October 2, 2007
NOT ONLY DOES THE IDENTITY OF THE AUTHOR MAKE ONE ASSUME THE STORY IS FALSE...:
Shifting Targets: The Administration’s plan for Iran (Seymour M. Hersh, October 8, 2007, The New Yorker)
During a secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the President told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, that he was thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the British “were on board.” At that point, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice interjected that there was a need to proceed carefully, because of the ongoing diplomatic track. Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell Iran to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American retribution.At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. If Democrats objected, the Administration could say, “Bill Clinton did the same thing; he conducted limited strikes in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and in Baghdad to protect American lives.” The former intelligence official added, “There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, ‘You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.’ But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.”
Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said, “The President has made it clear that the United States government remains committed to a diplomatic solution with respect to Iran. The State Department is working diligently along with the international community to address our broad range of concerns.” (The White House declined to comment.)
I was repeatedly cautioned, in interviews, that the President has yet to issue the “execute order” that would be required for a military operation inside Iran, and such an order may never be issued. But there has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning. In mid-August, senior officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. And two former senior officials of the C.I.A. told me that, by late summer, the agency had increased the size and the authority of the Iranian Operations Group. (A spokesman for the agency said, “The C.I.A. does not, as a rule, publicly discuss the relative size of its operational components.”)
“They’re moving everybody to the Iran desk,” one recently retired C.I.A. official said. “They’re dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It’s just like the fall of 2002”—the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency. He added, “The guys now running the Iranian program have limited direct experience with Iran. In the event of an attack, how will the Iranians react? They will react, and the Administration has not thought it all the way through.”
That theme was echoed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national-security adviser, who said that he had heard discussions of the White House’s more limited bombing plans for Iran. Brzezinski said that Iran would likely react to an American attack “by intensifying the conflict in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, their neighbors, and that could draw in Pakistan. We will be stuck in a regional war for twenty years.”
In a speech at the United Nations last week, Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was defiant. He referred to America as an “aggressor” state, and said, “How can the incompetents who cannot even manage and control themselves rule humanity and arrange its affairs? Unfortunately, they have put themselves in the position of God.” (The day before, at Columbia, he suggested that the facts of the Holocaust still needed to be determined.)
“A lot depends on how stupid the Iranians will be,” Brzezinski told me. “Will they cool off Ahmadinejad and tone down their language?” The Bush Administration, by charging that Iran was interfering in Iraq, was aiming “to paint it as ‘We’re responding to what is an intolerable situation,’ ” Brzezinski said. “This time, unlike the attack in Iraq, we’re going to play the victim. The name of our game seems to be to get the Iranians to overplay their hand.”
...but as Mr. Brzezinski accidentally indicates, the purpose of planting it would be to get Ayatollah Khamenei to quash Ahmedinejad. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 2, 2007 7:42 AM
Hersh is a nice example of someone who's predictable hostility to the administration makes him a reliable tool.
Posted by: Ibid at October 2, 2007 9:42 AMBut of course our goal must be more than "quashing Ahmedinejad," it must be to prevent the regime from getting nukes and giving some to Hezbollah.
Posted by: PapayaSF at October 2, 2007 1:23 PMIf Bush attacked Iran, Republicans will get at least 60 seats in the Senate, and the White House. Hillary and the Democrats can hardly afford to attack Bush and "side with" the mad Mullahs.
One thing about the stupid party is they believe what the MSM and the Dems' talking points. I guess if one has no principles, one has to bend with the wind.
Posted by: ic at October 2, 2007 3:52 PMKhamenei doesn't want nukes and Hezbollah will be an ally in a couple years, once folks panties unknot.
Posted by: oj at October 2, 2007 4:20 PMMr. Rafasanjani continues to be described in the Western media as a leading Iranian "moderate." If Mr. Toma is correct, this "moderate" was intimately involved in the planning of the Argentina bombings.
Posted by: Bisaal at October 3, 2007 6:59 AMBy the time he fell ill, Ariel Sharon was a moderate too.
But the Argentine claim is rather dubious. They insist that the highest levels of iranian government must have been in on the bombing, therefore the president was responsible. Kind of a variant of impeach W for Abu Graib.
Posted by: oj at October 3, 2007 10:44 AMYou are OK with the highest levels of Iranian govt carrying out acts of terrorism?
Posted by: Bisaal at October 4, 2007 4:07 AMNo. Those levels that carry it out need to be dealt with--the Quds. But they're discrete sections of the state.
Posted by: oj at October 4, 2007 7:33 AM