For 15 years the Military Intelligence has been changing its assessment on when Iran’s nuclear program becomes operational. The deadline has been constantly pushed back, from the late 1990s, to the beginning then the middle of this decade, and finally 2009-2010. That changed this week.
On Tuesday, Mossad chief Meir Dagan suddenly came along and dismissed the assessment of the agency officially in charge of intelligence strategy. In saying that the deadline for an Iranian bomb is 2014, Dagan aligned himself with the CIA, that has repeatedly determined that Iran will reach the point of no return in 2015.
These frequent fluctuations damage the reputation of Israel’s intelligence agencies. They, in turn, can always say in their defense the assessments are changed in light of the new information that becomes available, but these inconsistencies nonetheless confuse the public.
If the date of the completion of Iran’s nuclear program is not that critical, there was no reason to spend so much time on it in the first place.
And if Iran will only be able to enrich uranium in 2014, it will be after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had left office, provided that the recent turmoil in the country does not scupper his re-election.
On top of the blow to his prestige delivered by the current protests, Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s physical condition is shaky. By 2014, there may well be a new president and a new spiritual leader. In short — everything is open.
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It is not easy to be totally accurate in this intelligence business. The CIA for example, missed projecting the collapse of the Soviet Union. The CIA also totally missed the Syrian nuclear program which was bombed by Israel in 2007. The big problem with Iran is the choice between being a year too soon or one day too late. And remember that Iran has taken extrardinary steps to disperse and hide their nuclear program. Part of it can still be in Syria and other parts in other countries. Recall also that Libya had a WMD program linked to Iraq at one point that the U.S. did not seem to notice until they revealed it themselves. -Bert Cohen
there are languages and then there is the universal language: you do that and we will do this: eg, you have nukes, we get nukes; you attack us and we will attack you; you nuke me and i'll nuke you.
israel, among many other lands, prefers: i attack you, you not atack me or retaliate. we can see that such a nonverbal discourse leads to other lands acquiring nukes and other weaponry.
in an enorm iniquitous world, one wld have to be more than naive; actually suicidal to eschew the universal right to bear arms your avowed and extremly wicked enemies such as US, UK, much of europe carry. it is either have nukes or eternal serfdom. Nevertheless, it may be eternal subjugation exercised from afar and from near if US is both foolhardy and brave to do what it fervently wants to do: nuke iran and the hell with it!
mind you, we all know we can't see the future or account for all consequences of nuking iran or atacking it. many, too many, may say, Go israel, go US, make my day!tnx