Do they or don't they?

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies released Monday concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting a judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran is likely to keep its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies “do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

Iran is continuing to produce enriched uranium, a program that the Tehran government has said is intended for civilian purposes. The new estimate says that the enrichment program could still provide Iran with enough raw material to produce a nuclear weapon sometime by the middle of next decade, a timetable essentially unchanged from previous estimates.

But the new report essentially disavows a judgment that the intelligence agencies issued in 2005, which concluded that Iran had an active secret arms program intended to transform the raw material into a nuclear weapon. The new estimate declares instead with “high confidence” that the military-run program was shut in 2003, and it concludes with “moderate confidence” that the program remains frozen. The report judges that the halt was imposed by Iran “primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure.”

It was not clear what prompted the reversal. Administration officials said the new estimate reflected conclusions that the intelligence agencies had agreed on only in the past several weeks.

Perhaps the Iranians stopped their nuclear weapons program (if they have indeed stopped it) as a consequence of the US invasion of Iraq. After all the invasion was enough to induce Libya to give up its own WMD program. It is amazing what the fear of a visit from a hundred thousand heavily armed soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines can accomplish.

Of course it is entirely possible that the estimate is wrong and that the Iranians are still trying to build a bomb. After all Israel is still convinced of this and they have much better human intelligence than we do and they are highly motivated to get it right where Iran is concerned. After all the only reason that Iran would build a bomb is to use it on Tel Aviv.

I hope this estimate is accurate. I hope the Iranians are not currently working on nuclear weapons. I hope this because contrary to what the lunatic fringe left, steeping in the insanity of their Bush Derangement Syndrome, believe the administration is not seeking to find or manufacture a pretext to invade or bomb Iran.

The fact is that the Democrat Party, otherwise known as the Jackass Party or the Party of Treason or the Surrender Party or the Hate America Party, has so poisoned the political waters that action against Iran, no matter how justified or urgent, is effectively impossible.

Even an action by Israel to do away with the Iranian uranium enrichment program is nearly impossible because it would require the active participation of the US and the Left, which is the new home of antisemitism in the Western world, sees Jewish conspiracies hiding behind every tree to a degree not seen since Julius Streicher published the last issue of Der Sturmer. Even letting the IDF overfly US controlled airspace in Iraq would ignite a firestorm among the latter-day neo-Nazis in organizations like Code Pink, MoveOn.org, DailyKos and DemocratUnderground.

No, if the Iranians don't stop themselves they aren't going to be stopped. At least not until the next president takes the oath of office.

What I also find interesting about this is that the left is taking this intelligence estimate as gospel when the other estimates that said that Iran was working on a bomb were assumed to be deceptions by the administration designed to provide a pretext to war. Just like the consensus of intelligence agencies not only of the US but of the world which said that Saddam Hussein had an active WND program is assumed to have been a gigantic lie cooked up by Bush and Cheney to justify invading Iraq.

It would seem that the left only believes what it wants to believe. Just like the British politicians who believed that they could make friends with Hitler in the years leading up to WWII.