The brutality with which the Iranian authorities have suppressed
political dissent since last June’s disputed presidential election has
been widely reported. The Washington Post
now reveals that the political turmoil has had another effect: it has
resulted in a new supply of intelligence as disaffected officials leak
information about Iran’s nuclear program.
As a result, a National Intelligence Estimate being prepared for
President Obama which was due out last fall is not expected to be
completed until August.
The revisions to the NIE underscore the pressure on the
U.S. intelligence community to produce an accurate assessment of Iran’s
nuclear ambitions as President Obama pursues a policy aimed at
preventing the country from acquiring an atomic bomb. The community’s
2007 assessment presented the startling conclusion that Iran had halted
its work on developing a nuclear warhead, provoking enduring criticism
that the report had underestimated the Iranian threat.
Officials briefed on the new version, which is technically being
called a “memo to holders” of the first, say it will take a harder
tone. One official who has seen a draft said that the study asserts
that Iran is making steady progress toward nuclear weapons capability
but that it stops short of concluding that the Islamic republic’s top
leaders have decided to build and test a nuclear device.
There is little question that Iran sees strategic value in making
its nuclear intentions hard to decipher, but let’s for the sake of
argument assume that its goal is to put itself in the same position as
Japan: not to assemble a nuclear arsenal but to have the means to do so
at short notice. Could such a capability pose an existential threat to
Israel (or anyone else)?
Israeli leaders have already made it clear that they draw no
distinction between a nuclear armed Iran and an Iran that has nuclear
weapons capability, yet this may say less about the nature of an
Iranian threat than it does about the nature of Zionism. Deprive Israel
of its existential threats, and the necessity for a Jewish state
becomes less imperative. Take away the fear of annihilation and Jewish
identity will lose one of its most unifying attributes.
Israel might fear its enemies, yet can it survive without them?
War in Context