[krrrh]

It wasn’t replaced by “nothing”. The information that intelligence agencies are able to gather about Iran’s nuclear weapons programs is more detailed and accurate than what the IAEI could or would gather under JCPOA. The Iranian regime faces internal dissent, and western intelligence agencies working with dissenters to retard the Iranian nuclear program directly (see last month’s cyber attack on Natal for instance) may handle the threat better than the state department and the UN.

[praptak]

For me as a member of the general public it's actually "nothing'. Intelligence agencies are opaque, have no incentive to tell the truth and have a track record of lies.

An international body has at least some checks and balances to keep it close to the truth.

[sschueller]

Like the WMD in Iraq and the smoking gun?

[krrrh]

No, I think this is different from that example. I don’t even know what you’re trying to compare.

[sschueller]

The UN inspectors said there are no WMDs in Iraq. The US intelligence agencies said the opposite and provided made up proof taking the US into a quagmire of a war. In the end there where no WMDs in Iraq.

So I am saying the US intelligence agencies are useless and are used for political purposes to re-enforce what ever the current administration wants to do for foreign policy.

[Paradigma11]

While there sure was lots of cherry picking and hyperbole of the evidence going on, the situation was more interesting.

The US intelligence agencies were not uncritical about the wmd case but the administration pushed hard. There were lots of dissenting leaks in the press. The interesting aspect tough is that the whole situation was made much harder because there was so much lies and deceptions going on in the iraqi buerocracy. SH bragged on the phone to underlings about his wmds to secure and shore up his position and other players did the same. Now the intelligence agencies did tap into that communications which made it harder to make a correct assessment than just standing on the outside looking in.

[krrrh]

That you’re pulling up a 20 year old example might suggest that it’s the exception that proves the rule. It doesn’t sound like either of us really knows enough to be making sweeping claims, and my objections are to that sort of thinking as much as anything.

I’d also suggest that there are many examples of UN agencies being less than objective, and swayed by political expediency and unstated loyalty. It’s dangerous to assume that corruption of purpose doesn’t extend beyond the nation state.