The WaPo’s sad “insider wannabe” columnist Jim Hoagland, still unrepentant for all the disinformation and escalatory war-wongering he propagated that helped catapult the US into invading Iraq, is now fully back in the same business: target Iran.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, Jim Hoagland was an honest journalist. You know, the kind of person who would dedicatedly investigate facts and test the truth value of the various claims made by all kinds of politicians.
Yes, a very long time ago.
The lead in today’s piece was this:
- Iran is working to produce a 20-to-50-pound stockpile of enriched uranium that it can use to build atomic weapons within eight to 10 weeks, once it decides to do so — and has consistently lied to the United Nations about those efforts.
That headline conclusion is one of two basic points that I draw from a series of private meetings on Iran’s nuclear ambitions involving diplomats, leading academic experts, senior military officers and experienced analysts from around the globe.
So, we’re supposed simply to take Jim’s word on the lead judgment there? He’s not going to name any of the “diplomats, leading academic experts, senior military officers and experienced analysts” whose info he claims to cite?
One aspect of this that I find intriguing is that he writes that these “conversations [were] organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).”
Oh, really?
I’ve been a member of the IISS for more than 20 years. No-one has ever told me about these “conversations,” or the data or analysis that Hoagie claims was presented in them.
So either the IISS is heavily engaged in organizing what look like extremely one-sided, bellicose briefings for a portion of its members– or Jim Hoagland is talking a lot of hot air.
Either one is, I suppose, possible. Though I’d like to think that the IISS still holds to some standards of objectivity and rigorous pursuit of the facts.
Hoagie’s piece is titled “How to rein in Iran without War.” But he uses some fairly dishonest argumentation at the end of it (as well as a lot of completely unsubstantiated allegations along the way.)
At the end he writes this:
- time is running out on the diplomatic track, where Russia and China are blocking a third round of U.N. sanctions against Iran. This allows Cheney and other hawks to argue that waiting on diplomatic results is a waste of time. Blocking sanctions actually increases the pressure on Bush to move unilaterally and militarily.
I beg your pardon? How does that argument go again?
Then this:
- The administration has too often pitched the confrontation with Iran as one that Bush alone will decide. Russia, China and Europe should do everything they can to prevent this from becoming necessary. Not backing the new U.N. sanctions brings it a scary step closer.
He just comes across like a second-rate thug. And the WaPo pays him how much annually, to peddle these kinds of bullying threats?
For the record, here’s what IAEA chief Mohamed el-Baradei has been saying about Iran recently.
The lead gives away the mind-numbing stupidity of everything that follows:
Just for the sake of argument, let’s make the heroic assumption that Iran is capable of secretly producing pounds of HEU anytime soon. According to the Nuclear Control Institute‘s discussion of Iraq’s nuclear plans more than a decade ago:
In other words, the amount of highly enriched uranium Hoagland is noising about is enough for a single bomb – maybe two if they are small and your scientists are really, really good at this the first time out. Having assembled the bomb, it needs to be delivered to a target. The infrastructure for such a delivery system is not trivial, or easy to hide. Since you want to keep your bomb safe until somebody with the authority to risk the lives of tens of millions of Iranians decides it is time to throw it at somebody (who, exactly, is worth that kind of risk?), you need to build a reliable command and control infrastructure – also not trivial or easy to hide.
Having, in a matter of weeks, secretly assembled an untested bomb and attached it to an untested missile directed by an untested and previously nonexistent command and control infrastructure, Iran would now have a single, unreliable, atomic bomb. And what, exactly, would the nation-state of Iran do with such a device if it intended to exist as something more than a glowing pile of ash?
Pulleeze.
What I find very worrying in this context is that Nicolas Sarkozy is visiting Bush this week. Sarkozy has been talking tough on Iran ever since he has been elected. Seems like a remake of these frequent visits Blair was paying to Bush before the Iraq invasion.
Also while the French TV channels were very critical toward Bush and US at the time preceeding the Iraq invasion, now they are chiming the same sound that we hear from the Bush administration.
You’re quite right, Christiane. I’m very concerned about the way Sarkozy’s bounding round the world like a hyperactive terrier, auditioning for the job of new Imperial Lapdog now that the position has been vacated by Britain.
And Kouchner is just as bad; perhaps even more dangerous, since unlike Sarko(but like Blair) he brings to the canine table his credentials– still strong in much of Liberal America– as a committed “liberal” and rights activist in international affairs. (Even if Sans-Frontierism has had much of its balloon punctured by latest developments in Chad.)
I wonder if Hoagland is confusing the IISS with the ISIS who claim to be nuclear weapons experts but still managed to claim that the one working North Korean reactor for producing plutonium was based on a Russian design – no it is based on a British design, while the two bigger ones non-working ones are based on a French variation of a British design. They put out the report claiming that a concrete box by the Euphrates was a Syrian reactor which seemed to me to be a fantasy!
BTW, don’t even think that Britain under Gordon Brown has given up its role as the Imperial Lapdog because it hasn’t. Gordon Brown, Des Browne and Jack Straw will do exactly what they are told by Darth Vader.
From Frank Rich – sanity from the “reality based community” and a curious theory about the conundrum facing democrats on Iran:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/04/opinion/edrich.php
Speaking of US politics, here in Virginia we’re on the even of what may be an interesting test of Republican strength in local elections (sic). I somehow am still in local Republican phone banks. :-} In getting one of their calls (reminding me to vote for Republican candidates), I let the otherwise polite caller have a shred of my thinking and a clue that it’s my sense that a lot of my Republican neighbors are either sitting on their hands (and not voting this year) or are consciously (for the first time in their lives) going to vote locally according to their fury/disgust about national politics and foreign policy.
To my pleasant surprise, the interviewer got off her script and revealed that she’s been “hearing similar sentiments all day long.”
(tell that to the sages still preaching that “all politics is local”)
This may all be wishful thinking on my part — we shall see. (FWIW, Larry Sabato’s “crystal ball” has also raised the possibility of a sharp reversal in Republican fortunes at the state legislative level — even as the state likely will still be nominally “Republican”)
Sorry, that should have been “eve” of elections (tomorrow).
BTW, I recently watched the tape of a fascinating sermon on politics by a much admired local Mennonite pastor, one who served for a decade in Syria, Iran, & Egypt…. He was speaking before a large Harrisonburg congregating that apparently was split badly on political matters.
I liked the way he started his talk off — by mentioning his philosophy on voting – that he votes for the candidate that he believes will do the least damage.
Cynical? Sure. And wise too. How refreshing to hear from a pulpit. :-}
Helena,
Concerning Kouchner, I think that his popularity has sunk dramatically in France, at least on the left side of the political chessboard. People think that he has become a “traitor” to the socialist cause because his super ego made him accept the post of Foreign minister offered by Sarkozy.
Also the Tchad story, as you point out (where a so-called humanitarian association used deception to illegally drive children out of their country, while they weren’t orphans) will do a lot of harm to the theory defending a “humanitarian right of intervention” and probably act as a consciousness rising event both among the population and the NGA.
The association (which operated under different names) was accompanied by a Capa reporter and his footage which was wired on Sunday leaves no doubt on the forgeries. What is shown is absolutely scandalous (tribal chiefs were lied to, children helped by nurses had to fake health problems in order to benefit from a “sanitary” evacuation; the lies also concerned the children’s origins, their family situation, the duration of their absence and their final destination, etc.; last but not least, the organisators were perfectly conscious of the illegality of their acts).