And The Walls Came a Tumbling Down Because We Cannot Connect Dots!

George Friedman gives his analysis of the recent revelation by the NIE that its intelligence assessment of Iran's nuclear program was wrong. Friedman seems to buy the fact that the new revelation is going to lead to greater co-operation between Iran and our nation vis a vis Iraq. (See 1 below.)

I find the new NIE assessment more a convenient political happenstance motivated as much by GW's need to back off from his bellicose stand which was going nowhere because Iran did not seem threatened by our empty ones and to begin actions which will define his presidential legacy.

I am more skeptical than, perhaps, Friedman and find it difficult to believe all of a sudden an NIE review reveals what it purportedly has. There is plenty of evidence that Iran wants a nuclear bomb, intends to have a nuclear bomb and whether it is close or further away it will become fait accompli that they will have one. That GW's walls have come tumbling down based on an NIE report is hard to believe in view of Sec. Rice's about face and footsie playing with the Saudis, Syria and now Iran.

To this cynical person it appears more an effort to bake the cake in a matter that will provide a more graceful exit from Iraq, ignore certain realities, let another president hassle with them and leave Israel to fend for itself. I doubt much will be learned at today's press conference other than casting more doubt on GW's veracity. It would appear to me GW is trying to demonstrate he is capable of changing his mind when he has "adequate intelligence?" in order to assuage those who criticized him regarding Iraq's WMD.

This announcement, the possibility of a Fed interest rate reduction and Paulson's bank bail-out should give the market some breathing room near term.(See 2 below.)

What Iran is thinking about our inability to connect dots. (See 3 below.)

More assessment of the U.S. intelligence reversal. (See 4 below.)

Olmert went to Annapolis and the limb he was perched on got sawed off. He looks more the duped fool than ever before and nothing he says regarding the world's stance towards Iran's nuclear ambitions will have relevance. When Iran eventually tests their bomb, as Israel did in South Africa, then the world will take notice but it will be too late. We have handed Russia a diplomatic victory and solidified their importance among those in the radical Arab world.

It will be interesting to see how the Saudis take the pass we have given Iran. No doubt other "moderate?" Arab nations will begin running to patch things up with Iran. (See 5 below.)

Frank Gaffney, Jr. addresses the impact of "Petro Dollars" buying U.S. assets. Ownership ultimately creates influence - political and otherwise. As I said: open an account at Citibank and instead of a toaster you will soon be offered a prayer rug.(See 6 below.)

John Podhoretz, a future Speaker Series, participant offers his views regarding the NIE report. Podhoretz believes the intelligence community may be seeking to "frag" GW and deter him from his own desire to confront Iran. (See 7 below.)

Dick


1) The NIE Report: Solving a Geopolitical Problem with Iran
By George Friedman

The United States released a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Dec. 3. It said, "We judge with high confidence that in the fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." It went on to say, "Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005." It further said, "Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs."

With this announcement, the dynamics of the Middle Eastern region, Iraq and U.S.-Iranian relations shift dramatically. For one thing, the probability of a unilateral strike against Iranian nuclear targets is gone. Since there is no Iranian nuclear weapons program, there is no rationale for a strike. Moreover, if Iran is not engaged in weapons production, then a broader air campaign designed to destabilize the Iranian regime has no foundation either.

The NIE release represents a transformation of U.S. policy toward Iran. The Bush administration made Iran's nuclear weapons program the main reason for its attempt to create an international coalition against Iran, on the premise that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable. If there is no Iranian nuclear program, then what is the rationale for the coalition? Moreover, what is the logic of resisting Iran's efforts in Iraq, rather than cooperating?

In looking at the report, a number of obvious questions come up. First, how did the intelligence community reach the wrong conclusion in the spring of 2005, when it last released an NIE on Iran, and what changed by 2007? Also, why did the United States reach the wrong conclusions on Iran three years after its program was halted? There are two possible answers. One is intelligence failure and the other is political redefinition. Both must be explored.

Let's begin with intelligence failure. Intelligence is not an easy task. Knowing what is going on inside of a building is harder than it might seem. Regardless of all the technical capabilities -- from imagery in all spectra to sensing radiation leakage at a distance -- huge uncertainties always remain. Failing to get a positive reading does not mean the facility is not up and running. It might just have been obscured, or the technical means to discover it are insufficient. The default setting in technical intelligence is that, while things can be ruled in, they cannot simply be ruled out by lack of evidence.

You need to go into the building. Indeed, you need to go into many buildings, look around, see what is happening and report back. Getting into highly secure buildings may be easy in the movies. It is not easy in real life. Getting someone into the building who knows what he is seeing is even harder. Getting him out alive to report back, and then repeating the process in other buildings, is even harder. It can be done -- though not easily or repeatedly.

Recruiting someone who works in the building is an option, but at the end of the day you have to rely on his word as to what he saw. That too, is a risk. He might well be a double agent who is inventing information to make money, or he could just be wrong. There is an endless number of ways that recruiting on-site sources can lead you to the wrong conclusion.

Source-based intelligence would appear to be the only way to go. Obviously, it is better to glean information from someone who knows what is going on, rather than to guess. But the problem with source-based intelligence is that, when all is said and done, you can still be just as confused -- or more confused -- than you were at the beginning. You could wind up with a mass of intelligence that can be read either way. It is altogether possible to have so many sources, human and technical, that you have no idea what the truth is. That is when an intelligence organization is most subject to political pressure. When the intelligence could go either way, politics can tilt the system. We do not know what caused the NIE to change its analysis. It could be the result of new, definitive intelligence, or existing intelligence could have been reread from a new political standpoint.

Consider the politics. The assumption was that Iran wanted to develop nuclear weapons -- though its motivations for wanting to do so were never clear to us. First, the Iranians had to assume that, well before they had an operational system, the United States or Israel would destroy it. In other words, it would be a huge effort for little profit. Second, assume that it developed one or two weapons and attacked Israel, for example. Israel might well have been destroyed, but Iran would probably be devastated by an Israeli or U.S. counterstrike. What would be the point?

For Iran to be developing nuclear weapons, it would have to have been prepared to take extraordinary risks. A madman theory, centered around the behavior of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was essential. But as the NIE points out, Iran was "guided by a cost-benefit approach." In simple terms, the Iranians weren't nuts. That is why they didn't build a nuclear program.

That is not to say Iran did not benefit from having the world believe it was building nuclear weapons. The United States is obsessed with nuclear weapons in the hands of states it regards as irrational. By appearing to be irrational and developing nuclear weapons, the Iranians created a valuable asset to use in negotiating with the Americans. The notion of a nuclear weapon in Iranian hands appeared so threatening that the United States might well negotiate away other things -- particularly in Iraq -- in exchange for a halt of the program. Or so the Iranians hoped. Therefore, while they halted development on their weapons program, they were not eager to let the Americans relax. They swung back and forth between asserting their right to operate the program and denying they had one. Moreover, they pushed hard for a civilian power program, which theoretically worried the world less. It drove the Americans up a wall -- precisely where the Iranians wanted them.

As we have argued, the central issue for Iran is not nuclear weapons. It is the future of Iraq. The Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 was the defining moment in modern Iranian history. It not only devastated Iran, but also weakened the revolution internally. Above all, Tehran never wants to face another Iraqi regime that has the means and motivation to wage war against Iran. That means the Iranians cannot tolerate a Sunni-dominated government that is heavily armed and backed by the United States. Nor, for that matter, does Tehran completely trust Iraq's fractured Shiite bloc with Iran's national security. Iran wants to play a critical role in defining the nature, policies and capabilities of the Iraqi regime.

The recent U.S. successes in Iraq, however limited and transitory they might be, may have caused the Iranians to rethink their view on dealing with the Americans on Iraq. The Americans, regardless of progress, cannot easily suppress all of the Shiite militias. The Iranians cannot impose a regime on Iraq, though they can destabilize the process. A successful outcome requires a degree of cooperation -- and recent indications suggest that Iran is prepared to provide that cooperation.

That puts the United States in an incredibly difficult position. On the one hand, it needs Iran for the endgame in Iraq. On the other, negotiating with Iran while it is developing nuclear weapons runs counter to fundamental U.S. policies and the coalition it was trying to construct. As long as Iran was building nuclear weapons, working with Iran on Iraq was impossible.

The NIE solves a geopolitical problem for the United States. Washington cannot impose a unilateral settlement on Iraq, nor can it sustain forever the level of military commitment it has made to Iraq. There are other fires starting to burn around the world. At the same time, Washington cannot work with Tehran while it is building nuclear weapons. Hence, the NIE: While Iran does have a nuclear power program, it is not building nuclear weapons.

Perhaps there was a spectacular and definitive intelligence breakthrough that demonstrated categorically that the prior assessments were wrong. Proving a negative is tough, and getting a definitive piece of intelligence is hard. Certainly, no matter how definitive the latest intelligence might have been, a lot of people want Iran to be building a nuclear weapon, so the debate over the meaning of this intelligence would have roared throughout the intelligence community and the White House. Keeping such debate this quiet and orderly is not Washington's style.

Perhaps the Iranians are ready to deal, and so decided to open up their facility for the Americans to see. Still, regardless of what the Iranians opened up, some would have argued that the United States was given a tour only of what the Iranians wanted them to see. There is a mention in the report that any Iranian program would be covert rather than overt, and that might reflect such concerns. However, all serious nuclear programs are always covert until they succeed. Nothing is more vulnerable than an incomplete nuclear program.

We are struck by the suddenness of the NIE report. Explosive new intelligence would have been more hotly contested. We suspect two things. First, the intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program consisted of a great number of pieces, many of which were inherently ambiguous and could be interpreted in multiple ways. Second, the weight of evidence for there being an Iranian nuclear program was shaded by the political proclivities of the administration, which saw the threat of a U.S. strike as intimidating Iran, and the weapons program discussion as justifying it. Third, the change in political requirements on both sides made a new assessment useful. This last has certainly been the case in all things Middle Eastern these past few days on issues ranging from the Palestinians to Syria to U.S. forces in Iraq -- so why should this issue be any different?

If this thesis is correct, then we should start seeing some movement on Iraq between the United States and Iran. Certainly the major blocker from the U.S. side has been removed and the success of U.S. policies of late should motivate the Iranians. In any case, the entire framework for U.S.-Iranian relations would appear to have shifted, and with it the structure of geopolitical relations throughout the region.

Intelligence is rarely as important as when it is proven wrong.

2)Jalili lands in Moscow as Iranian leaders cheer US intelligence reassessment of nuclear arms threat. Bush statement due later Tuesday


Iranian foreign minister:

Iranian foreign minister: "US has lost the nuclear battle to Iran"

Iran’s nuclear negotiator, dep. FM Saeed Jalili’s trip to Moscow Tuesday, Dec. 4. for talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin, capitalizes on the breakthrough the US has offered Tehran. The shock waves from the US intelligence report that Iran had put its bid for a nuclear bomb on hold in 2003, in contradiction of its 2005 assessment, are already touching other countries as well.

President George W. Bush will talk to the media later Tuesday about his radical turnaround on Iran. Only two months ago he spoke of the Iranian nuclear threat in terms of World War III.

Striking a welcoming note, FM Manouchehr Mottaki reiterated that Tehran never had plans to build atomic weapons. Countries with questions in the past “have now amended their views realistically,” he said. Last Friday, Nov. 30, Mottaki was less restrained, declaring, “The US has lost nuclear battle to Iran.” He was speaking to Basij members (Revolutionary Guards local reserve units). And in Tehran, ex-president Hashemi Rafsanjani declared enigmatically after Friday worship: “Iran is just a few steps before the end.”

Rafsanjani, close adviser to supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was initially interpreted as referring to the national nuclear program. But according to Iranian sources, he was talking about Iran’s contest with the US over its nuclear program. This would indicate that Tehran had been alerted in advance to the White House’s policy revision on its nuclear activities on the bases of the NIE report.

Washington sources confirm that the news which was kept closely secret took political circles by storm when it was released by national security adviser Stephen Hadley and a bevy of senior intelligence officials Monday. Contrary to claims from the Israeli prime minister’s office, Ehud Olmert was not tipped off in advance when he met Bush at the White House last Wednesday.

Our sources add that, contrary to the assurances emanating from Jerusalem, the entire sanctions edifice is in danger of toppling, including Washington’s push for a third round of penalties for Iran at the UN Security Council. This push was based on the previous intelligence estimates of Iran’s progress towards nuclear armament in defiance of the international community in the last four years. The White House has now backtracked on those estimates.

3) ANALYSIS: Iran laughing at U.S. lack of nuclear intelligence
By Amir Oren


The noise that was heard last night in Tehran, according to credible reports, was a hearty Persian laugh after looking at the U.S. intelligence service's website. The unclassified document that Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Mike McConnell published, titled "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities," as a laundered version that faithfully represents the greatest secrets collected by the CIA and the other U.S. intelligence services, can appropriately be called "much evaluation on no intelligence."

The document's eight pages, which include embarrassing instructions on how to differentiate between different yet related terms ("it is possible," "it may be so," "one must not remove from the equation," and "it's reasonable to assume"), enable the Ayatollas' nuclear and operations officials and the heads of the Revolutionary Guards to reach this soothing conclusion - from their point of view: The Americans have no understanding of what is really happening in Iran's nuclear program. They have no solid information, they have no high-level agents and they have nothing more than a mix of guesswork and chatter. The dissemblance and concealment have succeeded, and the real dispute is not between Washington and Tehran, but within the U.S. administration itself.

Only five weeks ago, McConnell announced that as a rule, he doesn't believe in the release of such documents. He regretted the publication of the principles of the intelligence evaluation on Iraq.

McConnell kept quiet on Monday. Donald Kerr, his deputy, was enlisted to explain why the Iran assessment followed in Iraq's footsteps. The essence of his explanation: The worst-case evaluation which has been repeatedly published since 2005 has changed, and it is important to clarify its "proper presentation." He means to say that if the politicians, President George W. Bush and Deputy President Richard Cheney, insist on leading their country into a war with Iran, this is their democratic right - on the assumption they receive Congressional support - but they shouldn't delude themselves that they can do this on the back of the CIA's investigative officers. Iraq won't repeat itself.

On one level, this is a philosophical debate: How should the lack of "indicative signs" be interpreted, in the face of a devious enemy, a certified cheat who is determined in his pursuit of the goal (also according to the intelligence assessors). The suspicious Bush and Cheney believe the absence of evidence is in fact evidence of the existence of an additional, hidden channel of nuclear development. Their intelligence services say that without proof there is no place for such an evaluation.

Responsibility is different for each rank. Intelligence is responsible for making assessments on facts collected, and the diplomats are responsible for preventing a failure at the two extremes: Not in making an over-estimation such as with Iraq (a result of former President Saddam Hussein's deception) and not in making an under-assessment such as with Al-Qaida before September 11, 2001. It is possible to say, using an Israeli parallel, like July 11, 2006, when the Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence did not know - or did not understand what it had heard - that Hezbollah would execute a kidnapping operation on the following day.

On a second level, the debate is a professional one: How does one evaluate developments in the nuclear field, when there are no actual objects which can be felt (missiles or bombs, for example), and before tests have been conducted. It is possible to weigh from a distance the kilograms of uranium which have been made in centrifuges, and to count how much of them have been hidden or enriched; but the great mystery is the degree of success achieved by the "weapons group," the teams of experts attempting to make the material explosive.

Behind the heap of words, presented as "a low or medium level of certainty," the differences between the worst-case and the best-case views on when Iran will be capable of producing a nuclear weapon are not that great. These range from somewhere between 2009 and the following five years, starting in 2010. Even McConnell's intelligence officers agree that Iran can buy nukes off the shelf - from Syria, North Korea and maybe Pakistan - and that the renewal of the program, if it is indeed on a coffee break, depends only on the intentions of the rulers, and those intentions will change only when the rulers are replaced.

The CIA is so angry with Bush, it seems, that it is ready to go to great lengths in order to help another president. Not Ahmadinejad, God forbid, but the next president in Washington. The result is likely to be the opposite: Higher Iranian militancy along with Bush and Cheney's determination to act - regardless of what the intelligence agencies say.

4)ANALYSIS: Iran nuke study pulls military option off the table
By Shmuel Rosner and Aluf Benn

WASHINGTON - "An intelligence consensus is difficult to challenge with new
data," wrote Judge Richard Posner in his book "Preventing Surprise Attack,"
which deals with the necessary reforms in American intelligence services
post-9/11.

Intelligence officers, like anyone else, "are reluctant to change their
minds" and admit they made a mistake or were caught by surprise. So the U.S.
intelligence services should be given credit for trying to correct their
mistake. Meanwhile, it should be remembered that correcting a mistake with
another mistake makes it all the more difficult to change one's mind the
next time.

Israel's ambassador to Washington, Sallai Meridor, spent the weekend warning
about Iran's nuclear program. Meanwhile, Israel knew about the report that
was to be released, but Meridor warned in no uncertain terms that "time is
running out." Either way, the official report blew up in his face: Time is
not running out, the Iranians are not making progress, and Israel may come
to be seen as a panic-stricken rabbit.

The debate surrounding this report's conclusions will be substantial, and
many will assume that its authors have failed in gathering or interpreting
the intelligence out there. A psychological interpretation will also be
thrown into the pot, discounting the conclusions. The same intelligence that
warned of Saddam Hussein's non-conventional arsenal is now making the
opposite, deadly error in relation to Iran. The Americans will find
themselves surprised like they did when they learned of the Indian and
Pakistani bombs.

Professionals will now argue passionately, continuing the debates between
Israel's assessment (an Iranian bomb in 2009-2010) and the American one (a
bomb in 2012-2013).

The Americans failed to explain Monday how they reached their new
conclusions. As such, the general public will find it difficult to decide
who is right. Maybe in the future, when there suddenly really is a bomb in
play, or maybe not, a decision on this can be final. Meanwhile, Israeli
intelligence has adopted the "most severe" approach, but the American
decision maker is only affected by the Americans writing the assessment.

It does not really matter. However successful or flawed this report may be,
there is a new, dramatic reality, in all aspects of the struggle against the
Iranian bomb: The military option, American or Israeli, is off the table,
indefinitely.

5) PM: US report should not deter world from dealing with Iran
By Herb Keinon

The threat of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons must not be underestimated, was the message government officials sent out on Tuesday after the release of a US intelligence report claiming that Teheran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but was continuing to enrich uranium.


The report only emphasizes and strengthens the need for the international community to tighten sanctions on Iran so that it will not be able to produce nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the opening of a meeting with the Italian deputy prime minister.

Olmert said that the report's findings were brought up during his meetings with Washington officials soon after the Middle East Peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland last week.

Regardless of the fact that the report said that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons plan, the fact was that such a plan did indeed exist until 2003.
RELATED

* US: Iran stopped nuclear arms program in 2003

"The US still plans to continue to try to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons. We will make every effort - first and foremost with our friends in the US - to prevent the production of this type of weapon," he said.

Earlier, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Iran is continuing in its efforts to produce a nuclear bomb despite the report. According to the minister, Iran had indeed stopped its program four years ago but has since renewed it.

In response to Israeli speculation that the report's findings would weaken American-backed support for military action against Iran, Barak emphasized that the issue of its nuclear program was still relevant.

"It is possible that this is correct, but I do not think that it is our place to make assessments about US [policy]. It is our responsibility to ensure that the correct things are done. Constantly speaking about the Iranian threat, as we have done recently, is not the right thing to do… words do not stop missiles," Barak told Army Radio.

"There are differences in the assessments of different organizations in the world about this, and only time will tell who is right," he added.

National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that irrespective of the US intelligence report, "Israel must continue to act in every way against the Iranian nuclear threat."

"This report is totally fine, it makes me smile, but on the other hand Israel and the defense establishment are working under the premise that Iran is in fact heading directly towards [a nuclear weapon]" Ben Eliezer told Army Radio, adding, "This is exactly one of the issues over which the state of Israel must take no risk."

Similarly, government officials said Monday night that the new report had not lessened Israeli concerns, since enriched uranium can be used both for civilian and military purposes.

According to the report, Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure but is continuing to enrich uranium. That means it may still be able to develop a weapon between 2010 and 2015, senior US intelligence officials said Monday.

6) Shariah's Trojan horse
By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

Suddenly, a new national debate is beginning about the national security, economic and other implications of Persian Gulf potentates using their petrodollars to buy up strategic American assets. Most recently, the Emir of Dubai's purchase at fire-sale prices of 4.9 percent of the largest U.S. bank, Citigroup, has caused a level of unease not seen since he tried to buy his way into a large number of this country's port facilities.


Almost completely unremarked thus far has been a parallel - and in many ways far more insidious - effort to penetrate, influence and dominate America's capital markets: so-called "Shariah finance." Some estimates suggest that there are approaching $1 trillion now being invested around the world under this rubric. If present trends continue, all other things being equal, such funds may grow to many times that amount within a few years.


Shariah is, of course, the term used by adherents to the totalitarian ideology practiced by the Saudi Wahhabis, the Iranian mullahs and the Taliban to describe the all-encompassing theocratic code they use to justify repressive rule at home and to extend their dominance elsewhere. While it is often depicted by its promoters as Koranic in character, in fact, it is largely man-made, the product of dictates and rulings by caliphs and scholars over many centuries.


For non-Muslims, Shariah is best known for its sanction for the brutalization of women, homosexuals and Jews. Beheadings, amputations, flagellation and stoning are among the prescribed punishments for those who transgress this barbaric code, punishments plucked from primitive tribal practices in the Arabian deserts dating back to medieval times.


As a recent, excellent paper by my colleague at the Center for Security Policy, Alex Alexiev, points out, however, Shariah finance is a relatively contemporary innovation. It was not until mid-20th Century that Islamofascist ideologues like Abul ala Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb introduced the notion that faithful Muslims must invest their wealth only in vehicles that comply with Shariah's putative prohibition on interest. In the decades that followed, relatively few in the Muslim world followed this admonition as most Muslims regarded with appropriate skepticism financial schemes that generally were not reliable investments, especially those that went to almost-farcical lengths to conjure up returns without acknowledging they amounted to interest payments.


Until now. In recent years, the windfall revenues flowing to the oil-exporting nations of the Persian Gulf have translated into an opportunity for the Islamists who dominate their societies to enlist the West's leading financial institutions as partners in promoting Shariah finance. In overseas capital markets and increasingly on Wall Street, "Shariah advisors" are being hired at great cost to bless investment instruments as compliant with this religious code.


As a result, three ominous things are occurring:


First, Shariah finance creates a mechanism for systematically legitimating the underlying, repressive theo-political regimen - and, thereby, advancing its adherents' bid to govern all Muslims and, in due course, the entire world.


Presumably, Western bankers and investment houses would be horrified to know they are helping promote such arrangements. One would think their governments would be, too. Yet, the former are so avidly pursuing Mideast wealth that few seem prepared to engage in even the most superficial due diligence about the implications of Shariah finance. And British prime minister Gordon Brown, for example, has declared he intends to make London the Islamic finance capital of the world. His government has said it intends to issue its own sukuk (or "Shariah-compliant" bonds) sometime next year.


The trouble is that, having embraced one aspect of Shariah, it will be vastly more difficult, if not as a practical matter impossible, to deny Islamist activists their demands to accommodate other aspects such as: footbaths in public institutions, prayer rooms and time off for prayers in both public and private sector establishments, latitude for cab drivers and cashiers to decline to do business with certain customers or handle certain products, an Islamist public school in Brooklyn, etc. Like Shariah finance, each of these is but a beachhead in the Islamofascists' patient, determined and ultimately seditious campaign to subvert and supplant Western free societies.


Elsewhere in some of those societies, such inroads have been expanded to include: demands for Shariah-compliant schools as in the UK; a push in Canada for separate shariah courts for all matters within the Muslim community; Shariah tolerance for honor killings of women attempted in Germany; destruction of non Shariah-compliant businesses in dedicated "Muslim enclaves" in France; and in various countries, Shariah-approved assassinations of critics of Islam and anyone leaving Islam worldwide.


Second, the Shariah advisors hired by Western capitalists to determine whether investments are "halal" (the Muslim equivalent of kosher) are generally among the foremost adherents to the Islamist creed and associated with organizations that promote it. As one of them put it, Shariah investing is simply "financial jihad" against the unbelievers.


Third, under the direction of these Shariah advisors, at least 2.5% of the proceeds of the investments they control are donated to Zakat funds. Some of these "charities" have been known to contribute to organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, the families of suicide bombers in Palestinian communities and Islamist madrassas in places like Pakistan. As investment advisors start promoting Shariah finance vehicles and Islamic indexes like Standard & Poors and Dow Jones, non-Muslim Americans will find themselves tithing to these dubious causes, as well.


Before the Trojan horse of Shariah finance is fully wheeled inside the gates of the American capital markets, federal regulators, corporate boards of directors and U.S. shareholders need to understand whether such investing conforms with the good governance and accountability required under Sarbanes-Oxley, the transparency depositors are entitled to under our banking laws and legislation barring material support to terrorism. To do otherwise is to invite the introduction of the instrument of our undoing into our capitalist system and the freedom-loving society it underpins.

7) Dark Suspicions about the NIE
By Norman Podhoretz

A new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), entitled “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” has just dealt a serious blow to the argument some of us have been making that Iran is intent on building nuclear weapons and that neither diplomacy nor sanctions can prevent it from succeeding. Thus, this latest NIE “judges with high confidence that in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program”; it “judges with high confidence that the halt was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work”; it “assesses with moderate confidence that Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007”; it assesses, also with only “moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program”; but even if not, it judges “with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.”

These findings are startling, not least because in key respects they represent a 180-degree turn from the conclusions of the last NIE on Iran’s nuclear program. For that one, issued in May 2005, assessed “with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons” and to press on “despite its international obligations and international pressure.”

In other words, a full two years after Iran supposedly called a halt to its nuclear program, the intelligence community was still as sure as it ever is about anything that Iran was determined to build a nuclear arsenal. Why then should we believe it when it now tells us, and with the same “high confidence,” that Iran had already called a halt to its nuclear-weapons program in 2003? Similarly with the intelligence community’s reversal on the effectiveness of international pressure. In 2005, the NIE was highly confident that international pressure had not lessened Iran’s determination to develop nuclear weapons, and yet now, in 2007, the intelligence community is just as confident that international pressure had already done the trick by 2003.

It is worth remembering that in 2002, one of the conclusions offered by the NIE, also with “high confidence,” was that “Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.” And another conclusion, offered with high confidence too, was that “Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material.”

I must confess to suspecting that the intelligence community, having been excoriated for supporting the then universal belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, is now bending over backward to counter what has up to now been a similarly universal view (including as is evident from the 2005 NIE, within the intelligence community itself) that Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons. I also suspect that, having been excoriated as well for minimizing the time it would take Saddam to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal, the intelligence community is now bending over backward to maximize the time it will take Iran to reach the same goal.

But I entertain an even darker suspicion. It is that the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again. This time the purpose is to head off the possibility that the President may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations. As the intelligence community must know, if he were to do so, it would be as a last resort, only after it had become undeniable that neither negotiations nor sanctions could prevent Iran from getting the bomb, and only after being convinced that it was very close to succeeding. How better, then, to stop Bush in his tracks than by telling him and the world that such pressures have already been effective and that keeping them up could well bring about “a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program”—especially if the negotiations and sanctions were combined with a goodly dose of appeasement or, in the NIE’s own euphemistic formulation, “with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways.”

If this is what lies behind the release of the new NIE, its authors can take satisfaction in the response it has elicited from the White House. Quoth Stephen Hadley, George W. Bush’s National Security Adviser: “The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically—without the use of force—as the administration has been trying to do.”

I should add that I offer these assessments and judgments with no more than “moderate confidence.”