Was it a case of mistaken identity? Did Mossad, CIA or MI6 confuse the two names? There are such events in the long history of clandestine actions, after all. Let’s just call it an open question. A mystery. Whatever it was, It hardly fits the picture of a diabolically knowledgeable and omnipotent Israeli intelligence service.
The latest victim was a chemist, not a physicist, and his main connection to the nuclear program was administrative, not technical: he worked in the purchasing office for the Natanz operation. He was important enough to have been interviewed by IAEA inspectors, and after his death, Iranian leaders alleged that the IAEA people had passed on classified information to the assassins. But this isn’t very convincing; administrative officers are a dime a dozen, after all. Blow up one, you get a dozen applicants for the position. More mysteries.
Nonetheless, scads of writers are quite sure that the Jews did it. The latest smelly fish from this well known stew comes from Foreign Policy magazine, a popular and often useful source of “expert” thinking about foreign policy and national security. It’s called “false flag,” written by Mark Perry, whose world view is not very charitable toward Israel, which the story accuses of having recruited Balouchis several years ago under false pretenses — claiming that Mossad agents were Americans.
The Israelis almost never comment on intelligence matters, but in this case they issued a very strong denial, calling it “absolute nonsense.” There’s even more nonsense, which Mr. Perry and his Foreign Policy editors happily passed on to their readers. In the midst of this story, the author quotes a “recently retired (American) intelligence officer: “We don’t do bang and boom…and we don’t do political assassinations.”
I wonder if Foreign Policy editors ever heard of the Predator program, the fleet of CIA-run drones that kill Taliban and al Qaeda throughout the Middle East, or, for that matter, the very political assassination of Osama bin Laden.
One might suspect that this story is the work of CIA disinformers, hard at work to deny, and even undermine, what most reliable reporters have described as a very close and productive relationship between the intelligence and military communities of the United States and Israel. Or maybe it’s just another intelligence failure, of which there has been no shortage in recent years.
Where does that leave us? Let’s go back to basics: who could operate in the midst of the armed camp that is Tehran, and might also have a motive for killing these five unfortunate souls? There’s a lot of killing in Iran, and the overwhelming majority of murders are carried out by the regime, and the victims are Iranian citizens from all walks of life. From this standpoint, the regime is the most likely perpetrator. Regime killers could also operate freely throughout the capital, and that also “explains” why there were never calls for information about the assassins. Why ask, when you know their identities, and approved the operation?
What about motive? Look at the last case. What does the regime say about the victim? That he spoke to IAEA investigators (I’m told that the conversation took place outside Iran). The regime doesn’t like that at all, they are very suspicious of their own people (and rightly so!), put very stringent limitations on foreign travel, and monitor the communications of everyone involved in important activities like weapons programs. In the padded cell of paranoiacs around the supreme leader, strong suspicion of disloyalty is probably enough to get a person on one hit list or another, and the regime has every reason to “send a message” to others involved in such activities: one false step and you’re dead.
Again, I don’t know who did it, but the rush to judgment by so many pundits smacks of political passion rather than cool analysis. And I’m struck by the uncritical expertise that would have us believe the Jews can do anything, even operate at will in the center of their most formidable enemy’s capital city. That one’s right out of the old antisemitic scrolls: whenever anything happens — anytime, anywhere — that upsets you, just blame the Jews. They can do anything, anywhere.
If only it were true. I’d be flying my private jet to my little island off the coast of Sicily…
Thanks for the detailed and informed analysis of this story.
Like most people, I assumed it was good news that Iranian “nuclear scientists” were being assassinated. And, I’m pretty well read, for a bottom feeder!
It would sure be edifying if you could get the Wall Street Journal to publish your take on this. There is so much misinformation floating around in the noosphere.
I highly doubt that there’s much spying going on in Tehran, and if there are any brave souls engaged in it, likely they aren’t about to be suicidally targeting specific people. Who knows, though?
What can’t go on forever must stop. So, my current best guess is that the situation will have to get radically worse for the citizens before the crazies in charge are overthrown. Hopefully, the economy will go into the tank, and food become so scarce etc, that the will to survive will FORCE the masses to revolt.
Again, thanks for the heads up.
It was 19 Saudis with box cutters…..no, seriously.
Not funny!
I was serious…see my comment under #10
Well, I don’t know, Michael.
I have heard from anonymous sources that the Israeli genius brigade have trained Land Sharks to knock on doors while saying “Candygram”,”Jehova’s Witnesses”… and other ruses to take down Iranian victims.
Again, I’m not saying I have proof…only that confirmed reports of people going missing after the Land Sharks’ visits have appeared in the news.
Training aquatic life to identify only certain human DNA while avoiding others has been also reported when lawyers fall in the ocean, professional courtesy being what it is. Whether this is a furtherance of that training skill is not known, but it IS being reported…and we all know what that is worth. I read it, so it must be true.
indeed. MUST be.
Paranoia is stranger than fiction. Egyptians accused us (Israel) of using trained sharks to kill tourists. (The satirical site LATMA always has the Egyptian Minister for Conspiracy Affairs.)
This makes a lot of sense. I thought you, Michael Ledeen, made a lot of sense when you wrote that Pakistan knew about the Osama Bin Laden raid ahead of time.
tks. much appreciated. some day i will sit alone with a military person i know and he’ll tell me if i was right…
Article is great. A bit far fetched to sa the Iranians are behind the killings. Why not just hang em?
As far as the low level status that these 5 unfortunate souls attained, I would suggest that they operated high up in the regime and were somehow crucial to the development program.
Don’t always believe what a person says they are on their public profile, especially when the truth can get you killed.
ninety
Why not just hang them?
Because that wouldn’t create an us against the world siege mentality that every dictatorship in history has resorted to at some point.
Thanks for the update and the critical analysis.
The circular firing squad theory is not so far-fetched. It’s a bit like some of the auto-immune diseases, in which one’s defenses start attacking the organism they are supposed to protect. Amidst a bunch of insecure thugs, why wouldn’t there be more than enough suspicion around to take irreversible action on the basis of floating figments spontaneously emitted by paranoid minds?
This reminds me of what we can see on some “nature” TV shows, let’s say, about prairie dogs, for instance: Normally, in daytime, most of them forage, while a few keep watching for danger, presumably ready to sound the alarm if they recognize some threat, fox, snake, predatory bird, whatever… Upon the signal, everyone rushes to their holes, where there is a bit more safety. A minute later, they are back out again, and while some of the former foragers are sated enough to stand up, the former sentries are hungry enough to go back to foraging, etc…
But what happens when they all sense some threat they don’t know how to respond to? This is when they start beating on each other! Isn’t this how panic works? In the absence of a stable fabric of trust, everyone worries about everything all the time, and indiscriminate fighting is the only response available. The mullahs and consort don’t need the Jews to help them when they are quite capable of losing it all by themselves, at least I hope so.
thanks prof, for the terrific comments.
I’ll agree, nothing is certain here. I’ll agree that a Western “Intelligence” agency is a bit of a stretch, largely because I’ve always doubted such people were that intelligent. A friend of mine, who works in that portion of the government, says that in his office “C.I.A” stands for “Clowns in Action.” Great reputations aside, I doubt the Brits or even the Mossad could have pulled this off…then again, they did miss the one guy, and in the other case apparently get the wrong guy…come to think of it, maybe this *is* Western “Intelligence” at its finest.
As to the proponents of the idea that this is the Iranians themselves, this idea begs the question: “Why?” It’s not like the Iranian regime has been shy, in the past, about either jailing or executing dissidents. They’re not slow to do it, and international pressure seems to have little meaning to them. Why would they bother to go through the elaborate ruse of assassinating these people out in the real world, when they could just “disappear” them into a prison, and quietly execute them there? It doesn’t make much sense.
you want this regime to “make sense”???? they’ve wrecked the whole country, turned most of the world against them, and are headed for Armageddon…
The advantage of staging foreign assassinations is that it helps create an external enemy that can be used to justify more repression. In addition the murders seem to be another form of terror practiced against the people, as they apparently target regime undesirables and create fear, uncertainty and confusion among the opposition. A win win situation. The macabre behavior by the regime seems to reflect a confident contempt of the west more than internal confusion, a pushing of the same envelope they have been pushing for years, although now with greater confidence.
Crazy like a fox?
Just a thought.
I wasn’t saying their actions had to make sense in that they should be acting sensibly. I was saying that making sense of their motives and actions typically involves figuring out what they intended, what they did, and why. The commenter below, suggesting that the regime is doing this to foment resentment aimed at foreign governments, makes a bit of sense…but you’d have to believe the Iranian government much more sophisticated than you apparently do, from your response to my comment.
I still can’t figure out who is doing this…
In regards to your low opinion of the CIA, I suspect they truely love you, and hope you influence many others. What would you look like to others if your biography contained only your spectacular failures? Could it be that at least some of those failures were showing the right hand while the left lifted the watch and wallet?
As to the Iranians killing people, who and how may define the why. One of the most effective misdirections of WWII came attached to a body.
I wonder what Angleton’s take is….
I wonder if the Saudis financed it and maybe some local group of Iranians carried it out? Americans and even British MI-6 don’t really “blend” in a place like Tehran. And for the Mossad to have that kind of access and capabilities in Tehran would really be amazing. But the Saudis have a lot to fear from a nuclear-armed Iran. And the Saudis always hated the Persians as well. So it’s not much of a stretch to think that maybe the Saudis helped a local Iranian rebel group carry this off. Rebellions make strange bedfellows, so I don’t think some Iranian revolutionaries would reject a lot of Saudi money to pull this off. Either that, or maybe the Saudis helped the Mossad pull it off. Either way, I’m really beginning to wonder if Saudi Arabia is playing a bigger role in this given how much they have to lose if Iran gets a nuclear bomb.
for sure there are plenty of iranians who would love to be paid by the saudis to strike against the regime. and perhaps the saudis might be willing to pay for a bit of disruption. the problem remains however: the assassins always get away. even when they strike right in front of the Intel Ministry. how? that’s one of the things that led me to think it may well be an inside job.
I am not so sure about that, Dr. Ledeen. Maybe I am wrong or maybe I am just projecting. I would gladly strike a blow or two against the Mullahs and celebrate my strikes with vodka chased by yoghurt. But I sure as hell will never allow myself to be paid by any Arab.
fair enough, radish, but what if they had arrested your son and taken your vodka?
I would blow the strikes for free, gratis.
You have the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) also known as The Peoples’ Mujahedin of Iran (who would love to overthrow the mullahs) operating out of the Kurdistan area of Iraq and Mossad is known to be in that area. The Saudis provide the buck, Mossad provides the bang. Don’t discount our own CIA being involved.
When I said earlier 19 Saudis with box cutters I was serious.
Blame the Jews?! Heck, in my mind, I was *crediting* the Jews. I figured they were the only ones who had the guts to do what needed to be done.
Well…it is not unreasonable to suspect that the Israelis killed these people. After all, Iran has been financing jihadist groups for years, they’re trying to create nuclear weapons, and they publicly shout over and over again that they want to kill all Jews. The world knows that they damn well mean it and are going to do their best, so self-defense by the Israelis seems like a reasonable explanation at least on the surface. That’s not anti-Semitism.
As to who actually did the deed, I have absolutely no idea…who knows, it might even be some of cfbleacher’s Land Sharks.
So by your logic, Michael, Mughniyeh was probably offed by the Assads–right?
only if you think all assassination are somehow the same, which i don’t.
I agree that not all assassinations are the same. But your argument is basically that killing a couple of obscure nuclear scientists in Teheran and getting away clean is too difficult for the Mossad or other Western intelligence agencies. Why, then, would we think them capable of killing a secretive terrorist who’s possibly the most important figure in Hezbollah, in the heart of Assad’s Damascus, and getting away clean?
who’s “we,” white man?
I sometimes despair of American literacy. I don’t know who did it, and said so at least twice in the blog post. I also said that there is very scanty reason to think that a foreign intelligence service did it, and if you had to bet, you’d probably be well advised to bet on the regime itself.
I also said that those many who say very confidently “the Jews did it” are textbook antisemites.
My first, and unanalyzed, thought after hearing of the assasinations was that the Jews did. That thought changed after going back and forth with my wife and arriving at the conclusion that there was no meaningful dividend to be gained by the Israelis to carry out the assasinations. My wife has a way of making me think straight. But does that make me an antisemite? I know I am not. The Jews did it in Berlin, the Jews did it in Argentina and in Entebbe. Hurray! One other thing, and you may be just the right person to educate me on this topic. Should the term “antisemite” be discarded since a Semite can also be a non Jewish Arab? Should there be a new term specifically addressing the hatred of Jews?
i don’t think the word is going change its meaning, radish. leave it be, we’ve got enough to worry about…dontcha think?
So–does that same conclusion (“there is very scanty reason to think that a foreign intelligence service did it, and if you had to bet, you’d probably be well advised to bet on the regime itself”) apply to Mughniyeh’s assassination as well? And if not, how do you differentiate the two cases?
This is a serious question. “I’m not at liberty to say” is a legitimate answer, of course. (And lambasting people who ignorantly jump to conclusions for political reasons is always legitimate.) But simply pretending that there’s no inconsistency in your reasoning here…well, I’m afraid it doesn’t reflect well on you.
so i can’t just deal with one question, right? and if i don’t answer yours, i’m either a fool or a rogue? i haven’t studied the Mughniyah assassination, and I do not believe that the explanation of a specific event has to apply to other events in order to be reasonable or sensible.
yours is the sort of question that “social scientists” like to ask and pretend to be able to answer. we historians just take things one at a time. and i did say that i don’t know who did it…nor does anyone else.
i can live without snarky remarks, too. that last clause has no business in adult conversation, mr. simon.
re Horseradish’s question on #13:
Many years ago, I came across the comment (source long since forgotten) that “antisemitism” always means anti-Jew. Although the terms “antisemitism” and “anti-Semitism” (note: with a hyphen and a capital “S”) are used interchangeablly, even by dictionaries that should know better, they clearly mean different things. The first use of the term, about 1880, was by a German racist who founded the Antisemitic league as an anti-Jewish organization. Theoretically the term “antisemite” is correct, as it was a new, unique term coined to mean anti-Jew. The term “anti-Semite” means against the Semites, a group which is only 1% Jewish and 99% Arab antisemites. Although an anti-Arab is an anti-Semite, neither term is politically correct; but antisemitism, whether overt or covert, is (almost) always acceptable.
Great analysis.
Hate how the world blames the Jews.
In this case, I wish Israel DID have the kind of power attributed. I’d sleep a lot better at night knowing they could pull off such a feat.
While many of these attacks may be fishy I don’t think you mentioned the explosion at the missile base that killed Gen Moghaddam, who was widely reported as crucial to the Iranian missile program. While it’s always hard to determine the Iranian regime’s motivations it’s hard to see why they would want to kill him.
The FP article by Perry was laughable. Hardly a single attributed quote in the whole thing. Just a bunch of quotes that could all be made up.
In the end I assume it escapes no one’s notice that blowing up the Iranian oil distribution networks would put an extreme strain on the Iranian regime’s finances. I don’t know if it will come to that. It would probably also increase the world-wide price of oil and Iranian clients like China might be unhappy. If this were done by sabotage the Iranians could continue to blame the usual suspects but it would put extreme pressure on them.
I wouldn’t assume that everyone within the regime supports the nuclear program. No doubt it drains resources others would like to have, and it poses a threat of external violence that not everyone will be keen to risk. Some people just like gaming the system for personal rewards; not everyone is a true millennial believer.
I am not sure “the Jews” are the issue uere. It seems to me more a matter of the usual foreign-policy newspaper “expert”‘s childish view of the world.
This includes, first, the charming belief that Mossad (or CIA, or MI-5) agents are, in effect, supermen who can do anything they want, at any time, or, to give another example, their deep conviction — typical of a 12-year-old who have seen too many James Bind films– that any document that has, say, “top secret” classification is, due to being marked with those magic words, (a) entirely accurate, and (b) incredibly important.
But ignorance never stopped those folks before from telling us what “top secret documents reveal” or what “Mossad agents did”.
Ah well.
Good rule of thumb: when some “expert” goes on about the “the Mossad”, stop them and tell them that this is in fact the intelligence service’s *common nickname*, not its official title. It is, in Hebrew, “Ha’Mosad Le’Tafkidim Meyuhadim”, which means, “The _____ for _____ ______”.
Can the “expert” about the Mossad’s alleged capabilities tell you what “the Mossad”‘s actual official name means?
No?
…didn’t think so.
I can tell you this – don’t cross them.
I am puzzled at your take that people outside of Iran are “blaming” the Jews for assassinations for which no verifiable details are provided. Any friend of Israel is feeling that it may be behind the killing, otherwise why would the Iranian government release any notification? We are sincerely hoping that the Israelis do, indeed, have amazingly capable intelligence and operative capabilities.
Why in God’s name would the Iranian government assassinate totally insignificant individuals and then release news of their death to the world? They offer no proof of the killing or of the circumstances. What would killing, or falsely claiming to do so, accomplish for them, internally of externally? We are told that they regularly arrest , torture, and cause the “disappearance” of many opponents, and, in view of their well-reported response to street demonstrations, are inclined to believe it to be true. Why deliberately rid yourselves of minor individuals and then call world attention to It? To prove that you are susceptible to Israeli infiltration? To seek sympathy when every day you are shouting from every minaret that you want to exterminate every living Jew? To create the impression that there is an underground rebel organization fighting them?
I find no logic in your postulation. And if the Israelis did it, you can be very sure they did not waste their efforts and risk identification if their victims were not a lot more important to their ambitions thanTeheran stated. Most, outside the Arab world, would applaud, not blame.
Why in God’s name would the Iranian government assassinate totally insignificant individuals and then release news of their death to the world?
They need a Reichstag Fire?
The upside of blaming Mossad it that the regime has elevated the Mossad and Israel to a mythical warrior status. Ruthless, cold and can walk through walls.
While the Jews are probably universally hated, which is going to happen anyway, they must also be feared by the public. That is a good deterrent for Israel.
This is what we want them to think: http://www.khirman.com/node/50
In the early 90′s in Guatemala, many bridges were blown up on the PanAm Hwy.
After an explosion the gov’t would put a sign pointing the finger at the “gorilla” movement as the perps.
As it turns out, it was the gov’t itself that was responsible. End game was to change the minds of the Guatemalan people to support the gov..
The Iranian scientists are not bridges, but the technique and wanted results are the same.
lots of syrian dissidents believe that the latest bombing of police buildings in Damascus was done by the regime…to justify its own violence against the people. And a few years ago most Russian dissidents believed that a spate of bombings in Moscow, blamed by the govt on the Chechens, was a government operation…etc etc
If the combined talents of Western Intelligence assets are capable of carrying out such precise and brazen acts of assasination then why target a few unimportant (impotant to those who love them, but not strategically) individuals? Why not targtet the head of the Basij force? Why not Ahmadinejad or Khamenei? Doesn’t make sense. What does make sense is that all totalitarian states must have an outside enemy to survive. The Third Reich needed an international Jewish conspiracy. The Soviet Unbion needed the percived threat of the West. Oceania needed Eastasia. The Islmaic Republic needs the threat of Israel, US and Britain in order to survive. They hope that this threat will unite the people of Iran so that they forget the domestic hardship levied on them by the Mullahs. It also gives the regime a reason to explain to the people why national assets have to be deployed in building up the military rather than being used for general welfare. The more the regime finds itself distanced from the pople and threatened by their general discontent, the more the need to ratchet up the perceived outside threat, so, in their mind, a few meaningless assasinations blamed on the outside enemies should do the trick. Cui Bono should point us to the answer. However this time it may not work as the people of Iran have become wise enough to see through the childish ruse of the monsters.
Michael, were you aware of this sad story?
http://news.yahoo.com/iranian-student-activist-shot-death-texas-193747641–abc-news.html
Hmmmmm. Young Iranian scientist is killed in Tehran. A few days later an Iranian dissidant is assassinated in Houston TX. Connect the dots. Are Iranian hit squads operating in the US????
Brilliant analysis! What better way to whip your populace in to a frenzy against the “ememy”, and create false reasons to seeks revenge upon them.
The current regime is very unpopular with the masses, however, if the masses perceive an outside threat, they will rally together against the “enemy”.
On the other hand, if the Mullahs really believe it was those “all powerful” Jews, well…we can’t stop them from thinking what that want. The question is, should we? I think not.
In the ring,that tactic is called psyching out your opponent.
Gelareh Bagherzadeh has been shot dead in Houston. Who killed her?
The Houston police are saying that they believe the murder had nothing to do with her etnicity or political activism. We have to wait and see before jumping to conclusions. However if it turns out that it was done at the behest of the monsters then it is, undoubtedly, casus belli as was 9/11. Will Mr. Obama still find a way to weasel out of calling a spade a spade? Will he still want to have a civilized conversation over a couple of steins of near beer with the monsters? Will he call the enemies of the United States in general and civilization as a whole in particular, enemies? Or is he an enemy of what makes the USA truly great?
Honour killing?
Iranians, except for those who are fanatically religious and devotees of the animals in charge of the country, do not engage in such barbarism. Particularly among the Iranian diaspora this would never happen. This is a more common occurrence among the Arabs, Pakistanis and Pashtoons (Pathans) in Afghanistan. I don’t think even the Hazaras in Afghanistan engage in this kind of sick behavior.
Marg bar nuclear scientists!
‘The upside of blaming Mossad it that the regime has elevated the Mossad and Israel to a mythical warrior status. Ruthless, cold and can walk through walls.’
Sounds nice, but the downside is that this fantasy makes the killing of Israeli’s all the more satisfying.
They can have all the fantasy they want. These matters cannot be quantified.
The fact already is that Iran for all of its bluster has not done much yet. Not for lack of will but for other reasons.
If the policy of Iran is based on fantasy they are building a castle on a swamp. Policy for Israel and US should be, and mostly has been, built on solid ground.
They cannot close the strait without war against vastly superior power.
They cannot hide the program to build a nuclear weapon capability as others have done. There is very serious threat if they do.
Syria is on the edge. Hezbolla still holding strong. I really wonder if a proxy is so reliable. I do not think too many there want to die for Persian pride.
So is there a relationship between these bombings and the stuxnet virus and the assassination of three russian nuclear experts on a russian airliner? Stuxnet is the most complex virus ever written and it has only damaged Iranian computers and there is a law in russia against having more than one high ranking russian official on a flight and somehow whoever assassinated those three russian officials had the power to bypass the laws and the computer checks.It stands to reason these incidents are related and this narrows down the culprits quite a bit.
Well, someone has to do it. I support Israel and their policy of pre-emption.
Now, did they do it? Let’s treat this the way we would treat any criminal or crime in the U.S.
This is an alleged killing only.
Innocent until proven guilty.
There’s no evidence.
The Iran killings are starting to sound like the JFK assassination…Every book alleges someone else did it: Johnson, Oswald, Castro, CIA, FBI, his own secret service, the Russians, the mafia, Jimmy Hoffa; never heard one that claims the Jews did it but probably one will now…
My own view is that Kennedy was going to pull out of Vietnam after Nov 1964, so the “military industrial complex” people got him….you know nobody is going to disrupt the “nice long lasting war and sell lots of weapons”…song remains the same…
Right you are. The Jews are blamed for that one too.
http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/mossadandtheassassination.htm
Agreed but time will tell who done it when everybody has lost interest in the subject and when secret government files become public. Joe farrell has an interesting theory on the JFK assassination — Nazis made breakthroughs at the end of the war and they created a parallel secret space program within NASA and penetrated the CIA using Reinherd Gehlen and his ex NAZI agents all over the world and when Kennedy said he was going to smash the CIA, they eliminated him so they can continue with their secret space program and the same for dozens of SDI scientists being killed since SDI could have been used to shoot down these secret space craft.
hey, guys, this is not a place to post your favorite conspiracy theory on assassinations from Caesar to JFK. No more please.
you did not allow my comments posted! I’m shock!
i’ve posted everything. and you still can’t spell.
Typing with Ipad is not easy.
About 48 hours ago, on rooz.com an interview was posted with the wife of the first scientist that was blown away with a motorcycle parked right outside his house that exploded with remote control.
She said she met the guy who killed her husband and knew he is the one who killed him. She believes her husband was identified by MEK members in Iran and then reported to Israel and then from there they took action.
The Iranian guy who killed him—per published youtube video (below is the link to his interview) he says he was recruited in Turkey by Israel. I watched his confession/interview number of times with suspicion. However, few months ago this guy was executed in Iran.
He said in Israel they had the actual model of the building that this scientist lived. He said they had the same planted tree model right outside his house. He did not know who he plans to kill until later after his mission was completed.
So he had to practice every minor detail of planting the explosion by his house. The details and description of how he was moved to Israel (via Azerbaijan, with a new Israeli passport) is extremely detail and require too much imagination to simply make it up. For his last day of “graduation” he said at least 10-14 people came to the military base and everyone involved in the process must approve and feel 100% right that this thing will be done EXACTLY as they wanted.
Anyway, here is the 2nd part to his interview. The third part doesn’t have English translation, but he said in that part how he saw two brand new Iranian-made motorcycle in the military base there for his daily practice and how to place the explosive inside of it. Also all the three parts has tons of cutting and redacting of what he says, when he gets into more details. Here is he link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_XCvnmVVNo
Yes, I watched that video a while back. He is matter-of-fact in his delivery with no sign of nervousness in his voice. Anyone caught as an Israeli spy in Iran and dragged on national television knowing that his days are numbered will have at least a touch of nervousness in his voice and appearance. He did not. Also, he goes into minute details about the geography of where he claims to have been trained by Mossad. Unnecessary details such passing under an over head bridge while driving on the highway towards Mossad’s training ground. This generally means that he is lying and trying to compensate for his lies by being unnaturally precise while providing way too much useless information. Also if you mute the sound and just look at his body language and eye movements it is clear that he is delivering what he has been fed by the goons.
Thanks Dr Ledden,
Only the very stupid or some very sinister people would promote the story that foreign intel service are going around knocking off Iranian scientists in Iran. We live in a Drudge, Drudge world where mindless headlines take precedence over using our heads.
Sorry for typo, ed. need ed.
Cui Bono …. just another logical fallacy.
I’m no expert, but I try to get my news from a range of sources (on a limited time budget), and right now the most interesting coverage of iran is coming from the UK. The BBC’s world affairs programs have had a few good pieces about the goings on. NPR, too.
It would seem that there’s a fair bit going on in iranian politics right now, and it’s not exactly visible to those of us who aren’t actually there. It would also seem that the military (or at least those revolutionary guard thugs) are flexing their muscles after their moment in the sun during the election protests. Given that they’re the real power behind the mad mullahs, that could mean a significant shift is under way. Ahmendinejad would seem to be somewhat sidelined (and has been for year) with no real power, but tolerated as long as he toes the line and doesn’t do too much embarrassing idiocy.
Now sure, highly-skilled executions of the wrong people IS something that Israel has done in the past. But it does seem just as credible (IMHO – and notice I’m not using the word “likely”) that this isn’t anything to do with the US or Israel. For one thing it’s actually a bit clumsy. There’s a lot of collateral damage in some of these attacks. Whoever’s doing this doesn’t seem to care particularly much about innocent iranians. And in all the world, the people who seem to care the least about innocent iranians are – yes, that’s right – the iranian revolutionary guards.
It was not so difficult for the “Jews” to get passports from various countries and kill a Hamas officer in Dubai. Why would it be hard to kill in Iran? There are more than 47000 Jews in Iran, would it be hard to get inside support? Guilty until proven innocent. The same as Iran can not prove they do NOT work on a nuke.
There are about 25,000 Jewish hostages in Iran who are cut off from the rest of the community and subject to frequent arrest on charges of ‘spying’ and other forms of intimidation.
I doubt Mossad would recruit from the first place the Iranians would look. There are plenty of enemies of the regime ready to go and the Jews there are very careful to stay out of any anti-regime activities for obvious reasons.
That is down from 100,000 when Israel was founded.
“25,000 Iranian Jews are hostages in Iran?” Just few years ago Some American Jew offered for anyone of them move out of Iran he pays them $10K! Not much happened. Not too many takers of this offer.
Why can’t the blame be on Israel, and not Jews? This is geopolitics, interstate conflict. Can’t we blame Mexico for certain things without blaming Mexicans? Or blame Iran, certainly for many things, without blaming Persians or Shiites?
That’s a fair question, Cajun, and in theory there is no reason…but in practice nowadays it’s almost always a distinction without a difference in the eyes of most critics of Israel.
Does any data exist on enrollment figures for nuclear physics programs in Iranian schools, or of Iranian students in such programs outside their country? It seems to me that such students themselves might have some insight into this situation, and enrollments would reflect this.
as if a totalitarian regime were just like us, and the methods we use to understand free societies apply to them as well! but it does not “work” that way. for one thing, anyone who really “had some insight” would be most unlikely to talk about it…
I think you missed my point. What I was wondering about was a statistical correlation over time of enrollment in nuclear physics programs in light of the ‘half-life’ for such scientists in Iran. In addition, I am also wondering how many, of the current crop of Iranian nuclear physicists, were educated here in the USA?
i don’t know, although somewhere, someone may have some good information on Iranians who have studied here. and remember that the victims aren’t all “nuclear physicists.”
Yes, but that somewhere won’t be here.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/scientists-murder-iran-students-switch-majors-official/story?id=15377748#.Txg_oYEU-zI
This ABC story from yesterday answers part of my question. It shows a jump in changes in major course of study among Iranian college students TO nuclear sciences(though, I suppose this could be false information, coming as it does from a government official).
“I suppose this could be false information, coming as it does from a government official”
Ya think?
Why bother with anything Iranian “officials” or press says, except for a good laugh.
Pre 9/11,mnot many American were eager to join the military, but that changed shortly after. Then many American started taking Arabic classes and Farsi just because of 9/11. So why do you think similar situation is not happening in Iran? Many of the young and old people did go to war against Iraq against so much force and power. So I don’ t discount this news at all.
Dear Michael,
I am a friend of Potkin Azarmehr you have mentioned in your post and he knows me well (Just confirm my first name with him). I am just telling you this upfront to not being labeled as a pro-Iranian-government apologist.
One thing I didn’t like about your article is your constant use of “its the fault of Jews”. You try too hard to uphold the mis-belief that Iranian regime is anti-semitic. In case you didn’t know that; Iran has the second biggest Jewish community in the middle east. If Iranian regime wanted to eliminate the Jews it would be logical to start right there. But this is not happening and the Western Media is using that one-off mis-phrase of Ahmadinejad “Wiping Isreal from Earth” to uphold a propaganda against Iran. And you have clearly fallen into that propaganda trap.
With all his unprofessional stupidity, what Ahmadinejad really said in Persian was wiping the name of Israel off the map. Iranian regime is not anti-Jewish. It is anti-zionist or in other words anti-Israeli-Regime. And there is a huge difference between that. In fact Jews are protected within Islam and Jerusalem contains the two holiest mosques in the Islamic world. No one wants to destroy there anything.
When I was a child I attended Jewish weddings in Iran, as my father’s business partners were Iranian-Jewish. I find it laughable how Iranian regime is portrayed as Nazis. Nothing of that is true.
Do the Jewish Iranians suffer in Iran? yes they do. They suffer like everybody else like Persians, Azeris, Armenians, Belooch and Kurds suffer. Everybody suffers from the regime. Perhaps the only minority that is targeted more than anybody else are the Bahais.
The Iranian regime will fall, there is no doubt. And I agree with you there is something to it that they could have staged these killings to make it work in their favour. We have seen many things like this in the past so that the regime could ensure its survival.
But please refrain from being a victim of daily Western media regarding the regime and antisemitism.
Kind Regards
Houman
Houman, the antisemites I was complaining about are mostly Western journalists and “analysts” and “experts.” And please don’t waste energy pretending that the Iranian regime isn’t antisemitic; a couple of days with MEMRI shows the opposite. That said, there is very little popular antisemitism in Iran, and the graves of Esther and Mordachai are still well maintained.
And of course the tomb of Daniel is one of the most visited holy sites. One of the most favorite names for boys in Iran (particularly among Muslims) is the Jewish name Daniel.
This whole struggle between Iran and Israel is only politically motivated and has nothing to do with religion nor with races. Otherwise it could be argued that Iranian regime is also anti-Christian because they disagree with American policies.
you’d better explain that to Ahmadinejad and his Holocaust Deniers. Sorry, Houman, the Iranian leaders attack Jews, not just Israelis.
My dear Houman (a proud Persian word meaning benevolent from the Shahnameh), I would be convinced by your logic that the Islamic regime is not antisemitic if they were equally forceful in condemning the Palestinians, the forefathers of whom, the Aegean Philistines, forcefully and bloodily conquered the land to which they now lay claim to, and where the ancestors of the Jewish people were the indigenous population, as transgressors and unlawful occupiers. It is the goose and gander story.
So my question is what is the “Statute of Limitation”? Let’s imagine space aliens come to U.S. and give American Indians zillion times more military power to zap and powder any anglo in U.S. Could they kick people out of places with at least Indian names like Cheapawa Falls in Wisconsin and many other similar places? Could they be justified with less than 200 years of history and not more than 500 or more years past those events?
The statute of limitations ran out on 11/29/1947 when the Jews returned to their home so that the next time some psychopath decides to murder another 6 million they will have a place they can call home and won’t be stranded on a ship like the St. Louis going from one port of call to another begging for admittance to their soil only to be returned to their death at the hands of the murderers. Also, it was a war. It was WW2. Entities took sides. The Palestinians through their Mufti chose to join the Axis powers. The Jews joined the Allies. Axis lost, Allies won. Spoils of war. Don’t takes sides and bitch about the outcome if it didn’t favor you.
Dear friend,
Thank you for your awareness of Persian culture. Indeed Book of Kings is on my most favorite epics ever.
While I personally think it is enough of spending billions of Iranian money into throat of Hizbollah and Hamas for the past 32 years and I think this shall be no conflict where Iran is involved – as a human being though – I hope you agree that we need to find a peaceful solution to all this mess. And as long as Israel doesn’t respect those Arabs who live as refugees for nearly five decades as human beings, I hardly can see any peaceful future in the middle east. While I understand your emotional point of view about the origins of Israel, and who came first shall have the upper hand – according to your logic – America should be given back to native Americans who were there first, correct?
I had better have a good understanding of all things Iranian as I am also an Iranian. For your question about the Palestinians I will not repeat myself as I already did to Alireza. Native Americans do have a claim. Let them take their case to an international body such as the ICJ and get the desired ruling and we shall see how the USA will respond. They surely will not get the desired result by throwing bombs in cafes and busses. I am not quite sure an Apache intifadha will do the trick. Let the Palestinians take their case to the UN, as they have repeatedly, and have the 1947 ruling of the same body overturned and then we shall see how Israel will respond.
re Horseradish #38
I have enjoyed all your comments, but must once again clarify a background point. The UN is neither a good nor a fair arbiter of Israel’s right to their land, which is based on innumerable sources, from biblical & historical (Jewish nation ruled there for almost a thousand years) to the modern (Balfour declaration, the League of Nations, 1922 San Remo conference….) The UN in 1947 just re-affirmed (miraculously) these prior commitments, as required by the UN charter.
But the best comment about the UN vis-a-vis Israel was made by Abba Eben, who said that if someone were to introduce a motion in the UN stating that the world was flat & that Israel had made it so, it would pass in the UN by a vote of 140 to 10. Since then, the UN has become even less friendly to Israel!
re Horseradish on #38, re the term Palestinian
The word appears 4 times in human history, and people erroneously confuse and intermix them. The forefathers of the modern Palestinians were NOT the Aegean Philistines/Phoenicians who forcefully and bloodily conquered the land (~1200BCE) to which the modern Palestinians now lay claim. These Aegean/Phoenician/Palestinians (the second use of the term) were wiped out by the Assyrian invasion c750BCE, well before the Persians conquered Iran, & the name Palestinian went unused for the next 900+ years.
(I am glad you write that the ancestors of the Jewish people were the indigenous population, though that is not quite true; but the Jews are the only extant group that has any, and certainly the oldest historical claim to the area.)
The third time the word Palestinian appears on the world stage was when the Romans conquered Israel, ~the year 100. They renamed the area Palestine, after the ancient enemy of the Jews, as an insult to the Jews. For the next 1900 years, Palestinian was a derogatory term for Jew. The 16th century Protestant minister who sermonized that “The Palestinians are at the Gates” was talking about Jews, not Arabs. The Palestine Electric Company was founded by Jews, The Palestine Post was a Jewish newspaper, The Palestine Symphony Orchestra was a Jewish one, The Palestine Brigade was a Jewish group from Palestine who fought for The British in WWII. There was not a single Palestinian organisation that was Arab.
When Israel was founded in 1948, they refused to use this derogatory term and named the country Israel, The electric company became Bezek, the newspaper became the Jerusalem Post, the orchestra became the Israeli Philharmonic. The word Palestinian again fell into disuse.
Now about the people. There was never an independent Arab poltical entity called Palestine (although it was a minor province of several countries), there was never a purely Palestinian coin, ther was never a Palestinian leader…. When the British tried to set up an Arab country of Palestine, the Arab leaders refused, saying we are citizens of Syria, Turkey, …, not citizens of Palestine (see the report of the Peel Commission.)
The Arab population was also minimal, on the order of thousands, mostly Bedouins, because they could not support themselves on the land. (see Mark Twain’s description of his travels there in the late 18th century–he could not find any large number of Arabs; see the Encyclopedia Brittanica 1906 census of Jerusalem– an absolute majority of the population were Jews, with the Arabs as the largest of over 50 minorities) (The bible states that no other people except the Jews would ever live succesfully in Israel, and history has proved that true for 2,000 years.)
When the Jews drained the deadly swamps & irrigated the unlivable deserts, hundreds of thousands of Arabs flooded the area from the surrounding countries just before & especially after WWII, because now there were jobs available there but not in their own countries. These people had no historic relationship to the area. The best proof that the Arabs were NOT indiginous to the area was that the UN had to found a separate refugee organisation for them, The original UN refugee organisation required displaced refugees to have a long-standing relationship to the area. The special UN refugee organisation for the Arabs only required them to have lived there for 21 MONTHS (because if they had required more than 2 or 3 years, to say nothing of decades, as the basic UN refugee organisation did, the overwhelming majority would NOT have qualified.) (see the charter for the Arab refugee organisation, UNRWA, on the UN website.)
We now come to the current usage of Palestinian, meaning solely the Arab population of the new state of Israel, overwhelmingly new, economic iummigrants from just before the state was founded, who had NO PRIOR RELATIONSHIP TO THE LAND. (Those who remained became citizens of Israel, and are the best off non-oil Arabs in the world, in terms of income, education, electrification, indoor plumbing, life expectancy, infant mortality, ability to honestly vote for real representatives, and any other criteria you can name; those who followed the instructions of their country of origen (come back home so we can invade & kill all the Jews so you can return and take over their money & property- see newspapers of the times) were not allowed to re-integrate into their country of origen, but were kept, by their bretheren, in refugee camps for generations, as cannon fodder for the next war, unable to get an education, own land, own a business, get a job, vote, … and are the worst off of all Arabs, by all of the above listed criteria.)
This fourth use of the term Palestinian WAS FIRST USED BY YASSAR ARAFAT IN 1963, when he founded the PLO. The term has no other relationship to any of the 3 prior uses of the word, which all had a relationship to the land. It solely represents people whose only goal is to destroy Israel; they have no desire for a country of their own and have never done a single tangible thing needed to build a country. By the way, the Palestine Arafat intended to Liberate was Israel proper. His charter (can be found online) clearly states (even today) that he made NO claim on the West Bank (needs another long essay) or the Gaza strip!
Hope this clears up some of the misperceptions and widely accepted outright lies. Sorry to be so long but I tried to give easily checked sources for my points and be as brief as possible without omitting necessary information.
One angle that no one has brought up yet is the Stuxnet computer worm that appears to have taken out many of Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges. As I understand it, this particular “worm” does not come through via the Internet, but has to be carried in on a USB thumb-drive. If this is in fact its mode of infection, than this means it was hand-carried into Iran. Any individual with both access to the outside world, and Iran’s internal computer systems, could be a suspect for such an act of sabotage. This may be the thread that ties the several assassination victims together. It may be that the regime is targeting individuals that it thinks were involved with the Stuxnet computer worm.
yes, that is plausible.
This is my first time visiting your site, Dr. Ledeen. Really great, I’ll be back. I just wanted to stress that it was the land-sharks. Trust me.
Sean this is totally off-topic. post it elsewhere pls.
Well, I think the Chinese did it. They currently need to stir things up in this region to make America looks bad and to keep us occupied so we could not focus in the Pacific, specifically, Southeast Asia. Additionally, they are the supply source for Tehran’s nuclear program and if it is unstable, it will keep on coming back to the source for assistance. The real perpetrator is China.
addendum to Horseradish’s comment on #13:
Horseradish, I see absolutely no evidence that you are an antisemite (I refer you to the first paragraph of the article to see some of the basic required beliefs to qualify as an antisemite,) but you may very well be an anti-Semite!? [my best approximation of an interrobang]
Whenever I follow the arrow of time from the battle of Al Qadesiah at the end of the Sassanid period and the forced Islamization of my people to the natural conclusion of its barbaric manifestion by those who have currently hijacked the reigns of power in my country of birth, Iran, I have to admit in all honesty that I do find myself harboring such feelngs. But as soon as I feel that sensation of hatred I remind myself that there exists among them wonderful people such as Wafa Sultan and Brigette Gabrielle.
So if you want to know who is killing Iranian scientists, look no further.
Just read this wacko Jewish columnist out of Georgia who is suggesting as “option 3” for his readers that Mossad should take out the President of United States, so then his VP could take over and so he attack Iran!!! Here is the link to this news:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/assassinate-obama-if-he-wont-attack-iran-for-israel-jewish-monthly-suggests/article2310783/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=World&utm_content=2310783
So you want to tell me when people have such DESIRE” and “BALLS” to write such a thing in broad day light, they just don’t mean it? It was a typo? They just apologize? And then things are back to normal? The same mentality exist and they are dangerous people. The same people INSIDE Israel killed Yitzhak Rabin. Didn’t they?
Now he says he regrets what he said (actually he WROTE IT), but I seriously doubt that.
In the early 1980s, in Beirut, at least journalists admitted they were intimidated by thugs and terrorists into reporting as they did. Now they hardly ever do; when a CNN exec admitted (after his overthrow by the U.S.-led coalition) to cooperation with Saddam he was roundly condemned by his fellows. TV reporters and big-name newspaper writers all are paid a lot and have families to worry about so they won’t risk endangering their dolce vita by telling the truth.
The same attitude now pervades much Western government officialdom – like the Norwegian minister who justified a pro-Palestinian stand by proclaiming that the life of an Israeli isn’t worth the life of a single Norwegian. They let evils grow in their own lands. The U.S. was strong enough to send Sirhan Sirhan to prison but not strong enough to execute him for assassinating RFK. Ultimately it is we who are responsible for listening to the MSM and electing cowardly representatives.
Great contribution. Thanks.
As for Mark Perry’s trip down the rabbit hole, what do we have? Anonymous sources and ‘buried secret documents’, with a dab of Jew hatred and a dollop of meddling in the executive’s purview. Standard retired CIA stuff, in other words.
In point of fact, CIA has no idea what’s happening in the land of the Baloch, as they’ve likely got no one who speaks the language or is willing to get his boots dusty (unless his hand is held and gear carried by a SEAL team or two). They’re thus stuck with their standard sources: ISI, Hersh, and PressTV, and whatever FBIS chooses to render into English for monoglot analysts.
I’ll stick with what we’ve some evidence for, namely, when Jundollah works with others, it’s with ISI, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and the occasional Taliban or affiliate.
—
“And we don’t do political assassinations.”
Unless it’s a sitting president, in a time of war, that is. Political assassinations are then perfectly acceptable, especially if CIA doesn’t agree with the President’s foreign policy. He is, after all, just an elected official, not a real branch of government.
Horseraish, this is not a blog about the Israeli-Arab conflict. Sorry.