A tad on this Iranian plan

[nadinbrzezinski]

I understand why it smells. Tonkin comes to mind, Iraq as well...but a tad on Iran.

This is not a unified government system. In fact, the president is quite possibly the weakest in the region. There is more, there are rogue elements (Like I suspect even in our own government). Also if any of you followed the green revolution you will realize some in their power elites have a need to distract, just like ours.

There is more, they have been involved in pretty impressive operations. See the bombing of the Jewish community center in buenos aires, where currently there were two targets, the embassies of Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Now comes the big question...why? A mid east war would be made to order to unify a pretty restless youth behind the revolution.

Now this may lead to an interesting alliance between two blood enemies. I don't expect this to be open but I will be all but shocked if israeli and saudi intel start sharing info...law of unintended consequences and all.

But this strikes me as just one more sign of internal divisions. Incidentally, another unintended...it also helps distract our press...but it is just one more shiny as far as they are concerned. .

[RZM]

1. I don't see much of a case for 'the timing is suspect'

I see three possible arguments for that:

1) Distract from OWS:

OWS gets a lot of play on DU and it has decent traction in the MSM. But I don't think anybody is feeling all that threatened by it. If it grows much larger, then yes, but right now not so much.

2) Distract from Fast and Furious:

I don't read FR much, but I'll bet the farm that they going in this direction. Kind of same argument as the first. Fast and Furious is a headache right now, but only a minor one. Certainly not worth something like this.

3) Obama's poll numbers:

This one might be on FR too, though again, I don't think it really holds water. Any news that reflects well on a president can always be spun in this direction. I don't buy it personally, but whatever.

I do think you have a point about Iran's government. Every state has different centers of power and different agendas (Pakistan being one of the most salient examples). Assuming the plot is real, I could definitely see some serious differences of opinion within policy-making circles and the ability for certain elements to formulate a plot without the knowledge or approval of other elements. Though of course, such a situation presents the opportunity for 12 dimensional chess too. One of the pieces of disinformation that the Nazis sent out before Barbarossa was that 'Hitler doesn't want to invade the USSR, but his generals do and they may be able to make it happen without the big man's approval.' Could be some of that too - perhaps it does have the backing of everybody but the government will promote the idea that policy is compartmentalized to telegraph a false sense of weakness on this type of thing.

It's early yet. We'll see.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. And that is my point

Not everything that is released comes from DC. Iran s a sovereign state with at least two major and five minor centers of power, which disagree often. So this is not as crazy or as meant to distract as some folks think. Yes, it is possible this little jewel came from one of the centers of power in Iran And yes, some in Iran would love to bring down the house of Saud.