Bush's covert war on Iran

By Michael J.W. Stickings

According to The New Yorker's Sy Hersh -- whose latest piece, "Preparing the Battlefield," is yet another must-read -- the U.S. is already at war with Iran... more or less.

Appearing on CNN's Late Edition yesterday, he said this in response to host Candy Crowley's initial point that "[w]hile the Bush administration has been emphasizing tough diplomacy with Iran, it’s also been escalating covert U.S. military actions against the country" (via C&L, which has the video and the complete transcript):

Well, one of the basic points is that, no matter what we say about diplomacy, you know, carrot and stick, the stick is working pretty hard and the stick is working overtime. This president did escalate the covert war, the secret war inside Iran.

We've been doing stuff inside Iran since '05 pretty much, pretty heavily, you know, looking at the nuclear facilities, collecting intelligence, trying to undermine the regime, et cetera, et cetera.

Ah, yet another covert American war. And what fond memories we have of covert American wars past.

This one's against an anti-Israeli would-be nuclear power with close ties to terrorism in the heart of the Middle East, though, not some Marxist-affiliated crackpot dictatorship in, say, Central America.

But I'm sure Bush knows what he's doing and has taken all the complexities, contingencies, and consequences into consideration.

I mean, it's not like Iran could wreak havoc on Israel. Or destabilize an already unstable Iraq. Or funnel money and arms to terrorist groups like Hezbollah. Or drag the U.S. military into yet another quagmire.

And it's not like Iran has a budding democratic political culture that, at the popular level, is drawn to the West.

Or that U.S. military action against Iran would likely turn the generally nationalistic Iranians against America and the West and put a stop to that budding democratic political culture altogether.

Or that such military action would further erode America's miserable standing around the world and especially in the Middle East and within the Muslim world generally.

No, no, nothing like that. I'm sure it's all under control and will go swimmingly.

Just like I'm sure the U.S. will once again be greeted as a liberator.

What could possibly go wrong?