Twenty-first century going-to-war requires that the proper procedures be observed, even if the United States Congress has become shy about declaring war as required by the constitution. There was never any doubt that George W. Bush and his neocon team would go to war with Iraq, but they first obtained what they believed to be adequate justification from the United Nations and a green light in the form of a congressional resolution before they actually initiated conflict. Currently, there is no piece of paper relating to a possible new war that is more important than the impending National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, which has been a work in progress for more than a year and a half. The last NIE on Iran, released in late 2007, was controversial in that it concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and had not resumed it. The document was immediately attacked by neoconservatives and the media, who responded that the Iranians might have a secret program and were intending to revive their efforts. Israel and its supporters have since been insisting that there is, in fact, a hidden program and have been constantly sending out alarms suggesting that a nuclear weapon is only six months or a year away. They keep revising forward the date whenever six months or a year passes without a weapon actually making an appearance.
The new Iran NIE has been delayed a number of times because of conflicting demands from the CIA analysts involved and from the White House. The analysts, badly burned by the heavily politicized 2002 NIE on Iraq, which led to a war, and also nervous about the barrage of criticism of the 2007 NIE on Iran, want the estimate to be completely credible and very tightly analyzed and reviewed. The Obama Administration wants, instead, a document that will give it whatever option it seeks to pursue vis-à-vis the Mullahs. That in-house conflict has led to a very delicate balancing act as the report has been crafted, particularly as the analysts have been unable to develop any hard information suggesting that Iran does have a nuclear weapons program.
I have been advised that the new Iran NIE, which is still being negotiated, will likely reflect a compromise giving everyone what they want. The report will say that there is no solid information indicating that Iran has revived its pursuit of nuclear weapons, but the fact that Tehran has taken steps to hide aspects of its United Nations inspected nuclear energy program suggests that there is indeed an intention to move towards development of a weapon. The estimate will suggest that development of a weapon might already be in progress, though it will not state that in any definitive way. The report will conclude that until Iran permits complete transparency and total access to its nuclear program, while at the same time surrendering its own capability to enrich uranium, the assumption will have to be that there is indeed a secret effort underway to develop what is referred to as "breakthrough capability" related to a possible weapon. Breakthrough capability means that all the pieces will be in place making it possible to construct a weapon in short order.
There will be additional caveats and weasel-worded language in the report, plus some dissents, that will make the conclusion a soft one, but its conclusions will be leaning towards the side of "It’s better to be safe than sorry." The CIA analysts will be able to claim that they indicated that there is no hard evidence for a weapons program and that even the conclusions are based on soft analysis while the White House will be able to keep "all options on the table" and will not be boxed in. The Obama Administration does not want to go to war, but if a conflict does somehow develop it does want to be able to cite the NIE as partial justification.
It does not take a great deal of insight into the dynamics of the relationship between Tehran and Washington to see that the NIE is a political statement more than it is any serious analysis. It is a document produced by a government agency in support of a government policy that in turn is designed to allow that selfsame government to pursue any number of options. It will be a very "what if?" document which possibly is demanding that Iran prove to a skeptical Washington and Tel Aviv what very well might be a negative, i.e. that it has no weapons program. Or, as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it in a discussion of possible Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, "The absence of evidence is no evidence of absence" and, in another speech, "…there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know." If it turns out that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program and Washington goes to war anyway, it will have to be chalked up to one of the unknowns that we did not know.
All of the above would be something out of a Shakespearean play in which two people exchange their identities or have their girlfriends get somehow mixed up, resulting in comedic exchanges and a great deal of confusion, but for the fact that war is such a serious business. Nearly six thousand Americans and hundreds of thousands of foreigners have died as a result of the two wars fought in which the "absence of evidence" was deliberately engineered into allegations unsupported by any facts that resulted in Washington initiating wars of choice. It will not be any different in the case of Iran.
So why do an NIE at all? The new report will likely be politics as usual cloaked in the illusion of objectivity and process. It might be far preferable if Washington would deal honestly with the American people and the rest of the world for a change. How about a White House-issued statement calling itself an NIE that says something like this: "Even though we have no hard evidence that Iran has a nuclear arms program we have decided that since Tehran has not been completely forthcoming on some aspects of its nuclear energy program it might be intending to develop a weapon. The White House is under constant pressure from Israel and its supporters in congress and the media to do something about the threat from Iran, so we have asked the CIA to prepare a document that will enable us to bomb Iran if we decide it is politically expedient to do so. Or alternatively not to bomb Iran if we decide not to do so because, in our judgment, the voters cannot stomach another war. The decision on what to do about Iran will be based on what happens in midterm elections next month and on a White House assessment of what has to be done to insure the re-election of President Obama. That might require a new war or maybe not, but rest assured that it will have nothing to do with the genuine threat that Iran might actually pose and nothing to do with any balance of power in the world or vital American national interests. It will all come down to appeasing the Israel Lobby and managing the election cycle. Thank you."
Read more by Philip Giraldi
- Six More Years – October 6th, 2010
- Wake Up, America! – September 29th, 2010
- The Terrorism Fraud – September 22nd, 2010
- A Bipartisan Look at the Israel Lobby – September 15th, 2010
- A Modest Proposal – September 8th, 2010
epppie
October 13th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
And by the way, I think you should recognize that even if Iran DOES have a nuclear weapons program, that is still NOT a legitimate reason for the US or Israel to go to war.
Johnny in Wi.
October 14th, 2010 at 4:18 am
Did we atttack Israel when it aquired nuclear weapons/
Did we attack the USSR when they got nukes?
Did we bomb China when they got the bomb?
Did we destroy the nuclear facilities of Pakistan and India when they were building the bomb?
I thought agresssive war is a war crime.
Weren't a lot of Germans and Japanese hung for this so called crime?
liveload
October 14th, 2010 at 5:46 am
Barring some trigger event like an assassination of a key figure or unscheduled regime change in Pakistan, I think the current administration is setting up the next one for their inevitable war with Iran. Politics on both sides have been conditioned for so long to see each other as the enemy that it's going to happen soon enough regardless of what the average Joe or Reza thinks. With the current trend in election politics here coursing back towards the militant right, we may just end up with a post-Obama situation that lends itself very well to an Iran war. If they are successful enough in their drawdown efforts, i.e. get the ground-holding military units out and replaced by mercs, we'll have the force disposition needed to attack them.
liveload
October 14th, 2010 at 5:47 am
Con't:
The Iranian economy is dependent upon its oil exports; the brain drain, sanctions, and good old fashioned mismanagment have taken their toll. Iran is China's number two supplier of oil and they have invested over a hunrded billion dollars in Iran's oil infrastructure. It's unlikely that the Chinese will risk a war with the USA if we attack Iran, even if we wreck China's investments. They'll just sit back and wait for the dust to settle and they'll bid on contracts just like they've been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia may add a bit more rhetorical flourish to their vocalized displeasure with an Iran war, but likely will act more or less just like China. Sit, wait, and then outbid American interests (who automatically get treated with contempt and derision by the occupied country anyway).
Now I'm not the brightest crayon in the box, but you'd think that with all this history of failed regime change and failed projection of power, we'd try something different, but what the hell do I know. I just work my 8-5, go home and consume like everybody else.
bogi666
October 14th, 2010 at 7:05 am
What the USG uses for intelligence is the Thought Police, because Thought does not need evidence. The NIE, CIA, NSC, NSA construe the Thought Police "which come to me when I'm in my bed, they come to get inside of my head, the thought,police, police, police, the Thought Police, poice, police…………….". To borrow a refrain from the Cheap Trick song the Dream Police. To discern thoughts from facts requires mindfulness and the government, business, churches teaches and uses mindlessness, the inability to discern thought from facts and this institutionalizes mindlessness giving it legitimacy and creating peer pressure for a mindlessness population.
James
October 14th, 2010 at 7:14 am
Israeli Nuke Double Standard:
http://tinyurl.com/IsraeliNukeDoubleStandard
New NSA replacing Jones supports harder line against Iran (for AIPAC/Israel of course!)
http://america-hijacked.com/2010/10/08/new-nsa-re...
http://tinyurl.com/JonesreplacementwantsIranwar
Little Paulie
October 14th, 2010 at 8:04 am
LOL. I like the last paragraph. Imagine if they actually wrote that into the NIE.
Chris Moore
October 14th, 2010 at 8:52 am
What Giraldi seems to be informing us is that the gravest U.S. intelligence document involving American war and peace, life and death is being crafted to appease a foreign country via the Israel lobby due to political pressure.
This country has turned into a joke that would be funny if the clowns running it weren't so dangerous. Today, we're like Caligula's Rome, only instead of a mad emperor, we have clownish politicians getting their strings pulled by an insane ethnic lobby.
Alan MacDonald
October 14th, 2010 at 8:53 am
Philip, an exquisitely funny and telling suggestion to convey the truth of the matter —- Kurt Vonnegut could not have written it better!
While we're dreaming of any measures of candor and honesty from this insane and self-silly camouflaged global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE, which hides behind the facade of its own TWO-Party Vichy sham of democratic government, why not go for broke and dream that it (the Empire headquartered in our former country and including the U.K., Israel, and many other faux governments) simply recognize itself as an EMPIRE and thus clear the 'Fog of Empire' as McNamara, on his death-bed and "In Retrospect" cleared the Fog of War?
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
John Uebersax
October 14th, 2010 at 9:27 am
Good analogy to Rome. We seem on the path to repeat, if not exceed, every political excess and abuse of the Roman Empire.
John Uebersax
October 14th, 2010 at 9:28 am
Closing sarcasm of the article is funny. Or how about a pair of special glasses, like in the scifi movie 'They Live' (1988), but with which the wearer sees the true message hidden in a govt. report!
greg
October 14th, 2010 at 10:50 am
I'm so disgusted with the dishonesty and hypocrisy of this country that I am ashamed to be an American and to be in any way a part of what the warmongering lunatics that control USrael will do to Iran and its people.
This is an insane asylum for the criminally insane.
Bruce Richardson
October 14th, 2010 at 10:58 am
What's a voter to do? Obama was seen as disengaging, retreating from the endless Spartan-cum-military posturing that plagued the world under Bush 43.
The military now spends 75% of all the tax money derived from the American populace. While the empire has other sources of revunue, is it not unfathomable that the Pentagon spends most of what we pay in taxes?
With Obama and the Republican Members of Congress spoiling for a fight with Iran to placate the "Military-Industrial-Congressional-Complex" and the diktate from Israel, we are on the slippery slope of bankruptcy, both financially and morally.
But what's a voter to do? It seems politicians, with few exceptions, were produced on duplicating equipment in a high production assembly line. And the finished product requires no further elaboration.
fedupandsick
October 14th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Hasn't Iran been within a year of being able to make a bomb since 1984?
humanist
October 14th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
I salute Philip Giraldi, Ray McGovern, Leverett s and other former insiders for their valuable, influential and hopefully consequential Anti War efforts.
My amateurish research shows “Iran avoided manufacturing and using Chemical Weapons during its 8 year war with Iraq probably on moral or religious grounds” as Hillary Mann Leverett mentioned it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anQmSq6Kz_U
I believe 2007 NIE is wrong determining “Iran stopped its Nuclear Weapon Program in 2003" and Iranians are right claiming “We NEVER had any such program”.
Conclusion: Similar to present NIE during the compiling of the 2007 copy there must have been lots of quibbling, haggling and ‘negotiations’ between the White House and top NIE staff. The allegation of stopping the Weapon Project in 2003 must have been put in only to satisfy the ‘hawks’ in the White House.
I would like to know who are the hawks in this WH?
Jeremiah
October 14th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
"Hey, what's wrong, baby?"
Ah man, I almost forgot about that one . . .
Seriously, though, I think special specs won't cut it; the average American voter needs a *new brain* if he's having this much trouble seeing through such clumsy propaganda and obvious doublespeak.
Esther Haman
October 14th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
The question is why? Why have successive U.S. administrations been reluctant to enter into a conflict-resolution dialogue with Iran, which could clearly be in the national interests of the United States?
The answer, in a nutshell, is that U.S. foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, is driven not so much by broad national interests as they are by narrow but powerful special interests—interests that seem to prefer war and militarism to peace and international understanding. These are the nefarious interests that are vested in military industries and related “security” businesses, notoriously known as the military-industrial complex. These beneficiaries of war dividends would not be able to justify their lion’s share of our tax dollars without “external enemies” or “threats to our national interests.”.
Because U.S. policy toward Iran (or any other country, for that matter) is based on an imperialistic agenda that consists of a series of demands or expectations, not on diplomatic decorum, or the type of language its leaders use. These include Iran’s giving up its lawful and legitimate right to civilian nuclear technology, opening up its public domain and/or state-owned industries to debt-leveraging and privatization schemes of the predatory finance capital of the West, as well as its compliance with the U.S.-Israeli geopolitical designs in the Middle East. It is not unreasonable to argue that once Iran allowed U.S. input, or meddling, into such issue of national sovereignty, it would find itself on a slippery slope the bottom of which would be giving up its independence: the U.S. would not be satisfied until Iran becomes another “ally” in the Middle East, more or less like Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the like.
Sadly, however, U.S. foreign policy decisions, especially in the Middle East, seem to be driven not so much by broad national interests as they are by narrow (but powerful) special interests, not so much by “peace dividends” as they are by “war dividends.” These powerful special interests, represented largely by the military-security-AIPAC forces, tend to perceive international peace and stability, especially in the Middle East, as detrimental to their nefarious interests. Instead, they seem to prefer an atmosphere of war and militarism in order to justify their lion’s share of our national treasury, or their occupation of Palestinian land. This explains, perhaps more than anything else, the unjust demonization of Iran and the relentless preparations for an all-out war on that country. If this argument sounds like a conspiracy theory, it is not because it is false; rather, it is because the U.S.-Zionist policies in the Middle East are so evil that they defy tender logic, civilized comprehension, or decent human intuition.
radkelt
October 14th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
I couldn't agree with you more. I used to look for rational explanations for voter behavior,
wars, threats of mayhem visited by one nation on another, underlying economic or
strategic benefit sought. I've failed totally to unearth any reasonable explanation for
the collective acts of states. But! I've found an online book that explains , for me at least,
some of this. I recommend it… Authoritarianism, by a University of Toronto psychology
professor, whose name I regret I don't recall. Revisiting Eulel, Mcluhan, Goebbels, Bernays
on propaganda will help all of us to deal with the onslaught of political bulshit.
radkelt
October 14th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
No one could ever have put it more succinctly, accurately than you have. I hope you write for
some national publication, or are represented on the web in some fashion. Looking forward to
reading more of your commentary
David Smith
October 14th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Speaking of war with Iran, what happens to the price of oil if the Iranian supply is taken off the market (a reasonable assumption if they are attacked)? What effect would this have on our economy, which is just recovering from the last economic debacle? Has anybody thought about this?
davidgrayling
October 14th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
It's time America replaced the eagle as its symbol. A wild boar would better represent the U.S. given its infinite greed and love of violence.
And its flag? A pirate flag would be more fitting, a black one with many skulls and crossbones.
http://www.dangerouscreation.com
Rasputin
October 15th, 2010 at 5:54 am
Vote Libertarian or Green or Ron (not Rand) Paul or Kucinich. Vote your conscious! If more people do, the corrupt politicians will get nervous.
Rasputin
October 15th, 2010 at 5:55 am
Duh, conscience…
liveload
October 15th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Closing the strait of Hormuz would be enough to send oil prices skyrocketing. If we were to attack Iran and fully commit to regime change and reconstruction, the resulting chaos woudl take Iranian oil off the market for quite awhile. Ostensibly the offending administration would try and get the Saudis on baord to ratchet up their production to take up some of the slack. Regardless of what measures are taken to try and mitigate or minimize the loss of Iranian production, the price of oil just from the regional instability alone would enjoy quite a view from the stratospheric heights it would suddenly find itself residing in. Investors are a jittery, panic prone bunch in my opinion; an "insurgent" threatens to fart in the general direction of oil infrastrucure and the price goes up…
bill
October 16th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Stop paying taxes, that's what.