Obama, Iran and covert operations

The second step will be the appointment of a special envoy for Iran. The new envoy will most likely be Dennis Ross, who took a leading role in Middle East talks during Bill Clinton's administration. He will be responsible on a day-to-day basis for implementing policy towards Iran.

In fact, the second step might precede the first one since the letter in question is still being drafted and no final decision on its content has been made.

However, despite these positive developments, the US has been resorting to all sorts of actions on Iran. From overt naval actions to covert intelligence operations, from diplomatic efforts to financial sanctions, the US government has been trying to change the overall behavior of the Iranian government, particularly with regards to its nuclear program.

Just to give a recent example, a US naval taskforce has been ordered to hunt down weapons ships sent by Iran to rearm Hamas, The Sunday Times reported. Quoting US diplomatic sources, the British daily said that Combined Task Force 151, which is countering pirates in the Gulf of Aden, has been instructed to track Iranian arms shipments.

Last week, the US Navy "intercepted and searched an Iranian-owned ship that officials feared was carrying arms to the militant group Hamas, but two officials said it was unclear Thursday whether those suspicions were founded.

The Cypriot-flagged commercial vessel was tracked by a US Navy ship in the Red Sea over the weekend, one official said. It was boarded and searched with the consent of the vessel's crew on Monday and Tuesday, said another," The Associated Press reported on Jan. 22.

Another example is with regards to increasing financial pressure on Iran by persuading Germany to freeze export credit guarantees. According to German newspaper Handelsblatt, Chancellor Angela Merkel had instructed the economy minister to offer export credit guarantees to German firms seeking to do business with Iran only in exceptional cases. The paper reports that the move was made in reaction to criticism from Germany's partners, including the US and Israel.

Another instrument used for years by the US government against Iran is, of course, covert operations. Due to their nature, we cannot, of course, say much about them. But one thing we know is that Iran is very much concerned about them. The Washington Post reported on Jan. 20: "In a message aimed at the incoming Obama administration, a top Iranian intelligence official cautioned the United States on Monday not to spy on Iran.

"'It is necessary to warn the new American administration that they should not follow the path of the previous American government,' the head of the counter-espionage unit of Iran's Intelligence Ministry said, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

"He described a ‘full-fledged intelligence war' between the two nations and offered rare, detailed comments about what he described as ‘heavy damages' suffered by the United States in efforts to recruit agents among doctors, artists and fashion designers in Iran."

The article also noted that the Iranian official had "accused the United States of stationing intelligence agents in neighboring countries, and specifically mentioned the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Kuwait and Azerbaijan as places from where the United States is designing ‘plots' against Iran. The agents are seeking to create ‘social crisis, street demonstrations and ethnic disputes,' he said. ‘A soft revolution has been programmed against our country and carried out in some instances, but it was suffocated in the cradle'."

As explained covert operations have made their marks on US-Iranian relations over the last 30 years. The question now is, can Obama stop them and other moves, as demanded by Iranian officials, for the sake of direct diplomacy? We do not think so.