After the lies and manipulation of intelligence concerning Saddam’s WMD that preceded Washington’s Iraq adventure, there were always reasonable grounds for doubting George Bush’s similar saber-rattling assertions about Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons’ program. Now the revelations of the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) prove how justified those doubts were. Bush who had, among other things, claimed — completely against the record — that Iran had declared it wanted to build a nuclear weapons arsenal, is shown once again to be creating a fabric of misinformation, which he may well have been planning to use as justification for US airstrikes on Iran.
The 16 US spy agencies that contribute to the NIE are, however, now saying that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, even though in 2005, the NIE asserted that the drive for nuclear armament was continuing. It is easy to believe that the CIA, which Bush made the fall guy for the false intelligence on Iraq’s WMD, is determined not to be manipulated this way again. Maybe the calculation at Langley has been that in the twilight months of his gloomy presidency, Bush was perfectly capable of one last shot at Tehran in revenge for the difficulties the Iranians have created for the US occupation forces in Iraq. The CIA recognized how dangerous and destabilizing such a stupid attack would be.
The blustering that has come out of the White House in the wake of the release of the NIE assessment would almost be amusing if the subject were not so serious. A Bush spokesman has insisted that pressure on Iran must be maintained. Predictably, the British government has echoed this stance. It is more of a surprise that France’s President Sarkozy has delivered a similar judgment. Why has he chosen to rubberstamp the risky Bush policy when the facts on which it is based have been shown to be wrong? The NIE estimates that if Iran resumed its atomic weapons program today, the country could not build its first bomb until 2015. This may, however, itself prove to be as wrong as its 2005 assertion that the program was continuing.
What is clear, on the other hand, is that the path of negotiation led by China and Russia remains the best option. Since Bush will now find it almost impossible to find an excuse to attack Iran, the poison of the threat has been removed from negotiations. The responsibility now rests with Tehran to honor its international treaty obligations and let IAEA officials perform the full range of inspections they are entitled to make. Diplomatically, there is probably not a finer moment for the Iranians to do this. Bush has suffered yet another blow to what little remains of his credibility. Iran can drive the point home by yielding fully to the inspection regime to which it earlier agreed.
If it refuses to do so, it may give Bush another albeit weak opportunity for renewed belligerence. Tehran should not, at the same time, forget this president’s well-known ability to act with catastrophic consequences on the basis of lies.
