Put World War III on hold!

By Weekly Archive On Dec 11, 2007

A
funny thing happened on the way to World War III: The bottom fell
out. President Bush was determined to take us there, but, this time,
thank God, we found out before
the war that he was cooking the intelligence.

The
release of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was a clear
repudiation of the Bush White House and a hopeful new chapter for
American intelligence agencies. For years, George Bush and Dick
Cheney, with ever escalating rhetoric, have been beating the war
drums over Iran. In October 2004, Cheney flatly stated: "They
have been trying to develop nuclear technology now for some time."
And in October 2007, Bush famously warned: "I told people that
if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you
ought to be interested in preventing them from having knowledge
necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

It
was, in so many ways, a re-enactment of the buildup to war in Iraq.
Change one letter, from Iraq to Iran, and what we heard from the
administration reads exactly the same: They’re building nuclear
weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We can’t let that happen.
We must launch a pre-emptive strike to stop ’em. It wasn’t a question
of whether the United States would launch military strikes against
Iran, but when.

Then
came the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. According to
conclusions reached independently by 16 different intelligence
agencies, Iran isn’t a threat after all. Yes, they did once have an
active nuclear weapons production program, but they shut it down four
years ago. Suddenly, Bush has had his magic carpet to war pulled out
from under him.

This
contradiction of everything Bush said about Iran is significant for
three reasons. First, it shows that intelligence officers learned
their lesson with Iraq. Sadly, in the run-up to the war on Iraq,
intelligence agencies, starting with the CIA, allowed themselves to
be used as political puppets. Led by the cowardly George Tenet, their
mission changed from determining whether there was sufficient
justification for going to war to cooking up evidence to justify a
war decision already made in the White House. But no longer. This
time, they refused to play Bush’s political games. They decided to
tell the truth about Iran, even though it exposed Bush as either
stupid or a liar.

Second,
by documenting Iran’s abandonment of its nuclear weapons program, the
NIE also disproves what columnist David Ignatius, with enviable
alliteration, calls "the myth of the mad mullahs." Iran is
not led by a group of inflexible religious fanatics after all. Its
leaders are subject to international pressure. Indeed, they’ve
already demonstrated their willingness to change policies, which
opens a window of opportunity for serious diplomacy. The time to
strike is now: not with bombs, but with direct talks between Tehran
and Washington.

Finally,
the Iran NIE makes a mockery of the so-called "Bush Doctrine,"
that military action is the primary vehicle for conducting foreign
policy. No matter how badly Bush and Cheney wanted to carpet-bomb
Iran, it’s clear now that doing so would have been a tragic mistake.
As it turns out, we achieved our objective, shutting down Iran’s
nuclear-weapons program, without one pre-emptive strike or without
one missile being fired. For all practical purposes, the Bush
Doctrine is dead.

If
publication of the NIE on Iran was stunning, even more stunning was
Bush’s initial attempt to deny he knew anything about it. He didn’t
learn that Iran had abandoned its nuclear production until the day
before the rest of us did, Bush insisted to reporters.

Liar,
liar, pants on fire! White House Press Secretary Dana Perino later
confirmed that CIA Director Mike McConnell told Bush in August 2007
he had new information that was causing a complete reassessment of
the potential threat from Iran. In other words, the entire time Bush
was warning of a nuclear threat from Iran and invoking fears of World
War III, he knew — he knew! — it might not be true.

Do
you see a pattern here? Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq. And he lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iran. The
only difference is that this time he got caught.

Bill
Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a
new book, "How
the Republicans Stole Religion."
You can hear "The Bill Press Show" at billpressshow.com.
His email address is: bill@billpress.com. His Web site is:
www.billpress.com.