The Iranian Threat to New York City

[DUIC]

On Monday, Israeli embassy workers in the capital cities of India and Georgia were targeted in terrorist attacks that Israeli officials believe were planned and carried out by Iran and its client, the militant group Hezbollah. The bomb in Tbilisi was defused, but the bomb in New Delhi, planted in an embassy worker's car, exploded and injured at least two.

Iran's next target could well be on American soil. In Senate testimony last month, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated that Iranian officials "are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime."

As evidence, Mr. Clapper cited an alleged plot foiled last October in which a naturalized U.S. citizen of Iranian descent, directed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, hired a member of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The plan involved blowing up a Washington, D.C., restaurant—potentially killing hundreds of Americans in the process.

Iran has a proven record of using its official presence in a foreign city to coordinate attacks, which are then carried out by Hezbollah agents from abroad, often leveraging the local community—whether wittingly or not—as facilitators. Most notable are the 1992 and 1994 bombings of Israeli and Jewish targets in Argentina, which killed 29 and 85 people, respectively. The New York City Police Department, where I work as director of Intelligence Analysis, sent a team to Argentina to study the modus operandi of those attacks and to meet with Argentine security officials who worked the investigations. Coupled with open source information, this is what the NYPD learned

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203824904577215592376556800.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[bahrbearian]

1. Israel is determined to drag us into another one of their wars, We did Iraq isn't that enough.

[DUIC]

3. No one encouraged Iran to target Saudi officials on US soil

They manage to have enough self-determination to pick their own targts.

[bahrbearian]

5. Your not using more suspect plots, are you? that one is a joke.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2106075

[DUIC]

9. Not a terribly funny joke to the potential victims at the targeted Cafe Milano

In his written unclassified testimony submitted to the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, Clapper cited only the alleged plot revealed in October to assassinate Saudi ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir at the Cafe Milano, a popular Georgetown hangout for the powerful and influential. The attack allegedly had the backing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime,” Clapper wrote.

Matthew Levitt, a former deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Treasury under George W. Bush, said Clapper’s inclusion of Khamenei in his warning, even with the “probably” qualification, was no accident.

“People are careful to say what they mean, and nothing more,” he said of the intelligence community. “As soon as I read that I said, Uh-oh, that’s not just a statement to say the threat to the ambassador was real, [Khamenei] was in there to say it went to the top.”

http://americanisraelite.com/archives/16492

[Lawlbringer]

2. Talk about international intrigue.

5 countries mentioned in one article!

[virtualobserver]

4. would you care for a False Flag Operation with your fries?

[bahrbearian]

6. How about some Yellow Cake instead.

[DUIC]

10. You mean like 911?

It's amazing how people whip out the "false flag" flag every time they do not want to believe a given set of facts.

[virtualobserver]

11. when an article is sourced to a government, and that government has a specific aim

in presenting a storyline that is compatible with actions it wants to take....I don't regard that content as fact. It would only make sense if Iran wanted Israel to attack them.

[azurnoir]

12. But as propaganda it does make sense in a way- in the way that Israel wants/needs US assistance

in the war on Iran it appears to desperately want

[virtualobserver]

14. exactly, it makes perfect sense as propaganda

[DUIC]

13. Got it. Big Government is evil.

Can't trust the government. Best trade in your money for gold bullion and wait for the zombie apocalypse in some secluded shack because everything you hear on TV from the government is a lie.

[virtualobserver]

15. your position is therefore that if I don't buy the propaganda, I'm paranoid......very amusing.

this is about government, big or small, with a specific intent.

Israel wants to attack Iran. Just like the Bush administration wanted to attack Iraq.

It is hard to convince the world based purely on the merits of the case because the cons strongly outweigh the pros. But that doesn't stop the overzealous....they try to tip the scales in favor of the action....sometimes in questionable ways. It has happened many times in world history,and every war started on that kind of footing ends in disaster.

[Ruby the Liberal]

16. Those two aren't even close to the same.

Iraq was never a threat to the US, unless you are trying to spin the Buch doctrine the way Colin Powell did at the UN. We wanted to install our puppet government and ensure no bid contracts for the oil (not to mention the multi-year no bid contracts to the private industries sent over there to "support" the "war effort" like KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater, etc...)

Israel has no such designs on Iran. Their motivations are out of fear and protection of their people. Iran has been calling for the destruction of Israel (inbetween holocaust denial seminars) for years now.

While I do not support an Israeli strike on Iran because of what they think (or what scares them), the BULLSHIT that started the Iraq war isn't even in the same hemisphere and to compare the two gives creedence to the Bush/Cheney neocons for their war crimes.

Find another analogy if you give a half a shit about your credibility.

[virtualobserver]

17. I understand Israel's motivation but fear isn't a more noble excuse than greed

and if Israel attacks Iran it is even more irresponsible than the US attack on Iraq. At the very least it could completely unravel a very fragile world economy,and at the worst it could start a world war,and it might put a Santorum in the White House. If my analogy fails, it is because this is a far more serious situation.

[Ruby the Liberal]

18. Far more serious? Put Santorum in the whitehouse?

I haven't had good weed since the 80s, but sounds like you are hooked up. PM me, please.

On the other - You really can't conflate the two. I get the concerns about the saber rattling - believe me. I have lived in the region and count countless Israelis, Arabs and Persians as friends. I don't want to see that area of the world devolve any more than you or the next guy do.

My issue is that making this situation in any way comparable to the disaster that was Shrub and the Shrub Doctrine is doing all involved a grave disservice. Israel is not the only country in the region concerned about Iran's lack of communication about intent and capability.

[virtualobserver]

19. If Iran responds to an attack from Israel energy prices skyrocket worldwide

and if they interrupt the flow of of though the strait of hormuz there will be oil shortages.

The US fed funds rate has been sitting at essentially 0% for over three years and Bernanke has said that there will be no change
until 2014. 5 years at 0% is incredibly abnormal and shows what a mess Bush left us with.

Europe is dancing as fast as it can to keep a collapse from happening there even now.

.The world economy is incredibly fragile....,push oil to $200 and gas in the us to $7 and
the world economy will collapse. The US would have to get involved militarily. Iran's worldwide capabilities make Al Qaida look like a joke and the outcome is totally unpredictable. If the US economy collapses, Santorum is a possibility.

Your reaction to this leads me to believe that you think that this will be like the strike on the Iraqi facilities by Israel years ago, with minimal consequences.

I hope you are right, but frankly I don't think that you have thought this through.

[Ruby the Liberal]

20. Thank you for challenging my intelligence.

I have an MBA and a Masters in Economics. I think I *get* the implications of the conflagration. That said, so do the Israelis - why I don't believe they are going to proactively attack.

My point was that the comparison to what Shrub did is like comparing apples to pigs - hence why I asked you to form a better argument.

[virtualobserver]

21. I think that my challenge was rather mild considering that you stated that my conclusions.....

were based on having "good weed"

I would like to believe that Israel would exercise restraint, but Israeli politicians seem to move ever rightward.
Trying to decipher a quote from a Sec. of Defense can be tricky, but Panetta saying to a reporter that he believes Israel will attack Iran in the coming months and that he is pleading with the Israelis to put off any strike is not something that is done casually.

I would also like to believe that Iran would exercise restraint even in the face of an attack, but who knows.

My comparison to Bush was a narrow one. It had to do with the placement of questionable stories with the press.
It could have just as easily have been about Bush's father and the supposed rape of American officer's wife by a Panamanian soldier as they began laying down reasons for invading that country, or the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

My point is that I am seeing Israeli government sources trying to lay down the groundwork for a strike, and coupled with the Panetta quote and the howling for blood from the Republican candidates, I am not comforted.

[Ruby the Liberal]

22. I do concede that the Panetta comment made my spine tingle for a moment.

I just take exception to comparisons being made between the US lying the entire world into a war, involving personnel from a dozen+ countries over a fucking lie vs Israel posturing and saber rattling against specific threats that have been ongoing unabated for a decade plus now.

Holocaust denial, wipe them off the map, the mahdi won't crawl out of his well until we retake the land... all of this shit has been (and continues to be) stated by the "elected" (sic) President of Iran with the backing of the Supreme Leader. Repeatedly.

Like I said, I don't think they will strike as too much as at stake, but this is a whole different ball game of whipping it out to see whose is bigger than Saddam and his lobbing Scuds into the desert ans Shrub trying to save family face.

[virtualobserver]

23. Ahmadinejad's rhetoric has been insane.....

It is that very rhetoric that worries me in terms of Israel's response. Hopefull self-reservation will restrain them all.

[AnOhioan]

7. Ah...a little early evening propaganda

[Crunchy Frog]

8. Has Iran hired the Three Stooges to carry out this arm of its foreign policy?