Once More, Adrift At The Policy Level

"Somebody will have to pay!" So said a high level Saudi royal (is there any other sort of royal?) regarding the Iranian plot to ace the Saudi ambassador to the US.  Secretary of State Clinton as well as Vice President Biden made the customary formulaic statements about somebody, somewhere, somehow being "held accountable," in connection with the same bit of outrageous but normal Iranian diplomatic conduct.

Throughout the rarefied levels of the American government, there has been much bloviating and bleating about just how terribly Iran has violated international law and custom about the corporeal sanctity of diplomatic persons.  This predicate was followed by earnest statements about the need to forge international solidarity against the rapscallions of the Iranian Islamic Republic.  To this end, special missions have been dispatched to brief and enlist the full support of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Gulf Coordination Council (GCC), and the Arab League.

By golly, this will sure show the ayatollahs, mullahs, and imams, won't it?

Of course, the Iranians have not only denied the existence of the plot, they have engaged in the expected counter accusations.  At home a number of Iranians interviewed by the AP indicated there was no way anyone in Iran could have been either so ill-advised or so creative as to have developed the plot, let alone put it into initial operation.

It is easy for a skeptic to doubt the plot, it is too redolent of Hollywood thriller elements to be totally plausible.  The only problem is that it is a very competent covert/clandestine operation completely in line with other previous Tehran initiated assassinations.

The al-Quds component of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is quite experienced, highly motivated, has excellent operational mechanisms, and is well acquainted with the drug trafficking organizations (DTO) of Central and South America.  Given this last consideration, it is to be expected that the IRGC would turn to the drug smugglers of Mexico to actually conduct the mission.  While it is a tad surprising that the men in Tehran turned to an American citizen rather than use one of their agents already resident in Mexico, the use of the dual national did provide some potential advantages.

It was fortunate (almost too convenient) that the DEA had a credible and reliable informant asset on tap to play the role of a Los Zetas member, but that may be clarified as to dynamics and timing as the legal processes unfold.  Manssor Arbabsiar, the dual US/Iranian national, lives in Corpus Christi, so he would have been quite familiar with the Zetas and their extensive record of highly competent killings carried out with the flair and skill of an experienced special operations force.

The hiring of a group with the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct a bombing at a Washington, DC restaurant for a mere 1.5 million dollars is a feat of excellent bargaining.  If the hit on the Saudi ambassador was carried out in conjunction with a set of simultaneous bombings on other, unrelated targets, the net result would have been to decouple any hint of Iranian sponsorship or involvement.

The combination of several, simultaneous bombings with the use of readily available explosives (which category includes military grade munitions such as C4) and equally common electronic components would have complicated the investigation further, reducing the probability of discovering the Tehran connection.  A further fog would have resulted from the inevitable claims of responsibility which would have flooded the ether, an eventuality which would have grown with the size of the body count.  Every group espousing violent political Islam, including those which are totally notional, would have jumped in with an appropriately worded media release.

As the investigation floundered about in the many leveled swamp of false flags, inconclusive forensics and competing claims of authorship, the ayatollahs and their operational tools could have sat back, smiling with grins wider than the Cheshire Cat, knowing the truth, a truth they would keep to themselves.  Of course, the Saudis would have had their suspicions (as would the Americans), but without a case meeting legal standards, neither arrests nor military retaliation would have been politically feasible.

In short, the plot in outline is highly credible in all respects.  Assuming the puppet masters in Iran and the operational assets in Mexico and the US observed standard operational security measures, the probability of detection either before or after the event would have been low.  The probability of attaching the tail to the Iranian donkey would have been even lower.

It was either a matter of awesomely good luck or an intelligence coup of the first water which allowed the plot to have been penetrated so early and so successfully.  The fact that the US did penetrate and did arrest a key conspirator in no way undercuts the brilliance of the concept--nor provide a firm basis for assuming the whole deal was an American confection.

The question which confronts the US (or at least the administration) is what to do now.  Not to go into hyperventilation mode, the Iranian plot does constitute, or did once constitute a cause of war.  The plot was not simply a crime.  It was much more.  It was an act of war.  Asymmetrical war is still war.  And that is what the Iranians intended.  The killing of a third party national of diplomatic status, thus a protected person under international convention, along with a significant but unknowable number of Americans by an infernal machine is every bit as much an act of war as the attacks of 9/11.

It is no less an act of war by virtue of having been detected and thwarted before culmination.

The US would be fully justified by undertaking a military response.  Such a response is equally justifiable under international norms and law if conducted by covert/clandestine means or by open use of force.  There is, of course, no real possibility of the current administration exercising this latter option.  The American public to say nothing of the federal budget would not sit still for an open act of war.  The possibility of failure would inhibit any low visibility, light footprint response against either the IRGC or its masters.

Inhibition is not the same as prohibition.  The US has engaged in covert/clandestine actions intended to impair the Iranian march to nuclear threshold status.  These serve as a paradigm for a suitable response to the plot.

It is to be hoped that behind the wall of indignant oratory spewing forth in Spindletop fashion from the highest circles inside the District there is some quiet and sober consideration of who might be a suitable candidate for being "held accountable."  Targeted killings of high ranking military or paramilitary figures might be distasteful in some quarters, but there is something far worse.

That something is allowing the senior decision makers of the al-Quds force or the IRGC to be reinforced in their view that the US is nothing more than a "paper tiger."  Unless the US does show its displeasure in a quiet but robust way, we will continue to be seen as week, indecisive, on the decline--and a suitable venue to wage a nasty little war.