U.S. government alleges Iranian involvement in plot to assassinate Saudi ambassador. But something stinks.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you've likely heard by now, it is being reported that Iran has been implicated in an assassination plot in the U.S.:

FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a "significant terrorist act in the United States" tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today.

The officials said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C. Bombings of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were also discussed, according to the U.S. officials.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in an announcement today that the plan was "conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran" by a faction of the government and called it a "flagrant" violation of U.S. and international law.

"The U.S. is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions," Holder said. 

Wait... what? Really? Iran? Terrorism? Against a high-value Saudi target in the U.S.? Something doesn't seem right.

As Max Fisher asks at The Atlantic -- and more people need to be asking this -- "would Iran really want to blow up the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.?"

Assuming that Iran is thinking rationally, the answer is obvious: No.

If they would go through all the trouble to organize a bombing attack on U.S. soil -- no easy thing to do -- why target someone so low-level? For that matter, why launch an attack on U.S. soil at all, something Iran has never done in the tumultuous decade since September 11? Why now, as opposed to, for example, during the height of the Iraq war? Why incur the wrath of the U.S. now, so soon after releasing the U.S. hikers detained in Tehran? (Their release was a modest and long overdue concession, but one that suggests the path of Iranian diplomacy.)

And why get involved with Mexican drug cartels? Is that really someplace where Iran has good contacts these days? As Ken Gude of the Center for American Progress asked, "Wiring money into US? Talking about plot on phone? Does that sound like an intel service to you?"

All that said, it really is possible that this is exactly what Holder says it is. Stranger things have happened, and Iran may have simply made an enormous, if out-of-character and obviously self-hurting, blunder. It's also possible that the two Iranian men really were planning to bomb the ambassador, but are either rogue members of the Revolutionary Guards or not really members at all. Clearly, there is much more information in this story that has not yet been made public. Maybe that information, if it ever comes out, will back up the official U.S. version -- which the White House already says it will use to escalate sanctions -- and maybe it will tell a different story. But, either way, the story as we now know it would have been unlikely to persuade Iran's leaders that this was a good idea.

It's just not in Iran's interests to be involved with something like this. And, indeed, there's no evidence -- at least no evidence that has been released publicly -- that Iran's government was behind this alleged plot:

The Justice Department statement notes that two men "have been charged in New York for their alleged participation in a plot directed by elements of the Iranian government to murder the Saudi Ambassador to the United States with explosives while the Ambassador was in the United States."

But what elements? What does that even mean?

One of the men is an Iranian-American. The other is "an Iran-based member of Iran's Qods Force, which is a special operations unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that is said to sponsor and promote terrorist activities abroad." Okay, but does this mean the plot was officially sanctioned -- and that therefore Iran needs to be held accountable "for its actions," as Holder put it?

The statement notes that there are "Iran-based co-conspirators." Okay, maybe, but it seems far more likely that these two men and whatever shadowy co-conspirators they had in Iran had gone rogue, perhaps with rogue elements of Qods supporting them, than that this was some officially sanctioned operation. Indeed:

Senior Obama administration officials said the U.S. currently does not have any information indicating that either Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad necessarily knew about the assassination plot and said the U.S. will pursue a path of response that would not include the possibility of an armed conflict with Iran. 

So, then, what? Other countries with whom the U.S. has been on generally good terms (e.g., Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) have rogue elements operating within "the government." Iran just happens to be... well, not a friend, and so an easy target. (And let's not forget that the U.S. even kills its own citizens without anything resembling due process. President Obama has made assassination a core component of his ongoing war on terror.) 

As Steve Clemons writes, "[t]his alleged assassination plot simultaneously may indicate both the intensity of anti-Saudi passion among Iran's senior leaders and a greater aggressiveness by Iran against the U.S." But what if there's much less to it than Holder and the U.S. government would have us believe? Even it's not true that the story is pure fabrication, as Iran suggests -- there may very well have been some sort of plot, after all -- what if the allegations are being trumped up for political reasons? Bush-Cheney did that all the time. Do we really think Obama is above such things?

(What possible political reasons? To suck up to the Saudis? To suck up to Israel? -- especially important given 2012, and Obama has already vetoed Palestinian statehood. To vilify Iran even more? For Obama to show that he and his administration are tough on terrorism? Who knows.)

Think Progress has a couple of updates:

-- "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview with the AP that the alleged terror plot, which she said 'crosses a line,' also 'creates a potential for international reaction that will further isolate Iran.' The U.S. is in discussions with other countries about potential diplomatic moves to hold Iran to account." 

But shouldn't there be more evidence to justify any such international moves?

-- "'One thing that's important to remember,... these are serious allegations but at this point they are just allegations,' said CNN's Reza Sayah, 'And if you look at this regime's history, it doesn't fit their M.O. Is it possible that they were involved? Certainly. Do these allegations need to be proven, do we need to see more details? I would say certainly before jumping to conclusions.'"

Yes, exactly, allegations. But jumping to conclusions is what people are doing, and how could they not? The Justice Department statement is somewhat qualified in its claims, but the public message is that Iran was directly behind the plot. And the media, needless to say, are running wild with it. Sexy stories like this don't come around every day, after all, and they're in the business of selling fear, not nuance, of engaging in idle speculation, not rational examination of the facts.

Look, I'm not saying there wasn't a plot, and, if there was, I'm not saying Iran wasn't involved in it. Maybe it was, if not officially at least through rogue elements with ties to terrorism, rogue elements either acting on their own or with the unofficial blessing of someone higher up the food chain.

But something stinks here, and it wouldn't surprise me if this just faded away, political points having been made.