Iraq-Iran-Syria (page 2)

What is particularly interesting is the reaction of the 'usual suspects'. As they say in Northern Ireland: 'Even the dogs and cats in the street' know that the current attitude to Iran has nothing to do with Iran's 'nuclear ambitions' and everything to do with the drive to war. Only that explains this:

'U.S. hardliners on Iran are saying the intelligence document is too ridden with internal political squabbles to be credible.

"That such a flawed product could emerge after a drawn-out bureaucratic struggle is extremely troubling," John Bolton, one of the chief proponents of sanctions to stop the Iranian weapons program, wrote Thursday's Washington Post.

Republican presidential contender Fred Thompson drew his line in the sand, issuing a statement saying: "The accuracy of the latest NIE on Iran should be received with a good deal of skepticism. Our intelligence community has often underestimated the intentions of adversaries, including Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea."

Saying the report is "awfully convenient for a lot of people," Thompson continued, "the administration gets to say its policies worked; the Democrats get to claim we should have eased up on Iran a long time ago: and Russia and China can claim sanctions on Iran are not necessary. Who benefits from all this? Iran."

The Wall Street Journal editorial page -- one of many conservative opinion-makers to question the report authors' credibility -- wrote Wednesday: "Our own 'confidence' is not heightened by the fact that the NIE's main authors include three former State Department officials with previous reputations as 'hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials.' "The Journal named former State Department officials Tom Fingar, Vann Van Diepin and Kenneth Brill.

Conservative talk radio, which is widely credited with helping destroy support for the immigration reform bill supported by the president last year, is also less than glowing toward the report. "I guarantee there's more sabotage coming out of that place regarding the Bush administration," Rush Limbaugh said of the State Department.'

'Iraq is `unwinnable', a `quagmire', a `fiasco': so goes the received opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be `stuck' precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no `exit strategy'.

'The growing US focus on confronting Iran in a proxy war inside Iraq risks triggering a direct conflict in the next few months, regional analysts are warning.

US-Iranian tensions have mounted significantly in the past few days, with heightened rhetoric on both sides and the US decision to establish a military base in Iraq less than five miles from the Iranian border to block the smuggling of Iranian arms to Shia militias.'

1. Iran has no nuclear weapons.

2. Iran, overtly, has no nuclear weapons programme.

3. It is not at all clear that Iran even has a covert nuclear weapons programme. We just don't know. That might mean it does but (and this is far less frequently pointed out in the Western media) equally, it might not.