"I, personally don't think that the Iranian leadership is involved in this. "

Imagine that...we agree on something. :)

yer alright, Santa...I don't care what Putin says about you. ;)

I don't think this is made up by a bunch of jewish conspirators though, I think it was planned, had some connection to a fringe or former Iranian operative, and politicians ran with it.

I read a very interesting point that this might be related to an Iranian operative's side project dealing with drug smuggling and the Saudi target might be the result of recent Saudi crackdowns on narcotics. I don't know enough to agree or disagree but I would think the truth is closer to this than what is in the news atm.

"Two Choksys wrote the article, one is a woman"

I didn't catch that. Thanks for the correction.

"I know women are an alien species in Ron Paulie circles. "

That's an odd insult (?), and not particularly accurate to begin with. How much time exactly have you spent "in Ron Paulie circles"? Two of the three active organizers for the local Ron Paul meetup are female, and the attendance at the last public Ron Paul event I attended (the Reagan Library debate) was about 35-40% female.

"and how do you know that "no Iranian wants this?""

Well, I don't have polling data if that's what you're asking for, but I don't think a country which lost a million people in one war not too long ago is going to be particularly eager to get into a scrape-up with the world's lone superpower which already has them completely surrounded.

"No, the US has been trying to make nice with Iran for years. Iran & US are friends geopolitically"

This is one of the more bizarre claims I've seen you make in this forum.

"Iran helps the US with Afghanistan and openly collaborates on Iraq."

Um... Dubya called Iran part of the "Axis of Evil", and DC was constantly abuzz with rumors of impending and inevitable war with Iran during his reign. Several minor events in those years were played up in the media as casus bellis (thank God none of them stuck). And the American political and military establishment constantly complains that Iran has been funding, training, and equipping the insurgency in Iraq to kill American soldiers. Now we have this phony assassination conspiracy and calls for more sanctions and God knows what else. That doesn't sound like "collaboration" to me.

Another perspective:

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/10/11/iranian-terror-plot-fake-fake-fake/

"The long narrative spun by the indictment tells us everything but what we really need to know, which is: how is it that these two Iranian “terrorists” just happened to meet up with a Mexican drug cartel assassin who just happened to be a longtime DEA informant? I guess that would be giving too much away: far better to spice up the story with scary details, such as the conversation between one of the alleged plotters and the informant, in the course of which the former says “If you have to blow up the restaurant and kill a hundred Americans, well then f*ck ‘em!”

The credibility rating of this story, taken on its face, is close to zero. Let’s say the Iranians really were plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador on American soil: would they contract it out to the Mexican Mafia, send all kinds of traceable money wires from Iran to the US, and not care if they killed a hundred Americans in the process of achieving their goal? Or would they send some fanatic, who would not only do it for free but also eliminate himself (or herself)? This flimsy cock-eyed tale is so transparently fake that it’s an embarrassment to the United States of America. Can’t our spooks do better than this?"

"Well, I don't have polling data if that's what you're asking for, but I don't think a country which lost a million people in one war not too long ago is going to be particularly eager to get into a scrape-up with the world's lone superpower which already has them completely surrounded."

Hmm yes, not like that happened before, in 193, and we arn't talking about majority rules we are talking about a hardline faction. They are called hardline for a reason...

"This is one of the more bizarre claims I've seen you make in this forum."

How about you read it in context of this thread, maybe with what Darwyn said on the first page.

The plot might not involve the Central Iranian government, but it is not a fake.

1939

From Tolstoy's last cite:

The key to understanding just how fake this story is can be found in the New York Times report, which informs us:

“For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents, Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District, said in the news conference. ‘So no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere,’ he said, ‘and no one was actually in ever in any danger.’”

Translation: the whole thing is phony from beginning to end.

This is another one of US law enforcement’s manufactured “anti-terrorist” triumphs, where the feds set somebody up, fabricate a “crime” out of thin air, and then proceed to “solve” a case that never really existed to begin with. This has been the general pattern of our “anti-terrorist” operations in the US since the beginning

‘So no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere,’ he said, ‘and no one was actually in ever in any danger.’

lol...so Biden and King are using thought crimes to justify war now?

It's fake, Santa.

doubt it

if the United States, state and local governments have used thought crimes for a hundred years in conspiracy cases, then yes.

and again, there wont be a war

"That's an odd insult (?), and not particularly accurate to begin with. How much time exactly have you spent "in Ron Paulie circles"?"

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/donordemCID.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00005906

I'd say it's accurate.

"Dubya called Iran part of the "Axis of Evil", and DC was constantly abuzz with rumors of impending and inevitable war with Iran during his reign. Several minor events in those years were played up in the media as casus bellis (thank God none of them stuck)."

And yet Iran was enthusiastically supportive of the Iraq war. The main political parties in occupied Iraq are Iranian trained, funded, and directed (Dawa & the Supreme Islamic Council). The main instigator of the Iraq war, the Iraqi exile Chalabi, was an Iranian client. Iran quietly laid the groundwork for the invasion by spreading lies through Chalabi. Iraqi resistance forces complain bitterly about Iran's collaborative role.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LJ21Ak01.html
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=33264

The US admits that Iran has helped play a key role in "stabilizing" Afghanistan. Karzai has repeatedly said that Iran is a great friend of his country. Iran collaborated with the US extensively in the war to oust the Taliban, telling its surrogates in the Northern Alliance to follow US orders, closing off its borders to the Taliban trying to escape, and promising to return any US servicemen who have to land in Iran. The US has engaged in plenty of informal meetings with Iran about setting up transportation infrastructure to make it easier to facilitate the movement of supplies and troops in Afghanistan.

For much of this year there has been great talk of US-Iranian reprochment. Iran's response to US connivance with the Saudi invasion of Bahrain was very restrained. Indeed headlines are alight that this "spy" scandal has thrown a knot in efforts to bring the US and Iran closer together.

"During the 1990s, President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was keen to improve Iran's relations with the West. The radicals, and possibly elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, who were bitter over his favoring technocrats over Muslim revolutionaries, were intent on sabotaging his efforts. For example, in July 1991, the Iranian vice president announced that several European heads of states were to visit Iran. But, in just the next month, the Shah of Iran's last prime minister, Shapur Bakhtiar, was assassinated in Paris, preventing such visits. And in December 1992, separatist Kurdish leaders in Berlin were assassinated in a restaurant called Mikonos.
Fmr. diplomat: Iran plot makes no sense
Alleged plot against Saudi tied to Iran
'Committed to holding Iran accountable'
Iran diplomat denies terror plot

A German judge implicated Iran's minister of intelligence and even Rafsanjani himself in this Berlin assassination, largely on the testimony of Iran's former president, Abolhassan Bani Sadr. This raises the question why Rafsanjani, who wanted to improve relations with the West, would engage in acts that were certain to ruin stronger ties. One answer is that his domestic and foreign enemies conducted these killings to sabotage him."

Sound familiar?

Anyway, on the Axis of Evil thing. The US quickly retreated and clarified that they "didn't really mean it" about Iran.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/14/1044927804372.html

Iran is Israel's enemy, not America's (which demonstrates how little Israel really influences American foreign policy). There may be people in the US who want the US to be hostile to Iran because they are sympathetic with Israeli security concerns, but that hasn't been US policy ever.

Iran is not America's enemy? After they supported insurgents in Iraq who killed American soldiers? How are you not an enemy after that? After they took over our embassy in an act of barbarism and total disregard for international custom? After they continue to pursue nuclear weapons, which can only destabilize the region and harm American interests?

I think it would be a terrible idea to actually attack Iran (barring a response to one from them, of course), but to say that Iran is not America's enemy is foolish. The Islamic Republic has defined itself from its inception as an opponent to the United States. Does "Great Satan" count for nothing?

knew this Putin Invictus alliance wouldn't last

I'm happy to agree with Putin33 when he's right. That's just not terribly often.

"I'd say it's accurate."

Um... according to this website, EVERY presidential candidate got more contributions from men than women. Even Cynthia McKinney (I suspect Hillary might've gotten more, but there doesn't seem to be a way to pull up that stat).

"And yet Iran was enthusiastically supportive of the Iraq war. The main political parties in occupied Iraq are Iranian trained, funded, and directed (Dawa & the Supreme Islamic Council). The main instigator of the Iraq war, the Iraqi exile Chalabi, was an Iranian client."

There's no denying that Iran came out ahead, but it certainly wasn't planned that way. That result is simply proof of the Bush regime's incompetence, not of any coordinated plan to put Iran in the catbird seat as the premiere local power in the Middle East (which certainly would've driven the Gulf satraps into revolt). Chalabi quickly fell out of favor with the American Viceroy after the invasion and was even arrested at one point if memory serves.

"The US admits that Iran has helped play a key role in "stabilizing" Afghanistan. Karzai has repeatedly said that Iran is a great friend of his country."

Politicians constantly make nicey-nice comments about each other. It means exactly nothing, as anyone who plays diplomacy should know.

"Iran collaborated with the US extensively in the war to oust the Taliban"

Iran had been fighting a low-intensity war with the Taliban since 1998, and had their very own warlord in Herat (Ismail Khan - who while being somewhat cooperative with the US was eventually forced off his turf a few years after the invasion). Iran was quite happy to see the US swoop in and smash the Taliban, but that doesn't make them 'collaborators'. Khatami made a number of diplomatic overtures to the United States at the time, which were all rudely ignored. There was a real opportunity for a thawing in relations between the US and Iran at the time, but unfortunately this did not happen. The failure of this outreach, the invasion of Iraq, and the constant threats against Iran were why the Iranian people dumped Khatami and elected Ahmadinejad instead who was the 'tough on America' candidate.

Actions speak louder than words. The reason why they found Iranian weapons killing US soldiers was because of a shift in strategies during the later part of Bush's term, in which the occupiers relied more on Sunni collaborators (so-called Awakening Movement) and started engaging in raids on the Mahdi Army. So, what happens is the militia have their own agenda but had been getting Iranian weapons all along during their time as eager collaborators. Those attacks didn't prevent Mahdi politicians from propping up the puppet government, nor did it stop Sadr from allowing US occupiers from clearing out Sadr City. The Sciri Party is wholly owned by the Iranians, and is the most loyal collaborating force with the occupation.

If you believe that, you can believe anything.

What do you mean believe? It's not even denied by those in power. Why does the Iraqi resistance continually blast Iran for collaboration? Just cuz?

The Madhi Army is a force which has killed Americans and is hostile to American interests. Their participation in the government is purely opportunistic. Iran supports them. Therefore, Iran is an enemy.

Your opposition to the Iraq War is keeping you from seeing that Iran is working against us there. Since you are sympathetic at first principles (US out of Iraq) you can't see them as "enemies." Good grief.

The Mahdi Army has been praised by the US occupation forces for their help.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-03-16/news/17235036_1_al-sadr-mahdi-army-sadr-city

Anyway, Khalizad, one of the big wigs in Bush's mideast policy, has long advocated a pro-Iranian foreign policy, as early as before the first gulf war.

You're not going to bother addressing anything I've said and just use whatever you can to dismiss it. So now it's because I'm "anti-war".

Cherry picking and stopped clocks.

Right, cherry picking, like your reliance on the embassy incident of 1979 or the Great Satan rhetoric of Ayatollah Khomeini who has long since died.