from HuffPost:
Jon Soltz
World War III plans stymied by National Intelligence EstimatePosted December 3, 2007 | 06:24 PM (EST)
The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was put together a while ago, but we got the first glance at the declassified version of it, today. The bombshell, excuse the pun, is that despite all the war rhetoric of late, Iran seems to have ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
The obvious question this raises is, if this report was known to the White House for months, why did administration officials talk time and time again about the threat of the non-existent weapons program, as reason to keep a military option under consideration?
The answer is domestic politics.
The guys I served with know the military has been worn to the bone, and could not possibly take on a third war front. It's just not possible militarily. The new intelligence estimate makes clear we don't even need to be thinking about military action right now. Let's also not forget that right now we have a very delicate calm among the Shia forces in Iraq, loyal to Iran. An attack on Iran would only fire them back up and put our troops at risk, not to mention gear up Hezbollah north of Israel.
This new report also shows that not only is Iran susceptible to diplomatic channels, but that they were shutting down their program before European sanctions even took effect, so we don't even need to isolate them. We do indeed have time to engage Iran to thwart any danger of them re-starting their nuclear weapons program. .....(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-soltz/world-war-iii-plans-stymi_b_75181.html
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