Marble Composition

Iran: Ten Years From The Bomb

The Washington Post ran this headline on page one yesterday:

Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear Bomb

Two things struck me right away after reading through this article:

Eins: The editors wanted to make damn sure that their newspaper wouldn't repeat the same mistakes they made leading up to the current war. On August 12th, 2004, they apologized for those misgivings, sending their hack media reporter Howard Kurtz out to get his slippers dirty, but the damage, and the casualty reports, were already coming in. This time it's, "see, we told you so, Iran's a long way from getting the bomb, no war needed here!". This wreaks of the paper doing cover-your-ass reporting. If I had to guess, someone who has intimate knowledge of the freshly minted National Intelligence Estimate leaked the goodies about Iran's nuclear program to tamp down any fears of another war, and the Post decided, "run it, Page One", to make sure they were way out in front of all the saber-rattling statements coming from the adminstration. Funny how all those statements are foot-stamping puffery.

Zwei: This article will really piss off neo-conservative operatives like Michael Ledeen, who, dating back to when he helped arrange shady arms-for-hostages deals in the Reagan administration, has made invading Iran his soiled little hobby horse for years. (Hey Jonah! Grab a rag and clean this shit up, and slap another quarter in this fucker, it's not keeping up! (bad joke, sorry, tbogg will get it))

Apparently, Kevin Drum noted the same thing:

Expect the Michael Ledeen crowd to be furious over this. The CIA's report concedes that "left to its own devices, Iran is determined to build nuclear weapons," but that won't be enough to save them from the wrath of the mega-hawk crowd, which is still desperately trying to salvage its reputation after being proved wrong in virtually all particulars about Iraq. Expect a coordinated nuclear attack directed toward the softies at the CIA soon.

Go read the article, as much as I bash, it's good.

posted by FuzzFinger @ 8/02/2005 08:32:00 PM