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Iranian Agents Plotted to Kill Donald Trump, Justice Department Says (non-paywalled link here)
Curious to know what people think of this. My initial cynical reaction was that the plot seems too convenient and that the US government is just trying to drum up support from the right wing young men who would be tasked with fighting a war against Israel in the future. I also am suspicious of why they would release the information about it so soon after it has been found out. I imagine the justice department could just bury the story or not report on it if they don't want people to know about it but it's headline news on WSJ and the NYT right now.
Why would Iran be more interested in killing Trump than Kamala or Biden? Does Iran see Trump as a massive threat? Is Iran just trying to sow chaos in the US?
Yeah they've been cooking this one for a while, started around the first assassination attempt. They were already seeding Trump with "intelligence" about Iranian assassination plots, after the first one (which was entirely homegrown) they fed this intel to the media to attempt to co-opt the backlash into fueling the deep state's global imperial ambitions. https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/16/politics/iran-plot-assassinate-trump-secret-service/index.html
Now we have this convenient arrest. Pompeo and his lackey Hook starting to worm their way back into Trump's inner circle. etc.
Probably a good chance this is the deepstate's new strat, similar to how they used the Russian pee tapes to corner Trump on backing out on their expansionist efforts in east europe.
Some other smaller deep state moves as well, like McConnell coming out and saying the filibuster will remain which was framed as being nice and magnanimous but will conveniently limit republican power. Then you have the proposed new senate majority leads with Thune and Cornyn both leading and being RINO deepstate ghouls. Senate of course has to confirm cabinet picks and so will have some influence there.
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Typo or Freudian slip?
Oops, typo.
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I'm not surprised. One of the most effective things Trump did to stabilize the middle east was cut off Iran's funding who is directly funding Hezbollah and anti-israeli sentiment in the middle east. When Biden reinstated Iran's nuclear deal and lifted sanctions on Iran, Iran then had funding to fund Palestine and Hezbollah which led to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict going on today.
With this background, I wouldn't be surprised that Iran sees Trumps rise as a threat to their economic stability and their anti-Israeli agenda. A dead Trump is much better for them than a Trump regime in the presidency.
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This sets off alarm bells. Shakeri, after his confession, was allowed to travel back to Iran? He would be on more surveillance than anyone in the world. Are we sure Shakeri isn’t just some agent pretending to be an Iranian while undercover in prison? I don’t think Iran would ever consider assassinating a US President because it would guarantee direct American and probably European involvement in a war against Iran. That is not in Iran’s interest, and it’s not in America’s interest.
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First of all, always remember that Osama Bin Laden specifically ordered AQ forces to never assassinate Biden, because he was incompetent and a net negative if left in change.
Second, the US Gov has a strong incentive right now to be seen catching Trump assassination plots. Every announced plot thwarted increases their percentage, given that 1.5 got pretty close to success without government intervention.
Source?
(Inch-resting if true, given that the Allies avoided bringing Hitler to room temperature for the same reason. Considering some of the comparisons going around, I increasingly wonder if the universe is deliberately yanking our collective chains....)
https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/osama-bin-laden-letters-al-qaeda-leader-frustrated/story?id=16268578
Obviously Osama could be wrong in his judgment, but then so can the leadership in Iran. It's an insight into an opponents thinking.
“Never interrupt your opponent while they are making a mistake.” Taken to its absolute logical conclusion, I guess. Many such cases.
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Lots of people in Iran are furious with Trump for reneging on the nuclear deal, Maximum Pressure and killing a high-ranking general of theirs. The Iranian government released a fan-made trailer for an assassination attempt on Trump on an official website: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wqcrK-3207g
That's not to say it couldn't be misinformation or some neocon plot. But Trump was Grand Marshal of the Salute to Israel, he's bemoaned how Israel's control over the US Congress was lost in recent years, there are many good reasons for Iran to hate this man. He took a lot of money from Adelson who was basically a single-issue Israel partisan. Adelson's dead today but his wife still gave Trump about 100 million this election, she likely shares her husband's priorities. The Adelson's keep a much lower profile than Musk but one imagines they'll get what they pay for.
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War with Iran incoming?
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The truth is in the middle here. There doesn't actually appear to be any real plot or attempt to kill Trump (the IRGC asked some guy to come up with one, he got two other dudes on board, but apparently never actually came up with a plan) and the FBI has made it abundantly clear they are willing to manipulate Americans to achieve policy aims so the explosiveness and timing and strong push on social media to escalate certainly does appear to be intended to manipulate public sentiment IMHO. But Iran certainly does have incentive to do so after Trump made the wildly escalatory move of having Soleimani killed, so it's not like it's unexpected to anyone that they would try and that people seem to have forgotten this shows how insulated and arrogant many Americans are when it comes to IR.
Did the IRGC ask some guy to come up with one, or did the FBI, pretending to be the IRGC, do so? The FBI has such low credibility in this sort of thing that my prior is it's the latter.
Asking mid-low functioning people to plot to do bad thing and then arresting them for it is absolutely the FBI MO (see also kidnapping Whitmer). I wouldn't be surprised especially since we don't have much information about this guy that would explain why he's the go-to guy for the IRGC (he seems low level, arrested for robbery at one point even).
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