The Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that a labyrinthine plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States had been conceived and funded by “high-up officials” in Iran. Attorney General Eric Holder vowed that “the United States is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the U.S. was considering means by which to “send a strong message to Iran and further isolate it from the international community.” Iran, in turn, claimed that the whole thing was cooked up by the U.S. to distract Americans from the state of the economy. P.J. Crowley is a former spokesman for the U.S. State Department. He is currently the Omar N. Bradley Chair in Strategic Leadership, a joint initiative among the United States Army War College, Dickinson College, and Pennsylvania State University.