Last week the National Intelligence Community [NCI], an “independent” organization comprising of 16 branches of the American intelligence, jettisoned its “bomb” by affirming with high confidence that Iran had suspended its program to develop nuclear weapons since 2003.
At the same time, the NCI stated with moderate confidence that Iran had not revived its program since mid-2007, while explaining that it did not know if Iran currently intends to expand or not nuclear weapons.
The report then says with high confidence that Iran will probably not be able to produce and reprocess plutonium to make a bomb before 2015 but, again with high confidence, that the Islamic Republic has the scientific, technical and industrial potential to make the bomb if this was the intention.
The recent report is contradictory, vague and dangerous but also political. This coupled with the errors committed by U.S. intelligence officials in the past should remind us how a careful reading remains fundamental. Indeed, except the error on Iraq, one will remember in bulk that the American services had not anticipated the fall of the Berlin Wall, and even less the collapse of the USSR, without even mentioning about the attacks of September 11 whereas several agencies in Washington had sufficiently relevant information in order to prevent, in all or partly, atrocities made by Al-Qaïda.
Furthermore, would it not be more appropriate to further question on the advisability of publishing such a report one week after Annapolis? Even though the Summit failed to provide solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it had the merit of bringing back the protagonists around the table of negotiation at a time when the American administration is trying to restore its image of “super-mediator”. Our continued questioning focuses on the real degree of independence of the agency that wrote the report. The latter, revealed only a few days before the early primary elections whereas the popularity and flexibility of the American President have never been so low, could be likened to a "takeover by force" of the body of intelligence against President. Indeed, if the report offers an “honorable” way out to President Bush and his administration on such a complex issue, it is nonetheless true that the case puts the whole political community in the embarrassment - as much the Republicans as the Democrats - but also hurts the faith which one can (could) have in the American intelligence services.
There is no certainty on the status of the Iranian nuclear program since they need to be found somewhere else: the Iranian regime has tried, on numerous occasions, to acquire nuclear weapons; President Ahmadinejad contributes to reinforce the political instability of the Middle East by supplying arms and helping militarily terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hizbullah which constantly threaten the only democracy in the region: Israel. This same president also denies the Holocaust and threatens to erase Israel, to wipe it off the map. To conclude, there is finally the numerous and repeated violations of human rights: Executions, torture, systematic arrests, and imprisonment are usual occurrences. Capital punishment is used liberally in Iran and executions are most often performed in public, often in a cruel and sadistic manner.
Finally, this report brings us back to the status quo ante: Iran is gaining time on the eventual sanctions that the Western world could inflict, saves time in order to conduct or not its nuclear program, is gaining in popularity and credibility within a part of the Arab World.
If the report is wrong, Israel -believing so- would have no choice but to act alone against the regime of Mullahs; worst case scenario, if it is necessary to specify, for the throughout of the region.
The Iranian nuclear threat, I believe remains real in the medium term. It is a threat to the State of Israel but also for the entire international community: from Washington to Tokyo via Brussels. A responsibility that part of the American establishment now seems likely to clear. Even though the report significantly discredits any pressure that the West will come to bear on the regime in Tehran, it is hoped that the Europeans will have the foresight to continue - without worrying on what U.S. intelligence officials, or maybe China and Russia think – their policy doomed to lift the veil on Iran’s nuclear activities but also and most of all to stop them! This is no more than what Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel agreed on in Paris last week: “Iran is still a threat, our position can be summed up in two words : dialogue and firmness”.
