{"id":10884,"date":"2007-05-23T09:45:36","date_gmt":"2007-05-23T13:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10884.html"},"modified":"2007-05-23T09:45:36","modified_gmt":"2007-05-23T13:45:36","slug":"with-an-eye-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/with-an-eye-on-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"With an eye on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

ABC News reported<\/a> yesterday that the Bush administration’s interest in regime change in Iran continues unabated.<\/p>\n

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.<\/p>\n

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a “nonlethal presidential finding” that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions.<\/p>\n

“I can’t confirm or deny whether such a program exists or whether the president signed it, but it would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime,” said Bruce Riedel, a recently retired CIA senior official who dealt with Iran and other countries in the region.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This isn’t necessarily bad news. If the administration is pursing covert actions in Iran, then the administration isn’t pursing overt military actions in Iran, at least not yet. “Vice President Cheney helped to lead the side favoring a military strike,” said former CIA official Riedel, “but I think they have come to the conclusion that a military strike has more downsides than upsides.”<\/p>\n

That said, it’s not exactly encouraging news, either. Remind me — what’s the CIA’s track record of using covert ops to “replace” unfriendly governments?<\/p>\n

As for the politics, the reaction in some corners to ABC News’ report is downright bizarre. Apparently, some of our friends on the right believe now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag, we might as well go to war.
\n
\nAs Brad Plumer noted<\/a>, several conservative bloggers seem to believe, “Now that ABC News has blown the lid off the president’s secret plan to have the CIA destabilize the Iranian regime from within, the only option we have left is to take military action. Bush never wanted<\/i> war, mind you, but the liberal media and those loose-lipped ‘traitors’ in the agency have left him no choice.”<\/p>\n

Really? Really<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And here I thought the media were against war with Iran…. Ross and ABC News have purposefully undermined the non-military<\/i> removal of a government that is a proud state sponsor of terrorism. If Ross and ABC News are successful in derailing covert non-military attempts to replace the Iranian government, then a military option may very well end up being our last remaining option.<\/p>\n

If we are forced into a war because ABC News torpedoed our last, best hope at a non-military solution to the problem of Iran’s militant, expansionist, Shia Islamist government, then the resulting deaths on both sides will belong in part to ABC News executives and Brian Ross.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even Ed Morrissey is buying into<\/a> this line of thinking.<\/p>\n

The White House intended on using this plan to keep from having to use a military option to stop the mullahs from getting their hands on a nuclear weapon. In fact, ABC reports that Dick Cheney preferred the military option, but that Bush overruled him in favor of the covert action instead. As I have written repeatedly here, a military strike is a lousy choice given the terrain, battleground, and options for targets in Iran as well as the political situation on the ground.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the loose lips at Langley and ABC, that option may have to go back to the top of the list…. Someone in the CIA or in the larger “intelligence community” can’t keep their mouths shut. Thanks to them, we may wind up with no other option against Iranian nuclear ambitions except the military strike.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Be afraid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ABC News reported yesterday that the Bush administration’s interest in regime change in Iran continues unabated. The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. The sources, who spoke on the condition of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}