It never was about the Nukes. They want regime change, from their prespective that's the only way to get rid of the problem.

It will be interesting to see the effects of this memo.

It says something profound about the current administration that Cheney's behavior warrants a throwaway mention at the end of a post, instead of screaming front-page news headlines for a month.

Boy, you almost have to grudgingly respect Cheney's addle-brained refusal to learn anything from past mistakes.  Like the dogs he presumably uses to hunt farm-bred pheasants, he just stays on the chosen trail, even if he has to slog through quicksand.  (On second thought, perhaps the hunting dog analogy isn't apt... his dogs are probably trained well enough to get the right scent in the first place.)

No matter. They have sabres to rattle.  This report will be a minor inconvenience along the way.

Oh, I see, when an NIE contradicts OurWay it's junk, and when it goes OurWay it's truth.

Occam would argue for a third possibility: per Reuel Marc Gerecht, western intel agencies (witht he exception of the French) are "flying blind" in the middle east and have been for many years. No serious human assets on the ground, little real insight into how decisions are/were made in these nightmare regimes, no ability to identify all the sites and tell the potemkin ones apart from the real ones etc etc.

Yeah right, next you're going to tell me Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction. Stupid liberal media.

Care to bet whether we have even one solid, useful human asset on the ground inside the ayatollahs' regime? I'd put down good money that we lack same. If I'm right, then how can we say with any confidence what the status of Iran's program is?

danny - both sides are BS'ing. The Bushies aren't going to attack, and the Iranians are most likely far from a viable program. I suspect future diplomatic historians, if the field isn't completely extinguished by the pots 'n' pans and identity-mongering historians, will look back on this crisis as a textbook case of two sides' bluffing and blundering turning a perfectly manageable situation into one of those dangerous late-19c European farces that finally caused the great powers to go to war over a balkan popinjay killed by an anarchist.

IOW this is a perfect scenario for a compromise brokered by a cynical but totally competent third party not aligned with either side, a la Bismarck post-1870. Zbiggy says this could be China; I say it could be Putin, but either way, it won't be the UN or the sadsack EU-3. Or --latest howler-- the Swiss (!).

Figure out Putin's price, negotiate him down, and then pay it.

Global real estate, a billion or two into his numbered offshore account, whatever, it's a bargain.

tep, I have no basis whatsoever to contest your speculations re: the quality of the intelligence.  (Though, from what I understand, Iran has a far freer populace than Iraq did under Saddam, one that is relatively pro-America and against their theocratic government.  This creates a situation in which the US could conceivably have some people on the ground. Anyone who knows better about Iran, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)  

What's more telling to me than the intelligence itself is the report that the White House (and Cheney, in particular) attempted to suppress and alter the content.  Problematic, all things considered, no?

I think it's pretty obvious that the White House is using Mad Dog as its scare puppet this time around. There won't be an attack. We couldn't even take out all the sites even if we could identify them, and I doubt we can locate even half of them. And even complete amateurs like you and I can see that our military, bogged down in two hellacious wars on Iran's borders, is uniquely vulnerable to every type of Iranian retaliation imaginable-- conventional, unconventional, proxies, suicide bombers etc etc etc.

On top of which, this is the worst possible economic climate for an attack on a major swing producer of oil. First, there's already the very real prospect  (per Larry Summers pegged it at a 50-50 chance last week) of a recession. Second, we have a growing credit crunch that not even the most mendacious banker will deny any more. Third, the dollar is plunging. IOW if we attack and oil soars to $150/bbl, then we will have a) a recession for sure, prompting b) a further contraction in lending above and beyond what we have now, as well as c) a de facto massive devaluation of the dollar given that oil is priced in $$. All of which will mean the Fed will have an impossible choice to make: either slash interest rates to fight recession and force the dollar's fall to accelerate even more, or try to shore up the dollar whcih means raising rates ie exacerbating the recession.

In short, even Cheney-- actually, Cheney the ex-oilman better than anyone-- understands that an attack on Iran = a massive attack on the dollar. I'll believe Cheney truly favors an attack when you show me his broker's dollar forward positions.

This dollar vulnerability btw is why ol' Zbiggy may well be right that the Chinese above all have an interest in solving this crisis. Condi or someone smart at State should be shuttling back and forth between Tehran, Moscow and Beijing right now.  

IOW an attack would plunge us into a recession during a credit

Plans

Very smart, tep.  Makes a lot of sense.  I really appreciate your reasoning.  Thanks.

What tep said.  Further, it has never made any sense from a pol/mil point of view to attack Iran.  It it senseless to say, as our politicians are wont to do, that a nuclear Iran is "unacceptable."  All you do then is paint yourself into a corner.

The way to deal with a nuclear Iran is the same way we dealt with a nuclear USSR - deterrence.  In Iran's case, deterrence plus.  We say to the Iranians, as we said to the Sovs, attack us (or any ally) and your country disappears - soonly.  The plus is that we add that if a nuke goes off against us (or an ally) and we can't immediately figure out whence it came (e.g., NK), your country disappears in that case, too.

Guess who then has the greatest stake in nuclear peace?  The question then becomes would they believe we would actually do it.  The Sovs seemed to.  I suspect the Iranians are no more suicidal than the Russians.

Hey butchie, how about some attribution? (just kidding)

Here's me on the subject over at the Colin Powel post last week:

"What we should do is say, out loud for all the world to hear, 'Iran, whatever you say your intentions are truly, it appears to us that you are attempting to obtain nuclear weapons.  Our ability to prevent you from obtaining nuclear weapons is limited, but our ability to utterly destroy your nation should you EVER attempt to use a nuclear weapon is absolute.  You are now on notice that all of your cities and all of your military and industrial centers are now targeted by our ICBMs.  And if a nuclear device should ever be detonated in Tel Aviv or Houston and we even THINK that it originated in Iran, Iran will be wiped from the face of the earth.  Therefore, you will see that it will be in your best interest NOT to pursue a nuclear device and to give our inspectors free access to your country in order to ensure that we KNOW you have no nuclear device so as to avoid any future mistakes on our part of which Iran would indubitably bear the brunt.'"

Walt - same sentiment, but mine's less wordy. :-)  But if you and I can figure this out, why are we still flailing about with the EU-3, etc.?  Just move to the deterrence phase, and get on with it.

I'm going to play devil advocate here (I still have my flak jacket on) and propose an alternative thesis to the one put forward by Teplukhin.

It is not certain that a strike on Iran will result in the bottom falling out of the dollar. For one thing it's already at record lows. But more importantly look at the oil crises in 73/74 which had the effect of stabilising the post gold standard dollar. A surge in the price of oil willl equal a surge in the demand for dollars as the price of crude is still tied to the Greenback, despite Iran and Venezuala's best efforts.

In fact, you could argue that Dollar Hegemony allows the US to absorb epic debt and a huge trade deficit. The US can print massive amounts of dollars to pay for all the imported goods safe in the knowledge that the vendors have to buy US Treasury bonds and bills to shore up the mounds of paper they own.

Also, there is serious intel on the Iranians. At least from a technical point of view. The recent silencing of Syria's radar defence system, which the Iranians also use is a good example of that.

In effect the US was demonstrating that they can fly at will over Iran at any time with no detection.

Gee, and TNR is being accused of faulty fact-checking.

Tep, we do have more intelligence assets in Iran than you imagine, and at higher levels as well. They might not be direct US assets, but others have assets there, and they share the intel with us. You gotta know the Russians and the Chinese both desperately want to avoid US war with Iran. Likewise, I am sure we are relaying information through the Russians and Chinese how seriously we take this issue. Even during the depth of the Cultural Revolution we had a listening post in western China spying on the Soviets. Don't sell us short.

butchie,

This thread's probably dead, but one thing I like about the deterrence operation is that I suspect that used the right way it could ensure that Iran never obtains a nuclear device in the first place, and moreover that we'll KNOW they've never obtained a device.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Blackie, why do you believe the Iranians are telling eth Russians and Chinese the truth?  I have no doubt that the diplomatic machinations you refer to are taking place.  But diplomacy only takes one so far.  Do we (the West) have assets on the ground in Iran that have verified this surprising info?  This is the same IC that confiently reported 2 years ago that Iran was proceeding on thier nuke program.  What to believe?

But let's say it's true.  Gee, what happened in 2003 thta might cause the Iranians to think twice about developing nukes?  Naaaah, couldn't be.

Walt, guess I'm not smart enough for you, but it seems to me thaht if Iran wants nukes, eventually it'll have them.  But the mullahs aren't crazy - they may do a cost-benefit, and decide against the whole effort.  We can hope.

Tep:  It *seems* that the confidence of this assessment -- and the facts to back it up -- is stronger than the intelligence on Saddam's activities which were based on guesses in turn based on past conduct.  I never said the infamous NIE couldn't be trusted.  I just said that you needed to look at what it actually said and what it was based on.  From these reports, it appears that we're receiving more recent intelligence than was available in Iraq from multiple sources confirming this assessment.  As for Cheney's true motives, I think you give him a lot of credit for shrewd statecract -- this administration hasn't shown itself to be a master chess player when it comes to any major threat (including the threat of the likely upcoming recession).

Gee, great time to run for president, huh?

Bottom line is that none of us really knows much about Iran's program-- including our own IC ("intelligence Council"? whatever produced the NIE). We're all guessing here, which is, well, what diplomats, intel agencies, politicians and, hell, what's done by just about ANYONE trying to make executive decisions in fast-moving human environments that do not allow one the luxury of good and comprehensive data and information.

That said, it seems obvious to me, and to any of the military brass, that the _objective_ situation, the "correlation of forces" as the soviets used to say, for our military right now in Iraq and Afghanistan is, to put it mildly, sub-optimal. We have a weak hand. We are vulnerable in dozens of ways, and any prudent policy should 1) recognize these very significant vulnerabilities and 2) shore them up where possible but seek other approaches everywhere else. That approach, as aeromonas wisely recommended, is to go back to MAD. Iran's government is not less rational or more disorganized than North Korea's-- or for that matter, the Soviet regime, which those of us who studied it closely know now was largely a shambles.

Walto, when are you going to declare your candidacy?

jhildner - I take your point re trust, and also the new info angle. Still, Occam would argue that this report's very public release, and the very loud bluster from W and Cheney, suggests more bluff and feint and parry. Whatever you think of Bush and Cheney, they are indeed playing chess now, and this is just another gambit IMHO. We're not going to know what's really going on, but one thing is certain: we will not attack Iran unless and until we successfully conclude at least one of our very messy wars in the region.

I hear your point, but I'm just not seeing a coherent strategy working like a top here.  My guess is that the administration would have preferred to keep this NIE secret, but there was a problem:  Congress asked for it.  So maybe they hoped in the four months since it was arrived at and disclosure they might be able to debunk it or massage it or something, but, for whatever reason, they couldn't.  Its disclosure doesn't serve any aim that they plauaibly have.  Keep international pressure up?  Get new sanctions?  (UN session coming up.)  Bomb some program sites?  The only aim release of this report serves is the aim of cooling it, and the administration has gone out on limb after limb to do the exact opposite.  (Remember how WWIII was imminent a few weeks ago?  Well, by then, the intelligence community had already reached this consensus, which, by the way, is in line with what the (wrongly) hated IAEA and the (rightly) hated Putin have been publicly saying for a while.)  The administration now looks like a group of warmongering fools, and, of course, that's how the US now looks to the world -- *again*.  Meanwhile, I haven't seen great stewardship of the dollar coming out of this administration, which likes to run bad deficits making war in the Mideast and whose best buddies are purveyors of junk personal debt.  Does this administration show any sign of giving a shit about the current account deficit?  I haven't seen it -- they're, at best, late to the party as usual.  As for oil prices, I like how the chess players are going around doing everything they can to scare the market that some type of attack may be coming, because if there's one thing the oil market needs, it's political volatility in the Mideast.  That's great bluff, feint, and parry for sure.  If saber-rattling + report totally undercutting it is part of some plan, I'd like to understand what that plan could possibly be.  Ideas?

Tep:  And another thing:  If there's one thing this report seems to suggest, it's that we could do diplomacy wrt Iran and nukes.  With the current idiots in office, perhaps best via China or Russia, as you suggest.  But then, why aren't they doing it -- instead saying, "Before we talk, you have to stop your nuclear -- I'm sorry, nucular -- program," while knowing that it's already stopped and knowing further that the rest of the world is going to find out that it's been stopped.  Face it man:  the administration is majorly ideological and majorly idiotic.  You trust neocons to be pragmatic, intelligent, realistic, reasonable, shrewd, etc.?  On what basis?  You're mirror-imaging -- like the lefties who think Islamo-nutjobs just want their toasters (neglecting the pedigree of their leaders) and don't actually believe the crazy.  Remember the axis of evil (which included a diplomacy-friendly pre-Ahmadinejad Iran)?  These guys and girls *believe* it, like a religion.  Don't underestimate the power of faith.  Or the capacity of faith to take over one's better faculties.

And by the way, to the containment crowd, doing all you can to stop nuclear proliferation in an area where, no thank to us, true believers are on the ascendency is not exactly a bad or pointless foreign policy objective.  Nukes + Islamo-crazy doesn't make me comfortable, even if odds of catastrophe are low.  But we are talking catsrophe, and low odds of really, really, really bad shit require smart action.

jhildner, I don't believe that any nation or national government is or will ever be like a suicide bomber or the 9/11 terrorists.  In other words MAD--or better UAD, since at most, we'd lose one city in such a hypothetical nuclear exchange--would work.   You can't deter Mohamed Atta by threatening to kill him, obviously not, but Iran is not Mohamed Atta, and even if you place Mohamed Atta at the head of Iran's government, he still would not be permitted to make a martyr of the entire nation.  A nuclear attack would require the participation of many dozens of individuals.  They simply wouldn't follow orders--provided of course there was a clear, public threat of retaliatory nuclear destruction.

hildner - I appreciate the legal insight re Congress's request; hadn't considered that, explains a lot.

Still, I think it's becoming obvious that W does not want to attack Iran. And yes, as Fred Kaplan reminds his excitable Slate readership, he IS in fact the decider on Iran policy.

walt, agreed.

Tep:  I'm willing to buy your main point -- that they aren't salivating to attack Iran.  I think you make several strong arguments for why, even if they wanted to, it's just not plausible right now.  Maybe they just wanted to keep international pressure up (sanctions, UN resolutions, let us see your weapons now, etc.).  The NIE may (unfortunately) have the effect of cooling even those reasonable efforts.  But the reasonable efforts need not have been a potential casualty of this latest (actually, now, year-old) intelligence.  One large reason things may end up that way is that the administration has lost all credibility as a leader on this issue, first because of Iraq, and then with, even if its bluff, saber rattling on Iran -- both based on irresponsible public fearmongering disproportionate to what they knew to be the best assessments available of those threats.  How can they lead on Iran if they end up looking like liars, warmongers, and fools?  Surely they could see this credibility crisis coming down the pike, which makes their recent (past year) strategy on Iran seem all the more perplexing.  Maybe you're right Tep -- we will never know what's going on.

Tep 2: And I take your point about W as opposed to his administration.  I think the neocon influence may be on the wane, not least because the major neocon thinkers have left the administration and because their strategies haven't worked great so far.  Still, the saber rattling remains confusing.  Maybe the neocon influence is like an old tractor engine shutting down -- still chugging and coughing for a while even after being turned off -- and farmer W has already left the barren field.

aeromonas:  I hear you, but there are still three things that concern me about nuclear proliferation in that part of the world:  first, the chances of a weapon, or sufficient pieces thereof, falling into the hands of a non-government-sanctioned group; second, the chances of a crazy government or crazy group within that government obtaining control of such weapons; third, the inevitable power that comes with nuclear power inuring to an Islamist state, which, like Pakistan, may well exhibit political volatility and splinter baddies as the nutjobs fight the sane ones for internal control.  The world has come to the brink one or two times over the past 50 years or so (remember the India-Pakistan scare?), and one or two times is one or two times too many for comfort.  Menwhile, worldwide cooperation to control nuclear proliferation actually has a decent track record, and, given the stakes (once again, even if the odds of shit raining down are relatively slight), it strikes me as smart to vigorously pursue that course.