More on Iran

I had started writing this before reading Craig Unger's piece. That's far more informative than this. Be sure to read the article in the previous post.

There are still all kinds of Questions about the Iran bomb claims. Bush in his press conference tried to make the doubt irrelevant: "What we don't know is whether or not the head leaders of Iran ordered the Quds force to do what they did. But here's my point: Either they knew or didn't know, and what matters is, is that they're there. What's worse, that the government knew or that the government didn't know?" The transcript doesn't capture the obnoxous smirks and "hehs" he included. The Daily Kos picked this apart in Iran and the Bush Press Conference.

If Bush actually understood his "fool me once" misquote, he might understand why we're skeptical of his claims about Iran. I also wonder if "the enemy" is using weapons from any other nation? Perhaps soviet or even American weapons. I don't know why but I just assumed all the weapons were not 100% made in Iraq by Iraqi hands. Are we going to go after after every nation that sold Iraq weapons?


Daily Kos also writes about Rice lying to Congress about a 2003 Iranian Proposal for "an end to Iran's support for anti-Israel militants and acceptance of Israel's right to exist". It seems Iran made a proposal and Rice ignored it.

A recent conversation between Bush and Soroush Shehabi (a grandson of one of the late Shah's ministers) went like this: "Mr. President, I simply want to say one U.S. bomb on Iran and the regime will remain in power for another 20 or 30 years and 70 million Iranians will become radicalized." "I know," President Bush answered. "But does Vice President Cheney know?" asked Soroush. The president chuckled and walked away.

On the meta front, Glenn Greenwald writes The NY Times returns to pre-Iraq-war "journalism" While other papers have questioned the administration's claims, the NY Times on Saturday published "a lengthy, prominent front-page article by Michael Gordon that does nothing, literally, but mindlessly recite administration claims about Iran's weapons-supplying activities without the slightest questioning, investigation, or presentation of ample counter-evidence." Brad DeLong wonders Why Is Michael Gordon Still Employed by the New York Times.