Conflict with Iran
The drum is pounding. The same Neocons who sold us the Iraq War are ginning up another one with Iran. The best ‘device’ falling to hand is the current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They use statements he has made to cast him as the ‘new Hitler’. They anneal him to the Iraqi state and its intentions. Likewise they anneal Iran’s stated intention to develop nuclear power with a drive for nuclear weapons. No air at all is allowed between the announced effort and the perspective one, despite an Iranian fatwa against nuclear weapons issued by the current Iranian ‘Supreme Leader’, the Grand Ayotollah Ali Khamenei:
http://the-reaction.blogspot.com/2005/08/iranian-leader-issues-fatwa-against.html
Note, however, a more recent fatwa arising from a faction within the ruling theorcracy allows them:
http://the-reaction.blogspot.com/2005/08/iranian-leader-issues-fatwa-against.html
Then there is the Lieberman-Kyl resolution which swallows whole the proposition put forward in the Petraeus/Crocker testimony - not to mention the Neocon universe - that Iran is organizing and otherwise supporting military efforts in Iraq that target and kill our forces. In counterpoint to this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gareth-porter/liebermankyl-vs-the-evi_b_66020.html
Finally there is this from Seymour Hersh in the October 8, 2007 New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh?printable=true
It is clearly time, possibly long past time, for an NIE on Iran. Decisions on a path forward must rest on good intelligence, accurately characterized as to quality and thoroughness. And what you DON’T know can be as critical as what you know. We need to know what evidence there is, where - and to what degree - it is deficient, or even nonexistent. From my scientific background I am keenly aware of how important it is to know precisely what evidence you do NOT have.
There is little that could help us more in this moment than to know how power is held and exercised within Iran, how critical decisions are reached and implemented, and yet there is little that appears murkier.
For example, nearly all agree that the position of President would appear to be something of a means by which the powers that actually rule in Iran allow the public to blow off steam through an election. The two previous Presidencies were largely understood to reflect a wide discontent by middle class Iranians with the narrow and ill-liberal course of the regime, and neither President was able to satisfy the public at large as agents of liberalization. Ahmadinehjad’s election was understood to have been impelled by the dissatisfaction of poorer Iranians, both rural an urban, with their economic lot. Again, it appears, the ‘President’ has not been able (allowed?) to deliver on his promises. It would appear from this that the relationship of ‘the President’ to the shaping of events is, at best, vague.
The power is elsewhere. But where? It is generally acknowledged that the current ‘Supreme Leader’ is not so ‘Supreme’ as the Ayatollah Khomeini, who led the Iranian Islamic revolution to victory the late 1970’s, and charted its course for many years thereafter. After Khomenei’s death, the position of ‘Supreme Leader’ devolved on the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, but it is believed he exercises authority on behalf of a larger aggregation of Grand AyatollahsAyatollahs/Mullahs etc. Beyond that, there appears to be little more than speculation.
I have seen almost nothing in the MSM on what would seem to be a supremely important question: What is the nature of the relationship between the ‘Supreme Leader’ and the Mullahs, and what are the currents and internal interactions defining what is, effectively, Iran’s controlling governance? We know something of the general situation and the issues they confront, but how do THEY see them? What are the principle contending views? How are the questions of governance resolved within the aggregation of Mullahs? Although answers to these questions deal with the most critical of the ‘unknowns’ we face on Iran, all of the other information available must be carefully assessed. Until an NIE on Iran is realized, we are in a poor position indeed for making decisions on Iran, let alone decisions that involve the irrevocable step of war.
Here are three further articles to consider:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/16/wiran116.xml
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/19/iran/
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174838
The first, more or less, says Bush & Co. WILL attack Iran; the second takes the position they WILL NOT, while the last, by Peter Galbraith, offers a longer, more detailed consideration of the case.
8:15:56 PM 
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