Obligatory Followup To Obligatory Post About The NIE Report - The NIE Unbelievably Punted On The Single Most Important Iranian Nuke Question (Plus: Israel Looking To React Now That Bush Is Handcuffed And Iranian Hardliners Are Crowing About Victory)
At the risk of repeating ourselves, the main intelligence question is not whether Iran suspended its program in 2003 (if they did, that would obviously be a huge victory for the Bush doctrine). The question is whether, after suspending it in 2003, the Iranians went ahead and restarted it later. Israeli intelligence is totally convinced that they did. Given the spin that this report is getting on the left, it is utterly staggering that exactly the question that the NIE punted on:
The United States National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) ranks its findings in descending order: "almost certainly," "very likely," "probably/likely," "even chance," "unlikely," "very unlikely" and "remote possibility." When the American intelligence community determines "with high confidence" that the Iranians have frozen their military nuclear plan, this is based, according to its own testimony, on "high-quality information." When it states, at the level of "moderate confidence" only, that the program has not been renewed, it is relying on information that is "plausible but not of sufficient quality."
From the standpoint of whether it's necessary to preempt Iran, the intelligence should have led to analysts to highlight the danger of Iranian hardliners in control of a fully functioning nuclear cycle:
"We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so," stated the gloomy American assessment. The Israeli report that has not been written would have phrased it thus: We assess with high confidence that American intelligence is again finding it difficult to distinguish between the important and the trivial. We assess with high confidence that the Iranians are playing tricks on it. We assess with moderate confidence that in the current circumstances President Bush has lost his ability to act with the necessary determination.
Given that the announcement of the report has Ahmadinejad literally crowing about victory, we don't think that "emboldened" is an inappropriate description for the hardliners who have already been taking over the regime and putting apocalyptic lunatics in charge of nuclear negotiations.
The NIE analysts had to punt on the "OK, what happened after 2003..." question. They didn't ask the basic "OK, if Iran can build nuclear weapons what are the odds that political trends will make them..." question. This would be suspicious even if it hasn't been common knowledge for years that parts of the military establishment would do everything in their power to handcuff the Bush administration:
The intelligence community responsible for the report released the other day joined hands with the strained and reluctant military apparatus in its attempt to put the president's hands into anti-confrontation handcuffs. Bush, who yesterday presented a business-as-usual, no-policy-change, we-need-to-keep-up-the-pressure front, is commanding an engine chugging forward while the ties between the cars lumbering behind him are coming loose. His secretary of defense, Robert Gates, not long ago assuaged Democratic legislators by promising them, leaving no room for doubt, that he would oppose any military action in Iran. In Israel, officials followed with a measure of astonishment statements made by top American brass, headed by Admiral William J. Fallon, commander of U.S. Central Command (Centcom)... Fallon recently called military action in Iran a strategic mistake.
And even if the intelligence wasn't manipulated, the four-month flip-flop would strongly suggest that nobody in the intelligence community has any clue what they're doing about Iran. Which helps explain why the Israelis are close to concluding that they have to take things into their own hands:
Over the last year, a certain hope has developed in Israel that the U.S. would do our dirty work for us... Yesterday, from talking to a number of senior officials in the defense establishment, you could sense this hope had been buried in the wake of the report... What surprised Israel is the sharp turn from the previous line presented by the DNI, and the fact the report was made public... But the issue of the NIE is expected to create tension on two levels. It will cloud the tight cooperation between the two countries intelligence agencies, since now it will no longer look as if it is only a disagreement over timing, but a fundamental disagreement over Iran's intentions. It will also cause a feeling of distress on the Israeli side, as now it will seem that the U.S. is abandoning Israel to fight alone... The convoluted and hazy phrasings of the American report also raise the fear that someone in Washington is using the report for the ancient practice of covering his ass... Israel has much better reasons than the U.S. for feeling threatened by Iranian nukes, and therefore Israel needs adopt a much more strict line about the information.
They're terrified because they're right:
Since the military part of the Iranian nuclear project was exposed in 2003, Iran has made a huge effort to hide its tracks. In one case, the Iranians allowed the inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the site of a nuclear facility near Tehran, but when they arrived, the inspectors discovered it had simply disappeared. The Israelis interpret the evidence to mean the Iranians have almost certainly continued to conduct their military nuclear program in secret.
References:
* Obligatory Post About The NIE Report - Anti-War Partisans Switch From Sophisticatedly Undermining War Effort To Being The Bestest And Most Objective Analysts Ever. Except Not. [Video] [MR]
* Revisionism and The Iranian Non-Bomb [Victor Davis Hanson] [NRO The Corner]
* The Iranian test of probability [Rosner]
* Ahmadinejad declares victory following U.S. nuclear report [MR]
* Smug Liberal Sophistication Untroubled By Undeniable Evidence That Hardliners Are Winning In Iran [MR]
* Super! Iran's New Nuclear Negotiator Dedicated To Bringing About The End Of The World. Yes, Really. [MR]
* U.S. versus Iran / Handcuffed by the bureaucrats [Ha'aretz]
* 'High Confidence' Games [WSJ]
* Nuclear fallout / Who's right here? [Ha'aretz]
Previously:
* Video: Vicious Iranian Anti-Semitic Anti-Zionist Cartoon
* US Forces Israel To Ground Cutting-Edge Spy Satellite
* Iran: Israeli Self-Defense is a Cause for War
