Professor Heisbourg just offered his view of the four major consequences of the recent NIE on the Iranian nuclear program:
1. It “impairs efforts at coercive diplomacy.”
2. It “cripples or weakens the emerging Sunni-Israel coalition.”
3. “It thrusts the burden of a possible strike on Israel.”
4. It creates a situation in which “Gulf monarchies and other Arab states now have a stronger incentive to look for alternative policies — acquisition of their own nuclear capabilities and/or appeasement of Iran. …Many of us have been able to see the drift of the Arab states recently toward appeasement.”
