Jacoby keeps it real on Iran

Great column by the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby on Dec. 9 under the headline, "No reason to relax on Iran" -

Jacoby writes, "Now that the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear intentions has had a few days to cool off, how does it look? A few reflections:

"1. Iran's nuclear program is alive and well. Yes, I know - the very first of the NIE's 'key judgments,' the one that launched a thousand headlines, is that 'Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program' in the fall of 2003. But what that first sentence giveth, a footnote to that sentence taketh away: 'By 'nuclear weapons program,' explains footnote 1, 'we mean Iran's declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment."

"But that's a distinction without a difference, since the accumulation of enriched uranium is by far the most important component in developing nuclear weapons," Jacoby writes (emphasis added. "Iran's 'civil' uranium enrichment - those 3,000 centrifuges spinning at Natanz - continues unabated, in defiance of Security Council resolutions ordering that it stops. Whether the nuclear-fuel program is labeled 'civilian' or 'military' is irrelevant. The more uranium the mullahs enrich, the closer they are to getting the bomb."

Did Iran suspend its nuclear weapons program because of the invasion of Iraq?

According to the NIE released Monday, Iran suspended its illicit nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003.

About six months after the US-led invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. And only two months before Libya decided to abandon its pursuit of nuclear arms.

Did the war with Iraq prompt Iran to suspend its nuclear weapons program? Maybe, maybe not. The timing begs the question, but what's odd about the media coverage over the last few days - and I've read a half-dozen stories on the NIE in the New York Times, the Boston Globe and on the CNN website - I have yet to see a single reference to even the possibility of a connection.

But what if the NIE had reported that Iran initiated a covert nuclear weapons program six months after the invasion of Iraq - think we'd hear about a connection then? We'd be hearing of little else.