Remember Iraq's WMDs? Now it's Iran's WMDs

* Iran is unlikely to be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a nuclear weapon until at least 2013, according to a United States government intelligence estimate made public last Thursday.--Daniel Luban, "New nuke report debunks Iran hawks," atimes.com, August 11, 2009

* Key to bringing Israel on board is a promise by the US to adopt a much tougher line with Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme. The US, along with Britain and France, is planning to push the United Nations security council to expand sanctions to include Iran's oil and gas industry, a move that could cripple its economy.--Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger, "Barack Obama on brink of deal for Middle East peace talks," Guardian, August 25, 2009

* Western officials are leaking stories to the Associated Press and Reuters aimed at pressuring the outgoing chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, to include a summary of intelligence alleging that Iran has been actively pursuing work on nuclear weapons in the IAEA report due out this week.

The aim of the pressure for publication of the document appears to be to discredit the November 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iranian nuclear programme, which concluded that Iran had ended work on nuclear weapons in 2003.--Gareth Porter, "Planted News Stories Show New Bid by West to Say Iran Seeks Nuclear Weapons," counterpunch.org, August 26, 2009