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There’s lots of speculation about the significance of the US government making the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) public, and the spin that is being put on it. We really know very little — was this a strike against the Bush Administration or a maneuver by it? Does it mean that the ‘military option is off the table’, if indeed it ever was on the table?

We don’t know, although it is clear that the forces opposing a confrontation (military or diplomatic) with Iran over her nuclear program have suffered a severe setback — notwithstanding the fact that a close reading of the NIE text does not justify this.

A thread which I’ve been hearing lately is that the US has made a deal with Iran: take the pressure off us in Iraq and we will take the pressure off of your nuclear program. And there’s another deal with Syria, too: stop supporting the insurgents and we will not interfere in Lebanon. Debka and Ted Belman provide an exposition of this theory here.

Is it true? Probably not in precisely the way they spell it out. But they are close. Keep this in mind:

The view in the US, from all sides of the political spectrum is that the trap we have fallen into in Iraq is the biggest disaster for the US in recent memory (pro-administration spokespersons will say otherwise, but I guarantee that this is what they think). While disagreeing about how or why it happened, we can be sure that the one thing politicians of all stripes do agree about is that almost anything we can do to get out without creating chaos will be justified (of course they also disagree about the meaning of ‘chaos’). Just the economic damage done by the war will be a massive blow to the US in years to come.

The policy that we are now appearing to follow is the policy of ‘engagement’ with the major players in the region that are acting on Iraq — Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria — that was originally spelled out in the Iraq Study Group Report, which I wrote about in these pages almost exactly one year ago. I found it notable that so much mention was made of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which appears to have little to do with Iraq.

But this is not surprising, given the identity of the players and their policy goals: Syria to dominate Lebanon without interference from Israel or the US and to get the Golan without having to give a real peace agreement in return, Saudi Arabia to get their ‘peace’ plan implemented (and thereby to be the ones to finally end the Zionist entity), and Iran to cement her influence over the Eastern Mediterranean area by way of Hizbullah and Hamas, in spite of Israel.

So, Ami Isseroff is correct when he tells us that

Iran’s nuclear program is not just about Israel. It was never just about Israel. The Iranian program is a threat to the entire Middle East, especially its Arab neighbors in the Gulf, and to the United States. They aren’t necessarily going to use the bomb. They are going to use the possession of the bomb as leverage to out the US, from the Gulf and impose their own will there and in the rest of the Middle East. The NIE report, which causes such jubilation in Tehran, caused fear among Arab states. Ahmadinejad has tried very hard to make the issue into an Israel issue, because that defuses Arab opposition and recruits domestic support in Iran for the project.

All this is true. But it is also true that Israel has become central to the regional conflict, her interests a set of bargaining chips in the hands of an increasingly desperate USA.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel, NIE

The slogan “Two States for Two Peoples” is supposed to express the position of ‘moderate’ Israelis and Palestinians that peace can be achieved by establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Supporters of this ‘two state solution’ often say things like “we already know the general lines that an agreement will take, it’s just a question of working out the details”.

I’ve often pointed out that the ‘details’ — Jerusalem, refugees, etc. — are not as simple as they seem. But there is really a much greater problem.

The ‘moderate’ Palestinian leadership — the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad — do indicate by this slogan that they want there to be two states (at least for a while), but they make it quite clear that they expect both states to be for the Palestinian people.

This is why they categorically refuse to agree to accept Israel as a Jewish state, and why they insist that the 5 million descendents of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 have the right to ‘return’ to Israel.

Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel also insist that the Jewish character of the state be ended, and that Israel be defined as “a state of its citizens” (although with special rights for the Arab minority). This is the ‘Israel’ part of the “two states”. Here is what Muhammad Barakei, chairman of the Israeli Arab Hadash party said recently:

The movement will fight against any population swap plan. We were the first to come out with the slogan of ‘Two states for two nations’ and just because [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and [Foreign Minister Tzipi] Livni are distorting this slogan, it doesn’t mean we have to give it up.

The population swap idea was supposed to solve some of the ‘mere details’ mentioned above by allowing Israel to keep some areas in the West Bank that are heavily populated by Jews, ceding Arab-populated land within the Green Line in return. Israeli Arabs are violently opposed to this for various reasons (they see what it’s like in the West Bank and Gaza), but from an ideological point of view, they believe that they are the rightful owners of what is called ‘Israel’, not some to-be-created Palestinian state.

Nothing can be clearer than the consequences of accepting the Arab demands. There is a fundamental difference in the way the two sides understand “two states” which is a much greater obstacle than the way the final border will be delineated.

There is no more important part of any peace agreement with the Palestinians or with any of Israel’s neighbors than recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

And in opposition to the demand of the racist Saudis, this recognition must come first, before any territorial concessions.

Technorati Tags: Israel, two-state solution

The release of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) a few days ago created quite a stir, as it included a statement to the effect that Iran had stopped developing nuclear weapons. Many suggest that therefore the US should back off on its aggressive stance toward the Iranian nuclear program. An editorial in our local newspaper is a good example:

But whether Bush wants to acknowledge it or not, the NIE fundamentally changes things. The intelligence community has weighed in, as the principal deputy director of national intelligence told Congress, “to ensure that an accurate presentation is available.” This information should stop irresponsible talk of unilateral U.S. attacks on Iran.

The report’s message is unmistakable. Its first line reads, “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” There is no Iranian “rush to a weapon,” a view corroborated by others, including International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mohamed El Baradei. — Fresno Bee Editorial, Dec. 7, 2007

But maybe it’s best to read beyond the first line. Here are some more excerpts from the NIE:

We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons…

• 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…

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, despite the continued halt in the nuclear weapons program. Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges at Natanz, but we judge with moderate confidence it still faces significant technical problems operating them…

• We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU [highly enriched uranium] for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely.
• We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame…

Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so. For example, Iran’s civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. We also assess with high confidence that since fall 2003, Iran has been conducting research and development projects with commercial and conventional military applications—some of which would also be of limited use for nuclear weapons…

We assess with moderate confidence that Iran probably would use covert facilities— rather than its declared nuclear sites—for the production of highly enriched uranium for a weapon. A growing amount of intelligence indicates Iran was engaged in covert uranium conversion and uranium enrichment activity, but we judge that these efforts probably were halted in response to the fall 2003 halt, and that these efforts probably had not been restarted through at least mid-2007. [emphasis is mine]

In other words: there was a program to build a nuclear weapon that appears to have been halted in 2003, but the production of highly enriched uranium continues, as do other technical developments that are relevant to weapons. Even if a program was halted, it is not clear that all programs have been halted; and even if so, they can be restarted to produce a bomb between 2009 and 2015.

On top of this, it’s even possible that the alleged halt in weapons development is simply a bit of Iranian disinformation! The New York Times reports that

[officials] said that the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies had organized a “red team” to determine if the new information might have been part of an elaborate disinformation campaign mounted by Iran to derail the effort to impose sanctions against it.

In the end, American intelligence officials rejected that theory, though they were challenged to defend that conclusion in a meeting two weeks ago in the White House situation room, in which the notes and deliberations were described to the most senior members of President Bush’s national security team, including Vice President Dick Cheney.

“It was a pretty vivid exchange,” said one participant in the conversation.

The NIE is in no way the (pardon the expression) bombshell that it has been made out to be. It is interesting to compare Israeli intelligence estimates:

As [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak later told Israeli Army Radio, “It seems Iran in 2003 halted for a certain period of time its military nuclear program, but as far as we know it has probably since revived it.” He added: “We are talking about a specific track connected with their weapons building program, to which the American [intelligence] connection, and maybe that of others, was severed.” The Israeli defense minister implied that the new U.S. assessment was “made in an environment of high uncertainty.”

Israeli intelligence sources told Time that for the past five years, Mossad, Israel’s equivalent of the CIA, had made spying on Iran its top priority, and that its assessment is that Iran would be weapons-ready by 2009. — Time [my emphasis]

The release of this report along with the spin being placed on it suggests that the US is losing its appetite for taking a strong stand against Iran. This is apparently a manifestation of the new American strategy of appease — er, engagement.

Technorati Tags: Iran, NIE, nuclear weapons

Not everything is amenable to compromise:

The Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council Thursday passed a law that makes any concessions on Jerusalem illegal.

The law, which was approved by first reading, also defines such concessions as a crime of high treason…the law is expected to pass in second and third readings in the coming days…

…many Fatah legislators have made it known that they too support the law, which states that Jerusalem is a Palestinian, Arab and Islamic city and that it is totally forbidden to give up or conduct negotiations about any part of the city…

The law is intended to embarrass Abbas and ties his hands on the eve of the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on core issues, including the future status of Jerusalem. Hamas officials said Abbas would have no other option but to endorse the law…

“The Palestinian people want a state in the 1967 borders, including Jerusalem,” [Abbas] stressed. “We also want a solution to the problem of the refugees in accordance with the Arab peace initiative and United Nations resolution 194.” — Jerusalem Post

This racist point of view, in which Arabs must be permitted to live in Israel, enjoy full rights of citizenship, and even demand that Israel’s Jewish character be eliminated — while Jews must evacuate the Palestinian areas and must accept the definition of Judaism’s holiest place as “an Islamic city” — should be totally unacceptable to the civilized world.

It seems, however, that racism and intolerance are permitted to Arabs. How else to explain the lack of an outcry from such centers of enlightenment as the UN, which has multiple commissions and sub-organizations to fight racism?

Why is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia allowed to institutionalize discrimination against Christians and Jews, and even to insist on Jim Crow treatment of Jews at the recent Annapolis conference, where Jews were not allowed to enter by the same door as Arabs?

The Arab position on ‘details’ flows from their racist assumption of superiority and absolute refusal to accept a Jewish right to self-determination. This has not changed since the beginning of the conflict; in fact, it has gotten stronger with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

Unless this changes, there will never be a possibility of agreement on things like borders.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Arabs, Jerusalem, racism