oliver craner said:
And you pretend to imagine this will be spent on "spreading democracy" as opposed to its true function, escalating special forces terrorist operations aimed at stoking visceral sectarian conflict, all as a prelude to invasion?
No, it's just palpably not. If you spent more time reading up on divisions and distinctions within the Bush Administration and the US government generally (I mean, at least on a 'know thy enemy' basis) rather than whacko websites you probably wouldn't sound so silly...but you don't need my advice.
I'd like you to explain how that money will "stoke secterian conflict". Is the State Department going to arm the Kurds, Sufis, Sunnis, Bahais, Zoroastrians? Or what? Or whom? Or how?
... I don't feel I owe any of you fools an explanation. You obviously believe any old shit.
US Marines Probe Tensions among Iran's Minorities
By Guy Dinmore
The Financial Times
Thursday 23 February 2006 ---Extracts---
The intelligence wing of the US marines has launched a probe into Iran's ethnic minorities at a time of heightened tensions along the border with Iraq and friction between capitals.
Iranian activists involved in a classified research project for the marines told the FT the Pentagon was examining the depth and nature of grievances against the Islamic government, and appeared to be studying whether Iran would be prone to a violent fragmentation along the same kind of fault lines that are splitting Iraq.
The research effort comes at a critical moment between Iran and the US. Last week the Bush administration asked Congress for $75m to promote democratic change within Iran, having already mustered diplomatic support at the UN to counter Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program.
...
US intelligence experts suggested the marines' effort could indicate early stages of contingency plans for a ground assault on Iran. Or it could be an attempt to evaluate the implications of the unrest in Iranian border regions for marines stationed in Iraq, as well as Iranian infiltration.
Other experts affiliated to the Pentagon suggest the investigation merely underlines that diverse intelligence wings of the US military were seeking to justify their existence at a time of plentiful funding.
Lieutenant-Colonel Rick Long, a Marines spokesman, confirmed that the marines had commissioned Hicks and Associates, a defense contractor, to conduct two research projects into Iraqi and Iranian ethnic groups.
...
Marine Corps Intelligence defines its role as focusing "on crises and pre-deployment support to expeditionary warfare". It also provides threat and technical intelligence assessments for the Marines.
The first study, on Iraq, was completed in late 2003, more than six months after marines spearheaded the US invasion. About 23,000 marines are still in Iraq. The Iran study was finished late last year.
Hicks and Associates is a wholly owned subsidiary of Science Applications International Corp, one of the biggest US defense contractors and deeply involved in the prewar planning for Iraq.
The Strategic Assessment Center of Hicks and Associates advertises one of its current projects as the "Impact of Foreign Cultures on Military Operations". SAIC confirmed it completed the confidential studies for the Marine Corps.
While most analysts would agree that Iran has a far stronger sense of national identity than Iraq, its ethnic mix is even more complex than its neighbor.
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Last month two bombs exploded in Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan province close to Iraq. Eight people were killed on the same day that President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad had been due to visit. Six people were killed in bombings last October. Oil installations have been attacked. Iran has repeatedly accused the UK and US of being behind the violence, using separatist Arab groups in southern Iraq to foment instability inside Iran.
"We are very suspicious of British forces' involvement in terrorist activities," Mr. Ahmadi-Nejad was quoted as saying last October. He accused British troops in Iraq of "hiring terrorists for sabotage".
...
Last October, the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) held a conference chaired by Michael Ledeen, a proponent of regime change in Iran. It triggered uproar among exiled opposition groups, especially Persian nationalists. Mr. Ledeen called the conference "Another case for Federalism?" and denied that AEI was seeking to foment separatism.
Reuel Gerecht, also with AEI and a former CIA specialist on the Middle East, says the State Department under Condoleezza Rice, and not the Pentagon, is running Iran policy. He said State was "several steps removed" from discussing covert action and "nowhere near the point" of trying to use separatist tendencies among minorities as traction against the Tehran regime. No one knew whether that would work, he added.
However, he complimented the Pentagon for "looking down the road".
A former intelligence officer said the Marines' probe reflected the "contingency planning" mindset of the US military. Nonetheless, he said, it was important to note that the ultimate purpose of the intelligence wing was "to support effective ground military operations by the Marine Corps".
...
