The West Will Lose Unless the U.S. Pulls Itself Together
December 9, 2007 by Alexander
The NIE is not about intelligence or Iran. It is about the battle that has been waged by the State Department and intelligence world against President Bush ever since 9/11. As the New York Sun went on to observe:
…Iran has been enriching uranium, or nuclear fuel, for nearly two years despite two Security Council resolutions urging them to suspend. To believe the Mullahs have halted their nuclear weapons program, one has to believe that all of those spinning centrifuges in Natanz are to fuel power plants in a country that is the world’s third leading exporter of petroleum and natural gas.
That is precisely how Iran’s diplomats defend their enrichment. They spin their centrifuges in blatant violation of their prior agreements, but they say they are within their rights because they are pursuing alternative energy and not atomic bombs. The reactor in Natanz, they insist, is for peaceful purposes only. The document released yesterday buys into this line, but contains so much hedging that it will take months to sort out what the analysts are implying in the way of policy.
The proper way to read this report is through the lens of the long struggle the professional intelligence community has been waging against the elected civilian administration in Washington. They have opposed President Bush on nearly every major policy decision. They were against the Iraqi National Congress. They were against elections in Iraq. They were against I. Lewis Libby. They are against a tough line on Iran. One could call all this revenge of the bureaucrats… The bureaucrats may even think they are stopping another war.
It’s a dangerous game that may boomerang, making a war with Iran more likely. Our diplomats, after all, hoped to seal this month a deal to pass a third Security Council resolution against Iran. Already on Monday the Chinese delegation at Turtle Bay has started making noises about dropping their tepid support for such a document. Call it the Van Diepen Demarche, since the Chinese camarilla can boast that even America’s intelligence estimate concludes the mullahs shuttered their nuclear weapons program more than four years ago. [source]
As a result of the NIE, the world is now an even more dangerous place. Europe is dismayed. Israel is expressing confusion. Unless the US pulls itself together, this is the way the west loses. I won’t abandon hope, though.
