Washington and Tehran: Truths and Lies

If the American news reports are correct about an Iranian conspiracy to assassinate Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador in Washington, then the Iranians accused of involvement are entitled to a fair trial and sentence, for the crimes of both foolishness and idiocy as well as on the accusation of attempting to carry out a terrorist plot targeted at the ambassador of a foreign state on the soil of a third country. An attempted operation like this would cause numerous difficulties for Iran without any worthwhile results, even if it succeeded — whoever assassinated an ambassador, and whatever the impact of the murder of an ambassador, any ambassador, on a state’s policy, orientation, alliances and internal balance of power.

If the Iranian news reports are correct, then the entire story, from A to Z, is an “American fabrication” aimed at damaging Saudi-Iranian relations and causing a gradual escalation of tensions with Iran, to cover up the crises and difficulties — political, economic and social — of the Obama administration on the eve of the elections and the approaching start of the campaigns. If this is the case, then, the Americans responsible are the ones who are entitled a fair trial and sentence for the same crime, no more, no less.

Whether real or contrived, escalation between the U.S. and Iran will have, depending on the timing and context, dangerous and harmful repercussions — not just for Iran, but for the U.S. as well. With regard to timing, this came on the eve of America’s withdrawal from Iraq, during which time the American forces, or what’s left of them, will be widespread there and at their weakest. This could make them an easy target for Iranian attacks, directly or indirectly. Iran could push to tighten its grip on Iraq and escalate the confrontation with Washington and its allies there, eliminating what is left of the era of the American occupation of Iraq and its aftermath.

With regards to context, in particular regional context, America’s escalation will push Iran to mobilize all their energy and efforts to rescue its ally Syria, preparing for larger subsequent confrontations, making the entire region a political and security — and perhaps military — battlefield. I think that the reports of an “Iranian conspiracy” have fallen coolly and peacefully upon the Syrian regime, the overthrow of which Washington has been trying to mobilize support for.

For all these reasons we find it difficult to believe the American narrative, not because Iran is too “elevated” to undertake actions of this type or support practices like this, but because the whole operation was extremely amateurish, and it’s hard to believe that a state of Iran’s level could be involved in it.

But on the other hand, Washington’s audacity in officially releasing the details of their narrative will force them to enter into confrontations on numerous fronts, including the possibility of resorting to the “military option” to punish this rogue state. Does it then make sense that American politicians, with their inconstancy and opportunism, would entangle their country in a crisis open to this level of danger for election reasons or to cover up their political and economic failures, to the extent declared in the official Iran statement?

For all these reasons we find it difficult to believe the “fabrication” story, which the Iranian narrative is founded on. However, American history — recent history, not ancient — prevents us from completely excluding the possibility of these kinds of games. Didn’t Colin Powell, under the roof of the United Nations and in sight of the entire world, deliver a series of lies and fabrications which he said were irrefutable evidence, evidence that could be neither doubted nor interpreted, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and maintained links to al-Qaida and global terrorism? Why should we believe that “Washington’s evidence” this time is different from “Powell’s evidence”?

There’s no doubt that there’s more than meets the eye to this, and we probably won’t know for a long time exactly what happened, how, why or who was responsible. It appears that we are not the only ones who doubt the American narrative; the British paper The Independent spoke of the long fingers of neo-conservatives and Israel supporters in the U.S. being behind Iran’s involvement, and said that it was an operation by the Mafia and drug trafficking gangs where the suspects happened to be of Iranian origin. These figures are always trying to provoke the United States into war with Iran, having deep interests in the involvement of Washington and Tehran in a comprehensive conflict, and in those weak of faith, the entrance of Tehran and Riyadh into a war between a criminal and a desert, a war which began 30 years ago and could continue for 30 more.