Muhammad Khalid Sayed questions why the US made cloak and dagger allegations that there was a plot to assassinate US Ambassador to South Africa, Lana Marks.
On 14 September 202, online publication Politico reported that the United States believed there was an alleged plot by the Iranian state to assassinate Lana Marks, the US Ambassador to South Africa. Unsurprisingly, the Iranian government categorically denied the allegations.
They alleged that this was the latest in a litany of dirty tricks by the US intelligence community and / or their allies to break down the relations between Iran and South Africa and further smear the integrity and image of Iran.
To date the US sources making these allegations have not provided any tangible evidence of an assassination plot.
They also alleged that the motive for the assassination plot was to avenge the US assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.
Close to Trump
However, firstly, it is highly unlikely that the Iranian government would choose to assassinate an unknown diplomat who lacks political influence in the corridors of power and who has no background in the political, security or diplomatic cluster.
Her appointment was purely on the basis that she is personally close to the US president. Thus, if the Iranians were preparing a revenge attack it would not be Ambassador Marks as this would be perceived as an insult to the legacy of the late General Qassem Soleimani, given his importance and popularity in Iran and elsewhere.
Secondly, what makes the allegations more improbable is the question why Iran would choose to conduct an assassination in South Africa, a country that it regards as a very close political and economic ally.
Iran can ill afford to jeopardise its friendly relations with South Africa at a time when it requires as many friends as possible.
Finally, the timing of the alleged plot is questionable.
Iran has much more to lose than gain by planning an assassination plot against the US during this period since the US is going into a presidential elections in approximately a month's time.
Timing
An assassination of a US ambassador would at this point in time be a strategic blunder for the Iranians should the Democrats win the presidential elections.
Iran has a history of strategic and tactical pragmatism and flexibility to international relations and war. Thus, even if they were intending to plan a revenge attack, they would rather wait for the outcome of the elections before considering one.
This is because they are hoping that President Donald Trump will lose the elections and that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden will pick up where former President Barack Obama left off with the nuclear peace deal that President Trump threw out.
Taking the above into account, the allegations are correctly described as "bizarre" by Naeem Jeenah, director of think tank Africa Middle East Centre (AMEC).
Most other local foreign policy and security experts concur that the allegations were illogical and mischievous.
Thus, if we assume that the allegations are fiction and a figment of the US intelligence and/or diplomatic community's imaginations, the question is why would they fabricate such allegations?
In this regard, the body of evidence indicates a dangerous historical pattern by the US and their allies of being alarmist, trying to create terror crises where there have been none, and exaggerating terror threats in our country.
Al Qaeda attacks
This was the case in the run up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup when the US intelligence community, among others, alleged that Al Qaeda terror attacks were going to take place in South Africa during the World Cup and that South Africa didn't have the capacity to deal with the threat.
Similarly, a few years ago, the US and its allied intelligence community alleged that ISIS was preparing terror attacks in South Africa. History has proven that they were wrong on all accounts and that allegations of terror attacks over the past decade turned out to be untrue.
Why then were these cloak and dagger allegations made?
Most analysts believe that they were created to pressure our security agencies to forsake their sovereignty by allowing these foreign intelligence agencies to operate freely in South Africa under the guise of investigating and neutralising the so-called Islamic fundamentalist terror threats.
The danger of these historical hoax terror threat tactics of the US Intelligence community is that the US has now become the shepherd boy in Aesop's fable The Boy who Cried Wolf.
We all know how that story ended. The US must therefore "stop crying wolf" because the day will come when she picks up on a real terrorist threat on our soil and nobody listens.
- Muhammad Khalid Sayed, the ANC Youth League Western Cape chairperson and and ANC Member of the Provincial Legislature (MPL) in the Western Cape, writes in his personal capacity.