The last IAEA report cobbled together old and questionable intelligence and rose unfounded concerns about a possible military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program. This became the primary basis imposing even harsher international sanctions against Iran targeting their financial and oil sectors, measures which have had harmful effects on the Iranian population.

Leaked statements about the upcoming report to be released in March claim it will include new details about an alleged effort by Tehran to develop a nuclear warhead for a ground-to-ground missile.

An IAEA delegation visited Tehran to engage diplomatically with Iranian authorities regarding their nuclear program. While initial reports characterized the visit as constructive, Reuters later reported that Western diplomats have said the Iranian visit was a total failure and that Iran did not open up its facilities to inspection. The IAEA will return to Tehran for another round of discussions on February 21.

The leaked statements on the new IAEA report may be overblown, just as happened the last time around. Robert Kelley, a retired IAEA director and nuclear engineer, told the New Yorker‘s Seymour Hersh ”that he could find very little new information in the IAEA report. He noted that hundreds of pages of material appears to come from a single source: a laptop computer, allegedly supplied to the I.A.E.A. by a Western intelligence agency, whose provenance could not be established.”

Some even dismissed the report as politically motivated, claiming the IAEA’s new Director General, Yukiya Amano, has a pro-Western bias. Indeed, the Guardian’s Julian Borger compiled a series of U.S. State Department diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks which reveal a similar evaluation of Amano by the U.S.

In October 2009, as Amano was coming in as Director General, the U.S. State Department wrote that he was “DG [Director General] of all states, but in agreement with us.” According to the cables, Amano reminded the U.S. ambassador that he would have to be “fair-minded and independent, but that he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.”

As Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, wrote at the time, “ever since Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei stepped down as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in late 2009, the United States and some of its allies have pushed Baradei’s successor, Yukiya Amano, to ratify Western arguments that Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons.”

“There are many reasons,” Leverett continued, “to question virtually every detail in the IAEA’s accounting of the “possible military dimensions” to Iran’s nuclear program. But, more importantly, the stories do not indicate that Tehran is currently trying to produce nuclear weapons.”

While the IAEA report raised the possibility, without evidence, that there could be military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program, it actually concluded that “the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material.”

All 16 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in 2007, and again in 2011, that there is no military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program. A U.S. intelligence official explained to The Washington Post last month that Iran has not decided to pursue nuclear weapons: “Our belief is that they are reserving judgment on whether to continue with key steps they haven’t taken regarding nuclear weapons.”

Even the Obama administration has had to admit this. On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, “Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability.”

This conforms to previous assessments. Adm. Dennis Blair, Obama’s former director of national intelligence, told Congress in March 2009, “We judge in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons design and weaponization activities” but that Tehran “is keeping open the option to develop them.”

Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the IAEA, said that same year that he did not “believe the Iranians have made a decision to go for a nuclear weapon, but they are absolutely determined to have the technology because they believe it brings you power, prestige and an insurance policy.”

The more critical report next month has the potential to trigger even more belligerent responses from the U.S. and Israel, and could set the stage for a military attack on Iran, whether its findings are based in truth or not.

The group, Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), is designated as a terrorist group by the United States and is accused of carrying out terrorist attacks in the past, including on American citizens. With the help of Israel, MEK has carried out five assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have a missile research and development site.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration knows of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement. However, there has been a big money push by many influential people in Washington to get MEK removed from the State Department’s terrorist list, presumably to make them eligible for U.S. funding.

The Iranians have made these allegations of Israeli terrorist attacks carried out by MEK for quite a while, but only now does it have confirmation from U.S. officials. Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a recent interview with NBC News claimed they knew Israel was funding MEK, sharing intelligence, and training them inside Israel in the use of motorcycles and bombs.

The Iranians say much of their intelligence on this matter has come from interrogations with an MEK member that carried out one of the assassination attempts. The MEK has denied these allegations, issuing a statement calling them “absolutely false.”

Even if its true, as U.S. officials insist, that Washington has no involvement in these terrorist attacks, they do support Israel through unmatched economic aid, arms sales, and diplomatic support. As Larijani recently told NBC News, if America, Israel’s closest ally, is aware of this terrorism, “the United States has an obligation…to push Israel not to do it” and “to pursue it, like pursuing us, at the United Nations with different resolutions.”

The argument has some validity. Indeed, most indications are that the Iranian government has been able to find workarounds on many of the sanctions, and the desperate efforts to halt the flow of crude oil from the country seem to be doomed to failure.

Nevertheless, every new round of sanctions takes a toll on the civilian economy of Iran and cripples private industries that don’t have access to the loopholes that state industry does. This has fueled inflation, unemployment, and, increasingly, soaring food prices.

Iran’s state oil company is still shipping crude, but the cooking oil that Iranian companies buy from abroad isn’t getting in so easily. Corn and rice shipments are down, payments to suppliers are defaulting, and once again the US sanctions have made Iran’s civilian population even more desperate, with no one to turn to but the government.

An agreement pushed by the U.S. with the Iraqi government delayed the closure of Camp Ashraf, where up to 3,200 members of the MEK have been living for years. The U.S. also got Baghdad to agree to ensure safe treatment of MEK, since the group’s anti-Tehran views don’t fly with the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The facility has been officially renamed Camp Hurriya (Arabic for “freedom”) and the first MEK members can now go there on a temporary basis to decide whether to return to Iran or move on to a third country, if they have residency there. MEK leaders have not yet decided to move, however.

The Iranian dissident group has a history of terrorism, including being implicated in the deaths of Americans, and currently advocates the overthrow of the Iranian government, making Washington’s quiet support of them rather suspect. There has been a big money push by many influential people in Washington to get them removed from the State Department’s terrorist list, presumably to make them eligible for U.S. funding.

The move orders US banks, including their foreign subsidiaries, to block and freeze all transactions coming out of Iran, and also gives them the power to seize any assets to which they are given access in relation to those transactions.

The official statement from the White House said the order was aimed at punishing Iran for “serious human rights abuses” and was targeted at keeping Iran from “development of petroleum resources.”

The move will make it even more difficult for those involved in the Iranian oil market to use US dollars. Some nations, including India and China, have been rumored to be in the early stages of negotiating gold-for-oil transactions with Iran, which would bypass the international banking system entirely.

Alhough Obama insisted that he personally prefers a diplomatic solution to the endless dispute with the Iranian government, his comments suggest that the decision is really Israel’s to make. He refused to say whether Israel had been warned against starting the war or even whether Israel intended to inform the US before starting it.

Even as Obama was committing the US to the war, he sought to assure that the US would not be significantly affected by it, insisting there was “no evidence” that Iran even had the theoretical capability to retaliate against the United States if war broke out. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has warned that if the US attacks it would “harm America.”

Though Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to attack Iran in recent days, most suggestions that Iran poses a real threat have come from US politicians. Former Sen. Rick Santorum used a campaign stop in Missouri last week to warn that Iran had designs on a nuclear attack against the state.

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Yet an attack on Iran, if indeed it happens, is a much bigger matter, potentially involving weeks of bombings by Israel and inevitable retaliation by an Iranian government that has been preparing for decades.

The war would not be limited to Israel and Iran, but would have enormous global repercussions. President Obama has already conceded that, even if he prefers “diplomacy,” he intends to commit the US “in lockstep” to whatever Israel decides.

This is part of the Israeli strategy. Israeli Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon has urged the world to think of it as “Iran versus the West, the United States, Europe and so on.” There is little doubt, however broad Iran’s retaliation might be, that it would be Israel firing the first shot in this war.

Europe’s role in any such war would seem to be entirely involuntary. Many predict that the ensuing oil price spike would bring the entire Eurozone into recession, probably drive Greece and Italy into default, and likely cripple the Euro as a viable currency.

Turkey appears to fear the consequences as well, saying such a war would “be a disaster.” And Iraq, a close Iranian ally, would probably get the worst of it, experiencing virtually instant bankruptcy, many predict.

On the other hand, the Pakistani government is said to feel obliged to support Iran in its retaliation if war breaks out. Since US involvement on Israel’s side is already a foregone conclusion, it would also likely mean an American war with Pakistan. Given China’s close ties with Pakistan, this could rapidly extend the tensions east.

At a campaign stop in Missouri, Santorum told a crowd that a nuclear Iran would pose a direct threat, even to Missouri. “Once they have a nuclear weapon, let me assure you, you will not be safe, even here in Missouri,” he said.

Santorum’s warmongering rhetoric is very far removed from reality. Iran does not possess nuclear weapons and the consensus view within the U.S. military and intelligence community is that their nuclear enrichment program is for civilian purposes only.

All 16 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in 2007, and again in 2011, that there is no military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program. And despite the hyperbolic reporting on it, the latest report from the IAEA said, “the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material.”

Furthermore, the notion that Iran would nuke the United States even if it did have nuclear weapons is absurd and not a single person knowledgeable about the situation or of international affairs generally believes it to be true. The United States has thousands of nuclear weapons (compared to Iran’s arsenal of zero) and would immediately retaliate  on Iran if a nuclear weapon was launched.

What conceivable benefit bombing the United States Santorum thinks the Iranians perceive, is a mystery. He seems to think the regime in Tehran has an apocalyptic religious determination to destroy the United States or Israel, yet he refuses to believe such religious rigidity extends to the regime’s fatwa, or religious ruling, against the use or possession of nuclear weapons.

Iran’s nuclear policy is probably designed to signal to its aggressive adversaries (the U.S. and Israel) that they have the technological capability to build nuclear weapons in case they are attacked. Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the IAEA, said in 2009 that he did not “believe the Iranians have made a decision to go for a nuclear weapon, but they are absolutely determined to have the technology because they believe it brings you power, prestige and an insurance policy.” This is a deterrence strategy, as opposed to a desire to actually attain nuclear weapons.

Santorum’s blind, jingoistic nationalism makes a sober look at Iran, and the entire Middle East, impossible. Referring to Iran, he said, “These are folks who have been and are at war with us since 1979. This is a country that has killed more troops in Afghanistan and Iraq than the Iraqis and Afghans.” Santorum is of course incapable of recognizing the hundreds of thousands of civilians the U.S. has killed in those two unnecessary wars along Iran’s east and west borders.

The US, for its part, issues fairly regular threats against Iran, but those threats have been coming since the Reagan Administration and have never been particularly credible. Israel has been threatening to attack Iran “within a matter of months” for decades themselves, but officials say that this time they really mean it.

Officials familiar with the situation say that the odds are “better than 50-50″ that Israel will actually launch an attack this time, and more than one official was quoted as saying there was a 70% chance of it happening.

Much has been made of the potential timing of such an attack, and Israeli officials, notably Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have been insisting that time is of the essence and an attack must occur soon. Some Israeli analysts, however, warn that attacking Iran’s civilian nuclear program won’t necessarily do much to slow it without a protracted bombing campaign.

An Israeli attack would start a major war, and would almost inevitably draw the US in. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that an attack by the US would “harm America” and US officials have said as much several times, a fact that never seems to occur to the many hawkish officials who have long been pushing this war.