Iranian Paranoia or Lessons of Recent History?

After the May 29th bombing that killed 25 at a Shiite mosque in Zahedan, Iran, Press TV (an Iranian-funded news outlet) ran the headline:

Iran mosque blast bears ‘US, Israel thumbprints’

Of course, the two Iranian officials quoted in the brief story didn’t offer any evidence – merely that the attack was “at the behest of the United States and its allies.”

So I guess one could assume it’s just the Iranians being paranoid and blaming that “Zionist entity” that they claim is responsible for so many of the world’s ills.

Others might write this off as just the latest finger-pointing from the same country whose president denies the Holocaust (as well as the existence of homosexuals within his country).

Surely there are plenty of neoconservatives who will just dismiss this claim as ranting from the second act of the Axis of Evil.

Stories from other respectable media outlets were notably less conspiratorial. Jundallah, a Balochi militant group of Sunni separatists from the southeast of the country, claimed responsibility for the bombing. Within two days, three men (apparently suspects?) were executed for the terrorist act.

Balochistan is a region with a reputation; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (he of the 183 waterboardings fame and alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks) hails from the region, as did Ramzi Yousef, the extremist charged with bombing the World Trade Center in 1993.

Jundallah has caused problems for the Shiite regime in the past: in 2006, more than 20 people were killed by suspected Jundallah militants in an attack.

In February 2007, Jundallah admitted bombing a bus and killing at least 11 members of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Yet in September 2007, then-Senators Obama and Clinton voted to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. I would have thought the perpetrators – not the victims – of a terrorist act would have been designated “terrorists.”

Maybe the future President and Secretary of State were only “creating their own reality,” to use a term coined by the previous administration. After an April, 2007 ABC News story reported on possible CIA-Jundallah links (along with adamant government denials), someone evidently decided a clear definition was needed for the American public as to who was the good guy and who was the bad guy.

A year later, in June 2008, Seymour Hersh wrote extensively about U.S. covert operations to fund, support, and perhaps even arm ethnic-minority insurgent groups inside Iran to weaken the clerical regime. Among Hersh’s sources was former CIA agent Robert Baer, who specifically named Jundallah among three groups allegedly receiving U.S. support.

Strangely enough, Jundallah is not included on the U.S. State Department’s list of “foreign designated terrorist groups.” Probably makes it easier for the CIA to get approval for operations in the behind-the-door meetings with congressional members.

But that’s assuming any support for Jundallah goes through official channels. It’s just as likely that support could be indirect and funneled through Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or other Sunni sympathizers (that, conveniently, are our “allies”).

Is there any truth to Iran’s claims of U.S involvement in the mosque bombing?

One could dismiss Hersh’s story (after all, he was so wrong about that whole My Lai thing…).

Skeptics could question Baer’s credibility, given that he now writes books about the subject that have been turned into Hollywood blockbusters (i.e., Syriana). But the U.S. government never denied supporting the two other insurgent groups Baer also named.

Patriotic Neocons will likely point out that after the initial ABC News story broke, Pakistan publicly denied supporting Jundallah at the behest of the U.S. (of course, at the time Pakistan was run by an unelected, U.S.-supported dictator).

Realists might simply require evidence from the Iranian regime about their claims of U.S. involvement.

Or one could look to the past.

During the 1980s, the U.S. funded Sunni fundamentalists in the region using Pakistan as a surrogate ATM machine. Many of the same elements that form the Taliban and Al Qaeda today were once “allies.” Saudi Arabia was actively encouraged to funnel money to extremist militant groups that the U.S. couldn’t be seen with in public.

Is it really that far-fetched to think that we might be doing the same again?

Wil Robinson
AWOP International Contributing Editor
www.internationalpoliticalwill.com

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Peace Y'all