Initial thoughts on Iran and the Zetas
Details continue to emerge about the alleged plot of an Iranian and an Iranian-American to pay the Zetas to kill the Saudi ambassador and other plans to possibly also attack Argentina. Two things immediately come to mind.
First, how stupid is this? Connecting to a criminal organization to commit murder will not boost your global prestige, or make achieving your foreign policy goals any easier in the short or longer terms. We'll have to hear more about the extent of the Iranian government's involvement to see how stupid they were, or whether these envoys did most of the stupiding.*
Second, it is notable how there is no ideological connection to Latin America, such as to the traditional boogeymen like Hugo Chávez. This was only about the use of brute force. In fact, if such an attack took place, even the Latin American governments Iran does business with--such as Bolivia, Brazil, and Venezuela--would feel obligated to condemn it, thus making it even harder for Iran to gain more diplomatic leverage in the region. That is especially true if Argentina were attacked yet again.
Iran's interests are strategic, not ideological. Its government is pretty noxious, and if this stuff is true then it is incompetent as well.
* I realize this is not a word, but I wish it was.
3 comments:
This shows just how much faith the Iranian officials involved have in their own to carry out their dirty work. Did they think a drug cartel would want to expand into the international terrorism business and keep an eye out for drone attacks? It looks as if the Iranians have the same mindset that some Americans have on the Mexican people about doing any work for a dollar.
P.R. Herrera
Turlock, CA
Could be. I feel like there is something I am missing.
I think you should refudiate the use of stupiding.
Seriously, I like it. I wish it was a verb.
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