Bush Is in a Hurry to Make Iran an Issue

I suspect a growing majority of Americans are getting tired of Bush waving his arms and grimacing as he tries to save his failed presidency by making Iran an issue. No doubt, the polls will wobble as the media fails to puncture Bush's balloon because much of the media is still asleep on the danger that the Bush presidency poses to our country and the future of our democracy.

What is Bush's hurry? Since we now know for certain that there were no weapons of mass destruction in 2002 and no imminent threat from Iraq, what was the hurry then? If we're honest, Bush's only hurry is that there's only two years left to his presidency. But his political allies will argue that we have to deal with Iran because they could have nuclear weapons any second now and they could have missiles and they don't care what happens if we hit them back, or some such rot.

But the experts are saying two things. First, if Iran is determined to acquire nuclear weapons, a bombing attack on Iran will only set back Iran's nuclear program for two or three years. Second, not only has it been determined in the last year or so that Iran is still a number of years away from being able to build a nuclear weapon, if indeed that's what they're doing, but they're running into problems that are clearly causing even further delays. Bush, of course, fails to mention any of this and he fails to note that the UN still has access to some of Iran's nuclear program and it's quite clear to the UN experts what some of the problems are. Here's the story from Newsweek:

American intel agencies appear to be pushing back against conservatives who claim that their judgments about Iran's nuclear program are not hair-raising enough. In a development that reminded some experts of the fights over prewar Iraq intel, hard-liners on the House intelligence committee last month produced a report declaring the U.S. intel community "needs to improve its analysis and collection" on Iran's WMD programs. A caption in the report even claimed that "Iran is currently enriching uranium to weapons grade."

Last week, however, the House committee assessment was slammed by U.N. nuclear experts, who pointed out that there's little evidence Iran is anywhere near producing weapons-grade uranium. And three U.S. officials familiar with recent intel reporting on Iran, who asked for anonymity due to the sensitive subject matter, said that U.S. agencies have not altered assessments that Iran is years away from producing a nuclear bomb. As two of the officials acknowledge, recent intel reporting indicates that if anything, technical problems are slowing down Iran's nuclear program.

UN experts were right about Iraq last time and even American nuclear experts, who were deliberately ignored by Bush and Cheney, agreed with the UN experts at the time. Bush and Cheney misled Americans in 2002 and are misleading Americans this time again, though this time most of the war rhetoric is coming from their neocon allies.

Isn't it time for Americans to recognize that Bush is not being honest with us and that he truly doesn't know what he's doing? Isn't it time to recognize that his war in Iraq is a complete fiasco and that we don't need another fiasco on our hands? Isn't it time for George W. Bush to tone down the war rhetoric and clean up Iraq, clean up Afghanistan and clean up his failed foreign policy?

Bush was dead wrong on Iraq in the fall of 2002 when another midterm election was approaching. Here's an old story from the San Francisco Chronicle describing the situation on September 24, 2002:

Even before the war on terrorism had passed its first year, President Bush was turning America's attention to the unfinished business with Iraq. In Washington, at the United Nations and in foreign capitals, in the media and in conversations all over the country, debate rages on whether to go to war - again - with the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The pace of events is quickening. The White House has received detailed plans for military action from the Pentagon. Today, the British House of Commons debates the possibility of war. Hearings are under way in the House and in the Senate, and by the end of the month, Congress plans to vote on a resolution authorizing the use of force.

Despite calls for the United States to act in concert with other nations and appeals to let renewed weapons inspections take their course, Bush has said repeatedly he is committed to a "regime change" in Iraq - and that he is prepared to go it alone, if necessary, to achieve that goal. As part of the buildup, the Bush administration has carefully leaked reports of troop redeployments and attack strategies. Traditional U.S. allies have insisted that the United Nations, not Washington, is the proper venue for a call to action.

Beneath the poll numbers suggesting public support for Bush's intentions, considerable confusion and debate still exist...

Read the article. It's amazing how much the press got wrong (note the 'unfinished business' tag); but Bush didn't merely get things wrong; many of his own intelligence people were repeatedly telling him a different story but he refused to listen and refused to budge and the fiasco in Iraq is directly the responsibility of Bush's incompetence, his wrong-headed assumptions and his recklessness. We don't need more of that. Americans want to be able to trust our president, whoever it may be, but when it comes to George W. Bush, that time has long passed.