The United States has beefed up its covert effort to undermine Iran's leadership since Congress approved late last year President George W. Bush's funding request of 400 million U.S. dollars against the Islamic republic, the New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.

Following the special investment by the Bush administration, the United States has increased its support for Iran's minority and dissidents and intelligence gathering about Iran's nuclear facilities, the U.S. magazine quoted former military, intelligence, and congressional sources as reporting.

Although U.S. clandestine operations aimed at destabilizing Iran's government are by no means new, the "scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded," the magazine noted.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran since April 1980, five months after Iranian students occupied the American embassy in Tehran. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days.

Washington strongly accused Tehran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of its stated goal of developing civilian nuclear power. Iran denies U.S. allegations.

By China View, 06/30/2008