Given the power struggle pitting Khamenei and his supporters against Ahmadinejad and his camp, and given the extreme hostility that some former Ahmadinejad supporters have toward him and their fear that he might be able to establish some form of diplomatic relations with the United States, the possibility of such a rogue operation cannot be discarded. But the indictment against Arbabsiar and Shakuri claims that they are members of the Quds force, and given the discipline that the Quds force has demonstrated in its operations throughout the Middle East, I still find it difficult to believe that they would embark on what seems to be a useless, dangerous, and relatively easy-to-discover operation.
Thus, at this point, I find the claim that the IRI was involved in the plot highly unlikely. The more information that becomes available, the more it appears like a frame-up of Manssor Arbabsiar, a classic case of entrapment. But, once again, there is nothing the IRI might do that would surprise me.
Read more: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/10/post-6.html#ixzz1aiKULJZg
We need to worry. What is this a pretext for?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/10/post-6.html
There is a small chance that some rogue elements in the Revolutionary Guards decided to carry out such a plot. There is precedence for such an operation. During Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's second term as president, rogue elements of the Ministry of Intelligence led by Saeed Emami -- leader of the gang that assassinated numerous dissidents in what is now known as the infamous Chain Murders -- tried to smuggle missiles out of Iran to Brussels to attack the NATO headquarters. The plot was discovered, and Rafsanjani later acknowledged it. Its discovery set back relations between Iran and the European Union for several years.
http://www.juancole.com/2011/10/wagging-the-dog-with-irans-maxwell-smart.html
The DOJ complaint says that Arbabsiar boasted that his cousin (Gholam Shakuri) was a “general” in Iran but did plainsclothes work abroad and “had been on CNN.”
Since two out of three of these allegations are obvious falsehoods, why should we believe anything else Arbabsiar said about his cousin? Note that it is the speculation of the DOJ that Arbabsiar’s description of his cousin suggests that Shakuri is a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. He is not so identified by Arbabsiar, who simply says he is a general who travels in civilian clothes. There is no such general.
Since Arbabsiar clearly does not have a firm grasp on reality, to indict the IRGC with these rambling and preposterous claims would be highly unwise.
I am frankly shocked that Eric Holder should have brought us this steaming crock, which is now being used to make policy at the highest levels. That a Mexican former drug runner being paid by the US taxpayers might have thought he could advance his career by playing mind games with a somewhat crazy Iranian expatriate is no surprise. That you could put fantastic schemes in Arbabsiar’s mind if you worked at it seems obvious. That anyone in the DOJ or the US foreign policy establishment would take all this seriously is not plausible. I conclude that they are being dishonest, and that this is Obama’s turn to wag the dog as he faces defeat at Romney’s well-manicured hands next year this time.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - If the United States has evidence and plays its cards right, history shows that it can win the powerful U.N. Security Council to its side in the case of Iran's alleged plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador.
The United States has accused Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps elite Quds Force of orchestrating a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's envoy to Washington and suggested it could push for council action against Iran.
Iran denies the U.S. allegations, which Tehran's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council was U.S. "warmongering" and an "evil plot" against Tehran.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice forwarded details of the case against Iran to Ban, telling him that Tehran's actions were "a serious threat to international peace and security." She said Washington was speaking with council members about the case and asked Ban to forward the case details to the General Assembly.
The U.S. delegation has not made up its mind whether to approach the council with the Iranian case. But diplomats say that Washington is considering it.
"They haven't settled on a game plan yet," a council ambassador told Reuters. "They're considering all options. More sanctions, a resolution, a condemnation, it's all possible."
If the United States follows the example of previous U.S. administrations and presents its case at a public meeting of the 15-nation Security Council, it might be able to galvanize public support against doubters and critics who have suggested that the new charges against Iran border on the preposterous
.
That was the case during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson unveiled during a televised council meeting photos taken by U-2 spy planes of Soviet missiles and launch pads on Cuba and confronted Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin with the charges.
"Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no?"
The Soviet envoy refused to give a definite answer, telling Stevenson: "I am not in an American courtroom."
"You are in the courtroom of world opinion right now, and you can answer yes or no," Stevenson responded. He never got a clear answer from Zorin, and the Soviet veto power made it impossible to get any formal Security Council action against the Soviets.
But Washington did win in the "courtroom of world opinion." On that same day, October 23, 1962, the Organization of American States unanimously backed the U.S. plan to impose a naval blockade around Cuba to stop further missile shipments.
In 1983, U.S. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick played an audio recording of a Soviet interceptor pilot involved in the shooting down of Korean Airlines flight 007 over the Sea of Japan, which killed all 269 passengers and crew. Afterwards, it was impossible for the Soviets to deny their involvement.
'GOOD THEATER'
But recent history also shows that if the evidence is weak, skeptics on the Security Council -- the only U.N. body with the power to impose sanctions or authorize military force -- will prevail and Washington will be unable to bring it around.
That was the case with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 speech to the Security Council in which he presented U.S. intelligence on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's alleged nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.
Perhaps attempting to follow in Stevenson's and Kirkpatrick's footsteps, Powell's speech had visual aids -- images, audio recordings, even a small vial of white powder that was intended to look like enough deadly anthrax to kill off the entire U.S. Senate.
That speech, based on evidence that is now known to have been erroneous, did nothing to sway the skeptical French, Russians and Germans, who eventually forced the frustrated United States and Britain to abandon their efforts to secure a U.N. green light for their March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
David Bosco, a professor at American University in Washington, said using the council can be good "public theater" but may not convince doubting council members.
"Dramatic public presentations are usually more effective at swaying domestic public opinion than other states," he said. "Powell's speech didn't change the dynamic on the council in terms of support for the war, but it was a major hit at home."
U.N. diplomats said that Washington was already doing the preliminary work to persuade council members of the strength of a case that a number of analysts have raised questions about. Many analysts say they find it hard to believe that the Quds force would behave as stupidly as the case documents suggest.
Envoys said a team of experts from the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration and State and Justice Departments joined Rice and her Saudi counterpart on Wednesday to brief council members on the details of the plot.
The allegations against Iran made a strong impression on some diplomats but clearly did not sway all of them.
French Ambassador Gerard Araud described the allegations as "credible and very convincing," adding that France would be "very supportive" of any U.S. initiative at the council.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Moscow would "look at it very, very seriously." Chinese envoy Li Baodong said only that he had "sent it back to Beijing."
Council diplomats said that Washington had dispatched teams of CIA, FBI and DEA experts to Moscow and Beijing, which are among the council's most skeptical members and hold a veto.
Brazil's U.N. Ambassador Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti appeared less than convinced, however, suggesting to reporters the U.S. judicial process should be allowed to play out first.
Council envoys say the other two members of the five-nation "BRICS" club of powerful emerging market nations -- India and South Africa -- might also be hard sells for Washington. The BRICS -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and the South Africa -- have resisted Western efforts on Syria and other issues.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Iranians Charged in Alleged Plot to Kill Saudi Envoy - IPS ipsnews.net.
WASHINGTON, Oct 11, 2011 (IPS) - In a move certain to escalate tensions on a number of fronts, the U.S. Justice Department Tuesday charged a dual Iranian- American national and an alleged member of the Islamic Republic's special operations unit of conspiring to assassinate the Saudi ambassador here.
A 21-page indictment filed in New York federal court said the two named defendants, U.S.-based Manssor Arbabsiar and Iran-based Gholam Shakuri, sought to hire someone who they believed was a member of a Mexican drug cartel but who was actually an informant for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to carry out the plot in exchange for 1.5 million dollars.
Arbabsiar, who allegedly arranged a down payment of 100,000 dollars to the informant, was arrested Sep. 29 at JFK Airport in New York on a return flight from Mexico where he had been denied entry.
Once in custody, he cooperated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in making calls to alleged co- conspirator Shakuri in Iran to confirm and record details of the plot, which featured the bombing of a restaurant frequented by Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, according to the indictment.
Sharkuri, it alleged, is a member of Iran's Qods Force, a specialised unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which U.S. officials have accused of providing training, weapons, and even direction to indigenous militias that have carried out attacks against U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The criminal complaint unsealed today exposes a deadly plot directed by factions of the Iranian government to assassinate a foreign ambassador on U.S. soil with explosives," said Attorney General Eric Holder, who announced the indictment.
The spokesman at the Iranian mission at the United Nations (U.N.) in New York, Alireza Miryousefi, said in a letter expressing outrage to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that his government "categorically reject(s) these baseless allegations".
While Iran specialists said they were dumbfounded by the plot and what the regime could hope to gain from such an action, senior officials in the administration of President Barack Obama told reporters they planned to impose new sanctions on the regime and intensify efforts to isolate and punish it diplomatically.
"This really, in the minds of many diplomats and government officials, crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Associated Press.
She added that the plot "creates a potential for international reaction that will further isolate Iran, that will raise questions about what they're up to, not only in the United States and Mexico."
"The idea that they would attempt to go to a Mexican drug cartel to solicit murder-for-hire to kill the Saudi ambassador, nobody could make that up, right?" she was quoted as telling AP.
The indictment comes as anti-Iran hawks, who have been frustrated that the so-called Arab Spring has pushed Tehran out of the media spotlight, are both pressing Congress to impose a new round of economic sanctions against Iran - including banning all transactions with Iran's Central Bank - and persuading Republican presidential hopefuls to attack Obama for not pursuing a more confrontational policy.
Tuesday's indictment will no doubt work in their favour. Indeed, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who is also the principal author of pending sanctions legislation, seized on the indictment to promote her cause.
"The multi-faceted threat posed by Iran becomes more severe with each passing day," she said in a statement that cited Iran's alleged "campaign to partner with extremist groups, drug traffickers and other outlaws based in the Western Hemisphere".
"Tehran is actively working to attack our homeland and our allies and interests all around the world, and we simply can't spare any more time. Responsible nations must unite against this threat and immediately bring to bear crippling pressure on the Iranian regime and its enablers," she said.
Elliott Abrams, a prominent neo-conservative who served as former President George W. Bush's top Middle East aide, also jumped on the announcement.
"The recklessness – is the only appropriate word – of this planned act of terrorism in our nation's capital should teach us that the regime in Tehran cannot be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons," he wrote on his blog at the Council on Foreign Relations website. "If they will act this way now, how will they act if they ever get nuclear arms?"
United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), a hawkish group whose founders included two key members of Obama foreign policy team, called openly Tuesday for the president to "make it clear that Iran will face consequences for its actions, including military retaliation for attacks on Americans".
Others voiced caution. "If the alleged Iranian action was aimed at provoking the U.S., the Obama administration should be careful not to walk into such a trap," noted Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council.
"A war with Iran would be devastating to U.S. interests and to the people of Iran," he added.
Parsi also noted that the alleged plot was taking place amid growing regional tensions over the fate of the so-called Arab Spring as "Iran, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are jockeying for influence throughout the region in Egypt, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, Syria, and elsewhere.
"…If today's allegations are true, this means that regional rivalries may have spilled over onto U.S. shores," he said.
Among other recent events, he cited the revelation by Wikileaks cables suggesting that King Abdullah and al-Jubeir were pushing the U.S. to attack Iran; Saudi accusations that Tehran was seeking to overthrow Bahrain's Sunni royal family and inciting the Shia population in Riyadh's Eastern province; and the assassination of nuclear scientists in Iran which Tehran has blamed on the U.S. and Israel.
Regional specialists here expressed bafflement over both the plot and the specific target.
"Let's suppose they succeeded in knocking off al-Jubeir who, to my mind, doesn't have any enemies," said Thomas Lippman, a Gulf expert at the Middle East Institute (MEI). "What would they accomplish besides infuriating the United States and Saudi Arabia? It's been years since the Iranians were in the business of going around and blowing people up."
Alex Vatanka, an Iran expert also based at MEI, agreed that such a plot was neither "consistent of the typical actions of the regime", nor did it appear that "the regime has anything strategic to gain from wanting to do this."
At the same time, he told IPS, "We've seen a number of cases over the years where they seem to act irrationally and incompetently," as in the case of its aborted efforts to ship weapons through Nigeria last year.
"It may be that someone in Iran is trying to undermine any potential for rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran," he said, noting recent clashes between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and officials close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei over the former's more forthcoming stance on relations with the U.S.
"The question is, would they go so far as to try to pull something like this off? It doesn't seem consistent with a regime that is generally very cautious and has tended to not want to invite serious U.S. reaction to its actions."
According to the indictment, Arbabsiar first made contact with the informant, who pretended to be an associate of the Zetas drug cartel, in Mexico in late May in regard to a possible attack using explosives on the Saudi embassy in Washington. In June and July, he held additional meetings with the informant during which they discussed murdering the ambassador at a restaurant and claimed that Shakuri was a "big general" in the Iranian military.
At a Jul. 17 meeting in Mexico, the informant asked about possible collateral deaths resulting from such a bombing, to which Arbabsiar allegedly said: "They want that guy (al-Jubeir) done, if the hundred go with him, f**k 'em."
After allegedly obtaining Shakuri's approval, Arbabsiar transferred about 100,000 dollars to an FBI-controlled bank account in August as a down payment on the assassination.
On Sep. 20, the informant allegedly asked Arbabsiar to either pay one half of the total 1.5-million-dollar price or that he personally travel to Mexico as collateral for final payment. Arbabsiar chose the latter option, flying to Mexico on or about Sep. 28 where he was refused entry and returned. He was then arrested at JFK.
The Justice Department said he confessed several hours later, telling agents that he had been "recruited, funded and directed by men he understood to be senior officials in Iran's Qods Force". He also admitted to meeting several times in Iran with Shakuri and another senior Qods Force official who allegedly approved the assassination plan.
While in custody, Arbabsiar made monitored phone calls to Shakuri, who allegedly told him Oct. 5 to "just do it quickly, it's late".
*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.
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