More on the War with Iraq Iran

As Yogi Berra would say, it’s just like déjà vu all over again (emphasis mine):

A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.

The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House. Administration officials have asserted, but have not offered proof, that Tehran is moving determinedly toward a nuclear arsenal. The new estimate could provide more time for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. President Bush has said that he wants the crisis resolved diplomatically but that "all options are on the table."

[…]

[The new National Intelligence Estimate] ordered by the National Intelligence Council in January, is the first major review since 2001 of what is known and what is unknown about Iran. Additional assessments produced during Bush's first term were narrow in scope, and some were rejected by advocates of policies that were inconsistent with the intelligence judgments.

One such paper was a 2002 review that former and current officials said was commissioned by national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, who was then deputy adviser, to assess the possibility for "regime change" in Iran. Those findings described the Islamic republic on a slow march toward democracy and cautioned against U.S. interference in that process, said the officials, who would describe the paper's classified findings only on the condition of anonymity.

The new estimate takes a broader approach to the question of Iran's political future. But it is unable to answer whether the country's ruling clerics will still be in control by the time the country is capable of producing fissile material.

[…]

In January, before the review, Vice President Cheney suggested Iranian nuclear advances were so pressing that Israel may be forced to attack facilities, as it had done 23 years earlier in Iraq.

In an April 2004 speech, John R. Bolton -- then the administration's point man on weapons of mass destruction and now Bush's temporarily appointed U.N. ambassador -- said: "If we permit Iran's deception to go on much longer, it will be too late. Iran will have nuclear weapons."

But the level of certainty, influenced by diplomacy and intelligence, appears to have shifted.

Influenced by reality, in other words. Of course, that’s never stopped them before, now, has is it?

What’s totally unbelievable to me is that if I had replaced the dates and substituted Iraq for Iran throughout the article, and said it was from the lead-up to the Iraq war, no one would have doubted it for a moment. The Bushies are taking “history repeats itself” a bit too literally—even in spite of its being utterly unfathomable that they have a desire to repeat this disastrous little sliver of history.

Hopefully, the shift in “the level of certainty” about Iran’s nuclear capabilities will at least delay what may be the inevitable for awhile. I’d like to say that if they manage to convince the American people that going after Iran is a good idea, feeding them exactly the same line of bullshit that coerced support for the Iraq war, then the American people deserve anything they get…but the problem is that the war isn’t on American soil, and even if we turn Tehran into another Hiroshima, I fear that most Americans would barely lift their lids to notice.