Reliance on an enemy's intentions rather than his capabilities is fraught with danger and has a history of disaster.

Iran's Axis of Nuclear Evil

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123759986806901655.html#mod=djemEditorialPage

Is it intelligenT, let alone intelligenCE, to let one's personal belief in the INTENTIONS of an enemy override what the facts indicate their CAPABILITY to be? A reasonable person would ask, Why have the capability if you have NO intention to use it? If the enemy is "merely" keeping her options open, isn't it common sense to realize that intentions can change much faster than capabilities and that responses should be based on the latter rather than the former? 

The recent book, HOW WE DECIDE, is full of examples of how the judgments of a small group (often only one person ) as to an enemy's intentions overrode the facts of capability, and even preparations,  to create a situation of horrific surprise.

Known examples are the American military's gaming of a Japanese attack on Hawaii and the Pacific Fleet in the context of a belief that the Japanese would not choose to do it ( although a surprise naval attack  was part of the belief system of the Japanese military since their success at Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.) The Israeli general, Maj. Gen. Eli Zeira, director of Aman, the Israeli military intelligence agency, in 1973 knew that the Egyptians and Syrians had the capability for an attack and even appeared to be preparing for it ( massing troops and materiel on borders is a pretty good signal ) but was "certain" that they had no intention ( to precipitate the Yom Kippur War) and said "I discount the likelihood of a conventional Arab attack." The author comments that Zeira was "spectacularly wrong."

John Bolton, such a no-nonsense "diplomat" that Congress deemed him too undiplomatic for service, thinks we are being self-blind on Iran and Syrian intentions.

"In short, theirs was not an intelligence conclusion, but a policy view presented under the guise of intelligence."