The Iranian Threat

From Matt Taibbi:

Virtually all of the Iran stories of late have contained some version of this sort of rhetorical sophistry. The news “hook” in most all of these stories is that intelligence reports reveal Iran is “willing” to attack us or go to war – but then there’s usually an asterisk next to the headline, and when you follow the asterisk, it reads something like, “In the event that we attack Iran first.”

This builds on this Glenn Greenwald piece I've discussed before.

I’ll just note that she [Erin Burnett on CNN] begins her remarks by announcing that “no one buys Iran’s claim that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes,” and to prove her point, she immediately introduces footage of yesterday’s Congressional testimony by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper which, she said, “drove that message home.” Except the clip then showed Clapper saying this: “Iran’s technical advances . . . strengthen our assessment that Iran is more than capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon if its political leaders, specifically the Supreme Leader himself, choose to do so.” Is there really not a single brain in the entire CNN apparatus that stirs in the presence of a contradiction this glaring that it virtually screams its demand to be recognized? And that’s to say nothing of the fact that Leon Panetta just yesterday said “the intelligence does not show that they’ve made the decision to proceed with developing a nuclear weapon,” a fact that Burnett did not manage to mention, even though the same fact was also expressed last month by Israeli officials (“The Israeli view is that while Iran continues to improve its nuclear capabilities, it has not yet decided whether to translate these capabilities into a nuclear weapon”).

Look, I'm not a pacifist.  I am willing to consider that an attack on Iran may be necessary.  But I'd at least like to see a sober analysis in the media of what's going on.  The US is a huge threat to Iran and its government- the statements from US government officials and talking heads in the media make it pretty clear that we're considering armed belligerance against them.  To then turn around and be outraged that Iranians may be considering defending themselves if we attack is just nuts.

The "axis of evil" government that is the safest from US attacks is North Korea.  Why?  Because they have a nuclear bomb!  Iran is a terrible regime with plans to destroy Israel and anyone else they can, but their attempt to get The Bomb is completely sane- considering our rhetoric, it's the best guarantee the regime could have that we won't pull an Iraq on them and send in the Marines.