Iran not building the bomb

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Dec 03, 2007 at 22:31:02 PM MST

That's right. Iran's not working on a nuclear weapons program. Like Kevin Drum, you may be wondering what all the bluster was about:

This NIE was apparently finished a year ago, and its basic parameters were almost certainly common knowledge in the White House well before that. This means that all the leaks, all the World War III stuff, all the blustering about the IAEA - all of it was approved for public consumption after Cheney/Bush/Rice/etc. knew perfectly well it was mostly baseless.

In any case, given the outcome of Iraq, that should still the saber-rattling around Iran, right?

Your liberal media: "US Officials: Iran Has Nuke Capability." (Hat tip, Kos.)  

Boy there are going to be some grumpy neo-cons. This is probably part of the war on Christmas. This kind of news will make it very difficult for the agitators for war with Iran to hoist a glass of eggnog and toast bombing ragheads in Tehran.

Don't be surprised to hear about how the intelligence community is now filled with partisans intent on undermining the Bush Administration. They'll sound an awful lot like Hugo Chavez, who also is whining about the vagaries of democracy and insisting he only lost the referendum in Venezuela-which would have allowed him to become President for life-because of a nefarious CIA plot.

Cliff May:

This assessment was strongly influenced by two hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials who oversaw it, both former State officials who fought tooth and nail against Bush WMD policies, especially Iran.

Heh. Looks like Santa's not going to be bringing the unhinged their war this Christmas.