Sports fans can attest that this college football season has produced one shocking result after another. A high ranking has proven no guarantee of victory. On Monday the intelligence community delivered a shocker of its own. Declassified portions of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iranian nuclear ambitions indicate that Iran may not be actively pursuing nuclear weapons after all.

According to the NIE, Iran voluntarily halted its nuclear program in 2003 and probably could not expect to produce a nuclear weapon before 2010 even if it wanted to. But if this is the case, why has Iran lately been touting its nuclear accomplishments? Iran acknowledged, or rather boasted, in 2006 that it had constructed numerous centrifuge cascades—key components for producing the highly enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons. As recently as September, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bragged, “over 3000 centrifuges are [now] operating and a new group is installed every week.”

That seems like a lot of work for a nonexistent weapons program. And why would the Iranians potentially overstate their nuclear capability, knowing full well that the United States and perhaps more importantly Israel would never passively accept a nuclear-armed Iran? Wouldn’t that provoke the very sort of attack against Iranian installations that Tehran and certain congressional Democrats seem to fear and expect?

Answer lies in understanding the linkage between events in the Middle East. The Iranians are exploiting western anxiety over their shadowy nuclear program in order to exact a more favorable settlement of its interests in Iraq. Iran has long hoped to fill the vacuum left after the U.S. invasion of Iraq by extending its hegemony over its neighbor, and then using Iraq as a proxy to threaten its regional rival, Saudi Arabia. This was a good strategy when it looked like a new Democratic Congress would force President Bush to abandon his adventure in Iraq. But the U.S. has yet to “cut and run” according to Iran’s schedule.

On the other hand, through its Shi’ite co-religionists in Iraq, Iran can prevent the U.S. from realizing stability and progress in Iraq indefinitely. The result has been a stalemate in which neither can significantly advance its interests. So for several months, Washington and Tehran have been engaged in an awkward diplomatic dance, with bruised toes on both sides.

The U.S. has not only succeeded in intensifying the economic sanctions on Iran, but it has pressed its adversary recently by concluding a major arms sale to the Saudis, negotiating terms for permanent military bases in Iraq, and generally signaling that military operations against Iran are imminent (which they are not).

Iran has countered by posturing on the nuclear question--by far the biggest chip in its stack. To show they are serious, Tehran last week convinced Russia to help complete the final phase of its Bushehr nuclear power facility. Bushehr is ostensibly a peaceful power generation plant, but even so would become an excellent source nuclear material for military applications.

While a functional nuclear arsenal would certainly bring many benefits, Tehran also understands the risks associated with developing and deploying nuclear weapons at this particular time. So instead they place their nuclear program on the table and ask the U.S. for concessions on Iraq in return. It is a good deal for Iran which evidently has no serious plans to develop its nuclear program. Plus a promise to stand down today can always be quietly reversed tomorrow.

This latest NIE, however, essentially calls Tehran’s bluff. NIEs are normally classified. The declassification of this one sends a clear message to Iran: nuclear concessions will have little in these negotiations. Iran’s hopes for a major diplomatic upset will have to wait for another season.