Even assuming our spooks have it right in the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program (at least until our “intelligence community” reverses itself again… or Iran conducts a nuclear test), then one of the weirdest locutions in this odd public document is the phrase attributing Iran’s alleged halt of its nuclear program in 2003 to some sort of unspecified “international pressure.”

International pressure? Wait a minute here … what happened in 2003 that might have impressed Iran enough to even consider slowing its rush toward the bomb? More in my column today in the Philadelphia Inquirer ^[1].