So this professor was consulting the CIA back when Bush was trying to prove that Iran had nuclear weapons. He apparently told this “senior CIA person” that based on all the evidence they had provided him and the logic of his theoretical model, Iran did not have a nuclear weapon, wasn’t close to having a nuclear weapon, and would very likely stop short of developing one, at least in whatever timeframe they were looking at. The senior CIA person told him that he was “sure” that Iran DID have a nuclear weapon. So this professor asked, why? If he was given all the same information they had, what was he looking at that had him so convinced? And then he went home, I guess.

Allegedly, he got a call late one night from this CIA person where he confessed that he was truly bothered by his inability to come up with any evidence to support his position, and acquiesced, I guess. I was on facebook a lot in that class. It was like 3 hours long. Anyway, this professor’s point was that the intelligence community often isn’t doing anything fancy to analyze these situations. Maybe what you and Rovner are observing is some mutually-reinforcing thing.