American Conservative founder Scott McConnell provided another twist on the Alex Jones-promoted conspiracy theory that Monday’s Boston Marathon bombing could have been a “false flag” operation.
In a blog post on the American Conservative’s website, McConnell conceded that the attacks are most likely an al-Qaida operation, but said there is a small chance it could be a false flag operation perpetrated by those who want the U.S. to go to war with Iran.
“I agree with Charles Krauthammer that this has an Al Qaeda feel to it, the urban setting, the quest for dramatic photographs,” he wrote.
“But we don’t know yet. A smaller probability seems to me a right wing domestic terrorist, perhaps on the Breivik model. Smaller still, Shi’ite (Iran sponsored) terror, or some some [sic] kind of false flag operation designed to implicate Iran and jumpstart an American-Iran war. But I’m no insider, I just read the blogs and the papers.”
While the term was once confined to naval warfare, a false flag operation is now taken to mean “any scenario under which a military attack was undertaken by a person or organization pretending to be something else,” according to The Atlantic’s primer on the topic.
In the post, McConnell didn’t specify who he thinks would have perpetrated such an operation, though it appeared he was referring to elements of the American government who think military action is necessary to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, elements of the Israeli government who view a nuclear Iran as an existential threat, Sunni Arab states concerned about the power a nuclear Shiite Iran would wield in the Middle East or Iranian opposition groups who would like to see the Iranian regime deposed.
In an email, McConnell told The Daily Caller he thought the U.S. government was the least likely culprit of those possibilities.
“Of the possibilities you suggest, I think the US gov is extremely unlikely,” he wrote. “The other three seem to me at least plausible, though, as I suggested, unlikely.”
Asked whether he thought it was responsible to even suggest the possibility of a false flag operation without any evidence, McConnell responded: “I wouldn’t have written it if I didn’t think it was responsible.”
The idea that Monday’s terrorist attack was a false flag operation was first prominently pushed by Alex Jones, a radio host known for delusional conspiracy theories.
A writer for his Info Wars website asked Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick at a news conference Monday whether the attack was a false flag operation perpetrated by the American government to take away civil liberties in the U.S.