New NIE Puts War Off The Table
The key findings of the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) as summarized in the New York Times take a chain saw to the case for military action against Iran for the foreseeable future. In addition to noting with “high confidence” that Iran is not currently working towards nuclear weapons and has not been since 2003, the NIE notes that even a renewed effort would put Iran many years away from nuclear weapons capability:
We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.
This alone destroys any reasonable justification for a military attack, which is probably why some on the far right are trying to discredit the report. Truth to be told, however, the NIE more likely indicates a controlling consensus within the workaday levels of the administration that an attack on Iran would be unwise.
Unwilling to accept victory at the cost of having to give up a key element of partisan bleating, however, many on the far left are casting about for ways to spin the report into an anti-Republican scandal. So far, there is the “let’s sandbag Huckabee” meme and the “Bush tried to suppress the report” meme. Both amount to little more than tired reiterations of misplaced priorities where partisans cling to their hatred of each other rather than engaging in the difficult business of trying to figure out what is actually going on in the world and how best to react to it.
Exceptions to this trend are moving toward the view that negotiation need not be seen as appeasement. At the point that even Robert Kagan begins to endorse diplomacy with Iran, it is evidence that the good news in the NIE may be just that: good news.
Other reactions include cautious optimism at Daniel Drezner, suspicion at Captain’s Quarters, the usual Chicken Little spin from Newshoggers, and, of course, Andy Borowitz’ satirical take.
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I like how Robert Baer put it: “for now we should at least be happy with the good news: Armageddon is postponed”
It’s not really a scandal for this President, because, given his record thus far, we shouldn’t expect him to ever be telling the truth.
Seriously though, it’s a problem if our President is going around hyping conflicts with other nations. We should be able to trust our President.
I think one thing that is often missed though, Chris, by those who accuse Bush of lying, is that they don’t understand (or choose not to) the Bush doctrine. When he talks about the threat or possible consequences of inaction, he’s generally quite careful in his wording. I even noted this on an MSNBC clip where the show’s host was making the case that there’s a credibility gap- he showed that Bush knew about the doubts last summer and then showed a clip where Bush was talking about preventing WWIII- but even in that clip the words that Bush used had nothing to do with Iran having the bomb now- he was saying that we can’t allow them to develop the capability to have a nuclear program later.
Of course lots of people can dissent with the Bush doctrine, with good reason. But to ignore that he’s always talking about incipient threats and not imminent ones is either foolish or dishonest.
So C Stanley, it depends on the definition of what “is” is…
No, Chris, it’s a matter of listening to the words the President actually says, not the words put into his mouth by reporters, Democrats, and other spinners.