Can't help but suspect the british security establishment decided it didn't want to extradite him because there was real risk he would be pardoned in the U.S. I

Can't help but suspect the british security establishment decided it didn't want to extradite him because there was real risk he would be pardoned in the U.S. In their estimation, if they wait just 16 more days (post inauguration), that's no longer a risk, and even if something unprecedented in the U.S. happens, the british govt still has him. Assange humiliated a generation of spies and officials and discredited the institutions they controlled at a key strategic moment, just as they were consolidating a lifetime of work toward their international alignment and control. It's zero sum for them, where if he survives, he's proven right. Historically, Wikileaks (among a few other projects) is how Gen-X unmoored the new establishment of the Boomer generation, and inspired Millennials like Snowden to surge into the breach. It doesn't matter what they do to him now, he won.