ANOTHER PRETEXT TO WAGE WAR?
The Fingerprints of False Flags Against Iran. The Thailand, India,
Georgia Terrorist Bomb Blasts
By Finian Cunningham
Global Research, February 15, 2012
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29307
Have
American and Israeli efforts to pin international terrorism on Iran
just gone global? A series of bomb attacks apparently on Israeli
diplomats in India and Georgia are now being linked with blasts in the
Thai capital, Bangkok, for which it is reported that three Iranian men
have been arrested.
Israel is claiming that the explosive devices
recovered in Thailand are the same “sticky bombs” that were used in the
attacks in New Delhi and Tbilisi, and that is proof that an Iranian
terror network is conducting an assassination campaign against its
foreign diplomats.
“The attempted terrorist attack in Bangkok proves
once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror,”
said Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister.
Thai police have named one of the men injured in the
blasts on Tuesday in Bangkok as an Iranian national. It is reported that
two other men arrested, one in the Thai capital and another detained
after he flew to Malaysia, are also Iranian.
The Thai authorities have so far declined to comment
on claims that the group is part of an international terror network. The
assailants in the Indian and Georgian attacks are unknown. However,
Israel has claimed that those apparent assassination attempts against
its diplomats on Monday in New Delhi and Tbilisi were the work of
Iranian-linked Hezbollah, operating out of Lebanon.
Israeli claims echo long-standing assertions by
Washington and Tel Aviv that Iran is a sponsor of international
terrorism. At the end of last year, the US government claimed that it
had uncovered an Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador
in Washington. The latter alleged plot has been widely scoffed at for
its outlandish circumstances involving an Iranian used car salesman in
cahoots with a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the murder bid at a
restaurant in the US capital.
Nevertheless, the latest incidents this week will
doubtless fuel repeated assertions by Western governments that Iran is a
“rogue state” presenting a threat to international security, in
particular with regard to harbouring sinister “nuclear weapons
ambitions”. Taken together, it purports to justify the US/NATO/Israeli
war plans towards Iran. It is believed that Washington has given Israeli
a tacit green light to launch pre-emptive military strikes against the
Islamic Republic. In this context, the latest claims emanating from Tel
Aviv that its foreign diplomats are being targeted for assassination by
Iran could provide a fatal trigger for long-held war plans.
But a closer look at the latest blast incidents
raises serious questions about the credibility of such claims, and
indeed could suggest that they are part of a false flag campaign to set
Iran up for imminent attack.
For a start the explosive devices apparently used in
Thailand, India and Georgia were so-called sticky bombs, devices that
can be magnetically attached to vehicles for targeted assassination of
individuals. In the New Delhi attack, a motorcyclist rode up to the
Israeli diplomat’s car and attached the bomb. In the Tbilisi incident,
the device was apparently stuck underneath the vehicle’s chassis. None
of the diplomats alleged targeted were seriously injured in the attacks.
But this method of assassination has been used
previously with devastating effect in the murder of four Iranian nuclear
scientists in separate attacks. The latest Iranian victim of
assassination was 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan who was killed when
motorcycle assailants planted a sticky bomb on his car in Tehran last
month. The Iranian government has claimed with credible reasoning that
the assassination campaign against its scientists is the work of
American and Israeli intelligence. The American and Israeli use of
Iranian nationals as proxy agents to execute such a campaign is a proven
modus operandi.
Iran has strongly denied any involvement in the
latest terror incidents in India, Georgia and Thailand, as well as the
alleged bomb plot against the Saudi diplomat in Washington. There is
plausible credibility in Iran’s denials. What would Iran gain from such
action, only grief and trouble?
This is especially true with regard to India and
Thailand. Both Asian countries have become major trading partners with
Tehran in recent years. India, along with China, is Iran’s biggest
customer for its vital oil industry.
Thailand is of growing importance as a trading
partner with Iran for oil, mining, heavy industry, services, technology
and agriculture especially after both countries set up a joint business
council five years ago.
For Iran to carry out such attacks, as is being
claimed, would be like shooting itself in the foot, particularly because
both Asian countries have refused to join in the US-led campaign to
isolate Iran economically and diplomatically.
Put the other way round, it is much more in the
interest of Washington and Israel to destabilize relations between Iran
and its Asian partners. The repercussions from the blasts in India would
appear to be having that desired effect.
Take this Reuters reports: Up to now India has not
gone along with new financial sanctions imposed by the United States and
European Union to punish Iran over its disputed nuclear programme.
Instead, New Delhi has come up with elaborate trade and barter
arrangements to pay for oil supplies. However, the president of the All
India Rice Exporters’ Association said Monday’s attack on the wife of an
Israeli diplomat in the Indian capital will damage trade with Iran and
may complicate efforts to resolve an impasse over Iranian defaults on
payments for rice imports worth around $150 million. “The attack and its
political fallout have clearly vitiated the atmosphere. Traders who
were already losing money due to payment defaults will be extremely wary
of continuing their trade with buyers in Iran,” Vijay Setia told
Reuters.
So add it up. Bomb teams with proven US/Israeli
assassination expertise and methodology; target countries that are major
Iranian partners; desired effect of further isolating Iran
internationally; and, to cap it all, a long sought-after pretext for
Israel to attack Iran with America’s blessing.
When logic and facts coincide like this, it’s usually more prudent to engage in reason than to indulge in lurid claims.
Finian Cunningham is Global Research’s Middle East and East Africa Correspondent
cunninghamfinian@gmail.com
