The American Intelligence Community has radically revised its estimate of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, or has it?
The new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), the most authoritative document produced by the American Intelligence Community, begins with a stark sentence: “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”
A previous NIE in 2005 drew the opposite conclusion, assessing with “high confidence” that Iran “currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure.”
The new NIE appears completely to contradict the old one. But one needs to read between the lines; what is striking about this new NIE are some of the uncertainties and ambiguities in which it is couched.
Let us consider some if its “key judgments.”
The NIE states with “high confidence” that until the fall of 2003, “Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons” before they came to a halt. But the NIE mentions this 2003 halt in the Iranian program with a curious phrase: “the halt lasted at least several years.”
What do those words mean? They appear to leave open the possibility that the halt itself has halted, and work on nuclear weapons has resumed.
Even more curiously, the NIE then notes that, because of “intelligence gaps,” the Department of Energy and the National Intelligence Council assess only with “moderate confidence” that the “halt to activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear-weapons program.”
What do those words mean? They plainly suggest, first of all, that the Intelligence Community’s understanding of Iranian nuclear-weapons activities is incomplete. They also make clear that two key component agencies of the Intelligence Community have serious doubts about whether the halt is a full or a partial halt. But the NIE then proceeds to downplay that possibility, stating quite categorically: “We assess with moderate confidence [that] Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.”
Without access to the underlying intelligence on which these back-and-forth assertions in this committee-produced document are founded, interpreting them involves groping in the dark. But the peculiar language, and the disclosure of dissenting views expressed by the Department of Energy and the National Intelligence Council, strongly hint that sharp internal divisions exist about the precise nature of the Iranian halt — if it is a halt at all.
Connecting the Dots, which has been highly critical of leaks of classified information, is left in the uncomfortable position of hoping for a leak of classified information that will resolve all the mysteries surrounding this new assessment of the Iranian nuclear program. Only one thing can be said with “high confidence” about this new NIE: when sharp divisions exist within the U.S. Intelligence Community, leaks are on the way.
There are times when Edward Luttwak can state the obvious with a pellucid clarity that eludes lesser minds,
Jenny, you really don’t know what you’re talking about. Obama has said he is going to talk to Hamas. I’m shocked you don’t read the Jerusalem Post:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231424905587&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Coconut Juice
The JP quotes The Guardian. The Guardian. Considering its sources, I’d rather hear from Joe The Plummer.
OOPS, make that “Joe The Plumber”
‘Hamas will claim a win no matter what happens.’
It will be very hard for them to claim a win if there are no Hamas terrorists left alive to go on CNN. Their ill founded regime seems to be on the verge of toppling permanently.
Claiming a win is only relevant if Hamas can convince the critical parties that it has won. Those parties include
1. Its rank and file members (without whom Hamas leaders would look silly)
2. The Palestinian general population, particularly in Gaza (which seems to think otherwise)
3. Iran and Syria, Hamas’ sponsors (who aren’t doing much heavy lifting right now)
4. The Israelis (who have a tendency to mope when victory doesn’t end at the Suez Canal).
Unless Israel kills or deports all the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, it will always, always, be doing battle with the indigenous people.
Israel Palestine 1947 to present
Andrew Sullivan posted this map, presumably to show how the Israelis are presuring Palestinians. Of course, what he leaves out is that Palestinians tried to destroy Israel in 1947 and 48, tried to do it again in 1967 (although Israel attacked first when it appeared the Nassar and Syrian armies were about to move), Egypt attacked in 1973. Some argue no settlements should have occurred in occupied Gaza, Jerusalem, Golan Heights, and the West Bank, but given the hostility of her neighbors, Israel has in fact been restrained.
The Jews ARE the indigenous people. They have returned.
Hey ALEJCARO:
Jews have been in the land of Israel continuously for over 3,500 years.
THEY are the indigenous people of the land.
Dissent to Andrew Sullivan’s Map History of Jews and Palestine:
Click on the map and you will see supposed quotes of Ben Gurion and others, saying rather nasty things about taking over land from the Palestinians and Arab. But are they true quotes?
A dissenter to Sullivan’s post writes:
Of greater concern, are the fabricated quotations appearing below the maps. I’ll limit myself to the first one: “We must expel Arabs and take their places.” Ephraim Karsh has shown that Ben Gurion actually wrote: “We do not wish, we do not need to expel Arabs and take their place.” Note that Karsh is criticizing Benny Morris, who cited Shabtai Teveth, the unattributed author of the work cited by Mr. Lahoud. In a more recent history, Morris has accepted the accuracy of Karsh’s translation. (See Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001.)
Israel and Hamas seem to agree on one thing .. no ceasefire.
You know, the great and creepy warlord’s career began when he moved on Medina.
And what did he find in Medina, Jewish people who resisted his claims to a unique position in salvation history.
For which resistance he killed them, enslaved them, reduced them. And took for personal usage whatever womenfolk he deemed appropriate.
Thus ab initio, islam and mohammadens have driven out Jews.
Palestinians talk about “ending the occupation.”
And I’m all for that.
So let’s END the “occupation” of Medina.
Let’s end the occupation of Constantinople, and let’s start it referring to it once more as Constantinople.
Let’s end their occupation of Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch, Ephesus. Let’s end their occupation of Anatolia.
What did John Foster Dulles term it? “Roll Back” baby.
“Unless Israel kills or deports all the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, it will always, always, be doing battle with the indigenous people.”
If that were true, then we should see the same situation in every land where an “indigenous people” have been displaced (and the Arabs, I add in passing, are not the “indigenous people” of Palestine in any case).
David Gelernter echoes Edward Luttwak’s “Give War a Chance” in the current issue of The Weekly Standard, when he says the Palestinians are no different from any other person or group that wants what it can’t have. The answer is not to try to negotiate what is not negotiable (the existence of Israel), but to tell the Palestinians to get over it and move on. This, they cannot do so long as the rest of the world keeps meddling in their cause, suggesting that maybe, just maybe, the CAN get what they want after all. Once the world turns its gaze to other things, the Palestinians will be forced to come to terms with their situation.
As Gelernter puts it, “At the Oracle of Delphi was a sign with the words ‘Know Thyself’. Right next to it should have been another with the words ‘Face Reality’.
“Let’s end the occupation of Constantinople, and let’s start it referring to it once more as Constantinople.”
It’s called something else?
“The Jews ARE the indigenous people. They have returned.”
crusades 2. include me out
Jennifer is dead on target with this posting. Israel’s objective now is not to terminate Hamas rocket attacks which. regardless of their numbers, have been remarkably ineffective. Hamas is essentially an organization of cowards, hiding in civilian clothes, doing their bomb making and rocket firing in highly populated areas, using faith- crazed men and women for suicide massacres, terrorizing Palestinian opponents with the knee-capping thuggery of the IRA, The IDF knows that Hamas will deliberately put civilians at risk, feed false photos and stories to the complicit western media, avoid open confrontation at all costs, depend on compassion on the Israeli’s part to entrap them. If captured they will claim the protection of he Geneva Convention,
Beyond the cessation of rockets, Israel will pursue Hamas relentlessly and highly targeted, because of its excellent intelligence within Gaza, thoroughly decimating its ranks, and humiliating it completely in the eyes of the Arab World. Any claim by Iran’s lackeys of a Win” will be laughed at by the rest of the world. This is, I am convinced, the real purpose of this “war” and will be the real victory for Israel. providing it with a few years of security that would never gain by witless appeasement of the unappeasable.
This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear.
Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read.
The original author of this email is said to be Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well known and well respected psychiatrist.
A German’s View on Islam:
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and
estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide
our attitude toward fanaticism. ‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed
the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the
Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew
it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost
everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.
We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of
peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion
may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and
meant to somehow diminish the spectra of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It
is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who
systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the
entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder or honor-kill. It
is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning
and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to
become suicide bombers. The hard quantifiable fact is that the peaceful
majority, the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just
wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million
people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.
China ‘s huge population was peaceful as well, but
Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan
murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the
systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet.
And, who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of
Rwandans were ‘peace loving’? History lessons are often incredibly simple and
blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our
enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find
that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians,
Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up
until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the
fanatics who threaten our way of life. Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious
and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the
problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that
thousands, world wide, read this and think about it, and send it on before it’s too late.