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Preparing the battlefield in Iran, or exploring alternatives?

On 30 June 2008, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency published Preparing the battlefield in Iran, or exploring alternatives?. No author name appears on the page. It is a commentary on a New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh about a Bush administration covert program aimed at Iran. An American family should care because the passage everyone is arguing about says Special Forces, small US units trained for raids, had authority to be on the ground in Iran and to shoot their way out if captured. The JTA writer says Hersh did not prove that.

Evidence rating: MODERATE. The rating covers Seymour Hersh's 2008 New Yorker account, as this JTA page quotes it, that CIA Director Michael V. Hayden described to lawmakers an authority for US Special Forces inside Iran to shoot their way out if needed. The JTA writer disputes Hersh's reading, and a congressman is quoted saying no lethal action inside Iran had been authorized.

What the article says

The JTA writer says Hersh's headline and structure suggest the Bush White House was "preparing the battlefield" for a US attack on Iran. The writer offers the opposite reading: the same activity, if it was real, could be an alternative to a full assault on Iran and its suspected nuclear program.

The piece then quotes Hersh on a presidential finding, an executive order, that the writer describes as about 400 million dollars a year in covert activity. Hersh's unnamed sources, as quoted here, say the point was gathering information and enlisting support, not setting out to kill, even if the authorization included killing. Democrats called in Hayden. The JTA page quotes Hersh this way:

Hayden reassured the legislators that the language did nothing more than provide authority for Special Forces operatives on the ground in Iran to shoot their way out if they faced capture or harm.

Seymour Hersh, in The New Yorker, as quoted by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on 30 June 2008.

The same quoted passage says the lawmakers were not convinced. One congressman wrote Bush that "no lethal action, period" had been authorized inside Iran's borders. As of June 2008, Hersh wrote, that congressman had received no answer.

The JTA writer says this is the sort of inside pressure for regime change that doves had asked for, instead of bombing Iran. The writer then says Hersh leaps past his evidence. Hersh notes violence inside Iran and writes that it is impossible at that stage to credit US special operations or the CIA. He writes that it could not be learned whether Americans were involved in any specific incident. He also writes that many of the activities may be carried out by Iranian dissidents, not by Americans in the field. The JTA writer treats those sentences as the tell: Hersh is insinuating American agents are behind deadly attacks without showing a case.

The commentary's last point is scale. If this program were really about to drag the United States into war with Iran, the writer asks, why spend what the writer calls a lousy 400 million dollars on it?

What other reporting and posts add

The same debate a year earlier. On 2 March 2007, Democracy Now's Amy Goodman asked retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO commander, about an earlier Hersh New Yorker report that a special planning group in the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was preparing a bombing attack on Iran. Clark answered: "Well, I don't have any direct information to confirm it or deny it. It's certainly plausible." In the same interview, Clark said the administration had asked Congress "to appropriate $75 million" for regime change in Iran, and warned: "There is a military option, but it's a bad one." Democracy Now, 2 March 2007. (capture: twitter/t03__v029.md) That is the same interview in which Clark described a Pentagon memo about taking out "seven countries in five years," finishing with Iran; see the Pentagon list of wars section.

How this bears on 2026. In 2026 the US government publicly acknowledged American troops on Iranian ground only once, for the April rescue of a downed airman, which the CENTCOM commander called "the first acknowledged US 'boots on the ground' in Iran in 46 years." @rbg4lif relaying RT's account of CBS's 60 Minutes, 14 September 2026. (capture: twitter/t49__v577.md) The word "acknowledged" is the point of this 2008 argument: covert teams, if they exist, are not announced. See How a perilous US rescue mission in Iran nearly went off course.

What it shows

The question of American special forces inside Iran is not new. In 2008, eighteen years before this war, Hersh reported covert US operations "preparing the battlefield" in Iran, and the argument over it ran in the Jewish press. The ground option has been on Washington's shelf for a long time. See Americans Already on Iranian Soil and Force-Planning Documents.

Check it yourself

Read the Jewish Telegraphic Agency commentary: Preparing the battlefield in Iran, or exploring alternatives?.

Status: George W. Bush is alive. Michael V. Hayden is alive. Seymour Hersh is alive. The page accuses none of them of a proven crime. It reports a dispute about what a 2008 order allowed.

Why a 2008 argument is on a 2026 page: the question "are American special forces already on the ground in Iran?" did not start with the war that began on 28 February 2026. It was asked, loudly, in 2007 and 2008, when investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote in The New Yorker that the Bush administration had authorized covert operations inside Iran. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is a Jewish news wire founded in 1917. A "presidential finding" is a secret order a president signs to authorize a covert action, which must be reported to congressional intelligence leaders. How that debate went is a guide for reading today's claims.

Research captures: twitter/t03__v029.md, twitter/t49__v577.md

Last Updated: 2026-09-26