While I do agree that the NIE was somewhat less grounded than previous estimates, I don't agree with what is becoming a popular conservative talking point: Iran dropped their program in 2003 because OIF showed the world that America meant business. I think that it's far more likely that the Iranians--if they really did drop their program--had a North Korea (rather than Libya) style epiphany, realizing that the technological hurdle in constructing a bomb, shrinking it, and mating it to an effective delivery system was just too complicated of an endeavor. Had Iran truly been scared into submission by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I doubt we would have heard four years of blustering about "Iran's right to nuclear research and development" and boasting about "thousands of operational centrifuges."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/12/daily_blog_buzz_nie_commentary.asp
Bryan Preston at Hot Air says,
My take is that we're in a state of dangerous uncertainty all around: We can't trust the IAEA, we don't trust the Iranians (both with good reason), but there's just enough doubt in the NIE to keep the B2s grounded and the Iranians on the loose because the Bush administration cannot base an attack or even another round of sanctions on this estimate, not after the intel failures in Iraq.
And what does President Bush have to say? Michelle Malkin live-blogged his press conference:
10:10am Eastern. David Gregory accuses Bush of knowing about the NIE months ago. DG: "Can't you be accused of hyping this threat?"
GWB: "I hate to contradict an august reporter such as yourself, but I was made aware of this NIE last week--Iran was dangerous. Iran is dangerous. And Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/12/nie_what_changed_since_2005.asp
Finally, Joe Lieberman's take: http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/12/liberman_on_iran_nie.asp
No comments:
Post a Comment