Now Iran is suddenly nice?
I’m a little perplexed by what the recent US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) has to say about Iran.
If Iran stopped its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, why did the NIE of 2005 say it was actively pursuing one? Which was right? Who is the contradictor in chief (to quote Eric over at Classical Values, who has plenty more good questions and links on the subject)?
If Iran is not actively pursuing a weapons programme, why has it been so stubbornly secretive? Why is it acting just about as guilty as Saddam Hussein did about WMDs? And if Bush is so adamant on going to war with Iran, why did this NIE get declassified? Surely the evil genius has learnt to plot a little more elegantly than that? Or is this another example of the intelligence covering its backside after its previous failures? Are they saying, “Next time we’re wrong, we’re damn well going to err on the side of underestimating enemy capabilities”?
Why are the Israelis, who’d be first on the “let’s test our little toys” list, not breathing a sigh of relief?
Why, when the media has surely learnt to distrust everything the intelligence community ever said about Iraq’s weapons, suddenly turn around and splash this across the front pages as vindication of Iran and indictment of the warmonger in chief?
Herbert E. Meyer asks the really pertinent question: how do we know that the 2005 NIE was wrong and this one is right, rather than vice versa?
I, for one, am not so easily convinced. We’ve seen Mahmoud Ahmademocrat’s comedy show at Columbia University, in which he said there were no gays in Iran, and whether the Holocaust was really that bad remains a matter for further historical research. He doesn’t exactly inspire trust.
We’ve heard how he defied the UN’s International Atomic Energy inspectors, breaking seals and barring entry to Natanz. These aren’t the only ways in which Iran is failing to comply with the obligations the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty places on signatories who wish to pursue a peaceful, civilian nuclear power programme.
That same watchdog body, which can hardly be accused of warmongering or a pro-US stance, just last month said Iran is within a year of producing nuclear weapons.
So who’s right? And what’s the prize for being wrong?
Why is it acting just about as guilty as Saddam Hussein did about WMDs?
That perception of guilt is/was an entirely Western construct.
It’s easy to create bias if you’re a half decent report. You imply, you use words like ’seems’.
The USA is trying to find a premise to go to war with iran as it did with Iraq. They want their own people to have enough fear of Iran that an outright attack will seem prudet and necessary. Your assertions are based on believing the premise, not objectively looking at whether there was a program are not. It’s Iraq all over again. And people believe what they want to believe, particularly good vs evil stereotypes.
It is acting just as guilty because Saddam Hussein was equally obstructionist to IAEA inspections. Moreover, Iran is in breach of public commitments it made in this regard when it signed the NNPT. Repeated and unrepentant violations of agreements that you voluntarily entered into, agreements explicitly intended to assure signatories that their counterparty’s nuclear programmes are safe, non-proliferating and within agreed limits, is “acting guilty” in my book. And if that’s a “purely Western construct,” then I’m not interested in the “impure Eastern construct” of guilt.
If the USA wanted a premise to go to war with Iran, it could use the multiple acts of war Iran has committed against US personnel in Iraq. Combined with the public threats by Iran to wipe a US ally off the map, those are more than sufficient legal justification for war. Same argument goes for Iraq. There was plenty legal basis for a war against Iraq, on grounds of breach of its ceasefire undertakings, long before the spectre of chemical weapons programmes re-emerged and added weight to the case. The US wasn’t looking for an excuse, and didn’t need one.
I just asked what intelligence I can believe about Iran, when the US contradicts its own reports, and contradicts the statements by the UN’s nuclear watchdog. I just asked whether I can believe Iran’s own assertions. Yet you accuse me of failing to look objectively at whether there was a program or not? That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.
You’re the one who seems to have made up your mind about the narrative here: US evil. US warmonger. Iran innocent. Guilt is just a “Western construct”.
When you’re dismissing any attempts to distinguish between good and evil as mere stereotyping, while you hew to the classicly stereotypical anti-American line, then perhaps you should consider whether your worldview isn’t dangerously simplistic and naive, not to mention wrongheaded and dangerous.
I think the secrecy is for the same reason that Saddam Hussein kept playing cat and mouse with arms inspectors - despite the fact that no WMD were found after the Iraq war.
In both cases, the country concerned has been involved in a delicate balancing act - to ward of its murderous neighbours in the Middle East by convincing them that it has devastating weapons - and to convince an aggressive United States that it does not.
Saddam Hussein got this game wrong.
John Bolton has some good points on the NIE in the Washington Post. Last 2 paragraphs are good.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/05/AR2007120502234_pf.html
Whatever the case may be, this effectively neuters the US’s ability to apply significant pressure to Iran. The idea that Iran is really pursuing a peaceful nuclear program, that Bush was just saber-rattling and that there’s no cause for alarm will take serious hold and a lot of the momentum behind the pressure on Iran is going to fall away.
But this is hardly a good thing. What most people seemingly haven’t noticed is that even though the NIE claims that Iran’s nuclear weapons program has ended, Tehran’s uranium enrichment program continues at an ever-increasing rate, steadily providing sufficient HEU for use whenever the regime does decide to resume its nuclear weapons program.
In the meantime, the Israelis, the British intelligence services and even officials in the IAEA remain unconvinced and are dismayed at the NIE’s summary, with the Brits claiming that the CIA and others were misled by Iranian counter-intelligence.
Needless to say, this story is not over. The Iranian leadership is just as committed to nuclear weapons as it was in 2003 and given the chance they’ll take it. The last thing we can afford is to be lulled into a false sense of security by intelligence service assessments that were wrong about this the last time too.
For me, the most telling fact is that even the IAEA, which has always raised significantly less alarm and has always been a voice for diplomacy, isn’t convinced by the latest NIE. It’s been left to the right of the US on Iran’s nuclear weapons programme — a circumstance I’d have given you very good odds on only a week ago.
You said:
‘Repeated and unrepentant violations of agreements that you voluntarily entered into, agreements explicitly intended to assure signatories that their counterparty’s nuclear programmes are safe, non-proliferating and within agreed limits, is “acting guilty” in my book. And if that’s a “purely Western construct,” then I’m not interested in the “impure Eastern construct” of guilt.’
If you really want to point fingers in this regard, there’s a country that does everything you’ve railed against in the above paragraph. That country is commonly called the USA, but perhaps you also follow their policy of exclusionism, and don’t see their own flagrant disregard for international law as a bad thing?
If you’re asking whether I think the two countries are comparable, or morally equivalent, no I do not.
Perhaps you’d like to list the willful NNPT violations of which you claim the US is guilty, so I know what we’re discussing. I’d be happy to examine them in detail. If your allegations turn out to be true, well, South Africa has a seat on the UN Security Council, so I’m sure we could arrange the necessary diplomatic action to stop them in their tracks.
Unless you prefer a pre-emptive military strike. That’d be fun. We just bought three subs, two of which have drivers (you could pilot the other one) and four armed fishing vessels. I’ll blog about it, for sure.