Is the U.S gearing up for a major confrontation with Iran? In this week's issue of The New Yorker, journalist Seymour Hersh reports that President Bush authorized an increase in covert operations inside Iran after receiving funding from Congress (The New Yorker – Preparing The Battlefield):
Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program. […] 'the Finding was focussed on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,’ a person familiar with its contents said, and involved ‘working with opposition groups and passing money.’
Writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Karim Sadjadpour suggests (The Wrong Way to Pressure Iran) a policy that recognizes that Iran is not a monolithic state, that there are multiple groups in power, and some can be undermined and others can be encouraged to achieve the moderation in Iran's behavior that we seek. He warns that a confrontational policy risks strengthening the very forces that we should be seeking to undermine. He reminds us that it is the moderates that we would like to see in power, not the radicals, and our actions should be based on that premise. At this stage, it's difficult to tell if the U.S.'s covert actions are indeed taking advantage of Iran's multiple centers of power, or if the public disclosure of these covert efforts will serve only to strengthen the hand of of those they are seeking to undermine.
