It's not clear whether you are erecting a straw man, but I'll take a flail at it: Isn't this possibly analogous to Iraq's abandonment of WMD, with the supposed caveat that it might resurrect if possible?

Steve LeVine, author
The Oil and the Glory (Random House)
http://www.oilandglory.com

We must also remember that the United States had just invaded Iraq in 2003, possibly having a significant impact on the decision by the Iranian gov't. With a quarter million US troops one country over, the Iranians probably were not too eager to push the nuclear envelope at that time.

One comment: You would have thought after the UN inspectors returned with a vengance into Iraq and found a very-convincing F-all that it would have reduced the likelyhood that the US would invade Iraq....

Intel community doesn;t have a good track record and has shown themselves to be wrong on all the big issues and moreover risk averse? This is totally ocnsisitent with Fallon's statement in the Gulf that military actions was off the table. Another end run...

The time line of this suspension is beyond belief. Makes no sense whatsoever other than a very public handoff to Israel...

In terms of large-scale factors visible to the public, I would guess that the motivations for Iran's decision back in 2003 were four-fold: 1) their own fear of Iraqi WMDs had just gone *poof*; 2) Libya's example encouraged them to think a deal with the US might be possible; 3) they thought influencing events in Iraq could provide a non-nuclear way of gaining greater international status; and 4) in the wake of Iraq, they were a bit twitchy about giving the US a genuine causus belli to attack.

I suspect that #1 was actually a major factor for them, just as the reciprocal fear was apparently a major factor for Hussein not wanting to come clean. Reasons 2 and 3 obviously go hand in hand - cut a deal on nukes and thereby get US blessing for more influence in Iraq. Reason number 4 is likely to be the one everyone focuses on, though, with people trumpeting it on the Right and denying it on the Left.

As far as that goes, I think Iran did have a credible reason to worry about the US in 2003 - the insurgency hadn't fully kicked off yet, so it might well have looked like we had the wherewithal to hopscotch over to them. By 2004 and 2005, however, it was clear we weren't able to do that, so their decision not to resume their nuke program at that point probably little to do with fear of American reprisals and much more to do with the "cut a deal, get influence" logic having taken root.

I do agree that the time line seems strange, but i believe the ultimate conclusions. I suspect that the USA had/has false or inflated information regarding Iran. My suspicion is that they have never had a nuclear weapons program at all. Though, i would not be surprised if they have information on how to build nuclear weapons or have actually considered building weapons. But I think that the USA has a record of blowing tiny things into Armageddon like conclusions, and thus doubt much of the American assessments.

Well, one can enjoy a slap on Bush Administration while it lasts. But American intelligence is totally discredited and full of 'gas'. Even a cursory pass by Daniel could find some obvious, glaring contradictions in his comments.

What a sad predicament for Americans - we have lousy intelligence organization and incompetent 'decider'! Totally disastrous combination.

This report hardly changes anything. ‘Intel’ is known prone to political pressures. Even a child can sense the 'political need' of going away from Bush Administration. So that is what these intelligence guys did.

I don't think it will wash to put this radically revised NIE to incompetent or disloyal intelligence agencies (multiple agencies were required to sign off on its assessments). Press reports, for example in today's Post, suggest on the contrary that improved electronic access to Iranian military communications was a key factor leading to the revised assessments.

There can't be any question that so dramatic a reversal by the intelligence community of the danger of an Iranian nuclear program, just by itself, dramatically undermines the Bush administration's credibility with other governments. With the American public, it must raise the question as to whether the President and Vice President were aware of the forthcoming findings at the time they made their recent references to World War III and the Iranian problem.

Now, intelligence assessments can be wrong. However, apart from the damage to American credibility, it is hard to regard the NIE's assesssments as anything other than very good news. An Iranian nuclear weapons program, on a fast track or not, was never going to be anything less than a major nuisance. That damage to our credibility, though, is going to be substantial. Bad enough that in the wake of 9/11 the most senior officials in the American government were spooked enough to buy into theories about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and take extreme action to defeat a phantom menace; it now appears that at least some of them never stopped being spooked, and at any rate were prepared to consider making the same mistake twice.

One heckuva NIE, indeed.

What happened in 2003?

Well, among other things, the US began to crack down on A Q Khan's nuclear trafficking network.