The FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency( DEA) were responsible for thwarting what was referred to as an assassin-for-hire plot by Iran to kill Saudi ambassador to the US Adel al-Jubei.
A naturalized U.S. citizen holding Iranian and U.S. passports and a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard will face conspiracy charges for their part in the plot.
The Iranians, of course are denying it out of hand, although a spokesman for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Iranian government was awaiting details about the accusations that he described as a "fabrication" by the U.S.
Meanwhile the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington issued a statement Tuesday thanking U.S. authorities for stepping in.
"The attempted plot is a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions and is not in accord with the principles of humanity," the embassy's statement said.
The Saudi ambassador was not the only one on the hit list. U.S. officials said the suspects also discussed attacking Israeli and Saudi embassies in Washington and possibly Buenos Aires, Argentina. There's a huge Hezbollah cell there, for those who've forgotten.
U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, later told CNN he was confident the plan was sanctioned by the Iranian government.
"The quickness of the decisions that were made in order for certain elements of this to fall into place tells us that it is clearly tied to the highest levels of the Iranian government," he said.
Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, are charged with conspiracy to murder a foreign official, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism, an FBI agent's affidavit released Tuesday alleged.
Arbabsiar was arrested in September. Shakuri remains at large, the FBI said.
Authorities developed the case against them with the help of an undercover informant posing as an associate of a Mexican drug cartel, officials and court documents said.
The Mexican drug cartel detail ought to raise some hackles. Regular members of Joshua's Army have known about the link between terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and drug cartels for quite some time. Both groups, just like the Taliban in Afghanistan have drug sales and processing as an important part of their finances and have done deals with various cartels in Latin America,the Mafia and Union Corse' in Europe and the Chinese Triads in Asia. And if terrorism expert Steve Emerson is correct, a number of Hezbollah operatives and sympathizers have already gotten into the U.S. via our porous southern border.
I also found it interesting that Attorney General Eric Holder took a few minutes today to take credit for the FBI and DEA's work. A question comes to mind:Why is it that Eric Holder claims to know absolutely nothing about operations like Fast and Furious that ended in disaster, but is presenting himself as being entirely in the loop and responsible for an operation he had absolutely nothing to do with that ended successfully? Especially ironic since the Iranians may very well have approached one of the Mexican cartels to buy weaponry the cartels got hold of via Holder and Fast and Furious.
And then of course,there's the timing. The announcement of an arrest that took place two weeks ago at a press conference today by an Attorney General who's already been caught lying to Congress and is about to subpoenaed is, well, just a mite suspicious, wouldn't you say?
As for the Iranian plot itself,I remember a time when this would have constituted an act of war, just like seizing a US embassy and taking American diplomats as hostages once would have been. Instead, this is going to be played down, with maybe some rhetoric that signifies absolutely nothing.And Iran knows it.
The Mullahs aren't stupid. They know weakness when they see it, and they see it in Obama the same as they once saw it in Jimmy Carter.
maybe we can get back some of that $500K.
ReplyDeleteGiven the obvious desire of the drug cartels and Islamic terrorists to work together, it is a treasonous offense that our southern border has not been secured. Had we simply done that and nothing else after the 911 attacks that would have given us greater utility for our national security than any thing we are currently doing.
ReplyDelete"...I remember when this would have constituted an act of war..." The biggest problems of war with Iran as I see them are as follows. 1.)Due to Iran's alliance with Russia and China a military attack on Iran is problematic at best. In such an attack, the Russians and Chinese will likely come to the aid of the Iranians. With an already stretched thin military success in this venture for us is problematic at best. 2.)If we are going to confront Iran in a meaningful, we simply must work to change the narrative on the conflict. Since Aemrica's involvment in the coup to over throw the Iranian government in the early 1950s, the world community including nations whose assistance we will need view it as though America "has it coming" and any attacks by Iran on America or its interests are justified.
With regards to problem 1 the best approach would be to try and reach some kind of deal with Russia and China whereby they withdraw their support from Iran. This would make it much easier to deal with Iran. There are ways to do this, however, there will need to be some mechanism in place to ensure Russian compliance with the agreement. Right now such is problematic at best.
With regards to problem 2 I'm not suggeting I agree with the narrative. What actually happened is very likely much more complicated than the narrative. Nevertheless it is the narrative and in order to deal effectively with Iran in the manner you seem to suggest the narrative will have to be changed. At best, this will take a long time to accomplish.
Of course the assaination attempt may be part of the narrative. You see the Iranians are going to deny involvement out of hand. The world media and much of the US media will accept the Iranian position unquestioably. Iran claims they are being set up and uses this to justify their long planned attack on American interests and probably the American main land itself!!
Given Saudi hatred for America, it seems more likely that Iran and Saudi Arabia would work together to fight a common enemy than to try and kill each other's diplomats. This may be part of the plot to attack America. Iran claims they were set up, framed, or something and the Saudis are complicit in the whole thing. Admittedly a conspiracy theory but given the history of the two nations I think it is plausible.
I'm sorry but I don't see many good options for dealing with Iran right now. As I've already stated, our best bet appears to redeploy to defensible postions along our borders where at least we have a fighting chance to defend our nation and its people.
Another fairy tale of the US Government. If Iran wanted to kill the ambassador, there are many other places they could have accomplished that, and the reasons? there are none apparently by the US Government?
ReplyDeleteUntil the US Government comes clean about 911, who can believe this is not a lie?
Keep on believing, anonymous.
ReplyDeleteIran has had the good fortune to be able to wage war on America thanks to a couple of presidents who were essentially enablers.
I have a feeling that luck is about to run out.
I have no doubt that Iran is capable of waging war, and perhaps even instigate others to war, however the US Government irrelevant of the sacrifices to be paid by our military forces, in light of the lack of proof of weapons of mass destruction, staged attacks(911) which cause the lives of american citizens, then it decided to wage war against Iraq, afghanistan, and Pakistan, and perhaps now to Iran.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately this shows not only the capacity to wage war, but also to lie, cheat and create plots, with its only intent, in light of the lack of proof, with the exception of one man caught(scapegoat), and intends on world domination to satisfy the pocket of the multi-millionaires, the corporate greed america, the financial institutions which had to be bailed out, and wall street crooks and pundits.
Stop blaming the enabling presidents, each and every president has been a puppet of the capitalistic world dominating society in which we live.
"Until the US Government comes clean about 911, who can beleive this is not a lie?" The 911 attacks have been the most investigagted event in world history. Most of the focus on the investigations have been to try and prove US officials somehow complicit. Yer the vidence for a single proecution has not been submitted. Of course they don't want to prosecute anyone. To do this would mean we would have to give American officials a fair trial. No good anti-American propaganda artist wants to do this.
ReplyDeleteWhat a horrible situation. America is viciously attacked yet some want to say the victim some how attacked itself. Of course there are many in government who benefit from this. The CIA is staffed to a lrage degree by incompentent boobs. By coming up with notions that the US was complicit in 911 or that US officials lied about Iraqi WMD helps take the spot light off of those who failed to properly do their jobs.
We never adequately explained just what was in the convoys of trucks that were transferred to Syria immediately preceeding the Iraq war. The Iraq Survey Group stated that it warranted further investigation. Unfortunately with so many careers and repuations staked on the notion that Bush lied and things of that nature its hard to be optimistic that we will get the type of investigation that is needed. Clearly our intellegence was wrong. The CIA is incompetent.
In order for the US to "come clean", would mean holding intellegence personnel accountable for their failures. The theories you mention serve to take the spotlight off of where it should be and assist these people in reamining in their jobs. Also, it helps America's enemies. It should be pointed out that much of the CIA is staffed by leftists. As such, even if they don't set out to do this, its easy to understand why they would be drawn into things that undermine American interests.
Finally, you bring up things like the bail outs, Wall Street crooks and pundits, and other things of this nature. In doing so, you raise valid points, however, the Islamic terrorist attacks of 911 and the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere are completely different things all together. It is incorrect to try and link all of this together. Each of these issues have different causes and will require different solutions. To try and link them together will result in attempts to solve these issues that will lead to abject failure. In order to solve a problem, it is extremely helpful to understand its cause. To try and link completely different problems together will not have a good outcome. Of course some peole are not interested in actually solving any of this. They merely want a propaganda score against someone they don't like!!
"The Iranians of coures are denying it out of hand..." From
ReplyDeletewhat I've been able to determine, this appears to be an attempted attack by stooges and is almost laughable. Of course this could simply be part of the Iranian propaganda machine. Its kind of hard to tell. Iran's informatin machine is significantly better than America's.
The plan may be to launch what looks like an attack on America but make it easy to detect. I suppose a good analogy might be how a fisherman baits a hook to entice a fish to bite. Essentially the Iranian goal here is either of the following or perhaps both. 1.)Lure America into some type of attack on Iran or its interests via a military attack or some type of enhanced sanctions. 2.) The Iranians need a pretext for their planned attack on America. If they can convince enough people that Aemrica tried to frame them or something to this effect, this may be all they need and it would further galvanize support for them.
Since we are not fish in the sense that a fisherman tries to catch by baiting his hook, we are not bound by preprogramed responses to stimuli. We can think for ourselves. Perhaps our best bet is not to "take the bait" the Iranians may have so conveniently set out for us. If, this is in fact the case.
If the Iranians are wanting to draw us into a military conflict, they will have to do much better than this. The only way that can happen would be if it is proven beyond any doubt at all that the Iranian governmetn was invovled. In the real world, proving somethng beyond any doubt is virtually impossible. I'm not sure the Iranians understand or appreciate the desire at all levels that matter of the US government to avoid military conflct with Iran.
I suspect you are right that the plot will palyed down. Even so, Iran wins. They can use whatever meaningless rhetoric that results to their advantage.
While the Iranian narrative is making its way around the world for about the 100th time now, the US is still conducting investigations, holding high level meetings, and trying formulate a response or compiling evidence to build whatever case the evidence warrants for whaterver response is ultimately warranted. By the time American officials figure it out, it may be to late to respond!! In any event the Iranians get a huge propaganda victory and can use this further isolate America.
As I've correctly pointed out a number of times, the real threat is an Iranian attack on America or its interests. an American attack was never going to happen and still isn't going to happen. Unfortunately the news media working in concert with high level government officials have spent the last few years working tirelessly to undercut an American military option against Iran. In so doing this, the poor simpletons have undermined a valuable avenue whereby America might defend itself or represent its interests.
Part of this effort to undercut any type of robust confrontation to Iran has led to our complete lack of preparation on how to respond to this situation. Had we been more willing to at least consider military or other muscular options to the Iranian threat, perhaps we could have responded more quickly to this situation and been able to conduct a much more thorough and quicker investigation of this and could have been able to formulate our response in a much more timely fashion.
What I meant to convey is the bail outs of financial institutions, wall street crooks, and thaings for this nature are valid topics of conversation and the problems with these groups are excellent points, however, the war effor in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere as well as the p;ot to assainate the Saudi ambassador are completely different concepts/ to try and link these things together as part of the same problem is incorrect. To attempt to so serves no useful purpose and appears to be an attempt to distract from the issue being discussed in the post.
ReplyDeleteMeaning no disrespect to anyone but this appears to be a technique of both the left and the so called libertaian right to interject issues that are completely irrelevant to the issue being discussed into an argument. I can only speculate on what the purpose of what this is but it does seem to be extremely distracting.