Fashioned, Out-of-Date Fearmongering

Well, the unreconstructed NeoCons are dealing from the Armageddon deck again and talking about the Biggest Mothah of all October surprises!!

Do they really believe the average American can be duped again? Do they really think the average American believes Iran is a nuclear threat? Do they really think the average American prefers war to diplomacy after watching the Iraq body count steadily climb, year after year?

After watering down and delaying for a year the publication of the NIE, Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities, the Bush administration mustered the best rebuttal it had: “Look, that NIE’s prima facie evidence that Iran HAD A SECRET NUCLEAR ARMS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM!”

And, what the hell is the administration doing rebutting NIEs, anyway? The NIE, the collective assessment of the US intelligence community, says - Iran dropped it’s weapons program 5 years ago!

So far, in the past week or so, we’ve heard familiar fear-mongering broadsides from the usual, tiresome NeoCon snake oilers:

o Daniel Pipes, an extreme winger whackjob, obsessed with proving Barack Obama was raised a Muslim, has called the NIE a “shoddy, politicized, outrageous parody of a piece of propaganda.

He’s publicly announced that Bush will attack Iran if Obama wins in November: “What I suspect will be the case is, should the Democratic nominee win in November, President Bush will do something. And should it be Mr. McCain that wins, he’ll punt, and let McCain decide what to do.”

o Bill Kristol: This weekend, on Fox News Sunday, the Weekly Standard editor said that Bush is more likely to attack Iran if he believes Barack Obama is going to be elected.

However, “if the president thought John McCain was going to be the next president, he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out,”

o John Bolton: Clearly carrying Cheney’s water, Bolton, yesterday, bemoaned what he considers Bush’s lack of will to attack Iran - but he sees Israel as the natural candidate for the military strike - between the November 4 election and Inauguration Day, January 20.

"It's clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility," he said. "I don't think it's serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don't think it's in the cards."

“Israel, however, still has a determination to prevent a nuclear Iran,” he argued. The "optimal window" for strikes would be between the November 4 election and the inauguration on January 20, 2009.

"They're also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgement is they would not want to do anything before our election because there's no telling what impact it could have on the election."

"An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy. With McCain they might still be looking at a delay. Given that time is on Iran's side, I think the argument for military action is sooner rather than later absent some other development."