I don't have much to add to what Matt Duss and Steve Hynd have already said about the reports of a revised National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran. I have my points of disagreement, and anyone interested in my lengthier thoughts can go back and read what I wrote at the time. My thinking on the matter is mostly the same, although I would now add that an additional two years of defiant non-compliance on its nuclear program - not to mention the addition of an ever-evolving domestic opposition - has made the regime's nuclear program the most pressing matter of them all.
Many analysts on the right and the left politicized the 2007 NIE to fit their own frame on Iran, rather than taking the report for what it was: a sweeping, aggregated estimate of information from multiple government agencies and departments. Iran was either a week away from the bomb or had no interest in the bomb, depending on how you read the report and your preconceived understanding of the regime. It's frankly not that simple. Duss explains:
Whether one terms them â??Talmudicâ? or just â??appropriately rigorous given the stakes,â? these kinds of distinctions â?? research vs. development, design vs. build, nuclear weapon vs. weapons capability â?? will be really important to the debate going forward. As there was with Iraq, there is a highly organized movement afoot to pretend that none of this matters, that â??the mullahsâ? have always intended to get their hands on a nuke, and that we should therefore prepare tobomb the hell out of Irando what is necessary.
"What is necessary" is too ambiguous, but Duss is right to pick on those who will no doubt use a revised NIE to beat the war drums. That said, Iran remains in violation of multiple UNSC resolutions and has defied the IAEA - albeit in a measured, calculated fashion - time and time again. Tehran is making a mockery of the nonproliferation regime, and the very bad joke is on us all if the international community doesn't make Iran comply. I obviously prefer those measures of compulsion to be engagement coupled with sanctions - incentives coupled with consequences - but all options, as the saying goes, should remain on the table.
But distinctions and timing matter, and as Duss notes, it'll be important to remove ourselves from a debate - do they or don't they, will they or won't they - that has been rather bipolar to date.
