Nile Bowie: The Iran Nuclear Threat and The Second Hostage Crisis.

From talk of red lines and cartoon bombs, to having all options on the table, an undeniably delusional logic emanates from the leadership in Washington and Tel Aviv, regarding the alleged threat posted by Iran's nuclear program. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu famously took to the stage of the UN General Assembly with his doodled explosive, he claimed that Iran would soon have the capability to enrich uranium to 90 percent, allowing them to construct a nuclear weapon by early mid 2013. In his second administration, Obama, who recently said a nuclear Iran would represent a danger to Israel and the world, appears to be seeing eye to eye with Netanyahu, despite previous reports of the two not being on the same page. For whatever its worth, these two world leaders have taken the conscious decision, to entirely ignore evidence brought forward by the US intelligence community, as well as appeals from nuclear scientists, policy advisers, and IAEA personnel, who claim that the threat posed by Iran is exaggerated and politicized. Its common knowledge that Washington's own National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, which reflects the intelligence assessment of America's 16 spy agencies, confirmed that whatever nuclear weapons program Iran once had, was dismantled in 2003. Mr Netanyahu has not corrected his statements, insinuating that Iran once had, was dismantled in 2003. Mr Netanyahu has not corrected his statements, insinuating that Iran was nearing the red line of 90 percent enrichment, even when recent UN reports show Tehran has in fact decreased its stockpiles of 20 percent fissile material, far below the enrichment level required to weaponize uranium. Hans Blix, former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, (IAEA) has challenged previous IAEA reports on Iran's nuclear activities, accusing the agency of relying on unverified intelligence from the US and Israel. Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Lecerett, former Washington insiders and analysts in the Clinton and Bush administrations, recently authored a book, titled "Going to Teheran", arguing that Iran is a coherent actor, and that evidence for the bomb is simply not there. Clinton Bastin, former director of US nuclear weapons production programs, has commented on the status of Iran's gas centrifuge facilities, would be highly enriched uranium hexa-fluoride, a gas that cannot be used to make a weapon. Converting the gas to metal, fabricating components and assembling them with high explosives, using dangerous and difficult technology, that has never been used in Iran, would take many years, after a diversion of three tons of low enriched uranium gas, from fully safeguarded inventories.