“Intercepted communications of Iranian officials discussing their nuclear program raised concerns that the country’s leaders had decided to revive efforts to develop a weapon, intelligence officials said. That, along with a stream of other information, set off an intensive review and delayed publication of the 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, a classified report reflecting the consensus of analysts from 16 agencies. But in the end, they deemed the intercepts and other evidence unpersuasive, and they stuck to their longstanding conclusion……… As a result, officials caution that they cannot offer certainty. “I’d say that I have about 75 percent confidence in the assessment that they haven’t restarted the program,”…………….”

““There is not a lot of dispute between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts,” the former official said. The Times reported last month that U.S. intelligence analysts continue to believe there was no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. The latest assessments by U.S. spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program …….….”


Which deserves a resounding: WTF?
This seems to confirm my long-held suspicions: the noise about Iran has little to do with a nuclear program. It has a lot to do with broader Middle East balance of power. It has to do with pressure from the Israeli/American right-wing (and perhaps the Saudi princes). It is part of a struggle for influence in the Middle East.
The Israelis want Iranian influence in Lebanon and Syria reduced, but without the risk of an Islamist Salafi resurgence (in Syria) that would actively reopen the Golan file. Syria is a focus target, with the potential of a complete break with Iran and an alliance with the Saudis and their  right-wing March 14 proxies in Lebanon. Lebanon can be partly affected, but it would be unrealistic for it to have a complete break with Iran and join the Saudi camp (the demographics are against it).

The Saudi princes want to consolidate their hegemony over the Gulf GCC states and to dominate the Arabs of the eastern Mediterranean. A tough, nay impossible, job. In the process, they want Iranian infrastructure and military power destroyed by the Americans and Israelis. That would open the door for their money to move into the vacuum in Syria and perhaps regain influence in Lebanon. The Saudi princes want to play the same role they tried in the 1980s, when they armed and financed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran and urged the West to do the same. We all know what Saddam did in 1990 right after the West pulled his nuts out of the fire.

Everybody in America is making ‘appropriate’ noises about the “nuclear” issue; even Obama is being pushed to it by both his right-wing opponents and by Democrats in the U.S. Congress. Especially so with the Republican candidates vying to outdo each other in Likud-orchestrated crazy rhetoric, rhetoric that seems to embarrass some past and current Israeli officials (not Netanyahu and Lieberman).
Cheers
mhg


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