Why Does U.S. and Israeli Intelligence Differ? -Yaakov Katz
Israel's Mossad claims that the Iranians will be able to develop a nuclear bomb by the end of 2009; IDF Military Intelligence warns that Teheran will cross the technological threshold within six months; and now the Americans are putting the timeline toward the middle of the next decade, or 2013 at the earliest. Defense officials in Tel Aviv admitted that the report would probably embolden Iran.
The Americans are still traumatized by the blatant intelligence failure vis-a-vis Iraq's alleged WMD and do not want to be caught crying wolf again. Israel takes the more stringent track.
(Jerusalem Post)
Ahmadinejad: U.S. Nuclear Assessment Is Victory for Iran
Iranian President Ahmadinejad says the new U.S. intelligence report on Tehran's nuclear program is "a victory" for the Iranian nation against world powers.
(VOA News)
Relax? Don't. -Bronwen Maddox
The newly published U.S. intelligence report argues that Iran has been deterred from pursuing them mainly by the fear of U.S. military action, a fear that has now faded.
The report makes clear the seriousness of the threat, not the opposite.
(Times-UK)
Was Bush Behind the Iran Report? -Robert Baer
Bombing Iran, it seems, is now off the table.
[T]here is no doubt that the Bush White House was behind this [report and] that an explosive 180-degree turn on Iran like this one was greenlighted by the president. The real story behind this [report] is that the Bush Administration has finally concluded Iran is a bridge too far.
Iran is a black hole, and it's entirely conceivable Iran could build a bomb and we wouldn't know until they tested it.
The writer is a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East.
(TIME)
The Gulf States and Iran -Max Boot
Iran is building up its military arsenal, and has threatened to shut down the Persian Gulf. What particularly concerns Gulf Arabs is the possibility that Iran could go nuclear - a concern unlikely to be erased by the ambiguous findings of the new National Intelligence Estimate.
(Wall Street Journal)
Alone on the Battlefield -Alex Fishman
The information available to Israeli and Western intelligence services shows that Iran, due to diplomatic pressures, indeed froze the process in 2003, but the same information shows that the efforts were renewed two years later and are continuing to this day.
Behind closed doors, Israeli defense officials are convinced that U.S. intelligence bodies are simply getting it wrong...now [Israel] may have to do this a bit more alone.
(Ynet News)
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