In the picture, dated September 19, 2006, seats for the US delegation appear empty as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the 61st session of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Well, the Iranian boss had then launched a timely attack on America and Britain in the General Assembly, accusing them of manipulating the United Nations to further their ends.
Vindicating the Iranian chief’s stand and instead giving their own President a shock verdict, US nuclear spies have now surprisingly revealed that Tehran has not pursued a nuclear weapons development programme for the past four years.
The secret intelligence report, declassified on December 4, 2007, marks a significant shift from previous US estimates. “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005,” it says.
Then, doesn’t this declassified report of 16 US spy agencies raise questions over recent warning of US President George Bush that a nuclear Iran might lead to World War III? Yes. The stunning assessment should be felt in endless ways and jar a foreign policy debate about Iran all over the world, including New Delhi whose traditional relations with Tehran are under continued pressure in view of the ongoing controversy over Indo-US nuke deal.
The world must force Bush look disappointed by this news as it makes it harder for the outgoing president to justify a military strike against Iran, before he leaves office next year. It also makes it more difficult to persuade Russia and China to join the US, Britain and France in imposing a new round of sanctions on Tehran.
But only time will tell the US motive behind publishing the intelligence report. Is it aimed at recovering the public credibility lost when the intelligence agencies wrongly claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in the years leading up to 2003!!!
Neeraj Bhushan 
[…] Click here to read an earlier story on Iran, dated Dec.5, 2007: Shock Verdict on Iranian Threat Rate this:Sharing Options:PrintDiggEmailShare on Tumblr Pin ItLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. […]
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One moment, President Bush was warning of the danger of World War III because of Iran’s nuclear programme.
In the next, peace was breaking out. It’s been a strange year for Iran.
For much of the year the pressure was building inexorably, as Iran refused to compromise over its programme to enrich uranium – a programme the West fears could be used to produce a nuclear bomb.
New sanctions looked inevitable and war was beginning to look like a possibility.
All that changed overnight with the release early in December 2007 of the new intelligence assessment in Washington which declared that Iran was not, after all, trying to build a bomb.
Earlier in the year, I visited the annual Saffron festival in eastern Iran.
They grow more than 90% of the world’s saffron here.
The Iranian president has increased saffron prices and pumped money into the villages.
Local people who are enjoying having telephones and running water for the first time still like him, and his brand of religious conservatism has plenty of supporters outside Tehran.
The president himself obviously loves being on the world stage, ideally in crisis or controversy. And he has had plenty of both during 2007.
But during his speech to the UN General Assembly, Mr Ahmadinejad was able to expand on a theme that has won him much support in the Arab, Muslim and developing world.
He aspires for himself and Iran to be a leader of anti-Americanism in the world and an opponent, for want of a better word, of globalisation.
It is a stand which has helped put pro-western governments in the Middle East under increased pressure.
Mr Ahmadinejad is enjoying his reputation as champion of the world’s underdogs.
Will there be more surprises in 2008?
Could Mr Ahmadinejad be the man to lead a reconciliation with the United States some three decades after the Islamic revolution?
It certainly seems unlikely. But then Iran has shown in 2007 that it’s a country that never fails to surprise.
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still, it never fails to surprise us all !
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The White House’s Iran policy has clearly fallen into disarray, and I am busy bringing the inside track on how it happened. We at Washington Post have an insider’s account of the meltdown following the US Intelligence report which said that Tehran had stopped nuclear weapons development in 2003. Senior “Hawks” and “Doves” in the administration have told us that the strategy towards Iran is effectively in”ruins” following the report. Great going. Keep it up.
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true
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Both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times throw their reportorial forces into explaining just how and why U.S. intelligence agencies undertook their remarkable volte-face over Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Reuters raises a more intriguing question: If President Bush was told in August that Iran may have suspended its nuclear weapons program, why in October did he raise the specter of World War Three if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon.
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You have a point, still.
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as far as ahmadinezad is concerned, i think he is the only ‘man’ in the politicle world. if the seat of us delegation is vacant, it means that so called dada of world don’t have the courage to face ahmadi.
i see him as a hero of our generation. nothing is greater than courage and ur frequentness. ahmadi is so powerful that us inspite of having all the powers and pressed support, cant face him in an open debate
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powerful that he is, even today.
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