FOR POLITICAL GAIN?

“[T]o the extent that the [National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear-weapons program] undercuts the credibility of the threat of military force, it reduces American leverage over Iran (and over our own allies) and thereby diminishes rather than enhances the prospects for diplomatic success. If indeed Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, is it a coincidence that this was the same year America made good on its threat of military force against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Here’s what troubles us about the report, though: If one can have high confidence in the NIE findings, then those findings are good news for America. They mean that a regime that has repeatedly shown its hostility toward our country is less of a threat than we had reason to fear. If Iran had nuclear weapons, it could create a humanitarian catastrophe. Or it could use the threat to do so to do all sorts of mischief that would be destructive to U.S. interests in the region. But we haven’t seen anyone celebrating the NIE as good news for America. The people who profess to believe it all seem to view it as a partisan document, a weapon to be used in their battle against the Bush administration. To the administration’s domestic foes, it doesn’t seem to matter how much of a threat Iran poses; short-term political gain is more important than the interests of America.”

—James Taranto