Category : Alexander Cockburn

Even by the forgiving standards of American credulity, the supposed Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. is spectacularly ludicrous. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a sinister harbinger of a new crisis. Why would Iran want to kill the Saudi envoy — the mild-mannered functionary Adel al-Jubeir? To kill any ambassador — [...]

Pose a threat to the stability of Saudi Arabia, as the Shiite upsurges are now doing in Qatif and al-Awamiyah in the country’s oil-rich Eastern Province, and you’re brandishing a scalpel over the very heart of the long-term U.S. policy in the Middle East. The fall of America’s ally, the Shah of Iran, in 1979 [...]