Stephen J. Hadley

For those who have doubts about miracles, a double one occurred. An honest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear program has been issued and its Key Judgments were made public.
With redraft after redraft, it was what the Germans call “eine schwere Geburt“-a difficult birth, ten months in gestation.
I do not know how often Vice President Dick Cheney visited CIA Headquarters during the gestation period, but I am told he voiced his displeasure as soon as he saw the first sonogram/draft very early this year, and is so displeased with what issued that he has refused to be the godfather.
This time Cheney and his neo-con colleagues were unable to abort the process.
And after delivery to the press, this child is going to be very hard to explain-the more so since it is legitimate.
National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley stated that:
“We judge that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program...“
“We assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.“
“We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely...“
“We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.“
“We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.“
Having reached these conclusions, it is not surprising that the NIE’s authors make a point of saying up front (in bold type) “This NIE does not (italics in original) assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons.“
This, of course, pulls out the rug from under Cheney’s claim of a “fairly robust new nuclear program“ in Iran, and President Bush’s inaccurate assertion that Iranian leaders have even admitted they are developing nuclear weapons.
Apparently, intelligence community analysts are no longer required to produce the faith-based intelligence that brought us the Oct. 1, 2002 NIE “Iraq’s Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction“-the worst in the history of U.S. intelligence.
Truth be told, one of the Iran NIE’s findings was written into its first draft, from which Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell drew in telling the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 27 that Iran could possibly develop a nuclear weapon by early-to-mid-next decade.
McConnell said not a word, though, about Iran’s having halted its nuclear weapons program in fall 2003. And in February, he was still adhering to the faith-based approach, saying, “We assess that Iran seeks to develop a nuclear weapon.“ At which point, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R, SC) tried to sum up the proceedings with the disingenuous comment, “We all agree, then, that the Iranians are trying to get nuclear weapons.“
Curiously, McConnell indicated recently that the key findings of NIEs would no longer be made public. My guess is that the Pentagon, and especially Adm. William Fallon, commander of our forces in the Middle East, succeeded in persuading McConnell to go public. Several months ago, Fallon was reliably reported to have said, “We are not going to do Iran on my watch.“
And it is an open secret that he and other senior military officers, except those of the Air Force, are strongly opposed to getting into a war with Iran for which the U.S. is so ill prepared.
Will President George W. Bush and our domesticated media succeed in dismissing this latest NIE as “guesswork,“ as he has in the past? It is going to be highly interesting to see how the White House will try to spin this one.
Ray McGovern
COUNTERPUNCH.COM

In Sunday’s (Dec. 2) election for the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, President Vladimir Putin’s party was set to gain more than two thirds of the chamber’s 450 seats, enough to revise the Constitution.
With Mr. Putin running as the lead candidate of United Russia, the election result represents a vote of confidence for the president, who has been in office for almost eight years.
The Constitution prohibits him from running for a third consecutive term in a March 2, 2008, presidential election and United Russia leader Boris Gryzlov said that the party has no plans to change the Constitution.
But it is clear that Mr. Putin wants to retain a high level of political influence beyond next year’s presidential election.
Politicians and officials of Mr. Putin’s party reportedly have used various means, including pressure, to get people to vote for the party.
The election results have made it possible for Mr. Putin to keep his hands in politics, although at this point no one knows what his next move will be.
From what Mr. Gryzlov has said, it appears that Mr. Putin wants to be a “national leader“ of sorts.
The Russia Mr. Putin inherited from his predecessor President Boris Yeltsin in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse was a chaotic one.
He has succeeded in stabilizing the country. Oil and gas revenues have brought relative prosperity to Russia and facilitated efforts to raise its international status.
The election result can be seen as a reflection of the Russian people’s desire to have a strong leader who keeps the country from backsliding.
But stability and prosperity under the direction of Mr. Putin and his allies come at a high price--a continuing concentration of political power.
A new election law prevents a party that fails to receive at least 7 percent of the vote from getting any seats.
In addition to United Russia, only the Communist Party and two pro-Kremlin parties managed to gain seats, and liberal parties have been shut out altogether.
The regimentation of Russian society is likely to increase.
JAPANTIMES.CO.JP

For most western governments granting independence to Kosovo is long overdue.
For the Kosovar Albanian political elite the independence goal is non-negotiable and has become a critical policy issue for the newly-elected government.
For Belgrade it is a non-starter in any “new round of talks“.
For Russia it seems to be a welcome gift in the recent tug-of-war between Moscow and Washington on more important global issues.
For the EU it is another hot potato thrown into its hands by the leftovers from the Yugoslav wars.
For countries in the region it is going to be a sleep-loss over the issue of recognising the new state if and when it comes to it.
For Albanians in Kosovo it is “when“ only, and it seems that unilateral declaration rather than international consensus is imminent.
However, there should still be space for an “if“ to be raised and discussed.
Many experts and academics, commentators, media correspondents, and politicians continue to consider other options and possibilities but they may find it increasingly difficult to be heard. The “independent Kosovo“ slogan has become another test of political correctness according to which all those who put a question mark above it are labelled as “pro-Serb“ advocates, while on the other side of the argument one may be readily put in the camp of “Serb-haters“ from the west.
Neither would help in raising and understanding serious concerns and scepticism over the issue.
And they are quite a few.
Externally, there will be negative regional consequences in the ex-Yugoslav Balkans where neighbouring countries are still struggling with their internal divisions. They are certain to be sharpened and deepened, to say the least, following Kosovo independence and the challenge to recognise the new state next door.
Montenegro will face huge difficulties in winning over its near 50% pro-Serbian community to accept the inevitable.
The Macedonian government will have to go a long way in order to satisfy its well-organised and very influential Albanian minority by granting recognition.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is going through a political crisis and paralysis of its state institutions at the moment.
This is not the first time that I have seen it first-hand since I worked in the country in 2002-2005 with Lord Ashdown as the High Representative’s head of the legislation reform and earlier in 1999-2000 as an adviser to the International Crisis Group.
I know very well how painful and slow-moving any progress was in making one step forward and how little it took to be taken three steps back.
With a little help from Belgrade, Kosovo independence might take Bosnia 10 steps back and sharpen the identity crisis among Bosnian Serbs to the extreme. These controversies in the neighbourhood will all play well into the hands of the regime in Belgrade and Serbian public opinion which seems to be wide open to further radicalisation and alienation from the west and the EU.
GUARDIAN.CO.UK

Hundreds of anti-Arroyo protestors march towards Malacanang presidential palace in Manila, Nov. 30.

On November 29th a small group of military officers, politicians and Catholic priests tried to stage a coup in the Philippines. The attempt promptly fizzled out after it became apparent that a mass uprising in support of the coup bid would fail to materialise. Instead, several hundred soldiers loyal to the president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, arrived to forcibly evict the 30-odd armed mutineers from their headquarters in a luxury hotel in Manila’s financial district.
That the leaders of the attempted coup, Antonio Trillanes and Danilo Lim, felt compelled to stage such a seemingly pointless act of rebellion partly reflects their personal desperation. (The two former officers had only just left a court hearing related to earlier coup attempts in 2003 and 2006.)
However, the incident also highlights the fragility of Ms Macapagal Arroyo’s grip on power. In hindsight the mini-coup seems ridiculously ill-considered, but its failure to pose a real threat was mostly due to public disinterest rather than any dramatic improvement in the government’s popularity.
The outcome of the coup attempt would have been very different if the mutineers’ pleas for a “people power“ uprising of the sort that has toppled previous Philippine governments had not fallen on deaf ears.
In the event, political apathy reigned; only about 100 people assembled near the Peninsula Hotel in support of the rebels. (Many local guests were reportedly nonplussed by the renegade soldiers’ occupation of the premises, continuing at their meals while foreign guests fled to neighbouring hotels).
In the end, the rebels were able to save face by explaining that they were surrendering without a fight in order to spare the lives of the journalists providing live coverage from within the coup headquarters.
The government, for its part, left little to chance in its response. Ms Macapagal Arroyo reacted swiftly, imposing a curfew on Manila and dispatching heavily armed troops to storm the Peninsula. The president’s decisive response was hardly surprising given the frequency of coups in the Philippines (and the fact that she herself came to power on the back of a successful coup). However, it may also reflect the government’s nervousness about the rising political stock of Mr Trillanes, who was elected to the Senate (the upper house of the legislature) while on trial for his earlier attempts to overthrow the government.
Indeed, no such curfew has been imposed since martial law was declared under Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, a fact that Ms Macapagal Arroyo’s enemies are trumpeting as evidence of her purported dictatorial tendencies.
In hindsight, the apathetic public response suggests that the plotters seriously overestimated popular opposition to Ms Macapagal Arroyo’s government. In addition to many failed coups, previous leaders of the Philippines have swept into office on a wave of people power only to perform as disappointingly as their predecessors.
This has understandably led to a certain degree of coup-weariness, which the exceptionally robust performance of the economy is augmenting.
But it would be a mistake to interpret the failure of the mini-coup as a popular vote of confidence in the government. The problems facing Ms Macapagal Arroyo have actually increased significantly over the past couple of months, largely owing to allegations of corruption surrounding the negotiation of a contract for a national broadband network.
For reasons that have not been fully explained, an agreement between the governments of China and the Philippines awarded the contract to the ZTE Corp of China even though companies from the US and the Philippines submitted substantially lower bids.
Ms Macapagal Arroyo cancelled the contract in October, but the negotiations raised questions of possible graft that still have the potential to trigger her removal from power.
The failure of what was probably their final bid to remove the president from power using legal means has also infuriated the president’s opponents.
In October a third attempt to impeach Ms Macapagal Arroyo fell at the first hurdle as did the two previous ones, in 2005 and 2006.
The administration, through the dominance of pro-government parties in the House of Representatives (the lower house), has a comfortable majority on the justice committee that vets any impeachment file before it is presented to the full lower house. Owing to the fact that the constitution bans consideration of more than one impeachment charge within a 12-month period, the president will not face another charge until October 2008.
With their legal avenues of opposition now effectively blocked, increasingly frustrated opposition groups may be more likely to take to the streets. Eventually, one such attempt could pose a serious threat to the government.
For now, though, the failure of Messrs Lim and Trillanes to spark a popular rebellion suggests that the country is far from being a dry tinderbox of discontent.
ECONOMIST.COM