Under a heading that recalls a movie about public gullibility and a TV show about a less than competent secret agent, Wagging the Dog with Iran's Maxwell Smart, Cole wrote on his Informed Comment blog:
"That a monumental screw-up like Arbabsiar could have thought he was a government secret agent is perfectly plausible. I'm sure he thought all kinds of things. But that he was actually one is simply not believable.
"OK, Qasim Soleimani, the head of the Qods Brigade special operation forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, may not be a nice man. But he is such a competent man that US officials in Iraq widely believed that he repeatedly outmaneuvered and defeated them there.
"The allegation that Soleimani was running a hard-drinking incompetent with no memory and no sense of organization like Arbabsiar on the most delicate and dangerous terrorist mission ever attempted by the Islamic Republic of Iran is falling down funny."
This case has what the Guardian calls "the ring of a far-fetched Hollywood thriller." Even the senior law enforcement official involved in the investigation admitted that "the alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US did not fit with what was known about the methods and practices of the supposed perpetrators, the Al Qods force of the Revolutionary Guards."
The Iranian government is obviously aware that the US and Israel have their own not-so-subtle motives in relating this "Hollywood thriller" to American and Israeli publics. The top Iranian leader has responded with his own not-so-subtle language.
The Associated Press in Tehran, reported Sunday that Iranian television news quoted Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said, "If U.S. officials have some delusions, (they must) know that any unsuitable act, whether political or security, will meet a resolute response from the Iranian nation."
M.J. Rosenberg has serious reservations about the narrative the Justice Department has outlined. He writes on his blog, Political Correction:
"At this point, it is impossible to say how serious the plot was and, more importantly, if it even had anything at all to do with the Iranian government. Are we ready to believe that the cold and calculating people who govern Iran are contracting out assassination plots with Mexican drug traffickers or that they would pick Washington as the best place to attack the Saudi ambassador (knowing that being found responsible for a major explosion in Washington would mean war with the Saudi Arabia and United States)?
"This is not to dismiss the plot as phony or contrived. But after the Iraq war experience, it would be awfully stupid of Americans to simply accept without question anything we are told about nefarious Muslim states that must be stopped before a 'mushroom cloud' appears over downtown Washington."
The Mainstream Media is an essential co-conspirator to our political leaders in this hyping of "terror" stories. Andrew Kilgore, publisher of The Washington Report, recalled one story that began in 1981, shortly after the start of Ronald Reagan's first term.
"Breathless articles about Libyan 'hit [assassination] squads' began to occupy the front page of The Washington Post. For three weeks, Post readers -- and the U.S. government -- were obsessed with these squads, which reportedly originated in the Middle East, had reached Europe, and were currently in Canada, where they were poised to cross into the United States like a swarm of northern killer bees."
Five years later, after Reagan was safely reelected to a second term, the truth emerged. As narrative, the ending fizzled. Kilgore explained:
"Manucher Ghorbanifar, a small-time Iranian exile working in Washington for Mossad, Israel's secret intelligence service, confessed in 1986 that he had dreamed up the hit squads. Why? 'To hurt Libya, an enemy of Israel.'"
Why does the American public keep falling for these thrilling, but questionable, tales? The media likes to peddle them and the public needs its circuses.
On the website, Reader Supported News, John Cook goes inside one media operation to demonstrate how this worked around the 10th anniversary of 911.
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