An Iranian military official has been charged with attempting to murder former National Security Advisor John Bolton. CBS News. Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was charged with attempting to arrange the murder which was in retaliation for Bolton's role in the killing of Iranian leader Qasem Soleimani. Poursafi allegedly offered $300,000 to people in the United States to commit the murder. Iran denied the existence of the plot and dismissed the charges. Poursafi was in contact with an informant who claimed that Poursafi wanted to have Bolton run down with a car while he was walking in a park or attacking him in a parking garage. Poursafi remains at large in Iran.
My Comment:
I'm more than a little skeptical of this report. Though Iran has the motive, means and opportunity to order an assassination against John Bolton, the source for this is the FBI, and they have almost zero credibility these days. We are talking about a law enforcement agency that raided a former president for no legitimate reason just a couple of days ago.
The other problem with this is that I would have thought that Iran had enough sleeper agents in the United States that they could simply activate one of them to attack Bolton. I know that under President Trump, most Iranians were prevented from entering the country but I am sure that before then many Iranian immigrants were agents of Iran or Hezbollah.
But it is always possible they wanted a deniable asset or most of their sleeper cells got exposed and arrested. In that case this scenario could be plausible that someone like Poursafi would try and organize a hit. If that was what happened it is not surprising that the scheme fell apart.
Most attempts to hire a hitman in the United States fail, largely because people aren't really willing to kill people for money given the high chances of getting caught. And the vast majority of 'hitmen" are police or federal agents.
Indeed, the dollar amount quoted seems insultingly low. I would figure a legit hitman would go for at least seven figures given the huge amount of danger the hitman would have to go through. I can't imagine trying to deal with all the risk for only $300,000. The fact that the hitman was willing to agree with that should have been a huge red flag for Poursafi.
I do have to say that doing this would probably cause a huge amount of blowback for Iran. I know that John Bolton is not popular among the left or right these days, but he's still a major former official and killing him would probably be an act of war. I can't imagine going to war over John Bolton (though I doubt he would mind, he would love that) and I think that any conflict would be limited. Then again, this is the Joe Biden White House we are talking about, the are famous for doing the wrong thing at all time.
What does surprise me is that Bolton was the target, not President Donald Trump himself. I hate to think about it but if Iran really wanted to screw over the United States I can't think of a better way. I doubt anyone would believe that it was anyone other than the Biden White House if Trump somehow ended up being attacked, or, god forbid, killed. Given how high tensions are right now it would be a move that the Iranians could take with little risk to themselves. Let's hope the Secret Service is up for the job of protecting him...
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