Fact and Bush's fiction

 

 

In what looks like a blow to hawks of the Bush administration, pushing for military action on Iran, a declassified intelligence report released by US agencies has revealed that Iran’s secret nuclear weapons programme was shut down four years ago. The report marked a significant shift from its previous estimates: “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.”

The revelation makes it all the time harder for President Bush to validate a military strike against Tehran before leaving his office next year. Experts believe that it also makes it more knotty to sway Russia and China to join the US, Britain and France in imposing a fresh round of sanctions on Tehran. “Two days ago, the smart approach to Iran was a mixture of pressure and engagement,” said Michael Levi, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, while talking to TSI. “Nevertheless, World War III has been postponed indefinitely," he added, with his tongue firmly in cheek.

The fresh report has been released just over five years after a similar intelligence estimate in 2002 on Iraq had erroneously concluded that it possessed chemical and biological warfare weapons. Ironically, that estimate was instrumental in winning the Congressional endorsement for a military offensive of Iraq, but it proved to be profoundly blemished, and most of its conclusions turned out to be off beam. Meanwhile, Bush made an insolent defence of his strategy on Iran saying, “Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon”. Nevertheless, it can be seen here that he has significantly changed the driving point of his rhetoric without actually changing its tone. While earlier he insisted that Iran with “nuclear weapons” was unacceptable, in his latest speech, he insisted that Iran with even the “knowledge to produce nuclear weapons” was unacceptable. However, most experts, such as Lawrence J. Korb, a strategic expert at Centre for American Progress, are calling for restraint. Talking to TSI, he says, “The intelligence report signifies that the US and the international community have 4-7 years to negotiate before Iran could become a nuclear power. It offers a key argument against any pre-emptive strike against Iran, and it rebuts much of the hard-nosed rhetoric budding from various neocons.”

The report also validates IAEA stand that it had been unable to determine whether the Iranian programme sought only to generate electricity or also to build weapons. The combined assessment of these reports will only make life tougher for the Bush administration and Israeli lobby vying for Tehran’s blood.