This is what we like to call damage control. After all sixteen of your own intelligence agencies deliver to you an estimate that is consistent with the findings of the IAEA, there’s not much left to do but play it down and continue to apply pressure. With enough face time, and the right media coverage, in a few weeks the NIE will have been forgotten, and the rhetoric employed by the administration will once again become the mainstay.
I found this passage of particular interest…
“They can come clean with the international community about the scope of their nuclear activities, and fully accept the longstanding offer to suspend their enrichment programme and come to the table and negotiate.
“Or they can continue on a path of isolation that is not in the best interest of the Iranian people.”
You have to wonder why that exact same statement isn’t made about the Israelis? Forget nuclear energy, Israel possesses a considerable nuclear weapons arsenal, has not signed the NPT, and even continues to claim that they don’t possess nuclear weapons at all. The only person to actually attempt to reveal the scope of Israel’s program was jailed for 18 years, 11 of those in solitary confinement, and nary a word was said about it. Ironically, were the Iranians to have anywhere near the same nuclear weapons program, and an Iranian revealed the extent of it to the world, they would be praised to high heaven by the likes of the Bush administration who would, without question, condemn their imprisonment for leaking that information.
Following his release from prison in 2004, Mordechai Vanunu did what any decent and courageous person would do in his position – he spoke up again, leading to even further troubles with the Israeli authorities. Of course, at the time, Washington had nothing to say about it, nor have they ever. Unfortunately, men who believe in peace, and have the strength of character to speak their minds no matter the consequences, are only hailed as heroes when their deeds expose the transgressions of those that we perceive as enemies. In Vanunu’s case, because of how the West perceives Israel, his is a story of courage that has been entirely overlooked.
In truth, given the overwhelming size of America’s nuclear arsenal, one has to wonder why the IAEA isn’t allowed to scrutinize it. Unfortunately, whether you like it or not, the United States is far more guilty of international transgressions than the Iranians ever will be. Those that oppose the Iranians, and I completely agree that theirs is a nation that is controlled by a hard-line element that does not act in the people’s best interest (sound familiar?), repeatedly make claims about Iran’s complicity with regards to supporting the likes of Hezbollah. But where is the same outrage over US support for a myriad of organizations and governments that have been wholly undemocratic and guilty of mass human rights violations?
When it comes to peace, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t dick around in the affairs of others for decades and then have the audacity to claim that you are morally beyond reproach. Peace is not defined by the ability to ensure it through the deterrence that an immense military capability provides. That is simply global détente.
