Secret Schmoozing

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Given the discussions about the NIE we’ve had recently, I wanted to point out Marc Lynch’s observation that the Saudis and the Iranians have been flirting lately–under the radar of the US press.

Very few media outlets in the US seem to have noticed, but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmednejad and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah were back together again the other day on the occasion of the Hajj.  Ahmednejad’s surprising appearance at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in early December had set off something of a frenzy of media discussion about whether it meant a possible reconciliation between Iran and its Arab Gulf neighbors.   A range of commentators (both officials and pundits) had rushed to pour cold water on those hopes/fears, emphasizing lack of agreement on issues over the sheer fact of the public engagement.  Shortly after the Iranian President’s visit to Doha, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates led a significant American delegation to an Arab security meeting in Bahrain to rally the Gulf Arabs against the Iranian threat and to re-energize a collective strategy of containment.  This second public meeting – reportedly at the Saudi King’s initiative –  suggests that the Gulf Arab approach to Iran really is shifting despite these American efforts.  Whatever the private fears of Iran by Gulf leaders and elites (which by all accounts, including my own conversations, are quite real), this very recent Gulf Arab trend from containment towards engagement of Iran seems real.

What is Dick Cheney going to say when he discovers his BFF King Abdullah is schmoozing the Iranians behind his back–during the Hajj no less? Particularly as the Israelis (and a number of Republican Congressmen) insist they can disprove the NIE simply by attacking it often enough. What does it mean that the men controlling a huge chunk of the world’s oil are getting rather cozy?

What Is It about Lawyers Named Goldsmith?

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Trying to prevent NeoCons everywhere from corrupting the world?

In this case, it was Lord Goldsmith, trying in vain to prevent the Poodle from spiking the investigation into BAE. I’m most struck by the language reportedly used in the letteres Tony wrote to override Goldsmith.

But Blair wrote a "Secret and Personal" letter to Goldsmith on December 8 2006, demanding he stop the investigation. He said he was concerned about the "critical difficulty" in negotiations over a new Typhoon fighter sales contract, as well as a "real and immediate risk of a collapse in UK/Saudi security, intelligence and diplomatic cooperation".

[snip]

Blair told him "higher considerations were at stake". He also personally vetoed a proposal that BAE could plead guilty to lesser corruption charges, saying this would "be unlikely to reduce the offence caused to the Saudi royal family".

It’s been clear for some time that NeoCons consider military contracts, "higher consideration." It’s been clear for some time that the Saudis had us by the nuts. Glad to see Tony make that so clear, though.

The Venezuela Bust

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It’s bad enough that the United States, a country that has provided election funds for its favored candidates in other countries for over fifty years (including, notably, Argentina and Venezuela), is now criminalizing the purported $800,000 donation from Hugo Chávez to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina. It’s bad enough that it stinks of yet another silly anti-Chávez campaign.

But the criminal complaint just doesn’t make any sense.

Here’s the Miami Herald’s description of the purported crime.

Their mission from the Chávez government, prosecutors say: to hush up a local Venezuelan man who was caught in August with a suitcase full of campaign cash as he arrived at a Buenos Aires airport with a high-ranking Argentine official. They pressured him not to reveal the source of the cash or its recipient.

And here are excerpts from some of the conversations between the accused and Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, the guy caught carrying the $800,000 in Argentina.

At that meeting, FRANKLIN DURAN revealed to Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson the identity of the candidate in the Argentine Republic presidential campaign who was intended to receive the approximately $800,000 which had been confiscated at Aeroparque Jorge Newberry in Buenos Aires, Argentina. FRANKLIN DURAN further advised Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson that he (Duran) had spoken with a very high ranking official of DISIP, and a very high ranking official of the Justice Ministry of Venezuela, concerning the aborted donation. Read more →

Breaking: Persians Still Better at Chess than Americans

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Is it any surprise that Iran chose this moment to ditch the dollar?

Iran, the second-biggest producer of crude oil in the Middle East, has “completely halted” all oil transactions in dollars, the state-run ISNA news agency said, citing Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari.

No, I don’t think so. After all, the release of the NIE this week will make it very difficult for the US to respond with full-scale war–as some believe the US did when Iraq moved away from the dollar. The Administration has been telling us for weeks now that Iraq is all peachy keen, which will make it hard to claim that Iran is destabilizing Iraq. And now the Administration has just said Iran has no active program to develop nukes–the other convenient excuse to start a war. Moreover, by pushing Europe to strong-arm Iran, all the while hoarding the information that Iran didn’t have the nuke program we claimed they did, has really pissed off our European allies.

And, at the same time, Iran has picked a moment that may have maximum effect on OPEC as a whole.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has set up a team to study pricing oil in another currency, the INSA cited Nozari as saying. The measure is designed to prevent further losses in revenue to oil exporters, ISNA reported.

The group’s findings will be announced at the next OPEC meeting, Nozari said, according to ISNA.

IANAE, but it seems that each time an oil producer moves away from the dollar, it’s going to be more and more tempting for others to follow. So by moving while the issue is under consideration, it may pressure those on OPEC (our Saudi bankers) who want to help the US out.

Two weeks ago, the Annapolis Conference looked like an opportunity for the US, the Saudis, and the Israelis to forge some kind of agreement that might counter Iranian power. But things haven’t gone so well for them in the interim two weeks.

John Bolton Time Warp

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John Bolton, July 21, 2004

Finally, the world is safer today than one year ago because of an event
unprecedented in modern history: after years of isolation and being caught up
in a web of sanctions, the leader of a regime made a simple, but profound
strategic choice he came to the conclusion that his pursuit of weapons of mass
destruction made his country and his regime not more, but less secure. It is
not just the outside world that has benefited.

[snip]

Colonel Qhadadfi has made a strategic choice to put his people before his unjustified fears of a U.S. invasion.

John Bolton, December 5, 2007

Second, the NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported. It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, not exactly a diplomatic pas de deux. As undersecretary of state for arms control in 2003, I know we were nowhere near exerting any significant diplomatic pressure on Iran. Nowhere does the NIE explain its logic on this critical point.

Not to mention the fact that Bolton claims to be ignorant of the pas de deux that the Iranians, at least, attempted in 2003. Read more →

Dick Vetted the Intelligence Two Weeks Ago

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The NYT provides more details about the intelligence collected in mid-2007 that confirmed the judgment that Iran suspended its nukes program back in 2003. In addition to the intercepted communications, there were also notes from Iran’s military leaders.

Most interesting–at least to those who obsess about the timing of all this–is that the intelligence analysts had to present the raw intelligence to Cheney.

In the end, American intelligence officials rejected that theory, though they were challenged to defend that conclusion in a meeting two weeks ago in the White House situation room, in which the notes and deliberations were described to the most senior members of President Bush’s national security team, including Vice President Dick Cheney.

“It was a pretty vivid exchange,” said one participant in the conversation.

Good to see the Vice President hasn’t lost his affection for twisting arms.

Here’s how this looks in our big timeline: Read more →

NIE Timeline, Take Three

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This is a compilation of the several timelines I–and others–have done so far on the NIE.

November 2006: NIE "completed"

January 5, 2007: John Negroponte resigns as DNI, reportedly because of fight over NIE; Negroponte would move to become a top official at State

January 11: US takes six Iranians in custody after a raid on a diplomatic building in Irbil, Iraq

February 2007: NIE completed; Cheney objecting to content

February 7: Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Ali Reza Asgari arrives in Turkey; he disappears there, and is presumed to have defected or been kidnapped; in March he was reported to be cooperating with western intelligence

April 26: Thomas Fingar announces NIE will be delayed due to Ahmadinejad’s demagoguery

May 12: Cheney meets with Saudi Arabia

July 2007: Intelligence community intercepts communications that verify claim Iran’s nuclear program remains suspended; Senior Administration Officials briefed

August 2007: Bush claims he learned new intelligence exists

August 9: Bush substitutes the claim that Iran was seeking nuclear technology for earlier claim that they were seeking nukes. (h/t Froomkin)

They have expressed their desire to be able to enrich uranium, which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program. That, in itself, coupled with their stated foreign policy, is very dangerous for world stability. . . . It’s a very troubling nation right now.

August 29-30: Six nuclear warheads "accidentally" get flown from Minot AFB to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana

September 6: Israel strikes site in Syria

October 2007: BushCo considers spiking the NIE Read more →

The NIE and Israel

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In my banana republic thread, MinnesotaChuck asks the $64,000 question.

I wonder if the withdrawal of the resolution, which went down several days ago, had anything to do with the release of the NIE yesterday.

That–or rather the reverse scenario–seems pretty darn likely to me. Consider these data points:

November 26: Per Seymour Hersh, Bush tells Ehud Olmert what’s in the NIE.

November 27: The Annapolis Peace Conference

November 28: The day Hadley claims Bush was briefed on the NIE; Bush meets with Olmert again

November 29: Khalilzad submits a resolution endorsing Annapolis at UN; Condi calls Khalilzad in the middle of the meeting to ask WTF he’s doing

November 30: A Khalilzad deputy withdraws the UN resolution while Khalilzad is in "previously scheduled" meeting in DC with Condi

December 3: Unexpected public release of NIE showing Iran has given up nuke program

December 4: Israelis say the NIE is wrong; Bush announces his first trip to Israel as President (h/t Laura); both Annapolis and Iran’s purported nukes are on the agenda; Khalilzad calls the claim that he had submitted the resolution without vetting it bull

All of which makes me all the more curious how–and when–the NIE got declassified. Because it sure looks like Israel is only going to let Condi have her Annapolis-based legacy if she allows them to continue to war-monger in Iran. Read more →

I Dunno. It Looks Like a Banana Republic to Me.

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I suspect Zalmay Khalilzad doesn’t care to lose all his credibility in the international community just so Condi doesn’t have to admit she lost her latest fight with Cheney (or did she lose a fight with Olmert?). At least, that’s what I surmise from his snarky response to Madame Secretary’s attempt to blame him, Khalilzad, for introducing a resolution at the UN that the Administration later withdrew (h/t Holden).

Washington’s U.N. envoy denied on Tuesday he had acted alone in handing the Security Council a Middle East resolution he later pulled after Israel objected.

The United States withdrew the draft, which hailed the results of a November 27 Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, last Friday in what the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers called an embarrassing about-face.

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad dismissed what he said were media reports he had submitted the draft resolution "on my own," without consulting the State Department or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Read more →

Intelligence Puts a Crimp in Dick’s War-Mongering

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You’ve no doubt heard the news that the NIE on Iran’s nuclear ambitions judges (with moderate certainty) that Iran has no active nuclear weapon program.

That’s great news. But I’m just as interested in the back story of why we got this news in the first place. As the NYT reveals (h/t Danger Room), the Deputy Director of National Intelligence released the NIE to make sure it was accurately represented.

In a separate statement accompanying the N.I.E., Deputy Director of National Intelligence Donald M. Kerr said that given the new conclusions, it was important to release the report publicly “to ensure that an accurate presentation is available.”

Shorter Mr. Kerr: Stephen Hadley’s already madly spinning this result wildly, and I wanted to make sure he didn’t do worse.

But that makes me mighty curious about the timing of this decision. Take a look at the timing in this key judgment.

We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons. [my emphasis]

In other words, the most important key judgment in this NIE (in terms of impeding Dick’s war-mongering, at least) comes from mid-2007. That’s pretty fascinating timing, given the time line of Dick’s attempts to stifle the key judgments on Iran. Here’s a time line taken excerpted from this article. Read more →