After studying the news today that the Iranian NIE showed Iran closed up its nuclear weapons program back in 2003, the question was “Why did this get leaked?” The WHO (and there are a couple theories on that) isn’t as important as the why in this case.
The “why” is actually simple: like every other piece of “intel” the Bushies used in Iraq before we invaded, this is being spun as hard as possible in order to justify the coming attack.
But how could this be spun that crazily? Not even the Bushies are capable of that. Maybe, maybe not.
But the collective insanity of the Wingnutosphere is more than up to the challenge. The good Cap’n takes a stab at it.
Hmm. What might have happened in 2003 to convince Teheran to stop its nuclear-weapons pursuit? Could it have been the events on its western border, where the American military removed a dictator that they couldn’t beat in eight years of brutal warfare? Libya’s Moammar Ghaddafi certainly had the same idea in 2003, and for that very reason.
The intelligence community only has high confidence on the point that the weapons program stopped for several years. Its confidence that they have remained quiet on weapons is moderate. That’s an admission that intel in Iran is hard to get, and reliable intel even less available. If they’re re-evaluating their analyses from two years ago, it’s a sign that their data is old and not terribly indicative of what’s happening now.
What do we know about Iran? They have openly bragged about getting a 3,000-centrifuge cascade in operation, on the way to 54,000. We know that the former can produce weapons-grade enriched uranium in nine months, the latter two weeks. We know that Iran got plans for nuclear weapons from the AQ Khan network. That tells us that even if Iran doesn’t want to build a bomb tomorrow, they can get to work on one rather quickly.
Right now, however, we think they’re waiting to see whether they want to make that move. We think that’s the case, based on limited intelligence. While Iran continues to run terrorist proxie groups, we have to focus on the shape of the threat we know, rather than what we think of their intentions. Therefore, the Bush administration has kept up pressure on Iran to end its nuclear program or at least the uranium enrichment, while rejecting for now the option of military intervention.
It explains why the White House has maintained its current policy, which seems sound and careful without being unnecessarily provocative. Read properly, it makes perfect sense.
Got that? The spin is in and it goes right round like a record baby round round right round. The NIE actually has justified all that saber-rattling because:
- Our invasion of Iraq scared the Iranian regime.
- The CIA is using old, outdated intel.
- For all we know, they might be making nukes.
- Iran has centrifuges. This is important.
- They’re attacking us in Iraq.
Ergo, Bush’s Iran policy makes perfect sense.
And that’s why it was released. The Bushies have decided to spin it as yet another reason we need to drop the hammer on Tehran.
They’re getting the juicy stuff out there now so that the public forgets about it when the bombs start falling, and letting the wingnuts process the proper spin for it. They farmed the job out to a distributed net-based community of loonies instead of making poor Dana Perino lose her temper again.
Look for the rest of the right (and the White House for that matter) to pick this up as exactly why our current attitude towards Iran must continue…and for justification why any change in that attitude will only be followed by a massive bombing campaign.
