Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group

The Boston Globe reported on January 2nd that a select group of US officials modeled after the Iraq Policy and Operations Group has been:

quietly co-ordinating actions for nearly a year to counter the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, including increasing the military capabilities of Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Known as the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group they have been giving covert help to Iranian dissidents and are

so secretive that several officials in the State Department's Near Eastern Affairs Bureau said they were unaware it existed.

The US has repeatedly said its policy is not to overthrow the Iranian regime, but one former US official who attended a preliminary meeting of the group said he got the impression that regime change was a goal of many participants.

The participants include Elliot Abrams, James Jeffrey, and Elizabeth Cheney before she went on maternity leave. BearingPoint, naturally, is is handling the administrative work as they did for the Iraq Policy and Operations Group.

IPOG coordinates (they may have expired, I can't find info either way) the

multi-faceted involvement of US government and private sector agencies in Iraq. Established after Iraq interim government assumed sovereignty over the country’s affairs, the IPOG is chaired by a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and a Senior NSC Director for Defense Policy and reports directly to the DC. The IPOG conducts daily video teleconferences on such issues as infrastructure reconstruction, security, and elections planning in Iraq

•  I realize this is brief

  and without much to add, but I thought this was another facet that should not go without mentioning. If it's been covered or otherwise not diary quality I will delete :)

  by Tirge Caps on Fri Jan 05, 2007 at 04:00:39 PM PDT

•  Ooooh.... covert help to Iranian dissidents

  that ought to be as effective as Goerge H.W.'s help to the dissidents in Iraq......  we all know how well those efforts turned out.

  Given our track record, we're gonna get people that are inclined to support us - or at least not hate us with an unbridled passion - killed in the process, boost the standing of the extremists in power that we want removed and generally botch things in every way possible......

  by xrepub on Fri Jan 05, 2007 at 04:05:15 PM PDT

•  This is crazy..

  Can you imagine how other countries are feeling as this nightmare unfolds and our congress is just letting bush do whatever he wants too....This is a nightmare..

  by bayside on Fri Jan 05, 2007 at 04:24:13 PM PDT

•  The usual criminals

  still at their criminal work.

  by curmudgiana on Fri Jan 05, 2007 at 04:40:05 PM PDT