Iran's Nuclear Program in Question

Bush defends Iran policy amid doubts on new U.N. sanctions
President Bush worked the phones Tuesday to salvage his hard-line policy toward Iran , lobbying foreign leaders for tougher economic sanctions despite a new U.S. intelligence report that concluded that the Islamic republic halted its secret nuclear weapons program four years ago.

Several U.S. officials and experts, however, said that the new National Intelligence Estimate has upended Bush's policy and erased any justification for threatening military strikes. The president will now find it difficult to persuade Russia and China — and even America's European allies— to impose new sanctions on Iran , even though it refuses to heed United Nations demands to stop enriching uranium, they said.

"A new resolution is going to be very hard to get, if not impossible," said a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.  CONTINUED

Iran: Nuke report means US should ease
Iran on Tuesday touted a new U.S. intelligence report as vindication that its nuclear program is peaceful. But it was unclear if the finding would lead to any immediate warming in U.S.-Iranian relations, including on key issues like Iraq.

Iranian officials insisted Washington should take a less hawkish stance and drop attempts to impose new sanctions in light of the report's conclusion that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in late 2003 and has shown no signs of resuming.

President Bush ruled out any change in policy. He said sanctions were still needed to force Iran to stop uranium enrichment, which he warned could be used for building atomic warheads someday. France and Britain also said pressure must be maintained on Tehran.

Even Russia, which urges continued negotiations rather than more sanctions, said Iran must open its nuclear program fully to international scrutiny and keep it under control of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency.  CONTINUED

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As with how Bush sold the Iraq war to the public, I think Iran's still a threat; but we're hyping up the wrong information.  For example, with Iraq we knew Saddam had a chemical weapons program and used the products liberally against Iran and his own people.  Plus, he unilaterally invaded two neighbors.  But instead of telling the US public we were going in to thwart a proven regional aggressor, we sold the war on the premise of overturning rocks to find powdery substances.

In the case of Iran we know Tehran's a signee of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which gives them the right to buy whatever the hell the want.  We also know Iran's foreign policy rests on the destruction of Israel and "death to America," and that Tehran's doubly paranoid with US forces operating inside adjacent countries.  Finally, despite the apparent lack of bomb development, Ahmedinedjad hasn't exactly been open and forthright regarding Iran's nuclear program.

Unfortunately, what I've read on the wires is Bush hyping the bomb threat, which apparently isn't as imminent as we thought.  But is gloating and pointing fingers the right way the approach this issue, given the rest of the available data?  So what the program is now 10-15 years out:  do we wait until year 14 to exhume it?  Hell, even France advocates maintaining pressure (and Israel already stated they're not waiting a decade to find out).

But let's look past the threat and bring up the argument I've raised over and over:  how much of this whole goat rope could we clear up by just putting aside our respective prides and talking?  And I don't mean low-level government functionaries with ill-fitting suits and bad comb-overs:  I'm talking senior policy makers. 

We're not going to dissipate the threat by putting our heads in the sand, nor by building cases that don't exist.  But without dialog, it's to damn easy to find evanescent monsters under the bed.

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