Commentary By Ron Beasley
As we reported the other day Israel's Likud party hypocritically accused the Obama administration of interfering in Israeli politics. According to Gareth Porter Israel is interfering in US politics by leaking phony intelligence on Iran's nuclear program.
A report on Iran's nuclear program issued by the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month generated news stories publicizing an incendiary charge that US intelligence is underestimating Iran's progress in designing a "nuclear warhead" before the halt in nuclear weapons-related research in 2003.
That false and misleading charge from an intelligence official of a foreign country, who was not identified but was clearly Israeli, reinforces two of Israel's key themes on Iran - that the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran is wrong, and that Tehran is poised to build nuclear weapons as soon as possible.
But it also provides new evidence that Israeli intelligence was the source of the collection of intelligence documents which have been used to accuse Iran of hiding nuclear weapons research.
The committee report, dated May 4, cited unnamed "foreign analysts" as claiming intelligence that Iran ended its nuclear weapons-related work in 2003 because it had mastered the design and tested components of a nuclear weapon and thus didn't need to work on it further until it had produced enough sufficient material.
That conclusion, which implies that Iran has already decided to build nuclear weapons, contradicts both the 2007 NIE on Iran, and current intelligence analysis. The NIE concluded that Iran had ended nuclear weapons-related work in 2003 because of increased international scrutiny, and that it was "less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005".
This information was alleged to have come form a laptop computer but there are some serious problems.
A US-based nuclear weapons analyst who has followed the "alleged studies" intelligence documents closely says he understands that the documents obtained by US intelligence in 2004 were not originally stored on the laptop on which they were located when they were brought in by an unidentified Iranian source, as US officials have claimed to US journalists.
The analyst, who insists on not being identified, says the documents were collected by an intelligence network and then assembled on a single laptop.
And the source of the laptop is a problem.
German officials have said that the Mujahedin E Khalq (MEK), the Iranian resistance organization, brought the laptop documents collection to the attention of US intelligence, as reported by IPS in February 2008. Israeli ties with the political arm of the MEK, the National Committee of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), go back to the early 1990s and include assistance to the organization in broadcasting into Iran from Paris.
Lawmakers and the administration must come to realize that Israel will do anything to lookout for the interests of Israel and those interests frequently not in the best interests of the United States (or even Israel).
Lawmakers and the administration must come to realize that Israel will do anything to lookout for the interests of Israel
ReplyDeleteWell of course they will! Governments always look out for their best interests, and more often than not "interfere" with the politics of other nations to do so. The US is probably the biggest interferer of them all, given its interests tend to be the widest on the planet, but I wouldn't think for a minute that just about every country looks for opportunities to affect other nations domestic policies in a manner that will benefit themselves.
The only thing that has made Israel in any way unique is that the interests of its government had diverged considerably from those of the majority of Americans without the commesurate change is US government policy. A US that starts persuing its own interests in the region at Israel's, (or at least the Israeli government's), expense is one that makes Israelis understandably nervous, and were I them, I'm sure I'd be squealing just as loudly to find myself in such a position.
"Lawmakers and the administration must come to realize that Israel will do anything to lookout for the interests of Israel and those interests frequently not in the best interests of the United States (or even Israel)." That statement contains such a general truth that you could easily switch the places of the two countries or substitute the names of any other two countries with significant economic or political interactions. The degree to which US and Israeli interests ever converged or have diverged is certainly a matter of intense debate. The political reality is that this particular special relationship will likely survive in some form regardless of the confluence of interest for much the same reason that the special relationship with Britain has: pure inertia. It is much easier to work within an established historical framework of political and economic interests than to tear it down and start over.
ReplyDeleteWhat I was trying to say that the US has too often sacrificed Us interests for what Israel thought was in it's best interest. Lieberman announcing the other day that Israel won't attack Iran is an example. Obama has made it clear it won't help and Israel can't do it alone without a lot of pain. If the Bush/Cheney cabal were still in charge Israel would not hesitate knowing the US would come running to their assistance.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's necessarily so far off the NIE as stated:
ReplyDeleteA. We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program1; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We judge with high confidence that the halt, and Tehran�s announcement of its decision to suspend its declared uranium enrichment program and sign an Additional Protocol to its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement, was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran�s previously undeclared nuclear work.
We assess with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons.
We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (Because of intelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate, however, DOE and the NIC assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran's entire nuclear weapons program.)
We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.
We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.
Tehran�s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005. Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.
1 For the purposes of this Estimate, by �nuclear weapons program� we mean Iran�s nuclear weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work; we do not mean Iran�s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.