The Iran NIE

Dan Darling, WindsOfChange.net:

I was actually hoping to have this done before the man himself weighed in, but I was having technical problems so hopefully my readers will forgive me. Some tidbits from the Iran National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) got leaked to the press this morning and I suspect that this is yet another effort from some people to say, "See, they aren't that close to nukes, we can still do a grand bargain!"

One can't help but notice that those portions of the Iran NIE that got leaked to the press only dealt with the nuclear program and didn't discuss, say, Muqtada al-Sadr, Saif al-Adel, or Saad bin Laden. Nor did it mention the fact that Brigadier General Suleimani's Qods Force (the elite of the IRGC) appears to be operating under the assumption that they're basically at war with the US and getting away with it. And in the interest of caveats, let me just say that my understanding is that the NIE is "ambiguous" (dare one say purposefully) as to the exact status of the al-Qaeda leadership based inside Iran. It'll be interesting to see, if during the course of the London investigations, it turns up that the 7/21 cell was under orders from the Gulf al-Qaeda leadership, who in turn are under orders from Saif al-Adel and the rest of the Iran-based al-Qaeda.

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That said, here are some choice quotes from the Washington Post article in question:

The estimate expresses uncertainty about whether Iran's ruling clerics have made a decision to build a nuclear arsenal, three U.S. sources said. Still, a senior intelligence official familiar with the findings said that "it is the judgment of the intelligence community that, left to its own devices, Iran is determined to build nuclear weapons."

No offense, but senior Iranian officials speaking openly of a nuclear exchange with Israel and pulling out of the NPT leaves me somewhat doubting their good intentions. And given that the people most likely to be dissuaded by the sweet words and economic goodies of the Euros (like the wonderful "pragmatist" Rafsanjani) are no longer the ones in the driver's seat, I am somewhat dubious that the regime is going to be willing to capitulate on an issue that these same intelligence experts keep telling us is a source of national pride.

One such paper was a 2002 review that former and current officials said was commissioned by national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, who was then deputy adviser, to assess the possibility for "regime change" in Iran. Those findings described the Islamic republic on a slow march toward democracy and cautioned against U.S. interference in that process, said the officials, who would describe the paper's classified findings only on the condition of anonymity.

The new estimate takes a broader approach to the question of Iran's political future. But it is unable to answer whether the country's ruling clerics will still be in control by the time the country is capable of producing fissile material. The administration keeps "hoping the mullahs will leave before Iran gets a nuclear weapons capability," said an official familiar with policy discussions.

Has another review been conducted since 2002? Quite a bit has changed in the Middle East and inside the regime since, not the least of which being the fall of Saddam Hussein, the rise of Ayatollah Sistani as a major Shi'ite spiritual and political force, the neutralization of the reformist movement as a viable political force inside Iran by the hardliners, the January 2005 Iraqi elections, the Syrian withdrawl from Lebanon, the ascension of Ahmadinejad to the Iranian presidency, etc. that would seem worth being incorporated into an intelligence estimate.

Moreover, if Iran is as far from the bomb as the NIE evidently says, isn't that all the more reason to support democratic revolution in the country, before the mullahs get the bomb?

Until recently, Iran was judged, according to February testimony by Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, to be within five years of the capability to make a nuclear weapon. Since 1995, U.S. officials have continually estimated Iran to be "within five years" from reaching that same capability. So far, it has not.

That we know of. While it's tempting to point out that the claims that Iran was within 5 years of bomb sound an awful lot like the claim that cold fusion has been just 20 years away for the last 40 years, Ledeen's counter-point that the US was able to make its own bomb from scratch in a lot less than 10 years is a pretty effective rebuttal. Anybody know how long it took the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Israelis, or the South Africans took to make their nukes?

Sources said the new timeline also reflects a fading of suspicions that Iran's military has been running its own separate and covert enrichment effort. But there is evidence of clandestine military work on missiles and centrifuge research and development that could be linked to a nuclear program, four sources said.

Last month, U.S. officials shared some data on the missile program with U.N. nuclear inspectors, based on drawings obtained last November. The documents include design modifications for Iran's Shahab-3 missile to make the room required for a nuclear warhead, U.S. and foreign officials said.

"If someone has a good idea for a missile program, and he has really good connections, he'll get that program through," said Gordon Oehler, who ran the CIA's nonproliferation center and served as deputy director of the presidential commission on weapons of mass destruction. "But that doesn't mean there is a master plan for a nuclear weapon."

So the Iranian military is doing its own research on centrifuge R&D for a purportedly civilian nuclear program and making design modifications to include room for a nuke on their new toys but that doesn't mean there's a master plan? While that's true in the strict sense, it's highly suggestive that at least somebody is planning to be able to use these nukes at some point ...

At a congressional hearing last Thursday, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, deputy director of national intelligence, said that new rules recently were imposed for crafting NIEs and that there would be "a higher tolerance for ambiguity," even if it meant producing estimates with less definitive conclusions.

The Iran NIE, sources said, includes creative analysis and alternative theories that could explain some of the suspicious activities discovered in Iran in the past three years. Iran has said its nuclear infrastructure was built for energy production, not weapons.

Assessed as plausible, but unverifiable, is Iran's public explanation that it built the program in secret, over 18 years, because it feared attack by the United States or Israel if the work was exposed.

Tolerance for ambiguity is one thing, but buying Iranian BS is quite another. Anybody want to explain why you need to do business with Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear black market for nuclear technology for their peaceful nuclear program?

The bottom line with this whole thing is that it doesn't matter, at least to advocates of democratic revolution in Iran, as to whether the country is 5 or 10 or 15 years away from the bomb. The problem, as I've written before, is not so much the idea of Iran having a nuclear program as it is the regime would be in control of it. There is a very good reason why we don't wake up in the morning living in fear of Japanese or Australian nukes, for instance, even though both nations could probably produce the bomb in relatively short order.

If the NIE estimate is true, then there is every reason to press forward with encouraging democratic revolution inside Iran so as to head off that inevitable point of no return that the Post tells us is still 10 years away. If it is false and darker estimates are accurate, then that should only lead us to quicken the pace of that option.

Faster, please.