Senior Israeli sources are claiming (sort of) that the U.S. has produced a new National Intelligence Estimate and that its findings show alarming advances in Iran’s nuclear program. According to Ehud Barak, undoubtedly one of the sources for this Haaretz report, the new NIE brings Israel and the U.S. even closer in their evaluations of the Iranian weapons capability. Of course, this story, if true (and even if not), can be quite useful in justifying any Israeli attack on Iran.
I don’t buy it. Not for a second. First, Barak Ravid, Haaretz’s stenographer for Barak, admits in a tweet that he hasn’t personally seen the report. He says that western and Israeli sources he considers “very reliable,” have. The Israeli source is likely Barak, who I wouldn’t consider reliable if he was the last defense minister on earth. The western source could very well be U.S. ambassador Dan Shapiro, who’s been leaking like a sieve to Israeli media on the Iran issue.
If you parse the Haaretz carefully (or even not so carefully) you won’t find a single piece of information in it that’s new or that even describes any aspect of the NIE. What I’m guessing is that Barak hasn’t even seen it himself. At no point does Ravid say that Israel has the report or has seen it. Which makes all of this nothing more than spin. Something unfortunately we’ve grown quite used to when it comes to Israeli security issues. Israel’s claims about Iran’s nuclear program have been riddled with deceit, lies and fraud.
Here’s the heart of the Haaretz report and Barak’s claims:
…As far as Israel knows, this report has brought the U.S. position over Iran closer to the Israeli position, and made the issue more urgent.
In a subsequent Israeli radio interview, Barak substantially backtracked saying:
“There probably really is such an American intelligence report — I don’t know if it is an NIE one — making its way around senior offices (in Washington),”
Based on this Haaretz and Ravid have gone out on a journalistic limb? This could just as easily be fabulism on Barak’s part.
Think on this as well: isn’t it a bit strange that there’ve been virtually no reports on the NIE in U.S. media. Why would the U.S. allow Israel to be the first to announce the news? Unless of course Barak is jumping the gun and doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Undoubtedly, there is a new NIE in the works and perhaps it does have strong things to say about Iran. But whether those things match what Barak is claiming is entirely dubious.
CBS also reports on Barak’s backtrack.
RE: “Senior Israeli sources are claiming (sort of) that the U.S. has produced a new National Intelligence Estimate and that its findings show alarming advances in Iran’s nuclear program. According to Ehud Barak, undoubtedly one of the sources for this Haaretz report . . .” ~ R.S.
ALSO SEE: “Did Barak Leak New US Intel on Iran’s Nuclear Program?” by John Glaser, Antiwar.com Blog, 8/09/12
SOURCE – http://antiwar.com/blog/2012/08/09/did-barak-leak-new-us-intel-on-irans-nuclear-program/
Faster, Please
Ending Israeli Apartheid is of first priority importance because of what Israelis do in order to ever PREVENT the dismantling of Apartheid – namely, hoaxing the US into attacking Iran
There needs to be a coalition of the Willing to box Israel in until Apartheid is dismantled, because once dismantled Israel will cease to have any need to threaten Iran or any other country
Palestinian citizens of a Non-Apartheid Israel, an One State Solution Israel, would never have a reason to attack Iran
Problem solved – the bogus Iranian threat to Israel solved – it is and always was a problem with Israel as an Apartheid state and desperately willing to do anything, like a flailing swimmer, to keep Apartheid afloat
Ending Apartheid is the solution to Israel trying to hoax the US into attacking Iran, an attack which every expert agrees will destroy the American economy and much of the global economy as the Middle East conflagration touched off by Israel in it’s misguided desperation to avoid dismantling Apartheid
Until Israel is pressured into coming to it’s senses – a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ to box Israel in and prevent it starting a Middle East regional war, if not WWIII, is in everybody’s interest, but most especially to America’s vital strategic interests to prevent it’s economy being destroyed by an Israeli attack on the oil center of the Known Universe.
So far we know that Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are on board this a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ to create a NO FLY ZONE out of Israel and box Israel in – this eliminates the Northern and Southern routes by which Israel can attack Iran. All that’s left is to close the last avenue ( the Central route over Jordan and American-controlled Iraq) possible for Israel to launch an illegal attack which will destroy the American economy – and as Zbig Brezinzski recommends, the Americans should seal off this last Israeli route and hermetically seal Israel in and save America from Israeli plans to drag it into a war with Iran
Ok — but who’s going to do this, seal off the routes of attack? Obama? He would have to have a complete personality and character transplant, that is, the willingness to pursue American interests ahead of Israel. Hard to imagine.
As to the Apartheid argument, you are saying, in effect, that if we change Israel, then Israel changes. It is almost a tautology. The question has always been “how” to do this. The bantustaning of Palestinians is very much in the American and the “Western” tradition. America marginalized and caged in the indigenous people, just as other Western powers have created subdivisions for the unwanted original inhabitants throughout the era of rank imperialism. I say this because I never realized clearly that the Israel project in the WB and Gaza is very much in sympathy with American traditions. Palestinians would not be wrong in blaming Americans for their misfortune not just for supporting the enterprise with money and arms and MSM but for originating and perfecting the ideas of “reservations” for the unwanted. Americans have no more sympathy for the Palestinian situation today than they had sympathy with Native Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is how we do things. We marginalize them, cage them in, and propagandize their failings and stereotypes to assure a minimum of genuine sympathy in the dominant society. Americans, even many Arabs I am told, and I suspect many Europeans all view Palestinians as the dregs of the earth, on one hand, or terrorists, on the other. And, of course, neither is even close to the reality of these people, stripped of everything, including an identity and a future.
America no longer controls anything in Iraq (at least not formally). But it’s doubtful Iraq could prevent an Israeli overflight.
The FBI have recently put a new bloke in charge of counter-intelligence.
It might, therefore, be unwise of the Israeli government to parade the idea that it reads National Intelligence Estimates.
Or in Barak’s case, it may not be a good idea to make up NIE’s!!
Poor Gen. Ehud Barak. He must be missing his woman make-up when he used to work in Israeli intelligence.
Barak’s info. is two-year late. On August 5, British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is proud to have Jewish roots – said that “Iran is in possession of nuclear weapons”. The Opposition made fun of his ignorance. The Labour party blasted Cameron as a “foreign policy klutz” with his feet “firmly planted in his mouth”.
http://rehmat1.com/2010/08/23/cameron-iran-has-nuclear-bomb/
NIEs are prepared for a variety of ongoing and new issues. As finished they represent the consensus of the various elements of the Intelligence Community that contribute to them. They are presented as such to the President. They do not ‘make the rounds’ in Washington. Barak is dissimulating in manners that are crude and stupid.