Trump’s selective intelligence on Iran echoes past missteps

Set back 'decades'? 

At the heart of the debate is how much long-term destruction Trump's strikes, alongside Israel's 12 days of attacks, have done to Iran's nuclear programme. The bunker buster attacks on nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow appeared to have done considerable damage, according to satellite images and various intelligence reports. Immediately after the strikes, Trump claimed that "Obliteration is an accurate term!" to describe the impact, insisting the nuclear programme had been set back "decades."

But questions were immediately raised.  The leaked Pentagon report and Grossi both noted that Iran still had the technological and industrial capabilities to restart enriching uranium should they wish. Senior Democrats were also sceptical. Chris Murphy, a Democratic Senator, accused Trump of "deliberately misleading the public when he said the programme was obliterated. It is certain that there is still significant capability, significant equipment that remains." 

Multiple reports indicated that Tehran may have removed its stockpile of up to 408kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Fordow and other sites before the attack. Grossi told CBS in an  interview that "We don't know where this material could be…it could have been destroyed as part of the attack, but some could have been moved." Were this to have been retained, Iran would have the material to make nine nuclear weapons relatively quickly, should it choose to, though Tehran has always denied this is its goal.

Faced with doubt over the effectiveness of the strikes, the Trump administration has doubled down. Trump appeared to claim his strikes were equivalent to dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in successfully ending a war.

According to The Guardian's Peter Beaumont, the issue then, "turned into an inevitable test of loyalty for his officials who have scrambled to toe the line." Despite telling Congress earlier this year that Iran had not been actively pursuing nuclear weapons since 2003, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard made a U-turn stating that "Our missiles were delivered precisely and accurately, obliterating key Iranian capabilities needed to quickly assemble a nuclear weapon." CIA Director John Ratcliffe similarly told lawmakers that the setback to Tehran's nuclear programme would take years to overcome.

A familiar path

The Trump administration's fixation on the reliability of its claims, as opposed to the Pentagon intelligence report or Grossi's assessments, is in many ways typical of MAGA politics: zero-sum and dismissive of opponents. But the playbook is not wholly new. The debates surrounding the Iran strikes echo those surrounding the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Determined to show that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to justify the invasion it sought, the George W. Bush administration prioritised intelligence reports that supported its preferred outcome.

Professor Robert Dover, writing in The Conversation, has explored how subsequent inquiries revealed that US intelligence agencies allowed their assessments to be influenced by the White House's political needs or were too reluctant to caution about what they didn't know. This led to confident, but incorrect, assessments from the administration that Saddam possessed WMD, prompting the invasion and all that followed.

Unlike past intelligence blunders, such as agencies missing the imminence of the 2001 9/11 attacks, the errors of 2003 stemmed from political considerations. Whether internationally or not, itself a matter of huge partisan debate, the Bush administration created an environment in which the intelligence services played down the differences between their assessments and White House policy.

Dismissing dissent

Is the same thing happening now? Although there are, theoretically, more institutional safeguards in the wake of enquiries into the 2003 failures to prevent intelligence groupthink, Trump is dismissing and even insulting dissenting assessments, such as the Defence Intelligence Agency report.

Moreover, the political environment is quite different to 2003. While Democratic Senators like Murphy and parts of the liberal press have questioned the Trump administration's claims, there appears to be no widespread appetite for an investigation or enquiry into the veracity of the White House's alleged misinformation on the Iran raids. This might be because it is still soon after the attack and, unlike 9/11 or 2003, it does not appear to have cost any US lives, so far.

But it also reflects the dominance of Trump over US domestic political institutions. Loyal Republicans control the House of Representatives and the Senate, while conservatives dominate the Supreme Court. The failure of Congressional Democrats to get through a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to expand the conflict with Iran illustrates how difficult it is for the opposition to currently challenge the Trump agenda.

With attention likely to move elsewhere unless there is a sudden revival either of Iran's nuclear programme or its conflict with Israel, it is highly possible that this selective use of intelligence by Trump will soon fade from the headlines. However, it is a familiar tool that Trump may well return to at a later, more opportune moment in his presidency.