As usual, nothing scares"our allies" than an America which follows their advice. The Economist argued that Bush and Co. were too tough on Iran. Now that they have to live with a Bush soft on Iran, they bemoan their own fate and blame"honest spies." Well, they were merely incompetent, arogant spies. Spies who believed their own judgement should trump that of the country's elected leader. They specifically argued that the NIE was designed to further international cooperation on effective sanctions which would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. BUT there way was precisely the wrong way:

WHO would have thought that a friendless theocracy with a Holocaust-denying president, which hangs teenagers in public and stones women to death, could run diplomatic circles around America and its European allies? But Iran is doing just that. And it is doing so largely because of an extraordinary own goal by America's spies, the team behind the duff intelligence that brought you the Iraq war.

It doesn't take a fevered brain to assume that if Iran's ayatollahs get their hands on the bomb, the world could be in for some nasty surprises. Iran's claim that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful is widely disbelieved. That is why Russia and China joined America, Britain, France and Germany at the UN Security Council to try to stop Iran enriching uranium. Until two months ago they seemed ready to support a third and tougher sanctions resolution against Iran. But then America's spies spoke out, and since then five painstaking years of diplomacy have abruptly unravelled. (see How America's own intelligence services have brought international policy on Iran to the edge of collapse)

The intelligence debacle over Iraq has made spies anxious about how their findings are used. That may be why they and the White House felt it right to admit, in a National Intelligence Estimate in December, that they now think Iran halted clandestine work on nuclear warheads five years ago. As it happens, this belief is not yet shared by Israel or some of America's European allies, who see the same data. But no matter: the headline was enough to pull the rug from under the diplomacy. In Berlin last month, the Russians and Chinese made it clear that if there is a third resolution, it will be a mild slap on the wrist, not another turn of the economic screw.

How surprising! They have every reason to remain free riders. The anti-American, Bush hating mainstream media saw to it that their will not only be the easy way out but also the"reasonable" way. Now, of course, they suffer of buyers' remorse. Russia and China will also pay in the long just as they played in World War II and much more. If we are all very lucky, McCain will be the next US president and his very election, not to mention, convictions should help us dimish the cost of NIE misplaced pride and Bush's failure to control his bureaucracy.

On this matter, Hillary is right and Obama dead wrong. The next president much be aware of the all important problem and take steps to insure that his bureaucracy knows that one insubordinate move would mean dismissal. Enough is enough.