Dangerous Alliances Watch....
More anger in Israel about the U.S. intelligence community's disturbing independence:
Israel's public security minister warned Saturday that a U.S. intelligence report that said Iran is no longer developing nuclear arms could lead to a regional war that would threaten the Jewish state.I suspect some in Israel believe it would be far more efficacious to bypass the American intelligence community and take the matter directly to the American public. For them, the ideal outcome is a return to the good old days post-9/11, when those annoyingly sleepy Americans understood "the common threat." The main question, of course, is how to accomplish that.
In his remarks — Israel's harshest criticism yet of the U.S. report — Avi Dichter said the assessment also casts doubt on American intelligence in general, including information about Palestinian security forces' crackdown on militant groups. The Palestinian action is required as part of a U.S.-backed renewal of peace talks with Israel this month.
Dichter cautioned that a refusal to recognize Iran's intentions to build weapons of mass destruction could lead to armed conflict in the Middle East.
He compared the possibility of such fighting to a surprise attack on Israel in 1973 by its Arab neighbors, which came to be known in Israel for the Yom Kippur Jewish holy day on which it began.
"The American misconception concerning Iran's nuclear weapons is liable to lead to a regional Yom Kippur where Israel will be among the countries that are threatened," Dichter said in a speech in a suburb south of Tel Aviv, according to his spokesman, Mati Gil. "Something went wrong in the American blueprint for analyzing the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat."
Israel will work to change the American intelligence agencies' view of Iran, said Dichter, a former chief of Israel's Shin Bet secret service agency.
posted by The Cunning Realist at Monday, December 17, 2007
3 Comments:
Most are thinking it, but I prefer to say it. This report worries me. Does this mean that the United States can expect to completely mistrust any intelligence coming from Israel for the next however-many-years-it-takes for Iran to actually build nukes. And in the meantime we have to cross check each and every middle eastern intelligence report against possible Israeli connections, and then investigate the likelihood of planted intel. Or do we simply ignore that crap because it is so much easier to assume Iran has nukes, and wants to use them?
Does this mean that the United States can expect to completely mistrust any intelligence coming from Israel for the next however-many-years-it-takes for Iran to actually build nukes.
Let's hope so. Let's hope that maybe, finally, Israel has finally over-reached in their (extremely successful) tail-wagging-the-dog strategy. But I don't think our leadership caste has the spine or the brains.
I can remember a time when the Beltway was up in arms over what was thought to be the Korean CIA's excessive influence on American foreign policy -- and so far as I know, even when the Pueblo incident was still a recent memory, Seoul didn't openly lust for an American attack on its adversary.
-- sglover
I do not mean to be too argumentative, I mean I agree. Israel needs to keep its hands out of the United States intel. But I have always believed that. As far as I know, Israel has been overreaching for years, except we (our government and policy makers) invited it. I think it is finally becoming clear to, at the very least(and finally), Americans that peace in the middle east can only come when Israelites finally decide or discover that the oppressed have very easily become the oppressor (with our help, guidance, technology, intelligence, money and interrogation techniques - though I have heard they created some amazing ones, themselves). This discussion does not go over too well in much of the Jewish community, with them saying that gentiles have no knowledge of what it is like to live as the Jews have lived, historically. I will not deny it. But it seems to me that just as individuals go to psychotherapists for their clear and detached opinions, nations could use the same in conflict resolution. Besides, a little Cognitive Behavioral Therapy never hurt anyone, except those who wanted it to.
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