US intelligence already colored with anti-Israel bias?
In an article in Wednesday's Washington Post, writer Peter Finn noted a difference of opinion between American and Israeli intelligence regarding how far Iran has gone towards reaching a nuclear weapons capability:Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said that Iran has not decided to pursue the production of weapons-grade uranium and the parallel ability to load it onto a ballistic missile.If the name Dennis Blair sounds familiar to those of you who don't spend your days reading political blogs, it should. Blair is the guy who had named Chas Freeman to be the director of the National Intelligence Council until Freeman stepped down on Tuesday night. At Power Line, Paul Mirengoff explains Blair's explanation:
"The overall situation -- and the intelligence community agrees on this -- [is] that Iran has not decided to press forward . . . to have a nuclear weapon on top of a ballistic missile," Blair told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Our current estimate is that the minimum time at which Iran could technically produce the amount of highly enriched uranium for a single weapon is 2010 to 2015."
The five-year spread, he explained, is a result of differences in the intelligence community about how quickly Iran could develop a weapon if it rekindled a weapons program it suspended in 2003.
Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate panel that Iran is "keeping open that option."
...
Israeli officials have a different view of Iran's goals.
"Reaching a military-grade nuclear capability is a question of synchronizing its strategy with the production of a nuclear bomb," Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, Israel's chief of military intelligence, told cabinet ministers, according to a senior Israeli official briefing reporters in Jerusalem. "Iran continues to stockpile hundreds of kilograms of low-level enriched uranium and hopes to use the dialogue with the West to buy the time it requires in order to move towards an ability to manufacture a nuclear bomb."
Blair said Israel was working from the same facts but had drawn a different interpretation of their meaning.
"The Israelis are far more concerned about it, and they take more of a worst-case approach to these things from their point of view," he said.
If I understand Blair's less than lucid explanation correctly, he is saying that Israel draws different conclusions than the U.S. from the same facts because they are more fearful of the consequences of Iran developing a nuclear bomb. Although Blair may be suggesting that Israel is paranoid, one could just as easily infer that the more sanguine U.S. view of Iran's progress and intentions stems from lack of deep concern about what it would mean for Iran to have a nuclear bomb.Hmmm.
Either way, Blair seems to be questioning the possibility of objective intelligence assessments. This cynicism provides additional context in which to understand his selection of Chas Freeman.
I suppose that also fits the worldview for those who think that the answer is for the US to put Israel under the American nuclear umbrella and threaten retaliation against Iran as a means of deterring it from attacking Israel with nuclear weapons. (This was suggested by Hillary Clinton, for example). The problem with that worldview is that it assumes that the Iranian leadership is a rational actor and that like the Soviets of the 1970's, it would be deterred by the prospect of mutually assured destruction. For reasons I have explained several times, that is likely not the case.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:26 PM
3 Comments:
As an American I say the following.....
America has it's head up it's ass if it thinks that an Iranian nuke will be targeted at Israel 1st....
America right now has an attitude that says...
Let Israel fight it's own battles...
OK... Fellow Americans...
Listen CAREFULLY....
If Iran gets a nuke and you actually think Iran will hit Israel you are on crack...
Israel would toast Iran's military/industrial complex in a heartbeat and in the end Iran would loose...
No... Iran would (in my humble opinion) target Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates or Kuwait...
WHY?
hit anyone one of those with a nuke and oil shoots to 300 a barrel
If America IGNORES this and thinks the Iran issue is simply a iran/israel pissing contest? they are wrong...
Shia hate sunni MORE than shia hates jew...
There is CLEAR history here...
Now I do not think that an iranian nuke is NOT a threat to israel, i just think that AMerica is IGNORING the possibility that AMerica is STILL the Great Satan while Israel is the Little Satan and Iran wants to bring the USA to her knees...
Now one last possible thought about iran and nukes...
EMP - electromagnetic pulse
One nuke, on ONE solid fuel 2 -3 stage rocket (like one that con put a satellite into orbit) over any major city would fry it's electronics....
The US may be able to live with an Iranian nuclear bomb. Israel cannot afford to assume that Iran would be guided by MAD. The US-Soviet model of nuclear deterrence is not applicable to the Middle East.
neither america or israel can live with a iranian nuke...
but america is far more at risk than it understands...
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