CIA's Assurances On Nuclear Verification In Iran Ring Hollow

The world is getting perilously close to reaching a nuclear deal with Iran. The world is in peril because the deal is dangerous and irresponsible. Iran is a nation that has historically supported the use of terrorism, targeted civilians, and pursued the Islamic bomb. Iran has consistently defied the United Nations and the international community on these very issues, resulting in decades of sanctions. Iranian leaders assisted insurgencies in Iraq and directly targeted American troops. Every Iranian leader since 1979 has advocated the total removal of Israel from the middle east, by force if necessary.

In the next two weeks, the United States will provide Iran with a roadmap to becoming a nuclear power. The terms of the deal are basically public at this point. Iran will halt uranium enrichment beyond a certain level, limit its total number of nuclear centrifuges, and agree to otherwise use its nuclear program for peaceful purposes. But only for ten years. At the end of that hiatus, Iran will be legally allowed to develop nuclear weapons, or at the very least, the development of those weapons will no longer be a violation of the multinational treaty. 

The stated goal of this treaty is to prevent a so called "nuclear break-out" from occurring without our knowledge.  It is assumed that at this very moment the Iranians could have at least one nuclear weapon in three months. It is hoped, although not at all certain, that by limiting enrichment and the number of centrifuges, it would take Iran at least a year to achieve a nuclear weapon. With intrusive inspections, elaborate verification and good intelligence, the Obama Administration hopes to be able to predict an Iranian break-out in time to do something about it. What, exactly, he would do about it remains a mystery. It is likely, however, that he or his successor would be relegated to lobbying the United Nations for a reinstatement of sanctions. That could take months or even years to achieve.

The efficacy of this deal, as limited as it may be, hinges almost entirely on verification. If the Iranians secretly violate the treaty and continue to enrich uranium in hidden centrifuges, they could become a nuclear power in violation of the treaty. It would then be too late and too risky to use military force to destroy their nuclear program. This openly hostile, terrorist regime would then possess the means by which to destroy Israel - something it has vowed to do since 1979. So, if the United States and its allies cannot effectively verify compliance, the pursuit of this treaty will have been an enormous mistake.

As the deal gets closer, the CIA has been actively working to quiet critics by assuring the public that, if the Iranians violate the terms of the treaty, they will know about it. However, effective verification is a difficult prospect and our intelligence services have a pitiful record when it comes to predicting outcomes. To be fair, the CIA is filled with hard working, dedicated patriots who spend their waking moments working to keep our nation safe. The agency's greatest achievements are likely never known because the CIA operates in secret. It is likely that for every intelligence failure, there are many successes. That said, history has proven that the CIA consistently fails to accurately predict these types of outcomes.

For example, the CIA failed to predict the fall of Saigon, the Iranian revolution in 1979, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the invasion of Kuwait, the use of chemical weapons on the Kurds and, more recently, the so called Arab Spring. 

When it comes to nuclear proliferation, they have an equally poor record. In 1991, the two Koreas agreed to a "nuclear free" Korean peninsula. As part of that treaty, the United States withdrew the eight nuclear weapons it had stationed in South Korea. Unfortunately, verification failed and the intelligence estimates were that by 1994, North Korea would have two nuclear weapons. That summer, former president, Jimmy Carter, at President Clinton's request, famously traveled to North Korea to negotiate a "nuclear freeze." His negotiations were deemed a success and a tremendous victory for the Clinton Administration. However, that success was based on an unenforceable "agreed statement," similar to the one being negotiated in Iran and, of course, "verification." Nevertheless, by the end of 1995, the IAEA, who was charged with the verification process, reported that North Korea's nuclear program had "halted."

In 2002, however, the Bush Administration revealed that North Korea had maintained a clandestine nuclear program in violation of the Carter agreement. A year later, the consensus in the intelligence community was that North Korea had nuclear weapons and a few months after that, North Korea announced that it had the weapons. Verification had failed, and the North Koreans now possess a nuclear deterrent that even our allies in South Korea do not have.

There is a kind of hubris in the intelligence community about effectiveness. Once a nation like North Korea becomes a nuclear power, the focus then changes to preventing proliferation. It is assumed that the United States can effectively "contain" a nuclear power and prevent a nuclear attack. But our intelligence agencies have not been effective in either containing a nuclear power or stopping all terrorist attacks. And, in a world with nuclear-armed terrorists, that will be the measure. A single nuclear attack would be catastrophic. While it is very likely that the CIA has thwarted many attacks against our nation, they failed to stop the World Trade Center bombing, the attacks on our embassies in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole and, of course, 9/11. The 9/11 Commission said the attacks were possible because of a "failure of imagination" on the part of our leadership and our intelligence agencies. The failure was epic to be sure, but it was not a failure of imagination. The idea of hijacking an airplane was nothing new. The idea of killing passengers was nothing new. The idea of jihad against western targets was nothing new. The idea of a group of jihadis hijacking an airplane and killing people by crashing it into something was nothing new. 

Quite frankly, if our intelligence agencies can miss something as unimaginative as 9/11, we should be very careful about trusting them to thwart a more imaginative nuclear attack from a hostile Iran. Not only should we doubt the CIA's ability to tell us whether Iran is about to break out to a bomb, we should doubt that they can predict where, exactly, those weapons will end up.

This is why there can be no deal with Iran on nuclear weapons until they have conclusively demonstrated to the world that they have abandoned their hatred of the west and Israel. Until their clerics stop holding weekly "Death to America" rallies, we cannot be so reckless as to believe that their leadership will not use a nuclear weapon on us, and only a fool signs his own death warrant.

In Ferguson, A Sniper's Bullet Punctuates Eric Holder's Tenure As Attorney General

It was predictable. In fact, many people warned that this would happen. When the anarchists and race hustlers descended on Ferguson, violence became inevitable, and retaliation against the police became a certainty. Two police officers were injured after being shot by a sniper during yet another protest. Whether these protests have been mostly peaceful or mostly violent is a matter of some debate. What is not up for debate is that directly following the Justice Department's scathing report condemning the practices of the Ferguson police department, a sniper targeted the police.

The Justice Department's report, while disturbing, was unnecessarily political, just as the entire sad story of Ferguson was made political with the publication of a false, racially charged narrative. In the wake of the Michael Brown shooting there was a rush to justice. As with most prejudged situations, the facts did not support the narrative. Unfortunately, the players were already married to the narrative when the facts finally came out, which only fed the flames of anger in the community. And, as is often the case, anger turned into violence. It then became only a matter of time before the alleged perpetrators of "racism" and "child murder" would be directly targeted by someone or some group that felt morally justified in doing so.

Soon there will be no police in Ferguson. The business that were burned in the hours and days after Darren Wilson was exonerated will never return. The hollowed out buildings will never be rebuilt, and whatever good jobs there were in that community are gone forever. Racial politics, poor judgment, and an underlying distrust of authority will have destroyed the town.

In their defense, it is unlikely that the Justice Department, Eric Holder or the vast majority of the protestors intended for any of this to happen. They simply misjudged the issue and demonstrated a lack of sophistication in their decision making. Launching an investigation into "racism in the Ferguson police department" in response to a false narrative was unproductive and showed real naivete. A more sophisticated leader would have waited until things had returned to normal before pursuing an investigation into the department itself, thus decoupling the federal investigation from the false narrative. A measured federal response would have focused on the police only after the local investigation had been completed. Under no circumstances would a responsible federal investigator piggyback his or her investigation on a racially charged narrative that had been completely debunked.

I spend a great deal of my professional life dealing with federal investigators and federal investigations. I am routinely surprised and impressed with the level of professionalism and relative sophistication of the investigators, particularly in the area of civil rights. Institutional racism, as I've said before, is real, it is insidious, and we should make every effort as a nation to ferret it out. But to be effective, civil rights issues must always be addressed in a measured way, largely free of the emotional reactions these issues naturally provoke. Emotionally charged issues require the application of calm reason if they are to be resolved non-violently. Snap judgments, gut feelings, and emotional decisions made in the heat of the moment are the enemies of progress on any divisive issue. Progress is often slow, and advocates are frequently frustrated by the deliberate pace of justice. But justice ostensibly achieved by a sniper's bullet does equal violence to the cause.

There is little doubt that the Justice Department's report will continue to fuel anger towards the police for weeks to come. There is little doubt that the police will continue to be targeted by individuals and groups that believe they are serving some twisted form of justice on their oppressors.  A dark cloud will hover over Ferguson and the police officers that have served that community long after Eric Holder leaves office. When that cloud finally lifts, the story of Ferguson will not be one of hope. Instead it will serve as a stern warning to us all that the politicization of tragedy tends to end in more tragedy. 

The Case Against Daylight Savings Time

There is no feeling like the feeling I get the day after Daylight Savings Time goes into effect. Like many Americans, I wake up Sunday morning, confused by why I slept so long. I head downstairs to make coffee and realize the clocks don't match the time on my iPhone. Then it hits me, that sinking, depressing, angry feeling - time to "spring forward." Like losing a good friend, the comfortable, warm sleep pattern that makes winter tolerable is now over. The next few months, as I "adjust" to the new time change, will be uncomfortable. As the days get longer, my bedtime gets later. Like most people, I can't sleep when it's daylight out. In fact for me, daylight is the ultimate stimulant. If the sun's up, I'm up. And as I get to bed later and later, I get to get up an hour earlier, leaving me in a foggy daze, as if "DST" were some kind of illegal drug. And for what?

Daylight savings time was first proposed by Benjamin Franklin in 1794. He got the idea from his time in Europe. In connection with his proposal, Franklin argued that setting the clocks ahead by one hour, thus making the days ridiculously long in the Summer, would cut down on the use of candles. Mr. Franklin made the first conservation argument in favor of DST, but it would not be the last. Beginning in World War I, the U.S. Government, in response to the German military's move, made the first implementation of DST. The intention was to help with wartime production by forcing "an extra hour" of work by "lengthening the day." DST was once again implemented during World War II and referred to as "War Time."

Weather these wartime efforts actually worked has been a point of significant debate. Nevertheless, in 1966, the U.S. Congress made DST the norm across the country. Since then, it has been shortened and lengthened from time to time at the whim of politicians in an effort solve some problem, either real or imagined. Daylight Savings time now runs for 8 months, while "standard" time only runs for 4 months. Go figure.

There is a reason why the four months off of DST is called "standard." Standard is normal. Standard is what one finds when looking for the ordinary. "Standard" is based on the notion that people generally get up about 30 minutes to an hour after sunrise and go to sleep about two hours after sunset, allowing for a full 8 hours of sleep. "Standard" has been repeatedly demonstrated to be normal human behavior in multiple academic studies, but we don't need elaborate studies to prove it. We have tens of thousands of years of history and decades of our own personal experience all of which tells us that we do best when we follow our natural circadian rhythms. Disrupting those rhythms is suicide, maybe not in the short term, but in the long term our health suffers.

Sleep affects everything we do. Humans require between 7 and 9 hours of sleep a day to stay healthy and operate at peak levels. Sleeping less than that has been clinically proven to cause increased depression and increased anxiety, leading to the release of stress hormones like cortisol and insulin, which tend to make us overweight. Poor sleep has a significant impact on our immune systems, compromising our ability to fight illness by as much as a third. Poor sleep increases the risk of almost every major illness from heart disease and diabetes to Alzheimer's disease. Spending 8 months of the year in a sleep deprived state makes our entire nation less healthy, and less healthy people are less productive.

A wise Native American once mused: "Only the white man would cut off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom and claim that he now has a longer blanket." It seems to me he had a point. Daylight Savings Time has been sold to us like so much snake oil. Supporters of DST argue that the extra hour of daylight at the end of the day helps conserve energy. Like Franklin's argument, they say that we use less electricity. That argument has been largely disproven by long term studies, most notably in the states of California and Indiana. In both states, the government found that energy use actually increased during daylight savings time, ostensibly because people are awake longer and use more air conditioning. I have another theory. It is nearly indisputable that the human body requires about two hours of darkness or low light before the neurotransmitters regulating sleep will be released. That's why doctors have been telling us for years to turn off the iPads and the TV an hour or two before bed, especially for children. The light keeps us awake. My guess is that people still use the same amount of electricity during DST because they are still awake, because it is still light outside and, in fact, they won't start getting tired until two hours after sunset. Nothing is saved, and sleep is lost. The snake oil did not work as advertised...

So, as you sip your fifth cup of coffee today, think about whether the 200 year experiment with DST has really benefited us as Americans and whether it fits into the modern world. We are already terribly sleep deprived. We are still the most productive nation in the world, and we don't need any additional catalyst to stay that way.

Finally, I'll leave you with this question: Didn't the inventors of DST mix up the seasons? Why make the already long days of summer longer? If there were any time of year when you would want to lengthen the day, wouldn't it be winter, when it gets dark at 5? Daylight Savings Time was a solution to a problem that never existed. There is no longer any reason to keep using this snake oil, and it should be abolished.

Why Clinton's Emails Matter

Hillary Clinton has been caught (red handed) using a personal server and personal email address to conduct sensitive government business. Her actions constitute a violation of at least two federal laws, one of which is criminal. Undoubtedly, the Chinese and Russians have been able to hack that account and steal vital national secrets. What she did was foolish, and disqualifies her from being President.

That said, I am not one of those citizens who actually believes he has a right to know everything the government does, when it does it or why. I don't think I'm entitled to know every personal matter ever experienced by the politicians that serve me or seek to serve me. In fact, I think the Federal Records Act, the Watergate Tapes, and the multitude of federal lawsuits against individual politicians were all - very - bad - ideas. 

We are not entitled to know everything about everybody, even if they are a politician. We are not entitled to know about every conversation the Secretary of State has with the President of the United States. We just aren't. What the Secretary of State says to her staff during a crisis is important for history, but I do not have a right to know the details as they develop. What I am most concerned about is whether they get it right, not what communications they had in the process of getting it right or wrong. To insist that we be privy to every communication or every part of the process is to invite disaster. Decision makers and those who advise them must be free to articulate the good, the bad and the ugly. There must be an open discussion that is free from reprisal or the decision will be, at the very least, incomplete. It is not possible to make a good decision without good advisors, and it is not possible to get good advice from advisors who believe that speaking their mind will result in either personal humiliation, jail, extraordinary legal bills, general anxiety or personal destruction. The Clintons are particularly paranoid about that, which is undoubtedly one of the reasons Hillary set up her own personal server to hide her communications.

Let's be clear about what this is though. She violated federal law, she set up her server and email to, in fact, intentionally hide communications, and she felt she was entitled to do so. In the process, she also compromised national security. But, kind of like our bizarre debate about torture, our national policies have created this bizarre spectacle of a sitting Secretary of State, so afraid of her own frank communications, that she had to break the law in order hide them. Now, some would say: "Have the courage of your convictions. If you believe it in private, be willing to say it in public." To those people I say, pick your most uncomfortable decision and disclose, right now on Facebook, all of the various thoughts you had before coming to your ultimate conclusion. Let the public vet your inner most thoughts and fears. We are all more than willing to tell you where you went wrong. Better yet, disclose on Facebook your tax returns. Publish them for us all to see. Let's all take a look at your deductions and your expense receipts. Let's see how much you make. Let's see where you ate dinner on March 3rd and with whom. 

The fact is that since Watergate, we have become too obsessed with our public servants and have created a truly dehumanizing experience for anyone wishing to serve. Your finances, your sex life, the things you said in college when your were 19, are all fair game and open to public ridicule. Nevertheless, once in office, even the most plastic politicians still cannot allow the rest of us to see every single communication they have in their official capacity. To do so would be irresponsible, and in a culture of irresponsible partisan politics, I cannot find it in my heart to blame a politician who does not trust that we the people will be fair in our criticism. After all, it's good television.

Like with everything else, the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction since Watergate. I really don't care how the job gets done, but I care deeply about the result. If Hillary needs to send 104 emails espousing bad ideas before sending one that precipitates a good result, I just don't care. Leadership is not easy, and there is no shortage of arm chair quarterbacks ready to use any ammunition they think they've found to embarrass an adversary for not getting the desired result. This is because true leadership has a second, and very ugly side to it. Sometimes leaders fail. One of my favorite pieces of advice came from one of my favorite law professors, Keith Beyler, who I'm sure heard it from someone else: "If you haven't lost a case, you haven't tried that many." In other words, to lose big, you have to be playing a big game. 

American politicians are playing a big game. We are still the most powerful country in the world. World leaders still form their national policies around what our leaders think. Powerful nations still shape their national policies based on what they believe our leaders may or may not be willing to support. And the consequences for failure are enormous. Hillary Clinton obviously believes that she is above the law, especially if it is a bad law. For that reason, she should not be President. But we need to take a really close look at ourselves as a nation and decide whether we should require transparency in every aspect of public life, or whether maybe, just maybe, we should allow our leaders to lead. 

Good decisions are never made in a vacuum. Neither are bad decisions. But the constant struggle between debate and disclosure has damaged our republic. Hillary Clinton should not be keeping secret email accounts, because she shouldn't have to. If you don't like the way she handled her duties, then don't vote for her. As a republic, we cannot absolve ourselves of the responsibly for having chosen poor leaders by acquiescing to poor policies and later crying about being misled. We are all smarter than that, and we should start voting like the responsible citizens we are.

Netanyahu's Churchill Moment

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, took time away from a tough reelection campaign in his home country to address a joint session of Congress on the topic of Iran. The lead up to the speech has been controversial, even if the content of the speech was not. In it, Netanyahu laid out a precise case against the current nuclear arms treaty with Iran, which President Obama hopes will be his signature foreign policy achievement.

Prime Minister Netanyahu received the invitation from the Speaker of the House, not from the President. After years of watching President Obama encroach on the Constitutional powers given to Congress, Speaker Boehner saw an opportunity to embarrass the President on foreign policy.  There is little doubt that the Speaker's motivation was, in part, to embarrass Obama. There is also little doubt that President Obama is embarrassed. He should be. Prime Minister Netanyahu persuasively presented his case against Iran in a way that President Obama has not. He demonstrated a command of the issues, a superior understanding of the players and their motivations, and provided crucial historical context. While it was not quite Churchill, it was a good speech.

It was, however, a Churchill moment. Shortly after World War II ended, Winston Churchill lost his bid for reelection. Embarrassed but undeterred, he was invited to give a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. President Truman was in attendance. In that speech, Churchill famously laid out the case against the emerging Soviet threat, announcing that an "Iron Curtain" had fallen across Europe. His speech foreshadowed decades of cold war and pinned upon the Soviets the shameful label of world menace for generations to come.

Churchill was an effective leader because he was prescient and because of his unique ability to explain threats in clear terms. He was never afraid to see things for what they are. Throughout his political career, his clear vision and sharp analysis were ignored by political rivals, most of whom were later embarrassed when his dire predictions came to fruition. Churchill often took principled but unpopular positions because, in his view, the alternative was unacceptable. Had his peers listened at the time, the world would have been a very different place. These Churchillian moments became historically important only because his advice was ignored and the consequences suffered. In a nuclear world, however, we cannot make that mistake again.

Iran wants nuclear weapons and it is on the verge, according to all parties involved, of developing those weapons. Prime Minster Netanyahu correctly pointed out the obvious: Militant Islamic regimes that believe they have a religious obligation to use weapons of mass destruction on non-believers should not possess any nuclear capability - ever. The current nuclear deal would only delay the inevitable. It has an automatic expiration date just ten years from its inception. Under the terms of the deal, Iran would then be free to legally develop nuclear weapons, and they would possess the means with which to do that in less than one year. Eleven years is not a long time. Where were you eleven years ago? For most people, that seems like just yesterday. The more appropriate question, however, is this: How old will your children be in eleven years? Now imagine a world in which the Ayatollah can attend a nuclear weapons test right after his weekly "Death to America" rally in Tehran.  I think most Americans would agree that this should be avoided at almost any cost.

The Prime Minister had to point out the obvious because many in this country would rather just ignore it. Iran is run by a dark and insidious regime that oppresses its people and menaces the peaceful nations of the world. It is the largest sponsor of terrorism in the world. Intelligence reports that only recently have been released show that Iran was working with Al Qaeda and even Osama Bin Laden himself to attack the West. Iran is our enemy and they cannot be allowed to develop the technology necessary to build a bomb. It is impossible to overstate the threat. 

Liberal Democrats boycotted the speech because they did not like the circumstances surrounding the invitation. To the extent the President was embarrassed by the speech or the invitation, he has brought that embarrassment on himself. He has had six years to pursue his engagement strategy. During that time, he has chosen to denigrate Israel and Netanyahu while the efficacy of his own strategy has been unclear to say the least. To the extent Israelis and their leaders don't trust the President, it is by his own doing.

This is a speech Netanyahu had to give. A nuclear Iran is so great a threat to Israel, that if the current deal doesn't go far enough in giving Israel the assurances it needs, Israel will have no choice but to strike. Israel cannot wait to see whether Obama, who has negotiated some famously bad deals, suddenly gets it right on Iran. The Prime Minister was giving us fair warning.

As Netanyahu said, Israel will go it alone if it has to. They will strike Iran as they have stuck other countries that pose a credible threat to their ultimate survival. It is difficult for many of us as Americans to understand why the Israelis are so impatient, and the Prime Minister was prepared to provide us with an explanation. He brought with him Elie Wiesel, who was sitting in the gallery. If you don't know who that is, you need to read his book Night. You will understand why, exactly, the Israelis will never again stand by while an aggressive enemy exterminates jews. That aside, no country has the right to ask them to take that risk.

The Prime Minister, in his Churchill moment, argued that the world is at a crossroads. Almost everyone agrees with this sentiment. Down one path is a policy of containment under which the West will attempt to keep Iran more or less in check. As we saw during the Cold War however, containment is a costly, painful policy that ultimately does not prevent wars. In 40 years of containment, the United States fought the Korean War, the Vietnam War, made multiple incursions into South America and the Middle East, and reached the brink of nuclear war on at least two occasions. But for the fact that nuclear war was ultimately avoided, the efficacy of that containment policy would be questionable at best. The Soviets were able to oppress millions of people and menace the world with the threat of total annihilation for generations. Since the Soviets already had nuclear weapons, we had little choice. In the case of Iran, we have a choice. 

The President, to his credit, has repeatedly said that he will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. He has assured the public and the Israelis that he would rather have no deal than a bad deal. He has not taken the threat of military force off the table. However, to achieve his stated objective, President Obama will have to negotiate a much better deal than the one being reported today. More importantly, however, if he fails, he will have to be committed to using whatever force is required to ensure the long term stability of that region. This is because if he's wrong, the consequences may well mimic biblical Armageddon. That, of course, makes a nuclear Iran an existential threat to all of us.