THE PRACTICE of conducting or condoning foreign assassinations is not new to Iran. As with Libya under Gadafy, Syria, and North Korea among others, the reach of authoritarian regimes is long, and dissident citizens abroad have good cause to fear for their lives. Often their families at home will also pay a price for the exile’s refusal to remain silent.
That Iran should now target a foreign diplomat in Washington, Saudi ambassador to the US Adel al-Jubeir, with a bombing that might have produced other casualties, represents, however, both a serious escalation and tactical shift. Other prospective targets, attacks also to be carried out by the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel for $1.5 million on behalf of Iranian agents, are alleged to have included the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington and Argentina.
But was the plot being alleged by the US in fact sanctioned by the Tehran government? Attorney-general Eric Holder tied it to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Quds Force, its covert, operational arm. The plot was “directed and approved by elements of the Iranian government”, he insisted with a qualifed formula that left open other possibilities.
There are indeed Quds fingerprints all over the evidence so far produced by the US authorities: a confession by the lead conspirator, taped conversations with a Quds agent in Iran, and a bank transfer of $100,000 from one of its accounts. Quds also has form, it has sponsored terrorist operations and hits, often through Hizbullah, in Iraq, Lebanon, and elsewhere, and has supplied explosives to Iraqi and Afghan insurgents.
But the bizarre, hamfisted operation is also out of character for an organisation that has a reputation for ruthless efficiency, and many observers wonder what interest is served by a provocative attack – in effect an act of war – on the Saudis on US soil. Relations are indeed poor between regional rivals Tehran and Riyadh, which the latter has accused of fomenting unrest on Saudi soil, but the attack, the first by Quds in the US, would – and did – also seriously annoy the Americans who are now determined to step up sanctions.
The plot doesn’t make much strategic sense except if seen as an attempt to raise tensions to fuel an internal Iranian power struggle either within the Revolutionary Guards, or in the ongoing political feud between the organisation, closely aligned to President Ahmadinejad, and the country’s clerical establishment. Iranians may be to blame, but Iran? Case not yet proven.