Pipes’s surprising angle on the NIE

Daniel Pipes has a counter-intuitive argument on the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. He says that the NIE, far from killing the possibility of the U.S. using force against Iran, makes it more likely. This is because (1) the NIE has destroyed the external agreement among nations that was the basis of the various diplomatic efforts to get Iran to change its behavior voluntarily; (2) many U.S. experts and members of Congress, foreign governments, and even international agencies doubt or outright reject the NIE’s finding that Iran has stopped nuclear weapons development; and (3) the option of doing nothing and letting Iran continue to develop nukes is unacceptable. Therefore the use of force against Iran will emerge more and more as the only way to go.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 12, 2007 06:21 PM | Send