Geo-Politics: The New Yorker on war preparations in the USA

The New Yorker in his next issue (July 7 - available online) includes an excellent editorial on the preparations for another war by the Bush administration.

This time its Iraq Iran and based on a Presidential Finding signed by G.W. Bush the congress has already approved 400 Million USD for covert, sabotage and all sorts of other shady activities to “destabilize Iran“.

From the New Yorker article:
“…These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations…”
and
“…In recent months, according to the Iranian media, there has been a surge in violence in Iran; it is impossible at this early stage, however, to credit JSOC or C.I.A. activities, or to assess their impact on the Iranian leadership…The Iranian press “is very open in describing the killings going on inside the country…the Iranians have begun publicly blaming the U.S., Great Britain, and, more recently, the C.I.A. for some incidents.”

Some more unusual facts presented in the article:

While “officially” the Finding was focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions it came at the same time when the National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran had already stopped work on potential nuclear weapons in 2003.

Another important matter mentioned is that a Presidential Finding since 9/11 is actually not be required anymore - so asking Congress for another 400 Million USD might be just about the money.

What strikes us the most is that the US here again is going down a cold war politics path and is financing the same kind of shady groups it had already done in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sunni fundamentalists, war cowboys, drug dealers and terrorists or as one former CIA officer who worked with the South Asia and Middle Eastern desks put it “you can also describe them as Al Qaeda“.

So like they financed and armed Bin Laden in Afghanistan, their strategy now seems to do the same all over again. Some of those groups to be “officially” financed include members of “Al Qaeda” convicted for their involvement in the bombing of the WTC in 1993 or are considered to be one of the leading brains behind the 9/11 attacks.

While it is quite common in these spooky areas of special / national security / intelligence services to have communications with all sorts of people it is definitely something else to finance those characters on such a scale.

But as one Pentagon insider put it - “The Administration is desperate for results.”