“Evil” Iran Hardens in 2002
The hostility began early in Bush’s first term, when the State Department declared Iran the world’s “most active state-sponsor of terrorism in 2000.” In his 2002 State of the Union speech, Bush lumped Iran with Iraq and North Korea in the “axis of evil.” Bush was appealing to his political base and the neo-conservatives dominating his administration’s foreign policy — the one-two punch that helped propel Bush to invade Iraq 14 months after that speech. But the branding of Iran as “evil,” as opposed to merely “rogue,” backfired. The Iranian regime hardened, Iranian people were insulted and indignant, and Khatami’s moderate stance and overtures were discredited. Official contacts between Iran and Iraq increased, too — and would endure after Saddam Hussein’s removal in 2003. The hardening of Iran culminated in 2005 with the Iranian presidential election. Moderates were defeated, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a radical revolutionary, was elected.
By November 2003, the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency was condemning Iran for covering up its nuclear program for two decades. But the agency did not call for U.N. Security Council sanctions. In November 2004, President Bush declared that the “Iranians agreed to suspend, but not terminate, their nuclear weapons program. Our position is that they ought to terminate their nuclear weapons program.” Three months later, he asserted that Iran was “pursuing nuclear weapons.” Later that year, Vice President Dick Cheney claimed the Iranians were “seriously pursuing nuclear weapons.” An N.I.E. report that year also concluded, with “high confidence,” that “Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure, but we do not assess that Iran is immovable.”
Flip-Flopping N.I.E. Assessments
Nor, it turned out, was the National Intelligence Council immovable. Even as the Bush Administration was ratcheting up the rhetoric against Iran, talking of military action and, in an October 2007 Bush news conference, of risking “World War III” if Iran did not desist from its nuclear ambitions, the N.I.E. was revising its earlier conclusion. On Nov. 3, 2007, the intelligence council made its complete reversal public.
The N.I.E. concluded “with high confidence that in fall of 2003, Teheran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Teheran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. […] We assess with moderate confidence Teheran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”
The N.I.E.’s revelation upends the Bush Administration’s confrontational policy toward Iran, although on Dec. 4, President Bush was asserting again that the report was not changing his stance. “Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous, if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,” he said.
