The release several days ago of the new National Intelligence Estimate has been received with predictable responses by both Democrats and Republicans.  The Democrats argue that this NIE repudiates Bush’s hard line stance against Iran.  There are plenty of hardline commentators who just dismiss the report entirely.  Yesterday Chris Preble took Michael Ledeen to task for this approach. 

The hardliners are stuck between a rock a hard place.  If they concede that the report is accurate it harms their rationale for forceful action against Iran.  However, if they dismiss the report they must concede that if the intelligence agencies were wrong this time, who is to say that they weren’t wrong last time?  The hardliners’ justifications for military action could just as easily be dismissed since a fault in this current estimate calls into question the accuracy of previous estimates that are more dire.  I’ve yet to hear a good argument about why this one was simply a screw up and the other ones were the “the truth”. 

The Bush administration has chosen another tactic.  They argue that in fact this result justifies its hard line stance against Iran.  In speaking about the release of the NIE, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said,

And it suggests that the President has the right strategy: intensified international pressure along with a willingness to negotiate a solution that serves Iranian interests while ensuring that the world will never have to face a nuclear armed Iran. The bottom line is this: for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran – with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions, and with other financial pressure – and Iran has to decide it wants to negotiate a solution.

The problem here is a common mistake of mistaking correlation with causality.  Is assumes that simply because the U.S. chose not talk with Iran and chose instead to follow a strategy of diplomatic isolation reinforced by a sabre rattling campaign, that Iran actually got the message and decided to halt its nuclear weapons program.  It’s possible, I suppose.  However, there are other possible explanations that many might consider a bit more plausible. 

Looking back at what happened in 2003 could provide some insight.  In May 2003 Iranian President Mohammad Khatami offered to engage in talks with the United States over the countries’ differences.  Riding high after a “victory” in Iraq, Bush rejected this offer.  Despite the Bush administration’s rejection, the Europeans decided that they would negotiate on their own with the Iranians.  In October 2003, Britain, France, and Germany reached an understanding with Iran to suspend nuclear enrichment.  The Bush administration refuses, however, to join in such agreement arguing that Iran must commit to abandoning enrichment altogether.  As a result of continued negotiation, however, by December 2003, Iran agreed to allow IAEA inspectors to expand their inspections of nuclear research and development facilities in the country.  The recent NIE estimates that it was during the fall of 2003 that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program.

Ok, now looking at that sequence of events, what would you say was most influential in getting Iran to halt its program – the fact that the US wouldn’t talk with them, or the fact the Europeans were talking with them and had negotiated the resumption of inspections?  I’m guessing most folks would answer the latter.  Admittedly, the argument for the Europeans could suffer from the same correlation/causation fault that I describe above.  However, you’d have to admit that it sounds like a bit more plausible explanation. 

With all this talk about who’s to blame and what our future position should be with Iran, we’ve tended to lose sight of another very tragic long term consequence of this report.  I think of the story of the boy who cried wolf. 

The U.S. doesn’t have a very good track record recently in identifying threats.  First there was Iraq.  We tried to build a coalition of the willing because the administration’s handpicked intelligence said that Iraq had WMD.  A few countries went along with us, but many did not.  Those who did are regretting their mistake and pulling out.  More recently we have been telling the world about the dangers of Iran and the need for the world to form a united front against this terrorist supporting, WMD producing rogue state.  Well, no one is really jumping on the bandwagon and this recent intelligence revelation shows that they are right to be skeptical.  So, what happens when there is a real threat before us?  Who will join a coalition with us?  Just like the boy who cried wolf, we may may end up a tasty meal for a wolf on the prowl because the villagers have become immune to our warnings. 

If it were just the President that had to deal with this global reluctance to heed our warnings, things would not be so bad.  In 2009, we’ll have a new President.  However, I fear that the ramifications will go much beyond Jan 2009.  Our next President, although not necessarily responsible for the mistakes of this administration, will still be paying for them in terms of the reduced credibility of the United States when real threats do emerge. 

Of course, the President seems to get even these basic lessons about learning from mistakes a bit mixed up: 

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