Iran: here we go

Seymour Hersh's "Preparing the Battlefield"

My forehead hurts. Hersh describes a Presidential Finding in regard to the funding of covert operations inside Iran.

The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. “The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been coöpted” by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.”

It's also remarkable given the reason for the Democratic landslide victory in the 2006 midterms. Fallon, no DFH, resisted (thus his "resignation") because he, like the Dems, was kept out of the loop, and it was interfering with his command.

“The coherence of military strategy is being eroded because of undue civilian influence and direction of nonconventional military operations,” Sheehan said. “If you have small groups planning and conducting military operations outside the knowledge and control of the combatant commander, by default you can’t have a coherent military strategy. You end up with a disaster, like the reconstruction efforts in Iraq.”

The purpose of these covert operations is to gather intelligence on Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, to perform assassinations (wink wink, nudge nudge), and to work with opposition groups in order to bring about regime change. These opposition groups include, wait for it, Al Qaeda types.

The use of Baluchi elements [did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?], for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers—in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties.” Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered one of the leading planners of the September 11th attacks, are Baluchi Sunni fundamentalists.

I seem to recall McCain recently saying something about Iran supporting Al Qaeda inside Iran. We (Dems included) are giving money to one of the terrorist groups that is responsible for 9/11. Hersh runs through more examples. These groups, big surprise, lack much influence inside of Iran, and their increased activity, with our support, is rallying Iranian public opinion behind the current regime. It's also pissing off Iraq and Pakistan. The main point is to set up a bombing strike. Sweet.

Update: DDay, Ackerman and Emptywheel.