Though I know nothing significant will come of this, it's still amazing that the Iranians had the balls to try and pull this off in DC.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-iran-tied-terror-plot-washington-dc-disrupted/story?id=14711933
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Iran Tries to Knock off the Saudi Ambassador in D.C.
- Thread starter eas7888
- Start date
Though I know nothing significant will come of this, it's still amazing that the Iranians had the balls to try and pull this off in DC.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-iran-tied-terror-plot-washington-dc-disrupted/story?id=14711933
Wow, they've got some balls on them to try (allegedly) to pull this off.
Well, true. Unless they openly admit to it (which they currently deny being behind it), we'll just be stuck speculating.
The brass has apparently known about this for some time. Clearly a de-escalatory tact is being taken. It will be interesting to see the info and analysis as it comes out on this story, but there aren't a whole lot of options left in the "stick" category short of military action, which nobody in the executive branch has a stomach for. Frankly, I'm surprised this hasn't blown up on AW more than it has. Just for argument's sake, I'm not sure what a proportional military response would be for something like this when nothing really happened. Ultimately, I think that one of the challenges of dealing with Iran's constant trouble-making is the fact that we've pretty much already maxed out in the sanctions department, so the only alternative would be military action. While issuing them a well-deserved spanking might be satisfying, I think if one does the cost-benefit calculus on that, we're ultimately better for playing defense on this one for the time being.
Brett
Brett
Apparently the Iranian "assassin" was a used car dealer back in Corpus. And no, I didn't know the guy.
http://www.caller.com/news/2011/oct/11/corpus-christi-man-among-2-arrested-alleged-plot-k/
http://www.caller.com/news/2011/oct/11/corpus-christi-man-among-2-arrested-alleged-plot-k/
This doesn't make any sense whatsoever. What could anyone in Iran possibly hope to accomplish by setting this up? A bona fide act of war against the only military superpower in the world in order to effect the death of a few ambassadors to that superpower and their staff members? WTF?
An appropriate "proportional" response would be a joint Alpha Strike by USN, Saudi & Israeli a/c wiping out all Iranian naval facilities on the Arabian Sea (sometimes known as the Persian Gulf), their missile sites and airfields. If anything is still moving or floating afterwards, we could let the Air Force mop up. JMHO.
The Saudis are rattling sabers pretty hard over this. This is something to keep an eye on...it kind of makes a few articles I've read recently about how the Iranians are just "misunderstood" worth more as toilet paper than for their analysis.
Yeah, this one kind of leaves me scratching my head. I don't see what Iran gains by knocking off an ambassador. Maybe they do, but I sure don't. Like Brett said, the military option would probably be gratifying but I'm not sure it would be worth the cost at this point. I am curious to see what the Saudis do, but for some reason I just don't think they're going to start shooting anything with an Iranian flag.
Heard some folks talking today that the Saudis may start flexing their financial muscles to fund, for example, the Syrian opposition movement, among other things which would make life for Iran a bit more complicated.
Brett
First off, I don't think we of an American/Western thought process can comprehend the 'rationality' of many of Iran's actions.
But a couple of thoughts come to mind:
1. It could come down to something as simple as Suni/Shia in-fighting.
2. It could be to send a direct message to the Saudi King and gov't that they are all at risk, even in the United States. They need to back-away from the West and get closer to Iran.
3. It could be directed towards the U.S. If the plot was not uncovered and a Mexican national killed a foreign diplomat in our backyard, we may escalate our operations in Mexico which could result in us being in a 4th shooting war (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya + Mexico?) That would cause more civil unrest in the United States, drive us deeper into debt and Iran gets to sit back and smile....
4. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad are just nut-jobs who like to stir up hate and discontent whenever the opportunity arises.
Finally, ask yourself if we would really go to war with Iran over this? I doubt it. Iranians stormed an embassy and took hundreds of hostages which is a WAY bigger act of war than this and we didn't invade. (I realize we attempted a military operation to liberate the hostages, but that does not constitute retaliation for sacking an embassy and taking diplomats and families hostage)
This strikes me as a really amatuerish attempt by some folks who know a thing or two about good terrorist tradecraft. Might have been an independent 'target of opportunity' that the Iranians thought was good enough to give some finanacial support to and see where it went.
As for the Saudi reaction, they have already been growing more wary of Iran with the 'Arab spring' threatening or even sweeping away some old allies of theirs and Iran trying to position itself in places the Saudis see as their backyard, pretty literally in some cases. The long Iranian-Saudi 'cold war' just got a lot hotter, it will be 'interesting' to see how it plays out in the next few months and years. From a geopolitical perspective it does gain us a little bit of ground that we lost with the Saudis after we said Mubarak should step down in Egypt, gotta look at the bright side of things sometimes......
As for the Saudi reaction, they have already been growing more wary of Iran with the 'Arab spring' threatening or even sweeping away some old allies of theirs and Iran trying to position itself in places the Saudis see as their backyard, pretty literally in some cases. The long Iranian-Saudi 'cold war' just got a lot hotter, it will be 'interesting' to see how it plays out in the next few months and years. From a geopolitical perspective it does gain us a little bit of ground that we lost with the Saudis after we said Mubarak should step down in Egypt, gotta look at the bright side of things sometimes......