Senior MP warns S. Arabia about US plot

A senior Iranian legislator on Monday warned the Saudi officials that the United States is seeking to sow discord between Tehran and Riyadh through the allegations that Tehran was involved in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington."The US intends to create rift and gap in the Muslim world and the Saudi leaders should not be fooled by the ridiculous game played by the world arrogance," member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Zohreh Elahian told FNA today. "After the failure of the military attack against Iran (West-sponsored Iraqi imposed war against Iran from 1980 to 1988), they started an Iranophobia project and they stage a new plot against the Islamic Republic in the region every now and then," she added Elahian reiterated that arrogant countries like the US and Britain have long sought to undermine and cut the relations between Iran and other Muslim countries, and reminded that assassination of a Muslim diplomat is not favorable to Iran and will also endanger Tehran's interests as an Islamic state. In a new plot against Tehran, the US officials alleged on Tuesday that Tehran had intended to assassinate a Saudi envoy to Washington through a hitman from the notorious Mexican drug cartel, los Zetas. Iran has fiercely denied any involvement in the alleged plot, and stressed that the US allegations are baseless. A few hours after the US leveled the accusations against Iran on Tuesday, a former US intelligence analyst strongly rejected the US allegations as "phony". Speaking to BBC World on Tuesday, Former CIA analyst Robert Baer, who spent 21 years working as a CIA case officer in the Middle East, said the US may have gotten it dangerously wrong. Baer said it is not credible that the Iranian government is behind the plot and the US administration must now open a direct diplomatic channel with the Iranian government to calm tensions. "This doesn't fit their modus operandi at all. It's completely out of character; they're much better than this," he said of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) which has been accused by the US of plotting the assassination. "They wouldn't be sending money through an American bank; they wouldn't be going to the cartels in Mexico to do this. "It's just not the way they work. I've followed them for 30 years and they're much more careful. They always use a proxy between them and the operation, how come they didn't do this in this case." Baer said he would not be surprised if the US administration back-tracked from its accusation in order to avoid its ramifications.