The nonsensical alleged Iranian plot and the end of all reason

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

In order to believe the latest flight of fancy promulgated by Washington, one must suspend any and all logic, reason and plain old common sense. Let’s not forget that one must also ignore any knowledge of Iranian strategy, the operations of the Quds Force and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in general.

Even the U.S. government seems to realize these allegations are wildly unrealistic, including State Department Victoria Nuland who said, “When you look at these details, it seems like something out of a movie”.

No, Nuland, it seems like something out of a bad movie written by writers who know little to nothing about Iran or terrorism in general, for that matter.

The alleged plot, which included not only the assassination of a Saudi diplomat but also the trafficking of massive amounts of opium, was quickly blamed on the somewhat mythical Quds Force, part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Ad

A Corpus Christi, Texas-based naturalized American citizen with an Iranian passport, Mansour Arbabsiar, along with an alleged member of the Quds Force based in Iran, Gholam Shakuri, were implicated in the criminal complaint filed by U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday.

The operation was allegedly “directed by factions of the Iranian government” and Obama has claimed that “people within the government were aware of a murder-for-hire plot.”

However, many experts who one would think would be in support of the government’s highly questionable narrative are already punching holes in Washington’s latest fable.

For instance, an Iran analyst at the infamous Rand Corporation in Arlington, Virginia, Alireza Nader, said that this alleged plot does not fit with Iran’s modus operandi.

Nader has coauthored studies on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and told The Christian Science Monitor that, “This [plot] doesn’t seem to serve Iran’s interests in any conceivable way […] Assassinating the Saudi ambassador would increase international pressure against Iran, could be considered an act of war … by Saudi Arabia, it could really destabilize the government in Iran; and this is a political system that is interested in its own survival.”

Nader says that Iran has been attempting to avoid more sanctions while building up diplomatic relations with non-Western nations and moving forward with its nuclear program.

Clearly, this alleged plot would not fall into this pattern and would only serve to rally more sanctions against them while weakening relations and hindering their nuclear program.

Nader points this out by saying that an attack such as the one supposedly planned by Arbabsiar with help from the Iranian government “would put all of Iran’s objectives and strategies at risk.”

If this was a movie it would be the most nonsensical, plot-hole-ridden pieces of cinematic garbage to be released as of late.

Unfortunately, this is not a movie and instead of attempting to sell tickets, Washington is trying to sell the world on an escalation with respect to Iran.

Gary Sick, an expert on Iran at Columbia University and former principal White House aide during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and hostage crisis, also doubts the legitimacy of Washington’s claims.

Sick writes, “This plot, if true, departs from all known Iranian policies and procedures,” especially because “it is difficult to believe that they would rely on a non-Islamic criminal gang to carry out this most sensitive of all possible missions.”

Sick also points out the naked carelessness of the operation, which makes little to no sense given Iran is “not noted for utter disregard of the most basic intelligence tradecraft.”

Why would Iran’s elite intelligence unit depend on “at least one amateur and a Mexican criminal drug gang that is known to be riddled with both Mexican and US intelligence agents”?

Attempting to reconcile all of the nonsensical aspects of this story gets more and more difficult as you look at all of the details.

In an analysis for the Tehran Bureau’s website, Muhammad Sahimi points out some more aspects of the alleged plot which make little to no sense.

Currently, Iran is “deeply worried about the fate of its strategic partner in Syria … tensions with Turkey are increasing … and a fierce [domestic] power struggle is under way”.

“[I]t is essentially impossible to believe that the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran] would act in such a way as to open a major new front against itself”, says Sahimi, yet the U.S. government seems to have missed the memo.

The Quds Force simply does not operate in ways which remotely resemble this alleged plot and many are not hesitating to point this out.

Kenneth Katzman of the Congressional Research Service writes, “The Iranian modus operandi is only to trust sensitive plots to their own employees, or to trusted proxies such as Hezbollah, Saudi Hezbollah, Hamas, the Sadr faction in Iraq, Iran-friendly extremist Muslims in Afghanistan and other pro-Iranian Muslim groups”.

Katzman, who has also written a study on the IRGC in the 1990s, continues, “Are we to believe that this Texas car seller was a Qods [alternate spelling of Quds] sleeper agent for many years resident in the US? Ridiculous […] They (the Iranian command system) never ever use such has-beens or loosely connected people for sensitive plots such as this.”

Arbabsiar was characterized by a former business partner as “sort of a hustler” and “likable, albeit a bit lazy” by the Associated Press.

Would the enigmatic Quds Force, which was treated as a mythical cabal capable of sabotaging the entire American operation in Iraq, really use such an individual? If you believe that, I have a gorgeous beachfront property on the moon to sell you.

The same former business partner of Arbabsiar, David Tomscha, told the AP, “He’s no mastermind […] I can’t imagine him thinking up a plan like that. I mean, he didn’t seem all that political. He was more of a businessman.”

While this could be construed as evidence supporting the conjecture that Arbabsiar was aided by the elite Quds Force and other Iranian government officials, it cannot outweigh all of the other holes and nonsensical aspects of this fable.

Despite the lack of evidence and the fervent denials coming from Iranian government officials who have called the allegations “hilarious and baseless”, Obama is clearly implicating the entire Iranian regime in this alleged plot.

In a news conference Obama said, “We believe that even if at the highest levels there was not detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the Iranian government engaging in this kind of activity.”

Obama claims that world leaders will buy the U.S.’s latest fairy tale “without dispute once they absorb the details”, although as I absorb the details it just further weakens Washington’s claims.

Maybe if world leaders are wholly ignorant and unable to even do a moment’s research into the Quds Force and Iranian strategy they will buy it.

However, if they have expert analysts and actually pay attention to detail, I can’t see how any self-respecting government would jump on the bandwagon.

The damage control already being exerted by the U.S. government is considerable as it seems they realize that this piece of fiction is wildly unrealistic.

State Department spokeswoman Nuland admitted that the initial reaction from governments was one of marked skepticism but claimed that, “as you begin to give more detail on what we knew and when we knew it and how we knew it, it has credibility.”

This must be more of the magical intelligence which never reaches the public, the same brand of intelligence that can explain how passports survive massive explosions and the collapse of buildings on September 11th, 2001, or how a teenager (who had a father that repeatedly warned the American government that he was being radicalized) got on to an airplane without a passport, carrying the exact same explosives used by another incompetent terrorist, Richard Reid.

It seems that Washington is increasingly reliant on classified intelligence and top secret “evidence” which we are just supposed to believe exists and is wholly conclusive.

Instead of ever presenting evidence or reconciling all of the holes in the story, Washington is likely going to attempt to drum up mindless international support in lieu of actually proving anything, as if we are supposed to believe it if government officials from other countries do.

This is already underway with the French Ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, telling reporters, “It’s very credible and very convincing […] Obviously, there were officials in Iran who were behind the plot, but I don’t know to which level.”

Again it is just declared to be “very credible and very convincing” even though it is neither credible nor remotely convincing to anyone who is able to conduct research and think logically.

Thankfully, the United Nations Security Council as a whole is not behind this farce.

Russian and Chinese officials have not been so quick to accept the story fed to them by Washington and according to a CBS Foreign Affairs Analyst, Pamela Falk, “Moscow made clear, since the complaint was filed, that it stands by Iran and will not impose a fifth round of sanctions”.

However, sanctions are not the only concern, indeed Obama clearly said that military intervention is not out of the question by saying that no option was off the table.

Indeed, according to the October 6th edition of a French intelligence bulletin TTU, cited by Gulf News, “the US and Israel are planning an unprecedented joint land forces exercise next May with the goal of establishing a common ‘intervention force’ ready for action in the event of a major regional war.”

Furthermore, last month I published an article detailing how Cheney claims that Israel has plans for a preemptive strike on Iran in the works.

This is buttressed by Israeli leaders calling for Western nations to present a credible military threat to Iran.

Is it pure coincidence that this plot surfaced, giving more impetus to those warmongers in Israel and their cronies in Washington? I doubt it.

If regional tensions couldn’t get any worse, Iranian clerics have allegedly called for suicide bombings and attacks on Saudi interests around the world, along with the establishment of recruitment centers for which hundreds have supposedly already registered.

Additionally, Bahrain Views claims, “The proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia is just beginning — expect to see many more such conflicts in the Middle East which will expand onto the world stage.”

But it does not end there, the U.S. government is now claiming that this was not an isolated plot but instead part of a chain of schemes beyond what CBS/AP call the “comically amateurish” plot which has already surfaced.

The chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein of California, said, “There may be a chain of these things” on Wednesday.

Feinstein said that we must explore the possibility of other plots going on in other nations, which could possibly turn up more hilariously absurd allegations.

Next it could be a ring of Islamist leprechauns being directed by the Quds Force in Iran, in collusion with the IRA, who were planning to assassinate the Queen while trafficking Lucky Charms through Mexico.

Whatever the case, the United States has leveraged this alleged plot to increase sanctions against Iran and if more absurdist plots are uncovered, we can likely expect Washington to openly call for a military solution.

I just hope that the American public is no longer gullible enough to buy this line of nonsense and will actively fight the disinformation so we do not get dragged into yet another endless conflict based on falsified intelligence.

What do you think? Do you have any information or articles we should include in our next article analyzing this situation? If so, please contact us at [email protected] so we can publish the most complete and accurate analysis possible. We also value your feedback, comments, and opinions and if you have something important to say we might quote you in a future article so please do not hesitate to contact us.

RELATED ARTICLE:  
Sources: US Gives Israel Green Light For Iran Strike 

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at [email protected]