Right Wing Nut House

As a subhead to my post below on Iraq reconstruction, I immediately received an email from one of my faithful lefty correspondents who accused me of trying to “whitewash” the Iraq War. The consistency of this fellow’s idiocy would be astonishing if I didn’t keep in mind he is, after all, a liberal who has thrown out his knee by jerking it so often over the last 4 years everytime I fail to write about our “catastrophic defeat” in Iraq.

This time, he took me to task for daring to think as an historian rather than a partisan boob like him when I mentioned that the judgment of history won’t be known for a decade or so about whether the Iraq war was a net plus or minus to our strategic interests. No matter how things look today, a decade hence things will look quite different due to decisions we have made these last 6 years in Iraq.

Which decisions? And how will things look in the Middle East a decade from now? If anyone could answer those questions they would not be historians but rather stock touters as they would be able to predict the future and could really clean up in the market by putting that gift to good use.

All we can do is look at conditions today. Attempts to extrapolate from there and guess how things might be 10 years from now are fun but hardly relavent in that unrelated events that occur in that time frame may negate or augment decisions made by the US in Iraq. An example may be what we are going to do about Iran who has been emboldened and strengthened by our poor decision making in Iraq but who may find themselves less an influence in the region if the US military goes in and smashes things up. Admittedly, this is now a remote possibility but it highlights the manner in which unfolding history can throw everyone’s predictions of the future into a cocked hat.

Jules Crittenden, reporting on Bush’s surprise visit to Iraq, refers to Mr. Bush taking a “victory lap.” This drew a response from Bill Quick on Jules’ blog that I believe is the best, most concise, tour d’horizon of the consequences involved as a result of our invasion and occupation of Iraq that I’ve seen in a while. (I hope that neither Jules nor Bill minds that I have reprinted the entire comment here):

Jules, I have a problem with the generally accepted metric for “victory” in Iraq, to wit:

Ask yourself this: do you think, absent 9/11, we would have invaded Iraq? I don’t.

Since 9/11 was the proximate cause of our invasion of Iraq, what “victory” was in invasion in service to? The defeat of Iraq alone? Or as part of a larger project, the defeat of Islamofascist terrorism? I perceive it to be the second, and the Bush administration repeatedly confirmed this.

Viewed in that context, is what we have in Iraq a victory, really? We worried about Saddam getting nukes, but as a result of the Iraqi invasion and subsequent years of bungling, the US government has lost the will and the ability to stage any further military adventures, no matter how grave the situation, and so real enemies like Iran now stand on the threshold of acquiring nuclear weapons. Further, how long do you think your “victory” in Iraq will hold with a Shia government in which large parts are heavily influenced or controlled by Iran, and operating next door to a nuclear Iran?

Here’s where we stand today:

Iran: still an Islamofascist hellhole, a rabid enemy of the US and Israel, and about to go nuclear.

Syria: still the same America-hating Baathist regime, now heavily influenced and controlled by the Iranian regime.

Lebanon - a shattered checkerboard of factions, partly occupied by Hizb’Allah, (which is in large part controlled by Iran), a deadly threat to Israel and with major potential for staging Islamist terror attacks elsewhere.

Saudi Arabia - threatened by Iran on the one hand, and half-controlled by the Wahabi Islamofascists on the other. Still funneling money and men to Islamofascist terror gangs.

Pakistan - disintegrating even as we watch, and probably headed for a takeover by its most militant and anti-American Islamist factions, along with its nuclear arsenal.

Afghanistan - slowly sinking back into Islamofascist savagery, as the Taliban and its allies retake everything but the most heavily defended cities.

Osama bin Laden/Ayman Zawahiri/al Qaeda: Still alive, still in business, and effectively operating from their own nation of Waziristan.

Iraq: Enjoying a temporary respite from battle, but governed by a shaky coalition in which the Shia are by far the most powerful leg, and of which Shia many are under the control and/or influence of the soon-to-be nuclear next door neighbor, Iran.

And a host of problems with Islamofascism looming elsewhere, of which I am sure you are aware.

You may see Iraq as a “victory” but, within the context of the larger war against Islamofascist terror, I don’t. And I have to ask: Do you? Really?

I have minor quibbles with Bill’s gauging the strength of the Iranian faction among Iraqi Shias (present but influence on the wane?) and perhaps Hizbullah’s ability to hurt Israel militarily (a “deadly threat?”) but otherwise, Quick correctly asks where victory might be found in all of this. The bar has been lowered so much over the years that now simply being able to leave Iraq on our own pretty much qualifies as a “victory” along with a few other modest benchmarks.

We have not ceded the battlefield to terrorists or insurgents. There is a ever more confident and robust Iraqi government in place (how free is a matter of debate). How much of an “ally” in the War on Terror Iraq will be may also be up for discussion in a few years.

In short, when the last combat troops depart in 2011, we will be leaving behind a third world nation, riven by factions that could blow up into violence later, and with a wary but friendly relationship with our deadly enemy Iran. Victory? Perhaps so expansive a word should not be used for such a narrow success.

UPDATE

Excellent discussion among some conservatives on the issue of Iraq victory at Jules’ blog.

When the history of the Iraq War is written a decade or more from now, it will include a lot more perspective that the press and the war’s foes are giving it now. It will no doubt view events on the ground in that country as other wars have been chronicled; a mix of stunning bravery, horrible leadership, incomprehensible decisions, and the quiet, unremarkable brilliance of the ordinary US soldier in combat.

In a decade, we will also know whether the war was a net plus or minus for US interests. (To make that judgment now is folly. Example: Viet Nam, where many historians now see the war as a pivotal event in the collapse of the Soviet Union.) We will also know a lot more about the corruption, the confusion, the dishonesty, and the jaws dropping incompetence of the the Administration, the Pentagon, the State Department, and many other government agencies who had a hand in the reconstruction fiasco.

We have known for years that the Bush Administration was unprepared for the aftermath of the invasion. We’ve known about the wasted, stolen, and misappropriated reconstruction funds. We’ve known that the Pentagon was not always honest in its assessment of the progress of Iraqi security forces.

What we didn’t know until now is just how truly bad it was.

An unpublished 513-page federal history of the American-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure.

The history, the first official account of its kind, is circulating in draft form here and in Washington among a tight circle of technical reviewers, policy experts and senior officials. It also concludes that when the reconstruction began to lag — particularly in the critical area of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army — the Pentagon simply put out inflated measures of progress to cover up the failures.

In one passage, for example, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is quoted as saying that in the months after the 2003 invasion, the Defense Department “kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces — the number would jump 20,000 a week! ‘We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.’ ”

Mr. Powell’s assertion that the Pentagon inflated the number of competent Iraqi security forces is backed up by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former commander of ground troops in Iraq, and L. Paul Bremer III, the top civilian administrator until an Iraqi government took over in June 2004.

Over the years, the Pentagon has simply lied to us about the readiness of Iraqi forces to “stand up” so we could “stand down.” Certainly they justified some of this lying as “good for the war effort.” But it is just horrific that Rumsfeld could face the press everyday and lie about the progress of training the Iraqi army. We already knew he was a “glass half full” sort of fellow when it came to war news. But this wasn’t spin. These were deliberate lies told to maintain support for the war at home. Those of us who bought these figures and argued with war opponents that progress was being made and asked for patience it now turns out that we were just actors in Rumsfeld’s little dramas.

But it is in the reconstruction area that the Bush Administration reveals itself to be not only incompetent but probably criminally negligent with American taxpayer dollars.

You haven’t heard about it because of a government gag orders but there are at least 70 cases of Iraqi contract fraud across the country waiting for January 20, 2009 to start up against American companies who did business in Iraq with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Some trials have taken place already including one involving the company Custer Battles that was given a contract to convert the Iraqi Dinar to a new currency and ended up robbing the taxpayers of at least $10 million. Another case involving Philip Bloom who admitted bribing DoD officials with sex, booze, and cash in order to get millions in reconstruction contracts. His co-defendant was a CPA official.

The list of transgressions is staggering. Uncompetitive bidding (including the granting of Haliburton a multi-billion dollar contract without any other bidders) outright theft, contract manipulation, nauseatingly incompetent accounting by the CPA, bending and breaking of regulations, political favoritism, and $8 billion in cash that has simply gone “missing.”

That last may involve some wretched accounting by the CPA. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of evidence that a lot of that cash just up and disappeared - stacks and stacks of crisp, brand new $100 bills. How could that happen?

Because the Iraqi banking system was in tatters, the funds were placed in an account with the Federal Reserve in New York. From there, most of the money was flown in cash to Baghdad. Over the first 14 months of the occupation, 363 tonnes of new $100 bills were shipped in - $12bn, in cash. And that is where it all began to go wrong.

“Iraq was awash in cash - in dollar bills. Piles and piles of money,” says Frank Willis, a former senior official with the governing Coalition Provisional Authority. “We played football with some of the bricks of $100 bills before delivery. It was a wild-west crazy atmosphere, the likes of which none of us had ever experienced.”

The environment created by the coalition positively encouraged corruption. “American law was suspended, Iraqi law was suspended, and Iraq basically became a free fraud zone,” says Alan Grayson, a Florida-based attorney who represents whistleblowers now trying to expose the corruption. “In a free fire zone you can shoot at anybody you want. In a free fraud zone you can steal anything you like. And that was what they did.”

Does “criminally negligent” apply? That 513 page report mentioned up top supplies some answers:

Among the overarching conclusions of the history is that five years after embarking on its largest foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II, the United States government has in place neither the policies and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake such a program on anything approaching this scale.

The bitterest message of all for the reconstruction program may be the way the history ends. The hard figures on basic services and industrial production compiled for the report reveal that for all the money spent and promises made, the rebuilding effort never did much more than restore what was destroyed during the invasion and the convulsive looting that followed.

By mid-2008, the history says, $117 billion had been spent on the reconstruction of Iraq, including some $50 billion in United States taxpayer money.

The history contains a catalog of revelations that show the chaotic and often poisonous atmosphere prevailing in the reconstruction effort.

That’s right. To this day, the administration remains clueless about not only the finances of Iraqi reconstruction but even how to go about the task of organizing the effort.

Criminally negligent? Can’t say for sure but there is certainly plenty of evidence that the Bushies didn’t care enough to resolve the parochial disagreements and turf wars that hampered efforts to consolidate the reconstruction effort and get a handle on how much was going out to pay for what and to whom.

There will be an effort in Congress next year to get to the bottom of all this. With the ascension of Henry Waxman to the chairmanship energy committee, the oversight committee chairman could very well be Ed Towns, a New York Congressman who is dogged, thorough, and much less a partisan than Waxman. But I still think it best that an independent commission be formed to look into the entire question of Iraqi reconstruction. We need to investigate the entire episode and not just cherry pick individual occurences of corruption. Congress is much to busy to do a good job in delving into the whole narrative, hence, a bi-partisan panel should be empowered.

The charge of “war profiteering” against some contractors is no doubt overblown. There are hundreds of honest businessmen who contracted with the US or Iraqi governments to supply goods and services who, by all accounts, performed magnificently - sometimes at great personal risk to themselves and their employees. But there is also a growing body of evidence that dozens of contractors saw an easy way to defraud the taxpayer and through bribery, theft, and fraud, enriched themselves.

UPDATE

He’s the only other conservative writing about this story but I still think James Joyner is on the wrong track with this:

That sounds about right. Of course, the Marshall Plan involved giving the money to leaders of advanced countries to rebuild war-ravaged infrastructure after the conflict had ended, whereas this effort had outsiders with virtually no knowledge of the area trying to create a modern state out of an underdeveloped one while terrorists were trying to undermine the effort at every turn.

My history is a little fuzzy but I remember reading Theodore H. White (who wrote extensively about the Marshall Plan when he was working with Colliers Magazine) that the entire taxpayer expenditure for the Marshall Plan was around $15 billion from 1947-51 and that the primary success of the plan lay in its building currencies and creating markets for goods. Using the dollar to stabilize currencies and aiding France so that it could buy German wheat or Great Britain so it could buy French steel are examples of specific Marshall Plan goals. More than one historian has pointed to the plan as a boost to the idea of a European Common Market.

The point being, there was a government wide effort involving State, Defense, Treasury, and Commerce to realize reconstruction based on cooperation and a specific plan. According to the conclusions in that history of Iraq war reconstruction, the Bushies never even took the first step of organizing their own administration and to this day have failed to do so. It wouldn’t have mattered if Iraq was a western industrialized nation or a third world backwater; the problem lay in a lack of focus on putting an overall plan in place with specific goals and targets.

But kudos to James for highlighting what I’m sure is going to be a big story next year.

Would Israel attack Iranian nuclear facilities without the cooperation and approval from the United States?

If they have to, you betchya. But a couple of problems inherent in a positive response to that query is the question of what would be meant by “have to” and the notion that the Israeli Air Force has the ways and means of being successful in any such attack in the first place.

War monger George Bush has apparently rebuffed the Israelis when the Jewish state asked for American cooperation in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities last May. I frankly don’t understand how that’s possible considering that Seymour Hersh and many others on the left assured us that Bloodthirsty Bush was itching for war with Iran in order to bring about the end times and fulfill the prophecies of the Bible.

Over the last 4 years, lefties like Hersh have predicted a US strike on Iran (or our tacit approval of one by the IDF) so many times I’ve lost count. Is there a faction in the Administration that would love to see us level Nantanz and a few other installations? Absolutely. But there has always been opposition to this move by the real politik crowd who, since getting burned by going along with the neocons on invading Iraq, have asserted themselves on Iran and it appears they have convinced Bush that only in the most dire, last resort circumstances should such a shattering attack be approved.

We won’t go into the pros and cons now. I summarized most of them here if you wish to revisit the familiar. Suffice it to say that attacking Iran would be a monumentally bad idea, a disaster for Iraq, a disaster for the region, and a potential disaster for the world. The only possible justification would be if Iran is on the cusp of constructing a bomb and would have perfected a delivery system - something they are at least a year away from the former and several years away from the latter.

The news reports about Iran having enough nuclear material to build a bomb have been incredibly misleading. There is no evidence that Iran has any facilities to enrich their uranium from its current 3-5% to the 85-90% necessary to make it go boom. The problem is that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Even IAEA lickspittle ElBaradei is worried that he and his group of nuclear enablers cannot guarantee Iran doesn’t have some secret installation that can complete the enrichment process and build a bomb. What is known, however, is that they are not doing it at Nantanz where the centrifuges keep whirling merrily away, creating the raw material of Israel’s destruction.

This, of course, is the $64,000 question and is the reason Israel is so nervous. Another unknown is how far along Iran is in perfecting their plutonium manufacturing process at Arak where there is a heavy water facility. The IAEA inspected the plant last year while it was under construction. Once operational, that plant alone could produce enough plutonium to make 5-6 bombs a year - if the Iranians could master the extraordinarily difficult task of fashioning a weapon from the more efficient nuclear material. Most experts say the Iranians are at least 5 years away from getting the Arak facility up and running and another few years from being capable of building a plutonium device.

But the Israelis are looking at the 250 pounds of enriched uranium sitting in storage knowing it would take just a few months to continue the enrichment process and make Iranian dreams of a bomb come true. That’s if the Iranians had a mind to do so and if they had a facility or facilities that they could keep the prying eyes of the world from discovering what they are doing.

As for the former, the only people willing to debate the “no” position are either still in diapers or are liberals. The latter supposition is a lot trickier and depends on both what we know from history and what we can assume from Iranian statements on their nuclear program.

As for history, we can consider ourselves lucky we can prove the Iranians have a nuclear program at all. We only uncovered its scope when we unmasked the nuclear black market being run by A.Q. Kahn, the “Father of the Pakistani Bomb” who not only supplied hardware to states wanting to get their hands on nuclear weapons but also expertise in the form of rogue nuclear scientists who were assisting several states including North Korea, Iran, and Libya.

What makes Khan’s assistance so significant is that he was not helping these countries to build power reactors or submarine power plants or even really cool experimental stuff that might unlock the nature of the universe. He was helping these nations for one reason and one reason only - to build an atomic weapon. Much of the equipment he loaned or sold these nations - not to mention apparently selling the actual design for a bomb - reveals an unmistakable desire on the part of these nations to acquire nuclear weaponry.

As for statements by the current regime in Iran speaking to their intent; while mouthing nonsense about using their knowledge and technology for “peaceful purposes” they have, out of the other side of their mouths, been a little more forthcoming in their desire to “wipe Israel off the map” and make Iran “a great power.”

Put one and one together and you are left with the unmistakable impression that Iran wants to build a nuke. It would be the height of folly and wishful thinking to believe anything else.

That said, whither Israel? If an Obama Administration will not authorize an Israeli strike or go after Iran itself, where does that leave the Jewish state?

From today’s J-Post:

The IDF is drawing up options for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities that do not include coordination with the United States, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

While its preference is to coordinate with the US, defense officials have said Israel is preparing a wide range of options for such an operation.

“It is always better to coordinate,” one top Defense Ministry official explained last week. “But we are also preparing options that do not include coordination.”

Israeli officials have said it would be difficult, but not impossible, to launch a strike against Iran without receiving codes from the US Air Force, which controls Iraqi airspace. Israel also asked for the codes in 1991 during the First Gulf War, but the US refused.

Several news reports have claimed recently that US President George W. Bush has refused to give Israel a green light for an attack on Iranian facilities. One such report, published in September in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, claimed that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert requested a green light to attack Iran in May but was refused by Bush.

Just looking at a map will show the difficulties for Israel in attacking Iran without permission to traverse Iraqi airspace. The IAF would have to fly over the entire length of Syria and part of Turkey in order to reach Iranian territory. From there, it is another long leg to hit the main Iranian nuke facilities in central and southwestern Iran. The Israeli air force has the capability but the mission would be incredibly dangerous - virtually a one way trip considering everything. That is - unless the US gave the IDF permission to overfly Iraq.

(Note: An emailer points me to Ed Morrissey’s piece this morning positing another route for the IAF to Iran - down the Red Sea through the Gulf of Aden around the Arabian Sea and finally flying into the Persian Gulf - that’s around the entire Arabian penninsula just to get to the Gulf where there are two good targets; Bushehr and Shiraz - the latter is a missile testing site while the former is the site of a Russian built light water reactor.

But this would really be stretching Israeli refueling capability not to mention that it is a 5500 mile round trip. That much flying time is almost guaranteed to alert Iran to the sortie. As for any other route - overflying Jordan and Saudi Arabia for instance - both nations possess sophisticated air defenses courtesy of Uncle Sam. Without US approval, it is doubtful the Saudis would appreciate so many Israeli planes flying over their territory.)   

Would Obama consent? During the campaign he made the right noises about not taking the military option “off the table” on Iran but realistically, I don’t think an American attack or a green light to Israel are in the cards when he takes office. The downside to an attack is so bad that perhaps the prospect of Iran with nukes wouldn’t look as bad - at least that will probably be the advice he will be getting from everyone but Hillary.

So the question of whether Israel feels it will “have to” bomb Iran will be extraordinarily difficult for the Livni government to puzzle out. Given all that we know about the difficulties facing Israel in carrying out such an attack, the prospects for limited success, the blowback in the form of Hamas and Hezballah increased terrorism, and the certainty that it would further isolate the Jewish state and perhaps even drive a wedge between them and their #1 ally - all of this would lead one to believe that Israel has no intention of attacking Iran and that these leaks are, for all intents and purposes, just for show.

At least that’s the impression one gets from this piece in ToL:

However defence officials played down the reports today, telling The Times that an attack by Israeli forces alone would probably fail to take out all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, which experts say are scattered across several sites, some deep underground.

“That would leave us open to a nuclear attack from Iran’s remaining weapons stock. Israel would likely need the support, the backing, of forces from a Western ally to successfully carry out the operation,” he said.

Except the existential threat to Israel may be so great that they may feel compelled to attack anyway - alone if absolutely necessary.

They and the rest of the world have time, but not much. Postulating that Iran has someplace they could enrich the uranium they already have to bomb making levels, it would still take many months at their current level of technology to accomplish the task. Unanswered questions are whether they have a workable bomb design and more importantly, have been able to configure the bomb to fit atop one of their Shahab missiles. But I doubt whether Israel is going to wait to discover the answers. More likely, once the Iranian nuclear program has passed a certain point of no return, they will consider acting.

Right now, Israeli intelligence pegs that point as the end of 2009.

Finally, Nouri al-Maliki - a guy I’ve been calling an empty suit for years - seems to have grown a pair and is standing up for the Iraqi people against the Americans.

The Iraqis want our combat forces to leave in an orderly fashion by withdrawing troops using a timetable that will be mutually agreed upon. What’s not to like in this?

Well, if you’re President Bush or John McCain, you have a political problem in that you have opposed a timetable being attached to our withdrawal for years. But that was Democrats setting arbitrary timetables not the sovereign nation of Iraq giving their problematic allies a graceful way to exit with honor and a true “Mission Accomplished.”

Saddam is gone. His WMD programs are history. The Iraqi army has proven in Basra, in Sadr City, and most especially in Mosul that they are capable of handling the security of the country (internal). The police - while still a large problem as far as corruption - performed quite well in Mosul also.

Just what is it we are still needed for?

Security from external threats? Agreed - but we don’t need 135,000 troops for that. We don’t need 50,000 troops in Iraq either. A “tripwire” force of less than 20,000 should be all that’s needed to keep Iran or Syria or any other hostile power from violating the territorial integrity of Iraq. With the pre-placement of equipment for a much larger force along with several thousand American advisers to continue the Iraqi’s training, a large combat presence will be tough to rationalize.

It was unrealistic of us to think that we could nurture this fledgling democracy through its growing pains and into the light of true liberty. At some point, the apron strings must be cut and the Iraqi government and people must go out on their own and find their own path to freedom. It will be messy. There will be stops and starts. It won’t look much like western style democracy. But the Iraqis must develop their own traditions, their own institutions if they are to succeed in joining the free nations of the world.

Ben Franklins admonishment to a woman outside of Independence Hall after the Constitution was agreed upon at the convention should hold special meaning for the Iraqis. When asked by the lady what kind of government to delegates had given the people Franklin responded “A republic ma’am - if you can keep it.” I don’t know exactly what kind of government will emerge in the coming years in Iraq. All I’m sure of is that it will be an Iraqi government. It may be free. It may be less free. It may devolve into a dictatorship - perhaps even mimicing the clerical fascists next door in Iran.

And while we will watch with great interest and even powerful emotions, it matters not what we think. We have done all that we can to give them this opportunity - an opportunity that cost us more than 4,000 brave souls and countless thousands who returned maimed, disfigured, and emotionally troubled. Other unforseen consequences will no doubt emerge not the least of which is a regional power in Iran who will try their best to undermine what we have started in Iraq. They may succeed. And then again, they may not. There are many in Iraq who are dedicated to establishing a secular democratic state. Perhaps their good hearts and good intentions will hold off the beast to the south who will work through proxies to try and destablize the nascent state.

But it will not be our direct concern anymore. Take the deal, Mr. President. The Iraqis have grown up and are ready to take responsibility for their own security, their own state. Hasn’t that been our goal all along.

Make the deal, Mr. Bush. It will be your parting gift to the country and might - just might - raise you up in the estimation of your countrymen. Goodness knows you’ve done enough the last 8 years to lower it.

There are days that I really hate politics - days when my cynicism and contempt for the politicians, the process, the whole bloody, unholy mess of spin meisters, pundits, press, bloggers, and commentators from all sides of the ideological spectrum make me want to chuck it all and write about sports, or gardening, or cats.

Readers of this site know that this too, shall pass; that tomorrow or the next day or day after that, I will resume my role as cantankerous curmudgeon railing against the left, the right, and the squishes in the middle as if this feeling of utter, depthless depression about the state of the nation never existed.

Part of it is, I’m sure, the coming slaughter of conservatives at the polls in November. The ignorant, smug, self-righteous liberals who visit this site (as opposed to most lefty visitors who are thoughtful and eager to engage in dialogue) who keep telling me to “get used to it” haven’t a clue themselves what is about to transpire with this coming election.

We are about to hand the presidency to the most ill-equipped, shallow, unschooled, and naive candidate in American history. Less than 4 years ago, Barack Obama was an obscure Illinois state senator with a paper thin record of accomplishment and a work history that included organizing inner city residents by bringing their resentments against white America to the surface thus motivating them to vote and put pressure on city hall.

If one asks the question how he rose so quickly to the heights he finds himself now, all you have to do is look at his sponsors in the Chicago political machine; state senate Majority leader Emil Jones (who helped pad his non-existent resume by putting his name as a sponsor on bills he never worked to pass), the as yet unfleshed out Tony Rezko connections to the operators and moneymen who were invaluable in his 2004 senate run, and Mayor Daley himself whose brother Bill, former cabinet official in Clinton’s administration and the man who ran the Gore 2000 campaign, an unpaid consultant to the Obama campaign who possesses one of the most valuable Rolodex in the Democratic party.

And let’s not forget the man who has brilliantly packaged the Obama message of “change” and “hope” by obscuring the candidate’s unabashed liberalism with enough amorphous, non-ideological platitudes to pave the road to heaven twice over. David Axelrod has many gifts. But perhaps his most valuable contribution to the Obama campaign has been in message discipline. Never before has a liberal Democrat stayed on point through appearance after appearance, debate after debate, talk show after talk show.

And, of course, the candidate’s own numerous political gifts have rounded out a campaign that looks unbeatable at this point.

Given all of this, just how bad (or good) would an Obama presidency be?

I have written previously how this election reminds me of 1980’s debacle for the Democrats. And while I still think this is true, there is a major difference between then and now; Democrats today are much less united (outside of the Iraq War) on what needs to be done to “fix” things than Republicans were a generation ago. Back then, the mantra of “lower taxes, less regulation, higher defense spending” was an easy sell and GOP candidates from top to bottom embraced the themes that Reagan hammered home day after day on the campaign trail.

But the left today is not in as much agreement as to what needs to be done although the outlines of some programs will see broad acceptance among Democrats on Capitol Hill. There will no doubt be a primal thrust at the beginning of an Obama administration for some kind of national health insurance. All depends on whether Obama insists on his own plan (that does not include mandated participation) or whether he breaks down and realizes there is nothing “national” about what he is proposing unless people are forced to sign up and pay into the insurance fund.

Some of the more entertaining moments during the debate occurred when watching Hillary criticize Obama’s plan for not covering all Americans while twisting and dodging about the draconian mandates contained in her own plan that would force Americans to buy health insurance - even if they don’t want it. And if they don’t buy it, enforcement provisions will almost certainly involve the IRS. What other government agency is set up to do it?

Will Americans feel the same about national health insurance once they realize what it means - what it really means - as far as forcing citizens at the point of the IRS gun to pay up or suffer the consequences? We’re an independent minded citizenry and don’t like to be told what to do but my guess is we will meekly submit to this massive intrusion of our liberties because citizens are convinced only the government can act to supply them with competitive insurance rates. Regardless of whether that’s true or not it doesn’t matter. We’re going to have national health insurance by the time the cherry blossoms are blooming in the tidal basin next year.

On the surface, it appears that Democrats are united in their desire to end the Iraq War. However, here too, you have a wide range of options being pushed forward by Democrats that almost certainly guarantees there will be token withdrawals of troops from Iraq and little more.

Unless a President Obama is willing to fire Gen. Raymond Odierno (who will be top commander in Iraq this time next year), CENTCOM commander Petreaus, and a host of lesser lights and replace them with generals who will tell him what he wants to hear on Iraq (don’t put this past Obama - Bush did it, why not him?), it is likely we will have virtually the same number of troops doing pretty much what they are doing now in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Obama’s on again-off again advisor Samantha Power said the same thing and common sense alone makes Obama’s “plan” to reduce troops by a brigade a month little more than a pipe dream.

The reason Obama will give - Bush screwed things up so bad that the troops are needed to prevent catastrophe - will be close to the truth so all but the Dennis Kucinich wing of the party will probably cut him some slack.

The real test of Obama’s leadership will come when dealing with the economy. Whether we are in an official recession won’t matter as much as the fact that economic activity will almost certainly be sluggish with most vital sectors experiencing slow or no growth. There will also no doubt be considerable slack in the labor market as well. The question is will the Democrats and Obama take actions that will help spur growth or will they give into their worst impulses and raise taxes, gut NAFTA, and take other actions that might exacerbate the situation?

I have zero confidence that anything the Democrats propose will make the situation better. Overall, the Democrats are unfriendly to the idea of a globalized economy and given the opportunity (or forced into it by their masters in the labor unions), they will find a way to throw a monkey wrench into free trade agreements while perhaps making it illegal to “outsource” goods and services to other countries. This will force other nations to react to what we are doing and the entire edifice of global trade will be threatened.

This will almost certainly mean slower growth and more difficulty in getting the economy back on track. Of course, the blame will successfully be placed at the feet of Bush and the Republicans where some of it belongs but without the inconvenience of having to own up to policies that have actually made the situation worse.

As far as foreign policy, I am actually less nervous about Obama than I was a few months ago. The reason is I don’t think Obama as president will emphasize foreign policy the first few years of his presidency but rather keep his nose to the domestic grindstone. Allowing things to float at this point - with the exception of Iraq and Afghanistan - wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will go nowhere as will negotiations with Syria. Pakistan is already a lost cause. Russia will continue to be a thorn in our side as will China but there might be areas - nuclear nonproliferation - that would benefit all countries and where Obama might actually do some good.

The Iranian situation will resolve itself with or without President Obama’s help. If he actively tries to prevent Israel from removing what they believe is an existential threat, his presidency will be over. And since the US is going to get blamed for anything Israel does anyway, my guess is he will tacitly support any Israeli action against the Iranian nuclear program.

Would he attack Iran? Despite his bellicose comments about not allowing the Iranians to develop nuclear weapons, since there will likely be no evidence that the Iranians are constructing nukes, it is extremely unlikely that a President Obama would greenlight any attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Israel, of course, doesn’t have that luxury and once it is clear that Iran could enrich uranium on an industrial scale to the 85-90% level, all bets are off and US support or no, they will hit the Iranians with everything they’ve got.

Admittedly, the fallout from such an attack could be extremely serious. But Syria won’t commit suicide for their Iranian allies by starting a war they can’t win and Iran’s military is something of a joke - outside of some rockets that could hit Israeli cities with conventional explosives. The fact is, for all their bluster, Syria and Iran can’t do much damage to the Israelis and they know it.

Diplomatically, it might be a different story. It would almost certainly cause the Arab street to explode - Jews attacking Muslims - and it would almost certainly cool relations between us and our “moderate” Arab allies. But as I’ve mentioned previously, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia aren’t looking to expand their own “peaceful” nuclear programs because they need power plants. They fear Iran and any action taken by anyone - even the Israelis - to remove the nuclear threat will be greeted by outrage on the outside but relief behind the scenes.

How Obama manages all of this - and I fear it is a virtual certainty he will have to face it - will test both the man and his presidency. Is he up to the challenge? I am of the school of history that believes great leaders are sometimes born but more often rise to the occasion having given little indication they were up to managing great happenings. Think Lincoln. But also think James Buchanan who sat paralyzed in the White House while state after state seceded from the union. Buchanan had great experience in government having served two terms as a senator and 4 years as Secretary of State. But all that experience went for naught when he froze during the greatest crisis the union ever faced.

The next 4 years will see the US tested as perhaps it hasn’t been since the end of World War II. Our alliances, our security, our leadership in the world - all will present enormous problems for the next Commander in Chief. Couple that with a moribund economy and a restless citizenry searching for a unity of purpose and you have perhaps the most daunting challenges a new chief executive will have faced at least since Reagan and possibly since FDR.

I know one thing. Obama will be the only president we have. Doing everything we can to support him - at least as far as our consciences allow - could make the difference between success and failure.

In golf, if you step up to the tee and proceed to hit the ball out of bounds, there is a fine tradition on public link courses that you are allowed a do-over, or “Mulligan” so that you can try to hit the ball a little straighter and not be penalized for your wayward swing.

There’s no such thing in politics, of course…that is, unless you happen to be an inexperienced liberal Democrat campaigning for president who is vouchsafed such luxuries as getting to “clarify” a monumentally stupid statement that demonstrated a dangerous cluelessness about a vital part of the world.

Barack Obama’s statement on the crisis in Lebanon fell as flat as 3 week old champagne in Israel and Lebanon, and probably other places where reformers are seeking to overturn the established order in the Middle East and bring more freedom to the people there. It’s bald faced ignorance about Hizbullah, about the Lebanese people, and what has been going on for more than 2 years in the streets in that tragic country underscores a dangerous naivete on the part of the candidate as well as a shocking lack of perspective on the true nature of groups like Hizbullah and Hamas.

In an eye-brow raising interview with the New York Times David Brooks, Obama was offered a chance to amend his mealy mouthed, pusillanimous statement on Lebanon made over the weekend and substitute instead thoughts that might connect to some semblance of reality regarding Hizbullah and their threat to whatever is left of democracy in Lebanon:

First, Obama’s initial swing that duck hooked clean out of bounds for a 2 stroke penalty:

He called on “all those who have influence with Hezbollah” to “press them to stand down.” Then he declared, “It’s time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment.”

I took the candidate to task for his naive belief that “those who have influence with Hizbullah” care one whit what happens to Lebanese society and in fact, were encouraging Hizbullah in their violent efforts to undermine the legitimacy and authority of the elected government.

As for a “diplomatic consensus” on electoral reform I would say to Obama where the hell have you been for 3 fricking years? The Lebanese along with the Saudis, the Syrians, and the Arab League have all been engaged in efforts to reform Lebanon’s archaic electoral laws.

As for the patronage system, have him clean up his homestate’s corruption before he goes over the Lebanon and starts telling them about “corrupt patronage.” Mayor Daley and Governor Blagovetich make the Lebanese look like pikers in that regard.

And what’s with this “New Deal” economic program for Lebanon? He can’t be that dense, can he? When George Bush took office, aid to Lebanon amounted to around $35 million. This year, in keeping with our pledges made at the Paris Roundtable on aid to Lebanon, the President is asking Congress for $770 million which would make Lebanon the third largest recipient of US aid per capita. This is an amount that Iran can’t come close to matching. Clearly, Lebanon has become one of the most important Middle Eastern countries to American interests.

The Roundtable countries pledged upwards of $7 billion to rebuild Lebanese infrastructure pulverized by Israel during the war with Hizbullah. But that aid can’t start flowing until Lebanon has a new government. And Lebanon won’t have a new government until they elect a president. And they won’t elect a president until a new electoral law is passed. And they won’t have a new electoral law until Hizbullah folds up its tents in downtown Beirut and stops threatening to topple the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, joining their fellow countrymen in a national dialogue. And that won’t happen until there is a new government…

And around and around we go with Obama’s laughable ignorance exposed for all to see. He wants to treat Lebanon the same way he would go about reforming a corrupt ward in Chicago. For obvious reasons, this did not sit well with any Lebanese blogger or pundit I have read since he released that statement.

A sample from AK:

Oh the time we wasted by fighting Hizbullah all those years with rockets, invasions of their homes and shutting down their media outlets. If only we had engaged them and their masters in diplomacy, instead of just sitting with them around discussion tables, welcoming them into our parliament, and letting them veto cabinet decisions. If only Obama had shared his wisdom with us before, back when he was rallying with some of our former friends at pro-Palestinian rallies in Chicago. How stupid we were when, instead of developing national consensus with them, we organized media campaigns against Israel on behalf of the impoverished people who voted for them.

Given this reaction, one would think that given the opportunity to play a Mulligan, the candidate would try and make things right.

Guess again:

Right off the bat he reaffirmed that Hezbollah is “not a legitimate political party.” Instead, “It’s a destabilizing organization by any common-sense standard. This wouldn’t happen without the support of Iran and Syria.”

I asked him what he meant with all this emphasis on electoral and patronage reform. He said the U.S. should help the Lebanese government deliver better services to the Shiites “to peel support away from Hezbollah” and encourage the local populace to “view them as an oppressive force.” The U.S. should “find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them they are getting social services.”

The U.S. needs a foreign policy that “looks at the root causes of problems and dangers.” Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that “they’re going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims.” He knows these movements aren’t going away anytime soon (“Those missiles aren’t going to dissolve”), but “if they decide to shift, we’re going to recognize that. That’s an evolution that should be recognized.”

Obama didn’t only hit his Mulligan out of bounds - the ball made a beeline for the clubhouse and hit the President of the Country Club right in the middle of the forehead.

And while the President of the Golf Club can ban Obama for life, we voters aren’t so lucky. We must deal with this head in the clouds, pie in the sky, completely unrealistic and dangerously naive candidate for the rest of the campaign. All we can do is point out his shocking idiocies and hope that the American people see the danger too.

To take his statement apart, he doesn’t think Hizbullah is a “legitimate” political party. This would come as news to the 24 Hizbullah deputies seated in Parliament and the millions of ordinary Lebanese belonging to what an American presidential candidate has just told them is an illegitimate political entity.

Maybe Obama sees them sort of like Republicans in Chicago’s city hall.

But the real head scratchers in Obamas’s statement have to do with his idea of how government should work in Lebanon. He thinks the Lebanese government should deliver “better services” to the Shia - actually believing that bringing national health care or maybe food stamps to the south will “peel away” ordinary Shias and cement their loyalty to the government. He also thinks we should make the Shias see Hizbullah as an “oppressive force.”

Brooks thinks Obama has been well briefed on Lebanon - that’s a pile of crap. First of all, the writ of Lebanese law does not run in the south - no services, no government officials, just Hizbullah. Perhaps Obama never heard the expression relating to Hizbullah “a state within a state.” How, pray tell, is Obama going to get government services to a people when the terror bosses of Hizbullah control access to the population? How is he going to “peel away” Shias while showing Hizbullah to be “oppressive?”

Of all the platitudinous nonsense ever uttered by Obama, this comes close to taking the cake.

Well, until he said “The U.S. should “find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them they are getting social services.”

Wha? Who? WTF? The Shias already have an a very fine mechanism that is “an effective outlet” for their grievances. It’s called Hizbullah. And make no mistake, being funded to the tune of $300 million a year by Iran allows the party to set up an entire social welfare infrastructure that addresses the basic needs of the Shia in a way that the Lebanese government never did. Sorry, Barry but if you would return to earth with the rest of us mortals, you would realize your half assed opinions about the situation in Lebanon can only do damage to the very people we are seeking to help.

It only gets more bizarrely stupid the more he opens his mouth. No liberal panacea for what ails Lebanon would be complete without the “root causes” meme - as in, “Gee, if only the terrorists grew up with good food, shelter, heath care, and a 37′ Sony Trinitron, their hearts would melt and the world would be a fine place, indeed.” He believes both Hamas and Hizbullah “need to understand” that they are going down a “blind alley” with violence that “weakens their legitimate (gulp!) claims.”

Can Obama pick and choose which “legitimate claim” Hamas might want to pursue? Maybe they don’t want peace. Maybe they view their #1 legitimate claim to be the destruction of the Jewish state and death to every jew they can lay their hands on. How now, Barry? Will you help Hamas pursue that legitimate claim?

Hizbullah is a slightly different story but only because you can vaguely place their “legitimate claims” in the context of standing up for the Shia underclass - something that this past week’s violence revealed as a sham as Michael Young put so brilliantly in this piece. Basically, Young believes that Hizbullah’s attempted power grab this past week opened a schism between the Shias and the rest of Lebanese society that has made them more isolated than they were.

To even speak of “legitimacy” of claims by Hamas or Hizbullah is outrageously naive. Obama keeps insisting he has a “realistic” outlook on our enemies. And while he makes some of the right noises about Iran and Syria, he more often comes up with ludicrous statements like this that call into question his fitness for the presidency.

Lebanon is not some senate district in Chicago where someone can jump in and butt some heads together, shower a little money, and talk of about economic development as if it were just a question of opening a spigot somewhere and out would pour goodwill and prosperity.

Our friends in Lebanon are very worried about this man becoming president. They fear he will sell them down the river in order to get a peace deal with Iran or broker a Middle East peace with Syria and Israel. The temptation will be great to do so no matter who is president - McCain or Obama - to give in to Syria’s demands on Lebanon and leave the Lebanese people to the tender mercy of Hizbullah and Gangster Assad’s henchmen.

So far, it doesn’t appear to me that Obama has grasped the essential truth of what is at stake in Lebanon and may not see much wrong with abandoning the tiny country to its own, tragic fate.

And in the game of nations, no Mulligans are allowed.

Via the Jerusalem Post comes the disturbing assessment by Israeli intelligence that Iran will be able to begin enriching uranium on a “military scale” by next year:

With Iran racing forward with its nuclear program, Israel now believes the Islamic Republic will master centrifuge technology and be able to begin enriching uranium on a military scale this year, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The new assessment moves up Israel’s forecasts on Teheran’s nuclear program by almost a full year - from 2009 to the end of 2008. According to the new timeline, Iran could have a nuclear weapon by the middle of next year.

Iran, a senior defense official said on Tuesday, had encountered numerous technical obstacles on its way to enriching uranium but was now on track to master the technology needed to enrich uranium within six months.

Israel is also concerned that Teheran is developing a cruise missile that can evade interception by the Arrow, the IDF’s anti-ballistic missile defense system. Iran is suspected of having smuggled Ukrainian X-55 cruise missiles and using them as models for an independent, domestic project. A cruise missile, which flies at low altitudes to dodge radar detection and interception, could be used to carry a nuclear warhead.

Our own intelligence estimate, of course, says that Iran isn’t even trying to build a bomb. But could the Mossad’s evidence cause us to amend that NIE? This also from the J-Post quoting the London Sunday Times:

Mossad chief Meir Dagan is expected to brief Britain’s MI6 head Sir John Scarlett, who is slated to visit Israel later this month, on an intelligence breakthrough regarding the Iranian nuclear program, London’s Sunday Times reported.

Concern has been mounting in Israel that Iran’s nuclear capability may be far more advanced than was recognized by the US National Intelligence Estimate last December, which reported that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development program in 2003 in response to international pressure.

A source quoted by the paper on Sunday claimed that the new information was on par with intelligence that led to the discovery and destruction of a partly constructed nuclear reactor in Syria last September.

Israeli officials believe the US will revise its analysis of Iran’s program.

“We expect the Americans to amend their report soon,” a high-ranking military officer said last week.

In the interest of fairness (and because I enjoy confusing my readers) allow me to quote extensively from a post on Arms Control Wonk in March that talked about a disturbing report from Janes Defense Weekly about what is going on behind the scenes of the Iranian nuclear program:

Documents shown exclusively to Jane’s indicate that Iran is continuing its pursuit of the advanced technologies necessary to develop a nuclear weapon, regardless of Tehran’s claims that its nuclear programme is purely peaceful. Jane’s was shown the information by a source connected to a Western intelligence service, and the documents were verified by a number of reliable independent sources in Vienna.

These documents purport to show that:

…an organisation within the Iranian MoD has actively pursued the development of a nuclear weapon system based on relatively advanced multipoint initiation (MPI) nuclear implosion detonation technology for some years, in parallel with developments within the Atomic Energy Authority of Iran.

The article further states that since 2000 Iran has tested these detonators and found them “good enough” for a nuclear weapon (it also discusses the organization of Iran’s nuclear programme but that’s for a different post).

But to show you the ambiguity inherent in even a report like that, I quote Dr. Lewis and his analysis of this news:

Well, the development of multipoint detonation systems isn’t by itself proof that Iran is developing nuclear weapons (let’s skip over the question of whether it really is sensible for the international community to demand proof as opposed to good evidence of wrong doing). As this patent from the US government shows, there are legitimate (largely military) reasons for developing explosive devices which involve multiple initiators.

My guess-and I am not certain-is that a multipoint detonation system can be unambiguously associated with nuclear weapons if its “jitter time” (that is, the time spread of the detonations) is particularly small. My knowledge of the pre-1991 Iraqi programme gives us some idea how simultaneous the detonations in a nuclear weapon need to be-Iraq aimed for a jitter time of less than 1 microsecond and ended up measuring it in nanoseconds. However, I don’t know for certain whether there is a legitimate application that requires the same degree of simultaneity. Sounds like an interesting problem to tackle properly when I get some time.

As you can see, Lewis is not entirely convinced that the detonators are used for the exclusive purpose of setting off a nuclear weapon. It is this kind of uncertainty that makes any decision to go after the Iranian nuclear infrastructure so problematic.

Who or what should we believe of Iran’s nuclear program? No one doubts Iran’s desire to possess a nuclear weapon. But are they really capable of overcoming the immense technical obstacles to build a bomb and a delivery system to threaten Israel as well as our allies in the region?

We can’t just dismiss these questions and then bomb hell out of Iran. An attack on the Iranians would bring far reaching and unseen consequences to not only our own security but the security of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other states in the region.

Others, like our own State Department and intelligence establishment, may have the luxury of burying their heads in the sand and pretending the problem doesn’t exist. But Israel cannot afford to do so - not without the potential for catastrophic consequences.

We know that the Iranians are making good progress in enriching uranium to the 5% level suitable for use in a nuclear reactor. Their facility at Nantanz is gearing up to double its centrifuge capacity which would increase their ability to enrich more raw uranium at a faster rate.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (who it should be noted have yet to prevent any country who wished to build a bomb from going nuclear) is monitoring the Iranian program but still have questions about their intent.

The Europeans for the most part are siding with us - as long as we don’t bomb Iran. Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy, and Angela Merkel all agree that the Iranian program poses a very serious threat to the west and have gone along so far with the US both at the UN and rhetorically as well.

But as far as actually addressing the threat, precious little has been done besides some ineffective sanctions imposed by the Security Council and equally ineffective jawboning by IAEA chief ElBaradei. In effect, the Iranians are getting away with whatever they are doing because they are able to stonewall the international community on what their intentions are.

All of this makes bombing more likely with its concomitant consequences staring us in the face. But as long as China and Russia keep handing the Iranians matches as they run toward the gasoline dump, there is precious little the world can do except stand by and watch the endgame scenario play out.

One of us - Israel or the United States - will almost certainly be compelled to bomb the Iranian nuclear infrastructure - unless the world community, including Russia and China, make a 180 degree turn regarding the seriousness with which they take the Iranian program. It probably will not happen this year. But once Iran is capable of enriching uranium by the pound rather than the gram, expect a countdown in Tel Aviv or Washington to begin.

Which man will you want sitting in the White House when this decision has to be made?

Note: Much of this post originally appears in The American Thinker

I am beginning to wonder how the authors of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran who wrote that the regime had given up on its weapons program in 2003 are feeling these last few weeks. It isn’t just war mongering right wing fanatics who think that they’re full of bull cookies and their analysis had a political motivation.

Good Lord! Even the French and Germans still think Iran is a danger. And did you see what the Russians said yesterday?

Iran’s ballistic missile tests last week have sparked unusually harsh criticism from Russia. According to the BBC, Russian officials have said the tests

raised suspicion over the true aim of [Iran’s] nuclear programme.

This is remarkable coming from Moscow, and the latest sign of a potentially significant shift in Russia’s stance on Iran. Through 2007, Russia was the main obstacle in UNSC efforts to tighten the thumb screws on Iran, preferring bilateral diplomacy with Tehran over the international sanctions route.

This January, however, Russia finally agreed to a third sanctions resolution. Moscow also opposes the efforts of South Africa to delay the resolution. South Africa, which holds a non-permanent UNSC seat and is an influential member of the Non-Aligned Movement of developing countries, wants to wait until IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei finishes his meddlesome freelance diplomacy with Iran before proceeding—presumably in the hopes that ElBaradei gives Iran a clean bill of health, which could undermine the prospects for a unanimous or near-unanimous UNSC vote. The Russians, however, want the resolution to move forward sooner rather than later.

Not so our intrepid liberal friends here in the United States. They’re still acting like Neville Chamberlain, waving the piece of paper containing the NIE report above their heads and proclaiming that they have brought us peace in our time - at least with those cuddly fanatics in Tehran.

To their mind, simply putting their head in the sand and ignoring the Iranian threat solves the problem. The NIE Report on Iran has become their bible, an object of veneration and belief. Like the other bible (the one they think is silly and people who believe in it are goober chewing yahoos), it contains rules to live by. The first commandment “Thou Shalt Not Attack Iran” automatically leads to the second commandment “Thou shalt not act beastly towards the mullahs.”

For that reason, sanctions are a no-no and any utterance by that madcap, mystical mayhem loving midget Ahmadinejad should be taken at face value - except when he says he wants to wipe Israel off the map which he really doesn’t want to do and besides he never said that anyway. Otherwise, when the President of Iran says he has no nukes, that they never had no nukes, that they don’t want no nukes and that anyone who thinks they want nukes is a war mongering puppet of the USA, we should believe him.

But now the left has a slight problem. That timid, confrontation-avoiding Nobel Prize winning peace merchant who runs the International Atomic Energy Agency toddled over to Iran this past week and “confronted” the Iranians with evidence that they had been very, very interested in building the ultimate defense against slandering Mohmammed cartoons. Mohammed ElBaradei whipped out some evidence that the US obtained via an Iranian scientist’s laptop and froze the socks off the Iranians. They didn’t quite know what to say so they said nothing - or at least nothing that only the truly deranged and self deluded on the left in this country would believe.

The Iranians claimed that the evidence was “baseless and fabricated:”

It was the evidence that Iran was secretly working on such a design for many years that is now at the heart of the confrontation between Iran and the nuclear agency, which is based in Vienna.

Since 2005, the I.A.E.A. has urged the United States and other countries to allow the agency to confront Iran with evidence obtained on a laptop computer that once belonged to an Iranian technician with access to the country’s nuclear program. But the U.S. refused until a few weeks ago, and only agreed on Feb. 15, the report said, to allow original documents to be shown to the Iranians. In the report issued Friday, the agency described some of that evidence in public for the first time, “all of which the Agency believes would be relevant to nuclear weapon R & D.”

The most suspicious-looking document in the collection turned over to the I.A.E.A. was a schematic diagram showing what appeared to be the development of a warhead, with a layout of internal components. “This layout has been assessed by the agency as quite likely to be able to accommodate a nuclear device,” the I.A.E.A. wrote. But that does not prove it was a nuclear warhead, and Iran argued that its missile program used “conventional warheads only.”

The report referred to other documents drawn from the laptop — though the source of the material was never mentioned — that included documents describing how to test “high-voltage detonator firing equipment” and technology to fire multiple detonators at one time, which is required to trigger a nuclear reaction by forcing a nuclear core to implode. The report also described work on whether a detonation could be triggered in a 400-meter-deep shaft from a distance of 10 kilometers, or about six miles, leading to suspicions that the Iranian scientists were already thinking about nuclear testing. But it is unclear whether the shaft would have been wide enough for a nuclear weapon.

Yep. Sounds pretty baseless and fabricated to me. The Iranians had a logical explanation for all of that stuff - the US are a bunch of meanies and simply manufactured the evidence. What self respecting lefty won’t take that as the gospel truth?

One such lefty is Dr. Andrew Grotto. Dr. Grotto, an arms control and national security specialist with no patience for the Bush Administration’s non-proliferation efforts not to mention looking with a jaundiced eye at US Iran policy, nevertheless is nearly speechless with regards to Iran’s response:

Iran continues to refuse to address evidence of activities that have a much more clear-cut weapons purpose, such as the green salt project, high explosive testing and the design of a missile re-entry vehicle. The IAEA report says much of the evidence comes from an unnamed “Member State,” probably the United States. Iran asserts that the evidence is fabricated and, according to the report, has made it abundantly clear that it has no intention of entertaining these matters any further.

There is a clear pattern here. For activities that have a colorable civilian rationale, Iran is suddenly happy to offer one. Since the IAEA is not in the business of second-guessing the sincerity of its member states in the absence of a technical rationale, it must accept these explanations unless and until new data comes along that calls the original rationale into question. And for activities that only have a weapons purpose, Iran plays the “How can you trust the Americans?’ card and simply refuses to engage the evidence.

It is hard to see what happens next in this process. There are a few lingering issues that the report suggests could be resolved, such as the uranium metal document (the report says that Pakistan is the roadblock). But on the most sensitive issues relating to alleged weapons-related activities, this report makes it clear that Iran has no interest in addressing them.

The problem becomes immediately apparent. The IAEA is “not in the business of second-guessing the sincerity of its member states in the absence of a technical rationale…” So any “confrontation” with Iran over their weapons program is necessarily short and sweet. If the IAEA asks a provocative question about some evidence and the Iranians have a convincing enough explanation - even if its a lie - the IAEA is forced to drop the issue and move on.

And for evidence that they have no rationale for? All they have to do is whine about the beastly Americans making stuff up and they have a phalanx of support here in America and the west among the ostrich class of lefties backing them up to the hilt.

This report is being delivered as the European Union weighed in with a study showing Iran could be a nuclear power by the end of the year. This could only happen if the Iranian centrifuges at Nantanz operated at near 100% efficiency.

Since the Iranians have never come close to that - more like 25% for short periods of time - it is next to impossible they would have a weapon by year’s end. And with the IAEA breathing down their necks, it is extremely unlikely they would be able to enrich uranium beyond the 5% required for civilian use. If they attempted to enrich their small stock of 5% uranium to the 85-90% necessary to build a bomb, it would be very difficult (at this point) for them to escape detection. (The Iranians have only now explained how traces of some 90% enriched uranium ended up on some equipment that the IAEA detected two years ago.)

The bottom line is as long as Iran continues to enrich uranium for any purpose, they are in violation of Security Council resolutions and are defying the bulk of the international community. The proposed sanctions are extremely limited and won’t harm the regime except at the margins. But it is the principle that is important - that most of the world wants Iran to come clean and stop their enrichment program. Ineffective or not, it is progress. And it lays the groundwork for future sanctions that may have a little more bite.

Saying “”It remains a vital interest of the whole world community to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran,” Germany’s warmongering Chancellor Angela (Hey…wasn’t Hitler a Chancellor too?) Merkel joined French President Sarkozy in virtually ignoring the recently released NIE on Iran and sticking to their plans to promote more sanctions against the mullahs.

Writing in the German daily Handelsblatt, Merkel showed eminently more sense than just about any leftist Democrat in the United States:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that heading off the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, with tougher sanctions if needed, remains a “vital interest” for the world community, according to a report Thursday. Iran’s nuclear program is “one of our biggest security policy concerns,” Merkel wrote in an article for the daily Handelsblatt, which the newspaper posted on its Web site ahead of print publication on Friday.

Germany, along with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, has played a leading role in addressing worries over Iran’s nuclear work.

Earlier this month, an American push for new sanctions was dampened with the release of a new US intelligence report concluding Iran had halted a nuclear weapons development program in 2003 and had not resumed it since.

Merkel did not refer specifically to that assessment, but wrote that “it is dangerous and still grounds for great concern that Iran, in the face of the UN Security Council’s resolutions, continues to refuse to suspend uranium enrichment,” Handelsblatt reported.

Compare Merkel’s attitude with the attitude of most lefties who, whenever Iran is mentioned these days, will hold the Iran NIE aloft a la Chamberlain coming home from Munich as proof of the mullahs benign intentions.

If their childish, irrational naivete weren’t so horribly, dangerously wrong, it might be funny. As it is, we have to keep reminding ourselves that these bozos might be in charge of American foreign policy next year - a thought that gives no end of amusement to the leaders of the Iranian regime, I’m sure.

What a terrible turn of events when pacifist Germany subtly criticizes America for “dangerous” thinking when it comes to Iran. A topsy turvy world, indeed.

Above and beyond the questions about the reasons key judgments on the Iranian nuclear program were altered so dramatically over the course of just two years, the biggest puzzle of all is why the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was released in the first place.

Aside from initiating a political earthquake here at home, the revelation that Iran stopped working on its nuclear program in the fall of 2003 and that there is no evidence they have started it up again is causing a sea change in opinion overseas as well.

Almost everyone now agrees that bombing Iran is off the table - if it hadn’t been removed previously. The President’s jawboning on the issue has recently been less about American options and placed more in the context of why the world needed to act to prevent an Iranian bomb. Judging by their success in getting two rounds of sanctions passed by the Security Council, this seemed to be a winning strategy. As recently as 48 hours ago, China had agreed to the outlines of another round of sanctions against the Iranian regime.

But now, the support for another blast of sanctions directed against Iran seems to be slipping away. Russia is standing firm against more restrictions and China seems to be reconsidering as well:

“Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated that the U.S. acknowledgment that Iran halted a suspected nuclear weapons bid in 2003 undermined Washington’s push for a new set of U.N. sanctions.

We will assess the situation regarding a new U.N. Security Council resolution taking into account all these facts, including the U.S. confirmation that it has no information about the existence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran,” he said.

Russia and China, another veto-wielding council member, have grudgingly approved two sets of limited U.N. sanctions against Iran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. But the Kremlin has bristled at the U.S. push for tougher measures, saying they would only widen the rift.

China had said Tuesday the U.S. report raised second thoughts about new sanctions.

This would be a huge blow to our Iran strategy. The fact is, the Security Council placed these sanctions on Iran in the first place not because they were building a bomb but because they defied the Council’s order that they stop enriching uranium and cooperate 100% with he IAEA in assessing how “peaceful” was their program. Even the mild mannered bureaucrats at the IAEA are not satisfied with Iran’s performance in this regard:

“To be frank, we are more skeptical,” a senior official close to the agency (IAEA) said. “We don’t buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran.”

The official called the American assertion that Iran had “halted” its weapons program in 2003 “somewhat surprising.”

IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei has constantly urged Iran to be more transparent in divulging information about their program. It hasn’t worked to date which is why ElBaradei has reluctantly gone along with the sanctions.

But losing ElBaradei would be the ballgame as far as sanctions by the Security Council is concerned. And right now, it doesn’t look good:

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s public stance, and the main message of Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general, was to praise the new finding as proof that his agency had been right in its analysis.

The American assessment “tallies with the agency’s consistent statements over the last few years that — although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities — the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran,” Dr. ElBaradei said in a statement.

He said the American intelligence assessment “should help to defuse the current crisis.”

One reading of that could be “no crisis, no sanctions.” And if ElBaradei would abandon his support for sanctions, it is likely that the entire regime would collapse and all our hard work in getting the cooperation of Russia and China would have been for naught.

This begs my original question; if all this fallout from the NIE could be foreseen, why release it in the first place?

For the answer, ideology and loyalty colors most analyses. The left believes Bush was forced to release the report due to its explosive nature. Indeed, it is likely that if the President had tried to sit on the report, someone associated with the loose cabal of intelligence officers and analysts who have been leaking damaging information for years - both to point the finger at some administration mistake or to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the difficulties we’ve had in Iraq and elsewhere - would have surely passed the NIE on to one of their friends in the national security press.

Or perhaps Bush was persuaded by Congress to release the unclassified version thinking it likely that the report would see the light of day that way. Either way, the NIE would have hit the public in the worst possible light - spun by hostile legislators, spooks and journalists. Rather than create a firestorm of controversy, he allowed the redacted version to be released with his blessing.

All of this may be true. But I think there was another, more compelling reason why Bush gave the go ahead to release the report. He wanted to undercut the neo-conservatives both in and out of his administration who have become a lead weight around his presidency for at least the last 3 years.

For the last year, ever since Donald Rumsfeld left the Administration, the President has slowly altered his course in foreign affairs, taking a more traditional approach to world problems. He has not only changed military strategy in Iraq but has initiated diplomatic moves resulting in meetings with both Syrian and Iranian officials. He has become more engaged in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, culminating in the meeting in Annapolis last week where both sides agreed to resume peace talks. He has shown more willingness to work with the United Nations on a variety of issues not limited to Iran including problems in Lebanon and Africa. Bush has even relented slightly on issues relating to climate change in that he is now at least willing to discuss the problem.

To say that these moves would have been unthinkable during the first 4 years of the Bush presidency would be an overstatement. But there is no doubt that there has been a shift in Administration strategy away from unilateralism and toward engagement. And each of these small steps toward traditionalism has brought criticism and resistance from the clique in the Administration variously known as the neo-conservatives or the Cheney faction.

Much ink has been spilled trying to explain the relationship between George Bush and his Vice President. The simple minded portray Cheney as a puppeteer pulling the President’s strings. Others have Cheney as a totally independent force riding roughshod over the executive branch to get his way with Bush standing by helplessly unable to stop him.

Bush himself has a hard time describing his working relationship with Cheney. Here he is trying to talk about it in a special on Fox News:

Q: “Is he a man of few words inside the White House? What’s his style when you meet?”

Bush: “I think I’m wiser than that — than to be pigeonholed or, you know, to get cornered by a wily advisor. Look, that’s not the way it works. Dick Cheney walks in and I say, ‘What’s your advice on this subject?’ And he gives it to me and I make up my mind based upon a variety of factors including the advice of key advisors and he is one of them.”

Outsiders see something different. David Gergen In an interview for the PBS Frontline documentary Cheney’s Law:

I think this particular vice president has had an enormous amount of persuasion with this president. I think he’s listened to him more closely than anybody else, especially in those early years. But still at the end of the day it’s the president who’s made the calls, and I think this penchant for secrecy and large executive power that Dick Cheney has been pushing, I think it’s something the president has bought into. Did Cheney help to persuade him? Absolutely. But is the president now persuaded? Absolutely. I think he’s now a devotee of expanded executive power.

Not Svengali or Machievelli but more a mentor perhaps. And as the years have gone by and the Administration’s plans have come a cropper in many places but especially Iraq, there must have been a time when Bush realized that relying on his own instincts rather than on the Vice President’s advice served him just as well.

With the hiring of Robert Gates as defense secretary and the exiting of most of the neo-conservatives from the Pentagon that Rumsfeld relied on for support, Cheney’s influence waned. And Condi Rice’s ascension to Secretary of State signalled a more pragmatic, less ideological approach in foreign policy, sidelining many of Cheney’s allies at Foggy Bottom.

It would be ridiculous to say that Bush woke up one day and realized that he was his own man and that he didn’t need or want to rely on the Cheney faction to play such a large role in making policy any longer. But there is no doubt a metamorphosis has taken place in the last year and that the President has been charting a course more independent of his Vice President’s ideas on foreign and defense policy. This is not to say that Cheney is no longer a valued advisor or that he has no power to influence the president or policy. But as the sands of time run out on the Administration, Cheney’s clout has lessened.

Confronted with a complete change in policy on Iran necessitated by the findings in the NIE, Bush has taken the opportunity to embrace the shift, placing it in the context of his successful UN sanctions policy and urging the world to keep the pressure on the Iranians.

The disappointment in the writings of many neoconservatives evident by the dark intimations of conspiracy in the NIE findings against the president’s policies shows how far apart the President and the neocons have grown. Where Bush apparently sees the NIE as a challenge to shift American policy and carry the world along with him, the neocons see dark betrayal.

Not quite a final break but certainly the President is striking out in a direction the neocons are extremely reluctant to follow. It should be interesting to watch the Administration over the next few months to see just where this newfound independence leads.