US steps up sanctions and threats against Iran over alleged terror plot

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Friday October 14, 2011 12:51 by pat c

Bill Van Auken analyses the latest attempt by the US to ramp up pressure on Iran including an increase in sanctions. The FBI Director said it read like a Hollywood script. Well maybe its just that: a work of fiction. Robert Baer, a 21-year veteran CIA case officer in the Middle East told ABC News that the US charges were not “credible.” He said: "They’re much better than this. They wouldn’t be sending money through an American bank, they wouldn’t be going to the cartels in Mexico to do this."
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The White House announced Wednesday that it is imposing a new round of economic sanctions against Iran, while Vice President Joseph Biden warned that “nothing has been taken off the table” in regard to Washington’s response to an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, suggesting the possibility of military strikes.

Among the new targets of US sanctions is Mahan Air, Iran’s first privately owned airline, which flies to 12 countries. US officials claimed that the airline was involved in “secretly ferrying” members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Washington has seized upon the alleged plot to attempt to terrorize the American people, issuing a global travel warning against unspecified threats supposedly emanating from Iran while cautioning that attacks within the US itself are also possible.

The supposed terrorist plot was announced to the public by US Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday in Washington. The Justice Department’s case involves a wildly unlikely scenario involving a failed Iranian-American used car dealer from Texas, Manssor Arbabsiar, traveling to Mexico and attempting to enlist the feared drug cartel Los Zetas in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir, by blowing him up in an unnamed Washington restaurant. The other relevant plot twist is the fact that the supposed representative of Los Zetas contacted by Arbabsiar happened to be a confidential informant for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

During Tuesday’s press conference, FBI Director Robert Mueller felt compelled to note that the government’s case “reads like the pages of a Hollywood script.”