Via Informed Comment:

The question of US intelligence on Iran is very much an item of interest these days. Sy Hersh’s revelation that the U.S. military is doing operational planning for a possible nuclear strike on Iran to preempt a civilian nuclear program that is still years away from the possibility of building a nuclear weapon caused a firestorm (pardon the imagery) of interest. Of course, a superpower does a lot of planning, and evey option is considered. But the Penatgon tried to remove the option of using tactical nukes from operational plans for Iran, but where ordered not to by the White House.

We are of course talking about a direct, preemptive targeting of a non-nuclear nation that presents no threat to Americans and would cause massive civilian casualties. This is causing a lot of tension between the military leadership and the civilian leadership, with the possibility of several senior command officers retiring in protest. The bellicosity of the Bush Administration is stunning and may be pushing nuclear proliferation rather than containing it, and may harm prospects for peaceful reform in Iran, especially should there be a military strike by America or Israel.

Veteran CIA Middle East analyst Ray Close reacted to rumors that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld may have already sent Special Operations forces into Iran on intelligence missions. (One clarification: in popular parlance we speak of CIA "agents." But in the intelligence world, an "agent" is actually a local person recruited by an intelligence field officer.)

Close writes: