ANOTHER IRAQ?
Al Qaeda’s Plot To Provoke the U.S. Invasion of Iran
In March of 2010, leading Taliban commanders
collectively revealed
to the Western media that Iran has been providing them with crucial
assistance
in weapons and training for the war against the American-led occupation
of
Afghanistan [1]. This concerted
propaganda campaign by the Taliban predictably magnified international
pressure
against the Iranian government. The
Afghan commanders’ paradoxical attack on their own purported life line
raises
serious doubts about the credibility of these reports on Iranian
involvement. Why would the Taliban’s
leadership risk endangering this supposedly critical support by
willfully
disclosing it to the Western media?
Furthermore, how credible are the Western sources behind these
allegations?
In light of the disastrous invasion of Iraq, informed debate about reports of an alliance between Al Qaeda and the Iranian government can only occur in the historical context of intelligence leaks concerning Al Qaeda. In particular, this discussion needs to consider the validity of previous declarations about Al Qaeda’s relationships with the governments of both Iraq and Iran, as well as the role of these two Muslim countries in Al Qaeda’s strategy for winning the 9/11 War.
Despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary, the Bush Administration repeatedly asserted that Al Qaeda had established alliances with the Middle Eastern archrivals Iraq and Iran. A primary basis for the expansion of the 9/11 War to Iraq involved spurious claims about Saddam Hussein’s support for Al Qaeda, contentions that have been resoundingly debunked by the 9/11 Commission Report and the broader Western intelligence community [2]. After the fall of Hussein and the onset of an Iraqi civil war, widely disseminated accusations surfaced of Iranian assistance for Al Qaeda’s newly created affiliate in Iraq. Riddled with doubt were the allegations that the Iranian government would abet the Zarqawi Network’s campaign of mass murder directed at Iranian brethren in Iraq [3]. Rather than exposing genuine cooperation among Osama bin Laden’s syndicate, Iraq and Iran, questionable intelligence appears to have repeatedly misled the American public into sanctioning a concerted effort that actually pursued an ulterior motive, utilizing the smokescreen of the 9/11 War in order to confront the two oil-rich, anti-Semitic governments identified by the Bush Administration as the leaders of “the Axis of Evil” [4].
Contradicting charges of collaboration between Al Qaeda and these two nations, Osama bin Laden’s strategy of crusader baiting indicates that these countries are actually the victims of his plot to provoke a U.S. invasion of the Middle East. Aspiring to vilify America and vindicate his indictment of the “Great Satan empire”, Bin Laden has harnessed his conniving courtship of the Muslim world as the primary vehicle for his global insurgency. Most Western intelligence experts now concur that the 9/11 attack constituted a scheme to incite America into invading Afghanistan and beyond, rather than the plot publicly described by Al Qaeda as an attempt to intimidate the superpower into fleeing from the Muslim world. In fact, compelling evidence reveals that Al Qaeda not only intended to goad the Bush Administration into occupying its base of Afghanistan, but also Iraq, the Muslim country that had been the predominant target of the U.S. military throughout the decade before 9/11 [5].
Further evidence of Al Qaeda’s monstrous strategy to provoke the slaughter of innocent Muslims emerged in June of 2006 with the assassination of Bin Laden’s top deputy in Iraq. When Zarqawi was killed and a "treasure trove" of intelligence about Al Qaeda in Iraq was seized at his failed safe house, the group’s most closely guarded documents confirmed that they actively sought to implicate Iran falsely for terrorist offenses that would instigate a U.S. invasion [6]. Unlike the shallow second-hand intelligence about Al Qaeda’s alliance with Iraq and Iran (as well as Saddam’s WMD), this first-hand intelligence bonanza from the Zarqawi raid has been consistently validated by the nation’s leading counterterrorism experts [7]. Years prior to the raid, in the month after the Iraq invasion, evidence of this plot emerged when Al Qaeda implicated Iran in the syndicate’s first post-9/11 terrorist attack on a U.S. target, part of a coordinated bombing of Western targets in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. After having spurred the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Al Qaeda appears committed to spreading the 9/11 War into surrounding Muslim nations in this fashion.
Like the syndicate’s successful provocation of the Iraq invasion, incitement of an Iran invasion would mark another episode of crusader-baiting intended to strengthen popular support for Bin Laden’s anti-American insurgency. A harbinger of such a scenario emerged with the election of the virulently anti-American Iranian President Ahmadinejad in a closely contested ballot decided by a terrorist bombing campaign in Tehran conducted on the eve of voting that was widely blamed on the CIA-backed terrorist group MEK. Apart from the ideological impact from a U.S. invasion of Iran, an Al Qaeda alliance with Hezbollah would significantly enhance Al Qaeda Prime’s already impressive army of terrorist affiliates. Additionally, the strain on the overtaxed U.S. military and the destabilization of the global oil market would only amplify the victory for Al Qaeda.
Most likely, the latest disclosures about Iranian support for the Taliban divulged by its top commanders represent merely another attempt by Al Qaeda and its affiliates to incriminate Iran as an ally of Bin Laden’s syndicate in order to provoke a U.S. invasion of Iran. Only by opposing this crusader-baiting strategy and attacking Al Qaeda ideologically can American end the 9/11 War that Bin Laden has endeavored to perpetuate.
[2] For more information on the false claims about Hussein’s support for Al Qaeda, see David Malone’s Bin Laden’s Plan, Chapter 2.3. The Improbability of a Saddam-Bin Laden Alliance.
[3] For more information on the false claims about Iran’s support for Al Qaeda, see David Malone’s Bin Laden’s Plan, Chapter 11.2. The Promise of Another Bush Term: The Iran Invasion.
[4] For more information on the Bush Administration’s ulterior motives for confronting Iraq and Iran, see David Malone’s Bin Laden’s Plan, Chapter 3. Bush's Predisposition to Invade Iraq.
[5] For more information on Al Qaeda’s plot to provoke the U.S. invasion of Iraq, see David Malone’s Bin Laden’s Plan, Chapters 1-5.
[6] For more information on Al Qaeda’s plot to provoke the U.S. invasion of Iran, see David Malone’s Bin Laden’s Plan, Chapters 11.2. The Promise of Another Bush Term: The Iran Invasion.
[7] http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86304-p0/bruce-riedel/al-qaeda-strikes-back.html