Atrios makes a good point:
It must be understood that since our intelligence agencies don’t believe Iran has a nuclear weapons program, it also means that they don’t know where such a program would be physically located if it did exist. This means that any desires of Dick Cheney and his people to bomb Iran simply involve… bombing the shit out of Iran.
If they say there is no immediate threat, that has to sort of imply there are no immediate TARGETS. I guess we could bomb an aspirin factory or something.
Incertus (Brian)
All that does is offer Cheney a wider range of “good targets.”
Jake
And if there are any Target stores in Iran, they need to cover them up quick.
akaoni
I think that Atrios’ reasoning is a bit flawed here. Naturally, I’m not advocating bombing Iran, but that said, nuclear energy facilities and missle and arms factories would still likely be known targets.
Incertus (Brian)
By which I mean, according to Cheney’s One Percent Doctrine, we should bomb ninety-nine percent of the country.
The Other Steve
The Clinton administration had information from the intelligence community on al-Shifa. Soil samples, satellite photos showing high presence of guards and such. This physical evidence led to their suspicion that the plant was used for more than just making aspirin.
Hardly the same thing.
Zifnab
They’ve got about 3000 centrifuges working to enrich uranium for their civilian reactors. That would be a good place to start.
Sure, it would mean higher gas prices when Iranians have to start drinking from their own pumps, but who cares about that right?
grumpy realist
I think it was mentioned that a) our knowledge of where things might be in Iran is very low and b) the scuttlebutt is that the Iranians have been moving their nuclear-related stuff near or into urban areas.
So if we go after “nuclear-related activities” we WILL be bombing the sh*t out of everyone.
(The General Staff, in its infinite wisdom, decided that bombing a huge number of urban centers in Iran in order to go after a “weapons-related program” that may or may not be there, would a) piss off everyone left in Iran, b) piss off everyone outside Israel in the Mideast, c) open our soldiers to attack in Iraq, and d) in general, be a Bad Idea.)
kchiker
The Islamofascism-appeasers have completely infiltrated the CIA and they’re trying to undermine our President and our very security.
A vote for Rudy is a vote for this outlook. Truly frigtening.
James Lileks
Not the Targets!
Buck
Precious memories.
Ugh
Atrios gets this one wrong. Just because the intelligence agences believe that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program doesn’t mean Cheney believes it. I’m sure he has his own sources of “intelligence” that are not only telling him that Iran has an active program, but exactly where such an program is located – even if that source is the little man that speaks through his fillings.
Watch for an about face on this in 3-4 months, when a magical “restart” of the Iranian program occurs (which was dormant for five years, dontchyaknow, ZOMG! why are the restarting now? dhimmitude!) and its back to bombing Iran.
ThymeZone
Chewable, or enteric coated?
r€nato
Curveball 2: Tehran Boogaloo!
r€nato
I don’t think I agree with that reasoning. I don’t believe Iran has an active nuclear weapons program, but if they did, I would think we’d have a decent idea where it might be.
That doesn’t of course lead one to conclude that we know with near-certainty where such facilities are; it simply means, you know, it’s not likely that such a program would be operated at the Falafel Hut in downtown Tehran.
(Or would it? Those tricky bastards!)
Seanly
Well, if they killed every living person in Iran then there wouldn’t be anyone left to work on Project “Brown People Get a Bomb Too, Be-otches”! Ipso facto, we should kill every living person in Iran. And in keeping with the Cheney Probablistic Understanding, we should kill them all 3 times. Ain’t no Muslim Zombies coming back from that! We do have a big surplus of nukular weapons of our own. Sell by dates are closing on some of them.
Tsulagi
Oh, like good counterpoints have ever slowed these tards in creating their own reality. Or the Malkinettes in cheering stupidity.
Yes, and underground for the more sensitive, hard-to-duplicate facilities. Since our oil man president became leader of the free world, Iran has had a lot of money to put their best stuff well underground.
But not to worry, that hasn’t escaped the eagle eyes of the Kristol warriors. Nor Rudy’s foreign policy expert, Podhoretz. After 9/11, since bunker busters in our inventory couldn’t touch those facilities, they lusted for something bigger. Enter the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. You think that fucker didn’t get a rise out of them? It got funding.
A few bugs, though. Here’s a very good animation illustrating those bugs from the Union of Concerned Scientists of the proposed RNEP going after the underground Esfahan facility in Iran. However, some among the 28%ers might call those bugs features. FY05 funding for the RNEP was cut, but some B2s were modified to carry it. We also have an existing little 400 kiloton buster.
God damned scientists. Always throwing up science and those fact thingys. They just don’t know real men use Intelligent Design Science. The outcomes are always good when you use IDS.
magisterludi
Joe Biden said he will be giving a major speech in the Senate reminding Bush he does not have the constitutional authority to go to war with Iran and if Bush attempts to do so, Biden will lead a call for the House to impeach.
r€nato
Bush today:
Iran was dangerous, and Iran is dangerous, so long as they have the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb.
move the goalposts much?
is our plan now to kill all their scientists?
Librarian
Yes, and a few stray bombs might hit priceless historical monuments like Persepolis or Isfahan. Not that that would cause Cheney to lose a minute of sleep.
Dreggas
These bastards would fuck that up and bomb the 99% of the country that did NOT have the nuclear stuff while leaving behind the 1% that did.
Zifnab
We’ve been working hard to get rid of all our own. Now we need to level the playing field.
Dreggas
The 1% doctrine and Cheney hunting remind me of a joke that is somewhat apropos.
2 guys are out early one morning duck hunting, one is drinking coffee, the other brandy. They waited some time when suddenly a lone duck flew over-head, the hunter drinking coffee pulled up his shotgun, fired and missed.
The guy drinking brandy pulled up his shotgun, fired, and the duck fell dead. The guy drinking coffee complemented the othe hunter saying “that was a great shot”.
The Hunter, who was quite loaded at this point, said “Shit with a flock that big I had to hit one of ’em”.
Thom
Hey John
I see all your taser stories and raise you this one. Hell, I’m all in.
Thom
Oh wait, let me just give you some sections:
libarbarian
Atrios, Shmatrios.
Michael Ledeen is the one who makes a good point:
I love how he points out that it is “nigh unto impossible to determine someone else’s intentions” in the process of asserting that he damn well does know the intentions of Iran’s rulers – and that they are proudly both hostile and irrational.
Makes me want to start a new half-hour show titled: “NOW THAT IS CHUTZPAH!!!”
tim serbo
hey lileks, why don’t you go back to stalking krugman and boring your poor daughter to tears, and leave decent, sane people alone?
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“Sure, it would mean higher gas prices when Iranians have to start drinking from their own pumps, but who cares about that right?”
IIRC, Iran doesn’t have much of its own refining capacity – they rely on India for that. So the Iranian regime’s been stocking up on refined products (gas, diesel) in case of attack.
Incertus (Brian)
Yeah well that’s a given for these guys.
ATS
The real question is where the bad Inteligence was coming from, whether forged documents from Niger, info on Iraqi WMDs, and now Iran.
If the Intel community, roughly 70% Republican by inclination, chose not to shut up this time, that should tell us something.
Foreign sources, the same foreign sources—as untouchable as ever, but not believed because they have a vested interest.
By all means, do tell us who they were. Then kiss your career goodbye.
ATS
Ledeen: “. . . our leaders, who should expect serious work from the IC instead of this bit of policy advocacy masquerading as serious intelligence.”
God, these people really do have no shame. A lecture on policy advocacy from a Likud Katsa.
grumpy realist
Why doesn’t Ledeen just move to Israel and be done with it? I’m tired of watching the PNAC crowd trying to manoeuvre the US into bombing Iran for Israel. If Israel is really that spooked, it should do the job itself and leave us out of it.
maxbaer (not the original)
Because he’s a coward and could get killed in Israel?
jcricket
Uh, most of Israel isn’t that spooked at all. In fact a majority of them, while hawkish in their defence of their right to exist, are really pissed off at the PNAC crowd. Basically, much like that moron Smith at the NRO makes it more dangerous for journalists in Lebanon by packing heat and making shit up, PNAC and the other uber-hawks make it more dangerous for Israel when sensitivity is actually what’s called for.
STEVEinSC
I mean this to mean exactly what I say it to mean neither more nor less, but if you made a list of the neocons (i.e. war boosters, swamp drainers, PNAC, special civilian intelligence teams, accommodating reporters) how many would have dual citizenship? Zero percent, One percent, 20 percent? Just asking.
grumpy realist
That’s what I remembered reading–that Israel wasn’t all that happy with the saber-rattling the US was doing about attacking Iran.
Of course, right now we’ve got them pissed off at the NIE and they’re supposedly making noises about how the US is getting everything wrong, so I don’t know whether the bomb-Iraq crowd is in charge over there or not.
jcricket
None of my Israeli friends (either here or in Israel) like anything Bush is doing. Israeli politics is significantly more complicated than the neocon hawks in this country make it appear to be.
The Other Steve
Nobody seems to have mentioned it yet, but…
Wasn’t 2003 when AQ Khan was outed?
Bruce Moomaw
Well, yes, John, but consider Norman Podhoretz’s theory that “the intelligence community” actually knows that Iran really has a Bomb program, but is deliberately concealing their information from Bush because they hate America. The conclusion is obvious: just grab all our own top-ranked intelligence officials and waterboard them until they reveal where the Iranian Bomb factories are.
myiq2xu
Jeez, Christmas will be boring if we don’t start bombing someplace. If Iran doesn’t wanna play, let’s hit Venezuela. Or maybe we could try North Korea again?
rachel
He’s gay, too?
Nancy Irving
Presumably Cheney wants us to do a Dresden on Teheran.
ATS
Jcricket: “Israel wasn’t all that happy with the saber-rattling the US was doing about attacking Iran.None of my Israeli friends (either here or in Israel) like anything Bush is doing. Israeli politics is significantly more complicated than the neocon hawks in this country make it appear to be.”
Absolute BS. As the Wexler memo made clear, the usual suspects were cautioned not to be visibly behind the push for war this time–lest it be 1) seen as being carried out exclusively in their interests, 2) known to be based on bogus intel provided by them, 3) end up a catastrophe.
No other country stood as much to gain by a war with Iran as Israel. No other country’s populace was even close to be as approving of such a war as Israel’s.
Insofar as there was the sort of dissent you cite, it was about the risks posed (to Israel, not the US), never the moral justification.
The old “free and open” debate doesn’t wash when Israeli partisans are already busily trying to shut up the US Intel community as we speak.
But it simply will not work this time.
ATS
“If Iran doesn’t wanna play, let’s hit Venezuela.”
Oh yeah. I have it on good authority that Chavez has quick-ramp-up weapons-related program activities, and has engaged in impure nuke-capable thoughts, with possible designs on his neighbors access to the equator.
Frontline: “Chavez plans to seize and nationaiize the equator!”
Fontline Update: “Hamas Implicated!” Norman Podhoretz says, ” the impact on celestial mechanics likely to be dire. Settler cluster-bomb facility already missing an equinox.”
Rudi
From Ledeen:
These assholes ignored the DoE when they said “Sadam’s aluminum tubes” weren’t for centerfuges, now the DoE is spot on. Maybe his daughter can help Weldon dig up somemore WMD’s in Iraq.