Anche il Wall Street Journal conferma l'esistenza di un nuovo National Intelligence Estimate sull'Iran.
"A new classified U.S. intelligence assessment concludes that Iran's leaders are locked in an increasingly heated debate over whether to move further toward developing nuclear weapons, saying the bite of international sanctions may be sowing discord.
The new national intelligence estimate, or NIE, says Tehran likely has resumed work on nuclear-weapons research in addition to expanding its program to enrich uranium—updating a contested 2007 estimate that concluded the arms program had all but halted in 2003.
But it doesn't conclude that Iran has relaunched a full-blown program to try to build bombs. According to the assessment, Iran's debate over whether to do so suggests international sanctions may be causing divisions in Tehran, U.S. officials said.
(…) The NIE's findings suggest that, in the U.S. view, at least some Iranian leaders are worried that economic turmoil fueled in part by international sanctions could spur opposition to the regime—though officials acknowledge it is impossible for outsiders to determine the precise effect of sanctions on decision-making in Tehran.
(…) "The bottom line is that the intelligence community has concluded that there's an intense debate inside the Iranian regime on the question of whether or not to move toward a nuclear bomb," a U.S. official said. "There's a strong sense that a number of Iranian regime officials know that the sanctions are having a serious effect.".
(…)The new intelligence findings also reflect a growing consensus among the U.S. and its allies that Tehran's suspected effort to obtain a warhead has been significantly slowed by the combination of sanctions and problems at its nuclear facilities."