Homeland Security Leader

Reluctant in its waning months to launch a full-frontal assault on Iran but convinced of its leaders’ incorrigibility, the Bush administration has advanced, and its allies in Congress have proposed, a variety of escalating pressures against the Islamic republic. Among them, argues Col. Sam Gardiner in a new paper for The Century Foundation, are covert operations through proxy groups inside Iran. How well matched are U.S. goals to the various means planned or in place? And how do these new pressures expand or limit the choices of new leaders taking office in Washington—and perhaps Tehran—in winter and spring 2009.

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