WMDs: Willfully Misguided Deductions?
OK, let me get this straight: current intelligence suggests Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program, but this doesn’t contradict Bush’s dire warnings about the danger posed by Iran because it proves they could do it if they wanted to.
Good Christ, here we go again.
President Bush shot our credibility to hell by exaggerating intelligence about WMDs in Iraq and got us embroiled in a war with no clear objectives, no clear benefit to us, and no end in sight. And yet here he is trying to do the same thing all over again.
Yes, there is logic in the argument that Iran’s merely having the knowledge to produce weapons-grade nuclear material is a very bad thing for us. There is naught but illogic, however, in the idea that we can intimidate Iran into giving up its nuclear power program. Our failures in Iraq have done nothing but embolden the Iranian government, and they know damn well we don’t have the resources to occupy both their nation and Iraq simultaneously. Moreover, our credibility with the rest of the world is in tatters. I can guarantee you that however little help we’re getting from our allies in Iraq, we’ll get infinitely less from them should we foolishly choose to start a war with Iran.
On the streets of Iran, there is growing discontent with the repressive government headed up by President Ahmadenijad. Moreover, there are many Iranians who are unconvinced that we are the Great Satan. Instead of squeezing them with sanctions or thinly veiled and empty threats of military action, perhaps we should be looking at strengthening and emboldening this anti-government sentiment. The results may not be as immediate as “shock and awe,” but it may be far more effective in the long run.
December 5th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
There is naught but illogic, however, in the idea that we can intimidate Iran into giving up its nuclear power program.
I thought that the point of the document that was just released was that Iran WAS developing nukes but stopped in 2003….wouldn’t that mean that we DID intimidate them into giving up its nuclear ambitions? (2003 was the beginning of the war after all–pretty intimidating).
Anyway, this seems like good news. It certainly reduces the already unlikely odds of a war with Iran.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Bill Mulligan: “…wouldn’t that mean that we DID intimidate them into giving up its nuclear ambitions?”
The report offered no insights as to why Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program. The timing certainly seems to suggest a causal link between our invasion of Iraq and Iran’s decision, but it’s circumstantial evidence at best. Remember, we relied on (and exaggerated) circumstantial evidence with respect to WMDs in Iraq, and look where that got us.
Moreover, it was Iran’s nuclear power program to which I was referring, and that is continuing unabated. The Bush administration has been opposed to that program on the grounds that it creates the potential for a weapons program, and has long tried to pressure Iran to shut it down. Its continued existence would logically suggest that our pressure tactics have failed, and there is little reason to believe additional pressure would change anything. There’s not much more we can do in terms of sanctions — we don’t trade with Iran anyway — and our military is stretched so thin as to make any threat of force less than credible.
I would agree with you that the threat of a war with Iran is slim now, but earlier this year there were factions within the U.S. Government who agreed with the President that military action was called for. I think we came much closer to war than you may believe.
I am dismayed that Bush has failed to learn from his blunders in Iraq. Even now, he is trying to spin this report so as to avoid admitting he may have been in error, and that is the mark of a man devoid of leadership capabilities. Moreover, there is evidence suggesting that Bush knew for months that there was reason to believe Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program, yet continued his hard-line rhetoric nevertheless.
Now would be the time for our President to engage Iran in a meaningful way. For example, he could offer them something they want — like limited trade with the U.S. — in exchange for allowing U.N. inspectors to verify that their nuclear weapons program is indeed defunct.
December 6th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
I’m just so tired of Bush.
His speeches in the last few days have been so full of $&!^ in so many ways.
He’s talked about the better days just before Amadinajab when we were able to work with Iran. Of course, before Amadinajab came in to power, and while Iran was giving us support, aid and/or troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush was calling Iran evil and condemning them in every one of his “Axis of Evil” speeches. That was Bush’s better days? They try and work with us and Bush, Cheney, Rummy and crew rattle their sabers at the at every opportunity that they get?
And now this report comes out that should have derailed a lot of his war drum speeches and he uses his usual spinsanity on it to claim that it supports his position? The fact that it’s a proven fact that Iran halted its weapons program and that it could be ten years before they’d have the ability to put together the types of weapons that Bush has been burbling on about actually means that Iran is even more dangerous then before because they could, just maybe could, one day start working on those weapons again and could, despite zero proof of its existence, have diverted all of their resources to “secret” weapons facilities. Hey, George, are those like all of the secret facilities in Iraq that you and your crew “knew” with 100% certainty were there that were later proven to be the creations of an over active imagination?
Oh, and we have to have more pressure put on Iran to get them to suspend the program that they’ve already suspended. George, you’re a liar, an idiot and an absolute danger to the integrity and the ideals that this nation should have.
As for Iran or just about any other country out there: Why in the blue hell should they do anything that this idiot tells them to do. Beyond the matter of Bush not being the elected leader of any other country but ours, there’s this little image problem that Bush and his cronies have created for themselves and out country all over the world. If you’re small enough, America will bomb you and/or persecute you for not doing what it tells you to do even if you might be doing it and it has to make stuff up and put facts through the Bush Administration Spinsanity™ wash to pretend that Bush’s desired actions are justified.
Hey, if I was the leader of a country who was in Bush’s crosshairs, I’d load up my weapons stash as heavily and as quickly as possible. Being large enough to actually put up a good fight (China, N. Korea) gets you lots of negotiations and talk about how your actions are “different” then the identical actions that America is accusing others of while being a smaller threat or a broken country (Iraq) means the march is on and the bombs are coming.
Is that 100% the way things are for real? No, not 100%. But that’s the way Bush comes off to many. Problem is, when Bush tries to come across that way to foreign leaders, it gets us nowhere but a bad place to be in.
I’m just so tired of Bush.
December 6th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
“Hey, if I was the leader of a country who was in Bush’s crosshairs, I’d load up my weapons stash as heavily and as quickly as possible. Being large enough to actually put up a good fight (China, N. Korea) gets you lots of negotiations and talk about how your actions are “different” then the identical actions that America is accusing others of while being a smaller threat or a broken country (Iraq) means the march is on and the bombs are coming.”
Which is one reason why the US doesn’t want them to have nuclear weapons.
In any case, I’m tired of spins by anybody. This report is a spin. They way it’s interpreted iss a spin. What Bush says is a spin. What Iran says is a spin. What other countries say is a spin. So is what the various expert say. I tired of all the spins.
December 8th, 2007 at 9:05 am
There’s asn article in an Israeli paper suggesting that various western intelligence agencies are sabotaging and delaying the Iranian nuclear program by infiltrating the black market sources from which they get their equipment. There were also some assassinations. Apparently the Iranian program and people involved in it are accident prone. Of course it’s possible that some of the problems were not deliberate sabotage. But for the Iranian to think it is, is also helpful.