track the whole thing back to him, especially after the matter of $100,000 wired to the US, allegedly from Iran, to a guy convicted of check fraud, as the down payment for the hit.

Beyond any ideological bias, anyone who knows how professional the IRGC and the Qods force can be cannot but dismiss this as utter rubbish - especially as part of a complex international operation involving Iran, its mortal foe the US, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. By the way, Arabsiar "confessed" to all this after 12 days of non-stop interrogation (waterboarding, anyone?)

Then there's the target. According to the Department of Justice, the target was not the US. Thus attacking a House of Saud ambassador - a "precious" ally - on US soil can only be explained by a death wish exhibited by seriously deranged, suicidal Iranians bent on inviting a US strike, nuclear or otherwise.

To believe that a Mexican drug cartel would invest in a troublesome political hit in the US capital expecting to collect a bundle of opium (from "liberated" Afghanistan) is also a non-starter. But the picture changes if one considers the benefits for the Mujahideen-e-Kalq - the fundamentalist, terrorist organization that wants to bring down the Islamic Republic. Or the possible benefits for a ghostly al-Qaeda in terms of creating a three-way-war involving Washington, Tehran and Riyadh.

There's also the Israeli false flag option. Apart from the fact that the plot does look like an American Israel Public Affairs Committee wet dream delivered to Holder on a silver plate, the Israel lobby in Washington as well as assorted Zionists would love nothing better than to rally alongside a causus belli established in Washington itself, leading perhaps to a US strike of some sort against Iran without direct Israeli involvement. . . .

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"Rhetoric About Iran Repeat of Iraq War Propaganda," The Wisdom Fund, May 28, 2010

Michael Ratner, "Anwar al-Awlaki's Extrajudicial Murder," Guardian, September 30, 2011

Trevor Aaronson, "How the FBI's Network of Informants Actually Created Most of the Terrorist Plots 'Foiled' in the US Since 9/11," Mother Jones, October 9, 2011

Distract Attention from "Fast and Furious," October 11, 2011

["For the entire operation, the government's confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents, Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District, said in the news conference. 'So no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere,' he said, 'and no one was actually in ever in any danger.'"--Justin Raimondo, "Iranian Terror Plot: Fake, Fake, Fake," antiwar.com, October 12, 2011]

Maidhc O Cathail, "Iranian Terror Plot: Fake, Fake, Fake: (But Who Faked It?)," informationclearinghouse.info, October 12, 2011

[Mansour J. Arbabsiar, 56, the man at the center of an alleged Iranian plot to kill a Saudi diplomat in Washington, seems to have been more a stumbling opportunist than a calculating killer. Over the 30-odd years he lived in Texas, he left a string of failed businesses and angry creditors in his wake, and an embittered ex-wife who sought a protective order against him. He was perennially disheveled, friends and acquaintances said, and hopelessly disorganized.--Robert F. Worth and Laura Tillman, "Unlikely Turn for a Suspect in a Terror Plot," nytimes.com, October 12, 2011]

AUDIO: "Ex-CIA warns US 'dangerously wrong' on Iran," abc.net.au, October 12, 2011

Rupert Cornwell, "Saudis vow revenge for Iran's 'plot' on US soil Biden hints at sanctions as analysts puzzle over shock assassination claims," Reuters, October 13, 2011

VIDEO: "'US schemes plots to justify wars'," PressTV, October 13, 2011

Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leveret, "Iranian 'plots' and American hubris," cnn.com, October 13, 2011

Gordon Duff, "Mr. President, We Believe Holder Lied on Iran Terror," veteranstoday.com, October 13, 2011

Scott Shane and Artin Afkhami, "Allegations of Iranian and U.S. Plots Are Added to a History of Hostility," nytimes.com, October 14, 2011

["If you were an Iranian undercover operative who was under instructions to hire a killer to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, D.C., why in HELL would you consider it necessary to explain to a presumed Mexican [expletive deleted] that this murder was planned and would be paid for by a secret organization in Iran?

"Whoever concocted this tale wanted the 'plot' exposed . . . to precipitate a major crisis in relations between Iran and the United States. Which other government in the Middle East would like nothing better than to see those relations take a big step toward military confrontation?"

If you hesitate in answering, you have not been paying attention. Many have addressed this issue. My last stab at throwing light on the Israel/Iran/U.S. nexus appeared ten days ago in "Israel's Window to Bomb Iran."--Ray McGovern, "The CIA and the Iran Caper: How Petraeus Fueled the Plot,"counterpunch.org, October 14, 2011]

October 15, 2011

[VIDEO: The absence of quotes from any of those meetings suggests that they do not support the case being made by the FBI and the Obama administration.--Gareth Porter, "FBI account of 'terror plot' suggests sting," atimes.com, October 15, 2011]

[The media stories generated by the leaks helped divert press attention from the fact that there is no verifiable evidence of any official Iranian involvement in the alleged assassination plan--Gareth Porter, "US Officials Peddle False Intel to Support Terror Plot Claims," IPS, October 17, 2011]

[The defendant, Gholam Shakuri, identified by the Justice Department as an operative of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, is actually a "key member" of the Mujahedeen Khalq, Iran's Mehr News Agency reported.--Rick Gladstone, "Iran Says Saudi Plot Defendant Belongs to Exile Group," nytimes.com, October 18, 2011]

Ardeshir Ommani, "U.S.-Saudi anti-Iran plot will backfire," tehrantimes.com, October 22, 2011

"Iran complaining to UN over alleged US plots including assassination of nuclear scientists," Associated Press, November 4, 2011

[A close analysis of the FBI deposition reveals, however, that independent evidence for the charge that Arbabsiar was sent by the Qods Force on a mission to arrange for the assassination of Jubeir is lacking. The FBI account is full of holes and contradictions, moreover. The document gives good reason to doubt that Arbabsiar and his confederates in Iran had the intention of assassinating Jubeir, and to believe instead that the FBI hatched the plot as part of a sting operation.--Gareth Porter, "Debunking the Iran 'Terror Plot'," antiwar.com, November 5, 2011]

[And it is the secretiveness attached to the subject that has been the reason for so much misunderstanding about the current breakdown in relations between Israel and Turkey, a growing warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and increasing enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran. . . .

With tempers now flaring between Iran on one side and Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States on the other, as the result of a dubious claim by U.S. law enforcement that Iran was planning to carry out the assassination of the Saudi ambassador to the United States on American soil, the long-standing close, but secretive relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia is coming to the forefront.--Wayne Madsen, "The Donmeh: The Middle East's Most Whispered Secret," strategic-culture.org, October 25, 2011]