Tehran is prowling the streets of the Middle East with a new swagger to its step. Following December 3’s National Intelligence Estimate (nie), which claimed Iran had a clandestine nuclear weapons program but abandoned it four years ago, Tehran has been getting all the political and strategic leverage it can out of the situation, which is quite a bit.

In response to the report, the man who wants Israel wiped off the map in “one storm” and looks forward to “a world without America” claimed “victory” for Iran and said, “It was in fact a declaration of surrender.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his politico-religious bosses were represented in the report as “rational actors” who responded to international pressure and incentives.

Pop quiz: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s résumé includes which of the following? Participation in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy; a stint as interrogator at Evin Prison, where Tehran’s political prisoners are brutalized; commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps department that fills orders for spying, sabotage, terrorist attacks, assassinations and other assorted services; alleged responsibility for murdering Kurds in Austria and Germany; participation in multiple militias responsible for disciplining Iranians who infringe Islamic rules of conduct and dress; and praying for the coming of the Mahdi—in front of the United Nations.

If you answered “all of the above,” you get 50,000 points; one for each nuclear centrifuge Ahmadinejad plans to build in response to the nie.

His murky mullah puppet masters, who hold the real power in Iran, built the world’s most murderous Islamic theocracy, specializing in forming, arming, supplying and dictating to terrorist groups all over the world.

Thanks to the nie, however, we now know that these men are “rational actors,” and have been since before 2003, which, ironically, is right about when U.S. troops started dotting the Iraqi desert.

Shortly after the intelligence report was published, Russia shipped Tehran long-awaited nuclear fuel for its Bushehr installation on December 17. The fuel is the last major element Iran needs to bring Bushehr online.

The U.S. administration has downplayed the Russian shipment, saying that the uranium is not enriched enough to be weapons-grade material; President George W. Bush said, “If the Iranians accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear power plant, then there’s no need for them to learn how to enrich.”

The Iranians, meanwhile, are continuing to enrich uranium.

Soon after the Russian fuel arrived, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam eza Aghazadeh, announced that Iran would continue to enrich uranium at its Natanz plant, which is where Iran wants to increase an estimated 3,000 centrifuges to 50,000. Aghazadeh also announced on December 17 that a new nuclear installation will be built in Darkhovein.

The mere possibility or partial construction of further nuclear facilities gives Iran a long lever with which to pry open a steady stream of political concessions and compromises.

Beyond that, should an emboldened Iran actually desire to rattle more than just its proverbial saber, it should be noted that Bushehr could produce enough plutonium by-product for a small, crude nuclear weapon—every week. Moscow and Tehran have signed papers saying Iran will ship the spent fuel back to Russia, but Stratfor reports the only thing that could guarantee that the fuel isn’t siphoned off for weapons would be International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, which Tehran frequently blocks.

At any rate, Stratfor reports that with the Russian fuel, “the Iranians now have all the technologies and materials they need to grope their way forward alone” (December 17). Up to this point, Tehran has been dependent on Russian assistance to complete its nuclear facility—one reason why Moscow dragged its feet for so long in delivering it. Moscow is not particularly interested in one of its regional opponents wielding a nuclear weapon, but Washington and Tehran coming to the negotiating table over Iraq has prompted the Kremlin to destabilize the situation back to its own advantage.

In the post-nie world, as it snubs the West and softly twists Russia’s arm, Iran has options. Stratfor reported December 18:

With the nuclear card back in its hand, Iran can afford to push the nuclear envelope with the United States to bolster its position in the Iraq negotiations. It comes as no surprise, then, that the Iranians seem to be dragging their feet in the talks and were likely the main impetus behind postponement of a meeting with U.S. officials in Baghdad that was scheduled to take place December 18.

Israel, which respectfully regards the nie as an insult to its intelligence, has pointed to the uranium enrichment program as the substance of a weapons-development program.

At this juncture, President Bush could choose to contest the intelligence estimate, using Iran’s pushy nuclear initiatives, particularly its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, as grounds for declaring Tehran a non-reformed nuclear monger and taking a tougher stance. The pushier the Iranians become, the more desirable this option may appear.

However, even before the nie, the “hard line” position accomplished nothing demonstrable in containing Iranian ambitions. Even that bygone “hard line” is joining the likes of the “axis of evil,” the “axis of terror” and all manner of other lines in the sand that have washed away, because Washington has become convinced it needs Tehran in Iraq.

To this point, the Bush administration appears to have more or less accepted the nie at face value. Why? To legitimize negotiating with this formerly irrational actor over Iraq. U.S. officials are going into their fourth round of talks with the Iranians, hard to do if you still officially characterize their country as orbiting an insidious axis. It’s also dangerous to do when you know in the back of your mind that they still do.

And yet, even with Washington conceding point after point to Tehran, Iran is still sitting in the driver’s seat, and it doesn’t feel like it owes anyone anything. It can still destabilize Iraq; it can still enrich uranium, and now it almost has Bushehr ready to rock; it can make noises of righteous indignation over “false accusations” about its nuclear program; and it can gruffly postpone talks with the U.S. on Iraq, which already cost the State Department a good deal of political capital to schedule in the first place.

In short, post-nie Iran has little to fear from a handcuffed Washington and even less to fear from the United Nations, and everything to gain, either in expanding its nuclear program or wresting control of Iraq—or both.