We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know
Two weeks ago the US bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran riding the coattails of Israel’s air campaign that decapitated much of the Islamic Republic’s senior military leadership and decimated its air defenses. Over the past two weeks, much of the US foreign policy establishment debated the efficacy of the strikes and what they mean for the future of regional security. President Trump triumphantly claimed that the US had obliterated Iran’s nuclear program. A preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency leaked to the press assessed that the bombings had only set back Iran’s program a few months. Later in the week, the CIA released a more detailed report that said Iran’s program had been pushed back years. A chorus of analysts, pundits, and public activists have all weighed in on the matter with varying assessments shaded by personal bias. What is missing from many of these assessments is the humility and willingness to admit what we don’t know.
Truth is the first casualty of war according to according to the aphorism. Politicians, pundits, and influencers are generally more interested in being “right” or “winning the argument” rather than understanding the facts as they currently stand. In regard to Iran, there are no shortage of folks in the US and Israel who have long argued for military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program and who will crow about how Iranian nuclear threat has been sufficiently dismantled. Likewise, there are plenty of those who will argue that the strikes success was limited and now the US has only incentivized Iran to more vigorously pursue the bomb. The reality is that there is so much we currently do not know and may not foresee.
Currently, the situation is still very much in-flux and rapidly changing. We don’t know much about the fate of the roughly 400 kg of highly enriched uranium that was moved before the strikes. We do not know the full extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear reactors. It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Iran may have sites that we do not have knowledge of. We do know that Iran’s government has announced that it will no longer cooperate with international monitoring efforts. It appears that Iran has already begun work rebuilding some of its facilities, but we currently don’t know what either of those really means for the future. Pretending we know what we don’t know can be perilous.
When I worked as an intelligence analyst every report we prepared had a built assessment of that analysis in order to weigh the assumptions that were baked into it. Sources whether they are human (HUMINT), satellite imagery (IMGINT) intercepted messages (SIGINT), etc. rarely tell the whole story and can often be knowingly used by adversaries to mislead. With every report we discussed how much we thought we could trust our sources. So we could say something like, “it is highly likely that US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities set its nuclear program back 3-6 months” while saying we have low confidence in our assessment because we don’t have much trust in what we are seeing and hearing.
With all that being said, the intelligence that is normally leaked to the press or announced from the White House is normally curated for specific political messaging meant to sway public opinion in one way or another. A healthy dose of skepticism regarding the claims of Trump and his critics is warranted in trying to get to the truth of the situation. The same can be said of pundits and activists. There are plenty of folks in foreign policy circles whose analysis is also shaded by varying factors from their political bias to the bias of those paying their salaries.
When it comes to interpreting current events honesty and introspection of your own views and bias are critical. This also includes assessing the claims of others. In my own personal experience, I’ve really tried to acknowledge how much I don’t know when asked about Iran and its nuclear program, I wish many others would do the same.
