Reply #7: Looking at motive....Perhaps we can assume the following.

[WheelWalker]

Bush and the Rice cake are looking to leave history with a legacy other than the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan. That assumption fits the foot of personal aggrandizement which their mutual admiration society shares.

In addition, we know that Bush and the Rice cake have embarked upon an initiative to bring "peace" to the middle east. Conventional wisdom is that they can't succeed in achieving that "peace" without the participation of Iran and its minions.

It is worldly wisdom that nations who refer to each other in disparaging terms (such as, "el diablo" or "sponsor of terror") do not cooperate to their mutual, rational self-interest, or even invite each other to the same table for discussions (it took how many months/years to agree to the size and shape of the table at the Paris Peace Talks between Viet Nam and the US?).

One possible explanation which fits the facts above, as we know and assume them to be, is that Bush, in his far-sighted egoism, judges the better part of his "valor" to be bringing the Iranians to the middle east peace table and hearing the words "peace prize" from the lips of the Nobel Committee, than bombing them into oblivion and hearing the word "impeachment" from the lips of Joe Biden and the Congress.

This explanation can be tested, in part, by observing whether, and how quickly, Iran responds to this "rational" decision by the US (as expressed by the NIE and its public release), in agreeing to participate in and support the Bush and Rice cake's middle east initiative.

Indeed, if it is quick and clean, one might further conclude that the "exchange" has been mutually agreed upon as quid pro quo.