There just aren't enough copies of the latest New Yorker to go around Observer HQ this month. This isn't because we all like to pose as Atlantic-hopping metropolitan sophisticates, although we do; but because of Seymour Hersh's piece on Iran. Hersh alleges, among other things, that the US is already running covert operations inside Iran to pick out possible targets for military action and that the Pentagon is itching to strike - indeed that it plans to do so.
The Pentagon, naturally, has issued a pointed statement rebutting the story.
But Hersh has pretty sound credentials as an investigative reporter .
The Editor here is taking a keen interest in Iran's fate and the story is on the agenda for when we discuss leader comments. It should be a good argument. The last big comment piece we had on Iran, by Foreign Affairs Editor Peter Beaumont, was very hostile to the American position.
I spoke to Peter earlier. He is pretty sceptical about the Hersh story. The US military is overstretched as it is, he says, so even with all the bellicose will in the world, a full-scale war on Iran is probably not an option.
Tactical airstrikes on the other hand ...?
The most relevant leader comment on the subject appears to have been way back in July 2003 when we called on the Bush administration not to lose its focus in the War on Terror and, in passing, warned against military adventurism. The White House must have missed the Observer that week. Probably time to revisit the subject.
