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Looks Like that Iranian Plot Was Real After All

(Foreign Policy) Daniel Byman - Incredulity has been the most common response to reports that Iran plotted with Mexican drug traffickers to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Adel al-Jubeir, at a Washington, D.C. restaurant. But there are plenty of reasons to think that the Islamic Republic's senior leadership was responsible for the plot. The suspected Iranian agent, Mansour Arbabsiar, met several times in Iran with Ali Gholam Shakuri, a senior member of Iran's paramilitary Quds Force, a special unit of the country's Revolutionary Guards that has carried out many terrorist attacks. Shakuri in turn informed the head of the Quds Force, who reports directly to Iran's Supreme Leader. There are also intercepted phone calls between Arbabsiar and Shakuri, which is hard evidence to dismiss. And then there is the money - $100,000 - transferred for the plot. The jury is still out on who ordered the plot, at least in the unclassified world, but there is good reason to suspect Iran's senior leaders, who have been tied to assassination attempts in the past. Giving Iran a pass on this outrageous plot just because the operation went awry would be a mistake. And responding with a passive shrug or weak-kneed condemnations may look to Iran like a green light for a second try. The writer is a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a senior fellow with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
2011-10-31 00:00:00
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