Mr. Bean's assassination plot and escalating war propects with Iran

Reza Marashi asks of the Mr. Bean assassination plot, Does Obama understand what's been unleashed? Aljazeera English 10/19/2011:

Here’s the bottom line: Indiscriminate sanctions are meant to change Iran’s strategic calculus to such a degree that the costs of maintaining its current policy trajectory outweigh the benefits - thus pressuring Iran into "changing its behaviour". Listening to Presidents Carter through Obama articulate the success of this strategy during their respective administrations is compelling, except for one minor detail - it’s never actually worked. And it will not work. For nearly 33 years and six US presidential administrations, broad-based sanctions have not compelled the Iranian government to change course. But they have significantly added to tensions between Iran and the United States. By the US' own metric, its track record of success with Iran sanctions is second only to that of Castro’s Cuba.

Regardless of whether the assassination allegations against Iran are true, the Obama administration has escalated tensions to a point where we are now on the verge of repeating our same mistakes vis-à-vis Iraq in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Thinking back to last month, one has to wonder whether the recently retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, knew something we don’t when he supported the notion of opening up channels of communication with Iran. Unprompted, Mullen said: "We haven’t had a connection with Iran since 1979. Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we had links to the Soviet Union. We are not talking to Iran so we don’t understand each other. If something happens, it’s virtually assured that we won't get it right, that there will be miscalculations which would be extremely dangerous in that part of the world." [my emphasis]

The idea that having negotiations or establishing diplomatic relations with a country is some kind of reward for their behavior is highly dubious, based on its sorry record of effectiveness in achieving the alleged political goals. If a government is factually in control of a country's territory and can handle the basic requirements of international relations, e.g., protecting an embassy, we should establish normal diplomatic relations with them. In the unusual case of Iran in 1979, the Iranian regime took over the American Embassy and held US diplomats hostage until January 1981. During that time, it wouldn't have made sense to re-establish diplomatic relations. But now, 22 years later?

This idea that conducting diplomacy is a reward for good behavior is a favorite notions of neoconservatives, who in dealing with Islamic nations in the Middle East especially want to use only war and the threat of war as tools of foreign relations. As Daniel Luban recently wrote:

... the neocons drew deeper lessons from the Arab-Israeli conflict about the indispensability of American power and the uselessness of international institutions. While liberals thought the conflict called for better diplomacy, the neocons blamed diplomacy itself, and a liberalism that was too impotent and equivocating to stand up for Israel.

And they projected this attitude to US foreign relations more generally, including the John Birch Society's eternal bugaboo, the United Nations.

A war with Iran would be a really bad idea. Although it's a lot to hope for, it is the responsibility of Congress and the press to exercise some serious oversight on the claims the Obama Administration is making over the Mr. Bean "Iranian" plot.

Jasmin Ramsey at LobeLog Foreign Policy writes about the current state of warmongering for war with Iran in Paul Pillar takes down Richard Cohen on Iran 11/20/2011. The neocons pushed for war with Iraq from the end of the 1991 Gulf War until the beginning of the US-British invasion in 2003. They are now doing the same with Iran. If the Obama Administration seriously wants to avoid war with Iran, they have to do something to make it more difficult for President Perry to set up that war in 2013.

But right now, they are moving in the opposite direction.

Tags: arbabsiar case, iran, iran war

Another strange thing about the Mr. Bean assassination plot

Marcy Wheeler builds on some information from Gareth Porter to point out yet another odd element in the federal government's complain (still with no indictment) against Arbabsiar, the Mr. Bean who the complain alleges was running an assassination plot on behalf of Iran. See:

Marcy Wheeler, Why Did the Scary Iran Plotter Speak Directly from a Contested Treasury Department Script? Emptywheel 10/18/2011

Gareth Porter, U.S. Officials Peddle False Intel to Support Terror Plot Claims Inter Press Service 10/17/2011

Tags: arbabsiar case, gareth porter, iran, marcy wheeler, marcy wheeler

Drugs, politics and the "Iranian" Mr. Magoo plot (or is it the Mr. Bean plot?)

This is a report from The Real News interviewing historian/journalist Gareth Porter, Alleged Iranian Assassination Plot Appears an FBI Sting 10/14/2011:



In the interview and in FBI Account of "Terror Plot" Suggests Sting Operation Inter Press Service 10/13/2011, Gareth suggests another theory of the case in which the defendants were originally working on a drug deal. Reuters also reports on the drugs and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) aspects of the case in Iran case a sign of drugs agency's new roleby Basil Katz 10/14/2011:

The case is as notable for the increasing involvement of America's anti-drug agency in national security investigations, including a number of such stings in recent years, as a sign of any new threat from Mexico, security experts and U.S. officials say.

"If you are a member of organized crime ... you are there for a business, your business is not killing people, your business is to transport humans, to sell illegal goods, that's your line of business. Assassination attempts are not what they do for a living," said Alberto Islas, from security consultancy Risk Evaluation.

Jasmin Ramsey in Alleged Iran Terror Plot tied to Mr. Bean, Saudia Arabia, Iraq and Bahrain LobeLog Foreign Policy 10/15/2011 uses "Mr. Bean" instead of "Mr. Magoo" to describe the apparently hapless Mansour Arbabsiar, the Iranian-American indicted in the case and who has provided much of the testimony on which the government's case relies. She also points out that even if the argument for Iranian government involvement in the Arbabsiar case can still serve as longer-term propaganda for war:

Again, the question is not whether Iran is capable of terrorism (because it is) or about Arbabsiar's guilt, but whether the Iranian government was behind an act of international terrorism on U.S. soil. When the media headlines pieces on this case using phrases like "Iran plot" it is going to be remembered by readers as such regardless of the facts presented. The long-term effects of this on the U.S. psyche remain to be seen, but is there enough evidence to even make that claim at this point? This question is particularly important when prominent pundits such as those that pushed for the invasion of Iraq are pushing for a military response to Iran.

She has a point. In the current spate of articles about Iran's acts of international terrorism, the case of the 1994 attack on the AMEA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires is routinely cited as a clear instance of it. Even though that was a far more professional and successful act of terror and mass murder than the one Mansour Magoo-Bean is alleged to have cooked up, the evidence linking in to Iran via Lebanese Hizbullah was actually pretty thin. But it has become an accepted fact in American press reporting.

Ramsey also points out the following:

Just consider the elaborateness of these allegations: not only did the conspiracy allegedly involve an Iranian assassination plot against a diplomat from Saudi Arabia on U.S. soil, it’s also being tied to the unrest in Bahrain and U.S. losses in Iraq. Thus, the unnamed “cousin,” who Arbabsiar described as a “big general in [the] army,” according to the complaint, is identified in a press release about new OFAC sanctions as Abdul Reza Shahlai — the same man who, as reported by Laura Rozen, was previously designated as the Qods Force deputy commander behind the 2007 raid in southern Iraq by a Shiite militant group that killed five U.S. soldiers. Robert Mackey of the New York Time’s blog The Lede also informs us that Saudi scholar and former royal family adviser Nawaf Obeid told McClatchy that Gholam Shakuri, the other Qods officer behind the alleged plot, was suspected by Saudi intelligence of “fomenting unrest in Bahrain on behalf of Iran’s government.”

So the first conspirator named by Arbabsiar is said to have harmed the U.S. in Iraq, and the second is allegedly behind the protest movement in Bahrain which is ongoing despite the crackdown by Bahrain's ruling family with the help of some 1,500 Saudi and Emirati troops. Could this really be possible? Always. Is it likely or even plausible? Not really.

And though she doesn't single it out, if these stories of their previous exploits are true, do they seem like the sorts who try to carry out such as clumsy scheme as the Arbabsiar plot is described in the government's complaint as being.

It's worth noting that at this point, Arbabsiar is not under indictment in the case. Marcy Wheeler does some informed speculation in Government Remains Mum about When It First Charged Arbabsiar and For What Emptywheel 10/14/2011 based on what she's been able to research on the case. The complaint the Administration publicly announced this past week is an amended complaint. Bmaz is working with her on researching this and found (who says bloggers don't do original reporting?) that there was a previous complaint filed again Arbabsiar "which Chief Judge Loretta Preska had approved having sealed".

I should point out here that speculation is part of any serious analysis of a case like this. The prosecution comes up with a "theory of the case" and defense attorneys try to find any problems in the prosecution's theory and, if feasible, offer an alternative theory of the case in hopes of establishing reasonable doubt about their client's guilt. Outside reporters and researchers don't have the responsibility of prosecutors or defense attorneys to provide zealous advocacy for guilt or innocence. It doesn't mean that someone is pushing a "conspiracy theory" if they are offering plausible alternative theories of the case. There's a point in the video above at about 10.20 where the interviewer Paul Jay asks Gareth Porter about another possible theory of the case, which Gareth explains is not likely in the current case.

In a case like this one where the public story is "so difficult to believe" as Gareth says in that interview, it's especially necessary to test alternative theories as a framework for what we know in the public record. It seems to me that the best alternative version of Arababsiar's case is something like the one that Gareth suggests: Arbabsiar had a contact in Iran with whom he thought he could do a drug deal of some kind. When he wound up contacting a DEA informant who posed as part of Los Zetas drug cartel, the DEA worked with the FBI and the CIA to draw him into this unlikely plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US in Washington in a terrorist attack that would have involved multiple deaths.

The largest context is that the Obama Administration has continued the US policy of hostility toward Iran, in part over legitimate concern about Iran's nuclear program. And both Israel and Saudi Arabia are interested in polarizing American and world opinion against Iran. So the uses people make of the charges in this case also have to be understood in that larger foreign policy context.

Tags: arbabsiar case, iran, iran war, patrick cockburn

Patrick Cockburn on the Iran/Mr. Magoo case

Patrick Cockburn, who has been one of the best reporters on the Iraq War, writes about the alleged Iran/Mr. Magoo plot in This bizarre plot goes against all that is known of Iran's intelligence service Independent 10/13/2011:

The confident announcement of this bizarre plot by the US Attorney General Eric Holder sounds alarmingly similar to Secretary of State Colin Powell's notorious claim before the UN in 2003 that the US possessed irrefutable evidence Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction.

Cockburn also refers to money coming from "a known IRGC bank account to hire assassins in Mexico," but I still haven't seen if there's any official US claim to that effect.

Cockburn reminds us of some of the current politics involved with Iran:

In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have been vociferously asserting that Iran is orchestrating Shia pro-democracy protests, but without finding many believers in the rest of the world. Their claims are now likely to be taken more seriously in Washington. There will be less pressure on countries like Bahrain to accommodate their Shia populations.

In Iraq, the US and Britain were always seeing Iran's hidden hand supporting their opponents, but they could never quite prove it. It was also true, to a degree never appreciated in the US, that Washington and Tehran were at one in getting rid of Saddam Hussein and installing a Shia government. There were points in common and a struggle for influence. The same has been true in Afghanistan, where Iran was delighted to see the anti-Shia Taliban overthrown in 2001.

Tags: arbabsiar case, iran, iran war, patrick cockburn

War over a faked-up Mr. Magoo murder plot?

The Obama Administration has actually gone into war-propaganda mode over the alleged Iranian plot revealed publicly this week.

Two PBS Newshour reports of 10/13/2011 follow. In World Leaders Weigh Options Over Alleged Iranian Plot Inside U.S., we hear the President repeating the no-options-off-the-table diplomatic formula, which is a threat of military action, that Vice President Biden was using on Wednesday:



Here is an analytical piece from U.S. Treading Carefully to Build Case Against Iran 10/14/2011:



It seems to me that the Washington Post's Joby Warrick in that second segment may be repeating White House claims for which we don't have good evidence yet in the public record:

Specifically, they saw money being wired from Quds-controlled bank accounts and they overheard conversations through wiretaps and also participation of one of the suspects who became a cooperating witness and were able to direct the plot very directly to some members of the Iranian government, at least at a medium level.

The cooperating witness in this case is supposedly the troubled dimwit who was supposedly the Iranian agent setting up this whole thing. Have they definitely linked this goofy plot "to some members of the Iranian government" at a medium or any other level? The interviewer, Jeffrey Brown, should have pressed him on this claim. At the end, Warrick speculates on what this might mean about the Iranian government, when the actual evidence is shaky at best:

And there's -- the curious elements are just intriguing to people, but I think the real meat of this is going to be what exactly Iran is attempting to do here. If it is behind this, it does smack to some people as desperation they would try something like this. It might suggest division within the government. It might suggest an eagerness to try to retaliate for things that are going over there, for sanctions, for the Stuxnet. So it's hard to say.

A copy of the complaint is available online.

I'm hesitant to make statements about things that are not there because I haven't studied the 21 pages of the complaint line by line nor tried to follow every notable article that has appeared. But the complaint is against the now-infamous Mansour Arbabsiar and his alleged Iranian contact, Gholam Shakuri, who the complaint calls a member of the "Qods Force". The complaint says Arbabsiar and Shakuri worked with "others known and unknown". On page 5, it says "other Iran-based co-conspirators were aware of and approved the plan" (p. 6)

Page 12 is where the description of the money transfers starts. I didn't see any reference in the complaint to the accounts transferring money to the DEA informant setting the trap for Arbabsiar. Nor anything claiming that the plot had been linked "very directly to some members of the Iranian government, at least at a medium level", in Joby Warrick's formulation.

Marcy Wheeler has been analyzing this in detail, and she's very good at researching this kind of story. In Gaps in the Iran Plot Docket to Go Along with the Gaps in the Story Emptywheel 10/13/2011, she comments on the government's filings, "the only evidence they had were money transfers not tied directly to Qods Force." So she also seems to think there's no evidence in the public record that US investigators "saw money being wired from Quds-controlled bank accounts" (Warrick).

Stephen Walt was cautious but very skeptical in his first Foreign Policy post on the case. In the second (Something just doesn't add up... 10/13/2011), his skepticism has increased a lot:

Iran's leaders are not stupid, and surely they would have known that a plot like this ran the risk of triggering a very harsh U.S. response. Given that extraordinary risk, is it plausible to believe they would have entrusted such a sensitive mission to a serial bungler like Ababsiar? If you are going to attack a target in the United States, wouldn't you send your A Team, instead of Mr. Magoo?

Hence the growing skepticism, including the possibility that this might be some sort of "false flag" operation by whatever groups or countries might benefit from further deterioration in U.S.-Iranian relations. If the Obama administration can't back up their allegations in a convincing way, they are going to face a diplomatic backlash and they are going to look like the Keystone Cops. They could even face a situation where rightwing war-mongers seize on their initial accusations to clamor for harsh action (a development that has already begun), while moderates at home and abroad lose confidence in the administration's competence, credibility, and basic honesty.

So my advice to Holder & Co. is this: you better show us what you've got, and it had better be good. [my emphasis]

Reliable warmonger David Ignatius (Intelligence links Iran to Saudi diplomat’s murder Washington Post 10/13/2011) doesn't stenography for the Administration in trying to shore up the wafer-thin credibility of this tale:

A cautionary note: These are all just allegations, and raw intelligence sometimes leads to hasty conclusions. But the additional evidence does address the central puzzle of the Washington assassination plot, which is why a sophisticated organization like the Quds Force would take so many risks to go after the Saudis, and use such unlikely proxies. Answer: They’ve done it before.

But the examples he cites don't resemble the half-wit nature of the alleged Iranian plot in the Arbabsiar case.

Tags: arbabsiar case, iran, iran war