Islam Times - 'US made anti-Iran claim to win votes'

Islam Times - The British paper The Independent says the US government is pursuing electoral aims by accusing Iran of involvement in an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi envoy to Washington.

Islam Times: “The most likely motive for the Obama administration's vigorously expressed belief in the plot is that it is preparing the ground for the 2012 presidential election,”Patrick Cockburn wrote in an article on the online edition of the paper.

“The allegations need to be taken seriously primarily because they show that the White House, by giving credence to them at the highest level, is seeking confrontation with Iran in the lead-up to next year's presidential election,” part of the paper read.

“The supposed conspiracy is bizarre even by the mendacious standards of stories pumped out by the Bush administration before 2003, purporting to show that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction,” Cockburn added.

Many of US' vague foreign policies should be examined in light of the efforts that those in power make in order to be re-elected, Cockburn said.

Obama's social and economic policies have failed and his administration is now seeking to deflect public attention from those failures by leveling such an accusation against Iran, Cockburn added.

On October 11, the US Justice Department accused Iran of plotting to assassinate Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, with help from a man suspected of being a member of a Mexican drug cartel.

Tehran says the media hype created by Washington is an attempt to deflect attention from the anti-corruption and anti-corporatism protests currently rocking the country.

Iran's envoy to the UN, Mohammad Khazaei, has filed a complaint against the US for what he called the “evil plot.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi has described the US accusation as an immature scenario and says US officials will ultimately be forced to apologize.