In what will cause quite a firestorm, I am sure, the NYT reports that “[a] new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold.” As the Times points out, this directly contradicts “an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.”

“The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be major factor in the tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program, and they come in the middle of a presidential campaign during which a possible military strike against Iran’s nuclear program has been discussed,” the Times rightfully adds.

I’ve spoken out in favor of a military strike against Iran if absolutely necessary. ‘Necessary’ was defined by me as the only way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. As such, the new assessment forced me to re-adjust my view: if Iran isn’t developing WMDs it - thankfully - makes absolutely no sense to attack the country formerly known as Persia.

Of course, there are many more problems with Iran, such as the Mullahs’ support for terrorists across the Middle East, but those issues are much less significant than the nuclear question.

The NIE isn’t all positive: many questions remain about Iran’s intentions. However, Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs,” according to the assessment.

The estimate further states that “[s]ome combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might — if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible — prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program.”

The NIE concludes that Iran “is unlikely to achieve this goal before 2013, ‘because of foreseeable technical and programmatic problems’.”

To summarize:

- Iran is probably not working on nuclear weapons at this point in time

- If Iran decides to develop them, it will take the theocracy until, at least, 2013

This means that even if Tehran wants to develop WMDs the West will have enough time to act before the Mullahs will actually be able to wipe Israel off the map, as Ahmadinejad likes to say.

In other words, however you look at it, a strike against Iran somewhere between now and 2009 simply doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. This is, obviously, good news: the West can now focus on other ways to influence Tehran.

More at the Newshoggers where Cernig writes:

The NIE says that the only factor which can stop Iran making a bomb is a political decision from Iran’s leaders - not sanctions, nor airstrikes. I would point out that Iran’s leaders quite obviously appear to have already made that decision back in 2003. Now, what carrots can the West offer Iran to ensure that this decision is permanent?

And AMERICAblog:

All this war-mongering towards Iran from Cheney, Bush, Kyl and Lieberman has been based on false and misleading information. The 16 U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran isn’t in the process of building a nuke weapon — and hasn’t been for four years.

Prairie Weather weighs in as well:

The only possible way the latest National Intelligence Estimate could come out with the news that Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons and that the program has “been on hold” since 2003 is that Dick Cheney was unable to get the intelligence changed. Past NIE’s — badly flawed — have erred badly thanks, in all likelihood, to tampering by the well-known master bureaucrat. Cheney must be somewhere in the Middle East, in a dank cell.