Now that the dust has settled from the political explosion touched off by Washington's new National Intelligence Estimate, it is easier to see the outlines of America's future relations with Iran.

Iran, as President Bush never ceases to remind us, is still seen by Americans as public enemy number one, the country it should most fear. And indeed the NIE does not say that Iran will never complete work on the nuclear weapons program it abandoned in 2003, just that it has stopped work on it for the present.

So the significance of the latest intelligence estimate is not that it allays America's fears about Iran's intentions. It's that it gives America and Iran an opening to begin the process of reaching an accommodation after 28 years of hostility.

President Bush has apparently known about this new intelligence information for several months and could have delayed publication of it for a while longer. Instead, he chose to release it now even though it makes his effort to tighten the screws of sanctions on Iran much more difficult, and it takes off the table the threat that the United States may attack Iran. That is now politically impossible. Congress and the American public would not now back an attack on a country that is not a present danger to America. Once burned, twice shy.

I have talked to a number of Iranians and foreign experts in the past week in an effort to understand precisely what is going on in the high stakes game the US and Iranian governments have been playing in recent months. There is some disagreement about why President Bush released the estimate when he did, and some even believe the President was manipulating the intelligence. The best-informed experts dismiss the idea that the document was not an honest intelligence appraisal. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that the President used it in order to pave the way for an eventual agreement with Iran, because he must have known the likely effect of its publication. And that effect was almost immediate.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the document “a positive step forward” and said that more such steps will lead to “an entirely different situation.”

With the nuclear issue now less pressing, the US and Iran can get on with the business of settling the future of Iraq, Iran's neighbor and America's most urgent problem. Both countries have a long-term interest in fostering a stable and peaceful Iraq. They had already begun the first steps toward a possible accommodation before the publication of the NIE. American and Iranian officials have been engaging in a series of working level talks on Iraq. And American military officials have been telling the media recently that they believe fewer explosive devices are being infiltrated into Iraq from Iran. The groundwork for a deal is being laid.

Iran has been helpful in the past. After the American-led coalition invaded Afghanistan, Iran provided construction aid for the country and handed over 16 suspected Qaeda agents to Saudi Arabia. And after America invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein – Iran's worst enemy – Iranian officials sent a secret letter to Washington offering to open talks on a range of issues. It was a trial balloon, but the Bush administration did not respond, reportedly because it preferred to see regime change in Iran rather than behavior change. That may have been a lost opportunity, but there is another opening now, and we will see what it produces.

What does the Iranian government want most from a settlement of affairs with America? Most of all, it want to ensure its own survival. It wants the U.S. to abandon its goal of regime change in Iran. Ironically, it's regime change that may eventually give Iran what it is looking for. Regime change in Washington, that is. After the 2008 elections.