Peaceful Iranians test long range missile

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Iran tested a newly developed ballistic missile on the day of Annapolis conference, Channel 10 News reported Wednesday.

The missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers, and is capable of reaching Israel, US Army bases in the Middle East and eastern European cities, including Moscow

The peaceful, non trouble-making, stabilizing Iranians are building longer range missiles, hmmmm wonder what for? I mean our reliably clueless intel apparatus has just assured us they are not working on nuke weapons, so shouldn't be a problem. HA!

You would think than an organ such as the CIA would be a conservative one, but you would be woefully wrong. Even after seven years of Republican control of the executive branch, it acts more like State than Defense. It pays well to remember that it spent the 8 years prior to W at the beck and call of Bill Clinton.

Of the three agencies I mentioned, Defense is basically agenda-free, but is institutionally conservative. Both State and CIA are institutionally liberal and they do have agendas. State's was evident in the run-up to the invasion in 2003, as diplomats took active steps to counter the President's efforts to get significant action against Iraq. As for the CIA, it allowed Michael Scheuer to write a book criticizing President Bush's handling of the war on terror during a Presidential election. It was a blatantly partisan move and extremely unprofessional.

These agencies are supposed to assist in the foreign policy efforts of our country, but too many of the permanent employees seem to do so only as it pleases them. The problem is that they poison the environment necessary to confront a danger such as Iraq. The NIE was an open threat to President Bush not to take any decisive action against Iran. Fortunately the American people have a memory long enough to remember the last time the CIA was right, which was effectively never.

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Comments

[john Ryan]

If by confront Iran you mean military action, you correct that option is now completely off the table. It would probably result in impeachment proceedings in the House.

[Curt]

Any word from the Russians? You know, they guys who got all uppity about Pershing IIs in the mid-80s being able to "almost" reach Moscow, but couldn't from Germany...or the ones who went nuts when President Bush said we were putting a missile "defense" system into Europe?

I bet we don't hear a peep, until one lands in their backyard...

[Uncle Jimbo]

"If by confront Iran you mean military action, you correct that option is now completely off the table. It would probably result in impeachment proceedings in the House."

That may be a good enough reason to do it right there. I don't mean an invasion, but some things could go boom in the night and amybe we scarf up a scientist or two for a chat. Impeach that.

Cordially,

Uncle J

[exhelodrvr]

More and more I think that Pres Bush used the NIE for "judo". The release has accomplished two things: it made the political games the CIA has been playing very public, and is also forcing other countries to seriously address the situation.

[Han_Solo]

>you correct that option is now completely off the table

HOW can you say that? Thanks to the no-so-bright lib beurocrats that put together this NIE report military action is now just about the ONLY THING we can do. They have actually made it MORE LIKELY by playing their cute games trying to make it less likely.

We KNOW THAT Iran is working on Nukes, We can either try diplomacy or military to make them stop. What happens now that this NIE is out? Now every time we try diplomatic pressure they will just WAVE THAT NIE REPORT in our faces and say na-na-na-na.

The stupid libs have let their anti-bush hate PUSH US INTO military action.

[Old Tanker]

We're not too far from the point where the State Dept. will be making all foreign policy and the White House will have little or no say, unless of course they have the same agenda as State. Look what happens to people who become Sec. State. Colin Powell, Condileeza Rice. It was almost like they became different people, it's invasion of the body snatchers I tells ya.....

[OldSoldier54]

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. You are a real piece of work, sonny. What are you going to Impeach the President for? Executing his duty to the population of the US, according to his understanding of it? Oh, that's right. It's the ol' "He lied, they died!" thing. Whatever.
As if Impeachment meant anything anymore. Your homeboy, Slick Willie, perjured himself and skated smooth as silk out of any repercussions.

[OldSoldier54]

I hear ya, UJ. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard the report about the NIE. Caused a real Alice in Wonderland moment.

I guess this means that we can pretty much write off the CIA for anything real, just another useless Federal bureaucracy shuffling papers around to no effect, and spending boatloads of money doing it.

[Deltabravo]

OldSoldier, I have to believe in my own little demented world that the NIE was some genius act of political jujutsu, where because we can't do a frontal assault for a myriad reasons, we are using Iran's strength against itself...

Right? Right? It's really genius. Tell me it's genius!

Tell me we're not that incompetent. Or did we let go of the rope in a game of tug of war and the other side just fell in the mud puddle.

Or maybe they have a Version B locked up in a safe somewhere that has the real facts. Yeah, that's it! That's the ticket!

We are in a world where Up is Down.

After all, if we agree with them, it ratchets down the temp just a bit and the Iranian Pride people can back down and get rid of NutJob for economic reasons and not look like they were being pressured by Uncle Sam.

Tell me there is method in the madness, just to make me feel good. Please?

[Cincinnati_Bob]

Well, a couple things come to mind.

The CIA has been advised that unless they have Absolute proof of a Nuklar program in Iran (ya know 2 miles underground) that they had better say there is none, let the vampires win in the 08 election and then deal with mushroom clouds in the ME. Are the political shennigans that friggin evil?

Or, as I've mentioned before in such situations, when things are so stupid you gotta think there is a master plan it's NO, no master plan just a tsunami of stupidity, because as anyone knows the CIA could not possibly know that Iran does NOT have a nuklar program to the point that it announces it.

My money is on stupid agendas and political wrangling as UJ points out, if there is even enough intelligence to bake an agenda into this. Could very well just be random stupidity coming together in a fuzzy wuzzy loving .. ah.. well that song from the Guess Who.

[OldSoldier54]

Alas, Deltabravo, I don't know. It's possible some Machiavellian, double think skulduggery is in play. As the Lord is my witness, I hope so. Otherwise, we will likely have a grim future.

[Old Tanker]

Can we now officially call the CIA the CYA

[Blackfive]

Silly Iranians.

[rick554]

Moscow??? OOOOPS heh
PS: How about Riyadh?

[jordan]

You are right to point out that DoD usually seems to have a conservative, security-oriented approach that, institution-wide, is not ideological (With the exception of one or two deputy undersecretaries here and there.)

State is supposed to be examining future threats, looking ten, twenty years down the road, and REGARDLESS OF WHICH PARTY IS IN POWER, formulating grand strategy options that best maximize U.S. national interests.

I haven't seen that kind of grand policy formulation or document out of State, unless it's being kept under wraps, being so sensitive. The only stabs at national strategy, and attempts to point out which way threats might move in the future, and what planning we have to do now to be prepared for it, is coming out of DoD. It shouldn't be that way.

The Pentagon is busy studying trends that will guide their planning, setting up new regional commands, pursuing it's own diplomacy at the military-to-military level, fighting wars when diplomacy fails, etc... But these are the nuts and bolts. What is America's foreign policy: Freedom, freedom, freedom? Okay...?

I don't think any recognizable foreign policy thinking has come out of the State Dept except "We hate Bush. He can't make us do anything. Let's make ourselves feel like the intellectuals we think we are, and undercut him again."

If there was ever a time for a George Kennan or George Marshall or a Jeane Kirkpatrick, it is now. We need a grand thinker of that stature, with a high-powered intellect, to put the bewildering pieces of the world in some kind of order, and spell out America's true national interests in it. But I think I know one place where he won't be coming from.

In one of the most dangerous times in our history, our critical agencies are playing parlour politics and oneupsmanship games, childish but dangerous.

Hans is right in that this has 1. Undercut what was up to now a succeeding diplomatic effort to isolate Iran, now fallen apart due to the NIE, thereby making the military option more likely, and 2. destroyed the credibility and usefulness of what used to be considered the lynchpin of the intelligence foundation for security policy -- the NIE. The NIE as a vehicle has been smeared, and turned into a joke. Sad.

[Deltabravo]

But on the other hand, doesn't this ratchet the rhetoric and the hysteria down a notch (and the price of oil downward as well?)

After all, who is profiting from the high oil prices? Iran and Venezuela, who are using those funds... to do what?

Sending our own economy into a tailspin over unverifiable information would be self-defeating also.

If we back down while we seek proof elsewhere, it buys us time, right? (Still looking for intelligent life down here, help me out, guys...)

[Ymarsakar]

I want for my Christmas present the purging of the CIA and DoS.

[Ymarsakar]

Right? Right? It's really genius. Tell me it's genius!

It doesn't fit with Bush's psyche profile. He might have approved it if somebody went to the mat and convinced him, but Bush usuallly doesn't keep a known spy in order to feed his enemies disinformation. Nor does Bush keep enemy spies around cause it would be more problematical if the enemies send unknown spies. Valerie Plame and George Tenet are two examples of why Bush isn't all that good at the tradecraft side of things.

you gotta think there is a master plan it's NO, no master plan just a tsunami of stupidity

Bureacrats are too worried about ass covering to come up with super duper plans. They only look like a team from the outside. From the inside, they are nothing but cats.

Tell me there is method in the madness, just to make me feel good. Please?

Posted by: Deltabravo | December 12, 2007 at 08:05 PM

CIA gets some successful attacks in, but the culminating point of victory is still a critical matter based upon logistics. Meaning, our enemies can get some good licks in, but blowback can get them if they don't got their logistics secured. Like what happened to AQ in Iraq.

That's a positive development. It is obvious the CIA is on offense, of some sort. However, with each new victory they have, there are negative consequences to the CIA's ability to maintain their credibility and funding.

Even if a Democrat got into the Presidency, which is sort of like saying Hiroshima is going to occur twice, what will likely end up occuring is probably something similar to David Weber's "War of Honor".

[Ymarsakar]

I guess this means that we can pretty much write off the CIA for anything real, just another useless Federal bureaucracy shuffling papers around to no effect, and spending boatloads of money doing it.

Posted by: OldSoldier54 | December 12, 2007 at 07:56 PM

We can always exchange them for captured Americans.

[Cincinnati_Bob]

DeltaBravo. First off, regards the price of oil... The US dollar has declined in value 37% from the 2002 low in the stock market. (By the way, the stock market has gained only 23% more or less in the same time period.. Bull market? Market gains? Not really, unless you take your money out at the top and put it in cash and have the dollar regain value while you have it stuffed in your mattress..)
Anyway, a lot of the price of oil has to do with paying the ME in USD which is of lower value, therefore it takes more of them to obtain the same barrel. Some is futures market speculation about the potential price of oil tomorrow given geopolitical instability, probably Mainly the whackjob in Iran being the wild card.
That's the part of this puzzle that I feel I understand well enough to post it here.

As a final note; if the dollar starts rebounding, take any retirement money you have in 401k's etc and move it to a money market because the stock market will be repriced and that means lower numbers to the relation of the increase in the dollar value. Though I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. America Incorporated is getting too much benefit from selling goods to foreign countries based on the cheap dollar. Some ME dude can buy a HD LCD TV from America with British pounds and essentially get it for half price.

And no doubt the political creature loves the illusion of high stock prices, falling trade deficits, and great earnings reports and employment levels for global exposure companies like GE, HP, etc, etc.

In addition the Fed and even foreign central banks are now throwing money at their economies to keep them from freezing up. (Banks don't want to lend money because their investments in *now worthless more or less* subprme mortgage financial instruments has to be countered with cash to keep their balance sheets in a condition to keep them solvent, therefore they don't want to lend money now. This is why the Fed is printing money. This further devalues the value of the buck since there are more of them in existence today than there were yesterday.

If you find this stuff interesting, check out minyanville.com, it's where I learned most of this.

[Cincinnati_Bob]

Well, from the view of an outsider, a simple citizen, I get the impression that under the surface (the surface being the White House and Congress), there are some really good dedicated America protectors out there and all of those subordinate levels, but at the surface level, it is little more than childish in-fighting between the red team and the blue team with virtually little regard for America and its future.

It also occurs to me that the difference between today and say 20 years ago, is that the stupid people have been given megaphones by the media today, where in the past they were simply shuffled off.
There are no more or less stupid ignoramouses today than yesterday, it's just that today's media puts them on parade, giving them all the airtime they want, where before they were ignored as the idiots they are.

That is the dumbing down of America in action and it has now gone parabolic.

[douglas]

Walid Phares 7Dec07 article at Counterterrorism Blog-
"Misestimating Iran's Nuclear Strategies
-IT'S THE MISSILES NOT THE FISSILE"" pretty much laid this point out perfectly. Anyone tries to tell you how Iran is no longer a threat, just send them to that article. He gets it in spades, and hopefully, someone in DC is listening to him. Hopefully.

[jordan]

Deltabravo, you're right, it does have the shortterm effect of ratcheting down tensions, but pre-NIE, those tensions were acting to bring the Iranians around. The NIE even says that that diplomatic strategy was working. So, even though there's an immediate benefit, the long-term diplomatic strategy of isolating Iran and pressuring it to come clean with multiple partners and allies in Europe and ME, has been undercut.

The administration was working on cooperation from the Chinese, which is key to keeping up the pressure on Iran, but once the NIE came out, it gave the Chinese a good excuse to back away.

Sarkozy had been hand-in-glove with the U.S. on Iran, even making some very bold public statements about the Iranian threat, and we sort of blind-sided him as well with this NIE.

[Ymarsakar]

There are no more or less stupid ignoramouses today than yesterday, it's just that today's media puts them on parade, giving them all the airtime they want, where before they were ignored as the idiots they are.

Like in George Washington's times when Benedict Arnolds and spies would have been executed instead of given a book deal.