By Mark Hosenball and Caren Bohan
WASHINGTON Fri Oct 14, 2011 9:03pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While President Barack Obama and top aides have been united this week in grave warnings over an alleged Iranian assassination plot, some U.S. government officials are privately expressing disquiet that the outlandish-sounding plan has triggered U.S. calls for stiff new action against Iran.
These officials, while not disputing many facts of the case, say that if anything, the scheme reveals weaknesses in Iran's security agencies, and the increasingly fractured state of Iran's government as it faces intense international pressure .
They also questioned the wisdom of the White House strategy in using the affair to rapidly push for tougher sanctions on Tehran, increasing regional tensions.
"A lot of people basically feel really suspicious about this," one official said, questioning the White House's motivation "in ratcheting this thing up so quickly."
Like others, this official insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
A second U.S. official said he shared those concerns, and questioned whether new sanctions, especially unilateral U.S. ones, would have much more than a cosmetic effect on the already heavily sanctioned country.
The consensus view in the administration is that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, probably knew of the alleged plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador in Washington, while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not.
But the skeptical officials said there is no hard evidence Khamanei knew or approved of the plan.
A criminal complaint unsealed this week charges an Iranian-American now in custody, Manssor Arbabsiar, and Gholam Shakuri, a reputed member of Iran's shadowy Quds Force, of conspiring to kill the ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir.
RAISED EYEBROWS
The odd facts of the case including Arbabsiar's apparently bumbling nature, and his approach to a supposed Mexican drug cartel figure, who happened to be a U.S. federal informant have raised eyebrows among Iran specialists.
Some U.S. officials said this week they were initially skeptical of the alleged plot, but ultimately were convinced by evidence linking the affair to Iran and the Quds Force, the covert operations arm of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
As far as is known, there is no division among Obama's closest advisers over the plot evidence or the threat it represents.
The White House strongly defended its handling of the case and its diplomatic strategy in the last few days.
"You have a clear case of a plot to assassinate a diplomat in the United States that is tied back into the senior levels of the Iranian Quds force. So the facts themselves demonstrate the seriousness of the issue," said White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes.
"We have not in any way gone beyond those facts," he said.
Asked about the way the administration went public with the alleged plot, including a news conference by Attorney General Eric Holder, Rhodes said the White House followed "an established order" for such cases, including presenting a suspect in court, compiling a public charging document and then holding the Justice Department news conference.
"We handled this as we would handle a high-profile incident with obvious international implications," Rhodes said.
ELECTION MODE
But Paul Pillar, a former top CIA analyst, said the strong words from Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also reflect the coming election.
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