Iran
New U.S. Whipping Boy
By Eric Margolis
26 July, 2004
Toronto Sun
Did Iran help al-Qaida stage the Sept.
11 attacks on the United States?
Perhaps, suggested
the U.S. 9/11 commission. It claimed Iran allowed eight al-Qaida future
airplane hijackers to pass through Iran from Afghanistan between seven
and 11 months prior to the attacks on America.
Unnamed senior Bush
administration officials also claim Iran proposed collaborating with
al-Qaida in 2000, but was rejected by Osama bin Laden. "Maybe we
attacked the wrong country," one of the dimmer lights in Congress
ruefully observed.
There has been no
real evidence produced that Iran knew of the 9/11 attacks or assisted
them. In fact, the Bush administration has still never produced the
white paper promised by Colin Powell in late 2001 proving bin Laden
and al-Qaida were behind 9/11.
Why would Iran,
knowing it was in Bush's gunsights, join in a monstrous terrorist attack
that, if linked to Tehran, could have conceivably brought U.S. nuclear
retaliation?
This column has
long predicted the Bush administration would orchestrate a pre-election
crisis over Iran designed to whip up patriotic fervour in the U.S. and
distract public and media attention from the Iraq fiasco.
Growing clamour
The growing clamour
over Iran's nuclear intentions, with rumblings about air strikes against
Iran's reactors in the fall, may prove to be a part of just such a manufactured
crisis.
Remember, these
latest fevered claims about Iran come from the same "reliable intelligence
sources" and neo-conservative hawks who insisted Iraq had a vast
arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that threatened the U.S., with
intimate links to al-Qaida.
The Iran-Afghan
border is 1,000 km of wild, broken terrain that is extremely difficult
to police. Large numbers of smugglers cross this border on countless
hidden trails, bringing hashish and gems into Iran. The U.S., with fleets
of planes, helicopters and sensors, cannot stop a flood of undocumented
Mexicans crossing its own southwestern borders.
Why should the poorly
equipped Iranians do any better?
Didn't these same
9/11 hijackers also enter the U.S. unchallenged? Of course. They slipped
unnoticed into Iran and the U.S. No one knew their intentions. This
is the most likely explanation.
Iran does not have
a unified government. This nation of 72.5 million is afflicted by feuding
factions that have produced a state of political chaos. Iran has certainly
been involved in acts of terrorism, notably against Jews in Argentina.
And militants from
the intelligence service or Pasdarann (Revolutionary Guards), might
have let al-Qaida mujahidin slip across the border without Tehran's
knowledge.
But far more important
are two key facts that most media and the government aren't telling
you.
First, Iran and
al-Qaida were bitter enemies.
In Afghanistan,
al-Qaida ardently backed the Pushtun-dominated, Sunni Taliban movement,
which hated Shia as heretics and killed large numbers of them. Shia
Iran (and Russia) armed and supported the Taliban's greatest foe, Ahmad
Shah Massoud and his Northern Alliance, composed of Dari (a Persian
dialect)-speaking Tajiks, Afghan communists, and Shia. Massoud was a
long-time collaborator with Soviet/Russian intelligence.
After the Taliban
killed a group of Iranian intelligence agents, Iran almost invaded Afghanistan
to overthrow them.
Just before 9/11,
al-Qaida assassinated Massoud.
Iran quietly aided
the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan that overthrew the Taliban, and jailed
scores of al-Qaida members, including one of bin Laden's sons.
Active Iranian co-operation
with al-Qaida seems illogical. Of course my enemy's enemy is my friend,
and collaboration was theoretically possible, but Iran derived no benefit
whatever from the 9/11 attacks -- quite the contrary.
Second, the Bush
administration and former Clinton officials are trading accusations
that the other was responsible for failing to take action against al-Qaida
and its Taliban allies prior to 9/11.
But what no one
admits is that both administrations sent millions in aid to the Taliban
until four months before 9/11.