January 11, 2012 WaPo Censors Iran Sanctions' Regime Change Intent The censors at the Washington Post missed the truth slipping through in one piece today and had to correct it. The current version of a DeYoung/Wilson piece on Iran sanctions is headlined: Public ire one goal of Iran sanctions, U.S. official says. It starts with an editorial remark: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that a U.S. intelligence official had described regime collapse as a goal of U.S. and other sanctions against Iran. An updated version clarifies the official’s remarks. Ahheeemm. Below we document the current text and the original version as published earlier today and for now still available through a cache. It was headlined: Goal of Iran sanctions is regime collapse, U.S. official says That headline is also still in the URL of the current version of the piece: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/goal-of-iran-sanctions-is-regime-collapse-us-official-says/2012/01/10/gIQA0KJsoP_story.html A tweet by Foreign Policy (owned by WaPo) editor Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) pointed out that there was an intermediate third version of the piece which, unfortunately, I can not find anymore. WaPo changed the first headline to "Goal of Iran sanctions is to get nation to abandon alleged nuclear program, U.S. official says" ht @shashj Shashank Joshi (@shashj) then found: This is such a joke. WaPo revises the headline *again* to "Public ire one goal of Iran sanctions, U.S. official says" washingtonpost.com/world/national… The original version is on the left, the current - at least twice corrected one - on the right: Goal of Iran sanctions is regime collapse, U.S. official says Public ire one goal of Iran sanctions, U.S. official says The goal of U.S. and other sanctions against Iran is regime collapse, a senior U.S. intelligence official said, offering the clearest indication yet that the Obama administration is at least as intent on unseating Iran’s government as it is on engaging with it. The official, speaking this week on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the administration hopes that sanctions “create enough hate and discontent at the street level” that Iranians will turn against their government. The comments came as the administration readies punitive new sanctions targeting Iran’s Central Bank and the European Union moves toward strict curbs on Iranian oil imports. The increased pressure is intended to force Iranian officials to heed Western demands that they abandon alleged nuclear weapons plans. But the intelligence official’s remarks pointed to a more profound goal, even as the administration has reiterated its willingness to open a dialogue with Iran. Although designed to pressure a government to change its policies, it is a recognized but generally unspoken reality that economic sanctions usually have far more effect on general populations than on elites. A senior administration official, speaking separately, acknowledged that public discontent was a likely result of more punitive sanctions against Iran’s already faltering economy. But this official said it was not the administration’s intent to press the Iranian people toward an attempt to oust their government. “The notion that we’ve crossed into sanctions being about regime collapse is incorrect,” the administration official said. “We still very much have a policy that is rooted in the notion that you need to supply sufficient pressure to compel [the government] to change behavior as it’s related to their nuclear program.” A Western diplomat familiar with the sanctions policy echoed those somewhat convoluted sentiments, saying that although regime collapse was a logical outcome of the sanctions, it was not the stated intent of the sanctioners. Dennis B. Ross ... The Obama administration sees economic sanctions against Iran as building public discontent that will help compel the government to abandon an alleged nuclear weapons program, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official. In addition to influencing Iranian leaders directly, the official said, “another option here is that [sanctions] will create hate and discontent at the street level so that the Iranian leaders realize that they need to change their ways.” The intelligence official’s remarks pointed to what has long been an unstated reality of sanctions: Although designed to pressure a government to change its policies, they often impose broad hardships on a population. The official spoke this week on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration assessments. The comments came as the administration readies punitive new sanctions that affect Iran’s central bank and the European Union moves toward strict curbs on Iranian oil imports. A senior administration official, speaking separately, acknowledged that public discontent was a likely result of more punitive sanctions against Iran’s already faltering economy, but said that is not the direct intent. “We have a policy that is rooted in the notion that you need to supply sufficient pressure to compel [the government] to change behavior as it’s related to their nuclear program,” this official said. “The question is whether people in the government feel pressure from the fact that there’s public discontent,” the official said, “versus whether the sanctions themselves are intended to collapse the regime.” A Western diplomat familiar with the policy said that it was “introducing in the cost-benefit analysis a new parameter in the calculus” of the Iranian government. “To the extent we have done that, it is not because we want to collapse the government. It is because we want the Iranian government to understand that is a possible cost in continuing the way it is,” the diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the intent of the policy. Dennis B. Ross ... Laura Rozen (@lrozen) tweeded her take on this: Hmm. Wld guess senior intel official demanded revision of his remarks, not that 1st version wrong #Iran regime collapse http://wapo.st/zkScJ0 Like Laura's my thought is that some urgent calls were made from officials to the editors at the Washington Post to disguise the real aim of the sanctions, regime change, that was clearly expressed in their quotes in the first version of the piece. Posted by b on January 11, 2012 at 4:06 UTC | Permalink Comments