Conspiracy? There's a conspiracy?

J. David Goodman has an article in The New York Times about Iran:

Al-Qaeda has a message for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran: enough with the conspiracy theories about 11 September.
The latest issue of the terror group’s English-language magazine, Inspire, lashed out at the Iranian president for indulging in the claim that the American government and not al-Qaeda was responsible for the attack. It was a claim Ahmadinejad repeated during his address to the United Nations General Assembly last week, when he suggested that the killing of Osama bin Laden was part of a dark conspiracy to conceal the real perpetrators of the 11 September 2001 attacks.
“The Iranian government has professed on the tongue of its president Ahmadinejad that it does not believe al-Qaeda was behind 9/11 but, rather, the US government,” read an article in the magazine, published under the byline Abu Suhail. “So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?”
The article, which reminded some of a satirical video from The Onion on a similar subject, continues, sardonically adopting a name for America often repeated by Iranian leaders: If Iran was genuine in its animosity towards the US, it would be pleased to see another entity striking a blow at the Great Satan, but that’s not the case. For Iran, anti-Americanism is merely a game of politics. The author accuses Iran, a majority Shi'ite country, of a lack of support for the Sunni terror group because of both long-standing religious animosities and simple geopolitical jealousy: For them, al-Qaeda was a competitor for the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised Muslims around the world. al-Qaeda, an organization under fire, with no state, succeeded in what Iran couldn’t. Therefore it was necessary for the Iranians to discredit 9/11 and what better way to do so? Conspiracy theories.
Iran and the Shi’a in general do not want to give al-Qaeda credit for the greatest and biggest operation ever committed against America because this would expose their lip-service jihad against the Great Satan. The article, labeled Opinion, appeared in the magazine’s fall 2011 issue, which is dedicated to commemorating the tenth anniversary of the attacks. Needless to say, the historical view of the 11 September attacks provided by al-Qaeda differs greatly from that offered by the other commemorative magazine issues dedicated to the subject. The cover superimposes a graphical image of the World Trade Center’s twin towers— one made from dollar signs, the other from digital ones and zeros— against a cloud-filled sky. The headline reads: The Greatest Special Operation of All Time. There is an article said to be written by Osama bin Laden before his death that urges readers “do not let America’s front and its troops seem hard and become great in your eyes”.
Most of the rest of the issue is taken up with a photo essay of 11 September and the decade since, with a focus on terror attacks carried out by the group, like the deadly transit strikes in Madrid and London, as well as those thwarted at the last minute by international authorities, including the parcel bombs intercepted from Yemen and the failed Times Square bombing.
The group also includes the November 2009 attack on at Fort Hood among the major events of the decade, offering praise for Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the military psychiatrist accused of killing thirteen people in a shooting rampage. “How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done?” reads a large quote attributed to the Yemeni cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki and placed over a close-up photo of a black handgun.
Inspire magazine, a graphics-heavy production aimed at English-speaking Muslims, is believed to be the work primarily of Samir Khan, a Saudi-born American who moved to Yemen in 2009. His byline appears over an essay of media criticism in the latest issue. The “special issue” about 11 September is the seventh for the magazine and includes one house ad for a forthcoming interview with Adam Yahiye Gadahn, an American Islamic convert and al-Qaeda supporter, and one apparent advertisement featuring mourners yelling over the body of young boy and said to be from “Come to Jihad ad productions.”

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