Spinwatch - Iran: More of the Story Line

The Small Strike. Over the past weekend, the Sunday Times of London carried an article quoting British officials and intelligence sources that the United States is drawing up plans for a"surgical strike" on a terrorist training camp inside Iran. According to the article such an attack would send a powerful message to the Iranians. Two days later, John Bolton, the former US Ambassador to the UN was quoted by the Telegraph as saying he supported such a strike to show "the Iranians we're not going to tolerate..." their training insurgents for fighting in Iraq.

The whole small strike argument is very dangerous. It is primarily dangerous because it is a narcotic idea. It would be easy. It seems like a good first step.

Embedded in the argument, however, is the assumption that Iran will get the message we want to send, will accept it, and will not have one of their own to return. I remember a wise diplomat once saying in the middle of a wargame when one of the senior players said something about using force to send a message to the bad guys. He said, "Your job is not to send messages; diplomats send messages."

Beware of faulty assumptions in easy solutions.

Afghanistan: The standard answer from military commanders in Afghanistan when asked about Iranian involvement there has been "not militarily significant." Yesterday, the US Assistant Secretary of State said Iran has been interfering in in a variety of ways and lending support for the Taliban. This is a relatively new line of argument. I would expect to see more.

Senator McCain: On Monday Senator McCain got into the Iran argument. He said the Iranian government poses the gravest danger to US interests in the Middleast. He then went on to support the argument by picking up on the strategic communications themes of the White House. He said Iran is on the path toward acquiring a nuclear weapon, repeating the President's line as if there had never been a National Intelligence Estimate. Then he picked up on the Iran-training theme. He said that Iran is training people who are "going back into Iraq to lead these Jihadists."

Neither of his arguments are supported by evidence, but they clearly show a lesson the Administration knows quite well. Officials can start a false or slightly true story which will be echoed from many sources. In a very short period, almost everyone has bought into the story.

Yesterday I was reviewing the now public documents provided to the military analysts who were being briefed by the Pentagon. One of the techniques the Public Affairs people for the Secretary of Defense used was to give the analysts news clippings where the source of the story was probably someone in the Pentagon. In other words, if we can get the New York times to write about it, it must be true.

*This is a further installment of Sam Gardiner's (Colonel, USAF (retired)) blog. More to come on Spinwatch on the heightened threat to Iran over the coming weeks.