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Nuclear Iran: Reality v the hype

It is almost impossible to avoid the ever-louder calls for an attack on Iran because of what is said to be its increasing nuclear capacity.    Witness this, as reported on ctpost.com:

"Sen. Joe Lieberman is leading a congressional move to push U.S. policy toward a more belligerent stance against Iran by urging President Obama to take action to "prevent the Iranian government from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability."

The key policy change would shift the U.S. objective from preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons to that of preventing Iran from having the "capability" to make the weapons.

The resolution is sponsored by Lieberman, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bob Casey, D-Pa., and signed onto by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and 28 other senators.

Tough rhetoric about Iran usually invokes a "red line" that the Teheran regime would cross at its peril.
For example, any Iranian move to shut down shipping through the Straits of Hormuz would be a vivid red line that would trigger a quick U.S. military response.

The red line on nuclear weapons is murky."

Meanwhile The New York Times reports in "U.S. Agencies See No Move by Iran to Build a Bomb" on the facts:

"Even as the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said in a new report Friday that Iran had accelerated its uranium enrichment program, American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb.
Multimedia

Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former American officials. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.

At the center of the debate is the murky question of the ultimate ambitions of the leaders in Tehran. There is no dispute among American, Israeli and European intelligence officials that Iran has been enriching nuclear fuel and developing some necessary infrastructure to become a nuclear power. But the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies believe that Iran has yet to decide whether to resume a parallel program to design a nuclear warhead — a program they believe was essentially halted in 2003 and which would be necessary for Iran to build a nuclear bomb. Iranian officials maintain that their nuclear program is for civilian purposes."

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