Two years ago I was in Washington seeing old friends, most either still in or recent alumni from high positions in government or the most influential and knowledgeable think-tanks.

One of them is a friend of 43 years who had held a most senior national security position in the Clinton administration and who is known as one of the most intellectually gifted people and one of those of the highest integrity, and whose professionalism permitted him to continue sensitive friendships across party lines.

It is, after all, among non-ideologues in that silly city, a common practice to glean good intelligence and insight from anyone who can comment on fashions and trends inside the group-think atmosphere of almost any administration.

On March 21, 2006, as a result of these conversations, I wrote [...] on the basis of what this friend as well as others had told me: that the Iranian nuclear programme was overestimated and that the intelligence community was generally in agreement that the 'threat' was some years off, enough that they could 'leave it to Hillary'. They were even that sure then of the succession to 'W'.

I also made a more veiled reference to another conversation, with a friend of 33 years standing, a world-famous strategist of awesome reputation for high brainpower, and known to have access in the very highest circles of Israeli intelligence. He told me in no uncertain terms that in Israel they were also clear that the Iranian threat was further off than generally believed.

I was struck by the identity of the views of these two old friends. Nor would such have been accidental since friends #1 and #2 know each other well and wouldn't have dreamed of speaking confidentially against realities known in their common world of serious analysts.

I can now reveal what I was asked not even to allude to at the time, that there were significant signals as early as late 2005 that Iran had already done what Saddam Hussein ( photo ) had done in Iraq several years before the false war of Bush administration propaganda started grinding up its war scenarios for that country, namely to purposively slow down, if not close, the military nuclear programme. Perhaps just to wait out Bush? It doesn't matter.

Yet what have we been subjected to in the meantime? Ah, the Prince of Darkness, Vice-President Dick Cheney, telling us that Iran 'would not be allowed' to develop nuclear weapons, as if the intelligence community was denying access to the fruits of its analysis to America's most powerful person. The boy president meantime was telling us that if we wanted to avoid World War III (and who was he suggesting had the power to start that?) we must prevent an Iranian bomb. And so forth.

All of this proceeded from what we now know was an even falser propaganda war than we endured in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. At that time, there was at least a hypothetical possibility that weapons of mass destruction were still in the Iraqi dictator's possession, even though no proof could be found and Hans Blix had concluded otherwise.

It was hardly a solid basis for an invasion that would do far more harm to America than anyone else, but as a first-run war of falsehoods by the Bushies, it wasn't immediately falsifiable until after the invasion yielded absolutely nothing.

Self-imposed catastrophe

Now we have something entirely different. For the past several years the boy president and his minions have held the world on the brink of a self-imposed catastrophe by drumming up support against Iran for its purported drive to nuclear status, something in itself of dubious threat to world peace (Iowa is threatened by the mullahs' bombs?)

But this time they knew beyond a reasonable doubt that it was baloney. The combined intelligence agencies of the US government have today delivered an awesomely conclusive paper, one that required immense courage in the face of the administration's determination to have one last kick in the world's face from their sand box. They have concluded, yes, that Iran all but closed down its bomb programme two years ago and that though they could make another run for it in due course, any real danger was a long way off.

Of course Stephen Hadley, the national security assistant, not a stupid man, was quick to say we had to remain vigilant, the danger was not over. The danger, however, is not to world peace but now to history's judgement of a group of men - alas, yes, and of a woman - who lied outright in the face of known high judgments by the people empowered to make those judgments, that Iran was 'going for it.' It was always made to sound like what-the-world-should-have-done to Hitler when he rearmed the Rhineland.

Well, they still have 13 months to gum things up. But maybe the nightmare is over. They have been caught red-handed in a fabricated propaganda war based on 'facts' they knew simply to be untrue.

In all fairness to Israel, Jerusalem was always more measured in its assessment of the 'threat' from Iran, but at least they might have to face a real threat in due course, especially if Washington were determined to create its own self-fulfilling prophecy.

They simply couldn't afford to undercut America's campaign, undertaken to some extent on their behalf, even despite their known assessment of the real time-line of danger. At a time when their propaganda efforts in America are under serious fire, in public and in the courts, they could hardly risk offending a Washington that thought it was going all-out to help its Israeli friends.

So here we are. It's highly tempting to say 'I told you so,' but what has happened is too serious for that. It's more satisfying to know that the danger of fits from the sandbox has receded considerably. The Europeans, who have taken up the so-called 'danger' from Iran almost entirely to have bargaining leverage with Washington precisely against such stupidity, can now lean back and voice their true views.

Maybe even French president Nicolas Sarkozy will no longer need to play poodle to Washington. The fact is that a very serious danger - one from Washington not from Teheran - has receded. The world can breathe a sigh of relief and continue the countdown until a rational leader can take up office in the Great Republic.

W SCOTT THOMPSON is a national security expert who served four American presidents and is a professor emeritus at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is the author or editor of 13 books on world political issues and resides in Washington, Bali and Manila.