Covert action, economic pressure and destabilisation - The US meddles aggressively in Iran

[helderheid]

By Selig S. Harrison
Despite the disaster of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration wants not just to deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions but maybe even to overthrow the Islamic Republic. It has already authorised ‘non-lethal’ action within Iran and helped separatist groups. But instead of supporting the country’s democratic opposition, US meddling has encouraged its hardliners to reinforce their positions.

The battle lines are familiar and clearly drawn in the unresolved policy struggle over Iran within the Bush administration. Vice-President Richard Cheney and his allies in the Pentagon and Congress, prodded by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), not only want the United States to bomb the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, but are also calling for air strikes on Iranian military installations near the Iraq border.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants to test diplomacy first by broadening the US-Iran negotiations on stabilising Iraq that began in Baghdad in May. But, as the price for postponement of a decision on military action, she has agreed to a self-defeating compromise that has directly undermined the Baghdad negotiations: increased covert action to destabilise the Islamic Republic, formalised by a presidential “finding” in April.

Covert action to undermine the Tehran regime has already been under way intermittently for the past decade. Until now, however, the CIA has operated without a finding (authorisation for covert action) by using proxies. Pakistan and Israel, for example, provide weapons and money to insurgent groups in southeast and northwest Iran, where the Baluch and Kurdish ethnic minorities, both Sunni Muslim, have long fought against the repression of Shia-dominated Persian regimes.

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http://www.deepjournal.com/p/7/a/en/1028.html