America's Top Spy: We Don't Know Whether Iran Is Even Trying to Build a Bomb

What I am about to mention is not "news" and will be familiar to people following the Iran story. But it is important. Precisely because there is so much daily chatter about a possible military strike on Iran, it is worth going back to make sure this part does not vanish from the public record or front-of-mind consciousness.

This past week, the leaders of the U.S. intelligence community said that they were not sure that Iran was even trying to build a nuclear weapon.

Why does this matter? Much of the mounting chatter about Iran takes absolutely for granted that its leaders have a bomb-building program under way. Thus the only questions worth asking are:
- How close are they?
- How dangerous would they be?
- What would it take to stop them?
- How much time does anyone else have to fend them off, before it's too late?

But here is what happened last week.

1) At a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last Tuesday, Olympia Snowe of Maine had this exchange with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence -- who was appearing with David Petraeus of the CIA. Emphasis added:

Senator Snowe: I gather we agree with the fact that Iran has not made the decision to weaponize at this point. Director Clapper, do you agree on that?

General Clapper: Yes, but they are certainly moving on that path, but we don't believe they've actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon.

I heard this exchange while I was driving around yesterday (on C-SPAN radio -- yes, now you know my darkest secret). You can see a video of the whole hearing at C-Span's site, and a reference to the exchange on the CFR site.

2) Before that hearing, Clapper released his "Worldwide Threat Assessment," available online in PDF. The relevant Iran portions say:

We assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons....

We judge Iran's nuclear decision making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran. Iranian leaders undoubtedly consider Iran's security, prestige, and influence, as well as the international political and security environment, when making decisions about its nuclear program.

Obviously this doesn't resolve the whole issue. US intelligence has been wrong on such matters before, to put it mildly. (Although warnings that Iran is close to having the bomb are decades old.) Just now Jeffrey Goldberg, who emphasizes that he is the anti-bombing camp, posts a reminder of the reasons to be wary of Iran.

Still: the next dozen times you hear about how to cope with Iran's "headlong" or "inevitable" or "destabilizing" progress toward building a bomb, reflect for a minute that in the judgment of the U.S. intelligence community, we are not sure that they even trying. And reflect on the factors the Iranian leadership may be weighing as it makes this choice.

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James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. He and his wife, Deborah Fallows, are the authors of the new book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America, which has been a New York Times best seller and is the basis of a forthcoming HBO documentary.

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