Iran crosses a line

PayDirt

All States living in fear operate undercover operations, from time to time provoking the enemy to test them.

Vulture

My theory is that with the world's economy tanking there will soon be a war in the Middle East to shake things down.

If you look back at the history of the Great Depression, what ended it was not FDR's public works schemes but World War Two.

History will repeat itself.

David L

If the last decade has taught us anything, it has taught us not to take these sorts of stories at face value. Let's see what the evidence is, and where the trail leads. There are plenty of other explanations than the one currently being reported. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to take reports of terrorist "plots" with a pinch of salt. WMD anyone?

Ricky

The Iranian thugocracy is the biggest threat to world peace.

Their supremacist, militant fascist culture is extremely close to 1920s-40s Japanese Shintoism.

They have built a city sized underground training camp in Tehran to export worldwide terror. Their double agent Chalabi seduced the West into a foolish war in Iraq - at a stroke ridding Iran of the one regional regime that might have staunched their crazed ambitions. And we lost huge amounts of blood and treasure in the process.

Their al Quds operatives were in Egypt winding up the crowds during the recent uprising. Twitter reports refer to Parsee and Palestinian Arabic being spoken everywhere, followed by a spate of antisemitic grafitti in Cairo & Alexandria.

The government of Argentina has an international arrest warrant out for known Iranian operatives whom they claim were responsible for the Buenos Aires synagogue bombings.

The thugocracy is propping up Mexican & Columbia drug cartels, Chavez, Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad in Syria, Yemini Islamists, Somalian pirates and hate groups currently infiltrating our own academic institutions.

The regime has started arming their jets with a new generation of missiles. They are about to goad the USA by sending warships to patrol the US coast. They are certainly building nuclear weapons for aggressive purposes. They have recently cyber attacked the internet platforms to spy on their own people. Every month an average of five gay men are publicly hanged on cranes in Iran. They are about to execute a Christian pastor and have sentence a leading Iranian actress to 90 lashes for "criticising" their regime....

Sunnis and other Muslims fear them. The leadership are devout followers of a death cult within the Shia faith which believes the world will only be purified in one great apocalypse followed by the reinstatement of Shia Islam worldwide.

The Iranians have form. We all have reason to fear this re-run of the 1930s-40s.

wrinkled weasel

The Iran/Saudi case may have similarities with Lockerbie.

We still do not know the extent of Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi's links to Gaddafi, or his guilt over the blowing up of Pan-Am flight 103.

What strikes me is the way these regimes work. Are they, for instance, a loose confraternity of mad men, with a figurehead, or is there a strict hierarchy where only the leader can take the decision to commit international atrocities?

It is important to understand this distinction between semi-autonomous factions and a multi-layered state offensive.

With Al Qaeda, which has been described as "more of an idea than a movement". This makes it difficult to target the enemy of course.

Let's look at it another way: What if, here in the UK, a group of vigilantes went around tarring and feathering criminals who were caught in acts of violence and burglary. What if society identified a particular scapegoat and turned a blind eye to what happened to them?
Would you really worry too much if this scapegoat was targeted? Would you spend much time trying to find out who meted out the punishment? Or would you see this as payback time and not ask too many questions?

As long as "The Enemy" is defined in emotional, rather than tactical terms, random acts of international terrorism will cannot be seen as official policy, but merely an attitude of mind.

Heartless Perry

Clearly time for the H2B to make a futile token gesture - for PR purposes only of course!

[BTW anything more from that other token gesture with the Mother's Union?}

Maggie

In the absence of proof, so long as this story is confined to the realm of claims and allegations, I think I'll take it with a large dose of salt. In the past these sort of unconfirmed scare stories have usually been invented with a view to selling arms, 'defence' systems and all manner of military hardware. Perhaps the US thinks a new cold war, with Iran chief as protagonist, is just the thing their economy needs.

PayDirt

The extremists in 1930/40’s Japan joined the general conflagration set off by Hitler’s mob. Today there is every chance that Iran aggregation can be isolated. Then it is a matter of time before a Gorbachev figure comes to power and brings Iran back into the International community. As far as the mad mullahs go, seems to me God does not like people who presume to do His work, they usually get damned.

Hexhamgeezer

What is likely is that Iran has sanctioned the release of Gilad Shalit through its Hamas proxies to try to counter this news.

Cogito Ergosum

The Stuxnet computer virus caused Iranian centrifuges to race out of control.

The "Kill the Saudis" journalism virus caused the western press to race out of control.

Baron

The Ahmedinejad fruitcake and his Revolutionary Guard may care not about a potential holocaust, other Iranian pyramids of power have more common sense, the plot seems bizarre, the full revelation of it by the Administration smells of an attempt by the Obama’s crew to divert the attention of the US public from the problems at home like jobs, suppressed growth, debt and stuff, it’s the start of electioneering for the presidential election, one would do well to wait for the evidence to be presented in the courts.

Dimoto

Those complaining about "possible censorship" on the Coffee-House, should rest easy.

If "Ricky's" post can be put up, then I guess pretty much anything is acceptable.

DavidH

Not to play down any threat from Iran, but this particular case has a number of holes.

It appears the arrest was the result of a sting operation of the kind that has been used before to foil "terrorist plots". But when one of the key plotters turns out to be a law enforcemnt undercover operative, you wonder would the plot have ever existed without that operative?

Also, the case started as a narcotics operation. If the narcotics case and possible arrests there were compromised in order to go after a "terrorist plot" that would not have existed without the undercover operative then you have to ask if the correct priorities are being applied.

Thirdly, you have to question the jump from "somebody from Iran was involved" to "an Iranian plot", implying a plot was hatched and sanctioned at the highest levels of the Iranian state.

The case seems interesting not for what it tells us about the Iranian threat but what it shows about US law enforcement tactics as applied to terrorism. Usual law enforcement can't hope to prevent every crime but with terrorism this is what they are tasked with doing - with resulting effects on the resources allocated and methods used.