Update: Analysing the Iranian (Non-)Threat

Well, it didn't take long.

This morning we highlighted the US "Intelligence Community Annual Threat Assessment", which explicitly said that, as of mid-2007, Iran had not resumed its programme for nuclear weapons.

We added, however, that the report left open the door to those who don't like this assessment of non-threat, offering the admission:

We do not have sufficient intelligence reporting to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain indefinitely the halt of its previously enumerated nuclear weapons-related activities while it weighs its options, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will prompt it to restart those activities.

And we noted that Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who presented the report to a US Senate committee, "was so cautious that..he has made a rod for the back that he was trying to cover,quite keen to cover his back and that of his agency". Step up, stridently pro-Israel Commentary magazine:

Blair acknowledged [Iran's nuclear programme] was a difficult question to deal with in a public setting. “I can say at this point that Iran is clearly developing all the components of a deliverable nuclear weapons program — fissionable material, nuclear weaponizing capability and the means to deliver it,” he said.

Let's revisit the relevant passage of the Threat Assessment report:

We judge in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons design and weaponization activities and that the halt lasted at least several years. We assess Tehran had not restarted these activities as of at least mid-2007. Although we do not know whether Iran currently intends to develop nuclear weapons, we assess Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop them.

That's not exactly the same as "clearly developing...nuclear weaponizing capability". Or to be blunt, the Director of National Intelligence, in front of a Congressional committee was undercutting the analysis of his intelligence services.

And it gets worse. Yesterday morning, Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times put out a sensational article, "U.S. Now Sees Iran as Pursuing Nuclear Bomb".

It's a poor piece of journalism, with almost no sources and absolutely no evidence to back up the claim, "The Obama administration has made it clear that it believes there is no question that Tehran is seeking the bomb." There's a Presidential quote pulled far out of context, and another snap sentence before a Congressional committee, this one from CIA Director, Leon Panetta: ""From all the information I've seen, I think there is no question that they are seeking that capability."

It's enough, however, for Miller to write, "The language reflects the extent to which senior U.S. officials now discount a National Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007," when in fact the Threat Assessment repeats and supports the conclusions of that Estimate unequivocally. And you can guess which of the two pieces --- Miller's slipshod report or the primary document based on the detailed analysis of the intelligence services --- is racing around the talkboards on the Internet and the journals like Commentary.

So it may come to pass --- amidst hesitant Obama officials, activists wanting to take out an "enemy", and a mainstream media without the time or judgement to consider details rather than assumptions --- that grey becomes black and Iran once more becomes Threat Number One to the United States. If so, then this month's opening for US-Iran engagement will be jeopardised, not by a Bomb but by unsupported bluster.

Anticipating the New Israeli Government: Netanyahu or Livni?

According to the Associated Press, the Obama Administration has praised the Israeli elections and has called the voting by millions of Israelis the sign of a strong democracy. The White House spokesman Robert Gibbs stated that the President Obama was excited to work with the new Israeli government, and on Wednesday, Obama called Israeli President Shimon Peres to express his gratitude for American and Israeli model democracies and to emphasise his personal efforts for a two-state Israel-Palestine solution.

The question is how much room there is for such a solution. While relatively moderate Tzipi Livni, the leader of the Kadima Party is ready to pursue peace talks with the Abbas Government, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Likud, considers the US-backed negotiation process as a waste of time.

Meanwhile, Livni has demonstrated her "hawkish" reflexes in the name of "Israeli interests" during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. This was reminiscent of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's 2006 Lebanon War when there were serious questions in Israelis' minds whether the inexperienced Olmert was able to handle the weight of the Israeli politics after his predecessor Ariel Sharon's illness. The only difference is that Olmert had to prove himself after Sharon was no longer able to be the Prime Minister, while Livni had to sharpen her position against Hamas, "the common enemy" of all Israelis, to increase Kadima`s votes. Waging war against Hamas while giving priority to the peace process with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas --- including giving up land, dismantling settlements in West Bank, and sharing Jerusalem --- indicate the balance of her expected policies. Livni`s position is closer to peace when compared to that of Netanyahu, but the Iron Lady offers no concession on the most sensitive notion of the Israeli society: "security".

For Netanyahu, as we see in his election motto (“Likud: Because the state needs to be run”), Kadima has been incompetent in its rule, including its conduct of the Lebanon War and the most recent Gaza War. Netanyahu has criticized the government for being insufficiently strong against Hezbollah and Hamas in these two wars and insisted on the continuation of Operation Cast Lead. Netanyahu`s "security pack", which includes toppling Hamas in Gaza, keeping the Golan Heights, and expanding current settlements in the West Bank, is much more important than giving priority to the peace process.

It is clear that a peace agreement is unlikely to come under an Netanyahu administration, but his agenda is wide enough to keep peace proponents busy, at least in the mid-term. What is missing in this analysis, however, are the Obama Administration`s regional policies the application of these to Israel and its new Gvoernment, as it seeks a "secure" Israeli society and/or "strong" steps for peace.

The Latest on Israel-Gaza-Palestine (13 February)

Related Post: Anticipating the New Israeli Government - Netanyahu or Livni?



1:55 p.m. An Israeli airstrike has killed one Gazan militant and critically wounded another. Two other people reported injured.

1:45 p.m. It looks like a prisoner swap involving Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is part of the cease-fire package. Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk (pictured) is quoted by an Egyptian news agency, ""We want the release of our detainees in exchange for Shalit. If Israel agrees to our list, we will make the deal."

Hamas has submitted a list of 1400 prisoners; diplomatic sources say Israel is willing to free closer to 1000.

10:20 a.m. A series of details, some of them conflicting, are emerging over the possible Israel-Gaza cease-fire arrangement.

All accounts agree the time period is 18 months but the status of border crossings is unclear. Hamas has demanded a full opening, but the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot is reporting that Israel will only about 80 percent of goods to pass. Prohibited items would include "pipes, machines and other raw materials liable to be used to manufacture rockets and explosives", and the two sides are still at odds over cement, concrete and construction iron.

Reuters is reporting that the crossings will have international monitors and also some Palestinian Authority guards. Turkish forces may also be involved.

There are also differences in reporting on a possible prisoner swap involving kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Hamas has denied any arrangement involving Shalit, but Reuters, citing "Western and Palestinian officials", says a prisoner exchange is part of the deal.

7:40 a.m. Three Qassam rockets have hit the western Negev in Israel.

Morning Update (5:55 a.m. GMT; 7:55 a.m. Israel/Palestine): Hamas' declaration that a cease-fire agreement with Israel can be reached within 72 hours, which we noted in our last update yesterday, continues to be the top development. Moussa Abu Marzouk (pictured) says the proposal is for an 18-month cease-fire with opening of all border crossings.

The key question, of course, is whether Tel Aviv has indeed signalled its readiness that it will sign or whether Hamas is taking this public line to press the Olmert Government into acceptance.

Elsewhere, Egypt has seized 2200 tons of food and medical supplies that the Doctors' Syndicate was trying to take into Gaza and arrested two members of the aid committee. The seizure is both part of Egypt's general campaign to keep pressure on Hamas by limiting aid and part of Egyptian internal politics. The committee and the arrested men are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned in Egypt.

US Government Documents: Proof of "Ghost Detention", Torture, Death

Last night we closed an update with a note that CNN had just reported on hundreds of pages of documents obtained by Amnesty International USA, New York University’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and the Center for Constitutional Rights — which established that the Pentagon sought loopholes in the Geneva Conventions to hide “ghost detainees”. They also confirmed that the Bush Administration delayed the release of Guantanamo Bay detainees to avoid negative publicity.

This morning the American Civil Liberties Union has released two pages from a Department of Defense document concerning the death of two detainees at Camp Bagram in Afghanistan:

"In both cases, for example, [prisoners] were handcuffed to fixed objects above their heads in order to keep them awake. Additionally, interrogations in both incidents involved the use of physical violence, including kicking, beating, and the use of "compliance blows" which involved striking the [prisoners] legs with the [interrogators] knees. In both cases, blunt force trauma to the legs was implicated in the deaths. In one case, a pulmonary embolism developed as a consequence of the blunt force trauma, and in the other case pre-existing coronary artery disease was complicated by the blunt force trauma.

Seven years after the Bush Administration effectively set aside the Geneva Conventions, declaring they were not relevant to US detentions from Guantanamo Bay to Camp Bagram to CIA "black sites" in North Africa and Eastern Europe, five years after Abu Ghraib, here are the documents establishing not only that detainees were tortured and, yes, murdered. Here is the evidence that US Government officials sanctioned the renditions and "enhanced interrogations" and that they were willing to lie to cover up the programme they had authorised.

It was with a sense of expectation that I have just turned to the headlines in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times of London. And here is what I found: nothing. I cannot find the story in any "mainstream" US or British newspaper this morning.

Full credit to CNN. And full credit to Harper's, Mother Jones and The Raw Story because, without outlets such as these, "ghost detainees" --- and what happens to them --- would remain, well, ghosts.

US Director of National Intelligence: No Evidence that Iran Has Restarted Nuclear Weapons Program

It may not have the sexiest of titles but, for those digging for the detail in US foreign policy, the "Intelligence Community Annual Threat Assessment" is a must-read. Presented by the US Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, to the US Senate yesterday, it offers the latest American evaluation of challenges from Al Qa'eda to the Middle East to Afghanistan to Latin America.

Here's one far-from-incidental passage: the US does not believe Iran is an imminent nuclear threat. Indeed, American intelligence has no evidence that Iran has resumed the weaponisation programme that it suspended in 2003:

We judge in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons design and weaponization activities and that the halt lasted at least several years. We assess Tehran had not restarted these activities as of at least mid-2007.

In effect, Blair was re-stating the US intelligence community's issued a National Intelligence Estimate of December 2007. This reversed previous American analysis: far from pushing for a nuclear weapon, Iran had halted its efforts four years earlier.

This didn't mean, of course, that Iran had stopped the pursuit of enriched uranium, since that was necessary for any nuclear energy programme. Nor had Iran suspended development of ballistic missiles. However, it was no longer seeking to put nuclear warheads on those missiles.

The December 2007 NIE has been repeatedly attacked by politicians and commentators, in part because it undermines Israel's projection of an Iran prepared for an offensive strike, in part because it removes one of the props for "regime change" in Tehran. Conversely, its conclusions are useful backing for a policy of "engagement", since there is time to deal politically with Iran before it resumes weapons development, let alone joins the A-Bomb Club.

It should be noted, however, that Blair also threw a bone to those who have criticised US intelligence for being too soft on Iran: "Although we do not know whether Iran currently intends to develop nuclear weapons, we assess Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop them." Indeed, he was so cautious that I suspect he has made a rod for the back that he was trying to cover, namely that US intelligence simply doesn't know what is going on:

We do not have sufficient intelligence reporting to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain indefinitely the halt of its previously enumerated nuclear weapons-related activities while it weighs its options, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will prompt it to restart those activities.