On 11 September, the very same day of the terror attacks– and despite the fact that Washington immediately identified Afghanistan-based Al-Qaeda leaders as the culprits – CIA director George Tenet authorized the creation of the Iraq Operations Group (IOG), led by covert ops veterans Luis Rueda and John Maguire. Within 24 hours, the two were drafting a blueprint for the destabilization of Iraq. Codenamed DB/ANABASIS (“DB” being the CIA’s cryptonym for Iraq), the plan was activated long before any formal declaration of war, and well before the American public was groomed to support the spurious allegation of WMDs in Iraq.

The CIA’s strategy aims to destroy unity and morale as precursors to outright war. Washington and Tel Aviv hope that Iran, like Iraq before it, collapses from within under pressure from a disillusioned population. Maguire once said that DB/ANABASIS was about “settling scores” with Saddam. This attitude – reducing foreign policy to vendettas – still dominates US strategic circles. Inside the Pentagon and CIA, figures view Iran through the lens of the 1979 hostage crisis and Tehran’s support for the Iraqi insurgency and Taliban (and now Lebanon and Gaza and its membership of BRICS).