Analysts question authenticity of alleged assassination plot

TEHRAN,Oct.15(MNA)--Security experts and political analysts have expressed serious doubts about U.S. officials’ claim that they recently thwarted a plot by two men linked to Iran’s security agencies to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir.
One U.S. national security analyst called it “amateur hour” and compared it to the work of the “Keystone Kops.” Another described it as a “fusion-cuisine salad bar of U.S. security anxieties.” A third said it seemed “more Johnny English than Jason Bourne.”

The “plot” to assassinate a Saudi diplomat in Washington, D.C., allegedly hatched by an Iranian-American with ties to an Iranian paramilitary organization, the Qods Brigade, and revealed Tuesday with great fanfare by the Obama administration has been greeted with skepticism by experts on Iran and intelligence operations.

“We spent the day here trying to figure this one out, and it just doesn’t make any sense,” Ken Gude, the managing director for National Security at the Center for American Progress told The Huffington Post on Wednesday.

Many experts said the plot lacked the complexity and sophistication that assassination attempts by intelligence agencies would be expected to have.

“The amateurish nature of this plot is shocking, and its audacity is shocking,” said Vali Nasr, an Iranian-American who served in the State Department during the Obama administration.

Like many of the people who raised questions about the story, a number of current and former U.S. government officials were also skeptical.

FBI Director Robert Mueller described the indictment as reading “like the pages of a Hollywood script.”

Former CIA operative Robert Baer expressed skepticism about the allegation that Iran was behind the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.

“Who cares about Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Ali Jubeir, anyway? He’s not a royal. He’s probably not the main interlocutor between the United States and Saudi Arabia,” Baer, who is a former Middle East CIA field officer and TIME.com’s intelligence columnist, said.

Academic Juan Cole said that the facts of the matter make it look like it was not really run by the Iranian government, mainly because of its sloppiness.

Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar wrote on Thursday: “No one ever lost money betting on the dull predictability of the U.S. government. Just as Occupy Wall Street is firing imaginations all across the spectrum -- piercing the noxious revolving door between government and casino capitalism -- Washington brought us all down to earth, sensationally advertising an Iranian cum Mexican cartel terror plot straight out of The Fast and the Furious movie franchise. The potential victim: Adel al-Jubeir, the ambassador in the U.S. of that lovely counter-revolutionary mecca, Saudi Arabia.”

Escobar added, “FBI Director Robert Mueller insisted the Iran-masterminded terror plot ‘reads like the pages of a Hollywood script’. It does. And quite a sloppy script at that. Fast and Furious duo Paul Walker/Vin Diesel wouldn’t be caught dead near it.”

Journalist Gareth Porter on Thursday wrote on the Inter Press Service website: “While the Barack Obama administration vows to hold the Iranian government ‘accountable’ for the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, the legal document describing evidence in the case provides multiple indications that it was mainly the result of a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sting operation.”

A former FBI official familiar with procedures in such cases told the Inter Press Service the FBI would normally record all such conversations touching on the possibility of terrorism.

The absence of quotes from any of those meetings suggests that they do not support the case being made by the FBI and the Obama administration.