Kissinger and Schlesinger's Lame Attacks on Iran Nuclear Assessment
When the summary of the U.S. intelligence community's new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran was released earlier this month, Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times wrote that "Rarely, if ever, has a single intelligence report so completely, so suddenly, and so surprisingly altered a foreign policy debate." The question now is which way the debate will turn. It won't necessarily be won on logic, unless advocates of unconditional negotiations with Iran pound hard -- and relentlessly -- on their views of the assessment.
In early posts I have discussed the positions put forward by the neo-cons, and by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Now so-called foreign policy wise men (a generally used phrase, not MY view) Henry Kissinger and James Schlesinger have weighed in, with arguments that are both inaccurate and embarrassing.
Kissinger struck first, in an op-ed in the Washington Post headlined "Nuclear Meltdown: Rebuilding a Coherent Policy Toward Iran." He makes two main points: 1) The Iran NIE is deeply flawed and misleading; 2) It should never have been released publicly in the first place. His first point is grounded in his own false claim that the NIE's assertion that "We judge with high confidence that in the fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program" is based on a much too narrow definition of what a nuclear weapons program is.
Kissinger claims that the NIE assessment's definition of a "nuclear weapons program" refers only to the development of nuclear warheads, not the more important element of building a weapon, uranium enrichment. In fact the NIE's definition of a nuclear weapons program also refers to covert programs to develop bomb-grade uranium or plutonium. This leaves only Iran's public uranium enrichment program, which is far from the point where it can enrich material to bomb-making levels, and is also the most easily monitored aspect of a potential future weapons program.
So, Kissinger's call to disregard the NIE and keep future ones secret is both misleading and dangerous. His approach would simply set the stage for future Iraq-style manipulations of intelligence, a process that should never be allowed to happen again.
James Schlesinger weighs in even more strongly, in a Wall Street Journal piece entitled "Stupid Intelligence on Iran" (subscription required). He follows Kissinger's lead in attacking the NIE's definition of a nuclear weapons program, adding the question of Iran's pursuit of medium- to long-range ballistic missiles to the mix. But as he himself acknowledges, the missiles themselves pose a minimal threat in the absence of nuclear warheads (which need nuclear materials, which can be monitored, as noted above). His last point is to criticize the "exclusive reliance on hard intelligence" as a failure of imagination. This is his way of criticizing the NIE's more rigorous vetting of potential sources. This approach would once again open the door to using single sources like "Curveball," the person who passed on false information about Iraq's alleged possession of mobile bio-weapons labs that made it into Colin Powell's infamous presentation to the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war.
Flawed as their analyses are, Kissinger and Schlesinger will no doubt carry considerable weight in debates over what the NIE means. What it means, at a minimum, is that Iran is far further from a nuclear weapon than previously claimed, and may not even be contemplating developing one at present. This gives more time for genuine negotiations, a point that must be repeated over and over to avoid a re-write of history regarding this useful document.
Comments (14)
Kissinger: "Hence the emphasis on renewing the enrichment program in the guise of a civilian energy program."
Do treatys matter to these big thinkers? Iran is in accordance with the treaty it signed, which not only allows signatories to produce nuclear energy but encourages it. Kissinger never mentions the NPT, but goes along with fellow Republican Bush in ranting about Iran's legal nuclear enrichment program.
TREATY ON THE NON-PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS (excerpts)
Affirming the principle that the benefits of peaceful applications of nuclear technology, including any technological by-products which may be derived by nuclear-weapon States from the development of nuclear explosive devices, should be available for peaceful purposes to all Parties of the Treaty, whether nuclear-weapon or non-nuclear weapon States,
Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with articles I and II of this Treaty.
All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also cooperate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/text/npt2.htm
This whole issue is a cover, of course, for the designs that the US government has had on Iran for over fifty years, and has to do with American hegemony in the Middle East.
ecotourism
WeGoEco.com
December 20, 2007 8:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kissinger is a zombie back from the grave, except this time, he's a businessman, not a statesman--in order to really evaluate his claims and his motives, we would need to know who he's working for, and view the client roster for Kissinger McLarty Associates.
I'd also like to know who else Kissinger is talking to--per the latest politician dodge (see Giuliani), we are supposed to believe, without verification, KMA's boilerplate statement that "The firm does not, however, lobby the United States government or engage in conduct that would require us to register as foreign agents under US law, nor do we accept fees from foreign governments."
uh. huh.
December 20, 2007 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
A failure of imagination is an appropriate phrase. It explains quite a bit, actually.
See, when they can't actually find weapons, they imagine them to be there, and thus they are there and those who are building the imaginary weapons must be punished. It's the old "reality-based thinking" that they're attacking, once again, because reality is just so damn inconvenient when you're trying to get your claws into another country's oil reserves.
December 20, 2007 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, "imagination" is the key word. Kissinger still sees the world through his 1914-era eyeglasses. Everything is nation states and the competition for resources. He advocated military occupation of the strategic oil areas of the Middle East as far back as the first oil embargo crisis. I think it was in BusinessWeek or Newsweek. He deliberately floated the idea knowing that it would be shouted down - at the time - but planting it as an option.
Fact is, Iran is looking to find a way to deliver cheap(er) electricity to its exploding population. The gas fields of the north were supposed to go under contract to the Chinese CNOOC conglomerate but the Teheran parliament put a stop to it saying the gas should be exploited for domestic use. The Russian ATOMSTROYEXPORT nuclear company is also strongly behind this nuclear power program - they want a share of lucrative deals since the US and FRance shut them out of the big new markets in China and India.
Let's hope the likes of Kissinger and Schlesinger will go the way of the newspapers that still give them column space - into oblivion.
"Where the bulk of the population cannot read, true democracy is impossible." -- Bertrand Russell
December 20, 2007 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kissenger's opinion 'will carry considerable weight?' Why? Henry's entire career has been directed towards what will profit Henry. Whether the country profits also is beside the point.
I can't wait for Condi to be consulted on state-craft and national security.
December 21, 2007 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Back before there was the recently-released NIE to kick around, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made a convenient target. Virulent critics of the NIE must be further aggravated by the fact that IAEA doesn't look bad in the light of NIE conclusions, and that, moreover, the agency is not backing off its commitment to diligently monitor nuclear development activities in Iran and elsewhere. A fair assessment of IAEA and support of their important mission are called for.
December 20, 2007 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Guliani was being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer yesterday and Blitzer asked; "Would you talk to the Iranians."
Giuliani claimed; (paraphrase) 'Yes, with preconditions, some Democrats want to take everything off the table, military strike, regime change, trade embargoes, etc.. How do you get them to change if you have no leverage.?'
Blitzer should have asked Rudy; "What regime will want to abide by your preconditions and meet with you if regime change is one of the preconditions?"
Republicans want Iran to be an issue, it fits into their "be very afraid" message, so Iran must have nukes or are trying to get them.
Rudy and Kissinger, Tweedldee and Tweedledum.
December 20, 2007 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kissinger is shamelessly lying, or he is embarrassingly uneducated in the real world of nuclear engineering.
This popular trope, that enrichment is the hard part, is not the worry. It is hard to do reliably and to accumulate large amounts. It is not hard in terms of knowledge. It is not easy to hide, takes gobs of power to run the machinery, and leads to the material that is not useful for the scary type of weapon, compact and deliverable by ballistic missile or secretly by errorists.
Highly enriched uranium is useful for large and heavy airplane-delivered weapons, but not for small secret ones. Low-enriched uranium is used in a reactor to cook up to plutonium, over time, known as reprocessing, as in Korea.
Making working plutonium nukes is hard, Korea's first fizzled.
December 20, 2007 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I did smile a bit at the image of assuming knowledge of nuclear engineering, although I happened to be looking at some SIOP-related papers with which he was involved. The general trope falls into a lovely answer that LTG Abrahamson, while director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Agency, gave to a particularly annoying reporter demanding to know why everything didn't work the first time.
"Sir, this is rocket science."
I do suspect that if you had no weight and volume constraints, didn't try to boost the fission, and other simplifying assumptions, a plutonium bomb as large, or larger, than Fat Man is possible. Getting it under a metric ton, and preferably half that, and in a form factor that can fit into a reentry vehicle, is another matter entirely.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 20, 2007 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the Republicans are dominated by the country club set. They cloak their intentions in all sorts of suits, but, for the most part, their primary interest is money. Their money. (Lets not forget, though, that Lyndon Johnson's wife made tens of millions from Bell Helicopter stock, which she bought right before the run up in Vietnam.)
Because the Republicans care more about their money than all other considerations combined, they are often blind to the patently obvious.
However, anybody who doesn't believe that the Iranians are on a path to develop nuclear weapons, in my opinion, just isn't listening to the rumbles. We shall all see, won't we?
December 20, 2007 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Assume the Iranians do develop nuclear weapons. What do you see as their scenarios? One possibility is that it might be stabilizing vis-a-vis Israel, in a MAD sort of way.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 20, 2007 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're exactly right. And that's what killing the "New Middle East" crowd. Bush and neo-Cons and the Likudniks are trying to create a "New Middle East" with the decency of Stalinist Five-Year Plan. A "new" Middle East is a Middle East under American Hegemony. Full stop.
Unfortunately, for them America is running out of money and patience. Iran, in contrast, is here to stay. It is has 70 million people. A young population. And it is dynamic. It is also our only realistic way back into the Caspian. And even a truly democtractic Iran is still going to demand to be the biggest regional player.
Of course, changing our policy is unthinkable for the "we don't talk to evil" set. Problem is, we talk to Saudi Arabia, otherwise known as the Jihadi Factory, so our standards for evaluating evil are, er, complicated.
December 21, 2007 6:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kissinger.
Nothing good can be said about a man who went behind the back of government at Christmas in 1969, and intentionally disrupted a possible truce.
Instead, he and Richard Nixon were the U.S. cause for the Vietnam war continuing until 1974/75, and the singular causes of additional thousands of American soldiers needlessly sacrificed for the political ambitions of these two war criminals.
May they both rest in hell.
When he dies, my flag will not fly at halfmast.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
December 20, 2007 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Henry Kissinger "I secretly bombed Cambodia, slaughtered millions of people, prolongued wars, and ate the livers of small children... and all I got to show for it is this lousy Nobel Peace Prize."
December 20, 2007 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink