The Plot

"Did an elite branch of Iran's military handpick a divorced, 56-year-old Iranian-American used-car salesman from Texas to hire a hitman from a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the ambassador to Saudi Arabia by blowing up a bomb in a crowded restaurant in Washington?"

This is how Reza Sayyah of CNN quite succinctly summarised the bombshell that the US Attorney General Eric Holder dropped in Washington DC on October 11.

I am of a certain generation and analytical bend of mind that I cannot believe that Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, can in bright daylight come to national television and just straight lie about a matter so dire and dangerous in its actual and potential consequences.

We have no way of challenging the veracity of what he says. He is privy to intelligence. We are not. He is a figure of authority - we must take what he says seriously. The very assumption and presumption of a democracy is that people in position of such power and authority don't just lie.

And yet: Every which way you look at it: The story is so outlandish, so bizarre, so utterly ridiculous that it has left almost everyone across the political spectrum with a sense of: "... say what?"

Read the rest of Hamid Dabashi's Legal questions follow Iran's 'bizzare Plot'.

I am going to go out on a limb here and offer a simple conjecture.

While sharing many of Mr. Dabashi's misgivings, there was a phrase that caught my attention in his discussion of months of legal wranglings among President's team.

Dabashi uses the phrase "juridical narrative" referencing any implied American disinformation campaign, fig, or a white lie (all my terms of course), whereas there is somewhat of script-o-matic component to this plot. And this latter opens up the possibilities of involvement by a fundamentalist religious faction in Iran (outside of the Government) for me. And here is the rest of my conjecture:

Remember a while back a movie about the supposed return of Mahdi?

Well, contrary to the reports in both right of the center American media and some Christian fundamentalist outfits, the good folks associated with the movie got a lot of flack in Iran because of certain "heretical" interpretations put forth in the movie so far as the big wig Ayatollahs were concerned. And the outcome of all the back and forth was that embarrassing incident with one of the top advisers to President Ahmadinezhad being accused of sorcery and relieved of duties.

And at the risk of being too overtly sloppy in my own thinking, I would say, wouldn't the sloppiness, the callousness, the carelessness, lack of intelligence and the frenzy with which this supposed plot was to unfold indicate a certain muddled thinking that comes with being utterly fed up with the conditions under which the much anticipated Messiah is not making the promised appearance?

And hence, would it be too terribly inconceivable that in a moment of over-enthused frenzy, some people associated with the Hojjatieh movement--a people mind you that have recently been under a great deal of pressure, in retaliation, and with a great deal of bitterness and vindictiveness--fully expecting great rewards, came to pull whatever resources they could muster for one last hurrah?

A gesture of defiance, mind you, that, if successful, would promise to unleash all the requisite hell and fury which finally would bring about the necessary conditions for the return of the Messiah leading to the ultimate battle of Good and Evil. And a plan that, even in failure, would actually ensure an embarrassing outcome for those who have caused so much angst amongst our good believers still nursing one hell of a bruised ego for now. Wouldn't all the expected frenzy end up being that sweet revenge as a dish best served cold?

Who would the actual losers be whatever the outcome?

Is it inconceivable that the actual culprits in this bizarre plot could be the more militant, bitter, and vindictive version of the comatose American Engineer,Mr.Harold Camping, and what we are witnessing is another iteration of Iran-Contra affair for the Twenty-first century involving a few marginalized zealots linked to, but utterly disenchanted with, the Chain of Command--however broadly understood.