Obama Claims CIA Involvement in Iran "Patently False"

by Paul Joseph Watson

President Barack Obama was forced to address accusations that the CIA was involved in fomenting the post-election riots in Iran during his White House press conference yesterday, claiming the allegations were “patently false,” despite the fact that the U.S. government publicly gave the CIA approval to undertake a destabilization campaign in Iran more than two years ago.

“There are reports suggesting that the CIA is behind all this - all of which is patently false but it gives you a sense of the narrative that the Iranian government would love to play into,” said Obama.

CIA involvement in Iran is not a “narrative” manufactured by the Iranian government, as Obama well knows.

As we highlighted in our report earlier this week, evidence of U.S. intelligence meddling in Iran is widespread, which is no surprise considering the fact that the U.S. all but announced they would pursue a destabilization campaign in Iran years ago.

In May 2007, the London Telegraph and others revealed that President George W. Bush had “Given the CIA approval to launch covert “black” operations to achieve regime change in Iran.”

On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News: “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News.”

The plan set in motion CIA propaganda and disinformation campaigns “intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs”.

It also released funds to bankroll the militant Jundullah organization, an Al-Qaeda offshoot formerly headed by the alleged mastermind of 9/11 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The group has been blamed for a number of bombings inside Iran aimed at destabilizing Ahmadinejad’s government.

It is widely suspected that the well known right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq, once run by Saddam Hussein’s dreaded intelligence services, is now also working exclusively for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and carrying out bombings in Iran. A large number of Mujahedeen-e Khalq members were arrested following riots last week, according to a Press TV report. The article claims that the men were “extensively trained in Iraq’s camp Ashraf to create post-election mayhem in the country”.

As part of CIA destabilization efforts in Iran, former Pakistani Army General Mirza Aslam Beig last week claimed that the Agency had distributed 400 million dollars inside Iran to evoke a revolution. Beig cited documents that prove “the CIA spent 400 million dollars inside Iran to prop up a colorful-hollow revolution following the election.”

The CIA program approved by Bush also included funding opposition groups and providing them with communications equipment that would bypass Internet censorship and allow demonstrators to communicate.

Twitter and other social networking websites have played a key role in the demonstrations. The U.S. State Department, which routinely demonizes the Internet as a tool of extremists and terrorists when it is used to criticize U.S. foreign policy, took the unprecedented step last week of requesting that Twitter.com “delay planned maintenance work so that Iranian protesters can continue to use it to post images and reports of unrest,” according to a London Times report.

According to several different reports, the CIA and Mossad has been creating fake Twitter feeds and flooding Iranians with SMS messages inspiring them to riot.

According to author Thierry Meyssan, Iranians received messages before the election votes had even been counted telling them that the Iranian Guardian Council had declared Mir-Hossein Mousavi to be the winner. When the official announcement of Ahmadinejad’s victory was later broadcast, the sentiment that fraud had took place was therefore amplified.

Meyssan also charges that the CIA and Mossad used Twitter feeds to put out fake reports of gun fights and deaths that were never confirmed, rousing Iranians to riot in the belief that their fellow countrymen were being brutally suppressed by the authorities.

Another website clearly documents the fact that the main Twitter accounts used to send out hundreds of alerts during the protests were only recently created and had not send out any alerts whatsoever before the protests began.

Top Neo-Cons with deep ties to the U.S. military-industrial complex like John Bolton and Henry Kissinger have been calling for the CIA to fund a ‘color revolution’ in Iran for years as a gateway to regime change.

Lest we forget that it was a violent CIA coup that led to the overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 under Operation Ajax. The ousting was achieved by means of staged bombings and shootings which were blamed on the Iranian government in order to antagonize the population and enable the coup. During the coup, the CIA also bribed Iranian government officials, businessmen, and reporters, and paid Iranians to demonstrate in the streets.

Given this history, allied with the U.S. government’s own public program to instigate a destabilization campaign in Iran through the CIA, Obama’s claim that CIA involvement is “patently false” is clearly contradicted by the facts. The only thing that’s “patently false” is Obama’s statement itself.