ABSTRACT
The historian Francis Gavin has even gone so far as to note that the various twists and turns in US nuclear doctrine and foreign policy can only be explained by referencing nuclear non-proliferation objectives. Revelations about the A. Q. Khan clandestine network, which transferred nuclear materials and know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea, confirmed worst-case assumptions; it appeared that the international norms and treaties intended to curtail the spread of WMD were failing. The intelligence milieu created by the existence of multiple clandestine weapons programs and international trading networks transformed the intelligence problematique in several important ways. Intelligence analysts had shifted their estimate to the side of the angels; there was no immediate need to take military action to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon because Tehran had suspended its clandestine program to build a nuclear arsenal.
