A lengthy article in this week’s New Yorker magazine by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh provides further evidence that the Bush administration has not only set course for war against Iran, but has over the past few months embarked on a reckless and incendiary strategy that has the potential to unleash sectarian Sunni-Shia conflicts throughout the Middle East.
The broad outlines of what Hersh writes in his article “The Redirection” (as the plan is termed in the White House) have been out in the open for some time. In the wake of the US Congressional elections last November, the Bush administration ignored the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of the American people and the recommendations of the top-level Iraq Study Group (IRG). The White House has increased troop numbers in Iraq, bolstered its naval presence in the Persian Gulf and markedly turned up the volume of the threats against Iran.
In outlining his plans for Iraq on January 10, President Bush denounced Syria and Iran for assisting anti-US insurgents in Iraq and warned that the US military would destroy their networks of agents. According to Hersh’s sources, since last August as many as 500 Iranians have been arbitrarily detained and interrogated at any one time, including many Iranian humanitarian and aid workers. As a former senior US intelligence official explained: “The White House goal is to build a case that the Iranians have been fomenting the insurgency... and supporting the killing of Americans.”
These unsubstantiated allegations, along with Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program and its support for “terrorist” groups in the Middle East, are being drummed up as potential pretexts for a confrontation with Tehran. In articles over the past year, Hersh has pointed to high-level preparations for an intensive bombing attack on Iran. In his latest article, he notes that these processes have accelerated with the establishment of a special planning group in the Pentagon offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with a brief to prepare a contingency plan that could be implemented on Bush’s orders within 24 hours. Two replacement aircraft carrier groups are due to arrive in the Gulf, but the entire naval force could be ordered to stay in place, “to allow for an attack order this spring”.
The Pentagon’s military planning is being accompanied by a broad US diplomatic offensive against Tehran, which was outlined by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month. She declared that the US was seeking “a new strategic alignment in the Middle East” by supporting “moderates,” including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf states, against the “extremists”—Iran, Syria and their allies such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Significantly, all talk of “spreading democracy” in the region went out the window so as to justify alliances with openly autocratic and repressive regimes.
Please continue.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/iran-f28.shtml
Please also see:
THE REDIRECTION
Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070305fa_fact_hersh
House of Bush
House of Saud
The Secret Relationship Between The World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties
http://www.houseofbush.com
Egypt: Karim Amer sentence makes bloggers new target of the authorities
http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGMDE120062007
Ramzy Baroud:
The Final Punch; Removing Iran from the New Middle East Equation
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-02220760810.htm
Professor James Petras: Understanding Empire; Hierarchy, Networks and Clients
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-021907123930.htm
The broad outlines of what Hersh writes in his article “The Redirection” (as the plan is termed in the White House) have been out in the open for some time. In the wake of the US Congressional elections last November, the Bush administration ignored the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of the American people and the recommendations of the top-level Iraq Study Group (IRG). The White House has increased troop numbers in Iraq, bolstered its naval presence in the Persian Gulf and markedly turned up the volume of the threats against Iran.
In outlining his plans for Iraq on January 10, President Bush denounced Syria and Iran for assisting anti-US insurgents in Iraq and warned that the US military would destroy their networks of agents. According to Hersh’s sources, since last August as many as 500 Iranians have been arbitrarily detained and interrogated at any one time, including many Iranian humanitarian and aid workers. As a former senior US intelligence official explained: “The White House goal is to build a case that the Iranians have been fomenting the insurgency... and supporting the killing of Americans.”
These unsubstantiated allegations, along with Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program and its support for “terrorist” groups in the Middle East, are being drummed up as potential pretexts for a confrontation with Tehran. In articles over the past year, Hersh has pointed to high-level preparations for an intensive bombing attack on Iran. In his latest article, he notes that these processes have accelerated with the establishment of a special planning group in the Pentagon offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with a brief to prepare a contingency plan that could be implemented on Bush’s orders within 24 hours. Two replacement aircraft carrier groups are due to arrive in the Gulf, but the entire naval force could be ordered to stay in place, “to allow for an attack order this spring”.
The Pentagon’s military planning is being accompanied by a broad US diplomatic offensive against Tehran, which was outlined by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month. She declared that the US was seeking “a new strategic alignment in the Middle East” by supporting “moderates,” including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf states, against the “extremists”—Iran, Syria and their allies such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Significantly, all talk of “spreading democracy” in the region went out the window so as to justify alliances with openly autocratic and repressive regimes.
Please continue.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/iran-f28.shtml
Please also see:
THE REDIRECTION
Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070305fa_fact_hersh
House of Bush
House of Saud
The Secret Relationship Between The World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties
http://www.houseofbush.com
Egypt: Karim Amer sentence makes bloggers new target of the authorities
http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGMDE120062007
Ramzy Baroud:
The Final Punch; Removing Iran from the New Middle East Equation
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-02220760810.htm
Professor James Petras: Understanding Empire; Hierarchy, Networks and Clients
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-021907123930.htm