The International Atomic
Energy Agency reported on Friday that Iran has in recent months more than
tripled its stockpile of enriched uranium beyond what provides fuel toward that
which is only used for weapons, begun enrichment at facilities in Fordow designed
to withstand military attack, cannot account for significant amounts of raw
uranium, and has refused international inspectors the ability to inspect
suspicious facilities or interview scientists working on the nuclear
program.
Yet the Director for National Intelligence insisted in
Congressional testimony there is no evidence Iran has decided whether to
develop a nuclear weapon. Given that U.S. intelligence agencies are a
major source of information for the IAEA and other international organizations
(U.S. agencies discovered the Fordow facility in 2009), how is it that our
intelligence services come to such a seemingly contradictory conclusion from
the IAEA?
As Thomas Sowell so nicely
summarized the sub-prime mortgage crisis: only politics can create this
problem. American intelligence services are still so singed from having
been wrong about the Iraqi nuclear weapons program that it appears they are
emphasizing their skepticism. The most flagrant example of that
phenomenon was the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran from 2007, in which
it was concluded that Iran had halted its overtly military programs in 2003, the
reason a complete mystery but unrelated to our invasion of Iraq.
Intelligence work is
difficult and inherently speculative. Our intelligence professionals have
to make judgments based on incomplete information and understanding, and
policymakers decide hugely consequential issues on the basis of their
information. Accepting that they will be wrong -- perhaps even often
wrong -- is surely one of the most difficult responsibilities for both
policymakers and intelligence professionals to accept.
American intelligence
services were wrong several times over about Iraq, not just in the run-up to
the 2003 Iraq invasion. For example, battle damage assessments of the
Osirak strike showed Iraq was much further along in its weapons program than we
believed they had been, making us less confident we understood the scope of the
program. Heightened risk-aversion after the 9/11 attacks shifted somewhat
the mindset of policy makers, who wanted less risk of being wrong on a false
negative, and in that context skepticism we knew the dimensions of programs
from inspections was dispositive.
The pendulum has swung
back in the other direction now: eleven years after 9/11 without a successful
attack on our homeland, policymakers now want less risk of being wrong on a
false positive. What they are pulling out of the intelligence assessments
is the reasons to doubt Iran's progress, the reassurance we have time to manage
this problem by political and economic and espionage means rather than having
to destroy the Fordow enrichment complex before it becomes
inviolable.
So it appears the Obama administration is persuaded to be wrong in a different way this time: instead
of pressing intelligence agencies to conclude that a country has a nuclear
weapons program on the basis of inconclusive data and a pattern of suspicious behavior,
they are pressing intelligence agencies to conclude that a country does not
have a nuclear weapons program on the basis of inconclusive data and a pattern
of suspicious behavior. But cherry-picking intelligence findings is
dangerous no matter which side of the line it is on.
The leadership of Iran is
going to an awful lot of trouble and expense, and incurring an awful lot of
economic pain, in order to perpetuate the belief that they have a nuclear
weapons program. They have been lying to the IAEA for decades. Perhaps they are seeking to show that although Saddam Hussein couldn't pull off
the ruse, Persian subtlety can achieve the dual aims of regional hegemony
without provoking American intervention. Perhaps they are rightly reading
our war weariness and pushing ahead before we are willing to act. Perhaps
it has nothing to do with us but instead plays into their internal power
struggles. Perhaps nuclear weapons have a precious iconic value for a
country that ought to be prosperous but is not. Perhaps it helps a
government holding power by force to intimidate its citizens. Perhaps
they are seeking to provoke a military attack at a politically significant time
to unite Iranians when their government otherwise cannot inspire loyalty.
One thing our intelligence
agencies should be absolutely clear about is that we don't know why Iran is
making the choices they are. Motivations are the most difficult part of
intelligence analysis to get right. Rather than provide policy makers a
confident but unreliable assertion that Iran isn't building a bomb,
intelligence agencies should be analyzing the possible motives for Iran making
the choices we are observing and providing policymakers with the means to judge
the discriminating data: what will prove the case one way or the other? How would we know if we are wrong? Anything else and they are once again
politicizing their intelligence findings.
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