Pandemic

It seems that investigations of spying are contagious and spread both quickly and globally. Reuters reports:

-Iran has arrested dozens of spies, including several who passed secrets about its nuclear program to its enemies, Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said on Tuesday.

The United States accuses Iran of using its atomic program as a smokescreen for building nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists the program is solely dedicated to meeting booming domestic demand for electricity.

"The Intelligence Ministry has arrested a number of spies that transferred Iran's nuclear intelligence (abroad)," Yunesi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

Yunesi said most of those arrested were linked to the Iraq-based Iranian opposition group the People's Mujahideen Organization (MKO).

To which I'll only add, for now, these two remarks from Juan Cole the other day. First:

The Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO) has a front organization, the "National Council of Resistance" or NCR. The NCR has been a significant source of charges about the Iranian nuclear program, and probably spies on Iran for both the Pentagon and Israel. (I am reasoning back from AIPAC's WINEP-associated "scholars" supporting the MEK, which is very odd unless there is a big quid pro quo). They probably exaggerate, playing a game similar to that of Ahmad Chalabi in Iraq. That would be another reason for which Franklin would try to stop its Iraq commanders being turned over to Iran by the US in return for top al-Qaeda leaders that Tehran holds.

And also:

Iran is reported to have Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in custody in summer of 2003, and to be entirely willing to hand him over to the US in return for some high-ranking MEK terrorists. But first the neocon network, including Franklin, Harold Rhode and Michael Ledeen, intervenes to stop the trade (see below). Then, mysteriously, everything that goes wrong in Iraq from about January of 2004 begins being blamed on Zarqawi (is it alleged that Iran let him go, to deliberately disrupt Iraq by blowing up Shiites? More likely, when Iran won't accommodate the Neocons because of the latters' ties to MEK, the neocons decide to smear Iran as "harboring" terrorists and "sending" them to Iraq. They know this path might even lead to a US war on Iran, which is what they want. That is one reason they did not want the prisoner exchange to succeed).

In fact, I'd suggest reading back over the last few days worth of posts at Informed Comment and then go back and reread that Reuters piece above.

[UPDATE] And with that bit of Zarqawi related knowledge in mind, might I suggest some further reading.