Decision ‘08

You Can’t Have Your Cake…Etc., Etc.

As the impact of the Iran NIE sinks in, it is apparent that some folks are so set on absolving Iran that they ignore the ‘high certainty’ of the estimate that Iran DID, in fact, have a nuclear weapons program until 2003, and the ‘high certainty’ that they could start it back up pretty much anytime. On the flip side, some folks are so gung ho on going after Iran that they cast aspersions on the report’s methodology, conclusions, etc. That’s fine, but recall how most conservatives, myself included, took the NIE on Iraq’s WMDs at face value without the same skepticism (of course, what the WMD fiasco REALLY showed was that we must always be skeptical and vigilant about matters of this gravity).

Clearly, though, the report was a major victory for Iran, becasue it makes it politically impossible for the U.S. (Israel? Hmmm…jury’s still out) to attack Iranian facilities. That may be a moot point if the NIE is right and Iran has suspended the program, but let’s not forget that Iran is still enriching uranium in defiance of the United Nations, INCLUDING the Chinese and Russians, who were never going to go along for tougher sanctions anyway, even before the NIE’s release.

Here’s Robert Kagan:

Regardless of what one thinks about the National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusion that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 — and there is much to question in the report — its practical effects are indisputable. The Bush administration cannot take military action against Iran during its remaining time in office, or credibly threaten to do so, unless it is in response to an extremely provocative Iranian action. A military strike against suspected Iranian nuclear facilities was always fraught with risk. For the Bush administration, that option is gone.

Neither, however, will the administration make further progress in winning international support for tighter sanctions on Iran. Fear of American military action was always the primary reason Europeans pressured Tehran. Fear of an imminent Iranian bomb was secondary. Bringing Europeans together in support of serious sanctions was difficult before the NIE. Now it is impossible.

What to do? The only thing we can do, says Kagan: talk.

With its policy tools broken, the Bush administration can sit around isolated for the next year. Or it can seize the initiative, and do the next administration a favor, by opening direct talks with Tehran.

Negotiating will appear at first to be a sign of weakness. The Iranians could use talks to exploit fissures between the United States and its allies, and within the U.S. political system.

But there is a good case for negotiations. Many around the world and in the United States have imagined that the obstacle to improved Iranian behavior has been America’s unwillingness to talk. This is a myth, but it will hamper American efforts now and for years to come. Eventually, the United States will have to take the plunge, as it has with so many adversaries throughout its history.

This is as good a time as any. The United States is not in a position of weakness. The embarrassment of the NIE will be fleeting. Strategic realities are more durable. America remains powerful in the world and in the Middle East. The success of the surge policy in Iraq means that the United States may be establishing a sustainable position in the region — a far cry from a year ago, when it seemed about to be driven out. If Iraq is on the road to recovery, this shifts the balance against Iran, which was already isolated.

There are other reasons to move now. Even if the NIE forecasts that Iran cannot build a nuclear bomb before 2010, the time is still finite. The next administration, especially if it is Democratic, will probably want to try to talk to Tehran. But it couldn’t begin talks before the summer of 2009, at which point, if the NIE is right, Iran could be moving into the final stages of developing a bomb. Better to get negotiations started so that by the time the next administration settles in, it will be able to assess the progress, or lack thereof, after a year of talks. If it decides it must take strong action, it will have an easier time showing that all other options were exhausted.

If we can use the leverage of the talks to pressure Iran to lower its support of anti-Israel and anti-Iraqi militias, the more the better. I have advocated the hardest possible line against Iran - but the key word is ‘possible’. The hardest options of military action are no longer ‘possible’. Like Kagan, I believe we must engage in diplomacy now. Diplomatic breakthroughs are rare, but they are not impossible or unheard of. It’s hard to imagine we have any alternative now…

38 Responses to “You Can’t Have Your Cake…Etc., Etc.”

1 Fargus Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
So, I don’t mean to be ornery, but what of those of us who were advocating talks all along? Not as a show of weakness or a giveaway to Iran, mind you, but as a way to look at actually solving the problem rather than trying to bomb it away?
2 Ryan Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Fargus, there’s no such thing as solving a problem without bombing it away. That’s the new conservative rule: if any country anywhere does anything we don’t like, condemn its leaders as dictators (and then quickly spin any non-dictatorial actions, as in Venezuela) and threaten to blow it up. It’s amazing that such a strategy has solved so few international problems.

Oh, and the second part: if anyone tries to point out that this strategy is half-cocked lunacy, call him a traitor or weak on terror or an appeaser or something. Bonus points if you can work in a Chamberlain/Hitler analogy.
3 Andy Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Exactly what was it that convinced Iran to shelve the nuke weapon development in 2003? What caused Libya to surrender its nuke program? A big stick that wasn’t even aimed at them or talking? In any case, the big stick is just a much a part of diplomacy as is a carrot.

Regardless of exactly why they suspended it, Iran has been defiant all along and less than serious in discussions with the EU3 to date. What exactly can we expect from actually meeting them at the table? Lunacy may described as expecting honest diplomacy when they still think of us as the Great Satan. How does one negotiate with a country that have made clear their intention to wipe Israel off the map even if it means nuking millions of Arabs — and if need be, themselves — as collateral damage? And to top it off, there is not one Arab nation, excepting Syria, that definitely doesn’t want to see a nuclearized Iran. Remember the outraged Arab Street when Israel wiped out Iraq & Syria’s nuke facilities?

From Iran’s perspective, suspending the nuke weapon development is purely tactical, since one needs enrichment before they can weaponize it - a process that only takes a few months. So while everyone is congratulating themselves and taking their eye off the shell holding the pea, before they know it, Iran will be aiming some nukes at us.
4 Peter Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
“Lunacy may described as expecting honest diplomacy when they still think of us as the Great Satan.”

We successfully negotiated treaties and agreements with Russia and China when their declared policy was to wipe us off the map. This is not to say that negotiations with Iran will necessarily be successful: only that diplomacy has been shown to work in the past, even with madmen running totalitarian regimes.
5 Fargus Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Because the entire Iranian regime is a bunch of insane, suicidal madmen bent on destroying themselves if it means getting a shot off at us.

If nothing else, regardless of why you believe they did it, the cessation of the nuclear weapons program shows the leaders of Iran to be rational actors. Their interests and ours obviously don’t always coincide, but to pretend that they’re nothing but a bunch of crazies is to ignore everything about the situation.
6 Ryan Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
I’d like to see some evidence that the leadership of Iran would be willing to nuke themselves.
7 CrawlinKingSnake Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 12:07 am
So Bush’s strategy on Iran worked to some degree and this is a great step in the right direction. Much like the progress in Iraq and North Korea. We now know that these “hawkish neocon” strategies work and we’ll soon get to see how talking to dictators without using any military leverage will play out…again.
8 Fargus Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 12:13 am
No, no, no. This is not evidence that Bush’s strategy “worked.” Remind me, CKS, was Bush pushing war with Iraq to prevent Iran from going nuclear? If not, then at best you can claim that this is partially an unintended side-effect of the war in Iraq, albeit one that wasn’t properly pursued for the four years following.

Strategies, by their definition, have to be planned. Stumbling drunk into a your friend’s apartment and breaking everything, only to notice the next morning that his neighbor’s finally turned down his music, is hardly evidence that you had any strategy, let alone that anything you did could be said to have “worked.”

So what’s the upshot, then, CKS? Go around capriciously attacking everybody we feel like, just to show others who’s boss, and then talk smack about the others incessantly as well, while implicitly threatening that they’ll be next? Is that the foreign policy you’re espousing?
9 Andy Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Which goes to show that Fargus, Peter & Ryan don’t seem to understand the fundamental difference between theocracy and marxist regimes.

The 1st is motivated by the ultimate reward of glory in the hereafter, the other believes that death is the end of the line. That worldview is at the core of their actions and reaction. For China & USSR, MAD is enough to stalemate, for the Mullahs, a permanent stalemate is unacceptable because it makes their god impotent. All you need to do is listen to President Ahmahnutjob’s every speech in which he prays for the hastening of the 12th Iman.

Ryan, if one refuses to accept the true rational for small-scale suicide bombings, then a full scale suicide bombing would naturally be incomprehensible. But, let’s do go back to the table and let’s do have Iran pull a NoKo on us. Except when we awake to that day, it won’t be a tinpot demanding that “all our aid is belong to him” w/o conditions, it’ll be a bunch of mullahs demanding that all our submission are belong them or they’ll exterminate us with Allah’s firebolts.
10 Andy Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Fargus, would not be calling out the Axis of evil be a strategy? Doing so also had the added benefit of flushing Libya out, which wasn’t even in the 1st tier.

But nice try at revising history by taking everything out of context. Unless of course you truly forgot that WMD was not the sole reason for going after Saddam. If that’s the case, go back and re-read Bush’s speech regarding his ME strategy.
11 Mark Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Ryan and Fargus, with all due respect, you guys would never give the Bush admnistration credit for anything. If you read the NIE, you’ll find that it was international pressure that caused the program to cease (assuming the NIE is correct) in 2003. What happened in April, 2003, was that we invaded Iraq, an event that surely crossed the Iranians’ radar screen. Call it an unintended consequence if you will, but it is still a consequence of action taken by the Bush administration, and if the invasion of Iraq ends up one day being responsible for shelving Iranian nukes, it may very well have justified itself right there.

Now, Fargus, this notion that we are just attacking everyone willy-nilly is nonsense, and you know it. We did not attack North Korea, we did not attack Iran, we did not attack Venezuela…what foreign policy do you espouse, one where we sit at home fretting and hoping that the bad guys get better out of the kindness of their hearts?

Each situation has to be evaluated independently. As of 2005, the NIE said that Iran was intent on acquiring nuclear weapons. Furthermore, we know for a fact that they ARE operating a large number of centrifuges in defiance of the United Nations. A robust threat of force and sanctions was appropriate under those circumstances. With the new NIE, the threat of force has obviously diminished, and we must use diplomacy to a greater extent. That’s all…
12 Mark Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 2:27 am
John Bolton talks about the idea that diplomacy was responsible for the shift in Iranian attitudes here:

…[T]he NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported. It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, not exactly a diplomatic pas de deux. As undersecretary of state for arms control in 2003, I know we were nowhere near exerting any significant diplomatic pressure on Iran. Nowhere does the NIE explain its logic on this critical point. Moreover, the risks and returns of pursuing a diplomatic strategy are policy calculations, not intelligence judgments. The very public rollout in the NIE of a diplomatic strategy exposes the biases at work behind the Potemkin village of “intelligence.”
13 Ryan Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Mark, with all due respect, you would credit the Bush administration with making the sun rise if you could find a way to do so. That said, please indicate to me where I said that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with Iran’s ending of their program. I agree that Libya and Iran were both in fairly cooperative moods given the pressure that our military looked to be putting on them at the time. War as a tool of diplomacy is still pretty irresponsible, especially when the wars you choose to conduct are such a complete and utter disaster for all parties involved. And let’s not even pretend that we’re in a better position to use our military to prevent an Iranian bomb (not that that wouldn’t be the height of arrogant stupidity) than we were before 2003.

Andy, I asked for evidence and got vitriol. The leadership of Iran does not, as far as I know, conduct suicide bombings, so why does the logic of suicide bombing matter to this discussion? If you can’t provide actual evidence that Iran’s leaders are suicidal, I’ll just assume you’re a bigot and an idiot. Which you are, so it’s not much of an assumption.
14 Fargus Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Mark, I’ve never seen you misrepresent me so completely. I never said we’re going around willy-nilly attacking people. I only asked CKS if that would be his preferred “strategy.” That one wasn’t very hard to decipher. I promise, I’m not talking in some secret encoded liberal-speak.

As for Bush, I’ll give him credit (and have) where I think it’s due. On the immigration issue, for instance, I have no beefs with the Administration, which is far more sane and rational than a lot of the nutters on the far right of the Republican Party. I wish that everybody could approach the issue (and all issues, really) with the measured approach that Bush uses.

But I’m not going to give credit where credit’s not due simply because you accuse me of thinking only in terms of disliking the man. This is partially a side-effect of the war in Iraq, but nothing more. It’s not as though Bush’s strategy was, “Go into Iraq, mess it up good, wait four years, and then learn that we’d been grossly ill-informed about Iran’s nuclear program for the last four years.” If it had been, then good on him. In my view, credit would go to Bush if he used this as a jumping-off point to engage in grown-up diplomacy with Iran, as opposed to fist-shaking and alarmist rhetoric.

Andy, if you’re really ready to argue essentially that belief in heaven makes people crazy…..well, I’d agree with you, but you’ve got to apply it across the board. What you give up there as reason for why Iran is necessarily irrational and would knowingly destroy itself would also apply to the radical Christianists in this country. Strike one.
15 CrawlinKingSnake Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Mark and Andy, thanks for the backup.

Fargus, to answer your question: “This is not evidence that Bush’s strategy “worked.” Remind me, CKS, was Bush pushing war with Iraq to prevent Iran from going nuclear?”

Bush has stated in many speaches that the Iraq war is in part to stabalize the region and protect America from future attacks. I thinks it is safe to assume that includes keeping nuclear weapons out of Iran. That is a direct intended consequence of the Iraq war by President Bush. Now lets be happy that their is good news coming out of the Middle East.

“The Most Important And Immediate Way To Counter The Ambitions Of Al Qaeda, Iran, And Other Forces Of Instability And Terror In The Middle East Is To Win The Fight In Iraq.” - Bush

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070828-1.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011109-22.html
16 too many steves Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 10:27 am
So I’m wondering why, given recent history, anyone takes these NIE reports seriously? Certainly I understand why politics are shaped by them, but policy? Nah, just don’t get it.

As for talking with Iran - good luck with that.
17 Fargus Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 10:30 am
So, CKS, you’re claiming that Bush’s conducting the war in exactly the way he did was meant to produce precisely this outcome? Iran stopping its nuclear weapons program, and us not finding out about it for 4 years?
18 Andy Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Christians believe in a hereafter, and only “radical” Christians feel the need to hasten it, which is contrary to Biblical doctrine.

“Radical” Islamists, including the Iranian nutjobs, believe it is incumbent on themselves to hasten the end so they can have paradise on earth. They’ve said it all along and nukes are what they have attached themselves to as the vehicle to attain those means.

This is the difference between the Islamofascists and the Russian/Chinese. They may want to dominate the world, but they have no intention of turning vast portions of the earth into a shiny sea of glass because philosophically there is only mortal life, hence no point in winning the world if you lose it.

So where is the vitriol? Ball one. Show me the radical Christians that would knowingly destroy itself? Ball two.
19 Ryan Bonneville Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Andy, give me one piece of evidence that the leadership of Iran is suicidal. Just one. I keep asking and you keep giving me “logic” (even though it’s nothing of the kind).

As for the rest of this, it’s like talking to a wall. When bad things happen in the Middle East, it’s because Muslims are crazy or Democrats are traitors. When good things happen, it’s because George Bush is the greatest president ever. When the NIE wrongly says Iraq has WMD and we engage in one of the most pointless and ill-conceived wars in the history of this country, it’s okay because everyone thought that. When the NIE says Iran has no nuclear program, everyone knows the NIE is always wrong. Dear God, people, do you even listen to yourselves? It’s such complete BS at all times.
20 Clint Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
While I haven’t read the released NIE summary itself, I’m a bit confused about the close parsing of language involved in this new conclusion.

If Iran is continuing to pursue the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, then in what meaningful sense has it stopped working on developing nuclear weapons?

Aside from producing the enriched U-235 or plutonium, building a nuclear bomb is, well, easy.
21 Jacques Distler Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
If Iran is continuing to pursue the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium …

But they’re not.

They continue to pursue a reactor-grade (”civilian”) enrichment program. That would make it eas(ier) to resume pursuing weapons-grade uranium, should they choose to do so. Estimates of how long, if they were to resume their weapons program, it would take them to accumulate enough HEU for a bomb vary between late 2009 (”very unlikely”) to somewhere in the 2013-2015 time-frame (”moderate confidence”).
22 Andy Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Ryan, it would seem that you are unfamiliar with the core differences between Sunnis and Shias. The Shiite messiah is the 12th Imam that will return after the apocalypse.

In the speech that Ahmahnutjob gave to Columbia & the UN on his recent visit, and reportedly in each and every speech, is the following prayer:

Oh, almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirst for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and makers among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause.

In that speech, he even identifies the escalating Iraqi instability as the net result of our worldwide display of partisan infighting:

There is no indication that the occupiers have the necessary political will to eliminate the sources of instability.

IOW, instead of a united front to GWOT, insurgents take comfort in the hope that we’ll just give up and walk away.

Other links regarding what Iran’s Mullahs hope to achieve:
Will the 12th Imam cause war with Iran?

Hmm, you claim that the leadership of Iran does not support suicide bombings. Really? You’d better ask Nikahang Kowsar, Iran’s most famous cartoonist, who was slung into prison for his depiction of “Professor Crocodile”, a reptilian academic who was shown strangling a journalist with his tail. The same professor who is Ahmahnutjob’s spiritual mentor.

An enthusiastic supporter of both the death penalty and public floggings, and the use of suicide bombers against “enemies of Islam”, the bespectacled 70-year-old is viewed as an extremist even by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current religious leader who is Iran’s supreme authority.

[SNIP]

The president’s recent rejection of a European deal to end the stand-off over Iran’s nuclear programme may also have been influenced by his mentor’s suspicion of Western blandishments.

In a sermon at Teheran University, Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi reminded worshippers: “We should know that 1,400 years ago the Koran said that the enemies of Islam will always fight while chanting peace-seeking slogans.”

So there’s your answer to those who chant give diplomacy a chance; te EU3 talks with Iran were doomed to fail, so long as Iran believed they were dealing with infidels. How rational.

Bear in mind that until the advent of nukes, the Iranians never really had the means to bring on the apocalypse: No long range ballistics, no way of projecting force, nada but for oil revenues. So although they can’t natively develop WMD, they can buy their way into the nuke arms race. Name one peaceful reason for deploying 3000 centrifuges and sync it with a civilian infrastructure that Iran is developing.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to boost the range & accuracy of its missiles into Europe. Defenses? What, are they worried that Berlin is planning an attack? Given the development of the technology, it’s just a matter of time before they can tack on another 5K miles to is range. Given all the enrichment, who needs megatonnage of explosive power when seeding the target atmosphere with millions of radioactive particles.

There comes a time when you have to take someone seriously when he repeatedly announces his intentions to inflict a nuclear holocaust.

To cover your ears while ~~crying “neener, neener, neener”~~ chanting “for peace, all we need to do is talk” would be the height of idiocy, more of which is exactly what the Mullahs are hoping for. Your bigotry is to assume that you are rational, therefore everyone else, being human, would think and act as you do, while ignoring their core beliefs.
23 Ryan Bonneville Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Dear lord, Andy, you are actually just stupid, aren’t you? First, I never said Iran’s leaders don’t SUPPORT suicide bombings; I said they don’t CONDUCT them. Admadinejad, who isn’t in charge of their nuclear program anyway, isn’t strapping a bomb to his own chest, is he? What they think it’s okay for believers/martyrs to do is quite different from what they are willing to subject themselves to. You STILL have presented not a SINGLE piece of evidence that the leadership is interesting in sacrificing itself to annihilate the world. Not one. I realize you’re actually some kind of reptilian inbred moron, but please try to keep up. There are adults here trying to have a conversation.

Second, at no point have I said that Iran with a bomb isn’t a strategic problem for the United States. It is, because Iran with a bomb is a clear and present danger to us and our allies. But so were Russia and China. Threatening other countries with their destruction isn’t always the most productive avenue available. It’s amazing to me that that’s a controversial statement. It’s double amazing to me given that (presumably) you believe that one of the reasons Iran abandoned the bomb in 2003 was the war with Iraq. If you believe that, then ipso facto you believe that Iran’s leadership rationally responds to incentives. Talk about trying to have your cake and eat it too.

Third, I’m a bigot because I assume other people will act rationally? I realize I’m repeating myself here, but do you even listen to yourself?
24 Bob from Ohio Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I realize you’re actually some kind of reptilian inbred moron, but please try to keep up. There are adults here trying to have a conversation.

Adult? Very adult to insult people like that.

I note that you used CAPITAL letters FOUR times. It must MEAN you have the BEST arguments.

As for being a bigot, anyone who uses the term “radical Christianists” is per se one.
25 Fargus Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
You imply that I’m trying to smear some group by saying “radical Christianists.” I speak only of those with radical beliefs, and who trumpet their radical Christian religion over all. Certainly not all Christians.

Have you ever used the execrable term “Islamofascist*,” Bob? If so, would it be fair for me to call you a bigot? What about “Islamic extremist”?

*I was listening to the Mark Levin show last night, and he actually used the word “IslamoNazi.” Sometimes parody can say no more.
26 Andy Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
That settles it, I’m stupid so why are you talking to me?

Read any number of speeches that Ahmahnutjob has given, particularly to his own people, he is more than ready to “strap on” the bomb if it means taking down the Great Satan. Just because it is beneath him to homicide bomb 50 or 100 people, doesn’t mean he won’t consider it if it means taking out 1 million. Since you think I haven’t given a SINGLE evidence, it means you haven’t digested the links I gave you, in which case, citing more sources, including Islamic discussion sites would be insanity on my part.

Of course, the Mullahs would hope for the best case to bend the world to their vision w/o having to vaporize themselves, however, if the 12th Imam’s appearance depends on their disappearance, the Hojjatiehs would be first in line for the winged horse. And please bear in mind that the Hojjatiehs are so extreme that Khomeini himself banned them in 1983. That they have resurged to the head of Iraqi govt should be telling you something.

Instead of debating rationally, you can’t even provide one counterpoint except to hurl vitriol. Ball 3.

Second, I have explained how dealing with a nuclear Iran is totally different from dealing with Russia or China. As for Iran’s intentions, the fact that they have tacked against the winds of international opposition doesn’t mean that they have changed destinations. To have shut down the centrifuge program in 2003 would be significant. To suspend the weapons program is merely project, and by extension world opinion, management. As for the NIE, my position on it is; once bitten, twice shy. Or as Scotty would say, “Fool me once…”

At no point do you provide any counterpoint, yet hurl more vitriol. Ball 4

Third, do you even digest what anyone says, or just jump to conclusions. If anything, your track record has been one case of projection after another.

But since I’m a certifiable bigot, I’d be in character to say that when Iran launches their nukes, may you be on the receiving end, while I live to fight another day to send them back to the 7th century permanently. I’m walking.
27 Andy Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Fargus, do you even realize that it is the Muslims who have coined Islamofascists to describe their radical step-brethen and to a lesser degree, those who advocate rule by Sharia over secular govt?
28 Clint Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Jacques- (Re: post 21)

…………. If Iran is continuing to pursue the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium …

……. But they’re not. …

I’m not sure I see the sharp distinction you’re making. Natural uranium is 0.7% U-235, reactor-grade uranium is about 20% U-235, and weapons-grade uranium is about 85% U-235.

The centrifuge facilities to turn natural uranium into reactor-grade uranium is exactly the same as that to turn reactor-grade uranium into weapons-grade uranium, and the process is exactly the same — you just repeat the process a few more times.

I’m not at all confident that without any inspectors at Natanz we can be certain how many times the Iranians are enriching each batch of uranium. Are you?

That’s a very thin limb for us to climb out on — and a very, very narrow distinction to draw between mere civilian uranium enrichment and a nuclear weapons program.

Last thought… if it is true, as the NIE states with “moderate confidence”, that the Iranians are having difficulty making centrifuge enrichment work, then firstly, that’s good news (and justifies the suggestion that Iran might take more than two years to make their first bomb), and secondly, it means that continuing to work out the kinks in centrifuge enrichment *is* the next step in their nuclear weapons program — it just happens to be a step that is consistent with a civilian nuclear program.
29 Jacques Distler Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
I’m not sure I see the sharp distinction you’re making. Natural uranium is 0.7% U-235, reactor-grade uranium is about 20% U-235, and weapons-grade uranium is about 85% U-235.

Reactor-grade uranium is 3-4% U-235, not 20%. That’s a huge difference.

The centrifuge facilities to turn natural uranium into reactor-grade uranium is exactly the same as that to turn reactor-grade uranium into weapons-grade uranium, and the process is exactly the same

Correct.

— you just repeat the process a few more times.

More than a few. And you need a much larger facility. (Well, OK, if you’re planning on producing enough reactor-grade uranium to power a fleet of civilian nuclear power plants, then you need a pretty big facility, too.)

Of course, their “civilian” enrichment program would give them a huge head start on their weapons program, if they decided to resume it. No one doubts that.

But I don’t think you go to war over something they might do in the future.
30 Fargus Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Andy, if you’re going to make that claim, that Muslims coined the term “Islamofascism,” I sure hope you’re going to back it up.
31 CrawlinKingSnake Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Fargus
“So, CKS, you’re claiming that Bush’s conducting the war in exactly the way he did was meant to produce precisely this outcome? Iran stopping its nuclear weapons program, and us not finding out about it for 4 years?”

What Im saying is… one of his stated intentions throughout the entire scope of the Iraq war has been to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Tactics and strategies have adjusted and certainly the administration has kept Iran in mind while making those adjustments. It worked.

And Ive read your posts on here before so I know you are intelligent and you know what you are doing. I enjoy a good sparring session but please dont phrase questions to put words in my mouth Socrates.
32 Bob from Ohio Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
You imply that I’m trying to smear some group by saying “radical Christianists.”

No, I am actuallly saying it, not implying it.

It is a bigoted term. You are smearing all Christians. Because it is a not very subtle comparison to the followers of radical Islam like Bin Laden. The bigoted implication is that these “Christianists” would saw of peoples heads and use car bombs etc. just like the enemy.

(FYI, I am not Christian.)

I don’t use IslamoFascists, I don’t find it useful. I don’t however see why it or even “IslamoNazi” is “execrable”. It is an attempt to separate the violent fringe from mainstream Muslims. What should we call them? Terrorists? Sure, but not all terrorists are violent Muslims, some are violent non-Muslims. Come up with a non-execrable term.

There actually were “IslamoNazis”, by the way. They were the WW2 era Mufti of Jerusalem and his followers. Their ideological heirs are the Bin Ladens and Muslim Brotherhoods of the world. So, maybe it is more than parody.
33 Mark Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Ryan, Fargus, not trying to misprepresent your points, sorry if I did so…but please, Andy is as much a guest as you are - can you kindly refrain from calling my readers idiots and bigots?

We have a community here - not a large one, but an active one that is well-represented on both sides of the aisle - and that’s pretty rare in the blog world. Now, Andy, Clint, CrawlingKingSnake, and others come from the right; Fargus, Peter, Professor Distler (okay, Jacques - but physicists always have my deepest respect), Ryan, and Andy Vance tend to come from a more leftward viewpoint - we’ve got our share around here. We’ve got atheists, born-again Christians, hard-core lefties, disillusioned former Republicans, George Bush fans, George Bush haters…and I like it that way.

Now, I know you’re all grown-ups, and I can’t make you do anything, so I’m just asking real nice, from both sides - let’s go light on the ad-hominem and heavy on the substance, what say you?
34 Andy Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Fargus @ #30

Andy, if you’re going to make that claim, that Muslims coined the term “Islamofascism,” I sure hope you’re going to back it up.

Lessee…
1) From American Dialect Society; Subject: “Islamofascism” (coined in 1990?)

… However, the term ‘Islamic fascism’ was used in the 1980s, referring to the events in Iran. Shouldn’t there be some note that this (’Islamic fascism’) is the origin of the term (’Islamofascism’)?

(Oxford English Dictionary)
Islamofascism, n.

depreciative.
[ ISLAMO- comb. form + FASCISM n.]
The advocacy or practice of a form of Islam perceived as authoritarian, intolerant, or extremist; spec. Islamic fundamentalism regarded in this way.

1990 Independent 8 Sept. 15/8 Islamic societies seem to have found it particularly hard to institutionalise divergences politically: authoritarian government, not to say *Islamo-fascism*, is the rule rather than the exception. 2002 National Rev. (U.S.) (Nexis) 10 Apr. You cannot deny that a brand of Islam is most certainly at war with us. You can call this brand Islamofascism, radical Islam, Wahhabism, whatever you want.

[SNIP]

(GOOGLE BOOKS)
Modern Writings on Islam and Muslims in India - Page 71
by Iqtidar Husain Siddiqui - 1974 - 112 pages
… dominance of the Muslim League and then became the emotional centre of Pakistan; most of the students and the staff members supported Islamic fascism. …

(GOOGLE BOOKS)
The Human Context: Le Domaine Humain. Der Mensch und Seine Welt. - Page 31
Hombre Y -

1975

… social control: education is reduced to conditioning, except in Islamic fascism, which elevates traditional religious teaching to a dominant position, …

(GOOGLE BOOKS)
Cry for My Revolution, Iran - Page 360
by Manoucher Parvin - History - 1987 - 345 pages
They perceive Islamic fascism, this monstrous reality, as a nightmare that will pass, but the mullahs consider it a dream coming true that will last forever …
35 Andy Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Hmmm, something not right with preview, but here’s the rest…

2) Defending “Islamofascism” - It’s a valid term. Here’s why, Christopher Hitchens, Oct 22, 2007.

Both movements are based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind. … Both are hostile to modernity (except when it comes to the pursuit of weapons), and both are bitterly nostalgic for past empires and lost glories. Both are obsessed with real and imagined “humiliations” and thirsty for revenge. Both are chronically infected with the toxin of anti-Jewish paranoia … Both are inclined to leader worship and to the exclusive stress on the power of one great book. Both have a strong commitment to sexual repression … Both despise art and literature as symptoms of degeneracy and decadence; both burn books and destroy museums and treasures. … Technically, no form of Islam preaches racial superiority or proposes a master race. But in practice, Islamic fanatics operate a fascistic concept of the “pure” and the “exclusive” over the unclean and the kufar or profane. … In the attitude to Jews, it is clear that an inferior or unclean race is being talked about (which is why many Muslim extremists like the grand mufti of Jerusalem gravitated to Hitler’s side). … And, of course, Bin Laden has threatened force against U.N. peacekeepers who might dare interrupt the race-murder campaign against African Muslims that is being carried out by his pious Sudanese friends in Darfur.

[SNIP]

…we have a duty to oppose and destroy these and any similar totalitarian movements

3) From a dissident Iranian:
Islamic Fascism is genuinely fascist.

It has contempt for democracy, free speech and human rights. It is full of hatred for Jews, atheists, homosexuals, and liberated women. It is linked to racist hatred of blacks in Sudan, slave trading of black Africans, and racist hatred of other ethnic minorities in the Islamic world. And, like fascism and communism, the only solution is the total and utter destruction of this philosophy.

Islam is the Enemy of Freedom:

A great irony of the age is that the seemingly most diehard proponents of freedom — the useful idiots of our time—are the most dangerous unwitting accomplices of liberty’s enemy—Islam. Keep in mind that the very name “Islam” is a derivation of “taslim,” the Arabic word for “surrender,” surrender to the will and dictates of Allah as revealed by Muhammad and recorded in the Quran.

This non-negotiable surrender to Islam requires the individual as well as the society to disenfranchise themselves of many of the fundamental and deeply cherished human rights.

~~Below~~ (click the above link) is a brief presentation of what this surrender to Islam entails and why it is imperative that all freedom-loving people arise and defeat the menace of Islamofascism.

“Fascism is a radical political ideology that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, nationalism, militarism, anti-anarchism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism.”

4) Muslims discussing the term Islamfascism.
36 Ryan Bonneville Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Mark, due respect, but Andy is both an idiot and a bigot. That’s just how it goes. Read this:

“But since I’m a certifiable bigot, I’d be in character to say that when Iran launches their nukes, may you be on the receiving end, while I live to fight another day to send them back to the 7th century permanently.”

Exactly what sort of person wants to permanently condemn an entire country to the Dark Ages?

Many of your readers, like Bob, are people I simply disagree with. But Andy is an anti-Muslim hatemonger, and I’m not cool with that. Also (tongue firmly in cheek here), stop calling me a leftist! I was a Republican until about four months ago; I just don’t think torturing and slaughtering brown people is the solution to all international problems.
37 Mark Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
I said you tend to come from the left of the issues…and I had you in mind when I said disillusioned former Republicans. If I had wanted to insult you, I would have called you a ‘progressive’…but see here, saying that Republicans want to slaughter brown people is low, low, low….come on, Ryan, you can do better than the smears. That’s as bad as anything you have taken issue with…
38 Andy Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 2:47 am
Ryan @ # 36:

Exactly what sort of person wants to permanently condemn an entire country to the Dark Ages?

Good question. The Wahhabi & Khomenist Mullahs of course, except they want to condemn an entire world. But they’re not alone.

Perhaps, also, the sort of person that knows and understands the evil of Islamic Fascism up close and personal? It’d probably be too much for you to get out of your sheltered existence and get to know Iranian dissidents and ask about their feelings regarding the nutjobs ruining their country. Since they don’t count, how about some famous & well regarded Westerners?

Let’s start with a primary source, The Jefferson Papers, here’s a guy that saw the Barbary Corsairs for the barbarians they were, even tho it wasn’t PC in his day:

As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, “I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro’ the medium of war.” Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates, Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe: “The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. . . . Every national citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both.” “From what I learn from the temper of my countrymen and their tenaciousness of their money,” Jefferson added in a December 26, 1786, letter to the president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles, “it will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them.”

According to Hitchens:

But one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” (It is worth noting that the United States played no part in the Crusades, or in the Catholic reconquista of Andalusia.)

Ambassador Abd Al-Rahman did not fail to mention the size of his own commission, if America chose to pay the protection money demanded as an alternative to piracy. So here was an early instance of the “heads I win, tails you lose” dilemma, in which the United States is faced with corrupt regimes, on the one hand, and Islamic militants, on the other—or indeed a collusion between them.

And of course the little ditty by Francis Scott Key (you might be familiar with his other more famous song):

In conflict resistless each toil they endur’d,
Till their foes shrunk dismay’d from the war’s desolation:
And pale beamed the Crescent, its splendor obscur’d
By the light of the star-bangled flag of our nation.
Where each flaming star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turban’d head bowed to the terrible glare.
Then mixt with the olive the laurel shall wave
And form a bright wreath for the brow of the brave.

Bottomline, if the Islamic Fascists want to live like it’s 699, then by all means they should’ve stayed in their sandbox and left us out of it. On the downside, that also condemns millions of fellow natives that would rather be free. But since the extremists insist on sticking their heads out…

I, Hatemonger? Not at all.

I’ve lived in a Muslim culture for a time and grew up amongst Muslims good and bad. When you on one hand have a buddy get beaten within an inch of his life, then banished for the crime of apostasy, and know 1st hand of many more with similar backgrounds. Yet, you know others, Moderates, that get along in spite of differing religious choices within the family. Then you will understand where bigotry lies. However, I, along with Arabs & Persians, would take offense at your loaded use of “brown people”. It’s like you’re painting the majority of the world’s population with the broad brush of low expectations.