by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
L<\/span>ast week’s U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) states, with “high confidence,” that Iran quit trying to get a nuclear bomb in late 2003. That’s exactly the opposite of what the NIE reported just two years ago, when it claimed Iran’s ruling mullahs were still developing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n The reaction here at home to the new NIE was a good deal clearer than the often mealy-mouthed wording of the report. By an overwhelming margin, according to a Rasmussen poll conducted after the new NIE report’s findings were made public, Americans don’t buy that Iran has quit trying to go nuclear.<\/p>\n They may be wiser than the intelligence minds who put together the new NIE. After all, oil-rich Iran continues to enrich uranium even though it doesn’t need new sources of energy. This enriched uranium can be used as terrorist dirty bombs or diverted to nuclear weapons rather quickly.<\/p>\n So isn’t it a lose\/lose situation if Iran still could be working toward being able to develop a bomb while our own intelligence services have now assured the world that that’s not the case?<\/p>\n Yes \u2014 but the full answer is more complex, because the world itself has changed since the 2005 NIE even more than the unreliable opinions of our intelligence services have.<\/p>\n Two years ago, the growing furor over the Iraqi war had created the conventional wisdom that Iran had come out the real “winner.” Tehran’s archenemy, Saddam Hussein, had been removed. And Iran was able to tie down the U.S. in Iraq through its Shiite terrorist proxies.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, with the U.S. busy in Iraq and the West split (former allies like France and Germany damned almost everything the U.S. did in the Middle East), Iran’s ruling mullahs got a pass to cause more trouble in Gaza and Lebanon with subsidies to Hezbollah and Hamas.<\/p>\n B<\/span>ut that was then.<\/p>\n With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election as president of Iran in August 2005, the United States was given a public relations bonanza. We no longer had to warn the world that the largely silent mullahs in Iran were unstable and dangerous. Loud-mouthed Ahmadinejad did all that and more for us.<\/p>\n When he bragged that a mesmerized U.N. audience couldn’t blink when he spoke, or that Israel should disappear from the map, the rest of the world on its own concluded that he was either outright crazy or scary \u2014 or both.<\/p>\n There are now pro-American governments in France and Germany. Both are terrified about Iran. That’s understandable since both \u2014 unlike us \u2014 could soon very well be in range of Iran’s newest North Korean-made missiles.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Iran’s other interests in the Middle East have taken a hit. Hezbollah is still clearing out the mess from the 2006 Lebanon war; that will cost its Iranian patron billions in war reconstruction aid. Israel has proved that it can take out Syrian weapons facilities with ease; its recent raid of a suspected nuclear plant won the quiet applause of almost everyone in the Middle East.<\/p>\n Iraq is quieting down. The country’s Shiite majority in the democratic government is increasingly acting a little more like nationalists than lackeys of Iran.<\/p>\n And the entire Sunni Arab Middle East is lining up against Iran, scared stiff that its traditional rival may still go nuclear and shake them down for either tribute or cuts in oil production.<\/p>\n Internally, Iran gets worse each year. It spent billions on subsidies for terrorists and a pricey nuclear bomb plant that its people will now hear was shut down. And Iranians still can’t figure out why gas is rationed when the country’s oil earns $90 a barrel. If the government can’t keep the public happy at record oil prices, what would it do should the market soften?<\/p>\n As the increasingly isolated Iranian economy tanks and the country becomes an international embarrassment, demonstrations against the government continue. At one last week at the University of Tehran, a sign blared out “Live free or die” \u2014 the motto of New Hampshire.<\/p>\n What are we to make of this mixed-up picture of Iran and its nuclear program?<\/p>\n With the new intelligence assessment, our allies got, and did not get, their wishes. There will probably be no American pre-emption against Iranian nuclear sites and, unfortunately, less American strong-arming for more sanctions on an Iran that seems to have been already reeling under the pressure.<\/p>\n But there will also be for our allies the growing nightmare that a sneaky Iran could now think it is free to race to the nuclear finish line \u2014 something that will endanger them far more than us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a92007 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Last week’s U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) states, with “high confidence,” that Iran quit trying to get a nuclear bomb in late 2003. That’s exactly the opposite of what the NIE reported just two years ago, when it claimed Iran’s ruling mullahs were still developing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[746],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-TW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5383,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/common-sense\/","url_meta":{"origin":3468,"position":0},"title":"Common Sense","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Who needs \"intelligence\" to know Iran wants nukes? by Raymond Ibrahim Private Papers Much of the current debate surrounding Iran\u2019s nuclear aspirations centers on the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report which \u201cjudge[s] with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.\u201d While such reports tend to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2092,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/voting-present-on-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":3468,"position":1},"title":"Voting Present on Iran","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Iran just announced a radical expansion of its uranium-enrichment facilities. The news followed the recent disclosure of the country's previously secret nuclear facility near the city of Qom \u2014 and came just two days after the International Atomic Energy Agency's censure of Iran\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2009"","block_context":{"text":"December 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/december-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":864,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/irans-win-win-win-bomb\/","url_meta":{"origin":3468,"position":2},"title":"Iran’s Win, Win, Win Bomb","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Iran, if not stopped, will join the nuclear club, probably within two or three years. It may be stupid to try to preempt Iran; it may be even stupider not to try. But the stupidest assumption of all is that either Iran is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iran"","block_context":{"text":"Iran","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iran\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2240,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-troubling-policy-on-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":3468,"position":3},"title":"A Troubling Policy on Iran","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Chickens Roosting Where to begin with the \u201csurprise\u201d announcement of a second, previously undisclosed \u201cnuclear facility\u201d? Some thoughts: (1) This is Iran\u2019s answer to the Obama\u00a0video peace offensive. This summer we kept quiet while thousands went into the streets of Tehran to protest brutality\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2009"","block_context":{"text":"October 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/october-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":947,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/nuclear-realities\/","url_meta":{"origin":3468,"position":4},"title":"Nuclear Realities","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Given the worrying over nuclear Iran, it is timely to review the rules of nuclear proliferation. Nuclear Cred Otherwise insignificant nations and failed states gain credibility by shorting their own people to divert billions of dollars to acquiring a bomb. Take away that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nuclear Warfare"","block_context":{"text":"Nuclear Warfare","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war\/nuclear-warfare\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3729,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/talking-to-iran-moral-and-strategic-mistake\/","url_meta":{"origin":3468,"position":5},"title":"Talking to Iran: Moral and Strategic Mistake","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services One of the many bizarre recommendations in the recently released report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group is the call to talk with Iran. A formal dialogue with the present Iranian leadership is, for a number of reasons, as misguided as it is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2006"","block_context":{"text":"December 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/december-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3469,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468\/revisions\/3469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}