Bush Signals Iran: US Military Option Off The Table

The big news today was a National Intelligence estimate on Iran that suddenly magically `discovered' that Iran stopped nuclear weapons work in 2003 , and says that even though the Iranians continue to enrich uranium, the earliest they could have enough material for a bomb is 2009, and the mullahs probably won't actually have one until between 2010 and 2015. ...well after President Bush is out of office. The report also comments that Iran seems to be less interested in developing nuclear weapons than previously believed and is more vulnerable to international sanctions.

I don't think the timing of this report is an accident. Translation? I see the Bush Administration signaling publicly that it is taking the military option against Iran off the table. There could be a number of reasons for this..a secret quid pro quo we don't know about, more appeasement of the Saudis and fallout from Annapolis, the State Department indulging in a new diplomatic gambit or simple fatigue on the part of the president and unwillingness to get involved in another firestorm so close to retirement. Or this could have something to do with it.

There will be considerable consternation in Israel over this, as their intel differs radically with this new estimate, and they will see themselves as left high and dry to deal with the Iranian threat on their own.

While the idea that the Bush Administration suddenly has no basis for a hard line with Iran and can postpone things will be pointed at with glee in certain quarters, it flies in the face of logic and all available evidence. For one thing, skeptics might ask themselves how they could acknowledge that Israel could take out a nuclear weapons facility that apparently existed for years in Syria that was unknown to both the US and the IAEA and still assume there was nothing like that in Iran. I would remind my readers that it wasn't the Bush Administration's intel or the IAEA who first busted Iran's illegal clandestine nukes program..it was Iranian dissidents, and that was four and a half years ago. And it had been going on for over a decade.

If Iran really gave up its quest for nukes back in 2003, why the expensive and advanced air defenses around `harmless' facilities? Why the secrecy and lies? Why the failure to accept huge economic incentives from the west in exchange for transparency and abandoning the development for nuclear weapons? Why the threats?

Somehow, I weigh the answers to these questions and the evidence behind them a little more heavily than an intelligence summary leaked at a particularly interesting time. And one wonders about the rationale of making this information public now, given Iran's belligerence. And the idea espoused by the new report, that the Iranians suddenly stopped their nuclear weapons program in 2003 because of `international opinion', something the Iranians have never given a pistachio nut for in the past is an insult to my intelligence.

As for the Iranians themselves, they've drawn an increasingly hard line..another little fact that isn't being reported too much here in the west, but again indicates that Iran has something to hide and is much more interested in developing nukes than this report would have you believe. There simply is no other explanation for their behavior.

Iran's new chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili was harsh and explicit with EU appeaser -in-chief foreign policy chief and head negotiator Javier Solana.After monologuing for an hour an a half about Islam, the will of the Iranians to support nuclear enrichment and several other topics, he told Solana that any understandings he had with his predecessor, Ali Larijani were irrelevant.

"Everything in the past is past, and with me, you start over. None of your proposals has any standing."

Just in case anyone had problems understanding that, Jalili said that "There is no longer an Iranian nuclear problem. The matter is closed."

Solana described that failure of the talks by telling reporters that he was “disappointed.”

The French officials were a little more candid, and described the meeting as “a disaster,” adding “Jalili essentially said, ‘Everything that Larijani has proposed is a dead letter and we have to start from zero.’” The French official was quoted as ending, “We have in front of us the real Iran.”

The hard-line position from the Iran should be a clear confirmation, if nothing else, that they have no intention of any compromise and that there's something brewing with the nuclear program that they are developing that they'd rather the west didn't find out about until it's too late.It's also important to remember that the difference between a peaceful nuclear program and a nuclear weapons program is largely one of application. The technology needed is the same, and applying to weapons technology is a matter of a few months, if that.

The Bush Administration could be merely sowing disinformation to give Iran a false sense of security before the kill, but I doubt it. Given the political climate here in the US and how the dinosaur media has made this a top story, I don't see how they could risk the political fallout.

Iran has regarded itself at war with us since 1979, and they have conducted themselves accordingly. If the Bush Administration truly is involved in what it still refers to as `the war on terror', than confronting Iran, a major supporter, financier and enabler of Islamic terrorism has to be a major part of winning that war. One can only hope that the Bush Administration has some kind of plan to achieve this beyond mere `diplomacy', which the Mullahs continue to treat with contempt.

However, if President Bush really is throwing in the towel, relying on sanctions and simply waiting out the clock, it's something we will long remember and regret in the west.