and a good chunk of the American population has bought it.
There are a couple of fundemental misconception here that need to be corrected. Nobody actually bothered listening to the Congressional report, nobody actually believes a damn word Bush says anymore, so we're all kind of sitting here on our hands on the issue. (This may actually be more dangerous, not less.) Aside from the threat by the Joint Chiefs to resign en masse if Bush tries to invade Iran, it's a physical impossiblity to find the forces to do it with. The real danger, here, is if the next adminstration withdraws from Iraq they'll actually have the forces available to do something about it...in addition to leaving Iraq in ****ty situation. If you think the Middle East is ****ed up now, you ain't seen nothing yet.
The best time to kill Iran's nuclear program is in its infancy, now; the further along they are the more difficult it becomes. The current problem is that unless we open the nuclear door ourselves (which is not going to happen; the two-man rule) some of Iran's facilities are not vunerable to airstrike...at least until they accept the 30,000 lb deep penetrator into service. Then something might happen. But that's at least six months in the future. So the issue is on hold for at least six months.
Israel might be willing to do it on their own hook, and they've got the nukes to dig the facilities out, but somehow I don't think that's going to happen.
It was Rictor you quoted, but otherwise I quite agree.
And, of course the reason why not many outside USA and a diminishing number even there believe what Bush says anymore. As I said, they made themselves the boy who called "wolf, wolf".
And about killing Iran's nuclear programme: It is only justified if it becomes certainty that they indeed are brewing a bomb. Aquiring that certainty would be difficult at best times with reliable intelligence services, and making people realize that there was reliable information about it would be even more difficult.
Now, after the Iraq WMD fiasco, it would be nigh impossible to convince anyone that there really was a nuke, regardless of how good and solid the information actually is.
I really would hope the US current (and previous!) government had read their fairy tales as child - perhaps they would have known something about calling "wold" several times in a row.
The situation itself is quite simple - either there is a nuclear weapon programme on Iran, or there isn't.
For the normal people it looks like this: Either there is or isn't a programme, but regardless of world leaders (mainly Bush and his puppeteers) say about the matter, there's no way for normal people to know who is telling the truth, who thinks they are telling the truth and who is lying.
If the US would now introduce some intel to world to prove Iran's nuclear weapons programme's existence, Average Joe would have several choices to choose from:
-They tell the truth and are right, and there is a NW programme in Iran.
-They tell the truth but are wrong, and there is no NW programme in Iran. This is what many people would think, because at least the Bush adminstration claimed this was the case with Iraq.
-They are lying and they know it, there is no NW programme in Iran. This is what also many people would think, because some think there's no way Bush adminstration could've actually thought there was WMD's in Iraq... I'm kinda between these two options; I bet some of the adminstration knew that intel was not completely reliable, and decided to interprete it in a creative way.
-Last choice - they are lying and they don't know whether there is a NW programme or not for sure, but there just happens to be one.
So... what gives. The US adminstration has driven themselves into a corner, and Ahmadinejad seems to be an opportunistic leader - OR he's just the figurehead. Everyone should know that the true power in Iran is firmly held by religious leaders. And they might actually have a cunning plan behind all of this. This very dangerous game - dangerous to Iran, not to religious leaders, mind you - goes like this.
There might not be a NW programme in Iran, but creating the impression that there was one, they actually do more harm to United States than with having one.
If this is the case, it's really ingenious... Iranese religious leaders form the leadership of fundamental islamistic world, if you allow me to use this term. They see US as the beginning and end of all evil... well not all, but great portion of it. They want to harm the beast, but they know they don't have physical power to do it. Having a nuke would not really matter. So they might have weaved this scheme to utilize the situation created by US rash actions against Iraq:
-In fundamental islamic mentality, losing face can occur much more often than in west. If millions of moslims think that teh United States has "lost their face", then this is effectively the case.
-If the US doesn't do anything to Iran, even when they are practically spitting all the world in the face, then it seems to Average Abdul that the US has lost their face.
-If the US - or anyone else, for the matter - does something against Iran, be it military offense, economical sanctions or whatever, and later it is revealed that there never was a nuke programme, two things happen. One; Iran becomes a martyr and two; the whole crisis will be reduced - in Avarege Abdul's eyes - to yet one example of incompetence, depravedness and evilness of the Western world.
So it's a win-win situation to the religious leaders of Iran.
Even if Iran as a state was destroyed or occupied by western troops, the religious leaders would gain hella lot of support from elsewhere in islamic world. Also, there would be no evidence of them being part of this scheme. If they were killed, well, yet more martyrs...
This is purely speculation, but I wouldn't be surprized if this really was the case.
