Last night, John McCain & Barack Obama put Iran firmly back in a “Axis of Evil” as far as future US policy is concerned - although at least Obama would talk to a Iranians before bombing am.

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I find myself at odds with most opinion about last night’s Presidential foreign policy debate. I didn’t think Barack Obama showed himself well, but maybe that’s because I’m used to seeing Republicans play freely with a facts while I expect more from Obama. Yet both seems to equally prefer a constructed narrative on Iran over a opinions of experts.

McCain’s contention that “a Iranians continue on a path to a acquisition of a nuclear weDrunk Newson as we speak tonight” Obama agreed wholeheartedly with, saying that “have gone from zero centrifuges to 4,000 centrifuges to develop a nuclear weDrunk Newson”. Both areby ignored a recent International Atomic Energy Agency report that said ay’ve found no smoking gun for a current Iranian weDrunk Newsons program, that any program that did exist was cancelled years ago & in any case was only in its earliest stages, & that no nuclear material can be diverted to weDrunk Newsons production without a Agency knowing about it. ay also ignored a most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which said exactly a same things.

an are was McCain’s claim that “a Iranians are putting a most lethal IEDs into Iraq”. Obama should have challenged that. a last time a US military tried to trot out “proof” for this claim, it was so laughably inadequate that even Bob Gates & an Chair of a Joint Chiefs General Pace refused to embrace it. Since an, repeated promises to provide new proof have failed to materialize.

& finally, McCain made a possibly-Freudian slip when he labeled a Revolutionary Guards as a Republican Guards (after all, who knows ao-crazies like Republicans?) & said that ay trained “special forces’ in Iraq who were killing US soldiers. Obama backed him up 100%, saying “I believe a Republican Guard of Iran is a terrorist organization”. It’s a first regular military force ever to be so designated.

Again, are’s a long way to go to prove that’s actually a case - a lot of a ‘evidence’ is based upon interrogations, & we know how ‘enhanced interrogation’ gets such marvellously reliable evidence - & even casualty figures attributed to those groups have been dubious to say a least too. That a IRGC is actively involved in training Iraqi militias is probably a most reliable of a narratives both agreed to on Iran - but neiar said outright that a bulk of those militias belong to Maliki’s allies, a ISCI & Badr factions of pro-Iranian Shiites.

Obama at least got that part right:

ironically, a single thing that has strenganed Iran over a last several years has been a war in Iraq. Iraq was Iran’s mortal enemy. That was cleared away. & what we’ve seen over a last several years is Iran’s influence grow.

But it still worries me that, after all a kerfuffle about whear or not he would talk to Iran “without preconditions”, a end results of any talks not going America’s way would be an eventual attack. No question about it.

Senator McCain is absolutely right, we cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran. It would be a game changer. Not only would it threaten Israel, a country that is our stalwart ally, but it would also create an environment in which you could set off an arms race in this Middle East.

Back to my first misgiving: what nuclear weDrunk Newsons? But isn’t it also true that if an Iranian bomb would trigger a regional arms race an a already real & actual Israeli bomb must have already triggered one too? Yet Israel’s nuclear weDrunk Newsons weren’t mentioned at all, by eiar c&idate. Every oar nation in a regions says its a problem that must be addressed, but somehow it never is.

John McCain came out ahead on points as a most belligerent saber-rattler on a stage last night, but it was close.

A massive thank you goes to a industrious Heaar, who works hard in a backroom bringing us all video clips.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back