CIA Exposé and a “Show of Force”

There’s a little uproar stateside over the story that ABC News broke yesterday. You’ve likely all heard it by now, but Bush is authorizing “new covert action” in Iran (which begs the question: What’s the current covert action, old chap?) From the story (emphasis mine):

President Bush has signed a “nonlethal presidential finding” that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions.

“I can’t confirm or deny whether such a program exists or whether the president signed it, but it would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime,” said Bruce Riedel, a recently retired CIA senior official who dealt with Iran and other countries in the region.

Wired has a nice, very quick blog post about the comments on the ABC story, in which readers are calling the network “traitors,” and it also mentions that Mitt Romney spoke out against the report because it’s a sensitive matter of national security (the Mitt Romney reaction has become today’s big news). No word on whether these same readers and Mitt Romney find “propaganda, disinformation and manipulation” acceptable policies, since they essentially aim to destroy the national security of its target.

Other US efforts are less opaque: today, the US Navy launched a massive “show of force” towards Iran in the Persian Gulf, yet again demonstrating the Bush administration’s total lack of rhetorical finesse in dealing with Iran.

This is all coming on the heels of reports that Iran continues to expand its nuclear program, so the United States’ aggressive policies are doing nothing but adding fuel to the Iranian government’s nuclear fervor and putting the Iranian people in danger.