Stratfor’s George Friedman elucidates the differences between the 2005 NIE and the 2007 NIE.

Nuclear sabre-rattling previously served Iranian interests.

The assumption was that Iran wanted to develop nuclear weapons — though its motivations for wanting to do so were never clear to us. First, the Iranians had to assume that, well before they had an operational system, the United States or Israel would destroy it. In other words, it would be a huge effort for little profit. Second, assume that it developed one or two weapons and attacked Israel, for example. Israel might well have been destroyed, but Iran would probably be devastated by an Israeli or U.S. counterstrike. What would be the point?

For Iran to be developing nuclear weapons, it would have to have been prepared to take extraordinary risks. A madman theory, centered around the behavior of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was essential. But as the NIE points out, Iran was “guided by a cost-benefit approach.” In simple terms, the Iranians weren’t nuts. That is why they didn’t build a nuclear program.

That is not to say Iran did not benefit from having the world believe it was building nuclear weapons. The United States is obsessed with nuclear weapons in the hands of states it regards as irrational. By appearing to be irrational and developing nuclear weapons, the Iranians created a valuable asset to use in negotiating with the Americans. The notion of a nuclear weapon in Iranian hands appeared so threatening that the United States might well negotiate away other things — particularly in Iraq — in exchange for a halt of the program. Or so the Iranians hoped. Therefore, while they halted development on their weapons program, they were not eager to let the Americans relax. They swung back and forth between asserting their right to operate the program and denying they had one. Moreover, they pushed hard for a civilian power program, which theoretically worried the world less. It drove the Americans up a wall — precisely where the Iranians wanted them.

Now, suddenly, the US Government apparently has decided that this is a convenient time to move beyond quarreling with Iran over Iranian nuclear ambitions to try to make a deal concerning Iraq. So, voilá! here is a new NIE determining that the Iranian nuclear threat is not quite so great as was previously feared. They probably won’t have the bomb until the middle of the next decade. Almost certainly not for another 18-to-24 months (when it will be another administration’s problem). Time to rachet down the confrontation.

The recent U.S. successes in Iraq, however limited and transitory they might be, may have caused the Iranians to rethink their view on dealing with the Americans on Iraq. The Americans, regardless of progress, cannot easily suppress all of the Shiite militias. The Iranians cannot impose a regime on Iraq, though they can destabilize the process. A successful outcome requires a degree of cooperation — and recent indications suggest that Iran is prepared to provide that cooperation.

That puts the United States in an incredibly difficult position. On the one hand, it needs Iran for the endgame in Iraq. On the other, negotiating with Iran while it is developing nuclear weapons runs counter to fundamental U.S. policies and the coalition it was trying to construct. As long as Iran was building nuclear weapons, working with Iran on Iraq was impossible.

The NIE solves a geopolitical problem for the United States. Washington cannot impose a unilateral settlement on Iraq, nor can it sustain forever the level of military commitment it has made to Iraq. There are other fires starting to burn around the world. At the same time, Washington cannot work with Tehran while it is building nuclear weapons. Hence, the NIE: While Iran does have a nuclear power program, it is not building nuclear weapons.

Friedman also thinks, plausibly enough, that something happened that they are not telling us.

Both Ed Morrissey:

Hmm. What might have happened in 2003 to convince Teheran to stop its nuclear-weapons pursuit? Could it have been the events on its western border, where the American military removed a dictator that they couldn’t beat in eight years of brutal warfare? Libya’s Moammar Ghaddafi certainly had the same idea in 2003, and for that very reason.

and Victor Davis Hanson:

The latest news from Iran about the supposed abandonment in 2003 of the effort to produce a Bomb — if even remotely accurate — presents somewhat of a dilemma for liberal Democrats.

Are they now to suggest that Republicans have been warmongering over a nonexistent threat for partisan purposes? But to advance that belief is also to concede that, Iran, like Libya, likely came to a conjecture around (say early spring 2003?) that it was not wise for regimes to conceal WMD programs, given the unpredictable, but lethal American military reaction.

After all, what critic would wish now to grant that one result of the 2003 war-aside from the real chance that Iraq can stabilize and function under the only consensual government in the region-might have been the elimination for some time of two growing and potentially nuclear threats to American security, quite apart from Saddam Hussein?

War is unpredictable and instead of “no blood for oil” (oil went from $20 something to $90 something a barrel after the war, enriching Iraq and the Arab Gulf region at our expense), perhaps the cry, post facto, should have been “no blood for the elimination of nukes.”

In the meantime, expect a variety of rebuttals to this assurance that for 4 years the Iranians haven’t gotten much closer to producing weapons grade materials.

identify the most striking information in the NIE Report, that the US invasion of Iraq had yet another important positive result, which a great many commentators may be relied upon to overlook.

Since we are going to be talking about these, I think it may be helpful to have the text of the NIE’s key conclusions readily available.

NIE Report via the New York Times .pdf

As
AJStrata observes, it is important to note the Intelligence Community’s level of confidence on each of the report’s conclusions.

• High confidence generally indicates that our judgments are based on high-quality information, and/or that the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment. A “high confidence” judgment is not a fact or a certainty, however, and such judgments still carry a risk of being wrong.

• Moderate confidence generally means that the information is credibly sourced and plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence.

• Low confidence generally means that the information’s credibility and/or plausibility is questionable, or that the information is too fragmented or poorly corroborated to make solid analytic inferences, or that we have significant concerns or problems with the sources.

A. We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We judge with high confidence that the halt, and Tehran’s announcement of its decision to suspend its declared uranium enrichment program and sign an Additional Protocol to its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement, was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work.

• We assess with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons.

• We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (Because of intelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate, however, DOE and the NIC assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program.)

• We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.

• We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.

• Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005. Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.

enrichment activities in January 2006, despite the continued halt in the nuclear weapons program. Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges at Natanz, but we
judge with moderate confidence it still faces significant technical problems operating them.

• We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely.

• We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame. (INR judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this capability before 2013 because of foreseeable technical and programmatic problems.) All agencies recognize the possibility that this capability may not be attained until after 2015.

B. We continue to assess with low confidence that Iran probably has imported at least some weapons-usable fissile material, but still judge with moderate-to-high confidence it
has not obtained enough for a nuclear weapon. We cannot rule out that Iran has acquired from abroad—or will acquire in the future—a nuclear weapon or enough fissile material
for a weapon. Barring such acquisitions, if Iran wants to have nuclear weapons it would need to produce sufficient amounts of fissile material indigenously—which we judge
with high confidence it has not yet done.

C. We assess centrifuge enrichment is how Iran probably could first produce enough fissile material for a weapon, if it decides to do so. Iran resumed its declared centrifuge enrichment activities in January 2006, despite the continued halt in the nuclear weapons program. Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges at Natanz, but we judge with moderate confidence it still faces significant technical problems operating them.

• We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely.

• We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame. (INR judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this capability before 2013 because of foreseeable technical and programmatic problems.) All agencies recognize the possibility that this capability may not be attained until after 2015.

D. Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so. For example,
Iran’s civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. We also assess with high confidence that since fall 2003, Iran has been conducting research and development
projects with commercial and conventional military applications—some of which would also be of limited use for nuclear weapons.

E. We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely while it weighs its options, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will prompt it to restart the program.

• Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs. This, in turn, suggests that some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might—if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible—prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program. It is difficult to specify what such a combination might be.

• We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgo the eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult given the linkage many within the leadership probably see between nuclear weapons development and Iran’s key national security and foreign policy objectives, and given Iran’s considerable effort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons. In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decision is inherently reversible.

F. We assess with moderate confidence that Iran probably would use covert facilities— rather than its declared nuclear sites—for the production of highly enriched uranium for a
weapon. A growing amount of intelligence indicates Iran was engaged in covert uranium conversion and uranium enrichment activity, but we judge that these efforts probably
were halted in response to the fall 2003 halt, and that these efforts probably had not beenrestarted through at least mid-2007.

G. We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.

H. We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.

From Summary of 2007 Report:

Judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program. Judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (DOE and the NIC have moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program.) Assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons. Judge with high confidence that the halt was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work. Assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.

We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely. We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame. (INR judges that Iran is unlikely to achieve this capability before 2013 because of foreseeable technical and programmatic problems.)

We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely.

Scotland on Sunday:

They were once outlawed for being used as seditious weapons of war. Now, bagpipes have been blasted as an environmental menace.

Over-intensive logging means that the African wood used to make Scotland’s national instrument faces being wiped out.

Conservation groups are letting out skirls of protest, urging musicians and instrument manufacturers to make sure their pipes come from eco-friendly sources.

As part of the campaign, Scots are being asked to fund the planting of “bagpipe trees” in a bid to atone for the environmental damage.

Traditionally the chanter on the bottom of Highland pipes, which is used to create the melody, was made from native woods such as bog oak.

But Scottish mariners who travelled to Africa in the 18th century returned with supplies of African Blackwood, which proved to be far more resilient and produced a sweeter sound.

Since then the species, known as Mpingo in Swahili, has been a staple component of most quality pipes.

Conservation group Fauna & Flora International (FFI) said urgent action is needed to prevent the species being lost.

“With its beauty, fine grain, durable structure and natural oils no other wood looks – or sounds – the same as African Blackwood,” said its campaign co-ordinator Georgina Magin.

“But it has been heavily exploited for woodwind instruments like bagpipes and stocks are now seriously depleted.

“If woodlands and the valuable timbers they contain are managed unsustainably, species such as African Blackwood will become extinct.

“Already in northern Tanzania, where unsustainable logging occurs, Blackwood and other species are threatened with commercial extinction.

“This is a pivotal time for Blackwood, and musicians can play a crucial role in ensuring this unique timber remains available long into the future.”

It is believed that as much as 70% of Blackwood trees in Tanzania have already been felled. …

But pipe major and manufacturer David MacMurchie, who uses Blackwood, was less than impressed by the campaign.

“I for one am not going be made to feel guilty by a bunch of misguided environmental do-gooders,” he said. “I am sure that the communities in Africa use a hell of a lot more Blackwood than bagpipe manufacturers.

“It is unfair and misleading to try to blame it all on us.”

MacMurchie, a former member of the band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, said he was happy to make pipes from plastic, but said the overwhelming public demand was for traditional wooden instruments.

Other alternative woods, such as ebony, are vulnerable to splitting and, in some areas, are themselves under threat.

Most pipe manufacturers believe that no other wood has the same durability and resonance as the Blackwood. The African tree takes 80 years to reach just 40cm in height.

London Times:

In retrospect, it was not a good idea to have left his pistol at home. Called to the scene of a traffic accident in the Paris suburbs last Sunday, Jean-François Illy, a regional police chief, came face to face with a mob of immigrant youths armed with baseball bats, iron bars and shotguns.

What happened next has sickened the nation. As Illy tried to reassure the gang that there would be an investigation into the deaths of two teenagers whose motorbike had just collided with a police car, he heard a voice shouting: “Somebody must pay for this. Some pigs must die tonight!”

The 43-year-old commissaire realised it was time to leave, but that was not possible: they set his car ablaze. He stood as the mob closed in on him, parrying the first few baseball bat blows with his arms. An iron bar in the face knocked him down.

“I tried to roll myself into a ball on the ground,” said Illy from his hospital bed. He was breathing with difficulty because several of his ribs had been broken and one had punctured his lung.

His bruised and bloodied face signalled a worrying new level of barbarity in the mainly Muslim banlieues, where organised gangs of rioters used guns against police in a two-day rampage of looting and burning last week.

Not far from where Illy was lying was a policeman who lost his right eye after being hit by pellets from a shotgun. Another policeman displayed a hole the size of a 10p coin in his shoulder where a bullet had passed through his body armour.

Altogether 130 policemen were injured, dozens by shotgun pellets and shells packed with nails that were fired from a homemade bazooka. It prompted talk of urban “guerrilla warfare” being waged on French streets against the forces of law and order.

By the end of the week an extraordinarily heavy police presence in Villiers-le-Bel, where most of the rioting took place, appeared to have halted the violence: on top of public transport strikes and student protests against his reform plans, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, could not afford a repeat of 2005, when a similar incident involving the deaths of two youths provoked the worst French urban unrest in four decades.

Things were so tense in the suburbs, however, that the riots could easily erupt again with the prospect of deaths on either side setting off a much greater explosion and, conceivably, the deployment of the army to keep peace.

“Given the weapons being used, it was lucky that nobody was killed,” said a policeman.

And, David Goldstein, at the Huffington Post, responds to the bad news, thusly:

The Bushies have called Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez a dictator and a tyrant… but since when do dictators lose elections? …

Now if only Bush had accepted the will of the people as graciously as Chávez.

Guardian:

The region around Liverpool was once a major Viking settlement, according to a genetic study of men living in the area.

The research tapped into this Viking ancestry by focusing on people whose surnames were recorded in the area before its population underwent a huge expansion during the industrial revolution. Among men with these “original” surnames, 50% have Norse ancestry.

The find backs up historical evidence from place names and archaeological finds of Viking treasure which suggests significant numbers of Norwegian Vikings settled in the north-west in the 10th century. “[The genetics] is very exciting because it ties in with the other evidence from the area,” said Professor Stephen Harding at the University of Nottingham, who carried out the work with a team at the University of Leicester led by Professor Mark Jobling.

They used historical documents, including a tax register from the time of Henry VIII, to identify surnames common in the region. They then recruited 77 male volunteers with “original” surnames, and looked for a genetic signature of Viking ancestry on the Y chromosome. They report in Molecular Biology and Evolution that a Y chromosome type, R1a, common in Norway, is also very common among men with original surnames.

TNR served up its articles of surrender to the conservative blogosphere on the Thomas Scott Beauchamp affair in the form of a lengthy, grudging, turgid and self-justifying piece, broken up into 14 pages apparently in order to assure access by only the New Republic’s most persistent and determined critics.

Those who haven’t followed the matter should be advised that Beauchamp supplied the New Republic with a series of articles pandering to liberal expectations of the inevitably corrupting influence of war upon American troops, featuring US soldiers killing dogs, mocking a disfigured female war victim, and looting graves, resulting in one soldier wearing the top of an Iraqi skull as a cap.

Criticism from the Right led the New Republic to undertake attempts at fact-checking to confirm details of the various stories, which attempts were ultimately unsuccessful. Reading TNR’s account, I couldn’t help reflecting that it would have been much more to the point for the New Republic’s editors to have questioned many of their own biases and presuppositions and their basic world view, rather than the trivial details of Beauchamp’s anecdotes. The fundamental problem is really with the former.

The New Republic’s Franklin Foer concludes:

When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.

The Sci Fi channel hosts a program titled Destination Truth, devoted to serving up weekly episodes purportedly “investigating” reports of mysterious creatures across the globe. Representatives of the program traveled to Tibet to investigate the Yeti, and what do you know? they promptly discovered Yeti footprints.

With such unambiguous evidence as the footprint cast pictured above, naturally enough the mainstream media hastened to bring all this to the attention of worldwide readers.

Just remember these are exactly the same newspapers which also publish the Global Warming stories frequently on the basis of reports from sources just as reliable and disinterested as Destination Truth.

Sample stories:

AP

BBC

Reuters

Charles Bork, at National Review, identifies the increasing dryness of the West’s most popular cocktail as a barometer of Western Civilization’s decline.

“The Gilded Age” (c. 1895-1920) • 3 parts dry gin • 1 part dry vermouth

“The Jazz Age” (c. 1920-1940) • 5 parts dry gin • 1 part dry vermouth

“The Greatest Generation” (c. 1940-1965) • 7 parts dry gin • 1 part dry vermouth

“The Worst Generation” (c. 1965-1985) • 15 parts dry gin • 1 part dry vermouth

“The Postmodern Age” (c. 1985-present) • 3 ounces of gin • whisper the word “vermouth” over the shaker

Read the whole thing, then mix and shake.

Wilkinson’s Auctioneers in Doncaster will be selling in tomorrow’s auction a book believed to be bound in the skin of FatherHenry Garnet, a Jesuit priest convicted of high treason in connection with his knowledge of Guy Fawkes’ conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament and assassinate King James I. Garnet was executed by hanging May 3, 1606.

Blood-stained straw from Garnet’s execution came into the hands of Catholic sympathisers who reported that it had congealed into a portrait of the deceased Jesuit. This relic was preserved by the Jesuit Order at Liège until the time of the French Revolution. The story of the image of Garnet’s face in blood-stained straw was, at some point, also associated with this volume allegedly bound in his skin.

BBC news.

Lot 181 A Rare & Macabre Early 17th Century Anthropodermic Bound Book in carrying box. The book entitiled; ‘A True and Perfect Relation of The Whole Proceedings against the Late most barbarous Traitors, Garnet a Jesuit and his Confederats’; Printed London 1606 by Robert Barker, printer to the King and believed to be bound in human skin, possibly that of the aforementioned Jesuit Priest; Father Henry Garnet. The box having a rectangular handle to the centre with the corners having clusters of brass stud flowers, and the front having an iron clasp and lockplate, 11 ins x 7½ ins x 5 ins (28 cms x 19 cms x 13 cms).

Another Anthropodermic binding, posted 07 Jan 06.

AFP photo

The Guardian:

Carrying swords and machetes and waving green Islamic flags, protesters marched through the streets of Khartoum yesterday demanding the execution of British teacher Gillian Gibbons. “No one lives who insults the prophet,” read one of the banners outside the British embassy.

More than 1,000 Muslim demonstrators in the Sudanese capital called for her to be shot or stabbed for insulting Islam after her pupils called a teddy bear Muhammad.

Gibbons, 54, of Liverpool, was sentenced on Thursday night to 15 days in jail followed by deportation in a case that has attracted international condemnation. …

While many in Khartoum thought the arrest was harsh – the Sudanese blogosphere is awash with derision aimed at the authorities – leaflets were distributed at some mosques calling for protests against Gibbons after Friday prayers.

Some protesters arrived at Khartoum’s central mosque on foot, waving knives, clubs and ceremonial swords. Others came on the back of pick-up trucks, covered in printed banners and flags. Initially, the atmosphere was jovial, as the first groups of men moved towards Martyrs Square in front of the president’s palace in central Khartoum. Passersby shook their fists in encouragement and motorists honked their horns. But the mood soon darkened as the crowd swelled to more than 1,000.

Organisers shouted encouragement through megaphones. The crowd responded with traditional Islamic chants, extolling Allah, urging the death of anyone who insulted the prophet Muhammad. Newspaper pictures of Gibbons were burned on a makeshift stage at the heart of Martyrs Square. One protester was seen making a stabbing gesture with his sword. A group of men shouted: “She must be killed by the sword.”

Men wearing traditional robes and turbans leaned out of car windows waving swords and machete-like blades. Individuals shouted threats at western journalists, shouting: “You must go”, and drawing their fingers across their throats.

There was little doubt the protest had been carefully orchestrated. The banners waved by marchers and tied to the front of vehicles had all been pre-printed. Before the verdict, imams across the city also focused on the case in their sermons. One address, broadcast on national radio, accused Gibbons of purposefully comparing the prophet to a bear – an animal that was “alien” to Sudan, he said. “She deserved what she got,” he added.

The police did not intervene, indicating that the protest received the official approval of the authorities. Unauthorised protests held by opposition and other groups in Khartoum have in the past been broken up with teargas.