Freedom Line Blog

In an interview this morning on Fox News Sunday, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D – California) gave Americans cause for concern by demonstrating a less-than-razor-sharp familiarity with a rudimentary element of national and global security. Senator Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, stumbled immediately out of the blocks when she appeared unfamiliar with the term “centrifuge,” a mechanism that plays an essential role in uranium enrichment and Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weaponry.

Chris Wallace:   Let’s start with Iran, and the disclosure that it has been building a secret nuclear enrichment facility.  Let me start with you, Senator Feinstein.  How strong is the evidence that this is to provide fuel for a bomb, and how sure are we that there aren’t other secret facilities in Iran?

Senator Feinstein:   Well, the evidence is strong that there was, that there is, such a facility, that it’s capable of about 3,000 various…  umm…  oh, what’s the word…

Chris Wallace:   Centrifuges.

Uh-oh…

I have been skeptical of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense ever since he replaced the flawed, but honorable, Donald Rumsfeld in the final years of the Bush Administration.

Gates is one of those “non-ideological”, “pragmatic” types that the press always crows about (at least when they’re Republicans). There were many similar figures in the Bush Administration — Henry Paulson, Colin Powell, and (to a lesser extent) Condoleeza Rice, as well. What they all have in common is that their “sensibility” and “prudence” emanates from the fact that they have very few principles that they’re willing to go to the mat for. They tend towards principled timidity. For example. take a look at Gates’ comments from a CNN interview to be broadcast this weekend:

“…The only way you end up not having a nuclear-capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened. And so I think, as I say, while you don’t take options off the table, I think there’s still room left for diplomacy.”

Did the Secretary of Defense really just tell us that the ONLY way to prevent Iran going nuclear is to convince them that they’re stronger without a nuke that will deter almost everyone in the world from challenging them? I’m building my bomb shelter.

“AP:  Ahmadinejad urges Obama to see Iran as friend”

Learned commentary thereon:  Hey, you anti-semitic psychopath, the problem for your people and for ours is that he already does.

In related news, thanks to Canwest News Service, “Canada will boycott Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, saying his outbursts about the Holocaust and Israel are ‘shameful.'”

Learned commentary thereon:  Canada, and only Canada?

Remember when you were told that Iran was two, five, ten years away from being able to make nukes?

Well, here’s the lead from an Associated Press story filed only an hour or so ago: 

Experts at the world’s top atomic watchdog are in agreement that Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead, according to a secret report seen by The Associated Press.”

Remember when President Obama canceled our Eastern European-based Missile Defense Shield Program?  That would have been earlier this morning.