# Did Iran Almost/Actually Commit An Act of War Against The USA? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 11, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341 "2011-10-11T20:09:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/61 "2011-10-12T21:30:01Z")
It would depend on who actually did this, BG. It could have been any number of players in Iran…or it could have been someone trying to frame Iran, or even faction members trying to frame other faction members in Iran. They play politics pretty hard in Iran, and they seem to be more focused on the power game than on any external consequences…not if they can really get the other guy. Personally, I think it was someone trying to frame Iran, since the plot doesn’t seem to make much sense wrt some sort of pay off for any given faction in Iran…but you can never rule out that someone in the Iranian government was simply trying to make someone else look bad, so… -XT ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/62 "2011-10-12T21:40:29Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Personally, I think it was someone trying to frame Iran, since the plot doesn’t seem to make much sense wrt some sort of pay off for any given faction in Iran…but you can never rule out that someone in the Iranian government was simply trying to make someone else look bad, so… And certainly the ineptitude of the plot makes it unlikely they had their best people working on it, so maybe some people decided to act on their own in order to impress their bosses. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/63 "2011-10-12T22:06:27Z")
> [@Da\_Mikster](#): > > “Did Iran Almost/Actually Commit An Act of War Against The USA?” > > Did the USA commit “an act of war” against Pakistan when we took out Bin Hiding? > How about against Yemen when we took out Al-Awlaki? > We’ve got pretty much NO moral high ground left to stand on anymore. And it’s our own fault. WELL SAID. You cannot promote liberty by coercion it just doesn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/64 "2011-10-13T00:50:00Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > It would depend on who actually did this, BG. It could have been any number of players in Iran…or it could have been someone trying to frame Iran, or even faction members trying to frame other faction members in Iran. They play politics pretty hard in Iran, and they seem to be more focused on the power game than on any external consequences…not if they can really get the other guy. > > Personally, I think it was someone trying to frame Iran, since the plot doesn’t seem to make much sense wrt some sort of pay off for any given faction in Iran…but you can never rule out that someone in the Iranian government was simply trying to make someone else look bad, so… > > -XT I recall the 1985 Tom Hanks movie [_The Man With One Red Shoe,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_with_One_Red_Shoe) a Cold War comedy-thriller about spies, but there are no **foreign** spies in the story, all the cloak-and-dagger crimes are just intra-Company politics, with frameups and counter-frameups. Welcome to the next level, Iran. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/65 "2011-10-13T03:54:17Z")
Wow. Step away from here for 24 hours and speculation abounds, here and[in the media](http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/12/us/analysis-iran-saudi-plot/index.html?hpt=hp_t2). Assuming any one of the five reasons cited in this latest twist have some semblance of truth, then the US Government has some explaining to do. Is the US now so inept that they just made themselves a laughingstock in the world? Could all of this be infighting within the US Government? The mind boggles at this thought that competing egos can’t see the larger, external repercussions. And for those hijacking the original premise with your bin Laden/Pakistan views, please start another thread. If this story has actual legs, let it walk on its own. If not, let its own ineptitude trip itself. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/66 "2011-10-13T04:10:18Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Assuming any one of the five reasons cited in this latest twist have some semblance of truth, then the US Government has some explaining to do. Is the US now so inept that they just made themselves a laughingstock in the world? Could all of this be infighting within the US Government? Where do you get those conclusions from the story you’ve linked to? The thrust of the story is “[analysts] find it unlikely that the Iranian government, or legitimate factions within, would be involved in such a tangled plot.” That doesn’t say there was no plot or that the U.S. is wrong and embarrassed itself; it says the serious factions of Iran’s government probably wouldn’t get involved with something like this. Which remains a possibility, but that would reflect badly on the Iranians who were involved, not on the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/67 "2011-10-13T04:24:00Z")
Quite how the intell renegades failed to include in the plot Somali pirates and Hugo Chavez I’m not sure. I presume they worked on the basis people would think it all so bizarre it must be true. ---
**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/68 "2011-10-13T06:35:54Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > My point is this: Ahmadinejad either controls, or is closely associated with those who control the Revolutionary Guard, the post powerful force in Iran. Saying that he doesn’t officially have the power to do what he wants doesn’t change the fact that there may be no-one in Iran who can actually stop him from doing what he wants. Cite? Firstly, the Revolutionary Guard is [under the Ayatollah](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_the_Guardians_of_the_Islamic_Revolution#History_and_Structure), not the president. Secondly, I’ve yet to see any evidence that Ahmadinejad is all that terribly important. Certainly, his subordination to the cleric rulers is undisputed; if anything, the cynical view of Iranian power structures should be that the (formerly) democratic institutions are custom-designed to be a veneer of democratic legitimacy. ETA: and since I forgot to mention it, _we aren’t talking about the Revolutionary Guards anyway._ ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/69 "2011-10-13T13:24:38Z")
This is the US government with another bullshit terrorist plot again. The Feds entrap one or more total losers into some dickhead scheme and then claim they’ve foiled a major terrorist plot. The Bush administration used to pull this shit all the time. Remember the one where the supposed terrorists were so clueless they hadn’t even got around to converting to Islam? Are we seriously supposed to believe that some out of work used car salesman was a terrorist mastermind capable of taking a guy protected by an actual competent security service out? And they don’t have any evidence. here’s what they’ve got: - Senior American officials themselves were struggling to explain why the Quds Force, an elite international operations unit within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, would orchestrate such a risky attack in so amateurish a manner. The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, would not go further than to say the plot “clearly involved senior levels of the Quds Force.” But other American officials, armed with evidence such as bank transfers and intercepted telephone calls and with knowledge of how the covert unit operated in the past, said they believed that Iran’s senior leaders were likely complicit in the plot. “It would be our assessment that this kind of operation would have been discussed at the highest levels of the regime,” said a senior American official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the government’s analysis. American officials offered **no specific evidence** linking the plot to Iran’s most senior leaders. But they said it was inconceivable in Iran’s hierarchy that the leader of the shadowy Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, was not directly involved, and that the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah [Ali Khamenei](http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/ali_khamenei/index.html?inline=nyt-per), was not aware of such a plan.\* > **[U.S. Challenged to Explain Accusations of Iran Plot in the Face of Skepticism...](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/us/iran-sees-terror-plot-accusation-as-diversion-from-wall-street-protests.html?_r=1&hp)** > > The Obama administration sought to reconcile what it said was solid evidence of an Iranian plot to murder Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States with skepticism from foreign leaders and experts. Yeah. Some guy outside the White House with a sign claiming that Bush invaded Iraq for oil is dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. No direct evidence? You’re a conspiracy theorist nutjob. So by their own standards they’re conspiracy theorists on this one. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/70 "2011-10-13T14:09:10Z")
And the money? It was close to $100k that was wired to the undercover FBI accounts to put a down payment on the $1.5 million being asked for. Or did the government make that part up? That seems direct evidence that someone was involved in this, unless you do believe they completely made that part up of course. Well, unless out of work used car salesmen generally have that kind of money laying around to foment their terrorist fantasies… -XT ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/71 "2011-10-13T14:24:33Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > And the money? It was close to $100k that was wired to the undercover FBI accounts to put a down payment on the $1.5 million being asked for. Or did the government make that part up? That seems direct evidence that someone was involved in this, unless you do believe they completely made that part up of course. Well, unless out of work used car salesmen generally have that kind of money laying around to foment their terrorist fantasies… > > -XT Let’s see what evidence actually emerges. The Feds have entrapped various people before this in similar “terrorist plots” and other than entrapping the people there was very little evidence of anything. It just beggars belief that the Iranian government are going to use some nut like this and actually transfer money over wires, they’re far more sophisticated than that. And why bother killing the Saudi ambassador? And why do it in America? And leave wire evidence of your plot that would be guaranteed to be discovered even if you were successful? And a million other questions. Let’s see what emerges eventually. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/72 "2011-10-13T14:30:51Z")
I’m perfectly willing to wait to see what emerges. Like I said earlier, I’m skeptical that various major factions in Iran were behind this, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the case. However, you were saying that there is no evidence and it’s all a conspiracy theory (or something), and I was merely asking how the money factors into your thinking. You are trying to rationalize the situation based on a conclusion you’ve obviously drawn already (i.e. that it was US government entrapment). -XT ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/73 "2011-10-13T14:33:22Z")
People keep using that word “entrapment.” I don’t think it means what they think it means. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/74 "2011-10-13T15:59:04Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > Senior American officials themselves were struggling to explain why the Quds Force, an elite international operations unit within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, would orchestrate such a risky attack in so amateurish a manner. Even the best agencies aren’t immune from stupid mistakes. Think of the Israelis using forged passports in that assassination mission. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/75 "2011-10-13T16:14:43Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Even the best agencies aren’t immune from stupid mistakes. Think of the Israelis using forged passports in that assassination mission. Yeah, but they were framed by the Dutch. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/76 "2011-10-13T16:31:05Z")
Again, the Dutch! Wake up, America! ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/77 "2011-10-13T16:45:44Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Even the best agencies aren’t immune from stupid mistakes. Think of the Israelis using forged passports in that assassination mission. :rolleyes: Operation is riddled with “stupid mistakes” only if they are caught. Otherwise, … ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/78 "2011-10-13T16:50:50Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > And the money? It was close to $100k that was wired to the undercover FBI accounts to put a down payment on the $1.5 million being asked for. The same guy who talked to used car salesman and told him “Trust us, we’re Quds. We’ll even send some money for you”. What’s the evidence - besides used car salesaman saying so - that these guys are indeed Quds/Iranians? ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/79 "2011-10-13T16:53:52Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > People keep using that word “entrapment.” I don’t think it means what they think it means. If undercover agent hears the guy saying I’d like to bomb this or that and agent organizes logistics and truck ends up in a guy’s driveway with bombs - the guy just got entrapped. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341/80 "2011-10-13T16:57:31Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You might want to reserve your wild-ass conjectures as well. Just a thought. Yesterday’s BBC news readers were saying “WTF?” (except in a cultured way). Local news sent somebody down to Corpus Christi & talked to a friend of the “plotter.” More WTF… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-iran-almost-actually-commit-an-act-of-war-against-the-usa/599341.md?page=5)