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Who Can Trust Our “Intel” Community?
Guest Column | By Nicholas Guariglia | December 28, 2007
No intelligence agency in the world can claim to know what is, by its very nature, unknown (and perhaps unknowable), which underscores the point that making policy decisions based upon such variables is foolhardy.
There's a certain incongruity in claiming the mantle of trustworthiness and having been so wrong so often. Unfortunately, we need not look any further than our own so-called intelligence community; a bureaucratic subculture of media leaks, lousy analytical wonks masquerading as strategic advisors, where trust amongst and between coworkers is nil, where procedures contrary to administrative policy are pursued, where failed directors conjure up tell-all memoirs, and where the agency's aversion to democratic change abroad is engrained and institutionalized as its modus operandi. And yet, having habitually miscalculated and having been incorrect about mostly everything since the Bay of Pigs, our intelligence "experts" now say they have made up their minds on Iran: they were wrong for the last four years, and are ready to declare themselves infallible all over again. A few weeks ago, the most recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) declassified its key findings, and amongst them is the bombshell "discovery" that the mullahcracy in Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program back in 2003. While we digest this news, some thoughts come to mind... First off, we must remember these are the same maladjusted maharishis who underestimated the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981 and in 1991, and who overestimated Iraq's WMD capabilities in 2002-2003. This is the same gang who didn't see the Pakistani, Indian, Libyan, and North Korean nuclear programs, and who missed the train on al Qaeda. This is the same agency which didn't see the fostering Khomeinist revolution of 1979, which misjudged the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and which has had at least two of its covert networks exposed and rounded up in Iran. In 2005, the NIE swore up and down the Iranians were pursuing nuclear weapons. Today, it claims Iran's weapons program was put on halt four years ago. Perhaps we will have to wait until 2011 to hear admittance regarding faulty 2007 intelligence? During the NIE testimony, it was stressed that Iran still maintained a "latent goal" to develop an atomic bomb and that Iran was "probably the hardest intelligence target there is," followed by the realization that this apparent halt was more a short-term tactical move, not a long-term decision. Second, the Iranians had previously denied the existence of this program, albeit disregarding the occasional rah-rahs and genocidal taunts by "one-bomb state" Rafsanjani, the former president indicted in Argentina for destroying a large office tower. Having emphasized the legitimacy of this NIE, does this mean the mullahs concede a previous program existed? What are we now to think about the "dialogue of civilizations" Khatami spoke of in the 1990s? What does this say of Europe's long-held strategy of détente, or of Clinton's dual containment policy? Ahmadinejad has called this report a "victory" for Iran, but one must wonder if the clerics will now detail their program à la Qaddafi? And speaking of Libya, can we at least ponder the possibility that the Khamenei-Khatami alliance of 2003, like Qaddafi, saw what we had done to the Iraqi Ba'ath in three weeks what they could not in eight years, and likewise made the decision to dissuade weapons productivity? Third, we must remember the Syrian-North Korean conundrum exposed three months ago. This NIE says nothing about the possibility of the proliferation or exportation of weapons technologies, and coming in the wake of (yet more) intelligence failures like the A.Q. Khan network, one would think this would be more of a concern. Fourth, this report applies our own cost-benefit model of self-interest and decision-making to loons like the apocalyptic (and proud of it) Haghani Circle, men with dark shades who talk into water wells and think their divinely inspired orating skills render us all motionless. And isn't that the point? Only these men alone, along with the Iranian "supreme leader" and an exclusive shady clique inside the Assembly of Experts, know the precise status of the Iranian arsenal. No intelligence agency in the world can claim to know what is, by its very nature, unknown (and perhaps unknowable), which underscores the point that making policy decisions based upon such variables is foolhardy. Indeed, as with Iraq, emphasizing the issue of Iranian weaponry was foolhardy to begin with. While it is understandable to be worried about the possibility of such crackpots ascertaining nuclear technology, this limited vantage point does not take into account the previously existing problem of the regime itself. The Islamic Republic, nukes or no nukes, has to go. It is a regime that has shown an adequate amount of contempt for international standards and codes of conduct, and has made it abundantly clear, at least to me, that they have considered themselves at war with the West since 1979. If true, this regress in Iranian weaponization should give us enough time and space to realize this fact, and to (finally) seek and support the mullahs' downfall by internal and political means. I say "if true" because that's a big "if." This intelligence estimate reads as a document hastily put together by the same people who told us the Soviet economy was big (when it was small), and that the Soviet defense budget was small (when it was big), a miscalculation which advised successive administrations into pursuing a weak-kneed policy which prolonged the Cold War; by the same people who told President Kennedy, "The USSR could derive considerable military advantage from the establishment of Soviet medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba… (this) development, however, would be incompatible with Soviet practice to date and with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it," a few weeks before the Russians placed nuclear warheads in Cuba. They could be wrong again, as they concur they were in 2005, and as they forewarn in the document itself: "by 'nuclear weapons program' we mean Iran's nuclear weapon design and weaponization work… we do not mean Iran's declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment." Ah, but was it not those declared "civil work related" conversion plants which the United States has focused on for the past four years, attempting to convince the international community that the real threat comes not from Tehran's military program, but its seemingly benevolent nuclear endeavors? Did this not culminate in successful efforts to bring hard sanctions on the regime? Just how harmful are our "intel" guys trying to be?
The original article can be found at http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Nicholas Guariglia is a polemic and essayist who writes on Islam and Middle Eastern geopolitics. He is a student at the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, where he is studying U.S. foreign policy. He also contributes to http://www.globalpolitician.com and http://www.worldthreats.com He can be reached at
Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.
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