The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.
The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.
Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible."
First of all, Hersh is not exactly reassuring as a source.
Second, an aerial campaign is a distant second in my mind to regime change as a means to preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear threat. Just because Hersh says the special forces operation is for an air campaign doesn't mean it is so. It could be disinformation. Sometimes you can't hide that you are doing something but you can hide what it really means. This story would fit in nicely with the growing consensus that we wouldn't dare do anything so bold while we are fighting in Iraq still. Our special forces could be scouting the sites and working on a details of a coming revolt. In any revolt, it would be nice to take down some of the sites. Or, if the revolt fails, cut up the nuclear facilities as a Plan B to at least kick the can down the road and buy some time.
I am comforted that something is happening regarding Iran even if it isn't clear to me what is happening.
