The new NIE of course has domestic political implications, but lets forget about those for a moment and think about what it actually implies about the situation in Iran.

My assumptions:

1) Iran is in an analogous situation to Iraq under Saddam re WMD (nukes or otherwise) in that it must convince its populace, and its neighbors in the region that it has or will shortly have nukes. It has to do this to maintain the balance of terror at home and abroad; to distract its people from the domestic economy which is still crumbling;

2) An additional dimension is the Millennial / Judgment Day rhetoric which they have to maintain. Saddam wasn't nearly as committed to this type of rhetoric.

3) Iran's leadership is not a monolith. Some elements probably do buy into the Judgment Day stuff and want to make it come true; other elements clearly retain the ability to make rational cost-benefit calculations (although they use a different measuring stick than we do); after all, in spite of many credible predictions of their imminent demise, the Imams have managed to stay in power since 1979.

Therefore if they have, or get nukes, they are deterrable but with the ever-present risk of a "rogue element" -- from a game theory point of view, this is identical to the Soviets during the chillier parts of the cold war. Not a pleasant prospect, but we know how to manage that.

So, IF these assumptions are true (and I see nothing in or out of the NIE that disproves them), then the NIE seems imply, even if Iran has given up weaponizing their nukes for now, they cannot be seen to have done so, lest they loose face.

As a sidebar, even now, we still don't know to what extent Saddam's own generals fooled him or each other about their WMD. The Iranian nuke program might be a Potemkin village; if this is the case, some elements in the leadership may know this, while others may think they really have, or are close to having, real weapons.

How to take advantage of this dynamic?

Hide-and-seek inspections are worse than useless. We can't negotiate any meaningful inspections that are transparent and verifiable, because they can't been seen to have no nuclear weapons or programs. Or if we did permit meaningful inspections, they would have to demand huge concession and would be foolish not to renege on the deal at the first opportunity.

A successful bombing wouldn't reveal if their program was real or not, and it would only be a setback for their program if in fact the program is real. The propaganda cost of a successful bombing would be high, and for a failure, higher still. They use human shields and have info war assets.

An invasion would determine if their programs are real; but if it turned out they were not real, or if they were real but were transferred or destroyed shortly before the invasion, the invasion would be much worse than useless.

The best strategy might be containment, followed by disruption, i.e. how we won the Cold War.

Keep sanctions in place, strengthen them if possible, and in negotiations, put everything on the table EXCEPT for verifiable, transparent inspections which would remain a requirement; knowing full well they can never accept that deal, and that their economy will be crumbling.

Aggressively deploy and improve disruptive technologies and tactics such as:

- Radio Free Persia. Create if necessary, enhance otherwise.
- Theater missile defense.
- Nuclear bomb forensics. If Tom Clancy is right, we have, or are very close to, the technology to determine the origin of a bomb, as long as we have access to bomb debris, and the reactor (or remains of same) used to refine it.
- Announce a policy that should a nuclear bomb of unknown origin appear (detonated or otherwise) anywhere on US soil, including embassies, we will perform armed inspections of all suspected facilities. Invite NATO to join this policy. Periodically war-game armed inspections of a nuclear facility.

Wait for Iran to implode.