This is very quick moving news right now and it's being generated from a lot of different corners and from lots of different perspectives.
One thing to keep in mind, no matter which perspectives you accept or reject is that, unless you believe you are outright being lied to,
somebody wired about $100,000 dollars on Manssor Arbabsiar's behalf into a bank account for the person who claimed they could carry out the hit. I believe Andrea Mitchell (wince) said it was in 2 payments of about $49,650 or something like that, made separately.
Does this mean that this is an act of state-sponsored terrorism by Iran? Hardly. Is the flip-side of that belief that the entire thing is fabricated to either launch a US attack on Iran or cover for an Israeli strike?
No.The reality of the situation, IMO, is that there's probably someone in Iran who has a pretty hefty bankroll and who decided to try their hand at US-style "cowboy" diplomacy. Maybe read one too many fawning Bill Casey biographies, I dunno. But if they wired that money into a bank account, it probably came from a big damned bank and that bank account and prior transactions on it are what is causing the US government to point the finger at Iran. That and it's
really fucking convenient.
But I've read a just a few posts that made me think a handful of posters
possibly believed the entire thing might have been fabricated, and I haven't lost that much faith in the Obama Administration yet. Twist, tort, spindle the facts? Yes. Wholesale fabrication? No.
Now, shitheels like House Rep. Jeff Duncan are already
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.+Res.+429:">introducing legislation to use this alleged plot, and the convenient assumption that it was fully state-sponsored, to widen the grip of the US intelligence apparatus over the Americas. Also,
very convenient. And I doubt it will stop there. Not by a long shot.
But as this story unfolds, I think it's worth considering that there is likely some truth to these allegations and that it's not the basic (albeit somewhat mysterious and confusing) "facts" of the matter that might ultimately be in dispute but
how narrow a reading they receive what they're leveraged into that's going to be a bigger deal.PB