The thousand volt farce

rich

I do not think W would sell out Israel. More likely, this NIE is the result of American political infighting, and is of no long lasting international significance. This may be hard for a non American to follow, but our partisanship runs deep in our bureaucracies, and it does not consider anything other than who has power in America.

A. Sarko

Yes Melanie, Iraq is important but Rich's point is true as well. The "infighting" has created havoc in American politics and as much as many have been waiting for an attack on Iran- most Americans would oppose it- they have learned their lesson well from the MSM and Democrat politicians. Without support from Americans President Bush is powerless. http:/ /word-drum.spaces.live.com/

Ian Miller

Melanie asks a lot of questions as though they are hard to answer. They aren't:-

"Is it really likely that it would have stopped and not re-started?"
Entirely plausible given that the "Supreme Leader", who (rather than their motor-mouth "president") is the real power in the land, has categorically stated that Islam forbids them.

"If so, why is it continuing to defy the international community by enriching weapons grade uranium in 3,000 centrifuges?"
There is no evidence that they are enriching beyond reactor grade. As to why they bother rather than import fuel; the obvious answer is that it is a bargaining chip. They are allowed to under Article 6 of NPT. They aren't going to stop until someone offers them something they consider worth giving it up for. All the "international community's" pressure has done is convince Tehran that this is a really valuable bargaining chip and they can demand a really high price for it.

"Why doesn’t it open up all its nuclear sites to IAEA inspectors?"
It does everything it has to under the NPT. It will consider doing anything extra as a bargaining chip. They haven't been made a good enough offer yet.

Why has it gone to such lengths to scatter and bury its nuclear installations?
They remember what happen to Iraq's reactor at Osirak. Given Israel's track record of attacking neighbour's nuclear facilities they would be fools not to. This is also why that can afford to indulge in brinkmanship; it is going to be very difficult to do more than superficial damage to their facilities.

Why would a country whose president .... restrict its nuclear technology to the blameless production of electricity?
Because their "Supreme Leader" says so, what the president says is by comparison quite irrelevant.

zube

Christ almighty, when the master becomes the victim because the facts don't tally with the image of America, Bush and his neo-con henchmen as being on a quest to save civilisation as we know it, its reassuring that the spectator can trundle out Melanie Philipps' brand of apologism just at the right moment. How else are we to save modern democratic and civilised views if not for the spectator's secret equiuvalent of WMD the aforementioned champion of freedom the rather swotty looking Mealie Phillips.

Brian

"But there may be another explanation. The Samson Blinded blog suggests the US did a deal with Iran, in which Iran wound down its support for terror in Iraq — in return for which the US promised not to bomb Iran. The NIE was published to cloak this decision in the convenient if implausible fiction of the scaling down by the US intelligence community of the Iranian threat."

I must admit, I'd flirted with that conclusion too. I'm reluctant to commit to it because of my inherent dislike and distrust of conspiracy theories.

I think an alternative explanation is that this is political infighting. Neither the State Department nor the Intelligence Community here have been willing partners in Bush's foreign policy: It's as if both are working arms of the UN, with their own set of anti-Western beliefs and an agenda that seeks to undermine the US.

Such has long been asserted by the US right, and up until now I'd been reluctant to believe it, again because it suggests a kind of group-think and anti-western bias that seemed too conspiratorial.

But given the NIE's patently ridiculous "highly confident" conclusions, which are in glaring contradiction to the "highly confident" conclusions they staked their reputations on but a few months before, I've now come to the conclusion that both State and the IC are obstructionist and not working in the west's best interests.

There's a fascinating post on Powerline which points out that the CIA, in particular, has two separate arms to it. There is the operational arm, and the analytical arm. The analysts are the ones who wrote the report, and many of their number are Ph.D.s from our decidedly left wing, anti-American universities. http://tinyurl.com/yod2nm

Another post, again on Powerline quotes at length a fine Wall Street Journal OpEd on the NIE's flip-flop. http://tinyurl.com/2bvfm4

Alan Caruba

The CIA Screws Bush...Again! If you want to understand what's going on with the latest National Intelligence Estimate, first read "Sabotage: America's Enemies Within the CIA" by Rowan Scarborough (Regnery Publishing). "The intelligence community, sometimes anonymously, sometimes not, would make allegations of Bush Administration wrongdoing. The charges were leaked to the press. Months later, the Senate Intelligence Committee or another body would find no evidence to back up the leaks. But by then, the damage to the public's perception of the war had been done."(P. 95) Who damaged the CIA? Under President Clinton, "He shrank the CIA's analytical and operations branches by at least 30 percent. Stations in Latin America and Asia closed or downsized. Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, had only three CIA officers by the mid-1990s. The entire roster of case officers was reduced from 1,600 to 1,200, and there were only 400 collection management officers at American embassies to turn reports from case officers into cables back to Langley." (P. 114) Is Iran a nuclear threat? "A nuclear-armed Iran, with its long-range ballistic missiles and fanatical leaders, could lead to a Middle East Armageddon. If the Iranian regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was true to its word and tried to eliminate Israel, it would mean nuclear war. Classified DIA documents I obtained showed that Israel maintained an arsenal of eighty-two nuclear warheads." (P. 177) So, excuse me, but it seems, given the CIA's record of trying to undermine the credibility of the Bush Administration since it took office, that the release of the latest ESTIMATE looks suspiciously like yet another CIA end-run to embarrass Bush. Since the public will never be permitted to see the facts on which the estimate is based, there is no way to determine if the analysis is valid or not. One thing we know, they were out to lunch when 9/11 occurred. Meanwhile, the Israelis, whose intelligence capabilities are among the world's most highly regarded, are convinced the Iranians are working toward building nuclear weapons. The CIA's track record to date appears to be alarmingly poor when it comes to fundamental tasks such as finding out where Osama bin Laden is. Around CIA headquarters the joke was "Osama Been Forgotten." "By the winter of 2003, the CIA's PR war on Bush had broadened. A group of current and former intelligence officers formed an anti-Bush organization called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity." (P. 100) An effort by Bush to put the place right by appointing Porter Goss as its director failed when a gaggle of CIA insiders made life for him and his aides so miserable he resigned within a fairly short time. So I'm thinking this whole affair, giddily reported by a mainstream media that delights in making Bush look like a liar, a fool, or both, smells of dirty politics CIA-style.

Frank Pulley

Mr Caruba - I fear you are right on the button. Could you therefore address Melanie's prognostications in that context, given your reputation for geopolitical insight and sources?

Bogdan of Australia

Absolutely agree with an assesment made by Allan Caruba (so far I'm also 100% behind Melanie). It looks for me like, in the face of as overwhelming as irrational opposition from Democrats, but also from a significan number of Republicans, Bush has simply given up and made a strategic decision to pass all the trouble on the Democrats and their president (if ellected). Those are going to be the DEMS with their leader who will be facing the nuclear Iran and they will have to gobble on the fruits of their own policy. The mess that the DEMS are shoving themselces in, will give the REPS opportunity to regroup and regain their status and their rightful place on the American political arena. It is highly likely that the confused, in the face of the ragin, nuclear Iran, DEMs will ask the REPs for political support for any military action they (the DEMs) will be forced to take against Iran. There is a precedent to such a situation. Tony Blair had to rely on British Conservatives support to commit Britain to the war in Iraq, while his own party opposed it. No matter what his calculations, Bush has failed miserably as a leader of a free world. That is an opinion expressed by one of his most ardent supporters and admirers - myself.

Jordan Baribeau

Interesting read. You went out on a limb to suggest Israel's major ally - the US - would dare leave it stranded. It's very hard to gather what may be coming to affect, however I think politically at the end of the day, Bush is trying to re-establish the US in the middle east while keeping Israel on a leash. I think a lot of the faults of the Bush administration were yet again shown to us. It seems as though the intelligence community is the one to blame, not Bush.

Mladen Andrijasevic

You may score temporarily in Iraq, but at what terrible cost? The Unthinkable Consequences of an Iran-Israel Nuclear Exchange http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/780

eliXelx

If today A'jad defected to the West and said, unequivocally, that Iran was in the final stages of creating a bomb, there would still be those in the West who would poohpooh his information, and declare Iran innocent until proven guilty. What are those people going to say when Iran has its first underground test? That it was an earthquake? an accident? No; they will say Iran is innocent until PROVEN guilty. As I see it nothing short of a nuclear-tipped missile on its way to Israel is going to convince this crowd of Bush-haters that Iran CANNOT be innocent; and by then, while the Muslim world cheers, these nay-sayers will have accepted that they and we can live with a nuclear Iran! Now and forever, Israel, we are on our own!

steve

There seems to be a lack of awareness here as to what an NIE is and how it is assembled. It is 16 American intelligence agencies that assemble it over several months based on the best intelligence that is available. From all accounts new intelligence came in over the past few months that led to the changed conclusion. A prominent Iranian general defected in February, for example, although after the experiences with Curveball and Iraq it is doubtful that the U.S. intell community would rely so heavily on a single source, even a high level one. The idea that the report is an ideological motivated strike against the Bush admin or that the Bush admin itself cooked the results (one can certainly see Dick Cheney encouraging such a strategy... not) is absolutely ridiculous. As for the finding strengthening Ahmadinejad, the opposite is the case. He is widely unpopular in Iran because of domestic reasons (rising inflation, rising fuel prices, etc.). U.S. pressure is something that aids him just like it helps Castro and Chavez. Besides, there are multiple power bases in Iran. It is the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini who has control over Iran's foreign policy and nuclear program, not Ahmadinejad.

Mike

Steve: Couldn't agree more. Sometimes I despair at all those who disseminate such wild speculation. Portuguese journalists reporting on the tragic Madeleine McCann case couldn't do better! And then we're expected to believe those desperate attempts to disparage all the academics and historians who write the truth about the Israel/Palestine conflict, and not least those who know and understand the Middle East, and blog about it. Come forward those who have lived in Tehran, before or after the Shah, or Pakistan or any Muslim country in the Middle East for that matter.

Richard Beddall

The book of revelations spring to mind war has come a little closer. Dark forces are at work, very bad times are coming.

Terry in Arizona

Israel will take care of itself, never fear. They have survived against formidable odds for six decades. They don't need the U.S. to survive. If Iran is in fact about to manufacture nuclear bombs, undoubtedly Israel will take some sort of action to protect itself, and with little regard for approbation by others. On the other hand, I am extremely worried about the U.S. intelligence community. In 2001 the Israelis warned that some sort of action with a plane was about to take place, and the CIA did not listen. In 2003 the Israelis warned that Iran and not Iraq was the greater threat, and the U.S. went into Iraq. Israeli intelligence is second to none in the world and yet the Americans continue to chart their own course, often with disastrous consequences, to wit Iraq.

lior

i jope somthing will be done,its not only israel that gonna be wiped off the map here..

Sharon

Earth doesn't turn around Israel, and Civilization is not only Israel, or the West... Others HAVE all the right to get nuclear weapons if you think you have the right to get them, because you are not better than others.