The increasing encirclement of Iran

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16 February 2008 | mail this article | print |
This article is part of the series: The coming war against Iran
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The increasing encirclement of Iran
By Daan de Wit
Translation by Ben Kearney

Earlier this month the Annual Threat Assessment was released by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell. The assessment, provided as a testimony for the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, offers an insight into the current outlook of the president's most important intelligence advisor. In his testimony McConnell emphasizes Iranian attempts to enrich uranium as well as Iran's capacity to fire long-range weapons. The combination of these two are now being presented at the highest levels of power as the central argument for branding Iran as a danger to world peace. As if the National Intelligence Estimate never even existed.

The Annual Threat Assessment that Michael McConnell presents is the first important document to be released on this matter since the publication of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in December of 2007. McConnell says that, looking back, he would like to have seen the now infamous NIE formulated differently: 'If I had 'til now to think about it, I probably would change a few things. <...> I would have included that there are the component parts, that the portion of it, maybe the least significant, had halted'. In his Threat Assessment he corrects the balance regarding something that he feels was relatively unimportant - an Iranian program to develop nuclear warheads. The testimony of 'the leader of our entire intelligence community', as President Bush calls him, makes it clear once and for all: The American government was, and apparently still is, on a collision course with Iran.

The American argument as it relates to Iran is a dynamic process. In a speech on global terrorism in 2006, President Bush earned applause when he said that America would not bow down to tyrants. Both before and after this, he explained to his audience how Iran has it in for Americans, and that it wants to destroy Israel. 'And now the Iranian regime is pursuing nuclear weapons. The world is working together to prevent Iran's regime from acquiring the tools of mass murder'. A year later the tone is the same, though content-wise there is a noticeable change, possibly with an eye to the upcoming publication of the National Intelligence Estimate: Bush says that anyone who is interested in preventing WWIII should see to it that Iran never gets the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. In December of 2007 the NIE is being published which in the view of the world took the wind out of the sails of those wanting a war with Iran. Now at the beginning of 2008 the argument is shifting still further. While any number of countries are capable of enriching uranium and/or possess nuclear weapons, and at the same time receive support from the United States - such as Israel, India and Pakistan - Iran is presented as a threat to world peace by the American government, even after the publication of the NIE. This on account of the ambition to master the process of uranium enrichment, suitable for the generation of energy in nuclear power plants. Little by little the White House has scaled back on their argument concerning the Iranian threat. In the meantime the bar is set so low that the country can comply with the greatest of ease. With which it thus qualifies for an American response. The merit of Washington's argument is now being beefed up considerably by the new Threat Assessment by the Director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell.

The scaling back of the argument has also been noticed by advisor and former counterterrorism specialist for the CIA, Phil Giraldi. In an interview <12'45"> toward the end of January 2008, he points out that Bush and Cheney 'have shifted the terms of the debate. It's no longer a question of Iran having a nuclear weapon or a nuclear weapons program. It's having the knowledge to construct a nuclear weapon. Which of course there are probably 130 countries in the world where that knowledge exists. <...> Any kind of Iranian access to anything that he or Dick Cheney are suspicious about is clearly an act of war'. According to Giraldi, Bush and Cheney are part of a political spin process, with the purpose of achieving something that goes well beyond American defense policy. 'That's called remaking the world, and you either buy into that or you don't. I personally of course don't'.

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