Biden's Intelligence

Nuclear Iran? Resurgent al Qaeda? 'Let's all calm down.'

Joe Biden's unbounded id is the talk of the nation after Thursday's debate. But the Veep is also the elder Democratic statesman on international affairs, and in between his snickers, guffaws and "malarkey," he shed newsworthy light on Obama Administration foreign policy. Let's roll the tape.
On Iran, Mr. Biden broke new ground, though most of the media missed it. To a question about the Administration's willingness to stop the Tehran regime from going nuclear, he said what matters isn't Iran's ability to enrich uranium to weapons grade. It's whether it can build and deliver a bomb.

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Paul Ryan and Joe Biden at the debate on Thursday.

"They are a good way away," he said. "When my friend [Paul Ryan] talks about fissile material, they have to take this highly enriched uranium, get it from 20% up. Then they have to be able to have something to put it in. There is no weapon that the Iranians have at this point."


"Let's all calm down a little bit here," Mr. Biden said a few minutes later.
In other words, Iran may have made progress toward enriching enough uranium to sufficient strength to build a bomb in the past four years, but that's immaterial. Based on the Vice President's intelligence, Iran isn't close to getting the trigger mechanism, missiles and all the other things needed to deploy a weapon. So don't worry.
Hmmm. For a decade, the U.S. and Europe have focused on coaxing and coercing the Iranians to stop enrichment above all else. That's because this is the hardest thing about building a bomb. Iran has in any case worked to develop missiles and triggers with help from Russians, North Koreans and others. In a clearer moment this summer, Mitt Romney said he would insist that Iran not enrich any uranium, even ostensibly for peaceful purposes. He failed to repeat this demand in his foreign-policy speech this week.

Biden and Ryan dive into foreign policy, debate on what steps each platform will take with Iran in terms of military action.

To hear Mr. Biden tell it, the Obama Administration now has a new red line on Iran. The mullahs can enrich as much uranium as they wish as long as they "don't have something to put it in." This isn't the red line Israel's Bibi Netanyahu had in mind during his recent speech before the United Nations. Nor are Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others looking for proof of an Iranian ICBM before they decide to go nuclear themselves. Iran becomes a regional nuclear power when it demonstrates its ability to get the bomb at almost a moment's notice, which is when it has developed enough fuel for it.
The Veep made a spirited case as well for doing nothing in Syria—no "no fly" zones, direct arms supplies to the rebels, or any U.S. political lead in an intervention. "If, in fact, it blows up and the wrong people gain control, it's going to have impact on the entire region, causing potentially regional wars," he said of Syria. News stories suggest this is happening already without any U.S. involvement, as the Syrian war pulls in Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey.
Mr. Biden appeared to preview another Obama policy shift on Afghanistan. With a 2014 deadline to transition the security lead to the Kabul government, the discussion will shift to how large the American military footprint will be afterward—with up to 30,000 U.S. troops left behind to ensure the Taliban don't overrun Kabul again.
But Mr. Biden said something different: "We are leaving in 2014, period, and in the process we're going to be saving over the next 10 years another $800 billion." He added that Afghan forces are ready to defend the country themselves and lead the fight in the difficult east, another piece of intelligence that's news to us.
On the attacks in Benghazi, Mr. Biden turned uncharacteristically terse. A day before the debate, a House hearing revealed that the U.S. Embassy in Libya had been concerned about a rising al Qaeda-linked Islamist threat and had requested, but was denied, security reinforcements.
"Well, we weren't told they wanted more security again," said Mr. Biden, contradicting the testimony of State Department officials. He also blamed "the intelligence community" for the Administration's initial and false assertions that Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American colleagues were killed in a "spontaneous" protest against an anti-Islam video on YouTube. This is the same "intelligence community" he is sure can tell us with certainty when Iran has a bomb and the Taliban is defeated.
Asked Friday about Mr. Biden's claims, White House spokesman Jay Carney said: "He was speaking directly for himself and for the President. He meant the White House. . . . No one who testified about this matter suggested that requests for additional security were made to the President or the White House. These are issues appropriately that are handled by security professionals at the State Department. And that's what he was talking about." So blame State and the intelligence community.
Don't worry, be happy may be a good campaign theme for Mr. Biden. Don't worry about a resurgent al Qaeda in North Africa. Or the escalating war in Syria. Or Iran's mullahs with weapons grade uranium, or Vladimir Putin's increasingly anti-American policy, or China's muscular antics in the Pacific. Overseas, said Mr. Biden, this Administration has "repaired our alliances so the rest of the world follows up again." He clearly knows something the world doesn't.