A couple foreign policy articles. John Bolton gives a devastating critique of the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. Here is just one criticism:
Fifth, many involved in drafting and approving the NIE were not intelligence professionals but refugees from the State Department, brought into the new central bureaucracy of the director of national intelligence. These officials had relatively benign views of Iran's nuclear intentions five and six years ago; now they are writing those views as if they were received wisdom from on high. In fact, these are precisely the policy biases they had before, recycled as "intelligence judgments."
I'll say again that intelligence is useful for tactical moves, but to base one's grand strategy on the murky world of intelligence is asking for trouble. Read Bolton.
Our congressman to the north, Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota, has just returned from Iraq.
Rep. Earl Pomeroy says he saw significant security improvements in Iraq during his fifth trip to the country, but said much more is needed.
"I've never felt more hopeful about the success of the effort than coming back from this trip," Pomeroy, D-N.D., told reporters on Wednesday. "At the same time, we need to transition this now, so the United States no longer carries the principal combat and security functions."
One must ask whether a "transition...now" endangers that success Pomeroy witnessed. Makes me glad I am not president. And I think you are all with me on that.
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