Transcript
Paul Pillar: There have been two waves of reaction and commentary to this estimate that the intelligence community released the week before last, the first of which reached a crescendo in the very first 24 or 36 hours after the release, the gist of which was that this was a major reversal of views and judgments on the part of the intelligence community. It was no such thing, and I find it hard to think of a better example of overplaying reported differences between one set of views and another set of views than the reportage in that first wave, major reversal, never seen anything like this before, intelligence community turning around its views, and so on.
One should review for a moment what did not change with regard to not just the reality of the Iranian nuclear issue but also what the intelligence community was saying about it, that Iran is continuing a uranium-enrichment program, which as the analysts would say, is the pacing element in determining when Tehran would have the capability to fabricate a nuclear weapon. And reflecting that, that the community's projected timetable for when that capability may materialize was essentially unchanged. They are still talking about the early to mid part of the next decade. That the Iranians claim that they are interested solely in a civilian energy program as the only purpose of their nuclear activities is, to put it bluntly, a lie based not only on the things that have been openly known for some time such as the past duplicity with the IAEA and the continued insistence on having the full nuclear fuel cycle, but also, as was highlighted by this most recent document, past clandestine activities to design a weapon. And finally, that whether Iran ever exercises its option to develop a nuclear weapon will depend on a host of Iranian decisions yet to be taken in the future which in turn will depend on the Iranians' perceptions of a great number of factors: the costs, the risks, the threats, and the opportunities, that they face.
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