What's cooking in the covert operation pot?

Earlier this month, Seymour Hersh came up with a new article in the New Yorker's Annals of National Security:The Redirection. Hersh's main argument is this:

Bush's new strategy, according to Hersh, is to weaken the shiite (Hezbollah and Iran) influence by empowering Sunni extremists, often with a hostile militant view of Islam, anti-American and pro Al-Quaeda sympathizers. This is done without congressional approval or funding.

Who are the planners and what are the core tactics of this redirection?

1. The key players are Vice-President Dick Cheney, the deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams, the departing Ambassador to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), Zalmay Khalilzad, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security adviser.
2. The House appropriation committee is kept in pitch dark.
3. Clandestine operations are kept secret by leaving the execution or funding to Saudis, who have considerable financial means, and have deep relations with extremist anti-shiite movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis, who are also critical of the royal family's corruption. But the decadant royals keep these dissidants quiet by funding them, and Americans outsource their clandestine operations to these groups, e.g. AlQuaeda and their operations against the Soviet Union in the 80s! (Catch 22, heh?)
4. The shift is focusing on generating a Sunni-Shiite coldwar (I used to think this was a stupid proposition, until I met some Arab nationalists who really seem to think Iran shiism poses a hegemonic threat; so I think the propaganda is working stronger on the Arab nationalist Sunnis--who perhaps have not recovered from being defeated by Israelis; and thus are susceptible to paranoia and propaganda that is redirecting their attention from their arch enemy: Israel, to a virtual one:Iran--than on Iranian shiites whose nationalism is empowered by the fact that they have not succumbed to the middle east colonization process of the past century, and have been making (perhaps slow, thanks to sanctions and Arab-nationalism-driven-US-backed war with Saddam) steady progress in economic, industrial and social modernization of the country. These Arab nationalists, of course, do not want the shiite Iran to cave to nuclear-demands, and expect the non-Arab-hegemonizing Iran to stand up to the monsterous infidel American empire and their Zionist rookies, in the name of Ummah!!)
   

How?

1. Israel would be assured that its security was paramoun and that Washington and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states shared its concern about Iran
2. Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian party will curtail its anti-Israeli aggression and will begin serious talks about sharing leadership with Fatah, the more secular Palestinian group.
3. the Bush Administration would work directly with Sunni nations to counteract Shiite ascendance in the region
4. The Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria.
5. The United States would give clandestine support to the Siniora government by spreading the money around as much as possible to enhance the Sunni capability to resist Shiite (i.e. Hezbollah/Iran) influence. (Hersh has evidence that Siniora has allowed some of America's one billion dollar aid to Lebanon to end in the hands of the Sunni extremists)

But, since the congress is not informed about all that the Bush Administration is doing in the Middle East, where is the money coming from?

According to a Pentagon consultant: “There are many, many pots of black money, scattered in many places and used all over the world on a variety of missions”. And, the budgetary chaos in Iraq, where billions of dollars are unaccounted for, has made it a vehicle for such transactions.(See Mystery of Missing Meters, Accounting for Iraq's Oil Revenue)

Hersh also draw attention to the "Iran-Contra, lessons learned" meeting two years ago, where today's policy makers learned that "even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress".

Now to go beyond Hersh and the Sunni-Shiite cold-war, what other covert operations may the Bush administration be funding? Let's compile a list of things that they have opposed recently:

• On March 19, the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline is inaugurated.
• On March 19th, the Russian daily "Kommersant" reported that an agreement on forming a gas exportation cartel (like OPEC) was reached between Russia, Iran, Qatar, Venezuela, and Algeria, accounting for 70% of the worlds reserves of natural gas.
• On March 22nd the Us informed the Indian government that the US opposes the Peace gas pipeline that is going to be crossing Iran, Pakistan and India. (Of course, the official line is that pipiline could help Iran build the bomb; but any economic progress in Iran is considered a nuclear threat. To satisfy Israel and Washington, Iran needs to be poor, unstable and bankrupt!)
  
• on March 23rd, US & Azerbaijan sign energy security agreement aimed at expanding oil and gas production in Azerbaijan and the Caspian region and moving it to European markets.

But a more serious saga around this pipeline project is perhaps unfolding in Pakistan.

• The projects has been subject to Baloch Liberation Front sabotage since two years ago.
• Ten days ago, Top Balouch leaders were arrested in Baluchistan , the gas-rich province of Pakistan.
• At the same time, a serious crisis against Musharraf begins to unfold over the firing of the Baloch Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudary, on allegation of favoritism in the province of Baluchistan.

Of course, by claiming the legal and human rights for detainees arrested in relation to Al Quaeda charges (CIA style), the chief justice also seems to have stepped on the CIA's toes. Thus one may speculate that CIA will have killed two birds with one stone? After all, the Iranians and Pakistanis seem to be cozying up to each other, and Musharraf doesn't seem to want to join US in a fight with Iran.

Similarly, little ethnic fires are being set in different corners of Iran: Namely in the Iranian provinces of Baluchistan and Azerbaijan! The Iranians, however, are hyper-vigilant about the Western hand in all this; and this may explain the recent crack downs on many social and labour related protests; which will inevitably produce the Washington-desired outcome of portraying Iran's regime as demonic, and the America's operations as liberating!!!