Israel Matzav

Romney adviser defends Obama's Iran policy and 2007 NIE whitewash of Iran

I wonder if this might make John Bolton reconsider his support of Mitt Romney. Michael Hayden, who is a senior foreign policy adviser to Romney, defends President Obama's feckless Iran policy as well as the whitewash of Iran in the 2007 NIE report.

And now with Iran, intelligence judgments remain anchored to a controversial 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that in 2003, Tehran had "halted" its nuclear weapon design and weaponization work. That estimate was based not on the absence of evidence that such work was ongoing but rather on evidence that it was not. And despite some suspicious and troubling Iranian activity since then, the estimate has survived largely intact, under three subsequent heads of national intelligence and of the CIA.

So there we are. The challenge for American intelligence now is to inform the president of an Iranian decision to weaponize its nuclear stockpile with sufficient confidence and in sufficient time for him to decide to launch a pre-emptive war in one of the world's most sensitive and volatile regions.

It's hard to imagine a higher bar, especially since building the "sufficient confidence" will almost certainly eat into the "sufficient time." And especially since, when that last situation room meeting is held, the intelligence will probably not be at that courtroom evidentiary standard of beyond all reasonable doubt.

The president showed that he could act in the face of ambiguity when he launched the Abbottabad raid to kill Osama bin Laden. This one will be even more difficult.

Read the whole thing. If Romney wins, is Bolton Secretary of State? From what I've seen and heard over the last several weeks, it's more likely to be Hayden or someone of his ilk.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Campaign 2012, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, John Bolton, Michael Hayden, National Intelligence Estimate

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:15 AM