Iranian mullah-narco terror plot to kill Saudi ambassador with cartel hitman and Mexico-laundered cash is so obviously ripped from Breaking Bad

(Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the United States Adel al-Jubeir speaks to the media at the Mideast Peace Conference in Annapolis, November 27, 2007. REUTERS/Jason Reed)

This alleged Iranian terror plot the FBI reported today is really quite something. It reads like any one of the 419 scams in my spam folder meets an episode of 24 or Breaking Bad meets yellowcake and the run-up to the Iraq war. Is this real life, or some Bay of Pigs pre-election-year hallucination?

The FBI's own synopsis is here. Snip:

The criminal complaint alleges that, from the spring of 2011 to October 2011, Arbabsiar and his Iran-based co-conspirators, including Shakuri of the Qods Force, have been plotting the murder of the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. In furtherance of this conspiracy, Arbabsiar allegedly met on a number of occasions in Mexico with a DEA confidential source (CS-1) who has posed as an associate of a violent international drug trafficking cartel. According to the complaint, Arbabsiar arranged to hire CS-1 and CS-1’s purported accomplices to murder the Ambassador, and Shakuri and other Iran-based co-conspirators were aware of and approved the plan. With Shakuri’s approval, Arbabsiar has allegedly caused approximately $100,000 to be wired into a bank account in the United States as a down payment to CS-1 for the anticipated killing of the Ambassador, which was to take place in the United States.

The hell?

There's an interesting Emptywheel post about it here, with some food for thought. A Washington Post item here, and a New York Times piece here, which contains absolutely no lulz at all.

A number of things concern me about this.

One of them is, wait: if all of this business is real, then there are Zetas or whatever just floating around inside the United States, waiting to be hired by miscreant mullahs to just, you know, assassinate dudes inside our borders? The drug cartels have operatives in the US who can be hired to bump people off at the behest of hostile foreign nation-states?

I ask of you, Boing Boing readers, what the shit is this shit?

• [Jodi Muhich]

  This ain’t shit. This was a plan that Obama was briefed on in June. It was never, at any stage, a realizable attack. This has been trotted out at a politically convenient time in order to provide cover for Holder on the same day that he is due to be subpoenaed for his gross incompetence and probable criminal actions. This is beyond transparently evident.

• [EH]

  Yep, it’s a goofy Fast & Furious scandal distraction. First thing that came to mind for me, anyway.

  Frankly, as the day has worn on, I’ve even started thinking that this is also cover for a huge payout to domestic militarization just before Obama trots out some intended-to-placate-OWS policy modification (fungible, natch).

• [Kathleen Gillespie]

  Crazy stuff.  My skepticism, like yours, is on high alert.   

  BTW, the embedded link to the Emptywheel post takes me to http://boingboing.net/2009/05/01/v8-motorcycle-from-1.html rather than to Emptywheel.  Is this the link you meant to embed?  http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/10/11/the-uber-plot-iran-mexican-drug-cartels-koch-brothers-and-republicans/ 

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    fixing sorry

• [ROSSINDETROIT]

  I’m old enough to remember the last freaky narco-politico weirdness, the Iran Contra Scandal.  So no, I’m not writing this off just yet.  The NYT has plenty of depth on it, though primarily from the US gov. at this point.
  ETA: The Saudis appear to be taking it at face value.

• [Jim Richardson]

  Heh, my first thought was much the same, get cameras on something other than scandals like Fast and Furious or the corruption with the solyndra and other ‘green power’ loan guarantees. 

  • [Petzl]

     Yeah, “scandals” like an actual attempt to trace firearms from the US to Mexico, “scandals” like a US company failing in the face of massive Chinese subsides to its own solar companies.  But don’t investigate billions factually lost in Iraq, or tens of billions factually “donated” to Halliburton et al in inflated contracts.

    • [Jodi Muhich]

      Derp.

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      Yeah, “scandals” like an actual attempt to trace firearms from the US to Mexico…

      When you don’t bother to follow up on what happens to the firearms, it’s not called ‘tracing’, it’s called ‘abetting’.

• [Bilsko]

  What the shit is this shit, you ask?  Am I the only one who wouldn’t classify this as a  *terror* plot.
  Assasination, perhaps, but there doesn’t appear to be much ‘terror plot’  in targeting a single person.

  • [ROSSINDETROIT]

    In the Times story it appears that major bombings were also part of the plot and there was the possibility of blowing up a DC restaurant to kill the ambassador.  If those things HAD happened they would definitely have been classified as terrorism.

    • [Bilsko]

      good point – i hadnt seen that detail.

• [ahwoo]

  It’s got cheese written all over it….I call bullshit.

• [knappa]

  if all of this business is real, then there are Zetas or whatever just floating around inside the United States, waiting to be hired by miscreant mullahs to just, you know, assassinate dudes inside our borders? The drug cartels have operatives in the US who can be hired to bump people off at the behest of hostile foreign nation-states?

  Not necessarily, but the Iranian government apparently believes so.

• [ChurchTucker]

  Yawn. Wake me up when there’s a story about a ‘terrorist plot’ that doesn’t have an FBI agent or informant as the lynchpin to the whole shebang.

  It’s a surreal busywork project.

• [Art]

  Arbabsiar should take care that he doesn’t end up like Gus :)

• [Jason Thaxter]

  It’s shit shit. This shit is no good. This shit is shit.

  I have no idea, honestly. I think it’s probably shit. I just think it’s fun to read a Steve Buscemi line with a Peter Lorre voice, or even a Ren Höek voice.

  The reason I think it’s shit shit is that drug empires do not let ANYTHING get in the way of business, and getting involved in political assassinations for hire is most definitely bad for business, and certainly pointless compared to the drug money.

  • [allium]

    You’re probably right about “business first”, but that wouldn’t stop someone with a shaky grasp of regional politics (narco or otherwise) from asking around – case in point, the Zimmermann telegram.*

    * N.B. – not implying Venustiano Carranza = drug kingpin! Or that Iran = the Kaiserreich!

• [Daemonworks]

  Assuming it’s true…

  You’re surprised that an international drug cartel that moves plenty of merchandise into the US would have people in the US, and that at least some of these people, known to kill people for the lulz, would also be willing to kill for money?

• [Ali Kurtze]

  Aaaaaand the fun goes on after Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin, Kuwait, 9-11, WMDs… and I always think: man, what could they possibly come up with next? And hell yeah, they don’t disappoint! Deadly drugs, mad mexicans, insane Iranians and the good old pawn “Embassador”. Perfect “plot”! Lol

• [Chrsitian Long]

  I’m wondering how long ’till the drug violence in Mexico becomes commonplace here.

• [David Seaver]

  This is rather like the ever-recurring “hit-man” stings that seem to happen all the time: angry schmuck goes looking for a hit-man to kill his wife/rival/business partner, and with comical inevitability, gets referred to a “professional.” The “professional” is always working for the cops, local or federal. Real hit-men, apparently, are not that easy to get a hold of if you are not properly connected.

  The other piquant bit about this is that, given recent events, the US Government looks a little bit flouncy, denouncing attempts by a government to kill people from another country in a third country. The “it’s OK if WE do it, really” argument is, to be frank, wearing a trifle thin.

  • [EH]

    The other piquant bit about this is that, given recent events, the US Government looks a little bit flouncy, denouncing attempts by a government to kill people from another country in a third country. The “it’s OK if WE do it, really” argument is, to be frank, wearing a trifle thin.

    It’s simply one way to establish a double-standard.

• [xenphilos]

  Arbabsiar watches too much 24.

• [brot]

  When I heard about this story earlier today, I immediately thought of a story from This American Life back in 2009 (“Arms Trader,” http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/387/arms-trader-2009). In the story, reporters argue that several “terrorists” that have been prosecuted since 2001 have essentially been entrapped by the FBI. Definitely worth a listen.

• [Frank W]

  Sure looks and smells like the kind of shit that’s shat on top of the other kind of shit they really don’t want you to smell, let alone see.

• [Jeremiah McCoy]

  I think that the timing of the announcement to the public is very politically motivated, but as to the substance of the plot?  

  I find it actually pretty believable.  Despite the rabid anti-immigrant rhetoric out of places like Arizona, it is true that Mexican drug gangs do have people here in the states in larger numbers than can be considered trivial, and using a group not normally associated with you to perform an attack is actually not unheard of.  The US has done it before, and so have the British.  I would deeply shocked, if the Iranians had not thought to do so as well.  Also as a last point, the Iranians and the Saudi really don’t like each other so attacking Saudi’s on US soil is really the dick slap the Iranians would really love to pull.  Could it be fake?  Yes, but there is enough meat there to make me lean towards believing it.  

  I do completely believe, that the administration revealed all the info on it to distract from their other problems.  If things were going more smoothly, they might have just kept it a secret. If you don’t have too, don’t let your opponent how you beat them after all. 

• [R_Young]

  For all you Tin-Foil-Wearing folks accusing conspiracy or manipulation or whatever, I going to want to see some proof.

  Fair warning; valid evidence does not include your NRA ‘spidey senses’ about that evil, fascist obama who’s going to take all your guns away and steal all the government’s money through bad Solyndra loans.  After all, extraordinary claims … you know the rest.

  • [EH]

    For all you Tin-Foil-Wearing folks accusing conspiracy or manipulation or whatever, I going to want to see some proof.

    I have tons, dude, but unfortunately it’s Double Top Secret. Sorry, but I’m sure you understand. Trust me, it’s airtight!

  • [exile]

    After all, extraordinary claims … you know the rest.

    Precedent.

    WMD.

    Still waiting for a plausible explanation for the slaughter of over 150,000 innocents.

  • [Daniel]

    This is a great argument for the status quo.  It’s like the AGW denier “argument,” “We need more studies!  There isn’t enough information!”  It’s so effective because it sounds so reasonable.

    The German government has been trying to return former East German citizen’s Stasi files to them.  One woman who was a political agitator in East Germany in the 80′s got her file and found that something she had always suspected but had never been sure about was true: the East German secret police had been slashing the tires on her baby’s carriage.

    Why would they do something so pointless and vindictive and ridiculous?  Simple.  Because when the woman whispered to any sort of confidant, “I think the Stasi is slashing the tires on my baby’s carriage,” she would look crazy.  The alternative: a vague, lingering feel of dread and persecution that you can’t tell anyone about (for fear of looking crazy).

    Some conspiracy theories are paranoid delusions.  But by that very light, the best way to get away with a conspiracy is to make it seem like a paranoid delusion. 

• [Mister44]

  Walter White wouldn’t stand for this shit.

• [Genre Slur]

  Bwahahahahahahahahahaha! The timing of this ‘info release’ just made my pants wet…

• [betatron]

  crazy cuckoo-bananas Rube Goldberg conspiracies…   At first sniff, it smells… off.  I’m with the WTF crowd. But just because it’s crazy doesn’t mean it’s not real.   

  Too many known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

  To first order…  i don’t like it. 

• [jeligula]

  Not defending ex-President GHW Bush but Saddam Hussein actually did have gas weapons at one time as he utilized them against an entire village of Kurds.  This is known.  I can also tell you that the US was gearing up to invade Iraq as early as 1989, well before Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990.  I spent the summer of 1989 vacationing at MCRD San Diego, and when we were on the rifle range, we “snapped in” on images of Saddam Hussein taped to our target barrels.  Also, the majority of our running songs were along the lines of, “When I get to Baghdad / Saddam he will saaaaay / How’d you get to Baghdad / In just one day?”  The invasion of Kuwait provided a convenient excuse for what was already being planned, but President Bush showed more sense than his son.

  • [Daniel]

    Not defending ex-President GHW Bush but Saddam Hussein actually did have gas weapons at one time as he utilized them against an entire village of Kurds.

    1. Yes, and we have WMDs here in the USA as well.  The question was not, “has Saddam Hussein ever been in possession of WMDs?”  The question was “is Saddam Hussein currently in possession of WMDs?” (in 2002)  There is no real evidence that the answer was anything but “no.”

    2. The Bush administration never explicitly said “nuclear weapons” but that’s the case they were trying to make by pushing the fictions about yellow cake uranium and aluminum tubes for centrifuges.  Gas is only arguably a WMD — or more precisely, only some kinds of gases are inarguably WMDs — and the Bush administration wasn’t counting on Americans getting really scared about Hussein using borderline conventional weapons with very limited ranges.

• [Thebes]

  Obvious BS.

  Iran might be many things, but stupid it is not. Assassinating an Ambassador is just plain stupid in its pointlessness.

  Also, why would cartel killers, well acquainted with offing the competition in Mexico, have any particular expertise in spy vs spy bullshit in DC? They wouldn’t. Though it would be politically expedient to blame Mexico as well.

  The Obomber regime is just trying to distract from its Gun Running scandal and the #occupyAmerica movement by offering the Dogs of War another profit-maker.

• [Cookie MonstA]

  I don’t put it past the spooks to allow something to happen that would be of some political benefit.  Israel wants Iran neutralized and so do the Saudis.  The Pentagon wants an excuse to go to war with Iran.  Looks like everyone is getting what they want.  How convenient.

• [kmoser]

  CS-1? Now they’re involving Photoshop, too?