Iran’s nuclear programme is on hold, according to US national intelligence estimate

Jonathan

I love you neo-cons. Not "good news, they're not going nuclear, we've possibly avoided world war 3", but "damn, now we can't justify bombing them". You're a genuine danger to humanity

Anan

The only danger to humanity is complacement appeasers and terrorism-apologists like you.

Lee Jakeman

Oil rich Iran doesn't need nuclear power. Their nuclear programme, from the outset had as its goal the making a bomb. If they've stopped the weapons programme for now, it's only because things got too "hot" for them internationally. They will just bide their time and make their bomb later, at a more opportune time.

Simon Allen

So, opposing a war on Iran makes one a a "terrorism-apologist". Is this the level of reasoned debate we can now expect from Bush's America?

George Steiner

The American intelligence community is lying. For what reason I don't know yet. But lying it is. It is not possible for the intelligence community not to know it for four years if it actually happened.

Fergus Pickering

What are you saying, Anan? That you don't believe the intelligence agencies when they tell you what you don't want to hear, just like you didn't believe them when they told you Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 and didn't have and WMDs. Or that we should bomb the horrid Iranians anyway because they're bad people?

Kelvin

So there's a four-year lag between developments in Iran and the intelligence agencies' finding out about them. Unless I've misunderstood, that means that Iran could have been actively developing nuclear weapons for at least three years.

Nicholas Millman

Is that David Blunkett in the heading photograph? What is he doing in Iran?

TGF UKIP

This seems completely at variance not only with the Iranian regime's own rhetoric, but with the urgent nature of their centrifuge programme. I am very sceptical, not least, because the CIA has become such a Democrat Party stronghold in recent times and determined to embarrass the Bush Administration at every opportunity. Be interesting to get the Israeli intelligence view on this and that of the Iranian exile groups.

George Steiner

The Iranians have used the Uranium enrichment program as a smoke screen. This received all the attention, which was the oblective. So while the world community was calculating the number of centrifuges and grams of uranium, the North Koreans have supplied them with plutonium. My intelligence estimate is that the Iranians already have one or more nuclear weapons, ready to use. So much for the US intelligence community. They have shown themselves to be unimaginative and bumbling. Again.

arun ahmed

the main problem is not iran but peoples misunderstanding of other cultures.You cannot go tell everyone what to do.The developed countries have created more problems yet they only blame the poeple they have conned.This is seen throughout history,most americans do not know what life islike in the world outside.Their best yet failed programme was the mad man they made from a spoilt arab.Of which I have little regard.Enemies are made because other people feel threatened and scared.The west has two tier policy one for itself and one for ohers who are less equal when it comes down to finance.This can be avoided if all countries are seen as equal and all relgious beliefs.

David Lindsay

TGF UKIP, for all its faults, UKIP is a paleocon, High Tory party which therefore opposed the Iraq War. So why are you in it? Anyway, all you necons: told you so. There'll never be an Iran War now, thank God. And what if there had been? Does anyone seriously believe that Britain would have taken part in it after Afghanistan and Iraq? Or even that we could have done while still in those countries as well? Even an Iranian strike against Israel would not have led to a war, since there would have been nothing left to defend: for good or ill, that strike would just have been the end of Israel, and thus the end of the matter. And we now know that even that was never actually going to happen. Well, you now know it. Some of us knew it anyway. Why aren't you pleased?

George Steiner

Mr. Ahmed, Idon't know if you know this but the Iranians are not Arabs. They are much more clever.

Max Kaye

David Lindsay, you say: "Even an Iranian strike against Israel would not have led to a war, since there would have been nothing left to defend: for good or ill, that strike would just have been the end of Israel, and thus the end of the matter."

You seem to say this so blithely. That's why I hope Israel will not have second thoughts about securing their existence and do whatever they need to do, even if you, the CIA and others disagree with them. margins for error are just too damn small.

Anan

Simon, opposing a war on Iran, if provoked, makes you a complacent coward. Opposing sanctions on Iran, a country which is completely unstable and therefore not worthy of nuclear weapons, for development of nuclear weapons makes you an appeaser, and terrorism-apologist.

Fergus, what I am saying is that being complacent, or being an appeaser, when it comes to aggressive lunatics, only leads to suffering for everyone. What you, Simon, and Jonathan are doing is exactly what we did when Hitler was running around blabbering his mouth and invading country after country. For your information, the US agencies said Saddam had WMD and everything to do with 9/11. They were wrong on both counts. I fear they are wrong again now with this new piece.

All you cowards out there: don't give into bullying!

Anan

Yeah Max,David Lindsay is foolish. A nuclear strike on Israel would still lead to a retatliation from Israel itself, as well as from America. It would be the shortest war in history - Iran nukes Israel, and America nukes Iran. THAT would have been the end of it.

Followed of course by massive sanctions on Iran, if not a full-scale conventional aerial bombardment on all government facilities, military installations, and broadcasting stations. Then capturing the oil fields to ensure the whole world doesn't go into recession. $1 a barrel anyone?

Heywood Yerbloemie

"The US agencies said Saddam had WMD and everything to do with 9/11." On the first point, so did the French, British and Israeli intelligence services. On the second point, I think the connection was spun by the US media and not formally rebutted by the US govt... And in fact there were pretty well-developed links between al Qaeda and the Saddam regime - in spite of the supposed antagonisms between AQ and Ba'athist Iraq highlighted noisily by many 'experts'. The weekly standard has written comprehensively on this matter. But the liberal consensus view - extending the 'Bush is a liar' trope to everything the regime has ever said or done since 9/11 - means the argument is lost. And don't forget the NIE is a consensus opinion between the many US intelligences services, all of whom have their own agendas. The common view that everyone will sign up to, very like the UK's JIC process, and equally vulnerable to dilution and hesitancy. Hence what amounts to an admission of ignorance on large sections. And funny that no one has sought to link Iran's 'suspension' of its programme in 2003 with what had just happened to Saddam.

David Lindsay

"A nuclear strike on Israel would still lead to a retatliation from Israel itself" How? "as well as from America" Why?

Anan

Don't try to divert the argument. Try defending your stupid point instead of side-tracking. Since you seem to like quoting others, I'll end by giving you one more: "David Lindsay is foolish."

Laurie

"Tell them what they want to hear!" is the mantra, so the most reasonable explanation for this sudden change is that they have been advised that the next President will be a Democrat and have begun preparations to tell them what they want to hear. Israel? Iran? Screw them! It's all about domestic politics!