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Eye on IranFred Kaplan takes readers' questions about future relations and remaining nuclear potential.

Updated Friday, Dec. 7, 2007, at 11:30 AM ET

Slate columnist Fred Kaplan was online at Washingtonpost.com on Dec. 6, 2007, to chat with readers about Iran's long-halted nuclear-weapons program and what Bush should do next. An unedited transcript of the chat follows.

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Fred Kaplan: I might be wrong, but I really don't think another war in the Middle East will help the Republicans retain the White House. We're in two wars right now. WE don't have enough troops to win those. They're essentially being subsidized by Chinese central bankers. All this adds up to the main reason the US military chain of command is very leery of the idea of starting up another conflict.

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Colchester, Vt.: What are your views of the op-ed piece in today's New York Times that says the information on which this report was based is basically the same information that we've always had, it's just that the definition of what constitutes developing nuclear weapons has changed -- that ultimately this is a convenient way for Bush to declare victory and get this insoluble issue out of his hair for the rest of his term on the theory that "if I can't fix it, it must not be broke"?

washingtonpost.com: In Iran We Trust? (New York Times, Dec. 6)

Fred Kaplan: I did read that piece and found it very interesting. I have two problems with it, though. First, I think the authors - who, by the way, are very respected analysts - didn't describe fully the range of differences between this NIE and the one in 2005 (which concluded that Iran was determined to build nuclear weapons). The new NIE, judging from news accounts (which may have been published after the authors wrote their op-ed), is based not on some subtle linguistic ploy but on communications intercepts, documents (somehow acquired), human intelligence - every kind of intelligence source imaginable, it seems. The conclusions were scrubbed several times over... As for your last question, I definitely do not think that Bush is putting this out as "a convenient way to declare victory." He has been trying, these past few days, to downplay the main finding of this NIE; he's emphasizing only the passages that still point to uncertainty and to possible future threats; he is finding no political soalce in this whatsoever.

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Anonymous: Wasn't the NIE re: Iraqi WMDs put together in weeks, whereas this latest one took much longer?

Fred Kaplan: No, the Iraq NIE took a long time to put together, too. However, the methods were different. The Iraq WMD NIE aimed for consensus. Dissenting views were not systematically taken into account (they were simply tacked on as footnotes); certainly they were not taken apart and analyzed. And, as some of you have observed, there was much political pressure to come to a particular conclusion.

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Austin, Texas: Mr. Kaplan, who, in your opinion, was the "decider" in the release of the new NIE on Iran, and what do you speculate were the reasons for doing so? This is a rather stark reversal of prior assertations and policy, and I want to know one thing: Were they right then, or are they right now?

Fred Kaplan: Two questions. First, whose idea was the new NIE? It was actually mandated by Congress. As for whether they were right then or now - I'd say that, based on the evidence that each respective panel had, both conclusions were at least REASONABLE. We don't have access to the entire NIE. It's much longer, and it's highly classified. Based on what the unclassified version says, and based on news stories that have been published since (especially those by the Washington Post's superb team of reporters), the new NIE seems very solid. But look up the report online. Read it. It's very solid as far as it goes. I think, at least in the first day or two, some commentators exaggerated how far it goes.

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Montreal: India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea all went ahead and built themselves nuclear weapons, and all basically seem to have been rewarded by the United States for doing so. Saddam Hussein, bad as he was, let the IAEA and the U.N. weapons inspectors in, had no program, and got invaded anyway. Seems to me U.S. foreign policy provides an enormous incentive to get a nuclear weapon if you fear U.S. hostility. Just sayin'.

Fred Kaplan: You make an interesting point. In 2003, the North Koreans issued a public statement that one lesson of both US-Iraq wars is that, if you're an enemy of the US, it's a good idea to get nuclear weapons. (That's their view, not mine.) At the same time, it's worth noting that the NIE says Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003 as a result of international pressure. The NIE doesn't say so, but one of those pressure points might - I say MIGHT - have been the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Saddam tried to play "ambiguous" on whether he had nukes or not; the Iranians might have learned that it's stupid to play that game.

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Bethesda, Md.: John Bolton posted an opinion basically telling everyone to not believe in the intellegence report. This doesn't suprise me; he has argued for several months to attack Iran.

Fred Kaplan: John Bolton will be fighting his demons for the rest of his life. I hope he has fun.

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Fred Kaplan is the author of The Wizards of Armageddon and was military correspondent, Moscow bureau chief, and New York bureau chief for the Boston Globe. His upcoming book, Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power, is out in February.

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