FBI stops Iran assasination attempt on Saudi Amb. to US

[hongi]

At the same time leveraging existing allies to strengthen regional opposition to Iran would alter the regional balance of power against Iran; instead of facing a divided and weak block of Sunni states, Iran could instead find itself confronted with a strong anti-Persian alliance. That would drastically raise the threshold of success required for expansionist or provocative regional policies to pay off and insure that any escalation imposes greater costs on Iran.

Containment until the present Iranian regime collapses from its own internal failings, in essence.

Leveraging existing allies? If they're your allies anymore, after the Arab Spring. Methinks the populace and the new government of say, Egypt will need more persuading to play along with America's Great Game. And after the diplomatic shift that America pulled on Syria, if Assad survives, I'm sure he'll be even cosier with Iran.

[Bakustra]

Broomstick made it "East vs. West" or, rather, "Iran vs. Western World with an overtone of Islam vs. West"! That's why she dismissed every counter-example about how martyrdom wasn't something unprecedented in other parts of the world! For someone who loves to bust out "strawman", you have a gigantic fucking problem with editing people's arguments so that they become more reasonable, so that "Iranians actively seek death, unlike people in other countries, which is why they must be treated differently from other nations" becomes, in your head, "There are people who are just fuckin' crazy, and Iran may have them in charge, so we have to be careful."

So for all your about how other people are just being closed-minded because they think that we can make common ground with Iran without wringing our hands about how they might be different from us, you yourself have a plank in your own eye. You are unwilling to admit that any person that you agree with could have terrible opinions, while insisting that other people that you disagree with have terrible opinions, and then you castigate other people for having this defect. Beware Freudian defense mechanisms, Simon.

[MarshalPurnell]

At the same time leveraging existing allies to strengthen regional opposition to Iran would alter the regional balance of power against Iran; instead of facing a divided and weak block of Sunni states, Iran could instead find itself confronted with a strong anti-Persian alliance. That would drastically raise the threshold of success required for expansionist or provocative regional policies to pay off and insure that any escalation imposes greater costs on Iran.

Containment until the present Iranian regime collapses from its own internal failings, in essence.

Leveraging existing allies? If they're your allies anymore, after the Arab Spring. Methinks the populace and the new government of say, Egypt will need more persuading to play along with America's Great Game. And after the diplomatic shift that America pulled on Syria, if Assad survives, I'm sure he'll be even cosier with Iran.

Yes, I can certainly imagine Egypt saying "let's give up billions of dollars in aid, security against Israel, and our centuries-old self-conception as the leading Arab power against the heretic Persian Shi'a, just to fuck over the Americans." Grow up; Egypt's foreign policy is decided by factors other than the ill-wishing of SDN and its frankly stupid conception that every horrible regime around the world only stands because the US supports them. Even if the most radical members of the Muslim Brotherhood gain power, they'll still oppose Iranian regional dominance for their own ends anyway.

[Shroom Man 777]

A strategy of dealing with Iran factoring in how the nation may change, thanks to all the internal mechanisms inside it, and perhaps starting anew with a new - or at least, somewhat changed - Iran that's less angry, or more like pre-Ahmadinejad or something, would be nice. Just wait for it to change, because Iran's not a static thing?

Doesn't have to be "Arab Spring will replace the current regimes with suddenly pro-Iran guys". But maybe more like "Arab Spring and other stuff will ease things up in the Middle East and mellow it down" allowing a clean slate, or at least a less dirty slate, for all of us to work with. And this also hinges on the USA and the rest of the West to not do anything that'll piss the hell off out of the new guys in charge of the ME. Of course, the same can be said about the ME powers not doing anything like trying to kill people's ambassadors or storming their embassies (but these things are in turn motivated by things that have angered these guys).

That would be nice. I don't know how realistic that would be. Doubt it.

[Aleria]

...

1. Ask Shroom where he lives. Jeeze. Or just look at various topics he posts at. He'll reference life in the Philippines every now and then.

...why would I waste my time asking a question I don't really care about (where he lives), rather than the question I wanted answered?

'Hey random fact that might answer the real question. So let us ask that instead.' vs. 'Answer to question that answers the question'

You appear to be too stupid to tell the difference between the two. Please stop wasting my time. Thank you.

....
So, 41% of all Americans think going into Iraq was not a mistake. That's a frightening number, and more than enough to give an impression that the public supports more international violence, if they get out onto the streets.

You are engaging in wishful thinking that that 40% can be converted without an organized propaganda campaign (which no one will pay for). They are morons.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32039.html

...
A Public Policy Polling nationwide survey of 1,151 registered voters Jan. 18-19 found that 49 percent of Americans trusted Fox News, 10 percentage points more than any other network.
...

Anyone who trusts a source as biased and unreliable as Fox News is a fucking moron. Yet, even some of those idiots, agree Iraq is a mistake.

Converting Fox's viewer base is like converting fundamentalist religious nuts.

[Simon_Jester]

If 49 percent of people match your definition of "fucking morons" you shouldn't waste your time on, you're probably going to lose any political contest you enter, because you're ignoring a population large enough to vote you out of office practically by themselves.

[MKSheppard]

Link to WaPo

Posted at 07:04 PM ET, 10/13/2011
Intelligence links Iran to Saudi diplomat’s murder
By David Ignatius

U.S. and Saudi officials believe Iranian operatives were behind the May 16 murder of a Saudi diplomat in Karachi, Pakistan — adding more evidence that Tehran has engaged in high-risk covert actions beyond the allegations of a Washington assassination plot made in a Justice Department indictment Tuesday.

Hassan al-Qahtani, a Saudi security official working at their consulate in Karachi, was gunned down in July about 200 feet from his office by a man on a motorbike. News reports at the time linked the killing to tension between Pakistan’s Sunni and Shiite communities.

But a Saudi official said Thursday that his country and the United States agree that Iran’s Quds Force was involved in the Karachi killing. That allegation, if true, adds important new detail to the portrait of an Iranian covert-action service that has been escalating its attacks against Saudi targets.

The Saudi official, reached by telephone, said that Pakistani intelligence had identified the killer as a member of a Shiite dissident group known as Sapih Mohammed, which has connections with the Quds Force. The Saudi official said this conclusion, that the group had links with Tehran, was based on messages between Iranian officials in Islamabad and members of the dissident group.

The Saudi official noted additional examples of Iran’s campaign against Riyadh and its allies. He cited the 2005 killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri. A U.N. Special Tribunal charged this year that the murder was plotted by four officials of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite militia in Lebanon. The senior Hezbollah official among the four, Mustafa Badr al-Din, is viewed by U.S. counterterrorism analysts as having close links with the Quds Force.

As further evidence of the Iran-backed campaign, the Saudi official cited the threats against Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Beirut, Abdel Aziz al-Khoja, who was forced to flee in 2008 after Hezbollah took to the streets in West Beirut and other parts of Lebanon.

The Saudi official also provided new allegations about Gholam Shakuri, the Quds Force official who was named in Tuesday’s indictment as having conspired with an Iranian American named Manssor Arbabsiar to murder the Saudi ambassador to Washington. He described Shakuri as an important Quds Force case officer who had helped organize militant Shiite protesters in Bahrain.

According to the Saudi official, Shakuri was among the Iranians who met Hasan Mushaima, a radical Bahraini Shiite cleric, during a stopover in Beirut last February, when Mushaima was on his way back home to lead protests in Bahrain.

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.

[CrateriaA]

...

1. Ask Shroom where he lives. Jeeze. Or just look at various topics he posts at. He'll reference life in the Philippines every now and then.

...why would I waste my time asking a question I don't really care about (where he lives), rather than the question I wanted answered?

'Hey random fact that might answer the real question. So let us ask that instead.' vs. 'Answer to question that answers the question'

You appear to be too stupid to tell the difference between the two. Please stop wasting my time. Thank you.

Your fault if you want to stay ignorant (and be a dumbfuck in the process) about where he's from. I said he's from the Philippines and I made typos. You were stupid and said that remembering the Philippines isn't like remembering Burundi (which is true because I find Burundi far easier to remember.) And you said that if I can't spell correctly (ignoring the fact that I'm not JasonB or some other horrendous speller, as well as me telling you the truth about why I make typos) you won't take me seriously.

Grow the fuck up. This isn't a job application, where if I misspell something I might not get the job. If you start going "waah, wahh you hurt my feelings so I no longer give a damn about anything" and don't even give a shit about something relatively important in the topic (why Shroom wanted America to go to war with Iran) then you can kindly shut the fuck up now since you have nothing important to contribute.

And you got your fucking answer from me, you know. You wanted to know if Shroom hates America since he's advocating bloody war with Iran. I told you he does since the country he's from is oppressed by America. So his reaction, though I don't agree with it, make sense.

I advise you to stop wasting the collective time of all of us. You were new and wanted to know something about Shroom and why he says the things he says. I made a mistake but told you the truth. You showed what a whiny, ignorant little bitch you are and said I was stupid. Oh, my, you happen to act like an idiot.

Here's a toast to that little genius of yours, the wisdom of the ages, the decider.

[MKSheppard]

The government of Iran (not unanimously, btw) wanted to enact a regime change in Iraq. Keeping the regular army alive and moving forward in Iraqi territory is a part of this goal, and clearing the minefields leads directly to that.

Actually, no. The regular army lost a lot of it's prestige in 1981, following a major counterattack on Iraqi positions that caused Iran to lose 200~ of it's 1,000~ active tanks. After that, the regular army was neutered politically, with most of the prime recruits, equipment and support going to the Pasadaran/Basjj/Revolutionary Guards.

The Iranian Air Force was also neutered pretty badly a year or so later; after the President of Iran -- Abulhassan Banisadr, who was in a power struggle with the Mullahs, decided fuck this shit and used an IRAF 707 to make his escape along with Massoud Rajavi.

The mullahs purged the fuck out of the Air force, and made it so that virtually all missions had to be approved by religious authorities, and that planes would only be loaded with just enough fuel to accomplish their mission. Brilliant thinking, no?

[Aleria]

If 49 percent of people match your definition of "fucking morons" you shouldn't waste your time on, you're probably going to lose any political contest you enter, because you're ignoring a population large enough to vote you out of office practically by themselves.

Of course. I'm not trying to win a popularity contest. I'm abrasive and generally consider a large number of people too stupid to be salvaged without a targeted propaganda campaign to convince them.

I'm not suggesting my point of view is viable as anything other than a personal opinion.

...
Your fault if you want to stay ignorant (and be a dumbfuck in the process) about where he's from.

The point was it was not the question that I asked and you come across as lazy and therefore an unreliable source of information.

How many different ways do I need to say it?

[CrateriaA]

...
Your fault if you want to stay ignorant (and be a dumbfuck in the process) about where he's from.

The point was it was not the question that I asked and you come across as lazy and therefore an unreliable source of information.

How many different ways do I need to say it?

I FUCKING GAVE YOU THE INFORMATION YOU WANTED. JESUS CHRIST. I'm not lazy, merely a fast typer. FUCK YOU.

[PeZook]

The point was it was not the question that I asked and you come across as lazy and therefore an unreliable source of information.

How many different ways do I need to say it?

How about you stop right now?

You are trying to dismiss CrateriaA's argument based on his goddamned spelling, not any faults of his reasoning or sources.

Don't.

[Simon_Jester]

If 49 percent of people match your definition of "fucking morons" you shouldn't waste your time on, you're probably going to lose any political contest you enter, because you're ignoring a population large enough to vote you out of office practically by themselves.

Of course. I'm not trying to win a popularity contest. I'm abrasive and generally consider a large number of people too stupid to be salvaged without a targeted propaganda campaign to convince them.

I'm not suggesting my point of view is viable as anything other than a personal opinion.

The fact that you shrug off the opinions of large numbers of people so lightly doesn't increase my faith in your judgment about affairs that involve actual human beings. I've seen cynicism about "the sheeple" used as a camouflage and substitute for absent thoughts too often.

[Stark]

Ignoring the input, existence or attitudes of people you don't like is a cheap way to make complex issues very simple. It's typical of teenagers.

[Broken]

Whether the government of Iran is rational or not, they seem so see little benefit from calming the waters. The US Navy, for example, which operates in the Gulf maintains ship-to-ship communications with Iranian naval units, but is unable to communicate with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps which has a separate chain of command. Only about a month ago now, the Iranian government rejected a military-to-military hotline, similar to the one maintained between the US and USSR during the Cold War, since we have so many ships and planes in close proximity to each other. As the New York Times reported,

“We do not need such a line in the region. They are seeking to set up a hotline in order to solve any potential tensions, whereas we believe if they leave the region, there will be no tension.”

Given the history of confrontations in the Gulf, reducing accidental attacks and other incidents would seem to be a basic, logical, easy step. That it was rejected with a "if you would just go away, everything would be fine" response is not inspiring trust.

[open_sketchbook]

Why, though? If Iran parked it's fleet off the coast of Florida, it'd straight up be considered an act of war. It frustrates me that it is seen as a given that the US should be allowed to have ships wherever it wants and everyone else has to accommodate them. While I don't necessarily think that the US is in the wrong for having ships present for whatever reason, the fact nobody even thinks about it is irritating.

[Samuel]

Why, though? If Iran parked it's fleet off the coast of Florida, it'd straight up be considered an act of war. It frustrates me that it is seen as a given that the US should be allowed to have ships wherever it wants and everyone else has to accommodate them. While I don't necessarily think that the US is in the wrong for having ships present for whatever reason, the fact nobody even thinks about it is irritating.

Because Florida's coast is in American territorial waters, while the US navy stays outside nations territoral waters unless we have permission?

[TimothyC]

Why, though? If Iran parked it's fleet off the coast of Florida, it'd straight up be considered an act of war. It frustrates me that it is seen as a given that the US should be allowed to have ships wherever it wants and everyone else has to accommodate them. While I don't necessarily think that the US is in the wrong for having ships present for whatever reason, the fact nobody even thinks about it is irritating.

Because Florida's coast is in American territorial waters, while the US navy stays outside nations territoral waters unless we have permission?

Specifically ships are allowed to transit the Strait of Hormuz as it is the only way to enter or leave the Persian Gulf. Off of Florida it would be hard to invoke the same Transit Passage rule. If the Iranians were more than 24 NM off the coast however there is very little the US could do - so long as they don't try and fish or commit other economic activity.

Edit: If they want to park their navy 25 NM off the US coast more power to them. Heck we should invite them in for Liberty at one of the ports if they come this far.

[Simon_Jester]

Why, though? If Iran parked it's fleet off the coast of Florida, it'd straight up be considered an act of war. It frustrates me that it is seen as a given that the US should be allowed to have ships wherever it wants and everyone else has to accommodate them. While I don't necessarily think that the US is in the wrong for having ships present for whatever reason, the fact nobody even thinks about it is irritating.

Because Florida's coast is in American territorial waters, while the US navy stays outside nations territoral waters unless we have permission?

The coast of Florida is pretty much irrelevant to international trade, unless that trade is headed for a US port, so no one has any incentive to keep it neutral. When the US says it owns the coast of Florida, nobody cares, and nobody has any reason to run ships near Florida unless they have business with the US (in which case they're bound to wind up in water the US owns sooner or later, so why worry about it?)

The Strait of Hormuz is so important to international trade that a lot of countries want it to be international- i.e. the Iranians don't get to decide who is allowed to sail through it, and neither does the US or anyone else. People have good reasons to run ships through the Strait even if they have no business with Iran at all, and would prefer not to give Iran veto power over their business.

So if the Iranians want to stop the US Navy (or any other ships in the world, civilian or military) from sailing in the Strait of Hormuz, it's understandable, but it implies that they own the Strait of Hormuz. A lot of nations, not just the US, would not be happy with this. The Iranians, on the other hand, would be very happy with that indeed.

You be the judge of whether Iran should own the Strait of Hormuz.

[Vympel]

Forgive me for not going through all 12 pages, but has there been any discussion of the fact that this plot is a massive crock of shit that everyone outside the US is treating with the disbelief and derision it so richly deserves?

http://www.juancole.com/2011/10/wagging ... smart.html

The very scary Iranian terror plot

The most difficult challenge in writing about the Iranian Terror Plot unveiled yesterday is to take it seriously enough to analyze it. Iranian Muslims in the Quds Force sending marauding bands of Mexican drug cartel assassins onto sacred American soil to commit Terrorism — against Saudi Arabia and possibly Israel — is what Bill Kristol and John Bolton would feverishly dream up while dropping acid and madly cackling at the possibility that they could get someone to believe it.

...

To begin with, this episode continues the FBI’s record-setting undefeated streak of heroically saving us from the plots they enable. From all appearances, this is, at best, yet another spectacular “plot” hatched by some hapless loser with delusions of grandeur but without any means to put it into action except with the able assistance of the FBI, which yet again provided it through its own (paid, criminal) sources posing as Terrorist enablers. The Terrorist Mastermind at the center of the plot is a failed used car salesman in Texas with a history of pedestrian money problems. Dive under your bed. “For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents,” explained U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and “no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere and no one was actually ever in any danger.’”

But no matter. The U.S. Government and its mindless followers in the pundit and think-tank “expert” class have seized on this ludicrous plot with astonishing speed to all but turn it into a hysterical declaration of war against Evil, Hitlerian Iran. “The US attorney-general Eric Holder said Iran would be ‘held to account’ over what he described as a flagrant abuse of international law,” and “the US says military action remains on the table,” though “it is at present seeking instead to work through diplomatic and financial means to further isolate Iran.” Hillary Clinton thundered that this “crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for.” The CIA’s spokesman at The Washington Post, David Ignatius, quoted an anonymous White House official as saying the plot “appeared to have been authorized by senior levels of the Quds Force.” Meanwhile, the State Department has issued a Travel Alert which warns American citizens that this plot “may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian Government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States.”

[MarshalPurnell]

Forgive me for not going through all 12 pages, but has there been any discussion of the fact that this plot is a massive crock of shit that everyone outside the US is treating with the disbelief and derision it so richly deserves?

Perhaps you should have, because similar pieces vomited out by Gregg Greenwald and Justin Raimundo also were posted earlier. And in response the FBI press release summarizing the evidence was posted, which included the wire transfer of $100,000 into an account to fund the plot, wire-taps on conversations related to the plot, the confession of the main suspect and with his cooperation a recorded telephone conversation with the lead conspirator in Iran. We will know a lot more once this goes to trial but for the time being there appears to be plenty of evidence that the plot has plenty of linkages to someone in the Quds Force.

But hey, someone posting a politically charged opinion piece as a decisive refutation of an indictment is so decisive the third time surely does it, right?

[Vympel]

Perhaps you should have, because similar pieces vomited out by Gregg Greenwald and Justin Raimundo also were posted earlier. And in response the FBI press release summarizing the evidence was posted, which included the wire transfer of $100,000 into an account to fund the plot, wire-taps on conversations related to the plot, the confession of the main suspect and with his cooperation a recorded telephone conversation with the lead conspirator in Iran. We will know a lot more once this goes to trial but for the time being there appears to be plenty of evidence that the plot has plenty of linkages to someone in the Quds Force.

But hey, someone posting an opinion piece as a decisive refutation of an indictment is so decisive the third time surely does it, right?

Are you fucking retarded? None of that rebuts a single word of what makes this plot so stupid.

[MarshalPurnell]

Perhaps you should have, because similar pieces vomited out by Gregg Greenwald and Justin Raimundo also were posted earlier. And in response the FBI press release summarizing the evidence was posted, which included the wire transfer of $100,000 into an account to fund the plot, wire-taps on conversations related to the plot, the confession of the main suspect and with his cooperation a recorded telephone conversation with the lead conspirator in Iran. We will know a lot more once this goes to trial but for the time being there appears to be plenty of evidence that the plot has plenty of linkages to someone in the Quds Force.

But hey, someone posting an opinion piece as a decisive refutation of an indictment is so decisive the third time surely does it, right?

Are you fucking retarded? None of that rebuts a single word of what makes this plot so stupid.

No, but you obviously have literacy problems. Cole's assertion is that the FBI made this up. Which you endorsed. That the plot was foolish is self-evident, and possibly evidence that it was not sanctioned by the Iranian government. But the existing evidence strongly points to a conspiracy with roots in Iran taking considerable measures to make something happen.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I do believe this is the first time in the recorded history of the post-9/11 era that a mid-eastern Muslim state has actually demanded counselor access to one of their citizens accused under terrorism statutes, via the Swiss charge d'affair. It will be interesting to see how he is treated in light of that.

[Vympel]

No, but you obviously have literacy problems. Cole's assertion is that the FBI made this up. Which you endorsed.

Cole never asserts any such thing. However, the fact that the FBI routinely enables cockamamie terrorist plots and then crows about defeating them is a matter of objective fact.

That the plot was foolish is self-evident, and possibly evidence that it was not sanctioned by the Iranian government. But the existing evidence strongly points to a conspiracy with roots in Iran taking considerable measures to make something happen.

Could you backpedal any faster from "sanctioned by the Quds Force!" to "possibly evidence it was not sanctioned by the Iranian government.", I wonder?