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- The USA’s National Intelligence Estimate on Iran
- Key Judgements on the NIE Report
- Bush says, “Iran still a threat”
- Tony Blair Website
Comment at end
10th January, 2008
THE EAGLE HAS LANDED
President Bush has arrived in Israel. Almost his first words, after saying he was an optimist on the Middle East peace process, were to remind the waiting world that Iran is still a concern. The liberal press retorted that Bush is still a concern.
So, what’s new?
THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS
Well, the ancient I’m listening to a BBC Radio 4 series on Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’. VERY interesting.
Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli has been called the brilliant creator of modern political science by some, and a cynical beast by others; he is considered the originator of the idea of a political pragmatism that says “the end justifies the means.” Either way, his 1513 book The Prince is a landmark work in the history of political power. A high-level statesman in Florence (1498-1512), he travelled on diplomatic missions throughout Europe before he was exiled by the Medicis. Imprisoned for a time, he later retired to his private estate and concentrated on studying and writing. A rumination on the acquisition and uses of power, The Prince remains a mainstay of college bookstores everywhere. Although it sounds as though it was written with Mr Blair in mind, rather than Mr Bush. “The Prince” (a country’s leader) - when he stands firmly with one side, and is never afraid of taking a position, is always strengthened. He must make war the centre of his decision-making. From then he will always be feared and respected by his enemies, loved by his people.
OK, so it was written in the 15th century, when all of Italy was at war with someone or other, usually itself. And they did not suffer such as the modern liberal press. Still, perhaps, just perhaps, plus can change …
Hhmm…
17th December, 2007
Just found this article from the Workers World (so you might guess its political leanings) which backs up my view that in the USA today Democracy Doesn’t Rule, OK!? Read the whole article here.
Excerpt:
This is a falling out among thieves on how best to bring Iran down and how to stop the struggle in the Middle East. The NIE benignly describes itself as “the intelligence community.” It is really a collection of assassins, liars, mass murderers and destabilizers of progressive governments. The Bush-Cheney forces are no different. Both sides are hired guns for a U.S. ruling class determined to control Middle Eastern oil.
It is the strength of the mass liberation struggles—from Iran to Iraq to Afghanistan to Lebanon to Palestine—which made the biggest military colossus in the world blink. The spy report is an admission that Pentagon bombs cannot stop the mass struggle and often drive it forward. It is this struggle that will determine the fate of the Middle East.
The writer misses the point that the “mass struggles” to which she refers are disparate and led, ruderlessly, by a murderous amalgam of ideologists. Even if she is right that the west too has been led by an ideology, well, Ms Chediac, even as a British citizen, I’d go for the American flavour over the others. Any day. How about you?
And here former UN AMBASSADOR John Bolton adds his two cents worth.
BUSH IN “FREE FALL” – RICE TOO INFLUENTIAL
BERLIN (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush’s foreign policy is in free fall and puts the nation’s security at risk, former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told a German magazine on Sunday.
Bolton, who was a leading hawk in the U.S. administration and favoured a tough stance against Iran, North Korea and Iraq, told the Der Spiegel weekly that Bush needed to rein in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“His foreign policy is in free fall.”
6th December, 2007
HIJACKING DEMOCRACY?
In the stunned silence that seems to have followed the announcement by the American NIE on Iran, there must be plenty of thinking going on. And when you’re thinking, you’re better off not talking.
The Time article today on President Bush’s response to this announcement is neither bellicose nor exactly cock-a-hoop! but it provides a picture of a president in shock and awe about what’s going on.
And I’m not surprised. To think that 16 intelligence organisations have suddenly realised – all in the space of one short month that Iran poses no nuclar threat after all, is pretty mind-blowing.
If you conclude, on the other hand, that these organisations are pulling their weight against a weakened president, you might just be nearer the mark.
They, and, they think, the American people do not want or cannot afford another Middle East adventure. So have they decided to hijack democracy?
Going from this story, Mr Bush’s hands are clearly tied. Perhaps they should be; but that is for the American people to decide, surely, and not the spooks behind the latest file.On the other hand this may all be just a game of bluff and double bluff; although whether the famously ’straight guy’ president could carry THAT off indefinitely, I’m not so sure.
Wonder if he’s rung his friend Tony, yet? Now there’s a man who understands conspiracy!
4th December, 2007
A NUCLEAR IRAN: OH YES IT IS … OH NO IT ISN’T
I’m tempted to say, “it’s behind you!”
The other day Iran was developing nuclear weapons, today it isn’t. And what’s more, it hasn’t been for FOUR YEARS!
Hhmm … mm… Interesting.
This sets the tone of the report from the American National Intelligence Estimate on Iran:
This NIE does not assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons. Rather, it examines the intelligence to assess Iran’s capability and intent (or lack thereof) to acquire nuclear weapons, taking full account of Iran’s dual-use uranium fuel cycle and those nuclear activities that are at least partly civil in nature.
So clearly there is a peace pipe being offered here. And, to continue the analogy, if there never was any “smoking gun” as regards Iran’s ‘nuclear’ ambitions, WHY has it taken us so long to work it out?!
Even as one side argues that it is BECAUSE of international pressure that the threat is lower than earlier believed, and the other says the threat was ALWAYS overblown anyway, we are, as some might say, where we are.
Perhaps some international diplomacy is at play here? The wider Middle East picture, by any small chance?
And just in case the Iranians get the idea that the west has capitulated, President Bush has warned that Iran is “still a threat”.
Iran’s response to this intriguing change of tone by the USA? Excerpt below, from the BBC (full) report
‘Iran has welcomed a major US intelligence report which suggests its government is not currently trying to develop nuclear weapons.
The latest National Intelligence Estimate says it is now believed Iran stopped its weapons programme in 2003.
Tehran has always maintained its nuclear programme is being developed purely for peaceful purposes.’
There is little doubt that this move/re-positioning/bluff … whatever … will cool the situation somewhat. So that’s good.
But some might ask, and they will – if the American intelligence information is SO inaccurate that they have been getting THIS so wrong, what ELSE are they presently getting wrong? And what ELSE did they/we get wrong in the past. Perhaps I don’t need to ask that.
Forgive me, for my scepticism; most uncharacteristic.
Still, I DO know who is on my side; I think.
And I would take a guess that we are playing politics, in a different, perhaps more constructive way.
USA BITING THE PEACE BULLET
America has bitten the bullet and allowed Iran to claim the moral high ground. That will play well with their domestic and regional media, and allow them to deign to join others at various top tables.
At the same time, a few individuals within Iran might come out and explain WHY we are wrong to say we were wrong, and really we were/are right all the time! Regime change from within?
Whatever, it looks like a win-win situation for all of us, SO FAR.
Oliver Kamm, published an article in today’s Guardian which seems particularly untimely. He is making yesterday’s case against Iran. For that, inevitably, he has taken a lot of flak from the Cif-ers.
But at least he can claim NOT to be at the command of the wicked west. Nobody told HIM! If they had he might have written a slightly more nuanced article.
However, that is to miss the point.
His article points up the fact that the west never expected Iran to threaten a nuclear attack today, tomorrow, or even the next day. It’s the potential for eventually using enriched uranium for weaponry that is the issue for a country which chooses NOT to join the community of nations. As a nuclear power, this potential could still threaten all of us in times to come.
I ask again – I wonder who, or which organisation is at the bottom of this tactic/strategy?
The NIE report says it is working on information at its disposal on 31st October, and the report is dated “November, 2007″. Quite a speedy piece of work.
Still, before we know where we are, we’ll all be singing, along with the Guardian Cif-ers:
“All you need is love, da da ra da da” (All together now …)
Key Judgments below (Read entire pdf file here)
A. We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons
program1; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is
keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We judge with high confidence
that the halt, and Tehran’s announcement of its decision to suspend its declared uranium
enrichment program and sign an Additional Protocol to its Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty Safeguards Agreement, was directed primarily in response to increasing
international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously
undeclared nuclear work.
• We assess with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were
working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons.
• We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (Because of
intelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate, however, DOE and the NIC
assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt
to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program.)
• We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons
program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop
nuclear weapons.
• We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently
have a nuclear weapon.
• Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined
to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005. Our assessment
that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure
suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged
previously.
B. We continue to assess with low confidence that Iran probably has imported at least
some weapons-usable fissile material, but still judge with moderate-to-high confidence it
has not obtained enough for a nuclear weapon. We cannot rule out that Iran has acquired
from abroad—or will acquire in the future—a nuclear weapon or enough fissile material
for a weapon. Barring such acquisitions, if Iran wants to have nuclear weapons it would
need to produce sufficient amounts of fissile material indigenously—which we judge
with high confidence it has not yet done.
C. We assess centrifuge enrichment is how Iran probably could first produce enough
fissile material for a weapon, if it decides to do so. Iran resumed its declared centrifuge
1 For the purposes of this Estimate, by “nuclear weapons program” we mean Iran’s nuclear weapon design
and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work; we
do not mean Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.
enrichment activities in January 2006, despite the continued halt in the nuclear weapons
program. Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges at Natanz, but we
judge with moderate confidence it still faces significant technical problems operating
them.
• We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be
technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon is late 2009, but that this
is very unlikely.
• We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of
producing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.
(INR judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this capability before 2013 because of
foreseeable technical and programmatic problems.) All agencies recognize the
possibility that this capability may not be attained until after 2015.
D. Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could
be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so. For example,
Iran’s civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. We also assess with high
confidence that since fall 2003, Iran has been conducting research and development
projects with commercial and conventional military applications—some of which would
also be of limited use for nuclear weapons.
E. We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing
to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely while it weighs its
options, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will prompt
it to restart the program.
• Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to
international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit
approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and
military costs. This, in turn, suggests that some combination of threats of intensified
international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its
security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might—if perceived
by Iran’s leaders as credible—prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear
weapons program. It is difficult to specify what such a combination might be.
• We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgo
the eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult given the linkage many
within the leadership probably see between nuclear weapons development and Iran’s
key national security and foreign policy objectives, and given Iran’s considerable
effort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons. In our judgment,
only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would
plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decision
is inherently reversible.
F. We assess with moderate confidence that Iran probably would use covert facilities—
rather than its declared nuclear sites—for the production of highly enriched uranium for a
weapon. A growing amount of intelligence indicates Iran was engaged in covert uranium
conversion and uranium enrichment activity, but we judge that these efforts probably
were halted in response to the fall 2003 halt, and that these efforts probably had not been
restarted through at least mid-2007.
G. We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing
and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.
H. We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial
capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.
Tags: american, domestic nuclear power, Iran, national intelligence estimate, nie, no nuclear weapons programme, since 2005, usa report
