_Informed Comment_ (http://www.juancole.com/)
(http://fusion.google.com/add?source=atgs&feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/juancole/ymbn)
____________________________________
_Is an Iranian Drug Cartel Behind the Assassination Plot against the Saudi
Ambassador?_
(http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/juancole/ymbn/~3/kfu3cfAD1AI/is-an-iranian-drug-cartel-behind-the-assassination-plot-against-the-saudi-amba
ssador.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email)
Posted: 12 Oct 2011 12:38 AM PDT
As many observers have pointed out, the story given us by Attorney General
Eric Holder about the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi
ambassador in Washington, D.C., makes no sense. _Veteran CIA operative Bob
Baer,
now retired, notes that Iranian intelligence_
(http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-12/ex-cia-warns-us-dangerously-wrong-on-iran/3553704?section=world)
is highly professional and works independently or through trusted proxies,
and this sloppy operation simply is not their modus operandi.
The US is alleging that Gholam Shakuri, a known member of the Quds
Brigade, the special operations force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
Corps,
was involved and that he was running an Iranian-American agent, Manssor
Arbabsiar, a _used car dealer with a conviction on check fraud_
(http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/suspect-saudi-ambassador-plot-texas-ties-14717301)
.
Arbabsiar wired $100,000 to a bank account he thought belonged to a member of
the Zeta Mexican drug cartel, as a down payment on the $1.5 million
demanded by the cartel member for carrying out the assassination.
If Arbabsiar really had been an Iranian intelligence asset, he would have
been informed if there’s one thing the US typically monitors, it is money
transfers of more than $10,000 (as a measure against drug money laundering).
The only safe way to undertake this transaction would have been cash, and
no one in the Quds Brigade is so stupid as not to know this simple reality.
Moreover, would the Quds Brigade really depend so heavily on someone with
a fraud conviction, who was therefore known to US authorities? Expert
terrorism deploys “newskins” people who can fly under the radar of police and
security forces.
One possibility as to what is really going on here is _signaled by the
Bloomberg_
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/10/11/bloomberg_articlesLSXPP00D9L38.DTL)
report in the San Francisco Chronicle:
” Arbabsiar also told the informant that the same Iranian sponsors behind
the assassination plot also controlled drug smuggling and could provide
tons of opium, the federal law enforcement official said.”
In other words, Arbabsiar’s patron, Shakuri, may have had a side business,
besides the Revolutionary Guards day job, as an element in _an opium- and
heroin-running gang bringing the stuff from Afghanistan_
(http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2007/February/Opium110/index.html) through
Iran and to points
west. About half of Afghanistan’s opium and heroin is exported via Iran.
If a rogue Iranian drug cartel with an IRGC cover wanted to hit the Saudi
ambassador, then it would be natural for them to reach out to their
counterparts, the Zetas in Mexico. Whereas if the Iranian state wanted to
assassinate someone, it would be crazy for them to reveal themselves to a
Mexican
gangster.
So why hit the Saudis? If it was an Iranian cartel, they might be annoyed
with the Saudi version of the _war on drugs_
(http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article363828.ece) . After all, some of their
colleagues may have gotten
caught in the dragnet. Or they might be angered that Saudi-backed Sunni
militant gangs in Iraq and Syria have grabbed smuggling routes, cutting out
the Iranians. _
Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility_
(http://www.tni.org/archives/pin-docs_220976-1) of a direct Iranian
government plot. After all,
Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet assassinated dissident (and former
ambassador) Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC in 1976.
Iranian and Saudi relations have been roiled by the turmoil in Syria, with
with the Saudis supporting the opposition. In Bahrain the Saudis helped
crush the movement toward greater openness, angering Iranians. And, the
wikileaks cables demonstrate that the Saudis behind the scenes repeatedly
urged
the US to hit Iran. There is something like a cold war between the two
regional powers, and this plot could be part of it. But I agree with Baer that
it looks too much like amateur hour to likely be the doings of the Iranian
government per se.
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
