Because Covert Wars Have Such a Great Record

I suppose covert wars that victimize civilians and earns us enemies by the boatload are slightly less destructive than overt wars, but sometimes the difference is hard to see.

David Dayen at Firedoglake:

So let’s take a look at the evidence in the article. A computer worm disabled uranium production in Iran and set it back a number of months. Nuclear scientists have turned up dead in the streets of Tehran. Now a blast at a missile base that would be the first line of defense against any outside bombing. And yet this story on the explosion is being told entirely from the perspective of US and Israeli analysts, talking about what a setback this was, probably just an accident. Along with all those other accidents and coincidences.

The LA Times, obviously less constrained by a mentality of official secrecy, comes right out and says that these events smack of a covert war against Iran. “It looks like the 21st century form of war,” says one of their analysts quoted.

The turnabout here is that Iran claimed to take down a US drone over the weekend. Again, there have been a lot of denials. But if you line up the drone surveillance with the mysterious explosions and the cyberwarfare and the assassinations of nuclear scientists, it makes perfect sense. The interesting thing about this is that the Iranians claim to have brought the drone under their possession, taking control of it in the sky. But note this knowing paragraph in the NYT story:

In a statement on Sunday, the American-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said that the drone “to which the Iranians are referring may be a U.S. unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week.” It added that operators of the remotely controlled drone aircraft lost control of it “and had been working to determine its status.” The statement did not say what kind of drone was lost, or what might have caused the loss.

The statement would seem to suggest that the craft wrongly flew across the border into Iran. If a drone was used for intelligence gathering in Iran, it presumably would not belong to the military — since there are no open hostilities with Iran — but rather to the C.I.A. or another intelligence agency, acting under a presidential finding about the Iranian nuclear program.

So there’s a Presidential finding that can enable all of the tactics seen over the past year or so, inside a foreign country.

Has anyone been consulted about these war activities? Does anyone in America know, or have they given their consent, about a mass covert war in a foreign country, which includes a back-and-forth of setbacks and offensive actions? To what degree are elected representatives in Congress aware of all this? Shouldn’t we have a minimal amount of debate about the wars in which we engage before hearing about them as a series of “coincidences” in the national news?

For an informed perspective, check out this post from Blue Girl.

She concludes:

The United States needs to realize that when dealing with Iranians, we are not dealing with a purely Islamic culture. Persian culture predates Islam by at least 1500 years, and the Persian people have not been invaded, conquered and occupied in modern times. Hell, not since the Arabs Islamized them seven hundred years ago.

We need to be engaging in diplomacy, even if it takes six months to decide 'what will be the design and color of the peace table?' We should also be engaging the country economically. They have a monolithic, one-dimensional energy economy. The Mullahs control the population by controlling the economy. Economic engagement would be far more effective than military engagement. (And no, I don't mean by wrecking it - I mean by encouraging prosperity.)

Iran would present a military challenge in the best of times. With an overstretched and worn out military, the mere notion is madness on an epic scale. If we engage in diplomacy and economic diversification, the Mullahs fade from power in another decade. Start a shooting war, cement their power for 50-100 more years.

Remember these things the next time a warmonger starts saber-rattling -- especially if they are an apologist for the worst frienemy ever, Israel.