A forgotten incident before the Iranian elections
I had all but forgotten about this incident in a remote province of Iran, lost in the noise of daily violence in Pakistan and Iraq. In light of the election itself and the chaos that has followed, though, it might be worth revisiting.
One statement here gave me a start. It was this:
"A Sunni opposition group named Jundollah (God's Soldiers), which Iran says is part of the Islamist al Qaeda network and backed by the United States, said it was behind the mosque bombing, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television reported last week."
If only as a curiosity, it deserves a second look.
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You know, it's good to try and make connections with a lot of these events.
All governments lie, in one way or another. Some information is disseminated without objective analysis or serious scrutiny via corporate sponsored news, or state-sponsored news, and in my estimation, there isn't really a distinction between the two any more.
June 14, 2009 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
The thing that intrigued me about this report was that it is highly "connected" with various aspects of our foreign policies in this region, for example the possibility that the activities of Jundollah exacerbate differences between Iran and Pakistan, a development of obvious importance to us:http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/02/stories/2009060254931500.htm
the fact that our alignment with Sunni groups throughout the region, most notably in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, creates intrinsic difficulties for us in Iraq, generating powerful contradictions in our policies.
By the way, the allegation that the U.S. has been sponsoring the activities of Jundollah is not a new one. As far as I know, an allegation that Israel is using Jundollah as a counter-proxy to Hezbollah IS a new one:http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF03Ak01.html
This is worth reading, at least as fiction, and as an illustration of what COULD be happening here.
June 14, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
other similar "curiosities"
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/a-green-revolution-for-iran/
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/artappraiser/2009/04/there-are-updates-and-developm.php#comment-3467783
June 14, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
p.s. I think as conspiracy theories go, the suspicion of a "color revolution" in Iran as receiving support from our CIA, (if not directly inspired by them) is not as wacky sounding as many such theories to me, because the Obama administration's foreign policy has focused on Afghanistan-Iran-Russia-Pakistan since day one, and Obama clearly cares about some Sunni nation fears about Iran becoming more powerful, not to mention the future of the Shiite/Sunni nation called Iraq next door. Keep in mind that we do, after all, have an active military presence on two sides of Iran attemting to accomplish certain things and a short while ago labeled them a part of an axis of evil. Would long time CIA assets be relieved of their duties immediately by a newly sworn-in president? I doubt it. Their orders may just have changed, that's all.
Still, a week ago, the new head of our CIA basically said al Qaeda "remains the most serious security threat" to the United States and its leaders, so to think that we would to affiliate with or use a Qaeda-affiliated group is kind of bonkers.
June 14, 2009 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the Hersh piece you linked to, is this intriguing passage:
"The Administration may have been willing to rely on dissident organizations in Iran even when there was reason to believe that the groups had operated against American interests in the past. The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers—in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties.” Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered one of the leading planners of the September 11th attacks, are Baluchi Sunni fundamentalists.
One of the most active and violent anti-regime groups in Iran today is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a resistance force fighting for the rights of Sunnis in Iran. “This is a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists,” Nasr told me. “They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture.” The Jundallah took responsibility for the bombing of a busload of Revolutionary Guard soldiers in February, 2007. At least eleven Guard members were killed. According to Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefitting from U.S. support."
I should add that Baer strikes me as a candid and reliable source.
June 14, 2009 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink