Just last week outgoing Secretary of State Powell told reporters that he had seen intelligence linking Iran’s acknowledged medium range missile program to the development of a nuclear weapons delivery system. Today the CIA posted a declassified version of the classified “Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions” on its public website. The CIA reports that the underground network operated by Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Kahn sold Iran plans for what the report calls “weapons components” advancing Teheran’s quest for the bomb by several years. The CIA intelligence is said to be an accumulation of operations to penetrate the Kahn operation dating into the mid 90s and shared only with Presidents Clinton and Bush.

The United States’ message, that Iran and its WMD programs pose a clear and present danger to the peace of the world, sounds in counterpoint to the EU-Iranian agreement to admit IAEA inspectors and limit its nuclear development program to peaceful power production. For good or ill the American warnings are seen against the background of its equally dire warnings of diabolical designs and stores of weapons just waiting to be loosed by Saddam Hussein. When the specters of weapons of mass destruction did not materialize in the wake of pre-emptive war both the United States’ message and its intelligence services’ role as messenger were discredited. That credibility has not been enhanced with Director Goss’ memo to the CIA that the agency’s mission was to support administration policy decisions.

Old Europe is not likely to be impressed with this new information. Even New Europe’s enthusiasm for the mission in Iraq is waning in light of the results – or rather the lack of result - of the grand coalition’s invasion. Even our staunchest ally in Iraq whose investment in that foreign adventure is second only to our own is not on board the bellicose American train headed for Teheran. Britain is leading the European Union effort to solve the Iranian question through diplomacy instead of brute force. With Tony Blair headed toward a difficult election at the head of a divided party the US cannot expect him to sign on to another Mideast adventure on the strength of American intelligence estimates and reports from a dissident group seeking to overthrow the regime in Teheran.. It seems most likely that the IAEA won’t follow the American path toward sanctions as it meets in Vienna.

If, as also seems most likely, the CIA estimate is correct, and Iran is pressing on with its quest to acquire a nuclear capability to consolidate its geo-political advantage in the Persian Gulf, Secretary of State Powell is not the man to carry that message to Vienna. His speech to the Security Council in January 2003 has been so thoroughly discredited by events as to render any presentation he might make suspect. Secretary designate Rice will have her hands full with the task of restoring international credibility to the products of the US intelligence establishment. That credibility has been the first casualty of the war in Iraq and has been the most grievous loss we have suffered there. With her record of bitter-end defense of the erroneous assessments of Iraq’s capabilities she is not likely to be up to the job. She seems fated to be the American Cassandra, shouting prescient warnings to which no one listens while an Iranian version of the Trojan Horse is rolled through the gates.