US unit created to pressure Iran, Syria disbanded (Boston Globe)

[Eugene]

Source: Boston Globe

US unit created to pressure Iran, Syria disbanded
Occurs amid effort at talks

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | May 26, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has dismantled a special
committee that was established last year to coordinate aggressive
actions against Iran and Syria, State Department officials said this
week.

The interagency group, known as the Iran Syria Policy and Operations
Group, met weekly throughout much of 2006 to coordinate actions
such as curtailing Iran's access to credit and banking institutions,
organizing the sale of military equipment to Iran's neighbors, and
supporting democratic forces that oppose the two regimes.

State Department and White House officials said the dissolution of
the group was simply a bureaucratic reorganization, but many analysts
saw it as evidence of a softening in the US strategy toward the two
countries. It comes as the Bush administration has embarked on a
significant new effort to hold high-level meetings with Iran and Syria.

The group had become the focus for administra tion critics who feared
that it was plotting covert actions that could escalate into a military
conflict with Iran or Syria. The air of secrecy surrounding the group
when it was established in March 2006, coupled with the fact that it
was modeled after a similar special committee on Iraq, contributed to
those suspicions.

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Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/26/us_unit_created_to_pressure_iran_syria_disbanded

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The ISOG may be disbanded, but the neocons who ran it are still
working at covert actions against Iran, the article notes.