Iran & The NIE

" the regime of Iran, especially the hardliners led by the Supreme Leader and represented by the president, acted as if the new report of the US intelligence organizations was a new chapter of the Koran."

In all my years on the internet that was one of the few lines I actually Laughed Out Loud at.

The statement comes to us from Bahman Diba, PhD in International Law. His specialty being international sea law. He is almost certain to post his thoughts on the recent US/Iran confrontation as he did about the British hostage crisis and I look forward to his thoughts.

However I happend to bring up the NIE and the IAEAs chief Mohamed Baradei's visit to Iran this weekend in the Harry-"does it seem real?"-Smith thread.

Apparently some say the NIE means nothing and Bush is still planning to attack Iran and others tell me I can sleep easier. Because the NIE is gospel proof of accurate intelligence (all of a sudden imagine that) that Iran has absolutely no interest in making a nuclear weapon and it stopped it's illegal nuke making program in 2003. So it's all good.

Except the good Dr. here has a few questions and points he'd like to make, which I will list here. I still have yet to hear these asked or expressed in the media.

1- The report is made by the US intelligence organizations which claim to have listened to the conversations of the Iranian officials. In a country that is well aware that the telephone calls of the officials are monitored by the intelligence organizations, how reliable is such an eavesdropping? It is said that the NIE is based on the eavesdropping made by the British agents. It is interesting that a high ranking UK official has recently said: "the intelligence analysts in the UK believed that Iran has deceived the US intelligence organization."

2- The report says that Iran had a military nuclear program, which was stopped in 2003. This statement does not mean anything. The entire nuclear program of Iran is not at all in a stage that one can say it has or it has not a military side (that is exactly what the International Atomic Energy Agency has said time and again in all of its reports about the nuclear case of Iran, including the recent report which was equality celebrated by it Iranian regime). The way to military or non-military nuclear programs is the same up to the final stages. For the same reason, the United Nations Security Council resolutions and the Western pressure about the nuclear program of Iran are all based on one point: the "lack of trust". They argue that they do not want Iran to enrich uranium (although it is mentioned in the NPT) because they do not trust the regime of Iran. They are concerned that Iranian regime might divert the program to the military side in the last stages (exactly what the North Koreans did). Therefore, a direct statement about stopping of the military side of the Iranian nuclear program is meaningless, while the regime of Iran continue to enrich uranium and expand the heavy water nuclear facilities in Arak (yet, another way of getting to the military goals).

3- As Robert Gates, the US Defense Secretary, said recently in the conference of Bahrain (Washington post, Dec. 2007): if the regime of Iran, welcomes this report as being the reflection of facts, why it does not accept the other NIE reports about the depth of Iranian intervention Iraq, the support of international terrorism and support of Hamas and Hezbollah? It would be interesting to see the reaction of the Iranian Islamic regime to the new reports of the NIE about the human rights, corruption and other problems of Iran under the rule of Iranian Taliban.

4- If the military nuclear program of Iran has stopped in 2003, then what it has to do with the present administration? It was the time of Khatami and good or bad, the credit goes to him. The only thing that remains for the present administration is the level of its hypocrisy to the people of Iran and the other states.

5- The Iranian Supreme Leader and some other officials of the Islamic Republic in Iran have claimed that they consider the nuclear weapons as contrary to Islam. While the extent of such claim is clearly under question (it is based on the Fatwa or religious ruling of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that can change it any time and it is not mandatory for many muslins), the present NIE and its support by the regime of Iran, indicate to the level of deception used by the leaders of the Islamic regime in Iran.

Thoughts?