As late as 2005 U.S. intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that Iran was building a bomb, but in a stunning reversal the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) ordered by Congress in 2006 concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The Israelis and Iranian dissidents, in particular, are not buying it - and there’s good reason for skepticism.

The Atlantic ticks off several examples of cognitive dissonance in the report’s conclusions, a compilation of the assessments of 16 U.S. spy agencies:

While Iran did suspend uranium enrichment for a time, it reversed this move in early 2006. Natanz went live later that year, and just last week, Iran started operating 3,000 of the estimated 60,000 centrifuges at Natanz, making good on its promise of industrial-scale uranium enrichment.  Since the alleged halt, Iran has continued to develop a ballistic missile program capable of delivering nuclear warheads and consistently obfuscated UN inspections.  Nowhere in the NIE is there discussion as to why Iran would resume this enrichment and continue to thwart the inspectors if it were giving in to international pressure and halting its program. …

If Iran were really succumbing to international pressure in halting its weapons program, why would it not do so in a way that would benefit the country?  If it were to take the measures of ceasing enrichment and adopting transparency, the numerous sanctions and restrictions against it would be lifted.  A key moment would have been nine months ago, when the UN Security Council enacted tough new sanctions against the country for failing to cooperate with the IAEA. But Iran made no concessions. So what has it gained in all this by the logic of U.S. intelligence? The NIE essentially claims that Iran has created for itself a lose-lose situation, where it has stopped its nuclear weapons program without reaping any of the benefits.  Why would Iran have any interest in such a scenario?  It is a question the NIE summary fails to address, and one that should keep us wondering about Iran’s true intentions and capabilities. 

A scant six weeks ago, President Bush warned that a nuclear-armed Iran could set off World War III. Why the 180-degree turnabout? Maybe the reality (resignation?) finally set in that the U.S. cannot simultaneously fight wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. As Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer in the Middle East, speculates, with the situation in Iraq improving and Lebanon settling into some semblance of political stability, the Bush administration concluded that striking Iran now is counterproductive:

With Iranian-backed Shi'a groups behaving themselves, things are looking up in Iraq. In Lebanon, the anti-Syrian coalition and pro-Syrian coalition, which includes Iran's surrogate Hizballah, reportedly have settled on a compromise candidate, the army commander General Michel Suleiman. Bombing Iran now would upset the fragile balance in these two countries. Not to mention that Hizballah has threatened to shell Israel if we as much as touch a hair on Iran's head.

Then there are the Gulf Arabs. For the last year and a half, ever since the Bush Administration started to hint that it might hit Iran, they have been sending emissaries to Tehran to assure the Iranians they're not going to help the United States. But in private, the Gulf Arabs have been reminding Washington that Iran is a rabid dog: Don't even think about kicking it, the Arabs tell us. If you have to do something, shoot it dead. Which is something the United States can't do.

Jerusalem Post columnist Calev Ben-David fears that it’s the Bush administration that’s being duplicitous (which Israel was OK with when the victims of the administration’s duplicity were Armenian-Americans who wanted Congress to pass a symbolic resolution acknowledging that Ottoman Turkey committed genocide; the shoe’s on the other foot now) :

[H]aving claimed proudly to have forged at Annapolis a coalition of Arab states in opposition to Iran and its radical Islamist proxies, Bush and Rice might well be thinking that it might be handy at this stage to have a reason to implicitly back down from the military option that those "moderate" Muslim allies so ardently oppose. That's certainly what the NIE report conveniently provides, even if that won't be publicly acknowledged by the administration.

What does the NIE analysis really tells us about Iranian nuclear intentions and capabilities? That's anybody's guess. But from a Jerusalem viewpoint, the message it sends from Washington seems to be: If you're thinking of a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, Israel - you're on your own.

So if the U.S. has no intentions of bombing Iran back to the Stone Age, what can we do to keep it on the nuclear straight and narrow? The Washington Post’s Robert Kagan makes the case that now is as good a time as any to initiate talks with Tehran:

A military strike against suspected Iranian nuclear facilities was always fraught with risk. For the Bush administration, that option is now gone. …

Bringing Europeans together in support of serious sanctions was difficult before the NIE. Now it is impossible.

With its policy tools broken, the Bush administration can sit around isolated for the next year. Or it can seize the initiative, and do the next administration a favor, by opening direct talks with Tehran.

Negotiating will appear at first to be a sign of weakness. The Iranians could use talks to exploit fissures between the United States and its allies, and within the U.S. political system. …

This is as good a time as any. … America remains powerful in the world and in the Middle East. The success of the surge policy in Iraq means that the United States may be establishing a sustainable position in the region - a far cry from a year ago, when it seemed about to be driven out. If Iraq is on the road to recovery, this shifts the balance against Iran, which was already isolated. …

The next administration, especially if it is Democratic, will probably want to try to talk to Tehran. But it couldn't begin talks before the summer of 2009, at which point, if the NIE is right, Iran could be moving into the final stages of developing a bomb. Better to get negotiations started so that by the time the next administration settles in, it will be able to assess the progress, or lack thereof, after a year of talks. If it decides it must take strong action, it will have an easier time showing that all other options were exhausted.

Speaking of the next administration, the NIE report not only sent shockwaves through the international community, but will also shake up the talking points of several candidates who have taken a hawkish stance against Iran and force them to dial it back a bit. For his part, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) wasted no time slamming Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for voting in favor of designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, which many Dems regard as being the first step in the march to war. If Hillary has the most to lose politically from the NIE report, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) may have the most to gain. As New York Times columnist Frank Rich points out, “Mr. Obama’s much-derided readiness to talk promptly and directly to the leaders of Iran and Syria, for instance, was a clear alternative, agree with it or not, to Mrs. Clinton’s same-old Foggy Bottom platitudes on the subject.”

Chávez Chastened

By a margin of 51 to 49 percent, Venezuelan voters rejected 69 reforms to the Constitution that would have allowed Hugo Chávez, 53, to run for president indefinitely and would have turned the country into a socialist state. The Washington Post reports:

The victory for the "No" vote represents the first electoral setback for Chávez, 53, a former lieutenant colonel who won the presidency in a 1998 landslide and, until now, had trounced his opponents in one referendum and presidential election after another. …

Chávez had campaigned furiously in recent days after polls showed that Venezuelans would reject the reforms. But he faced an eclectic and widespread opposition that included university students, Roman Catholic leaders and human rights groups. …

"People who have been with Chávez do not support the reform," said Elixio Fusil, who lives in a pro- Chávez district in western Caracas and voted against the reforms. "He wants a blank check, and that's impossible. We're not stupid like he thinks. It's that simple. There are conscious, thinking people here, too." …

With Chávez controlling the airwaves and the Electoral Commission, why wasn’t he able to rig the results in his favor, as he had so many times before? In Monday’s edition of OpinionJournal’s Political Diary (e-mail subscription required), John Fund quotes from an e-mail he received from a  former Venezuelan congressman: "The best guess is that wariness of Chavez has grown so much within his own ranks that he could not be certain there wouldn't be highly damaging leaks about just how the vote was stolen. "

Fund adds, “Given that Mr. Chavez received three million fewer votes for his constitutional changes than he won in winning re-election just last year, it's clear some rethinking by voters is going on.”

Voters like Elixio Fusil may have been persuaded to vote “No” by former defense minister Raúl Isaías Baduel, who explains why he parted ways with Chávez after supporting him for 35 years “through thick and thin” in an op-ed published by The New York Times just before the referendum:

[A] socialist state is contrary to the beliefs of Simón Bolívar, the South American liberation hero, and it is also contrary to human nature and the Christian view of society, because it grants the state absolute control over the people it governs.

Venezuelan society faces a broad array of problems that have not been addressed in the eight years Mr. Chávez has been in office, even though the present Constitution offers ample room for any decent, honest government to do so. …

The elite never understood - and still fail to understand - the need to include, in every sense, the millions who have been kept at the margins of the decision-making process because of their poverty. … President Chávez led the poor to believe that they are finally being included in a governmental model that will reduce poverty and inequality. In reality, the very opposite is true. …

During the economic boom years, ushered in by a sustained increase in oil prices, the parties dispensed favors, subsidies and alms. In the end, they taught the people about rights rather than obligations, thus establishing the myth that Venezuela is a rich country, and that the sole duty of a good government is to distribute its wealth evenly. President Chávez has been buying and selling against this idea, continuing to practice the kind of neopopulism that will reach its limit only when the country receives what economists call an “external shock.” …

The publisher of far-left blog The Oread Daily  disagrees with Isaías Baduel and takes Chávez to task for being an “egoist” instead of a “socialist” and says Venezuela needs “a truly revolutionary movement” that “forces Chavez toward the actual left and eventually replaces him with a real socialist not a phony cardboard one.” He adds:

So what to do with a guy who thinks it A-OK to cozy up to the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (no friend of progressive people anywhere)?

My honest answer right now is "beats the hell out of me."

The only thing I want to make clear is that Chavezism is not the same thing as what I believe in.

That’s the problem with absolute power. The only one who believes in it is the one who has it.

Though his term will end in 2013, this defeat doesn’t curb Chávez’s ability to exert his will on the Venezuelan people and to destroy the country’s institutions and economy. Chávez can pass laws by fiat for one year by invoking an “enabling law” that Fund points out “[h]is hand-picked National Assembly … could easily keep renewing” year after year.

Who Is The Natural-Born Leader, Hillary or Rudy?

The Associated Press tried to flog last week’s hostage drama at NY Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Rochester, NH, presidential campaign headquarters into a full-blown crisis that showcased Hillary’s ability to stay cool and levelheaded: 

When the hostages had been released and their alleged captor arrested, a regal-looking Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled out of her Washington home, the picture of calm in the face of crisis.

The image, broadcast just as the network news began, conveyed the message a thousand town hall meetings and campaign commercials strive for - namely, that the Democratic presidential contender can face disorder in a most orderly manner. …

[T]he woman striving to move from former first lady to the first female president was eager to convey that she knew the traditional lines of command and control in a crisis, even if the events inside the storefront on North Main Street were far short of a world calamity.

Indeed, Hillary’s campaign storefront wasn’t lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001 and AP reporter Glen Johnson was unable to explain what, exactly, she did to “take charge” other than make a few phone calls to assure law enforcement that they had “free reign” (as if she had any say whatsoever in their tactical procedures):

Over the ensuing five hours, as a state trooper negotiated with the suspect and hostages were released one-by-one, Clinton continued to call up and down the law enforcement food chain, from local to county to state to federal officials. …

Along with taking charge while giving the professionals free rein, Clinton offered up a third dimension to her crisis character: humanity. She said she felt "grave concern" when she first heard the news of the hostage-taking.

"It affected me not only because they were my staff members and volunteers, but as a mother, it was just a horrible sense of bewilderment, confusion, outrage, frustration, anger, everything at the same time," Clinton said.

Unlike husband Bill Clinton, who famously felt “your pain,” this quote unintentionally reveals that it’s all about Hillary and her feelings. And this is why she does not have the natural leadership ability Rudy does. In a crisis, true leaders never focus on themselves – they’re too busy acting to think about what they’re feeling.

A linguistic analysis of 35 press conferences during Rudy’s eight years as New York City mayor found that after 9/11 he focused on New Yorkers and on the families who lost loved ones, rather than on himself.

Writing in the peer-reviewed publication Journal of Research in Personality, James Pennebaker and Thomas Lay of the University of Texas at Austin note, “In the days and weeks that followed, Giuliani acquired hero status. In the eyes of most New Yorkers and United States citizens, he displayed strength, leadership, and selflessness.” Based on their data the researchers conclude these traits are not situational, but are imbedded in Giuliani’s personality and were brought out by the terrorism crisis.