Why Obama was Measured on IranInteresting. So, Obama wasn't playing a brilliant chess game? He was just ill-informed? Who knows? Accidental brilliance is still a good thing. Even tho his response was measured, in the extreme, the mullahs were still putting out propaganda that the protests were provoked by US interference. Can't win for losing.
President Obama's cautious response to election results in Iran may be partly explained by the fact that U.S. intelligence agencies were off the mark in assessments they gave the White House and lawmakers. Five officials familiar with intel reporting and analysis, who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive material, say most experts at the CIA and other intel agencies initially believed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won reelection solidly-and that if there was fraud, it was at the margins.
The agencies were caught off guard by the Iranian authorities' maladroit handling of election results (an overwhelming Ahmadinejad victory was announced only hours after the polls closed) and by what came next. "Lots of people were surprised by the outbreak of protests," says one of the officials. Even after the street erupted, some U.S. experts still maintained that Ahmadinejad won big and that the protests would run their course more quickly than they did. "We were slow on the uptake," Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, tells NEWSWEEK. "I think we're still behind the curve." Still, one U.S. intel official insists: "The speed with which the Iranians announced the results, and the margin they gave Ahmadinejad, were signs there would be trouble. They weren't missed."
Why Obama was Measured on Iran
| Author | Comment | ||
|---|---|---|---|
 GammaWaif |
Why Obama was Measured on Iran |
Lead | |
|
Legend
Posts: 10231 (06/27/09 02:50 PM) Czarina
|
|
||
|
mostomotus |
|||
|
Mega Star
Posts: 2603 (06/27/09 08:24 PM) Moderator
|
How Pete Hoekstra got on the intelligence committee is beyond me.
It's hard to say whether the misinformation influenced Obama's decision making.
"If we need wars, we have our own principles to misconstrue" - glenn mcdonald.
|
||
|
Victor Danilchenko |
|||
|
Mega Star
Posts: 2203 (06/28/09 06:01 AM) Epistamenos
|
If this claim is correct, then a very interesting issue manifests itself. Obama's response then was obviously guided by his methodological conservatism, in
which case it may be that his political methodological instincts saved him from shoving a foot in his mouth -- whereas Bush's political instincts led him
to exacerbate the faulty intelligence problem.
I don't know if this report is true, though. AFAIK, it was clear from day 1 that something was very fishy about the results. I really don't see how anyone can seriously claim that Obama's response was guided by the belief that Ahmadinejamabob won legitimately. Obama is not a moron.
Ceterum censeo: veritas et libertas ultra omnis sunto.
|
||
|
mostomotus |
|||
|
Mega Star
Posts: 2610 (06/28/09 08:12 PM) Moderator
|
Obama's foreign policy thus far reminds me of Bush's - George HW Bush's.
"If we need wars, we have our own principles to misconstrue" - glenn mcdonald.
|
||
|
Victor Danilchenko |
|||
|
Mega Star
Posts: 2204 (06/30/09 04:34 AM) Epistamenos
|
Indeed. The son had made me long for the father. What a difference...
Ceterum censeo: veritas et libertas ultra omnis sunto.
|
||
|
StealYourFace2 |
|||
|
Supporting Cast
Posts: 311 (06/30/09 05:19 PM) |
mostomotus wrote: I never thought of it, but I think you're right. They have very similar temperaments: thoughtful and deliberate. Bush II is very different. |
||
|
Manruss |
|||
|
Supporting Cast
Posts: 175 (07/01/09 03:26 PM) Bit Player |
The scary thing in all that is that our intel community might have actually believed that Ahmadinejad's landslide was on the up and up. Massive turnout and
new voters almost always favor the challenger, and most media outlets had projected Mousavi to either win outright or take the election to a runoff. The idea
that all this trending could be so off the mark as to allow Ahmadinejad, not just a victory, but 65% of the vote seems rather peculiar to me. The Iranian
government's furtiveness in handling the aftermath of the election just underscores the increasingly inescapable conclusion that there were some pretty
serious monkeyshines going on here. My guess is that Obama played it low-key on his response to Iran, not because he though the election was legit, but because
he knew that a strong response from the US would play into the hardliners' rhetoric that the opposition was just a tool of US interests.
An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.
-Albert Camus |
||
|
Victor Danilchenko |
|||
|
Mega Star
Posts: 2210 (07/01/09 06:17 PM) Epistamenos
|
Good point about intel quality... I thought it was pbvious to anyone that things were fishy.
Ceterum censeo: veritas et libertas ultra omnis sunto.
|
||
|
GammaWaif |
|||
|
Legend
Posts: 10268 (07/01/09 07:20 PM) Czarina
|
When it comes to the Middle East, our "intelligence" isn't worthy of the name. The WMD; the bullshit NIE report, now the belief that the election
was legit. Pretty scary, when you think of it. We don't know shit.
|
||
|
StealYourFace2 |
|||
|
Supporting Cast
Posts: 313 (07/02/09 11:10 AM) |
Victor Danilchenko wrote: They weren't even smart enough to rig and election and make it look like they actually won. If they had waited a few days and made the margin of victory a little closer, they might have gotten away with it. Plus, they had Ahmadinejad (sic) winning in areas where Mousavi was very popular. Someone compared it to McCain beating Obama in Chicago or San Fran. |
||
|
GammaWaif |
|||
|
Legend
Posts: 10311 (07/06/09 09:13 AM) Czarina
|
That's a good comparison, captures what happened rather well.
|
||
