# Office of Special Plans reincarnated as the Iran Directorate
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 10, 2007, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619 "2007-02-10T15:30:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/1 "2007-02-10T15:30:45Z")
Actually, this is old news – dating from about June '06 – but it seems to have dropped off the radar since then, and the [latest hearings about the OSP](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=407802) give it fresh timeliness. The Iranian Directorate is an office within the Pentagon, situated in the same offices as the OSP used, sharing some of the same personnel with the OSP (including the OSP’s director, Abram Shulsky; but the name of director of the ID remains a secret), and set up to . . . well . . . read these accounts:
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Directorate)
[SourceWatch](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Iranian_Directorate)
[_Mother Jones_](http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2006/09/iran.html)
[therawstory](http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Pentagon_confirms_Iranian_directorate_as_intelligence_0615.html)
Unlike (AFAIK) the OSP, the ID has a State Department counterpart, the [Office of Iranian Affairs.](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Office_of_Iranian_Affairs) (Actually, the distinction between the two is none too clear; they appear to use the same offices.)
Issue for debate: In the current political climate, when Congress obviously is going to look a lot more closely at “intelligence” reports than it has in the recent past, and it’s very clear we don’t have the resources for military action against Iran anyway\*, **is there any good reason for this agency to exist?** What’s the point of it?!
\*And yes, that includes an airstrike – because [wargame simulations show there’s no way to prevent an airstrike from spinning into a general regional war.](http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200412/fallows)
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/2 "2007-02-10T19:40:45Z")
[Oh, crap . . .](http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2010086,00.html)
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/3 "2007-02-10T19:48:44Z")
From **BrainBlutton** ’s link:
> [@](#):
>
> The danger is that the build-up could spark an accidental war.
Ain’t nothin’ accidental about it…
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/4 "2007-02-10T20:26:11Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay]
From **BrainBlutton** ’s link:
Ain’t nothin’ accidental about it…
[/QUOTE]
It’s worse than that . . . we might never really **know** if it was accidental or not.
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/5 "2007-02-10T20:39:22Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
**is there any good reason for this agency to exist?** What’s the point of it?!
[/quote]
Uh, to come up with special plans to attack Iran? What is wrong with that? Do you not think Iran is a threat? Do you not think the U.S. should be working feverishly to plan all sorts of contingencies regarding possible conflicts with Iran?
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### Author:  [@Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quiddity_Glomfuster)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/6 "2007-02-10T20:48:49Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Office of Special Plans reincarnated as the Iran Directorate
Isn’t that special?
:eek:
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/7 "2007-02-10T21:00:30Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
…Do you not think Iran is a threat? Do you not think the U.S. should be working feverishly to plan all sorts of contingencies regarding possible conflicts with Iran?
[/QUOTE]
No. I don’t. I don’t think anyone is a plausible threat to a nation with several thousand deliverable thermonuclear bombs.
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/8 "2007-02-10T21:04:03Z")
I see. No plausible threats there at all, huh? Noted.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/9 "2007-02-10T21:09:04Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
Do you not think Iran is a threat?
[/QUOTE]
Not to the United States.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/10 "2007-02-10T21:25:31Z")
There’s only one reason for this. Bush plans to take us to war against Iraq before the end of the year. That’s virtually certain. Does anyone want to bet otherwise?
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/11 "2007-02-10T21:29:11Z")
Almost the exact same events that led to the invasion of Iraq, and yet the same people are playing the same records. How many years are we going to have to be in Iran dodging insurgents and IEDs before the drum-beaters will admit that the American left was correct again?
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/12 "2007-02-10T21:30:26Z")
And, scary as it may sound, I trust Iran not to attack us more than I trust Bush not to attack Iran.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/13 "2007-02-10T21:32:42Z")
I’m guessing the next renaming will be to Department of Peace.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/14 "2007-02-10T22:07:53Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace]
There’s only one reason for this. Bush plans to take us to war against Iraq before the end of the year. That’s virtually certain. Does anyone want to bet otherwise?
[/QUOTE]
Wha? Huh? Iraq? With a “Q”? Advise.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/15 "2007-02-10T22:23:53Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace]
There’s only one reason for this. Bush plans to take us to war against Iraq before the end of the year. That’s virtually certain. Does anyone want to bet otherwise?
[/QUOTE]
Actually, this would make a nice little diversion from the existing mess in Iraq. Once you start some good old fashioned nuclear posturing with Iran, people will forget all about losing a few soldiers a day (not to mention dozens or hundreds of noncombatants) next door. Heck, it worked with Afghanistan.
> [@elucidator](#):
>
> Wha? Huh? Iraq? With a “Q”? Advise.
I think Bush is really too busy to mind all the details of the "p"s and "q"s. So a little “n” worked it’s way into Iraq; what, are you going to make a big deal about it? (I’m kind of surprised that Bush doesn’t get the country confused with a muscle car.)
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
I’m guessing the next renaming will be to Department of Peace.
[/QUOTE]
Why not just go all the way and rechristen it the [Ministry of Peace](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Peace)?
\*On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns — after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces — at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.
There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy…The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.
The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in midsentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax…Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.\*[right]-- George Orwell, _Nineteen Eighty-Four_[/right]
Stranger
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/16 "2007-02-10T22:31:33Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace]
There’s only one reason for this. Bush plans to take us to war against Iraq before the end of the year. That’s virtually certain. Does anyone want to bet otherwise?
[/QUOTE]
Oops. That should’ve been Iran. Guess I made the same mistake there that Bush made in 2002.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/17 "2007-02-10T22:32:01Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
Why not just go all the way and rechristen it the [Ministry of Peace](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Peace)?
[/QUOTE]
Because we have ‘departments’ here. 😉
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2007, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/18 "2007-02-10T22:33:35Z")
They’re really variant names for the same country – you know, like Holland and the Netherlands, or China and Japan.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2007, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/19 "2007-02-11T00:01:39Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Oops. That should’ve been Iran. Guess I made the same mistake there that Bush made in 2002.
[/QUOTE]
Is that irony? I’m Gen X and I’m all corn-fused now.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2007, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-of-special-plans-reincarnated-as-the-iran-directorate/391619/20 "2007-02-11T00:37:25Z")
Its irony, but its not post-modernist irony.
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