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| The NIE on Iran: "I love it when a plan comes together" |
| 2007-12-12 |
| Lisa Schiffren, National Review While last week's NIE absolving Iran of intent to build nuclear weapons any time soon may be a policy disaster — let's say it is — it has had a fascinating political effect. Never have I seen a more effective ploy by a generally far right, hawkish administration to flush out secret fellow hawks. It's one thing to have the Israel's intelligency or Norman Podhoretz, lambaste you for being soft on Iran. It's quite another thing to learn that all of Western Europe (world class free riders on American expenditures of political capital and cash for the collective defense of the West) is horrified at what seems like willful blindness. Not to mention the way this NIE has ferreted out "let's make a deal" policy types like Doug Ross, whose realistic analysis on this particular issue is way stronger than his usual attempts to bring various Arab terror groups to the party. Should this President or the next need to reverse course and reclassify, or even attact Iran for its nuclear development — it turns out that there will be worldwide support. Way to float a trial balloon, guys. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #3 YNETNEWS > SARKOZY - WAR WITH IRAN STILL POSSIBLE. The danger for war "still exists" - Sark argues that everyone knows that Iran's nucprog decisions has no civilian explanation [save for dev bombs], and that the only issue/questionne' is whether Iran will have [read - be allowed]NUCLEAR/ NUKE MILITARY CAPABILITY IN ONE YEAR OR FIVE YEARS. Compare wid GUAM PDN OP-ED > IRAN: FIVE MYTHS ABOUT THE BOMB AND US; + TOPIX > RUSSIA WARNS IRAN, NORTH KOREA TO COME CLEAN ON NUCLEAR PROGRAMS/INTENTIONS. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-12-12 20:47 |
| #2 Interesting thesis: everyone in freedom's camp is acting like teenagers until the sole adult and breadwinner shows up with a nose ring and dressed to show butt crack. Then see who suddenly becomes the adult in the house. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2007-12-12 20:44 |
| #1 From Dennis Ross, in The New Republic: I don't question the assumptions or analysis in the NIE, or for that matter, its main conclusion. I accept that the Iranians suspended their covert nuclear weapons program in 2003. But I am afraid that misses the point. Weaponizing is not the issue, developing fissionable materials is. Because compared with producing fissionable material, which makes up the core of nuclear bombs, weaponizing it is neither particularly difficult nor expensive. In other words, the hard part of becoming a nuclear power is enriching uranium or separating out plutonium. And guess what? Iran is going full-speed ahead on both. With over 3,300 operating centrifuges for spinning uranium gases at its facility at Natanz (and more centrifuges on the way) and the building of a heavy water plant for plutonium separation at Arak, the Iranians will be able to master both by 2010 at the latest. Perhaps that's why, in 2005, former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani told a visiting group of American experts, including George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment, that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons research. According to Perkovich, Rafsanjani said: "Look, as long as we can enrich uranium and master the fuel cycle, we don't need anything else. Our neighbors will be able to draw the proper conclusions." Two things jump out at me: President Bush is a really good p0ker player, and the NIE revelation was publicly announced by the real ruler of Iran in 2005. The CIA seem to be a bit excited just now about things that happened in 2005 -- that's when the tapes whose destruction turns out to have been approved by their legal department were destroyed, about which we heard so much indignation a few days ago. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-12-12 14:14 |