That's why one important story that shows how the Bush administration makes foreign policy and who is actually in control of it hasn't received the media attention it deserves. The story also raises the disturbing question: Are plans for regime change in Iran underway in the Bush administration?

Early this month, Lawrence A. Franklin, a Pentagon policy analyst with close ties to the neo-con cabal that's directing Bush's foreign policy pleaded guilty of passing on secret information to Israeli Embassy officials and to members of the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Franklin is scheduled to be sentenced next January and faces up to 25 years in jail, but he has agreed to help prosecutors with the expectation that his sentence will be reduced.

With several thousand well-connected members and a staff of close to 200, AIPAC is one of the US's most powerful lobbying groups and wields great influence on Capitol Hill. It has lobbied and raised billions of dollars in aid for Israel, while marshalling support to defeat legislative initiatives relating to Israel it does not like. Some of the most important officials in US government, including President Bush and House Speaker Tom Delay, have attended AIPAC's annual conference. AIPAC, moreover, has strong ties to the Christian Right, as well as to such prominent neo con figures as Douglas Feith, Richard Perle and Micheal Ledeen, who promote an aggressive U.S. foreign policy and unflinching support for Israel.

Franklin, who is known to be fervently committed to Israel, worked at the Iran desk under Douglas Feith, a key neo con and former US. Under Secretary of Defence for Policy in the Bush administration who left the position in January 2005. According to reports, Feith's department was the "Operational Epicentre' of the neo conservative faction, which had its command centre Dick Cheney's office. Writing for the AntiWar.com web site, investigative journalist Justin Raimundo explained: "It was in Feith's shop that the Office of Special Plans -- the locus of so much of the phony planning in 'intelligence' that fueled the drive to war with Iraq -- was conceived and planned."

In a Guardian newspaper story, Karen Kwiatkowski, a Pentagon analyst who worked with Franklin, described how Israel officials came and went as they pleased from Feith's office and didn't have to sign in as other guests were required to do. Kwiatkowski recalled one incident for Asian Times in which she helped escort a group of about half a dozen Israelis, including several generals, from the first floor reception to Feith's office. "We just followed them," she recalled. "because they knew exactly where they were going.."

This brings us back to Franklin. About a decade ago, Franklin was a Soviet intelligence analyst in the Defence Intelligence Agency, but then he learned Farsi and became an Iran specialist. In one meeting with an AIPAC official Franklin reportedly complained that Iran was undermining the US's efforts in Iraq. He believed, for instance, that Iran was involved in direct attacks on Iraqi oil refineries.

When the FBI closed in on Franklin and searched his house, they found 83 classified documents, including 38 labeled "Top Secret' and 37, "Secret." One of the documents passed on to AIPAC is believed to be a master plan to destabilise Iran, drafted by the Pentagon's neo cons.

According to the American Prospect's investigation, the document was drafted by Michael Rubin, another neo con who works as a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the editor of Middle East Quarterly, which is run by Daniel Pipes, the outspoken critic of Islam. The plan was for the Bush administration to see the light and adopt it as official policy. The National Security Council and State Department, however, both were opposed to the plan, according to a memo written by Rubin and obtained by the American Prospect.

Despite the can of worms opened up in Iraq by a neo con strategy based on lies, distortions and deceptions, the cabal seemed determined to push on with their agenda for the Islamic world. The driving force behind the strategy is the protection of Israel at whatever cost to US interests.

Meanwhile, in trying to deflect attention and camouflage the implications of the Franklin affair, the neo cons and the Israeli lobby are resorting to their usual tactics to deflect attention. In another e-mail memo obtained by the American Prospect, Rubin called the Franklin espionage investigation "an anti-Semitic witch hunt."

The FBI is reportedly continuing its probe of whether U.S. officials with treason in their heart have passed on sensitive intelligence about Iran and its nuclear programme to Israel. Also significant, was the US Justice Department investigation of AIPAC that threatens to force AIPAC to register as a foreign agent.

Getting AIPAC to register would be appropriate and timely. Something needs to be done to ensure the un-American organisation can't continue to undermine US foreign policy with impunity. Uncle Sam does not need to plunge ahead with another foolhardy adventure.

Ron Chepesiuk (www.ronchepesiuk.com) is a Visiting Professor of Journalism at Chittagong University and a Research Associate with the National Defence College.