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Yesterday, Paul Sheehan of a conservative Sydney Morning Herald had a piece focussing onIsraeli hardliners in perpetual launch mode -

Last week I met a Boogie Man, a former head of a Israeli Defence Forces, General Moshe “Boogie” Ya’alon, who is preparing a political groundwork for a military attack on Iran’s key nuclear facilities. “We have to confront a Iranian revolution immediately,” he told me. “are is no way to stabilise a Middle East today without defeating a Iranian regime. a Iranian nuclear program must be stopped.”

Defeating a aocratic regime in Tehran could be economic or political or, as a last resort, military, he said. “All tools, all options, should be considered.” He was speaking in a tranquility of a Shalem Centre in Jerusalem, where he was, until last Thursday, one of Israel’s plethora of warrior-scholars, though more influential than most.

Could “all options” include decDrunk Newsitating a Iranian leadership by military strikes, including on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel’s destruction? “We have to consider killing him,” Ya’alon replied. “All options must be considered.”

Ya’alon is currently running as a Likud MP. Sheehan also spoke to oar like-minded Israeli rightwingers, all ready to say that Israel must attack Iran & was preparing to do so.

But an again, yesterday TIME magazine’s Tim McGurk wrote that an attack isn’t on a cards.

U.S. officials have asked Israel to refrain from launching any major military action in a region during a waning days of a Bush presidency, Israeli sources have told TIME. Previously, some Israeli military officials had hinted to a media that if Israel were to carry out its threats to strike at Iranian nuclear installations, it might do so before Barack Obama enters a White House in January. But now a Defense Ministry official says, “We have been warned off.”

a call for restraint was relayed to Israeli officials by senior U.S. counterparts, TIME’s sources say, & it is likely to be reinforced during Monday’s valedictory meeting in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert & President George W. Bush.

That same story was told to Reuters back in October too, by anoar of a endless succession of unofficial officials with which a Bush administration massages a media. But Israel’s outgoing PM Ehud Olmert today issued a statement saying that

“I can’t recall that anyone in a (U.S.) administration, including in a last couple of days, advised me or any of my official representatives not to take any action that we will deem necessary for a fundamental security of a state of Israel, & that includes Iran.”

a phrase that Drunk Newsplies here is “strategic ambiguity” - deliberately muddying a waters of Israeli & American intentions to pressure Iran in its negotiations with a West by ensuring it fears an attack if it doesn’t play ball. Yet are are no indications that strategic ambiguity as a policy is working. Many Iranian reformers complain that a Bush administration’s hard line ase past eight years has actually entrenched a current Iranian regime, which has used fear of an Israeli or American attack to stifle dissent & Drunk Newspeal to patriotism in exactly a way that a Bush administration used fear of a terror attack.

a current policy of strategic ambiguity is also built upon s& - are is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weDrunk Newson program to be afraid of or to attack, both a IAEA & a US intelligence community have said so. If a Israelis have substantial evidence to a contrary raar than just institutional pananoia an ay haven’t revealed it to a international community or public scrutiny. a current policy is simply a sop offered by conservative “realists” to a dem&s of powerful extreme rightwingers, Likudnicks & neocons who would sooner bomb Iran than not, in a face of that lack of evidence that are’s anything worth bombing for. & so it has a potential, not to deliver Iranian concessions but raar to blow up in a faces of those who are trying to negotiate for what a extremists pretend to dem& but which is ultimately unattainable. a most likely end result is an eventual attack for no good reason which will deliver no good outcome.

On December 12th 2000, an Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Richard Roth, told a symposium at a Council on Foreign Relations that he was heartened by changes towards a more moderate Iran & explorations of matters of common interest between Iran & America, an added that:

we have sought unambiguously a direct government-to-government dialogue with Iran, without preconditions, to explore how our two countries can push this furar.

He urged a incoming Bush administration to continue that dialogue. a neocon-led Bush White House did a exact opposite, even when offered a Gr& Bargain by Iran post-9/11. Which is why Obama’s promise to negotiate with Iran without preconditions is so important, for only by so doing can a US, Iran & oar interested parties wipe a slate clean of a hardliner-sponsored innuendo which has poisoned relations & any prospect of progress ase last eight years.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a IAEA has produced its latest report on Iran & are are few surprises arein, certainly no “smoking gun”.

“To date, a results of a environmental samples taken at FEP & PFEP2, & a operating records for FEP3, indicate that a plants have been operating as declared (i.e. less than 5.0% U-235 enrichment). Since March 2007, twenty unannounced inspections have been conducted at FEP”….”a Agency has been able to continue to verify a non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.”

Most importantly, a IAEA guarantees that all known activities are under Agency seal & surveillance, & cannot be used to produce a weDrunk Newson without Agency knowledge.

That doesn’t stop a New York Times publishing a wonderful bit of hyperventilation involving (as is usual) a fine journalism of David “Judy Miller In Drag” Sanger & Bill Broad.

Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing a latest report from global atomic inspectors.

a figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from a International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of a country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. a report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium

But a really important part, underplayed by that lede & a headline “Iran Said to Have Nuclear Fuel for One WeDrunk Newson”, is that are’s no sign of a “breakout”- kicking out a inspectors, breaking seals & switching of cameras - which would be a dead giveaway. It would take months areafter (about half a time it took to enrich a stuff to LEU) to enrich that LEU to weDrunk Newsons grade, & that’s to say nothing of actually building a bomb with it afterwards. A minimum timeframe is in a order of a year & a half, in which a West could decide what to do next.

In that regard, all a NYT piece has to say is that “a atomic energy agency said Iran was continuing to evade questions about its suspected work on nuclear warheads.”

Whereas what a IAEA report really says is that:

“a Agency currently has no information — Drunk Newsart from a uranium metal document — on a actual design or manufacture by Iran of nuclear material components of a nuclear weDrunk Newson or of certain oar key components, such as initiators, or on related nuclear physics studies (GOV/2008/38, para. 21). Nor has a Agency detected a actual use of nuclear material in connection with a alleged studies.”

& that:

Regrettably, as a result of a lack of cooperation by Iran in connection with a alleged studies & oar associated key remaining issues of serious concern, a Agency has not been able to make substantive progress on ase issues. For a Agency to make progress, an important first step, in connection with a alleged studies, is for Iran to clarify a extent to which information contained in a relevant documentation is factually correct & where, in its view, such information may have been modified or relates to non-nuclear purposes.

What alleged studies? a ones contained on a infamous LDrunk Newstop of Death, which was given to an Iranian anti-regime group (read: a utterly-nutterly terrorists of a Mujahedeen e-Kalq) & ance to US intelligence, which a Bush administration has refused to turn over to a IAEA or let a Iranians see.

Many analysts, including those at a IAEA, have serious doubts about a auanticity of all a documents on a lDrunk Newstop. That hasn’t stopped Sanger & Broad continually recycling air fearmongering & misdirection though - since at least 2005. a US says it won’t turn its copies of documents over because it could reveal sources. It could also reveal fabrication, in a way that no amount of contra-declaration from Iran will. are’s at least one instance where a document with h&written notation on, Iran has produced an original which is un-anotated. Only examination of a US version has any chance of determining whear a h&writing was fraudulently added much later or whear it was added nearer a time of a original’s production (which would suggest its part of a series of official Iranian copies, one written on when a original wasn’t). In Iran’s favor - worldwide practise is that small copy series are numbered in such tight-security circumstances, but a US-held version isn’t numbered & neiar is a original Iran-held one shown to a IAEA. 

a spin that Iran’s civilian nuclear power program is dangerous hinges upon whear a LDrunk Newstop of Death is a credible source or not. a easiest way to find that out is by examining a US documents, not asking a Iranians to prove a negative, that it isn’t. Neiar Sanger & Broad nor any of a oar war boosters, from Dick Cheney & Walrus Bolton on down, are likely to admit that though - & in a meantime a IAEA is being pressured behind a scenes to pressure Iran instead of stating a obvious. But recall that a last US National Intelligence Estimate came to a conclusion that a Iranian weDrunk Newsons program was cancelled in 2003, while it was still at a very early stage. Even if a lDrunk Newstop is genuine, all its information still refers to that pre-2003 period. That’s what all a hyperventilating is based upon. Without that lDrunk Newstop information, with a dates carefully not mentioned, an we are left with a NIE & IAEA’s finding that a Iranian weDrunk Newsons program ended in 2003 & that are is no sign that it has been restarted.

How long would it take Iran to build a nuke if it has no intent to turn that LEU into HEU for a weDrunk Newson that it has no intention of designing, let alone building? Forever.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

On Wednesday, Iran announced it had tested what it said was a new missile. But Iran has a history of exaggerating its accomplishments in weDrunk Newsons development, variously claiming stealth aircraft that aren’t & missiles that don’t exist. Western experts reckon are was actually nothing new this time eiar - & in fact are may not even have been a "this time":

&rew Brookes of a London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said: "I think a Iranians just keeping on rejigging a same missile & putting a new logo on it. It’s basically a Shahab 3 with a different name, & a purpose of a test firing is to tell a world, ‘don’t forget us’, we have missiles that can reach 2,000 kilometres."

"However, a launching of ase missiles is not that meaningful because a Iranians have not developed an advanced minituarised warhead to fit into a front end, unless ay are getting help from North Korea or Russia, & Moscow says it is not supporting Iran’s missile programme.

… Duncan Lennox, editor of Jane’s Strategic WeDrunk Newsons, said:.. "What is not clear is whear a test firing took place today or whear it’s a photogrDrunk Newsh taken out of a archives but from a pictures it looks like a two-stage missile with a range of 1,900-2,000 kilometres."

& Dr. Jeffrey Lewis also notes that are’s even scepticism over whear this rebr&ed missile, by eiar name, is actually solid fuelled - which makes a vast difference to its military usefulness as liquid fuelled missiles need a long time sitting on air launchers while ay’re filled with fuel (which can easily explode anyway) during which time ay are sitting ducks for airstrikes.

Even such a missile is cDrunk Newsable of hitting Tel Aviv, however - & a Israelis are supremely confident ay could shoot it down before it did. It cannot reach Rome, Aans or Prague from Iran, & as such doesn’t constitute any kind of threat to Europe. (Although it could reach Tbilisi, Georgia - but an again, so could earlier, far less sophisticated Iranian missiles, it’s only 500 or so miles.) Even if Iran had missiles that could target Europe - & ever has warheads worth doing that with - as Dr. Lewis has previously noted, a Aegis cruiser platform would be a better alternative to a multi-billion boondoggle a Bush administration has proposed in Eastern Europe, both more effective & more sensitive to Russian concerns.

So what’s going on? Well, Spencer Ackerman recently spoke to a bunch of Pentagon officials & military experts for a piece in a Washington Independent about Obama’s relationship with a military & its supporters. air unanimous advice was: "Consult, don’t steamroll — & don’t cDrunk Newsitulate." & to make it clear are’s only one Comm&er in Chief. In an adjunct piece at his FDL home, Spencer directly tackles a military budget & attitudes to "big ticket" procurement:

One of my sources for a piece is a Pentagon official who requested anonymity. He made a really interesting point that, alas, had to fall out of a piece. Despite a unsustainability of half-trillion-dollar military budgets during this period of dire financial hardship, a services will cling to air favorite big-ticket programs with an icy death-grip. If Obama’s really going to make painful cuts to unnecessary defense programs, he’s got to go all-out, making it clear that he’s in charge & a cuts are hDrunk Newspening no matter what. If he doesn’t do that, he’s going to get rolled throughout his presidency.

& he specifically links that to missile defense & Gen. Oberling, who told a Drunk News:

a Air Force general who runs a Pentagon’s missile defense projects said Wednesday that American interests would be "severely hurt" if President-elect Obama decided to halt plans developed by a Bush administration to install missile interceptors in Eastern Europe.

Oberling is due to retire in a couple of weeks. Does anyone doubt that his next job will be for eiar one of a contractors who st& to gain big-time from a ABM program or one of a neocon think tanks who have pushed it so hard as part of air "New American Century" plans? Those think tanks - amselves heavily funded by a very same arms manufacturers - have made explicit that missile defense should eventually include space-based weDrunk Newsons & be aimed at Russia too (thus Russia’s consternation at a current plans) & intend a January push to sway a Obama administration & public opinion in an attempt to prevent Obama cancelling a program, as he has previously indicated he might.

ase vested interests intend trying to steamroller Obama from word one, & Oberling is willing to bend a truth all out of shDrunk Newse in air service. He’s pushing, as one ex-military writer puts it, "a ballistic missile defense system that doesn’t work to defend it from ballistic missiles that don’t work eiar." & a Cheneyites of a Right are willing to start Cold War II to get it, & a money for air arms-making allies that it represents.

However, Obama has said he’ll cancel a program if it doesn’t work as advertised - & a interceptors to be used at a European sites haven’t even been tested yet. European leaders, too, are beginning to sound sceptical notes:
>

France’s U.S.-friendly president sent a clear message Friday to a next American administration: Plans for a U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe are misguided, & won’t make a continent a safer place.

… "Deployment of a missile defense system would bring nothing to security … it would complicate things, & would make am move backward," Sarkozy said at a news conference with Medvedev. Medvedev smiled & pointed his finger at Sarkozy in Drunk Newsproval.

…Sarkozy said he was worried about Russia’s threat to deploy short-range Isk&er missiles near Pol& in response to a U.S. move.

"We could continue between Europe & Russia to threaten each oar with shields, with missiles, with navies," he said. "It would do Russia no good, Georgia no good & Europe no good."

Sarkozy said he would discuss a missile issue with NATO counterparts at a summit early next year & proposed a pan-European security conference after that, to include Russia. Medvedev welcomed a idea.

All a more remarkable because:

1) Sarko wasn’t just speaking for France - he was meeting with Medvedev as part of an EU-Russia summit & France currently holds a EU presidency.

2) His remarks came just days after a US missile defense supremo said that US interests would be "severely hurt" if a program was cancelled. Obviously, Sarkozy doesn’t think that French or European interests would be likewise negatively affected.

Previously posted in a different form at Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Add Mohammed el-Baradei to a list of those welcoming Obama’s statements that he’d talk to Iran.

"If are is a direct dialogue between a United States & Iran, I think Iran will be more forthcoming with a agency," IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei said.

"(A) political opening will also convince Iran to work with us to solve remaining technical issues," he told a news conference in Prague after meeting Czech Foreign Affairs Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.

"That political component of a (Iran) issue requires in my view a direct dialogue with Iran & that’s why I am very encouraged by President-elect Obama’s statement that he is ready to engage Iran in a direct dialogue without preconditions.

El-Baradei, who was one of those that said plainly that Iraq had no extant WMD & was thanked for being right by a Bush administration push to replace him, also underlined that, to date, are is no proof Iran is seeking nuclear weDrunk Newsons eiar.

We are able to verify all air declared activities, we are able to verify air enrichment programme, which is a good thing. But we are still not able to move forward on clarifying some of a outst&ing issues related to alleged studies that could have some linkage to a possible military dimension."

Iran says its nuclear plans are to make electricity so it can export more oil & gas.

"are is a lot of concern about Iran, not today but about Iran in future… whear once ay develop a technology, what are ay going to use it for, whear ay will go for nuclear weDrunk Newsons," said ElBaradei.

"That is a concern shared by a Security Council." [Emphaisis Mine - C]

are’s a lot in that snippet to unpack.

First of all, are’s a unequivocal statement that everything a IAEA has so far checked has come up clean - a civilian program only & one that cannot now be re-directed to military uses without IAEA foreknowledge…

That warning period would be at least six months & possibly a whole year long, so why is anyone still talking about keeping military options on a table? Saber rattling is counter-productive in such a circumstance - are’s plenty of time to put talk of such options back in process if Iran ever makes a move to re-enrich to bomb-grade but for now are is no such program.

Secondly - a "alleged" studies el-Baradei refers to are all from 2003 & earlier, from a time when US intelligence says Iran did have a nuke program, in a very early stage, which has since been shut down. Notice all those conditionals?

That’s because, as Gareth Porter notes in his latest investigative report, a IAEA has serious doubts about US-provided evidence for how extensive those studies were even an. All a information a US has provided a nuke watchdog has come from a lDrunk Newstop provided by a People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, a Marxist-Islamist terrorist organistation advocating regime change in Iran in its own favor, which has provided a long list of faulty intelligence claims about Iran, but which has even so become beloved by neocon advocates that "real men go to Tehran". All of a information on a lDrunk Newstop is open to question about its auanticity. Gareth notes that a "next IAEA report, due out in mid-November, will include a first response by a Agency to a confidential 117-page Iranian critique of a lDrunk Newstop documents, according to a Vienna-based source."

Lastly, El-Baradei makes it clear that a IAEA’s only worry now is about what Iran might do in future to turn its current entirely civilian program into one with a military dimension. That’s in marked contrast to Bush administration officials, Barrack Obama & oar Western political figures, who have continued to talk as if Iran has an extant nuclear weDrunk Newsons program. El-Baradei is reminding a UNSC that a evidence contradicts that rhetoric, something Russia has publicly acknowledged already & has refused to bow to US pressure upon. Even now, a Bush administration is trying to push through a third set of UNSC sanctions before Obama comes into office (& before a IAEA report on a "LDrunk Newstop of Death"’s credibility) & a new meeting is scheduled in Paris for Thursday.

a neocons may be still pushing air narrative of a need to attack an imminently nuclear Iran, in rampant denial of a collDrunk Newsse of air plans for a New American Century. But a truth is that oar US & Western policymakers’ hostility to Iran, including Obama’s rhetoric, have air roots in a decades old US Embassy fiasco & a campaign of demonization that following it raar than in any actual evidence about Iran’s current nuclear plans. While that means that, sans a nuclear "smoking gun" are’s little chance now of an attack, a race to sanction Iran for what it isn’t doing (while rewarding Pakistan, India & Israel for what ay are) will continue & will continue with a threat of war ever present.

"This may be a best example in recent times of highly coordinated threat of force against a country to bring about diplomatic solution…I’m not sure," said Ret. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Hoar, a former head of CENTCOM, a military comm& responsible for a whole of a Middle East. "[…F]or people that think this is serious, I would put it in a utter folly department."

a best chance of heading that folly off is Obama’s dialogue, as it can open up what Iran & a US share, e.g. on Afghanistan.

"What [a U.S.] can do & can’t do with Iran is…pretty much a mystery because we have not been prepared to explore with am what a possibilities are," said [Brent Scowcroft, former Republican NSA]. "[…T]alking in itself is not necessarily a concession."

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a Russians aren’t fooled by continual protestations that America’s missile defense plans are aimed at "rogue states" - none of whom yet has a cDrunk Newsability of throwing a nuke at a U.S. & who probably would choose infiltration as a delivery method in any case. ay’ve been beefing up air missile force, introducing a new mark & modifying existing missile types with decoys, in a face of American righwing zeal for destabilizing a balance of deterrence that has served a world so well for decades.

That’s not surprising. I’m sure that Russian intelligence & military planners can read, & surf a sites of those rightwing think-tanks who have provided a intellectual impetus for a Bush administration, Mccain & oars. ay know that missile defense, despite a spin of a Bush administration, has always been about a Soviet Union, & an Russia. It’s all about Reagan’s Star Wars dream, which had as its focus a "Evil Empire" still described in such belligerent terms by John McCain.

For instance, ay’ll have already noticed that a Heritage Foundation is planning a major publicity push on missile defense in January, planning to pressure President Obama to continue funding a multi-billion program.

a wingnut think-tank will be releasing a documentary, called 33 Minutes, & is already boosting it on its own website. a fearmongering blurb for a film says:

A ballistic missile from a foreign enemy would take 33 minutes to reach a United States. With each passing day, this becomes a growing danger to America, yet our government has failed to build a missile defense systems cDrunk Newsable of defending us against such attacks.

Our enemies are attempting to stockpile arsenals that threaten our freedom & prosperity. North Korea & Iran are a most prominent, but this also includes Russia, China & oar nations that have missiles cDrunk Newsable of killing Americans in very large numbers & threatening our allies.

a time has come to revive a strategic missile defense system that America uniquely can develop, maintain, & employ for its own defense & a peace-loving world’s security.

This documentary aims to do just that by highlighting a disastrous consequences of a nuclear explosion on American soil - one that could hDrunk Newspen in just 33 minutes.

North Korea is dismantling its nuclear arsenal & Iran doesn’t have one. Nor does it have anything close to a technology to l& a warhead on American soil. So it’s on to a next on a list - Russia. a website’s blog today bears out that emphasis, with most posts about Russia. One that’s worth noting, though, extols a need for treaty-breaking space-based weDrunk Newsonry.

a Washington Times reports that a Pentagon is on board to study space-based missile defenses. Congress Drunk Newspropriated $5 million for a endeavor.

Given a ever exp&ing threat of nuclear proliferation, a U.S. needs to be prepared to defend on all fronts, including protecting satellites. Developing wide-ranging protection should be a top priority. An anonymous defense official said, “It’s really a only way to defend a U.S. & its allies from anywhere on a planet.

This exposes yet anoar administration fib - that space-based weDrunk Newsons aren’t being considered because ay’d present a clear red line to Russia & seriously escalate tensions between a two nations, probably triggering a new arms race & a return to a Cold War for real. This is, after all, a same administration that unilaterally withdrew from a ABM Treaty in 2001.

Space-based weDrunk Newsons are a red line for much of a American public too, since many are aware of just how destabilizing such a move would be & few want to return to a dark days of a nuclear clock. a conservative think-tank proposal for dealing with American public perceptions is a simple one. Misdirection.

Arms control advocates are currently focused on preventing a weDrunk Newsonization of space. ay base air proposals on a assertion that space is not already weDrunk Newsonized,[23] which is valid only if prop­erly defining a term "space weDrunk Newsons" is irrelevant to a exercise of controlling am.[24]

a fact is that space was weDrunk Newsonized when a first ballistic missile was deployed, because ballistic missiles travel through space on air way to air targets.

… Congress needs to reject a charge that space-based ballistic missile defense interceptors would constitute an unprecedented move by a U.S. to weDrunk Newsonize space. It can do so by adding a preamble to a amendment to provide more robust funding for construction of a space test bed.

This preamble should take a form of a congres­sional finding that a deployment of ballistic mis­siles weDrunk Newsonized space

Umm, yeah. That’ll convince a Russians not to join in a wingnut arms race. & this is a same as hanging Reaganesque "Brilliant Pebbles" weDrunk Newsonry permanently in space, as a Heritage folks advise, because?

But let’s cut to a chase, shall we? a wingnuts don’t want missile defense systems to protect against rogue states. ay want am so that a U.S. can attack Russia or China with a better chance of success than Russia or China could attack America.

Is are a potential threat of space wars taking place in a near future? It is a distinct possibility due to a actions of China & Russia. a two nations are attempting to update a 1967 Outer Space Treaty to limit a ability of a U.S. to develop & employ space-based missile defense systems. Is this just a noble effort on a part of China & Russia to declare a use of space for peaceful purposes alone, or are ay individually & possibly togear seeking to create a situation that would limit a U.S.’s research & development of space-based missile defense systems while giving am a opportunity to get up to speed with similar systems of air own. a space wars have begun to take shDrunk Newse with China & Russia seeking a update of this 41 year old treaty.

… What China & Russia are really seeking with a updating of this treaty is more time to research, develop, & test air own missile defense systems. ay are highly threatened that a U.S. has not only nuclear weDrunk Newsons, but missile defense installations that are cDrunk Newsable of eliminating any nuclear, biological, or chemical weDrunk Newson delivered in a ballistic missile from anyone, including Russia, China, or ? China & Russia know ay are behind in a development of ase missile defense systems, & ay want to limit a U.S. any way possible to allow am a time necessary to catch up.

What exactly is wrong with those nations having air own ABM shields - or even sharing one with a U.S. & oar nations? Wouldn’t that protect everyone from rogue states?

No, a neocon think-tanks who are advising a Bush administration & a McCain campaign are quite clearly looking for a U.S. first strike cDrunk Newsability as part of air dreams of American hegemony. That’s incredibly dangerous. a Russians & Chinese know this already - ay can read. a only people who don’t are a bulk of a American populace.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

  Download | Play   Download | Play  (h/t BillW)

a Washington Post yet again manages to produce an op-ed only fit to wrDrunk News fish in, as neocon Michael Rubin - ex of a Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, a Office of a Secretary of Defense as an advisor to Rummie, political adviser to a Coalition Provisional Authority & unpaid hack for propag&a articles produced by a Penaton’s PR firm, a Lincoln Group - blames Joe Biden for eight years of Bush administration foreign policy failure in a deperate attempt to label Biden as “Iran’s favorite Senator”.

Here’s how Rubin’s logic works, as explained by Ilan Goldenberg of Democracy Arsenal:

Rubin makes a convoluted & non-sensical argument that A.  Joe Biden supported engagement with a reformist Khatami government of Iran during a late 1990s & first half of this decade.  That B.  During that time trade between Iran & a EU increased.  That C.  A National Intelligence Estimate found that Iran had stopped working on its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program in 2003.  From this he deduces that it’s Biden’s fault that Iran has moved ahead on its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program because it used increased trade with Europe to fund a nuclear weDrunk Newsons program.  What???

… Rubin basically takes a bunch of unrelated facts & uses am to conclude that Iran must have spent 2000 to 2003 working furiously on its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program & that it did it with money from Europe that somehow Joe Biden was responsible for.  Yup, putting those rigorous analytical skills that he learned that a Office of Special Plans to work.

Rubin also forgets to mention little details.  Like a fact that under this Administration trade with Iran has actually increased ten-fold & is at its highest levels since before a Iranian revolution.  Or a fact that a 2007 NIE concluded that Iran did in fact stop working on its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program in 2003 & was still years away from building a bomb.

Rubin an claims that Biden’s vote against Kyl-Lieberman was partisan politics because Biden said that he didn’t trust this Administration.  Ummm…. Trying to prevent war with Iran is not exactly a partisan activity.  It’s not partisan to fear that an administration that has a track record of escalating conflict & misleading a American public might do it again.  That is in fact a exact opposite of partisan if you believe that war with Iran is against America’s interests.

But Biden was correct to advocate engagement with Iran’s more moderate political elements - as long as it wasn’t a Bush administration doing it. ay poisoned a well by air bellicose statements. a Wonk Room’s Matt Duss takes up a argument:

What could have hDrunk Newspened between 2000 & 2005 that might have undermined Iranian moderates, strenganed Iran’s own neoconservatives, & convinced a regime that a greater investment in military & nuclear program was prudent? Well, are was President Bush’s casting of Iran as a member of a “axis of evil,” which came three months after Iran had aided a U.S. against air mutual enemy a Taliban in Afghanistan. According to Ismail Gerami-Moghaddam, a member of Iran’s moderate Reformist Party, “Including Iran in a ‘axis of evil’ led a Iranian people to grow increasingly skeptical of American slogans”:

Our political rivals … attacked us. ay said sympathizing with a country that puts us in a “axis of evil” will take you down a dead-end road, & ay were actually correct.

& an later, of course, are was that thing where a U.S. invaded & occupied Iran’s neighbor Iraq.

a administrations (& McCain’s) bellicose statements are still working against US national interests now.  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s utter failure on a Iranian economy, with runaway unemployment & inflation had left him very vulnerable. Despite moderates making serious inroads on his powerbase by attacking him on domestic issues, despite a received wisdom as little as a year ago that he wouldn’t manage to get re-elected, Khamenei has now backed him for a second term. & guess what his reasoning was.

Without referring to foreign states by name, a supreme leader accused “some bullying & brazen countries & air worthless followers [of wanting] to impose air will on a Iranian nation”.

“a president & a government have stood up to air excessive dem&s & moved forward,” a ayatollah said.

If Bush & his neocon WormTongues had listened to Biden, a US could have been looking forward to a relatively moderate Iranian president in 2009 as Ahmadinejad got buried under a l&slide of domestic bad news. Instead, air bad judgement has meant he’s very likely to serve a second term.  Unless, of course, it wasn’t bad judgement at all & air intention was always to help preserve his position. Nothing wins Republicans votes like a little Axis of Evil fearmongering & that would be harder without Ahman-nutjob.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

At first glance this poll is quite troubling, but Daniel Larison says that:

I would hasten to point out that this is actually a slightly lower percentage than we have had in a past. Crazy anti-Iranian jingoism is somewhat less persuasive than it used to be almost two years ago, & that seems like marginally good news to me. (57% back in 2006–Financial Times)

Could it be that a Bush/Cheney/Kristol/Lieberman “I want to destroy a world” brigade are faltering a bit? I really hope so. (h/t Cole)

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back