So Did Trump Get It Right?

Michael Scherer outlines the basic issue in Trump's Iran attack in this piece at The Atlantic:

Precisely what convinced Trump that Iran was close to making a weapon remains mysterious. For years, including when Trump was last in office, the U.S. intelligence community has publicly stated that Iran is not trying to build a nuclear weapon. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reiterated that bottom-line conclusion during congressional testimony in March.

But Trump dismissed her statement and the information behind it. “She’s wrong,” Trump told reporters on Friday, days after he had already made the decision to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran had gathered “a tremendous amount of material,” he continued, apparently referring to the enriched uranium necessary to create a bomb. Earlier in the week, Trump had said that he thought Iran was “very close to having” weapons.

The U.S. intelligence community had also said that Iran was enriching uranium that could potentially be used in a weapon, and was stockpiling highly enriched uranium far in excess of what would be needed for a civilian energy program.

But crucially, U.S. intelligence agencies had long ago determined that Iran’s supreme leader had suspended the weapons program in 2003. Enriching nuclear material is just one component of a weapon. A nuclear warhead has to be fitted onto a ballistic missile capable of surviving reentry into Earth’s atmosphere and landing on its target—not a trivial feat of engineering.

One of the chief reasons to doubt that Iran was enriching uranium in order to build nuclear weapons was the disastrous failure of the US intelligence apparatus in the runup to the Iraq war in 2003:

The case for invading Iraq in March 2003 was built on three basic premises: that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD); that it was developing more of them; and that it was failing to comply with its disarmament obligations under a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions. All of these premises were based on scraps of unreliable information. None of them was true.

In looking at current developments, I can't help wondering what a Trump-style president might have done in the wake of these revelations. Instead, Dubya appointed a commission. It's hard to pinpoint just what reforms were undertaken, especially considering that Dubya's dad had been CIA director himself and was a senior member of the intelligence-political establishment.

In any case, it was a consensus group of that intelligence-political establishment that released a letter on October 19, 2020 claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation". This claim turned out to be as trustworthy as the same establishment's claim that Saddam Hussein was building WMDs, and the letter was signed by individuals who had been members of that same group, still with that unwarranted prestige.

At the start of his current term, Trump announced:

In the closing weeks of the 2020 Presidential campaign, at least 51 former intelligence officials coordinated with the Biden campaign to issue a letter discrediting the reporting that President Joseph R. Biden’s son had abandoned his laptop at a computer repair business. Signatories of the letter falsely suggested that the news story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

. . . The signatories willfully weaponized the gravitas of the Intelligence Community to manipulate the political process and undermine our democratic institutions. This fabrication of the imprimatur of the Intelligence Community to suppress information essential to the American people during a Presidential election is an egregious breach of trust reminiscent of a third world country. And now the faith of Americans in all other patriotic intelligence professionals who are sworn to protect the Nation has been imperiled.

. . . Effective immediately, the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, shall revoke any current or active clearances held by the following individuals: [the order lists the 49 living signatories of the 2023 letter, plus John Bolton].

There's no indication that Dubya took any equivalent action in 2003, but it seems likely had he done so, the country would have been better off. Following Trump's January 20 order, he continued a "purge" of all the intelligence agencies:

Last week, President Donald Trump fired the head of the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). Though Trump campaigned on downsizing the federal government, the removal of four-star Gen. Timothy Haugh was one few could have seen coming.

. . . The purge went deeper than just the NSA and USCYBERCOM. Trump also fired at least six members of the National Security Council, which advises the president on national security and foreign policy. On Monday afternoon, the official NSC page on WhiteHouse.gov had a “404 Page Not Found” error message.

. . . These firings spotlighted Laura Loomer’s influence in the White House, and the president has acknowledged that she has almost unprecedented access to him. Not even tech billionaire Elon Musk, named to head the “Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE, has Trump’s ear like Loomer.

. . . It appears that Trump took her suggestion of the officials’ disloyalty to heart without seeking additional insight on the matter.

According to Sundance at Conservative Treehouse, the surviving members of the intelligence-political establishment (the IC) are trying to fight back:

For the sake of urgency I’m going to talk in direct and bold terms about the targeting of Tulsi Gabbard. The IC system is attempting to remove her as a disruptive influence by using Iran as a wedge to get her out, but the issue they have with Director Gabbard has nothing to do with Iran.

CTH approaches this after being very concerned about Tulsi Gabbard’s ability. Not because of intent, but rather we doubted her understanding of the scope of the IC opposition aligned against an effective Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Gabbard started out with these weaknesses, but she learned quickly – grasped the opposition– and has become a transformative force within the Intelligence Community. Director Gabbard’s recent efforts within the Intelligence Community Inspector General office is another feather in her cap of competence. Gabbard is now a threat.

. . . If President Trump allows the Brutus crew in his orbit to isolate, ridicule and marginalize Tulsi Gabbard, he will be putting a significant part of his administration at risk. This is the Six Ways from Sunday crowd.

The proof of the pudding is going to be who turns out to have been right in the question of how accurate the intelligence estimates on Iran were. Trump and his inner circle have purged the organs of state security and replaced them with what they feel are trustworthy people, and Trump is making a big gamble that this was the right move. My guess continues to be that Trump is good, but more important, he's lucky. It's better to be lucky than good.