What Happened in 2003?
KRISTOL, WILLIAM
EDITORIAL What Happened in 2003? What highly signifi cant word is nowhere to be found in the declassifi ed summary of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear intentions and...
...Another part is the credible use of force—as in 2003...
...Why such fear...
...William Kristol...
...Iraq...
...What did that pressure consist of...
...According to the NIE, “the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure...
...What highly signifi cant word is nowhere to be found in the declassifi ed summary of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear intentions and capabilities...
...President Bush’s successful shift in strategy in Iraq a year ago, as part of his commitment to fi nishing that job, remains his greatest contribution to peace in the Middle East...
...In the fall of 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency had not yet referred the civil Iranian nuclear program to the U.N...
...But if one chooses not to be fatalistic, and to think about what might induce an Iranian “political decision” to abandon its nuclear program, part of the answer, surely, is a more robust effort to pressure the Iranian regime...
...And rather than dismantling or scrapping the “weapons” part of the program, Iran merely “halted” it...
...Still, Iran quite openly forged ahead with its easiertodefend-publicly “civil” uranium enrichment program...
...experts in to dismantle it...
...Resisting the temptation to throw away success in Iraq by drawing down too fast or too deep is the greatest service this president can render his successor...
...Did anyone notice...
...The quasi-urgency displayed by both the IAEA and the EU in late 2003 was a result of fear that unless they got engaged, the United States might act unilaterally and militarily...
...What we do know, as the NIE acknowledges, is that “some combination of threats of intensifi ed international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional infl uence in other ways, might—if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible—prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program...
...In the fall of 2003...
...Perhaps Iran’s mullahs also noticed...
...It may well be that Iran paused its work in that area simply to wait for the “civil” enrichment program to catch up, not slowing its overall push for nuclear weapons at all...
...Security Council...
...The fi nal part is victory in Iraq...
...But they may have halted their nuclear weapon work, and their covert uranium-conversion and uranium-enrichment work...
...Though the NIE acknowledges that “because of intelligence gaps,” parts of the U.S...
...Libya, in late 2003, gave up its nuclear weapons program (which was, incidentally, more advanced than the IAEA believed) and invited U.S...
...The NIE “assess[es] with high confi dence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons...
...Given “Iran’s considerable effort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons,” the NIE concludes, reasonably if tautologically, that “only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons— and such a decision is inherently reversible...
...More determined and stronger than Qaddafi , the mullahs did not dismantle their program...
...In the fall of 2003, the European Union had barely swung into action with its negotiations—which have gone nowhere in four years...
...Much as the U.S...
...We don’t know...
...But, as Claudia Rosett pointed out in a trenchant analysis in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “If international pressure achieved such sterling results in Iran four years ago, then surely we deserve to know what, exactly, impressed Iran’s rulers so thoroughly that they might have slammed on the brakes...
...The complete and unequivocal defeat of al Qaeda and of Iranian-backed proxies in Iraq is the best way to show Iran that the United States is a serious power to be reckoned with in the region...
...When did Iran (apparently) stop its nuclear weapons program—as distinct from its “civil” program of uranium enrichment, which of course is proceeding apace...
...government “assess with only moderate confi dence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program...
...intelligence community, the IAEA, and the EU might prefer to forget it, we did overthrow Saddam Hussein in April 2003...
...Why did Iran stop its nuclear weapons program...
...As Rosett puts it, that “was the year in which Saddam Hussein became Exhibit A of the post-Sept.-11 era for what could happen to terror-linked tyrants who ignored America’s demands that they abjure weapons of mass murder...
...This coda is meant to induce fatalism about Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons...
...Perhaps they noticed, too, a large U.S.-led military force just across their border...
...Muammar Qaddafi did...
...Of course, all such political decisions are “inherently reversible...
...Only if Bush wins in Iraq will the next president have a reasonable chance to defeat the threat of a nuclear-weapons-seeking Islamic Republic of Iran...
...That happened in 2006, and the Security Council fi nally agreed on (weak) sanctions later that year...
Vol. 13 • December 2007 • No. 14
