Persian Ruse?

Frankly, this Iran thing doesn't make much sense. We are being asked to believe Obama knew about a covert nuclear facility when he took office in January yet pursued an engagement policy without pre-conditions anyway, perhaps to fool the Iranians.

He then dumped missile defense in return for the Russians' help with Tehran only to have A'jad drop a dime on the covert facility, which seemingly left him no place to go but back to an old Bush hardline while trying to explain why if America isn't the exceptional, shining city on the hill anymore--just a nation who's made many mistakes (cough Bush)--then why are we trying to stop the Iranians from having defensive nukes in case we make another mistake?

It's hard for the average Joe the Plumber to keep up. Back in 2007 we got an NIE that said Iran was no longer pursuing a nuclear weapons program and had not been since 2003, surprise, surprise you right wing warmongers (paraphrasing). This sent many tingles up many liberal legs hoping that hope had finally made a comeback, but Thomas Joscelyn was planted firmly in reality at the time:

The inconsistencies are more troubling when we realize that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Fingar is one of the three officials who were responsible for crafting the latest NIE. The Journal cites "an intelligence source" as describing Fingar and his two colleagues as "hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials." (The New York Sun drew attention to one of Fingar’s colleagues yesterday.)

So, if it is true that Dr. Fingar played a leading role in crafting this latest NIE, then we are left with serious questions:

* Why did your opinion change so drastically in just four months time?

* Is the new intelligence or analysis really that good? Is it good enough to overturn your previous assessments? Or, has it never really been good enough to make a definitive assessment at all?

* Did your political or ideological leanings, or your policy preferences, or those of your colleagues, influence your opinion in any way?

Many in the mainstream press have been willing to cite this latest NIE unquestioningly. Perhaps they should start asking some pointed questions. (Don’t hold your breath.)

Depending on who one believes that either stopped Bush from listening to Cheney, or maybe got Bush out from under Cheney's thumb, or maybe came indirectly from the new House mother herself. Whatever the case, bombs weren't dropped and it held through the election, only to have another assessment recently say that Tehran wasn't as far along as they previously weren't in making bombs and were no longer interested in the ICBMs they weren't building, which allowed Obama to toss the Poles and Czechs under the bus. Or thereabouts.

One has to wonder if this elaborate theater is just smoke designed to hide an IAF attack (assuming we don't shoot them down over Iraq)? Netanyahu seemed pretty determined in his speech, even if most analysts say they cannot get the job done alone. Well, they say you go to war with the air force you've got unless you can get someone else's air force to do it for you. But would we? Could we? Can we--didn't we make a deal with the Russians?

Meanwhile, health care remains the real job one for team Obama regardless of what's happening overseas and they haven't given up on a public option yet, meaning the tea partiers' influence might be waning enough to try a stunt. They best hurry--stuff like this might get the kids all fired up and they tend to hurl things and break stuff.