U.S. officials are scrambling to determine how two leaked, highly U.S. classified documents conveying potential Israeli plans to attack Iran got on the Telegram app. According to the New York Times, the documents were prepared “in recent days” by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes information and images collected by U.S. spy satellites.
There are several theories regarding these leaked reports.
The first theory reads that the Iranians hacked the U.S. intelligence services and leaked the document as part of their psy-ops against Israel. Given previous Iranian hacks, it is not outside the realm of possibilities that they have the capacity to hack the United States.
Iranians also have a clear motivation, though it also suggests that they may not have the capacity to defend against the planned Israeli attack — even with the forewarning that the hack provides — and instead opted to leak it to forestall Israel’s plans.
Two, an actor within the U.S. government may have leaked it, but the investigation of the U.S. government itself appears to have concluded otherwise. They have moved on to investigating outside actors.
Three, the Biden administration may have orchestrated the leak itself in order to delay the Israeli attack. Biden clearly lacks the courage to say no to Israel, so instead, he sneaks out intelligence with the aim of delaying Israel’s plans at least until after the U.S. elections, at which point he may find the semblance of a spine.
Four, the Israelis may have leaked this themselves with the aim of diverting Iran’s attention by getting them to look for an attack in all the wrong places.
Five, finally, since the U.S. investigation is looking at outside actors, the question is if a close American ally — a Five Eyes state (FVEY) or a NATO ally with access to FVEY intelligence — leaked it. If so, it would suggest that close U.S. allies are so frustrated with Biden’s refusal to stop Netanyahu from starting the largest war in the Middle East since World War II that they are taking matters into their own hands to sabotage Netanyahu’s escalation plan.
A Western diplomat recently told me that the only way to stop the war is to have the players who forced President Biden off the Democratic ticket in July repeat their feat by forcing Biden to stop Netanyahu.
All of this while Washington continues to nurture the mythology that its “leadership” is what holds the world together.
