A Blow To Iran
The apparent defection and subsequent interrogation by Western intelligence agencies of a former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards is causing a bad case of nerves in Iran. They are almost frantic, diplomatically-speaking, to get the man back. But US officials says that Ali Rez Asgari is cooperating willingly with Western agencies. That the man was instrumental in the design and building of the Hezbollah organization is part of the reason Tehran is going frantic. Asgari is not believed to have any knowledge of the Iranian nuclear program, unfortunately. But he knows an awful lot about the terror web Iran has constructed.
Asgari served in the Iranian government until early 2005 under then-President Mohammad Khatami. Asgari's background suggests that he would have deep knowledge of Iran's national security infrastructure, conventional weapons arsenal and ties to Hezbollah in south Lebanon. Iranian officials said he was not involved in the country's nuclear program, and the senior U.S. official said Asgari is not being questioned about it. Former officers with Israel's Mossad spy agency said yesterday that Asgari had been instrumental in the founding of Hezbollah in the 1980s, around the time of the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.
Iran's official news agency, IRNA, quoted the country's top police chief, Brig. Gen. Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam, as saying that Asgari was probably kidnapped by agents working for Western intelligence agencies. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Asgari was in the United States. Another U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, denied that report and suggested that Asgari's disappearance was voluntary and orchestrated by the Israelis. A spokesman for President Bush's National Security Council did not return a call for comment……..
…….An Iranian official, who agreed to discuss Asgari on the condition of anonymity, said that Iranian intelligence is unsure of Asgari's whereabouts but that he may have been offered money, probably by Israel, to leave the country. The Iranian official said Asgari was thought to be in Europe. "He has been out of the loop for four or five years now," the official said.
Israeli and Turkish newspapers reported yesterday that Asgari disappeared in Istanbul shortly after he arrived there on Feb. 7. Iran sent a delegation to Turkey to investigate his disappearance and requested help from Interpol in locating him.
Note the two-pronged response. One official attempts to downplay the significance of the man, his motives for defecting or of what he knows. But the Iranian attempts to get Interpol to intervene belie those words. (Did Russia ever complain to Interpol when the West scored a big defector? I never heard of any incident like that.)
The US is still quietly ratcheting up the pressure on Iran in a number of small but significant ways, it would seem. Good. Maybe this man's information will also make it harder for the Europeans to continue to ignore the 800 pound gorilla of Iran and its goals in the Middle East.
