NIE: No Iranian Nuclear Programme
We've definitely been down this road before, I seem to remember. This time, however, the intelligence (or lack of it) is more out in the open and thus less liable to be misused for political ends. Interesting in itself to read the National Intelligence Estimate excerpt, with all its caveats about the inherent ambivalence and uncertainty of its own nature (see p5).
In the run-up to Iraq, so much emphasis was placed on the WMD theory it became the de facto casus belli (apologies for the overuse of Latin there). Whereas the reality was that the motivation was political, and more complex.
The war was really fought not just for oil and to attempt to introduce a democratic domino effect but to prevent Saddam from developing WMD, not prevent him from using them. Thus the NIE is just as likely to leave the remaining neocons unconvinced of the dangers of attacking Iran.
On the other hand, as the author quoted below suggests, "the entire framework for US-Iranian relations would appear to have shifted, and with it the structure of geopolitical relations throughout the region." That means room for negotiation with Tehran on calming Iraq - the ultimate pragmatism prevailing in an uncomfortable situation.
So it's a possibility that either or both the NIEs on Iran - the 2005 one that assessed with high confidence that Iran intended to develop nuclear weapons and the 2007 one that says it doesn't - were politically motivated, but for different reasons.
Stratfor - Geopolitical Intelligence Report
It is altogether possible to have so many sources, human and technical, that you have no idea what the truth is. That is when an intelligence organization is most subject to political pressure. When the intelligence could go either way, politics can tilt the system. We do not know what caused the NIE to change its analysis. It could be the result of new, definitive intelligence, or existing intelligence could have been reread from a new political standpoint.
Consider the politics. The assumption was that Iran wanted to develop nuclear weapons -- though its motivations for wanting to do so were never clear to us. First, the Iranians had to assume that, well before they had an operational system, the United States or Israel would destroy it. In other words, it would be a huge effort for little profit. Second, assume that it developed one or two weapons and attacked Israel, for example. Israel might well have been destroyed, but Iran would probably be devastated by an Israeli or U.S. counterstrike. What would be the point?
