As the Trump Administration continues to ratchet up tension with Iran, they are looking for more things to accuse Iran of to justify more sanctions. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decided to claim that Iran is engaged in active “assassination operations” in the heart of Europe.
Such a claim would be extremely convenient for Pompeo’s push to get the European Union to ditch the Iran nuclear deal. What is less convenient, however, is that there is no evidence any such thing has happened.
European officials have made no allegations and indeed, there hasn’t been a single allegation of an Iranian government assassination in Europe since 1991-92. Even State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had nothing to back up the claim, saying only that Pompeo must have “access to information I do not.”
But neither Europe nor analysts are giving Pompeo’s claims any credence. Iraj Mesdaghi, an Iranian exile, added it was “unlikely to be true,” and that there was no evidence to back up the claims. Pompeo has not followed up the universal doubt with anything new.
Spurious allegations are a questionable strategy for Pompeo to take, as it makes the Trump Administration look even less reasonable than they already do in trying to build a coalition against Iran.
Just because the Iranian assassination squads operating across Europe haven’t killed a single person doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. It just means they are not very good at it.
The Trumpists tip over into outright fantasy.
It must be because of all those protective US bases & storage of nuclear weapons across the continent! They act like an umbrella against all foreign sponsored assassinations & terror!
Pompeo is probably referring just to scattered memories of his formative years. And then will have to defend the remarks ad nauseam.
I’d like to see a recognized journalist list the 12 points made by Pompeo against Iran alongside the same 12 points against Israel for comparison. Certainly make for interesting reading.
I thought Mossad had cornered the market in this regard
Pompeo–the next Powell to make an utter gluteus of himself on the world stage.
Except Powell was a dupe. He was fed false information by Cheney and his cabal of war criminals. And Powell felt remorse. Small comfort though that is. Pompeo would feel nothing of the kind. Or, perhaps nothing at all on any carnage that may result.
As opposed to the far more numerous Israeli assassinations in Europe? Or to the Israeli assassinations in Iran? Our 51st State is the world leader in state assassinations, and brags about that.
How about to the US kidnappings from Europe, aka rendition, done by the CIA that was recently run by Pompeo? He fought hard to protect agents caught doing that in Italy and elsewhere.
This is far more extreme than mere pot vs kettle.
Nauert: “…Pompeo must have ‘”access to information i do not”.
Did she prove or offered any evidence that what she said is true? That it is true that Pompeo has true information; i.e., must have had it?
If she hasn’t given us any evidence for her own ‘information’, then she lied and most likely knew it.
We have really, really good evidence. Really. It’s soooo good we can’t show it. Heck, it’s just as good as the evidence on WMD in Iraq……
Oh haven’t you heard? All the clingers to that illusion say Saddam moved all his WMD to Syria (right under our noses with our constant surveillance)
Amazing. This guy use to be head of CIA and he yells Iran is killing people while totally ignoring Israel has done the exact same thing. We really have dug ourselves into a place that no one will take us as honest brokers. We are just bibi poodle
A US government mouthpiece projecting again.
I seem to be under the mistaken impression that the bigest assassin in Europe is the KGB.
I doubt if South Ossetia’s state security agency (the only KGB that has existed since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991) is the biggest assassin in Europe.
Yeah right, Iran provides the targets Israel provides the killers. So involved indeed. Would be nice to share evidence, I must admit I have a certain distrust of our government.
What a pile of human excrement this guy is. F’ing lying us into another war.
This is scary and may be what motivates those Rapturists
https://russia-insider.com/en/israels-aggressive-behavior-embodied-and-prophesied-hebrew-bible/ri22632
Just another lie, from a racist lieing administration. This is not surprising it is now the new norm from an administration that deals in lies and it’s own fake news.