The National Intelligence Estimate expresses the coordinated judgment of the group of sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies.  The N.I.E. has concluded that Iran halted its work on nuclear weapons in 2003.  Because the N.I.E. has been under scrutiny and criticism for our intelligence services' incomplete understanding of pre-war Iraq, the N.I.E. was particularly thorough and convinced before releasing their report on Iran's suspension of nuclear weapons activity.  

The N.I.E. has "high confidence" in its judgment that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, saying their conclusion is based on "high quality information."  They judge with "high confidence" that the halt has lasted several years.  They assess with "moderate confidence" that Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.  They believe Iran has been responsive to international pressure and vulnerable to influence on the issue.  

On the other side of the world, last week North Korea destroyed a nuclear cooling tower, part of a series of successful diplomatic negotiations toward its nuclear disarmament.  Although he previously ridiculed suggestions that the U.S. use diplomatic means to influence North Korea, last week President Bush acknowledged significant progress as he removed that country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and lifted some sanctions.

Diplomacy and international pressure seem to be working in both Iran and North Korea.

Yet a startling article by Seymour Hersh in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine reveals the Bush Administration's major escalation of covert operations against Iran.  It's beginning to look like the kind of run up to war we saw six years ago in Iraq.  Hersh reports a series of troubling signs that the Bush Administration may be intent on committing the U.S. to another war before its exit in six months.

The President is authorizing covert C.I.A. operations and claiming the right to send military combat forces into Iran without the mandated congressional oversight.  This is one more assault by this Administration against our traditional constitutional separation of powers.  The President is also stiff-arming resistance from the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.
 
When the head of U.S. Central Command in charge of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, Admiral William Fallon expressed strong reservations about an armed attack on Iran and objected to the administration's degradation of the traditional military chain of command, he was apparently pressured into early retirement.  Retired Marine General Jack Sheehan, who turned down a White House offer to become the President's "czar" for the Iraq/Afghanistan wars said, "When Fallon tried to make sense of all the overt and covert activity conducted by the military in his area of responsibility, a small group in the White House leadership shut him out.  ...If you have small groups planning and conducting military operations outside the knowledge and control of the combatant commander, by default you can't have a coherent military strategy.  You end up with a disaster, like the reconstruction efforts in Iraq."  

Among the groups the Administration is supporting with covert funding are the Baluchi Sunni fundamentalists, some of whom belong to Al Qaeda.  We are also supporting the Jundallah, a vicious Sunni resistance force also linked to Al Qaeda, the drug culture, and trained in the same madrassas as the Taliban.  We are arming and giving intelligence to a Kurdish separatist group that has been on the State Department's terrorist list for more than a decade.  And last week the press reported that we have called off the hunt for Osama bin Ladin.  Arming the terrorists seems to be an incoherent strategy for a war against terror.

Hersh and others fear that the Bush Administration will try to confect a crisis with Iran in order to justify another major military attack before the end of their term.  An incident last January was instructive.  Reports accused five Iranian patrol boats of making aggressive moves toward three Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz.  Initial reports said that Iranians had transmitted radio threats to "explode" the American ships.  President Bush accelerated the tension and raise fears, calling the incident "provocative" and "dangerous."  One British newspaper headline read "TWO MINUTES FROM WAR."  

Thankfully the local naval commander kept a clear head and fired no shots.  Further study raised doubts that the radio warning came from the Iranian boats and suggested that it had come from a prankster long known for sending fake messages in the region.  Later that week, Hersh reports, a former senior intelligence official was at a meeting in the Vice-President's office.  "The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington."  This incident didn't work.  Maybe the next one will.

In 2002 this Administration exaggerated fears and ignored evidence inconvenient to its apocalyptic scenario to justify a unilateral, preemptive attack and occupation of Iraq.  There were no WMD's.  Al Qaeda was not in Iraq.  Over five years later, the consequences have been tragic.  

We do not need a second Iraq.  We do not need another war based on exaggerated fears.  This time let's heed the advice of our military leaders.  This time let's listen to all of the intelligence community.  This time let's listen to our international allies.  This time let's listen to the religious community.  We do not need to get fooled again by this Administration and its policies of domination and violence.  No more catastrophic decisions between now and 1-20-09.  

"Too long have I had to live among the enemies of peace.  I am on the side of peace, but when I speak of it, they are for war."  (Psalm 120:6-7)