The Iran estimate – credible?

It seems that many members of the American intelligence community missed their true calling.  Judging from their pronounced ability to execute an abrupt about-face, perhaps their lives would have been better spent marching with the military’s parade units.

To understand why, one needs look no farther than yesterday’s release of the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.  The report, entitled "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities," makes the stunning, "high confidence" claim that "in the fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program," in large part because of "increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work."

This incredible assertion stands in poignant, dubious contrast with the arguments made in the intelligence community’s 2005 NIE on the subject, which judges that "left to its own devices, Iran is determined to build nuclear weapons," and that it was "moving full speed ahead without major technical obstacles." 

What gives?  Wherefrom comes America’s new-found trust that the mullahs are not bent on nuclear weapons, when indeed all their public speeches and action point to the contrary?

Unfortunately, it is probably impossible to dissect the intelligence community’s reasoning on the subject (if indeed reasoning is the correct word) without access to the secret information it possesses.  However, thanks to the documentation done by the group GlobalSecurity.org, those skeptical of the latest sanguine judgments on Iran can view how America and its allies viewed the Iranian nuclear program over the past fifteen years.

The picture presented is not confidence-inspiring.  It evinces a confused miasma of misjudgment and miscalculation, a serial and chronic inability to nail down the particulars of Iran’s nuclear plans and potential.

For example, in the early 1990s, the U.S. was predicting that Tehran could wield a nuke by the turn of the millennium.  As that date approached, these surmises were revised back and back and back, with some in the arms control and military communities claiming that 2003, 2005, or 2007 would see the deployment of an Iranian nuclear device.

The prevalence of such erroneous estimation, of which the above is but a sample, points toward an unnerving conclusion – there may not be much the intelligence community can tell us on the subject.  Quite simply, it may lack access to information that would allow for a definitive, accurate judgment. 

If that is case, then we must rely on the only tools available to us – common sense, and what the Iranians themselves tell us.  Any judgment so made can come to but one reasonable conclusion, that Iran, contrary to the benign utterances of the latest NIE, is probably still bent on acquiring a prestige-enhancing, power-boosting nuclear weapon. 

With only the oft-contradicted phrases of the U.S. intelligence community to prove us wrong, how could one believe anything else?