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Iran - US War planning moves up a gear
By Richard Bennett
06/20/03: (AFI) The
United States military are well advanced in planning their next
strategic adventure in the Middle East, an invasion of Iran by late
2004. Whether Washington will attempt to defeat the larger, better
armed and more highly motivated Iranian forces with the
intention of occupying the entire country must be still very much in
doubt however. It will
probably finally depend on a number of factors some closely
related to covert actions currently being developed within Iran and
a successful use of international pressure on the Tehran regime over
its weapons of mass destruction programs.
~
Central to
Washington's intentions is the rising influence of the Pentagons
Office of Special Plans, or 'Rumsfelds private intelligence service'
according to one disgruntled former CIA officer who spoke to
AFI Research last week. This has been accompanied by a distinct
decline in the influence of both the CIA and the DIA
on US foreign policy in the build up to the war on Iraq.
In a return to the tactics of Frank Wisner's OPC in the early
1950's, the United States is embarking on a wide range of
destabilizing operations promulgated by the OSP and ranging
from the widespread use of industrial sabotage; well targeted
assassinations to subversion and instigating
civil disturbance particularly by students.
~
Special
Forces once again to play a leading role
~
Further signs of an
impending conflict with Iran can be seen in the orders given to both
the US and British Special forces to be prepared for large scale
action within 12 months. The planning chiefs are fully aware that
any campaign in Iran will be very different from Iraq, for not only
is the country itself much larger with far more difficult
terrain over most of its territory, but also
far more effective
opposition can be expected from most of the regular armed forces and
the fanatical forces of the
Pasdaran or Islamic Republican Guard. Special Forces allied to the
promotion of internal opposition, wide scale clandestine and
psychological warfare along with massive
external pressures will undoubtedly be used for many months before
any actual conventional military invasion.
~
Indeed the signs are
that the covert war to undermine the Tehran regime is already well
under way.Propaganda and disinformation campaigns are also beginning
to take shape with repeated and very vocal condemnation of Iran's
WMD and missile programs; its links with North Korea and its open
support for terrorism and its Hezbollah allies. Iran's suspected
links to many of the terrorist outrages of the last twenty years and
the purported growing evidence that Al Qa'ida have been quietly
given considerable assistance by both the Pasdaran and the Iranian
Intelligence agency, SAVAMA will no doubt be used in an even more
extravagant fashion than the endless series of unimpressive
documents and dossiers on Iraq which flowed out of
Washington and Downing Street in the last year or so.
~
Covert CIA
teams operating in Iran
~
The United States,
through the activities of the numerous CIA teams already operating
in Iran alongside anti-Government elements is attempting to build
bridges with dissident elements within the Iranian army, police and
administration. There is some reason to believe that the Americans
have already achieved some measurable success in undermining the
regimes trust in its senior officer corps. However, Washington is
already well aware that it might be wise to have obtained a far
greater degree of international consensus before launching another
war in an already fragile region
and far greater efforts can be expected to win over both the United
Nations and the main Western European countries particularly as Russia
may not take kindly to yet more US bases ringing its southern
borders and China is distinctly disturbed at Washington's
growing influence and power in South Asia. However
Pakistan may, according to normally well informed Indian sources,
have already offered its territory for an eventual US military
campaign.President Musharraf apparently now feels that only whole
hearted support for Washington may
be enough to save him from a gathering Islamic backlash.
~
However it remains
to be seen whether this will eventually lead to a full scale US
assault or perhaps only to the
seizure of the main Iranian oil fields close to the border with
occupied Iraq and perhaps the heavily militarized coastal area which
Iran uses to threaten the main tanker routes out of the Gulf through
the Straits of Hormuz. This Washington may eventually
decide will prove sufficient,
allied to massive covert operations, to overthrow the regime
in Tehran without recourse to another major military campaign.
However the United States is keeping all its options open and is
likely to quickly build an impressive military infrastructure in
Iraq, expand its facilities in many of the Gulf States,as well as in Pakistan,
Afghanistan and increasingly in a number of the former Soviet
Central Asian states.
~
Will the
mighty dollar be the final arbiter of victory?
~
Whether, the mass of
American and British people
will quite so easily swallow the political 'spin' and accept
the case for action against the Mullahs in Tehran
that will be put to them once again by Bush and Blair,
may be less certain. The International community is also even more
likely to cast doubt on
Washington's 'evidence' this time, unless of course the lure
of the US dollar proves as strong as ever at the crucial moment. After
all, the United States recent
widespread use of secret monetary diplomacy simply
seemed to confirm the old adage that every man
does indeed have his price and that nations merely cost
more to buy!
~ Richard
M. Bennett ~ Richard Bennett Media. rbmedia@supanet.com
© Copyright 2003 Richard Bennett Media
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