Why Iran?

[Irvine511]

nevermind.

 

[Irvine511]

As much as Bush might be an idiot, and as sad as it is that he will get off of what he has done that easily, no, he didn't slaughter millions of people brutally, installed "killing fields", or did anything nearly that awful.
Guantanamo, the torture employed or the wars waged are far from making him the "worst dictator ever", and I'm sure you don't want him to go that far only to appoint him that title.

Worst American President might fit, but dictator really is far off.


You really think Al Quaeda started this whole crap because the guy in power was Bush?
They would have attacked on 9/11 even if it was Gore. Bush is doing a good job recruiting new terrorists for Al Quaeda, but it's not Bush why they have attacked, or might attack again. It's the Western way of living and their insane vision of having the world under their powers that's giving them wet dreams.
You can do what you want, Al Quaeda will always justify their massacres.

But you need an administration that is really trying to do something about it, not driving more people into joining that organisation.

very good post.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

The worst thing would be that people will actually respect him in the future like we respect, say, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, etc.

I certainly won't. I'll think of these past 8 years as a time when a really crappy administration was in power, and I'll mention this to anybody down the line who thinks Bush was a good president. I fully agree, we should not forget the many screwups of this administration-if anything, we desperately need to learn from their mistakes so we can avoid making them again in the future. That said, I'm personally not going to go so far as to call Bush a dictator and equate him to Hitler. They aren't the same, sorry.

And honestly, Bush himself, I just think he's not that bright. He doesn't really scare me. It's the people AROUND him that I find most terrifying. I think they've been the ones who have really been running things these past few years-Bush may be the president, but I get the feeling he's the one doing what people around him tell him to do, not the other way around.

kellyahern, LOL, no kidding, I've found myself in agreement with Robertson on our current foreign policy as well...it's bizarre.

Angela

 

[yolland]

Plan that Tehran first floated in 2005 could satisfy all sides

By Bennett Ramberg
Christian Science Monitor, December 6 (Opinion)

How do you say "sorry" in Farsi? That's the question the White House may need to answer in the wake of this week's stunning reversal of official US opinion about Iran's nuclear ambitions. But now that US intelligence believes Iran halted its nuclear arms effort in 2003, Bush administration hawks must do more than wipe the egg off their faces. They must still find a way to resolve the remaining impasse over uranium enrichment.

The bad news? The current course of ratcheted-up sanctions won't work. The good news? There is a practical plan available that all sides could find acceptable. The surprising source for this plan is Iran. In 2005 and 2006, Tehran called for "international partnerships" and "joint ownership" of fuel-cycle facilities that would allow complete transparency through co-management of enrichment plants. Reluctant to legitimize Tehran's enrichment foothold, the US ignored the overture. But, unable to get support from China and Russia for more economic penalties, Washington today doesn't have any practical alternative.

Such a plan is critical, because danger persists, despite the headlines from the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate. This year's NIE does indeed reverse the NIE's 2005 finding "that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons." The new conclusion: Iran's "halt" of its dedicated nuclear weapons program began in fall 2003. The report gives a subtle boost to the Bush administration: Tehran "was halted primarily in response to [undefined] international pressure." Since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) struggled with Iran in 2003 to come clean about its nuclear activities, Washington's invasion of Iraq arguably scared the Mullahs into stopping their weapons work, much as the Iraq war also frightened Libya to give up its bomb making program. Looking forward, however, the US intelligence community concedes that "we do not know whether it [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons." The estimators warn that Tehran will continue to expand the number of enrichment centrifuges. Today, Iran operates 3000 machines despite "significant technical problems." In time, it proposes to have 50,000 which, un-tethered, will provide it with the option to go nuclear.

Recognizing this, the West spent some five years attempting to induce the Mullahs to end the enterprise. Initially, the European Community offered carrots--access to nuclear reactor assistance, better diplomatic relations, and expanded commerce. Iran toyed with the Europeans, suspending enrichment only to resume arguing that it had the "unalienable" right to peaceful nuclear technology under the nonproliferation treaty. That the enrichment plan made no economic sense--Iran still does not have even one operating nuclear power plant--was beside the point.

So, what can the West do now? The latest intelligence suggests that Iran poses no imminent threat, so the military option to stop the centrifuges is probably off the table. This leaves two traditional alternatives: Accept Tehran's peaceful nuclear claims or exact more onerous economic sanctions. The first approach--acceptance--is not acceptable. Tehran has persistently and wrongly denied that it has violated international safeguards. According to the IAEA's November report, it still fails to provide "credible assurances" that it does not have secret nuclear activities. Because "knowledge about Iran's current nuclear program is diminishing," the West has little confidence that it can allow the Mullahs to continue enrichment with its proliferation portent.

Can sanctions bring enrichment to a halt? Not so far, and the NIE will make the challenge to mobilize countries to oppose the program more difficult. The Security Council's December 2006 restraints on international fuel cycle assistance made little difference. Penalties endorsed by the Council in March 2007--expansion of the list of frozen Iranian assets, a call for "vigilance and restraint" in the sale of heavy weapons to Iran, and avoidance of new grants, financial assistance, or concessional loans--failed again. And new and proposed actions--suspension of bank lending and technology--appear unlikely to move a regime that has broad popular support for civil nuclear energy.

This leaves Tehran's nuclear tethering proposal. Fleshed out, the "international joint ownership" and "international partnerships" Tehran advocated would include co-decisionmaking and facility access that assures Iran's nuclear fuel cycle remains on the straight and narrow to avoid a weapons breakout. A new door would open to resolve the enrichment impasse if two things happened. First, tethering must be linked to Iran's promised ratification and implementation of the Additional Protocol, allowing inspectors unimpeded visits to all suspicious nuclear enterprises. Second, it must be tied further to Security Council adoption of automatic onerous punitive measures to combat cheating--a military blockade of the country, for example.

Those who would oppose this strategy by claiming that it would enhance Iran's weapons breakout capacity ought to acknowledge that today's untethered program poses the greater risk. Tethering offers a practical means to ensure that Iran does not reverse its 2003 decision. In the process, it can assure that the apology Iran demands remains warranted.



Bennett Ramberg served in the State Department during President George H.W. Bush's term. He is the author of three books on international security.

 

[yolland]

From an interview today in Salon with Flynt Leverett, former senior director for Middle East affairs on Bush's National Security Council, State Department counterterrorism policy planner, and CIA senior analyst.

The revelation this week of the latest National Intelligence Estimate, concluding that Iran halted its covert nuclear weapons program in 2003, upended a long-running rhetorical campaign by the president and vice president. Just six weeks prior, in a signature tag-team offensive in late October, Bush had worried out loud about a nuclear-armed Iran setting off "World War III," while Cheney warned in a speech that America "cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions" to acquire nuclear weapons and lord over the Middle East. But the president knew the thrust of the NIE's conclusions about a nuke-less Iran at least as early as last August, according to Flynt Leverett, a top Middle East expert and former senior director on Bush's National Security Council...He spoke by phone from Washington.
.................................................................................
Why do you think the NIE report was made public now?

Because the intelligence leadership made a judgment that basically for their own protection they needed to make it public. The letter put out by the deputy director of national intelligence with the report said that because the 2005 NIE had been cited on the record by so many people as a benchmark for U.S. understanding of Iran's progress with its nuclear program, intelligence community leaders wanted to make sure there was a very clear presentation of current views. I suspect they were the ones who really insisted on this. They were deciding to do it for their own sake and credibility...National Intelligence Estimates take a long, long time to put out, and this one took longer than it was originally projected to take, by a considerable margin. I think part of that was that it was difficult to reach a consensus. I think part of it was a certain amount of political pressure to come to a certain conclusion--

You mean political pressure to make the case for going after Iran?

Yeah, exactly. And in 2005, the intelligence community succumbed to that pressure--hook, line and sinker. This time, you had some different people in charge of the process, and some of the pressures from 2005--you had Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon then--were no longer there, although I think there was still some pressure applied. And after a certain point, they did have this new information turn up, that the Iranian military had suspended parts of its program in 2003. They apparently briefed this to the president in August. And between August and now, they've essentially been going over it and figuring out how to take account of it in the NIE. It doesn't surprise me that it took them from August till now to go through that--it's a glacially slow process.

But the president has suggested this week that he only learned of the NIE's conclusions very recently. If in August they had the essential conclusion and were briefing the White House, what does that say about some of the rhetoric we heard after that, in the fall?

Oh, I think the president knew this was coming, and I think he was deliberately shifting his rhetoric on the issue to redefine the problem. Up until the fall, Bush's rhetoric literally for years had been that it's unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. All of a sudden, that shifts to it being unacceptable for Iran to have the knowledge of how to build a nuclear weapon. I think they were trying to redefine the problem with the idea that they could kind of blunt the impact of the NIE by doing this. I think they miscalculated. The NIE has had an enormous impact on the public debate--particularly the decision to release the multipage document publicly, as opposed to just leaking [some details of] it. The White House miscalculated its ability to manage this. It has definitely made it more difficult for hard-liners like Cheney to make the case now for going down the military road.

Right, a number of people have said that this takes the military option off the table. Do you think that's the case?

I'm not so sure it takes the military option off the table. What were going to see over the next weeks if not months is a kind of battle of intelligence estimates. The hard-liners in the administration are going to keep leaking all kinds of things that were "wrong" with this NIE--why the source wasn't good, why the intelligence wasn't good, why there is still a serious threat. The Israelis have already come out publicly, at the level of the defense minister, Ehud Barak, and said they flat-out disagree with the estimate. I think you're going to have Israel, and friends of Israel here, including the Cheney camp inside the administration, pushing to discredit the NIE in various ways. In other words, we'll see a battle going on over who really gets to define the intelligence assessment on which the president will make his decisions. Is it going to be the U.S. intelligence community? Or will it be some other set of actors who define it?

Iran has been notoriously opaque to U.S. intelligence over the years, and I think these developments raise some familiar questions. How good is our intel on Iran? And aren't we dealing with another pretty powerful contradiction here in terms of the latest assessment?

The contradiction is very powerful! You know, I have to say that I continue to believe that attacking Iran would be a disaster for the U.S. position in the region, and so far as this NIE makes it harder to justify doing so, I think that's a good thing. But the fact of the matter is that over the last two years, the U.S. intelligence community has been all over the map on this issue. And they've been colossally wrong on WMD issues in the past. So why should we put a high degree of confidence in any judgment they come to? Who knows if this reporting is really any good? Not only will the hawkish elements use that to try to discredit it and knock it down, they'll also say that even if the estimate is right, it doesn't matter. They'll say--as Patrick Clawson already has written for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy [where Cheney gave his speech in October]--this estimate doesn't change by one day our understanding of when Iran will actually get a nuclear weapon. The argument will be, "Even if everything in that estimate is correct, Iran is still a big problem."

What impact will all this have on the politics of the 2008 presidential race?

On the Republican side, I don't see it having that much of an impact. The Republicans have all staked out pretty extreme positions on Iran and I don't really see them backpedaling. But on the Democratic side it potentially gets very interesting. Barack Obama could really make an argument that Hillary Clinton's vote for the resolution naming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization was basically a vote for Bush's policy--and was based on an assessment that we now know was wrong about the nature of the threat. And just like it was wrong for her to vote for the Iraq resolution and that showed bad judgment on her part, this showed the same kind of bad judgment--and gee, wouldn't you like to have a president who got these things right the first time around? Obama is going to have to make the case for what this demonstrates about her, and I don't know if in the end he really has the guts to do that, but this could potentially affect the race.

What about national security more broadly in the campaign? It certainly seemed Iran was going to be a key issue going into next year.

Yeah, and I definitely think that for someone like Rudy Giuliani, if he were to become the nominee for his party he would want to make this a campaign about national security and about who's going to be more effective dealing with Iran. Depending on how the debate plays out during the next few months over what's really going on with Iran, he may still be able to do that. But it could also become harder for him to run that kind of campaign.

Could the NIE findings cause a significant change in the Bush administration's approach to Iran?

I don't think so--they're saying Iran is still a danger and they're going to stick to that. They're not going to say, "Oh, well we better get serious about diplomacy now."

But at least in terms of what the world now knows, doesn't this create more of an imperative for diplomatic engagement?

The issue in the end is: If the United States wanted to get serious about diplomacy and put a real offer on the table for Iran with security guarantees and all those things, the Europeans would be right there with us, and China and Russia would be right there with us. The problem standing in the way at this point is U.S. policy. This estimate is not going to change that.

 

[Infinity]

As much as Bush might be an idiot, and as sad as it is that he will get off of what he has done that easily, no, he didn't slaughter millions of people brutally, installed "killing fields", or did anything nearly that awful.
Guantanamo, the torture employed or the wars waged are far from making him the "worst dictator ever", and I'm sure you don't want him to go that far only to appoint him that title.

Worst American President might fit, but dictator really is far off.


You really think Al Quaeda started this whole crap because the guy in power was Bush?
They would have attacked on 9/11 even if it was Gore. Bush is doing a good job recruiting new terrorists for Al Quaeda, but it's not Bush why they have attacked, or might attack again. It's the Western way of living and their insane vision of having the world under their powers that's giving them wet dreams.
You can do what you want, Al Quaeda will always justify their massacres.

But you need an administration that is really trying to do something about it, not driving more people into joining that organisation.

You're right, I don't want him to go that far just to appoint him that title. My point was that I hope that in the future he will have a very bad name. And that he will stand out in history as horrible horrible leader and person.

I didn't say we were attacked because the guy in power is Bush. I say that we got attacked because of our policies of policing the world and Bush is only making it much worse during his term and i'm sure that many more people are willing to attack us now then before Bush came into the White House. If we didn't put our nose into everyone else's business, then we wouldn't be in this mess.

 

[melon]

If we want to talk about who has no place in the 21st century then clearly we have to start with the Saudis and that is precisely where our hypocrisy and self-interests become most apparent. In light of how that country is treated by the west, and particularly how it is hailed by the US government, any other stand we take is maybe not entirely empty, but pretty damn close.

Saudi Arabia, in particular, is a difficult country to address. For one, they have the "oil card"; they are the only member of OPEC that has the capacity to raise oil production substantially beyond what they already generate. And, like it or not, our entire global economy depends on that spigot running reliably right now.

Secondly, even with the "oil card," Saudi Arabia is so filthy rich that they have trillions in investments, particularly in relation to the United States. The largest individual shareholder in Citigroup, for instance, is Prince Al-Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud--that is, part of the Saudi royal family.

In short, taking a sudden turn against Saudi Arabia is economically and politically impossible. Even then, though, targeting Saudi Arabia directly does not address the fact that the entirety of the Muslim world does not especially have a tradition of secular democracy, so if you're dealing with a nation that literally says that its constitution is "the Koran," you're probably not going to have too much luck changing Saudi Arabia before changing other nations in the region.

A reasonable step, one that was undertaken in Europe in the 18th century, was the idea of "Enlightened absolutism," which is summed up perfectly by Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II as "everything for the people, nothing by the people." Certainly, it might be more of a method to consolidate one's power, rather than a furtherance of democracy, but a lot of these nations are in little shape to suddenly start having truly free and fair elections; and, in the end, if a true Enlightened monarch instituted nationwide education, individual freedoms, and minority tolerance, then there's a good chance that the now-educated populace will chuck their monarchy in the end anyway.

That is, essentially, what happened to Iran, but, as you can see, since the Muslim world is not accustomed to Western democracy, they chucked their despot for another form of theocratic despotism that's probably more difficult to overthrow. And I imagine that that's what would happen in Saudi Arabia if the Saudi royal family was destroyed tomorrow. There's no point in democracy if the populace elects a dictator. So what we need to be doing is probably trying to influence our Middle Eastern totalitarian governments to something more towards "Enlightened absolutism" in the interim. We have to build the foundation before we can erect the house.

 

[Diemen]

Well, that's the opinion of a Washington Post article. The way I understand it, Bush was told several months ago that new information might lead to a reassessment of some type, but that the final report was only just approved and received by the White House last week.

My hope would be that when a president hears that there is new information that might lead to a reassessment, he puts a hold on his current rhetoric until that information is presented, so that (in the event that he isn't knowingly lying to the American public) he doesn't look like a fool by shooting his mouth off while contradictory intelligence is being sorted out.

 

[INDY500]

My hope would be that when a president hears that there is new information that might lead to a reassessment, he puts a hold on his current rhetoric until that information is presented, so that (in the event that he isn't knowingly lying to the American public) he doesn't look like a fool by shooting his mouth off while contradictory intelligence is being sorted out.

As you state it, I agree.

 

[anitram]

A reasonable step, one that was undertaken in Europe in the 18th century, was the idea of "Enlightened absolutism," which is summed up perfectly by Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II as "everything for the people, nothing by the people." Certainly, it might be more of a method to consolidate one's power, rather than a furtherance of democracy, but a lot of these nations are in little shape to suddenly start having truly free and fair elections; and, in the end, if a true Enlightened monarch instituted nationwide education, individual freedoms, and minority tolerance, then there's a good chance that the now-educated populace will chuck their monarchy in the end anyway.

Except that even in the 18th century in Europe, there was not a virulent anti-secular education feeling that existed. This is the crux of the problem - even if you had such a person in each of the little nations you speak of, it is highly unlikely that they could promote institutionalized secularism and that is ultimately the primary problem across the Middle East. There are enough factions who don't want this, and the population at large is adequately suspicious because they equate secularism with Western thought (and by proxy, the exercise of Western hegemony).

While it sounds like a nice plan in theory, I really don't see that it could succeed longterm.

 

[Vincent Vega]

You're right, I don't want him to go that far just to appoint him that title. My point was that I hope that in the future he will have a very bad name. And that he will stand out in history as horrible horrible leader and person.

I didn't say we were attacked because the guy in power is Bush. I say that we got attacked because of our policies of policing the world and Bush is only making it much worse during his term and i'm sure that many more people are willing to attack us now then before Bush came into the White House. If we didn't put our nose into everyone else's business, then we wouldn't be in this mess.

Yes, and chances are good that he will be remembered as a poor President who didn't do much besides going to war in two countries, and that he might be ranked as the worse President in American history.

I agreed in my last post, he probably did a "good" job in recruiting more opponents for Al Quaeda, and certainly helped them gain power instead of weakening them.
Of course American, and to a smaller extent European, policies are part of why Bin Laden and his ilk are fighting the West, though he seriously wouldn't care that the American public doesn't stand behind Bush's policies anymore. He added fuel to the fire, but this fire is burning nevertheless who is running the country.

 

[MadelynIris]

The most important part of this story, is that the US intelligence community has declared it's independence again! As it was before, and should have been all along.

And in a weird way, we have to credit Bush, for getting rid of all of political appointees running the agencies, and replacing with established, career intelligence and military officers.

 

[phillyfan26]

No, I think we have to credit the intelligence agencies for not sucking up to him again. I don't see how Bush deserves any credit for this.

 

[melon]

Except that even in the 18th century in Europe, there was not a virulent anti-secular education feeling that existed. This is the crux of the problem - even if you had such a person in each of the little nations you speak of, it is highly unlikely that they could promote institutionalized secularism and that is ultimately the primary problem across the Middle East. There are enough factions who don't want this, and the population at large is adequately suspicious because they equate secularism with Western thought (and by proxy, the exercise of Western hegemony).

While it sounds like a nice plan in theory, I really don't see that it could succeed longterm.

I don't necessarily think that this has to be the case. After all, Europe imported "Western Civilization" through Islam via Al-Andalus, the Mu'tazilah, and Averroës. Additionally, since the Muslim world tends to be prone to romanticism about their status in the Middle Ages, an appeal to this sense of reason might work.

It should also be noted that "Enlightened absolutism" has already found appeal in the Middle East in the past. In fact, it is believed that Iran's "Islamic Republic" was based on the concept through Ayatollah Khomeini's beliefs. That's why he instituted the position of the "Supreme Leader." It's also been stated that the Sultan of Oman today generally fits this classical definition without actually using the term. So I do think that the appeal is there. We would just have to use diplomacy to make sure that it is done properly.

But I do agree that it will be a major challenge in any way you look at it.

 

[Irvine511]

And in a weird way, we have to credit Bush, for getting rid of all of political appointees running the agencies, and replacing with established, career intelligence and military officers.

credit Bush, or credit the sea change of the 2006 election?

 

[INDY500]

I tuned in to Countdown with Keith Olbermann for his Special Comment because they are indeed "special" and I wasn't letdown last night.

OLBERMANN: Finally, as promised, a special comment about the president‘s cataclysmic deceptions about Iran. There are a few choices more terrifying than the one Mr. Bush has left us with tonight. We have either a president who was too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War III about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic irresponsible hyperbole or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed were still even remotely plausible. The pathological presidential liar or an idiot in chief, it is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction, a critical juncture in our history and contained in either answer a president manifestly unfit to serve and behind him in the vice-presidency an unapologetic warmonger who has long been seeing the world visible only to himself.

After Miss Perino‘s announcement that the White House last night that the timeline is inescapable and clear now. In August, this president was told by his hand-picked majordomo of intelligence, Mike McConnell, a flinty, high-strung-looking worrying warrior who will always see more clouds than silver linings, that what everybody has thought about Iran might, in essence, be crap. Yet, on October 17th, the president said of Iran and its president, Ahmadinejad, “I‘ve told people that if you‘re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from “have” the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon.

And as he said that, Mr. Bush knew that at bare minimum there was a strong chance his rhetoric was nothing more than words with which to scare the Iranians. Or was it said to scare the Americans? Does Iran not really fit in the equation here? Have you just scribbled it into the fill in the blank on the same template you used to scare us about Iraq? In August, any commander-in-chief still able-minded or uncorrupted or both, sir, would have invoked the quality the job most requires—mental flexibility—a bright man or an honest man would have realized no later than the McConnell briefing that the only true danger about Iran was the damage that could be done by an unhinged irrational chicken little of a president shooting his mouth off backed up only by his own hysteria and his own delusions of omniscience. Not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr. Bush. The chicken little of presidents is the one, Sir, that you see in the mirror.

The mind reels at the thought of a vice-president fully briefed on the revised intel as long as two weeks ago, briefed on the fact that Iran abandoned its pursuit of this imminent threat four years ago. A vice-president who never bothered to mention it to his boss. It is nearly forgotten today but throughout much of Ronald Reagan‘s presidency, it was widely believed that he was little more than a front man for some never viewed behind-the-scenes string puller. Today, as evidenced by this latest remarkable malfeasance, it is inescapable that Dick Cheney is either this president‘s evil ventriloquist or he thinks he is. What servant of any of the 42 previous presidents could possibly withhold information of this urgency and this gravity and wind up back at his desk the next morning instead of winding up before a congressional investigation or a criminal one?

Mr. Bush, if you can still hear us, if you did not previously agree to this scenario in which Dick Cheney is the actual detective and you‘re the Remington Steel, you must disenthrall yourself. Mr. Cheney has usurped your constitutional powers, cut you out of the information loop, and led you down the path to an unprecedented presidency in which the facts have become optional, the intel is valued less than the hunch, and the assistant runs the store. The problem is, Sir, your assistant is robbing you and your country blind not merely in monetary terms, Mr. Bush, but, more importantly, robbing you of the traditions and righteousness for which we have stood at great risk for centuries—honesty, law, moral force.

Mr. Cheney has helped, Sir, to make your administration into the kind our ancestors saw in the 1860s and 1870s and 1880s, the ones that abandoned reconstruction and sent this country marching backwards into the pit of American apartheid: Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland—presidents who will be remembered only in a blur of failure, Mr. Bush. Presidents who will be remembered as functions only of those who opposed them—the opponents who history proved right—Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Bush.

Would that we could let this president off the hook by seeing him only as marionette or moron but a study of the mutation of his language about Iran proves that though he may not be very good at it, he is himself still a manipulative Machiavellian snake oil salesman. The Bush analogy was tracked by Dan Funcken(ph) of “The Washington Post” website and it is staggering. March 31st - “Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon.” June 5th - “Iran‘s pursuit of nuclear weapons.” June 19th - “consequences to the Iranian government if they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon.” July 12th - “the same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons.” August 6th - “this is the government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon.”

Notice a pattern—“trying to develop, build, or pursue a nuclear weapon”? Then, sometime between August 6th and August 9th, those terms are suddenly swapped out, so subtly, that only in retrospect can we see that somebody has warned the president not only that he has gone out too far on the limb of terror but that there may not even be a tree there. McConnell or somebody must have briefed him then. August 9th - “they have expressed their desire to be able to enrich uranium which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program.” August 28th - “Iran‘s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons.” October 4th - “you should not have the know-how on how to make a nuclear weapon.” October 17th - “until they suspend and/or make it clear that they—that their statements aren‘t real, yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon.”

Before August 9th, it is “trying to develop, build, or pursue a nuclear weapon.” After August 9th, it‘s “desire, pursuit, want, knowledge, technology, know-how to enrich uranium.” And we are to believe, Mr. Bush, that the national intelligence estimate this week talks of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program in 2003 and you talked of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program on October 17th and that term “suspending” is just a coincidence. And we are to believe, Mr. Bush, that nobody told you any of this until last week. Your insistence that you were not briefed on the NIE until last week might be legally true, something like what the definition of is is but with the subject matter being not interns but the threat of nuclear war.

Legally, this might save you from some kind of war crimes trial but, ethically, it is a lie. It is indefensible. You have been yelling threats into a phone for nearly four months after the guy on the other end had already hung up. You, Mr. Bush, are a bold-faced liar and, moreover, you must have realized that John Bolton and “The Wall Street Journal” editorial board are now also bold-faced liars. We are to believe that the intel community or maybe the state department cooked the raw intelligence about Iran, falsely diminished the Iranian nuclear threat to make you look bad and you proceeded to let them make you look bad.

You not only knew all of this about Iran in early August but you also knew it was all accurate and instead of sharing this good calming news with the people you have obviously forgotten you represent, you merely fine-tuned your terrorizing of those people to legally cover your own back side. While you filled the factual gap with sadistic visions of, as you phrase it on August 28th, a, quote, nuclear holocaust. As you phrased it on October 17th, quote, “World War III”. My comments, Mr. Bush, are often dismissed as simple repetitions of the phrase, “George Bush has no business being president.” Well, guess what? Tonight, hanged by your own words and convicted by your own deliberate lies, you, Sir, have no business being president.

Ok, all you Fox News critics and ridiculers. Is this valid, responsible journalism or "hysterical and deliberately provocative frothing at the mouth"?

Anybody bothered that no dissenting voice was presented at all. (Is it ever?) The only other guests being Newsweek's Howard Fineman, The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, and from AirAmerica Rachel Maddow. At least Bill O'Reilly debates those he disagrees with and Sean Hannity is balanced by Alan Colmes.

Or, has Keith nailed. Bush really is "the pathological presidential liar or an idiot in chief." MSNBC the only news network brave enough to give us the truth.

 

[BVS]

Who said editorials had to be balanced?

This wasn't the news.

 

[Irvine511]

Ok, all you Fox News critics and ridiculers. Is this valid, responsible journalism or "hysterical and deliberately provocative frothing at the mouth"?

erm, does Keith Obermann have his OWN SHOW with his OWN OPINIONS, or is he reporting the news?

the day that MSNBC news readers are given talking points disseminated by the Democratic equivalent of Roger Ailes, then we can talk.

 

[phillyfan26]

I tuned in to Countdown with Keith Olbermann for his Special Comment because they are indeed "special" and I wasn't letdown last night.


Ok, all you Fox News critics and ridiculers. Is this valid, responsible journalism or "hysterical and deliberately provocative frothing at the mouth"?

Anybody bothered that no dissenting voice was presented at all. (Is it ever?) The only other guests being Newsweek's Howard Fineman, The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, and from AirAmerica Rachel Maddow. At least Bill O'Reilly debates those he disagrees with and Sean Hannity is balanced by Alan Colmes.

Or, has Keith nailed. Bush really is "the pathological presidential liar or an idiot in chief." MSNBC the only news network brave enough to give us the truth.

You're comparing Countdown to Fox News when you should be comparing Countdown to the O'Reilly Factor.

Doesn't work.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Who said editorials had to be balanced?

This wasn't the news.

Exactly. If it's an editorial, then ranting and raving if you wish is fine. If O'Reilly did his own equivalent of that, and actually called it an editorial, I'd be fine with that, too. I'd go, "Okay, he's made it clear this is his personal opinion he's expressing, fine."

If it were an actual news story, then I would expect Olbermann to keep his personal views out of it and just report the facts (and much as I like the guy's show, I will say that his personal views do tend to slip in at times when reporting news).

But it's an editorial, and he made it quite clear that it was a personal commentary. He does that every time he's about to do special commentaries. So it's a non-issue, really. And at least on his show, there aren't five thousand people yelling over each other throughout. People actually get a word in there. One person ranting and raving is more tolerable than a bunch of people ranting and raving all at once.

(I liked that editorial, by the way)

Angela

 

[kellyahern]

At least Bill O'Reilly debates those he disagrees with

Well, if by "debate" you mean yelling and screaming over people so that they can't even get a word in edgewise, then yes. However, he did personally win the War on Christmas. He said so himself.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Well, if by "debate" you mean yelling and screaming over people so that they can't even get a word in edgewise, then yes. However, he did personally win the War on Christmas. He said so himself.

Yep. He battled the "forces of darkness" .

Seriously, I heard that and was like, "What the hell, are we in Star Wars land now or something?"

Angela

 

[kellyahern]

I tuned in to Countdown with Keith Olbermann for his Special Comment

Did you tune in tonight for his "Special Come On"?


Seriously, he just had one.

 

[Bluer White]

Keith's rating don't approach that of some other cable networks, but that's fine, I still watch.

He's an obvious mouthpiece for the Moveon.org crowd....ever seen his top story, or worst person of the day, every single night, for the past few years? That's fine too. I still watch.

Don't worry about Keith yelling and screaming over his guests with opposing viewpoints. Opposing viewpoints are very rarely on his program. Keith's good points and criticisms, which do come along, are buried in the hyperbole that is his program, every single night.

 

[MadelynIris]

Back to the subject:

I think Gates just gave a great speach:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/12/08/us.iran/index.html

MANAMA, Bahrain (CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called on the international community to step up pressure on Iran to vow not to develop nuclear weapons, suspend uranium enrichment and open up its nuclear facilities for inspection.


U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the opening of the security conference in Manama, Bahrain.

Gates' address to a Gulf states' security conference Saturday came a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters at a NATO meeting in Belgium that the United States will continue to push for a new U.N. resolution to pressure Iran to halt its nuclear program.

Gates sarcastically noted that Iran celebrated the U.S. intelligence community's recent report -- the National Intelligence Estimate -- that said Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. He said it marks a "watershed" that "Iran has, for the first time, embraced as valid an assessment of the United States intelligence community -- on Iran's nuclear weapons program."

He said "since that government now acknowledges the quality of American intelligence assessments, I assume that it also will embrace as valid American intelligence assessments" that Iran is funding and training of militia groups in Iraq; deploying lethal weapons and technology to both Iraq and Afghanistan; supporting terrorist organizations -- like Hezbollah and Hamas -- that have murdered thousands of innocent civilians; and continued research and development of medium-range ballistic missiles that can carry weapons of mass destruction.

"In reality, you cannot pick and choose only the conclusions you like of this National Intelligence Estimate," Gates said.



"The report expresses with greater confidence than ever that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program -- developed secretly, kept hidden for years, and in violation of its international obligations," he said.

"It reports that they do continue their nuclear enrichment program, an essential long lead time component of any nuclear weapons program. It states that they do have the mechanisms still in place to restart their program."

more on the link:

 

[financeguy]

Gates is apparently one of the moderates, it's allegedly largely due to his influence that manners have been put on the neo-con crazies.

 

[phillyfan26]

Keith's rating don't approach that of some other cable networks, but that's fine, I still watch.

He's an obvious mouthpiece for the Moveon.org crowd....ever seen his top story, or worst person of the day, every single night, for the past few years? That's fine too. I still watch.

Don't worry about Keith yelling and screaming over his guests with opposing viewpoints. Opposing viewpoints are very rarely on his program. Keith's good points and criticisms, which do come along, are buried in the hyperbole that is his program, every single night.

Which is to a point true.

How does that have to do with Fox News?

His show is a competitor to Bill O'Reilly's, not the NEWS.

 

[Strongbow]

Pressure works (“high confidence”)

Dec 6th 2007
From The Economist print edition

America's spies have changed their minds. But a nuclear Iran remains a danger


IF THE consequences were not so serious, it would be tempting to mock the fiascos and flip-flops of America's intelligence services. Before 2003 they said that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was seeking nuclear ones. They were wrong. In 2005 they said that Iran had a secret nuclear programme and was determined to get a bomb. Now they say they were wrong about that too (see article).

This week's national intelligence assessment says with “high confidence” that although Iran was indeed working on a bomb until the autumn of 2003 it then stopped. By the middle of this year it had probably (“moderate confidence”) not started again. And unless it got fuel for a bomb from abroad it would take at least until late 2009 (“moderate confidence”) but more likely between 2010 and 2015 to make it at home



What is the baffled layman to make of this? First that intelligence is neither art nor science but a system of best guesses based on incomplete evidence. If new evidence suggests that the previous guesses were wrong, it is a good thing that spies are willing to say so. Some of the outraged hawks who want America to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities accuse the spies of sexing down their latest Iran dossier in order to make amends for having sexed up the one that led America into a war in Iraq. But that would imply a truly impressive conspiracy between the 16 agencies that signed the report. Of course, the spies' new assessment may be wrong, as their previous ones proved to be. But it is most unlikely to be a tissue of lies.

For that very reason, however, relieved doves who think the spectre of a nuclear Iran or of an American attack has now disappeared had better read the report again. Its final sentence says (“high confidence”) that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it chooses. As to what “eventually” means, the assessment has not changed: it was always late 2009 at the earliest but more probably the middle of the next decade. As to whether Iran will do so, the spies say (“moderate-to-high confidence”) that “at a minimum” it is keeping the option open.

That is troubling, because Iran can continue to work towards a bomb without resuming the secret programme America now thinks it stopped in 2003. That programme was about “weaponisation”: the fiddly business of making a device that can set off a chain reaction in nuclear fuel. But creating such a warhead is the easier part of building a bomb. Harder by far is making the fuel. And, as the report notes, making the fuel is precisely what Iran continues to do in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions at its uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz. For now, it is true, Iran is enriching the uranium at below weapons grade. It says it is doing so only in order to power reactors to produce electricity. But it has no such reactors. And to get the uranium to weapons grade it has only to run the stuff often enough through Natanz's centrifuges.

In short, nothing in the new assessment makes the story Iran tells about Natanz any less fishy or the dangers posed by its dash to enrich uranium any less troubling. But it has utterly changed the politics of the issue. The case for American pre-emption now becomes almost impossible to sell either at home or abroad. That is probably a good thing, given that a military attack was always likelier to restore Iran's determination to build a bomb than destroy its ability to get one. Unfortunately, the report may also make it harder for America and Europe to maintain, let alone sharpen, the sanctions the world has imposed in order to make Iran stop work at Natanz.

Talk if necessary, but keep up the sanctions
Since the spies say Iran stopped its bomb-making in 2003 because of world pressure, relaxing it now would be perverse. But to keep the world on side, America may have to show new flexibility. For example, while tightening sanctions, it could offer to talk to Iran about all aspects of their troubled relations, even before work at Natanz stopped. Iran might refuse. But that would at least make it clear which side was the spoiler.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10251997

 

[Strongbow]

Gates is apparently one of the moderates, it's allegedly largely due to his influence that manners have been put on the neo-con crazies.

Yet, Robert Gates has presided over the surge in US forces in Iraq against the wishes of the newly Democratic controlled congress extended combat tours for US troops from 12 months to 15 months. Although most pundits won't say it, Colin Powell and Dick Cheney have more in common in regards to their political views, than they have with much of the Democratic Party. Same could be said of Rumsfield and Gates.

 

[Strongbow]

The most important part of this story, is that the US intelligence community has declared it's independence again! As it was before, and should have been all along.

And in a weird way, we have to credit Bush, for getting rid of all of political appointees running the agencies, and replacing with established, career intelligence and military officers.

Well, George Tenet(CIA) was appointed by Bill Clinton, not George Bush. Colin Powell(national security advisor, Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff), Dick Cheney(Secretary Of Defense), and Condoleezza Rice(Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council)all served the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations and Rumsfield had already been Secretary Of Defense for the Nixon/Ford Administrations.

I think its a mistake to imply that the intelligence community was some how not independent before this latest NIE because its percieved as being at odds with recent administration statements. As the economist recently said:

First that intelligence is neither art nor science but a system of best guesses based on incomplete evidence. If new evidence suggests that the previous guesses were wrong, it is a good thing that spies are willing to say so.

The IAEA gave Iraq a clean bill of health in regards to Nuclear Weapons development in 1989 and the intelligence community believed that Iraq was more than 10 years away from a nuclear bomb at that point. Then after the 1991 Gulf War, UN inspectors found that Iraq was only 6 months away from a Nuclear Weapon. Few people talk about how far off US and international intelligence was back then.

Bottom line is that intelligence is usually not fact, but an estimate based on incomplete information.