Peace with Iran?

Excellent news: Iran stopped working on nuclear weapons four years ago! More excellent news: This report comes not from the UN, the IAEA, or some other organization that Bushites might suspect of Iranophilic bias, but from the US government's National Intelligence Estimate!

The NIE, of course, is the very vehicle used by the Bush-Cheney warmongers to ratchet up fear of Saddam Hussein's nonexistent WMD five years ago. And in May 2005, another NIE made similar baseless charges about nuclear weapons programs in Iran—an obvious preparation for military attacks on Tehran. The new NIE directly contradicts the 2005 estimate:

We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We judge with high confidence that the halt, and Tehran’s announcement of its decision to suspend its declared uranium enrichment program and sign an Additional Protocol to its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement, was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work.

The report goes on to state (with "moderate-to-high confidence") that:

• Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.
• "[T]he earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU [highly enriched uranium] for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely."
• "Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015."

We can all take a deep breath, since war with Iran seems much less likely today than it did yesterday. Those who have been beating the drums for war no longer have a factual stick to beat them with. While that has not stopped Dick Cheney and his fellow drummers in the past, it will now be much more difficult for them to gain enough public or congressional support to realize their dreams. One wonders what bureaucratic battles occurred behind the scenes. Perhaps Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, both known as more fact-based strategists than their predecessors, have finally gained the ear of George Bush.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad and other Iranian officials have objected repeatedly over the last two years that their uranium-enrichment program was intended solely for nuclear energy. And the International Atomic Energy Agency, while expressing concern about Iran's secrecy, has reported more than once that the Iranians' protestations were apparently correct. But now it is the American empire's official intelligence report confirming that any potential nuclear danger from Iran is minimal and distant.

Rationality may be returning to Washington. Let us hope.