Seymour Hersh's reputation as an investigative journalist means his latest report on US policy in the Middle East will fuel worries that, despite Washington's insistence on using diplomatic means to end the nuclear crisis with Iran, confrontation is still on the cards.
US Vice President Dick Cheney underlined this at the weekend when he warned that "all options were on the table."
Hersh fleshes this out by revealing that a Pentagon special unit is planning a bombing campaign that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting a White House go-ahead.
The article in the New Yorker magazine sets the wider scene by describing how failure in Iraq has led the Bush administration to see the Islamic republic as the chief strategic beneficiary of the war. The so-called "redirection" of US policy starts from that point.
Elements of this shift have been clear for some time. The US "moderates" versus "extremists" agenda was laid out publicly by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, last month; Israel and Saudi Arabia have been driven together by shared hostility to Iran and its Lebanese Shia ally, Hezbollah, since last summer's war. Tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims are now part of everyday political discourse across the region.
Blending analysis with revelation, Hersh reports that the US is now operating secretly in both Lebanon and Iran, though he provides little detail from sources that include government consultants, former diplomats, former intelligence officials or academics. The overall picture is convincing enough, but it is hard to judge either the scale or the significance of some of what he writes.
Experts will not be surprised by the key role he attributes to the Saudi national security adviser, Prince Bandar, who is close to Cheney, or by the claim that the funding and execution of some clandestine activities is being left to the conservative kingdom. That would mirror Saudi support for the mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
One fascinating revelation is that "budgetary chaos" in Iraq is creating "pots of black money" for covert purposes -- with echoes of the Iran-Contra scandal of the Reagan presidency in the 1980s.
Another is that some cash for Fuad Siniora's beleaguered pro-western government in Beirut "to enhance the Sunni capability to resist Shiite influence" has found its way to Sunni radical groups with ideological ties to al-Qaeda.
Hersh's report has accused the US, UK and Israel of fomenting separatist attacks in Arab-majority Khuzestan in the southwest of Iran.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home