U.S.: Iran's Nuclear Program Has Slowed, There Is Time For Diplomacy

Nobody can really be this naive. The time is only there due to the fact Stuxnet was employed to sabotage the program. Essentially, that's a military strike without ordnance.

Another story at Haaretz has Iran rejecting direct talks with the US. So much for diplomacy.

I am in the process of making a ping list for Middle East and terrorism related threads. Please Freepmail me to be on or off the list.

pathetic, just pathetic.

As BEck says,” I need duct tape to wrap around my head to keep it from exploding!”

I’m in..but don’t we already have a mideast ping list?

Lily is just STUNNING!!!!!

Albert Einstein - "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

Diplomacy/sanctions have worked so well with Iran, let's try it again. It will really, really work this time /s

When one examines the options of diplomacy verses military strikes verses sanctions verses sabotage, one has to realize there is only one option remaining that has not been tried. Zer0 and his crowd are acting like fools again. I not surprised!

Last sentence should read...I am not surprised! sorry, for the error.

Great-Satan-to-keep-negotiating-until-umma-have-the-bomb ping.

"Nuclear Terror" ping.

Ping list covering atomic/nuclear/thermonuclear terrifying events and discussions.

FReepmail me if you want on or off The Comedian's "Nuclear Terror" ping list...

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

"Diplomacy/sanctions have worked so well with Iran, let's try it again. It will really, really work this time /s"

You don't understand. Diplomacy has worked perfectly in Iran. It all depends on what you think this diplomacy was intended to do in the first place. If you think it was intended to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, then you could rightfully say that it was a complete failure. However, what if the sole purpose of diplomacy vis a vis Iran is only designed to give the appearance of action, without the necessity of actually doing anything? Then you could say that it has worked perfectly.

The country has been in the same place before. Remember Bush blundered in allowing preparation and presentation of an intelligence report by a State Department official, which lacked even the most basic credibility. Here is the comment I posted at FR and other places at the time.

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of November 2007 was titled Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities. An intention is a future determination to act in a particular manner. A capability represents possession of sufficient mental and/or physical power to perform an act. Intentions and capabilities are the two types of information intelligence agencies can contribute to formulation of policy decisions. The 2005 Iran report seemed appreciative of this legitimate present and future focus, assessing Iranian determination to develop nuclear weapons, and likelihood to achieve that capability in the next decade.

The 2007 Iranian NIE intruded into policy advocacy by fraudulently using a data point, belonging to text, and contorting it into the primary judgment. The estimate Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and had not restarted, states past circumstances representing neither intentions nor capabilities. This first point crafted the character of the document, even though the next two judgments about Iran’s capabilities made substantially the same points as in 2005.

Another indication the 2007 NIE had degenerated into Washington bureaucratic/political circus derived from the bold face statement under Scope. Supposedly, the NIE did not assume Iranian intention to acquire nuclear weapons, but assertions followed of intentions and capabilities to produce weapons grade uranium, solve associated technical problems, and make subsequent political decisions to proceed with program execution.

Contradictory statements of Iranian policy momentums, and present technical capability estimates continually reflect upon the defining Scope paragraph. As a result the managers of these 16 agencies cannot be held accountable regardless of Iranian program outcomes. As a result political exposition advocating an accommodative policy toward Iran and its aims retained primary rhetorical stature.

The Iranian NIE perverted reasons for Iran’s estimated halt of its nuclear weapons program. Contrary to report assertions, there were no traditional Western style diplomatic efforts underway. However, there was no mention of military diplomacy during that period removing the immediately adjacent Taliban and Hussein regimes. The fact Libya eliminated WMD programs, and the supposition Iran halted their nuclear weapons initiatives related to intentional or unwitting application of Oriental/Asian diplomatic principles. Rulers such as Ahmadinejad and Qaddafi are responsive to diplomacy residing on a continuum including war. Talks, conferences and economic measures serve as war without bloodshed, war serves as diplomacy with bloodshed, and intelligence and espionage provide a medium invigorating all options.

For Iran the operative word is “supposition”, because of defection of General Abireza Asgari, who had extensive access to Iran’s nuclear and intelligence secrets. Nowhere does the document qualify statements to recognize traditional counterintelligence damage control, which should block every channel he had into Iran’s nuclear program and intelligence agencies. People would be reassigned and offices dissolved. New locations would be found using new people now under increased security measures. People who had to be retained would be under continuous surveillance, and reside at more easily isolated locations. The organizations that had to be retained would include new departments and divisions. All information would be relocated ensuring accessibility required new clearances, code names and ciphers. All individuals serving in the successor programs would be re-vetted, including those serving in regular military, government or civilian positions, which interact with the programs. The continuing public, but unexamined uranium enrichment process, required fewer disturbances, because running the same centrifuges can produce weapons grade or power reactor grade product.

An assessment with moderate to high confidence should always require at least two independent sources. If the resulting judgment overturns previous evidence, then the data should be subject to special scrutiny and skepticism. Given Iranians did the expected; the possibility of obtaining two or even one trusted source from behind a new security wall within a closed society becomes very unlikely. Ahmadinejad saying U.S. suffered a fatal blow with this NIE, and his foreign minister declaring victory, indicates successful security measures were employed. An NIE assessing with high to moderate confidence that Iran halted years ago, and had not restarted a nuclear weapons program, indicates dominating insolence and premeditated ignorance supporting a political agenda. My reasoning is hardly unique when France, Germany, Britain, Israel plus NATO and even the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency find little creditable value in the document.

The Iranian NIE presented another milepost on the way to complete corrosion of the U.S. intelligence community. Determined destruction began in the 1970’s as the Church and Pike Committees were allowed to apply their internally confirmed morality to the CIA, which can only provide value when operating powerfully within a shrewd and ruthless world. Congress under pretense of “reasserting” authority plundered authority given to all presidents since George Washington to conduct clandestine operations. The human intelligence network agencies built for the Cold War fatally degraded, because “new morality” decreed we could no longer deal with unscrupulous and flawed people, who were more likely to be turned as double agents. Recruitment of future human resources was discouraged to be replaced by the unverified insights from technological marvels. The lack of HUMINT institutionalized a culture of failure most recently demonstrated by fumbled presumptions about weapons in Libya, Iraq and Iran.

Congressional blindness seeking interminable briefing requests and micro-managing operations compounded with petulant demands to confirm ever more intelligence officials achieves the shallow political theater needed for re-election. The first responsibility borne by the three branches of government compels serious consideration of Alexander Hamilton’s admonition that power to defend our country ought to exist without limitation, providing energetic defenses capable of thwarting dangers as well as responding to attacks. Intelligence and espionage have been inseparable from effective war and diplomacy since Sun Tzu discussed foreknowledge 2,500 years ago. We remain perilously vulnerable to catastrophe as long as the Executive branch suffers constraints never envisioned for this country and unacceptable in other Western countries.

Consistent application of effective espionage and intelligence, independent of election and news cycles, provides the medium uniting the contrasting coercive and ferocious aspects of Oriental/Asian diplomacy applicable to emerging opponents. Instead we have retreated into Western neuroses where war and diplomacy are mutually exclusive. We have gifted Ahmadinejad the initiative to apply threats of or actual violence with endless dissembling, which invites opponents to continual internal debates repeatedly narrowing parameters for national interests. The Bush Administration allowed recalcitrant state/intelligence department bureaucrats to initiate such a debate when they wrote the 2007 NIE so as to undermine four years of diplomacy and U.N. Resolution 1737. We face the real possibility crippled diplomacy will degenerate into appeasement to be abandoned under only the most horrific circumstances. We face the specter of events prompting Ahmadinejad to launch a shattering, unanticipated nuclear attack to usher in a world of chaos for his cherished 12th Imam.

Good post.

Actually, it is quite simple, the U.S., for whatever reasons, does Not Want to stop it. Otherwise, the U.S. (and the West) - for the last 31 yrs - has had both the capability & opportunity to both remove the mullahs’ (Islamic) regime & their nuclear weapons development program.

Incidentally, Iran’s nuclear development program, post Islamic Regime, resumed during mullah Rafsanjani’s presidency in Iran in early 1990’s, that is a few yrs after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988.

Thank you. I think you are right. In fact I cannot of a time when the West ever acted to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.