Dr. Ismail Salami

In a 'united against Iran campaign,' the US government has accused Tehran of orchestrating an assassination plot against the Saudi envoy in Washington, a move which is to be seen as part of a US stratagem to carry on with its plan of demonizing and isolating the Islamic Republic of Iran.

US Vice President Joe Biden said on "The Early Show" on Wednesday that "It's critically important that we unite the world in the isolation of and dealing with the Iranians. That's the surest way to be able to get results."

Obviously, the US officials will use the fabricated occasion to press for new international sanctions as they say that Iranian agents have sought to hire a purported member of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi envoy on American soil.

Regardless of the impertinence and hollowness of the claim, one should not disregard the influence of the powerful Zionist lobby in the new mudslinging plan which is, as Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani puts it, a 'tactless and childish game.”

To add more fuel to Iranophobia, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on other countries to work together against what is becoming a clearer and clearer threat" from Iran and said, “This really, in the minds of many diplomats and government officials, crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for.”

Washington, once again, went on a labeling spree and called Iran “the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.”

There is well-grounded speculation that the new move is meant to stir up dissension in the region so that the US may bolster its waning influence among the Middle Eastern countries as Iran wields a great amount of political muscle in the region. In other words, the US will then be in a position to fish in troubled waters.

In concerted efforts with Israel, Washington has a long history of covert operations in Iran including cyber-terrorism, commercial sabotage and targeted assassinations. A notable instance of such operations is a computer worm known as Stuxnet which has hit Iranian nuclear facilities, categorically a deliberate attempt by the US government to destroy what Iranian scientists have reaped during years. The worm was reportedly tested in Israel at the notorious nuclear arsenal Dimona in a joint Israeli-American effort (The New York Times January 15, 2011). Ironically, Dimona which has been used as a testing ground for the worm, houses over 300 nuclear warheads, and was kept hidden for years until Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at Dimona, fled to Britain in 1986 and revealed the Israeli nuclear program as well as a top-secret underground facility directly below the installation. Reports say that Israel has at its disposal material for roughly 20 hydrogen bombs and 200 fission bombs. Needless to say, Israel is not a global security threat despite its nuclear warheads and irresponsible behavior towards the Palestinians as it is a fawning ally of the USA.

Apart from sabotaging the nuclear program in Iran, Washington has shamelessly engaged in a series of assassinations against Iranian nuclear scientists. In July 2011, a university student named Daryoush Rezaei, 35, was shot down while his wife sustained serious injuries and was rushed to hospital. In 2010, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a nuclear scientist, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb in Tehran. On November 29, 2010, two other scientists were targeted by bombs that hit their cars in the capital. The assailants, who were on motorcycles, had stuck magnetic bombs to the victims' cars. Professor Majid Shahriari was killed on the spot, but Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi and his wife sustained minor injuries and were taken to a hospital. A report carried by The Jerusalem Post citing French Weekly Le Canard enchaine revealed that Mossad had conducted the assassinations “with the help of the CIA and MI6.”

According to intelligence sources, the assassinations were part of Joint US-Israeli plots meant to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. Also, an article published in the Portuguese-language Weekly, The Expresso revealed that high-ranking Mossad officials gathered at the spy agency's headquarters in northern Tel Aviv, concluding that the killing of Shahriari would be Mossad's last covert operation under its current director, Meir Dagan. However, the two spy agencies refused to assume any responsibility for the attacks whatsoever.

In the Iowa Republican Presidential Debate in August 2011, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich spurted out his brazen sloganeering against the Islamic republic and when asked about the situation in Libya, he unconsciously gave rein to his anger and started ranting about Iran, saying the nation had “gone on the offensive” against the USA and needed to be confronted. Soon other hawks joined in with former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty speaking venomously in favor of attacking Iran and boldly lauding the “good works” of the US government in assassinating Iranian scientists and the “good work” of creating the Stuxnet computer virus. This was how he let the cat out of the bag, making it clear that the USA was behind all those atrocities.

Some pundits believe that the US move will put Iran in the forefront of global hatred. This will never happen as the US and its lapdog Israel have already played similar games about Iran over and over again.

What the US government has done to the Iranian nation is not easy to forget and the support it keeps voicing for Israel is not difficult to digest.

Isn't it strange that Iran, which has long been a victim of US-sponsored terrorism and assassinations, should have become a target of threadbare allegations?

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-- Ismail Salami is an Iranian author and political analyst. A prolific writer, he has written numerous books and articles on the Middle East some of which have been translated into more than ten languages. His analysis can be found on many other online publications such as Veterans Today, Media Monitors, Global Research, Opinion Maker, Palestine Chronicle, Dissident Voice, Foreign Policy Journal, Al-Ahram, Arab News, Salem News, Intifada Palestine, Iran Review, Counter Currents, Turkish Weekly Journal, Intrepid Report and Ramallah Online.