What Others Think

A Smart Side to US Intelligence
Monday, December 10, 2007

The European Union needs a wake-up call and, unfortunately, none seems to be forthcoming, despite the earth-shattering new US intelligence report on Iran which warrants a wholesale change in the West's confrontational approach to that country. Instead, Europe continues to carry on with business as usual and, sadly, is even less predisposed to do otherwise due to various implications of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).

Bush's Real Lie about Iran
Monday, December 10, 2007

The latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program raises questions once again about the Bush administration's veracity in describing a nuclear threat.

Calling on Congress to Stop a War
Monday, December 10, 2007

While the analysis behind the NIE conclusion reflects the independent judgment of the 16 agencies which comprise the U.S. intelligence community, there is no doubt that the most influential information behind the assessment was that of the IAEA inspections, which had probed Iran’s nuclear program since November 2002.

Can the NIE Evade the Risk for War?
Monday, December 10, 2007

This propitious convergence between NIE conclusions and the Bush Administration's current policy exactly at a time when many people have been questioning the futility of continuing that policy and have called for direct and unconditional talks with Iran seems, to say the least, questionable.

Despite US Intelligence Shift: European Powers Back Continued Sanctions against Tehran
Monday, December 10, 2007

The NIE, consisting of the findings compiled by America’s 16 intelligence agencies, confirmed that Iran was not carrying out any programme to develop nuclear weapons. The report—a direct repudiation of earlier NIE’s claims—makes clear that Washington’s campaign to emphasise a supposed danger of military aggression from Iran in order to justify a military strike against the country is built on a web of lies similar to the campaign preceding the Iraq war.

Israel's 'Auto-Pilot' Policy on Iran
Monday, December 10, 2007

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate's assertion that Iran currently does not have a nuclear weapons programme has caused much frustration in Israel. Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh referred to the report as a lie at a recent breakfast in New York, and Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer reportedly "doesn't buy" its findings.

Neocons Down, Not Out
Monday, December 10, 2007

Since the neoconservatives began to emerge as a political force in the mid-to-late 1970s, they have followed a consistent strategy of targeting the information flows inside the United States, paying particular attention to controlling the nation’s intelligence analysts and purging independent thinking from the U.S. news media.

Realist Revenge
Monday, December 10, 2007

Aside from the factual findings of the NIE, this is by far the most important passage in the NIE, because it asserts that the Iranian leadership is a fundamentally rational actor — a traditional nation-state, if you will — that calculates what it does in recognizable terms and that, in any event, is not a an ideologically-crazed, fanatical regime of the kind that neo-conservatives and their aggressive nationalist allies have tried so hard to depict.

The Zero-Sum Fiasco
Monday, December 10, 2007

Whatever else the release of the 16-agency National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iranian bomb may be, it is certainly a reasonable measure of inside-the-Beltway Bush administration decline.

US Intelligence Report Shows War Drive against Iran Based on Lies
Monday, December 10, 2007

President Bush used a White House press conference Tuesday to defend his administration’s policy of aggression towards Iran. He insisted that new findings by US intelligence agencies that Teheran has no active nuclear weapons program would not change his policy in the slightest.