Oct 15, 2011

The Plot is Kosher

Last week, a contact gave us a quick sitrep on the Quds Force/Saudi Amb allegation.

"The plot is kosher."

For a few seconds we were thinking we were off base in our impression that it was sheer bullshittery.

Until the source elaborated.

"YellowCake...IraqWMD...
Curveball...AluminumTubes ... TheBritishGovernmentHasLearned ... ", and about 5 or 6 other plums.  Laughing, we were tempted to ask him to repeat the tirade, but didn't want to be thought of as twats.

We took it as confirmation of our original thesis.

Ray McGovern has reached the same conclusion:

There used to be real pros in the CIA’s operations directorate. One — Ray Close, a longtime CIA Arab specialist and former Chief of Station in Saudi Arabia — told me on Wednesday that we ought to ask ourselves a very simple question:

"If you were an Iranian undercover operative who was under instructions to hire a killer to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, D.C., why in HELL would you consider it necessary to explain to a presumed Mexican [expletive deleted] that this murder was planned and would be paid for by a secret organization in Iran?

"Whoever concocted this tale wanted the ‘plot’ exposed … to precipitate a major crisis in relations between Iran and the United States. Which other government in the Middle East would like nothing better than to see those relations take a big step toward military confrontation?"


...

Another point on the implausibility meter is: What are the odds that Iran’s Quds force would plan an unprecedented attack in the United States, that this crack intelligence agency would trust the operation to a used-car salesman with little or no training in spycraft, that he would turn to his one contact in a Mexican drug cartel who happens to be a DEA informant, and that upon capture the car salesman would immediately confess and implicate senior Iranian officials?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to suspect that Arbabsiar might be a double-agent, recruited by some third-party intelligence agency to arrange some shady business deal regarding black-market automobiles, get some ambiguous comments over the phone from an Iranian operative, and then hand the plot to the U.S. government on a silver platter – as a way to heighten tensions between Washington and Teheran?


Perfect.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What I don't get; wouldn't the ends be better served if the plot hadn't failed? So the "way" may have been kosher, but wouldn't it have been better served by other means? So the article should have said that the plot was not meant to be uncovered, but was, because the Mexican cartel is corrupt. So the only "bullshittery" going on is about who was the ways, because end and means is known. On the other hand, kind of makes you wonder about this "Mexican" drug cartel.

M1 said...

Any XXXXXXX tinkering within an executed D.C. KaBoom-Op would risk eventually surfacing (and could perhaps be deemed, technically,an act of war.)

Also, the accuracy & authenticity of the intelligence to justify a decisoin to go motherload on Iran would then become the subject of heated public debate everywhere.

It might be argued w/ potentially devastating effect that this then was final evidence that successive admins have continually, reaching back many years, been hoodwinked by deliberate XXXXXXX disinformation operations aimed at scaring America into adopting a policy of more overt and aggressive MIL cooperation with said entity in NE.

Better then perhaps to raise tensions w/ baby steps rather than follow through w/ KaBoom.

All the above is but pure, off the cuff, speculation.

PS have seen some speculation about this being a Mexican drug cartel tensions play. Interesting, but I'm guessing it's a misdirect. (I'm not sure if we're referring to the same thing here)

M1 said...

lode