Pretty grim if there is no secret plan
David Horovitz describes the situation if there is no secret plan being acted out by Washington, but rather real, abrupt, and radical shifts of policy and / or tactics by the Bush administration on the 2002 Axis powers:
Ehud Olmert was notably expansive on pretty much every issue…Only on one issue did he clam up: his discussions with President Bush about the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program. He noted dryly that he and the president had been discussing this most critical of issues for a long time. He said vaguely that the latest conversations had been interesting. He emphatically did not repeat the assertion he frequently made until about a year ago — that he was confident Bush, one way or another, would ensure Iran did not attain nuclear weapons…
the reasons for his uncharacteristic restraint are now clear. On Monday, the US director of national intelligence released “key judgments” from an assessment backed by all 16 US spy agencies to the effect that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago and probably has not restarted it since. These startling findings, reversing an estimate two years ago that Iran was determined to develop nuclear weapons, were received and debated at the very top of the Bush administration two weeks ago, and plainly formed a centerpiece of the Bush-Olmert talks.
The fallout has been immense: delight in Iran, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been strengthened, his fiery defiance apparently vindicated; the immediate raising of new reservations against intensified sanctions on Iran from some of the already reluctant international players; an eruption of American criticism of Bush’s perceived exaggerated talk of the need to stop Iran or face World War III; a flood of expert analyses concluding that the report kills off any prospect of the Bush administration resorting to military intervention against Teheran in its final months; and open skepticism from Israel, where Defense Minister Ehud Barak has all but dismissed the best efforts of America’s intelligence agencies as plain wrong. No wonder Olmert preferred to stay out of Iranian territory when the Israeli press pack sought details last week.
We’re still confused. TIME quotes an Israeli cabinet member: “It looks like this ends the military option against Iran for now. Israel won’t attack alone. Iran’s facilities are too many and spread too far apart.” That would appear to be grim assessment, at least as far as Israel is concerned, if the current NIE is wrong, and the Iranian regime can be believed about their future plans for Israel.
On the other hand, there continue to be elements of this that are quite puzzling. An example is the characterization of Ehud Barak’s comments, this in the IHT:
“Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Israel’s own intelligence analysis indicates Iran has not stopped the program. ‘We cannot allow ourselves to rest just because of an intelligence report from the other side of the Earth, even if it is from our greatest friend,’ Barak said.”
It would appear fairer to put Barak’s carefully phrased comment in a differrent category, more like a non-denial denial. He did not say that Iran had not stopped its program, but something more opaque. The more we peer through this looking glass, the less clear the picture.
UPDATE
The WSJ states pretty clearly the grim side of this issue:
President Bush has been scrambling to rescue his Iran policy after this week’s intelligence switcheroo, but the fact that the White House has had to spin so furiously is a sign of how badly it has bungled this episode. In sum, Mr. Bush and his staff have allowed the intelligence bureaucracy to frame a new judgment in a way that has undermined four years of U.S. effort to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
This kind of national security mismanagement has bedeviled the Bush Presidency. Recall the internal disputes over post-invasion Iraq, the smearing of Ahmad Chalabi by the State Department and CIA, hanging Scooter Libby out to dry after bungling the response to Joseph Wilson’s bogus accusations, and so on. Mr. Bush has too often failed to settle internal disputes and enforce the results.
What’s amazing in this case is how the White House has allowed intelligence analysts to drive policy. The very first sentence of this week’s national intelligence estimate (NIE) is written in a way that damages U.S. diplomacy: “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” Only in a footnote below does the NIE say that this definition of “nuclear weapons program” does “not mean Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.”
In fact, the main reason to be concerned about Iran is that we can’t trust this distinction between civilian and military. That distinction is real in a country like Japan. But we know Iran lied about its secret military efforts until it was discovered in 2003, and Iran continues to enrich uranium on an industrial scale, with 3,000 centrifuges, in defiance of binding U.N. resolutions. There is no civilian purpose for such enrichment. Iran has access to all the fuel it needs for civilian nuclear power from Russia at the plant in Bushehr. The NIE buries the potential danger from this enrichment, even though this enrichment has been the main focus of U.S. diplomacy against Iran.
In this regard, it’s hilarious to see the left and some in the media accuse Mr. Bush once again of distorting intelligence. The truth is the opposite. The White House was presented with this new estimate only weeks ago, and no doubt concluded it had little choice but to accept and release it however much its policy makers disagreed. Had it done otherwise, the finding would have been leaked and the Administration would have been assailed for “politicizing” intelligence. The result is that we now have NIE judgments substituting for policy in a dangerous way.
“the White House has allowed intelligence analysts to drive policy.” If that is indeed true, it is an argument for firing them all, the intelligence analysts and the those in the White House too.
December 8th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
I was hoping that Jack’s speculation about method in the badness was correct. That’s still conceivable, but the likelihood is dropping.
**************
Suppose the White House makes a disconcerting decision. Upon reflection, do I conclude that:
1.) The President has more information than I do, and he deserves the benefit of the doubt. More than that, a wartime commander-in-chief deserves support.
2.) Bush rationalizes his mental laziness as spirituality, and this has paved his way to gross incompetence.
My choice in 2001 was usually #1. By 2004 it was almost always #2.
December 9th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Bush failed to clean house after 9-11. He put up with every sort of subversion within the administration without response. He allowed critical policy matters to be leaked without punishment, while Wilson and Plame ravaged war-time assessments and policies. His conduct of the war, and leadership of war-time America, has been abysmal.
The worst of it is, in the beginning he laid out the proper basis for the war, for those with whom we are at war, and the main raison d’tre, all of which were valid. He has now discredited the valid reasons for self-defense of the nation.
I admit, many besides myself smelled the first whiff of the rancid contradictions that have brought us into greater danger than before. “Religion of peace” pretty much says it all.
So much for the marriage of faith and pragmatism. Don’t work.
December 21st, 2007 at 1:09 pm
On a related note (HT: Instapundit and National Review):
According to the JPost Pasionara–caveat lector! although her current column is plausible, she often gets carried away–, the Israelis have their own problems:
This brings to mind the Internet rumor that during the overthrow of the Taliban, a Predator-drone operator had Mullah Omar targeted, but the commander (Franks?) insisted on checking with a military lawyer before giving permission to fire. By the time the lawyer okayed the attack, Omar was gone.