Combination of Reports Suggests Escalation?

This post at California Yankee reports that US forces have been operating on the ground within Iran for some time. Fox is also reporting this courtesy, of all people, Seymour Hersh. Linked below is an additional report of similar reported action in Syria - with the suggestion that more is to come post inauguration.

Personally I'm not thinking this is about escalation at all, but simply revelation of on going initiatives throughout the region. Given recent and past events it's foolish to think we wouldn't be undertaking intelligence and target gathering forways into Iraq's neighbors. It's a rough neighborhood and we can't just simply always sit around waiting for the bad guys to come to us on their terms.

The Whitehouse statement is that the report is full of inaccuracies. Are there many MSM reports, especially Hersh's that aren't these days?

More below and more at link above to California Yankee's post.

The Guardian report is based upon an article written by Seymour Hersh in the latest edition of the New Yorker. According to the Guardian, US commandos have penetrated territory in eastern Iran seeking to pinpoint underground installations suspected of being nuclear weapons sites:

The report in the New Yorker said the Americans have been conducting secret reconnaissance missions over and inside Iran since last summer with a view to identifying up to 40 possible targets for striking should the dispute over Iran turn violent.

This is similar to what DEBKA recently reported as regards actions within Syria:

Therefore, the key Middle East happening in the coming weeks will be US military strikes against Syria. The election of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian Authority chairman, his invitation to the White House, the formation of the Sharon-Peres government coalition - albeit on very shaky legs, and the talk of imminent Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations, will prove to be no more than sideshows of the main event.

In this regard, DEBKAfile’s military sources note four important points:

1. It will not take place before President Bush is sworn in for his second term on January 20 or Iraq’s general election ten days later.

2. The Americans will not start out with a large-scale, orderly military offensive, but rather short in-and-out forays; small US and Iraqi special forces units will cross the border and raid bases housing Iraqi guerrillas or buses carrying them to the border. If these brief raids are ineffective, the Americans will upscale the action.

3. The Allawi government will formally request the United States to consign joint Iraqi-US forces for action against Syrian targets, so placing the US operation under the Baghdad government’s aegis. In other words, Iraq will be at war with Syria without issuing a formal declaration.

4. It is fully appreciated in Washington, Baghdad and Jerusalem that intense American military warfare against Syria could provoke a Hizballah backlash against Israel. Damascus may well activate the Lebanese Shiite group to open a second front on Israel’s northern border. The Syrian ruler is expected will tolerate a certain level of American low-intensity, low-profile action. But, because of his reluctance to strike back directly at American or Iraqi targets, he will field the Hizballah – and not just for cross-border attacks but to galvanize the terrorist cells it controls and funds in the West Bank and Gaza Strip into a stepped-up offensive against Israeli targets. These Palestinian cells have proliferated over the years, particularly in the Fatah and its branches, encouraged by Yasser Arafat’s cooperative pact with the Hizballah which remains in force after his death.

Comments

[DC]

Sounds good to me. I have no doubt that GWB & Co. have some nice things in store for the bad guys. Looking forward to it.

[Ron]

Don't count on any of this getting past the MSM. They'll do anything to undermine this country and leave it in the hands of socialists. I had read in October of last year that Iran had one or two divisions, at least a hundred miles into Iraq. I can't even imagine how screwed we would all be if GWB hadn't been re-elected.