Laura Rozen has an “article”:http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/laura_rozen/2007/05/the_hardliners_lose_a_round.html in the _Guardian_ about the demise of ISOG. It includes a good discussion about N Burns’ motivation for getting rid of it.

Part of it was because Burns thought ISOG

bq. *was leading to confusion – and turf battles – over the thrust of US policy toward Iran.* While many factions inside and outside the US government favour regime change in Iran, Condoleezza Rice recently said that the US is instead forging an international coalition to pressure Iran to change its roguish behaviour. “We’re very clear. The policy of the US government is behaviour change. We’re on the record, a million times,” said one US official involved with Iran policy says of the demise of ISOG.

Moreover, ISOG became irrelevant once regime change was off the table:

bq. Another Iran hand in the US government says *Burns’ problem with ISOG was more pragmatic: he thought ISOG was having too many meetings and wasn’t doing anything.* “ISOG started with a more robust expanse and aim…. but it had become somewhat irrelevant,” says a congressional staffer knowledgeable about US policy toward Iran. “*Once regime change was taken off the table, the raison d’etre of ISOG was somewhat removed. People were meeting for the sake of meeting, and it lost its salience.*”

Given that ISOG was “pretty damn busy”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1446/end-of-hot-isog-action a few months ago, it seems reasonable to infer that its mission was indeed about regime change.

Laura also notes that

bq. one US official suggested that the Senate Foreign Relations committee may want to ask some new questions – such as whether any entities have been created to succeed ISOG.

Good idea.

Sorry to disappoint…

The “_Boston Globe_”:http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/26/us_unit_created_to_pressure_iran_syria_disbanded/ had a good article over the weekend about the end of ISOG. Nicholas Burns told Sen. Casey’s office that “the group was disbanded in March 2007 in ‘favor of a more standard process’ of coordinating between the White House, the State Department, Defense Department, and intelligence agencies.”

A “senior State Department official” gave the _Globe_ a slightly different version, saying that

bq. the group was shut down because of a widespread public perception that it was designed to enact regime change. State Department officials have said that the focus of the group, known as ISOG, was persuading the two regimes to change their behavior, not toppling them.

I suspect that this maneuver might have been Burns’ way of shutting down a process that was meant to undermine diplomacy with Iran. Laura Rozen “wrote”:http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0118nj1.htm in January that the ISOG was pretty busy:

bq. U.S. officials say that multiple *inter-agency meetings on Iran are going on every day under the auspices of the Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group, and that the pace of activity has quickened.* “There are so many meetings; we’re doing stuff, writing papers; actions are being taken,” said one person involved with the group. “It’s very intense.”

On top of that, it looked like the OVP was going to be running the ISOG show:

bq. Denehy has recently told some associates that he plans to move sometime early this year to the Office of the Vice President, where he would continue to coordinate the Iran-Syria group

Just a thought.

[Via “Laura Rozen.”:http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006173.html ]

Previous hot ISOG action “here”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1338/more-hot-isog-action and “here.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1317/isog-in-action