Category: Iran

A nice summary:

Iran’s choice is reasonably smart: talk big like Libya, stop short of weapons like Japan, but signal willingness to aggressively defend like Israel. I told you these guys are not stupid.

Sy Hersh says that Bush told Olmert about it before Hadley said the president was first informed. In the end, the bullshit catches up to you.

Greenwald wonders why ElBaradei’s rep is so poor; Joyner summarizes Victor Davis Hanson’s first response:

Since our intelligence estimates are so often wrong, the neocons might still be right about Iran’s nukes. And, if not, it’s only because the neocons were right on Iraq!

Heh. They’re always right, doesn’t James realize that? Neocon Central has five questions for the NIE. Robert Farley suspects that the Iraq war might yet have had a good effect:

I think it’s possible that U.S. activity in Iraq may have had some effect on the Iranian decision. First, the destruction of Hussein’s regime removed the greatest threat to Iranian security, and ensured that Iran would have a greater influence over Gulf affairs whether or not it produced a nuclear weapon.

For my part, the news from the NIE comes, obviously, as a relief, although I think it’s fair to take all judgments from the NIE with a degree of salt. I don’t think it means abandoning diplomatic and economic pressure on Tehran; but I do think it removes all likelihood of this administration launching a new war in the next year. This will be the next president’s problem, and we have to ask: who is best capable of delivering a strategy of careful threats and inducements?

The president explains exactly when he got the message that Iran had suspended its nuke weapons program:

He was told of the new data in August, but seemed uninterested in what it had to say.

From a piece in May 2006:

"Inside the Pentagon, senior commanders have increasingly challenged the President’s plans . . . A crucial issue in the military’s dissent, the officers said, is the fact that American and European intelligence agencies have not found specific evidence of clandestine activities or hidden facilities; the war planners are not sure what to hit… [A] high-ranking general added that the military’s experience in Iraq, where intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed, has affected its approach to Iran. ‘We built this big monster with Iraq, and there was nothing there. This is son of Iraq,’ he said.”

Hat tip: Shaun Mullen. In the end, Cheney simply couldn’t match the facts about Iran. And the Iraq debacle doubtless strengthened his critics.

Does he gain the most? Larison notes Huckers’ recent statement on Iran:

While there can be no rational dealing with Al Qaeda, Iran is a nation state looking for regional power, it plays the normal power politics that we understand and can skillfully pursue, and we have substantive issues to negotiate with them.

He certainly sounds more clued-in than Romney, Giuliani or McCain. Paul is the exception, again, who proves the rule.

A reader writes:

As a Republican, it is good to wake up and see Condi Rice and Robert Gates vindicated, especially Condi. She has been vilified by the Go To War Crowd at the NRO and the American Spectator for at least the past two years. Now, her path appears to have been the wisest choice.

However, bear something in mind. The data for the NIE comes from CIA Assessments, among other things. It would be interesting to hear what the Mossad and IDF Aman Intelligence has to say.

Why, you ask? CIA won’t tell you this, but we have NOTHING in Iran. Our assets were rolled up years ago by the Revolutionary Guards. What is the factual basis for the reporting that went into the NIE? Is it any more valid than the stuff that animated the war scare and made Dick Cheney walk the Earth by Night?

In other words, as you breath a sigh of relief, how much of this report is politically motivated by a CIA eager to head off a war with Iran, and how much of it is based on actual intelligence? My skepticism arises from the decades of risible incompetence displayed by that agency across decades and Continents. These were the guys who gave us the Mossadegh Coup, the Missile Gap, and Curveball, remember?

Or, as another reader notes more succinctly:

PHEW. The CIA say Iran’s not building a bomb. They’re just enriching uranium. I feel SO much better.