The New Republic

Maybe they're refusing to tell us what they actually believe and are providing a fig leaf to the obvious fact that it would be lunacy for us to attack Iran when such an attack means:

-- certain failure to take out all the sites

-- certain and very effective Iranian retaliation against our troops who are already bogged down with not one but TWO wars that are going badly

-- certain reversal what limited improvements have been made in Iraq these last 6 months

-- a very high probability that the oil price will soar to the $150/bbl range, causing

... your friend Larry Summers to adjust his forecast of recession from 50% to something >90%, and

... a de facto devaluation of an already plunging dollar, and

... an impossible situation for the Fed, which would be able to fight recession only at the cost of lowering rates and causing the dollar to go into free fall a la the British pound in 1992, thereby

1) enriching George Soros by another billion or two

2) prompting the Chinese to dump more Treasuries

3) further reducing any confidence in the dollar and inhibiting our ability to borrow to cover our deficits

Face it, Mr P. There won't be an attack on Iran, not now or at any time before oil falls below $50/bbl and the US concludes its two wars in the region. IOW probably not before Iran gets nukes.

This is the unpleasant reality, and Bush/W are simply BS'ing us all, as A'jad likely is for his own part, as to what the spooks know and don't know and knew and didn't know.

- teplukhin2you

December 6, 2007 at 8:59pm

ps Show me Cheney's personal dollar forward positions if you disagree with this analysis.

- teplukhin2you

December 6, 2007 at 9:04pm

There was noted  and ridiculed on another thread about Victor David Hanson (and, of all things, his use of commas) his proposition, put more assertively than your speculation, appropriately, which is, I think,  appropriately tentative in tone and phrasing, that, as say, "So why is that date so vital to the narrative?...Because the U.S. and a few allies went to war against the Baghdad regime in 2003 which we thought had MWD.  Maybe, Iran didn't want to get caught in another military initiative from Washington.   2003 is a vital date, if indeed anything happened to slow down Iranian nuclear ambitions."

I think two people out a dozen or so --I was one of the  two--thought that that was an arguable point.  The wrath visited on the venturing of that arguability, was as though some politically correct cast-in-stone code had been violently breached, and was as though some rank and burn-at-the-stakes-heresy had been broached.

- basman

December 6, 2007 at 9:14pm

Uh, Marty -- India and Pakistan announced their possession of nukes in 1998. That's 1998, NOT 1996.

- caaggies

December 7, 2007 at 12:42am

Teplukhin,  all, or some, of the unpleasant consequences you listed may indeed materialize if we attack Iran.  Or,  I should say, might have but now won't - precisely because the NIE was the final straw that broke "warmongers'" back (assuming they had any left by now).

So now we can all rejoice and go back to more fun things - candidates' speeches and debates, I-P "peace process" and such.

All's well and good except for a few minor things.  The sanctions' tightening is now effectively dead too.  Iran will proceed with its nuclear (weapons or not, at this point) program unmolested, and Israel will be again left on its own to ponder just how genocidal mullahs' Iran is (see Halevi's article).

How stable do you think these developments make the ME?  

- sabaka

December 7, 2007 at 1:07am

Sabaka - uzhasnaya situatsiya, soglasen.

Yes, the situation sucks.

"Are these things then necessities?

Then let us meet them like necessities" - King Henry IV, Act II scene i.

- teplukhin2you

December 7, 2007 at 1:51am

Peretz "I'm a sceptic about American intelligence."

What a surprise.  But never a sceptic about Israeli intelligence or Israeli anything-else, unless it comes from the majority of Israelis who favor ending the occupation.

Pathetic.

- mjx47

December 7, 2007 at 8:53am

" It didn't know about the Iraqi capacity in 1981.  (Yes, as far back as that.) "

Apparently, this applies to the Osirak reactor, which was under IAEA inspection at that point. But leave it to Peretz to transmute this into an Iraqi nuclear 'capacity'.

- scottmaceachern

December 7, 2007 at 10:26am

"What a surprise.  But never a sceptic about Israeli intelligence or Israeli anything-else, unless it comes from the majority of Israelis who favor ending the occupation."

Listen, pathetic idiot, Israel bombed the nuclear reactor of Iraq in 1981, and it was right to do so.

What a surprise that an anti-Sermite like you is stupid too.

Fuck your occupation. Your dear Palis don' even allow us the existence as a nation.

- sleepyavl

December 7, 2007 at 11:09am

Scott, you may dislike Peretz and Israel, but you lose all credibility with what you wrote. Saddam Hussein publicly declared in August 1980 that he wanted to destroy Israel. As for the IAEA, we know how good it is, we saw it in North Korea.

My point is: Saddam in 1981 WAS building a bomb. Somehow you forgot this, wasn't convenient for your argument, eh?

Also, if someone threatens the Jewish people with extinction and builds nuclear reactors, he should expect something there. That is what Israel does when threatened and what I fully approve of. Not too long ago we were threatened by extinction by Adolf Hitler. the world either contrubuted in assisting him in the murder of 66% of European Jews that fell under him or averted its eyes.

You may believe in pretending such bastards should not be taken to their word, is wrong. And it doesn't matter. Luckily Israel doesn't have to listen to you.

- sleepyavl

December 7, 2007 at 11:18am

Israel not having taken out Osirak would have made the Persian Gulf war a little more interesting, no?

Israel should not be in the business of gambling on threats to its existence.

- rozenson

December 7, 2007 at 11:35am

sleepyavl: I know that Saddam Hussein threatened to destroy Israel. However, that doesn't change the fact that Iraq had _no_ (repeat, no) 'nuclear capacity'  in 1981; everyone knew that a reactor was under construction, but American intelligence wasn't ignorant about an Iraqi nuclear capacity at that time because.... there was nothing to be ignorant about. Even _Israel_ never claimed that the raid on Osirak was anything except preventative.

As for the IAEA, they've actually been surprisingly accurate in their assessments to this point - certainly more so than the Americans. In Korea, they were allowed to inspect only in 1992, said late that year that the country appeared to be hiding elements of its nuclear programme, and said the next year that they could not guarantee that North Korea was not producing nuclear weapons. That hardly sounds as if they were duped.

- scottmaceachern

December 7, 2007 at 11:44am

basman, you never got back to me about Hanson. and do you include me in the two or me in the dozen or so others? ha.

- blackton

December 7, 2007 at 1:27pm

"I'm a sceptic about American intelligence.  And one of the reasons is that it's not that intelligent. "

But a broken clock is right twice a day.

Who knows?  Maybe Iran responded to the only relevant event in 2003 (our invasion of Iraq) in a way similar to Libya.  We had not yet gotten mired down in Iraq.  But it is difficult to believe that Iran would not have seized the moment and resumed their work on nuclear weapons when our affair in Iraq became what it is today - long, costly and still long and costly and most unpopular.

Why wouldn't Iran have made it known to the world in order to undermine the U.S anti-Iranian crusade and the possibility of blowing up their "peaceful" nuke activities?  That would be the most obvious lesson to learn from Saddam's pre-2003 miscalculation.

The CIA's revised assessment simply doesn't make sense (though it is prudently hedged by a CYA moderate level of confidence).

- klfoster

December 7, 2007 at 3:24pm

sleepy to NDmack - "F--- your occupation."

Can't we leave the professions out of this? What did Accounting ever do to you?

- teplukhin2you

December 7, 2007 at 3:37pm

" It's particularly obtuse about nuclear matters.  It didn't know about the Iraqi capacity in 1981.  (Yes, as far back as that.)  It didn't know about India and Pakistan and their atomic bombs even though they were, more or less, our allies.  And really more.  It got the whole story wrong in 2003, again about Iraq, which it had been scrutinizing from up close since 1990. "

Hell, it didn't know the Soviet Union was falling apart till Gorbachev told the world.

- jacksondyer

December 7, 2007 at 4:31pm

So finally the US 'intelligent" agencies release a report that scottmaceachern likes and he thinks they are wiser than Solon.

Had they arrived at the opposite assessment he would have been the first to jump on them.

- jacksondyer

December 7, 2007 at 4:34pm

In maceachern's mind,  a danger to Israel is either nonexistent or not real enough to justify any action.  

Thus, Nasser & Co in 67 didn't really mean to "drive Jews into the sea" (roi and I had a long discussion with him on this thread), Saddam  "threatened to destroy Israel" , but in 81 he merely was building a nuclear reactor  and "that doesn't change the fact that Iraq had _no_ (repeat, no) 'nuclear capacity' in 1981; everyone knew that a reactor was under construction".

So to satisfy maceachern, Israel must have waited until Saddam conducted a nuclear test - and even then maceachern would've probably found that Saddam was rational enough to not use  his nukes against Israel.  A clear-cut threat in his view, I figure,  would've been a bomb on Tel Aviv.

- sabaka

December 7, 2007 at 8:05pm

Scott, we can't wait until the bomb is fully developed and it's too late. They said in Augist 1980 they wanted to destroy us Jews as a people and country. If you don't like it, I don't give a damn and I hope (and I will vote for) my government echoes me.

Moreover, in 1991 there was a clear acknowledgment that Iraq DID pursue an atomic bomb. Maybe all that lobbying for Norman Finkelstein (or any other anti-Semite on Earth, since you haven't met one you didn't like) prevented you from seeing it.

- sleepyavl

December 7, 2007 at 9:10pm

sleepyavl: Right... so when did Iraq have Peretz's nuclear 'capacity'? 1980? Nope. And that was Peretz's claim, correct? When, exactly? 1991? 2003? No, and no.

Put my objection this way: Martin Peretz lies repeatedly in this blog. He lied in this case. Iraq had no nuclear capacity in 1981, and American intelligence did not miss any such capacity at that time. Everyone knew that then, and knows it now. Unless he's completely senile, Martin Peretz knows it. I dislike barefaced lies in public, and so I object to them.

Now, if you want to claim that the Israeli strike on Osirak was preventative, you have a claim to make, one that can be argued. (Sabaka et al will probably claim that in fact Iraq attacked Israel in 1981, and Israel only destroyed the Osirak reactor in defense against that attack, paralleling claims about 1967, but there's nothing to be done about historical illiteracy.) However, you might note that this easy assumption that Israel can attack who it wants, when it wants, with no consequences, sometimes leads your country in to trouble... as it did last year in Lebanon, for example.

- scottmaceachern

December 7, 2007 at 9:44pm

"However, you might note that this easy assumption that Israel can attack who it wants, when it wants, with no consequences, sometimes leads your country in to trouble... as it did last year in Lebanon, for example." scottmaceachern

The people that thnk that Israel's attack on Hezbollah was unprovoked are the kind of people who care about evidence. They are precisely the "historical illiterates” you complain about above, but with this difference: what drives their understanding is an obsessive hatred of the Jewish State.

- jacksondyer

December 7, 2007 at 10:55pm

“Now, if you want to claim that the Israeli strike on Osirak was preventative…” scottmaceachern

Not claim it was preventative. Any country like any individual has the right to self defense.   I don’t what the status of the relationship is now but until recently Iraq and Israel were still in a State of war.

Given the threats to wipe Israel off the map that were made by Iran, if that country develops nuclear weapons, Israel certainly has the right to attack that country before it is attacked.

- jacksondyer

December 7, 2007 at 11:01pm

“Now, if you want to claim that the Israeli strike on Osirak was preventative…”

Not claim it was preventative. Any country like any individual has the right to self defense.   I don’t what the status of the relationship is now but until recently Iraq and Israel were still in a State of war.

Given the threats to wipe Israel off the map that were made by Iran, if that country develops nuclear weapons, Israel certainly has the right to attack that country before it is attacked.

- jacksondyer

December 7, 2007 at 11:03pm

“Now, if you want to claim that the Israeli strike on Osirak was preventative…” scottmaceachern

Not claim it was preventative. Any country like any individual has the right to self defense.   I don’t what the status of the relationship is now but until recently Iraq and Israel were still in a State of war.

Given the threats to wipe Israel off the map that were made by Iran, if that country develops nuclear weapons, Israel certainly has the right to attack that country before it is attacked.

- jacksondyer

December 7, 2007 at 11:04pm

Friday funnies - maceachern speaking of "historical illiteracy"  of others while claiming that Israel simply "attacked" Lebanon in 2006 as was its wont (notice the progression -- first, Israel's response was simply "disproportional", now it became an unprovoked attack, all in a space of a year and change).

Obsessive  hatred, indeed.

Btw, maceachern,  have you finally learned the difference between the Suez Canal and the Straits of   Tiran?

- sabaka

December 8, 2007 at 12:03am

Scott, I'm not saying Israel can attack everyone it wants. I am saying it can attack whoever threatens the Jewish people and Israel with annihilation and has the means to do it.

Let me be more clear: when it comes to deadly enemies, I don't think Israel CAN attack - I think Israel SHOULD attack. Attack means military (Osirak reactor 1981, Syria 2007) or targeted assassinations, of the kind it perpetrated against Iraqi nuclear scientists or against Islamic Jihad and Hamas leaders. Moreover, I will vote for those who attack when that is necessary.

Between me and Auschwitz there stands Israel. Nothing else is good enough. No other instance has done anything even remotely comparabale. Plenty of other instances (Nazi Germany, USSR, most Arab countries, Iran, France) have done a lot AGAINST the survival of the Jewish people and its country.

A bon entendeur, salut!

- sleepyavl

December 8, 2007 at 3:25pm

Blackton, I take your point about Hanson’s vociferousness over Iraq. Truth to tell I have not read him in National Review, which I do not read, but I have read a few of his essays in Commentary on Iraq and I heard him speak in Toronto once without notes and beautifully. His essays on Iraq that I read were well reasoned and learned and fairly persuasive coming from the perspective out of which he writes. My mind on Iraq goes back and forth like ping pong ball depending on whom I’m reading or listening to, and hs been for years.

One thing clear to me is that Rumsfeld was disaster as a defense secretary and in that regard I commend to you a site called  "conversations with history" and check out the first part of a November 2007 interview by Henry Kreisler of military thinker called Stephen Biddle.

I don’t agree that the Republicans, namely the Bush administration, have been war mongering over a non existent threat for partisan purposes. Even in the way the question is put there is too much middle excluded. For all the criticism to be made of Bush going into Iraq, and not to get into a whole thing about Iraq--which I no longer have the strength for, it cannot be said, I’d argue, it was a non-existent threat. And if the threat turned out to be less compelling than what the world thought, the right has an argument that is not so easily dismissible that even without wmds at hand Iraq under Hussein was a threat as is Iran now even with the latest NIE conclusions. And that argument takes us right to the line between preemption and prevention and makes it conceptually blurry.

That distinction, to my mind, does not get sufficient attention at the expense of clearer thinking.

Blackton you were most assuredly not one of the knee jerks on that thread. You are a good guy, even though we disagree some, and substantive and fair and gracious to argue with too.

Sorry I was long in getting back you. Just have a lot of work to do before Christmas hits and slows the world as I know it down.

Regards,

Itzik

- basman

December 8, 2007 at 9:31pm