A certain regular correspondent whose first name is Samuel brought to my attention this piece from The Jerusalem Post. It’s by Caroline Glick, a writer with whom I am unfamiliar (maybe y’all will have time to read her past columns; I can’t do that on a Friday), and it’s headlined, "The Abandonment of the Jews." An excerpt:
The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on
Iran’s nuclear intentions is the political version of a tactical
nuclear strike on efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear bombs.
The
NIE begins with the sensationalist opening line: "We judge with high
confidence that in fall 2003, Teheran halted its nuclear weapons
program." But the rest of the report contradicts the lead sentence. For
instance, the second line says, "We also assess with moderate-to-high
confidence that Teheran at a minimum is keeping open the option to
develop nuclear weapons."
Indeed, contrary to that earth-shattering opening, the NIE
acknowledges that the Iranians have an active nuclear program and that
they are between two and five years away from nuclear capabilities.
While I was there, I also glanced over this piece by David Horovitz, headlined "Bushwhacked." An excerpt:
But beyond the headlines, a close reading of the
material released from the National Intelligence Estimate offers little
legitimate reason for any sense of relief. Quite the opposite. Along
with the opening judgment that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program
in 2003 comes the immediate caveat that "Teheran at a minimum is
keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." And then, just a
few paragraphs later, comes an undermining of the original,
headline-making assessment. The authors acknowledge that "because of
intelligence gaps" they can "assess with only moderate confidence that
the halt to these activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear
weapons program."
After that, the reservations and flat-out terrifying
assessments in this supposedly sanguine estimate flow thick and fast.
The authors state in their opening paragraphs alone: "We do not know
whether [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons." "We
cannot rule out that Iran has acquired from abroad – or will acquire in
the future – a nuclear weapon or enough fissile material for a weapon."
"We assess centrifuge enrichment is how Iran probably could first
produce enough fissile material for a weapon, if it decides to do so.
Iran resumed its declared centrifuge enrichment activities in January
2006 … [and] made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges
at Natanz."
It occurs to me that when your very survival depends on sound intelligence, you tend to look at these things a little harder, and more critically, than Americans do. Ms. Glick sums up the stakes for Israel in this passage:
Many commentators applauded the Annapolis
conference, claiming that its real aim was to cement a US-led coalition
including Israel and the Arabs against Iran. These voices argued that
it made sense for Israel to agree to negotiate on bad terms in exchange
for such a coalition. But the NIE shows that the US double-crossed
Israel. By placing the bait of a hypothetical coalition against Iran,
the US extracted massive Israeli concessions to the Palestinians and
then turned around and abandoned Israel on Iran as well. What this
means is that not only has the US cut Israel off as an ally, it is
actively working against the Jewish state.
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So glad you found Ms. Glick. If more columnists actually read and were well versed in foreign media, then maybe the assinine pronouncements of both the left and the right would be put into perspective.
I can see how Israel might think that. But I don’t know that it’s true. Meanwhile, we sit with a president who has not got a clue that any culture exists other than his own, and who has the empathic abilities of a snapping turtle. And his vice-president and advisor seems to want to out Machiavelli everyone. But if we could sit down and listen to everyone, perhaps we could hear what their real hopes and fears are, and try to work for a lasting peace. Or we can just bomb the place till the area said to be where the Garden of Eden was is absolutely sterile and oil coming from there glows in the dark. But I think that solution would get us talked about in the rest of the world. At any rate, what does it cost us to listen?
“Two views”—well, you mean really two versions of the same view, those are certainly not two OPPOSING versions of the NIE from Israel. Ms. Glick, former foreign policy advisor to Netanyahu (for those readers not aware of her hawkish affiliations) makes a few puzzling assertions in her overheated column.
First of all, could somebody explain to me what the “massive Israeli concessions to the Palestinians” were that we supposedly “extracted” at the Annapolis conference?
Secondly, in her column Glick implies that the report somehow alters the attitudes of other Western leaders towards continuing pressure on Iran. But Sarkozy and Merkel have just made it clear that they more or less share Bush’s view that Iran must still be considered dangerous and pressure must still be maintained. What is she talking about?
Third: Glick says “The NIE denies [Bush] the option of taking military action against Iran’s nuclear program for the duration of his tenure in office. So for at least 14 months, Iran has nothing to worry about from Washington.” Well, as Iraq showed, since when does this President make military decisions based on intelligence reports anyway? The reality is that, mostly because of our overextension with the Iraq distraction, military action against Iran by this administration was unlikely, before or after this report. Glick (and Horovitz to a lesser degree) seems to have gotten unrealistically hopeful that Bush would get trigger-happy and she’s obviously saddened to even think that the US might proceed more cautiously before unleashing a military strike on Iran.
Fourth: in the end it’s the extremism of Glick’s rhetoric that is the most revealing. In many ways it echoes the now-fading Bushian mantra of early “war-on-terror” days, i.e., if you’re not with us you’re with the terrorists, enemy, whatever. This kind of all-or-nothing extremism is illustrated by her referring to the US “abandoning Israel on Iran,” or that the US has “cut Israel off as an ally,” and worst of all, the US is “actively working against the Jewish state.” Oh please.
This kind of hawkish hysteria says to the US that we can only be considered a friend to Israel if we concur with them on every single issue; it denies us the chance to take a nuanced, multi-faceted approach to the incredible complexities of the Middle East and locks us into a role which has not served the security of the region well at all…not Israel’s security, and certainly not the security of the United States, not to mention the long-term well-being of other peoples in the region, most notably the Palestinians.
First of all, could somebody explain to me what the “massive Israeli concessions to the Palestinians” were that we supposedly “extracted” at the Annapolis conference?
Yes, Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem are the land concessions. The majority of Israeli citizens do not support giving up these areas, so its untenable politically for Olmert. But also because this land was won by the Israelis militariy, they are considered to be part of the state of Israel, and giving up control would enable terrorists to fire their katushas from an even closer striking range, not to mention it makes the case that Israel is willing to in effect reward terrorism by giving them land in exchange for being left alone, a false promise when all of their neighbors seek to destroy the state of Israel and kill all Jews. Surely you can understand why a place named ‘Judea’ would be connected to the Jewish peope and the state of Israel. If Richland county declared war on Lexington county, and was continually attacking it from the Vista, and in response Lexington decides to simply give Richland county all of West Columbia, decreasing their rightful territory and making it even easier for Richland county to attack Lexington by moving the dividing line even closer to civilian populations. Especially when the person you would be cutting the deal with is not in power (Abbas), and the person in power of Richland has in its charter a mandate to destroy Lexington and kill all the Lexingtonians. Let’s also remember that Fatah’s Abu Abbas is a hardcore terrorist for most of his life, most famously funding the 1972 Munich Olympic attack, among other bloody attacks. On the Hamas side, they are one of the most belligerent of Iran-funded terrorist groups, responsible for countless suicide attacks on Israel as well as openly murdering Fatah members in summary executions in the streets of Gaza. They are sworn to the total destruction of the Israeli state AND have pledged to attack America for our support of the’Zionist regime’ in Jerusalem. They are an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a leader in their global terrorist network that seeks to destroy the west and replace it with a global Islamic state. So to negotiate a deal with a group that is violent but isn’t even in power, when waiting in the wings is the group that actually is in power and has no reason at all to commit to the deal and is even more bent on bloody conflict, is considered to be a suicidal move to the people of Israel.
Ariel Sharon made major land concessions to the PLO, dismanted settlements by force, and withdrew from IDF occupied territories. In return, Hamas defeated the PLO-Fatah party, and has renewed the conflict all over again. Only a moron would continue to keep making strategic concessions, remove territorial buffer zones that make military attacks more difficult, and put lives at stake with a sworn enemy.
“…hawkish hysteria…”
Let’s see, death to Israel, death to America, destroy the Zionist regime, remove them from history, attack America with suicide bombers, these and more are the regular parlance of Iran and other Arab states and entities like Syria and Hizbollah in Lebanon. So when an Israeli columnist speaks in anything less than a conciliatory tone, THEY are the hawkish ones? How does that work? The Jews ignored this type of language once before, as did the rest of the free world, and the result was the Nazis rise to power, WWII, and six million Jews ‘wiped from the page of history,’ I’m amazed that much like a battered wife, Israel puts up with direct promises of death from Arab leaders, and everyone expects them to be cheerful about it. Neither America or Israel is calling for the destruction of Iran, and Iran is promising to come kill Jews until they dissappear from the face of the earth, and Israelis are not supposed to even express the slightest worry about it.
As for the ‘with us or with the terrorists,’ until these Arab states quit electing terrorist organizations and quit this bellicose language and stop their terroist attacks on civilians, how can you say that the ‘side’ they are on is not on the side of the terrorists? Iran funds Hizbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and those are openly terrorist groups. While I may have sympathy for Palestinians, to support their governments means that I would be on the side of terrorists who openly chant Death to America, Death to Israel. That would be insane to support those who wish to kill me. I don’t hear you calling for Hamas to be less hawkish or hysterical. They wrote the book on hysteria.
I’ve read Ms. Glick’s commentary before and it is spot on.
And to someone who has followed the Iranian issue for decades, I must say that if Iran truly gave up developing nuclear weapons, they wouldn’t be creating deep underground facilities for the massive enrichment of uranium which can have only one use: weapons.
What we are witnessing here is the declared war of one faction of our intelligence bureaucracy in open revolt against the Constitutionally elected government.
It’s a dangerous and intolerable situation made possible by the fraud of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson. No Republican Administration will dare to tackle the traitors at State and CIA for fear of another three year long political sideshow.
P.S. as an aside to this, isn’t it funny that the same people who claim we should have protected the identity of Valerie Plame have reverted true to form and are now demanding all the details of the secret CIA interrogations of mass murders Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
What we are witnessing here is the declared war of one faction of our intelligence bureaucracy in open revolt against the Constitutionally elected government.
-Mike
It’s about time somebody revolted. This so-called “Constitutionally elected government” has squandered trillions of dollars chasing phantom enemies in a military occupation that has served only to create real ones. The treasonous neo-cons who outed a CIA agent should all go to jail. Iran is no real threat to us militarily. They have a military budget about 1% of what we have. As the NIE has finally pointed out the Iranians are many years away from producing a nuclear weapon so let’s move on from this phony issue before thousands more American service men and women die. The real threat to America is from the money-grubbing neocon leaders who would sell their mother, soul and first-born child to make a buck. It’s time to stop these criminals before its too late. Thank you NIE for shedding some much needed light on this abomination of a government we’re forced to live under.
Friends, read Hev’s responses to my comment above. Now think again about my closing statement regarding the hawks’ mindset that “we can only be considered a friend to Israel if we concur with them on every single issue; it denies us the chance to take a nuanced, multi-faceted approach to the incredible complexities of the Middle East and locks us into a role which has not served the security of the region well at all…”
D’oh!