Lets Move Ahead with WW3 Anyways!

There was a spectacularly entertaining presidential press conference about a month ago that slipped under the radar. In early December, portions of a national intelligence estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear threat were released to the public, and the report concluded that it is "highly likely" that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program more than four years ago. Though parts of the report were only just made public, apparently it was produced some time ago. This is stunningly bad news for the more hawkish members of the administration and for Israel and its more zealous supporters here in the United States who have been clamoring for war, or failing that, air strikes on Iran for the last few years.

You have probably noticed that the Iran threat has been hyped in a similar fashion to the way the war in Iraq was sold, only this time, the public has been more skeptical. What was most interesting about this press conference was how Bush handled the questions on the NIE. Let me paraphrase parts of the press conference for you.

Question from reporter: Mr. President, after you warned of a mushroom cloud if Iraq was not dealt with and then there were no weapons of mass destruction, and now, as recently as October you were warning about a "World War 3" with Iran, even though you, by that time, would have already had this report stating that the Iranians ended their weapons program four years ago, don't you worry that you may begin to lack credibility around the world?

Bush: Well that's not true- because I was told that there was some new intelligence about Iran's nuclear program, but I don't remember….no one told me what the new intelligence was.

Shockingly, the reporter did not follow up by asking, "so, you as the President of the United States, did not ask what this new information was? How could you not ask- given the fact that you have been painting this country as a grave threat to our very survival as a country- what if the new information was that Iran had a nuclear weapon and was about to attack us?"

But the question did not get asked, though the press corps did continue to press him about Iran.

Question from reporter: So given what we know now from this intelligence report, will there be any change in our policy toward Iran?

Bush: I thought Iran was dangerous before I read the report, and I still think Iran is dangerous now. They could re-start their program at any time.

He rambled on for a bit, but his point was clear, there would be no change in our Iran policy.

What is clear is that the only thing that prevented war with Iran was the fiasco in Iraq. If things had gone smoother in Iraq, our troops would already be in Tehran. Why? Because the neo-cons, a loose coalition of hawks both in and out of the administration, have had dreams of remaking the Middle East, and removing threats to Israel in the region for a very long time and 9/11 finally gave them the chance to execute phase one of their dream plan.

The other missed opportunity of the press conference involved Russia and the recent parliamentary elections there, which were widely condemned as fraudulent. After raising the question of Bush's credibility there was some mild question lobbed about Bush's opinion on Russia's election. What the reporter should have asked was,

"Mr. President, in 2001, you said that you looked into Mr. Putin's eyes and were able to see into his soul. After his recent attempts to stay in power for life and yesterday's fraudulent election, if you gazed deeply into his eyes once more, what would you see inside his soul now?"


The bottom line is: forget all that crap we said before, and just listen to us now!