Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Iran’s Nukes Call Bush’s Bluff


By Robert Scheer

"On Sunday came news from the U.N. inspectors on the ground that Iran has made a breakthrough in the enrichment of uranium. It was previously thought that the Iranians were having trouble developing the tight engineering and high speeds needed to get their centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel. But inspectors, on a short-notice visit, came upon 1,300 centrifuges merrily spinning away and churning out the raw ingredient for massive carnage......

Great. Tehran’s religious fanatics have moved closer to the potential for nuclear conflagration, and what can bully-boy Bush do about it? Nothing. He shot his wad gambling on the invasion of Iraq, a nation that didn’t pose a WMD threat, and now needs Iran—which the United Nations fears may pose a real threat—to bail us out in Baghdad. Now it is bluffing time, with the Bush administration making all the appropriate warning noises about Iran’s nuclear program while cozying up to Tehran to help our puppet government in Baghdad pretend to be in power.....

A blunter assessment of the dark codependency motivating these talks was provided by Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari: “The U.S. is a major player and so is Iran, and there will be a room for some substantial discussions for the stability of Iraq.” Sure there will, but it will be on Iran’s terms, and soft-pedaling U.S. opposition to that country’s nuclear program is a given. So is the acceptance of a version of Iran’s theocratic model, exported to formerly secular Iraq......"

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