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My Secret Plan to Overthrow the Mullahs

[Foreign Policy] Larry Franklin - In February 2003, a few weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush's administration still lacked a real strategy for Iran, the would-be regional hegemon next door. As the Iran desk officer in the office of the secretary of defense, I knew from my sources that Tehran had already prepared an entire network of operatives, proxies, and weapons ready to challenge the U.S. as soon as it toppled Saddam Hussein. I was not, however, very brave. I did not confront either my boss in the Office of Special Plans, Douglas Feith, or his boss, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, about my overriding fears that Iran could spoil our plans in Iraq - and wreak havoc in the region. In a foolish, spur-of-the-moment decision, I asked Steven Rosen, foreign-policy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, to approach the National Security Council's Elliott Abrams with my concerns. This action ultimately led to my indictment, in 2005, for espionage after Rosen relayed my comments to an Israeli diplomat. But my intention was never to leak secrets to a foreign government. I wanted to halt the rush to war in Iraq - at least long enough to adopt a realistic policy toward an Iran bent on doing us ill. Inside the Pentagon, I had long argued that regime change, not accommodation or war, would be our best policy. I urged the U.S. to recognize a government in exile. I proposed a sophisticated propaganda offensive, planting stories in the Persian-language media to undermine Iranians' confidence in their leaders. I urged that we highlight Iran's human rights record, and that we expose the regime's "gulag" of prisons. I suggested we disrupt the Islamic Republic's monetary transactions by blocking its attempts to secure loans and grants from international lending institutions.
2009-10-21 06:00:00
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