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A Case For Covert Action in Iran
This e-mailed commentary is from a former CIA officer who has extensive experience with covert and paramilitary action. It argues for a much more aggressive covert-action program
against Iran, comparable to what the CIA mounted against the Soviet Union during the Reagan administration.
The author has requested anonymity because of the sensitiivty of the subject, and the fact that he continues to
work and travel overseas.
Iran cries out for a global, comprehensive Foreign Intelligence and Covert Action program. They are so exposed in the Gulf, Africa, Asia, and South America. Here in the United States as well.
A full court, comprehensive program--to penetrate and pressure them, internally and externally--would stress Ahmadinejad and his team. His team has limited depth and leadership ability. He has not built nor does he
encourage a team that is dynamic, independent in thought, and free to respond to dynamic events. This would cause him to face an entirely new set of challenges, which he would have to correctly identify, evaluate, explain, and
respond to--expending resources, manpower, and effort on a global scale--instead of what he faces now.
Today, Ahmadinejad is allowed to choose the time, place, and circumstances of his efforts against the US, Iraq,
Israel, and the region. He knows the level of the threats and challenges he faces, and where the red lines are. Instead, he needs to be put on defense--stressed and challenged globally, with relentless pressure, ruthless action
and a commitment of resources that will run his weak leadership team ragged. Force a mistake, intimidate him, and challenge him at every point where he has an officer deployed.
Ahmadinejad has never had to face a serious
internal security threat, combined with relentless external pressure on his people and infrastructure everywhere in the world. Iranian front companies, especially in Iraq and the Gulf, are identifiable and touchable--and most
Arab liaison services would help us squeeze them.
What comes to mind is something we use to do in the PM (paramiltary) training course at CIA: So many of our young officers had never been punched in the face: I mean
really tagged, and knocked on their butts. So we used to do that kind of physical, hand-to-hand training, to build confidence and push people through their internal barriers. It's the same reason we waterboarded each other.
It's a wake up call, and quite liberating.
Ahmadinejad has never been punched hard, so that we really get his attention. He is a little guy, a bully, a narcissist, and self absorbed [deleted] with a twisted view of
himself, his abilities, and how he is viewed on the regional and international scene. If I were running this Iran program, I would open the show with something impressive inside his inner circle--public, and impossible to
conceal or explain. The kind of shot that would get his undivided attention. We opened the show this way with Ortega this way, and Noriega in Panama, and the Russian command in Afghanistan with our operation to blow up the
Salange tunnel.
Bill Casey, the CIA director at the time, wanted to send the signal that the US was paying
attention now: "We see you, and we are coming for you, with everything we have, in every corner of the
earth."
What I'm talking about is a global covert action program to squeeze and disrupt their personnel and infrastructure, their economy and leadership system--until they blink, change their behavior, or are swept
from the field.
We crafted and executed a global program like this against Saddam in the run-up to the 2003 war. We touched his personnel and system everywhere we could. Some of his Iraqi Intelligence Service stations
actually sent messages through liaison, that they were going to sit out the war, and asked that we just leave them alone. Others fled the countries they were assigned to.
Ahmadinejad needs to feel pain, discomfort,
anxiety and stress--every day. When he is briefed in the morning in Tehran it should be a long list of things that went wrong overnight: A constant stream of breathless reports from around Iran, the region and the world,
covering what was exposed, destroyed, set on fire, stolen, or rendered useless. He needs to get a briefing in the morning, like the threat matrix briefing that POTUS gets each morning. A miserable summary of what has gone
wrong, or is likely to go wrong over the next 24 hours. Relentless pressure, that over time encourages him to decide: Living like this is just not worth it.
We have the ability to do this. All we lack is the will and
leadership to create and execute a global program.
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