Too Hollywood to be True

An amateurish elite military unit, an unclear political purpose and a huge risk for the perpetrator — even U.S. experts doubt the alleged Iranian assassination plots. Washington has yet to give any proof of Tehran’s involvement in the plan.

FBI Director Robert. S. Mueller has probably come to regret his moody comment describing the allegedly foiled plot by Iranian agents to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington as being straight out of a “Hollywood script.” He went on to add that the plan was very real. But to most experts the plot appears to be too adventurous to be true.

Who would have benefited from the attack in Washington?

As the Washington Post revealed on Thursday, even U.S. investigators and government officials initially had serious doubts about whether the highest levels of the Iranian regime could really be implicated in the conspiracy. The planning looks far too amateurish to be attributed to the doings of the Quds Force, a military unit which is considered highly professional, which the Italian expert Nicola Pedde terms “the elite of the elite” of Iran’s armed forces. It is far too inconceivable to figure out what political goal Iran might have wished to achieve through that operation. The hazards of exposure and the political consequences are too dangerous — if the assassination plan had been a success it would have constituted a casus belli.

Moreover, the story seems preposterous: the accused car dealer Manssor Arbabsiar, while trying to hire a killer commando from the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas, fell into the trap of a DEA-informant who happened to be a relative of one of his friends. High ranking U.S. officials were trying to brief journalists on all those issues, while American diplomats in New York were busy informing rows of their colleagues from allied countries.

Anyhow, White House spokesperson Jay Carney chose an even more careful phrasing than the one used by Attorney General Eric Holder. While Holder had spoken of “elements of the Iranian government” having planned, directed and financed the preparations for the assassination, Carney was not willing — even when asked — to go beyond the description “the plotting of this attempted assassination happened at senior levels of the Quds Force.”

Different explanations and interpretations

Other administration officials conceded that there was no hard evidence suggesting that the head of the Revolutionary Guards Qassim Suleimani or the spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were in the know, while at the same time adding that that was “more than probable.”

In Washington, among diplomats and intelligence officials one can find different explanations for the contradictory statements of U.S. officials about whether there is something in the smoking gun.

According to one version, the U.S. is in possession of intelligence that goes beyond what has been made public, which incriminates at least the heads of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. It could be that in order to protect their sources or out of tactical considerations, the intelligence services are — at least for now — compelled to refrain from revealing the whole picture, which has lead the administration to make those accusations and put officers of the Quds Force on the sanctions list. At least this would explain why some western diplomats appeared to be convinced that the accusations against Iran were sound.

“To unify the world behind a common response”

According to another interpretation, when something appears to be implausible or contradicts known patterns at first sight, it doesn’t have to be completely false. Iran, put under political pressure by the upheavals in the Middle East, could be pursuing a more aggressive policy. Using proxy organizations like the radical-Islamist Hezbollah is typical for the Quds Force, which are concerned about covering their tracks.

For Iran to get involved with a drug cartel is simply due to the fact that the Revolutionary Guards lack more reliable partners for operations on U.S. soil.

According to another theory, it was not the Revolutionary Guards who recruited Arbabsiar, but rather Arbabsiar who forced himself on his cousin when he visited Iran. The moderately successful businessman had only one intention: to make some money. However, this does not explain why the Revolutionary Guards should have gotten involved.

Washington is countering those doubts by stressing that for months U.S. investigators have been accumulating evidence which by now is unrefutable. There were certainly intercepted phone calls, there were transfers of $100,000 from Iran, an advance payment for the killer squad. Apparently a lot of skeptics in Washington were thus convinced. In any case, the U.S. government is trying to “unite the world in the isolation of and dealing with the Iranians,” Vice President Joe Biden said. He explicitly mentioned new U.N. sanctions and added that “nothing has been taken off the table.” An announcement from Saudi Arabia said simply that Iran must be held accountable.