Picture Fish

Obama, the Iran NIE and Honesty

By Cernig

I’m beginning to wonder what’s with Barrack Obama on the subject of Iran’s nuclear program, and it’s worrying me. Despite the bright spot of his promise to negotiate freely with Iran - something the IAEA and Brent Scowcroft, among many others, agree with - Obama has consistently disagreed with the last US National Intelligence Estimate and the UN’s atom watchdog by assuming that Iran is currently seeking nuclear weapons. He said so both during the debates and on the campaign trail. Obama has also, as a consequence of the claim that Iran is seeking nukes, refused to take military action off the table. It is, to say the least, schizophrenic.

Some might want to consider Keith Olbermann’s reaction to Bush denying US intel in that way, back last year.

I firmly believe that Obama was the best of two choices and that he’ll make the world safer by being less likely by far to carry through on belligerent rhetoric that ignores the facts as they are known - but let’s not stick our heads in the sand about his oft-repeated words and what they in fact mean. He has ignored/denied the IAEA and NIE findings almost as much as Bush or McCain have, doubtless for his own political reasons.(I refuse to believe he’s so dumb as to actually 100% believe his bald claim that Iran is actively seeking nukes in the face of the extant evidence.)

But now, it’s time to lead, to tell Americans the truth rather than what is needed for electability among a US population that has been fed Iran demonization wholesale for decades, and to shuck of the Wormtongue voices of neo-liberals, neoconservatives and neo-whatevers. If Obama disagrees with the consensus finding of the US intelligence community and with the findings of the IAEA, both of whom say that if Iran ever had a weapons program it has been dead for years, then he must say so and say why. Otherwise, he must alter both his rhetoric and his policy to fit reality as expressed by those findings - we’ve had too many years already of, in Obama’s own words, not letting facts get in the way of ideology (or political games).

Adrian

Related posts: Palin clothes, Musical road, Google air, Windy city, Food network schedule