Iran Bombing

[Captain.Sassy]

Who in the hell are you talking about?

Ignore the knee-jerk reaction to anything less than uncritical cheerleading.

Re. Jundullah US link: Wikipedia says that ABC re-investigated the story following revelations that one of the journalists that broke the story was unreliable. They never retracted the story, however, suggesting perhaps that their subsequent investigation corroborated the original story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jundallah#United_States

 

[Captain.Sassy]

"The Administration may have been willing to rely on dissident organizations in Iran even when there was reason to believe that the groups had operated against American interests in the past. The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers—in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties.” Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered one of the leading planners of the September 11th attacks, are Baluchi Sunni fundamentalists."

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all

Dunno what people think of Seymour Hersh. I understand he's been criticised, but here his source is named.

 

[Molinaro]

Pardalis: The Iranian regime presents a certain picture of the US to its people, ergo the US is definitely not covertly involved in any way in Iran or the region?

Come on man.

Hey, I'm not even saying that I think the US was behind the bombing. But I don't dismiss it as beyond the realm of the possibilities merely because the Iranian government puts out hyperbolic and sometimes paranoid propaganda about the US.

ETA: Nobody is listening to the boy who cried wolf, but zoologists are still interested in counting the wolves.

If you don't have an evidence then why would you jump to the conclusion that they are up to something? You are demonstrating conspiracy theory thinking to a T.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

- The original ABC report suggested US support for Jundullah
- The subsequent ABC investigation didn't find anything that made ABC retract the first story
- Seymour Hersh quoted an ex-CIA operative who worked in South Asia and the Middle East as saying that the US supported Jundullah
- A Jundullah member publically stated (albeit from Iranian custody) that the US supported Jundullah
- the State Department has admitted to working with Jundullah though it has denied funding the organization (also see GreNME's interesting point about the CIA possibly trading geographic information for intelligence)
- Voice of America broadcast an interview with a Jundullah member which identified him as a 'freedom fighter'
- Pakistan and Iran have been talking about 'speeding up' a pipeline through the Baluchestan region
- The US is trying to (and has been trying to for some time) economically isolate Iran
- The US has not placed Jundullah on the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (though they apparently considered it following the mosque bombing in May)
- Pakistani officials have been quoted as suggesting that Jundullah is receiving 'third party' assistance

So yes I'm a conspiracy nut for suggesting that the US could be or have been involved in supporting an anti-Iranian group to destabilize a strategically important region.

What sorts of things do you think the CIA does, exactly?

 

[Darth Rotor]

- The original ABC report suggested US support for Jundullah

And the US actively "supported" the Muj in Afghanistan twenty years ago.

So what?

The US still supports Saudi Arabia, home to reactionary Sunnis by the bushel basket. Are you implying that this attack was a an American directed hit? I don't think you are, but I am not sure. I am also pretty sure that President Obama would not be interested in such a move given his hopes of improved relationships with Iran over the next few years.

Question: What does "support" mean to you? Nice, vague, nebulous term you are using here. It can take various forms. The fun of dark side of the intelligence game includes dealing with people who you would not normally invite to tea.

The US supports, or has supported, variuos Kurdish groups. Some of these same groups then work with other Kurds who kill Turks, who are our NATO allies. The real world is messy, messy, messy.

What I think you are seeing here is the similar sort of linkage. No faction of this sort exists in isolation. Likewise, the US can't control these sorts of extranational groups, though at times the US attempts to influence them one way or another. As with the Muj, not always able to play puppet master.

Another point: there have been dissident groups in Iran since the Islamic Revolution. Should the US support those groups from outside Iran's borders? That's a good question, and the answer depends upon the tenor of US Iranian relationships. If, for example, President Clinton wanted to warm up US Iranian relationship ten years ago or so, would he not also then put out directions to the field to back off of, or reduce, certain flavors of support to anti regime factions in Iran?

Probably.

President Bush, the younger, had a less conciliatory approach to Iran, even though our nations found a few things to work on together in Afghanistan in the early days of that war. When a more hard line regime showed up, it perhaps made sense to increase support for anti regime dissidents in the area. Point of interest: regime change became a policy mode for that administration. Why? Global strategic sense of it was that the Bush administration was interested in seeing the Mid East transformed into an area more in step with the modern (read European/Western) world. (We can see what a smashing success that has been ... )

This particular attack: seems to be standard Sunni jihadi stuff. Makes Iran and US similar, I'd say, in terms of empathy toward one another in dealing with jihadis.

Be interesting to see how the policy makers in both countries deal with this. As for the blow hards in the media, and various conspiracy theorists, not as interested.

DR

 

[Eddie Dane]

Iranian Revolutionary Guards vow revenge on Britain and US

The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards today vowed to take revenge against Britain and the United States whom he claims backed the group that killed six commanders.

Linky

 

[Praktik]

I am still boggled by the almost blind supportthe Islamic Fundy regime in Iran gets from the Militant Left. Wiredest alliance since Hitler and Stalin made nice back in 1939.

Who in the hell are you talking about?

Ya must be characters in a comic book.

 

[GreNME]

Re. Jundullah US link: Wikipedia says that ABC re-investigated the story following revelations that one of the journalists that broke the story was unreliable. They never retracted the story, however, suggesting perhaps that their subsequent investigation corroborated the original story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jundallah#United_States

No, don't get the links I gave the wrong way. I'm not saying that the US gave any support in any real sense to the Jundullah group like the allegations described. As I pointed out, I don't have any direct-link web pages that describe outright whatever type of relationship that the US and the Jundullah militia have with each other. If there's anything to the links between the groups, that link would be information-based, not weapons or money.

I know the Hersch story pretty well, and as far as it's credibility I think there's probably a 50/50 chance of accuracy, depending on how close one thinks the relationship might be. My own personal opinion is that the relationship isn't likely that close.

As for what I think the CIA does, that's a whole thread in and of itself with lots of speculation along with a long history of known CIA activity. Regardless, pertinent to this subject I don't think the CIA has been too hands-on with regard to these militia groups and have instead been focused on information gathering and verification. There's likely a great deal more that the CIA is learning or has learned regarding the Iranian nuclear program, for example, that simply isn't available to the public sphere at this time because it isn't relevant to any outward US policies toward Iran (yet). Whether this includes some type of information about a weapons program I don't know, but I'm not inclined to think there's too much on that since Iran just doesn't seem that far along in production capability at this time (though I admit my information is limited). I'm sure they're keeping a close eye on the Iranian Army and the IRGC movements, at least as close an eye as they can. The CIA, as far as I know, is pretty stingy on information even with many friendly nations, so my guess is that they're not likely providing any great tactical information on Iran, though it's not hard to imagine that even small or broken information might seem incredibly helpful to a militia like the Jundullah.

Again, I'm not saying that the CIA (or the US as a whole) is supporting the Jundullah, I'm pointing out that this doesn't preclude our intelligence from being able to obtain information from them in a non-hostile manner. Pretty textbook "enemy of my enemy" stuff, but with our intelligence likely playing with their cards very close to the chest with any foreign group. Unlike conspiracy theorists, I do think our intelligence agencies are capable of learning from the past.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Iranian Revolutionary Guards vow revenge on Britain and US

The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards today vowed to take revenge against Britain and the United States whom he claims backed the group that killed six commanders.

Linky

Well, there we go, the IRG spoke up. What about the head of government? What about the Supreme Clerical Leader? Is Iran playing good cop/bad cop here? We shall see.

The Sunni minority in Baluchistan seem to have been at this defiant act for some years. Why this particular attack is suddenly the fault of the UK or US is unclear to me. Is it possible that this outburst from the IRG being politically motivated?

DR

 

[GreNME]

This particular attack: seems to be standard Sunni jihadi stuff. Makes Iran and US similar, I'd say, in terms of empathy toward one another in dealing with jihadis.

That was my thought on the matter. Of course, no doubt the IRGC isn't going to see it that way.

ETA:

The Sunni minority in Baluchistan seem to have been at this defiant act for some years. Why this particular attack is suddenly the fault of the UK or US is unclear to me, other than this outburst from the IRG being politically motivated.

Nail. Head.

 

[Praktik]

The main issue here is the distortive effect of politics on these kinds of discussions which leads to people framing these kinds of things either in a "see - America supports 'terrorism' too!" which leads to escalations in the tone of debate until everyone's backed themselves into their respective corner and we all leave the thread once the bickering finally dies out.

Our conversations on these matters would be so much more productive if we just finally left the retarded rhetoric of politicans on the issue of "terrorism" and refused to accept their narrow (and self-serving) constructions on the issue.

Now we don't have a smoking gun here but clearly, there is circumstantial evidence that this group has been supported by US intelligence in the past. That relationship may or may not be ongoing. The nature of intelligence work is such that plausible deniability will likely make it rather difficult to get the direct link.

Let's all take a deep breath. Iran is definitely in an antagonistic relationship with America. America sees Iran as a threat and as a destabilizing force in the region. Would it really be surprising to us if we did find a direct link between American intelligence organs and this group? Wouldn't this fit a rather classic pattern that is ubiquitous across nations and decades?

The only reason people may object to this is because the rhetoric of the War on Terror basically implies that America is "against" terror so how could Amercia ever really be supportive of a group that uses this tactic?

But it has in the past. Perhaps the most obvious example would be America's involvement in central and south america arming and supporting movements opposed to leftist forces. America saw a threat to its interest in these movements and thus supported antagonists to them which sometimes engaged in atrocities as the cycle of political violence escalated. Heck, the Northern Alliance carried out some pretty gruesome acts in the early days of this millenium.

Some would call this "state sponsorship of terror". I would.

Now, is this something to be critical of? Surely. Cases can be made and are made that the American self-interest overrides the ethical matters of funding violent groups that happen to work in that interest. I don't necessarily buy these arguments but the realist in me can at least appreciate the balance of power and national interest calculations behind these kinds of decisions.

But we shouldn't pretend that only State Enemies have interests they seek to protect through sometimes unethical means.

This is something all powerful states engage in when their vital interests are perceived to be at risk.

We should all remember that terror is a tactic, and not something that only American enemies engage in.

What we really need to do is move past the backward, Manichaean language of self-interested American pols that make talking about terrorism in any kind of accurate way impossible.

 

[Darth Rotor]

We should all remember that terror is a tactic, and not something that only American enemies engage in.

What we really need to do is move past the backward, Manichaean language of self-interested American pols that make talking about terrorism in any kind of accurate way impossible.

Let's do some out of the box thinking for a moment. I saw a related article this morning on Americans and Westerners being recruited by Al Q and a few other Jihadi sorts of groups, which has raised some Alarms in Germany. You don't have to be Islamist to blow up buildings, see Okla City or any number of places in London that IRA blew up. (Didn't they go after Crystal Palace at one point?)

Let's go one step further into a parallel development that might follow from the opposite perspective.

What are the odds of Iranian intelligence/Al QUds/Pasdaran providing support and assistance to Neo Nazis in America? Are Neo Nazis in America likely to engage in suicide bombing? What about American militant Muslims/prison gang groups? Would there not be a commonality of interest there? Note: the Al Quds crowd were actively involved in supporting Bosnian militants in Former Yugoslavia during the nineties. Is there any reason to believe they are not trying to find discrete/covert leads into anti ________ groups in America?

DR

 

[Praktik]

The Sunni minority in Baluchistan seem to have been at this defiant act for some years. Why this particular attack is suddenly the fault of the UK or US is unclear to me. Is it possible that this outburst from the IRG being politically motivated?

DR

Yep. Its the same kind of thing you hear from people who lay all Hamas acts of terror at the doorstep of Mossad for "creating them" - or when truthers jump on OBL's connections to American funds and arms in Afghanistan in the 80s. Because there is some connection to America or Mossad, the responsibility for future acts on the part of these proxies is 100%, forever and in perpetuity the responsibility of America and Mossad.

We see the reverse with Iran and Hezbollah.

All of these kinds of distorted perspectives on the actions of groups like these do a disservice to actual understanding of the events and the groups behind them.

Hamas, OBL, Hezbollah - all are culturally and historically distinct, arising from the particular geography, history and social culture of the environments in which they were incubated and eventually unleashed.

To remove agency on the part of these actors, and place it all on the hands of their apparent benefactors speaks more to the distaste one may have for the benefactors, rather than representing any accurate description of the situation at hand.

All that being said, there is room to criticize support for actors like these it just should be done without removing their agency and seeing them as placeholders for the nation "behind them" that you really, really dislike.

 

[Praktik]

What are the odds of Iranian intelligence/Al QUds/Pasdaran providing support and assistance to Neo Nazis in America? Are Neo Nazis in America likely to engage in suicide bombing? What about American militant Muslims/prison gang groups? Would there not be a commonality of interest there? Note: the Al Quds crowd were actively involved in supporting Bosnian militants in Former Yugoslavia during the nineties. Is there any reason to believe they are not trying to find discrete/covert leads into anti ________ groups in America?

DR

The answers to these questions rest on capability - is Iranian intelligence actually able to initiate and maintain a sucessful relationship with neo-nazis?

This I highly doubt.

And this is one of the reasons I have some skepticism regarding the possible American connection to the group allegedly behind this bombing: America's intelligence in Iran sucks. Bob Baer is quoted in this thread but he is also on the record elsewhere as characterizing America's intelligence position in Iran as essentially blind.

So it may be that America doesn't even have the capacity to make the kinds of connections we're talking about here.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Yep. Its the same kind of thing you hear from people who lay all Hamas acts of terror at the doorstep of Mossad for "creating them" - or when truthers jump on OBL's connections to American funds and arms in Afghanistan in the 80s. Because there is some connection to America or Mossad, the responsibility for future acts on the part of these proxies is 100%, forever and in perpetuity the responsibility of America and Mossad.

We see the reverse with Iran and Hezbollah.

All of these kinds of distorted perspectives on the actions of groups like these do a disservice to actual understanding of the events and the groups behind them.

Hamas, OBL, Hezbollah - all are culturally and historically distinct, arising from the particular geography, history and social culture of the environments in which they were incubated and eventually unleashed.

To remove agency on the part of these actors, and place it all on the hands of their apparent benefactors speaks more to the distaste one may have for the benefactors, rather than representing any accurate description of the situation at hand.

All that being said, there is room to criticize support for actors like these it just should be done without removing their agency and seeing them as placeholders for the nation "behind them" that you really, really dislike.

I think it can be shown that Iran has directly supplied Hezbollah with arms greater in complexity than small arms. Really don't want to derail this thread into Hezbollah, actually, but there are some interesting linkages and parallels. Hezbollah's origin is explicitly Islamist, and had as a founding principle the formation of an Islamic Republic in Lebanon. It is openly and directly supported by Iran, which brings a curious irony to this latest attack:

Islamist Sunni attack in Iran,
Islamist Shia attacks in Lebanon or Israel,

each responded to in Teheran differently. (Obviously, Islamists wearing the wrong tartan! ;D ) While temporally displaced, this brings to mind "Saddam uses gas attacks on Iran" which while publicly condemned by most of the West, US included, didn't lead to much other than condemnation. Saddam attacks Kurds with gas? Didn't lead to much directly, but after Desert Storm, Kurds became beneficiaries of the Northern No Fly Zone due to being "victims" while Iran were still on the enemies list.

Interesting how that all works out.

Note about Hezbollah in Iran: Hezbollah of Iran is a movement of mosque-based groups founded to enforce the authority of the Islamic revolution in Iran

DR

 

[Marc39]

Hamas, OBL, Hezbollah - all are culturally and historically distinct, arising from the particular geography, history and social culture of the environments in which they were incubated and eventually unleashed.

Nonsense.

Hamas, OBL, Hizbullah et al. are radical Muslims sharing a common Islamic viewpoint of the global caliphate through jihad and, in regards to Israel, the unacceptability of a non-Muslim state among the ummah.

I recommend you read Sayyid Qutb, the ideological godfather of them all.

 

[Darth Rotor]

The answers to these questions rest on capability - is Iranian intelligence actually able to initiate and maintain a sucessful relationship with neo-nazis?

Why do you underestimate Iran?

And this is one of the reasons I have some skepticism regarding the possible American connection to the group allegedly behind this bombing: America's intelligence in Iran sucks. Bob Baer is quoted in this thread but he is also on the record elsewhere as characterizing America's intelligence position in Iran as essentially blind.

So it may be that America doesn't even have the capacity to make the kinds of connections we're talking about here.

IIRC, US linkage to Jundullah is based in element/movement that operates in Pakistan. This leads to the problem of filtering and judging the info that comes across the border, etc.

Hersch seemed to think US operatives were active in Southeastern Iran, which is why he wrote the piece he did. Don't know, one way or the other.

DR

 

[Praktik]

Nonsense.

Hamas, OBL, Hizbullah et al. are radical Muslims sharing a common Islamic viewpoint of the global caliphate through jihad and, in regards to Israel, the unacceptability of a non-Muslim state among the ummah.

I recommend you read Sayyid Qutb, the ideological godfather of them all.

lol, "they're all the same".

What a ridiculous counterpoint. It's a good thing you're not in charge of American intelligence operations: "Naw no differences between these groups they're all cookie cutter cut-outs of the same stuff".

 

[Marc39]

lol, "they're all the same".

What a ridiculous counterpoint. It's a good thing you're not in charge of American intelligence operations: "Naw no differences between these groups they're all cookie cutter cut-outs of the same stuff".

Ideologically, they are all the same: Islamic fundamentalism.

 

[Praktik]

Why do you underestimate Iran?

I haven't seen any evidence of a stateside presence from their intellegence arm. Have you?

IIRC, US linkage to Jundullah is based in element/movement that operates in Pakistan. This leads to the problem of filtering and judging the info that comes across the border, etc.

Hersch seemed to think US operatives were active in Southeastern Iran, which is why he wrote the piece he did. Don't know, one way or the other.

DR

Yes as I say I am just skeptical. Its possible there is an American presence there I'm just not sure is all, given America's track record in the region (Baer's "See No Evil" didn't give much ground for confidence in the CIA's mid-east presence but that was primarily pre 9/11 so maybe I need to get up to date).