A few days ago I posted an entry that I then retracted because I wanted to compile more substantial information before proceeding. The entry was about US plans to, according to ABC’s The Blotter…

“…mount a covert ‘black’ operation to destabilize the Iranian government…a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions”.

The same day that The Blotter posted that entry, The Guardian newspaper in the UK ran a piece entitled Iran’s secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq, which included the following…

“Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.”

I had mentioned in the initial entry about this subject that, in fact, both pieces seemed to include information that could be a part of the very campaign of disinformation that is being undertaken. In the case of The Blotter’s report, it provides somewhat ‘official’ substantiation, which might seem strange until you place it into proper context, that being perhaps the point of the exercise – to lure the Iranians into some form of response, be it to increase their refusal to cooperate with the IAEA and thus provide the United States leverage at the UN, or to respond to US battle groups parked off of the Iranian coast conducting non-coms by beginning over-flights of their own along their coastline in the Persian Gulf, something that may very well lead to an ‘incident’. That said, it should not be overlooked that this information will impact the American public the most, and perhaps that is the actual goal.

In the case of The Guardian report, the crucial element is the linking of Iran to Sunni militant groups, some with alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Of course, as soon as al-Qaeda’s name is evoked, public perception changes – a perception that has yet to be at all influenced by repeated claims that Iran has been aiding Shia militias in Southern Iraq. The Guardian’s report also provides an interesting contradiction of sorts, despite recent pledges by some, such as al-Sadr, for Sunni-Shia cooperation to end the occupation – it places the Iranians in the bizarre position of now aiding almost every facet of Iraqi occupational resistance, even though there are some within it that, besides opposing the occupation, also oppose one another.

It wasn’t until I came across this report in today’s New Zealand Herald that I decided to revisit this topic…

“The Bush administration may be highlighting accusations that the Iranian government is behind attacks in Iraq in order to strengthen its hand in preparing for military strikes on Iran, according to a British think-tank.

In a report sifting the evidence produced by US authorities against Iran, the independent think-tank Basic cast doubt on the strength of the intelligence, saying that proved links between the Tehran regime and militia inside Iraq remained “sketchy”.

Given the close ties between Shia Muslim Iran and Iraq, which has a dominant Shia population in the south, the report warned of the dangers of conflating “legitimate acts of foreign relations and cross-border movements of people” with the alleged Iranian involvement in violence.

The UK and US governments have frequently accused Iran of aiding militant groups in Iraq who are attacking coalition forces.

However, the report said that “despite efforts by the Bush administration to confirm the strength of evidence presented, doubt still surrounds the case against Iran, particularly with regard to the degree of direct involvement of the Iranian leadership.

“Whatever the true extent and nature of Iranian military action in Iraq, few independent analysts believe Tehran is playing a decisive role in the sectarian warfare and insurgency,” said the report.”

Added to this is a piece by Steven C. Clemons on his Washington Note blog entitled Cheney Attempting to Constrain Bush’s Choices on Iran Conflict: Staff Engaged in Insubordination Against President Bush, part of which reads…

“The thinking on Cheney’s team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran’s nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf — which just became significantly larger — as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.

There are many other components of the complex game plan that this Cheney official has been kicking around Washington. The official has offered this commentary to senior staff at AEI and in lunch and dinner gatherings which were to be considered strictly off-the-record, but there can be little doubt that the official actually hopes that hawkish conservatives and neoconservatives share this information and then rally to this point of view. This official is beating the brush and doing what Joshua Muravchik has previously suggested — which is to help establish the policy and political pathway to bombing Iran.

The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice, Bob Gates, Michael Hayden and McConnell have sculpted.”

Added to that is a story by CBS today entitled U.S. Working To Sabotage Iran Nuke Program, which talks about the use of industrial sabotage…

“Industrial sabotage is a way to stop the program, without military action, without fingerprints on the operation, and really, it is ideal, if it works,” says Mark Fitzpatrick, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation and now Senior Fellow in Non-Proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Sources in several countries involved told CBS News that the intelligence operatives involved include former Russian nuclear scientists and Iranians living abroad. Operatives have sold Iran components with flaws that are difficult to detect, making them unstable or unusable.

“One way to sabotage a program is to make minor modifications in some of the components Iran obtains on the black market, and because it’s a black market … you don’t know exactly who you are dealing with,” Fitzpatrick says.”

The irony of Fitzpatrick’s statement is that the CIA has already engaged in an operation to covertly supply the Iranians with faulty trigger specs known as MERLIN, an operation that backfired. An excerpt from James Risen’s ‘State Of War’…

“On paper, Merlin was supposed to stunt the development of Tehran’s nuclear programme by sending Iran’s weapons experts down the wrong technical path. The CIA believed that once the Iranians had the blueprints and studied them, they would believe the designs were usable and so would start to build an atom bomb based on the flawed designs. But Tehran would get a big surprise when its scientists tried to explode their new bomb. Instead of a mushroom cloud, the Iranian scientists would witness a disappointing fizzle. The Iranian nuclear programme would suffer a humiliating setback, and Tehran’s goal of becoming a nuclear power would have been delayed by several years. In the meantime, the CIA, by watching Iran’s reaction to the blueprints, would have gained a wealth of information about the status of Iran’s weapons programme, which has been shrouded in secrecy.

The Russian studied the blueprints the CIA had given him. Within minutes of being handed the designs, he had identified a flaw. “This isn’t right,” he told the CIA officers gathered around the hotel room. “There is something wrong.” His comments prompted stony looks, but no straight answers from the CIA men. No one in the meeting seemed surprised by the Russian’s assertion that the blueprints didn’t look quite right, but no one wanted to enlighten him further on the matter, either.

In fact, the CIA case officer who was the Russian’s personal handler had been stunned by his statement. During a break, he took the senior CIA officer aside. “He wasn’t supposed to know that,” the CIA case officer told his superior. “He wasn’t supposed to find a flaw.”

“Don’t worry,” the senior CIA officer calmly replied. “It doesn’t matter.”

The CIA case officer couldn’t believe the senior CIA officer’s answer, but he managed to keep his fears from the Russian, and continued to train him for his mission.

After their trip to San Francisco, the case officer handed the Russian a sealed envelope with the nuclear blueprints inside. He was told not to open the envelope under any circumstances. He was to follow the CIA’s instructions to find the Iranians and give them the envelope with the documents inside. Keep it simple, and get out of Vienna safe and alive, the Russian was told. But the defector had his own ideas about how he might play that game.

The CIA had discovered that a high-ranking Iranian official would be travelling to Vienna and visiting the Iranian mission to the IAEA, and so the agency decided to send the Russian to Vienna at the same time. It was hoped that he could make contact with either the Iranian representative to the IAEA or the visitor from Tehran.

In Vienna, however, the Russian unsealed the envelope with the nuclear blueprints and included a personal letter of his own to the Iranians. No matter what the CIA told him, he was going to hedge his bets. There was obviously something wrong with the blueprints - so he decided to mention that fact to the Iranians in his letter. They would certainly find flaws for themselves, and if he didn’t tell them first, they would never want to deal with him again.

The Russian was thus warning the Iranians as carefully as he could that there was a flaw somewhere in the nuclear blueprints, and he could help them find it. At the same time, he was still going through with the CIA’s operation in the only way he thought would work.”

Beyond this, the United States has also been advising and aiding Pakistani militant groups along Iran’s border who have been linked to various terrorist attacks within Iran. But such efforts, while providing hard results, are most likely not the sort to draw the Iranians out, thus the need to look to more coercive measures, ones that primarily rely on stories planted in the media by way of statements made by various US officials in a variety of locations, such as those made to The Guardian by officials in Iraq.

To me, the truly crucial aspect of this is not really whether the Iranians buy into it or not, it’s whether the American public will. In truth, this current campaign of disinformation is, most likely, more directed at them than it is anyone else.