Soccer Dad

Fool me once, fool me twice, fool me as many times as you want

In the run up to release of the 2007 NIE, David Ignatius assured us that the intelligence community wouldn't make the same mistakes again. No longer would intelligence be politicized,it would be done professionally and correctly:

The CIA made it easy for disgruntled Iranians to send information directly to the agency in cases known as "virtual walk-ins." The National Security Agency and other intelligence organizations made similar drives to steal more of Iran's secrets.

Meanwhile, the intelligence analysts responsible for Iran were given new encouragement to think outside the box. To break the lock-step culture that allowed the disastrous mistake on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Deputy Director of National Intelligence Thomas Fingar ordered that analysts be given more information about sources and, rather than trying to fit information into preexisting boxes to prove a case, they should simply explain what it meant.

All these strands converged in the bombshell National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that was released Monday. That document was as close to a U-turn as one sees in the intelligence world. The community dropped its 2005 judgment that Iran was "determined to develop nuclear weapons" and instead said, "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program" because of international pressure.

A year later we found out - contrary to the 2007 NIE - that Iran was indeed continuing its nuclear research. The politicization of the NIE handcuffed the Bush administration, making it impossible to take decisive action against Iran. The prevailing wisdom in the intelligence community then was that a confrontation with Iran must be avoided and that appears to be the operating assumption of the Obama administration.

So the 2007 NIE that Ignatius praised so lavishly was wrong. Perhaps deliberately so. At least we don't have to be afraid that Iran might develop a nuclear bomb. Ignatius now assures us:

Here's the bottom line: There may be more time on the Iranian nuclear clock than some analysts had feared. The fuel stock that the Iranians have worked so hard to produce might damage their centrifuges if they try to enrich it into a bomb. Making a deal with Iran to enrich nuclear fuel outside the country makes sense, so long as the international community can monitor where and how it's used -- and learn whether there's a secret stash.

Ignatius is consistent about one thing. Regardless of the reason, he believes that the Iranian threat is over-hyped. But even if the earliest Iran can develop a nuclear weapon is 2013, that's still the regime's goal. It is Ignatius who is trying to fit all available information into the "pre-existing box" that Iran is not and won't be a threat.