The debate has been systematically distorted by considerations of American government desire (and to a considerably lesser extent, that of the American public) for revenge on Iran for the 1979 humiliation of the United States, taking American diplomats prisoner, and the fiasco of the failed American rescue operation a year later.
It is distorted by Israel’s identification of Iran as its most important enemy in the region, now that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq has been destroyed, producing global efforts to exaggerate Iran’s regional and international importance, its military potential, and its threat to its neighbors.
It is distorted by a counterproductive American policy to dominate oil production and commerce in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, and to exaggerate the true significance of nuclear proliferation, whose interest to a state like Iran, confronting major nuclear powers, is wholly deterrent. Nuclear weapons have no offensive value for a state like Iran; they simply limit the freedom of action of others.
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It has all been bunkum, if not calculated lie. There was no Iraq mass destruction weapons threat. There is no Iranian nuclear threat. It was never a serious proposition that Islamic terrorists had to be fought in Iraq to stop them from attacking American cities. There has never been a serious intention in Washington or Jerusalem to allow a two-states settlement in Israel-Palestine. Allied countries nonetheless took all these lies seriously. So did the Palestinians. So, for that matter, did the Iraqis, and so – most of all – did Americans. As the great American carnival showman P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
The Iran NIE starts with this (pdf):
We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program
The above sentence has two chunks of information. One, Iran has no current nuclear weapon program, was greated with great relief, including by me, as it makes an attack on Iran during Bush's remaining reign unlikely. That chunk, which we are happy about, induces us to trust the second chunk and the whole NIE. We want to believe in this.
But by swallowing that chunk we are pressed to also automatically swallow the other part: the assertion that Iran really had a nuclear weapons program up to 2003.
Does anybody believe anything they are told by liars? There is absolutely no reason to believe anything that 'America' says. As others have said, the Iran NIE is a Trojan Horse, and imho , to be used either now or later. In others words, if the current criminals do not attack Iran, it has now set the ground work for war profit at a later time, perhaps, under, (hold your breath) the democrats!
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