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Eugene

(61,595 posts)
Sun Jun 17, 2012, 03:30 PM Jun 2012

Iran was behind bomb plot against Israeli diplomats, investigators find

Source: The Guardian

Iran was behind bomb plot against Israeli diplomats, investigators find

Western intelligence fears price of failure for Moscow talks on
Tehran's nuclear programme could be high


Jason Burke in Delhi
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 17 June 2012 16.34 BST

A multinational investigation into bomb plots targeting Israeli diplomats earlier this year has produced the clearest evidence yet that Iran was involved, illustrating the risks to the west if it fails to reach detente with Tehran over its nuclear weapons programme.

Talks on Iran's nuclear aspirations resume in Moscow on Monday, and western intelligence officials have told the Guardian the price of failure could be high. With Israel refusing to rule out military action if diplomacy fails, intelligence officials fear the volley of attacks carried out by Iranian operatives show Tehran is capable of an asymmetric response. Though the officials admit that predictions are extremely difficult to make, their concerns are based on investigations into plots against Israeli diplomats in India, Thailand and Georgia in February which point to the involvement of Iran.

In India, local agencies told ministers a bomb attack which badly injured the wife of the Israeli military attaché in New Delhi in February was the work of an Iranian "security entity". Their conclusions have not previously been made public and Indian officials have made significant efforts to avoid blaming Tehran, an ally and oil supplier.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/17/iran-bomb-plot-israel-nuclear-talks
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Iran was behind bomb plot against Israeli diplomats, investigators find (Original Post) Eugene Jun 2012 OP
When and if Iran is pushed into an actual concerted response, there will be no question about its leveymg Jun 2012 #1
They are reporting the results a MULTINATIONAL investigation. tabatha Jun 2012 #2
This story is based in anonymous "official sources" and docs "shown" to the reporter. leveymg Jun 2012 #3
Yep. FUD, essentially. bemildred Jun 2012 #4
Unofficial War William deB. Mills Jun 2012 #5

leveymg

(36,418 posts)
1. When and if Iran is pushed into an actual concerted response, there will be no question about its
Sun Jun 17, 2012, 03:46 PM
Jun 2012

capabilities for "asymmetric response" (intellispeak for terrorism). So far, it's been amateurs, freelancers, and possibly false-flaggers. Nothing official.

Shame about The Guardian. It used to be a good source of progressive international news before it went Neocon.

tabatha

(18,795 posts)
2. They are reporting the results a MULTINATIONAL investigation.
Sun Jun 17, 2012, 04:16 PM
Jun 2012

Are they supposed to say the results are nonsense because the investigation was done by more than one nation, because they do not want to believe them - like you?

leveymg

(36,418 posts)
3. This story is based in anonymous "official sources" and docs "shown" to the reporter.
Sun Jun 17, 2012, 04:37 PM
Jun 2012

Read the story more carefully. Probably, more important is that no one has concluded that this was the work of the Iranian state intelligence services, or even the al Quuds force:

The governments of Georgia and Thailand, which both uncovered bomb plots on the day of the Delhi attack, have also not officially blamed Iran.

European intelligence officials told the Guardian they now found it difficult to judge Tehran's "risk calculus".


This story is largely just speculation by the same unnamed "European intelligence officials." The headline is misleading.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
4. Yep. FUD, essentially.
Sun Jun 17, 2012, 07:42 PM
Jun 2012

All I had to see was the phrase "clearest evidence yet" and I knew that they don't have clear evidence yet. Must be frustrating for them.

5. Unofficial War
Mon Jun 18, 2012, 12:47 PM
Jun 2012

Evidently, we have a vicious little war in which one side obviously is committing economic warfare and appears to be running both a terrorist campaign to murder scientists and a cyber terror campaign to destroy nuclear infrastructure while the other side appears to be responding with its own terror campaign. Militarily, however, things appear very one-sided, with the U.S. archipelago of military bases surrounding Iran and Israeli nuclear-capable subs slithering off Iran's Indian Ocean coastline; Iran's low-level military support of Hezbollah is small change.

If all this postpones outright military aggression, it has the virtue of offering politicians the opportunity to transform themselves into creative policy-makers. Unfortunately, I don't see many policy-makers with the "right stuff" to be that creative. I could dream of something like a secret meeting between Chas Freeman and Turkey's Davutoglu to work it all out, but Freeman has been kicked out of Washington, and anyway exactly who on the Iranian side is prepared to step up?

How do we craft an offer that Iranian leaders can accept without being crucified by their domestic fundamentalist ideologues without exposing Obama to crucifixion by Republican fundamentalist ideologues?

Those smirking on the sidelines, from Netanyahu to various unemployed Salafi troublemakers, are the only ones with reason to feel good about all this.

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