THE TRUMPBOTS VS DEMOCRACY:

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats certainly does not agree with Bolton. He testified to the Senate last year that Iran "wants to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action" which expressly forbids Iran from ever having nuclear weapons. He said that the accord "has also enhanced the transparency of Iran's nuclear activities, mainly by fostering improved access to Iranian nuclear facilities." That is, we have increased our already formidable ability to detect any Iran violations. The International Atomic Energy Agency concludes, and U.S. intelligence agencies agree, that Iran remains in strict compliance with the deal that shrank and then largely froze its nuclear complex.

In his 2017 statement, "Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community," Coats was crystal clear on the issue of intent: "We do not know whether Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons." That is, Bolton has no basis for his statement. "We" -- the U.S. intelligence agencies--do not believe that Iran is committed to building nuclear weapons.

Nor is this a new judgement, one that Bolton might have somehow missed in the press of his duties. Paul Kerr, in his comprehensive 2018 report for the Congressional Research Service, finds: "Since at least 2007, the U.S. intelligence community has issued unclassified assessments that Iran has not decided whether to develop nuclear weapons. According to the 2007 NIE, 'Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons' until fall 2003, after which Iran halted its nuclear weapons program 'primarily in response to international pressure.'"

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