U.S. Spies: Iran Stopped Building The Bomb

The world seems to be a safer place today. A U.S. intelligence report that Iran stopped building a nuclear bomb four years ago is good news, but it also deals a blow to Vice President Cheney and his circle of hawks who have increasingly suggested that the U.S. should attack the Islamic Republic before it achieves hegemony over the Middle East. These developments,in turn, should breathe more life into calls for a diplomatic approach in addressing Iran's policies. At the least, policy makers led by Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice who favor diplomacy or economic sanctions over war now clearly have the upper hand.

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran released Monday concluded "with high confidence" that Iranian leaders halted a covert nuclear weapons program in 2003. The report notes that the intelligence community's previous estimate, in 2005, stated that "Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons." That is now revised to say, "In fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." The halt came at about the same time as Iran publicly suspended a previously secret uranium-enrichment program that could be used to make fissile material for an atomic bomb.

As the multi-agency intelligence community's overall current assessment on Iran, the NIE says that the bomb-program halt suggests that Iran is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than previously thought. The assessment also says that while Iran's uranium-enrichment program could in theory produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb in the next two years, it would probably not be technically capable until the 2010-15 time frame and possibly not until after 2015.

The authoritative report dramatically undercuts the vocal campaign of Washington hard-liners led by Cheney suggesting that the U.S. may have to launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities in order to set back Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. In a major address to a pro-Israel think-tank near Washington in October that recalled his saber rattling prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Cheney cited Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, support for terrorism and role in the killing of U.S. troops as he effectively called for the end to the Tehran regime. "The entire international community cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions," Cheney said. "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences. The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

Last May, Cheney made a speech aboard the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis in which warned Iran: "With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike. We'll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. And we'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region." A Cheney ally, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, went further in a Jerusalem Post interview, openly advocating military action to halt Iran's nuclear program. Because "diplomacy and sanctions have failed," Bolton argued, "we have to look at: 1) overthrowing the regime and getting in a new one that won't pursue nuclear weapons; 2) a last-resort use of force."

While indicating that the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran is not as imminent as that rhetoric has suggested, the NIE stated that Tehran "at a minimum is keeping open the option" to resume the development of nukes. Convincing Iranian leaders to forego nuclear weapons "will be difficult," the NIE says, given Iran's considerable effort to make a bomb starting in the late 1980s and their perceived linkage between such military strength and key national security and foreign policy objectives.

But the most significant assessment in the NIE may be the suggestion that more effective diplomacy could persuade Iran to drop its ambitions. The NIE said that it judged with high confidence that Tehran suspended its nuclear and enrichment programs and allowed more intrusive international inspections in 2003 "primarily in response to increasing
international scrutiny and pressure" resulting from the exposure of Iran's secret nuclear programs.

Moreover, the NIE says, Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests that "it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005." The conclusion that the program was halted due to international pressure, the NIE adds, "suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously." Also, the report goes on, it also indicates that "Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs."

According to the NIE, this in turn suggests that some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might—if perceived by Iran's leaders as credible—prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program."

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley tried to make a case that the NIE shows that the Bush administration's policy of pressuring Iran is working. "The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically, without the use of force, as the administration has been trying to do," Hadley said.

But for U.S. diplomacy to get really anywhere, it may have to go beyond the vague deal Rice extended to Tehran in May 2006: suspend enrichment, and the U.S. will enter into negotiations with Iran on issues that include assisting Iran's nuclear energy program and economic cooperation. At the least, judging from the NIE's concept of carrots to assure Iran's security, prestige and goals for regional influence, it would have to put an end to the regime-change approach advocated by another part of the administration represented by the powerful vice president.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo