POINT OF VIEW

“The [estimate] doesn’t do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world — quite the contrary.”
– President Bush

“This was a final shot to those who … spread a sense of threat and concern in the world through lies of nuclear weapons.” - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

How definitive are National Intelligence Estimates? The estimates reflect the consensus opinion of the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies, and while they provide a snapshot of current judgments about future events, estimates don’t always deliver the final word on a subject. The conclusions of a 2002 Iraq estimate were wrong in part because analysts, according to a Senate investigation, were led to “ignore or minimize” evidence that Iraq didn’t have an active program to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Iran Curveball

President Bush has been scrambling to rescue his Iran policy after this week’s intelligence switcheroo, but the fact that the White House has had to spin so furiously is a sign of how badly it has bungled this episode. In sum, Mr. Bush and his staff have allowed the intelligence bureaucracy to frame a new judgment in a way that has undermined four years of U.S. effort to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

This kind of national security mismanagement has bedeviled the Bush Presidency. Recall the internal disputes over post-invasion Iraq, the smearing of Ahmad Chalabi by the State Department and … The estimate didn’t revise earlier predictions that Iran could have a nuclear weapon by around 2015 and concluded with only “moderate confidence” that Iran hasn’t restarted its program. At a congressional hearing on Thursday, a senior U.S. intelligence official cautioned against the idea that Iranian ambitions were “benign.”

Wow! Don’t you think that the USA with a new, more rational administration, could accomplish some kind of equity with Iran in seven more years? Iran, like any country, would only develop Nuclear Weaponry if they perceived a “clear and present” threat to their security. This is a very expensive undertaking for any country, no matter what the motivation. If this were to happen, a more wealthy country would have to underwrite the expenses … who would that be? Who has a high stake in Iran’s welfare? Russia, China … maybe even Pakistan. Proxy wars are made from this kind of scenario. Viet Nam was a grand example of a costly Proxy War against Communist China and the Soviet Union. This could be the final REDUX!

Iran’s nuclear program began in 1959 when the shah purchased a research reactor from the U.S.

Prime examples of the US setting up and backing corrupt dictators to serve our agenda, is the Shah, Saddam, and Osama Bin Laden, not to mention many South American countries. We gave them the same weapons and technology that are killing our soldiers today. The practice of nation building and democratizing other countries is a sad ‘quick fix’ for whatever policy the US seeks. This won’t work anymore. Look at Sudan. We have allowed atrocities, as bad as or worse than Saddam and the Shah, to kill and displace millions of human beings. The US arrangement with Sudan is pitiful … as long as the impression remains that they have credible intelligence about Bin Laden, the US is ‘hands off’.

This is a puppet show. The puppeteers are following a script. The world is on to our script and won’t take it anymore. The US arms the same elements that they expect to fight in the future … they allow a crisis to evolve in order to market intervention to the American public and select allies.

History repeats …

To the populations back home the reason often given for was for “freedom”, “stability”, “containing the Soviet Union” and so on. For the people of the region that had their popular leaders overthrown and replaced with corrupt rulers, this was surely not freedom. Communism was an often used reason around the world, not just the Middle East, even if it was not the case. As Noam Chomsky details, it was often a convenient excuse, but the underlying threat was often that nations might be able to use their own resources and be an example for others to follow.

… the CIA played a considerable role in the overthrowing of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 by Augusto Pinochet, who is credited with a 17-year reign of oppression and terror.

The U.S. government’s problem with Pakistan is similar to the one it had with Iran in 1979. The U.S. government placed Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi in power in 1953, which extinguished the rising flames of democracy. This resulted in a populist Islamic revolution and extreme anti-American sentiment. Now, Pakistan’s brutal dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is facing a populist uprising.

Twentieth-century American foreign policy is a paradox: the world’s oldest democracy repeatedly backs dictatorships in the name of freedom. Defenders of right-wing dictators argued they were a necessary evil. Blast the notion that this violation of core American values actually serves U.S. interests. The policy of coddling dictators has brought a backlash among foreign populations with long memories. “A crucial insight into the uncertain status of America in the world today.” Max Paul Friedman