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I doubt if this is true
But it makes for a good game theory example nonetheless. It starts with:
The Bush administration has become rather expert at deploying the relentless anti-Bush Left for its own purposes. The Left has made itself completely predictable, and a predictable poker player can be beaten.
A deliberately deceptive NIE [report on Iran's nuclear program] could have two purposes.
1. It could pressure Israel and the Arabs.
2. It could mislead Ahmadi-Nejad.
The core claim is that the release of the report precommits the United States to not attacking Iran, at least for a while. This puts more pressure on other parties (including the Europeans) to help solve the problem. Furthermore the U.S. will have more influence over both Israel and the Arab nations, who will need U.S. support against Iran for the foreseeable future and cannot reckon on the chance that the Iranian regime will be taken out. Can you graph this into a game tree?
The problem with this sort of explanation, of course, is simply that one government finds it hard to predict how other governments will interpret its actions, and thus complicated game-theoretic strategies are more likely to confuse than anything else.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on December 13, 2007 at 01:21 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
And what do you think of Obadiah Shoher's arguments against the peace process ( samsonblinded.org/blog/we-need-a-respite-from-peace.htm )?
Posted by: Alex at Dec 13, 2007 2:38:32 PM
Perhaps if it was a one-off game, but I think the long-term credibility of our intelligence reports is too important to damage with games just for this situation. Bush may be a lame duck but I think he is capable of appreciating the long-term consequences of his actions.
Posted by: brett at Dec 13, 2007 3:12:30 PM
The other problem is, it is too clever by half.
Posted by: Lord at Dec 13, 2007 4:42:43 PM
As Drum and Yglesias have already argued, something like that is likely to be a consequence of the NIE. In Matt's words:
The underlying principle is simple enough: the US secures more international cooperation when people see us as acting rationally and responding in a reasonable manner to events around the world. Acting frightening and erratic, or paranoid and hysterical, isn't helpful.
It seems rather unlikely that this is an intentional strategy by the Bush Administration, since in 6.5 years they have demonstrated very little inclination to secure assistance using this principle, and it is not clear why they would start now with the NIE.
Posted by: Blar at Dec 13, 2007 8:17:04 PM
I do find it puzzling that lefties shout "lie" whenever the Bush admin announces "bad news" but accepts as true any announcements by same that seem to be "good news." Why should the good news be any more reliable than the bad?
Posted by: Jo at Dec 13, 2007 8:42:44 PM
Isn't it also true that the NIE could be true, but the above what-if-it's-false theory is an attempt continue the pro-war rhetoric? The NIE certainly put an end to "Iran has nukes" argument for war so by spinning the NIE as a fake that argument can still be used.
Posted by: joe at Dec 13, 2007 9:43:38 PM
>> ... thus complicated game-theoretic strategies...
Politics is not quantum mechanics.
Point three was missing.
3. It helps the Republicans in '08 since pretending there is no problem avoids "confrontation" (aka war) in the short term.
Posted by: ekbworldwide at Dec 13, 2007 9:51:23 PM
"Bush may be a lame duck but I think he is capable of appreciating the long-term consequences of his actions."
First of all, I just did a spit take on my monitor.
Secondly, I don't believe the NIE report and I think there is more to it, but this conjecture is conspiracy theory on par with "Apollo Landing Hoax" wingnut rhetoric. Can anyone with a straight face attribute such sophisticated gamesmanship to this administration?
I think it highly more likely that someone with animosity towards this administration wanted to derail the drumbeat of war.
Posted by: meter at Dec 13, 2007 10:02:40 PM
Sheesh. Quite aside from imputing far more intelligence to Bush and his
cronies than has been exhibited so far, the alternatives being bandied
about are simply too believable to be pushed aside by this implausible
Rube Goldberg contrivance. Tom Schelling is not running this administration,
nor is Eric Maskin or Roger Myerson, not to mention Robert Aumann.
So, credible reports have it that about a year and a half ago, what was
now agreed to by all recognized 16 intel agencies was a dissent, mostly pushed
by the intel agency that has long had the best track record of them all, State's
small but competent I&R. The Cheney war hawk crowd tried to squash this dissent
and suppressed the report. A long struggle ensued, but with new intel coming
in from both humint and sigint this past summer, things swung the other way, and
what was a dissent became a unanimous opinion. There was still an effort to sit on
it, but eventually it became clear that this effort would eventuate in leaking of
the finding, so, after getting the ability to do some major redaction of details
that were formerly let out (late October), it was finally released.
There is a further punctuation on this that reinforces the finding, although it has
been widely ignored in the US. It is that on August 9, 2005, Vilayat el Faqih and
Commander-in-Chief of the military, Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i, issued a fatwa against
the construction of nuclear weapons. This was ignored largely on the grounds that
people in the US focused on the looney statements of President Ahmadinejad, roundly
ignoring the fact that he did not and does not conrol the military, the intelligence
agencies, the courts, or a lot of other crucial apparati of the state, a point that
used to be widely bandied about when the more moderate Mohammed Khatami held his
position. In any case, it is now clear that Khamene'i's widely ignored fatwa was
an affirmation and delineation of the decision that was made in February, 2003,
before Iraq was invaded by the US, not after as some commentators have been loudly
declaring recently.
BTW, this fatwa is probably the strongest piece of evidence that the NIE report is
correct and not a phoney. Alhough the war hawk crowd likes to believe that ruling
ayatollahs lie when they make religious declarations, this is delusional. Does the
Pope issue encyclicals that he believes are phoney? This is on the same order of
magnitude. As long as Khamene'i remains Vilayat el Faqih, Iran will not build nuclear
weapons, period.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Dec 13, 2007 10:59:58 PM
"Why should the good news be any more reliable than the bad?"
Confirmation bias.
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at Dec 13, 2007 11:12:20 PM
""Bush may be a lame duck but I think he is capable of appreciating the long-term consequences of his actions."
First of all, I just did a spit take on my monitor."
Me too. It was such an obvious statement. He has ALWAYS looked quite far down the road while his critics have a time horizon of about six months.
Invasion or Iraq is a good example. No one in the world took us seriously - you can poke us in the eye and we would not respond.
We WERE the paper tiger Osama though. Once we invaded Iraq the Lebanese pushed for a vote, Libya gave up their program, and now we have just learned Iran ended their program.
Bush may not have pleased those who are concerned with immediate gratification, but his efforts will look good in history.
Posted by: Tom at Dec 14, 2007 8:56:46 AM
Tom,
Uh, well, grant you the Lebanese, but Libya made the initial move
to negotiate an end to their program while Clinton was president, with
the deal mostly being negotiated by the Brits. They were never in any
danger of being invaded by the US, and knew it. Also, Iran decided to
stop their program prior to the US invasion of Iraq, or are you another
one not paying sufficient attention?
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Dec 14, 2007 1:26:19 PM
Uh, well, when did these happen? After the invasion.
Clinton's negotiations with the Libyans seem to have went as well as his negotiations with North Koreans (another country that seems now willing to give up the nukes to Bush). Seems you are still the one not paying attention.
Posted by: Tom at Dec 14, 2007 4:49:01 PM
Tom,
Sorry, but you are not the one paying attention.
North Korea was part of the NPT, and its agreement
with Clinton was to stop its plutonium production,
which it did. Enrichment of uranium was never part
of the deal, and as with Iran, was being used for
civilian power production, as has been recently
acknowledged, although you probably did not catch
that, did you?
Anyway, two months after Bush came in, he blew off
the former agreement and humiliated the president
of South Korea, who supported the agreement, and
where our popularity has been pretty much in the
toilet ever since. Although you probably did not
know that, did you? Cheney and Rumsfeld had this
idea that we could squeeze the North Korean government
collapse. Well, that was a big success for sure.
So, the North Koreans responded by withdrawing
from the NPT and restarting their plutonium
production, then producing bombs with that
plutonium. We made this big hullabaloo about
their uranium program, but it was not part of
the agreement, and today our officials admit it
was not being used to make nuclear weapons.
So, now Bush has gotten back to an agreement
that looks like the one Clinton had, except
that now the North Koreans have nuclear weapons,
whereas before they did not.
Fraid you need to do a bit more studying about
this second biggest, possibly actually biggest,
foreign policy disaster of the Bush administration.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Dec 14, 2007 5:30:51 PM
Tom,
Oh yes. North Korea is not "giving up its nukes."
Just rehalting its plutonium production. It still
has and will not give up the bombs it made after
Bush messed up. Get real.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Dec 14, 2007 5:32:18 PM
I don't understand how the NIE could possibly put pressure on the Europeans and Arabs to help "solve the problem" when it essentially denies that the problem exists.
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