The ink is dry on the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear capabilities. And yet the Bush Administration keeps watering down its message. One official after another has been going around calling Iran still dangerous and still a threat and still deserving of greater sanctions! So, I ask, per the line in David Letterman’s shtick, “NIE: Is this anything?” It is something alright: It is a first rate exercise in obfuscation: perhaps, it is designed to facilitate a military strike on Iran by allowing the elaboration of and attention to other reasons for continued enmity toward or possibly even attacking Iran.

In high school we used to baffle one another with closed-logic questions like “Did your parents ever catch you masturbating in the closet?” If you answered “yes,” you were admitting that (a) you masturbated and (b) you masturbated in the closet. If you answered “no,” then the inquirer would ask you “how did you manage that, the implication being that you still masturbated and continue to masturbate in the closet, evading getting caught by your parents!

There is also the gaga that asks “When was the last time you beat your wife?,” in which the assumption is that you beat your wife! The NIE’s statement that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 is a perfect example of this sort of closed-logic question based on a presumed factual conclusion – you masturbate in the closet, you beat your wife and Iran had a nuclear weapons program.

Put in a different way the NIE statement in a question from would be: “Iran, did you suspend your nuclear weapons program in 2003?” If Iran says “no,” then Iran is admitting (a) there is a nuclear weapons program, and (b) it is still going on. If Iran answers “yes,” then Iran is admitting that it has a nuclear weapons program. The best answer Iran can give is “maybe.”

After the first Persian Gulf War, the United States and its allies and the United Nations ensured the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. And yet that was no barrier to the Bush Administration’s bold and false assertions that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction and so another military strike at Iraq was necessary and justified. That Iran may have suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 is no barrier to a military strike on Iran.

The strike on Iran would not be for punishing Iran for having had a nuclear weapons program, but it would be because of for Iran’s refusal to cough up all the details about its “suspended” program. The U.S. strike against Iraq in 2003 followed repeated demands on Saddam Hussein to come clean about its weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which the Bush Administration knew were not there. The U.S. also kept asking Iraq to provide evidence to the international community that it did not have WMD – in effect to prove the nonexistence of a program that was not in existence.

Iranian nuclear weapons program is not just about yellow cake production, enriching uranium or obtaining plutonium or other pursuits. There is also missile production and related military technologies that conceivably could be lumped together by the U.S. into the “nuclear weapons program.” In Iraq, the limitation on range of Iraqi missiles was one of the conditions of curbing and ultimately dismantling Iraq’s WMD program. What good is a nuclear bomb if you have no way of delivering it?

A few days ago, President Bush was somewhere in the Midwest talking up the notion that Iran is still dangerous and it must come clean and divulge all that it was doing prior to the suspension of its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Exactly, what incentive would anyone in Iran have to show anything to this or the next U.S. Administration when the U.S. will continue to demand one thing after another, with no end in sight other than perhaps the complete demilitarization of Iran, humiliation of the Iranian regime or dismemberment of the country.

Laura Numeroff’s If you give a mouse a cookie is perfect parody of the U.S. Administration’s approach to Iran. It will start with President Ahmadinejad saying a few days ago that the NIE gives an opportunity for the two countries to talk. Of course, in Washington the notion of “talk” does not exist; it is all about dictation, bullying. So Mr. Bush will ask next that Iran stop enrichment. Iran obliges. Mr. Bush will then ask if Iran would stop its missile program. Iran says “okay.” Next, the U.S. will ask if Iran would consent to all of its nuclear and nuclear-related scientists would like to go to Guantanamo and later relocate to California. “Of course,” Iran will say, “take as many experts as you wish, sir, what I have is yours.” Next, the U.S. will ask Iran to suspend its help to Hamas and Hezbollah and other groups that the U.S. does not like because they get in the way of the serious U.S. policy to promote peace in the Middle East. Iran says, “Naturally, anything for you, boss.” Then the U.S. asks Iran to recognize Israel as the Jewish State, which Iran will do willingly.

One would think all this would satisfy the U.S. Administration. Nope! When nobody is paying attention, the Iranian will also forgo the frozen assets and pay billions in damages to non-Iranian families found by the courts to have suffered from acts of terrorism. Next, the U.S. will ask that the IRI hold open and fair elections in which every conceivable political or paramilitary organization can take part. When the non-IRI candidates win, the U.S. will ask that the clergy kindly vacate their offices and homes and let the new governing elite take over. And of course the losers will go quietly. With “democracy” established in Iran, the U.S. will ask if Iran would mind terribly if Iran’s Kurdish region became a part of Kurdistan and Azerbaijan joined the Baku government and some other places were joined to areas beyond Iran’s present borders? Of course, Iran will oblige.

And as the country is no more, the U.S. will ask the Iranians to change their faith to Sunni or other religions. Iran refuses to go along with this demand. The U.S. Administration then prepares a brief supporting immediate air strikes on Iran.

Israel on the other hand is not going to wait for an elaborate scenario. Exhibit A: the recent remarks by Ephraim Sneh, former Israeli deputy defense minister and now member of the intelligence subcommittee of the Knesset. In a piece published in The Boston Globe on December 11, he ripped the NIE and asked three questions that undermined the credibility of the estimate. Then he concluded (a) Israel cannot wait for answers to the questions that he posed, (b) the estimate may reduce the likelihood of further sanctions on Iran, and therefore (c) “we would have to rely on ourselves.”

The moral of “if you give a mouse a cookie” is more than just the consequences of warped logic. It is also about the proverb “to give an inch but lose a mile.” It is about cheek, chutzpah, or in Farsi “roo” as brazen as the pumice-stone from Qazvin. The next U.S. Administration, if Mrs. Clinton’s, will see the return of the tired old three-piece suit of concerns that clothed the U.S. policy toward Iran – weapons of mass destruction, opposing the Middle East peace process, and support for international terrorism. And, of course, regime change in Iran!