Seymour Hersh on Iran: Preparing the Battlefield – The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
There is not much new information in the piece. Hersh mostly pulls together many know bits and pieces on U.S. activities versus Iran.
Hersh confirms the existence of a new secret presidential finding first reported six weeks ago by Andrew Cockburn of Counterpunch.
The finding allows for support of groups hostile to Iran as well as for direct operation by U.S. special commands and by the CIA within Iran including the use of ‘defensive lethal force.’ It is supported by bipartisan funding of up to $400 million. U.S. operations against Iran are not new, but have now been ‘significantly expanded.’
Admiral Fallon, who was been dismissed as Centcom commander, was, according to Hersh, not kicked out over disagreement about an attack on Iran, but for insisting on unity of command and protesting against special force operations that are run outside of the regular chain of command.
According to Hersh groups used to make trouble in Iran include:
- Ahwazi Sunni Arab groups in south-eastern Iran.
- Baluchi groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran including Jundullah, the ‘army of god’, a radical al-Qaeda like group
- the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, PJAK, that operates in Iraq’s northern region.
- the Mujahideen-e-Khalq cult, MEK, also operating from Iraqi grounds
Hersh reports also that U.S. special operation groups have seized Al Quds commanders in Iran and taken them to Iraq for interrogations.
CIA and the military joint special operations command disagree on using these groups and some of the tactics.
There seems to be an up tick of incidents within Iran that may be related to the U.S. operations there.
Hersh notes that these are ‘regime change’ operations that have nothing to do with nuclear issues. This new wave of such operations was initiated after the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran published in December found that there is no active military nuclear program in Iran.
Regime change in Iran and control over Iran’s natural resources as well as the routes into Central Asia are strategic U.S. foreign policy goals which have bipartisan support. All other issues, including the squabble over nuclear stuff, are simply ways and means to reach those goals.
UPDATE:
Somehow I missed the most important sentence of the piece. FCL caught it:
But a lesson was learned in the incident [IRG/US Navy ‘interaction in the Gulf]: The public had supported the idea of retaliation, and was even asking why the U.S. didn’t do more. The former official said that, a few weeks later, a meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. “The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,” he said.