Newsweek: Iran: The Intelligence Reports vs. the Hard-Liners

[Pirate Smile]

Iran: The Intelligence Reports vs. the Hard-Liners

Newsweek

May 1, 2006 issue - Some neocon activists have urged a sharp increase in U.S. efforts to undermine Tehran and thwart its nuclear ambitions. American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen told NEWSWEEK: "The people hate (the regime). It's a revolution waiting to happen." But U.S. intel agencies strongly disagree, according to six sources familiar with official analyses of Iran who asked not to be identified when discussing sensitive material. For a start, the sources told NEWSWEEK, while there is ferment among Iran's ethnic minorities, there is little evidence of unrest among Iran's ethnic Persian majority. "Hard-liners have regained control ... and the government has become more effective at repressing the nascent shoots of personal freedom that had emerged earlier in the decade," according to testimony that intel czar John Negroponte gave Congress earlier this year. A Pentagon source, one of the six, said flatly that an attempted revolution in Iran "wouldn't succeed."

Intel agencies also believe that Tehran's nuclear program is widely popular among the Iranian public, including people otherwise unsympathetic to the mullahs' policies. Iranians of all political stripes believe nukes would bring their country "prestige," said the Pentagon source. U.S. or Israeli attempts to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities would only rally popular support for the regime and the nuke program, two of the intel sources said. Finally, several of the sources agreed that intel's assessment is that if the United States were to bomb Iran or try to oust the mullahs, the regime could turn to anti-American terrorism, using proxies like the Lebanese group Hizbullah or a corps of "martyrs" that Tehran claims to be recruiting. The sources said that intel officials have communicated all these points directly to senior officials, though it is up to policymakers how much heed they pay.

—Mark Hosenball

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12440787/site/newsweek/

[C_U_L8R]

1. Republicans and Intelligence

are mutually exclusive

[riderinthestorm]

2. Why am I NOT surprised Ledeen is chief cheerleader?

At least Newsweek is putting out some intel info to counter the PNAC spin.

I just hope the average 'Murkan is paying better attention this time around the warmongering water cooler.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. "Intel . . communicated to senior officials?" Oh oh. After making

paper airplanes and flying them across the room, the ones that can break through the window will be read and followed.

These guys know best, and what they know is that their plans are invincible. Their plans are right and everyone else is too dumb to understand them. They control Bush as needed and he thrives on being told that he is right, no matter what the world might think.

The inmates are running the asylum and ruining the nation.

[enough]

4. k&r

[Neil Lisst]

5. this article includes the biggest LIE Team Bush likes to tell

It exposes it as a LIE.

The LIE that Iranians don't want nuclear power. They are supportive of it, across the board.