On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency presented a long-anticipated report on Iran’s nuclear program. Among its disclosures: Tehran is stalling instead of cooperating, and it is prohibiting, à la former neighbor dictator Saddam Hussein, U.N. inspectors from visiting sites — some with hundreds of centrifuges used in building WMD — that could feasibly produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

The mullahs are spinning the report as vindication, though, since it allows, somewhat oxymoronically, that Iran has indeed been helpful in providing “timely” new information on a once-secret program exposed in 2002 — five years ago. The report admits there’s “no concrete information” that Iran is pursuing weapons instead of power plants.

But ignored is the meat of the report and the indubitable point of the current controversy: impatience with the paucity on Iran’s current program where, according to The Washington Post, “knowledge about Iran’s current nuclear program is diminishing.” As The Wall Street Journal puts it, Iranians “seem to have done little more than tell the IAEA what it already knew.” The report also confirms that Iran “has 3,000 centrifuges in operation, which . . . represents a tenfold increase over last year.” (And flies in the face of two U.N. Security Council demands, here and here.)

Spinning centrifuges “is by no means proof of bad intent,” says Gordon Chang, author of several books on nuclear proliferation. It can generate electricity or produce enriched uranium for weapon cores. So which is it? “In my view, that’s irrelevant because the United Nations has previously demanded that Iran halt enrichment.”

Critics wince at Iraq déjà vu, saying the Bush administration is edging towards a solution by force, intentionally speeding through what are — so far — less effective forms of diplomacy. Three weeks ago, it officially blacklisted the Revolutionary Guards (the Star Wars-sounding arm of Iran’s military) in an effort to cripple the state financially until it complies with the U.N. — the first such designation for a foreign military.

Saddam Hussein similarly barred inspectors from Iraqi facilities in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion. A book released Tuesday, Ronald Kessler’s The Terrorist Watch, explains why, given the fact that no WMD were ever found; Saddam, it says, bluffed about possessing them to ward off a potential attack from Iran.

Vexing the critics, Chang says somewhat ominously that this reminder should punctuate diplomatic lessons vis-à-vis the Iran mess: “Nuclear weapons are so inherently dangerous that merely violating the mandates of the United Nations with regard to them should, by itself, be considered grounds for the use of force.”