The assassination plot allegation against Iran attempts to divert attention from US and Israeli support of the Mujahedin-e Khalq and the activities of the organization inside Iran.

Press TV talks with Mark Dankof, former US Senate candidate in San Antonio, who names prominent Americans who have received money from the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and who push for the MEK to be removed from the list of international terrorist organizations. He also postulates Israeli intelligence and American neo-conservative involvement in an allegation of an attempt to assassinate a Saudi envoy.

Following is a transcript of the interview.

Press TV: In terms of the UN, the US has sent this alleged Iranian plot to the UN Security Council. But the UNSC is not a court. No court has substantiated the allegations. So what do you think is behind the move by the US?

Mark Dankof: I think what you have here is a clear cut case of Israeli intelligence and American intelligence being involved in trying to pin something phony on the Iranian government. No one who is a responsible international observer or commentator or intelligence expert believes that the President Ahmadinejad would be foolish enough to concoct a plot like this, much less to use as unstable a source as this Arbabsiar in terms of what his public profile is; and to do so with an unproven source allegedly tied to a Mexican drug cartel in Mexico.

And to be having open conversations with these people over open phone waves easily intercepted by the American National Security Agency and conducting bank transactions that would be totally traceable to the players – as I understand it the money that came from these banks that supposedly was used to pay these alleged criminal suspects is from non-Iranian banks.

Philip Geraldi of the Council of National Interests – a long time American CIA station chief – has branded this whole thing for what it is. Gareth Porter and Pepe Escobar of the Asian Times and others have clearly pointed to the phony character of this and the desperate character of the whole thing in terms of Barak Obama and Eric Holder [US Attorney General] working in conjunction with Israeli intelligence and with these American neo-conservatives in the United States government, they’ve been angling for an American Israeli war with Iran for a long time. They’re trying to create a casus belli here.

Press TV: The protests going on inside the US – Don’t they have to be worried about that? At the same time we look at what they’re doing overseas – these drone attacks that have killed many people in several countries from Pakistan to Somalia – there was a report that 27 civilians died in Southern Somalia from these drone attacks.

Again the UN has been silent. Why doesn’t the UN take Washington to account? Of course there is speculation – has the UN become part of the US war machine in this case?

Mark Dankof: Well I think that’s exactly right. In this particular case it’s pathetic that the UN has not taken a more definitive position on these drone attacks and so forth, which are not simply reprehensible, they’re counter productive.

One may presume for every civilian killed in these drone attacks that the United States is probably facilitating the recruitment of an additional 100 to 500 insurgents to oppose it around the world in the future.

The other thing that comes up in all of this of course is that we are seeing attention diverted from what the United States and Israel are clearly doing in conjunction with groups like the Iran Policy Committee; to work with the Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iran to facilitate the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and to be involved in other black intelligence operations within Iran that are clearly both illegal and counterproductive.

Raymond Tanter who is the head of the Iran Policy Committee – Raymond Tanter of Georgetown University has all kinds of provable links with Israeli intelligence and Israeli think tanks. His colleague Clare Lopez is an agent for the CIA and they have been at the forefront of this attempt to have the Mujahedin-e Khalq removed from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations in the United States.

And when you see the number of people who have been receiving money from the Mujahedin-e Khalq to engage in public relations work on behalf of the MEK in the US – this includes Tom Ridge, Rudolph Giuliani, several past members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former FBI counter intelligence expert. And Rudolph Giuliani of course seems to be kind of spearheading these efforts – Patrick Kennedy the son of Ted Kennedy received 25,000 or 50,000 dollars from these folks.

It’s clear that the biggest player in this whole thing is the Israeli MOSSAD and again these American neo-conservatives who want a war with Iran. And whether it’s legitimizing the MEK in this country and having blind eyes and deaf ears turned to things that they’re doing that are terroristic in Iran with the full sponsorship of the US and Israel.

Or it’s a simple question of trying to concoct something phony against the Iranian government.
This is clearly what’s going on here.
And Americans left, right and center should stand opposed to something that is evil – that is immoral and that is not in the own country’s interests and that certainly is facilitating crimes against other people abroad.

Press TV: Maybe the US is not the one that is being proactive here – maybe as you mentioned Israel is pushing the US based on the visit Leon Panetta made to Israel? Or, is it Saudi Arabia doing this because Saudi Arabia has asked for this case to also go to the UN?

Mark Dankof: I think this is where the interests of Israel and the interests of the United States, or at least the elite that controls the United States let me put it that way, and the Saudi Arabians absolutely coincide.

This is why these are the three powers principally involved with the Mujahedin-e Khalq and funding them and their terrorist operations against the Iranian people and the present government in Iran.

And clearly when we look at this whole situation with the public statements that Netanyahu has made; the public statements that Avigdor Lieberman has made – the foreign minister of Israel – And again just look at this laundry list of American neo-conservative in the United States ranging from Kenneth R. Timmerman and Raymond Tanter and Clare Lopez over to Rudolph Giuliani and others, one begins to have a very clear picture as to what is going on here.

And that is that the project for the New American Century crowd – now know as the foreign policy initiative; the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee; and the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs – JENSA – are in the forefront of manipulating these individuals and groups and events to try and produce what it is that Netanyahu wants; what it is the Israelis want; and what it is that many in the banking community and the military industrial complex want – and that is an American-Israeli war with Iran.

Innocent people will be killed. Untold numbers of innocent people will be killed on all sides if something like this were to take place. And I find it interesting that looking at where Sara Flounders sits on the political spectrum and there you have Jim Fetzer and I – presumably kind of at the other end of the political spectrum – agreeing on this. This poses a lot of questions for an American political and military and economic and media establishment that’s having increasing trouble selling this pack of lies not simply to the international community, but also to the America public.