Friday, February 24, 2012

Tropic of Iran

Reports from U.S. intelligence agencies over the last few years have resulted in contradictory narratives about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. That’s because they present their finding in terms that leave them open to interpretation by the reader. They’re not necessarily being deceitful ..their claims are merely ‘uncertain’, which often gets assigned higher certainty in the process of reading  [ link ]. They’re taking advantage of language attorneys use to release them from responsibility for the way others may interpret their statements.
In 2003, an intelligence report said that: “Iran’s research program could lead to nuclear weapons development.” Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI) immediately responded by saying “now we know that Iran is aggressively pursuing a nuclear weapons program.”
In 2007, a national intelligence report estimated “with medium to high confidence that, at a minimum ..Tehran is keeping its options open.” CIA director Mike Hayden correctly pointed out that this statement was so fucking indeterminate that just as many people interpreted it to mean “Iran is on it’s way to becoming a nuclear power” as people who interpreted it to mean “Iran had stopped its nuclear program.”
The most recent consensus of the U.S. Intelligence community is that “Iran is pursuing research that could put it in a position to build nuclear weapons, but it has not sought to do so.” To which Israel responded by declaring it’s intention to “..launch a military strike in order to stop Iran before it’s too late.”
If Iran is waging a war of disinformation in order to immobilize its adversaries with competing narratives ..it couldn’t have picked a better ally.

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