No Nukes in Iran - but they're still really really scary!

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http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bush-wary-of-iran-threat/2007/12/05/1196530713720.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/04/bush.iran/

So, Iran does not have nuclear weapons, is not trying to develop them, and has in fact capitulated to pressure not to pursue them.

Yet, for whatever reason, we're supposed to believe that putting even more pressure on them to halt their nuclear weapons project is going to be an effective solution to their bid to start world war three?

... did I miss something, where y'know - *not* having a nuclear weapons program leads to *not* having nuclear weapons, thus meeting the whole objective of this whole threatening to attack thing?

In fact, hasn't the entire objective of the US's current policy towards Iran been achieved (in 2003, no less)? Isn't it time to stop being a dick and work towards less volatile solutions to whatever other problems we might have with them?

I hope I'm wrong, but it seems to me that America is in need of a perpetual enemy. Perhaps they read the book on 'how to get elected after you've just ****ed up the country' and saw that hey, if you have some horrible doom and you promise to take a harsh stance against it, maybe people will vote for you no matter what else you ruined.

I'm sure that this can't work, because I can't conceive of there being enough people in one country stupid enough to believe that Iran is a super-powered boogie man able to hurt America, especially given this report. The American government should really have chosen their boogie man a little better, and should have taken this really good opportunity to lay off this particular tactic. It's stupid, dangerous, unethical from a multitude of viewpoints, and not very believable.

Instead it's very clear that the American government is far more interested in breaking rather than fixing things. Honestly, the only people that they've managed to unite are their enemies. [tinfoilhat] Perhaps Bush is secretly a radical muslim who'd like nothing more than to see America attacked from all sides and is thusly making sure that everyone hates America as much as possible during his reign? [/tinfoilhat]

 

Well at least now we Americans will understand that there are not nukes in Iran, even if our illustrious leader decides to ignore that information. Of course, there will still be some crazies who believe anything Bush says, but I think that if this is widely publicized, then Americans won't be as stupid about it as we are made out to be.

And I think our government needs a perpetual enemy because they are scared themselves of anything that is a risk to their power (in which case they should start tracking me ), so they inflict fear in their people to gain support. It is a low-life move, but it works - fear is a wonderful motivation for a mass of people.

BaZING!

 

I'm not so sure. With foreign relations in the crapper, the American Dollar went with it. When teh Dollar dropped, jobes began leaving Canada for the United States. American goods became much less expensive than foreign imports. The Economy will prosper there because the dollar is so weak...

 

Sez the former, now retired DIA's “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism,” and later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service” effort (means that he knows the Iraelis rather well), Col. W. Patrick Lang on his fabulous blog:

Iran. Is. Not. A. Treat. To. The. US.

The NIE and it's finding are remarkable. It appears as if the Cheneyites have suffered a setback. Good news to me, I'd like to see more of that. It is said that Cheney stalled the NIE for over a year because he didn't like what it said on Iran. But I'd be surprised if that's the whole story.

PS: Add to that that the NIE comes to the same result as the IAEA. Contrast that to right wing attacks aimed at ElBaradei only recently, just take Rogue Regulator (quite a hatchet job) and ElBaradei an 'Apologist' for Iran'. Now guess where that's coming from.

Problem: ElBaradei and the IAEA have been in the past, much like the UN inspectors in their findings on Iraq, been vindicated. The accusations against him, just like previous accusations against Blix, are fictious, and originate from the rich fantasy life (inevitably a dark and dangerous place) of the attackers. Now don't expect apologies from John Bolton. Apolo-what? Apa-lachian? Doesn't make sense!

So what's the sin of ElBaradei and the IAEA and of Hans Blix and of his inspectors on Iraq? Their reality based assessments contradicted and so undermined premises on which policies the attackers preferred are built. That's why kook community fought and fights such people low and dirty: They tapped ElBaradei's phone and tried to prove ElBaradei colluded with Iran

They failed, ElBaradei was relected because the other members of the IAEA clearly understood the political nature of the US attacks.

But the kooks know how to interpret conflict away: It's not that El Baradei is right now that the NIE comes to the same result as his IAEA - the CIA is a rogue agency and an apologist for Iran as well and they have tainted the NIE. They're both wrong, and traitors. That why in Bolton's world not only El Baradei but the CIA both have to go away. Point is, they really believe all this nonsense (or at least in its utility) and will tirelessly assault those windmills.

 

Not really, Gnarff. The dollar is still a lot stronger than the Peso and, although our dollar has been in a steady decline since the second year of King George's reign, Bush has still failed to produce even a single net job during his tenure. If the declining dollar was really going to create new jobs, it would have already done so by now.

 

Yeah. I was in a bookstore a while back and one of the new releases asserted that the CIA had become a liberal institution and was more concerned with harming Bush than defending America. I wish I could say that I don't believe such crap could be published.

Trying to remember the title; might be interesting to see how it sold.

 

What? Wow, that's good. It beats even the revelations that the BBC was a vast left-wing radical network.

Man, I only ask this: if the CIA is "liberal" then just what passes for properly conservative in the US according to such an actor?

 

Shaman,
the AEI/ AIPAC/ JINSA/ Bolton/ Cheney lines (with only slight differences in detail). Which is pretty much what the good Col. hinted on above.

Amusingly, my predictions on Bolton's putative reaction were on target, as I was to find out yesterday night. A predictable bunch they are.

As a side note: It's impressive how the office of the president can dominate public discourse on such issues by controlling the message coming out of the administration. In that respect the NIE is an aberration. It IMO represents thus far the hardest hit the realists have delivered to the Bush's cavemen.

Quite striking is that Bush is most certainly lying about what he knew and when he gained knowledge of the findings of the NIE. He has been pestering his domestic audience as much as the rest of the world with ever increasingly alarmist doomsday scenarios about Iran. We are supposed to believe that Bush didn't knew about the direction in which the NIE went? Of course It's not as if the President of the United States of America is being briefed about 'the Iranian threat' before he is delivering speeches on the issue. I do not believe that he was out of the loop on what's apparently the most important US foreign policy item today. No way. That's often being reported, but it's also most probably false. Bush is deeply involved on key issues. He is the decider, and means it.

The analysts of the agencies had to defend their findings against a hostile Whitehouse and Vice President's office. That at least went on for half a year. Which suggests something quite simple: Whitehouse and the Vice President's office didn't want to hear that Iran had no nukes because it is the cornerstone on which their policy to isolate Iran has been built. They relied on the allegations against Iran on the nuclear issue to sell their, uhm, confrontational policy to the US audience and US allies alike.

I do not think that neo-con claims that Iran would have nukes by end of 2008 merely coincided with Bush leaving office by end of 2008. What they most likely tried to do was to frame the issue to narrow down options to a false dual choice for the president to make him order the desired attack before leaving office: 'Mr. President, either we attack now, or Iran will have nukes and will try wipe Israel off the map! Will you leave that to your successor?' That's actually quite devious. And that wasn't lost on the realists in the administration, who are (rightly) convinced that by attacking Iran the US would commit a(nother) monumental strategic blunder.
The NIE findings undermine all that and allow for the first time in years to switch down the gears on Iran. When the US hawks now say: 'Sanctions!' their allies will say: 'Oh why, you yourself said that they aren't active on nukes so why the rush?'. Clever. And very sensible. I don't think the NIE was guided by the goal to achieve this. It represents reality, highlighting the neo-con approach as utterly unreasonable. That US intelligence is unwilling to determine and propose to confront real threats out of treasonous, liberal cowardice is a neo-con canard, and a quite defamatory one on top of that.

Which makes it all the more credible to me that the nuclear issue' is just a chosen and currently preferred selling point for the US administration. It'll be interesting to see if they find a surrogate, or to overcome the blow the NIE dealt their alarmist presentations. With the nuke issue apparently down, expect a future emphasis on Iranian meddling in Iraq (EFP's anyone?). If necessary, 'The Iranians are killing our boys in Iraq/ Afghanistan!' would make for a suitable fall-back option for a 'Tonking-esque incident'.

If Iraq is any indication it certainly isn't beyond the Whitehouse or the Vice President's office to pick up one particular issue, like nuclear proliferation, weapons of mass destruction, drum the beat to it, and instrumentalise it for their own ends, say, regime change. It appears hard to fathom for many Americans still caught in the belief that America can do no harm, but what I see in Washington at work are people itching for a fight with Iran, asap, who are going to considerable lengths to have it. As America is a democratic republic that involves misleading the (anyway) benighted masses to do the right thing, but to lead is the calling of the enlightened avant garde the neo-cons consider themselves to be. Clearly, to lie for a noble cause is a virtuous act. Reminds me of an old East-German communist song: '... the party, the party is always right ... because who fights for the right is always right...'

The Cheneyites don't think war is a bad thing, and want the confrontation with Iran, militarily, and they won't drop the issue only because of a setback like this treacherous NIE.

 

You underestimate the power of the PR machine. It's not a question of people being stupid; instead, it's a matter of people being told the same thing over and over enough times that they believe it regardless of evidence to the contrary. There are still many Americans who believe Iraq had WMD's when the US invaded.

 

Second and third thoughts on the NIE

After some well deserved relief, glee and heartfelt Schadenfreude (in that order) about Bush's babble looking so miserable after the NIE, my habitual distrust of anything Bush 43's crew cooks up gets the better of me. Something that looks too good to be true probably isn't. And indeed, there are a few things that have itched me right from the start, it was just that I was too relieved, gleeful and full of Schadenfreude to express it. Beyond the general rule to never trust these crooks out of principle, and to for good measure start with the opposite of what they say as a working hypothesis (worked perfectly well with my ex-bosses) there are reasons. So what looks to good to be true? First, the emerging lore that the intelligence community pulled a fast one on the Whitehouse and the Cheney crowd. Yes? It might be just the other way around. Second, it's the bit about that Iran's nuclear program that allegedly stopped in fall 2003.

So here's what I think:

1. Why now? After successfully stalling the NIE for at least ten months, they now release it? I don't for a minute believe that in the 'message control administration' the intelligence community, a part of the executive branch, just because, releases a NIE for the president? In an administration renowned for it's vindictiveness towards traitors? No way. If the intelligence community went rogue on this, the DNI Admiral McConnell would be out of his job already.
   What follows is that the administration chose to release the NIE, despite their well known dislike and resistance to it's content.
   .
2. Now that can't be all of it then. The NIE hurts the Bush policy towards Iran, and indeed, kudos to the intelligence folks to get that far. The Bushies are selfish, devious, deceptive and calculating bastards. They wouldn't willingly hurt themselves, unless if it were to prevent, or pre-empt, something worse.
   .
3. The one item in the NIE that struck me as weird or bold was the claim that Iran did have a secret nuclear program and stopped it in fall of 2003. The NIE reads on that that as follows, and now read carefully:
   What senior spinmeister 'Uranium from Niger'-Hadley made of it was this:
   That is quite a leap. The likely possibility for the spooks is the factual certainty for the kooks.
   .
4. What could be worse than the blow the NIE deals the Bushies on Iran? My hunch is that this might be the coming report by the IAEA on Iran. The question of an Iranian nuclear weapons program will be one of the items the coming IAEA report will address. Iran has indeed granted full access to the IAEA who are delighted about the degree of cooperation they receive.
   So let's for the record say that the Bushies have a rotten track record and the credibility of a three-card Monte, ugh, artist. I am rather confident the IAEA will report there is nothing to it. As for confirming sources, had Bushies anything else on Iran, they wouldn't keep it secret. They weren't shy about anything that made Iran look bad in the past, and if they could show up anything they would have already done it, and the NIE would prominently sport it. So that is probably all they have.
   From what one hears the IAEA too doesn't know what evidence the US intelligence agencies have that proves the Iranians had and then abandoned a weapons program. In the past US tips reliably have sent them to dead ends. So I'm most curious.
   .
5. I believe that what 'Uran from Niger'-Hadley makes of the NIE goes well beyond how far than the IAEA will go. The IAEA won't say there is nothing. The'll simply say we have not seen any evidence of it. Proving the negative is very difficult if at all possible. That will be particularly difficult or utterly impossible when, not if, indeed Iran does not have any military nuclear weapons program. EDIT: That means that Iran cannot exculpate itself. Which I think is just the point. The Bushies know all that, after all they're selfish, devious, deceptive and calculating bastards. What they try to do is obviously to frame Iran in the public perception as a threat./EDIT

That means that I can judge with high confidence that when the IAEA report comes out the Bushies will say that it is false. They will then refer to the NIE and, like Hadley already did, say that it 'proves' the 'fact' that the Iranians had a secret nuclear weapons program. They allowed the NIE to come out now, to be the first on this and stay on message, in the hope the first impression sticks. The IAEA report will then meet an already formed opinion.
They will then add that the IAEA missed Iran's nuclear program, and that they thus know nothing and are ineffective guardians of the NPT. Which will be a brazen insult and utter nonsense, but might suffice for the US audience.