The past year has, according to most reputable sources, brought a series of setbacks for al Qaeda. While al Qaeda continues to pose a threat, the killing of Osama bin Laden and other top al Qeada leaders has severely diminished the network’s reach and its ability to stage attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

Earlier this year, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said new U.S. intelligence estimates “lead us to assess that core al Qaida’s ability to perform a variety of functions — including preserving leadership and conducting external operations — has weakened significantly.” But the assessment of the Director of National Intelligence and U.S. intelligence agencies isn’t convincing to Mitt Romney foreign policy adviser Walid Phares. Phares, as reported on his Facebook Wall [screencap] and Twitter [screencap], told Canadian CTV last week:

[E]liminating Osama Bin Laden was part of the war withal [sic] Qaeda and an act of justice. But reality is that al Qaeda after Bin Laden’s killing is stronger everywhere it has a presence. From Yemen to Somalia, to the Sahel, as wel [sic] as in Pakistan and Afghanistan, al Qaeda has more militants, more battlefields and a new generation of commanders. Killing Bin Laden was one single operation in a war that is raging and growing

Phares provides no information to back this assertion which seems to fly in the face of U.S. intelligence assessments and the accomplishments made by the U.S. military and intelligence community in reducing al Qaeda’s operational capabilities.

Data from the National Counterterrorism Center’s Worldwide Incidents Tracking System shows that, in the past year alone, there has been: a 16 percent drop in successful attacks by the al Qaeda network; a 65 percent drop in successful attacks by the al Qaeda network outside Africa; and a 35 percent drop in casualties caused by al Qaeda. Twenty-two al Qaeda network senior-level operatives and leaders have been captured or killed since May 2011.

While the Romney camp has chosen to criticize the Obama administration’s accomplishments in killing bin Laden and weakening al Qaeda, Phares should provide some evidence to back up his claims that “al Qaeda after bin Laden’s killing is strong everywhere it has a presence.”

One of the most successful Bush administration talking points in rousing public opinion to go to war with Iraq drew on exaggerated claims of Iraqi involvement with Al Qaeda — pulling at the emotional heartstrings that naturally go hand in hand with the memory of the tragic attack of 9/11. Again today, hawks pushing for harsher measures against Iran exaggerate ties between Iran and Al Qaeda. For example, Thomas Joscelyn of the Weekly Standard, whose editor has called for war with Iran, composed three articles in the past two months about Iran-Al Qaeda links.

But a batch of documents seized from Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and analysis of them released today by West Point’s Combatting Terrorism Center (CTC) show a tense relationship between Iran and Al Qaeda — a far cry from breathless hawks’ pronouncements of “cooperation” and “affiliation” that is unencumbered by theological and ideological differences. Instead, the documents refer to Iranians as “Al Rafidah,” which CTC translators render in English as “the rejecters,” meaning the Shia Muslims whose sect dominates Iran. The documents, according to the CTC report (PDF) describe “an antagonistic relationship, largely based on indirect and unpleasant negotiations over the release of detained jihadis and their families.”

The declassified collection and analysis show that, at least from Al Qaeda’s perspective, some of the cooperation was accomplished through threats and coercion. One of the documents, a letter by close Bin Laden confidant Abu Abd al-Rahman Atiyyat Allah (who is known as Attiya and died in a U.S. drone strike last year), clearly lays out that Al Qaeda’s understanding of Iran’s compliance with demands — like freeing Al Qaeda operatives kept under house arrest in Iran — was accomplished not due to mutual ideological considerations (as some neoconservatives have proposed), but because of Al Qaeda’s direct affronts against Iran:

If `Atiyya’s explanation is credible, then the Iranians were not releasing jihadi prisoners to forge a bond or strengthen an existing one with al-Qa`ida. Rather, `Atiyya was of the view that “we believe that our efforts, which included escalating a political and media campaign, the threats we made, the kidnapping of their friend the commercial counselor in the Iranian Consulate in Peshawar, and other reasons that scared them based on what they saw [we are capable of], to be among the reasons that led them to expedite [the release of these prisoners].”

To be sure, Al Qaeda and Iran do have some interaction. The top U.S. intelligence official Director of National Intelligence James Clapper recently said Iran and Al Qaeda have a “marriage of convenience” because of mutual enmity for the U.S. Clapper even hypothesized that Iran could foreseeably be willing to use Al Qaeda as a proxy group against U.S. interests. But that description doesn’t jibe with a CTC description that calls for tossing out the old clichés:

Al-Qa`ida did not appear to have looked to Iran from the perspective that “the enemy of my (American) enemy is my friend,” but the group might have hoped that “the enemy of my (American) enemy would leave me alone.”

The documents must, we can reasonably conclude, constitute only a sliver of what the government must have on Al Qaeda; the releases today were 175 of 6,000 pages found in Abbottabad. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t valuable lessons in this small declassified batch. But don’t expect the Weekly Standard’s Thomas Joscelyn to address the lessons about Al Qaeda’s relationship with Iran: His piece on the released documents today didn’t even mention Iran.

When asked during a debate late last year about his policy toward Israel, Mitt Romney said it’s “very simple. You start off by saying that you don’t allow an inch of space to exist between you and your friends and your allies.” Claiming (without basis) that President Obama publicly “threw Israel under the bus,” Romney added, “if you disagree with an ally, you talk about it privately. But in public, you stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your allies.”

But it doesn’t appear that Romney, nor his staff, feel the same way about America’s European allies. Back in March, Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron had a friendly visit in Washington and the Guardian reported yesterday that the Romney campaign didn’t like it too much:

Senior advisers to Mitt Romney have bitterly criticised David Cameron’s recent White House “love-in” with Barack Obama before Romney’s first visit to London for the opening of the Olympic Games.

Referring to Cameron’s highly flattering toast to Obama during a banquet given in the prime minister’s honour when he visited Washington in March, a senior aide said: “You don’t take sides in an election year“.

The aide said that Cameron’s visit to the White House showed a “lack of experience,” that he was “not very skillful” and that the visit “infringed” on the U.S.-U.K. special relationship.

It seems that trashing America’s European allies is a hallmark of the Romney campaign. “We’re becoming far more like a European social welfare state and people don’t want to see that,” the presumptive GOP nominee says regularly. And in his New Hampshire primary victory speech back in January, Romney had particularly harsh words for Europe, suggesting that European countries aren’t “free and prosperous“:

[Obama] wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society. We want to ensure that we remain a free and prosperous land of opportunity.

This President takes his inspiration from the capitals of Europe; we look to the cities and small towns of America. [...]

I want you to remember when our White House reflected the best of who we are, not the worst of what Europe has become.

And in a recent speech given at a private fundraiser, Romney said he wants to restore “the principles of liberty and freedom and entreprenuership and innovativeness” to the United States, as opposed to countries in Europe, which are becoming weak by “sacrificing their military.”

Romney’s hypocrisy on keeping conversations with allies private doesn’t stop with his and his campaign’s public criticism of America’s European friends. Last month, the Romney campaign called on Obama to “release the notes and transcripts of all his meetings with world leaders so the American people can be satisfied that he’s not promising to sell out the country’s interests after the election is over.”

A growing number of current and former Israeli officials are voicing concern that attacking Iran may prove counterproductive in deterring Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. Last week, former Israeli internal security chief Yuval Diskin warned that attacking Iran may “encourage them to develop a bomb.”

In an interview on Tuesday, former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) intelligence head Shlomo Gazit joined the chorus warning against attacking Iran. Gazit agreed with Diskin that attacking Iran would not destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and could even accelerate it, the Jerusalem Post reports:

The public discourse over a strike largely neglected the likelihood that Iran would resume its program after being attacked, Gazit noted.

He said he agreed with Diskin that an Israeli attack would not destroy the program, and could even accelerate it, while enabling Iran to legitimize its efforts diplomatically.

Diskin raised eyebrows last week when he slammed Barak and Netanyahu as “our two messiahs” and charged:

[Israel's leadership] presents a false view to the public on the Iranian bomb, as though acting against Iran would prevent a nuclear bomb. But attacking Iran will encourage them to develop a bomb all the faster.

But Gazit urged those who agree with Diskin’s assessment to direct their criticisms to the electorate:

Even if they have messianic considerations, this is not important. They were legally elected through a ballot, and Diskin should direct his claims [against them] to the electorate.

In New York on Friday, former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan backed up Diskin’s criticisms, telling the Jerusalem Post that Diskin was speaking his “internal truth” and characterized him as a good friend and serious person.

Sources “close to the prime minister” told the Jerusalem Post that Diskin’s attacks were “irresponsible” and “motivated by personal frustration that he wasn’t chosen to lead the Mossad.” But another former head of Israel’s internal security service, and current member of the Knesset, Yoel Hasson, was reported by the Jerusalem Post as warning that Netanyahu should be concerned about the criticms he is facing from former heads of the security establishment, such as Diskin, Dagan and Gabi Ashkenazi.

While a potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime, those estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of pressure and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Like their Israeli counterparts, American officials including President Obama vow to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the Iranian nuclear program, but questions about the efficacy and consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to resolve the West’s crisis with Iran.