For anyone that hasn’t heard, there’s a newly released National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. I buy James Fallows argument that this means we can substantial relax about the possibility that President Bush will start a war with them.
2) For nearly three years, "yes, they will" / "no, they wouldn’t dare" arguments about the Bush Administration’s intentions have raged within the press and among analysts. The question was whether the president and vice president might actually go ahead and order a preemptive air or land strike against Iran -- despite the absence of clear Congressional approval, despite the obvious lack of support within America’s professional military, despite the overwhelming evidence that in the crudest sense a military approach could not work. I’ve been in the "they wouldn’t dare" camp -- and have urged members of Congress to remove doubt by prohibiting use of funds toward this end. Other writers and analysts have consistently said: No, just you wait, it’s coming, these guys are determined to get the job done.
The argument is in a sense moot now. In the face of this NIE, a possibility that had once seemed remote -- that the uniformed military might resist carrying out an order for a self-destructive attack on Iran --is suddenly more plausible. On what rational grounds could a president or vice president now order a strike? The order itself might be grounds for judging a commander-in-chief unfit to hold office. But some time it will be worth going back to see how close the president or vice president ever came to preparing for attack.
The rest of the piece has some interesting points, but I figured I’d just drop a marker for when my thinking switched from "war might happen" to "now even the Bush administration would be hard pressed to start a war." Good news indeed.
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