Why Iran Believes the Militant Group ISIS Is an American Plot

[Purveyor]

Last edited Sat Jul 19, 2014, 04:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Iran’s English language daily newspaper, the Tehran Times, recently ran a front-page story describing the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria’s (ISIS) June offensive in Iraq as part of a U.S.-backed plot to destabilize the region and protect Israel. The story was an English translation of a scoop by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), which cited a purported interview with National Security Agency (NSA) leaker Edward Snowden.

According to the article, Snowden had described a joint U.S., British and Israeli effort to “create a terrorist organization capable of centralizing all extremist actions across the world.” The plan, according to IRNA, was code-named “Beehive”—or in other translations, “Hornet’s Nest”—and it was devised to protect Israel from security threats by diverting attention to the newly manufactured regional enemy: ISIS.

The IRNA story appears to build on, or may have even started, an internet rumor that has assumed truth-like proportions through multiple reposts and links. No mention of a “hornet’s nest” plot can be found in Snowden’s leaked trove of U.S. intelligence documents, and even though Snowden has not publicly refuted the claim, it is safe to assume that the quoted interview never took place. (IRNA has been known to report stories from the satirical Onion newspaper as fact.) Yet Iranian government officials and independent analysts in Iran alike cited IRNA’s report as definitive proof of ISIS’s American and Israeli origins.

Back when former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in power, it was not unusual to see IRNA echoing specious wild theories dreamed up by the leadership, but since the more moderate Hassan Rouhani assumed the presidency in August 2013, the security establishment’s nuttier fantasies of deranged plots against Iran have been largely reined in. That is, until ISIS spilled out of Syria and started setting up camp next door in Iraq, where Iran has tight ties with the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

Even before the Snowden scoop made the rounds of Iran’s media, military commanders, citing their own sources of intelligence, struck a similar theme. On June 18, Fars News quoted Major General Hassan Firoozabadi, Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, saying that ISIS “is an Israel and America[n] movement for the creation of a secure border for the Zionists against the forces of resistance in the region.” That Iran’s media, along with its leaders, is focusing on ISIS’s supposed external backers—as opposed to its origins in local terror groups, al-Qaeda and popular discontent in both Syria and Iraq—demonstrates a concerted effort to streamline the national narrative in order to project power and preserve stability. As an example of another Western plot against Iran, ISIS can be managed—so goes Iran’s thinking. But as a new, potentially more destabilizing threat on Iran’s borders, ISIS poses challenges that the leadership is still struggling to understand and respond to. The only problem is that dismissing ISIS as a Zionist conspiracy could end up undermining Iran far more than any supposed American plot.

more...

http://time.com/2992269/isis-is-an-american-plot-says-iran/

[peoli]

1. I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

[jakeXT]

2. Reading "A Clean Break",looking at a Bernard Lewis/Ralph Peters map or listening to the US military?

A Clean Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm

Following is a report prepared by The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000." The main substantive ideas in this paper emerge from a discussion in which prominent opinion makers, including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser participated. The report, entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," is the framework for a series of follow-up reports on strategy.

...

Work closely with Turkey and Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll-back some of its most dangerous threats. This implies clean break from the slogan, "comprehensive peace" to a traditional concept of strategy based on balance of power.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1438.htm

Senior Qaeda figure in Iraq a myth: U.S. military

Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner told a news conference that Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, which was purportedly set up last year, did not exist.

The Islamic State of Iraq was established to try to put an Iraqi face on what is a foreign-driven network, Bergner said. The name Baghdadi means the person hails from the Iraqi capital.


...

"In his words, the Islamic State of Iraq is a front organization that masks the foreign influence and leadership within al Qaeda in Iraq in an attempt to put an Iraqi face on the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq," Bergner said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/07/18/us-iraq-qaeda-idUSL1820065720070718?rpc=92

[bemildred]

3. What America Wants from ISIL

The main policies of the White House for the Middle East have become a design for a new Middle East. In the framework of this political package, the United States is pursuing the creation of countries favorable to its values and policies, and is agreeable to the existence of Israel. The barriers to America’s Middle East policies are the existence of powerful, independent countries with distinct identities from the West. Therefore, changing these societies into favorable units with limited political geography is necessary in order to eliminate these obstacles. Besides this, weakening and collapsing the independent and anti-American coalitions in the region, meaning the resistance axis, is another necessity in creating this new Middle East.

In order for the U.S. to enact its political plan in the Middle East, it must first break up the anti-American coalition. Then, it can steer the region’s political geography in a direction dependent upon itself.

Initially, American statesmen thought that they had to have a direct presence in the region in order to enact their plan. However, the problems that arose in Afghanistan, and especially Iraq, and the consequent failure to implement their policies have caused them to change their perspective in this regard.

The U.S. reached the conclusion that it did not need to be directly involved in the implementation of this plan. Instead, it searches for proxy elements in the region to execute this project.

http://watchingamerica.com/News/242682/what-america-wants-from-isil/