Iran Curveball
This latest intelligence fiasco is Mr. Bush’s fault.President Bush has been scrambling to rescue his Iran policy after this week’s intelligence switcheroo, but the fact that the White House has had to spin so furiously is a sign of how badly it has bungled this episode. In sum, Mr. Bush and his staff have allowed the intelligence bureaucracy to frame a new judgment in a way that has undermined four years of U.S. effort to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
This kind of national security mismanagement has bedeviled the Bush Presidency. Recall the internal disputes over post-invasion Iraq, the smearing of Ahmad Chalabi by the State Department and CIA, hanging Scooter Libby out to dry after bungling the response to Joseph Wilson’s bogus accusations, and so on. Mr. Bush has too often failed to settle internal disputes and enforce the results.
What’s amazing in this case is how the White House has allowed intelligence analysts to drive policy. The very first sentence of this week’s national intelligence estimate (NIE) is written in a way that damages U.S. diplomacy: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." Only in a footnote below does the NIE say that this definition of "nuclear weapons program" does "not mean Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment."
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In this regard, it’s hilarious to see the left and some in the media accuse Mr. Bush once again of distorting intelligence. The truth is the opposite. The White House was presented with this new estimate only weeks ago, and no doubt concluded it had little choice but to accept and release it however much its policy makers disagreed. Had it done otherwise, the finding would have been leaked and the Administration would have been assailed for "politicizing" intelligence.…
We reported earlier this week that the authors of this Iran NIE include former State Department officials who have a history of hostility to Mr. Bush’s foreign policy. But the ultimate responsibility for this fiasco lies with Mr. Bush. Too often he has appointed, or tolerated, officials who oppose his agenda, and failed to discipline them even when they have worked against his policies. Instead of being candid this week about the problems with the NIE, Mr. Bush and his National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, tried to spin it as a victory for their policy. They simply weren’t believable. It’s a sign of the Bush Administration’s flagging authority that even many of its natural allies wondered this week if the NIE was really an attempt to back down from its own Iran policy. We only wish it were that competent…
The Talking Point Machine is running full speed. After the N.I.E. was released, here it came – John Bolton and Newt Gingrich, the voices of the American Enterprise Institute; William Kristol from the Weekly Standard; almost anyone on Fox News; now the Wall Street Journal; and, of course, Rush Limbaugh. In the early Bush years, I used to marvel at the speed with which the faithful had a retort for any news that challenged the Administration. At first, it had the desired effect, it deflated me. It took me a while to catch on – that there was a network of dissemination that explained how the "spin" got out there so fast. But it was a long time before I realized how that network worked. I don’t watch Fox News. I sure don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh. I don’t read the Wall Street Journal, or the Weekly Standard. When I hear Newt’s voice, I change channels [fast]. The Talking Point Machine ran constantly, but I just didn’t hear it.
Back then, I read the Atlanta Journal Constitution, watched MSNBC or ABC News, and turned to CNN if something was happening. After the 2004 elections, all that changed. I discovered the blogs, which I consider editorials. I don’t think of the blogs as a Talking Point Machine for my team, but I expect if I were on the opposite side of the fence, I’d see them that way – even my own. I sure don’t think of what I read and write here on the "Internets" is gospel. I write it so I won’t feel lonely like I did back in 2004 [I repeat here an experience from this summer]. On a trip to Africa, I was sitting alone at our Lodge at the end of an exhausting day. A man who worked at the Lodge came and carefully built a fire where I was sitting. He said, "Now you won’t be alone. You’ll have the fire to keep you company." I suppose the Talking Point Machine is the fire for the faithful Bush supporters. Lord knows, they need something to keep them going. These tired old claims that the State Department and C.I.A. are anti-Bush, liberal bastions in government aren’t much – but it’s all they’ve got these days. This one is particularly cute – spinning the spin. They’ve given up on the Administration. Now they’re fighting for their Principles [if you can call war-mongering a Principle]. The Wall Street Journal spin is to accuse President Bush of ineffective spin – remarkable!
What does it mean that the Wall Street Journal is criticizing the Administration’s spin? An axiom of Systems Theory is that a system is only composed of parts when it’s not working. The Talking Point Machine is finally breaking into parts criticizing each other [the usual way of saying this is "going to pieces"]…
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