Two years ago we took a look at The Laptop:
It is the overwhelming proof that Iran has nuclear weapons, ehh – might have nuclear weapons, hmm – could have nuclear weapons – or not.
The Laptop of Death, as emptywheel aptly named it, is supposed to have somehow come out of Iran and to contain thousands of pages of technical documentation of Iranian military nuclear programs. Reportedly the one word not included in this treasure trove of documents is ‘nuclear’.
The Laptop’s content is likely as genuine as the Niger papers about Saddam’s Uranium purchases. Despite several requests, the U.S. has never provided the ‘evidence’ from The Laptop to the IAEA.
But now it has changed its mind:
Shared in the past two weeks was material on a laptop computer reportedly smuggled out of Iran, said another diplomat, accredited to the IAEA. In 2005, U.S. intelligence assessed that information as indicating that Tehran had been working on details of nuclear weapons, including missile trajectories and ideal altitudes for exploding warheads.
He said that after declassification, U.S. intelligence also was forwarded on two other issues — the "Green Salt Project" — a plan the U.S. alleges links diverse components of a nuclear weapons program, including uranium enrichment, high explosives testing and a missile re-entry vehicle, and material in Iran’s possession showing how to mold uranium metal into warhead form.
It is obvious why the U.S. is now sharing the (dis-)information. The IAEA and Iran have an agreement (pdf) that lists all open questions the IAEA has and a timetable to answer these. The last open question to be answered is about traces of highly enriched Uranium found in a Iranian lab. Two days ago it was reported that this last issue has been resolved.
Despite thousands of hours on the ground in Iran, the IAEA has found no evidence that Iran ever had a military nuclear program. But in preparation of regime change the U.S. wants further sanctions on Iran and now selectively releases some of the very dubious stuff from The Laptop.
While there is quite some pressure on the IAEA from the U.S. and France, I am confident that the IAEA and Iran will debunk these new ‘issues’ pretty soon. All ‘intelligence’ provided by the U.S. to the IAEA since 2002 turned out to be false.
Knowing that the IAEA will declare Iran free of a military nuclear program, the "western" talking points are already changing:
"But the important issue is not so much what Iran did in the past but what it’s doing now and might do in future," Mark Fitzpatrick, chief non-proliferation expert at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, said.
After years of howling about an alleged covered up military nuclear program, this is now less important. Future intent, something obviously unverifyable, is the new issue.
Keep in mind that Iran is only two years away from a nuclear bomb. It was so in 1984 and every year since.
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Hattip to Iran Affairs, the blog with the most complete coverage of the "nuclear Iran" scare.