U.S. officials say some of the latest intelligence coming out of Iran is so alarming even State Department diplomats who have favored talking with the ayatollahs now wonder who in Tehran can be trusted. Some U.S. officials fear the Iranian government has now splintered into three major factions: a reformist, or “moderate” faction, personified by the elected president, Mohammed Khatami; a hard-line faction, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme religious leader, and an ultra-hard-line faction of no-name spooks and extremist clerics who secretly pursue radical policies, such as the clandestine support of terrorists, in a way that gives public hard-liners “deniability.” British and U.S. officials also say that some recent intelligence from secret agents indicates that Iran may have released from custody–or even “expelled”–several top Qaeda leaders arrested over the past year, including Qaeda military chief Saif Al-Adel and Osama bin Laden’s son Saad. But doubts hang over the status of the Qaeda big shots: their release has not been confirmed by electronic intercepts, and CIA analysts believe some are still in Iranian custody. The lack of reliable intel has deepened paralysis over Iran policy inside the Bush administration. Although the Pentagon and State Department, normally enemies, now appear to embrace the same skeptical attitude toward Iran, antagonisms remain so intense that the rival bureaucracies still accuse each other of trying to open secret channels to Tehran behind the other’s back.
Even the parties to the nuclear agreement last week admit the Iranians have a long way to go to prove they deserve Western trust. “The irony is that the case against Iran is far more compelling” than prewar evidence suggesting Saddam had an active nuclear-weapons program, said one Western diplomat. The diplomat says the rest of the world believes that Washington cried wolf over Saddam’s WMDs and is now reluctant to credit similar U.S. warnings about Iran.
