How much money is the US govt spending in Iran?

in either aid or subversion. Arguing with a RWer, and he mentioned that we were spending millions to bring about change in Iran (no other context than that).

Any covert military or intelligence based subversion will not exactly be a line item in the government budget. There have been santions against Iran that were only briefly lifted after their last earthquake so humanitarian aid could get through. But other than that, the US has not given any aid to Iran and forbid NGO's like the Red Cross from doing so as well.

In March 1995, Clinton signed an executive order that prohibited "new investments (in Iran) by U.S. persons, including commitment of funds or other assets." It also restricts U.S. companies from performing services "that would benefit the Iranian oil industry. Violation of the order can result in fines of as much as $500,000 for companies and up to 10 years in jail for individuals."

When Bush and Cheney were sworn into office in 2001 the administration decided it would not punish foreign oil and gas companies that invest in Iran or other countries that sponsor terrorism, including Syria and Libya.

Despite sanctioning many foreign companies for dealing with Iran, many US companies have skirted around the issues...including Haliburton while Cheney was still with them.

As for change.....the conservative Muslims have taken power back over the moderate reformers. Whether the US wanted/orchestrated this is debatable but it DOES make for an easier justification for going in there miltarily as they are less likely to bargain with the west and the having the "fundamentalists" in charge will make people afraid. The problem is that China just signed a big deal with Iran (oil and such) so if we went in we would have to deal with them. Russia, too, has some interets there.

There is evidence, though, that they are willing to deal a little as they don't wish full UN sanctions. Their economy is in the toilet and the people would blame THEM for it's troubles.

but I can't seem to find any public numbers...

At least not any on the US Gov't sites....it's all been "classified" after 9/11. And any numbers on external sites would be guestimates.

I would try Foreign Affiairs journals, the UN Security Council sites, and some of the Middle East sites and journals.. The Treasury Department handles alot of the official sanction information.

If you wanted to get some info on possible subversion info, try cryptome.org

And this site from Loyola has links to intellignece info..http://www.loyola.edu/dept/politics/intel.html

And this: Gov't Secrecy from Federation of American Scientists has some links to some interesting looking stuff..http://www.fas.org/sgp/index.html