As Cliff May over at the National Review Corner says, "Always read Fouad Ajami." Good advice. Today Fouad Ajami writes about Iran, Iraq, the NIE report, and the future, as only an expert intimately acqainted with that part of the world can write. Read it and compare the depth of his insights into Persian and Iraqi society, Shiite and Sunni conflicts, and all the rest, with the superficial drivel one hears from Congressional talking heads and the MSM. I must content myself with only one quote:
I dare guess that were Ayman al-Zawahiri to make his way through this [NIE] report, he would marvel at the naïveté of those who set out to read him and his fellow warriors of the faith. Ayoob al-Masri (Zarqawi's successor in Iraq) would not find himself and his phobias and his will to power in this "infidel document." These warriors have a utopia--an Islamic world ruled by their own merciless brand of the faith. With or without Iraq, the work of "cleansing" Islam's world would continue to rage on.
UPDATE: 10/1/06
Michael Ledeen refers to a piece by Herb Meyer as a must-read. Meyer was the Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council during the Reagan Administration. Meyer, who spent several years of his life managing the production of the NIE reports for President Reagan, wrote an article for The American Thinker. He offers lots of insight into the production and significance of the document which I don't have space to reproduce here. He does say, however,
One problem inherent to NIE’s is that they sometimes reflect nothing more than the institutional biases of each of the 16 participating agencies. A second inherent problem is that sometimes these agencies are so determined to not be proven wrong about what the future holds that they try to have it both ways, for instance by obscuring their projections beneath an avalanche of “on the one hand, on the other hand” sentences.
Meyer says that during his term of service he weeded out Key Judgments that were accurate but worthless-- such as the old standby: We judge that the future of US-Soviet relations will be volatile and subject to change." Things have changed now. Meyer looks at the current NIE report and says,
Some sentences in the Key Judgments contradict themselves, and some are trite (“We judge that groups of all stripes will continue to use the Internet…..”). Others are classic examples of the “on the one hand, on the other hand” syndrome. And still others are simply unintelligible – they are neither right nor wrong, but written in a way to make them subject to whatever interpretation the reader wishes to make.
No issue is more important to our country’s security than the future of terrorism, and nothing could be more helpful to the President than a clear and accurate projection of what that future is likely to be. That is what this NIE should have provided, but doesn’t.
Meyer is dismayed at the failure to produce a useful document.
Now you see the “secret” that the Key Judgments of this NIE inadvertently reveal – and it isn’t about Iraq or about the future of terrorism. It’s about our own intelligence service, and what this NIE has revealed is that our radar is busted. That’s frightening, and what’s even more frightening is the realization that if we know it, so too do our enemies.