News

(CNN) -- The U.S. government's newly revealed charges that Iran planned to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States is nothing short of mind-boggling.

It is difficult to see what Iran would have gained by simultaneously escalating tensions with its main regional rival and also ratcheting up tensions with the United States. If true, this plot shows a monumental lapse in judgment on Tehran's part, an audacious and reckless adventurism that will go down as the clerical regime's colossal mistake that will weaken its hand internationally and even unravel its grip on power -- or there is something the Iranian regime knows and has put its bets on that no one else is aware of.