He predicts “Ahmedinijad will lose influence and the mullahs will become slightly more influential”, not loss of office—which is not testable.
All Iranian officials have claimed endlessly that their program is “civilian only” etc. - it would be a huge surprise if they made a sudden reversal.
If someone expected Iran to have had nukes, they have a serious prediction problems. The only people “expecting” that were the same who were expecting Saddam to have nukes.
I don’t think they’re that vague and obvious.
No nukes was something of a surprise to many people when that NIE came out
the loss of Ahmadinejad power prediction is nontrivial. I, and most others, I think, would have predicted an increase.
The noone-endorsing-nukes 2011 prediction is also significant, if heavily correlated with Ahmadinejad losing some power.
He predicts “Ahmedinijad will lose influence and the mullahs will become slightly more influential”, not loss of office—which is not testable.
All Iranian officials have claimed endlessly that their program is “civilian only” etc. - it would be a huge surprise if they made a sudden reversal.
If someone expected Iran to have had nukes, they have a serious prediction problems. The only people “expecting” that were the same who were expecting Saddam to have nukes.