It’s hard to explain the wind shift coming out of our intelligence community regarding Iran. Why the sudden revelation that the Mullahs haven’t been pursuing nukes – not since 2003 anyway?
At the same time, or just before, we have had news that the Israelis attacked what has been called a reactor under construction or an actual nuclear weapons assembly plant in Syria – a putative Iran ally. What happened isn’t entirely clear, but something did. And no one made much of a squawk, suggesting culpability.
Then Syria turns up at the Annapolis Conference, to the apparent consternation of Iran.
Add into the mix the announcement (by the more or less Shiite Iraqi government, supposedly sympathetic to Iran) that the US will keep upwards of fifty thousand troops on bases in Iraq in close proximity to Iran in perpetuity.
Excuse me if I think there is more here than meets the eye. My old and fraying mystery writer hat tells me some kind of deal was struck.
But then I could be dead wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time…. or the hundredth.
UPDATE: Another possibility, suggested by my colleague Jose Guardia, is that this announcement is a ploy to make the mullahs appear weak internally (they don’t have the guts to build bomb). This is an interestng theory since Ahmadinejad can scarcely make a public announcement that “We’re doing it!”
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