It is clear that some entity is attempting to attack Iran’s nuclear weapon development program through assassination of members of its scientific and administrative executive. This is tactical targeting in the extreme. It’s also the most ancient form of political military warfare. Covert activity in modern times against war-making industrial potential centered about the facilities themselves. Singling out individual scientists and key administrators indicates either a weakness in penetrating the internal physical structure of Iran’s key nuclear operations or, oddly enough, quite the opposite. In this latter case the covert action against individuals could be a result of excellent intelligence on exactly those people whose intellectual input is so important as to act as the controlling factor in the development process. From an Iranian counter-intelligence standpoint the tendency would be to judge that the information that led to the choice of a given set of human targets must be derived from assessments that were obtained from deep penetration of the Iranian nuclear program. The accumulation of such extensive and carefully guarded intelligence would be daunting and equaled only by the analysis and assessment of the information gathered. Obviously, external observers such as the foreign press cannot make an informed judgment on the scope of validity of the intelligence product available to the entity directing the covert operations. Even trained technical experts differ on the relative importance of the several personalities who already have been successfully targeted. In the absence of specific information, however, various elements of the situation can be discerned through logical analysis. Individual key-party assassination is a very dangerous weapon to employ in covert operations because it invites direct retribution of a similar type. This then establishes the basis for an escalation; a fact known to all covert action organizations, though non-state groups usually care little about issues of escalation. Actions by state-run agencies sometimes are used by their governments to invite counteraction. Such acts then are exploited as a justified provocation for an escalated response. If such is perceived as the case by Iran — and the antagonist is believed to be Israel aided by the United States — Iran logically would be constrained in order to avoid a full scale Israeli attack on Tehran’s nuclear facilities. Such purposeful provocation is a tactic not unknown in the history of past non-nuclear conflicts. The problem that Iranian counter-espionage strategists have is that the information on who holds important positions in their nuclear program actually has become well known in the international nuclear community. To add to this is that the identity of most of the scientists and high level technicians in the nuclear field is a matter of general knowledge within the Iranian academic and industrial community. It is just not that difficult to figure out who works where if one already is in the appropriate social/technical orbit. Iran’s scientific and technological society is a rather tight fraternity — and in some instances, sorority. If the removal of one or several key minds from the Iranian program is the objective of these assassinations, it would suggest that the objective is, at the very least, to delay the progress of the nuclear program. But to suspect the so far relatively small number of killings would have a major impact on Iran’s nuclear weapon development requires the assessment that Tehran has access to very few intellects capable of such activity. With the number of nuclear and akin discipline scientists available internationally who are willing to work for high pay, the latter circumstance seems beyond improbable. One factor that certainly would not have been overlooked by Iranian security is the existence of a purely politically motivated internal faction that seeks to embarrass the current leadership. Hitting the regime through its highest profile secret program might be considered in anti-government terms to be the most effective form of public embarrassment that could be created. This would be so even if the assassinations do not have a serious impact on the nuclear weapon program as such. Indeed the internal dissidents might be connected to a foreign service — or not. Assassinations, such as those already accomplished in Iran, introduce an element of fear among scientific peers not only in the nuclear field but in similar sensitive industries. The killings, however, do not stop work except where the victim is technically irreplaceable. The value of assassination is that of a force multiplier: One can attain a possible result detrimental to the ultimate target (i.e. nuclear weapon development) at little cost materially or, in most instances, even politically. Assassination can be the ultimate sanction weapon short of any other military action. While most Iranian public statements regarding the assassination of key individuals in the nuclear field focus on the Israelis, Americans, and sometimes the British, Tehran is aware that most Arab neighbors in the Middle East have considerable objections to Iran’s nuclear weapon ambition. Wanting to avoid proliferation of these weapons in their region has been a well-known goal of the Saudis, the Gulf States, and Turkey. All these countries have a vested interest in any covert operations inhibiting Iran’s growth as a military power. They can not be ruled out as at least collaborating in operations aimed at disrupting Iranian weapon development. Iran decided to take on the entire Western world when it proceeded with its massive secret nuclear program. Why it would be surprised that every weapon — including assassination — would be used against it defies logic.
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Anatomy of Assassination
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the recently announced opening of a Taliban office in Doha, Qatar, is that it never could have happened if there hadn’t been an agreement with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate. The Taliban tied the announcement of its new office specifically to talks with the United States and its allies. ISI controls the Afghan Taliban’s existence in Pakistan and therefore the Pakistanis must now be back in full operational liaison with the U.S. It would appear that the breakdown in intelligence relations after the accidental killing by NATO air attacks of 24 Pakistan soldiers has now been “evolved.” Something else that seems to have been overtaken by events is the highly controversial report that five major Taliban leaders would be released from their detention in Guantanamo as the price for peace talks with the Taliban. This release undoubtedly will be part of the negotiations that supposedly will happen through the opening of the new office in Doha. In fact, the terms of the negotiations have already been laid out. The real issue is the future objective of the American side. The Taliban’s motivation is clear and steadfast. It is prepared to fight on indefinitely to remove foreign influence in the governance of Afghanistan. The Americans are pulling out in two years if the Obama-designated timetable is adhered to, but no one seems to know what Washington expects after that. It has been written by some observers that the U.S. State Department is behind the push to negotiate, while the Pentagon and CIA want to keep the pressure on by fighting “until the last U.S. soldier leaves Afghanistan.” ( Ahmed Rashid , Financial Times, 12/5/11.) This surprisingly simplistic analysis by a veteran writer shows the type of confusion that has been sown by an Obama administration that repeatedly leaks information that it believes aids its reelection prospects. It had become accepted that Washington always could rely on President Hamid Karzai to say or do something that would be counter to American interests or at the very least be an impediment to current diplomatic or political initiatives He fooled them on the establishment of the Taliban office in Qatar by taking only one day to issue a public statement approving the office opening and beginning direct peace talks. In any case, Karzai — if he stays alive — always will have to be part of a peace settlement, whether as president or as simply one of the leading tribal personalities of the Pashtun. If the argument against Karzai is that he runs a corrupt government, someone is going to have to figure out some way to govern Afghanistan without payoffs to tribal leaders and local warlords. It hasn’t happened yet. Among the issues involved in negotiating with the Taliban is that there are several components to the system of command established under Mullah Mohammad Omar’s leadership. According to a declassified SECRET State Dept. cable: “The Taliban have created four major institutional structures that technically maintain the ability to weigh in on policy issues and policy implementation.” These four shura with various counseling roles have existed since the late ’90s. Although the relative influence of these councils has changed, Mullah Omar seems only to have grown in stature and power. That there is to be established a Taliban representative office in Qatar actually is less important than the fact that Mullah Omar himself would have had to approve the action. This makes far more serious the officially stated willingness on the part of the Taliban to hold negotiations with the U.S. and its allies. Equally important, however, is the total lack of reference to the current Afghan government, which presumably is to have no formal part in the discussions. There are many sensitive aspects of Afghan political affairs with which the American negotiators have to deal. While the U.S. and its allies still have to handle Hamid Karzai with great care, clearly Mullah Omar wants to have nothing to do with the Afghan president. The ISI of Pakistan undoubtedly will maintain their usual close contact with Mullah Omar and the principals in the Taliban leadership. To add to the difficult factors at play in any negotiation with Mullah Omar’s representatives, the reality is that the Haqqani amalgam of forces is always capable on either a political or military basis of choosing a path of self-interest as it has in the past. The Taliban has not been militarily defeated even though it may have suffered tactical reverses and may have been weakened by the loss of key field leadership cadre. But it senses — or rather Mullah Omar senses — that President Obama’s reelection campaign is a propitious time for talking with the Americans already bent on beginning withdrawal of their military from Afghanistan in two years. Once again the Taliban has gained the initiative.
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Seeking a Pact With the Devil
There are two ways to react to President Obama’s latest round of defense spending cuts. One is emotional but somewhat justified. The second is to analyze of Obama’s plans critically to reveal a transformation of our military that is as dangerous as Obama’s transformation of our economy. Since Obama appeared with Defense Secretary Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey in the Pentagon press room last Thursday, many commentators have written and railed at length on radio and television about how these cuts will hollow our forces’ readiness to fight. That reaction is understandable but it isn’t on more solid ground than Obama’s plan, because neither the plan nor the common reaction deals with the real dangers our nation faces. Under former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Obama imposed about $400 billion in defense spending cuts by his “Queen of Hearts” method of budgeting for defense: verdict first, trial after. They ended, for example, production of key weapon systems such as the F-22 fighter, the C-17 transport aircraft, and the DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer. Gates imposed those cuts before the Quadrennial Defense Review — “QDR” in the inevitable acronym — was performed. The QDR was supposed to be the congressionally mandated analysis of the threats the Pentagon is expected to deal with and from which its budget is supposed to be derived. But Gates and his team wrote the post-cuts QDR to justify the cuts rather than to justify a budget that answered the threats. In April of last year, Obama praised Gates’s first round of cuts and then ordered a review of defense spending to double them. Last week’s announced plan was the result of that review. It repeated the Queen of Hearts exercise and took it one step further. It took the planned smaller budget, fashioned our military’s future around it, and then made big promises that cannot possibly be kept. The plan announced by Obama and Panetta plans a revision of our force structure: • To refocus our military to meet the rise of China’s military force by “rebalancing” toward the Asia-Pacific region. • To be able to win one conflict and fight another to a stalemate. • To provide standing forces, for a limited time, to engage in new nation-building operations. • To meet every other challenge in space, cyberwar, and other fields of unconventional operations. So if we have to fight China, Israel has to deal with Iran on its own, Europe can deal with Russia, and the Middle East can stew in its own juices. And stalemate is now a strategy. But even that’s a very tall order for a force that may be cut by as much as $1 trillion in spending over the next ten years. Let’s get that bogeyman out of the way first. Just because a Pentagon budget is $700 billion a year doesn’t mean that it will be more effective at deterring or defeating the threats than a threat-based $350 billion a year force might be. The unanswered questions are what capabilities do we need and what will it cost to have them? And there’s the rub. Neither the Pentagon nor, as far as I can determine, the intelligence community has done the essential analysis to determine what we need our military to do. Obama’s plan mentions things such as missile defense, cyberwar, and space operations as targets for investment, but it also plans to pour money into strengthening the failed NATO alliance and other such boondoggles. There’s not enough money to go around. Our NATO allies haven’t invested in their own defense since the fall of the Berlin Wall. With the euro about to slip on Greece and crash down on Italy, that trend isn’t going to be reversed in the foreseeable future. Obama didn’t demand that they do more for themselves, and under his plan we will not be able to do more from them without robbing money from funds essential to performing other plans Obama made. Obama knows that and, to be sure, Vlad Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hu Jintao know it as well. So with all the broad promises, where’s the leaner budget to be spent, and how do we know that it won’t be spent unwisely? For example, Obama’s new-found dedication to nation-building is limited by its own statement that “U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations.” You can’t have it both ways. George Bush’s biggest mistake since 9/11 was to pour too much blood and treasure into nation-building and it failed comprehensively despite the enormous investment. Planning to do less means you will accomplish less. Does anyone believe that Obama will allow further investment in missile defense or the other capabilities we need to thwart China’s rise? I don’t believe he will, and everything he has done to date reinforces that belief. China is investing unknown billions in an area-denial force. Its ships and aircraft aren’t being designed to defeat the U.S. Navy, but only to deny it the ability to intervene successfully in Chinese operations in the Pacific region. Obama’s plan says he will invest in everything we need to counter the area-denial strategy. But the categories of weapon systems Obama plans to use to respond to China — missile defense, a new stealth bomber, undersea capabilities and space-based capabilities — are among the most expensive weapons we ever buy. (A single spy satellite can cost over $1 billion.) With the cuts already in place, and more to come, we simply won’t be able to spend enough to do what Obama falsely promises. The falsity of Obama’s promises is clear from any serious review of his plan. He’s making plans he knows will not — and cannot — be implemented. Based on his transformation of our economy into a government-run enterprise, Obama is — not coincidentally — making it financially impossible for our military and intelligence services to do what they will have to do even under his reduced vision of U.S. military power. There probably are ways to restructure the Pentagon budget. There could be a much less expensive force that would be more capable and effective in deterring and defeating aggression than the current $700 billion a year force. But, right now, nobody knows what it would look like. Back in the good old days (1981-1988) we had something called “defense guidance,” which was the basis for something else called the “POM.” The annual defense guidance process combined the best thinkers from the intelligence community and the military. They’d sit down and — one by one — assess our adversaries’ intentions and capabilities. Once that assessment was done, they would analyze what we needed to have in the military tool box to deter or defeat the threats and compare it to what we already had or we’d already planned. They would propose to retire outdated weapons, resize and reshape our forces, and then come up with an outline of what we needed to pay for and invest in to ensure the threats were answered. That was the defense guidance for the year. At that point, the Pentagon’s bean counters would turn it into the “program objective memorandum” — the sacred “POM” — from which the Pentagon’s budget would be derived. It sounds simple, but defense guidance was an enormously complex intellectual exercise. Until we perform that process again, we can’t know what our military forces need to be able to do to answer the many threats we face. Obama is leading us down a blind alley, and the only certainty is that what we will have — in ten or twenty years — won’t be what we need. That gap in capabilities will, inevitably, be filled. Either with a properly-designed force, or with the bodies of those serving in one that was designed to fit a budget cut rather than the threats.
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Obama Scissorhands
Although I didn’t much care for Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , I should begin by giving it its due. The movie does a fantastic job of conveying what Britain looked, sounded, and even smelled like in 1973, which was the year I arrived there for what turned out to be a nearly 15-year stay spanning the transition from the Britain of the post-war era to the threshold of the post-Cool Britannia of today. The clothes, the cars, the general dinginess, and shabbiness of everything is captured perfectly, so far as I can see, in spite of the odd false note like having George Smiley (Gary Oldman) and an associate dining in a Wimpy Bar. Obviously, the Wimpy Bar has to be there in order to give us the full flavor of the period, but men of their class wouldn’t have been caught dead in one. Movies these days are generally pretty good at re-creating the material past, but this one is a reminder of the importance of also getting the moral and intellectual and spiritual past right as well, for it cannot be understood apart from that cultural context. In its case, that means the John le Carré novel of 1974 and the 1979 BBC television adaptation of it starring Alec Guinness as well as the history of the Cold War on which both purport to be a distinctive gloss. Unlike Mr. Alfredson’s previous film, Let the Right One In , which was a completely original take on the vampire legend, Tinker Tailor places itself squarely in the middle of the now well-established tradition of cultural customs and concepts with which it deals — partly, perhaps, in order to suggest a continuity between that tradition and current political realities with which it would otherwise seem to have little in common. In other words, now not only Cold War spies but spies in general are seen as inhabiting that famously “twilit” world invented by Mr. le Carré to express his own conviction of moral ambiguity and, in consequence, a near moral equivalence between Communist slave states and what used to be called “the West.” That this is an important preface to any discussion of Mr. Afredson’s movie is suggested by the unconsciously hilarious remark of Manohla Dargis , a reviewer for the New York Times , that ” Tinker, Tailor is set against a geopolitical (and movie) moment that is almost quaintly, reassuringly old-fashioned, a time when enemy agents had names like Boris, and a red flag with a hammer and sickle made the ideological and political stakes clear.” She is of course not alone in conveniently forgetting how very unclear the ideological and political stakes were to so many of her fellow lefties at the time, not excluding Mr. le Carré himself. But he, at least, has always been admirably consistent in preferring moral muddle to clarity — except, that is, when it comes to his implacable anti-Americanism. Fortunately, the economics of the movie business and the need for the film to make enough cis-Atlantic money to repay its production costs require that there should be no more than hints of Mr. le Carré’s views of the United States in this version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy . Anyway, I imagine he would agree with the editorialist for the Guardian
In an interview with Fox News Sunday today, Mitt Romney declined to say whether the United States should have invaded Iraq knowing what we know now. Romney did say the invasion was “appropriate” based on what was known in 2003. Byron York quotes Romney’s answer when Chris Wallace asks him whether the invasion was correct in hindsight*: “Oh boy, that’s a big question,” Romney responded. “And going back and trying to say, given what we know now, what would we have done? Would we have invaded or not? At the time, we didn’t have the knowledge that we have now. At the time, Saddam Hussein was hiding, he was not letting the inspectors from the United Nations into the various places that they wanted to go. The IAEA was blocked from going into the palaces and so forth. And the intelligence in our nation and other nations was that this tyrant had weapons of mass destruction. And in the light of that belief, we took action which was appropriate at the time.” This is actually not a new position for Romney. In 2007-08, he also refused to take a position re-litigating the Iraq war, calling one such question a “null set.” David Freddoso observed back then, “Yet he is unique among the serious Republican presidential contenders because he has never said he would do it all over again, and they all have.” *UPDATE: A commenter below takes issue with my paraphrase of Wallace’s question. According to the transcript , here is the exact question: “First of all, looking back – and hindsight is always 20-20 – should we have invaded?” The York item I link to above also contains the exact quote. If Romney had answered yes or no to hypothetical question, this would seem to give us some insight into whether he thought the decision to invade was “correct.” But hopefully this update clears up any confusion.
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Romney Won’t Say Whether U.S. Should Have Invaded Iraq
