Iran: U.S. New Whipping Boy: Those Who Deceived America May be At It Again

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http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40 & ItemID=5933

 

Iran: U.S. New Whipping Boy

Those Who Deceived America Into Attacking Iraq Maybe

At It Again

 

by Eric Margolis

 

July 26, 2004

 

Perhaps, suggested the U.S. 9/11 commission. It

claimed Iran allowed eight al-Qaida future airplane

hijackers to pass through Iran from Afghanistan

between seven and 11 months prior to the attacks on

America.

 

Unnamed senior Bush administration officials also

claim Iran proposed collaborating with al-Qaida in

2000, but was rejected by Osama bin Laden. " Maybe we

attacked the wrong country, " one of the dimmer lights

in Congress ruefully observed.

 

There has been no real evidence produced that Iran

knew of the 9/11 attacks or assisted them. In fact,

the Bush administration has still never produced the

white paper promised by Colin Powell in late 2001

proving bin Laden and al-Qaida were behind 9/11.

 

Why would Iran, knowing it was in Bush's gunsights,

join in a monstrous terrorist attack that, if linked

to Tehran, could have conceivably brought U.S. nuclear

retaliation?

 

This column has long predicted the Bush administration

would orchestrate a pre-election crisis over Iran

designed to whip up patriotic fervour in the U.S. and

distract public and media attention from the Iraq

fiasco.

 

Growing clamour

 

The growing clamour over Iran's nuclear intentions,

with rumblings about air strikes against Iran's

reactors in the fall, may prove to be a part of just

such a manufactured crisis.

 

Remember, these latest fevered claims about Iran come

from the same " reliable intelligence sources " and

neo-conservative hawks who insisted Iraq had a vast

arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that threatened

the U.S., with intimate links to al-Qaida.

 

The Iran-Afghan border is 1,000 km of wild, broken

terrain that is extremely difficult to police. Large

numbers of smugglers cross this border on countless

hidden trails, bringing hashish and gems into Iran.

The U.S., with fleets of planes, helicopters and

sensors, cannot stop a flood of undocumented Mexicans

crossing its own southwestern borders.

 

Why should the poorly equipped Iranians do any better?

 

Didn't these same 9/11 hijackers also enter the U.S.

unchallenged? Of course. They slipped unnoticed into

Iran and the U.S. No one knew their intentions. This

is the most likely explanation.

 

Iran does not have a unified government. This nation

of 72.5 million is afflicted by feuding factions that

have produced a state of political chaos. Iran has

certainly been involved in acts of terrorism, notably

against Jews in Argentina.

 

And militants from the intelligence service or

Pasdarann (Revolutionary Guards), might have let

al-Qaida mujahidin slip across the border without

Tehran's knowledge.

 

But far more important are two key facts that most

media and the government aren't telling you.

 

First, Iran and al-Qaida were bitter enemies.

 

In Afghanistan, al-Qaida ardently backed the

Pushtun-dominated, Sunni Taliban movement, which hated

Shia as heretics and killed large numbers of them.

Shia Iran (and Russia) armed and supported the

Taliban's greatest foe, Ahmad Shah Massoud and his

Northern Alliance, composed of Dari (a Persian

dialect)-speaking Tajiks, Afghan communists, and Shia.

Massoud was a long-time collaborator with

Soviet/Russian intelligence.

 

After the Taliban killed a group of Iranian

intelligence agents, Iran almost invaded Afghanistan

to overthrow them.

 

Just before 9/11, al-Qaida assassinated Massoud.

 

Iran quietly aided the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan

that overthrew the Taliban, and jailed scores of

al-Qaida members, including one of bin Laden's sons.

 

Active Iranian co-operation with al-Qaida seems

illogical. Of course my enemy's enemy is my friend,

and collaboration was theoretically possible, but Iran

derived no benefit whatever from the 9/11 attacks --

quite the contrary.

 

Second, the Bush administration and former Clinton

officials are trading accusations that the other was

responsible for failing to take action against

al-Qaida and its Taliban allies prior to 9/11.

 

But what no one admits is that both administrations

sent millions in aid to the Taliban until four months

before 9/11.