Iranian Directorate: the Office of Special Plans Refurbished

Kurt Nimmo
Jun. 16, 2006

“How do we know that the CIA was behind the coup that overthrew Hugo Chavez? Same way we know that the sun will rise tomorrow morning,” mused historian William Blum, an author supposedly read by the dead Osama bin Laden. In the same way, how do we know the neocons are behind the impending shock and awe campaign against Iran? Go to the window and see if the sun came up this morning.

In an excellent article penned by Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story, we learn that the “universal fascist,” backer of permanent revolution, and admirer of Gabriele D’Annunzio (the Duce of Fiume of Italian fascism), Michael Ledeen recently trekked to Rome to meet up with Iran-Contra criminal Manucher Ghorbanifar.

“Current military and former intelligence officials remain concerned about a US-led strike on Iran, despite the recent appearance of diplomacy on the part of the US State Department and the offer of an incentives package to Iran,” writes Alexandrovna. “Officials point to new developments, such as a recent meeting in Rome between an Iranian arms dealer and controversial neoconservative Michael Ledeen and the March creation of the Iranian directorate inside the Pentagon, as examples of recent events similar to the lead up with war in Iraq.”

In short, the Pentagon’s Iranian directorate is a refashioned Office of Special Plans, the neocon shop designed to crank out absurd lies and fabrications to build flimsy pretexts prior to the invasion of Iraq. Former CIA officer Larry C. Johnson characterized the OSP as “dangerous for US national security and a threat to world peace. [The OSP] lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam. It’s a group of ideologues with pre-determined notions of truth and reality. They take bits of intelligence to support their agenda and ignore anything contrary. They should be eliminated.”

Alexandrovna notes officials “also add that an as-yet uncompleted ‘Phase II’ investigation into pre-war Iraq intelligence suggests the same problems may recur when addressing Iran. They note that the Pentagon’s Iranian directorate mirrors the so-called Office of Special Plans, which played a major role in feeding intelligence to the President that bolstered a case for war.”

Last month, Laura Rozen, writing for the Los Angeles Times, explained that the Iranian directorate, while centered in the Pentagon, will be managed by the State Department, never mind that the neocon Condi Rice sits atop the organizational chart at the latter. “The administration’s efforts are taking shape on the second floor of the State Department, where a new Office of Iranian Affairs has been charged with leading the push to back Iranian dissidents more aggressively, boost support to democracy broadcasters and strengthen ties with exiles…. The State Department’s new Iranian Affairs office is headed by David Denehy, a longtime democracy specialist at the International Republican Institute, who will work under Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of the vice president.”

Patricia Kushlis, posting on the WhirledView blog, describes David Denehy as one stalk in a crop of “twenties-something Pentagon-style whiz kids” who “created far more havoc than they were worth in Iraq.” No doubt this “havoc”—suicide bombings, destroyed civilian infrastucture, sectarian violence—will be replicated in Iran if the neocons have their way.

As for the International Republican Institute, it is a division of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). “The IRI is the indirect product of a democratic globalism effort spearheaded in the late 1970s by neoconservatives and their allies in the AFL-CIO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and in the two main U.S. political parties,” explains Right Web. “The principals of IRI span the center right-far right spectrum of the internationalists in the Republican Party. Most of its staff and board have links to right-wing think tanks, foundations, and policy institutes, while many also represent major financial, oil, and defense corporations.” In short, Mr. Denehy is a neolib closely associated with the neocon faction—and thus the Iranian directorate will produce wholly predictable results.

“Lt. Col. Barry E. Venable, a spokesman for the Pentagon, confirmed the creation of the directorate for Iran in both a phone conversation and an email message,” Larisa Alexandrovna continues. “As the State Department stated in early March (Daily Press Brief, Mar. 3), the U.S. Government is organizing itself better to address what Secretary Rice called ‘one of the great challenges for the United States, a strategic challenge for the United States and for those who desire peace and freedom,’” Venable wrote.

Of course, in neocon doublespeak, “peace” is war (or shock and awe) and “freedom” is engineered social and cultural disintegration designed to foment “civil war,” that is to say sectarian strife ultimately resulting in the balkanization of Iran along ethnic and religious lines, a process well under way currently in Iraq.

Tellingly, “Venable also confirmed that the new directorate falls under the policy side—more specifically—under the new number three at the Pentagon, Eric Edelman. Edelman, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, holds the same position that Douglas Feith held when he ran OSP at the Pentagon in the lead-up to the Iraq war.”

Although Edelman appears not to be a raving Zionist like his predecessor Feith, he is most assuredly a dyed-in-the-wool neocon. He has worked closely with Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and the indicted I. Lewis Libby.

“As an assistant to Cheney, he was part of the foreign policy network that hurriedly established the ‘intelligence’ rationales [i.e., lies] for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Edelman, who is close to such leading neocons as Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle, worked closely in the vice president’s office with Scooter Libby in establishing a policy network of hawks and neocons that was based at the Pentagon and Cheney’s office but extended through key figures into State, the various intelligence agencies, and the National Security Council,” notes Right Web. As such, Edelman’s influence on the new cherry-picking operation for Iran should be entirely predictable.

Finally, Alexandrovna suggest that since the Pentagon was allowed to slide on its calculated usage of lies and dredging up scary fictional campfire stories about Iraq, the same is likely to happen in regard to the Iran Shock and Awe Directorate. “The lack of a comprehensive report as to how the Pentagon conducted itself prior to the Iraq war, as well as afterward, raises suspicions among some still in uniform about the Pentagon’s Iran Directorate’s role going forward. Many see parallels between what is already known about the Office of Special Plans and what appears to be escalating activity surrounding Iran.”

Indeed. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the American people, a mostly somnolent mass counted upon not to know the difference between the Office of Special Plans and Office Max, will likely not scream bloody murder when the cruise missiles and “mini-nuke” bunker-busters begin raining down on Iran. Of course, there will be the now obligatory anti-war marches worldwide, but these will be igonred, as the corporate media is onboard with the neocons and their ongoing war crimes and criminal predation.