Some Interesting Material Pertaining to the Quds Plot

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

Yesterday COL Lang put up a brief post pertaining to the announcement that the FBI and DOJ had broken up an Iranian Quds Force backed plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador, as well as conduct embassy bombings in DC.  While the comments have been very interesting, I tripped across a few other blogs that had some interesting thoughts and analysis on the matter.

The first is from Emptywheel.  She's the blogger that actually broke the news story on how many times KSM had been waterboarded and she did extensive coverage of the Scooter Libby trial and the FBI's investigations into the anthrax case.  Basically, she spends a lot of time poring over and through material and comparing the sources looking for overlooked material, gaps, etc.  This makes sense as she's a non-practicing PhD in Comparative Literature.  In this case she went through the criminal complaint and compared the material that the DOJ has released and what has been said in the media availabilities.  While she's not making any definite conclusions, she seems to be arguing that this is more of the same from the FBI - find someone that can be manipulated by a confidential informant and then run with it.

Emptywheel drew my attention to a piece by Max Fisher at the Atlantic that I hadn't yet seen that makes the case that doing something like this actually runs counter to what Iran is trying to strategically do in the region and vis a vis the US.

Finally, I went and looked at Professor Juan Cole's take on the whole thing and he seems to thing the golden nuggets of wisdom are to be found within the claim that Arbabsiar could get a lot of Iranian opium to the cartles.  Simply, this might have had much more to do with drugs than terrorism.

At this point anyone's guess is as good as mine; none of this makes much sense.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

Comments

[J]

Adam,

Interesting comments by Judge Napolitano regarding this whole meleu:

Judge Napolitano Accuses AG Holder Of Using Iran Assassination Plot To Distract From Fast and Furious Scandal (Video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iAZLV3I4Ew&feature=player_embedded

[Jose]

This is just cover so the Saudis can give Israel airspace clearance to attack the nuclear sites.

Be careful what you wish for...

[Adam L Silverman]

J,

I think the good jurist has spent too much time with the NewsCorp crowd. I'll have to go looking for the link, but the type of operation that was fast and furious first originated with the Bush 43 Administration, though it had another name. That it went bad doesn't surprise me, sooner or later they always do. And while a thorough investigation needs to be made to ensure the mistakes aren't made again, the simple fact is that many of the Republicans screaming loudest about it, forget that Congressman Issa, the head of the House government oversight committee was briefed by the Obama Administration on fast and furious and had no issues... (including Congressman Issa) Until it went wrong and he could make political hay out of it.

[steve]

Hey Adam, just a shout out to you about comparative lit. My wife also has a PhD in comp lit, has a law degree, and is absolutely the best researcher known to mankind--at least to this totally biased man.

[Arun]

Someone that can be manipulated enough to fly to Mexico and then to Iran and to wire-transfer $100,000 from Iran must be extremely manipulable. The suspect was a used car dealer, surely he could read people?

[turcopolier]

Arun

Not a successful used car dealer. pl

[William R. Cumming]

So now the low IQ POLISH Citizen dressed as a German soldier has been killed by Germans dressed as POLISH soldiers on the German side of the border?

Definitely grounds for invasion!

Did you know the DC area and S. California have the largest concentrations of first generation Iranian refugees, or so I have been informed?

[greg0]

And Obama says nothing is off the table with regard to Iran. Sounds like nothing changed in the 2008 election with regard to the middle east.

[different clue]

I heard a Richard Clarke interview recently on NPR about this. Basically I understand him to say that IF this is a real plot (which it sounded like he thought it maybe is), that one faction within the Iranian government cluster tried arranging it to embarrass or weaken another faction. If America believed such a plot were as real as it had been made to appear, our relations with Iran would get worse. That would strengthen the hand of those Iranian governing factions who want worse relations with America and weaken the hand of those Iranian governing factions who want improving relations with America. (He seemed to think the "bad relations" faction would actually seek an actual war with America for Iranian national unity purposes). Here is the link to the interview.
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/11/141246679/richard-clarke-discusses-alleged-assassination-plot

I myself wonder whether this "plot" might be a cardboard-replica potemkin plot complete with a trail of smoking breadcrumbs leading exactly where the plot-designers wanted us to follow. So it might be an effort by one faction of Iranian governators to embarrass or frustrate another without actually desiring to kill anyone or bomb anything.

[Bill H.]

All points well taken, and all irrelevant, given the proclivities of the media and the methods of politics today. Where the deal started, why it went bad and who did or did not know about it do not matter (well they do in reality, but...), what matters is who can be made to look bad now.

Issa is from my neck of the woods and I am all to familiar with his hypocrisy.

[blowback]

Sharmine Narwani at mideast shuffle (http://mideastshuffle.com/2011/10/12/the-iran-saudi-assassination-hoax/) suggests that this is to make it possible to go ahead with the $60billion sale of arms to the Saudis. I'm not convinced that any one in Washington would have any interest in stopping it on ethical grounds since AIPAC seems to be happy with the deal or rather the payoff they've arranged for Israel..

I'm beginning to wonder if Arbabsiar or someone behind him is doing a "Chalabi" by giving Washington an excuse to attack Iran. For someone who opposes the regime in Tehran, as Arbabsiar does, twenty years in a federal prison would be a small price to pay for changing that regime and he could always cooperate to reduce his sentence.

[eakens]

Exigency to deal with Israel's upcoming actions which drew Panetta to the region. Something's about to go down.

[William R. Cumming]

Scuttlebutt! Apparently none of the 16 members of the INTEL Community have a clue as to what the Russians or Chinese would do if USA and/or Israel attacks Iran! The USA barely was able to convince the Soviets to depart from deep deep in Iran after WWII. And now the Chinese are major recipients of Iranian oil and gas. But hey the MONGOLS once conquered Persia and most of the Steppes so that memory probably buried deep in the DNA of modern Persians. While the linguistic scholars and cultural anthropologists might consider Iran more Indo-European than not, I have always considered the PERSIANS as an Asiatic culture and people. I believe in the year 1200 C.E. the largest world city was Sarakhan?

Comments? Welcome enlightenment!

[rjj]

Agitprop:

Think Tanker Fifth Columnist opinionates in NYDN.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/10/11/2011-10-11_iranian_plot_to_assassinate_saudi_arabian_ambassador_on_us_soil_must_force_obama.html

accompanied by little feedback survey box titled

Assassination plot aftermath
What action do YOU think the U.S. should take against Iran after foiling a Republic Guard-sponsored plot to assassinate a Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. on American soil?

* A diplomatic rebuke
* Economic sanctions
* Military action
****** VOTE ********

[turcopolier]

all

factoid: iran has an embassy in Mexico City. pl

[William R. Cumming]

PL! And I understand the Iranian Embassy in Mexico city has quite a large staff!

Personally I consider Mexico a failed state largely due to US policies formal and informal.

Another Administration passes through largely ignoring the implications of Mexican history and culture and people.

[R Whitman]

Since Arbabsiar is a US/Texas citizen, did he support Rick Perry for governor in the last election?

[Allen Thomson]

Our local newspaper ran a piece this morning based on interviews with people who know Arbabsiar. Agent 007 he isn't.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Terror-suspect-painted-as-inept-2215035.php

[J]

WRC, Colonel, TTG,

Do you really think that the originators of the game of chess would put their 'pawn faith' in a derelict used-car salesman to off a Chihuahua? If Iran 'really' wanted to do some serious offing of a Chihuahua, they would use their VEVAK assets instead of their Quds, no self-respecting chess master would want its pawn laying on an open field chess position for an opponent to see, especially one they consider as a perceived major opponent.

[zot23]

I'm surprised no one has yet tied int he underwear gnomes of Zurich, their little hands are obviously all over this pie:

1) Iranian extremist Muslims contact Mexican drug lords
2) ???
3) Profits!!!

I don't mind so much when our govt lies to us, but do they have to insult our intellence with theirs so often?

[Roy G.]

Adam, might I suggest that a more appropriate title for this post would be the 'Arbabsiar Plot?' I say this because this type of half baked propaganda is designed to drum up fear in low-information type people, and since the Quds connection is tenuous at best, the title itself is misleading.

[kao_hsien_chih]

The real danger is that USG seems to be making (or at least, did make) such a big deal of it. That alone should be enough to embarrass us greatly. If we do something even more foolish based on it, we'll be in serious trouble.

[Roy G.]

Otoh, mine was a minor point when articles like this are floated on major newspaper sites like SFGate.

Headline:
Iran's supreme leader believed to be behind plot

Lede:
U.S. government officials, while initially skeptical that top Iranian government figures were behind a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, became convinced by the operation's money trail and now consider it likely that the plan was approved by Iran's supreme leader.

"This is the kind of operation - the assassination of a diplomat on foreign soil - that would have been vetted at the highest levels of the Iranian government," said a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive analysis. "We can't prove that, but we do not think it was a rogue operation in any way."

http://bit.ly/odQOTZ

[elkern]

FBI is getting very good at cracking the cases it manufactures. But hey, if it gets another used-car salesman off the streets, it's worth it.

[William R. Cumming]

J! Agree! Also is it true that over 100 of Iranian street protestors from the most recent large scale protests were hung?