More and more, I see important articles like this one posted on FR with no or minimal comments. Disheartening, to say the least.
Kissenger does not buy the NIE either.
Perceptive and cogent - and probably influential - summary by someone who has gravitas if anyone has gravitas. Thanks for the post.
Some Freepers just hate Kissinger. It may be that he has some moral shortcomings but he has a political mind like the western world has rarely seen. When he analyzes a point, he takes you through a logical process that runs through the contigencies of each possibility. He then adds his own vast experience to the analysis.
HEnry might be old and crusty, but he’s still sharp as a needle and still get’s it.
” In short, if my analysis is correct, we could be witnessing not a halt of the Iranian weapons program — as the NIE asserts — but a subtle, ultimately more dangerous, version of it that will phase in the warhead when fissile material production has matured.”
The NIE does not so much reject this theory; it does not even examine it. It concludes that "Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon." But a cost-benefit analysis does not exclude a rush to weapons on a systematic basis. It depends on the criteria by which costs and benefits are determined. Similarly, in pursuing the cost-benefit rationale, the estimate concludes that a combination of international scrutiny along with security guarantees might "prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program." That is a policy, not an intelligence, judgment.
Kissenger is a master of duplicitous diplomacy, but his thoughts on this NIE are sharp. I wonder if he would have crafted it any differently...