On Dec. 3, the National Intelligence Estimate was released. It is a summary of the analyses of 16 U.S. spy agencies. The NIE reported “with high confidence that in fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” The NIE had reported in 2005 that Iran had a nuclear weapons program.
The NIE’s statement that Iran has no current nuclear weapons program should have come as no surprise. After years of inspections of nuclear facilities in Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that it has found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program—before or after 2003. The most significant aspect of the NIE is the source of the report, intelligence agencies working under the Bush administration.
For months prior to the NIE report, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other people in the administration had been building a case for aggression against Iran based on its alleged nuclear threat to the world. On Aug. 28, Bush warned of a “nuclear holocaust.” On Oct. 17, Bush said, “If you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
Key elements of the NIE report had been available for months, and Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, had informed the president of this in August. In a Dec. 4 press conference, Bush was asked whether he had been aware of the report at the time he made his World War III statement. In a bold-faced lie, Bush said: “Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn’t tell me what the information was.”
Days before the NIE report, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns met with officials from other veto yielding members of the U.N. Security Council, attempting to gain support for a third round of Security Council sanctions against Iran. Following the report, administration officials have indicated that nothing has changed and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has continued the drive for sanctions.
However, after the NIE report, the United States is facing a much harder time selling more sanctions against Iran. It is more obvious than ever that Iran is being sanctioned for developing nuclear energy, while imperialist powers, Israel and other countries already possess nuclear weapons.
It is now far less likely that Russia and China will go along with the U.S. drive for further sanctions. If it were not for the imperialist domination over the United Nations, the existing sanctions against Iran would be lifted immediately and the Iranian nuclear file would be taken from the UNSC and back to the IAEA.
The real reason for Washington’s sanctions, military threats and the regime change policy is the independence of the Islamic Republic of Iran from imperialism. Making Iran a secure market for corporate capital is one of the major reasons Washington is attempting to overthrow the Iranian regime.
But these same corporations that would like nothing more than unfettered access to the Iranian market are reluctant to lose trade opportunities with Iran. Addressing the reluctance of imperialist powers over losing trade with Iran Bush said, “many companies are fearful of losing market share in Iran to another company. It’s one thing to get governments to speak out. It’s another thing to convince private sector concerns that it’s in our collective interests to pressure the Iranian regime economically.”
The Bush administration’s drive for sanctions against Iran, before or after the NIE report, is not an indication of a misunderstanding or a false estimate. It reveals that the imperialist aim of regime change in Iran has little to do with the charge of Iran being a nuclear threat. U.S. imperialism never believed that Iran had a nuclear weapons program any more than it thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
The danger of Iran is that it stands in the way of Washington’s plans for complete domination of the Middle East. Washington will, no doubt, pursue its drive for regime change using other pretenses. What stands in its way is the resistance of the people of Iran, and the rest of the Middle East, against imperialist domination.
