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The Pro-Bush media has seen the letter that was released by the office of John Negroponte on The 7th September, as a major political coup for the Whitehouse, but questions have been raised about its legitimacy ever since. Al Qaida has stated that the letter is a forgery and suggested an American ruse – the western response naturally enough is that they would say that, wouldn’t they?

“We call on Muslims not to pay attention to this cheap propaganda and to remember that the media will always be the infidels’ sole weapon until the end of the battle,”

Abu Maysara

Juan Cole (one of America’s predominant experts on the Shiite brand of Islam) suggests the letter was written in a Shiite voice, not using the language of a Sunni Egyptian like Zawahiri.

Cole suggested that the letter was of either of US or Iranian origin:

My gut tells me that the letter is a forgery. Most likely it is a black psy-ops operation of the US. But it could also come from Iran, since the mistakes are those a Shiite might make when pretending to be a Sunni. Or it could come from an Iraqi Shiite group attempting to manipulate the United States. Hmmm.

The Iranian link is explored my David Ignatius in today’s Post:

We see, finally, that Zawahiri is being squeezed by Iran. He tells Zarqawi to stop his crazed anti-Shiite attacks because the Iranians are holding more than 100 al Qaeda prisoners, many of them old members of the leadership or part of Osama bin Laden’s family. Zarqawi’s bloodthirsty assault on the Shiites, he says, “compels the Iranians to take countermeasures.”

So this would lead me to believe that the letter was a deliberate attempt to undermine Zarqawi in the eyes of the Muslim world, which would aid the Shiite cause that is close to the heart of Iran. It is understandable that Iran would have a vested interest on the outcome in Iraq, and would view the bombing of fellow Shiite’s as unacceptable. Having fought a long bloody war with Iraq only a generation ago it has no desire to see a weak Shia population unable to fight the threat of the insurgency.

Many in the West who view Iran as the next target for forced regime change like to make the link between the Iranians and al-Qaida, however this makes no sense to anyone with even the most basic understanding of Islam. The Salafist objective of imposing a Sunni Caliphate across the Islamic world holds little water in Tehran.

Fundamentalist Sunni’s view Shia Islam as a sub-order, an affront to the faith. There is nothing to suggest that the Shiite theocracy in Tehran would support the murder of their kith and kin. The level of misunderstanding and suspicion in western political thought is staggering to many Muslims.

The letter – if Iranian in origin – would be employed as a rebuke of Zarqawi’s tactics, representing an embarrassment to the whole al-Qaida movement. Both the Whitehouse and the Iranian leadership would welcome this discomfiture within the al-Qaida chain of command, and the subsequent muddling of communication the letter may have created. The suggestion of a forgery becomes more likely if you apply the age-old principle of qui bono (who benefits?).

With President Bush on the political ropes, this letter came as a ray of good news during an otherwise bleak period in his presidency. A flush of criminal investigations has hit the Republican Party. G.O.P. control of the Senate and Congress has been weakened by legal action against Bill Frist and Tom DeLay. The Whitehouse itself has not been without scandal as Karl Rove, and Scooter Libby have been called before the Grand Jury. Bush facing mounting pressure on his handling of the war needed this good-news story.

In January ’04 a similar letter was ‘intercepted’, the authenticity of this document was never established.

It’s right to be suspicious of opportunism from the Bush administration. Only last week the Whitehouse was discovered to have staged a televised question and answer session between the president and US troops in the region. Such tactics were perfected during the President’s staged ‘town hall meetings’ while selling Social Security reform to the nation. This letters timing could not have been more welcome…qui bono?

So how should we view the letter?

There is little doubt that unless the document can be verified beyond doubt, then it should be dismissed as a ruse by either Tehran or the Pentagon.