Donald Rumsfeld’s short lived Office of Strategic Influence spawned a termites’ nest of truth ministries; the Office of Special Plans, the Information Operations Task Force and the Iran Directorate are just a few of the ones we know about.

The Pentagon’s latest information warfare effort involves a network of foreign language web sites that promote U.S. interests. I doubt whether anyone at the Pentagon seriously thinks foreign language web sites are going to win over any foreign hearts and minds, but foreign language web sites could be neat placea to plant covert propaganda that can migrate into the domestic press without anyone knowing it originated at the Pentagon, huh?

I first met Neghin Sobhaini last year while doing an interview on the subject of Darfur. There I learned of her heritage as an Iranian American, and of her work in Iran with the U.N.
When McCain started touring the country with Joe Lieberman and continued to hint at another War - this time with Iran, I knew Neghin would be a good person to discuss how these type of actions are affecting politics in Iran, specifically by undermining the moderates in the country who want reform and diplomacy with the West.

At least one high profile war critic sounds alarmed by a recent revelation that Mr. Bush signed a “secret finding” against “the Iranian regime” six weeks ago. I’m frankly less than agog about it.

In a May 2 CounterPunch article, Andrew Cockburn wrote that Bush has launched a “covert offensive” on Iran that is "unprecedented in its scope." The “directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan.” The directive, according to Cockburn, also permits an expanded range of actions, “up to and including the assassination of targeted officials.”

Wow, I thought as I read it. That’s some scary sounding stuff. Then, out of habit, I rescanned the piece to note who Cockburn’s sources on the secret finding were, and here’s what I found: “those familiar with its contents.”

Great. Caesar’s. Ghost. Credibility wise, that kind of thing puts Cockburn and CounterPunch on an even footing with Michael R. Gordon and the New York Times.

The Bush Administration appears to be getting pretty serious about continuing their campaign of aggression in the Middle East. They are providing cover for Israel's activities (like the bombing of the alleged Syrian reactor site) while apparently setting the stage for their own planned bombing campaign against Iran.

In typical BushCo style, they act, then they attempt to provide evidence:

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U.N. Nuclear Agency to Study Claims of Secret Syrian Reactor, By REUTERS, Published: April 26, 2008

VIENNA (Reuters) — The United Nations nuclear watchdog pledged Friday to investigate whether Syria had secretly built an atomic reactor with North Korean help, but the agency also criticized the United States for delaying the release of intelligence.

The United States disclosed its intelligence material on Thursday, saying the Syrian reactor was "nearing operational capability" a month before Israeli warplanes bombed it on Sept. 6.
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Of course, the UN wasn't too happy about the seriously long delay in providing alleged "proof" that there was a reactor there.

by Jeff Huber

“To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.” -- Walter Cronkite, February 27, 1968

The most delusional meme of post-modern U.S. military culture is that America lost the Vietnam War on the home front. Nothing could be further, quite literally, from the truth. America lost Vietnam half a world away from the home front—in Southeast Asia, where it fought what has become the template for superpower entanglement in third world wars.

Yet many of Operation Iraqi Freedom’s most avid backers believe—or claim to believe—that America’s military can somehow achieve the “victory” in Iraq that eluded it in Vietnam if only the public gives it enough opportunity. These true believers have asked us for a seemingly endless string of six-month extensions, chances to get it right this time, until they sound like sulky children at bedtime who just want “five more minutes, Mom.”

Daniella Zalcman (cc)

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created the Office of Strategic Influence shortly after the 9/11 attacks to bolster support for the Bush administration’s war on terror. Air Force Brigadier General Simon P. Worden, OSI’s director, envisioned the organization as having "a broad mission ranging from 'black' campaigns that use disinformation and other covert activities to 'white' public affairs that rely on truthful news releases."

The furor over his establishment of what amounted to an Orwellian Ministry of Truth caused Rumsfeld to disband the OSI in February 2002, but he later promised that when it came to manipulating public perceptions to suit his agenda, “I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have.”

There’s one nice thing you can say about Rumsfeld: he keeps his word.

It turns out that James “Spider” Marks, retired Army general and military analyst, was pushing the Bush administration’s war propaganda on CNN under the guise of objective journalism for fun and profit.

Say it ain’t so, Spider.

“Shoeless” Barry McCaffrey and “Clueless” Ken Allard were also among the ranks of retired officers who cashed in on their military experience to shill young Mr. Bush’s woebegone war on the major news networks, according to an article in last Sunday’s New York Times by David Barstow. Many of the faux analysts who spoke with Barstow were so contrite they sounded like they were trying to put their hands on a Get Out of Hell Free card. Allard was especially amusing, seeming to want us to think that it took him five years or so to figure out that he was being duped by the Pentagon, but now that he’s figured things out, boy he’s hoppin’ mad about it.

It’ s difficult to believe Allard could have been that dumb for that long, but keep in mind that he’s a former intelligence officer, and that the average intelligence officer is no more intelligent than the average fighter pilot, so he might have been.

Predicting what might happen in a shooting match with Iran is a perilous errand. The Clausewitzean concepts of fog and friction apply to modern war every bit as much as they do to the conflicts of bygone eras. For all our fantastical weaponry and information gizmology, stuff still breaks at the worst possible time and the information is often as not wrong. Predicting what might happen in a shooting match with Iran is a perilous errand. The Clausewitzean concepts of fog and friction apply to modern war every bit as much as they do to the conflicts of bygone eras. For all our fantastical weaponry and information gizmology, stuff still breaks at the worst possible time and the information is often as not wrong.

Nonetheless, we can do a back-of-the-envelope operational analysis to estimate whether any conceivable benefit of attacking Iran can justify the risks involved.

You can rest easy. Political pundit and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan predicted on Sunday that there is a "fifty-fifty chance of U.S. air strikes on Iran by October." I just love the all out commitment involved in making a fifty-fifty prediction: there’s a hundred percent chance you’ll be right. Of course, the very fact that Pat Buchanan mentions something might happen means the odds are that it won’t.

Don’t get complacent, though. Just like the cataclysmic natural disaster that strikes every century or so, once in a blue moon it turns out that Pat Buchanan knew what the hell he was talking about.

Similarly, we might expect that the Bush administration knows that attacking Iran would be the worst imaginable thing they could do—for the Bush legacy, for U.S. foreign policy, and for stability in the Middle East. A strike on Iran would be an act of sheer lunacy; so the Bush administration might just try it.