Foreign Policy Blogs

Can Sleep Peacefully Tonight

The Newsweek has published an article revealing that Iran has not restarted its nuclear-weapons development program.  According to the article:

U.S. intelligence agencies have informed policymakers at the White House and other agencies that the status of Iranian work on development and production of a nuclear bomb has not changed since the formal National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s “Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities” in November 2007.

The new information puts the U.S intelligence agencies in odds with its European and Israeli counterparts.  As the articles notes, “Officials of Israel’s conservative-led government have been delivering increasingly dire assessments of Iran’s nuclear progress and have leaked shrill threats about a possible Israeli military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.” Moreover, German court documents released earlier this year by the Germany’s foreign intelligence service, known as the BND, reported in 2008 that “development work on nuclear weapons can be observed in Iran even after 2003.”

As October 1st draws near, this new information can play a positive role and help “encourage the White House’s efforts to continue to try to engage Iran in diplomatic dialogue, including discussion of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

 

Author

Sahar Zubairy

Sahar Zubairy recently graduated from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas- Austin with Masters in Global Policy Studies. She graduated from Texas A&M University with Phi Beta Kappa honors in May 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. In Summer 2008, she was the Southwest Asia/Gulf Intern at the Henry L. Stimson Center, where she researched Iran and the Persian Gulf. She was also a member of a research team that helped develop a website investigating the possible effects of closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf by Iran.